W. Niederhut

Sandy, We all owe Jeff Carter a big thank you for his diligence in meticulously debunking Michael Griffith's bogus 30 year-old defamatory CIA fabrications about Prouty. (I was approaching this subject from a different angle-- emphasizing Prouty's credibility and distinguished record of military service to the U.S.) I don't think it's a stretch to theorize that the CIA's propaganda establishment deliberately fabricated and planted defamatory talking points about Prouty in the mainstream media 30+ years ago, after he emerged as a Deep State whistleblower for Olver Stone's film, JFK. Then, they have simply repeated the same defamatory talking points on websites, internet forums, radio shows, etc., during the past 30 years. Classic propaganda. Have multiple propagandists repeat the lies, until the public believes they are true.

Russian Court Sentences Putin Critic to 25 Years Russian Court Sentences Putin Critic to 25 Years (politicalwire.com) April 17, 2023 “A Russian court convicted Kremlin critic Vladimir Kara-Murza for treason and sentenced him to 25 years in prison after he criticized the government of President Vladimir Putin and his invasion of Ukraine,” the Wall Street Journal reports. “The sentence is the longest to have been handed to a Russian opposition figure since the war in Ukraine began in February last year. It comes after a sweeping clampdown on all forms of dissent and the detentions of more than 20,000 antiwar activists for participation in protest rallies, social-media posts and even private conversations denouncing Mr. Putin.”

Here's another one of those "good Republican ideas" from America's Koch-funded GOP think tanks. Cut "welfare" for the poor, to fund corporate welfare and tax cuts for billionaires. Hawkeye Henry Wallace, who created the food stamp program, is probably rolling over in his grave. Iowa Republicans Will Spend Millions Kicking Families Off Food Stamps Iowa's bill on limiting SNAP benefits is a bold attack, experts say - The Washington Post April 16, 2023 Excerpt The state legislature, with the support of the Republican supermajority, was poised to approve some of the nation’s harshest restrictions on SNAP. They include asset tests and new eligibility guidelines. By the state’s own estimate, Iowa will need to spend nearly $18 million in administrative costs during the first three years — to take in less federal money. The bill’s backers argue the steps would save the state money long term and cut down on “SNAP fraud.” The measure is part of a broader national crackdown on SNAP, the federal program at the heart of the nation’s welfare system. The proposed legislation was not a homegrown effort but the product of a network of conservative think tanks pushing similar SNAP restrictions in Kentucky, Kansas, Wisconsin and other states. But experts say Iowa’s represents the boldest attack yet on SNAP, and Republicans in Congress have signaled a similar readiness to impose limits on federal food assistance.

Kirk, Geez... You have often posted insightful, humorous comments on the Education Forum, since I first joined a few years ago, but you have always been weirdly off target in your attacks on Oliver Stone and James DiEugenio's critically important work on the JFKA and Vietnam-- some of which (in Oliver Stone's case) has been directly informed by Prouty's rare insights about CIA special ops, Saigon Station, and JFK's Vietnam policies. So, I'm not surprised that you have been suckered by Michael Griffith's scurrilous, deflective attacks on Fletcher Prouty on this thread. Griffith has repeatedly highjacked this thread with the same old bogus CIA propaganda tropes that have been used for the past 30 years in an attempt to smear and discredit Prouty's whistleblowing on the CIA-- accusing Prouty of being anti-Semitic, a Holocaust denier, a Scientologist, etc. It's all bunk. What has Prouty, himself, said about these bogus CIA allegations? Did you read my original post on that subject, on this thread? Apparently not, since you mistakenly imagine that I "have contributed nothing" on that subject. I posted the first reference here to Oliver Stone's Esquire commentary on the subject of the CIA's "character assassination" of Fletcher Prouty, and Prouty's history of speaking at the Holocaust Memorial. The basic question I would ask you, apropos of my original, censored thread title, is, "Who are the real crackpots-- CIA whistleblower Col. L. Fletcher Prouty, or the CIA propagandists who have used their mainstream media (and internet) assets for the past 30 years to falsely impugn Prouty's reputation?

Yeah... I read this story in the Washington Post today. Before his confirmation hearing, Kacsmaryk removed his name from a paper on abortion published in the Texas Law Review. This has been a pattern with a lot of these Trump judges, including Kacsmaryk, Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, and Coney Barrett. They have all dissembled about their position on abortion during their confirmation hearings. Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, and Coney Barrett all repeated that mantra about Roe v. Wade being "established law."

Kirk, C'mon, man. I'm surprised that my satirical intent sailed over your head. I used the term "crackpot" in the original thread title as a satire about the 30-year CIA propaganda campaign to smear and discredit CIA whistleblower, Fletcher Prouty, after his critically important revelations about CIA history were publicized in Oliver Stone's film, JFK. You and Greg Doudna have both missed the boat on this thread, while blathering about Michael Griffith's Liberty Lobby straw man. Did you bother to read and listen to Greg Burnham's commentaries about Prouty at the top of this thread-- before Michael Griffith hijacked the thread with his John McAdams/Liberty Lobby garbage?

