Well said, Mr. May. Happy Fourth! : )
Everything I've said here regarding JFK is a matter of public record. The facts are not in dispute. So draw your own conclusions on his character.
Well said, Mr. May. Happy Fourth! : )
My choice for the most important song ever for July 4thYou do realize this is a song cheering Johnny Reb?
'When Johnny Comes Marching Home' Dolly Parton
It occurs to this writer Richard Smith is an angry old man not unlike the current POTUS. Defeated and disillusioned. Simple observation.
The "narrowcast" of the deplorable BS posted in this thread by the few posters readily revealing their Trumpian orientation, seems to completely escape their ken.
Fingerprints of Trump, Trump family, Hannity, smear in advance, the bulk of what these deplorables have been posting. Perish the thought of any of these posters ever even considering pursuing mental and emotional health evaluation, not when there is an authoritarian psych case in the WH for them to "high five" and "cult out" on !
(http://jfkforum.com/images/DonJrThugPropagandist.jpg)
Richard parrots Trump messaging and is simply aghast that MSM is somehow "plotting" with the FDA to make Trump "look bad" !…. The media on the other hand has concluded that it doesn't work. In fact, they don't want it to work because the more folks that die the better. That extends the crisis to the election and enhances the chances of putting the establishment back in power. And that means all the failed politicians, lobbyists, and media pundits will have their influence restored. Trump is an outsider. He threatens the established power base that views itself as an elite cadre that plays by its own rules. Trump is a dangerous precedent from their perspective. He is not one of them. He doesn't follow their rules. He doesn't automatically assume they are smarter or better positioned to make decisions than everyone else. He doesn't recognize their inherent right to rule and tell others what they should think. So he has to be undermined before everyone else wakes up to the con they have been pulling for most of the last century.
In fact, they don't want it to work because the more folks that die the better.
You really are one sick puppy. There isn't anybody in the country who want people to die.
…..
https://www.emptywheel.net/2020/07/04/still-dreaming-of-the-american-dream/
Still Dreaming of the American Dream
July 4, 2020/7 Comments/in Culture /by Rayne
After the wholly repugnant speech Donald Trump gave in South Dakota — on lands stolen from Lakota and Dakota nations because there was gold alleged to be in the Black Hills — it’s important to remember this one point.
Donald J. Trump is not this country. He may be a product of it, but he is not this nation. He may believe L’etat, c’est moi, but this premise is not this country’s past and will not be its future.
We are the United States of America, including the many citizens he denigrated in his white-nationalist-written speech.
Trump may speak for and to a minority of people who voted for him in 2016, those whose rights were given preference by an electoral system designed to ensure white slave owners would not lose their grip on power to the Black people they once enslaved.
But Trump is not this country, nor are his base alone. We the people are collectively the United States of America.
This country’s origins, though flawed by slavery and oppression of indigenous people, began with the right intentions. The founders sought to overthrow autocratic monarchic government and its oppression for the right of individual self-determination, fairness, and collective effort toward a more perfect union. It is this spirit we should recall and re-embrace each Fourth of July, disregarding the crackpot fulminations of the fascist criminal who would rather see this nation divided. He seeks to defer history’s looming punishment meted out to those who have abused the trust of this nation for their own personal gain under Trump’s administration.
History doesn’t wait, however, not even for a bloviating white man with access to monied and powerful friends.
History doesn’t wait for us, either. Like this nation’s founders we have choices to make and action to take if we wish to ensure the future is kinder and our history more forgiving.
In an 1858 debate with his opponent, Stephen Douglas, Abraham Lincoln spoke of the Declaration of Independence:
..........
JFK was a decorated WWII combat veteran.
He used his family's influence to get assigned to the PT Boat in the Pacific war zone.
His older brother Joe was killed in Europe. He volunteered for a dangerous mission over Europe.
The plane he was flying blew up killing all on board.
.....
https://fair.org/extra/debunking-the-debunkers-of-october-surprise/
Debunking the Debunkers of October Surprise |
Mar 1, 2013 - Unbeknownst to the Carter administration, Cyrus Hashemi had ties to William Casey through a longtime Casey associate, John Shaheen.
During WWII, John Shaheen and Elroy McCaw of OSS Special Projects were the "brains" behind:Quotehttps://tenwatts.blogspot.com/2014/12/the-cia-and-wins.html
Dec 31, 2014 - John Elroy McCaw, worked on OSS Special Projects known as operations Aphrodite, Simmons, and Javaman. He worked with OSSers John Shaheen and Jim Rand...
https://airandspace.si.edu/stories/editorial/remembering-death-lt-joe-kennedy-jr-and-america’s-first-combat-drones
Remembering the Death of Lt. Joe Kennedy Jr. and America’s First Combat Drones
Aug 19, 2014 - Ensign Joseph P. Kennedy Jr., USN about two years before his death. ... Doolittle's Project Aphrodite (Army) and Anvil (Navy) represented the ...
Reagan and John Shaheen were both born in:Quotehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Reagan#Early_life
Ronald Wilson Reagan was born on February 6, 1911, in an apartment on the second floor of a commercial building in Tampico, Illinois. ....Quotehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tampico,_Illinois
Tampico /ˈtćm.pɪ.koʊ/ is a village located in Tampico Township, Whiteside County, Illinois, United States next to Rock Falls and Sterling IL. As of the 2010 census the village had a total population of 790, up from 772 at the 2000 census.
Barbara Walters' longtime ABC 20/20 partner, Hugh Downs, was married to John Shaheen's sister, Ruth.....Quotehttps://www.legacy.com/obituaries/azcentral/obituary.aspx?n=ruth-downs&pid=184794130
Downs, Ruth Shaheen
The beloved wife of broadcaster, Hugh Downs, passed away on Tuesday March 28, 2017 at the age of 95, at their home in Scottsdale, AZ. Her husband was by her side as she peacefully embarked on the "next great adventure," as she referred to Death. Ruth Downs was born in Illinois in the autumn of 1921 to Mike and Sadie Shaheen, who taught their only daughter she could do anything her three brothers could do if she was willing to work for it; .....and to annually bring together her own descendants and those of her beloved brothers John, Raymond, and Richard Shaheen.
https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/seattletimes/obituary.aspx?n=marion-o-mccaw-garrison&pid=158287753
Jul 1, 2012 - On March 21, 1942, she married John Elroy McCaw from Aberdeen. ... Assistant to General McClelland, head of USAAF communications.
JFK Facts » Curtis LeMay to JFK during the Cuban Missile Crisis
https://jfkfacts.org/curtis-lemay-to-jfk-during-the-cuban-missile-crisis/#comment-441710
Apr 28, 2014 - General McClelland began with a typical military base system and then let ... John Elroy McCaw, worked on OSS Special Projects known as
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_M._McClelland
Harold Mark McClelland (November 4, 1893 – November 19, 1965) was a United States Air Force (USAF) major general who is considered the father of Air Force communications. ... A greater volume of communications required a stronger system, and CIA Director Walter Bedell Smith hired McClelland as chief of CIA ...
https://tenwatts.blogspot.com/2014/12/the-cia-and-wins.html
The Spy Who Loved Radio - ARCANE RADIO TRIVIA
tenwatts.blogspot.com › 2014/12 › the-cia-and-wins
Dec 31, 2014 - John Elroy McCaw was from from Aberdeen, WA. ... John Elroy McCaw, worked on OSS Special Projects known as operations Aphrodite, Simmons, and Javaman. He worked with OSSers John Shaheen and Jim Rand and is ...
https://web.archive.org/web/20161103035644/http://tomscully.com/node/10
My Response to Robert Parry's April 9, 2014 Report on Bi-Parisan Hypocrisy in Congress Suppressing Truth of 1980 October Surprise
https://web.archive.org/web/20161103035644/http://newspaperarchive.com/us/illinois/sterling/sterling-daily-gazette/1951/05-01/page-9
"...while H James Rand of Cleveland, Ohio was best man."
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-w-Vn0zZxYgU/U0YBdYXkw0I/AAAAAAAABs4/k2ZeooM2bF4/s512/ShaheenWedRandBestMan.jpg)
http://consortiumnews.com/2014/04/09/reagan-bush-ties-to-iran-hostage-crisis/
Reagan-Bush Ties to Iran-Hostage Crisis
April 9, 2014
Exclusive: The Senate wants to block Iran’s new UN ambassador because he was linked to the Iran hostage crisis 35 years ago, but that standard would strip honors from Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, implicated in extending the hostage crisis to win the 1980 election, reports Robert Parry........
My response to Parry, in the comments section of the article linked above,:QuoteTom Scully on April 10, 2014 at 4:20 am said:
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
Thank you, Mr. Parry. I have quoted and linked your reporting on The October Surprise with research I posted yesterday. My focus is on the connection between
Casey’s friend John M Shaheen and 1958 defector to the Soviet Union, Robert Webster’s employer, H James Rand. Shaheen married in May, 1951. His best man was Rand. Shaheen’s sister Ruth was the wife of Hugh Downs. Shaheen and his bride honeymooned on Marathon Key in FL in a group organized by a Cleveland neighbor of Shaheen’s and Rand’s OSS friend, Dan T. Moore, brother of Drew Pearson’s wife, Luvie Moore Abell Pearson. Dan Moore’s next door neighbor was Yale Bonesman, Dr. George W. Crile, Jr., the father of the George Crile who worked as a journalist for Pearson and Jack Anderson and then for 31 years at CBS TV network and 60 Minutes. A CIA document. in Bill Simpich’s new book describes a plan in 1960 by Moore to go to Moscow with Rand to attempt to smuggle Robert Webster out in a car left in Moscow by Rand Development Co. Coincidence that all of these journalists, save the deceased Pearson, neglected to report on their own familiarity with John M Shaheen, or grave ethics breech? Was Shaheen involved in a defector program with H James Rand?
http://www.jfkassassinationforum.com/index.php/topic,10365.msg304167.html
Given the familiarity of John Shaheen with the influential broadcast and syndicated journalists I named above, how could this be true, unless
it was deliberately contrived? Who did this manipulation and journalistic omission most benefit? Certainly not the American people!
{the khashoggi connection} {segment with barbara walters} (tv)
http://www.paleycenter.org/collection/item/?q=the&p=244&item=T:19394
Museum of Television & Radio
Host Hugh Downs opens by questioning how the Iran-Contra arms deal got started, before offering some background information on Khashoggi.
Then, Walters ...
Chilton's Oil & Gas Energy - Volume 2, Issues 1-2 - Page 27
https://www.google.com/search?client=ubuntu&channel=fs&q=mystery+john+sh...
1976 - Snippet view - More editions
The only problem for Sha- heen-watchers, and his creditors, is figuring out how much Shaheen is worth,
and in precisely which assets at what time. It's been popular to characterize John Shaheen as yet another "man of mystery"
in a part of the ...
Quote:
https://archive.org/stream/reportofcongress11unit/reportofcongress11unit_djvu.txt
Report of the congressional committees investigating the Iran- Contra Affair :....
Washington, D. C. Wednesday, July 22, 1987 Deposition of ROY FURMARK, called for examination at the offices of the Senate Select Committee, Suite 901, the Hart Senate Office Building, at 10:00 a.m.
.....
AFTERNOON SESSION (1:00 p.m.) Whereupon, ROY FURMARK resumed the stand and, having been previously duly sworn, was examined and testified further as follows: EXAMINATION (Continued) BY MR. KERR:
........
