W. Niederhut

Well, folks, a little comic relief never hurt a deadly serious forum, did it? 🤪

Interesting post, Robert. It's obvious that the World Trade Center towers (including WTC7) were destroyed by pre-planned, controlled demolitions on 9/11, but I had not read anything about advanced, pre-planned demolitions relating to possible "Godzilla" events. My impression was that the super thermite explosives had been placed in WTC1, WTC2, and WTC7 after July of 2001, when the Port Authority awarded the WTC leases to Larry Silverstein (and Kroll & Associates were in charge of building access and security.) The back story on Larry Silverstein's $4.5 billion insurance windfall for the demolished WTC towers is telling. From what I have read, Silverstein's insurance coverage for the newly-leased towers in 2001 was underwritten by a consortium of firms, (including Deutsche Bank) and included a rider to the effect that the insurance companies would not be permitted to conduct an independent forensic (arson) investigation in the event that the WTC buildings were destroyed by a "terrorist" attack. Strange, indeed. Bibi Netanyahu's close personal friend, Larry Silverstein, also had the good sense to skip his daily breakfast meeting at the WTC on the morning of 9/11, and the Mossad-affiliated firm, Zim Shipping, also had the good sense to move out of their World Trade Center offices one week before 9/11, despite the fact that they had leased the WTC offices well beyond September 11, 2001. And, needless to say, the U.S. mainstream media has never published anything about the overwhelming evidence of the 9/11 WTC demolitions, Silverstein, Netanyahu, Zim Shipping, or the "Five Dancing Israeli" Mossad agents arrested near the Holland Tunnel on 9/11. It's the Story of the 21st Century that was never told.

And now Sondland has also been purged for testifying honestly to the Congress about Trump's Ukrainian extortion scam. This is starting to remind me of Hitler's "night of the long knives." Notice the orange Fuhrer's complete absence of remorse about his misdeeds.

And to Mel Brooks, probably as a "thank you" for making Blazing Saddles, the funniest Western in history. As for Jon Voight, perhaps he took Nietzsche too seriously after starring in Runaway Train. Or was he always a right wing wack job?

Trump typically fires only the competent, ethical people in his administration-- not that he hired many in the first place. His staffing decisions have been historically abysmal. The ones who survive his incessant winnowing process are the sycophants and sleazeballs-- the Mulvaneys, Pompeos, and DeVoses. And no decent, competent people WANT to work for him. It's a kakistocracy-- not government by preppies wearing khakis, but government by the very worst people.

Yes, Jon Voight must be high on the list for the next Birther Trump Medal of Freedom, along with Sean Hannity and Lou Dobbs... 😬

Very interesting article, but I don't understand the back story on JFK and McNamara being smeared for favoring General Dynamics and the F-111 proposal. Was it mainly a case of Scoop Jackson resenting Boeing not getting the contract? A family friend was an exec at General Dynamics from Fort Worth back in the 60s, and I always had the impression that LBJ was simply garnering business deals for the Lone Star State, as in the case of Bell Helicopter.

Yes, and Moochin' Steve Mnuchin, the foreclosure mogul, apparently, has no compunction about turning Hunter Biden's tax returns over to the GOP Senate Goon Squad-- after fighting tooth-and-claw for the past three years to block the release of Trump's tax returns to Congress!

Trump keeps shooting himself in the foot on 5th Avenue, but still hasn't lost a single voter. I thought he was, surely, finished after the Access Hollywood tape was released in 2016. Trumpsters, obviously, know how to use their illusions-- as we see in the case of our perspicacious friend, Robert.

As a psychiatrist, I have had to hold my nose to watch Tom Cruise movies. My wife, a psychologist, feels the same way. As for John Wayne, DiEugenio said it well. I despise the right wing jingoism. I feel the same way about Clint Eastwood, after seeing his moronic RNC lecture to the chair in 2012, (and American Sniper.) And I grew up admiring Clint Eastwood, after seeing The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly at a drive-in the year it came out. (I've probably watched that flick 20 times in my life.)

I agree that Bernie is up against some very powerful forces, including electronic sabotage, Robber Baron "news" corporations, and the massive amounts of dark money for advertising in the post- Citizens United era. I also doubt that Netanyahu, Likud Party hardliners, and the Mossad would ever allow Bernie Sanders to move into the White House. They would view Bernie as an existential threat. Didn't Sidney Gottlieb and the MK-Ultra guys invent a "heart attack" gun back in the day?

If we had fair elections, and fair media coverage, Bernie could beat Trump in 2020, just as he would have beaten Trump in 2016-- despite the fact that Bernie's presidential campaigns since 2015 have been entirely blacked out of our mainstream corporate media. The main thing that Bernie is up against in 2020, besides vote hacking, is the Robber Baron-owned mass media. The guy is practically Palestinian in our mass media-- invisible, except for negative coverage. As for the Democratic ticket in 2020, I'm hoping for Sanders/Warren, but I'll support whomever wins the nomination. Mad King Donald and his GOP Senate trolls must go.

Rush, the Magic Honkey-- the last person in America who deserves a Presidential Medal of Freedom. But, then again, we should have expected nothing less from the Birther-in-Chief.

Joe, You nailed it. What amazes me is that 35-50% of Americans, apparently, still approve of Donald Trump-- the "racist, con man, and cheat" (in the words of his own former fixer) who has told Americans over 16,000 well-documented lies during the past three years since his Inauguration. Obviously, many people desperately need their illusions-- something that is thematic in the works of Henrik Ibsen. The situation with Trump reminds me of a quote from H.L. Mencken, "The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring l-i-a-r-s; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth."

