W. Niederhut

Indeed. People seem burned out and numb from Trump's incessant lies, but the COVID numbers are truly shocking.

Well, it's official now, folks. We were all talking here earlier this year about how the Trump administration seemed to be tacitly promoting a deadly "herd immunity" approach to the COVID pandemic. Shocker. They were. ‘We want them infected’: Trump appointee demanded ‘herd immunity’ strategy, emails reveal Then-HHS science adviser Paul Alexander called for millions of Americans to be infected as means of fighting Covid-19 www.politico.com/news/2020/12/16/trump-appointee-demanded-herd-immunity-strategy-446408

I read George Frederick Howe's biography of Chester Arthur last year. He has been praised mainly because everyone initially assumed that he was hopelessly corrupt, and he turned out to be quite reasonable. Arthur was a skilled administrator who rose to prominence as a Civil War quarter master (and eventual major general) in New York City. But, certainly, the jingoistic, (imperialistic racist, etc.) Teddy Roosevelt, accomplished far more during his tenure in the White House. So did Grover Cleveland. As for Obama, my main criticism of his presidency-- then and now-- has to do with his willingness to cooperate with the Neocon "War on Terror" in Syria, Libya, and Yemen. He retained Robert Gates in the Pentagon and declined to say, "No," to the CIA and military establishment. I was surprised and disappointed by this. But I also think that it's somewhat myopic to judge Obama's otherwise highly successful presidency on the basis of his reluctance to take on the Neocons and the military-industrial complex in the Middle East. Netanyahu hated Obama, and the Saudi royal family was none too fond of him. And Obama, certainly, deserves credit for backing the Iranian nuclear disarmament deal, and negotiating nuclear arms reductions with Putin. Trump killed more civilians in Yemen, Syria, and Iraq ("collateral damage") in his first eight months as POTUS than Obama killed in eight years!

Nothing to see here, folks. Move along now. It's not like the guy was thrown off of a balcony or died in a bathtub accident. Ex-Hill Staffer Linked to Veselnitskaya Dies Suddenly After Fall Near His Home www.thedailybeast.com/paul-behrends-ex-staffer-to-dana-rohrabacher-who-was-linked-to-veselnitskaya-dies-suddenly-after-a-fall

My wife and I were talking this morning about the Electoral College votes and I said, "I'll bet Trump will create some headline-grabbing distraction later today around the time that they announce Biden's victory." Right on cue, WaPo bumped their lead story about Biden's win with the story of Barr getting sh*t-canned.

Bob, I know more about Native American history out here in the West (Arapahoe, Cheyenne, Sioux, Ute, Apache, etc.) than in the Eastern U.S. I know that Andrew Jackson was a prime mover in the wars and forced ex-patriation of the Five Civilized Nations, Indian Removal Act, (1830) and "Trail of Tears." James Polk was, of course, a Jackson protégé, and the displacement of Eastern tribes continued during Polk's one-term Presidency. The truth is that American history from the early 17th century to the 20th witnessed a continuous process of annihilation and displacement of indigenous Native Americans from the East Coast to the Pacific, terminating in Arizona's Apache Wars of the 1870s. No doubt, Polk's acquisition of the Western U.S. after Guadalupe-Hidalgo contributed to the mass genocide and confiscation of Native American territories.

Dressed for the Plague. No, Not This One. Young people are weathering the pandemic by posting photos of themselves in 17th-century plague-doctor outfits. 'Plaguecore' and the Rise of Tumblr's Dress-Up Culture - The Atlantic