It's really about establishing and maintaining GOP minority, plutocratic rule, isn't it, Doug? Many of the core GOP policy initiatives nowadays are remarkably unpopular-- obstructing gun control legislation, banning abortions, banning books, obstructing pollution and climate change mitigation, and de-funding Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid in order to pay for tax cuts for the rich, etc. So, the GOP dark money moguls fund television advertising, and "news" programming at Fox, Breitbart, Sinclair, et.al., in order to rally their base with emotional issues like race, immigration, homophobia, etc.

True, Paul. If people take the time to review Michael Griffith's verbose posts on this forum since July of 2022, they will discover that nonsense is Griffith's specialty. He is a purveyor of U.S. government disinformation. I noticed the problem this year while studying Griffith's gnarly debates with James DiEugenio on the subject of JFK and Vietnam, and, more recently, with his John McAdams style defamation of Col. L. Fletcher Prouty. Griffith recently called James DiEugenio a "far left-ist" who is "out of his depth on Vietnam..." WTF? Does anyone seriously doubt the historiography of James DiEugenio, John Newman, Peter Dale Scott, Fletcher Prouty, et.al., about NSAM 263 and JFK's 1963 decision to get out of Vietnam? Needless to say, Griffith has also had no intelligible response to the facts that I posted for him about the physics of the WTC demolitions, or about CIA Chief Operating Officer Alvin "Buzz" Krongard's association with the short-sellers of UAL stock prior 9/11. His response was to call me a "nutjob," "nutcase," etc.-- a variation on the CIA's old "kooky conspiracy theorist" trope to discredit Jim Garrison, Mark Lane, et.al. So, sadly, Griffith is not here to join us in discovering and discussing the truth about America's "untold history." He's here to prevent people from discovering the truth-- as we have all witnessed in the case of the U.S. mainstream media and the ubiquitous government-funded disinformation websites on the internet that surface at the top of Google searches about black ops like the JFKA and 9/11.

Jeff, Thanks for delivering this knockout punch to Michael Griffith's mcadams.edu, Prouty-defaming nonsense. Hopefully, Kirk Gallaway will eventually figure out that "Liberty Lobby" Griffith has been knocked out. (I'm not holding my breath.)

Michael Griffith, obviously, has a bad habit of refusing to answer questions, while accusing informed people who question official government narratives of being "nutjobs," "far left," "ultra liberal," etc. At least Michael didn't call me a "kooky conspiracy theorist," eh, folks? 🙄 The correct answer to Question 1) is ZERO. If a building (or any object) falls to earth at the acceleration of gravity, the resistance to collapse is zero. In other words, the steel substructures of the WTC towers (and WTC7) had to be abruptly demolished by explosives, in order for the buildings to collapse at free fall acceleration. Interestingly, the serial explosions that demolished WTC1 and WTC2 on 9/11-- pulverizing hundreds of thousands of tons of concrete into the atmosphere of lower Manhattan-- are clearly visible and audible on film. Donald Trump, himself, correctly announced on television on 9/11 that, based on his knowledge of the steel girder/construction of the Twin Towers, the buildings could only have been demolished by "bombs" (i.e., explosives.) The correct answer to Question 2) is Baltimore banking associates of Bush & Cheney's CIA Chief Operating Officer Alvin "Buzz" Krongard. Krongard's associate(s) engaged in major short-selling of UAL stock shortly before 9/11.

Well, I'm somewhat surprised and disappointed that even Kirk Galloway has been suckered by Michael Griffith's persistent hijacking of this thread, and Griffith's McAdams-esque propaganda disparaging Prouty. The thread isn't about the Liberty Lobby, which had very little to do with Fletcher Prouty's lengthy, distinguished military career and his important revelations about CIA history, Vietnam, and JFK's assassination. It's a straw man-- a propaganda trick-- as Jeff Carter has pointed out. If anything, the thread is supposed to be about the way that CIA propagandists during the past 30 years have systematically tried to smear and discredit Prouty's important revelations about CIA history by focusing on the Liberty Lobby, etc. Kirk Galloway, evidently, missed the Esquire commentary (above) by Oliver Stone about Prouty's own disclaimers regarding anti-Semitism, Holocaust denial, etc. As Prouty, himself, pointed out, he also spoke to organizations memorializing the Holocaust. Meanwhile, I'm genuinely curious about Michael Griffith's career in McLean, Virginia, and his history of involvement with the U.S. military establishment and the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California. Is Griffith working for the CIA to discredit revelations about CIA history in relation to Vietnam and the JFK assassination?

