W. Niederhut

Biden appears to have 270, regardless of what happens in Georgia and Pennsylvania. AZ's 11 + NV's 6. 253+17= 270. Our national Trump nightmare is almost over.

Amen to that. It looks like Colorado's Proposition 113-- a National Popular Vote mandate-- will pass today by a narrow margin.

Rob, As a psychiatrist, I have a tendency to judge these guys on the basis of what I know about their personalities. My fellow Brown University alumnus, E. Howard Hunt, was a well known fabricator. He wrote fictional narratives and engaged in black ops, frame ups, disguises, and the falsification of government records (e.g., blaming JFK for Diem's death, etc.) As I recall, Hunt even lost a libel suit once about accusations that he was in Dallas on 11/22/63. So, I tend to doubt Hunt's truthfulness, generally. Ed Lansdale was another master of black ops-- staging false flag guerilla warfare attacks and psy ops for Magsaysay-- and from Saigon Station. If Prouty is correct, Lansdale used to joke about throwing guys out of helicopters. Based on that, my impression is that Lansdale was a sociopath, like his boss, Allen Dulles. (See The Devil's Chessboard for those details.) And we know, for example, that Lansdale lied about Prouty's career assignments, including his involvement in the writing of the Maxwell/Taylor Report and CIA liaison services for the Joint Chiefs. Conversely, Prouty seems like a genuinely decent guy, in my estimation. He had a distinguished career in the USAF, and was consistently promoted to positions commensurate with his intellect and abilities. To his credit, he was deeply disturbed by the murder of JFK and the reversal of JFK's mandate to end our military ops in Vietnam. Prouty may have been wrong about some details of his theories relating to JFK's assassination, but he doesn't come across as a sociopath, a xxxx, in my estimation.

Ed Lansdale, the "pacifist" who used to joke about throwing Vietnamese guys out of helicopters. Great references and commentaries, fellas. They illustrate the disconnect between Prouty's observations about his long-time USAF colleague, Ed Lansdale, and other "biographical" narratives. I trust Prouty. Among other things, 1) he was involved in the formulation of JFK's NSAM 263 policy, and 2) he left the service after JFK was murdered. Two badges of honor there.

Best line of the day... 🤣 Warning 'Wannabe Fascists,' Philly DA Says People Dressing 'Up Like G.I. Joe' to Intimidate Voters Will Be Prosecuted "If you want to dress up like a G.I. Joe and claim you are protecting the polls when we all know what you're really doing is intimidating voters, you're getting locked up," said Larry Krasner https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/11/02/warning-wannabe-fascists-philly-da-says-people-dressing-gi-joe-intimidate-voters

And is COVID-19 another MK-Ultra experiment gone bad? 🤪

And now der Fuhrer ist barricading himself in his White House bunker... Scheisse... 🤥 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/white-house-erects-fence-before-election_n_5fa004ccc5b658b27c3c8d04

So, incredibly, on the same day that the U.S. broke the world record for new COVID cases, (100,000) Donald Trump told his adoring fans in Pennsylvania yesterday that his opponents "don't respect science." Meanwhile, my wife told me today that her staunchly Republican parents in Texas just voted for Joe Biden. It sounds like the issue that finally soured them on Trump was his dishonesty and mismanagement of the COVID pandemic.

As I see it, Prouty proposed a serious hypothesis to Garrison about Lansdale being a primary suspect in the plot to murder JFK. He presented some significant details about Lansdale's long-term relationship with Allen Dulles, and his skills as a black ops and psy ops expert. Like any serious hypothesis, Prouty's hypothesis about Lansdale should be analyzed in relation to the data. Has this been done during the past 30 years since Prouty wrote his letter to Garrison?

I always thought, even in 2016, that Trump was a fake "populist"-- a Trojan Horse for the Koch plutocracy. Remember when Trump ridiculed his Republican primary rivals in 2016 for pandering to the Kochs, and declared that he, alone, would not be serving wealthy special interest groups, because he was funding his own campaign? What a joke. Every major policy decision Trump has made as POTUS has been predicated chiefly on pay-to-play and self-aggrandizement-- kick backs and bribes. The 2017 "trickle down" tax cut scam is one example among hundreds. He's far and away the most corrupt POTUS in history.

Larry, Anything that is true about the history of JFK's assassination would be "well received" by me on this forum. If Prouty was wrong about Lansdale's history after 1961, so be it. I'm not invested in defending Prouty, if he was mistaken. Can you be more specific about your disagreement with Prouty's beliefs about what Lansdale was doing from 1961-63? Inquiring minds want to know.

This is very, very creepy, especially considering that, in 2016, Trump won the Electoral College votes of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin by a combined total of just 80,000 popular votes-- about 0.053% of the total U.S. votes cast in Hillary's 3,000,000 popular vote victory.

