W. Niederhut

Medicare-- famously denounced in the 60s by Ronald Reagan-- was astonishingly successful in reducing senior poverty in the U.S., one of the great American policy success stories of the 20th century. But U.S. healthcare policy success stories since the establishment of Medicare and Medicaid in the 60s have been few, until the arduous passage of the ACA in 2009. For states that expanded Medicaid under the ACA, the progress has been significant. But the GOP Koch machinery, since 2009, has relentless obstructed and weakened even the partial reforms of the ACA-- and the Trump GOP Tax Scam and Healthcare Demolition Act of December 2017 abrogated the ACA individual mandate that underpins the system. Beyond that, the private U.S. insurance corporations are siphoning about one third of every healthcare dollar spent on "administrative" costs + profits. (Canada spends about 16 percent to "administer" coverage for everyone.) And insurers have been incessantly focused on cutting their costs through increased co-pays, formulary restrictions, and barriers to care. (One of the reasons I retired last year.) And, of course, private hospitals, physicians, and Big Pharma are gouging U.S. consumers. I have believed, for years, that a single payer system would greatly reduce healthcare costs for Americans, and improve access to affordable care. What stands in the way of much-needed reforms? Corporate greed, from the sector that has now surpassed the military-industrial complex in expenditures on U.S. lobbying and political bribery -- health insurance, hospital, and pharmaceutical corporations.

My hunch is that Nikki Haley's Neocon handlers advised her to get off of the Trumptanic before it sinks. She's a Neocon prostitute who will be heavily promoted by Rupert Murdoch and the Neocon/PNAC establishment that launched the post-9/11 "War on Terror."

Let's not forget that Nikki Haley is the ultimate Neocon shill. * She's a spawn of PNAC and the phony GOP "war on Terror." Her conduct as UN Ambassador was the diametric opposite of JFK's approach to a fair and balanced mediation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In addition to promoting Trump's sabotage of the Iranian nuclear disarmament treaty, Haley directly promoted the disinformazia about the false flag chemical weapons attacks in Syria, and Trump's "retaliatory" cruise missile attacks on Syrian government positions. * Don’t Call Nikki Haley a Moderate. She’s an Extremist on Israel, Iran, and Human Rights https://theintercept.com/2018/10/11/nikki-haley-resigns-un-ambassador/

Time to stick a fork in the Trump/GOP "Deep State Conspiracy Theory" alibi for Trump's Ukraine-gate extortion scam. We now have the testimony of multiple witnesses confirming that Trump withheld designated military aid from the Ukraine in an attempt to extort a Ukrainian black propaganda campaign against Joe Biden. Meanwhile, the Gaslighter-in-Chief and his GOP Goon Squad have continued their disinformation campaign and illegal retaliatory attacks on Trump's Ukraine-gate scandal whistleblowers. Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman was fired by Donald "Bone Spurs" today from his position as the National Security Council Advisor on European affairs.

The CIA/Joint Chiefs coup d'etat on 11/22/63 fits into a comprehensive framework of evidence and motives. The recent Trumpaganda about a Deep State coup as an explanation for Trump's Russia-gate (and Ukraine-gate) scandal lacks any meaningful explanatory framework. First of all, James Comey, the FBI, and the mainstream U.S. media definitely sabotaged Hillary Clinton and put Trump in the White House in 2016. Where's the coup? If the Deep State (and their MSM associates) wanted to sabotage Trump, why did they sabotage Hillary Clinton and put Trump in the White House in 2016? The "theory" makes no sense at all. Secondly, Trump has been deeply enmeshed with the Russian mafia for decades-- as Russ Baker documented two years ago-- and has been heavily involved with Putin's oligarchs in recent years. Felix Sater boasted back in 2015 that Putin was going to put Trump in the White House. Thirdly, why have Trump and his Goon Squad (Manafort, Stone, Barr, McConnell, Graham, Giuliani, et.al.) repeatedly obstructed investigations of Trump's many contacts with Kremlin officials and cut outs? Mueller NEVER said that Trump did not "collude" with Russia. The outright lies and stonewalling by Manafort and Trump, himself, made it difficult to reach a definitive conclusion. But Mueller specifically indicated that his Barr-aborted investigation DID NOT EXONERATE Trump, citing at least ten counts of obstruction of justice.