4 Q Let's shift gears a little bit. In terms of 5 Mr. Shaheen's relationship with William Casey, there was a 6 relationship? A Yes. 8 Q Can you describe what that relationship was? 9 A They were extremely close personal friends.- They 10 were both very much involved in Republican politics. They 11 were very much involved in the William J. Donovan Foundation 12 or the OSS, the Office of Strategic Services, which is an 13 all members who were in that service, and they would meet and I 14 have dinners and present awards out. They presented awards 15 to Thatcher, Willy Mountbatton, the three astronauts that 16 landed on the moon. They presented awards to President 17 Reagan, and so that was a focal point for them to get 18 together, I think, and in addition, they were involved with, 19 you know, doing legal work. He was in his own firm and then 20 he became a counsel to Rogers & Wells, and Jack Wells and 21 John, I think, were great pals as well as Casey, you know, 22 was involved in it, in New York City. Q Was Casey counsel to Shaheen during the time you were employed by Shaheen? A He did special things like when the company got into financial trouble, Newfoundland Refining Company, Casey and Shaheen and I went to Kuwait for about a week or 10 days trying to interest KNPC, Kuwait National Petroleum Company, owned by the government, to become a partner in Newfoundland Refinery, to invest funds to revamp the refinery so that we could use 100 percent Kuwaiti crude. .... He was an advisor when Shaheen had problems, and you know, but that was my longest involvement with Casey on that trip. Q Place that time for me, will you please? A 1975 or 1976, let's say. Q So this would be just before the time that you left? A Yes. Q Coming back, Shaheen had been in OSS at the same time Casey was in OSS and that's how they got to know one another? 2 A Yes . 3 Q Casey thereafter acted as legal counsel for 4 special projects for Shaheen; is that correct? 5 A Basically, yes. 6 Q Did Casey and Shaheen have business relationships 7 together to your knowledge? 8 A To my knowledge, I have never heard of any 9 business relationship. 10 Q So you don't know of any partnerships, joint 11 ventures, joint projects? 12 A No . I don't believe so. Shaheen just never did 13 things like that. 14 Q Shaheen, I believe, from a conversation you and I 15 had sometime ago, you characterized him as being a man who 16 didn't work well with partners?
(article image inserted below by Tom Scully to contrast the sentence immediately above)
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-gNKqkj-R2ng/U0dl3CNzEqI/AAAAAAAABtc/hB8tNQd9osI/s447/ShaheenMcCawRadio1955.jpg)
17 A He wanted to do everything himself, you know, and 18 like, we got shares in the Newfoundland Refining Company, but 19 we had to sign an agreement that he could buy it back at any 20 time, so he wanted to be the -- he didn't want any, like you 21 say, he didn't want somebody to die and have the wife get a 22 lawyer and start poking around in his company. He didn't 1 mind the employees making lots of money, you know, as long as 2 he could control it. 3 Q With regard to the relationship between Shaheen 4 and Casey after you left, you were aware that they continued 5 to maintain a friendship? 6 A Oh, yes. 7 Q You were aware of that because of, among other 8 things, you saw them at the OSS dinners each year; correct? 9 A Sure. 10 Q The reason you were going to the dinners was not 11 because you were a member of the OSS -- 12 A No, I was invited to fill out the table, and it 13 was an a honor, really. I met lots of people because if it 14 was in New York, Shaheen would have a party back at his 15 apartment. I met the astronauts, lots of important people at 16 the apartment, so it was 17 Q You were aware, though, that the relationship 18 between Casey and Shaheen continued, that they continued to 19 be friends? 20 A Yes. 21 Q Let's move on now to your relationship with 22 Casey. You got to know Casey best, I guess, on the trip to Kuwait; is that correct? A Well, I knew him all these years through Shaheen, you know, and you got to know more and more, and of course I J was- Shaheen 's heir apparent, okay, and so I would see Casey a lot and lots of times I wouldn't see him, you know. Q Let me move you into the period 1984, 1985. To ^ what extent were you in contact with Casey in '84-85? .....
(Roy Furmark's 1987 testimony excerpted above reminds me of the WC testimony of Nancy Perrin Rich, but she was less vague. Furmark stated that Shaheen spent $16 million on his failed NYC newspaper start up,The New York Press.
(http://jfkforum.com/images/NixonShaheenMoscow1965.jpg)
IN 1972 Shaheen was quoted in the NY Times saying the purpose of the newspaper was to support president Nixon.)
https://www.google.com/search?q=elroy%20mcgaw%20site:news.google.com/newspapers&source=newspapers#q=%22around+to+O%27Brien%2C%22+Chotiner+said%2C+%22don%27t+worry+about+that.%22+rand&tbm=bks
The President's private eye: the journey of Detective Tony ... - Page 184
books.google.com/books?id=ToRLAAAAYAAJ (https://books.google.com/books?id=ToRLAAAAYAAJ)
Tony Ulasewicz, ‎Stuart A. McKeever - 1990 - ‎Snippet view
if my existence as Nixon's private eye wasn't going to receive any support from the White House if my identity was disclosed. But as Caulfield explained, Chotiner had files on people which
I had to take a look at so I'd know the type of information the President was looking for when I got the call to go to work.
When I met with Chotiner, the first thing he did was to hand me a file he had been keeping on the Rand Development Corporation and its officers. He made it clear that he kept exhaustive records on everyone who played the political power game. He told me that if, instead of Nixon, I had gone to work for the Democrats, I'd probably be meeting with Larry O'Brien instead of him. "We'll get around to O'Brien," Chotiner said, "don't worry about that." Chotiner said that O'Brien, Chairman of the Democratic National Committee in 1968, still had some dues to pay from the 1960 election that Nixon had lost to Jack Kennedy......
Bookbinder NY Times 15 Nov 1959
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-4QvZ7-uNTd0/U0dmQnM1HVI/AAAAAAAABts/R1egp0yKtpE/s512/Bookbinder15Nov59NYtimes.jpg)
https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/BISHOP%2C%20ROBERT_0064.pdf
(http://jfkforum.com/images/RandWebsterBookbinderWWII.jpg)
https://16eparis.com/2016/01/04/what-a-life-ive-had-said-my-father-as-he-was-dying/
Jan 4, 2016 - That's my father in the middle, Roy M Furmark. {Take note to my father's tie he is wearing. It's the one and only 'classic' “Shaheen Tie” with the
You do realize this is a song cheering Johnny Reb?
Or am I missing something?
https://www.cato.org/blog/hadley-gates-iraq
February 4, 2014 11:14AM
Hadley and Gates on Iraq
By Christopher A. Preble
Former Bush national security adviser Stephen Hadley took to the Wall Street Journal's op Edward pages last week to try to make the case that the Iraq war was worth fighting.
The particulars of Saddam Hussein's tyranny are familiar:
......
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Gates
...Gates was nominated to become the Director of Central Intelligence (head of the CIA) in early 1987. He withdrew his name after it became clear the Senate would reject the nomination due to controversy about his role in the Iran-Contra affair.[24]
Gates was nominated, for the second time, for the position of Director of Central Intelligence by President George H. W. Bush on May 14, 1991, confirmed by the Senate on November 5, and sworn in on November 6.[25]
During a Senate committee hearing on his nomination, former division chief Melvin Goodman testified that the agency was the most corrupt and slanted during the tenure of William Casey with Gates serving as Deputy. According to Goodman, Gates was part of an agency leadership that proliferated false information and ignored 'reality'. National Intelligence Council chairman Harold P. Ford testified that during his tenure, Gates had transgressed professional boundaries.[26]...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/robert-gates-former-defense-secretary-offers-harsh-critique-of-obamas-leadership-in-duty/2014/01/07/6a6915b2-77cb-11e3-b1c5-739e63e9c9a7_story.html
National Security
Robert Gates, former defense secretary, offers harsh critique of Obama’s leadership in ‘Duty’
By Bob Woodward
anuary 7, 2014
.....Gates wanted to quit at the end of 2010 but agreed to stay at Obama’s urging, finally leaving in mid-2011. He later joined a consulting firm with two of Bush’s closest foreign policy advisers — former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice and Stephen Hadley, the national security adviser during Bush’s second term. The firm is called RiceHadleyGates. In October, he became president-elect of the Boy Scouts of America.....Quotehttps://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/30/washington/30hadley.html
....Mr. Hadley is interviewing candidates, including military generals, for a new high-profile job that people in Washington are calling the war czar. The official (Mr. Hadley, ever cautious, prefers “implementation and execution manager”) would brief Mr. Bush every morning on Iraq and Afghanistan, then prod cabinet secretaries into carrying out White House orders.
It is the kind of task — a little bit of internal diplomacy and a lot of head-knocking, fortified by direct access to the president — that would ordinarily fall to Mr. Hadley himself. After all, he oversaw the review that produced Mr. Bush’s troop buildup in Iraq. But his responsibilities encompass issues around the globe, and he has concluded that he needs someone “up close to the president” to work “full time, 24/7” to put the policy into effect. He hopes to fill the job soon....
https://archive.org/stream/LundbergFerdinandTheRichAndTheSuperRich/Lundberg_Ferdinand_-_The_rich_and_the_super-rich_djvu.txt
THE RICH AND THE SUPER-RICH
A Study in the Power of Money Today
BY FERDINAND LUNDBERG
.....After two Republican Administrations from 1952 to 1960, gained by using a clearly
apolitical war hero as a stalking horse, the country again went Democratic under John F.
Kennedy, himself a wealthy heir although basically a political man from a political
family. Kennedy, even with no war providing an excuse for a coalition, awarded his
chief Cabinet posts to Republicans from the camp of big wealth. Douglas Dillon,
Republican and very wealthy heir of the founder of Dillon Read and Company,
Forrestal's old firm, was made Secretary of the Treasury. Robert S. McNamara,
Republican president of the Ford Motor Company, was made Secretary of Defense.
McGeorge Bundy, Republican, was made liaison man to the CIA. Dean Rusk, a
Democrat, but president of the Rockefeller Foundation from 1952 to 1960, was made
Secretary of State.
The basic government posts, in other words, went to men deep in the camp of big
wealth. But those posts that required dealings with the hoi polloi in social contexts went
to party men versed in the rhetoric of inspirational ambiguity.
Dillon resigned under Johnson and was replaced by Henry H. Fowler, a career
Democrat; but most of the rest of the Kennedy team continued, with the distant goal a
mirage: the Great Society. The laudable stated ends of this Great Society are the end of
want and of inequalities of opportunity.
As Princeton University political sociologist Richard F. Hamilton remarks,
In an affluent society, a liberal, welfare-oriented party can go a long way toward
satisfying the wishes of its followers. Rather than preside over a drawn-out struggle
between the people and the interests, as if it were an either/or game, the new style is to
give both what they want and pay for it out of the returns from a stable and rapidly
growing economy. In essence this is the Galbraithian solution--not to struggle over the
"take" but to increase its size. Thus, the typical new figure on the political scene is the
liberal demagogue--one who can cater to the masses because he is willing to pay them
off and can do so without depriving the interests of what they want. He can be for civil
rights, for improved housing, for urban renewal, for a poverty program, and at the same
time can vote against a reduction of the depletion allowance. The Great Society
synthesis overcomes that age-old problem of liberal politics: how to reward the
clientele. Before affluence, the result was a long, hard and usually indecisive fight with
the interests or it was capitulation. The new liberal, however, does not have to fight or
switch. 60
The attraction of the Great Society for the wealthy, however, is the new opportunities
it creates for making money on huge government contracts. In the area of defense there
is a huge tax-supported military establishment making constant highly profitable
demands--up to 40 and 50 per cent profit--on industry for complex new weapons. In
urban renewal there is the vast profitable enterprise, replete with windfalls, of
rehabilitating the commercial heart of the big cities. In slum clearance and school
buildings there are vast slushy construction projects of low quality in the offing. And in
the antipoverty program itself there is vast roadbuilding, as in Appalachia (which needs
few roads), as well as opportunities for the local political machines.
As Dr. Hamilton remarks, "Large numbers of entrepreneurial types have recently
discovered that 'there's money in poverty.'"
We have, then, as he notes, now developed "liberals of convenience" as contrasted
with "liberals of conviction," and staunch Republicanism is no longer to be taken for....
JFK, like us all was skin, blood and bones. A human being. Flawed. Yet, he believed in public service. Once his brother Joe died in WW2 it was up to JFK to assume the family mantle. As a young boy, my parents felt it time that I learned how America works and I joined “Young Democrats for Kennedy”. My father was a somewhat influential Democrat in N.Y. at the time although I didn’t know what that meant. He, my mother and my sister and I attended a campaign dinner on Long Island during a 1960 campaign event. Our family was photographed with JFK. That black and white photo sat on my parents fireplace throughout the years until their passing. My sister now possesses that photo which not coincidentally now sits on her fireplace mantle. I’ve walked amongst giants in America. Those who truly cared about our country and made a difference. Public service. Military. Men and women who on July 4, 2020 get a shout out: thank you...thank you. God bless you and America.
