Roger Waters is dead to me as an anti-Zionist

Tucker Carlson, or Cucker Tarlson, has never meant anything to me politically other than being a capitalist chattering class talking head willing to say anything to increase his Swanson heirship big bucks that he already has.

So, I don’t care if he’s promoting yet another conspiracy theory.

I do care, though, if Roger Waters is promoting that conspiracy theory, as both reportedly are.

“There is no way the North and South towers and Building Seven came down because of airplanes hitting. Just not possible,” Waters said during the interview.

Waters suggested the buildings were brought down in controlled demolitions and questioned who might have been responsible. He also raised the possibility that elements within Israel or the US government had prior knowledge of, or involvement in, the attacks.

First, per my piece, your first paragraph is ignorance. Willful ignorance, just like other 9/11 Falsers. That, with link to the Popular Mechanics story refuting your ignorant ass, is in my 9/11 anniversary piece.

Also at that link? Since I called “Israel did it” type 9/11 conspiracy theories antisemitism, not anti-Zionism, you’re dead to me.

The full shebang? Listed here. The International Center for 9/11 Justice is an official falser group.

“9/11 was the first step in the plan for US-Israel hegemony in the Middle East.”

I wish I had a better link than Times of Israel, but I’m not wasting that much time. That said, apparently Waters has been a falser for some time. Had I known so, I wouldn’t have defended him in the past. That said, it has one interesting point. $150 a pop to go to this event. So, some good capitalist grifting as a sidebar.

To look at a few more known names?

Dennis Kucinich continues to deny being a 9/11 falser. More and more, though, it rings about as hollow as Dr. Jill Stein denying being an antivaxxer. He’s also a UFO falser of some sort and other things.

Bret Weinstein? GACK. Even if not a 9/11 falser, he’s a definite conspiracy theorist and general nutbar.

Jimmy Dore? GACK. General conspiracy theorist, including JFK assassination, 9/11 and Seth Rich.

Karen Kwiatkowski? Member of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, presumably part of the majority who endorsed the Guccifer 2.0 idea and thus, by default and silence, also endorsed, or gave a pass to, the odious Seth Rich conspiracy theory. Indeed, her Wiki says she was a founder of the group.

William Rodriguez? NOT the “last survivor,” but that apparently hasn’t stopped his capitalist grifting either.

Meryl Nass? Low-grade COVID conspiracy theorist and general nutter, part of an early summer round of Substack blocks.

For extra shits and grins, speaker James Li is apparently a Charlie Kirk killing conspiracy theorist.

Sam Husseini supposedly "may" run for Congress — I'm "mid" on this

Sam Husseini may run for Congress in Maryland. Sam, as long as you steer away from the conspiracy theory that Zionists whacked Jack, you'll get all the non-monetary support I can give from afar. Go down that road, though, and you're toast with me, and I'll bet with voters as well. 

The "may" is in scare quotes in the header because the Maryland Green Party has already chosen him. What, is Husseini going to pull an Uncle Billy Sherman and decline to run? I just learned that with teh google after already working on this piece, which adds an additional bit of spicyness. 

But, on his website, all he says is "exploratory committee" (which still asking for dinero). Sam, you've been nominated, and as a Green, not part of the duopoly. Intellectual dishonesty, like napalm, is apparently leaving a morning aroma. 

So, let's nuance that support more. I may nuance it completely away by the end.

A couple of years ago, Husseini went beyond legitimate (legitimate in terms of science, not in terms of thought-policing) questions about the Wuhan Institute of Virology to claims about bioweaponization of COVID. Husseini does nuance himself on his Substack by noting a lab leak is not necessarily indicative of lab origin. But, in that same piece, he then goes down the nutter shitpile with:

The attempts to further define away dangerous lab work are even more nefarious when one considers that this entire field is arguably a euphemism for biowarfare.

Uhh, no. First, as I've noted on this issue, China would never allow US scientists access to Wuhan in such a case. Second, like the USSR with its pre-1989 bioweapons research, a Chinese bioweapons lab would be in a place far less populated than Wuhan. That's a serious level of lack of critical thinking.

He continues in that same vein in the next paragraph, using "accidental lab leak" and "biowarfare" in the same sentence.

Two paragraphs later, we go further down conspiratorial rabbit holes:

"Lab leak" implies accident. From the available information, it's possible that the pandemic origins had nothing to do with a lab (less and less likely by the day), it's possible that it accidentally leaked out a lab in Wuhan -- and it's possible that there was intentional release. There are a number of possibilities on the last possibility that I plan on fleshing out in a future piece. The most obvious is that someone was out to frame the Chinese.

Again, no. How could US government agents break into the Wuhan Institute of Virology and leak coronavirus-19? With that question mark, I now place Husseini into the realm of "just asking questions." Hold on to that thought. 

Oh, I'm not alone in wondering. Black Agenda Report, when it was still good, called him out. (This was the just about the top hit when I googled "Sam Husseini" + conspiracy theorist.) It nails the same things I did with this:

Husseini first pulls off this canard by arguing that there is no meaningful difference between biowarfare and biodefense. This is hardly true. Although there is always some overlap between basic science, medicine, preventive research, and warfare, there are also serious differences in emphasis, approach, practice, and funding that he glosses over. Husseini has to assert this tenuous proposition in order to implicate the Wuhan lab in suspected biowarfare malfeasance (or error), and to claim that there is a global biowarfare arms race between China and the US (rather than by the US against its opponents). That linguistic sleight of hand, in particular, the equivalence of biowarfare and biodefense is factually not true, and is certainly not true in one very obvious way regarding the Wuhan lab: if there were a biowarfare arms race happening around the world, the countries putatively at war with each other--the US and China--would not share or allow access to their labs to a competitor state, collaborate, or exchange their research and researchers.

And, the other shoe on that? 

As a point of contrast, no one, not a single Chinese national has ever set foot in Fort Dietrick, the key US biowarfare research lab. No Chinese university has ever collaborated with them. No Chinese funding has been directed to it. No one knows exactly what they are researching.

Yeah, handwaving, conspiracy theory version. 

Also at my second piece, tying to the top link in the third paragraph, he claims Mossad whacked Karen Silkwood. My take is that someone was indeed trying to intimate Silkwood, to the possible point of running her off the road, but not killing her, first, and that said person was working for Kerr-McGee, if anybody, and not Mossad.

He's also kind of clueless with VotePact. 

And, per the "about" page on his Substack, he also thinks the 2014 Ebola outbreak was a lab leak. Here's more that he's written on that. The main problem is that the paper argues from silence. Even if the "official" individual line that bats caused Ebola didn't find infected bats in the relevant area of West Africa doesn't mean that lab leak is the automatic alternative. (His own piece notes that Ebola symptoms are highly variable and West Africans on the ground suggested malaria as an alternative in some cases.) Wiki's long page on the outbreak indicates the "official" framing was never as precise as Husseini portrays it.

Now we get to the nutgraf, 1/3 through his piece on Ebola. That's that it could have been a lab leak from a US lab in Zaire (Democratic Republic of the Congo). Wiki's page addresses that; it notes a 2014 outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo showed the viral strain there closely related to previous outbreaks in Central Africa, but the West African outbreak showed no links. 

And, at this point, I don't really feel like even grokking through the other 2/3. Why? Because it's the same level of fucking stupidity as his take on COVID.

Let's add that he has defended Brainworm Bobby against charges of antivaxxerism. Speaking of, here's Brainworm Bobby aping Husseini's line of thought with nutbar claims that Lyme disease and RSV were also created by gain-of-function research. Per the first link in this paragraph and my top link, it also sounds like Husseini was already a JFK conspiracy theorist before latching on to the "zionists did it" angle. This Shitter link of his offers further confirmation. Furthering the nuttery, the person he quote-Shits, Monika Wiesak, apparently believes that JFK Jr was also "whacked" rather than being an underskilled, irrationally overconfident pilot. Otherwise, Monika Wiesak is a total fruitcake herself, and contra her "JFK: Myth vs Reality" the real myth vs reality is guzzling the Camelot Kool-Aid versus knowing the reality of NSAM-263 in Kennedy foreign policy and knowing that in domestic policy the best thing Jack ever did for civil rights was to have Lee Harvey Oswald blow his head off so LBJ could make him into a martyr for the cause.

