W. Niederhut

Kirk, On the contrary, I recently agreed with John Cotter that he and I have been "exacerbating our mutual irrelevance." My only "follower" nowadays is our little black Pomeranian. (Winston Churchill and I have both had a little black dog.) And I think John's only follower is his cat, Seamus... 🤥

This is the most honest Mitch McConnell press conference I've ever seen-- certainly less disingenuous than his last re-election victory speech, in which he took credit for establishing Obamacare in Kentucky... 🤥 On a serious note, however, something is seriously wrong with the Senate minority leader.

Leslie, I watched Erroll Morris's Wormwood documentary with great interest a few years ago, and I thought the conclusion was that two CIA-affiliated hit men had thrown Frank Olson out of the window. I do vaguely recall Sy Hersh refusing to name his sources.

"Incandescently stupid": Former DHS official says he had to "dumb" down classified memos for Trump www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/incandescently-stupid-former-dhs-official-says-he-had-to-dumb-down-classified-memos-for-trump/ar-AA1eo7P8?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=11cd2bfa52094a04b266206d59d4ea05&ei=13July 26, 2023Miles Taylor, who served as chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security under Donald Trump, shared how he often had to oversimply national security reports for the former president."This fifty-page memo that we would normally give to any other president about what his options are is something Trump literally can't read. The man doesn't read. We've gotta boil this down into a one-pager in his voice," Taylor told podcast host Brett Meiselas on Tuesday. "And so I had to write this incandescently stupid memo called something like, 'Afghanistan, How to Put America First and Win.' And then bullet by bullet, I summed up this highly classified memo into Trump's sort of bombastic language because it was the only way he was gonna understand," Taylor added. "I mean, I literally said in there, 'You know, if we leave Afghanistan too fast, the terrorists will call us losers. But if we wanna be seen as winners, we need to make sure the Afghan forces have the strength to push back against these criminals.' I mean, it was that dumb and that's how you had to talk to him."

Perhaps. Literary fiction is one of my favorite genres. But what I was referring to, more specifically, is your erroneous concept of the relationship between Big Oil, corporate plutocracy, and America's political parties. (See graph below.) As an example, Republicans in the U.S. have repeatedly cut taxes for the wealthy during the past 40 years-- espousing Milton Friedman's "Trickle Down" economic theories. Democrats have opposed Trickle Down, while advocating Keynesian approaches to economic stimulus during recessions (e.g., Obama's 2009 Stimulus Recovery Act.) It is true that both parties have been corrupted by the quest for funding, but it is the Republicans who wiped out a century of campaign finance reforms and put elected offices up for sale to the highest Dark Money donors with their Citizens United SCOTUS ruling.

I notice that Sidney Gottlieb is listed with the FBI group on this chart. But, according to Stephen Kinzer, Gottlieb's Operation MK-Ultra was managed by Richard Helms and the CIA, and also closely associated with Fort Dietrick.

Yeah, Ron, I've been following the catastrophic climate news closely this summer, because my sister lives in the Sonora Desert near Tucson. Obviously, catastrophic climate change is here. It's extremely depressing-- including the current fires on the Greek islands of Rhodes and Corfu, which I have visited in happier times.

Geez, John, as usual, you missed the point. Like American MAGAts, you have an inaccurate, delusional understanding of basic 21st century American politics. For starters, you should try reading Duke University historian Nancy MacLean's book, Democracy in Chains. Amazon.com: Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right's Stealth Plan for America: 9781101980972: MacLean, Nancy: Books

Pamela, The Beatles first trip to the U.S. was on February 7, 1964. Your November 18, 1963 news clip (above) was, apparently, the first time the Beatles were mentioned on U.S. television, after returning to Heathrow from a Swedish tour.

Putin has, allegedly, been attacking grain warehouses in Ukrainian ports. Does this constitute a crime against humanity, since it may result in regional famines?

John, My free psychiatric advice for today is, "Don't believe everything that your little green friends tell you." Did you ever get around to studying those comparative COVID mortality rates for vaccinated and un-vaccinated adults in the U.S.? As for RFK, Jr.'s recent comments, people were understandably offended by his suggestion that a virus may have been bio-engineered to selectively kill black people and non-Jews. It is true that black people in the U.S. died of COVID at higher rates than whites and Asians, but the ethnic group with the highest COVID mortality rate in California was Latino, predominantly Mexican. The Mexicans are the same group that your political fellow MAGA travellers want to stop with razor wire, while ordering troopers to push their hungry, little brown babies into the Rio. Have you figured out yet which corrupt plutocratic political party in the U.S. has been cutting taxes for billionaires and corporations, while sabotaging climate change mitigation for Big Oil? (Hint: It's the party that is using RFK, Jr. to sabotage Joe Biden.)