Jim, I understand your point about the CIA's role in sabotaging Nixon, but I don't see the parallels with Trump and his Russia-gate and Ukraine-gate scandals. My belief is that Trump has long been ensnared by Putin and his oligarchs, through a skillful combination of old-fashioned KGB-style blackmail/kompromat and lucrative Russian business deals. The evidence is overwhelming, despite Trump's aggressive obstruction of Russia-gate investigations and his massive disinformation campaigns (aided and abetted by the GOP and the right wing corporate media.) Also, the data (from Harvard and Columbia) is clear regarding the FBI and corporate mainstream U.S. media sabotage of Hillary Clinton in 2016. Clinton was, obviously, sabotaged in 2016 by Putin and the Russian military (GRU) and she was also sabotaged by the FBI and the Robber Baron mass media.

Jim, I bought a copy of Secret Agenda this summer, but I haven't read it yet-- it's in the stack of books on my reading list. I understand the gist of the entrapment of Nixon. As for the MSM and the 2016 election, the data (from the Harvard studies and the Columbia Journalism Review) shows clearly that the MSM sabotaged Hillary-- newspapers, cable, and network news (see references above.) I observed it happening at the time, the weekly NYT headline stories -- based on anonymous FBI "leaks" about Hillary's Emails, etc. -- and found it quite puzzling. Meanwhile, Dean Baquet deliberately blocked any pre-election NYT coverage of the Trump/Russia story and NOTHING was published about the Steele Dossier in the MSM prior to the election, other than the David Korn piece at Mother Jones. This is the precise opposite of what we would have observed if the Deep State (and MSM) had conspired in 2016 to sabotage Donald Trump.

I know from 35 years of clinical psychiatric experience that it is extremely difficult to help delusional people recognize and overcome their systematized delusions, but here are two important historical references for the people here who still cling to the delusional belief that the "Deep State" and their associates in the U.S. mainstream media sabotaged Donald Trump in 2016. The notion is simply absurd-- the precise opposite of what happened in 2016. Don’t blame the election on fake news. Blame it on the media https://www.cjr.org/analysis/fake-news-media-election-trump.php New York Times acknowledges it buried the lead in pre-election Russia-Trump story https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2018/05/16/new-york-times-acknowledges-it-buried-the-lead-in-pre-election-russia-trump-story/