So, actually, my thought is, best of luck against Glenn Ivey. I do know that Maryland has a fairly strong Green Party to help. But, I won't go out of my way in offering support from afar. And, if you were running against a non-Zionist Democrat, I wouldn't give you the time of day. Even against Ivey, were I in MD-4, I'd have to hold my nose.

My second thought is, once again, contra Noah Berlatsky, who's not really a leftist himself, this shows that horseshoe theory is true and the likes of Husseini illustrate that. 

Zei Squirrel dives in the conspiracy theory rabbit hole over Charlie Kirk

I thought he had his head glued on better. I know he follows deep but good information on Israel, on Russia and Ukraine and more.

But?

He just went too far diving into a shallow pool with his hints that Mossad pulled the trigger. So? 

On Substack and Shitter? It's time to say goodbye to the Squirrel. He is a Charlie Kirk conspiracy theorist, claiming, per this Shitter link in this Substack piece:

That's how the Mossad would kill Charlie Kirk. 

Now of course we don't know for certain if they actually did this, at least not yet.

Wrong. Even with the "we don't know HOW," you're still claiming THAT. Yes, it's true that Israel did poison Palestinian wells, and I've read that before you said it.

That said?  

The real issue is the deluded belief that Kirk, making some mild to moderate moves to question Israel's genocide around the edges, was going to flip, followed by the other real issue, the batshit-crazy belief that Tyler Robinson even MIGHT have been a Mossad cutout. 

This one might get its own post. In the thread that that posted Shitter link is part of, Squirrel then links to Max Blumenthal, who claims Kirk got an offer from Netanyahu for a massive infusion of money into TPUSA, turned it down and was deathly afraid afterward.

Tosh and tommyrot. First, natch, the friend is anonymous. Not mentioned is the "natch" next step that the friend is also afraid of Bibi. This is all refudiated by the fact that Max is running it, and remains alive three months later.

Next, without bothering to trace either every dollar or every statement, Kirk got zounds of non-Zionist money from the day he started Turning Point USA and spoke about many things other than supporting Zionism. That said, even Max calls what Squirrel hints at an "unsubstantiated theory." 

And, of course, anybody relying on The UNReal Candace Owens to have one shred of factual information on this is a fucking idiot. Here's her nuttery level on this.

Beyond that, this is the person who used to be a garden-variety librul, but, after a self-own that she blamed on libruls, plus possibly seeing an opportunity to grift, became a wingnut.

This is also the person who claims Brigitte Macron is a man.

Per the old cliché, if Owens said it was day outside, I wouldn't just pull open the curtains, I'd actually go outside in case she'd painted the sun on my windows. 

And, other wingnuts from Tim Cess Pool to Nick Fuentes also think Owens is full of shit. 

I'm just unfollowing you, not blocking you. Unless you invite a block. Or unless I see further information that leads me to up the unfollow to a block.

I suppose some nutters think Kirk's seed money big donor, Foster Friess, was Jewish when he wasn't. Bruce Rauner? Also not Jewish. Ed and the other Uihleins? Not Jewish. Plenty other of his early and mid-"career" donors, per this story? Not Jewish. Also, his Prove Me Wrong "speaking" fees etc.? 

Beyond the issue of whether conspiracy theories, even if they're anti-Zionist not antisemitic, contribute to antisemitism or not, there's simply the issue that they're conspiracy theories.

I don't do conspiracy theories, period.

Related to the subject matter at hand and unfollowing people, I don't do the conspiracy theory — that led me to drop Electronic Intifada from my follows — that Israel whacked Jack.

I also know the difference between conspiracy theory and conspiracy. 

Electronic Intifada joins Jeff Morley, Tim Shorrock, Sam Husseini, and other JFK conspiracy theorists

This new piece would be laughable if not sad. And it is sad, because it's conspiracy theorizing. And, as I now see, Jim DeBrosse, "book" and all, is one of the leading pushers of the "Israel did it" conspiracy.

I think JFK assassination conspiracy theories in general are illogical on the rational side and fail Ockham's Razor on the empirical side. But, for one additional reason, the "Israel did it" is even worse. I'll get to that below. 

First, Jefferson Morley is NOT a "respected JFK researcher." He's a conspiracy theorist, even if he claims he's a former one. More on that below. (I've written more than once about him.)

And, Electronic Intifada is suddenly less respected by me than it was a couple of days earlier. 

But, before we go there, we have this:

Signs of Israel’s involvement in the Kennedy assassination have been ignored for more than 60 years by a mainstream media that still clings to the lies and omissions of the Warren Report, the official, but widely discredited, US government investigation into the assassination.

Well, the Intifada is officially in conspiracy theory land. 

Then we jump here: 

For those willing to look at all the facts, there is evidence of a broad conspiracy to assassinate Kennedy, led by rogue elements of the CIA, Israel’s leaders and intelligence officials, the national crime syndicate under the leadership of Zionist gangster Meyer Lansky, and the French underground army of assassins known as the Organisation de l’Armée Secrète (OAS).

Then we have the allegedly Jewish connection.

A document released in 2023 from the JFK archive reveals that Reuben Efron, a lieutenant colonel in the US Army and a Jewish immigrant from Lithuania, was reading purported triggerman Lee Harvey Oswald’s private mail years prior to the JFK assassination as part of a closely-held CIA surveillance program.

In reality, per the Times of Israel linked at "document," while he might have been ethnically Jewish, nothing ever says he was working for Mossad or any other Israeli agency. And, if Jeff Morley had the goods on that, he would have said so. 

And, from there, we loop in the CIA's top nutbar, which itself shows how uninformed this piece is:

The program was led by James Jesus Angleton, the agency’s counterterrorism chief and its liaison to the Mossad, Israel’s overseas spy agency. Efron, a Zionist whose mother died in the Holocaust, later emigrated from the US to live in Jerusalem. 

JFK assassination documents released in 2025 show that Angleton used Mossad operatives to spy on Cuba following the Bay of Pigs fiasco.

There you go. 

But, the stupidity doesn't stop there. It continues:

There were certainly motives other than the Zionist ones at play in the conspiracy to murder Kennedy. He withheld air support during the infamous “Bay of Pigs” invasion of Cuba in 1961, embittering the defeated anti-Castro rebels. There are also indications, in at least one National Security Action Memo, 263, that JFK wanted to withdraw American troops from Vietnam after his likely reelection in 1964.

Wrong, wrong and Not.Even.Wrong.

Here's the reality, as I've written, about NSAM-263. And more here, if that's not enough.

But, that's not enough for Jim DeBrosse at the Electronic Intifada, because now he gives us the "sekrut real world" of Jack Ruby:

Ruby – Oswald’s killer – was by no means the small-time pawn of organized crime dismissed by the Warren Commission. By way of the Teamsters Union and the Chicago underworld, he rose to the top of the Dallas area mob. In the early 1950s, Ruby – who used his original surname Rubenstein at the time – befriended Lewis McWillie, the manager of Lansky’s casino operation in Havana. Several months after Castro’s takeover in 1959, Ruby made an unexplained six-day visit to Cuba, where some believe he secured the release of mob boss Santos Trafficante from a Cuban detention camp.

There's no fucking way the Mob would ever have actually trusted wannabe, and Andy Warhol 15-minutes-of-fame seeker Jack Ruby that much. So, I consider that a flat lie, because it IS a flat lie. "Conveniently," DeBrosse has no links, not even to a less than fully reputable site, to try to substantiate that.

But, me? I have Gerald Posner, who explains the reality behind the increase in Ruby's phone calls in mid to late 1963. He also notes the obvious — if Oswald were the actual shooter but a "controlled" patsy, he wouldn't have been allowed to stay alive to three days and possibly spill some beans. 

And, don't go into plagiarism claims. If everything he plagiarized is factual, he still wrote facts. Second, I've never heard that claim laid against "Case Closed." That said, it IS funny that Mark Lane, yes, THAT Mark Lane, was his plagiarism attorney. 

But why stop there? Let's go into Bobby Kennedy assassination conspiracy theory too!

Lansky was connected to two gangsters closely involved in the JFK assassination plot. The first of these was Jack Ruby, who shot and killed Lee Harvey Oswald before the supposed killer of JFK could testify. “I’m just a patsy,” Oswald had famously said after his arrest. 

