W. Niederhut

Has there ever been a poll here on the Education Forum Robert, Has there ever been a poll here on the Education Forum regarding LBJ's complicity in the plot to murder LBJ? I'd be interested in the results-- including expert opinions about whether LBJ was; 1) a "Mastermind," 2) an Accomplice, or 3) Unaware of the plot to murder JFK.

Posted at DU this morning... 😂 "I tried playing hoops in Trump sneakers, but all I could do was draw charges."

Trump President's Day Sale!!! Everything Must Go!!! President Trump Must Raise $400 Million ASAP!!! Choose From Hundreds of Discounted Trump Items!! Golden Trump Mar-a-Lago Toilet-- Only $799K !! (Used by Donald Trump, Himself, for Crapping and Flushing Documents)

Doug, If we lost WWIII, I think America would look something like this, at least in Nevada...

What a farce... Trump's MAGA goons dragged Fani Willis's father into this fracus and he, basically, dunked on them. The man worked for Nelson Mandela and helped prosecute war crimes at the Hague! Interesting that the white Republican judge overseeing this farce used to work for Fani Willis. I wonder how he feels about the MAGA attorneys asking Wade and Willis, in so many words, "Where did you two N---gers get the money for a vacation?"

Very interesting to me, personally, as an Orthodox Christian convert (from agnosticism and childhood Protestantism.) I have traveled in Greece, but I'm not very knowledgeable about their contemporary culture. My guess is that old-fashioned conservatives will be angry about this legislation, but that most Greeks will accept it.

Michael Roman the man who brought these Fani Willis allegations Mike Roman, seen in his booking photo Aug. 25 in Atlanta, is charged along with Donald Trump for allegedly conspiring to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia. (Washington Post illustration; iStock; Fulton County Sheriff's Office/AP) February 15, 2024 Michael Roman is an American political operative and opposition researcher. Roman was a staffer for President Donald Trump from 2017 to 2018. He subsequently worked for the Trump 2020 campaign as director of election day operations. Roman has a history of making misleading and unsubstantiated claims about voter fraud. On Election Day in 2020, he posted baseless and deceptive claims of voter fraud. He delivered the list of false electors for Michigan and Wisconsin to US Representative Mike Kelly who provided them to US Senator Ron Johnson. Staff of Ron Johnson tried to get these lists to Vice President Mike Pence before the count of the electoral votes on January 6, 2021. On September 12, 2022, the New York Times reported that agents of the U.S. Justice Department seized Roman's cell phone in conjunction with 40 subpoenas issued in the investigation of the false electors. CNN reported in June 2023 that Roman had entered into a proffer agreement with the Smith special counsel investigation. On August 14, 2023, Roman was indicted under RICO charges in Fulton County, Georgia, related to activities attempting to overturn the 2020 election. Prior to joining the Trump presidential campaign, Roman headed up an intelligence gathering operation for Charles and David Koch, industrialists and high-profile Republican donors. The now-defunct office surveilled and gathered intelligence on liberal opponents of conservative policies. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Roman Mike Roman is in the spotlight after his bombshell allegations of an improper relationship between Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and a lawyer she hired to help prosecute the former president As Mike Roman spoke to a gathering of fellow conservative activists in March 2022, he offered a glimpse of the intelligence-gathering skills he had honed over the previous decade working as an opposition researcher for Donald Trump and Republican megadonors. “I show my wife this all the time when we go to a hotel,” Roman told the crowd in Harrisburg, Pa., according to an audio recording reviewed by The Washington Post. “She logs on to the Hilton WiFi, and I go on and I ‘tap, tap, tap,’ and I show her everybody else that’s on there and how we could get into their computer.” After spending years digging in the shadows, Roman is now in the spotlight, having landed a damaging blow to the racketeering case that Georgia prosecutors are pursuing against Trump and more than a dozen others — including Roman — for trying to overturn the 2020 election. Roman has pleaded not guilty. In a bombshell legal filing on Jan. 8, Roman’s attorney alleged that Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis (D), who is heading the prosecution, is in a romantic relationship with Nathan Wade, an outside lawyer she hired for the case. While Wade’s firm was receiving more than $650,000 in public funds, Wade — who has been embroiled in a messy divorce — was paying for vacations with Willis in the Caribbean and elsewhere, according to Roman, who alleges that Willis improperly benefited. Roman has asked a judge to toss out his indictment and disqualify both prosecutors from the case, a request that will be the subject of a hearing scheduled for Feb. 15. Whatever its outcome, the salacious allegations have already given Trump ammunition for attacks aimed at discrediting the prosecution. “When is Fani going to drop the case,” he asked on social media, “or should it be dropped for her?” www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2024/02/02/mike-roman-trump-georgia-election-case-fani-willis/ No paywall archive.is/e3wTH