What's this fixation your ridiculous country has for the military, flag-waving and self-aggrandizement?
https://twitter.com/philewing/status/1011779124292214785
Failure to Provide U.K. Royal Navy Escorts for New Carriers is ‘Potentially Dangerous,’ Warn Lawmakers
By: Jon Rosamond
June 25, 2018 6:27 PM
......
Without the pre-Trump variety of "military, flag-waving...." life in U.S. cities, especially Bill of Rights protected speech, assembly, journalism, and due process of the courts, would be much more similar to life in Moscow, Shanghai, or Hong Kong.
IOW, where do you suppose the U.S., its four other "Five Eyes" allies, Taiwan, and more generally, routine passage of ships in the world's oceans be, if not for the presence and operations of the U.S. Navy or the presence in Europe and abilities of U.S. ground forces? "Showing the flag" is a deterrent to, for example, Putin increasing Russia's "land grab" of a portion of Ukraine the size of the state of Texas.
Would Germany be an independent, reunited, economic power house? What level of independence would be experienced today in Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, and other former captive countries of the former Soviet Bloc?
The U.S. is unique and is burdened by the national debt rung up partially from the cost of offsetting the declining commitment of the UK's Commonwealth and Japan and Germany to commit the funding required to adequately defend themselves.
Less than 40 years ago, PM Thatcher was able to order a sizable force to cross the Atlantic to retake the Falkland Islands from Argentina.
Would you really prefer to state, in the same week China's Xi broke the 1997 Hong Kong treaty with the UK and Putin set himself up as president of Russia until 2036, for the U.S. to reduce its militarism more to a level of your liking? Turn your criticism to aggressor countries with territorial grabbing ambitions, such as Israel.
The U.S. electorate certainly must be manipulated to continue to weigh down its grandchildren with heavy debt burden. I don't recall Obama hyper-militarizing domestic holidays or response to protestors in the manner recently perfected by Benedict Bonespurs.
I don't recall Obama hyper-militarizing domestic holidays or response to protestors in the manner recently perfected by Benedict Bonespurs.
"American heroes defeated the Nazis ... dethroned the Fascists ... toppled the Communists."
-- Donald Trump, at the White House today.
Nobody else had anything to do with it. ::)
What's this fixation your ridiculous country has for the military, flag-waving and self-aggrandizement?
JFK was largely a do nothing president. His primary attribute in history was that he took a good picture. He felt inconvenienced by the civil rights movement. In terms of his character, he was a serial adulterer including using his position to take advantage of young girls, he lied about his numerous medical conditions during the 1960 campaign including having his doctor file false reports, he took a laundry list of drugs including an anti-psychotic mediation that would have disqualified him from the presidency. Jackie was so concerned about their impact on him that she inquired about it. Imagine if Trump were on such medications during a nuclear crisis like JFK faced in Cuba? He knowingly lied about a "missile gap" with Russia during the campaign. A claim he knew Nixon could not rebut because the information was classified. He used his father's influence to avoid a court martial for failing to maintain a proper watch in a combat zone which resulted in a large Japanese destroyer being able to ram and sink his small, mobile PT boat resulting in deaths among his crew. A legacy of corruption and mostly do nothing results. LBJ accomplished more in his first hundred days as president than JFK did in his entire lifetime.
Europe was losing the war before America got involved.
Europe was losing the war before America got involved.
And yet no praise for Oswald either?
The fact that JFK was a do nothing, establishment politician did not justify his assassination. What is ironic are the kooks who suggest that JFK was a hero but defend his murderer at all costs.
The fact that JFK was a do nothing, establishment politician did not justify his assassination. What is ironic are the kooks who suggest that JFK was a hero but defend his murderer at all costs.
The fact that JFK was a do nothing, establishment politician did not justify his assassination. What is ironic are the kooks who suggest that JFK was a hero but defend his murderer at all costs.
The fact that JFK was a do nothing, establishment politician did not justify his assassination. What is ironic are the kooks who suggest that JFK was a hero but defend his murderer at all costs.
The fact that JFK was a do nothing, establishment politician did not justify his assassination. What is ironic are the kooks who suggest that JFK was a hero but defend his murderer at all costs.
"JFK was a hero"
(https://hosting.photobucket.com/images/ae75/garcra/John_Kennedy_being_awarded_the_Navy_and_Marine_Corps_Medal_in_June_1944.webp?width=1920&height=1080&fit=bounds)
John Kennedy being awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Medal in June 1944:as well as the Purple Heart Medal for injuries.
Wrong. His wealthy daddy made sure to turn his son's dereliction of duty into an heroic act. Anyone else would have been court martialed. Take a look at who wrote the military's report on the PT 109 incident. As a kooky conspiracy theorist, doesn't it give you any pause that this person was later appointed to the Supreme Court? And guess by whom? I bet you can. And you are not concerned about JFK's documented drug use while President? And his lies about his serious medical conditions while running for President? His escalation of American involvement in Vietnam. Are these things that "heroes" do? He was an elitist, do nothing politician who took a good picture. So cry salty tears but the facts are the facts.
Cancer-Moon Shot needs our support:
Says the guy who defends an elitist who hasn't done a damned for the country all his life and lied to get out of military service all together. Not to mention the nearly 20.000 proven lies he, so far, has told during his Presidency. Pathetic....
FDR suffered from a serious medical condition which he hid from the American people.... is he another non-hero?
If only JFK had told the truth to avoid military service, his crew members would not have died.
If Trump had told the truth about covid-19 from the beginning a large part of nearly 130.000 people wouldn't have died
Told the "truth" about what exactly? Trump banned travel from China while "Cancer-Moon Shot" Joe was railing that was racism. Blame China for the virus.
No he didn't ban travel from China... A ban means nobody comes in or out.... He let 400.000 people back into the country after "banning" flights from China.
That's not a ban, that's incompetence.
Wow. Letting Americans return from virus plagued China was a bad idea? While Biden didn't want to restrict anyone because it was racist. That is your argument? Where is Roger Collins now that we need him?
The joke. It went over your head. : )
The fact that JFK was a do nothing, establishment politician did not justify his assassination. What is ironic are the kooks who suggest that JFK was a hero but defend his murderer at all costs.
Told the "truth" about what exactly? Trump banned travel from China while "Cancer-Moon Shot" Joe was railing that was racism. Blame China for the virus.
https://electronpencil.com/category/curtis-lemay/
.....
(https://i1.wp.com/electronpencil.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/wallace.jpg?resize=432%2C540)
The Youth Candidate?
■
You want more? Fine. Wallace and LeMay were the preferred ticket of the majority of young white men in the entire nation that year....
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/press-briefing-press-secretary-kayleigh-mcenany-070620/
Press Briefing by Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany
Issued on: July 6, 2020
....This vision is not a culture war, as the media seeks to falsely proclaim; it’s an embrace of our American family, our values, our freedom, and our future.
And with that, I’ll take questions.Quotehttps://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1280117571874951170
(http://jfkforum.com/images/TrumpNascarFlag.jpg)
Peter.
Q Kayleigh, I want to ask you just a couple questions. The first one: Why is the President so supportive of flying the Confederate flag?
MS. MCENANY: So I think you’re referring to a tweet this morning. Is that right?
Q Correct.
MS. MCENANY: Well, I think you’re mischaracterizing the tweet. The tweet was aimed at pointing out that the FBI report of the alleged hate crime at NASCAR concluded that the garage door pull, which had been there since last fall, was obviously not targeted at a specific individual because, in fact, it was a garage pull and, in fact, it was there since last fall, long before these 43 teams arrived. And it was concluded by the FBI that this was, quote, “not an intentional racist act.”
Q For clarity, I’m asking you about the Confederate flags. My question is: Why is the President so supportive of flying the Confederate flag?
MS. MCENANY: The President never said that. Again, you’re taking his tweet completely out of context.
Q The President said that NASCAR saw bad ratings because they took down the Confederate flag, banned the Confederate flag. Does he believe NASCAR should fly the Confederate flag? And why don’t they fly it here?
MS. MCENANY: The whole point of the tweet was to note the incident, the alleged hate crime that, in fact, was not a hate crime. At the very end, the ban on the flag was mentioned in the broader context of the fact that he rejects this notion that somehow NASCAR men and women who go to these sporting events are racist when, in fact, as it turns out, what we saw with the FBI report and the alleged incident of a hate crime — it was a complete indictment of the media’s rush to judgment once again, calling this a hate crime when the FBI completely dismissed that.
Q Let me ask you about some of the President’s comments this weekend. The President said that 99 percent of coronavirus cases are totally harmless. Which members of the White House Coronavirus Task Force agree with that statement?
MS. MCENANY: So what the President was pointing to — and I’m glad you brought it up — was a factual statement, one that is rooted in science and one that was pointing out the fact that mortality in this country is very low. And I have two charts that we’ll pull up to illustrate that.
The first chart is the case fatality rate in the United States. And as you can see, the mortality rate has gone like this — (motions downward) — the case fatality rate. And also, in the second chart you’ll see — hopefully they have it up behind me — but the case rate — fatality rate in this country vis-ŕ-vis other European countries is much lower than, let’s say, France and Italy. And what that speaks to is the great work of this administration with therapeutics and remdesivir and dexamethasone. And that’s what the President was pointing out.
Q So I want to get back to —
MS. MCENANY: Jon.
Q — just to follow up quickly, though. So if you don’t die, is it not harmless?
MS. MCENANY: The President was noting the fact that the vast majority of Americans who contract coronavirus will come out on the other side of this. Of course, he takes this very seriously. Of course, no one wants to see anyone in this country contract COVID, which is why the administration has fought hard to make sure that’s not the case with our historic response effort.......
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/07/05/us/coronavirus-latinos-african-americans-cdc-data.html?searchResultPosition=1
(http://jfkforum.com/images/TrumpCDCminorityCovidStatsGraph.jpg)
Jon.
Q Kayleigh, to follow on Peter’s question, what is the President’s position? Does he think NASCAR made a mistake by banning the Confederate flag?
MS. MCENANY: So he said he — I spoke to him this morning about this, and he said he was not making a judgment one way or the other. The intent of the tweet was to stand up for the men and women of NASCAR and the fans and those who have gone, and this rush to judgment of the media to call something a hate crime when, in fact, the FBI report concluded this was not an intentional racist act. And it very much mirrors other times when there have been a rush to judgment, let’s say with the Covington boys or with Jussie Smollett.
Q But let’s drill down on the Confederate flag. Does he think it was a mistake for NASCAR to ban it?
MS. MCENANY: The President said he wasn’t making a judgment one way or the other. You’re focusing on —
Q But what is his position on it?
MS. MCENANY: — one word at the very bottom of a tweet that’s completely taken out of context and neglecting the complete rush to judgment on this.
Q Wasn’t he saying that NASCAR’s rating were down because they banned the flag? That’s what he said.
MS. MCENANY: The President was noting the fact that, in aggregate, this notion that NASCAR men and women who have gone and who are being demeaned and called racist, and being accused in some venues of committing a hate crime against an individual, those allegations were just dead wrong.
Q Does he think —
MS. MCENANY: Paula.
Q Does he think his supporters should not take the flag to Trump rallies? Has he considered banning the Confederate flag from Trump rallies?
MS. MCENANY: Well, at Trump rallies, all flags that are not official campaign gear are banned.
Yes.
Q Kayleigh, why is it Bubba Wallace’s responsibility to apologize for an investigation into a noose that he didn’t report and he never even saw? It was NASCAR that found this, that reported this. And even the FBI referred to it as a noose, even if they said it wasn’t a specific crime against Mr. Wallace. Why is the President even suggesting that Mr. Wallace should apologize?