The second was Eugene Hale Brading (aka Jim Braden). An ex-convict with known ties to a group of hitmen, Brading was also a suspected courier for Lansky. He was stopped by Dallas police for suspicious behavior in a Dealey Plaza office building minutes after the JFK assassination. Brading, who used numerous aliases and had a long criminal history, was taken in for questioning but released. 

On the night Democratic Party presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy was killed, Brading was once again found in Los Angeles just a mile from the hotel where the younger Kennedy was gunned down. RFK was not only JFK’s brother, but his attorney general.

Oof. 

It's me, boys, I did it, even if I lied, denied and waved my hands later. 

First, Oswald lied as much as Sirhan Sirhan, to get at both conspiracy theories. 

Second, to get at the reality of Sirhan Sirhan, in this case, Zionism IS involved, namely that Sirhan killed Bobby Kennedy because he rightfully thought RFK was a Zionist. THAT is the "one additional reason." And, yes, Sirhan Sirhan did it, period and end of story.

Second, Brading is so nuts he doesn't even get his own Wiki page. See the Wikipedia entry for the document "Gemstone File." 

The article goes on to call Jim Garrison a "hero" while at the same time, in referring to CIA and other documents, use the word "imply" regularly.

Jean Souetre? His actual name would be Jean-Jacques Susini, I think. Under the first name, his alleged involvement comes from the febrile mind of E. Howard Hunt.

OK, Shorrock is dealt with in that NSAM-263 link. He's great on Korean Peninsula issues, wrong and a Camelot true believer wrong, on JFK. He's not specifically, AFAIK, a Zionist conspiracy theorist.

Jeff Morley? I didn't believe him when he claimed he was no longer a JFK conspiracy theorist.

Sam Husseini, referenced above? Anti-Zionist conspiracy theorist.

Angleton? Paranoid about CIA infiltration, especially the Nosenko case, which badly damaged the Agency. 

The rest of the piece is the usual "throw shit at the wall and see if it sticks." 

Not.Even.Wrong., per my 2023 thoughts on the 60th anniversary of the assassination. 

The worst part, beyond the conspiracy theory itself, is that it actually gives reputable ammo to Zionists trying to morph anti-Zionism into antisemitism. 

And with that, I have removed Electronic Intifada from my blogroll. 

And been banned by Libertarian Meme on Reddit for calling the last paragraph of their post on this idiocy full-on antisemitism. (They're Mises Mice fucktards, including openly calling for an end to democracy.)

==

Update, Nov. 4, 2025: Asa Winstanley and compadres at Palestine is Still the Issue have joined Electronic Intifada in "platforming" Jim DeBrosse's nutbar conspiracy theory.

I have unfollowed it on Substack after calling it out, including the issue that Sirhan Sirhan shot Bobby for being a Zionist! 

 

Simplicius: Russian disinformation operator?

I have written about good old Simplicius and his questionable insight on the Russia-Ukraine war before, not just once with a general callout, but also calling out the further nuttery at his second Substack being conspiracy theory nutterism, including trafficking in some antisemitic conspiracy theories.

So? Per this piece, he's a nutter in general if he's postulating a Stuxnet (which he spells as "Stux-net"; is English not his first language?) type operation against the Russian drones that flew over Poland early this month.

The incident was obviously very strange because, while a few errant Russian drones had maybe fallen over other countries here and there—after likely being jammed off their course—this has never happened in such a large scale. This heavily suggests something very fishy, in the way of either a false flag or a coordinated campaign; that is to say, something like an Israeli Stux-net or “pager” operation where a large amount of Russian drones are “tampered with” before hand, whether that’s by digital infection of firmware via virus, or something else. 

There were several signs pointing to the ‘false flag’ explanation, for instance a photo of a Russian drone that landed on a Polish “chicken coop” that shows the drone taped together with literal duct tape

Hell, I think the idea that he's Russian-controlled disinformation is more likely to be true.  

As for the photos he claims show a false flag? WHOSE photos? Was this just rando NAFO nutter types?

He then abandons this to postulate that the seven Alternativ für Deutschland Nordrhein-Westfallen state election candidates who died earlier this month were surely offed. Snopes, with links to German media stories, says otherwise. 

He then pivots back to Russia, posting video from a racist like "Bebo."

Meanwhile? If Simplicius still thinks he understands Trump on Ukraine, the fact that the Donald talked to Zelensky at the UN General Assembly and then said he thinks Ukraine can totally roll back Russia (story notes it isn't clear if he meant pre-2022 boundaries or even pre-2014) shows he doesn't. That makes this Sept. 15 piece about how Trump "appears to have fairly cunningly outplayed Europe" incredibly stupid.

There's some stupidity in that piece otherwise.

If Ukraine were really launching drone attacks on Russia from the Baltic states, and it were serious enough, wouldn't Putin have a response?

As far as Simplicius getting back to tactical analysis? At that piece, one thing jumped out at me: None of his maps there have a distance scale. Maybe that's in general? You can make it look like Russia is doing a massive advance if you don't let the reader know the entire map, in its longer dimension, only covers 1 mile. Handwaving, it's called. 

I am snarking, of course, on the "Russian-controlled disinformation,' but he sure as hell opens himself up to that snark. 

Lee Camp: conspiracy theorist and grifter

A week ago, I wrote about Lee Camp (yes, that Lee Camp) looking like "controlled opposition" on Israel-Gaza.

Well, part two is at least part of "the rest of the story" about Camp.

Even though Google's AI claims he's not a JFK conspiracy theorist and doesn't have any real focus there, per his actual website, he sure as hell is and does.

For more, I quote from a Scheer Post piece he wrote five years ago:

Let's read:

December 22, 1963 — exactly one month after President John F. Kennedy had been assassinated, former President Harry S. Truman published an op-ed in the Washington Post that most people, especially our perfumed ruling elite, wanted to ignore.

Truman, who signed the CIA into existence just after World War II, wrote, “I think it has become necessary to take another look at the purpose and operations of our Central Intelligence Agency—the CIA. […] For some time I have been disturbed by the way the CIA has been diverted from its original assignment. It has become an operational and at times a policy-making arm of the Government. This has led to trouble and may have compounded our difficulties in several explosive areas. …There is something about the way the CIA has been functioning that is casting a shadow over our historic position and I feel that we need to correct it.”

Not only did that adorn the pages of the Washington Post one month after JFK’s death, Truman hand wrote the first draft just one week after JFK met up with a bunch of bullets in Dallas. Sure, one may wish Harry had sent his thoughts to John a month before the President’s televised execution. Maybe he could’ve sent a singing telegram or something. But let’s at least give Truman partial credit for the belated message.

Before his death President Kennedy also held no love for the Central Intelligence Agency. Following the calamitous Bay of Pigs invasion, Kennedy said he wanted to “splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it into the winds.”

Point being, clearly Truman, who created the CIA, and Kennedy, who met a mysterious untimely end by professional killers, knew the agency had run amok.

There we go.

Realities?

Jack and brother Bobby were using the CIA to run Operation Mongoose against Castro long after the Bay of Pigs. If anything, they were making it even more amok. The Ba'athist coup in Iraq in 1963 was quite likely supported by the CIA. The 1964 coup against British Guiana's president was getting support from Kennedy's CIA and even the man himself:

U.S. intelligence concluded that Prime Minister Cheddi Jagan, one of the main presidential candidates in the upcoming 1964 elections, was a communist, although not necessarily under the sway of Moscow. Nevertheless, Kennedy decided Jagan would have to go and urged London to cooperate in the effort. As early as mid-1962, JFK informed the British prime minister that the notion of an independent state led by Jagan “disturbs us seriously,” adding: “We must be entirely frank in saying that we simply cannot afford to see another Castro-type regime established in this Hemisphere. It follows that we should set as our objective an independent British Guiana under some other leader.”

Whether Camp is figuratively or not some sort of controlled opposition on Israel, he's an uncontrolled, self-disinformed conspiracy theory idiot in general, and a smoker of the crack cocaine of the Camelot legend.

And, as such, he's a pseudoleftist.

