W. Niederhut

David, I have long believed that Dan Rather well knew, by the evening of 9/11, that WTC7 was destroyed by a pre-planned, controlled demolition. You have probably seen this video, and studied the back story about the mainstream media suppression of any coverage of the WTC7 collapse. Someone published an astonishing stat a few years ago indicating that only about 5% of U.S. citizens even KNEW that WTC7-- a 47 floor sky scraper that was never hit by an airplane-- had collapsed in a free fall into its own footprint on 9/11!

Ron, Speaking as a (retired) psychiatrist, I really don't foresee Trump having a psychotic break. I have studied his history and behavior fairly closely since 2016, (from public documents, videos, etc.) and my diagnostic impression is that he has an extremely narcissistic personality disorder with sociopathic features. I have also believed (since watching his debates with Hillary Clinton in 2016) that he is using stimulants-- either Adderall and/or cocaine-- and I say this as a physician who prescribed a lot of stimulants in my career, for adults with ADHD, and even published a book on the subject in 2005.* (This is not an ad-- just a reference about Trump and stimulants.) If you watch Trump's public speeches at his rallies, (or his 2016 debates) he looks like a 70-something comedian who is high on blow-- extremely confident, aggressive, elated, and quick-witted in his inimitable, baboon-like manner. He also paces around, at times, and makes strange, frequent snorting noises, as if his nasal sinuses are irritated. * https://www.amazon.com/COBAD-SYNDROME-Suffering-Inherited-Childhood-Onset/dp/1420867016/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=COBAD+Syndrome&qid=1583711874&sr=8-1

Obama nailed John McCain for his Iraq War jingoism in the 2008 Presidential debates. I distinctly remember a critical moment in one of their debates, where Obama "politely" pointed out that McCain had been "DEAD WRONG" about his Iraq War prognostications. But Obama's criticism was also grounded in the fact that McCain was still gung ho about the Iraq War in 2008-- at a time when most Americans had long since realized that the war was a policy fiasco. And, yes, I agree that at this point the country doesn't want to talk, or even think, about Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, or Yemen. In fact, the M$M has largely censored any coverage of Trump's complicity in the humanitarian disasters in Yemen, Mosul, and Syria since January of 2017. As for Trump attacking Biden for his Iraq War vote, I doubt it will happen--partly because Trump has already been nailed for lying about, allegedly, opposing the invasion of Iraq in March of 2003. He did no such thing.

Interesting, David. Pierpoint, apparently, claimed that he and Dan Rather were behind JFK's limo in the motorcade and got out of the car after hearing the shots. In contrast, Dan Rather said, ""I was just beyond the overpass, just beyond Dealey Plaza, and therefore I did not hear any shots. I didn’t realize what had happened. I thought I saw the presidential motorcade whiz by, but when the rest of the motorcade didn’t follow, I knew what was wrong and then I crossed over Dealey Plaza and ran back to our local station -- KRLD was the only place where I could broadcast. I didn’t know what had happened, but I knew something had happened. My reporter’s experience kicked in. I managed to get through by phone to Parkland Hospital and that along with a number of other things led us to break a story that the president was dead long before the official announcement."

To re-phrase my question (above) into two separate questions-- possibly unanswerable without honest memoirs by the talking heads. 1) Have the numerous Warren Commission apologists in the mainstream U.S. media since 1963 -- Dan Rather, Jim Lehrer, Chris Mathews, et.al.-- mainly been calling it as they (erroneously) see it? (i.e., Do they sincerely believe the Lone Nut WC narrative?) 2) If not, have they been lying because of direct pressure from their network owners and CEOs, or because of individual contracts with the CIA "Mockingbird" managers?

Similar here in Colorado. When I was growing up in Denver back in the 60s we used to go ice skating every winter on Denver's City Park Lake. The city even had a small warming house down there for the ice skaters. Nowadays the lakes in Denver rarely even freeze over and, when they do, the ice is too thin to skate on. For me, it's the most dramatic personal experience of global warming during the past 60 years. As for Biden, I agree that he has a better chance than Sanders of winning a number of critical swing states-- not only Florida, but North Carolina, Virginia, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. ( I think he was born in Scranton.) But I still voted for Bernie, mainly because of his strong, correct positions on single-payer healthcare, climate change mitigation, and pulling the plug on the Neocon "War on Terror." Biden's historic stances on the Iraq War and on our military interventions in Libya, Syria, and Yemen were simply wrong.