In Prouty's March 6, 1990 letter to Jim Garrison,* he pans Cecil Currey's biography of Lansdale as a CIA production, and describes his perspective on Lansdale's history in considerable detail-- including his putative role in the JFK assassination. This letter is worth reading in its entirety. It has probably been discussed in detail on this forum, but I didn't find it on a search today. Here's a Spartacus link to the Garrison letter. (Footnote #3)* https://spartacus-educational.com/COLDlansdale.htm "...I have heard him brag about capturing random Vietnamese and putting them in a Helicopter. Then they would work on them to make them "confess" to being Viet Minh. When they would not, they would toss them out of the chopper, one after the other, until the last ones talked. This was Ed's idea of fun...as related to me many times. Then Dulles, Adm. Radford and Cardinal Spellman set up Ngo Dinh Diem. He and his brother, Nhu, became Lansdale proteges. At about 1957 Lansdale was brought back to Washington and assigned to Air Force Headquarters in a Plans office near mine. He was a fish out of water. He didn't know Air Force people and Air Force ways. After about six months of that, Dulles got the Office of Special Operations under General Erskine to ask for Lansdale to work for the Secretary of Defense. Erskine was man enough to control him. By 1960 Erskine had me head the Air Force shop there. He had an Army shop and a Navy shop and we were responsible for all CIA relationships as well as for the National Security Agency. Ed was still out of his element because he did not know the services; but the CIA sent work his way. Then in the Fall of 1960 something happened that fired him up. Kennedy was elected over Nixon. Right away Lansdale figured out what he was going to do with the new President. Overnight he left for Saigon to see Diem and to set up a deal that would make him, Lansdale, Ambassador to Vietnam. He had me buy a "Father of his Country" gift for Diem...$700.00. I can't repeat all of this but you should get a copy of the Gravel edition, 5 Vol.'s, of the Pentagon Papers and read it. The Lansdale accounts are quite good and reasonably accurate. Ed came back just before the Inauguration and was brought into the White House for a long presentation to Kennedy about Vietnam. Kennedy was taken by it and promised he would have Lansdale back in Vietnam "in a high office". Ed told us in OSO he had the Ambassadorship sewed up. He lived for that job. He had not reckoned with some of JFK's inner staff, George Ball, etc. Finally the whole thing turned around and month by month Lansdale's star sank over the horizon. Erskine retired and his whole shop was scattered. The Navy men went back to the navy as did the Army folks. Gen Wheeler in the JCS asked to have me assigned to the Joint Staff. This wiped out the whole Erskine (Office of Special Operations) office. It was comical. There was Lansdale up there all by himself with no office and no one else. He boiled and he blamed it on Kennedy for not giving him the "promised" Ambassadorship to let him "save" Vietnam. Then with the failure of the Bay of Pigs, caused by that phone call to cancel the air strikes by McGeorge Bundy, the military was given the job of reconstituting some sort of Anti-Castro operation. It was headed by an Army Colonel; but somehow Lansdale (most likely CIA influence) got put into the plans for Operation Mongoose...to get Castro...ostensibly. The U.S. Army has a think-tank at American University. It was called "Operation Camelot". This is where the "Camelot" concept came from. It was anti-JFK's Vietnam strategy. The men running it were Lansdale types, Special Forces background. "Camelot" was King Arthur and Knights of the Round Table: not JFK...then. Through 1962 and 1963 Mongoose and "Camelot" became strong and silent organizations dedicated to countering JFK. Mongoose had access to the CIA's best "hit men" in the business and a lot of "strike" capability. Lansdale had many old friends in the media business such as Joe Alsop, Henry Luce among others. With this background and with his poisoned motivation I am positive that he got collateral orders to manage the Dallas event under the guise of "getting" Castro. It is so simple at that level. A nod from the right place, source immaterial, and the job's done. The "hit" is the easy part. The "escape" must be quick and professional. The cover-up and the scenario are the big jobs. They more than anything else prove the Lansdale mastery. Lansdale was a master writer and planner. He was a great "scenario" guy. It still have a lot of his personally typed material in my files. I am certain that he was behind the elaborate plan and mostly the intricate and enduring cover-up. Given a little help from friends at PEPSICO he could easily have gotten Nixon into Dallas, for "orientation': and LBJ in the cavalcade at the same time, contrary to Secret Service policy. He knew the "Protection" units and the "Secret Service", who was needed and who wasn't. Those were routine calls for him, and they would have believed him. Cabell could handle the police. The "hit men" were from CIA overseas sources, for instance, from the "Camp near Athena, Greece. They are trained, stateless, and ready to go at any time. They ask no questions: speak to no one. They are simply told what to do, when and where. Then they are told how they will be removed and protected. After all, they work for the U.S. Government. The "Tramps" were actors doing the job of cover-up. The hit men are just pros. They do the job for the CIA anywhere. They are impersonal. They get paid. They get protected, and they have enough experience to "blackmail" anyone, if anyone ever turns on them...just like Drug agents. The job was clean, quick and neat. No ripples."