Finally, like a lot of such people, a "merch" page including a coffee mug for $18 and T-shirt for $34 show he's a big-ass grifter.

Publishers' Auxiliary fellates the Roswell (Daily) Record

Not the one in Georgia. 

The one in New Mexico, beloved by conspiracy theorists.

Lead story in Pub Aux's July issue? 

Touts local news production with "Roswell UFO controversy was a local story."

Well, today, there is no controversy.

There IS a lot of grifting by the Beck family ownership.

Re both of those issues? 

Per the "about" on its website, the Record is like Jill Stein trying to pretend to not be an antivaxxer while actually being one. In this case, it's trying to pretend not to push 1947 UFO conspiracy theory while actually doing so.

In July 1947, something streaked out of the sky, hitting the ground outside of Roswell, New Mexico, beginning years of ongoing speculation as to what the object was. According to initial information provided to the Roswell Daily Record by the Roswell Army Air Field, the startling headlines claimed that the military had recovered a flying saucer from a nearby ranch.

Overnight, the story changed from a flying saucer to a weather balloon, and over the ensuing years, that explanation morphed into a military high-altitude surveillance program. Over decades of conspiracy theories that the U.S. government has covered up the possibility that an alien spacecraft and its otherworldly crew were responsible for the 1947 crash. Through it all, and continuing to this day, the Roswell Daily Record was there to report the news and to spark the public interest and fascination with this story.

Wrong. 

And, Beck daughter has a reason to peddle this, as did daddy, assuming he did, too.

The paper owns its own UFO store.

Of course, here's the reality.

And, I knew that reality long ago. I also know that, 25 years ago, Roswell boosters were talking about when the city would hit 50,000. Never happened. Population's been basically flat since 1990 and Farmington has just about caught it, while the Farmington metro area is much bigger.

Not that Teri Saylor at PubAux will tell you that. About halfway through:

In 2022, on the 75th anniversary of the crash event, CBS News reported the debate is far from settled, and “for decades, journalists, authors, documentary film crews and others fascinated by the incident have unearthed and publicized countless bits of information and artifacts o that time.”

Ugh. No skeptical organizations or individuals are quoted anywhere. 

But wait, it gets worse:

On the newspaper’s website, Beck wrote that “over decades of conspiracy theories, the U.S. government has covered up the possibility that an alien spacecraft and its otherworldly crew were responsible for the 1947 crash. Through it all, and continuing to this day, the Roswell Daily Record was there to report the news and to spark the public’s interest and fascination with this story.”

Saylor doesn't question that, nor does she mention the grifting involved. Well, she did mention that above two paragraphs:

Both the Roswell Daily Record and the Morning Dispatch are trademarked, and their UFO crash stories and images cannot be reproduced without permission or by paying royalties to Record Publishing, the parent company.

To be more accurate, she doesn't mention the ethics of a newspaper promoting an untrue conspiracy theory off of which it's grifting.

She and PubAux should be ashamed of themselves. 

But they won't be. (I tagged both on Shitter the day this came out.)

Gack.

And, people in the media biz wonder why people in the media biz don't believe all claims about the media biz? 

OK now, Simplicius

Two weeks ago, I wrote how, if the MSM is dying, some alternative venues that are single-issue with potentially too narrow a focus may die as well.

I was thinking primarily of some, like Simplicius, who has made the "MSM is dying" claim, with his narrow focus, for the most part, on the Russia-Ukraine war.

And, contra Simp's raison d'etre, Russia-Ukraine, no Trump does NOT want to end the Ukraine war tomorrow. If you don't see that, like Simplicius, who still didn't fully see it two weeks ago, though he was starting to self-enlighten, you're fixated or something. But, last week, he went backward again, as he still doesn't seem to get that this is the actual Trump on Ukraine. There's no "faltering," it's the actual Trump. I'll buy you a coffee if you'll wake up and smell it. Let's not forget — in case Simplicius has never mentioned it — that Trump sold Ukraine weapons that Dear Leader Obama refused to sell. Let's also remember to discount most of Trump's Deep State blatherings, unlike the guy up top. Trump chose to sell these weapons to Ukraine.

Update: Turns out he has a second Substack (and maybe more?). And, that's about futurism and transhumanism. Keep that in mind when you read anything on his primary Substack.

And, he's got "subverticals" within that. On one of them? This, which both approaches conspiracy theory and shows that he's got an ultimately Eurocentric view of history.

But first, the conspiracy theory part:

Without losing ourselves down the rabbit hole, we can say that Milner and his cohort—the likes of which included Lord Nathaniel Rothschild, Cecil Rhodes, and every other influential baron and titan of the day—orchestrated conflicts from the Boer War to WW1 to advance their stake

Uh, no, dude. Gavrilo Princip, from a Serbian "emerging state" that was still 50 percent pig farmers, wasn't controlled by any of those people.

He goes on about other stuff. Using Qwant, not Google, first hit for the Milner Group? Insurance company founded in 1958. Wikipedia has no such entry; it has a subsection "Quigley and the Milner Group" under its Carroll Quigley entry. It notes that Quigley first talked about the Round Table movement and was also a big ass conspiracy theorist. At the end of that quoted paragraph? Simplicius calls said Quigley a "famed researcher." He previously mentions the Round Table movement. That and Lord Milner's Kindergarten (both with Wiki entries) are also not what Simplicius implies.

Per a site called Lobster Magazine, seen via another Wiki entry, the mandarins of the "deep state," at least in Britain, do do enough stupidity to fuel such theories.

What's really weird in all of this, beyond Simplicius' own weirdness, is that Quigley himself was an archivist for the Council on Foreign Relations, itself the subject of many a conspiracy theory beyond its actual stupidities hither and yon. 

As for Quigley's other claims? The dominions themselves replaced the British Empire with the Commonwealth so they had control over their own foreign policies. Milner's group, all British, had nothing to do with that.

From there, it's off to John Dewey allegedly working for a post-WWI incarnation of the New World Order, because that's what secular humanism is all about, isn't it?

As for wars and all of the above? Stock exchanges throughout Europe shut for the first weeks, if not the first couple of months, of WWI. Conventional macroeconomics says the world of finance doesn't like the uncertainties of at least the start of wars. And, Simplicius ignores that Nathan Rothschild in the UK wasn't the only member of his family running around various countries of Europe at this time.

As for post-WWII restructuring? He ignores that Uncle Joe Stalin also had a hand in it. The Marshall Plan started because Stalin was trying to get Turkey, neutral in WWII, give up Turkish Armenia. He also, already at Potsdam, was trying to claim possession of Libya, which had been an Italian colony, because of Italians having fought on the Eastern Front. And — and this was NOT the reason Truman dropped either bomb —in the USSR's entry into the war against Japan, he was eyeing Hokkaido.

See, Simplicius, or Max Blumenthal, or whoever the hell you are, I can call out non-Western as well as Western imperialism, and do so without conspiracy theories. (No, I don't think he really is Max; but, by only critiquing Western imperialism, he comes off as someone like Max. Actually, with his Anglo-American elites conspiracy theories, he sounds even more like John Helmer.)

But that's not all. Riffing on a piece by Freddie de Boer, he says:

The truth is that the majority of homeless people aren’t ‘temporarily displaced’ or ‘underemployed’, but rather people who have voluntarily checked out of a society they no longer feel comfortable, or capable of, navigating. Even if you were to offer them a “job” and a place to live, a good portion of them would turn it down in favor of the purity of the wild.

Uh, no, dood. These people have not "voluntarily" checked out. I've talked here, and even more at my other blog, about what I generally call "psychological constraint" on free will, or something similar. The idea is that traditional determinism is wrong, or Not.Even.Wrong, but past, or present, life issues, place psychological constraint on our action. With both mental illness and drug addiction, that's definitely true.

As for "purity of the wild" bullshit? Compounding your first error with some neo-Rousselian take makes it only worse.

Now, he may, or may not, be right about problems with UBI, but that's besides the point.

Finally, contra Simplicius, any of his stanners, or an apparent tankie I ran into on Substack and quickly enough uncrossed paths again? I know the difference between conspiracy and conspiracy theory.

Update: Didn't think about his Substack (and Shitter) name before. I'm wondering if it's an homage to the Neoplatonist philosopher? That might partially explain some of the stuff on the second Substack.

