W. Niederhut

Jean, What do you make of Gisevius's Nuremberg testimony, implicating Ernst in the Reichstag fire? Also, are you and Kevin Balch aware that the Reichstag fire was used by Hitler as a pretext to establish a Nazi police state in Germany-- ending the Weimar Republic, and triggering the mass incarceration of opposition politicians, and the closure of the opposition press? Cui bono? Let's get our basic history facts straight here on the Education Forum. I trust that you don't also share Balch's opinion that Britain started WWII? The Reichstag Fire | Holocaust Encyclopedia (ushmm.org)

So, Bowers couldn't possibly have suffered a finger injury after this Mark Lane interview, Bill? Also, why are you referencing a debunked JFKA source like Posner-- a man whose work has no credibility? Can you, at least, acknowledge that Bowers was threatened prior to his untimely death?

Based on what? The source of the account of the severed finger was, apparently, a personal friend of Bowers. His wife also reported that Bowers had been threatened and told not to talk. Posner is a well known l-i-a-r. Why a certain forum members referencing him as a credible historian?

Yeah, Matt, Buttigieg is the closest thing to JFK in contemporary American politics.

Colorado astrophysicist, Philip Stahl, (pseudonym, Copernicus) panned the Showtime series, Mafia Spies, (and Gerald Posner) this week, contrasting the WCR propaganda with Oliver Stone's excellent historiography in JFK Revisited. This brilliant guy is one of my favorite bloggers on the internet, with weekly commentaries on everything from astrophysics, math, and history, to film and contemporary politics. Stahl's analyses are so much better than 99% of the dreck in the U.S. mainstream media that it's a pity his essays aren't more widely read. Brane Space (brane-space.blogspot.com)

(Source 18) Hans Gisevius, testimony at Nuremberg War Crimes Trial (4th April, 1946)

Yeah, Kevin, we all know that Goering propaganda trope. Claiming that the socialists burned down the Reichstag is like claiming that Antifa attacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6th. Goering was a master of false flag concepts.

I dunno, Kirk. Let's recall that Churchill wanted the U.S. to nuke the Soviet Union after WWII, and he was utterly delighted when Truman came out swinging against our allies, Stalin and Molotov, in Potsdam. Most people don't know that Churchill also dropped poison gas bombs on the Bolsheviks during the Russian Revolution. And he was very reluctant to open a Second Front for Stalin in WWII. It was FDR who responded to Stalin's request for a Second Front in Western Europe-- which is the main reason that my dad and the American GIs under Patton landed in North Africa in 1943. IMO, Churchill wanted the Nazi Wehrmacht to destroy Bolshevism. Then, after the Red Army defeated the Wehrmacht in Stalingrad, and started to roll the Nazis back 1,000 miles to Berlin, Churchill feared that the Reds would occupy the entire European continent. Many people still don't realize how massive the Red Army was by 1945.

Including Sam Giancana, who was shot several times around the mouth the night before his scheduled Congressional testimony-- "O" for "Omerta." Incidentally, mobster Jack Zagretti was shot in the mouth after he announced that Jack Ruby was going to kill Oswald. Do those subtle clues have any "probative value" for WCR defenders? 🙄

Trump Says Christians Won’t Have to Vote in Future: ‘We’ll Have It Fixed’ (rollingstone.com)

Britain started WWII? Did they blitzkrieg Poland, or what, exactly? As for "democracy," it was destroyed in Germany when Hitler and the Nazis burned the Reichstag and ended the Weimar Republic.

