W. Niederhut

Now the story is on the front page of the New York Times.* Interesting reference to JFK's history of intervening to pardon a soldier who had bad-mouthed him (i.e., JFK.) Meanwhile, we have Trump intervening to pardon a war criminal who had even threatened his fellow Navy SEALS to prevent them from reporting his war crimes. This is about what I would expect to see in the contrasting cases of; 1) a POTUS who risked his life in combat to save his PT boat crew, and 2) a POTUS who joked about faking a medical disability (bone spurs) to dodge military service in time of war. * When JFK Wasn't Trump https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/23/us/politics/navy-discipline-edward-gallagher.html?action=click&module=News&pgtype=Homepage

And now Trump has confirmed-- in his latest, bizarre one hour rant on Fox and Friends-- that Bill Barr shut down the Mueller investigation before it was completed. It was no mere coincidence that the Mueller investigation ended abruptly in March, shortly after Trump's GOP Goon Squad in the Senate mustered a 53 vote GOP confirmation of Barr as AG. Trump blurted out on Fox and Friends this week that the Mueller investigation, "would have ended much sooner if Barr had been there from the beginning." Yabba dabba doo!

Larry, If I recall correctly, from watching (and reading) Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick's Untold History of the United States, the Joint Chiefs were also planning to nuke targets throughout the USSR and China on 10/27/62-- using, among other things, a fleet of bombers at Okinawa. Did Oliver Stone tell that shocking story correctly, in your view?

Ah, yes, the old "chemical weapons" meme, used by Donald Trump as a false flag pretext to launch Tomahawk cruise missiles at Syrian government positions TWICE-- in April of 2017 and April of 2018. (Talk about your Neocon mule!) Got a reference link for your meme about "chemical weapons" in Ukraine?

Any thoughts about the Trump-Manafort team's 2016 revision of the Republican Party platform in Cleveland weakening U.S. support for Ukraine in their military conflict with Putin's jackboots? "No collusion" there with the Kremlin? No "quid pro quo?"

In today's episode of, "When JFK Wasn't Trump," we begin with the story of JFK setting limits on psychopaths in the military-industrial complex-- firing Allen Dulles, and demoting General Lemnitzer, etc. In contrast, today we have Trump's Secretary of the Navy Richard Spencer trying to set limits on a psychopathic POTUS. Spencer has, apparently, threatened to resign over Trump's pardon of convicted war criminal Eddie Gallagher, and his reinstatement in the SEALS.

In Trump's "Ausfahrten" case, an exception should be made, considering his major daily contributions to the general Stinkenluft.

LOL. 😄 I think der Trump Ausfahrten has something to do with gas-lighting.

Larry, I read somewhere that Robert McNamara and the Joint Chiefs had flawed intelligence about the actual number of Russian nukes in Cuba on October 27, 1962, and had grossly underestimated the threat to the U.S. Is that true? My impression was that JFK and Bobby had thwarted the Joint Chiefs' plans to bomb Cuba back to the Stone Age that day, in part, because they didn't want to commit genocide in Cuba. In the process, they saved the human race and the planet.

I don't think there has been a November 22nd during the past 56 years when I didn't feel sincerely aggrieved and aware of the date.

It was my brother's 7th birthday-- October 27, 1962. We didn't get nuked. We're still alive-- no thanks to General Curtis "Bombs Away" LeMay and the Joint Chiefs. So, yes, JFK and his brother Bobby were heroes that day. Big time. Thank God for the Kennedy brothers.

No. I'm not getting paid a dime to post comments here. But let's be honest. Who ever heard of a lead story on a news website being based on such a nothing burger? A low level FBI attorney wrote something unspecified on a form-- something that had no significant impact on the Russiagate investigations? Why is this non-story in the MSM headlines on November 22, 2019?

If I recall correctly, Bernstein omitted any references to his WaPo employers in his famous Rolling Stone article about Operation Mockingbird. As for Ben Bradlee, Peter Janey presented some compelling evidence in his book, Mary's Mosaic, about Bradlee's close ties to the CIA-- including his friendship with Wistar Janey, and the fact that he (Bradlee) was Cord Meyer's brother-in-law. Hard to believe that Yale graduate and former Naval Intelligence officer, Bob Woodward, is not a Company man. As for Alexander Haig, Jim Hougan made a fairly compelling case at the end of Secret Agenda that Haig was the most likely source for most of Woodward's original Deep Throat material. (From Anthony's quote above, it looks like Hougan later suspected that Robert Bennet was Throat.)

