Leslie Sharp

Can you elaborate? Do you argue that John McCloy and Allen Dulles took their cues from Carlos Marcello? Did Marcello pull Jack Crichton's strings to the extent he picked up Ilya Mamantov from his home on Mockingbird ten minutes before the assassination to deposit him at DPD to translate for Marina? Did Marcello then assign Isaac Don Levine to "manage" Marina as early as November 28? Did Marcello know H. Keith Thompson who would navigate Marguerite's affairs including a stint on the Irv Kupcinet show in Chicago - participating on a panel with Hitler's former favorite banker Hjalmar Schacht?

Right. Hank devotes a chapter of A Secret Order to June. Her acquaintances in NY included Warren Broglie (born in Cairo, btw) who was in Conrad Hilton's stable of managers before purchasing Hotel Luma, and oddly enough Thomas Grattan Proctor who you read a good deal about in Coup. The fact that Proctor knew Tom Davis, and that June saw Davis in MC at the time the Garros encountered Oswald remains an inexplicable coincidence. I've been told by someone I trust that John Newman secured a batch of documents from June years ago under the pretense he would return them. For some odd reason, she failed to make copies so he had the only version in existence except/unless the originators (her handlers and all the way up the food chain) kept copies? The story goes that Dr. Newman's office was broken into and June's documents were stolen; he had removed one particular doc. which he had filed elsewhere. I believe just last year he posted on FB that he would provide public access to that document; to date, no one in my sphere has commented that they're seen it. It's possible I've garbled the details, but I believe I've captured the gist; if anyone is in direct communication with Dr. Newman, perhaps he might provide a more accurate account? If memory serves, Bill Kelly was at one time quite skeptical of June's assertions. He may have adjusted his assessment since then?

Please read the terms and conditions I provided Greg earlier in this thread. And do you seriously contend your sacrifice ... writing some articles and being interviewed and dropping a few dollars ... is comparable?

You may ask permission and you can anticipate that not everyone grants requests, particularly in this field of research which is riddled with less than honorable characters who are skilled at misrepresentation and cannibalizing documents to suit an agenda. Nice Try, Greg. And where has your collegiality been with a fellow Kennedy assassination researcher, Greg? Why didn't you contact me in December 2021 rather than attack a recently deceased well-respected journalist's investigation?

As I suspected once you hit a wall you would backpedal and somehow attempt to characterize me as unreasonable. You didn't disappoint, Greg. may be within Leslie's power to bring to disclosure and access, if she were to wish it to become so. You must think those reading this thread are idiots? I have posted on EF numous times now that the ink analyst, Valery Aginsky, is under an NDA; I have attempted to secure the preliminary report through several avenues without success. These are professionals — a concept that seems lost on some on this forum — and it is their prerogative to preserve their findings until such time as they decide to reignite the project. At that time, they will have to go through me and the publisher. So, thank you for spending a few hours with this Greg, but now, would you kindly cease posting your innuendos and (pardon the colloquialism), butt out.

I wouldn’t expect an “assassination hobbyist” to understand a thirty-year self-funded commitment that has yielded several dozen banker’s boxes of hardcopy research, two mac mini hard drives (and counting), crisscrossing the US to more than a dozen libraries including four presidential, thousands and thousands of hours and $$$ devoted to uncovering the genealogy of the Military-Industrial Complex — not acronyms, but names and faces — tied to the cold case murder investigation of President Kennedy in Dallas, November 22. So, before you accuse me any further of trying to profit from the death of John Kennedy, tell us, what sacrifices have you made?