Kevin, I'm responding to your deeply flawed analysis of Hit List in red (below.) Kevin Balch wrote: I’ve finished Reading Hit List, looked over Chernen’s analysis and checked other references. I find several problems with the JFK Assassination “Clean Up Squad” theory. First, it’s indisputable that the Deaths of Oswald and Tippit are both suspicious to say the least. Not to mention dozens of other murder cases that are described in detail in Hit List. Second, I focused on the year between the assassination and the issuance of the Warren Report. This is the period when the conspirators would be in greatest danger of having the plot unravelled by troublesome witnesses, when the most dangerous witnesses would need to be silenced and when the original plotters most motivated to squelch the investigation were likely still alive. Really? Strange approach to a sample selection. Why not also include the obvious murders of multiple witnesses during later JFKA investigations-- by Jim Garrison and Congress? According to Social Security data (Table 1 from the reference below), the age-adjusted central death rate for adults in 1964 was 1,209.7 deaths per 100,000 or 1.21% or 0.0121. This figure is for all deaths including natural causes, accidents, homicides and suicides. While the latter 3 groups can show volatility from year to year, in aggregate, they are typically about 5-10% the total death rate. https://www-origin.ssa.gov/oact/NOTES/pdf_studies/study116.pdf The death rate due to homicide was roughly 5 per 100,000 in the U.S. 1964. Accordingly, from the population of 1400 JFK assassination witnesses, the expected total number of deaths in 1964 is 1400 witnesses * 0.0121 death rate = 17 total deaths. Where are you getting the 1,400 number of key witnesses, Kevin? If we look at this from the perspective of the putative "Clean Up Squad," I would suggest that they were highly selective in choosing their targets for assassinations-- key witnesses who knew too much and were also at risk of publicly exposing the JFK murder plot (e.g., journalists and indiscreet loud mouths, like Jack Zangretti.) They also needed to be selective to prevent obvious public evidence of their assassination ops. For example, if they had murdered every doctor and nurse who had seen JFK in the Parkland ER, the public would have known something was up. Approximately 5-10% of these deaths should be from other than natural causes resulting in about 15 deaths from natural causes and 1 or 2 from accidents, homicide or suicide. From the Appendix of Hit List, there are a total of 21 (omitting Eddy Benevides who died in 1965) deaths listed in 1963-64, only one of which (Bill Chesher) is explicitly cited as from natural causes. My question is, where are the 15 deaths from natural causes which should be present? A more salient question is, what happened to the statistically expected homicides in your sample? Instead of the statistically expected 1 death by homicide, (at most) we have 20-- even based on your inflated 1,400 figure for the population sample! Highly improbable, to say the least. I found it curious that the one witness who might have actually known something important about the JFK assassination that died during 1964-64 was Guy Banister who died of a heart attack (which is actually a natural cause) but is considered suspicious. Maybe the hit squad used their heart attack-inducing agent to kill him. But then why not use it in the other cases as well? What about C.D. Jackson and Mary Pinchot Meyer? Meanwhile, as the data indicates, the murders of key JFKA witnesses clustered around three major investigations-- 1) the immediate aftermath of JFK's murder/WC investigation, 2) the Garrison investigation of Clay Shaw, and 3) the HSCA investigation. Most of the other witnesses have some extremely tenuous connections. A good example is Hank Killam who was acquainted with John Carter who resided at Oswald’s rooming house and who’s wife worked for Ruby and were apparently not significant enough themselves to be eliminated. Not all key witnesses were at risk of going public with their evidence debunking the Warren Commission Report narrative. That variable contributed to the selectivity of assassination targets-- as I mentioned in the case of the Parkland ER staff. As examples, many witnesses were threatened and cowed into silence. And you're conveniently ignoring the evidence of confiscated manuscripts during the murders of Jim Koethe, Dorothy Kilgallen, Florence Pritchard Smith, and Mary Pinchot Meyer. The final note I’ll make is that several of the dead witnesses were in occupations that had to have death rates significantly higher than the population in general including organized crime figures, strippers, paramilitary mercenaries and drug runners, cops. You're ignoring too many damning details about these statistically improbable murders to review in this brief critique of your flawed analysis. I can offer several more criticisms but that’s enough for now. Needless to say, I found no probative value in Hit List. Yes, that's, certainly, enough for now. I find no probative value in your deeply flawed critique of the damning Hit List data. My advice to the forum is that people should read the book and judge for themselves.

Rather bizarre logic. In essence, you're arguing that FDR should have simply accepted Hitler's blitzkrieg in Poland, and his subsequent invasion of Belgium and France, in addition to his bombings of Rotterdam and Great Britain, because many Americans didn't want to get involved in defending the "sanctity of democracy" in Europe from militant fascism?

