#gerald posner

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Gerald Posner

Published: Mar 4, 2024

Newly leaked files from the world’s leading transgender health-care organization reveal it is pushing hormonal and surgical transitions for minors, including stomach-wrenching experimental procedures designed to create sexless bodies that resemble department-store mannequins.

The World Professional Association for Transgender Health documents demonstrate it’s controlled by gender ideologues who push aside concerns about whether children and adolescents can consent to medical treatments that WPATH members privately acknowledge often have devastating and permanent side effects.

Yet the US government, American doctors and prominent organizations nonetheless rely on WPATH guidelines for advice on treating our youth.

The files — jaw-dropping conversations from a WPATH internal messaging board and a video of an Identity Evolution Workshop panel — were provided to journalist Michael Shellenberger, who shared the documents with me.

Shellenberger’s nonprofit Environmental Progress will release a scathing summary report, comparing the WPATH promotion of “the pseudoscientific surgical destruction of healthy genitals in vulnerable people” to the mid-20th-century use of lobotomies, “the pseudoscientific surgical destruction of healthy brains.”

‘Arbitrary’ age limits

The comparison to one of history’s greatest medical scandals is not hyperbole.

It is particularly true, as the files show repeatedly, when it involves WPATH’s radical approach to minors.

When the organization adopted in 2022 its current Standards of Care — relied on by the National Institutes of Health, the World Health Organization and every major American medical and psychiatric association — it scrapped a draft chapter about ethics and removed minimum-age requirements for children starting puberty blockers or undergoing sexual-modification surgeries.

It had previously recommended 16 to start hormones and 17 for surgery.

Not surprisingly, age comes up frequently in the WPATH files, from concerns about whether a developmentally delayed 13-year-old can start on puberty blockers to whether the growth of a 10-year-old girl will be stunted by hormones.

During one conversation, a member asked for advice about a 14-year-old patient, a boy who identified as a girl and had begun transitioning at 4.

The child insisted on a vaginoplasty, a surgery that removes the penis, testicles and scrotum and repositions tissue to create a nonfunctioning pseudo-vagina. It requires a lifetime of dilation. Was he too young at 14?

Marci Bowers, WPATH’s president and a California-based pelvic and gynecologic surgeon who is herself transgender, said she considered any age limit “arbitrary.”

But she would not do it. Why?

“The tissue is too immature, dilation routine too critical.”

In lay terms, that means boys who are too young do not have enough penal tissue for the surgery and the surgeon must harvest intestinal lining to build the faux vagina. Even Bowers admits that can lead to “problematic surgical outcomes.”

She would know since she has performed more than 2,000 vaginoplasties. Her highest-profile patient is 17-year-old Jazz Jennings, the transgender star of reality TV show “I Am Jazz.”

Three corrective surgeries were required to fix problems from the original vaginoplasty.

“She had a very difficult surgical course,” Bowers admitted in a 2022 appearance on the show. “We knew it would be tough — it turned out tougher than any of us imagined.”

Still, Bowers told her colleagues in the internal discussion forum of the best age for an adolescent to undergo surgery: “sometime before the end of high school does make some sense in that they are under the watch of parents in the home they grew up in.”

Christine McGinn, a Pennsylvania plastic surgeon and herself transgender, agreed. McGinn has performed “about 20 vaginoplasties in patients under 18” and thinks the “ideal time in the U.S. is surgery the summer before the last year of high school. I have heard many other surgeons echo this.”

Waiting until teens are older than 18 and in college is problematic, she said: “there are too many stressors in college that limit patients’ ability to dilate.”

Dangers downplayed

WPATH assures patients that surgical and hormonal interventions are tested and safe. It is a different matter in private.

President Bowers, for instance, said publicly in 2022 that puberty blockers are “completely reversible,” although in the internal forum she conceded it is “in its infancy.”

What about children who are infertile for life since they started hormone blockers before they reached puberty?

Bowers told her colleagues the “fertility question has no research.”

At other stages, members talk frankly about the complications for the transition surgery for girls, a phalloplasty in which a nonfunctioning pseudo-penis is fashioned from either forearm or thigh tissue.

