W. Niederhut

Paul, I mentioned Max Baucus and Joe Lieberman (above) in the context of the ACA public option sabotage-- so, yes, I'm aware that the GOP has had a few Democratic Party accomplices in their decades-long sabotage of the public health. On the Political Compass, a few years ago, I rated very close to dead center-- slightly left of center-- which isn't too bad for a "close-minded ultra-liberal," eh? 🤥

Trump's tale of crying Manhattan court employees was 'absolute BS,' law enforcement source says https://news.yahoo.com/trumps-tale-of-crying-manhattan-court-employees-was-absolute-bs-law-enforcement-source-says-160349195.html

Excellent fact-checking, Jeff. This is the kind of commentary that is a necessary response to Swift Boating Vetting propaganda-- i.e, the "Fire Hose of Falsehoods."

Paul, History shows that there are, in fact, major differences between the two parties in the U.S. on issues relating to the public health, including many that you just listed. At the top of the list are Democratic sponsorship of Medicare, Medicaid, and Obamacare-- all of which have been bitterly and persistently opposed by Republicans, from their inception. How many times did the Koch/Tea Party House vote to abolish/de-fund Obamacare after 2009? Then Trump and the GOP Congress abolished the Obamacare individual mandate in their 2017 tax cut bill. Paul Ryan and the Tea Party House passed two budget bills after 2010 that would have abolished Medicare, as we know it, for retirees born after 1959. Many Republicans fought tooth-and-claw to obstruct basic public health interventions during the COVID pandemic. Gun control? Republicans have persistently sabotaged it. Healthy diets? Republicans opposed Michelle Obama's efforts. Poverty? Republicans have consistently opposed Democratic legislation to alleviate poverty in the U.S., while repeatedly cutting taxes for the wealthy. Education? Republicans have consistently opposed Democratic efforts to fund public education, and scientific research. Pollution? Same story.

You didn't expose me to the Political Compass, Chris. I discovered it several years ago, and brought it to the attention of people on a different forum-- in the context of Trumpsters referring to liberals as "far left," etc. I scored slightly left of dead center, as I stated. Now, please, stop stalking me on this forum.

Paul, Obviously, vaccines are only one facet of improving public health outcomes in the U.S. The Democrats have taken major steps toward improving the public health in the U.S. in the decades since Ted Kennedy, et.al., established Medicare and Medicaid-- in the teeth of Republican opposition by Reagan, et.al. Democratic Obamacare was another step in the right direction, although the ACA legislation was undermined from the beginning by Republican opposition, (and by Max Baucus and Joe Lieberman) and by Trump/GOP sabotage of the individual mandate in December of 2017. Can you and Ben Cole name any contributions that Republicans ('Phants) have ever made toward improving the public health? The only two things that I can think of were Nixon's admirable role in helping to establish the EPA, and George W. Bush's Medicare D legislation before the 2004 election. But Dubya's Medicare D bill was unfunded, and prohibited Medicare from negotiating lower drug prices. It was a gift to Big Pharma profiteers.

Michael Griffith is on a roll with his hyperbolic name-calling lately, and it looks like his creative slurs are not only being slung at CIA whistleblower, Col. L. Fletcher Prouty. This week, Michael has derided James DiEugenio as "far left," and he just oxymoronically denounced me as a "close-minded ultra-liberal."

Trump Fawns Over Dictators April 12, 2023 at 10:12 am EDT By Taegan Goddard 29 Comments Here’s how Donald Trump described meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Fox News last night: Here’s his take on North Korea’s Kim Jung Un: Here’s what he says about Russian president Vladimir Putin:

Michael Griffith thinks I'm a close minded "ultra liberal." And all this time I thought I was an intellectually curious M.D. and a rational centrist on the Political Compass rating scale. I never realized how controversial the scientific method is to many conservatives (and some liberals, apparently) until the COVID pandemic occurred. Republican opposition to climate change science should have been a clue. Some experts fear rise in medical misinformation following RFK Jr.'s presidential announcement - ABC News (go.com) April 12, 2023

So Bannon and Stone think RFK, Jr. could save Trump's disastrous political career by running as Trump's VP? Weird. Would RFK, Jr. ever go along with that bizarre scheme? Would the Trump cult?