This headline news story* this morning about Bill Barr's DOJ "investigation" of the FBI's 2016 FISA application on Carter Page has all of the hallmarks of a classic Trumpaganda/disinformation campaign. (It's the same old Trump/"Nunes Memo" PR stunt in the guise of a new DOJ report.) The PR methodology reminds me of all of those weekly headline MSM stories prior to the 2016 election about "crooked" Hillary's Emails-- sensational nothing burgers served up to the public by the MSM's anonymous FBI "sources." It also reminds me of Trump repeatedly pushing Zelensky to publicly announce an investigation of Biden. It wasn't about conducting an actual investigation. It was about Trumpaganda-- creating a false impression that Biden did something "crooked." Check out the #1 story* at AOL "news" this morning, then read the excerpt from the same article (italics mine.) Conveniently timed to gaslight Trump's delusional cult members during the impeachment hearings. *A former FBI staffer is reportedly being investigated over an altered document in the Russia probe https://www.aol.com/article/news/2019/11/22/a-former-fbi-staffer-is-reportedly-being-investigated-over-an-altered-document-in-the-russia-probe/23865967/ November 22, 2019 ... "It is unclear which document was allegedly altered by the FBI lawyer, nor what changes were made, nor what impact the document had on the Russia investigation. "

Hougan"s true history of McCord, Hunt, Baldwin, and the bungled Watergate burglaries should be made into a movie. It's more bizarre than any fiction. The truth would surprise the American public.

I once watched a televised 11/22/63 interview of Mayor Earle Cabell on You Tube, and I was struck by, 1) his absence of emotion, and 2) his somewhat odd claim that the assassination "could have happened anywhere."

Hougan points out that Bob Woodward's "Deep Throat" source was, apparently, unfamiliar with certain critical details of the FBI investigations of the Watergate burglaries-- indicating that Deep Throat was probably not involved with the FBI.

Jeff, Don't you mean, "normalizing rational fear over communist practices?" 😬This kind of polarizing, Putin-esque disinformazia is causing a serious crisis right now in liberal Western democracies-- which is precisely what your fascist hero, Vlad, is trying to do. Putin doesn't have to worry about the destructive effects of this kind of dirty, divisive propaganda in his police state, where disobedient journalists can be readily blown up in their cars. But it is, obviously, a problem in the free world-- especially now that the GOP has abolished the Fairness Act, and Rupert Murdoch has been authorized to establish his disinformazia empire in the U.S.

Cheggidout, folks... 😬 The Gerasimov political polarization/propaganda strategy that helped propel Putin's candidate, Donald Trump, to the White House is, apparently, booming. Americans Steal Kremlin’s Playbook, for Clicks and Profit An investigation found that a former Fox News executive hired Macedonians to write culturally and politically divisive content for his websites. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/21/technology/LaCorte-edition-news.html?action=click&auth=login-email&login=email&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

I finished reading Jim Hougan's truly fascinating 1984 book, Secret Agenda, last night. Three questions for the forum. (Apologies in advance if this has already been reviewed.) 1) I still don't understand why E. Howard Hunt and James McCord were trying to sabotage Nixon. Was it mainly an attempt to protect Richard Helms and the Company? 2) Was Alexander Haig Deep Throat? 3) Have any movies or screenplays been based on Secret Agenda?

Looks like the coal miner's daughter pointedly disagrees with Jeff Carter's arguments on this lengthy thread... Fiona Hill’s opening statement at impeachment hearing https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/read-fiona-hills-opening-statement-at-impeachment-hearing/ar-BBX6MGi

Dr. George Lundberg's promotion of Dennis Breo's disinformation about the JFK autopsy is also a disgrace, especially since Lundberg, as a pathologist, surely knows better. Lundberg looks like one of the many U.S. academicians (and journalists) who signed "mockingbird" contracts with the Company.

I have believed, for many years, that the U.S. should have a single payer, non-profit healthcare administrative system. The Canadians cover everyone, and they spend a lot loss per capita to achieve better public health outcomes, generally -- partly by eliminating insurance industry profits, and partly by having the leverage to reduce costs for goods and services. Medicare is a shining example of how such a system could work for everyone in the U.S. (other than the 2003 Bush-Cheney Medicare Part D proviso that prohibited Medicare from negotiating with Big Pharma to reduce drug prices!) Among other success stories, Medicare dramatically reduced senior poverty in the U.S. after 1965. Not to make excuses for physicians, but the main driving force behind our current dysfunctional for-profit healthcare system, IMO, has been the private insurance industry. They control the money supply, and they put a lot of energy into managing (reducing) their costs, while advertising how much they "care." Physicians nowadays are mostly pawns in the industry game-- unless they simply cater "out-of-network" to the rich, as many do. Not sure what it will take to break the insurance industry's stranglehold on political efforts to establish a general single payer system. I was surprised and bitterly disappointed when Hillary Clinton's healthcare task force in the 1990s invited only private insurance industry moguls to the table, rather than sitting down with public health experts to devise the best healthcare system for the American people. Similarly, (after waiting another 15 years for a reform effort!) the 2009 Senate Finance Committee sabotaged the crucial ACA plans to include a "public" provider option for the ACA. It was a bipartisan sabotage effort, spearheaded by Charles Grassley, Max Baucus, and Joseph Lieberman, on behalf of the private insurance industry. What we know, for certain, is that America's private insurance industry moguls will fight tooth-and-claw to sabotage any future legislative efforts to expand a single payer system. The industry sabotage will include heavily funded advertising/disinformation, lobbying, and the usual YUGE financial donations to elected public officials in both parties.