Michael Griffith's propaganda trope about "scholars" agreeing with his inaccurate defamation of Col. Prouty is risible-- and I say that as a guy who earned academic awards and degrees from two Ivy League universities. Griffith's own educational credentials are hardly impressive. He has been educated, partly, in the U.S. military industrial complex, and he works within that complex. The truth about academia, in the JFKA case, is that academicians have mostly been on the wrong side of JFKA history for the past 60 years, with some notable exceptions, like Peter Dale Scott and John Newman. One of the worst examples was Nobel Laureate Luis Alvarez promoting his cellophane-wrapped melon propulsion theory to explain the violent retrograde motion of JFK's head during the frontal headshot from the Grassy Knoll area.

It's also called, "narcissistic entitlement." I worked with some wealthy narcissists during my career who exhibited that disturbing character trait. It goes hand-in-hand with a general lack of empathy. 🙄

Great post, Cliff. Love the instrumental ensemble and vocals of Big Mama Thornton here, which I had never heard. Far superior to Elvis's version that we all know so well. Oddly, this authentic sounding R&B number was written by the Caucasian song writers Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. And, since this is a 2024 Super Bowl thread, I should mention that Leiber & Stoller also wrote the R&B classic, Kansas City, which was a big hit for Wilbert Harrison back in 1959. The Beatles played the song, Kansas City, on Shindig in 1964, (too much teen screaming to enjoy that recording) and they also played it on Peter Jackson's Get Back documentary, during their Let It Be studio sessions in 1969. I heard Paul McCartney perform Kansas City at Folsom Field in Boulder on his 1993 Paul Is Live tour (with Robbie McIntosh and Linda, who was, sadly, not long for this world.) Several of those Folsom Field takes ended up on the Paul Is Live album, but I think the Kansas City track on the album was the take from Kansas City. (Apologies, in advance, to 49er fans.)

So, MAGA Mike Johnson just tried to justify the farcical impeachment of Alejandro Matorkas by saying, "Desperate times call for desperate measures." Mind you, this is the same disingenuous MAGA milquetoast who recently blocked a House vote on the bipartisan Senate border security bill, for Trump.* To paraphrase Winston Churchill, Mike Johnson is like a "slimy salamander, wrapped in a film of fraudulence, inside of a Louisiana swamp rat." * (McConnell, Rick Scott, and Senate Republicans flipped on approving their bipartisan border security bill after Mike Johnson told them that he would not bring it to a House vote.)

