W. Niederhut

Understood, Larry. But how, exactly, would the release of the records "jeopardize national security" in 2023-- sixty years after JFK's murder? What is the terrible, unmentionable secret-- that the CIA and Joint Chiefs conspired to murder the POTUS? Most of us have surmised as much, but how would confirming that fact "jeopardize national security" now? The claim makes no sense.

It's not merely a matter of our having differing opinions about Russia-gate, Ben. It's about our having differing knowledge of the facts in the case. Your opinion that Russia-gate is a hoax isn't based on the facts. As Daniel Patrick Moynihan famously said, "You're entitled to your own opinions but not your own facts." I described this more general problem in American society and discourse earlier today. People in the MAGA-verse are living in a world of "alternate facts."

Geez, Ben... Thus far your "platoon" of journalistic claims that Russia-gate is a "hoax" have been thoroughly debunked by the facts. And you have still not answered a single question I have asked you about the facts relating to the Trump campaign's 2016 Kremlin contacts, and Russian interference in our 2016 U.S. election on Trump's behalf. Here's another "Russia-gate" question for you and the MAGA brain trust. What was in the document that Reality Winner leaked to the Intercept, and why did she leak it? Any clue?

Ben, You have started literally dozens of redundant threads and posts here during the past few months excoriating Joe Biden for not releasing the JFK records-- a cause of disappointment for all of us, I'm sure. (I actually wrote a letter to Biden in 2021 asking him to release the JFK records.) Fortunately, you have recently acknowledged that Trump also blocked the release of the JFK records in 2017 and 2018-- something which Glenn Greenwald tried to blame on Mike Pompeo. My question. Amidst all of your redundant excoriations of the Donks, do you have any thoughts about why Trump and Biden declined to release the records? I'm genuinely curious. What are the POTUSes (POTII?) so frightened about?

John, Sandy is right on with this appropriate re-classification of certain forum threads. It's true that the 56 Years thread began as a sub-forum for informed discussions about the general ramifications of the JFK assassination-- hence the title, "56 Years." Unfortunately, it devolved into a repository for multiple daily MAGA spam posts by two forum members, in particular, which included lengthy diatribes denying the facts about Trump's Russia-gate scandal, and claiming that Trump's J6 coup attempt was a Deep State "patriot purge." Now we're seeing a resurgence of similar MAGA spam-- e.g., praising the Durham investigation nothing burger-- in the guise of multiple, redundant threads with "RFK, Jr." in the titles. It's somewhat ironic, considering that Bill Barr-- the mastermind of the Durham "investigation" propaganda op-- began his career as a CIA lawyer, before "Mr. George Bush of the CIA" promoted Barr to AG for the purpose of pardoning his Iran-Contra cronies. It's also ironic that Mr. Odisio would be morally indignant about the re-classification of MAGA spam, while simultaneously yukking it up with the ROKC forum critics of our Education Forum MAGA spam.

AJ, Surely you don't believe that the CIA objective of covering up the JFK assassination plot-- and promoting public acceptance of the WCR-- ended with the deaths of Allen Dulles and Richard Cabell, do you? The systematic murders of key JFKA witnesses-- e.g., De Mohrenschildt and Giancana-- continued well after the death of Dulles, and the Mockingbird psy op to suppress the truth about JFKA in our M$M has continued to the present day. From what I have read, Prouty was, definitely, concerned about "crossing a line" with the CIA. And he was fully aware of the assassination capabilities of Murder, Inc.

Roger O., When did Veselnitskaya meet with Don, Jr. and the Trump campaign team at Trump Tower? Any idea? When did Paul Manafort meet with Konstantin Kilimnik in 2016? When did the GRU launch their 2016 hacking operations on Trump's behalf? When did Trump and Manafort alter the GOP platform on U.S. support for Ukraine? When did Felix Sater first announce that Putin intended to put Trump in the White House?

Question for Adam Johnson. A.J., If Prouty was collaborating with the CIA, why was his work an indictment of Dulles's "secret team," CIA black ops expert Ed Lansdale, and putative Deep State motives for murdering JFK? If I recall correctly, the timing of the belated publication of Prouty's book on JFK and Vietnam had more to do with end of life issues. Like Wayne January, Prouty was a "man who knew too much," and didn't want to die prematurely. My hunch is that Len Osanic and Greg Burnham could answer your specific questions.

