W. Niederhut

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. -- W. Niederhut (2017) Reality check for Mathew Koch, Chris Barnard and the Coalition of the Clueless

Wow. An entire page and a half of Tucker Carlson's MAGA spam has been posted on this thread during the past 12 hours--mostly by Mathew Koch... As George W. Bush said, "You can fool some of the people all of the time, and those are the ones you want to concentrate on." And, as we have have witnessed with the Faux narratives about Putin's invasion lately, Chris Barnard and John Cotter have thrown in their lot with our delusional MAGA spammers, Ben Cole and Mathew Koch. It's the Education Forum's Coalition of the Clueless-- those opposed to Phil Spector dominance. War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Fox is news.

Ron, I think we've all seen the extensive violent J6 Capitol footage-- with the possible exceptions of Mathew Koch and Benjamin Cole, who both adamantly refused to watch the Congressional J6 hearings last year. What we are witnessing on this forum is a microcosm of American society-- including a sub-population that embraces false narratives and refuses to answer questions about the damning evidence.

Well, it looks like Chris has leap-frogged my response to John's post, in which I requested an explanation of how Putin's war crimes are justified by America's war crimes in the Middle East. Most of us condemn both, (although I suspect that Mathew Koch was a Bush & Cheney "War on Terror" jingoist back in the day, as were Rupert Murdoch and his Fox News talking heads.) Chris has also declined my request that he post a source for his claims about the Kremlin-backed insurgency in eastern Ukraine since 2014. It looks like Chris, Ben, and John's new concept of "civil" discourse is to ignore questions and requests for explanations about their posts. What a cop out.

Matt, It's, obviously, NATO's fault-- part of the woke, pedophiliac, Phil Spector dominance of the Donk left. Ukraine needs to be radioactively purged of Western LGBT contaminants by Putin's fascist antifascists. Check with Mathew Koch, John Cotter, Paul Rigby, and Chris Barnard for full YouTube details.

What a pity, John. I was hoping that you and Paul Rigby might finally explain to us how two wrongs make a right-- i.e., how Putin's war crimes in Ukraine are justified by America's war crimes during the Bush/Cheney/Neocon "War on Terror." I have noticed during the past twenty years that some of my European acquaintances didn't seem to understand that many Americans-- roughly 50% of us-- never voted for George W. Bush and Dick Cheney in 2000 or 2004. It is true that George W. Bush's low approval rating soared after the 9/11 op, but some of us were opposed to the Bush/Cheney/Neocon "War on Terror" from the beginning.

John, You and Paul Rigby are either very poor readers or very slow learners-- attributes that you seem to share with our MAGA-verse denizens, Ben Cole and Mathew Koch. Ben, himself, has even likened his nocturnal diatribes here to flatus. And I responded to Ben by likening this thread to Oscar Wilde's description of marriage-- "An institution where bad words are exchanged by day and bad smells at night." 🤥 (Unfortunately, my "scholarly" reference to Wilde's aphorism was censored by our administrators.) I have already debunked your bizarre Rigby defense of Putin's war crimes-- based on the illogical theory that America's Neocon war crimes in the Middle East (including Operation Timber Sycamore) somehow justify Putin's war crimes in Ukraine. They don't. Two wrongs don't make a right. Russ Baker, himself, published a piece along the same lines, which I posted here recently.* You and Rigby either didn't read Baker's essay, or didn't understand it. * Western and Russian Imperialism: Our Wrongs Don’t Make Putin Right (substack.com)

So, our resident MAGA spammer, Mathew Koch, just falsely accused "woke" liberals of promoting pedophilia. Then, one page later, Mathew Koch is celebrating the misleading MAGA propaganda of the notorious Republican pedo-lawyer, Alan Dershowitz... Strange choice... 🤥 Mathew, did you bother to read your own scriptural reference from Mathew 18:6? Do you really not know that Alan Dershowitz, like Donald Trump, was an associate of pedophile Jeffrey Epstein? That Trump and Mathew Gaetz seem to have a thing for underage girls? And Dershowitz, himself, seems to have an unusual affinity for conservative pedophiles? NYT: Dershowitz was part of clemency effort for pedophile tied to Mideast talks | The Times of Israel Ex-Victoria’s Secret CEO Contradicts Alan Dershowitz in Epstein Fight | Courthouse News Service What We Learned From the New Yorker’s Alan Dershowitz Story (thecut.com)

Chris, I'm curious. Would you mind citing the source of your "information" about the Russian insurgency against the Ukrainian government in eastern Ukraine? (Preferably not a YouTube video, please.) BTW, did you hear about Sergey Lavrov's comic monologue in Delhi yesterday? Audience in Delhi openly laughs as Lavrov says Ukraine war ‘launched against’ Russia ‘You know, the war, which we are trying to stop, which was launched against us,’ says Russian foreign minister https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/sergey-lavrov-russia-ukraine-war-b2294079.html March 4, 2023

Some memes are just too good to avoid sharing... 🤥

Matt, Good question. How about Isaiah 5:20? "Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!" (Isa. 5:20.)