It's truly astonishing to see the sheer volume of Trumpaganda about Christopher Steele's Dossier and Trump's three year cover up of his Russia-gate scandal on right wing disinformation sites like Fox News, Daily Caller, Breitbart, Washington Examiner, Washington Times, WSJ, The Federalist, etc. On a simple Google "news" search for "Christopher Steele," the Trumpaganda disinformation articles out-number the reality-based news articles by a factor of 15- or 20-to-1! No wonder the delusional 26% of Americans who watch Fox News in the recent Pew Research Poll will support Trump even after he starts shooting people on 5th Avenue. The Trump/GOP Russia-gate disinformation is endless. Then, in the Google search mix, there are occasional non-Trumpaganda articles like this one. Bill Barr’s Witch Hunt https://www.justsecurity.org/66609/bill-barrs-witch-hunt/ by James Lamond and Talia Dessel October 17, 2019 Attorney General Bill Barr and U.S. Attorney John Durham are traveling around the world trying to get foreign governments to give credence to a conspiracy theory that they believe will undermine the FBI’s decision to open an investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. This effort is an abuse of power, purely designed to help President Donald Trump politically. The fact is, it would have been malpractice if the FBI had not opened its investigation in the summer of 2016. Barr and Durham’s quixotic journey has resulted in the chief law enforcement officer of the United States traveling to Italy to review deposition tapes, pressing the United Kingdom for cooperation, and Trump himself pressuring the Australian prime minister for assistance in the matter. The conspiracy theory doesn’t contest the findings of the Mueller investigation, instead, it aims to prove that the trigger for the FBI launching its original inquiry into Russian interference was, in fact, a set up. For months, Trump and his supporters pushed the idea that the Steele dossier was the impetus for the FBI to launch its investigation into Russian interference and whether the Trump campaign was playing any role in it. Their strategy was to discredit Christopher Steele, the former MI6 agent and author of the now-famous dossier, and thereby throw the entire U.S. investigation into question. But the Steele dossier is not what prompted the FBI to start its investigation. Instead, it was the activities of Trump campaign foreign policy advisor George Papadopoulos. In the spring of 2016, Papadopoulos connected with a London-based Maltese professor with longstanding Russia ties named Joseph Mifsud. Mifsud had just returned from a trip to Moscow in April of 2016 when he met with Papadopoulos and informed him that the Russian government had “dirt” on Hillary Clinton “in the form of thousands of emails.” Shortly after his conversation with Mifsud, in May 2016 Papadopoulos met with Australia’s top diplomat in London for a few drinks. It was there that Papadopoulos told the diplomat what Mifsud had told him about the Russian “dirt” on Clinton. Two months later, in July, Australia passed this information to the FBI. And this, according to the Mueller report, was what prompted the FBI on July 31, 2016 to “open an investigation into whether individuals associated with the Trump Campaign were coordinating with the Russian government in its interference activities.” The conspiracy theory that Barr appears to be chasing down, is similar to one that Papadopoulos himself has been advocating. It alleges that Russian interference in 2016 was all a set-up and that Mifsud was a Western agent. The theory advances the idea that Trump isn’t the beneficiary of foreign interference— he’s a victim of it. And if Barr can just disprove the validity of the Papadopoulos tip, then the entire legitimacy of the Mueller investigation falls apart. In reality, there were so many suspicious links between the Trump campaign and Russia, and so many strong indications of Russian interference in the 2016 election, it would have been truly irresponsible of the FBI not to have initiated an investigation – with or without the Papadopoulos story. The Russia investigation wasn’t the result of one single tip — but the product of trained U.S. law enforcement and intelligence officials properly reacting to a real threat. First, there were multiple, separate warnings from allied intelligence agencies to U.S. officials about Russia’s relationship with the Trump campaign. Beginning in late 2015 and going at least through the summer of 2016, the United Kingdom, Germany, Estonia, Poland, the Netherlands and France all informed U.S. officials about interactions between Trump associates and Russians. Second, an alarming number of figures known to U.S. law enforcement to have Russian links joined the Trump campaign in rapid succession. Michael Flynn joined the campaign as Trump’s national security advisor in February 2016, just two months after he was paid $45,000 to speak at an RT gala in Moscow where he sat next