It requires a full hysterectomy and surgical removal of the vagina. They also discuss other serious consequences, including pelvic inflammatory disease, vaginal atrophy, abnormal pap tests and incontinence.

A 16-year-old girl who had been on puberty blockers for several years before she was put on testosterone for a year had developed two liver tumors that an oncologist concluded the hormones had caused. Another member described “a young patient on testosterone for 3 years” who had developed “vaginal/pelvic pain/spotting . . . [and] atrophy with the persistent yellow discharge.”

Several colleagues described patients with similar conditions, some with debilitating bowel problems or bleeding and excruciating pain during sex (“feeling like broken glass”).

Vaginal estrogen creams and moisturizers as well as hyaluronic acid suppositories “can be helpful.”

One WPATH member seemed surprised: “The transgender people under my surveillance do not complain about this matter. However, I confess that I have never asked them about it.”

Rise of ‘de-gender’ surgery

The litany of transition surgery’s side effects did not stop WPATH from endorsing far more radical “nullification” surgeries for patients who do not feel either male or female and identify only as nonbinary.

Several dozen so-called “de-gendering” surgeries are designed to create a sexless, smooth cosmetic appearance that is unknown in nature. There is even an experimental “bi-genital” surgery that attempts to construct a second set of genitals.

In 2017, when tabloids reported a 22-year-old man had spent $50,000 to surgically remove his sex organs so he could “transform into a genderless extra-terrestrial,” it seemed a one-off oddity.

But WPATH has enshrined that concept in its Standard of Care — the same document in which the group endorsed for the time first time chemical or surgical castration for patients who identify as eunuchs. (WPATH even linked to the Eunuch Archives, where men anonymously share castration fetishes.)

These science-fiction-like surgeries are not only reserved for adults.

“How do we come up with appropriate standards for non-binary patients?” asked Thomas Satterwhite, a San Francisco-based plastic surgeon who has operated on dozens of patients younger than 18 since 2014. “I’ve found more and more patients recently requesting ‘non-standard’ procedures.”

What are nonstandard procedures? They include “non-binary top surgery,” a mastectomy without nipples. There are brutal procedures for girls that eliminate all or part of the vagina and for boys that amputate the penis, scrotum and testicles.

The goal, as one San Francisco surgical clinic proclaims on its website, “is a smooth, neutral body that is cosmetically free of sexual identification.” On TikTok the trend is called a “flat front.”

‘Too young to understand‘

A particularly intense subject of discussion was whether minors could understand the lifelong consequences of their gender treatments. Minors are presumed by law to be incapable of making an informed decision about having a vasectomy or tubal ligation.

Gender surgeries are an exception, however.

WPATH’s Standard of Care allows all procedures so long as the minor “demonstrates the emotional and cognitive maturity required to provide informed consent/assent for the treatment.”

In a May 2022 internal workshop, “Identity Evolution,” WPATH members conceded that was all but impossible.

Daniel Metzger, the British Columbia endocrinologist who cowrote the Canadian Pediatric Society’s position paper on health care for trans minors, said, “I think the thing you have to remember about kids is that we’re often explaining these sorts of things to people who haven’t even had biology in high school yet.”

Metzger noted adolescents are incapable of appreciating the lifelong consequence of infertility. “It’s always a good theory that you talk about fertility preservation with a 14-year-old,” he said, “but I know I’m talking to a blank wall. They’d be like, ‘ew, kids, babies, gross.’ Or, the usual answer is, ‘I’m just going to adopt.’ And then you ask them, ‘Well, what does that involve? Like, how much does it cost?’ ‘Oh, I thought you just like went to the orphanage, and they gave you a baby.’ . . . I think now that I follow a lot of kids into their mid-twenties, I’m always like, ‘Oh, the dog isn’t doing it for you, right?’”

There is extensive research showing adolescent brains are wired to have little control over rash behavior and are not capable of grasping the magnitude of decisions with lifelong consequences. It is why society doesn’t allow teens to get tattoos or buy guns. Car-rental agencies set 25 as the minimum age for renting a car, and Sweden sets the same limit for deciding on sterilization.

