W. Niederhut

They are scientists, fella. Have you studied any science at a collegiate or post-graduate level?

Interesting poll at Axios today about public support for Ukraine in the U.S. This data dovetails with a report about opposition to support for Ukraine by Tucker Carlson's Fox News fans. It's also interesting to think about this data in relation to Fox News jingoism during Bush and Cheney's invasion of Iraq in 2003. Rupert Murdoch openly bragged about his role in promoting the Iraq War. Two Americas Index: Ukraine divides conservatives (axios.com)

Matt, I don't want to engage in specious ad haminem slurs, but perhaps we could all take up a collection to buy Mathew a trophy, in honor of his tireless efforts during the past six months to own the libs and Make America Great Again. 🤥

This post sort of reminds me of that chapter in James Joyce's novel, Ulysses, entitled, "K.M.R.I.A." -- an acronym for, "Kiss My Royal Irish Arse." 🤓 Joyce was a century ahead of Twitter and text message semantics.

Thank you, Tucker Carlson!

Since this is a kind of post-mortem thread for the defunct, monster 56 Years thread, I had a few additional thoughts overnight. One thought has to do with the general mission/purpose of this fine Education Forum, and the subject of what constitutes "uncivil" discourse. Is it "uncivil" or "disrespectful" to criticize falsehoods-- i.e., alleged "facts" and opinions that are contradicted by established facts? Are we supposed to be "respectful" of all opinions-- even those that are invalid? I think not. On the contrary, my impression is that the mission/purpose of this Education Forum is to discern and report the truth, about history and other subjects. As a corollary, falsehoods need to be refuted. Case in point. Most of us believe that America's destiny was betrayed after 11/22/63, by men who conspired to murder President Kennedy in order to alter JFK's foreign and military policies. Consequently, we tend to refute the false Warren Commission thesis that JFK was assassinated by a Lone Nut. Is that uncivil? Similarly, an important topic on the 56 Years thread was Trump's conspiracy to obstruct the certification of Biden's election on January 6th. The evidence of Trump's J6 conspiracy has been quite ample, especially as a result of the 2022 Congressional J6 Committee investigation. And, yet, as in the case of the WCR "Lone Nut" narrative, some people in the media, (especially Tucker Carlson) and on this forum, have repeatedly promoted false narratives about January 6th. These are the same people who insist that it is "uncivil" for forum members to criticize their false claims about January 6th. Some have also erroneously claimed that criticism of their false claims constitutes an "ad hominem" attack. It doesn't.

Denny, As a participant on that monster 56 Years thread, from its inception, my perspective is that we had a lot of lively, informative, and humorous discussions about history and contemporary politics on the thread -- until about October of last year, as I described above. It provided a forum for discussions about American history and politics, beyond the narrow purview of JFK's assassination per se. I suspect that other long-term 56 Years thread participants-- Douglas Caddy, Steve Thomas, Joe Bauer, Ron Bulman, Kirk Galloway, Matt Allison, Sandy Larsen, et.al.-- would agree with my assessment, but I can't speak for them. The thread only devolved into controversial, petulant arguments during the past few months, after Mathew Koch joined the forum with the express intention of disrupting and challenging the alleged "leftist" bias on the thread. The exception is that, prior to October, most of us had pointedly disagreed with Benjamin Cole's denial of Trump's J6 coup attempt, and his promotion of Tucker Carlson's "Patriot purge" narrative about J6. Ben had also repeatedly criticized the Congressional J6 investigation, while refusing to watch the actual hearings. At one point, even James DiEugenio had urged Ben to watch the damning J6 Congressional testimony. Some of the recent arrivals on the forum, who became strangely aligned with Mathew Koch's MAGA movement, never really understood the history of the 56 Years thread. They have also had a tendency to mistake accurate criticisms of their erroneous opinions for ad hominem arguments. In the end, Mathew Koch did finally succeed with his October 2022 goal of "owning the libs"-- not by speaking the truth about contemporary American politics, but by destroying what had previously been a friendly, informative thread.

Steve, I agree that the 56 Years thread needed to be put to rest. But, since we are all erstwhile historians, I went back and studied the trajectory of that thread this evening. We were all having lively, informed discussions about current events until roughly October of 2022. Beginning in October, the thread was infiltrated and increasingly disrupted by Mathew Koch's MAGA spam, and an openly expressed agenda of disrupting and challenging the alleged "leftist" bias on the forum. It was all downhill after that, as Mathew's MAGA movement picked up momentum from a motley international crew. Jeremy Bojzuk posted a rather hilarious, literary critique of our forum's MAGA movement last night, by one Alex Wilson. Worth reading, especially for T.S. Eliot fans. I wrote a comment about Mr. Wilson's "Hollow Men" critique this morning, but Mark Knight closed the thread just before I clicked the "Send" button.

Get a clue, Ben. (I was hoping to be free of your bloviations after the mods closed the MAGA spam thread.) Larry Schnapf claimed (above) that Trump is not a Russian asset. I asked for proof of his assertion, which I believe to be false. The fact that Trump has not yet been outed as a Russian asset doesn't mean that he isn't one. You never read the Mueller Report. Trump obstructed Mueller's investigation, repeatedly, and Bill Barr misrepresented the conclusions of Mueller's aborted investigation. There is ample circumstantial evidence that Trump is a compromised Russian asset, which even conservative intellectual George F. Will believed after Trump's disgraceful press conference in Helsinki in 2018. People affiliated with the KGB have maintained that Trump was targeted by the KGB years ago. Felix Sater announced in 2015 that Putin planned to install Trump in the White House. Former KGB Lt. Col. Putin knows all about kompromat and entrapment. As for Mr. Schnapf, I commend his work on behalf of securing the release of the JFK records. He's a law professor at NYU. I'm a magna cum laude Ivy League alum and graduate of Harvard Medical School. Am I supposed to accept Mr. Schnapf's rather dubious opinions about Trump and Fox News as gospel?