I'm guessing that the difference is that Trump got paid bigly for sharing his classified documents. 🤥

Just answer the questions, Griffith, and spare us your deflective buzzwords, already. If you can't come up with the answers, I'll help you out-- since this is the "Education" Forum. 1) If skyscrapers falls to earth (and/or implode into pulverized ash) at approximately the acceleration of gravity, what is the resistance of the steel sub-structures to collapse? 2) Who engaged in the short-selling of United and American Airlines stock just before 9/11?

Meanwhile, it looks like Michael Griffith still hasn't figured out that he's standing near the first base line in right field, while his so-called "ultra liberals" on the forum are covering center field. As for 9/11, since Griffith posted some bunk on the subject, I have two more, basic questions for him-- while we're all waiting for him to post some examples of "good Republican ideas." 1) If skyscrapers falls to earth (and/or implode into pulverized ash) at approximately the acceleration of gravity, what is the resistance of the steel sub-structures to collapse? 2) Who engaged in the short-selling of United and American Airlines stock just before 9/11?

Doug, This should be one of those, "CAPTION THIS" photos... "Hell yes, I voted for my billionaire home boys in Bush v. Gore, Citizens United, and Shelby v. Holder. That's how the system works, ain't it? One hand washes the other."

Michael, Instead of continuing to highjack this thread with your John McAdams-type, defamatory nonsense about Prouty, how about answering a few questions for us? Who paid for your stint at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California? Was it part of your military service in the USAF? What do you do for a living in McLean, Virginia, when you're not posting lengthy diatribes on the Education Forum denying that JFK intended to get out of Vietnam in 1963, and falsely impugning Col. L. Fletcher Prouty's reputation? Also, I haven't visited the area for many years, but isn't McLean close to Langley?

Indeed, Sandy, I'm still waiting for MIchael Griffith to answer my original, non-rhetorical question-- instead of engaging in redundant, nonsensical slurs.

It's a Trumplicon caliber deficit. Trump ran average annual deficits of roughly $2 trillion, after his major 2017 tax cuts for billionaires and corporations. I was interested in this topic during Trump's Presidency, (and during the glorious Bush/Cheney years) but the M$M was curiously silent at the time. I still wonder about the M$M's puzzling sabotage of Hillary Clinton's 2016 candidacy-- which has been well-documented in studies by Harvard's Berman Institute and the Columbia Journalism Review. One of the major 2016 platform difference between Hillary and Trump was about tax policy. Did M$M corporations (including Sulzberger's NYT) sabotage Hillary because they wanted those multi-billion dollar Trump/GOP tax cuts?

I want to point out to Kirk, Ron, Sandy, Paul, and the forum that Michael Griffith has repeatedly highjacked this thread about Col. L. Fletcher Prouty's distinguished military career and his ground breaking revelations about CIA history, (in The Secret Team and JFK, the CIA, and Vietnam) in order to shift the focus to the Liberty Lobby. Michael has deployed the same old CIA/John McAdams propaganda tricks that have been used for the past 30 years to discredit Prouty's rare insights into CIA history, Vietnam, and the JFK assassination. As Gerry Patrick Hemming told Greg Burnham, (see the definitive history posts at the top of this thread) Fletcher Prouty was the only Deep State insider who ever came forward to spill the beans about CIA black ops and their putative relationship to the JFK assassination and Vietnam. So, it's understandable that the CIA and U.S. military establishment has put a great deal of effort into trying to smear and discredit Prouty's revelations. I will also point out that Michael Griffith has repeatedly attacked James DiEugenio's historigraphy about JFK's decision to get out of Vietnam in 1963. Griffith even claimed recently that DiEugenio is "out of his depth on Vietnam." Here is Michael Griffith's Education Forum bio, which includes a stint at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California. Michael T. Griffith holds a Master’s degree in Theology from The Catholic Distance University, a Graduate Certificate in Ancient and Classical History from American Military University, a Bachelor’s degree in Liberal Arts from Excelsior College, and two Associate in Applied Science degrees from the Community College of the Air Force. He also holds an Advanced Certificate of Civil War Studies and a Certificate of Civil War Studies from Carroll College. He is a graduate in Arabic and Hebrew of the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California, and of the U.S. Air Force Technical Training School in San Angelo, Texas. In addition, he has completed Advanced Hebrew programs at Haifa University in Israel and at the Spiro Institute in London, England. He is the author of five books on Mormonism and ancient texts, including How Firm A Foundation, A Ready Reply, and One Lord, One Faith. He is also the author of a book on the JFK assassination titled Compelling Evidence (JFK Lancer, 1996), and of a book on the Pearl Harbor attack titled The Real Infamy of Pearl Harbor (2021).