Kevin, I don't understand your point here. Are you suggesting that FDR was wrong to support Britain's war against Hitler?

Kevin, FDR had long aspired to get the U.S. involved in WWII, but he was dealing with a reluctant population. In his radio talks, he used the metaphor of a "neighbor's house on fire." As for Wallace's ouster from power in 1944, the critical issue was the survival of FDR's post-war anti-colonial policies, and prevention of the Cold War-- which JFK tried to revive, as described in the DiEugenio essays.

When it comes to insulting a lass, Donald passes a great deal of gas. With Harris, Clinton, and Nikki, he gets slimy and sticky, talking out of both ends of his ass.

Putin? Paris Olympics hit by coordinated arson attacks across train network | World News | Metro News

No one can accurately understand American deep political history during the past 50 years without studying the landmark, award-winning research of Duke University historian Nancy MacLean, in Democracy in Chains. It's a must-read for American history scholars. MacLean was able to access the historical archives of the Nobel Laureate, James McGill Buchanan, and his stealth work for billionaire Charles Koch, beginning in the 70s, to construct a network of heavily-funded, right-wing think tanks to implement Koch's plutocratic, libertarian deconstruction of the U.S. Federal government-- CATO, Heritage Foundation, Federalist Society, et.al. By 2010, the Kochs had, effectively, purchased control of the Republican Party. Amazon.com: Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right's Stealth Plan for America: 9781101980972: MacLean, Nancy: Books An important part of the long-term Buchanan/Koch strategy was to hijack the SCOTUS, and then use a plutocratic Koch/GOP SCOTUS to hamstring Federal pro publica laws of the past century. The Buchanan/Koch stealth plan has now succeeded in overturning a century of campaign-finance reforms, (Citizens United) the Voting Rights Act, (Shelby v. Holder) Roe v. Wade, and the Chevron Doctrine. Charles Koch's goal, for the past half-century, has been to hamstring and de-fund pro publica Federal programs that protect citizen rights and the public good, (Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Obamacare, worker safety, labor unions, and pollution controls) in order to cut taxes for billionaires. It worked... Chevron deference | Wex | US Law | LII / Legal Information Institute (cornell.edu)

Eric Clapton's Tribute to John Mayall

Trump is the opposite of a policy wonk. They have to show him dumbed-down, colored-coded charts to explain anything to him. In fact, his only legislative "achievement" as POTUS was written by the Heritage Foundation-- the December 2017 Billionaire Tax Cut & Healthcare Demolition Act. That's what worries me about Project 2025. It's more Heritage Foundation Koch-ery-- gutting Federal programs for the American people in order to cut taxes for billionaires. It's the same old stealth Koch agenda, with Trump as their Trojan Horse.

Jim, You probably know the story about Dean Baquet and NYT in 2016. As we learned later, in 2017, Baquet put the kibosh on any NYT stories about Trump and Russia, while running frequent headline stories about Emailgate prior to the election-- based on anonymous FBI "leaks." As a long time NYT reader, I was puzzled to see the Hillary sabotage, which was later verified by the Harvard and CJR studies. My hypothesis was that Sulzberger wanted the Trump tax cuts.

Trump’s promotion of an image of strength after assassination attempt borrows from authoritarian playbook (theconversation.com) July 25, 2024

Tom, This is off by 180 degrees. High-quality analyses showed that Hillary was aggressively sabotaged by the U.S. corporate media in 2016-- even by the NYT, as I observed at the time. Two of the best analyses of the media sabotage were done by; 1) Harvard's Berkman Klein Center, and 2) the prestigious Columbia Journalism Review. Partisanship, Propaganda, and Disinformation: Online Media and the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election | Berkman Klein Center (harvard.edu) Don’t blame the election on fake news. Blame it on the media. - Columbia Journalism Review (cjr.org)

Bill, I remember the ashes raining down on my deck during that Hayman fire. I almost packed up the family and drove to Estes Park. Later, I went to see my elderly father, and he said, "I don't understand what happened to this country. Nowadays we have forest rangers starting forest fires."