Mathew, C'mon, man. Do you really imagine that we "liberals" condone child abuse? Is this QAnon stuff, or what? Heaven forbid! What I am referring to (above) is compassion for our fellow human beings. Human sexuality is a complex phenomenon, with biological and developmental determinants. Pope Francis, himself, has admonished us to focus on compassion, rather than condemnation of others.

Mathew, One of my favorite Orthodox hagiographical stories is about the monk who was despised by some of the brethren for being less than circumspect, drinking too much wine, etc. After his death, one of the monks had a dream in which they were astonished to see this lackadaisical monk in paradise. They asked him how he had succeeded in reaching paradise, and he said, "I never judged anybody!" "Judge not, lest ye be judged." So, no, I don't worship the so-called "Republican Jesus." I don't even recognize "Republican Jesus" as the Christ. Christ taught us that the two greatest commandments are to love God and to love our fellow human beings. And, as St. John wrote in his epistle, "If a man hates his brother, how can the love of God be in him?"

The GOP MAGA Trump Cult seems to be getting even loonier lately. Today, a speaker at CPAC was actually cheered after calling for transgender people to be "eradicated." These Kochs ain't woke, y'all! No siree, Bob! And check out CPAC's greatest hits yesterday... 😲

Ben, You misquoted me again. It's a bad habit of yours. Should I try using caps? 🙄 I very specifically referred to the substantive differences between Democrats and Republicans on TAX POLICY, HEALTHCARE POLICY, and ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION during the past 40 years. Democrats are "unmoored from the middle and employee classes?" What are you smoking, fella-- Thai stick? Which party has been quietly trying to de-fund and privatize Social Security? I. Tax Policy Republicans have repeatedly passed tax cuts for billionaires since 1980, while trying to sabotage healthcare for the working poor, and environmental protection. Their "trickle down" tax cuts for the rich have largely created our gargantuan U.S. national debt. II. Healthcare How many times did the Republican Koch/Tea Party Congress vote to sabotage Obamacare after 2010? And Paul Ryan passed two GOP House budget bills after 2010 that would have essentially ended Medicare for retirees born after 1959. Then McConnell and Ryan tacked a rider sabotaging Obamacare on to to their December 2017 GOP Tax Cuts for Billionaires Act. It was part of the Trump/GOP No Care plan to promote junk insurance in place of Obamacare guidelines. III. EPA Do you remember Reagan's disastrous anti-environmental policies with James Watt and Ann Gorsuch? How about Bush & Cheney's toxic anti-environmental fracking legacy? How about Trump's toxic anti-environmental legacy with Scott Pruitt & Co.? Trump rolled back over 100 environmental regulations for his corporate donors.

Ben, Of course you're entitled to your own views, which you have expressed, repeatedly, on this thread-- 1,924 times! But, as Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan famously said, "You're not entitled to your own facts." Are we supposed to "respect" the erroneous views of those who persist in ignoring the facts-- like implying that there are no substantive differences between Republican and Democratic tax and healthcare policies? That Republicans since 1980 are not the party of Reaganomic tax cuts for the rich and "starving the beast?" Haven't we already had this conversation two or three times? 🙄 And when confronted about this issue, you always play the victim, while accusing your critics of being uncivil for criticizing your erroneous views.

John, Don't buy into Benjamin Cole's oft-repeated pseudo-historical bunk on this subject. He's dead wrong. If you look at environmental protection, tax, and healthcare policy, there is simply no equivalence between the Republican and Democratic Parties in modern American history. Republicans have consistently endeavored, first and foremost, to cut taxes for the rich, and secondarily to cut healthcare funding for the poor, and sabotage pollution regulations for corporate polluters. It's a consistent pattern during the past 40 years. The top priority for Republicans since 1980 has been to cut taxes for the rich, and to "starve the Beast"-- i.e., to use the resulting budget deficits as a pretext for cutting funding that benefits the 90%. Republicans only use "culture wars" issues-- race, "woke-ism," religion, homophobia, etc.-- as a means of tricking white working class voters into voting for their tax cuts for the rich and "starving the Beast." This isn't rocket science.