Society for American Civic Renewal claims it is ‘raising accountable leaders to help build thriving communities of free citizens’ to rebuild ‘the frontier-conquering spirit of America’. Photograph: RyanJLane/Getty Images/iStockphoto The far right US businessman is wannabe ‘warlord’ of secretive far-right men’s network Revealed: Charles Haywood, creator of the Society for American Civic Renewal, has said he might serve as ‘warlord’ at the head of an ‘armed patronage network’ 'Further on, Haywood writes: “At this moment I preside over what amounts to a extended, quite sizeable, compound, which when complete I like to say, accurately, will be impervious to anything but direct organized military attack”, adding that “it requires a group of men to make it work … what I call ‘shooters’ – say fifteen able-bodied, and adequately trained, men.” These “shooters”, Haywood explains, “can operate my compound, both defensively and administratively”, meanwhile, “I have the personality, and skills, to lead such a group.”' https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/22/charles-haywood-claremont-institute-sacr-far-right?CMP=share_btn_fb&fbclid=IwAR2eTXPYcy3cjVBfQ2WNKJDDIS21hTxClwMpL87k2ZrWr6f0sh5aic__3nY A few choice morsels from Charles Haywood's Twelve Pillars of Foundationalism (and don't forget the guns, lots and lots of guns!):. . . It could be Augustan—a limited dictatorship (and almost certainly will be to begin). It could be aristocratic, like Venice in its prime. It will not be democratic, because that system is unnatural and destructive at scale—the People will not directly command any decision, although some limited franchise and some analog to the Roman tribunes of the people is likely to make sense. All elements of society will be represented, but not necessarily participate, and not all elements of society will rule.. . .The incoherence of the modern philosophers will be replaced with the older and proven teleological conception of man, as filtered through Christianity. . . . Virtue will be strengthened with rigorous application of social stigma and taboo, tied in part to religion, but not wholly dependent on religion. No laws will protect any person from the effects of desirable stigmas and taboos; quite the contrary. Emigration will be encouraged by any person who finds this unpleasant. . . . Foundationalism is explicitly anti-feminist. It regards the feminine as one of the two essentials of humanity. It regards feminism as destructive distortion. A return to traditional sex roles (which were not at all the fictional oppression we are told they were) is both desirable and necessary. . . . Neither men nor women will be allowed to freely choose the path they want. Foundationalism does not seek to implement fantasies of autonomy. Social and legal compulsion will require each to make choices that benefit family and society. Women will not be permitted to choose career over family without significant penalties and disadvantages that hamper progress along such a path. . . . Differences among people will not, of themselves, be encouraged, rewarded, or valued.. . . here will be no national laws on the environment, on discrimination, on guns, on education, or on any other of the vast majority of topics federal legislation, and therefore the administrative state, now covers. . . . Foundationalism recognizes that in all areas of life, hierarchies are both natural and desirable. In no instance will a hierarchy be seen as undesirable oppression. Foundationalism is a movement with an elite, but not for the elites.. . . Only one religion, Christianity, [capital C] has ever been associated with success in both areas—and it is true, which is a bonus. Therefore, Christianity will be the officially-favored religion of the Foundationalist state, replacing the great heresy of Modernism, our currently officially-favored religion.. . . Artists will work in cooperation with the pillars of society, state and private, rather than being destructive agents of the Left as they mostly have been for the past century.. . . In foreign policy the only relevant criterion will be the ends of the nation (although since Foundationalism will explicitly prefer Christianity, the interests of Christians as Christians outside the country, and to some extent also of Jews, will be considered an interest of the nation). https://theworthyhouse.com/2021/06/17/the-foundationalist-manifesto-the-politics-of-future-past/?fbclid=IwAR34J5cyl74XlSX9KdRztHP2wb4fDRpEEKk4NaUxtJGLezokbMqPxP1Uxjw

@Greg Doudna The object of the ink analysis — the Pierre Lafitte 1963 datebook — is private property. I understand if you would like to retract your offer. To repeat, the parties involved are under Non-Disclosure Agreement; if any choose to break those agreements with a party or parties with no legal standing whatsoever e.g. you, when they have refused to do so with the parties with legal standing, there would naturally be repercussions. If you want to encourage Mr. Aginsky to confer with me directly, that would be acceptable; otherwise he would be in contravention of his agreement. I predict repercussions would ensue. If you want to pursue another ink analyst as you offered — the calibre of Aginsky and under the terms I've previously laid out — you are welcome to do so.

@Greg Doudna Of course I would object to Aginsky discussing his knowledge with you, and not with the parties who have legal standing. Should he choose that avenue, he should also be aware there would be repercussions.

