W. Niederhut

Joe, I hope that you recover well in the weeks ahead. The problem with the human spine is that the mammalian vertebrae evolved over millions of years for quadrupeds, who roamed the earth in a horizontal position. Our bipedal hominid ancestors were latecomers on the evolutionary timescale. This "design" problem with the bipedal hominid spine has been compounded in modern times by our sedentary lifestyles, because prolonged sitting (and standing) compresses the spine. I had to contend with this problem during my career as a psychiatrist-- often sitting in my office chair for hours at a time. What has worked well for me during the past decade has been a strategy of reducing the vertical (gravitational) compression of my lumbar spine by using a good reclining office chair, and a recliner at home called "The Perfect Chair," which can tilt back to a zero gravity position. My low back pain has virtually disappeared since I retired last year, unless I have to sit for more than an hour in a straight back chair. (I also use an inversion table at home for low back pain, but these are contraindicated for some spine problems, especially post-surgically.)

I just read the Mueller Report Illustrated this morning-- free at WaPo for subscribers-- which Amazon is now selling as a $15 paperback. It's an easy 30-45 minute read. https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/politics/mueller-report-illustrated/chapter-one/ Simon & Schuster did a good job of presenting the graphic details of Trump's persistent obstruction of the Russia-gate investigation(s) in a chronological narrative format. So many damning details, beginning with Trump and Michael Flynn's attempted subversion of the December 2016 U.S. government sanctions against Russia-- imposed in response to the Kremlin's 2016 election hack -- and the ensuing Trump cover up, which Chris Christie likened to Trump getting gum on his shoe. The narrative timeline is helpful in grasping the big picture of Trump's serial Russia-gate felonies. Among the many damning details were John Dowd and Jay Sekulow floating Trump pardons for Rick Gates, Paul Manafort, and Michael Cohen, to obstruct witness testimony in Mueller's investigation.

In a nutshell, it's the fallacy of over generalization-- drawing a conclusion that does not follow from your data. "John Smith once defended a murderer, therefore any client he defends must also be a murderer."

That's a logical fallacy, Robert. The fact that Zaid was, apparently, complicit in covering up the Company's role in the JFK assassination does not imply that his defense of a CIA whistle blower involved in exposing Trump's Ukraine-gate extortion scam is part of a CIA cover up. Nor does it imply that the CIA is complicit in Trump's Ukrainian extortion scam. As an analogy, the fact that an attorney named John Smith once defended a murderer named Bob Jones does not imply that any future clients of John Smith are necessarily murderers.

Well, what else would we expect from a Senator who co-sponsored the "Birther Bill," and staunchly opposes the theory of evolution, the international scientific consensus on climate change, the Affordable Care Act, LGBT rights, and net neutrality? 'Murica don't need to protect no stinkin' whistle blowers... 🙄

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/jfk-letter-promising-santa-safe-during-cold-war-on-display/ar-BBYkHhF

And a special holiday greeting to the Education Forum scholars from Merde-a-Lago !!

Any thoughts about the managerial "mechanism" of this MSM blacklisting of JFKA truth (and 9/11 truth) and ongoing MSM promotion of the Warren Commission Report? Who in hell is coordinating and implementing this massive 56 year-old systemic disinformation campaign in the U.S.? (I was brooding about this subject while studying the selection of JFKA (fake) "history" books at the book store in Dealey Plaza last week.) The censorship, certainly, seems real, but it also seems almost incredible that something this pervasive could occur, for decades, in the mass media of a nominally "free," democratic society. Is it merely an epi-phenomenon of shared ignorance, delusion, and/or confirmation bias on the part of journalists, editors and publishers, or is it something more sinister and deliberately "conspiratorial" on the part of American media moguls? If there really is a multi-decade conspiracy of silence of this magnitude in our corporate MSM, something's gotta give.