Michael, I apologize for misspelling your name. I went back and corrected the typos. I must have been thinking of the talk show host, Merv Griffin, back in the day.

Paul, You seem to be buying into some sort of false equivalence about the history and agendas of 21st century Republicans and Democrats. Do you understand the extent of the 21st century GOP/Koch/Federalist Society chicanery involved in stacking the courts with pro-corporate GOP plutocrats? For example, are you familiar with the stats about Mitch McConnell's historic obstruction of President Barack Obama's judicial nominees? The problem went far beyond McConnell's historic refusal for 300 days (following the death of Scalia) to conduct Senate hearings to confirm Obama's SCOTUS nominee Merrick Garland-- on the grounds that 2016 was an election year. Then, one week before the 2020 election, McConnell confirmed Trump's SCOTUS nominee Amy Coney Barrett-- just 30 days after the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg! Can you smell the Koch/Republican sleaze here? It's the Democracy in Chains GOP game plan, described in detail by Duke University historian Nancy MacLean. As for Biden, he has done an excellent job with judicial nominees-- as with most executive decisions-- although, to date, he has had only one opportunity to appoint a SCOTUS justice.

Great idea, Matt. And I'll follow up with a series of new JFK Assassination Board threads with titles like, "Were Trump, Barr, and Pompeo Accessories After the Fact in JFK's Murder?" and, "Why Were Trump's Fox News Propagandists Silent About Trump's Suppression of the JFK Records?"

This reminds me of Phillip Zelikow's 9/11 Commission statement that none of the major short-selling of United Airlines and American Airlines stock just prior to 9/11 was linked to the suspects (i.e., Al Qaeda.)

Chris, You, obviously, misinterpreted my comment, again. It's a bad habit of yours. I was talking about my training and many years of experience reading and analyzing medical papers. Do you and Cotter even know what p values are in medical research?

Newsflash, Ben. If 80,000 more votes had been counted for Hillary Clinton in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania in 2016, Brett Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch, and Amy Coney Barrett would not be sitting on the SCOTUS today, and Roe v. Wade would still be the law of the land. Worth thinking about. And if 5 Republicans on the Rehnquist court had not voted in Bush v. Gore to urgently shut down the Florida re-count in December of 2020, the multi-trillion dollar U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq would probably never have happened-- and the 5-4 Citizens United ruling would never have happened. Ergo, flawed judicial appointments by Republican Presidents have been monumentally important in the 21st century.

I'm, frankly, surprised to read this strange story about Roger Stone. I thought that Steve Bannon and Stone were conspiring to promote RFK, Jr. in an effort to undermine the Democrats' prospects for holding onto the White House in 2024. As for Bill Barr and Matt Taibbi becoming disillusioned with their sociopathic former employers, the word, "schadenfreude," comes to mind. And hasn't everyone who ever got involved with Donald Trump regretted it?

I don't know about other people on this forum, but I've just about had it with these puerile, inaccurate, libelous commentaries by Chris Barnard and John Cotter. Lately, these two have taken to posting bogus, ad hominem attacks on my professional medical judgment, while repeatedly misquoting and misrepresenting what I have actually posted about vaccines. Basta, per Dio... And, meanwhile, Barnard and Cotter have actually complained to the administrators here about my recently pointing out (in response to their faux criticisms of President Biden) that they seem to be "embarrassingly ignorant" about American politics. Other forum members have posted similar, accurate observations about Barnard and Cotter. As for the subject of COVID vaccines, I have, on a few occasions, posted some CDC morbidity and mortality COVID data on this forum -- on our original Journal of the Plague Year thread and elsewhere-- which Barnard and Cotter have persistently ignored, even in response to some direct questions on the subject. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. You can lead a man to data, but you can't make him think. As for Cotter's Goldacre reference on "bad pharma," I will refer Barnard and Cotter to some New York Times articles in which I have been referenced as a critic of the pharmaceutical industry. Barnard and Cotter actually believe that they are "educating" me on the subject of Big Pharma and medical papers that I have been studying and analyzing for the past 40 years. https://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/12/washington/12psych.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/21/health/ketamine-depression-veterans.html

Oh, come on, mods... Geez... 🙄 How many more redundant threads is Ben Cole allowed to start here on the same subject of Biden pulling a Donald Trump by declining to release the JFK Records? Meanwhile, our original forum thread (from 2020) on the subject of Trump's historic 2017 decision to block the release of the JFK Records, when they were finally due for release, has been banished to another board.

