W. Niederhut

Joe, My brother-in-law received a phone call during the summer of 2020 from an old college buddy who had recently attended Donald Trump's Drink-the-Kool-Aid campaign rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The guy was dying of COVID, after attending the Trump rally, and called my brother-in-law to say goodbye. Then he died. Republican politician, Herman Cain, had also attended that same Tulsa rally, before dying of COVID. At the time, we were appalled to see the Trumpsters in Tulsa cheering for Il Douche without masks. If I recall correctly, I opined that Trump should have been charged with negligent homicide. Trump's 2020 Drink-the-Kool-Aid Tulsa Campaign Rally

Putin’s Invasion Foretold by Greg Palast for Buzzflash February 24, 2023 As Russian tanks rolled across the border, some of our fellow progressives called it a justified attack in response to a threat from Western military imperialists. The year was 1939. That year, some on the Left, a minority for sure, bent themselves into moral pretzels to justify the Hitler-Stalin Pact and the Russian-German murder-drenched conquest of Poland. As a New York Tribune columnist, the abolitionist Karl Marx, wrote before the US Civil War, when some Britons supported the slavers: “History speaks twice; the first time as tragedy, the second as farce.” Indeed, there is a nauseating, horrifying humor watching one-time fighters against injustice, self-proclaimed “anti-war” activists, dancing cheek to cheek with Marjorie Taylor Greene, Ted Cruz, Tucker Carlson and fascist pin-up Silvio Berlusconi sharing their love, or at least, their sad excuse-making, for Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. At its core, these strange bedfellows’ sympathy for the Russian invasion rests, ultimately, on the canard that it was NATO’s expansion that provoked Putin to attack. Pay attention to Putin’s own words. On July 12, 2021, months before his tanks rolled, Putin issued a detailed statement of his casus belli, his justification for total seizure of Ukraine, not just the Donbas, in a 21-page-long essay, “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians.” No one should speak of this war unless they have read this, Putin’s Mein Kampf. Nowhere, nowhere, nowhere in his essay does Putin say one word about NATO expansion. The meandering screed boils down to two points: First, Ukraine has always been an inseparable part of Russkiy Mir, the soul and body of Mother Russia, for more than a thousand years. But it’s not true. Putin’s phantasmic claim reaches back to the 10th century, to Volodymyr, Grand Prince of the Kievan-Rus principality — founded, not by the Slavs they conquered, but as an extension of the Viking Empire. The rulers of Ukraine and this proto-Russia were Swedish. Volodymyr (namesake of both Zelensky and Putin), ruled from the metropolitan capital of Kiev over a vast land including the swampy little village of Moscow. Volodymyr put to the sword those who would not worship the giant icons he erected to Thor and Loki — until, in 988AD, he converted to Christianity and put to the sword to those who would not destroy the old icons and swear to the new one, the Crucifix. Thus was founded the Orthodox Church, based in Kiev, not in a “Rus-sia” that did not exist. Nevertheless, here is the germ of Putin’s second casus belli, reason for invasion: religion, specifically, restoration of the one and true Orthodox Church. It would be a deep misunderstanding to call Putin’s once and future Russia a dictatorship. It is a theocracy, ruled now and forever, in Putin’s mind, by the one and only Holy Muscovite Patriarch. Today, that crown, to which Putin bows, is the Moscow-based Patriarch Kirill, the ultimate source of Putin’s political power and Putin’s hold on rural believers. It was Kirill who taunted and demanded Putin “save” the Muscovite faithful in the Donbas who side with Kirill in the Orthodox schism — and blesses what the Patriarch sees as a Crusade to restore the rightful church and cast out the heretics, the Ukraine and Greek Patriarchs. Putin’s and Kirill’s quest is medieval, truly a new Crusade to restore the Church and its Empire. NATO? Putin only gives passing mention at the end of his anti-historical fever dream as a new locus of attack against the values of the true church. More on this later. Putin’s tale of the unbroken, Christ-blessed rule of Ukraine by Russia has a problem. It’s bullshit. The Kievan-Rus empire shredded and disappeared in the pinwheel of history nearly a millennium ago, in 1242. For most of the vast expanse of centuries between, Ukraine was an independent and voluntary member of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. It is a great shame that this huge empire, often called the Golden Freedom, has little mention in history books because its member states ruled in peace by consensus, a proto-democracy that elected its leader and whose constitution demanded only peaceful coexistence among its states and religious freedom. History prefers its conquistadors, as does Putin, who picks up the tale of Ukraine as Russkiy Mir when Catherine The Great conquers its Eastern edge in 1793. (I’ve an inkling Putin takes note that “The Great” is only bestowed on those who grab territory by blood. Does he look in the mirror each morning and whisper, “Vlad the Great”?) Ukraine, in Putin’s fantasy, was overjoyed to be occupied, given as a gift to Prince