MS. MCENANY: Well, look, the FBI, as I noted, concluded that this was not a hate crime, and he believes it’d go a long way if Bubba came out and acknowledged that as well —
Q He has.
MS. MCENANY: This was not —
Q He has.
MS. MCENANY: — a hate crime, as noted —
Q In interviews, he’s been very clear that —
MS. MCENANY: — by the FBI. So, the President —
Q — the FBI found this was not intentional.
MS. MCENANY: One of the things —
Q Why is he directing this at Mr. Wallace?
MS. MCENANY: So one of the things that —
Q He was a victim of a suspected hate crime.
MS. MCENANY: One of — this is where the President comes from, and this is where the President stands, and he actually hinted at this in his July 4th speech: “To those in the media who falsely and consistently label their opponents as racist, who condemn patriotic citizens who offer a clear and truthful defense of American unity, we want a clear and faithful defense of American history and unity. And when you level false charges, you not only slander me, you slander the American people.” He believes —
Q Who was charged? It was an open investigation, Kayleigh —
MS. MCENANY: — the American people are good. And the allegations —
Q — into a noose. The FBI said —
MS. MCENANY: — and the rush to judgement —
Q — it was a noose.
MS. MCENANY: — with Jussie Smollett and the Bubba Wallace case and with the Covington Catholic boys, we shouldn’t be so quick to jump onto those narratives. Those are just three examples of those —
Q But you’re suggesting that Mr. Wallace —
MS. MCENANY: that have been proven false.
Yes.
Q — should apologize for an investigation that someone else initiated, suggesting he was possibly the victim of a hate crime?
MS. MCENANY: (Calls on next reporter.) Yes. ......
https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1665&dat=19681004&id=W8QmAAAAIBAJ&sjid=biQEAAAAIBAJ&pg=6910,316648
rusty knife
Curtis lemay have begun cam paigning together. ... To me, if I had to go to Vietnam and get killed with a rusty knife or get killed with a nuclear weapon, I'd rather ...
https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-1997-11-16-1997320026-story.html
A world free of nuclear arms Weapons: For decades the United States gave lip service to eradication of nuclear arms while building up its "overkill" capacity. Even now, few military leaders can agree on how
many warheads are enough.
Joseph R.L. Sterne
THE BALTIMORE SUN
At a manic moment in his 1968 campaign for the presidency, George Wallace called a news conference to introduce Gen. Curtis LeMay, the cigar-chomping former commander of the Strategic Air Command, as his vice presidential running mate.
Seven minutes later, about the time needed for a high-alert scramble at SAC headquarters, the Wallace campaign was a disaster-in-progress and LeMay was trying to assure the American people that he was not "a drooling idiot whose only solution to any problem is to drop atomic bombs all over the world."
Yet in a monologue that the frantic Wallace vainly tried to interrupt, LeMay established his credentials for political idiocy.
"I don't believe the world would end if we exploded a nuclear weapon," he said.
Describing the scene at Bikini atoll after 20 nuclear tests, he noted that "the fish are all back in the lagoons, the coconut trees are growing coconuts, the guava bushes have fruit on them, the birds are back."
"As a matter of fact, everything is about the same except the land crabs. They . . . were a little bit 'hot.'"
After this outburst, Wallace made it plain that LeMay was too hot to answer questions. But if his career was in fade-out, his spirit was not.
The next two decades witnessed an ever-more-menacing nuclear arms race. At its peak, the two superpowers had amassed an overkill arsenal of 37,500 warheads.....
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1995/06/19/the-general-and-world-war-iii
Annals of the Cold WarJune 19, 1995 Issue
The General and World War III
Curtis LeMay believed that the only sure nuclear defense was to launch a preëmptive first strike. During the Cuban missile crisis, he almost did it.
By Richard Rhodes June 12, 1995
(https://media.newyorker.com/photos/5bd3416289a5e048821cffa0/master/w_2560%2Cc_limit/950619_ra583.jpg)
In 1945, the Air Force sent a thirty-eight-year-old major general named Curtis LeMay to the Pacific to direct its ineffectual air war against Japan, where the newly discovered jet stream was playing havoc with high-altitude precision bombing. The New Yorker reporter St. Clair McKelway, who was serving as a public-relations officer on Guam, described the General’s arrival in these pages: “He was around a few days, said almost nothing to anybody, was what, by civilian standards, would be called rude to many people. He was a big, husky, healthy, rather stocky, full-faced, black-haired man.” He chewed a cigar stub to disguise the Bell’s palsy that he’d got from flying high and cold; it made one side of his lower lip droop. He spoke, McKelway wrote, “through teeth that had obviously been pried open only with effort, an effort with which the speaker had no real sympathy.” He was a warrior as hard as Ulysses S. Grant, a bomber pilot, a big-game hunter: dark, fleshy, smart. “I’ll tell you what war is about,” he once said with characteristic bluntness. “You’ve got to kill people, and when you’ve killed enough they stop fighting.”....
...Until his death, in 1990, this remarkable leader, whose efforts to carry out an impossible assignment took the world within a hair’s breadth of nuclear destruction, continued to believe that the United States had “lost” the Cuban missile crisis and the Cold War. We had not lost, nor had we won. The world had won. Science had revealed a limit to total war.
What has Donald Trump achieved? Before the COVID-19 pandemic hit:
* One of the best economies in the last 50 years.
* The lowest black and Hispanic unemployment rates ever.
* The biggest jump in manufacturing jobs since the 1990s.
* A huge tax cut that gave the largest rate cuts to the middle class.
* Appointment of outstanding originalist judges to the federal judiciary.
* Selling weapons to Ukraine and Georgia.
* Negotiation of a new North American trade deal that represents a huge improvement over NAFTA.
* Ending the Obamacare penalty tax, so people aren't penalized for not buying a product they don't want.
* Improving security at our southern border to make it harder for human traffickers and drug smugglers to cross the border, and it make it harder for people to enter our country illegally.
* Providing military personnel with a sizable pay increase.
Trump was my last choice among the GOP candidates. I preferred Kasich, Carson, or Rubio, in that order. I am often disappointed with how Trump conducts himself. Sometimes his behavior is petty and needlessly combative. But Trump has done many good things for America.
The bill signed into law by Trump on 22 December 2017 cut the corporate tax rate from 35 to 21%, the largest such rate cut in US history. “The most excited group out there are big CEOs,” said the White House economic adviser Gary Cohn as the measure was making its way through Congress in 2017.
But the fears of ordinary workers in regard to those promised higher wages were realized.
The bulk of the $150bn the tax cut put into the hands of corporations in 2018 went into shareholder dividends and stock buy-backs, both of which line the pockets of the 10% of Americans who own 84% of the stocks.
Yes, and that long-overdue cut in the corporate tax rate made our companies more competitive in Europe and Asia, where the corporate tax ranges from 18-21%. Furthermore, as part of the cut from 35% to 21%, the tax-cut bill ended the foreign-income loophole so that American companies can no longer pay zero taxes on their overseas income. And in a very smart move to attract American capital parked overseas to come back to the U.S., the bill included a provision that offers a repatriated income tax rate of 13.5% on money that American companies shift back to the U.S., which is one of the main reasons, if not the main reason, that we have seen so much capital come back to the U.S.You can attempt to spin your crap anyway you choose.That’s not unusual for those supporting the lunatic in the WH. Not surprising. You sound like a Fox News wannabe. No different than the garbage you’ve written over the years regarding the JFK event. You and POTUS have much in common. That’s no compliment.
Nonsense. Just go read the Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics' monthly Employment Situation Report from January 2017 onward until the pandemic hit. Wages increased more under Trump in three years than they did under Obama in eight years. Anyone can check this fact for themselves, and any statistic that weasel-words to avoid this fact is misleading. I am not saying Obama did a bad job with the economy. I think he did a pretty decent job, better than Bush did, but Trump has done even better (again, minus the pandemic).
That is horrible math. You can't use gross numbers when you're talking about tax cuts, rates, and incomes. If Joe A makes $50K and gets a 10% tax cut, his net income increases by $5K. If Joe B makes $200K per year and gets a 5% tax cut, his net income increases by $10K, but obviously it would be silly and misleading to say that such a tax cut "favored the rich," since the middle-class got to keep a much large share/percentage of his income. The fact that the rich guy gets more money is just a function of math, and it does not change the fact that the middle-income guy is getting to keep a large share of his income.
Anyone who want to learn something in 2 minutes can go to the individual income tax tables for 2017 and 2018 and can see that by far, by far the biggest rate cuts in individual income tax rates in the Trump tax cuts went to the middle class. Moreover, the Trump tax cuts took a big bite out of rich people's wallets by capping the SALT deduction at $10K.
And why in the world do liberals complain because some companies have used some of their tax-cut savings to buy back some of their own stock so as to reduce the influence and cost of shareholders? People who do this know little about business. On the one hand, liberals--as do many conservatives--correctly complain about the harmful influence that shareholders often have on companies. Shareholders often pressure companies to reduce employee benefits and to curb or delay raises in order to cut labor costs, etc., etc.
So if you work for a company that is able to buy back some of its own stock, you should be very happy about this, because when a company does this, it is reducing, or ending, the influence of shareholders and also reducing the number of people who must be paid dividends/returns, which leaves more money for R&D, expansion, raises, better benefits, increased reserve capital, etc.
What has Donald Trump achieved? Before the COVID-19 pandemic hit:
* One of the best economies in the last 50 years.
* The lowest black and Hispanic unemployment rates ever.
* The biggest jump in manufacturing jobs since the 1990s.
* A huge tax cut that gave the largest rate cuts to the middle class.
* Appointment of outstanding originalist judges to the federal judiciary.
* Selling weapons to Ukraine and Georgia.
* Negotiation of a new North American trade deal that represents a huge improvement over NAFTA.
* Ending the Obamacare penalty tax, so people aren't penalized for not buying a product they don't want.
* Improving security at our southern border to make it harder for human traffickers and drug smugglers to cross the border, and it make it harder for people to enter our country illegally.
* Providing military personnel with a sizable pay increase.
Trump was my last choice among the GOP candidates. I preferred Kasich, Carson, or Rubio, in that order. I am often disappointed with how Trump conducts himself. Sometimes his behavior is petty and needlessly combative. But Trump has done many good things for America.
What exactly did Donald Trump do that caused these things to happen?
.....
https://money.cnn.com/2016/05/05/investing/trump-king-of-debt-fire-janet-yellen/(http://jfkforum.com/images/DebtTrump052418.jpg)
Donald Trump: 'I'm the king of debt' -
May 7, 2016 - I love debt," Trump told CNN's Wolf Blitzer on Wednesday, seemingly trying to explain the comfort level he has with debt after a long business ...
img]https://miro.medium.com/max/700/1*4p88EAfZI8z1FibW0aaxJA.png[/img]
US Corporations have long been competitive with the EU and Asia
because of the advantageous "effective" tax rate
(and through creative book-keeping by some corporations, the Gov't actually sends many large US corporations massive tax refunds every year).
Trump's cut for the corporations (and the billionaires) means the middle class have to eventually shoulder more tax burden.
Unless Biden reverses things, or the tax code is rewritten, but the empowered and elites don't want that.
Not as much as they are now, thanks to the Trump tax cuts.
Wrong. The graduated nature of the previous corporate income tax only substantially helped smaller companies. Larger corporations were paying an effective tax rate that was far above the 18%-21% rate in Europe and Asia and far above the new rate of 21%.
You realize that the new corporate income tax is *not* graduated, right? It is a flat 21%, regardless of the corporation's size.
And I repeat the point that the Trump tax cuts ended the decades-long foreign income loophole, which allowed U.S. corporations to park billions of dollars overseas and to avoid taxes on income earned overseas. Liberals had been calling for ending this loophole for decades, but few liberals have given Trump credit for finally doing this, because if more people knew about this aspect of the Trump tax cuts, they would not so easily swallow the liberal talking point that the tax cuts mainly helped the rich.