to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Considering Flynn was the former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), this behavior surely would have caught the U.S. Intelligence Community’s attention, especially once he joined the campaign. Carter Page, who years earlier had allegedly been recruited by Russian spies in New York and interviewed by the FBI about it, joined the campaign as a foreign policy aide in March 2016. Paul Manafort, who would eventually become campaign chairman, joined on March 28, 2016. Manafort had spent years working for pro-Russian Ukrainian oligarchs and had been interviewed by the FBI reportedly about this work in 2013 and 2014. Third, Trump’s own behavior would have raised red flags for law enforcement and intelligence agencies. During the campaign, Trump was up front about wanting Russia’s help, publicly calling for Russia to hack his opponent even after it was known that Russia was interfering in the election. He was also pursuing a lucrative business deal in Moscow, which he lied to the American people about, claiming he had “nothing to do with Russia” . Fourth, the 2016 election was being attacked by Russian military officers, and this necessitated an investigation. Public reports of Russia’s hacking of the DNC go back to June 14, 2016, and Wikileaks began releasing the stolen emails from the DNC on July 22, 2016. Trump was even made aware in August, during his first intelligence briefing as the Republican nominee, that Russia would probably try to spy on his campaign, and he and his campaign were advised to contact the FBI about anything suspicious. Fifth, the so-called “deep state” plot hinged on the idea that launching an investigation into Trump would damage his campaign — but the investigation wasn’t revealed until after Trump had won. FBI Director James Comey publicly revealed the investigation on March 20, 2017, months after Trump had been elected and inaugurated. And it wasn’t until after Trump had fired Comey and invited the Russian foreign minister into the Oval Office to laugh about relieving the pressure of the Russia investigation that the FBI opened another investigation into Trump himself, seeking to determine “whether he had been working on behalf of Russia against American interests.” With all of this happening in such short order, it would have been unthinkable for the FBI and U.S. intelligence agencies not to have investigated the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia. So, why is the attorney general, along with a hand-picked U.S. Attorney, personally chasing down leads around the globe in an effort to undermine U.S. law enforcement? Even for the most serious crimes, the attorney general does not typically fly to a foreign country just to review a video tape of a deposition. The answer is that this doesn’t have anything to do with law enforcement at all. This entire effort is meant to do one thing: Provide fodder for Trump’s conspiracy theories about the origins and legitimacy of the Russia investigation. The goal of these investigations is to create the appearance of impropriety and to support the false claims that the Mueller probe and its findings were an illegitimate, partisan endeavor advanced by the “deep state.” For years, Trump and his team have been advancing conspiracy theories along these lines. As each successive version is debunked, the argument gets continually reshaped, each version more outlandish than the prior one. It first began with Steele and claiming he duped the FBI into opening an investigation. Then it shifted the blame to a cabal of senior FBI agents surrounding then-FBI Director Comey who opposed Trump and conspired to open an investigation into him to damage his campaign. After that, the idea was that that then-CIA Director John Brennan personally orchestrated the investigation in an effort to get Clinton elected so that he could keep his job. There is, however, one major difference between the current push and previous efforts. The man making the case now isn’t a talking head or congressman appearing on Fox News. It’s America’s chief law enforcement officer using the full power of the U.S. government to pressure foreign governments to engage in investigations designed to politically benefit Trump. If this sounds familiar, that’s because it is exactly what Trump tried to do in the phone call with the Ukrainian president that is now at the heart of the impeachment proceedings. Trump even asked the Ukrainian president to work with Barr on his politically motivated investigations, yet Barr has refused to recuse himself from related cases, calling into question the impartiality of the government’s investigation. The president of the United States and his attorney general are both working to leverage America’s relationships with its allies to advance conspiracy theories as part of an ongoing political campaign. This is a gross abuse of power. Both should go. Image: SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images