The Disgracefulness of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. At a time when the truth is a precious common good, RFK Junior has been spreading dangerous lies. ROBERT REICH Feb 13, 2024RobertReich.Org Robert F. Kennedy Junior has apologized to relatives after his Super Bowl ad last Sunday, which mirrored an ad broadcast by his uncle John F. Kennedy’s campaign in 1960. The Super Bowl ad included images of RFK Jr. spliced into the original 1960 ad and a jaunty jingle that repeated the Kennedy surname 15 times in 30 seconds. RFK Junior said the ad was the work of his SuperPAC and he had nothing to do with it. Rubbish. Junior placed the ad at the top of his X feed, and it remained there Monday. The ad cost $7 million. Timothy Mellon — grandson of Andrew Mellon and an heir to the Mellon banking fortune — gave RFK Junior’s SuperPAC $15 million. Hmmm. Mellon is also a major donor to PACs supporting Trump. RFK Junior’s candidacy is backed by a PAC that also funds Marjorie Taylor Greene. If not for his lustrous name, RFK Junior would be just another crackpot in the growing pool of bottom-feeding right-wing fringe politicians seeking to help Trump. No one should doubt that Trump and Trump donors are behind RFK Junior’s campaign, with the goal of siphoning off enough votes from Biden to ensure a Trump victory. How does RFK Junior intend to get on enough state ballots to hurt Biden? As he told CNN last week, he and officials from the Libertarian Party, which has ballot access, "are talking." In a poll conducted late last year, RFK Junior was supported by 22 percent of respondents and a greater number of independent voters than either President Biden or Trump. In January, Gallup reported that 52 percent of Americans view RFK Junior favorably — a higher percentage than either Biden (41 percent) or Trump (42 percent) received. These results reflect the popularity of the Kennedy name and dissatisfaction with the likely nominees of the major parties. In addition, RFK Junior has not received the public scrutiny that presidential candidates inevitably get. It’s time to lift the curtain on a campaign based on false, irresponsible and self-contradictory claims. At a time when the truth is a precious common good, RFK Junior has been spreading dangerous lies. He claims that COVID-19 was “targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people” and that “the people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.” And that “the Chinese are spending hundreds of millions of dollars developing ethnic bioweapons and we are developing ethnic bioweapons. They’re collecting Russian DNA. They’re collecting Chinese DNA so we can target people by race.” RFK Junior has also promoted the baseless claim linking vaccines to autism. He’s been a leading proponent of COVID-19 vaccine misinformation, erroneously suggesting the vaccine has killed more people than it has saved. In his 2021 book, The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health, he alleged, without plausible evidence, that Dr. Fauci performed “genocidal experiments, sabotaged treatments for AIDS, and conspired with Bill Gates to suppress information about COVID-19.” This is libelous nonsense. RFK Junior’s misinformation about vaccines continues to endanger public health. Friends, I knew Robert F. Kennedy, and Robert F. Kennedy Junior is no Robert F. Kennedy. I worked in Robert F. Kennedy’s Senate office in 1967. It wasn’t a glamorous job. I ran the signature machine. But I did have a chance to get to see Bobby Kennedy close up. I watched Robert F. Kennedy stand up for economic and social justice. I witnessed him bringing together people of every race and ethnicity — to demand equal rights and an end to the Vietnam War. The Kennedy brand is political gold, and it could pull away just enough unwitting Democratic voters to tip the race to Trump. Robert F. Kennedy would never have suggested that a deadly virus was targeted at certain races. He wouldn’t have repeated the trope, dating at least to the Middle Ages, that Jews unleashed a plague on non-Jews. Another contrast with his father and his uncle: In 1962, President John F. Kennedy signed the Vaccination Assistance Act in order to, in the words of a CDC report, “achieve as quickly as possible the protection of the population, especially of all preschool children ... through intensive immunization activity.” If not for his lustrous name, RFK Junior would be just another crackpot in the growing pool of bottom-feeding right-wing fringe politicians seeking to help Trump. But the Kennedy brand is political gold, and it could pull away just enough unwitting Democratic voters to tip the race to Trump. Democracy won by a whisker in 2020. Just 44,000 votes in Arizona, Georgia, and Wisconsin decided the outcome. If RFK Junior or any third-party candidate peels off just a fraction of the vote from Biden, while Trump’s base stays with him, they will deliver a victory to Trump. That the good name of the Robert F. Kennedy I worked for 57 years ago is being used to increase the risk of a Trump victory is beyond shameful. If Junior had any respect for the principles his father fought and ultimately died for, he would withdraw his candidacy immediately.

Non sequitur alert... I don't know if anyone else around here watches Rick Beato's YouTube interviews of musicians. I think they're terrific. Here's Rick's latest commentary on Usher and 21st century Super Bowl half-time shows.