When propagandists repeat the lies, we need to repeat the truth. Col. L. Fletcher Prouty was a respected U.S. military veteran, and a man of exemplary character, who blew the whistle on CIA black ops and the reversal of JFK's Vietnam policy after 11/22/63.

So, Ben Cole goes 0-for-4 in answering my specific questions (above) about the Russia-gate facts, then simply repeats his alternate reality Trump/MAGA narrative about Russia-gate for the umpteenth time. Ben and the MAGA media traffic in what Kellyanne Conway openly referred to as "alternate facts." This illustrates a broader, more serious problem in American society nowadays. Why is it that we are continually witnessing conflicting dual narratives in our media and social discourse about anything relating to Donald Trump? Worth contemplating.

A terrifying, riveting portrait of the KKK in the 1920s Timothy Egan’s ‘A Fever in the Heartland’ recounts how one man sparked the group’s resurgence in Indiana Review by Richard Just May 18, 2023 at 9:00 a.m. EDT (Viking) Listen 6 min Comment41 Add to your saved stories Save Gift Article Share Why are people drawn to demagogues? Why have millions of citizens of democracies chosen, from time to time over the centuries, to pledge fealty to leaders whose actions — political and personal — are obviously repugnant? What could possibly be the appeal? These questions hover over Timothy Egan’s excellent new work of narrative nonfiction. “A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan’s Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them” is a highly readable chronicle of how the early-20th-century Klan resurrected itself following decades of dormancy; how it obtained millions of converts, not only in the South but throughout the country; and how, by the 1920s, it had infiltrated all levels of the U.S. government. But it is also a terrifying study of one particular Klan leader — a rapist and bigot who managed, in a matter of years, to acquire a vast popular following and to become the unelected boss of Indiana politics, all while formulating plans to propel himself to the White House. D.C. Stephenson, born in Texas, was a drifter with an amoral entrepreneurial streak, and he happened to find himself in Evansville, Ind., in the early ’20s, a moment when the national Ku Klux Klan was rapidly expanding and seeking inroads in Northern states. “He was a young man on the make, and a quick learner,” Egan writes. “His new life in Evansville was a dash and a dodge, just a few steps ahead of the multiple lives he’d left behind.” Stephenson was hired by a Klan recruiter, and he “presented a plan to leadership: He would conquer all of Indiana for the Ku Klux Klan, not just a bridgehead in Evansville.” He fulfilled this plan with shocking speed. The Klan’s agenda of white supremacy turned out to be all too popular among rank-and-file Hoosiers, who began joining the terrorist group en masse. Many institutions — especially Protestant churches, whose ministers the Klan bribed — were quickly co-opted. Within years, “the Klan owned the state, and Stephenson owned the Klan,” Egan writes. “Cops, judges, prosecutors, ministers, mayors, newspaper editors — they all answered to the Grand Dragon. … Most members of the incoming state legislature took orders from the hooded order, as did the majority of the congressional delegation.” And this hate-filled reign might have continued if not for the decision of Madge Oberholtzer, who was raped by Stephenson in 1925, to speak out. Her bravery set in motion a trial and conviction that ensured that Stephenson would spend decades in prison. The Klan was humiliated in the eyes of the public, and its power in Indiana began to wane. Author Timothy Egan. (Ruth Fremson) Egan is a meticulous researcher and, perhaps especially, a skilled storyteller. His reconstruction of Stephenson’s deplorable arc — his lie-fueled rise, his vile charisma, his ultimate fall — is a master class in the tools of narrative nonfiction: high stakes, ample suspense and sweeping historical phenomena made vivid through the dramatic actions of individual villains and heroes. Advertisement But it was the question of “why” — why did so many people place their trust and admiration in this self-evidently horrible man and his fellow terrorists? — that I found myself returning to in the days after finishing this book. The most fundamental answer, unfortunately, is that bigotry — xenophobia, antisemitism and particularly racism — has always managed to find a receptive audience in American life. Depending on the moment and the context, that audience can be large or small, but it invariably seems to exist in some form. “A vein of hatred,” Egan writes, “was always there for the tapping.” Yet the Klan benefited from other factors as well. William Simmons, founder of the 20th-century Klan, said his group was aided by early attempts to discredit it, including congressional hearings. “It wasn’t until the newspapers began to attack the Klan that it really grew,” Simmons said. “And then Congress gave us the best advertising we ever got.” Advertisement As for Stephenson, Egan notes how adeptly he manipulated the public: “He discovered that if he said something often enough, no matter how untrue, people would believe it. Small lies were for the timid.” Egan also suggests that Stephenson’s abhorrent personal behavior may have actually, for a time, reinforced his popularity. The year before he raped Oberholtzer, he was briefly detained after attempting to rape a manicurist at a hotel and severely beating a bellhop. In the wake of this episode, Egan notes, many Klan members “chose selective amnesia,” and “some were even impressed. For here was a man liberated from shame, a man who not only boasted of being able to get away with any violation of human decency for his entire life, but had just proved it for all to see.” More sensible citizens, meanwhile, may have been caught unaware. Stephenson and his allies demonstrated what demagogues throughout history have discovered: Odd-seeming movements can migrate from the fringes to the center in the blink of an eye. Egan quotes Robert Coughlan, from Kokomo, Ind., who wrote about the town’s embrace of the Klan. “It first appealed to the ignorant, the slightly unbalanced and the venal,” Coughlan explained, “but by the time the enlightened elements realized the danger it was already on top of them.” A press that inadvertently makes itself complicit in the rise of demagogues by showering them with attention; habitual XXXXX who successfully blur the distinction between truth and fabrication through endless repetition of falsehoods; leaders admired by loyal followers in part because of their moral transgressions; a movement that begins with the unbalanced and venal before conquering the mainstream: Maybe this all sounds depressingly familiar to you in 2023. Egan mostly resists making explicit parallels to the present, but they lurk just below the surface of this well-crafted and thoughtful book — a grim, necessary reminder that the difficult-to-fathom appeal of the most unappealing extremists never really goes away. Richard Just is a former editor of The Washington Post Magazine, National Journal magazine and the New Republic. A Fever in the Heartland The Ku Klux Klan’s Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them By Timothy Egan Viking. 404 pp. $30