Jeff Carter, Speaking of fairy tales, you still seem to be living in your Trumptopian fantasy world -- an alternate universe of Trump's "alternative facts." Do you still actually believe that Russia didn't hack U.S. voter registration databases in multiple states and publish 35,000 Facebook ads in 2016? The Lawfare review article (above) specifically states that, "the Dossier holds up well over time, and none of it, to our knowledge has been disproven." Right? This is entirely consistent with Glenn Kessler's fact-checking article about the Dossier in WaPo. And, no, FBI surveillance of the 2016 Trump campaign was not initiated by the Steele Dossier. Let's dispense with that oft-repeated Trump/GOP lie.

Jim, Christopher Steele was so concerned about the national security implications of his Trump/Russia Dossier -- especially by the evidence that Donald Trump was possibly being blackmailed by the Kremlin -- that he discussed his findings with the FBI and U.S. media representatives before the 2016 election. Nothing happened! As you probably know, Dean Baquet put the kibosh on any pre-election NYT stories about the Trump campaign's multiple Russian contacts-- opting instead to publish weekly headline stories about Hillary's Emails. David Korn at Mother Jones published the only 2016 pre-election story in the entire U.S. media about the Steele Dossier, on October 31st. The U.S. public was kept entirely in the dark about the Steele Dossier until it was finally published by Ben Smith at Buzzfeed on January 10, 2017. And then there were howls of execration in the U.S. mainstream media about Buzzfeed publishing the "unverified" Dossier-- without intentional irony by the same media moguls who had published weekly unverified FBI allegations about Hillary throughout 2016! As for the veracity of the Dossier, the Lawfare review article I posted (above) covers the details pretty well. Much of it has been confirmed, and very little has been debunked. Personally, I believe that the Kremlin has sexual kompromat on Trump, and that Steele's 2016 concerns about Trump being blackmailed by Putin were justified. How else do we explain Trump's persistent capitulation and deference to Putin since 2016-- insulting our NATO allies, undermining the Ukraine, abandoning the Kurds, and even insisting that Russia hasn't hacked our elections?!

Amen. Donald Trump is a crass, bigoted, poorly educated, sociopathic salesman who is so narcissistic that he craps in a gold toilet -- "a racist, a con man, and a cheat," in the words of his own former personal attorney and fixer, Michael Cohen. It's way past time for Trump's delusional (and/or dishonest) enablers to end the farce and stop colluding with Trump's endless bald-faced lies, false narratives, "conspiracy theories," and ad hominem attacks on his many victims and witnesses. Trump never takes an iota of responsibility for his many mistakes and his life of crime. It's a YUGE character flaw that originated in his sociopathic childhood. As for Trump's decades-long involvement with the Russian mafia, Felix Sater, (and with Putin's billionaire oligarchs) it has been well-documented by Russ Baker and others in recent years. And the Steele Dossier has been largely verified, after being completely suppressed by the FBI, John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and the U.S. mainstream media prior to the 2016 election.

If they can graphically depict the details of the Mueller Report, it could certainly be done with Destiny Betrayed. This is the format I was thinking of...

I'm picturing more of a graphic novel/Classic Comics format for the illustrated version of Destiny Betrayed, similar to the illustrated Mueller Report. For example, Chapter 17 would feature comic book frames of JFK talking to Galbraith and McNamara in September and October of 1963 about the planned, step-wise withdrawal from Vietnam, followed by a frame of LBJ telling Henry Cabot Lodge on November 24, 1963 -- "I am not going to lose Vietnam!"

Now that an illustrated version of the Mueller Report is being published, ($20-- available in December of 2019) I'm wondering if it's time for America to get an illustrated version of Destiny Betrayed. Any thoughts?

This is the closest that anyone in the "establishment" ever comes to 9/11 truth-- hinting that the Saudis were involved. But blaming the Saudis for the 9/11 op is analogous to blaming the Mafia for the murder of JFK. Were they involved? Sure. Were they the prime movers? No.

What a shame, to see the cinematic talents of guys like Scorcese, DeNiro, Pesci, and Pacino used to reinforce the mythology about the CIA/Joint Chiefs' 1963 coup d'etat.

That New England caste system was also the subject of Harvard classicist Erich Segal's 1970 best selling novel, Love Story, and the film, starring Ryan O'Neal and Ali McGraw (though not entirely analogous to the Kennedy case, in that the Roman Catholic Italian girl in Love Story was from the working class.)

Yes, and after endless delays, the notorious CREEPster Roger Stone suffered from a bout of "food poisoning" today. Will he experience a debilitating case of phlebitis next, like his hero Dick Nixon?

Indeed, the Bush clan are Connecticut Yankee blue bloods with deep roots in the New England W.A.S.P. establishment, Wall Street, and, of course, the CIA. I just finished reading Roy Nichol's biography of President Franklin Pierce, a relative of Barbara Bush (nee Pierce.) Franklin Pierce was the son of Revolutionary War hero, General Benjamin Pierce, who rose to national prominence (and the Presidency) as an advocate of Southern slave owner's rights (including strict enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act.) Pierce died in ignominy after the Civil War, despised by Abolitionists in his native New England. So, wealth aside, there was a huge ethnic, cultural (and religious) chasm between JFK and his CIA adversaries-- something that I observed directly during my eight year sojourn in the Ivy League.