The Right Wing Trumpster Billionaire Bankrolling RFK, Jr.'s 2024 Third-Party "Spoiler" Campaign Why Is RFK, Jr. Taking Money From This Right Wing Robber Baron? Timothy Mellon - Wikipedia Excerpt In the 2018 election cycle, Mellon was a major political donor, especially to the Republican-aligned Congressional Leadership Fund.[12] According to OpenSecrets, in 2020 and 2022, he was the 6th and 5th most prolific donor in the US, spending $60 million and $47 million respectively to support Republican candidates and causes.[13] Mellon's self-published autobiography describes his political views.[14][15] Mellon called social safety net programs "Slavery Redux," adding: "For delivering their votes in the Federal Elections, they are awarded with yet more and more freebies: food stamps, cell phones, WIC payments, Obamacare, and on, and on, and on. The largess is funded by the hardworking folks, fewer and fewer in number, who are too honest or too proud to allow themselves to sink into this morass." Mellon wrote that as of 1984 (Reagan's re-election campaign), "Something had obviously gone dreadfully wrong with the Great Society and the Liberal onslaught. Poor people had become no less poor. Black people, in spite of heroic efforts by the 'Establishment' to right the wrongs of the past, became even more belligerent and unwilling to pitch in to improve their own situations," and that "Drugs rose to the level of epidemic. Single parent families became more and more prevalent. The likes of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton pandered endlessly to fan the flames."[14] In August 2021, Mellon donated $53.1 million in stock to the State of Texas to pay for construction of walls along the US–Mexico border.[16] In August 2023, it was revealed that Mellon donated $5 million via a Super PAC to the presidential campaign of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.[17]

Yes, Matt, the $24 million dollar RFK, Jr. Super Bowl ad was deeply disturbing. And RFK, Jr.'s lame disavowal of any involvement in the airing of the ad seems like another example of his disingenuousness-- like his absurd claim that he has not been actively involved in opposing vaccines.

What a joke. Since Chief Justice John Roberts presided over the January 2021 Senate impeachment trial of Donald Trump, he knows better than anyone that the GOP-controlled McConnell Senate refused to even hear the damning evidence in the case. It was a sham Senate "acquittal." And, ironically, many Republicans claimed at the time that Trump's J6 sedition case needed to be adjudicated in the courts.

Pro-RFK Jr. super PAC refashions vintage JFK ad for the Super Bowl Pro-RFK Jr. super PAC refashions vintage JFK ad for the Super Bowl - The Washington Post By Maegan Vazquez February 12, 2024 at 11:05 a.m. EST A super PAC supporting Robert F. Kennedy Jr. sponsored a 30-second ad during Sunday night’s Super Bowl, re-creating a vintage political ad used to promote John F. Kennedy’s 1960 presidential campaign and recasting it in support of his nephew’s independent 2024 run. The ad that aired during Sunday night’s game — for which Kennedy later apologized — was funded by American Values 2024. It’s essentially a remake of an 60-second ad called “Kennedy for Me,” which was created 64 years ago. The 2024 version of the ad features a shortened version of the original 1960 ad jingle. But the lyrics, “A man who’s old enough to know, and young enough to do,” take on a new meaning in a race in which Kennedy’s top two competitors — President Biden, 81, and former president Donald Trump, 77 — are facing criticism for their advanced age. Kennedy’s campaign has at times leaned into the cachet of his family’s political legacy. On Sunday, he shared several images with his family, including black-and-white pictures of him as a child, tossing the ball with his father, former attorney general Robert F. Kennedy, and his uncle, the former president. “Playing football at Hickory Hill with my father, Robert F. Kennedy, and my uncle, President John F. Kennedy,” Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wrote on X in one post. “I pray this Super Bowl Sunday is a time of laughter, great food and camaraderie for your family." After the Super Bowl ad aired, Bobby Shriver, a nephew of John F. Kennedy, wrote on X: “My cousin’s Super Bowl ad used our uncle’s faces — and my Mother’s. She would be appalled by his deadly health care views. Respect for science, vaccines, & health care equity were in her DNA.” His brother, Mark Shriver said he agreed with the sentiments. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. apologized to members of his family, including directly to Bobby Shriver, for any pain that might have been caused, pointing out that the ad was created by a group with which he was not directly involved. “I’m so sorry if the Super Bowl advertisement caused anyone in my family pain,” Kennedy wrote Sunday night. “The ad was created and aired by the American Values super PAC without any involvement or approval from my campaign. FEC rules prohibit Super PACs from consulting with me or my staff. I love you all. God bless you.” But as of Monday morning, a video of the ad remained pinned to the top of Kennedy’s X profile, followed by a link to donate to his campaign. RFK Jr. has spread falsehoods about vaccines and, according to the New York Post, claimed that the coronavirus was “targeted” to sicken Black and Caucasian people and spare Chinese people and Ashkenazi Jews — although he said that those comments were misinterpreted to smear him. His controversial views have led some members of the Kennedy clan to speak out against him. Four of his siblings issued a statement calling his candidacy “dangerous to our country.” And Jack Schlossberg, JFK’s only grandson and son of Caroline Kennedy, has criticized RFK Jr.’s 2024 run, saying, “He’s trading in on Camelot, celebrity, conspiracy theories and conflict for personal gain and fame.”