This depressing article was published at Lawfare last January but is trending now as the most popular of the week, for obvious reasons. Can the Senate Decline to Try an Impeachment Case? https://www.lawfareblog.com/can-senate-decline-try-impeachment-case

Yes, the corporate MSM blackout of Bernie's candidacy continues, but Common Dreams published a lead article tonight about the Sanders/AOC rally in Venice. https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/12/21/promising-radical-realignment-our-priorities-ocasio-cortez-tells-los-angeles-crowd

I have an idea. If they ever make a movie based on Hougan's book, Secret Agenda, it should be called, "They Weren't All the President's Men."

BREAKING NEWS ... for Robert Wheeler and Jeff Carter... Donald Trump Passes the "Duck Test" Once Again -- He's a Russian Asset “If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.” https://www.salon.com/2019/12/20/trump-administration-opposes-grahams-russia-sanctions-bill-after-meeting-with-kremlin-official/ December 21, 2019

Jeff, Never try to extract from a study a conclusion that isn't there. It happens all too often, unfortunately. You need to go back and re- read your own reference study, (above) along with the database of 2016 Russian propaganda on Facebook that I posted for you at the top of this lengthy thread.* Your study, clearly, does NOT conclude that Russian trolls had no significant impact on the 2016 U.S. election. Far from it. (Consistent with what we have read about Russian xxxxx factories celebrating the shocking, improbable "election" of Donald Trump on Election Night in 2016. They, certainly, thought that their propaganda had been highly effective, in any case.) One of the fatal flaws in the study is that their small sample of Twitter-using probands did not include "independent" voters using Twitter accounts -- the very people whose decisions are most likely to sway electoral outcomes! Secondly, the study was conducted in late 2017-- one year after the election. It is NOT a study of the impact of Russian trolling on the 2016 U.S. election. One of the most striking aspects of Russian-sourced propaganda during our 2016 election, IMO, is how closely it mirrored what the Trump/Manafort campaign was doing simultaneously-- fomenting anxiety and rage about Muslims, illegal immigration, Black Lives Matter protesters, the "War on Christmas," etc. Like the Trump campaign memes that had dramatically increased Trump's popularity during the Republican primaries, the 2016 Russian propaganda was focused on increasing social divisions within the U.S.-- along ethnic, racial, and religious fault lines. Trump/Manafort propaganda dovetailed with Putin's Gerasimov cyber warfare strategy to fracture American society. Here are some 2016 Russian Facebook Trumpaganda examples that I referenced for you earlier on this thread. These were posted by Russian trolls using monikers like, "Army of Jesus," "Heart of Texas," "South United," and "Blacktivist" (urging black people to vote for Jill Stein.) https://www.abc.net.au/news/image/9111086-3x2-940x627.jpg https://static.businessinsider.com/image/5af5cfd8428d041d008b4853.jpg https://pixel.nymag.com/imgs/daily/intelligencer/2018/05/12/12-russian-facebook-ad-south-united-confederate-flag.w710.h473.png https://i1.wp.com/skepticreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/examples-of-russian-facebook-ads-in-2016-elec-L-516RRQ.png?w=360&ssl=1

Huh? Factually incorrect? First you claimed that Russian xxxxx factories didn't significantly influence our 2016 elections, so I posted a Congressional database of 35,000 Russian-sourced 2016 Facebook ads for you to review. If you had reviewed them, you would have noticed that they were quite graphically consistent with the "Gerasimov" Kremlin strategy of asymmetrical warfare to foment social divisions and conflict within enemy states and alliances (U.S., NATO, EU, etc.) As for your latest Binney/Eric Zuesse "Spygate" article, hinting that Russia didn't really hack the DNC Emails in 2016, I noticed that Binney hasn't even published his alleged "evidence" of a CIA/Deep State conspiracy yet. But, my point is entirely logical. If Binney's "Spygate" claim is true, the CIA was apparently trying to help Trump get elected in 2016 (by hacking the DNC Emails) while simultaneously trying to sabotage Trump-- framing him to look like a Russian asset. It's a reductio ad absurdum.