Just an FYI. I've been skiing every week since mid-December out here in Colorado and I haven't hit a single rock all season. We've had better years, and worse, and the people I've met on on the lifts lately are coming from everywhere on the planet this year-- Atlanta, Manhattan, Germany, France, Italy, England, Australia, and even Brazil. On February 29th someone with coronavirus returned to Summit County from Italy, and now everyone up there is in a panic. (My last ski day in Summit was February 28th.)

I love this thread. Reading this thread is like walking into a bar where multiple interesting, funny conversations are happening simultaneously-- everything from Trump, Russiagate, Gibson Island, the "Deep State" du jour, and 9/11, to Bernie Sanders, coronavirus, death, James Bond, hemorrhoids, and bad breath! You can listen to and respond to whichever conversation grabs you in the moment. As for James Bond, am I the only one around here who thinks Daniel Craig looks sort of like Vlad Putin, the shirtless Russian commando?

Jim, Good Kennedys and King article about Chris Mathews' strange, sullied career as a public Warren Commission apologist and Bernie basher. As in all of these Talking Head Apologists for the Warren Commission (THAWC) cases-- Dan Rather, Jim Lehrer, Bill O'Reilly, et.al.-- I keep coming back to the question of who was pulling their strings at the networks (CBS, PBS, Fox, MSNBC, etc.) Who was telling them that they had to lie about the assassination of JFK? And why? In the case of Chris Mathews, we have MSNBC, which is owned by Comcast, which was founded by Ralph Roberts and currently controlled and managed by Ralph's son Brian L. Roberts.* Why were these powerful media moguls-- e.g., William S. Paley, Rupert Murdoch, Ralph and Brian Roberts, et.al.-- so invested in hiring and managing talking heads who lied about the Warren Commission? * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_L._Roberts

Kevin Drum posted this chart on his blog at Mother Jones today. Reasons to be cheerful, Part 4. 😬

I wonder if it will send something less "thrilling" down Joe Biden's leg. It probably doesn't matter at this point, but Biden must have been thrilled to watch Chris Mathews compare Bernie Sanders to the coronavirus epidemic and the Nazi conquest of France in the run up to Super Tuesday.

We won't all be dead by November, but I suspect that some of us may be. As a 60-something Boomer with borderline diabetes I'm in a higher risk category, and I'm currently facing the daunting task of trying to convince my daughter to cancel her spring break trip to Southern California. As for Daniel Craig, is it a mere coincidence that Bond resembles Vladimir Putin nowadays?

NPR interviewed Hillary in prime time on Tuesday evening about some new documentary. The interview devolved into a loathsome smear of Bernie Sanders. I was having flashbacks of Hillary and Bill's 180 on healthcare reform promises in 1993-- when they only invited for-profit insurance corporation CEOs to the table, after ranting throughout 1992 about "taking on the insurance corporations." Unfortunately, I had the radio turned on in my car. P.S. United Healthcare and other for-profit healthcare corporation stocks surged yesterday after Biden's victories on Super Tuesday.

But let's give Trump televangelist Jim Bakker credit where credit is due. He has recently discovered a cure for Coronavirus, called Silver Solution, that he is selling for only $124.99 a bottle! I wonder if Robert has been swilling this stuff recently. 😬 Televangelist Sells $125 'Silver Solution' as Cure for Coronavirus https://www.newsweek.com/televangelist-show-guest-promotes-silver-solution-cure-coronavirus-1487069

Sometimes I wonder if this country (and the planet) will even survive Donald Trump's first term. The idea of this under-educated, orange, narcissistic loon having the nuclear codes, with no rational, ethical advisors left in his inner NSC circle, is truly terrifying. He lacks basic knowledge about everything from history, science, and geography to macroeconomics, including any awareness of his own ignorance, (i.e. the "Dunning-Krueger" syndrome) and is too narcissistic to tolerate advice, or contradictions, from informed advisers. I seriously doubt that Donald Trump even understands the basic science of nuclear physics (or virology, for that matter.) Perhaps it's fortuitous that Putin has Trump by the short hairs. It might be the one thing that keeps Trump from starting WWIII.