It was an edited version of JFK's old 1960 Kennedy television commercial-- substituting photos of RFK, Jr. for JFK.

More evidence, IMO, that LBJ's Great Society (and Civil Rights) legislation was a cynical, calculated ploy to woo the liberal, Democratic base. From what I have read on the subject, LBJ was never motivated by humanitarian idealism. He was motivated by ruthless self-interest and self-aggrandizement. What sort of bona fide liberal would have supported Nixon, instead of Humphrey, in 1968?

Joe, Jokic is the greatest Nikola since Tesla. People who haven't watched him play should check out his NBA passing highlight reels. The big guy used to be a water polo player, in Serbia, and he can throw full court passes on a dime.

I like Steph Curry and Steve Kerr, but how about my Yugoslavian homeboy, (and reigning World Champion) Nikola Jokic, nailing this half-court buzzer beater to defeat the Warriors recently!! I was a big Larry Bird fan when I lived in Boston during his career, and I also watched a lot of Magic Johnson's great games with the Showtime Lakers back in the day, but, IMO, Nikola Jokic is the greatest passer in NBA history-- even better than Magic.

Let's not forget one of my favorite female rock 'n roll guitarist/songwriters of the past half century... BTW, this is one of the first rock videos I ever saw-- at a club in Greenwich Village-- in the immediate pre-MTV era. I saw the Pretenders live at Red Rocks a few years later. In 1984 (?)

Kirk, I have been highly critical of Netanyahu's genocidal bombing campaign of Gaza's civilian population since October-- disputing the absurd claim that the indiscriminate massacre of Gaza's non-combatant civilians constitutes legitimate "collateral damage." As for the Progressives, Bernie has certainly called for a cease-fire, and for conditional U.S. funding of Netanyahu's war machine, although he balked at demanding a cease-fire. Elizabeth Warren criticized Zuckerburg's censorship of Palestinian rights protesters on Meta. As a Palestinian American, Rashida Tlaib has been the most vocal Congressional critic of the Israeli genocide. AIPAC is immensely powerful in U.S. politics, and, as Douglas Caddy has pointed out, Biden has openly identified himself as a "Zionist." (Paul Rigby posted an informative article on one of our JFK and Gaza threads about Biden's history with AIPAC and the Israeli PR people.) Obama was less sanguine about Netanyahu's right wing apartheid regime. Netanyahu and the Likud Party are staunchly opposed to a Palestinian state. In fact, opposition to a Palestinian state is in the Likud Party charter.

Joe, General Victor Krulak died in 2008. Prouty wrote his letter to Garrison-- mentioning that he and Krulak had ID'd their colleague, Ed Lansdale, in the Dealey Plaza photos-- in March of 1990. Jeff Carter probably knows when Prouty's 1990 letter to Garrison was made public. I can't find that info.