Liberal grooming centers, eh? Unreal... 🙄

From what I gather, it appears that the CIA propagandists have used Prouty's late life association with people (and publishers) affiliated with the Liberty Lobby as a means of discrediting Prouty's damning, historic revelations about the CIA, Vietnam, and the JFK assassination. Michael Griffith is simply walking in their footsteps. FWIW, here's the Wiki entry on Prouty's late life contacts with the Liberty Lobby. (Red italics mine.) If anything, these Wiki articles are usually aggressively edited by the CIA. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L._Fletcher_Prouty Antisemitic association Prouty was a featured speaker at the 1990 convention of the Liberty Lobby.[27] Prouty was also named to the advisory board for the Lobby's Populist Action Committee. Prouty also sold the reprint rights for The Secret Team of the Noontide Press, the publishing arm for the Institute for Historical Review, a holocaust denial organization.[28][27] Prouty denied having known of the racist and antisemitic associations of the Lobby, noted that he also spoke at a ceremony at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and assured Oliver Stone "... that he was neither a racist nor an anti-Semite... but merely a writer in need of a platform." In a response to an article about Prouty in Esquire, which he labeled a "character assassination," Stone lamented Prouty's association with the Liberty Lobby but questioned its relevance to Prouty's reliability as a source.[29] In an obituary in The Guardian, Michael Carlson wrote that "[a]lthough Prouty himself never espoused such [anti-semitic] beliefs, the connection enabled critics to dismiss his later writings."[1]

Hey, I'm all ears. Please list those "good Republican ideas" for us! Were you thinking of Trump's signature legislative achievement when the GOP controlled both chambers of Congress in 2017-- the Tax Cuts For Billionaires & Corporations Act of December 2017, which included a rider sabotaging the individual mandate underpinning the Affordable Care Act? Were you thinking of the Bush/Cheney "Deficits Don't Matter" tax cuts of 2001 and 2003? The multi-trillion dollar Bush/Cheney "War on Terror?" Paul Ryan's two GOP House budget bills, after 2010, to abolish Medicare? Republican sabotage of campaign finance reforms, (Citizens United) gun control, and Roe v. Wade? Recurrent Republican sabotage of the EPA? Speak up, Michael! You're a talker. Post those "good Republican ideas" for us. As for locating your position on the Political Compass, I was using basic political geometry. I scored very close to dead center, and you claimed that I'm "far left" of your position, right? Ergo, I deduce that you must be somewhere in right field.

Michael, I'm responding to your absurd, defamatory post in red (below.) Michael Griffith wrote: Wow. Just wow. So now you're siding with Liberty Lobby? So, umm, do you believe the Holocaust is a myth? Do you believe there's an international Jewish conspiracy to rule the world? Do you believe that Hitler really wasn't such a bad guy after all? This is absolutely ridiculous, Michael. It's John McAdams' old kill-the-messenger bunk. I believe none of the above. Nor did Col. L. Fletcher Prouty, based on my reading of his books and commentaries. As for the history of Hitler and his evil empire, I have studied it in great detail over the years, and I could probably teach you some things about that subject. My father's battalion liberated the N-a-z-i concentration camp in Lohr, Germany. What exactly was Prouty's relationship with the Liberty Lobby, in your opinion? Do you also claim that Mark Lane, a Jew, was anti-Semitic for successfully representing the Liberty Lobby in the E. Howard Hunt case? It's not "junk." Sheesh, how can you say this craziness? It happens to be FACT, DOCUMENTED FACT. BTW, two courts declared Liberty Lobby/The Spotlight to be anti-Semitic. What does that have to do with Col. L. Fletcher Prouty's distinguished military career, and his important revelations about CIA history, Vietnam, and JFK? Explain. And, FYI, McAdams was by no means the only person who has pointed out these facts about Prouty. For about the tenth time, most of these facts are documented in Prouty's own writings and speeches, and the remainder are matter of record. Finally, I again repeat the fact that even Oliver Stone has repudiated Prouty's claims about Lansdale. The last time you mentioned Lansdale, you were, evidently, unaware of Prouty's lengthy history of working with Lansdale as a USAF liaison to the the CIA-- indicating that you either didn't read his books, or didn't understand them. Go back and read the initial posts on this thread, which you have repeatedly ignored. Moderators, are you reading this stuff? Do you realize the implications of defending Liberty Lobby? Moderators, who is "defending the Liberty Lobby" here, as Michael Griffith falsely claims in his deflective posts? This thread is supposed to be about the career and historical observations of CIA whistleblower Fletcher Prouty.

I took that Political Compass test several years ago, and I scored very close to dead center. How about you? Far right?

Yes, Michael Griffith is using all of the old McAdams.edu buzz words to smear CIA whistleblower Fletcher Prouty. I've read his "Scientology," "Spotlight," and "Liberty Lobby" junk before, on another forum. Incidentally, didn't the Liberty Lobby win a libel case brought by E. Howard Hunt after Hunt denied being in Dallas on 11/22/63?