By the way, the JFK tax cuts reduced the top marginal rate, the rate paid by rich folks, from 91% to 70%. So JFK gave the rich a 23% tax cut. Trump cut the top marginal rate by 6.6%.
Humm, I'd like to see data on that claim.
And are you counting the tens of billions of dollars that American corporations pay in state and local income taxes and property taxes?
I work for a rather large corporation, and in previous years I worked for two much larger corporations. I receive pay and benefits that very few small companies would be able to match. The last thing I want to see is my company's corporate tax rate jacked back up to 35%. I think a flat rate of 21% is more than enough.
Oh, just hogwash. This is Marxist hogwash. The Trump tax cut for corporations simply brought our corporate income tax rate down to the level that is common in Europe and Asia. You might want to remember that our corporations employ millions of Americans and pay billions of dollars each year to contribute to their employees' 401K funds, health insurance premiums, payroll taxes, and unemployment insurance. You realize that your employer pays half of your payroll tax for you, and that your employer pays into your state's unemployment insurance fund on your behalf (at no cost to you) each month, right?
Most people want a job that provides a decent salary and good benefits, including a matching 401K, health insurance, sick leave, and vacation time. Well, who do you suppose provides the majority of those kinds of jobs? Mom and Pop stores? No, corporations provide most of those kinds of jobs.
Let us look at the rate cuts for individual income taxes in the Trump tax cuts to dispel the liberal myth that they mainly helped the rich. Keep in mind that most Americans fall into the second, third, and fourth brackets:
1st bracket -- No change (since they already paid no income taxes, and Trump increased the Earned Income Tax Credit)
2nd bracket ($20K-$79K) -- 20% reduction (from 15% to 12%)
3rd bracket ($79K-$168K -- 12% reduction (from 25% to 22%)
4th bracket ($168K-$318K) -- 14.2% reduction (from 28% to 24%)
5th bracket ($318-$410K) -- 3.1% reduction (from 33% to 32%)
6th bracket ($410K-$610K) -- No reduction (stayed at 35%)
7th bracket ($610K-plus) -- 6.6% (from 39.6% to 37%)
As you can see, the second, third, and fourth brackets, where most Americans fall, got the largest rate cuts. My monthly net income rose by over $200 thanks to the tax cuts. So please, Democrats, keep your hands off them.
I notice you said nothing about the fact that the Trump taxes imposed a $10K cap on SALT deductions (state and local taxes), which has taken a sizable bite out of the wallets of the rich. For someone like me, who pays about $12K in SALT each year, the cap has meant little. But for a person who makes, say, $325K per year and pays $35K or more in SALT, the cap has cost them several thousand dollars per year for the last two years, and will continue to do so.
So you want to jack up the tax rate on our corporations back up to 35%?! Really? Why would you want to do that? You might want to talk to the millions of employees of those corporations and ask them if they would like to see their employer's taxes jacked up by 40% (14 percentage points). Why would you want to do such a thing? Do you not want American corporations to grow, to hire more people, to keep paying for benefits?
I seriously, seriously doubt that Biden would be so foolish as to undo the Trump tax cuts. He might do what Bill Clinton did to the Reagan tax cuts and what Obama did to the Bush tax cuts, i.e., raise the rate for the top brackets somewhat but leave the tax cuts for the other brackets intact. And I hope to high heaven that, if Biden wins, he doesn't undo the great growth we've seen in our business sector by jacking up the corporate income tax rate back to 35% or to anything close to that.
As many economists have pointed out, taxing corporate income is a counter-productive form of double taxation that negatively affects everyone in each corporation. Corporations already pay half of all of their employees' payroll taxes, in addition to tens of billions of dollars in state income taxes and local property taxes. Even the owners and top executives in corporations already pay taxes on their salaries. So turning around and taxing a corporation again on its profits makes no sense, if you are interested in enabling the company to grow as much as possible.
Not as much as they are now, thanks to the Trump tax cuts.
Wrong. The graduated nature of the previous corporate income tax only substantially helped smaller companies. Larger corporations were paying an effective tax rate that was far above the 18%-21% rate in Europe and Asia and far above the new rate of 21%.
You realize that the new corporate income tax is *not* graduated, right? It is a flat 21%, regardless of the corporation's size.
And I repeat the point that the Trump tax cuts ended the decades-long foreign income loophole, which allowed U.S. corporations to park billions of dollars overseas and to avoid taxes on income earned overseas. Liberals had been calling for ending this loophole for decades, but few liberals have given Trump credit for finally doing this, because if more people knew about this aspect of the Trump tax cuts, they would not so easily swallow the liberal talking point that the tax cuts mainly helped the rich.
By the way, the JFK tax cuts reduced the top marginal rate, the rate paid by rich folks, from 91% to 70%. So JFK gave the rich a 23% tax cut. Trump cut the top marginal rate by 6.6%.
Humm, I'd like to see data on that claim.
And are you counting the tens of billions of dollars that American corporations pay in state and local income taxes and property taxes?
I work for a rather large corporation, and in previous years I worked for two much larger corporations. I receive pay and benefits that very few small companies would be able to match.
The last thing I want to see is my company's corporate tax rate jacked back up to 35%. I think a flat rate of 21% is more than enough.
Oh, just hogwash. This is Marxist hogwash. The Trump tax cut for corporations simply brought our corporate income tax rate down to the level that is common in Europe and Asia.
You might want to remember that our corporations employ millions of Americans and pay billions of dollars each year to contribute to their employees' 401K funds, health insurance premiums, payroll taxes, and unemployment insurance. You realize that your employer pays half of your payroll tax for you, and that your employer pays into your state's unemployment insurance fund on your behalf (at no cost to you) each month, right?
Most people want a job that provides a decent salary and good benefits, including a matching 401K, health insurance, sick leave, and vacation time. Well, who do you suppose provides the majority of those kinds of jobs? Mom and Pop stores? No, corporations provide most of those kinds of jobs.
Let us look at the rate cuts for individual income taxes in the Trump tax cuts to dispel the liberal myth that they mainly helped the rich. Keep in mind that most Americans fall into the second, third, and fourth brackets:
1st bracket -- No change (since they already paid no income taxes, and Trump increased the Earned Income Tax Credit)
2nd bracket ($20K-$79K) -- 20% reduction (from 15% to 12%)
3rd bracket ($79K-$168K -- 12% reduction (from 25% to 22%)
4th bracket ($168K-$318K) -- 14.2% reduction (from 28% to 24%)
5th bracket ($318-$410K) -- 3.1% reduction (from 33% to 32%)
6th bracket ($410K-$610K) -- No reduction (stayed at 35%)
7th bracket ($610K-plus) -- 6.6% (from 39.6% to 37%)
As you can see, the second, third, and fourth brackets, where most Americans fall, got the largest rate cuts. My monthly net income rose by over $200 thanks to the tax cuts. So please, Democrats, keep your hands off them.
I notice you said nothing about the fact that the Trump taxes imposed a $10K cap on SALT deductions (state and local taxes), which has taken a sizable bite out of the wallets of the rich. For someone like me, who pays about $12K in SALT each year, the cap has meant little. But for a person who makes, say, $325K per year and pays $35K or more in SALT, the cap has cost them several thousand dollars per year for the last two years, and will continue to do so.
So you want to jack up the tax rate on our corporations back up to 35%?! Really? Why would you want to do that? You might want to talk to the millions of employees of those corporations and ask them if they would like to see their employer's taxes jacked up by 40% (14 percentage points). Why would you want to do such a thing? Do you not want American corporations to grow, to hire more people, to keep paying for benefits?
I seriously, seriously doubt that Biden would be so foolish as to undo the Trump tax cuts. He might do what Bill Clinton did to the Reagan tax cuts and what Obama did to the Bush tax cuts, i.e., raise the rate for the top brackets somewhat but leave the tax cuts for the other brackets intact. And I hope to high heaven that, if Biden wins, he doesn't undo the great growth we've seen in our business sector by jacking up the corporate income tax rate back to 35% or to anything close to that.
As many economists have pointed out, taxing corporate income is a counter-productive form of double taxation that negatively affects everyone in each corporation. Corporations already pay half of all of their employees' payroll taxes, in addition to tens of billions of dollars in state income taxes and local property taxes. Even the owners and top executives in corporations already pay taxes on their salaries. So turning around and taxing a corporation again on its profits makes no sense, if you are interested in enabling the company to grow as much as possible.
What exactly did Donald Trump do that caused these things to happen?
This is just false.
What has Donald Trump achieved? Before the COVID-19 pandemic hit:
* One of the best economies in the last 50 years.
* The lowest black and Hispanic unemployment rates ever.
* The biggest jump in manufacturing jobs since the 1990s.
* A huge tax cut that gave the largest rate cuts to the middle class.
* Appointment of outstanding originalist judges to the federal judiciary.
* Selling weapons to Ukraine and Georgia.
* Negotiation of a new North American trade deal that represents a huge improvement over NAFTA.
* Ending the Obamacare penalty tax, so people aren't penalized for not buying a product they don't want.
* Improving security at our southern border to make it harder for human traffickers and drug smugglers to cross the border, and it make it harder for people to enter our country illegally.
* Providing military personnel with a sizable pay increase.
Trump was my last choice among the GOP candidates. I preferred Kasich, Carson, or Rubio, in that order. I am often disappointed with how Trump conducts himself. Sometimes his behavior is petty and needlessly combative. But Trump has done many good things for America.
He cut taxes on our companies. He cut huge amounts of burdensome business regulations. He cut taxes on nearly all working Americans, which of course left them with more money to spend in the economy.
No it is not. The Trump tax cuts' largest rate cuts for individual income tax rates went to the middle class:
I think Mr Griffith belongs in the other thread, "Trump supporters and conspiracy theories".Well said.
He's Exhibit A
......My observations leading me to firmly believe Mr. Griffith's political opinions are evidence of an involuntary belief system, rather than supported by facts. The point he made about Trump's "accomplishment", resulting in the zeroing of the ACA mandate, a fine on taxpayers who are not low income exempted from purchasing and or maintaining health insurance coverage, was probably the item he credited to Trump that I found most troubling, because it certainly is within Mr. Griffith's intellectual capacity to understand it is vital for at least two reasons.:...
......
If not involuntary, why post indicating minimization or outright dismissal of outright corruption of the U.S, Department of Justice, the rule of law, and, even more obviously, Trump's "in your face", complete disdain for the truth?Quotehttps://www.law.com/nationallawjournal/2020/07/09/judge-emmet-sullivan-contests-dc-circuit-decision-ordering-dismissal-of-flynn-case/.......
Judge Emmet Sullivan Contests DC Circuit Decision Ordering Dismissal of Flynn Case | National Law Journal
The panel's decision threatens to turn ordinary judicial process upside down veteran trial lawyer Beth Wilkinson representing U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan ...
Law.com
1 hour ago
https://www.lawfareblog.com/judge-emmet-sullivan-petitions-rehearing-en-banc-flynn-case
THE RUSSIA CONNECTION
Judge Emmet Sullivan Petitions for a Rehearing En Banc in Flynn Case
By Matt Gluck Thursday, July 9, 2020, 4:32 PM
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/06/01/president-trump-made-19127-false-or-misleading-claims-1226-days/
Fact Checker - Analysis
President Trump made 19,127 false or misleading claims in 1,226 days
By Glenn Kessler, Salvador Rizzo and Meg Kelly
June 1, 2020 at 3:00 a.m. EDT
Nice bogus right wing propaganda.
The greatest economy on record was created by Barack Obama and Joe Biden. Donald Trump is a fraud and took credit for it just like he paid someone to take his SATs for him.
Manufacturing has been in a recession since last September and the economic recession started BEFORE the Trump Virus due to his bogus tariffs and tax gimmicks to the 1% that tripled the national debt.
The middle class didn't hardly get a tax cut and are worse off than 4 years ago with finances.
Black and Hispanic unemployment is at an all time high.
We are losing and behind every major nation with Donald Trump.
Get some new talking points.
I think Mr Griffith belongs in the other thread, "Trump supporters and conspiracy theories"........