Potemkin, Catherine’s lover, a fiction worthy of the happy “Potemkin villages” the Prince created to hoodwink his visiting randy Empress. (When the Russians fled Kherson, they abandoned some of their soldiers to die — but carefully carted away Potemkin’s skeleton.) Kiev was devoured by the Hapsburgs and spit out after World War I. It was never part of Russia. But that truth is niggling detail to Putin. In Putin’s essay, his bloviating fury is not aimed at NATO, but at “the Bolsheviks,” those Commie traitors who, from day one of the 1917 Revolution, recognized Ukraine as an independent nation. Indeed, in 1945, Ukraine won its own seat at the United Nations based on Soviet insistence that Ukraine is a sovereign state. Now to Putin’s casus belli #2: the existential threat to Russia from the West. The West, says Putin, will not rest until Russia is destroyed. The threat is not from NATO’s cruise missiles, but from NATO’s homosexuals. Like the Ayatollahs of Iran, to Putin and Kirill, the poison of cultural, moral decay reaches its zenith in the vile desecration of the nuclear family and all the intellectual freethinking, freakery and vices that come from it. Putin defenders in Washington, D.C. at a Rage Against The War Machine rally holding Russian flags with the Russian Empire emblem favored by white nationalists. Photo: © Zach D. Roberts, February 19, 2023. The Lord and his Patriarch are threatened — and indeed they are — by heretical freethinking that leads from liberty to libertinism. And like the prior restorers of the faith Grand Inquisitors and their armed wing, the Crusaders, there can be no vote, no newspaper chit-chat, when the word of God is defied and threatened. The post-Gorbachev orgies are over. Pussy Riot must be jailed. It is why Putin is the pin-up for the Christian fascist parties of the West, from Golden Dawn in Greece, Marine Le Pen in France, to the Proudboys and US Christian fascists, including Holocaust denier, January 6 suspect and Trump dinner guest Nicholas “Nick” Fuentes. How odd, how tragic that some of my friends on the US Left, who will who rightly demand respect for appropriate pronouns, defend Putin who made simply advocating for LGBTQ rights a crime and empowers “gay-hunting” pogroms. Putin accuses the West of poisoning Russians with the “monstrosity…that a boy can become a girl and reversely, [that] they can play five or six gender roles.” Read carefully Putin’s declaration of the invasion of Ukraine and the his true cause is declared: Putin, at his grand ceremony annexing Ukraine provinces, linked it directly to his war on Western-inspired transgender rights which he termed, “pure Satanism.” I suppose that is provoked by NATO as well. * * * In theocracies, the will of the people is not so important as the purity of the people. How strange to me, how sad, that some of my readers, rightly enraged at my revelations of vote suppression in Georgia, think nothing of Putin’s unique method of electioneering. His presidential opponent, Alexei Navalny, after Putin’s bumbling assassins failed to kill him with the poison Novichok, is now in the IK-6 penal gulag commonly known as the ‘Torture Prison.’ Putin’s prior challenger, Boris Nemtsov, was shot in the back of the head, right in front of the Kremlin. In 2018, I exposed GOP Gov. Brian Kemp’s vicious suppression of the Black vote in Georgia, denying Stacy Abrams the governorship. But, Kemp didn’t shoot her in the back of the head. How can anyone decry Kemp and excuse Putin? And if Putin’s panzers had succeeded in occupying Kyiv and installing his puppet, would that not be the ultimate in “vote suppression”? * * * Let me quickly dispose of the remnants of the canard that NATO expansion threatened Russia’s very existence, that Putin’s cause is justified. Yes, Ukraine sought to enter NATO. That was two decades ago. And NATO turned them down. And how is NATO’s presence in Hungary, led by Putin’s boy-toy Viktor Orban, an existential threat to Russia? But what about NATO in Poland? I’ve searched and searched, and I cannot find evidence that Poland launched its missiles into Russia. And when Poland was part of Russia’s Warsaw Pact, would that have justified NATO’s invasion of Russia? And if the threat is NATO, why is Russia bombing Ukraine? Why not bomb Poland? You know why. Russia’s killing 130,000 in Ukraine because of a chimerical threat from Poland is like me having a shouting match with the guy in Apartment 2 so I knife the daughter of the guy in Apartment 4. How can too many of my fellow progressives, who marched against Bush’s “preemptive” war in Iraq, now find preemptive war by Putin justified by “NATO provocation.” Thankfully, Putin has few such useful idiots. * * * In 1939, after the Munich “peace” accord, when the Germans and Russians invaded Poland, they hunted down those who supplied weapons to the Polish Army. They found my great-uncle Solie who supplied horses to the Polish cavalry, horses that fought the Panzer tanks. You know how that ended. The National Socialists gathered the locals, and shot Uncle Solie in the head. Some cheered. He was, after all, like Zelensky, a Jew. At the Dachau Concentration Camp is a plaque that says simply: Never again. And today, it seems, some of my once-comrades have added an asterisk: Well, maybe, sometimes. Zach D. Roberts and Leni Badpenny von Eckardt-Manzoni, who have reported from Kyiv and Kherson, contributed research for this article.