Detransitioners ignored, shunned

Although many WPATH members privately doubt that adolescents can give truly informed consent to life-altering procedures, they must affirm whatever children say about their gender.

Unless, the WPATH files disclose, the patient wants to reverse course and become a so-called detransitioner.

WPATH members mostly dismiss those cases as insignificant or overblown by the media and question whether minors who want to revert to their birth sex really understand what they are doing.

It’s a question that would never be asked for minors who declared themselves to be gender dysphoric.

One case involved a 17-year-old boy, just graduated from high school, who had been on testosterone for two years. He was reported to be “very distraught and angry. He reports he feels he was brainwashed and is upset by the permanent changes to his body.”

A self-described “queer therapist” did not believe any young person could be brainwashed. “In my experience, those stories come from people who have an active agenda against the rights of trans people.”

WPATH President Bowers said that “I do see talk of the phenomenon [detransitioners] as distracting from the many challenges we face.”

‘Frankenstein files’

The leaked files put a spotlight on the danger of mixing ideological activism with medicine and science. They should serve as an urgent wakeup call for the medical associations and government agencies that rely on WPATH guidance for transgender health.

The files might even prompt investigations into how those with distorted personal agendas seized control of the organization at the expense of science and patients.

Investigating what has gone wrong at WPATH might prove uncomfortable for some gender progressives in the Biden administration, none more so than Adm. Rachel Levine, the assistant secretary for health. Levine, the first transgender four-star military officer, is a WPATH member and has lavished praise on the organization.

She says it “assesses the full state of the science and provides substantive, rigorously analyzed, peer-reviewed recommendations to the medical community on how best to care for patients who are transgender or gender non-binary. It is free of any agenda other than to ensure that medical decisions are informed by science.”

Either Levine is unaware of the hormonal and surgical experimentation the group promotes or refuses to acknowledge it.

“The Frankenstein files.”

That is how a pediatrician described the leaked documents after I shared them with her.

Unfortunately, this is no horror novel.

It is a medical travesty playing out in real time, and the casualties are our children.

[jk-scrolling]

When I googled "Gerald Posner" I expected to find out he's not a doctor. And he's not, of course. He's an investigative reporter.

According to his wikipedia page, the Chicago Tribune once described Posner as "a merciless little pitbull of an investigator." That quality's nowhere in evidence in the article JKR retweeted. The tepid concern trolling about puberty blockers will be so familiar to trans people, you'd swear it was written by ChatGPT. Here's the archive if you find yourself compelled to read it: https://archive.is/Lzozj

Posner was the lead investigative reporter for The Daily Beast, a position he was fired from in 2010 for plagiarism. Some commentary on that from the reporter who broke the story: https://web.archive.org/web/20120122130951/http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/press_box/2010/02/the_posner_plagiarism_perplex.html

That revelation brought forth a landslide of other plagiarism accusations. Chunks of some of his biggest popular history books were plagiarized and contained misattributed and altered quotes. https://web.archive.org/web/20120111035829/https://blogs.miaminewtimes.com/riptide/2010/05/gerald_posner_plagiarized_in_w.php for eight pages of side by side comparisons (and a report of Posner's clumsy attempts to edit wikipedia to take out references to the plagiarism.)

About a year later (possibly still short on cash due to his professional disgrace?) Posner helped Harper Lee's literary agent trick her into assigning him her copyright and misappropriated her To Kill a Mockingbird royalties using knowledge from his pre-journalism law career. A brief article: https://web.archive.org/web/20130607221801/http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/agent_is_atticus_filch_dHGLvpNU7ivrWxftqQSlwL

And a longer one if you don't trust the Post: https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2013/08/harper-lee-dispute-royalties

A serial plagiarist and a scammer of sick old women. Rowling sure knows how to pick 'em doesn't she?

[onekisstotakewithme]

Self-Rec (of a TWW flavour)

Rules: Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to five other writers! 💗

tagged by the lovely @miabicicletta to do this, and it sounded fun! Always appreciate the encouragement to toot my own horn a little.