He's Exhibit A
http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/18219-obamas-first-full-day-as-a-tyrant-who-ordered-the-assassination-of-american-citizen-samir-kahn/page/4/
Obama's First Full Day as a Tyrant Who Ordered the Assassination of American Citizen Samir Kahn
By Guest Tom Scully, October 1, 2011 in JFK Assassination Debate .....
If you Google "U.S. COVID-19 deaths," you'll see that although the number of cases has increased dramatically over the last several weeks, the number of daily new deaths has nosedived, just as many experts predicted would happen. The number of daily new deaths has dropped by over 100% over the last three weeks. In contrast, three weeks after the lockdowns began, the number of daily new deaths skyrocketed, and that spike continued for 2-3 weeks, which of course suggests that the lockdowns did more harm than good.
Trump was right about hydroxychloroquine
https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/coronavirus/trump-touted-covid-19-drug-hydroxychloroquine-works-according-new-study
Some other useful articles:
Georgia's daily new COVID-19 deaths hit 3-month low
https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/coronavirus/once-seen-outbreak-disaster-making-georgia-just-hit-3-month-low-covid
Schools can and should reopen
https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/coronavirus/evidence-continues-mount-reopening-schools-safe-yet-many-us-officials
The "author" of the first article cited by Michael as "useful", is the Trump supporting stooge, Sharyl Attkisson :
The "author" of the second and third article cited by Michael as "useful", is the Trump supporting stooge, Daniel Payne.:
This thread just keeps on giving, like the tide going out, revealing who has been swimming naked, from a discernment standpoint.
Michael, is this a sign of a conspiracy of medical science against Trump and Trump party?
Translation:
John Solomon is a discredited, Hannity fed and directed shill for Trump.:
Michael, from your "Trumped up", POV, science does not seem to matter, despite the Trump pressured FDA having no incentive to contradict Trump.
Are you also an anti-vaxxer? The choice of avoiding posting like an anti-science, "whack job" is entirely up to you! Why intentionally diminish your own credibility? Why support the mendacious, uninformed, BS of the world's worst person, considering the resources at his disposal VS the intentional sabotage and sunami of lies and other manipulations that are the "work product" of the 45th POTUS?
Since late February, the U.S. medical community has learned much more about treatment efficacy and is much better prepared, from testing to response.
You're posted opinion is in direct contrast to FDA policy revisions, and to the reality on the ground. You deliberately remove your bearings to conduct any reliable, science supported argument. Why deliberately post like a laughable knucklehead? Can you not discern the ridiculousness of the few posters in this thread who have been posting BS similar to what you are delivering in this thread page?
Florida has a pop. of about 20 million, older on average, than in many other U.S. states. It takes a larger increase of younger victims to move Florida's numbers because of the large, general pop. and the older than average age.
If your life depended on it, "Useful" cites from Michael's justthenews.com, or.....
It is sad to see such blind partisan hatred of Trump. Many conservatives displayed intolerance and blind hatred toward Obama, but the hatred and derangement that some liberals are displaying toward Trump are setting new records for polarization and bigotry.
The problem is that when you decide that you hate someone, you will almost never admit when they do something good. I see such blindness in the irrational, surreal way that many liberals have responded to Trump's tax cuts, to his ending the Obamacare penalty fine, to his historic reduction in federal regulations, to his new North American trade agreement (which even many unions agree is a big improvement over NAFTA), to his support of school choice, etc., etc.
And, seriously, aren't those of you who support Biden worried about his mental capacity? Really, anyone who has watched even just a few of Biden's public appearances can see that he frequently loses his train of thought, slurs his words, and sometimes almost seems in a daze or trance for a few seconds. I'm not talking about his gaffes. Trump commits lots of gaffes too. I'm talking about the clear signs that Biden's mental capacity has severely diminished, and that it's only getting worse. During the early stage of the Dem primary, even some of the talking heads on MSNBC openly discussed the clear signs that Biden's mental capacity is substantially diminished.
If Biden is going to end up in the White House, I just hope he picks a rational, moderate running mate, not a rabid idealogue like Kamala Harris or Stacey Abrams. I wish Biden nothing but the best. I have nothing against him as a person. I think he has a compelling life story. He has long record of being willing to compromise and work with the other side. But given his diminished capacity, I worry that he would not really be in control as president but would be manipulated in too many cases to do things that he would never have done 10 years ago.
It is sad to see such blind partisan hatred of Trump. Many conservatives displayed intolerance and blind hatred toward Obama, but the hatred and derangement that some liberals are displaying toward Trump are setting new records for polarization and bigotry.
The problem is that when you decide that you hate someone, you will almost never admit when they do something good. I see such blindness in the irrational, surreal way that many liberals have responded to Trump's tax cuts, to his ending the Obamacare penalty fine, to his historic reduction in federal regulations, to his new North American trade agreement (which even many unions agree is a big improvement over NAFTA), to his support of school choice, etc., etc.
And, seriously, aren't those of you who support Biden worried about his mental capacity? Really, anyone who has watched even just a few of Biden's public appearances can see that he frequently loses his train of thought, slurs his words, and sometimes almost seems in a daze or trance for a few seconds. I'm not talking about his gaffes. Trump commits lots of gaffes too. I'm talking about the clear signs that Biden's mental capacity has severely diminished, and that it's only getting worse. During the early stage of the Dem primary, even some of the talking heads on MSNBC openly discussed the clear signs that Biden's mental capacity is substantially diminished.
JFK was a decorated WWII combat veteran.
He used his family's influence to get assigned to the PT Boat in the Pacific war zone.
His older brother Joe was killed in Europe. He volunteered for a dangerous mission over Europe.
The plane he was flying blew up killing all on board.
Gary, look a little deeper. Joe Jr. died as a result of a top secret, remote television camera piloted "drone bomber" project. It is possible, although the odds are intensely slim, that Hugh Downs, despite a career in broadcast journalism that lasted from 1945 until he retired at age 79, just did not know who his wife's brother, John Shaheen, really was?
-SNIP-
The CIA enlisted Oswald to feign defection to the Soviet Union.
A CIA document titled “Excerpts From Unpublished Writings of Lee Harvey Oswald” quotes Oswald as having written, “When I first went to Russia in the winter of 1959 my funds were very limited, so after a certain time, after the Russians had assured themselves that I was really the naive American who believed in Communism, they arranged for me to receive a certain amount of money every month . . . . It was arranged by the MVD [Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs] . . . . It really was payment for my denunciation of the US in Moscow in November 1959.”
A CIA memo makes reference to Oswald’s writings and states, “In his writings, Oswald is highly critical of Soviet rigged elections, the massing of crowds for staged demonstrations, travel restrictions, regimentation, and the lack of freedom of press, speech, and religion.”
Oswald’s Marine Corps record shows that on February 25, 1959, he was tested on his Russian language “comprehension” skills, including his ability to “understand” Russian, his ability to “read” Russian, and his ability to “write” in Russian.
Fifteen days after arriving in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, Oswald went to the U.S. Embassy in Moscow and claimed that he was renouncing his American citizenship, stating afterward, “I will never return to the United States for any reason.”
The Embassy reported that Oswald “was aggressive, arrogant, and uncooperative,” and in response to his alleged desire to renounce his citizenship, the Embassy “advised Oswald by mail of his right to renounce citizenship, such renunciation in manner prescribed by law being valid, and that he might appear on any normal business day and request documents be prepared.”
According to the State Department officer who dealt with Oswald during the phony attempt to renounce citizenship, Oswald appeared to have been “tutored in connection with his apparent attempts to renounce his American citizenship,” and Oswald’s trip to the Soviet Union was suspiciously a “competently arranged trip.”
The State Department officer also reported, “Oswald evidently knew something of the procedure for renunciation of citizenship when he came into the office. This seemed a bit unusual since it was so soon after his first departure from the United States on his first trip abroad traveling as a private citizen.”
The Warren Commission told CIA officials in March 1964, “The letters Lee Oswald wrote to the American Embassy in Moscow while he was trying to get permission for himself and his wife Marina to return to the United States might have been ‘coached.’”
A Warren Commission staff member told the CIA officials that “these letters reflected a higher degree of sophistication and knowledge of passport procedures than would be expected of a man of Lee Harvey Oswald’s known character.”
The FBI documented that an Associated Press reporter spoke with Oswald at his hotel soon after his claim that he wanted to “relinquish his United States citizenship and remain in Russia.” The reporter “engaged him in a conversation” and “asked Oswald why he was going to remain in Russia.”
The FBI report states, “Oswald replied, ‘I’ve got my reasons,’ but did not elucidate.”
Five days after returning from the Soviet Union, Oswald had Pauline Bates, a stenographer in Fort Worth, Texas, type up notes that he made while in Russia. Bates testified to the Warren Commission that the notes, both typed and handwritten, were in Russian and that Oswald spent three days translating them for her. She also stated that she was “anxious to get on it” because she was very interested in the fact that Oswald “had just come back from Russia and had notes.”
She told the Warren Commission, “I started asking him some questions – ‘Why did you go to Russia?’ - and a few things like that. Some of them he’d answer and some of them he wouldn’t . . . . He wasn’t very talkative. And whenever I did get him to talk, I had to drag it out of him. He didn’t talk voluntarily.”
The information that Pauline Bates “dragged” out of Oswald included the fact that he would “scribble notes” while in Russia “whenever he could” and then “surreptitiously” type them when “Marina would cover for him . . . muffle the tone of the typewriter and everything . . . . He said she would cover or watch for him so that nobody would know that he was making them . . . try to steer anybody away while he was doing this, because he could have got in trouble.”
She testified that the notes were “about the living conditions and the working conditions in Russia. And they were very bitter against Russia . . . . It was the terrible living conditions and the terrible working conditions . . . . The notes were very, very bitter about Russia.
“He smuggled them out of Russia. And he said that the whole time until they got over the border, they were scared to death they would be found, and, of course, they would not be allowed to leave Russia.”
Oswald also told Pauline Bates that while he was in the Marine Corps, he “had taken elementary Russian - a course in elementary Russian.” As noted earlier, six and a half months before he left on a “passenger-carrying freighter” with the Soviet Union as his ultimate destination, the Marines tested Oswald on his ability to understand Russian, read Russian, and write in Russian.
The FBI reported that when they interviewed Oswald on June 26, 1962, thirteen days after he returned to the United States, “Oswald declined to answer the question as to why he made the trip to Russia in the first place” and stated he “would not be willing to take a polygraph test.”
Oswald was put on the CIA’s Counterintelligence “Watch List” on November 9, 1959, nine days after he told U.S. embassy officials that he was renouncing his American citizenship and would “never return to the United States for any reason.”
The card with Oswald’s name on it simply states, “Recent defector to the USSR, Former Marine,” but it is also stamped “Secret: Eyes Only,” which means it was of the highest restriction when it comes to who sees it, and anyone who sees it knows they are not supposed to ask any questions about Lee Harvey Oswald.
To repeat, the CIA enlisted Oswald to feign defection to the Soviet Union. The idea that he was in Mexico trying to get a visa for travel to Cuba and the Soviet Union was completely manufactured in order to link Khrushchev and Castro to the assassination. LBJ would then fear a nuclear war and establish the Warren Commission with a “no conspiracy” mandate.
It’s all in my book. Click the link.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07V9JT65Y
You're stirring up trouble again, Tom......... delicious !!!
https://www.seattlepi.com/news/article/Conservative-group-boasts-of-secret-role-in-16177519.php
Conservative group boasts of secret role in voting laws
NICHOLAS RICCARDI and ANTHONY IZAGUIRRE, Associated Press
May 14, 2021
The head of a national conservative group told supporters it secretly helped draft legislation in Republican-controlled statehouses across the country as part of a coordinated network of organizations pushing to tighten voting laws across the country.
Jessica Anderson, executive director of Heritage Action, made the claim during a recent meeting with supporters in Arizona...
“In some cases, we actually draft them for them,” Anderson said of legislation written for state lawmakers. “Or we have a sentinel on our behalf give them the model legislation, so it has that grassroots, from-the-bottom-up type of vibe.”
