W. Niederhut

What bunk. The simplistic, two-dimensional thinking about Russian history on this thread is coming from those who mistakenly believe that, because Hitler's reign of terror was evil-- and the CIA's post-WWII track record is evil-- Stalin's reign of terror (and Putin's neo-Stalinist reign of terror) wasn't/isn't. History is far more complex. Anyone has studied the horrors of Stalinism (and Putin-ism) in any depth will understand precisely what I'm talking about-- but much of that history has been relatively unknown in the West. Many Westerners have a concept of Soviet history based largely on 20th century Bolshevik propaganda. I have tried to direct Chris to some references on true Soviet and neo-Soviet history, without success. As for Chris, his modus operandi here is to falsely accuse those who rebut his erroneous posts of being "emotional."

Joe, I thought Senator Kamala Harris was fairly sharp in the 2020 Democratic Primary debates-- a far cry, intellectually, from a Dan Quayle. (Of course, I was more impressed with Elizabeth Warren, Bernie, and Buttigieg.) So, I have been surprised and puzzled by Harris's apparent timidity as VP. It seems like something about the office or, perhaps the media hostility, has undermined her former self confidence. VPs have often been the butt of jokes, and she has had the two-fold burden of dealing with racism and misogyny. In addition to Truman, other VPs have risen to the occasion in history, including Millard Fillmore, (underrated, IMO) Chester Arthur, and, of course, TR. I agree with your notion that Harris might surprise us.

Chris needs more than a geography lesson. He needs a lesson in the history of Russia during the past century. Based on his comments, I don't believe that Chris has really studied or understood Solzhenitsyn's work, including the Gulag Archipelago and the Red Wheel trilogy. One of Solzhenitsyn's observations was that Stalin normalized sociopathy and criminality while criminalizing dissent. Putin is a product of that sociopathic political culture. His father was an NKVD Destruction Brigade member. Our local Putin apologists seem naive and poorly informed about; 1) the horrific, genocidal history of Stalinism before, during, and after WWII, and 2) the 21st century transformation of the former Soviet Union into Putin's neo-Stalinist police state. I was told (by a Russian bishop) that our late Russian Orthodox Archbishop Anthony of San Francisco, and other Russian Orthodox Christians, actually hoped during WWII that the N-a-z-i Wehrmacht would liberate Russia from the bloody Stalinist yoke! Strange but true. And most Ukrainians did not want to be re-subjected to the horrors of Stalinism after 1942. Neither did the Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians. Does that make them Yahtzees? Who could blame them? In addition to the Gulag Archipelago, I would highly recommend I.M. Andreyev's carefully documented history of the Bolshevik persecution of the Russian Orthodox Church after 1917-- Russia's Catacomb Saints. (BTW, where are the Hollywood movies about the 20th century Soviet genocide of its own citizens?) As for the 21st century history of Putin's KGB-backed fascist police state, I'll reference, again, Catherine Belton's book, Putin's People. Putin is no enlightened autocrat. He's a neo-Stalinist graduate of the Yuri Andropov Institute.

This is about the third or fourth time that Chris Barnard has posted the same Mearsheimer video, which I have responded to TWICE by posting Princeton historian Stephen Kotkin's diametrically opposite opinion about NATO and Putin's invasion of Ukraine. A Scholar of Stalin Discusses Putin, Russia, Ukraine, and the West | The New Yorker Kotkin is a Professor of History at Princeton who has published several scholarly books about Russian history, his area of expertise. Sometimes I get the impression that the Putin apologists around here haven't really studied Russian history-- including the gory details in Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago-- not to mention the more recent gory revelations about the Wagner Group and Russian war crimes in Ukraine. Are people aware that many Ukrainians did not want to be re-subjected to Stalin's brutal yoke after 1942? Nor did most people in Poland and the Baltic states. Also, have any of our Putin apologists read Catherine Belton's recent history of Putin and his KGB-aligned oligarchs-- Putin's People? Putin's People: Belton, Catherine: 9781250787323: Amazon.com: Books