Update, Sept. 23: If Simplicius still thinks he understands Trump on Ukraine, the fact that the Donald talked to Zelensky at the UN General Assembly and then said he thinks Ukraine can totally roll back Russia (story notes it isn't clear if he meant pre-2022 boundaries or even pre-2014) shows he doesn't. That makes this Sept. 15 piece about how Trump "appears to have fairly cunningly outplayed Europe" incredibly stupid.

I long ago said Trump doesn't have a foreign policy and called out Simplicius and others by name for not getting that. I followed up by noting there's at least eight sides on the Russia-Ukraine war.

Update 2, Sept. 23: Per this piece, he's a nutter in general if he's postulating a Stuxnet (which he spells as "Stux-net") type operation against the Russian drones that flew over Poland early this month. Hell, I think the idea that he's Russian-controlled disinformation is more likely to be true. 

I don't owe Sam Husseini COVID apologies after all, because he's kind of a nutter

Let's go back three-plus years, to September 2021. I wrote about Husseini's take on the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and his apparent willingness to equate gain of function research to bioweaponization of the COVID-19 virus. To say I was skeptical puts it mildly.

Move forward not quite two years, to June 2023, when I said I might owe him an apology. That said, in a comment to the piece six months later, I said that I had become more skeptical again, and that bioengineering is not bioweaponization.

The kind of a nutter? Being a full-on Zionist conspiracy theorist about the assassinations of both John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy over Zionism issues. That includes uncritically citing Whitney Webb and linking to pieces like this.

I jokingly said a year ago, on the JFK assassination 60th anniversary, that Mossad whacked Jack over Dimona. Note the word "jokingly."

I seriously said earlier this year, building on previous writing, that Sirhan Sirhan killed Bobby because he was a Zionist.

As for his take that Karen Silkwood was whacked by Mossad because she discovered that high-grade plutonium was being smuggled out of Kerr-McGee's plant by the CIA to Israel, who was then reshipping cuts of it to Shah-era Iran? Also laughable, IMO.

First, Rolling Stone notes the difficulty of smuggling 100 pounds of plutonium out of Hanford. Could it have been intercepted in transit to Kerr-McGee's plant? Yes.

More likely, per that, and per this piece from a researcher in Silkwood's case is that, given the massive management and safety clusterfucks at Kerr-McGee, this plutonium was indeed "lost" in some way. Also per that piece, it was 40 pounds, not 89 claimed by Husseini, that was originally missing, and half of it was discovered soon thereafter. The remaining 20 pounds? Enough for two Nagasaki bombs. Something, but NOT "all that."

The reality? French help in building Dimona included a reprocessing plant. India got the material for its first bomb that way.

This isn't quite antisemitism, but it's a type of conspiratorial anti-Zionism that gets very close to that.

I shot the JFK, but I did not shoot the LBJ

Riffing on Bob Marley and the Wailers, it's another anniversary of one of Merikkka's dumbest and most ill-informed, yet non-charmingly endearing conspiracy theories.

In reality, besides the buttloads of physical evidence? If one looks at the history of actual and attempted U.S. presidential assassinations, Lee Harvey Oswald is nowhere outside the norm on either being a nutter or on acting for actual or alleged political reasons. I addressed that on the 60th anniversary.

That won't stop the David Talbots, Jefferson Morleys and other nutters from continuing with their nuttery, of course.

And, with Donald J. Cheeseburger re-entering the White House in two months, it will all ramp up more, starting with Jan. 20, 2025.

That said, Trump head-faked Morley et al in his first term and didn't release "everything." THAT said, Morley has claimed to know what files he's not getting, in one of the biggest-ass cases of circular reasoning I've ever seen. Of course, he also lied about no longer being a JFK conspiracy theorist.

Reminder: I know the difference between a conspiracy and a conspiracy theory. 

A few notes on Paul Thacker, and a few new ones on Orac

Along with Eric Lipton he is a pseudoscientist on GMOs. (This is not to endorse them, but it's to oppose pseudoscience.)

In parallel with the anti-GMO stance, also apparently willing to believe the worst, or print the worse, whether fully true or not, on glyphosate. More on that article here.

And a 5G conspiracy theorist.

Anti-GMO and anti-5G nuttery led me to my first skepticism of the Green Party.

The reason I have compiled this? He is also apparently a "Deep Stater."

At the same time? Some of my links above are from The American Council on Science and Health, itself not perfect.

On the third hand? Thacker harassing and doxxing a 12-year-old is despicable.

 ==

Now, the latest brouhaha on one issue?

If not an outright antivaxxer, at least a fellow traveler. More here, which also touches on the anti-GMO issue.

Update: Via Orac, at his Substack, Thacker walks, quacks and acts like more than a fellow traveler. Of items of interest? To the degree that I've followed the details of CDC pronouncements on COVID, "it's news to me" that:

the CDC stated that prior infection was no different than being vaccinated.

Since his cite is a link to his own Twitter account and he's blocked me, it's time for teh Google. And, per Orac's comments, it's time to block him back.

Here's an update of an update from Orac on April 18.

The "walks, quacks and acts" is further shone by his full Substack feed. A recent post is an interview about masks with Jay Bhattacharya. There's more stupidity there like "citation sorcery," a pseudoscientific phrase that's a classical informal logic fallacy of appeal to emotion.

On the third hand, Orac, he IS right about online harassment cutting both ways, as Zeynep Tufekci has written about with the likes of Alina Chan. In her case, on Twitter, I've witnessed that myself.

To be more thorough, I searched Orac's site. He'd written ONCE about Chen, more than 18 months ago, a largely rhetorical, and tribalist, since Orac does that well, piece about "Is the lab leak conspiracy theory dead?" And, even with a no-follow, I'm not linking. First of all, it's not a conspiracy theory, dude.

Related? He's only written twice focused on Tufekci.

Speaking of her? Tufekci called out COVID-related tribalism relative early in the pandemic's origins and related issues progress. She did so before Orac committed tribalism not once but twice on this.)

The bottom line is that, just as much as Thacker appears to be a multiple-issue pseudoscientist, Orac has long presented himself as a multiple-issue tribalist. That also is damaging beyond wars of words. Re COVID itself, people with a certain microphone in the world of science, and a political tilt, calling the lab leak hypothesis a conspiracy theory can undercut national biosecurity discussions. Not standing firm against medical overtesting dings our economy. IMO, people like this are Tar Baby and Brer Rabbit to each other.)

A new JFK conspiracy theory and book (updated)

Secret Service agent Paul Landis, releasing a book eight years after he first decided to talk to ONE person, former Secret Service director Lewis Merletti about allegedly finding an "extra" bullet from the JFK assassination, has sparked Vanity Fair's James Robenalt into conspiracy theory.

There's many problems, to expand on what I said on Twitter.

First, the framing. "Camelot" didn't exist; if you accept that premise, you're less likely to believe in conspiracy theorists.

Second, Ockham's Razor. The idea that Landis wouldn't have had said SOMETHING to some other SS agent and then have them play "telephone" and say something before 2015? Let alone something of this leaking, not from Landis necessarily, but from Parkland engineer Derrell Tomlinson or someone else. And, in reality, contra Robenalt, claims about Tomlinson are full of problems, per Fred Litwin. In addition, the issue of whether that bullet was CS 399 or not, and what Tomlinson identified as such, leads conspiracy theorists to trip over their own untied shoelaces.

In addition, the idea that Landis' memory, self-admittedly PTSD-influenced, would still be pristine 51 years later when he finally decided to talk to Merletti? Questionable. As is the idea of how such a bullet would be the real "pristine" or "magic" bullet (I see what I did there) and stay in place on the top of the back seat of the Kennedy limo while hauling ass to Parkland. As is the idea of how it would "jump" from Kennedy's stretcher to Connelly's (I see what I did with that), that's not explained.

Related? We have ethical problems. The Cleveland paper reports Robenalt helped write the book; not spelled out in Vanity Fair.

And, per Peter Baker at the NYT, given Landis' PTSD, an even bigger problem:

James Robenalt, a Cleveland lawyer and author of several books of history, has deeply researched the assassination and helped Mr. Landis process his memories.