Yes, I was referring to Trump and Joe Biden as the two cognitively-impaired septuagenarians who will square off in November. Adderall vs. Aricept. It looks to me like Biden will be the DNC-backed 2020 nominee-- like Hillary in 2016 and Mondale (over Gary Hart) in 1984. Bernie won Colorado and California, but-- a shocker for me-- lost Massachusetts. (WTF?) Bloomberg won 20% of the Colorado vote with his television commercials, all from the rural rancher counties on Colorado's eastern plains-- the areas where people have satellite dishes on their trailers. If there is a silver lining, as Bob said, it's that conservative voters in some of the key swing states may be more likely to vote for Biden than for Bernie in November. The big winners last night-- health insurance corporations, Big Pharma, Big Oil, Netanyahu, and the military-industrial complex.

It looks like we'll get to choose between two septuagenarian, cognitively-impaired white guys in November. Lucky us... 😬

True enough. Things are looking up for Biden so far tonight. Winning Virginia and North Carolina is significant because those are two swing states that the Democrats have to win in November. Obama won them, and Hillary didn't, as I recall.

This is, admittedly, a cheap shot, but I had to laugh when I saw it at Common Dreams today. There's a reason, IMO, that Biden went 0-for-3 in the first three Democratic primaries/caucuses. He simply wasn't sharp in the debates. (My apologies, in advance, to Biden supporters.) .

Caitlin Johnstone hits the nail squarely on the head. Dems Converge Around Dementia-Addled Warmonger Ahead Of Super Tuesday https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/dems-converge-around-dementia-addled-warmonger-ahead-of-super-tuesday-37f510044d15

The Democratic "establishment" is pulling out all of the stops to stop Bernie tomorrow -- Buttigieg, Klobuchar, Beto, Harry Reid, et.al. are all suddenly jumping on the DNC/Biden bandwagon-- despite the fact that Biden didn't cut the mustard in three of the first four Democratic primaries. They'd probably do the same thing to Warren if she were the current front runner. IMO, it's about powerful interest groups opposed to the "progressive"/populist agenda -- banks, Big Oil, Big Pharma, hospital & health insurance corporations, AIPAC, and, of course, the "military-industrial-complex."

John Brennan just issued a public endorsement of Joe Biden, effusively praising Biden's great wisdom and foreign policy experience, etc., etc. Precisely the kind of CIA/Timber Sycamore horse manure that we were discussing earlier today.

Exactly. Biden and his backers in the Democratic establishment always brag about his great foreign policy experience, gravitas, and expertise, etc., while glossing over the fact that he (and Hillary) signed off on one of the worst foreign policy blunders in American history-- Bush & Cheney's multi-trillion dollar demolition of Iraq. Biden and Hillary were also party to the Obama administration's implementation of CIA Operation Timber Sycamore n Syria, which resulted in the demolition of multiple Syrian cities, (including Damascus and Homs) mass civilian casualties, and an enormous refugee crisis which is still in process. Not to mention Libya and Yemen. All things considered, Joe Biden should get an "F" in foreign affairs.

I'm voting for Bernie in Colorado's primary on Tuesday. As I see it, the Democratic race is down to Bernie vs. Biden. I don't dislike Joe Biden, but he voted for the Iraq War and, like Hillary, will most likely go along with the Neocon/CIA war agenda in the Middle East. Not enough has been said in the Democratic debates about that important subject.

But don't forget that the planter aristocracy of the South was immensely wealthy in the mid-19th century, when "Cotton was King." (And much of their wealth was comprised of slaves-- an enormous "investment.") The best social/economic history of the era that I ever read was McPherson's Pulitzer Prize winning "Battle Cry of Freedom." In fact, that's probably the best book I've read in the past decade. Period. (And I read a lot of books.)