Indeed. What's the point of a coup d'etat without installing an "acceptable" new leader? And the Joint Chiefs, certainly, knew from their acrimonious meetings with JFK and the Cabinet that LBJ was their kind of Cold War hawk. And LBJ, ever the skilled sociopath, was extremely careful about avoiding the appearance of betraying JFK-- hence, insisting that Jackie stand next to him at the swearing in, the cover up of NSAM 273's significance, and even the championing of (JFK's) Civil Rights reforms, which LBJ had helped bury in Congress for years.

Oy... If true, may the fetid excrement of a thousand pigeons rain down upon Hillary's head en route to her next CFR meeting... 😩

It's more "kill the messenger" Trumpaganda, IMO. There are now multiple whistleblowers in Trump's Ukraine-gate extortion scam. And, if Trump is innocent, why has he repeatedly lied about his Ukrainian extortion scam and aggressively blocked his associates from testifying?

Jim, It's true that Hillary, unfortunately, voted in the Senate to approve Bush & Cheney's invasion of Iraq in 2003 but, like almost everyone in the Senate (other than Obama and Bernie Sanders) she did so largely in response to a carefully orchestrated disinformation campaign from Bush, Cheney, and Karl Rove's 2002-03 Iraq War PR committee to sell the public on that invasion. As for the misguided Neocon NATO/CIA op to overthrow Ghaddafi in Libya, what role did Hillary actually play in it? She was nominally in charge of Christopher Stevens' under-the-radar Foreign Service mission to Benghazi, but I find it hard to believe that she was actively involved in the CIA and Pentagon ops there, or in the CIA's Operation Timber Sycamore in Syria. Perhaps I am mistaken. At worst, Hillary Clinton has been a Senatorial and State Department accomplice in Bush & Cheney's Neocon/PNAC "War on Terror"-- hardly justifying the Neocon Trumpagandist, Rupert Murdoch's recent use of Tulsi Gabbard (WSJ) to re-brand the Wolfowitz/Bush Doctrine as the "Clinton Doctrine." BTW, I never said that Bill Clinton and Obama were better presidents than JFK. What I wrote was that, IMO, Clinton and Obama have been the two best U.S.Presidents of the past 56 years-- since 1963. Both made some mistakes by compromising with Republicans in Congress. As I mentioned, in Clinton's case, agreeing to sign Gramm-Leach-Bliley was the worst. Who controlled Congress at the time? Similarly, Obama settled for the Senate Finance Committee's compromise (with Baucus, Grassley, and Lieberman) to kill a public option for the ACA. What was the alternative? To accomplish nothing significant in U.S. healthcare reform-- similar to what happened to Bill, Hillary, and Ira Magaziner after 1992? As for Obama's remarkably successful management of the Great Bush-Cheney Crash & Recession of 2008-10, I'm continually amazed by the public ignorance and amnesia on this subject. Obama inherited widespread bank failures and a collapsing U.S. economy from Bush & Cheney in 2009, and he had a very brief stint with a cooperative Congress from 2009-10 to keep the U.S. Ship of State from sinking. Princeton Professor Alan Blinder's analysis of the success of Obama's 2009 Stimulus Recovery Act is the best thing I've read on the subject. Most people have been bamboozled by the bogus Koch Tea Party/Fox News/ GOP counter-narrative to smear Obama. Meanwhile, Obama also inherited the Bush/Cheney Neocon wars in Afghanistan & Iraq. I, certainly, fault him for keeping Robert Gates on board, and colluding with the Wolfowitz/Bush agenda in Yemen, Syria, Libya, etc. But, at least, Obama pulled the plug on the Neocon push to start a war with Iran. How has Trump done, in comparison? In addition to withdrawing from the Iranian nuclear disarmament treaty, (for Netanyahu and the Neocons) Trump also killed more civilians in the Middle East in his first eight months in office than Obama killed in eight years! (P.S. I'm a Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren supporter. I donated to Bernie in 2016.)