I smell a conspiracy theory rat, or to be more polite, if not a full believer, then a "fellow traveler." Robenalt does call himself Landis' "confidant" at Vanity Fair, but says nothing more — despite the NYT story being linked. (Frankly, that comes off as a pro forma linking, once VF heard the NYT was doing a piece.)

And, the ethics problems aren't entirely Robenalt's. They're Vanity Fair's, too.

Beyond that, per the NYT, I'm with Posner on this, on the memory issues, even if they weren't "processed":

Gerald Posner, author of “Case Closed,” a 1993 book that concluded that Oswald indeed killed Kennedy on his own, said he was dubious. While he did not question Mr. Landis’s sincerity, Mr. Posner said the story did not add up. 

“People’s memories generally do not improve over time, and it is a flashing warning sign to me, about skepticism I have over his story, that on some very important details of the assassination, including the number of shots, his memory has gotten better instead of worse,” he said. 

“Even assuming that he is accurately describing what happened with the bullet,” Mr. Posner added, “it might mean nothing more than we now know that the bullet that came out of Governor Connally did so in the limousine, not on a stretcher in Parkland where it was found.”

Posner has MUCH more at his Substack. Additional details there that lead me to further question this book.

One, Landis HAS BEEN interviewed before, more than once, and Robenalt never mentions that in the Vanity Fair piece.

Two, per what Landis told the NYT, he has weird theories about how bullets can operate, even for conspiracy theorists.

Three, he notes Landis gets the "two gurneys" idea wrong, along with the timeline of when JFK's body was being removed from Parkland and more. He also notes that, as he said in "Case Closed," that Kennedy's and Connolly's stretchers were never side-by-side in Parkland. He notes that Tomlinson bumped into one of two gurneys, either Connolly's or one next to it that was NOT JFK's.

Four, Posner speculates that is looking for his slice of fame. One thing I think Posner is missing is that Robenalt might be looking for HIS slice of fame.

Five, Posner has more, elsewhere on his Substack, in an interview with Michael Smerconish. He talks about "a kernel of truth" but rejects the "embellishments."

He also tells Smerconish that he heart Clint Hill interviewed by NBC. Hill said there are "inconsistencies and problems ... contradictions" in the book.

Posner also adds, in a reply to another commenter, this:

author Gerald Posner Sep 10 Author Hi Laura, I was thinking about your dad and how utterly horrified he would have been to think that a Secret Service agent might have found a bullet in the presidential limo, and that instead of immediately notifying his superiors, he put it in his pocket and then later left in on an empty gurney at Parkland Texas has a new law as of Sept 1 that eliminates the statute of limitations for tampering with evidence in a murder case. It’s meant to help resolve decades old cold cases. I don’t think Landis is aware of that law.

I'm sure neither Landis nor Robenalt is aware of that.

What else is there to say?

Third (on main thread numbering) other details? Per "Case Closed," it is not "conjecture" that people were hit by concrete fragments. It's reality. So is the idea that the it was the first bullet that missed, from Oswald rushing his first shot. With that, there's plenty of time for Oswald, trained at Marine "marksman" level, to have fired as he did, "pristine-Landis" bullet aside. (Robenalt's claim that Oswald couldn't have fired as fast as he did itself seems to be aside from Landis' extra bullet claim and is just wrong.)

Fourth, referencing the autopsy as though it were pristine, yet wrong? No. Everybody knows it was botched and rushed because it was done at Bethesda at Bobby's insistence.

Fifth, living in the Metromess most of the 2000s, as in 2000-aughts. I've been all around Dealey Plaza. I've been up to the museum. I've been to Dealey Plaza on a Nov. 22 and seen representatives of different conspiracy theories trying to evangelize each other. That's how I know this would not have been THAT hard of shooting for Oswald, the man who had previously almost killed Gen. Walker. 

Sixth, to another angle on Ockham's Razor? If you believe Oswald was one of the shooters, why would an outside conspirator use him, unstable as he was, with another shooter? And, Lee certainly didn't start a conspiracy himself.

To me, it sounds as if "processing memories" might involve exploitation. Robenalt has not been on my JFK conspiracy theory radar screen, but I'll have to google more.

Robenalt sounds a bit more sketchy, gullible, or something, on one other big issue, per his Wiki page, namely this:

Together with John W. Dean, President Richard Nixon's White House Counsel, Robenalt created a continuing education program on the national level called "The Watergate CLE."[3] This continuing legal education program, which was launched in Chicago in June 2011, has Robenalt teaching legal ethics and the representation of an organization under new Model Rules 1.13 and 1.6. John Dean plays the role of a fact witness while Watergate is used as a case study.

I personally think John Dean's ethics and honesty vis a vis Watergate smell like three-day-old dead mackerel on a sidewalk. And I speak from previous experience reading Dean write about Watergate. (I will add that it is possible an older Robenalt eventually repented of younger-age gullibility about Dean.)

And, related to that, Posner did say "kernel of truth," but he was focused on Landis, not Robenalt. I'll keep the header as I have it, from what I said about Robenalt quite possibly seeking new fame as well.

Update: The Dallas Observer has a decent weigh-in.

Overall? I stand by the title. Landis may not be an active conspiracy theorist, but per Posner, he has mentioned people running around the grassy knoll. That, added to this, leaves him open to the charge, at a minimum, even if that's not his primary motivation.

And Robenalt seems ethically sketchy overall, even if I can't find anything in his past to nail him down as a conspiracy theorist.

But, re-reading Peter Baker's piece, he sure walks, talks and quacks like a conspiracy theory duck. And, on journalistic ethics? There's a failure by Baker to push him more on what he meant by "processing" Landis' memories and other things.

Prigozhin: Will this commissar also vanish? The more credulous precincts of the left never will

This is a reworking plus an expansion to a series of updates on my post a week ago analyzing Western mainstream media and Nat-sec Nutsacks' PR spinning after their would-be triumphalism over Yevgeny Prigozhin was dashed when his mutiny failed. It is also a crystallization of my thoughts about some leftist writers takes on the Russia-Ukraine war, and albeit not cited, even more of such takes scattered about Twitter.

A fair part of it is looking at, per Jeff St. Clair's bon mot of years ago over Julian Assange, "the more credulous precincts of the left." My one addition is that, per motivated reasoning, they're usually willingly credulous.

With that, we start with this old book:

 
The Commissar Vanishes: The Falsification of Photographs and Art in Stalin's Russia by David King
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Excellent book.

After Stalin muscled his way to the to of the Soviet hierarchy, he of course then started muscling Trotsky and his allies aside. Later, he threw away people he had once used, of course.

As part of this, Soviet PR flunkies began "disappearing" people from official photographs. People like commissars of people's affairs, etc.

Hence, the title of the book.

On the flip side, a subtitle could be "Stalin appears."

For various reasons, he was not at a lot of early Revolutionary events in 1917-18. So, same flunkies started cutting him in.

King has "before" and "after" documentary evidence in both cases.

In some cases, this pre-Photoshop photoshopping was easy. In some semi-hard cases, it was done crudely. In others, it was done quite skillfully. As a newspaper editor and nature photographer, while decrying the playing with history, I have to salute the skill.

View all my reviews

And, we now look at those updates, starting with those willingly more credulous precincts.

John Helmer expects Prigozhin's fate will be similar to former Yukos boss Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Unlike Alexander Litvinenko, he did not take a Polonium 210 bullet in the ass, but was stripped of most of his assets before being pushed into exile. If Prig in Belarus is in house arrest, Helmer insinuates that the only way he gets out of that is by accepting similar punishment willingly.

The other biggie is that Helmer insinuates Shoigu and Gerasimov may stick. He also notes that, contra western triumphalism, Shoigu reportedly was IN Rostov, and knew of Prigozhin's plans in advance, at least the broad outline. So, while not fully a "rope enough to hang himself" scenario, it's something to that effect. It sounds conspiratorial, though; why wouldn't Prig be arrested before causing as much trouble as he did? Or, get the Litvinenko treatment?

Since Helmer's claims are based on state and semi-state media, this comes off as possibly being a case of Putin writing himself into the scene, even if he didn't actually know so much in advance, as in, in the wonderful book "The Commissar Vanishes," Stalin's photo retouchers often wrote him into the scene in pictures from 1917-18. Moon of Alabama goes down the same path, claiming that "orders were obviously given for everyone to stand down." Cuing Jeff St. Clair and his "more credulous precincts of the left" bon mot.