Yeah, you got the farting part right, Ben. It's malodorous. But we used to converse with the other end of our alimentary canals. I rest my case.

If some of you new members want to read a fascinating, informative, non-JFKA forum discussion from the days before the MAGA spammers-- Ben, Mathew Koch, et.al.-- ruined this forum, check out our "Journal of the Plague Year" thread from three years ago. We had some fascinating, convivial conversations here with James DiEugenio, and a wide array of scholarly forum members-- more or less "live blogging" the early days and weeks of the pandemic. It's depressing to see how far the non-JFKA related discussions around here have deteriorated during the past year. 70-80% of the thread is now comprised of MAGA spam and those who still take the time to debunk it. Even this particular thread has been ruined, compared to its early days, by the daily deluge of MAGA spam-- fake Fox News "Patriot Purge" narratives, Russiagate denial, Putin apologetics, etc.

I'm giving up MAGA spam and Kremlin spam for Lent. 🤥

Mathew, This is basic Immunology 101 stuff. MAGAts seem surprised that antigen exposure can confer immunity. Duh. Now, see if you can explain the observed marked differences in U.S. COVID mortality rates in Trump-voting counties vs. Biden-voting counties during the pandemic. (I won't hold my breath.)

"Woke" refers to being informed about actual history, including the true history of systemic racism, misogyny, and homophobia in American society-- slavery, Jim Crow laws, voter suppression, etc. The anti-Woke movement in contemporary Republican red states refers to active GOP measures to suppress education, public consciousness, and mitigation of and about racism, misogyny, and homophobia.

Your comment makes no sense, Chris. If you study the U.S. CDC data from mid-2021 through the end of 2022, there was a NINEFOLD increased risk of death from COVID in unvaccinated adults over age 65, compared to vaccinated adults over 65. In the U.S., there has also been a markedly increased incidence of COVID deaths in counties that voted for Trump, compared to counties that voted for Biden. How do you and Mathew explain those facts? Did you study any math in school?

Yeah, Chris, but fortunately, we have non-scientists like you and Mathew to explain the science to us, eh? Did you and Mathew ever pass Immunology 101 or Virology 101 when you were in medical school? Geez... 🤥

Mathew Koch posted the wrong spam today, as usual. IMO, this comedian does a much better Trump impersonation than Alec Baldwin. 😂

Matt, I suspected, from day one, that the U.S. was involved in the Nordstream demolition, with the acquiescence of Norway and our EU allies. Who else had the means and motive to de-fund Putin's mass murder machine? But John Cotter has had his panties in a bunch ever since Paul Rigby posted the Seymour Hersch article claiming that the demolition was a U.S. op. And John has now posted at least ten redundant comments on the subject-- even claiming that the pipeline demolition was an act of "terrorism" by the God awful Yanks. What can we say about a guy like Cotter who is outraged about a strategic military pipeline demolition, to undermine a war criminal, while refusing to comment on Putin's historic war crimes and atrocities in Ukraine? Cotter seems to have great empathy for gas pipelines and precious little for the suffering Ukrainians and massacred Russian conscripts in Ukraine.