Steve, No doubt, Kansas has been a "Republican" stronghold since the days of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, but what's strange about these recent developments is that "Bleeding" Kansas was an original epicenter of Abolitionism in the 1850s. The Jayhawkers in Lawrence, Kansas were among the first U.S. citizens to wage war against slavery. More evidence here of the post-Civil Rights era GOP becoming aligned with the former Confederacy.

Serious questions for the Education Forum. Both sides can't be correct about this subject. 1) Was Trump's Russia-gate scandal a "hoax," as Trump, Trump propagandists, and Benjamin Cole have repeatedly claimed on this forum during the past two years? 2) Did the Kremlin interfere in the 2016 U.S. election on behalf of Donald Trump, as the Mueller investigation and GOP-led Senate Intel Committee concluded? 3) Did multiple members of Trump's 2016 campaign team -- including his son, son-in-law, former Campaign Manager Paul Manafort, Rick Gates, Roger Stone, et.al. -- meet with Kremlin officials (and cut outs) during the 2016 campaign, (e.g., Kilimnik, Veselnitskaya) to discuss hacked Emails, and U.S. polling data? 4) Why did Michael Flynn plead guilty to lying to the FBI about his December 2016 phone calls with Sergei Kisylak? Meanwhile, the Durhan investigation was a four-year Bill Barr nothing burger that resulted in two dubious criminal charges and zero convictions-- contrary to the Republican spin in the M$M this week.

White men can't jump, but my Yugoslavian homeboy, Nikola Jokic, can really pass and shoot. He started out as a water polo player in Serbia. Now Jokic, an improbable two-time NBA MVP, is going up against the legendary LeBron James and the L.A. Lakers in the NBA Western Finals. So far, there's good news and bad news for Denver fans. The good news is that the Nuggets are up 1-0 in the Western championship series against L.A. The bad news is that they won a squeaker against L.A., at altitude, last night. They could still lose 1-4.

Larry, JFK Revisted/Destiny Betrayed isn't "strident." It's evidence-based, and a contemporary gold standard on the JFKA. No less "unassailable" than Douglass's fine book. And A Lie Too Big to Fail is the gold standard on the RFK assassination. That's why, IMO, RFK, Jr. should reference those works publicly.