That said, since Helmer has a background of conspiratorial thinking, as noted by me here, let's turn it on its head.  Both Khodorkovsky and Prigozhin are half-Jewish. And, Chris Cook of Gorilla Radio, going by his Twitter, with as of the time of typing this, his 10th tweet being a retweet of a claim that Universal Basic Income is going to be enacted by a fake banking crash, engineered by banksters, using "Central Banking Digital Coupons"? Well, since Helmer, per my link just above, talked about the Rothschilds' past conspiring against Russia, this is obviously all a Jewish or half-Jewish plot, isn't it? Oy.

I'm not yet done with Cook, though. Half a dozen tweets below that is a retweet of RFK Jr at his antivaxxer worst, claiming the CIA conducted vaccine-based medical torture. Yes, MKUltra's Subproject 68 existed, but this is reading a LOT into it, and contra Orisanmi Burton at Truthout, and especially contra the artwork, I doubt even the CIA would have administered LSD, the main drug of Subproject 68, with a vaccine needle.

In another retweet, Cook has someone else calling Putin "soft" vs Recep Tayyip Erdogan when he put down the mid-level officers' mutiny in Turkey a few years ago, which inspired the title for this.

I'm also not fully done with Moon of Alabama. I've had previous problems with MoA, too, as with Helmer. See here for my take on his take on Sy Hersh and Nord Stream.

And, final sidebar on MoA's link about Prig? He also talks about the Kramatorsk attack. Just because one mercenary there may have had a sign related to the US 3rd Ranger Battalion this does not mean that any current US military is there. Lots of ex-US soldiers become soldiers of fortune.

Also contra these nutters is the fact that Putin used troops loyal to Chechen boss Ramzan Kadyrov to cut off Wagner, and not conventional military. Had Putin and his General Staff flunkies known about Prig's move in advance, they'd have been better prepared. That said, that piece itself is interesting, on how "tentative" Kadyrov's engagement was and how he, no less and possibly more than Prigozhin, looks out for himself first, Vladimir Putin second.

And, per this piece by UnHerd, I don't know how many of the "more credulous" accept at face value all of Prigozhin's claims that Putin was misled into the war, or at least some of its details, by Shoigu et al.

Finally, Helmer has a new piece, much of it actually looking at Prigozhin's right-hand-man at Wagner and its actual founder, Dmitry Utkin. Putin himself knew about Prig's graft and grift detailed in the piece, of course. And, contra his claims that the "special military operation" had de-Nazification of Ukraine as a major goal, he surely knows about Utkin's SS tattoos that are known to the public, and probably about others not revealed. Interesting that Helmer doesn't comment on that. Also "interesting" is that for a guy who has been reporting from Russia as long as he has, Helmer doesn't refer people to a blog tag for more about Utkin, but rather, his Wikipedia page.

Or, per an Unherd piece, especially for Helmer and others like Eva Karene Bartlett inside Russia, we could talk about Putin's useful idiots. That said, take Justin Ling himself with a grain of salt, or call him a "US-NATO useful idiot." Remember, no twosiderism!

===

For better information on Prigozhin?

An unlocked Radio War Nerd interview with Anatol Lieven has him calling more bullshit on the idea that Putin's Russia is about to collapse. Lieven also notes that Prigozhin seemed frustrated that all his previous videos were just not getting Putin's attention. At the same time, as also discussed in his second-latest piece at Quincy, at the end of May, Lieven notes that a proto-succession crisis may be starting to creep over the horizon. From there, on the podcast, Lieven says, siting the Kursk disaster, that Putin doesn't like to appear to be doing things under pressure. So, if that's the case, how long until Shoigu and Gerasimov get sacked? On the war itself, in April, he said the battlefield was already "frozen," due to a mixture of mines and artillery. He adds that the rich in Kiev act as unaffected by the war as the rich in Moscow. Finally, in his latest piece, contra #BlueAnon in the US, and neocons as well, and their equivalents in other NATO countries, he shows that this war shows the power of draftee infantry — and the need for it — and that NATO countries ignore this at their peril. Lieven concludes with the pressure on Zelensky's political future to not give up one inch. RWN host Mark Ames joked sardonically about a Jewish president and a stab in the back. (I know he was joking; that said, per the above?)

Joe Costello also briefly riffs on the mutiny, noting an exchange he had with Ames. He, like me, picks up on the parallels with America and Blackwater, while noting, indirectly, that we never had Blackwater patrolling the border with Mexico or making an excursion against "narco-terrorists" there. Indeed, this was playing with fire to use Wagner semi-domestically, but, that's part of how Putin was able to launch this as a "special military operation." Thoughts like these by both Costello and Ames also at least indirectly undercut Helmer, Gorilla Radio, MofA and others claiming that Putin had this all in hand, all along. This is why I'm a skeptical leftist.

But, not a skeptical leftist who's born a high degree of animus since the start of the war. And, so?

At Counterpunch Radio, Eric Draitser finally weighs in on the mutiny, but not until June 29, kind of an eternity in this world. Judging by the list of topics, he doesn't sound like he has any new insight, for the wait, and that his old insight probably isn't as good as Radio War Nerd. I mean, a week on, his rhetorical question second bullet point, and the expansion of that in his first 30 seconds, without mentioning the word "mutiny"? Indeed, that word is never used in the entire podcast. Halfway in, about "why it ended so soon," Draitser halfway peddles backdoor bank-shotted Nat-sec Nutsack rumors. He is better with rhetorical-question analysis about what could mean for Wagner in specific and Russia in general in Africa.

Worse? Sy Hersh weighs in with something that has even less new analysis of Russia than Draitser, but with plenty of ax-grinding against Warmonger Joe.

Assuming Helmer et al are at least half full of shit, none of the non-MSM analysis answers me "why" question, and that is, really a two parter: Why didn't Putin see this in advance and thus, why didn't he nip it in the bud earlier?

The CIA got Tucker Carlson fired!

Or maybe it was mobsters on a grassy knoll! Or the ghost of LBJ! Or any Castro scions running around Cuba!

Contra Jefferson Morley channeling David Talbot, JFK conspiracy theory mongering had nothing to do with Cucker Tarlson getting fired. Also via there, contra Counterpunch, no, Cucker was not fired for talking about US troops possibly fighting in Ukraine (he's not the first to make that claim) or related. And, contra Jonathan Cook there channeling Glennwald, Tucker is only on a new path of populist pandering.

This is yet another chance to remind you that, three years ago, Morley claimed he was no longer a JFK conspiracy theorist. And he said that with a straight face!

The fact that he could tell bullshit like that only further undercuts the credibility of any and all JFK conspiracy theory pronounciamentos he has made since then — and he's made many of them.

Tablet gives RFK Jr. a bigger puff piece than Ryan Grim did for Williamson

Oh, boy, where to start with the hot mess of shit that David Samuels crapped out?

Before we get to the real nutbar stuff, let's note that,with the phrase "vaccine believers," Samuels himself walks, talks and quacks like an antivaxxer. And Dave Weigel, with a semi-puff-piece short Twitter thread about the interview, unless he explicitly disclaims it, thus becomes an antivaxxer fellow traveler.

Let's get to the meaty meat, though. First, of many pieces I've written about the JFK assassination — note, nutbars, I lived in the DFW Metroplex nearly a decade, have been to Dealey Plaza MANY a time, have been up to the sixth floor, etc. — let's briefly tackle the Camelot angle, since Tim Shorrock among others went down that road just a few years ago. As I blogged then, NSAM-263 is NOT a smoking gun. Or even close.

Now, part two of the "meat"? Sirhan Sirhan had opportunity, had access, had practiced hundreds of rounds with that pistol, and to his mind, had "good" reason after presumably seeing the pictures of Bobby wearing a yarmulke in an Oregon synagogue on Israel's independence day. I've got that and more all here.

The interview itself is funny at times where not craptacular. For example, Junior tries to explain away dad's involvement in Mongoose by saying he didn't like the CIA people behind it.

=

Update, May 20: Beyond all that, as Nathan J. Robinson notes, on other issues, like climate change and national health care, RFK Jr. is largely a nothingburger.