(These are gonna all be tww, and I'm only replying with completed ones... sorry to my WIPS (Pres!CJ 😭)

Gravitas (3.1k) - CJ and Danny's first meeting, written to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the pilot (and my 25th TWW fic). I LOVE writing campaign stories, and I'm pretty proud of this one.

None of Use are More than Caretakers (66k) - the "missing episode" in season 7 between "Last Hurrah" and "Institutional Memory," focused around Gerald Ford's funeral, and CJ and Danny's relationship. Also my first TWW multi-chapter work (allll the way back in 2023!). This one has been on my mind lately because of Jimmy Carter's funeral... I'm sure looking back, I'd do some things differently/better but I do love it for what it is!

(Born to be) National Treasures (5.8k) - did I mention I love campaign stories? This one is set during Larry Posner's infamous Democratic fundraiser and features some of my favourite things - Josh and Danny friendship, Abbey taking Danny under her wing, and CJ and Danny bickering like they're going to for the rest of their lives!

Wrong Place at the Right Time (26.7k) - CJ and Danny start (secretly) dating after he shows up for the President's re-election campaign kick-off in Manchester. Three chapters. This one is so fun and so silly (and it took me forever to write until i took all the Serious Plot Points out), and that's an energy I'd like to carry forward into my other works. (To mixed results).

Quelle Surprise (3.1k) - speaking of fun and silly, how about this one? a Fun little post-canon married fic where CJ accidentlaly blurts out that she thinks she's pregnant... in the middle of sex. (This was so deeply unserious, I was on something else this summer with the fun, silly, spicy stories. Anyone know where I can go to get more of that energy?)

Honourable mentions go to my beloved gen(ish) fics Two for the Road (an exploration of CJ and Toby's friendship across various election nights; 5.3k) and The Day on Which They Shall Give Their Votes (Election Day 1998; 3.3k).

Thank you again, Mia 💜

(Oh, and not me forgetting to tag other authors! *facepalm* uhhh @allatariel @bartletslesbians @malkaleh @sloganeeer @unseenacademic)

[dannyreviews]

Veteran British born/based film/TV actors born before and including 1937 still alive:

With the recent death of Dame Maggie Smith, I thought I'd detail the legendary actors of UK cinema and television that are still living.

Eileen Bennett (b. 1919)

Beulah Garrick (b. 1921)

Elizabeth Kelly (b. 1921)

Elisabeth Kirkby (b. 1921)

Sara Luzita (b. 1922)

Annabel Maule (b. 1922)

Paul Harding (b. 1923)

Vincent Ball (b. 1923)

David Lawton (b. 1923)

Anne Vernon (b. 1924)

Laurie Webb (b. 1924)

Thelma Ruby (b. 1925)

Pete Murray (b. 1925)

Michael Beint (b. 1925)

Shelia Mitchell (b. 1925)

Kerima (b. 1925)

David Attenborough (b. 1926)

Elizabeth Benson (b. 1926)

Margaret Barton (b. 1926)

Terry Kilburn (b. 1926)

Stanley Baxter (b. 1926)

David Frankham (b. 1926)

William Glover (b. 1926)

Josephine Stuart (b. 1926)

Patricia Davidson (b. 1926)

Glen Michael (b. 1926)

Araby Lockhart (b. 1926)

Eileen Page (b. 1926)

Rosemary Harris (b. 1927)

Cleo Laine (b. 1927)

Lee Montague (b. 1927)

Genevieve Page (b. 1927)

Neville Phillips (b. 1927)

Jean Lodge (b. 1927)

Barbara Ashcroft (b. 1927)

Jill Freud (b. 1927)

Jean Southern (b. 1927)

Antonia Pemberton (b. 1927)

Peter Cellier (b. 1928)

Jeanette Landis (b. 1928)

Sheila Ballantine (b. 1928)

Dorothea Phillips (b. 1928)

Jeannie Carson (b. 1928)

Hazel Ascot (b. 1928)

Brenda Hogan (b. 1928)

Raymond Llewelyn (b. 1928)

Pauline Brailsford (b. 1928)