So, Jeff, let me get this straight. Your latest argument is that, apparently, the CIA -- not the Kremlin-- sabotaged Hillary Clinton in 2016 (by hacking the DNC Emails, etc.) to help elect Trump. But your core "Spygate" argument all along has been that the CIA sabotaged Trump since 2016 -- framing him as a Russian asset. So, you are now arguing, in essence, that the CIA, 1) helped Trump, and 2) sabotaged Trump in 2016. That's a "Deep State" reductio ad absurdum...

According to this Vox article, Gabbard claims that she was "not swayed" by the (overwhelming) evidence of Trump's misconduct. That's like a visitor to Niagra Falls claiming that they are not convinced that Niagra is really a waterfall. What a crock of steer manure. The truth is that Gabbard doesn't want to alienate Fox and her GOP fan club. https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/12/18/21029243/tulsi-gabbard-house-vote-present-trump-articles-impeachment-hearing

An historic non-vote on the first impeachment article by Tulsi Gabbard tonight in the House. Shame on her. How could any honest, ethical person DENY that Trump committed extortion/bribery in his dealings with Zelensky this year? She's a complete fraud. As I said at the top of this thread, Tulsi Gabbard appears to be prostituting herself for a GOP pay day at Fox News.

And Rupert Murdoch acquiring U.S. citizenship and establishing his propaganda empire-- Fox, WSJ, NY Post, Washington Times, etc. If the Democrats ever regain control of the White House and Congress they need to reinstate some iteration of the Fairness Doctrine, and enact legislation reversing the disastrous 5-4 Citizens United ruling, which, as Fred Wertheimer said, "erased a century of campaign finance reforms" in the U.S.A.

Jim, I don't think of Trump's brand of Robber Baronism as "new." It was prevalent in the Gilded Age, and was a major characteristic of the economic policies of the Reagan and Bush-Cheney administrations. What is "new" about Trumpism, IMO, is the brazen, pervasive mendacity (including the systematic Fox Trumpaganda) that has enabled a perverse, reverse Robin Hood like Donald Trump to be elected and supported as a faux populist-- a Koch Trojan Horse who claimed to have a "terrific healthcare plan that (would) cover everyone and cost less." Case in point. During the 2016 GOP primary debates, Trump repeatedly claimed that he was the only candidate who was not beholden to the Kochs and other wealthy donors, because he was funding his own campaign. Yet, in office, Trump has been the most corrupt, pay-to-play POTUS in history, by several orders of magnitude. CEOs have privately joked about Trump's eagerness to do anything they request for a price, regardless of the damage to the public or the planet.

Well said. Our apprentice/reality television POTUS, a man who has never read a book in his life, (with the possible exception of Hitler's speeches, according to Ivana Trump's Vanity Fair interview back in the day) is a Robber Baron's dream-come-true. By appealing to white racist sentiments, resentment, and xenophobia, Trump has bamboozled his delusional working class white fans into believing that he actually represents their economic interests-- while repeatedly stabbing them in the back with his Robber Baron policies. The George Bushes had mastered this political art of posing as regular American guys while promoting the agenda of the 0.1% -- but Trump has taken the Robber Baron chicanery of Ronald Reagan and the Bushes to a whole new level. The truth is that Trump is utterly contemptuous of poor people. He even announced in January of 2017 that he wanted "only rich people" in his Cabinet! The delusions of the white working class Trump cult are a classic example of what Karl Marx described as "false consciousness" -- the belief that wealthy elites can be trusted to promote the best interests of the working class. But, beyond false consciousness, Trump fans seem to have no meaningful consciousness of basic American history, or of Trump's truly unprecedented corruption (e.g., Emoluments Clause violations) and blatant mendacity. It's astonishing. In a Hegelian sense, Trump is the Anti-Obama, and that is all that really matters to his cult members.