Another pseudoskeptical fail by Michael Shermer

Conspiracy: Why the Rational Believe the Irrational by Michael Shermer
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

This is an expanded version of the Goodreads review for inside baseball Skeptics™,pseudoskepticism reasons. Semi-regular readers here should know that I'm not a huge fan of Shermer, and this book only makes it worse. 

Let's dig in on the expansion.

This is a horrible book, not on the conspiracy theories, which I don't need Shermer to tell me, but on him totally getting wrong the one actual conspiracy he discusses, which is why this is 1-starred on a grok.

Rather than there being JUST and ONLY an Austrian conspiracy against Serbia in 1914, the assassination of Franz Ferdinand instead traces directly through one "Apis," head of both Serbian military intelligence and the secret society named The Black Hand, and also directly or semi-directly through confederates of Apis in the nationalist organization Narodna Odbrana, to Serbian Prime Minister Pasic. All of this and more is documented by Christopher Clark in the excellent book "The Sleepwalkers," which Shermer ACTUALLY REFERENCES and then ignores for Tim Butcher's "The Trigger," which is
A. A piece of crap and
B. Only about 10-20 percent about lead assassin Gavrilo Princip and 80-90 percent directly or indirectly about Tim Butcher.

Shermer's right that this is arguably the world's deadliest conspiracy. He's dead wrong about where the conspiracy started.

==

The rest of the book, without this egregious ax-grinding, would probably be 3 stars, no more, so, even without this, it's not worth a read. It's a basic definition of conspiracy vs conspiracy theories, basic overview on why many people believe in conspiracy theories, and how to try to talk to them.

But, surely Shermer could have found something else to discuss as a true conspiracy. Rather, it appears that, following in Butcher's footsteps despite having read Clark's documenting the likely ties to the Serbian government, and despite mentioning the Black Hand, even in an overall superficial treatment (and even talking about an assassination conspiracy, though trying to limit it to just the Black Hand, if that), he thought he could use some intellectual judo to show an Austrian conspiracy.

In reality, despite Conrad having been pushing for pre-emptive war with Serbia for years, even after the assassination, the Dual Monarchy was divided on going to war. And, trying to treat its Byzantine turns in just a few pages will be a good way to get superficial treatment even if not wrong — which, of course, Shermer is. And, I can say that as having read "The Sleepwalkers" TWICE. 

==

It's also bad for those other, inside baseball reasons.

First, citing libertarian pseudoskeptic and convicted felon Brian Dunning will get you nowhere in my book.

Second and related, attacking the tobacco merchants and climate change deniers when, at a minimum, I don't think you have ever publicly called out Penn and Teller for promoting both of them, and I'm not sure they've ever backtracked on climate change, is an issue. You yourself, in fact, albeit to a lesser degree than Dunning, have mixed libertarianism and skepticism at times, including on climate change (and Kurzweil's "singularity"). You've also mixed both with bad political hot takes, like on Occupy Wall Street.

In addition, you and Dunning blocked me at Skepticblog, in part because I called out both you and Dunning on the libertarian pseudoskepticism, and you and the Not-So-Always-Amazing Randi also had at least a couple of toes in the world of #MeToo problems, including, allegedly, personally having committed sexual assault, and also, at Skeptic mag, you've been at a minimum, a racialist fellow traveler, tackled again here in passing when talking about Pop Ev Psych and sexism. And, to tie this all into one nice neat bow, the actual Serbian conspiracies, of which its prime minister almost certainly had some foreknowledge, and its army intelligence even more? Driven by ethnic-based Serbian nationalism, which isn't too many stones' throws away from racialism, as Serbia's post-1989 history shows. (Not that Croatia's been a lot better.)

Beyond that is Shermer's ignorance of actual philosophy. Or him being "no true Scotsman" at times on skepticism in his personal life.

View all my reviews

Kyrie Irving's antisemitic roots: Do they go back further?

This very interesting and in-depth profile by New York Magazine has me wondering about that and more. Let's start here:

In early 2017, Irving’s teammates Channing Frye and Richard Jefferson created Road Trippin’, a podcast they’d record while flying on the team plane. Irving regularly joined in, providing the wider world with an unfiltered window into his free-associative mind. He riffed on the possibility of a faked moon landing and noted that JFK’s murder took place just days after he tried to “end the bank cartel.”

I'm not saying that IS antisemitic, but it's a short hop from there to "they" control all the banks.

NOTE: Contra nutters on Reddit, where I posted the story link, I totally reject all forms of JFK conspiracy theory, which is why I added the "JFK Assassination" tag. Whether they will eventually focus on possible early roots of Kyrie's "lizard people" thinking, I don't know.

Especially when you then go to:

In one podcast episode, Jefferson and Frye began debating the Illuminati. Another host, the sideline reporter Allie Clifton, tried to change the subject, but Irving stopped her. “It’s okay, this feeling you’re getting in your stomach,” he said.

Well, there you go. And "there" is where Allie Clifton seemed to see Irving going.

But, the weirdness goes beyond possibly deeper antisemitism than I first knew, or other issues like the flat-Earthism.

Like "Anthony Browder." He's one of those "Black Egypt" types. One who believes Egyptian genius is behind much of the modern world.

Then there's Frances Cress Wilding, going quasi-Freudian with her ideas on a sport's ball size and color vs. White vs Black skill levels. Alert Larry Bird and Tiger Woods.

I already thought Dallas trading for him was idiotic. This just adds to that. 

Then we get to the Black Hebrews film fallout.

“Was I surprised that he tweeted out a random antisemitic documentary? Yeah, a little bit. Then again, if you know the YouTube or Instagram algorithm, what kinds of things get fed to a conspiracy-minded guy like him …,” said one team front-office figure, who happens to be Jewish. “I feel like the antisemitism thing is such a footnote to the whole Kyrie story, another example of him spouting off on things he doesn’t know about. He thinks he’s discovered something nobody else knows.” 

Before returning to the Nets, Irving offered an apology during a televised SNY interview. When he had claimed he couldn’t be antisemitic because “I know where I come from,” he said, he wasn’t referring to a lost tribe of Israel. He said he meant suburban New Jersey.

OK, now we're into an allegedly deep thinker telling a lie and a laughable one.

From there, the piece looks at the history of Jewish-Black tensions, Jewish friends of Kyrie's childhood and more.

Then it moves to his narcissism as a player:

At his first press conference as a Dallas Maverick, Irving seemed to characterize his time in Brooklyn as a success. “I left them in fourth place. I did what I was supposed to do,” he said. (The team went 5-9 in games that Durant missed.) “I was incredibly selfless in my approach to leading.”

More reasons the Mavs shouldn't have made the trade, at least not at the price they did.

And finishes with a cold assessment of his psyche:

There’s another way to look at Irving too. He’s often treated as a Neptunian, but many of his qualities are, at heart, pretty familiar for a 30-year-old American who spent much of the pandemic staring at a screen: a borderline solipsistic obsession with his identity, a vague distrust of the country’s political Establishment, a radicalization on matters of social justice. ... Off the court, at least, Irving is far from unknowable. In his own way, he can even be considered — and here’s a word no one has ever used to describe him — ordinary.

I agree. And, for Kyrie, that last cut — being called "ordinary" — is surely the coldest of all.

Axios conflates QAnon with all "secret cabal" beliefs, conflates this with tin-foil hattery

Actually, per Axios, it's Dear Leader's presidential pollster. Let's start here:

Joel Benenson, the renowned pollster for President Obama's 2008 and 2012 campaigns, gave a first look at the results of a question he'd never asked before: "We wanted to test QAnon's language that the world is controlled by a secret cabal."

OK?

Now, the graph will show the answers.

What? So, 37 percent of Dems believe in QAnon? No. 37 percent of Dems believe in a "secret cabal," which is quite possibly undefined by Benenson, and in Axios' two-bit mini-stories, the web version of USA Today, is clearly undefined.

And, not all "secret cabal" theories are created equal. Is the "military-industrial complex" a "secret cabal"? Get Ike out of his grave and on the phone! Does it "control America"? Well, two weeks ago, it controlled the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Nuff sed. Like the NYT trying to revive Russiagate last week, "Interesting" that this comes out just before the election.