Understood, Larry. IOW, it isn't necessarily illegal for bald-faced, lying sleazeballs like Rupert Murdoch, Sean Hannity, and Tucker Carlson to severely undermine and damage U.S. democracy. Meanwhile, I'd be interested in your alleged proof that Trump is not a compromised Russian asset. I believe that he is.

Joe, I think the point Mr. Schnapf is making is that it isn't necessarily illegal for bald-faced lying sleazeballs to severely undermine and damage U.S. democracy. 🙄

Geez, Ben. Wake up. Mr. Buffalo Horns was always your J6 straw man. He has long been used by the J6 coup deniers-- including Tucker Carlson-- to trivialize and deny the egregiousness of Trump's plot to obstruct the certification of Biden's election. In reality, Chansley was merely one of many delusional MAGAts duped by the lies of Donald Trump, Tucker Carlson, and the other talking heads at Fox into believing that the 2020 election was stolen. I feel sorry for the Chansley. He got played by Trump and Fox News. Now he's in prison, while Trump and his coup co-conspirators have faced no consequences for their sedition.

Lauren Boebert's new book is out!!

Trump-Era Deregulation Deemed a Key Culprit in the Failure of Silicon Valley Bank (commondreams.org)

Mathew, How credible is Russian state media, in your opinion? 🤓 Admittedly, we have our own M$M problem in the U.S., but here's how Putin's propagandists have been reporting in Russia on their invasion of Ukraine. This is as Orwellian as it gets.

Chris, It would be a shame to delete some of the old educational commentaries on this thread -- by James DiEugenio, et.al. Not to mention works of considerable literary merit, like my 2022 limerick, Our Trans-Atlantic Pal, Chrissy. 🤓 Our trans-Atlantic pal, Chrissy, on occasion, was churlish and prissy. A most sensitive Brit, he'd, at times, throw a fit, of the kind that are often called, "hissy."

Leslie, To give you the back story, Ben Cole is the guy who has been claiming for the past year that Chansley is the key figure in Trump's J6 coup attempt-- while the rest of us, including the J6 Committee, have focused on Donald Trump and his coup co-conspirators, viewing Chansley as a minor, peripheral character in Trump's J6 travesty. So, it's not surprising that Ben, Mathew Koch, John Cotter, Paul Rigby, et.al., have embraced Tucker Carlson's false J6 narrative focusing on Chansley, while assiduously avoiding Politifacts detailed debunking of Carlson's narrative. This has always been Ben's modus operandi-- dodging the contrary evidence that debunks his paradigm.

Exhibit A. Not a single comment or rebuttal from our Coalition of the Clueless during the past 12 hours about this detailed Politifact fact-check and debunking of Tucker Carlson's J6 narrative on Fox. Instead, we have witnessed another entire page of MAGA spam by Mathew Koch, Paul Rigby, Ben Cole, and John Cotter in support of Tucker's false narrative-- including an endorsement of Tucker by his shill, Naomi Wolf.

Newsflash, Koch. Non-scientist Naomi Wolf sold out to Faux News, like Glenn Greenwald. Naomi Wolf Was a Feminist Icon. Now She’s an Anti-Vaxxer Banned by Twitter | The New Republic

Fred Wertheimer published an excellent op-ed today about Tucker Carlson's false, revisionist J6 swindle. I'm guessing that the guys in our Coalition of the Clueless don't even know who Fred Wertheimer is. Opinion | The Tucker Carlson-Led Effort to Whitewash the History of January 6 Will Fail | Common Dreams

Mark, Sandy & Kathy, This thread should either be deleted, or re-named the, "Education Forum MAGA Spam Thread." We're now seeing multiple entire pages of daily MAGA spam, in lieu of rational, evidence-based dialogues. I notice that Paul Rigby has even posted a lengthy disinformation blog by disgraced Fox News sell-out, Naomi Wolf, in support of Tucker Carlson's false, revisionist history of Trump's J6 coup attempt. Ben Cole was thrilled. Forget Trump, Eastman, Chris Miller and Lt. Gen. Charles Flynn. J6 was, obviously, Nancy Pelosi's fault. Nancy, evidently, wanted to make Trump look bad by having the Capitol ransacked to disrupt Biden's election certification. Geez... What has happened to this thread is a real pity... 🙄

PolitiFact | Evidence rebuts Tucker Carlson’s claim about Capitol Police acting as tour guides to ‘QAnon Shaman’

Well I'm shocked to see that perennially clueless Ben Cole is still blaming Nancy Pelosi for the lack of adequate Capitol security on January 6th... Geez... Way to go, Ben! 🙄 This is what happens when someone adamantly refuses to study the evidence debunking their fixed delusions. I will refer Ben to the history of Capitol Police Chief Sund's desperate efforts to have National Guard troops deployed to the Capitol, and Trump's flying monkeys at the Pentagon-- Secretary of Defense Chris Miller, Lt. Gen. Charles Flynn, and Lt. Gen. Walter Piatt-- blocking Sund's requests, and later lying about their obstruction of security. The Official and Unofficial Timeline of Defense Department Actions on January 6 (justsecurity.org)

Leslie, I'm only six feet tall, and an amateur historian, like most of us here. There are a few "giants" on this forum, but I'm not one of them. (And most of the "giants" on the forum have avoided this thread lately.) Honestly, we had higher quality discussions about history and current events here until about a year ago, when the forum was invaded by some denizens of the Fox MAGA-verse. Since then, most of the discussions have focused on trying to clean up the non-stop MAGA disinformazia.