Interesting history article at NYT today about the OSS origins of the Cold War era U.S. military-industrial-propaganda complex that was deployed in 1963 to promote the false Warren Commission Report narrative during the past 56 years. The transition from selling the American public on the war effort during WWII to promoting the Cold War (and, later, the bogus Warren Commission Report) was, obviously, a very short leap for the OSS/CIA propagandists. The Curious Case of the U.S. Government’s Influence on 20th-Century Design Known for its intelligence-gathering operations during World War II, the O.S.S. also helped shape the look of modern life. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/11/t-magazine/us-government-20th-century-design.html?action=click&auth=login-email&login=email&module=Features&pgtype=Homepage

Can't recall where I read the story but, after JFK hired the historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. as a White House consultant, Schlesinger asked, "What am I supposed to do?" JFK replied that Schlesinger would be, "one of the most important people in (his) administration."

Good article by Mark Kriedler at CommonDreams.org this week about industry-funded sabotage of U.S. public health... Industry Seeks to Flatline Universal Health Care A deeply funded lobbying group is out to kill Medicare for All. Its ideological roots run back to the Truman era. https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/12/16/industry-seeks-flatline-universal-health-care

I was discussing the Trump impeachment case last weekend with my nephew, who is an Assistant AG for the state of Oklahoma, and I told him that, IMO, the people who oppose Trump's impeachment seem to lack historical consciousness. (Not rocket science, since half of Republicans in a recent poll believe that Trump is a better POTUS than Abraham Lincoln!) Then, voila, I saw this article this morning at the Huffington Post. * The anti-intellectual GOP mob will, of course, disparage and dismiss the opinions of these history scholars. Like Trump, they don't need no stinkin' historians. (Can anyone imagine Trump hiring an Arthur Schlesinger as a White House consultant?) *More Than 750 Historians Call For Donald Trump To Be Impeached Pulitzer Prize winners, professors and filmmakers have signed a letter urging the House to impeach the president for the Ukraine scandal. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/donald-trump-impeachment-historians-letter_n_5df884c3e4b03aed50f446b8?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuaHVmZnBvc3QuY29tLw&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAALxqfFKLfwBgIQCBKla_TLtMpPFm6DJ6uidpPDrvaKLTZcCnhwPyOpiXsTa2iKGy5LaLxhxBtTSPFoat-3i7k2wsnb6AbTVledO5QJPDhWyiXpKWNeDEB2W472bDgVwmdzdhKdSBig9cgV60HdsMoO4aiShb1lzd4kfvpYsQog8s

Dennis, You are hopelessly naive about Putin and the 21st century Russian Federation. Have you been to Russia, or spent any time with Russian citizens or emigres, during the past 30 years? The MSM didn't even know about, or report on, Putin's FSB occupation and takeover of the ROCOR in the U.S., Western Europe, and Australia in 2006. There was no media coverage of the FSB kidnapping of ROCOR Metropolitan Vitaly (Ustinov) in Manhattan in 2000, even though his "guardianship" trial went all the way to the New York Supreme Court. I know an important ROCOR heirarch who was mugged by Putin's thugs and, apparently, blackmailed into signing off on the FSB confiscation of the ROCOR-- whose Kremlin-appointed clergy in the U.S now have diplomatic immunity! Putin is a ruthless, KGB-trained fascist and disinformazia expert. I understand why he intervened against our misguided, Neocon proxy war in Syria, but the man is not motivated by concerns about international justice. He is simply following Alexander Dugin's playbook to expand Russia's geopolitical hegemony. Surely, we can all condemn the policy disasters of the U.S. and NATO in the Middle East without condoning Putin's criminal conduct in the Ukraine, Western Europe, and the U.S.-- his war on liberal democracy. And, yes, Donald Trump is, obviously, a compromised Russian asset. The evidence is overwhelming.