Anderson's comments shed additional light on precisely how well-funded national organizations have seized on false claims about the 2020 election to try to tighten state voting laws. .
...Heritage Action is one of several Republican-affiliated groups that jumped into elections issues for the first time after former President Donald Trump’s false claims about election fraud led to the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. The lies also have fanned deep suspicions about the integrity of the country’s voting systems among GOP activists and donors — Anderson noted Heritage activists cited it as a top issue in a survey — and led to new laws in Georgia, Florida, Iowa, Kansas and other states.
.. Republicans argue the tougher rules will guard against fraud and are needed to restore trust in the election system. On Friday, the liberal group End Citizens United released a report that tallied up more than $42 million that conservative groups have pledged to spend on election laws, including Heritage's $24 million budget...
...Heritage Action announced its effort in March, saying it would push legislation in eight battleground states based on model principles formulated by its parent organization, the conservative Heritage Foundation. Hans von Spakovsky, the foundation's top voting expert and a former member of Trump's 2017 election fraud commission, appeared at the event with Anderson and boasted of regularly talking with Republican secretaries of state. Anderson added that Heritage Action had just had a “huge” call with secretaries of state, who often serve as a state's chief elections official....
(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51233178093_188c13c66a_b.jpg)
Continued- https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/07/AR2007060702289.htmlQuoteHeritage Action - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritage_Action
Jessica Anderson has led the organization since 2020. Jessica Anderson first joined Heritage Action in 2010 and served as grassroots director, but left in 2017 to serve in the Office of Management and Budget in the Trump Administration. She returned to Heritage Action as vice president in 2018 before being named executive director in 2020...
TEN MYTHS ABOUT THE REAGAN DEBACLE - The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/1987/03/22/magazine/ten-myths-about-the-reagan-debacle.html
Mar 22, 1987 by William Safire
"..This hardening myth has strong roots. William J. Casey, former Director of Central Intelligence, admitted in writing that the ''opening'' would be the rationale for the ransom if discovered; the President admitted recently that this had all the appearance, despite his best intentions, of an arms-for-hostages swap; the Israeli contact, Amiram Nir, made plain to Vice President George Bush that we were dealing with radicals in Teheran. So how can anyone cling to that nonsense about helping ''moderate'' elements in Teheran?
You had to be there, say the men who were there, to understand. The way it ended was not how it began, nor was degeneration built in. The intellectual godfather was Donald R. Fortier, an authentic strategist out of the University of Chicago. (He died of cancer in August 1986, in the midst of the arms dealings, after thinking for weeks he had hepatitis.) Fortier's views were buttressed by Graham Fuller, a respected C.I.A. analyst. To this day, few of the President's derogators deride the idea of probing Iran to see what might be done after the 86-year-old Ayatollah dies. That country is not monolithic; the potential existence of ''moderates'' may be a naive belief, but in the wild melee to come it would be good to have a few of what the C.I.A. calls ''assets.''
Early along the way, the subject of ''establishing bona fides'' came up. To the Iranians, it meant weapons to win their war; to us, it meant getting our hostages back. Quickly, the tail began to wag the dog, but in the President's mind, the compassionate urge he felt to retrieve our citizens could be explained as part of his overall initiative. He never admitted to himself that the immediate goal overwhelmed the ultimate goal.
Why didn't he just say, then, after the story leaked, that he was trying to get our people out and it had failed and he was sorry? Because, while it may have been the objective truth, it was not the truth in his mind. The President still clung to the strategic rationale he wanted to buy from Fortier, Fuller and McFarlane, supported by Casey, Bush and Don Regan. Call it stubbornness, but Ronald Reagan did not get where he is without an innate obstinacy. MYTH 4: We should have known that the Iranians would leak this to humiliate us....
Eldon Rudd, LOL !
(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51230636274_e03fa33dd2_h.jpg)
http://archive.org/stream/reportofcongress11unit/reportofcongress11unit_djvu.txt
Report of the congressional committees investigating the Iran- Contra Affair :....
Washington, D. C. Wednesday, July 22, 1987 Deposition of ROY FURMARK, called for examination at the offices of the Senate Select Committee, Suite 901, the Hart Senate Office Building, at 10:00 a.m.
.....
AFTERNOON SESSION (1:00 p.m.) Whereupon, ROY FURMARK resiimed the stand and, having been previously duly sworn, was examined and testified further as follows: EXAMINATION (Continued) BY MR. KERR:
........
4 Q Let's shift gears a little bit. In terms of 5 Mr. Shaheen's relationship with William Casey, there was a 6 relationship? A Yes. 8 Q Can you describe what that relationship was? 9 A They were extremely close personal friends.- They 10 were both very much involved in Republican politics. They 11 were very much involved in the William J. Donovan Foundation 12 or the OSS, the Office of Strategic Services, which is an 13 all members who were in that service, and they would meet and I 14 have dinners and present awards out. They presented awards 15 to Thatcher, Willy Mountbatton, the three astronauts that 16 landed on the moon. They presented awards to President 17 Reagan, and so that was a focal point for them to get 18 together, I think, and in addition, they were involved with, 19 you know, doing legal work. He was in his own firm and then 20 he became a counsel to Rogers & Wells, and Jack Wells and 21 John, I think, were great pals as well as Casey, you know, 22 was involved in it, in New York City. Q Was Casey counsel to Shaheen during the time you were employed by Shaheen? A He did special things like when the company got into financial trouble, Newfoundland Refining Company, Casey and Shaheen and I went to Kuwait for about a week or 10 days trying to interest KNPC, Kuwait National Petroleum Company, owned by the government, to become a partner in Newfoundland Refinery, to invest funds to revamp the refinery so that we could use 100 percent Kuwaiti crude. .... He was an advisor when Shaheen had problems, and you know, but that was my longest involvement with Casey on that trip. Q Place that time for me, will you please? A 1975 or 1976, let's say. Q So this would be just before the time that you left? A Yes. Q Coming back, Shaheen had been in OSS at the same time Casey was in OSS and that's how they got to know one another? 2 A Yes . 3 Q Casey thereafter acted as legal counsel for 4 special projects for Shaheen; is that correct? 5 A Basically, yes. 6 Q Did Casey and Shaheen have business relationships 7 together to your knowledge? 8 A To my knowledge, I have never heard of any 9 business relationship. 10 Q So you don't know of any partnerships, joint 11 ventures, joint projects? 12 A No . I don't believe so. Shaheen just never did 13 things like that. 14 Q Shaheen, I believe, from a conversation you and I 15 had sometime ago, you characterized him as being a man who 16 didn't work well with partners?
http://www.consortiumnews.com/archive/xfile4.html
An intimidating array of individuals and forces wanted President Carter ousted from the White House in 1980. Some were driven by ambition; others by money; and still others by revenge. Together, they were over-powering.
Newly revealed documents, meant to stay hidden from the public, now show the interlocking relationships that operated behind the facade of American democracy: a chilling chapter of the October Surprise X-Files
October Surprise X-Files (Part 4): The Money Trail
By Robert Parry
'Flying Dutchman'
....
According to a 1984 CIA memo given to the task force, Casey recruited his old World War II spy chum John Shaheen and Iranian banker Cyrus Hashemi in 1979 to sell off property in New York City belonging to the shah's Pahlavi Foundation. At that time, the radical Islamic government in Teheran was claiming that property as its own and the shah's family was desperate for the cash.
The early Casey-Shaheen-Hashemi partnership on this Iranian business deal was important, because in 1980 Hashemi became one of President Carter's principal intermediaries on the hostage crisis and Casey was in charge of Ronald Reagan's campaign. The Casey-Shaheen-Hashemi connection made the October Surprise allegations far more credible.
Though Cyrus Hashemi died in 1986, his older brother, Jamshid, testified under oath before the task force that Cyrus had arranged July 1980 meetings in Madrid where Casey discussed the hostages with a radical Iranian mullah, Mehdi Karrubi. Jamshid's testimony was at the heart of the October Surprise charges that Casey derailed President Carter's hostage talks.
But the House task force cast aside the CIA memo and concluded that there was "no evidence" that Casey had met Cyrus Hashemi before the 1980 election in November. In the public report, the task force briefly mentioned the CIA memo, but deleted the identity of the foundation. The word "Pahlavi" was excised, thus obscuring the significance of the information. ...
https://www.tampicohistoricalsociety.com/articles/article/1323792/188936.htm
Downs, Ruth Shaheen
The beloved wife of broadcaster, Hugh Downs, passed away on Tuesday, March 28, 2017, at the age of 95, at their home in Scottsdale, AZ. Her husband was by her side as she peacefully embarked on the "next great adventure," as she referred to Death. Ruth Downs was born in Illinois in the autumn of 1921 to Mike and Sadie Shaheen, who taught their only daughter she could do anything her three brothers could do if she was willing to work for it; and she proved them right throughout her remarkable life. During WWII, Ruth was decorated by Naval Intelligence for her work on an undercover assignment. When she graduated from college, she moved to Chicago and became a radio actress, as well as a director and producer. One of her employees was a young announcer by the name of Hugh Downs. Ruth and Hugh fell in love, married and had two children. Once married, Ruth gave up working outside the home until after the children were raised and grown. Hugh credits her for much of his success, and considered her his equal partner in Life. They were together for 75 years at the time of her passing. ...and to annually bring together her own descendants and those of her beloved brothers John, Raymond, and Richard Shaheen...
https://www.upi.com/Archives/1987/03/16/Barbara-Walters-as-secret-messsenger/7000542869200/
March 16, 1987
WASHINGTON -- Veteran ABC correspondent Barbara Walters acted as an agent for secret messages from an Iranian arms merchant to President Reagan shortly after the Iran arms-hostage scandal broke, The Wall Street Journal reported today.
'Arms merchant Manucher Ghorbanifar used television journalist Barbara Walters as a conduit to secretly pass on to President Reagan his views about U.S. arms sales to Iran and related matters,' the newspaper said...
https://www.legacy.com/news/celebrity-deaths/hugh-downs-1921-2020-former-anchor-of-20-20/(http://media.gettyimages.com/photos/pictured-coanchor-barbara-walters-coanchor-hugh-downs-picture-id138395815)
..He may be best known as the anchor for ABC’s late-night TV news show “20/20,” paired with Barbara Walters, who he worked with on the “Today Show.” He was on “20/20” from 1978 until his retirement in 1999.
He cut taxes on our companies. He cut huge amounts of burdensome business regulations. He cut taxes on nearly all working Americans, which of course left them with more money to spend in the economy.
No it is not. The Trump tax cuts' largest rate cuts for individual income tax rates went to the middle class:
1st bracket -- No change (since they already paid no income taxes, and Trump increased the Earned Income Tax Credit)
2nd bracket ($20K-$79K) -- 20% reduction (from 15% to 12%)
3rd bracket ($79K-$168K -- 12% reduction (from 25% to 22%)
4th bracket ($168K-$318K) -- 14.2% reduction (from 28% to 24%)
5th bracket ($318-$410K) -- 3.1% reduction (from 33% to 32%)
6th bracket ($410K-$610K) -- No reduction (stayed at 35%)
7th bracket ($610K-plus) -- 6.6% (from 39.6% to 37%)
The tax brackets are readily available online. Anyone can confirm that Trump gave the largest rate cuts to the second, third, and fourth brackets, where the vast majority of middle-income earners fall.
JFK was largely a do nothing president. His primary attribute in history was that he took a good picture. He felt inconvenienced by the civil rights movement.
In terms of his character, he was a serial adulterer including using his position to take advantage of young girls, he lied about his numerous medical conditions during the 1960 campaign including having his doctor file false reports, he took a laundry list of drugs including an anti-psychotic mediation that would have disqualified him from the presidency.
Jackie was so concerned about their impact on him that she inquired about it. Imagine if Trump were on such medications during a nuclear crisis like JFK faced in Cuba? He knowingly lied about a "missile gap" with Russia during the campaign. A claim he knew Nixon could not rebut because the information was classified. He used his father's influence to avoid a court martial for failing to maintain a proper watch in a combat zone which resulted in a large Japanese destroyer being able to ram and sink his small, mobile PT boat resulting in deaths among his crew. A legacy of corruption and mostly do nothing results. LBJ accomplished more in his first hundred days as president than JFK did in his entire lifetime.
