W. Niederhut

JFK delivered his famous "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech 60 years ago this week, in Berlin, on June 26, 1963. In going to Berlin, JFK was expressing American support for NATO, and a commitment to the defense of freedom in West Berlin from Soviet totalitarianism. In defending Ukraine from Putin's military invasion and intended annexation of Ukraine, America's second Irish Catholic POTUS, Joe Biden, has been walking in his predecessor JFK's footsteps-- defending liberal democracy in Europe from militant totalitarianism. Yet, Joe Biden has been criticized by Donald Trump, Fox News, and others, for supporting Ukrainian sovereignty following Putin's invasion. In fact, following Putin's brutal invasion of Ukraine, Donald Trump declared publicly that, "Putin is a genius." Trump calls Putin 'genius' and 'savvy' for Ukraine invasion - POLITICO And, in July of 2022, conservative Fox News host Tucker Carlson said, "I don't really care... what Putin does in Ukraine." Tucker Carlson: "I don’t really care" what Putin does in Ukraine (axios.com)

Ben, Get a clue. There is no meaningful equivalence between Trump's multiple counts of mishandling (and even hiding) highly classified documents-- even Top Secret military intelligence-- and anything done by Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, Hillary Clinton, or Joe Biden. You probably don't know that the use of private Email servers was still legal when Powell, Rice, and Clinton were Secretaries of State. And the allegedly "classified" content in Hillary's Emails was marginal, at best. Also, Trump, himself, signed off on stricter laws about Presidential Records, after making a big deal about the Fox News/Hillary Email-gate nothing burger. Then Trump deliberately broke his own laws. Do some remedial reading and spare us the MAGA/false equivalence propaganda. Here's a good reference for you. What Are the Classified Documents in the Trump Indictment? - Lawfare (lawfareblog.com)

The lamest of lame rebuttals, John. It sounds like your response is to suggest that Prigozhin is simply making stuff up about Putin's pretexts for implementing the Dugin plan to annex Ukraine? Brilliant. But I asked you first. Who is your anti-democracy, anti-American propaganda Oracle over there in Ireland?

Yes, of course, restoring "faith." We need to re-elect Trump and his fascist plutocrats, and get back to worshipping the Golden Calf. We need to restore traditional Republican values-- corporate welfare, tax cuts for the rich, cutting Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, and gutting the EPA.

Yes, let's. Biden and the Democrats have had to deal with right wing attacks on democracy, at home and abroad, since 2021-- by the proto-fascist, white supremacist Trump cult and by Putin's totalitarian police state. Thus far, Biden and the Democrats have prevailed, in the footsteps of JFK and his defense of Berlin. Is that unfortunate, in your bizarre opinion?

Huh? Trump is a Deep State adversary? On what planet? If Trump is a Deep State adversary, why did he block the release of the JFK records in October of 2017, when they were finally supposed to be released to the public, 25 years after the passage of the JFK Records Act? Explain. If Trump is a Deep State adversary, why did he renege on his 2016 campaign promise to "tell the American people who really destroyed the World Trade Center on 9/11?" Why did he launch Tomahawk cruise missiles at Syrian Army positions? You've been drinking the MAGA Koolaid, Karl. Trump only pretended to be a victim of the Deep State, beginning in 2017, in order to try to blame the "Deep State" for his crimes against the United States-- accepting illegal campaign funds from Russia (and GRU hacking of Emails and voter registration databases) during the 2016 U.S. election, then staging a coup attempt in January of 2021 to remain in power. Trump is no adversary or victim of the Deep State. He's a con man and a criminal who habitually blames others for his crimes.

Damn. Has anyone done a tally of MAGA Ben Cole's redundant RFK,Jr. threads on the JFKA board since the 56 Years thread was closed, and Ben refused to post on his MAGA Water Cooler thread?

John, Have you figured out yet that Prigozhin's latest confession about Putin's bogus pretexts for invading Ukraine completely debunks your oft-repeated narrative blaming the U.S. and NATO for the invasion? So much for the oppressive G-7 democracies "poking the bear," eh? BTW, what are your anti-American propaganda sources over there?

This statement by Prigozhin, certainly, debunks the oft-repeated Russia Today narrative on the Education Forum blaming Biden and NATO for Putin's invasion of Ukraine. Hopefully, we'll hear an explanation from the "blame it on NATO" crowd-- but I won't hold my breath.

Hmmm... Not a single comment about Prigozhin's remarkable confession here, from the guys who have been pushing the "blame it on Biden and NATO" narrative about Putin's invasion of Ukraine?? Talk about yer confirmation bias... 🙄

Ron, Your Berry Gordy post (above) got me thinking about the Contours great 1962 Berry Gordy song, Do You Love Me, which got me thinking about the Isley Brothers great 1962 hit, Twist and Shout, which got me thinking about this incredible 1963 Beatles' performance for Queen Elizabeth II. The Beatles really nailed this live 1963 performance of Twist and Shout, although the song wasn't released in the U.S. until 1964.