Would it be possible for you to give me information of who that party is and how to contact them and let me have a polite, respectful try at asking them to allow access to that ink analysis to you and me for purpose of publication, with your support for that request able to be cited in that request? @Greg DoudnaRespectfully, no. I've laid out the terms and conditions previously, so I don't understand why you are introducing further questions and complications. To reiterate, once again, the request has been made more than once by parties with legal standing, and declined. You do not have legal standing, nor do you have my blessing to make such a request. I prefer that you not interject yourself any further in the dynamic or misrepresent yourself to Valery Aginsky as having anything other than a general concern about authenticity of the datebook. To be clear, you are not "acting on my behalf." You are of course entitled to pursue the offer you made earlier, which was to contact Mr. Aginsky via the website. I've walked you through the specifics sufficient to ask him to recommend another examiner of his calibre. There is no "secretive" nature; the professionals involved have thus far adhered to the Non-Disclosure Agreements they signed. While I'm frustrated, I believe that ship has sailed which is why we launched another examination. I've been as transparent as I intend to be. I look forward to hearing of any progress you might make in pursuit of another ink analyst, and the terms and conditions laid out previously still apply.

14th Amendment, Section 3 upheld right here in John Eastman's backyard in 2022. https://nmpoliticalreport.com/2022/11/16/state-supreme-court-dismisses-couy-griffin-appeal-over-removal-from-office/

He had the motive, the money and the power to order the murder of John F. Kennedy on November 11, 1963, (November 22) . . . and the power to manage the "patsy" backstory? and the power to cover it up, long after he was dead?

You introduced a thread suggesting Ron Paul's latest book looks interesting; I noted the obvious related to Ron Paul's ideological leanings. First Amendment and all that. Let the reader decide.

AJC Appalled by Ron Paul Keynote Address to Anti-Semitic Fatima Center http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnfull/20100816/AJCLOGO?max=200 NEWS PROVIDED BY American Jewish Committee 08 Sep, 2013, 02:36 ET NEW YORK, Sept. 8, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- AJC is dismayed that former presidential candidate and Congressman Ron Paul will deliver the keynote address to the Fatima Center gala dinner on Wednesday, September 11. The Fatima Center "Path to Peace" conference takes place in Niagara Falls, Canada, from September 8 to 13. from SPLC: Traditionalist Catholic groups are scattered around America and the world. But only a handful preach anti-Semitic hatred. THE FATIMA CRUSADER/INTERNATIONAL FATIMA ROSARY CRUSADE Constable, N.Y. The International Fatima Rosary Crusade, known popularly as the Fatima Center, takes its name from Fatima, Portugal, the place where the Virgin Mary is said to have appeared to three peasant children in 1916 with a series of revelations. The center was founded in 1977 by Father Nicholas Gruner, a Canadian who became obsessed with Fatima after an Italian priest told him that he had a special calling to promote devotion to the Virgin Mary. The following year, Gruner launched The Fatima Crusader, a quarterly that Gruner claims now has some 1 million readers. The publication has carried anti-Semitic articles such as the 1992 piece, "The Program of Christ Against the Plans of Satan," which denounced what it saw as Jewish "naturalism" and blamed Jews for putting "the Christian state in danger." The Crusader also has staunchly defended the work of Father Denis Fahey, a hard-core anti-Semite whom it called "brilliant." In an interview with Catholic scholar Michael Cuneo, Gruner accused a fellow radical traditionalist, E. Michael Jones, of being "secretly a Jew" who was "planted in the American Church to confuse Catholics and sow hatred against people like myself." The Fatima Center heavily promotes a conspiracy theory about the Vatican allegedly working to hide the so-called "Third Secret of Fatima" from the faithful. (Among other things, the theory accuses Pope John XXIII of making a blasphemous pact with Moscow that prevented the Vatican from denouncing communism and has resulted in Satanism flourishing "inside … the Vatican itself.") In 1995, Gruner was ordered to report to his bishop in Italy, but did not; as a result, the Vatican suspended Gruner from his priestly duties in 2001 (a lesser sanction than excommunication). Gruner owns a share of Catholic Family News, helped publish the schismatic book We Resist You to the Face, and is a regular speaker on the radical traditionalist circuit. In 2005, for instance, Gruner told an audience at the annual St. Joseph's Forum conference that Masons -- by which he meant the Jews -- "sacrificed their babies to the pagan gods." Gruner also rubs shoulders with hard-line Holocaust deniers, selling his wares at a 2006 conference of the anti-Semitic Barnes Review.

Unless I'm ill informed, Hank only has one executrix of one estate. What strikes me about this thread thus far is the apparent disinterest in what Hank had already revealed about June Cobb yet an apparent keen interest in what more he might have revealed about June Cobb?