That was quite the pivot, Ben, in the context of our discussion here (above) about RFK, Jr. and the relationship between the state and corporate capitalism. You completely dodged my multiple choice question about which political party has stacked the U.S. courts with pro-corporate judges-- including the five SCOTUS judges who wiped out a century of campaign finance reforms in the U.S. with their Citizens United ruling. Was it the Donks or the 'Phants that opened the floodgates for unlimited dark money advertising in U.S. elections-- facilitating further corporate plutocratic control of our state and Federal governments? Then, instead of answering the question, you reminded us, for possibly the 30th time in recent weeks, that Biden has pulled a Donald Trump by declining to release the JFK records.

Paul, If you think that a Republican POTUS is going to promote a progressive regulatory agenda for corporate capitalists you haven' been paying close enough attention to modern American history. Consider the process used by the Republicans to stack the U.S. courts with pro-corporate, anti-labor judges in modern history-- Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Alito, Brett Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch, et.al. And the GOP SCOTUS judges were the guys who voted 5-4 in critically important rulings like Bush v. Gore, Citizens United, and Shelby v. Holder. Citizens United abolished a century of campaign finance reforms in the U.S. Shelby v. Holder abolished enforcement of the Voting Rights Act. Republicans like George W. Bush and Trump are also the Presidents who repeatedly sabotaged environmental protections and other regulations on corporate polluters and fraudsters, while cutting taxes for billionaires and corporations (in Trump's case.) So, RFK, Jr. fans who are appropriately concerned about the vital role of government regulation of corporate capitalism in the public interest need to understand the facts about the GOP/Koch agenda to put "democracy in chains." They have done it through the courts, and through Congress-- in the teeth of Democratic opposition. They'll do it again, if they get the opportunity. Ben Cole is simply wrong about this issue regarding historic policy differences between Donks and 'Phants. Nor is RFK, Jr. saying anything that hasn't been said for years by experienced, progressive Democratic legislators like Elizabeth Waren and Bernie Sanders.

Reality check, Ben. I. Which political party stacked the courts with the pro-corporate judges who voted 5-4 in the Citizens United and Shelby v. Holder rulings? A. The "billionaire donor" Donks B. The 'Phants C. Both D. Not sure. Please post this question on another board.

Sure, Kellyanne, don't focus on revising these deeply flawed GOP policies. Instead, focus on public relations strategies to counteract the "leftist turnout machine." In other words, it's not a policy problem. It's merely a Republican sales and marketing problem. 🤥

Fox News, Ben Cole, and the Trumplicon media have repeatedly insisted that Brian Sicknick's death was unrelated to his physical and chemical assault by Trump's mob on January 6th. This trope is based on the suspiciously belated report of the coroner in the case-- sans public documentation-- that Sicknick died of a basilar artery thrombosis. As I have pointed out to Ben Cole more than once, I have some serious doubts about the coroner's conclusion in the Sicknick case. Where is the data? What sort of toxicology screening was done? In a private Email to me, Dr. Michael Chesser, a neurologist interviewed for the film JFK Revisted/Destiny Betrayed, told me that he also had questions about the coroner's report on Sicknick. The probability that Sicknick's untimely death shortly after the January 6th assault was unrelated to the attack on the Capitol seems extremely low to me. Yet, Tucker Carlson has continued to use the suspicious coroner's report in Sicknick's case to downplay the significance of Trump's J6 coup attempt.

Addendum: Also, how do you and Chris Barnard (and RFK, Jr.) explain the data indicating that COVID infections cause a higher risk of myocarditis in young people than vaccines?