Wow. You guys really have an encyclopedic knowledge of film history. Have you heard this one? I just read Hoberman's account of John Wayne and the cast of the 1954 movie The Conquerors being covered with radioactive ash and dust from some nuclear detonations in Nevada during the filming in Escalante Canyon (in Utah.) Wayne played Ghengis Khan in the film, and reportedly looked like a "Mongolian idiot." Tragically, there was a statistically unusual rate of cancer-related deaths for the cast and crew at the Escalante site.

Speaking of "incoherence"... 🤪

I wasn't familiar with the grim backstory about Carl Foreman, Stanley Kramer, and High Noon until this week, when I read the history in Hoberman's book, Army of Phantoms. Foreman described his High Noon screenplay as an allegory of his experiences with Hollywood and HUAC in the early 50s-- which resulted in his bitter break with Stanley Kramer, and exile to the U.K. John Wayne hated the film, and was openly sarcastic in awarding the Oscar for Best Actor to Gary Cooper at the Academy Awards ceremony. Yet, withal, Foreman's allegorical film became a favorite of several U.S. Presidents, including Eisenhower, Reagan, and Bill Clinton.

Wow. Talk about "projection," Robert. You are quite the case study. Might I suggest an alternative explanation for the "facts" in your Plan A, B, and C conspiracy theory about Donald Trump? To wit, Donald Trump is a sociopathic POTUS who is guilty of multiple high crimes and misdemeanors against the United States-- including multiple counts of obstruction of justice and obstruction of Congress.

Ray, Trump has already insisted-- in so many words-- that the U.S. would be better off without all of the Mexicans. Trump's popularity in the 2016 Republican primary debates surged when he started denigrating Mexicans as "rapists" and "drug dealers." I never thought that I would be citing Linda Ronstadt in a serious debate about American politics, but she nailed it in her recent CNN interview with Anderson Cooper.* Like Ronstadt, I come from a part of the U.S. (Colorado) that was stolen from Mexico at gun point in the mid-nineteenth century, and bashing Mexicans has always been popular with "Manifest Destiny" American racistas from the Eastern U.S. Ironically, Donald Trump knows next to nothing about the American West. Mexican Americans are an integral-- and vital-- part of our culture and economy out here. Trump's racist denigration of Hispanics is based mainly on his life as a Puerto Rican-denigrating New Yorker who grew up watching West Side Story and pretending to be a knife wielding, Aryan "Jet"-- 30 years after his father was arrested at a KKK rally in Queens. * https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/celebrities/2020/01/03/linda-ronstadt-compares-trumps-america-hitlers-germany/2802923001/ "If you look at history, you won't be surprised, it's exactly the same. You find a common enemy for everybody to hate" Ronstadt said. "I was sure that Trump was going to get elected the day he announced, and I said it's going to be like Hitler and the Mexicans are the new Jews. And sure enough, that's what he delivered."

Robert, Are you suggesting that Robert S. Mueller, Jr. was, possibly, the inspiration for the character, Ensign Charles Parker, (Tim Conway) in Borgnine's McHale's Navy series? Or for Captain Binghamton? 😬

Not a great visual. And I'm not sure which visual is worse-- Ernest Borgnine in a wig, or Alan Dershowitz in his underwear... 😩

Like all Baby Boomers, I grew up in the dark shadows of the Red Scare, doing duck-and-cover drills in grade school, but I never saw (or read much about) most of the early Hollywood Red Scare classics until now, as described in J. Hoberman's book, Army of Phantoms. There was, apparently, a radical shift in Hollywood from 1945 to 1950-- from making WWII films, like Mission to Moscow, that glorified the heroism of the Red Army's struggle against the Nazi Wehrmacht, to abruptly making anti-Soviet, anti-communist propaganda films. Ronald Reagan was one of the early cheerleaders for the Hollywood Red Scare-- but almost everyone, including Bogart, had to get on board to save their film careers. I Was a Communist for the FBI is on Hoberman's list, along with films like Red Menace, Guilty of Treason, and I Married a Communist (aka The Woman on Pier 13.) I noticed this week that some of these ominous Cold War classics are available on You Tube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KWHDNPdoCg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8zhmCjV71w

Interesting thread. Coincidentally, I've been reading a fascinating book this week about the history of Hollywood during WWII and the ensuing Cold War, called Army of Phantoms, by former Village Voice film critic J. Hoberman, which has multiple references to the work of Joseph McBride I can hardly put the book down. https://www.amazon.com/Army-Phantoms-American-Movies-Making-ebook/dp/B004W3UGU0/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Army+of+Phantoms&qid=1580406558&sr=8-1

Speaking of AIPAC, a Super PAC affiliated with AIPAC is now airing attack ads against Bernie Sanders in Iowa. Bernie is one of the only politicians in the U.S. who has dared to criticize Netanyahu and his Likud Party hardliners. https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/01/29/out-touch-pro-israel-group-criticized-ads-hitting-bernie-sanders-electability

Here's the latest from University of Michigan Professor Juan Cole on the Kushner/Netanyahu Apartheid Plan. (As an aside, Juan Cole's Informed Comment website seems like a reliable source of info about Middle East affairs, but the only time I posted a comment at Informed Comment about evidence of Israeli involvement in 9/11, Cole promptly deleted it.) https://www.juancole.com/2020/01/palestinians-against-humanity.html