Interesting discussion of Presidential rankings. I'm going to chime in here, because I was an American Studies major at Brown, (as was JFK, Jr., BTW) and I've read over 20 biographies from the Easton Press Presidential library series since I retired two years ago. First of all, what criteria are we using in these rankings? If we rightly deplore American imperialism, slave ownership, and the genocidal treatment of Native Americans, (and the Third World) we would end up disqualifying numerous American Presidents. Five of our first seven Presidents were slave owners. I might restrict myself to a few observations, while acknowledging up front that I'm very distantly related to the Roosevelts. The greatest? Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and FDR are no brainers. Madison ranks among the great Founding Fathers for his contributions to, and defense of, the U.S. Constitution. Polk-- the shamelessly imperialist, Tennessee slave owner-- accomplished a great deal in his one-term, dark horse tenure. He negotiated/extorted the acquisition of a vast array of territory to the U.S. via the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo-- west Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Nevada, Utah, and southern Colorado. He also negotiated the acquisition of Oregon and Washington state with the U.K. In addition, Polk, a former Speaker of the House during Jackson's Presidency, first articulated the precedents of; 1) a POTUS needing to represent all U.S. citizens, not just those who voted for him, (Trump never learned that one) and 2) using the State of the Union address to outline a legislative agenda. Grant-- The most popular POTUS of the latter half of the 19th century, whose end-of-life memoir was a great 19th century best seller. Celebrated internationally for his role in defeating the Confederacy and presiding over Radical Reconstruction. Used U.S. troops to suppress KKK terrorism in South Carolina. Hated in the South, and defamed in the 20th century by "Lost Cause" historians. In recent years, historians have begun to revise "Lost Cause" representations of Grant as a merely corrupt, inept drunkard. Yes, his father-in-law gave Grant a slave as a valet before the war, but Grant freed him at a significant financial loss at a time when he was broke. Garfield was a gifted Speaker of the House during Radical Reconstruction, but didn't serve long enough as POTUS (before his assassination) to be ranked among the greats. Truman has been lionized for nuking Japan and signing off on the creation of the Israeli state in Palestine, but the consensus now is that bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki was unnecessary, and, as James Forrestal opined before his murder, the establishment of Israel was a gargantuan foreign policy blunder for the U.S., with disastrous, long-term consequences. Truman also, disastrously, signed off on the creation of the CIA. LBJ was, IMO, in on the plot to murder JFK, and escalated the disastrous war in Vietnam as a direct consequence of JFK's assassination. He does deserve credit for using his Congressional skills to finesse the passage of the Civil Rights Act, Voting Rights Act, Medicare, and Medicaid, even though the impetus for these major legislative achievements originated with JFK. Clinton is very much underrated as a successful POTUS, mainly as a result of the right wing/Scaife/White Water smear campaign. Clinton and Gore increased the top income tax rate in 1993, (by a 51-50 Senate vote) and presided over eight years of robust GDP growth and a dramatic decline in the growth rate of the Reaganomic national debt. Clinton left Bush and Cheney with a budgetary surplus and a mere $5 trillion in national debt, which Bush and Cheney promptly mushroomed. Alan Greenspan wrote in A Time of Turbulence that Bill Clinton was the most intelligent POTUS he had worked with during his storied career. Obama, definitely, ranks among the top ten best Presidents in history. A century after Teddy Roosevelt first called for universal health insurance, Obama got it done-- succeeding even where Clinton had failed. Obama also enacted the highly effective Stimulus Recovery Act of 2009, which prevented the Great Bush-Cheney Recession and widespread bank failures from devolving into a second Great Depression. Obama also presided over the passage of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street regulatory reform act, in response to the 2008 Crash. He was consistently sabotaged and defamed by the Koch-funded GOP Tea Party and right wing media, but presided over seven years of consistent GDP and private sector job growth, and a near TRIPLING of the U.S. stock markets-- as I can attest from personal financial experience.

Mark, You're dead wrong on multiple counts here. Where to begin? 1) No irony. Unlike Cory Santos' recurrent, deflective ad hominem slurs about me on this thread, (and on the recent Fletcher Prouty thread) the alleged "ad hominem" comment that you and Cory are attributing to me was actually a general comment about some social psychology research data. It wasn't "ad hominem at all, but was rather a general statement about the tendency of many people to doubt their own perceptions when told to do so by "authority" figures. My comment was also directly relevant to the debate about the GHWB photo as evidence, and whether it had been "debunked" by So-and-so, etc. You're 0-1. 2) No association fallacy. If you read what I actually wrote, I merely pointed out that there is an array of evidence that raises serious questions about GHWB's whereabouts on 11/22/63 (per the Russ Baker references that I posted.) In light of that evidence, the possibility that GHWB was the man standing next to the TSBD has not been "debunked." I never claimed that the associated evidence proves that the photo is GHWB. You're 0-2. 3) In these debates, if I'm not mistaken, Cory Santos, Rob Clark, Steve Roe, et.al., have consistently avoided commenting on the evidence raising questions about GHWB's whereabouts on 11/22/63. And, yes, the evidence seems quite definitive that the "Mr. George Bush of the CIA" briefed by Hoover on 11/29/63 was, in fact, George Herbert Walker Bush. It, certainly, wasn't the accountant, George William Bush. You're 0-3. Good effort, but you struck out.