Very strange, and it's hard to know what is really going on. With his capitulation, my guess is that Prigozhin's head will, ultimately, end up on a pike.

Should we call this Wagnerian opera, "Gotterdammerung?" I'm wondering what will happen if Prigozhin manages to occupy Moscow.

"Plunder" is the key word, Kirk. IMO, the three P's of Putin-ism are plunder, police, and propaganda, as those of us in the ROCOR learned back in 2007. Putin's aggressive international propaganda convinced many in the West that NATO and Ukrainian fascists were responsible for the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine-- with major assists from Faux News and Putin's Orange Asset, Donald Trump. And the Putin apologists have persistently refused to study or discuss Putin's history, while focusing their diatribes on the sins of the U.S. and NATO. "Russia is a mafia front with factions fighting each other for money, resources and power and the present situation is a clear indication that Putin was not able to control the factions from infighting." -- Gary Kasparov June 23, 2023

Texas Heat Wave Has Smashed Some All-Time Records, And Will Expand Into Next Week (msn.com)

How about, "Operation Truth Social?" 🤥 Meanwhile, I'm hoping that John Cotter will continue to entertain us with his comical anti-democracy diatribes. John has ducked the question, but I think he'd be right at home in NOKO, rather than being oppressed by American full spectrum dominance in South Korea or Japan. As a vegan, John could live on kimchi in NOKO, avoid vaccinations, and spend his days posting pablum in praise of Kim Jong Un and his peaceful, multi-polar ballistic missiles.

Folks, I found an educational forum meme for John Cotter about 21st century European politics... 🤥

Interesting history, Jim. Thanks for posting this. JFK was, obviously, interested in maintaining the NATO alliance in 1963, while simultaneously seeking peace with the Soviets, if possible. Your JFK history reference here is a welcome break from reading Ben Cole's repetitious, flatulent nocturnal posts about RFK, Jr. and the JFK records, etc., etc. On a positive note, Ben has finally ceased denying Donald Trump's criminal conduct lately. He has reached the MAGA stage of not wanting to talk about Trump's history, other than vague denials about the fascist characteristics of the MAGA cult.

Yeah, Matt, things have progressed to the point where the old Trump advocates, like Benjamin Cole, no longer want to even mention Trump's name. That's progress, of sorts. I remember this happening after Nixon resigned. His old fans never wanted to even mention his name. Unfortunately, they all crawled out of the woodwork to vote for Reagan in 1980.

Sure thing, Larry. Do let us know which specific details of Russ Baker's analyses are incorrect. Thus far, all you have posted are vague, inaccurate generalizations.

Another low point in the history of the Republican Party-- censuring an exemplary American statesman, Adam Schiff, for his investigations and eloquent, accurate commentaries about Donald Trump's crimes. Let's recall that Schiff was the minority party leader on Devin Nunes's GOP-controlled House Intel Committee that "looked for no evidence of Russian collusion and reportedly found none." And the Party of Stupid vote censuring Schiff happened along strict party lines. 🙄 House Republicans take the rare step of censuring Rep. Adam Schiff over Trump-era probes https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/house-republicans-censure-rep-adam-schiff-trump-era-probes-rcna90451