I used to own that vinyl 4 Way Street album in the 70s, but lost it or leant it to someone years ago. As I recall, David Crosby's terrific song, All Along the Lee Shore, is on that 4 Way Street live album. (In my next life, I would also like to own a yacht and spend time cruising the Caribbean... 🤥) Incidentally, David Crosby was, apparently, quite a Tweeter. Some of these are hilarious. David Crosby dead: Byrds, Crosby, Stills & Nash singer was also a Twitter legend. (slate.com)

Many thanks to Kirk, Matt, Ron, and Chris for posting those great David Crosby/Byrds clips. Sharing these songs and interviews is kind of like sitting shiva for David Crosby here on the forum. And, incidentally, along with David Crosby's interview clip about his relationship with Joni Mitchell, Crosby also talked to Howard Stern in June of 2021 about death and dying.

Tucker is on a roll lately. I almost laughed out loud recently when I heard that Tucker had publicly outed Bob Woodward's ONI background. We have all known about it for years, but no one has ever talked about it in the mainstream media, to my knowledge. And, not surprisingly, the M$M coverage I saw implied that Tucker Carlson had gone off the deep end by claiming that Watergate was a Deep State plot. 🤥 Tucker Carlson Has Some Weird Ideas About Watergate In Latest Fox News Rant Tucker Carlson Has Some Weird Ideas About Watergate In Latest Fox News Rant (yahoo.com)

So, this is, undoubtedly, one of my favorite rock albums of all time, featuring a number of masterpieces, including the post-apocalyptic song, Wooden Ships, written by David Crosby, Stephen Stills, and Jefferson Airplane founder Paul Kantner. During the past half century, I never got tired of listening to this great album, (or the subsequent CSN&Y album De Ja Vu.) I saw David Crosby in concert a couple of times about 50 years ago in Denver-- with CSN&Y at Mile High Stadium, and at the Denver Coliseum with Neil Young. Requiem aeternam.

Ben, You're still grasping at straws to maintain your denial of Trump's plot to disrupt the certification of Biden's election on January 6th. If you had listened to the sworn testimony of Trump's staff in the J6 Congressional hearings last year you wouldn't be harboring these fixed delusions. What do you imagine additional footage will show you that wasn't shown in the comprehensive NYT video reconstruction of the Trump mob attack on the Capitol? Do tell. As for suppressed evidence, what do you have to say about the fact that Trump's Secret Service and DHS staffers deleted their J6 texts? How about the fact that Trump's J6 coup co-conspirators all either dodged their subpoenas or plead the 5th? If you're looking for J6 clues, start there.

Oliver Stone's film, W., was also quite interesting, IMO. Perhaps he could make a Trump film, with Alec Baldwin in the starring role. 🤥

Ouch... 😢 David Crosby Dead: The Byrds and Crosby, Stills & Nash Founder Was 81 - Variety

The Koch War On American Democracy Documented | Rightwing Group Pours Millions in ‘Dark Money’ Into US… January 17, 2023

Wrong again, Ben. I was referring to the comprehensive "Day of Rage' NYT video reconstruction of the January 6th attack on Congress that some of us posted and reviewed here in the summer of 2021. Did you ever watch it? This is supposed to be an "Education" forum-- where people share and discuss scholarly evidence about history, not a forum for repeatedly posting false historical narratives that disregard the evidence.

I don't know where Ben and Mathew Koch are getting their delusional notions about what happened on January 6th, but it's obvious that they never studied the film or listened to the sworn Congressional J6 witness testimony. As for Trump's refusal to call out that National Guard on J6, let's also recall that Trump did just the opposite during the George Floyd protests in D.C., while sheltering in a White House bunker (before having the police clear Lafayette Square with tear gas for his inverted Bible photo op. ) Trump flooded the Washington mall with National Guard troops during the peaceful BLM protests.