I moved most of my loooong post below, here :
.......
.......
Michael T. Griffith, as described in the link I included above, is an author and a scholar. Why would he voluntarily post what I am responding to in this thread, especially after I pointed out he had posted three links to John Solomon's new website? Please consider that supporters of Trump seem to have no choice. They literally seem to post in spite of the facts, instead of in support of them. I consider myself responsive to facts, but I readily admit I am not gifted with the IQ or abilities of Michael Griffith. I am my own man. Maybe I am the lucky one!
The "author" of the first article cited by Michael as "useful", is the Trump supporting stooge, Sharyl Attkisson :
The "author" of the second and third article cited by Michael as "useful", is the Trump supporting stooge, Daniel Payne.:
This thread just keeps on giving, like the tide going out, revealing who has been swimming naked, from a discernment standpoint.
Michael, is this a sign of a conspiracy of medical science against Trump and Trump party?
Translation:
John Solomon is a discredited, Hannity fed and directed shill for Trump.:
Michael, from your "Trumped up", POV, science does not seem to matter, despite the Trump pressured FDA having no incentive to contradict Trump.
Are you also an anti-vaxxer? The choice of avoiding posting like an anti-science, "whack job" is entirely up to you! Why intentionally diminish your own credibility? Why support the mendacious, uninformed, BS of the world's worst person, considering the resources at his disposal VS the intentional sabotage and sunami of lies and other manipulations that are the "work product" of the 45th POTUS?
Since late February, the U.S. medical community has learned much more about treatment efficacy and is much better prepared, from testing to response.
You're posted opinion is in direct contrast to FDA policy revisions, and to the reality on the ground. You deliberately remove your bearings to conduct any reliable, science supported argument. Why deliberately post like a laughable knucklehead? Can you not discern the ridiculousness of the few posters in this thread who have been posting BS similar to what you are delivering in this thread page?
Florida has a pop. of about 20 million, older on average, than in many other U.S. states. It takes a larger increase of younger victims to move Florida's numbers because of the large, general pop. and the older than average age.
If your life depended on it, "Useful" cites from Michael's justthenews.com, or.....
What a load of BS:
You have your Presidents mixed up. You're describing Criminal Donald.
Criminal Donald cheated on all of his wives including his current wife from Slovenia with porn stars in which he illegally paid them off while he was in office. That's a felony. Criminal Donald had his "doctors" falsify his medical reports while in office including his height and weight. He also lied about having "bone spurs" so he could get out of going to Vietnam. Criminal Donald abused Adderall for years and is a mentally deranged lunatic suffering from dementia. He was rushed to Walter Reed Hospital with a medical episode that his corrupt lying administration never divulged to the public the real reason why he was sent there. His failing health after that incident showed him in full decline with slurred speech and forgetfulness.
More BS:
President Kennedy saved America with his steady leadership with the Cuban Missile Crisis. He was also a war hero and your orange messiah is a draft dodger and allowed the worst mass causality of deaths in history due to his negligence and refusal to protect this country from a pandemic. Criminal Donald is a pathological liar who will be indicted for his crimes. Criminal Donald never had any accomplishments except for stacking the courts with far right wing extremist judges, but even a robot could have done the same.
LOL. I can see now why you usually just cut and paste fake news stories and debunked anti-Trump conspiracy theories. Obviously, you have no direct knowledge of history. It was JFK's weakness that emboldened the Russians to put missiles in Cuba. Under a stronger president like Nixon, they would never have done so but they had complete disdain for JFK. And it was only after JFK caved and agreed to remove US missiles from Turkey that Russia removed the Cuban missiles. An enormous strategic win for the Soviet Union that the liberal media has spun into a fairy tale. Not unlike PT 109 which should have resulted in JFK's court martial for dereliction of duty.
Those of us who have studied, researched and written of JFK the past 57 years know his history, his legacy. What he stood for; what he represented. Perhaps, no politician of the 20th century considering he served as POTUS for only a thousand days has received the attention John Kennedy has. He was a man of principle. He was a man of integrity. He served during world war 2. He had a vision for America. “We go to the moon not because it is easy but because it is hard”. Leadership.
What has Donald Trump achieved in his first term? Every day, there are new outrages, to be sure. We would need a list of more than twenty-seven complaints if we were to enumerate a lifetime of Trump’s misdeeds, from defrauding US tax authorities and obstructing justice to violating the Constitution. He has invited our enemies to interfere with our elections to help him win, then sought to do it again. He has misused federal resources, inappropriately elevated his own family members, and enriched his own businesses. He has repeatedly attacked the First and the Fourteenth Amendments. He has had infants thrown in cages and denied relief to Puerto Rico in the wake of Hurricane Maria at the cost of thousands of lives. He has gutted environmental protections and attacked alliances that the US spent decades building and maintaining. And now he has mismanaged the worst public health crisis in a hundred years, overseen the greatest economic crisis since the Depression, and attempted to use the US military to crush legitimate protests on the streets of the capital.
Lately, in the space of just a few days, he was revealed to have endorsed concentration camps in China and to have again sought the assistance of a foreign adversary in winning a US election, was quoted as calling for the deaths and imprisonment of US journalists, defended the slave power traitors of the Confederacy, admitted that he suppressed testing during the pandemic because true data about the rate of infections would harm him politically, sought to fire more truthtellers in the administration and had his attorney general remove an official in charge of investigations into him and his supporters. He was reportedly briefed about a Russian scheme to place bounties on American and allied troops in Afghanistan, and not only did nothing about it but continued to act as an advocate for Putin. And so it goes on… before we even consider the many complaints about his character—his racism and misogyny, his ignorance and contempt for science and history, his lies, his narcissism, his vulgarity, his demagoguery. Has there ever been a president in US history so unable to relate to others, show an emotion besides anger, or view the world through any means but his own self-interest? Where have you gone Joe DiMaggio?
:D
Nice try. I've never "cut and pasted a fake news story". You parrot bogus right wing propaganda.
JFK was a war hero and Criminal Donald is a draft dodger who will be indicted for all of his crimes.
JFK was a "war hero' only because his father was one of the richest and most influential men at the time JFK allowed his PT boat to be rammed and sunk by a Japanese destroyer due to his dereliction of duty. Any other captain in that situation would have been court martialed for failure to maintain a proper lookout in a combat zone. A PT boat was a small and mobile craft. A large destroyer should not have gotten anywhere near it except for negligence on behalf of its Captain. The military's report on the incident was authored by the same person JFK would later appoint to the Supreme Court. Talk about fodder for a conspiracy theorist. All the more amazing here is that someone who defends Oswald - the person who murdered JFK - thinks JFK was a hero.
:D :D :D
Richard Smith is the ultimate conspiracy theorist. Nobody would "allow" their boat to be rammed by a Japanese destroyer.
I'm not sure what you are babbling about here. No one suggested that JFK intentionally allowed his PT boat to be sunk. JFK negligently "allowed" his PT boat to be sunk due to failure to ensure a proper lookout. It was his fault alone - no conspiracy. Just incompetence. Stick to cutting and pasting fake news stories. Trying to think for yourself is not working.
:D :D :D
Says Richard who listens to right wing media aka Faux Propaganda which tells him how to think.
Thanks for the laugh.
Your orange messiah is going to prison for felony election fraud.
Emails show Trump pressured Justice Dept. over 2020 election
https://apnews.com/article/emails-show-trump-pressured-justice-department-election-2020-4f35f18009e8c88b3cddcdc3f4bdd54f
White House pushed Trump’s attorney general to investigate whether Italian satellites caused voter fraud: White House chief of staff wanted DOJ to investigate conspiracy concerning Italian satellites
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/jeffrey-rosen-rudy-giuliani-trump-election-b1866488.html
It was JFK's weakness that emboldened the Russians to put missiles in Cuba. Under a stronger president like Nixon, they would never have done so but they had complete disdain for JFK.
I figured Paul May suffered from several neurological disorders, so I am not surprised that he suffers from TDS as well. I am glad I stopped by today. Thanks for the laughs May.
:D
Like JFK you jumped ship once it started to sink and moved on to something else.
No, you just buy into bogus right wing propaganda and enjoy being lied to by a criminal and his sycophants.
You make up garbage against JFK and pretend it actually happened. That's what the Qanon cult does each day with their insane conspiracies.
Imagine interjecting "Qanon" into a discussion of JFK's PT boat? It is a fact that JFK's PT boat was rammed and sunk by a Japanese destroyer. It was only possible to sink a smaller, mobile PT vessel due to the failure to maintain a proper lookout in a combat zone. The captain of the PT boat - JFK - bears the responsibility for that dereliction of duty. Any other PT boat captain in that situation ends up in disgrace. The report on this incident exonerating JFK was written by a person that he later nominated to the Supreme Court. It's clear that the wealth and influence of Joe Kennedy saved JFK from a court martial and by using his influence was able to turn the incident into the mythical narrative that was passed down by Hollywood.
More fairy tales from Richard who believes in JFK conspiracy theories. That's no surprise since Richard swallows every single piece of propaganda spewed by the bogus right wing media.
It's an interesting exercise in self-loathing that you constantly use the term "conspiracy theory" in a derogatory manner. Very humorous.
Criminal Donald's crime organization has been officially indicted! President John F Kennedy never disgraced the United States of America like this criminal did.
Trump Organization and its CFO indicted by Manhattan grand jury
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/30/trump-organization-and-its-cfo-indicted-by-manhattan-grand-jury-report-says.html
The Trump Organization and Allen Weisselberg, its longtime finance chief, were indicted Wednesday by a grand jury in Manhattan, The Washington Post reported.
Translation. After years of a politically driven investigation with the sole objective to prosecute Trump, they found nothing on him. Absolutely nothing. Just like Russia collusion. Instead they found one minor tax issue with an employee of the organization. Something that is typically handled via a civil fine (which will be the resolution here). All smoke and no fire. Another major disappointment for Trump haters. And how about that Supreme Court! Big wins for all Americans interested in fair elections today.
The Great JFK and Tweedledum
| (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2b/Jmaistre.jpg/330px-Jmaistre.jpg) (http://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1j4PIpNCtZbphz0kmWxmCckNi3vDlG5He) "Every nation gets the government it deserves." (http://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1j4PIpNCtZbphz0kmWxmCckNi3vDlG5He) -- Joseph de Maistre, 1811 | (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b1/Official_Presidential_portrait_of_Thomas_Jefferson_%28by_Rembrandt_Peale%2C_1800%29%28cropped%29.jpg) (http://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1j4PIpNCtZbphz0kmWxmCckNi3vDlG5He) "I tremble for my country when I think that the government you elect is the government you deserve." (http://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1j4PIpNCtZbphz0kmWxmCckNi3vDlG5He) -- Thomas Jefferson (attributed) |
In a way, they're appropriate fits for their generation. LBJ and Biden are "throwbacks" but maintain the steady course now needed (remains to be seen if Biden has a "Vietnam" fiasco).
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2b/Jmaistre.jpg/330px-Jmaistre.jpg)
(http://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1j4PIpNCtZbphz0kmWxmCckNi3vDlG5He)
"Every nation gets the
government it deserves."
(http://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1j4PIpNCtZbphz0kmWxmCckNi3vDlG5He)
-- Joseph de Maistre, 1811(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b1/Official_Presidential_portrait_of_Thomas_Jefferson_%28by_Rembrandt_Peale%2C_1800%29%28cropped%29.jpg)
(http://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1j4PIpNCtZbphz0kmWxmCckNi3vDlG5He)
"I tremble for my country when I
think that the government you elect
is the government you deserve."
(http://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1j4PIpNCtZbphz0kmWxmCckNi3vDlG5He)
-- Thomas Jefferson (attributed)
I think Biden knew Thomas Jefferson. They are about the same age.