True, Ron. And the more pigs, the muddier. What we are witnessing with the forum's Putin apologists--from both sides of the pond-- reminds me of those muddy, redundant "debates" with Ben last year about Tucker Carlson's alternate "Patriot Purge" narrative denying Trump's January 6th coup attempt. It's a waste of time, because the Lukashenkos around here repeatedly ignore the damning evidence of Putin's atrocities while endlessly repeating their debunked talking points.

Learn how to read, John. What did I write about strategic military sabotage and depriving Putin's war machine of funding? And what useful purpose would it serve to make such strategic covert ops overt, in time of war? As for the op, does it make sense to deprive Putin of funds for his, illegal, genocidal war? Speak up. Tell us what you have to say about Putin's FSB terror state and his war crimes against Ukraine. Are you with the UN and the world in condemning Putin's illegal invasion, or with the dictators Putin, Lukashenko, and Kim Jong Un in condoning it? Stop pissing down our backs while telling us that it's raining.

Get a clue, Mathew. My answer to John's redundant, deflective Nordstream question was implicit in my post. And, as usual, you missed the essential thesis in my response about depriving Putin's FSB terror state of funding. You also missed my observation recently that the strange bedfellows on opposite sides of the Atlantic who are Putin apologists-- right wing American MAGAts and liberals in the British Isles-- can be understood as dupes of different facets of Russian propaganda. The old Dugin/Putin propaganda strategy (in Foundations of Geopolitics) was to; 1) fracture the U.S. along racial and cultural fault lines, (i.e., Trumpism) and 2) to isolate the U.K. from the U.S. and the EU.

John, It wasn't a question. It was a suggestion that you should stop posting your ludicrous Putin apologetics and start acknowledging that the man is a bloody tyrant and a war criminal. He is killing people by the thousands, including his own oppressed citizens. His only allies are dictators like Lukashenko and Kim Jong Un. As for sabotage of funding for Putin's genocidal war machine, you have mislabeled it as an act of terrorism, and you've now cluttered the board with redundant nonsense condemning those who are trying to defend Ukraine from Putin's depredations. Can you think of a war in which economic sanctions, blockades, and covert sabotage were not a component of military strategy? Putin's FSB terror state is a poisonous snake that needs to be deprived of sustenance.

Greg Palast nails it. This should be required reading for the Putin apologists-- on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.

Since over 140 nations have now voted at the UN to condemn Putin's illegal, bloody invasion of Ukraine, perhaps John Cotter should explain why he still refrains from condemning Putin's illegal invasion and war crimes-- while condemning strategic Western counter measures against Putin's death machine. At present, John still appears to be oddly aligned with the dictators Kim Jong Un, Lukashenko, and Vlad-the-Journalist-Impaler against democracy and international law.

Boebert to Speak at Koch Climate Change Denial Conference climatecrocks.com/2023/02/22/denial-groups-newest-climate-expert-of-course-its-lauren-boebert/ February 24, 2023

The culture of social organizations/institutions typically originates at the top, correct? So, what sort of homicidal maniac is sitting at the top of the Russian Federation? Russia is currently sending prison convicts straight to the front lines in Ukraine and threatening to nuke Western countries on their nightly news telecasts. Something is terribly wrong with this picture. It's a fear-based culture of psychopathy. Here are two chilling stories that caught my eye today. Putin allies issue chilling threat to nuke Yellowstone Supervolcano in the US | US | News | Express.co.uk Wagner fighters captured in Ukraine recount path from prison to war - The Washington Post

U.N. countries overwhelmingly vote to tell Russia to leave Ukraine One year into Russia’s brutal war in Ukraine, more than 140 countries in the United Nations voted for a resolution calling on Moscow to end its invasion. https://www.msnbc.com/the-reidout/reidout-blog/ukraine-war-anniversary-united-nations-vote-rcna72098 February 23, 2023

Brevity is the soul of wit... 🤣😂

If America's great Presidents were like Donald Trump (cont.) "Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do in this country to acquire a box of my JFK brand cigars, after I impose an embargo on Castro's Cuba."

If America's great Presidents were like Donald Trump... "You Continental soldiers should buy my George Washington brand thermal underwear"

Can't make this stuff up... 🙄 It's like something the Joker would do in a Batman movie, after de-regulating train safety regulations. Trump Uses Ohio Disaster to Advertise Trump Water www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-water-east-palestine_n_63f68415e4b0616708df409a February 22, 2023