@Sandy LarsenThe formatting is a result of copy/paste from the original text which often times can't be easily amended here on EF. Surely Huge Font Quadruple Spaced isn't grounds for censorship when idiotic meaningless GIF's — in lieu of rational discourse — are left to simmer on a number of threads that interest Matthew Koch?

Ron Paul Tweets Extremely Racist and anti-Semitic Cartoon - Later Claims It Wasn't Him The racist cartoon was created by doctoring an anti-imperialism, pro-communism cartoon by superimposing the racist and anti-Semitic images Former Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul tweeted and then deleted a racist and anti-Semitic cartoon that he said was meant to explain “cultural Marxism.” The cartoon shows four caricatures of different ethnicities – including a Jewish man with a hooked nose, a black man with exaggerated lips, an Asian man with slanted eyes and a man who looks like a Neanderthal – punching a cartoon of Uncle Sam with a shared red fist emblazoned with a hammer and sickle. The four men are shouting “Cultural Marxism.” . . . Paul was roundly criticized on social media for the image. Some draw parallels between the image and Nazi propaganda, according to The Hill. In 2011, reporters exposed racist newsletters that had been sent out in Ron Paul’s name in the late 1980s and early 1990s, such as Ron Paul’s Political Report, Ron Paul’s Freedom Report, the Ron Paul Survival Report and the Ron Paul Investment Letter. The newsletters also had come to light during the 2008 campaign, when Paul said that he didn’t actually write the newsletters and they did not represent his views, but because they carried his name he was morally responsible for their content. https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/2018-07-03/ty-article/ron-paul-tweets-anti-semitic-cartoon-claims-it-wasnt-him/0000017f-da72-d718-a5ff-faf65cf00000?v=1692666860368

and this, Marine Corps Lt. General Pedro del Valle “The hand of God...” So read an FBI informant’s perception of a small luncheon gathering in 1964 attended by retired General Pedro del Valle. Although del Valle appears but once in the 1963 records of Lafitte, it is a provocative mention when juxtaposed with information derived from an examination of del Valle’s papers by assassination author Jeffrey Caufield in his highly regarded “General Walker and the Murder of President Kennedy.” To understand the informant in context, in late May 1963, fundamentalist preacher Billy James Hargis, closely aligned with General Willoughby, and together with General Edwin Walker, was in New Orleans to conclude the evangelist’s “Operation Alert” speaking tour. His traveling companion, Walker, alerted a receptive Crescent City audience, “It’s harder every day to tell the difference between Kennedyism and Communism.”

Reviewing Ron Paul's book, End the Fed I'm reminded that we've seen this dog and pony show before. The Federal Reserve Hoax. Vennard, Wicliffe B.—A standard work on the Fed, originally published in 1963, explains just how the Fed was created and how it has perpetrated at least 100 acts of treason against the United States and her people. Includes a foreword by Lt. Gen. Pedro A. del Valle and a chapter by populist Congressman Louis McFadden. Also explains how bankers have become an invisible world government. Softcover, 364 pages, indexed, $18.95.—advertised in Willis Carto’s “Special Report on the Bogus Budget From American Free Press,” 2011. Louis McFadden is widely considered one of America’s most outspoken anti-Semites of his era who endorsed the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. It's likely Matthew Koch is unaware of this history, but suffice to say, something along the same lines relates directly to the assassination of President Kennedy in Dallas in 1963: On the other side of Lafitte’s chronology that refers to “d. Valle,” Pedro de Valle wrote to Wickliffe Vennard, the leader of the Constitution Party living in South Texas on July 2nd. Further pursued in an endnote to Chapter 6 of this book, Vennard was involved with the transfer of ownership of Russell Maguire’s American Mercury magazine to Nazi Willis Carto with General Walker retaining influence over content of the publication. In July ’63, del Valle advises Vennard that he has had been in touch with a worldwide Christian movement headquartered in Madrid, Spain, “whose objectives are in accord with yours.” [Dr. Jeffrey] Caufield reveals that the Madrid group was to meet Vennard—author of Federal Reserve Hoax: The Age of Deception, published in January 1963 and promoted vigorously with the phrases, “It’s Your Money” and ”the Age of Deception Exposed!” Del Valle tells Vennard that the Madrid contingency would be connected up with his representatives who were to pose as tourists. The meeting was to take place at “a quiet hotel.” Del Valle assured Vennard that his Madrid contacts would offer “collaboration and a scheme of action.” As Caufield writes, “the letter is filled with cryptic references suggesting a secret operation that may have been related to an assassination plot.” With hindsight, it is equally, if not more plausible that rather than active involvement of this wide cast of characters in New Orleans and or Madrid, it was the blessing or imprimatur of the “church group” that was being sought.