John, I agree with most of your (above) analysis, but this sentence is problematic. If you study the history of Democratic progressives in the U.S. during the past century-- FDR, JFK, et.al.-- they have been the only bona fide representatives of the American working class. Every single legislative achievement benefitting the working class in the U.S. during the past century has been accomplished by Democrats, often in the teeth of fierce Republican resistance-- Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Obamacare, etc. The lone exception is that Nixon deserves credit for helping to create the EPA. In contrast, the essential legislative legacy of the Republican Party during the past 40 years has been tax cuts for the rich-- beginning with Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, then Bush & Cheney in 2001 and 2003, and Trump in 2017. Trump is a plutocrat who has used white racism and xenophobia as a disguise for populism. I'm opposed to Bowdlerization, in any form, but the current white supremacist "Anti-woke" book banning movement in Republican politics is an abomination-- reminiscent of things that Hitler did in Germany in the 1930s.

Putin's Puppet Lukashenko Sends Nobel Laureate to the Gulag Belarus Sentences Nobel Peace Prize Winner (politicalwire.com) March 3, 2023

Revealed: Jim Jordan's FBI 'whistleblowers' were paid by Trump ally and spread J6 conspiracy theories - Raw Story - Celebrating 19 Years of Independent Journalism

John, Please accept my apology for being so abrasive about the subject of the "anti-woke" movement in the U.S. today. It's something that really pushes my buttons. IMO, this "anti-woke" nonsense is related to the larger subject of latent racism in the U.S., Trump-ism, and the white supremacist rage that surfaced in the U.S. after Barack Obama's election in 2008. It shocked me at the time. I grew up in a mixed-race, working class neighborhood in the 1960s, and I thought that the U.S. had made far more progress on Civil Rights and moving beyond racism during the four decade period from MLK's assassination to Obama's election in 2008. Boy, was I mistaken! David Axelrod nailed it in 2017 when he pointed out that Trump came to power as the Hegelian antithesis to Obama-- the poorly educated, bigoted, orange Anti-Obama. Recall that this moronic anti-woke reaction to the teaching of America's true, untold history originated with Trump's pseudo-historical 1776 initiative-- a reaction to the 1619 project to educate Americans about the history of slavery. It's popular with the Fox News-watching Trump cult, and is now being championed by Rupert Murdoch's favorite right wing alternative to the Orange Mar-a-Lago Baboon-- Ron DeSantis.

John, A friendly word of advice. You really need to stop posting about subjects that you don't understand. Among other fatal flaws in your thesis here, you don't seem to realize that the "Anti-woke" movement in contemporary right wing American politics is focused on banning books and obstructing the teaching of true American history-- about slavery, Jim Crow, voter suppression, white supremacy, misogyny, etc. If you're truly concerned about toxic "groupthink" in the U.S., you need to focus your attention on the anti-woke right wing goons who are currently banning books and threatening to arrest librarians and schoolteachers.

Yeah, Matt, something is rotten in Denmark, but not in the way that Tucker Carlson has claimed. In reality, the FBI is infested with right wing goons, as in the case of Tony Ornato and the Secret Service. People tend to forget that Christopher Wray was the flying monkey appointed by Trump to replace James Comey and Andrew McCabe, after Trump fired both men in 2017 in an effort to shut down the FBI investigation of unregistered foreign agent Michael Flynn's illegal 2016 contacts with Sergei Kisylak. I also wondered after January 6th if Wray's FBI goons may have been complicit in obstructing proper security for the Capitol during Trump's coup attempt. If the FBI had inside information about Trump's plan to block the certification of Biden's election, why didn't their intel result in heightened Capitol security on J6? Russian foreign agent Charles McGonigal and the FBI also played a role in sabotaging Hillary Clinton's 2016 candidacy. Wray also later obstructed the FBI investigation of Brett Kavanaugh's sexual assault history during Kavanaugh's Senate SCOTUS confirmation hearings. And, finally, Wray's FBI goons dragged their feet in Trump's Mar-a-Lago classified documents case. Mark Sumner published a good summary of Christopher Wray's rotten FBI tenure yesterday. FBI agents undermined Russia investigation, downplayed Jan. 6, tried to block the Mar-a-Lago search (dailykos.com)

Kathy, Your painting (above) is another good illustration of how Donald Trump is bizarrely idealized by the surviving members of his delusional MAGA cult (i.e., those who weren't killed by the COVID virus during the past three years.) Here's how Trump actually looks.