David, These private industries want PROFITS. It's about for-profit systems vs. the public sector. Both systems have obvious virtues and flaws. When I was a medical intern, (36 years ago) I worked part of the year at a fairly posh private hospital, and part of the year at a local VA and inner city hospital. I used to joke that my experiences that year made me a believer in capitalism. The private hospital services were very efficient, and of high quality. At the VA, it was difficult to do my job. For example, I had to do my own phlebotomies on the patients and retrieve lab results from a hand written ledger in the basement of the hospital, because there were no phlebotomists or staff to retrieve results for the wards. I even had to wheel my patients down to X-ray and assist the X-ray tech to get chest X-rays at night, because there were no orderlies around to help us out on the wards. The advantage of a public sector, Medicare type single-payer system is that; 1) it eliminate the siphoning of healthcare funds (about 15-20% in some estimates) by private insurance corps, and 2) it reduces costs by enabling the single-payer to negotiate lower prices for drugs and other services. The trade off is that there is a reduced incentive for efficient, high-quality services. When I retired last year, I was one of the few private psychiatrists in town who was still participating in Medicare. It was very difficult to find providers for my Medicare patients. This article in yesterday's WaPo describes some of these issues fairly well, IMO. Americans have questions about Medicare-for-all. Canadians have answers. https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/americans-have-questions-about-medicare-for-all-canadians-have-answers/2019/11/18/7971c78e-d4d6-11e9-9610-fb56c5522e1c_story.html Yasmeen Abutaleb November 19, 2019 at 5:30 a.m. MST HINTON, Alberta — When Bryan Keith was diagnosed with prostate cancer three years ago, he underwent a blizzard of tests, specialist consultations, a month of radiation treatment and a surgical procedure. His out-of-pocket costs? Zero. “I’ve never had to reach into my wallet for anything other than my health-care card,” said Keith, 71, who is now in remission. In this picturesque mountain town of about 10,000 people, Keith’s experience is the norm — and the model often cited by Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren as they promote Medicare-for-all as an antidote to some of the problems afflicting U.S. health-care consumers. No one in this mostly working-class community agonizes over whether they can afford to see a doctor, or take their child to the emergency room. No one faces bankruptcy, or loses their home, because of medical debt. Most residents of Hinton have had babies delivered, broken bones set and cancer treatments provided without ever seeing a bill. But there are also drawbacks: Some wait months for knee or hip replacements or to see certain specialists. Most also pay premiums for private insurance to cover prescription drugs and other services not included in their government plan. As middle-class Americans express growing anger about skyrocketing drug prices and mounting co-pays, premiums and deductibles, the Canadian health-care system has emerged as a shadow player in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary contest — offering a window onto a parallel reality where 37 million people’s health-care needs are largely covered from birth to death. The stories of real people here in rural Alberta show how the health-care system functions in their daily lives — and underscore Canadians’ deep and widely shared belief that health care is a human right, which helps explain their overwhelmingly positive reviews of the system despite its shortcomings. By all accounts, Canada’s system, called Medicare, is simpler, more equitable and more consumer-friendly than America’s patchwork of public and private plans that leaves millions without sufficient coverage. Every resident of Canada has guaranteed access to covered benefits through provincial- and territorial-administered public insurance plans — and pays taxes to support that system. There are no premiums, co-pays or deductibles for a broad menu of care that includes doctor visits, emergency care, hospital stays, surgical care, and maternal and newborn services.

It's puzzling to see Elizabeth Warren siding here with our CIA saboteurs in Latin America. (One more reason that I'm still a Bernie Sanders supporter.) From what I have read, the coup against Evo Morales is looking more and more like what Kissinger and the Company did in Chile to oust Salvador Allende, (and what the CIA did in El Salvador.) Morales had made significant progress in improving the quality of life for Bolivia's impoverished working class.