Thread Title: Ron Paul's new book that's coming out soon, looks interesting Comments related to a book's author — particularly a highly political and opinionated author like Ron Paul — are not only entirely relevant, they provide insight into the content of a book you insist "looks interesting." Let's not get into petty attempts at censorship simply because you might be uncomfortable with the Pauls' history and possible associations with those who attempted to overturn the 2020 election or those who stormed the Capitol Jan 6 - assuming of course that would make you uncomfortable?

Well, at last you finally come forward publicly to address my concern that considering the timing, the suspicious hijacking of a cell phone in CA, and the faux Spanish accent, you might have been the originator of the threatening phone call I received related to the Lafitte datebook — which by the way you ironically resurrect in this protest; are you stating publicly that you were not in any way involved in that call?

None of the moderators should resign. In spite of being reprimanded several times, I fully support them and admire their patience and perseverance while executing what is clearly a thankless task.

Let's continue to connect some dots beginning with the Texas contingency behind the attempted overthrow of our 2020 election and the subsequent insurrection at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, a.k.a. an attempted Coup: Kenneth Chesebro, Sidney Powell, Ret. Col. Phil Waldron, Russell Ramsland, with certifiable sociopath Alex Jones on the megaphone. See the complete list of Texans present at the Capitol on Jan 6 here: https://www.click2houston.com/news/local/2022/06/10/complete-list-of-texas-suspects-charged-in-jan-6-capitol-breach-14-from-houston-area/ Then, lets' consider the ideological dots from Texan Ron Paul to his son Rand Paul on the insurrection of Jan 6, followed by Rand's discomfort at revisiting January 6 Committee revelations: Booker: If it were up to Rand Paul, there would be no accountability for insurrectionists Charles Booker Opinion Contributor The recent hearings on the Jan. 6 insurrection make one thing crystal clear: There are members of Congress, more specifically the Senate, who violated their oath to protect our democracy. Rand Paul’s one of those members. As Rep. Liz Cheney said, there’s no room for debate. The violent mob of insurrectionists stormed our capitol, beat, tased and degraded capitol police, and sought to kill the Vice President and members of Congress. If it were up to senators like Paul, there would be no accountability, which poses a danger and a threat to our security. . . . Why did Paul dismiss the harrowing testimony and statements of capitol police officers who shared their experience during the Jan. 6 attempted coup –– the day an officer was killed trying to protect him and his colleagues against a vicious mob? Why does he oppose efforts to invest in community safety to protect our families? . . . Documents entered into the record reveal that the group that organized the insurrection printed “Rand Paul…We the people love you” on their plans to storm capitol buildings. If that’s the surface, it’s fair to ask if digging deeper would cast an even more damning light on Paul’s involvement in the events of that day. Paul doesn’t want you to discover he abandoned and violated his oath to uphold the Constitution and protect our democracy. https://www.courier-journal.com/story/opinion/2022/06/28/if-were-up-rand-paul-there-would-no-accountability-jan-6/7748023001/ Ron Paul's dismissal of the investigation into that attempted Coup. Ron Paul: Desperate Democrats Resurrect ‘Insurrection’ Theater . . . What we won’t see in the hearings is any of the 14,000 unreleased hours of surveillance. What little we have been able to see so far has raised more questions than answers about the official telling of the events. We also won’t hear anything about how many of the “insurrectionists” were actually government informers or even provocateurs. And we certainly won’t get any answers as to why the police actually seemed to be opening the doors and inviting the people inside. Maybe that’s because the January 6th Committee is a star chamber, where the only