Ty, I think Trumpfinger is the missing link-- the man with the Golden Crapper... 🤪

Jim, What you and John Newman describe here seems consistent with Prouty's observations and theories about Lansdale. But it seems rather curious to me that Lansdale's alleged role in JFK's assassination-- including the Dealey Plaza photos-- has not been scrutinized in greater detail by historians. For example, what was Lansdale doing in November of 1963? Perhaps there isn't much available data.

Larry, Can you recommend a good source about Lansdale's history? The only stuff that I've ever read about him comes from his long-time USAF associate, L. Fletcher Prouty. If he was, in fact, closely involved with Dulles and the plot to assassinate JFK, as Prouty believed, there must be a truckload of disinformation out there about who he was and what he did.

Trump rallies responsible for 30,000 COVID infections and 700 deaths: Stanford study https://www.rawstory.com/2020/10/trump-rallies-responsible-for-30000-infections-and-700-s-stanford-study/

Agreed, Paul, but these organizing groups are also giving the right wing Trump thugs a pretext to engage in additional actions by their agent provocateurs that will be blamed on "leftists" by Trump and his media goons. Meanwhile, another Trump terrorist has been arrested for threatening to bomb a voting center in North Dakota. This election is starting to resemble something from the fractured Wiemar Republic in 1932. https://www.rawstory.com/2020/10/proud-boy-trump-supporter-threatens-to-bomb-north-dakota-voting-center/

I'm a liberal Democrat and a supporter of the Black Lives Matter movement, but I, frankly, don't understand the rationale for these recent protests. They seem to be playing into the hands of Trump and his proto-fascist thugs-- reinforcing Trump's BS about being the "law and order" candidate, etc. If the right wing goon squads want to parade around wielding guns and honking their horns, etc., why not simply chill out and let them look ridiculous? The mob violence is only hurting the prospects for meaningful reform.

P.S. I think Prouty also wrote something about Lansdale wanting JFK to appoint him as ambassador to the Diem regime in Saigon, and being angry that Lodge got the job.

Ron, My recollection, from reading Prouty's books, is that Lansdale was greatly admired by Dulles and others for his successful black ops, false flag guerilla warfare schemes, and psy ops in the Phillippines. He was then transferred to Saigon Station to help organize the artificial state in South Vietnam, and run various black ops relating to the Strategic Hamlet program. I distinctly remember Prouty mentioning Lansdale joking about throwing Vietnamese guys out of helicopters. Lansdale came across in Prouty's writings as one of the quintessential "Secret Team" members -- guys in various government jobs (including the Pentagon) who were secretly reporting to, and working for, Dulles. It was described by Prouty as a kind of shadow government working beyond the purview and control of their official government agencies. Lansdale's glib comment about Prouty being a "good prop pilot," is precisely what we would expect to hear from a Dulles Secret Team member who was involved in organizing the black op in Dallas. Needless to say, Prouty had good reasons for being suspicious about Lansdale's work for the CIA, especially since it was directly undermining JFK's policy agenda to end the CIA war in Vietnam!

Well, I'm shocked...shocked to learn that Rudy Giuliani and Rob Wheeler's scurrilous claims about the Bidens are pure crap... 🤥

Indeed. If Nixon had put "Mr. George Bush of the CIA" on the 1968 ticket, we might have witnessed a John Hinckley, Jr. type hit on the POTUS ten years before Reagan was shot.

Excellent post, Joe. The way that Trump and the M$M has turned American politics into a kind of All Star Wrestling spectacle is highly problematic. Little wonder, too, that the country is so terribly polarized. I noticed this in the recent hype before the debates. It was almost like listening to Howard Cossell introduce a sports event. "Will Biden score points early on COVID, and will the President be able to counter the argument that he has mismanaged the pandemic, while focusing on his claim that he represents 'law and order?'" It's not about statesmanship nowadays in Trumptopia. It's about entertainment.

Speaking of Nixon's fear of the Deep State, I recall reading somewhere that Nixon once said that he had picked Agnew as his running mate as "insurance." Can't recall where I read that one. But, I think Russ Baker mentioned, in "Family of Secrets," that Prescott Bush-- Nixon's original promoter in the Wall Street GOP establishment-- had wanted his son, GHWB, on the 1968 ticket as Nixon's running mate.