Anyone who has studied the film of the January 6th Trump mob attack on the Capitol knows that the Capitol Police were outnumbered, overwhelmed, and seriously injured in the violent attack. The real question is how this could have happened. How did the Trump administration's FBI, DHS, Pentagon, and Secret Service intelligence about the impending attack on Congress fail to lead to adequate security for the U.S. Congress? From the Congressional J6 investigation we know that Donald Trump and the Secret Service even knew that Trump's J6 mob was dangerously armed-- yet failed to alert the Capitol Police until after 4 PM on January 6th! And Trump failed to call in the National Guard for three hours-- while watching the attack on television!

Jim, Outstanding interview. A++. It's a great overview and back story on the making of the film. Your comments about seeing the photo of JFK learning about Lumumba's death--and exploring JFK's radical vision for America's role in the world-- were quite poignant. On a side note, I noticed that Oliver Stone remains skeptical about LBJ's possible involvement in the JFK murder plot. I got the impression that Oliver, perhaps understandably, really doesn't want to believe that LBJ may have been in on the plot.

Don't get too excited, Mathew. It's probably the least concerning revelation about George Santos to date, IMO. But it could be a bit awkward for the anti-LGBT ideologues in Kevin McCarthy's GOP Sedition Caucus.

Brazilian claims George Santos was a drag queen... 🤥

Excellent post, Joe. For people interested in this subject, I would highly recommend a book that I read a year or two ago called, Atomic Accidents, by a nuclear engineer named James Maheffey. It's a fascinating read-- a well written history of humanity's experiences with radioactive materials during the past century; early 20th century radium health spas and elixirs, atomic bomb tests in Russia and the American West, Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukushima, etc. There was a lot of nuclear fall-out on the planet during the Cold War, and most of it was kept secret. John Wayne, Agnes Moorehead, and the entire cast and crew for the 1956 movie, The Conqueror, were contaminated in St. George, Utah by radioactive dust from a Nevada atomic bomb test. Two of the atomic accidents discussed in the book happened here in Denver in my lifetime-- two fires at the local Rocky Flats plutonium plant in 1957 and 1969 , where the triggers for America's nuclear bombs were manufactured for decades (for shipment to Amarillo, Texas.) Atomic Accidents , Maheffey, James - Amazon.com

Well, I'm shocked, shocked to hear that our itinerant Warren Commission Report salesman, Lance Payette, agrees with Ben Cole's bogus narrative likening January 6th to a Monty Python scrum. Ben and Lance, apparently haven't studied the gruesome footage of the violent J6 attack on the Capitol. Or, if they have, they're dissembling about what happened. Great BSers think alike... 🤥 (Or was Lance thinking of the Monty Python Holy Grail scene where the black knight gets brutally assaulted?) Meanwhile, where is Ben's hero Matt Taibbi when we could really use some honest investigative reporting about the suppressed J6 Twitter files? January 6 Committee Left Out Social Media Findings (mediaite.com)

Ron, My wife and I were scheduled to fly to Love Field in Dallas tomorrow (on Southwest.) Had to re-schedule for Saturday due to this snow storm tonight. I have two snow shovels on standby, but shoveling snow is getting old lately. I'd rather be in the tropics.

I don't watch television news, Mathew. But, surely, you aren't naive enough to believe that Trump wasn't involved in his Trump Organization tax fraud schemes? And remember when the Trump Foundation was shut down for fraud after the 2016 election? Trump has always been a fraudster.

Huh, Mathew? Did Fox News black out coverage of this big story? Trump Org. fined $1.6 million after conviction for 17 felonies, including tax fraud | CNN Politics January 13, 2023

And I forgot to mention that, unlike Trump, Al Capone never violated a Presidential oath to uphold and defend the Constitution.

This is hitting below the belt, Mark. Comparing Trump to Al Capone is unfair to Al Capone. It's true that both men cheated on their taxes, but Capone was merely a violence-inciting Chicago racketeer. In contrast, Trump was a violence-inciting Presidential racketeer.