The West deserves much of the blame for Putin’s rise to unchecked power By Vladimir Kara-Murza Global Opinions contributor|Follow June 21, 2023 at 2:11 p.m. EDT PRETRIAL DETENTION CENTER NO. 5, MOSCOW — Dictatorial regimes can come to power in different ways. Sometimes, it is through years of civil war, as with the Bolsheviks in Russia after 1917. Sometimes, it is through democratic procedures, as in 1930s Germany. Or, as in Chile in 1973, it can happen as the result of a military coup. Vladimir Putin achieved power in 1999 by a backroom deal in the top ranks of President Boris Yeltsin’s administration. But the new Kremlin leader needed time to transform Russia’s imperfect democracy into the seamless authoritarian system it is today. No one can pinpoint the precise moment Russia ceased to be democratic. But the year can be named with certainty. It was 2003 — and this week marks exactly 20 years since the first turning point in that transformation. On June 22 of that year, Putin’s press ministry turned off the broadcasting signal of TVS, Russia’s last independent television network. In a characteristic display of Soviet-style hypocrisy, the official reason it cited was “viewers’ interests.” This was the final step in Putin’s campaign against independent television, which he had launched days after his inauguration with a security raid on the offices of Russia’s largest private media holding. Within three years, all major independent broadcasters — NTV, TV-6 and finally TVS — fell silent, giving the Kremlin a complete monopoly on the airwaves. Controlling public sources of information is a prerequisite to any dictatorship. Two other milestones came later that year. In October 2003, Putin’s security services arrested Russia’s richest man, oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky. The official charge was tax evasion. But the real reason was Khodorkovsky’s funding of civil society groups and opposition parties and his public confrontation with Putin over government corruption. This was a clear signal from the Kremlin to all of Russia’s business community: Stay loyal or stay out. Finally, in December came Russia’s parliamentary election that — for the first time since the end of Soviet rule — was assessed by international observers as unfair. It resulted in the ejection of pro-democracy parties from the Duma. With the Russian parliament becoming — in the unforgettable words of its speaker — “not a place for discussion,” Putin’s authoritarian transformation was complete. Follow Vladimir Kara-Murza's opinions Follow For those of us who had been involved in the democratic opposition to Putin from the very start of his rule, it was painful to watch how calmly most of Russian society seemed to accept the dismantling of the nascent freedoms of the 1990s. There were street protests against the state takeover of NTV — but nowhere near the scale merited by the situation. There were principled voices in the Russian parliament against Putin’s authoritarian moves — such as Boris Nemtsov — but they were not matched by a mass popular movement. As a candidate for the Duma in the critical 2003 election, I remember well how indifferent most voters even in my Moscow district were to the country’s authoritarian turn. After the economic hardships that accompanied the collapse of the Soviet system in the 1990s, many people were willing to accept Putin’s unspoken social contract: higher living standards (bankrolled by rising oil prices) in return for giving up political freedoms. So when politicians and opinion-makers in the West today speak of Russian society’s responsibility for allowing Putin’s rise to unchecked power (and ultimately leading us to the current war), they have a point — but only partly. Why? Because a very large part of that responsibility lies with the West itself. When Putin came to power, Russia was fully integrated into the international rules-based system. It belonged to the Group of Eight industrialized democracies; it was a member of the Council of Europe, which serves to safeguard human rights on the continent; it was (and still is) a participating state in the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, whose statutes explicitly assert that matters relating to democracy, human rights and the rule of law are of legitimate concern to all member states. So when Putin launched ever more active efforts to dismantle Russia’s democratic institutions, we in the Russian opposition naively thought the free world would express criticism. Instead, American presidents of both parties applauded Putin’s rise. George W. Bush called him “a new style of leader, a reformer … who is going to make a huge difference in making the world more peaceful.” Barack Obama lauded his “extraordinary work … on behalf of the Russian people.” One German chancellor even went to work for one of Russia’s biggest state-controlled companies. But perhaps the most grotesque gesture came from the British government, which welcomed Putin for a lavish state visit — complete with a horse-drawn carriage ride with the queen and billions of dollars in lucrative contracts — literally two days after he pulled the plug on TVS in June 2003. I covered that visit as a journalist, and I will never forget the surreal spectacle of Britain’s political and financial elite hosting the emerging dictator at an ornate banquet at the London Guildhall. The immorality and cynicism of this realpolitik aside, the architects of the Western policy of embracing Putin ignored two fundamental warnings from history: that internal repression in Russia always translates into external aggression and that appeasing an aggressor always leads to war. Again, the free world has learned this the hard way. After he got away with so much else over the years, both at home and abroad, it is not surprising that Putin thought he could get away with occupying Ukraine, too. Incredibly, there are still voices in the West who are suggesting that he should. Day after day, Russian state television (which I am forced to watch in my prison cell) relays statements by Kremlin-friendly politicians and talking heads in Western Europe and the United States calling for some kind of an “understanding” with Putin over Ukraine. I can think of no better recipe for disaster — and for a new, even larger war a couple of years down the road — than handing the aggressor yet another cave-in. There is only one outcome of this conflict that would be in the interests of the free world, of Ukraine and, ultimately, of the Russian people: resounding defeat for Putin, to be followed by political change in Russia and a Marshall Plan-type international assistance program both to rebuild Ukraine and to help post-Putin Russia build a functioning democracy so that it never again becomes a threat to its own people or its neighbors. That is the only way to make sure Europe can finally become whole, free and at peace — and stay that way. Both Russian society and the West are responsible for letting Putin come as far as he did. Both of us also share the responsibility to get it right this time. Vladimir Kara-Murza is a Russian opposition politician and Post contributor who has been imprisoned in Moscow since April for speaking out against the war on Ukraine. He has been designated by Amnesty International as a prisoner of conscience.

Jim, Hold on... Aren't these multiple JFK Peace Speech threads implicit criticisms of Biden's support for Ukraine following Putin's 2022 invasion? How, then, is a discussion of Putin irrelevant? And aren't they also repeatedly linked by you and Ben Cole to RFK, Jr.'s anti-Biden Presidential campaign-- which has been promoted by the Fox "News" Anti-Biden Propaganda network? Meanwhile, you ducked my related question yesterday about why JFK went to Berlin in June of 1963.

And yet, Doug, we need to learn from our disastrous mistakes, don't we? How did a disaster like Donald Trump happen to the United States?

Actually, Paul, I have asked Larry an array of questions about his comments regarding RFK, Jr., Russ Baker, Fox News, Ukraine, and his low opinion of Vice President Harris. Where's the reduction? Isn't this a discussion forum?