What will it take for the Orange Menace to finally get slapped with a gag order? Is the judge going to wait until Jack Smith gets murdered by a MAGA Bomber?

Hey, wait a minute... I thought RFK, Jr. was refraining from criticizing Trump's historic corruption because he wanted to end America's partisan polarization. But now RFK, Jr. is starting to sound like Rudy Giuliani... 😲 In major shift, RFK Jr. calls for corruption investigation of Joe Biden | Just The News

Leslie, If it's any consolation, I once suggested to Ben, on the old 56 Years thread, that, if he ever started a right wing talk radio show in Thailand, he should use Kinky Friedman's song, Get Your Biscuits in the Oven and Your Buns in the Bed as his introductory theme song... 🤥

Wow. Cool. The Cavern Club in Liverpool?

Ron, I remember those Beatle wigs for sale at Woolworth's, (in 1964) and my older relatives being shocked and appalled by the Beatles' haircuts. My older sister bought a copy of that Vee Jay album, Introducing the Beatles, in 1964, and I know for certain that Please, Please Me was the first track on Side Two of her copy of the album. (I bought a vinyl copy of that album many years later, but it didn't include the Please, Please Me track.) The Beatles' first U.S. hit single, I Want to Hold Your Hand, went to #1 in the U.S. in January of 1964. 1964 was when I first heard their music, including their historic February 1964 appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show-- almost a year after they released Please, Please Me in the U.K. As Bob Dylan mentioned in Murder Most Fowl, the Beatles' historic U.S. invasion happened on the heels of the JFK assassination.

Matt, Did the subject of the JFK records come up in RFK, Jr.'s recent House testimony?

Robert, Isn't it fair to say that Prouty was very careful to avoid disclosing classified U.S. intelligence, while trying to tell the public that the CIA and Dulles' "secret team" were operating beyond the purview of our elected government officials and national ideals? For example, Prouty revised his initial draft of The Secret Team to include previously classified material relating to the newly published Pentagon Papers (some of which he, himself had written.) I don't think it's "cult like" to try to accurately characterize Prouty's writings and motives. My take is that he was deeply troubled by his suspicion that Dulles and his CIA black ops people (and sub-contractors?) had murdered the President of the United States.

It's no joke, Ben, it's a serious problem. Tell Paul Rigby the bad news. How Putin’s Russia embraced fascism while preaching anti-fascism - Atlantic Council As for Trump's proto-fascist MAGA cult... Trump and the Republican party exemplify these five elements of fascism | Robert Reich | The Guardian Report: Trump keeps Hitler book at bedside - UPI Archives

Robert, Larry, David, et.al., Isn't it fair to say that, ultimately, Prouty proved to be a rare "inside" critic of the CIA-- viewing Dulles & Co. as a rogue black ops organization operating beyond the purview-- and, at times, in opposition to-- the policies of the U.S. President and Congress? And he was, certainly, in a position to understand that important problem. His involvement in the CIA's Trujillo op underscores his explicit opinion that it would not have been difficult for the CIA's assassination ops experts (including external sub-contractors) to re-direct their efforts toward Dallas.

Paul, Based on my reading of The Secret Team, Prouty always worked FOR the USAF (and Army prior to 1947) as a (later) liaison to the CIA. In fact, he never signed a CIA non-disclosure agreement, insisting to Dulles that he had a higher level military clearance. If I'm not mistaken, Prouty wasn't involved in planning CIA black ops around the world, including Lansdale's CIA ops at Saigon Station. His job was to supply transportation and military supplies for Dulles' CIA ops. It sounds like Robert Montenegro has a rare 1973 edition of The Secret Team-- which was confiscated and destroyed (?) by the CIA. I have only read a 2011 Kindle edition.

Larry Schnapf may have already addressed this question, but is there any way for the public to obtain a judicial ruling invalidating Biden's illegal June 30th executive order? It seems quite clear, from this article, that Biden's order violates the letter of the law.

Agreed, Leslie. But, on the flip side, no one else in the mainstream U.S. media has ever been willing to tell the truth about the JFK assassination-- even giving a Fox platform to James DiEugenio and Lawrence Schnapf. I think Fletcher Prouty faced a similar problem years ago. As he said about the Liberty Lobby, he was, "a writer in search of a platform," which was unavailable in the Mockingbird mainstream media. It's the same reason that some accurate critics of the U.S. military industrial complex could only find a platform at Russia Today. (I used to read Russia Today just to get perspectives censored by the Mockingbird M$M. Of course, some of it was Kremlin bs, but some of it was true.)