Jim, Prokop exposed Gerth's faulty logic and semantics quite incisively in the Vox article (above.) Gerth's bogus arguments were predicated on a false definition of "Russia-gate." The facts indicate that Putin interfered in our 2016 election on behalf of Trump, and the Trump campaign had multiple contacts with Kremlin officials. Then Trump, Manafort, and Stone repeatedly obstructed Mueller's aborted investigation. Meanwhile, the Bill Barr/Durham Russia hoax hoax can't be described more clearly than this. How John Durham Succeeded by Failing – Mother Jones May 17, 2023

What amazes, and disgusts, me is the coverage these lying Russia-gate-denying GOP propagandists are getting in the corporate U.S. M$M this week. Mark Thiessen is one example among many. Has the guy ever written anything that was true? 🙄 Meanwhile, a number of journalists have exposed Durham's bogus Russia-gate investigation for the GOP nothing burger that it is. Opinion | The Durham investigation was a flop. But it's a propaganda triumph. - The Washington Post How John Durham Succeeded by Failing For years, Bill Barr’s hand-picked special counsel kept Trump’s Russia hoax hoax alive. How John Durham Succeeded by Failing – Mother Jones

Jim, The Jeff Gerth Russia-gate denial article was misleading and atypical for CJR. And, as it turns out, Gerth was a promoter of the partisan GOP Whitewater hoax during Bill Clinton's presidency. (We discussed it on the 56 Years thread in February.) Here's my February 15th post about Gerth's weird article. Andrew Prokop has just published a definitive takedown of Jeff Gerth's bogus CJR revisionist history article claiming that Trump's Russia-gate scandal was a hoax. I didn't realize that Jeff Gerth was involved years ago in promoting the GOP Whitewater hoax about Bill Clinton. Glenn Greenwald, Matt Taibbi, Jeff Gerth, and the Trump-Russia revisionists, explained - Vox

Duped by Durham: Media fall for the spin on report about Trump-Russia probe | Salon.com

Matt, On the subject of corporate media propaganda, it's also disturbing this week to see a number of mainstream media corps -- including USA Today-- selling Durham's nothing burger to the American public. War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Russia-gate was a hoax. Duped by Durham: Media fall for the spin on report about Trump-Russia probe | Salon.com

Michael Griffith continues to "Swift Boat Vet" Fletcher Prouty with his John McAdams advertisement tropes. What a terrific asset for the Education Forum... 🙄

Speaking of "trash," Griffith, what is it about my phrase "anti-Biden MAGA spam" (above) that you don't understand? As for 9/11, I've taken you to the cleaners on the bizarre occasions where you have posted your moronic anti-9/11 Truth tropes here. Nor have you ever once responded to my questions about which "9/11 Truth" researchers you are referring to. I've never mentioned 9/11 here, except in response to your moronic, false tropes on the subject. You're a fraud.

RFK, Jr. recently urged people to read James Douglass's book, JFK and the Unspeakable. Not a question, but it would be helpful if RFK would also publicly recommend JFK Revisited/Destiny Betrayed, and A Lie Too Big to Fail. For example, there was a derogatory op-ed about RFK, Jr. in the Washington Post yesterday in which the author ridiculed RFK, Jr. for his belief that Sirhan had not killed his father. Yet, when the subject comes up, the M$M never mentions A Lie to Big to Fail.

Geez... Question for the mods. Ben Cole seems to be using RFK, Jr.'s 2024 Presidential candidacy as a pretext to post multiple anti-Biden MAGA spam threads on the JFKA board. He's "flooding the zone," as we observed previously on the 56 Years thread. Should Ben's multiple, redundant RFK, Jr. threads be moved to a separate RFK, Jr. board?

Geez, Ben, you never studied any of the references that people here have posted for you which document that Russia-gate was NOT a hoax. Trump and his media Trumpagandists promoted the false trope about Russia-gate being a "hoax," and you drank the Kool Aid. Trump and his various M$M Trumpagandists sought to blame the "Deep State" for Trump's ties to the Kremlin, in the same way that they later tried to blame the Deep State for Trump's J6 coup attempt. As Dubya said, "You can fool some of the people all of the time, and those are the ones you want to concentrate on."