Republicans – the deeply unpopular Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger – have been hand-selected by Nancy Pelosi. https://www.fitsnews.com/2022/06/13/ron-paul-desperate-democrats-resurrect-insurrection-theater/ Fast forward to Rand's father, Ron Paul's further exploitation of the Kennedy name: U.S. presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (RFK Jr.) and former U.S. Representative Ron Paul agree that America does not have a free market. Referencing RFK Jr. stating that America has “a crony corporatist system,” Paul stressed: “He’s right!” RFK Jr. and Ron Paul on Free Market Former U.S. Representative Ron Paul has expressed his agreement with U.S. presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (RFK Jr.), who recently said that America does not have a free market. Kennedy is a son of former U.S. Attorney General and Senator Robert F. Kennedy and nephew of former U.S. President John F. Kennedy. Paul, an American author, physician, and retired politician, served as a U.S. representative and made three attempts to become the president of the United States. In 2015, he founded the Ron Paul Liberty Report, a platform dedicated to offering insightful opinions and analysis on contemporary issues affecting our lives and finances. Paul tweeted Saturday: “RFK Jr. recently pointed out that America doesn’t have a free market, but rather a crony corporatist system. He’s right!" FORBESFORBES DIGITAL ASSETS So how does BITCOIN factor in? Ron Paul Political Director Quietly Mines Bitcoin And Builds New Blockchain Company Jason Brett Senior Contributor Almost as interesting as the transactions executed in rolling out his blockchain firm to the public is Bergman himself. From his days working on the College Republicans for Jack Kemp, he quickly found himself between both Austrian economic theorists and gold standard champions. Bergman also has a charitable organization called ‘Patriots for Christ’ that teaches Americans to uphold their civic duty based on religious scripture. Finally, with his work as a movie producer of the documentary ‘Unfair: Exposing The IRS’, Bergman keeps himself busy. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonbrett/2020/07/12/political-director-for-ron-paul-quietly-mines-bitcoin-and-builds-new-blockchain-company/?sh=637a46691515 And now, following the BITCOIN trail from Ed Forum threads to this from Ed Pilkington of The Guardian on the transformation of mild-mannered, liberal leaning attorney Kenneth Chesebro who once sat at the feet of Lawrence Tribe at Harvard: ‘It baffles me’: what drew a mild lawyer with a liberal past into Trump’s election plot? ' . . . Had the clock stopped there, Chesebro’s career might have been summed up as successful yet unexceptional. But around 2014 his life took a startling turn. He invested in BITCOIN (emphasis added) and appears to have struck gold, telling Tribe that he made several million dollars. New-found wealth coincided with a dramatic volte-face in his political affiliations. By 2016 he was working on a case challenging birthright citizenship with John Eastman, the rightwing constitutional lawyer who was also indicted in Georgia this week. In 2018, Chesebro represented the hard-right Republican senators Ted Cruz and Mike Lee in a voting rights case. His political donations also did a U-turn, swinging to Trump favourites such as JD Vance in Ohio and Ron Johnson in Wisconsin. Why Chesebro’s BITCOIN BONANZA (emphasis added) should have transformed him from a liberal into a radical conservative is one of the great unanswered puzzles of this story. The consequences of the shift were clear, though, as it brought him into the orbit of Trump campaign lawyers who were on the lookout for legal back-up as they sought to counter defeat in the 2020 election. Six days after the election, Chesebro was contacted by James Troupis, a former judge in Wisconsin with whom he’d worked on the Cruz-Lee case. Troupis was Trump’s main campaign lawyer in the state. . . . In the words of the federal judge David Carter, the idea was in essence “a coup in search of a legal theory”. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/aug/19/kenneth-chesebro-trump-georgia-indictment-fake-electors and then there's this:

Roger Stone Roger Stone. dirty trickster extraordinaire, hosts Ron Paul https://www.bitchute.com/video/5jo4S5NECAIt/ Let's keep Roger Stone and Ron Paul in perspective in context of those photos on the book cover and how the rolling-coup launched in Dallas in 1963 is nearing a climax — the 2024 presidential election: Extreme Right Advisors and Executors With decades of Roy Cohn’s business and political tutelage under his belt, NY business entrepreneur and would-be president Donald Trump had been able to attract a seasoned group of political campaign strategists, among them Roger Stone. As a young legislator, future president Richard Nixon had been a member of the House Un-American Activities Committee and had engaged directly with Roy Cohn who would eventually introduce Nixon’s “dirty trickster” Roger Stone to Donald Trump. Stone, who not only readily adopted the ideology of Cohn, but improved upon his tactics to earn the sobriquet, achieved infamy when he was caricatured in the film “All the President’s Men,” the exposé of the Watergate investigation that led to Nixon’s downfall. Stone has long acknowledged the influence that the 1964 Republican Party candidate Barry Goldwater, who was scheduled to challenge President John Kennedy’s run for a second term, had on his early political development. It is that thin, seemingly innocuous thread within an immense series of spiderwebs spanning almost six decades since the assassination of Kennedy, that captured our fascination. Stone’s inspiration, Barry Goldwater—acknowledged as having started the twentieth century conservative revolution—had garnered the endorsement and support of what was referred to as a fringe element of the party. In fact, the John Birch Society had been hugely successful in recruiting followers and securing votes for Goldwater. JBS spokesmen had included Isaac Levine’s mentor and AFC member Arthur Kohlberg. JBS leaders included McCarthy Hearings investigator Robert Morris, and Generals Charles Willoughby and Edwin Walker, both of whom Pierre Lafitte identifies as having been directly involved in the assassination of John Kennedy. *** After the fall of Nixon, Stone pursued a Rasputin-esque political career and formed a consultancy firm with Republican lobbyist Paul Manafort whose credentials would later earn him a brief role as campaign chairman for presidential candidate Donald Trump, a stint that implicated him enough to be among the suspects of the Russian collusion allegations that roiled the 2016 US elections. Manafort was indicted in October 2017 on charges of mortgage fraud, conspiracy, and falsifying bank records; he was tried, convicted and sentenced to seven-plus years. Before leaving office, President Trump pardoned Paul Manafort. In 1980, Stone and Manafort’s firm had gotten behind the presidential candidacy of California Governor Ronald Reagan. When Stone was provided a Rolodex of New York supporters of the governor, the only name he considered of value was Roy Cohn. A decade later, Stone joined the presidential campaign of Arlen Specter who is known by assassination researchers as having invented the “magic bullet” theory that persuaded the Warren Commission that Lee Oswald was the sole assassin of President Kennedy. Fast forward to 2007, Stone was instrumental in bringing down New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer who was destined for a significant role in national Democratic Party politics. That particular dirty tricks operation which included an strong element of Cohen-style blackmail, coincided with Stone’s association with self-help guru, Keith Raniere, the leader of a cult he dubbed NXIVM whose tactics included amassing the deeply private histories of his female adherents that left them vulnerable to coercion if not blackmail. Raniere, who at one time carried Roger Stone on his payroll, relied on funding for his cult from the heirs of Edgar Bronfman of the Seagram’s liquor empire, primary investors in both Empire Trust and Permindex as discussed in early chapters in this book. Bronfman’s daughters attained Raniere's highest ranks, and in 2006, one of them purchased a multi-million dollar Manhattan apartment in Trump Tower. Ten years later, Stone, who for our purposes represents an archetypal element of the far-right ecosystem that spans decades, surfaced at Trump Tower to ignite the presidential campaign of Roy Cohn’s protégé, Donald Trump. He too was later indicted. His crimes were obstruction of an official proceeding, making false statements, and witness tampering. Stone was convicted and sentenced to forty months in prison but days before he was scheduled to report to the prison facility, President Trump commuted his sentence. . . .

We're living through the final stages of the slow-rolling coup launched in Dallas in 1963. Trump’s coup continues. It will soon enter its fourth phase Robert Reich The Guardian, August 20, 2023 ' . . . Which brings us to what is likely to be phase four of his attempted coup – his campaign for re-election. As his trials approach in the months ahead, Trump is likely to escalate his lies that the election system and the criminal justice system are both rigged against him, and therefore, against his supporters. It is too early to know what additional illegal or unconstitutional means he will employ in phase four, but there is no reason to believe Trump will treat the upcoming election any more respectfully than he treated the 2020 election or has treated efforts to hold him accountable for what he did then. Notwithstanding Trump’s ongoing attempted coup, the most recent New York Times/Siena poll shows Trump in a dead heat with Biden for the presidency. Last week’s Quinnipiac poll also shows Trump and Biden in a virtual tie. . . . https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/aug/20/donald-trump-coup-effort-phase-four-us-government