Indeed. Some people are, obviously, quite invested in denying GHWB's history with the Company.

The chin contour is distorted by a background shadow, as I said (?) two weeks ago. And the angle of the tilted head is slightly different in the two photos (from '62 and Dealey Plaza.) In any case, this is my last post on the subject of the two photos of GHWB and George W. Bush in Dealey Plaza on 11/22/63, and the ancillary evidence of GHWB's dubious alibis -- i.e., the FBI phone call about James Parrott and Barbara Bush's awkwardly contrived letter. I've said what I had to say too many times. Kirk Gallaway was correct last week. This debate about the photos of Bush and Lansdale has been unnecessarily drawn out by a continuous series of redundant claims that completely ignored the posted rebuttals. Has anyone else noticed that there is a subset of members on this forum who seem to be more focused on disrupting honest debates about JFKA evidence, and engaging in repeated ad hominem slurs, than discerning the truth? As an example, why have Rob Clark, Cory Santos, Steve Roe, and others persistently refused to comment on Russ Baker's damning analysis of the dubious GHWB alibis, while insisting that the TSBD photo has been "debunked?" We could call it Lance Payette-ism.

Paul, Yes and no. We already know that GHWB was an under cover CIA agent/asset in 1963 who was important enough to represent the CIA in a personal briefing on the FBI's investigation of the JFK assassination by J. Edgar Hoover on 11/29/63. And we know that he was in Dallas on 11/22/63. Does it matter whether he was standing in Dealey Plaza when JFK was murdered? It, certainly, doesn't look good for the CIA, or for GHWB's reputation as an American statesman. I can't imagine that GHWB or the Company would want people to know if he was standing by the TSBD when JFK was murdered! And we have clear evidence that he and Barbara put some effort into establishing alibis abut their whereabouts on 11/22/63-- specifically, the FBI phone call about Parrott and the weird Barbara Bush letter to her young children. I disagree with your argument that photos cannot prove that GHWB (and Dubya) were in Dealey Plaza. The Dealey Plaza photos, in general, are critical pieces of data about the assassination.

Total bunk, Santos. Reminiscent of Lance Payette's nonsense. You're not debating this issue honestly or accurately here (or on the Fletcher Prouty thread.) 1) It's not "name calling" for me to point out that people should look carefully at the data rather than allowing themselves to be influenced by claims of "debunking" by various authority figures. This is especially true in the case of the JFK assassination, where there has been no dearth of disinformation by various "authority figures" in the media and on-line during the past 57 years. 2) As I pointed out, social psychology experiments have shown that many people do tend to doubt their own perceptions when told by authority figures that what they are seeing is not what it appears to be. I'm simply saying, "Forget the alleged 'debunking,' and look at the data." Conversely, you're saying, "The data is not really evidence. It's subjective. Read what So-and-so says about it." 3) The fact is that you, yourself, are the one engaging in "name calling" here by accusing me of "name calling" for pointing out the common psychological phenomenon of mistrusting our own perceptions. It's not "psychobabble"-- it's real. And it's "name calling" for you to dismiss a reference to a psychological phenomenon as "psychobabble." 4) You never responded to my specific rebuttals of your arguments and references claiming that GHWB's presence in Dealey Plaza had been "debunked," and that the TSBD photo "is not evidence." Instead, you disappeared from the threads, only to return with more of your usual bogus, ad hominem arguments.

Well, as Daniel Patrick Moynihan famously said, "You're entitled to your own opinions, but not your own facts." I'm not going to re-post my debunking of the alleged "debunking" here again. We already debated this at length with Cory Santos-- i.e., "So-and-so said it's not a photo of GHWB, therefore it has been debunked, etc." Those are arguments "from authority," not from astute observation of the empirical evidence. And you have offered no explanation for the 11/22/63 GHWB "alibi" phone call about James Parrott or the bogus Barbara Bush letter to her young children in Houston. Why would she have written a lengthy, detailed letter about flying to Tyler and back to Dallas to young Jeb, Neil, et.al., on the same day she allegedly returned home to Houston from Dallas with Poppy? As for the profile photo outside of the TSBD, if you don't think it's "Mr. George Bush of the CIA," my advice is to get your eyes checked. It's the spitting image of GHWB-- including facial features, hair, left ear, height, weight, habitus, and postural stoop. Period.

Ditto. I fear that Biden is going to revive the Obama administration's disastrous Sunni proxy war in Syria. One of my favorite academicians in America today is Columbia University Professor Jeffrey Sachs, who blew the whistle on Operation Timber Sycamore on MSNBC a few years ago. At the time Sachs said, "We need to get out of Syria. We've done enough damage to that country already."

The evidence, and the arguments rebutting your claims have already been posted. I'm not going to re-post the same points for people who didn't read, or understand, them the first and second time around. Go back and re-read the analysis of your above claims that have been posted here and on the recent Fletcher Prouty thread. It's rude to simply ignore the photographic evidence and detailed analyses that have already been spelled out here.

Are we supposed to be impressed-- as if 18 sociopaths repeating the same lies makes them more credible?

Hmmm...so there are at least 17 red state Republican AGs who have no integrity, then? Is that your point?

Look at the two profile photos again, Rob. We don't need someone else's opinion to accurately assess the visual data here-- just eyes and a visual cortex. When you account for the slightly differing camera angles, background shadows, and lighting, the man standing at the TSBD is, obviously, the spitting image of GHWB. Interestingly, there are social psychology experiments demonstrating that many people will fail to accurately perceive things if an "authority figure" tells them that they are looking at something other than what they are actually seeing. Weak-minded people tend to doubt their own perceptions in those circumstances, while trusting what authority figures and "experts" tell them.

Yes, and Cory also continues to ridicule the notion that people can be identified from photographic profiles. Apparently because such visual evidence is ...uh... "subjective"-- not really "evidence." Using Cory's logic, we would have to conclude that astronomy is not empirically-based science. 🤥

BREAKING... Genuine 2020 Election Fraud Alert For Rob Wheeler!! After Democrats flip state, Georgia moves to shut down early voting locations ahead of Senate runoff https://www.salon.com/2020/12/08/after-democrats-flip-georgia-gop-moves-to-shut-down-early-voting-locations-ahead-of-senate-runoffs/ December 9, 2020

It was a copy of Hitler's speeches, according to a Vanity Fair interview of Ivana Trump. Meanwhile, Jeff Carter will be relieved to hear that Russian state television has now called for Moscow to grant asylum to Trumpushka... 🤥 Russian Media Wants Moscow to Grant Asylum to Trumpwww.thedailybeast.com/russian-media-wants-moscow-to-grant-asylum-to-trump-to-help-him-dodge-prosecutions

Trump went to college at Fordham for awhile before transferring to the University of Pennsylvania to get his B.A. in BS-- after, allegedly, paying someone to take his SATs for him (according to Mary Trump.) His eldest sister, apparently, did a lot of his homework for him. I don't think Donald Trump has ever read a book in his life. Let's recall that the guy thought Frederick Douglas was still alive, and repeatedly insisted that the U.S. would have fewer COVID cases if we did less testing! I read an article a few years ago in which one of Trump's former professors at Penn said that Donald Trump was the worst student he ever had in his class. There are reports from multiple sources that Trump has had difficulty understanding basic intelligence briefings. Little wonder that he got most of his "intelligence" briefings during the past four years from Fox News.

Yes, Steve, I think Stable Genius was referring here to cutbacks in funding for USO tours... 🤥

Well, I suppose that, if Aubrey Irby had lied about the 11/22/63 Kiwanis Club speech, (at the behest of GHWB and the Company) someone from Tyler, Texas would have talked by now. I may still try to peruse some newspapers to see if there are any references to a speech in Tyler, Texas by Houston oilman George Bush on 11/22/63.