Leonard Weir (b. 1928)

Kevin Scott (b. 1928)

Patricia Routledge (b. 1929)

Colin Jeavons (b. 1929)

Michael Craig (b. 1929)

Thelma Barlow (b. 1929)

Peter Myers (b. 1929)

Paul Williamson (b. 1929)

John Gale (b. 1929)

Phillip Ross (b. 1929)

Jimmy Fagg (b. 1929)

Hazel Phillips (b. 1929)

Mignon Elkins (b. 1929)

Margaret Stallard (b. 1929)

Maya Koumani (b. 1929)

Clive Revill (b. 1930)

Roy Evans (b. 1930)

Una McLean (b. 1930)

Roddy Maude-Roxby (b. 1930)

Ruth Trouncer (b. 1930)

Cyril Appleton (b. 1930)

Vera Frances (b. 1930)

Gary Watson (b. 1930)

Keith Alexander (b. 1930)

Libby Morris (b. 1930)

Pauline Jefferson (b. 1930)

Claire Bloom (b. 1931)

Leslie Caron (b. 1931)

Carroll Baker (b. 1931)

Virginia McKenna (b. 1931)

Vivian Pickles (b. 1931)

Stanley Meadows (b. 1931)

Gerald Harper (b. 1931)

Patricia Greene (b. 1931)

Ellen McIntosh (b. 1931)

Elvi Hale (b. 1931)

Maureen Connell (b. 1931)

June Laverick (b. 1931)

Denyse Alexander (b. 1931)

Arthur Nightingale (b. 1931)

Eileen Derbyshire (b. 1931)

Carl Held (b. 1931)

Shelia Bernette (b. 1931)

George Eugeniou (b. 1931)

Corinne Skinner-Carter (b. 1931)

Tusse Silberg (b. 1931)

Petula Clark (b. 1932)

Prunella Scales (b. 1932)

Phyllida Law (b. 1932)

Ray Cooney (b. 1932)

Edward De Souza (b. 1932)

Alan Dobie (b. 1932)

John Turner (b. 1932)

Roland Curram (b. 1932)

Gabriel Woolf (b. 1932)

Johnnie Wade (b. 1932)

Eileen Moore (b. 1932)

Laurie Leigh (b. 1932)

William Roache (b. 1932)

Athol Fugard (b. 1932)

Carmen Munroe (b. 1932)

Norman Bowler (b. 1932)

Marcia Ashton (b. 1932)

Thelma Holt (b. 1932)

Sally Bazely (b. 1932)

Ronald France (b. 1932)

Edwina Carroll (b. 1932)

Michael Caine (b. 1933)

Joan Collins (b. 1933)

Sian Phillips (b. 1933)

Sheila Hancock (b. 1933)

Elizabeth Seal (b. 1933)

Shani Willis (b. 1933)

Patrick Godfrey (b. 1933)

Caroline Blakiston (b. 1933)

Donald Douglas (b. 1933)

Ann Firbank (b. 1933)

Vera Day (b. 1933)

Tsai Chin (b. 1933)

Geoffrey Frederick (b. 1933)

Marla Landi (b. 1933)

Monte Landis (b. 1933)

Mary Germaine (b. 1933)

Ruth Posner (b. 1933)

Barbara Archer (b. 1933)

W.B. Brydon (b. 1933)

Robert Gillespie (b. 1933)

Brian Patton (b. 1933)

Arthur White (b. 1933)

Barbara Archer (b. 1933)

Sally Bazley (b. 1933)

Madhur Jaffrey (b. 1933)

Jeanette Sterke (b. 1933)

Ann Rogers (b. 1933)

Barbara Knox (b. 1933)

John Boorman (b. 1933)

Derek Martin (b. 1933)

Michael Aspel (b. 1933)

Bill Edwards (b. 1933)

Ninette Finch (b. 1933)

Una Kay (b. 1933)

Pat Galloway (b. 1933)

Judi Dench (b. 1934)

Eileen Atkins (b. 1934)

Tom Baker (b. 1934)

Alan Bennett (b. 1934)

Jean Marsh (b. 1934)

Annette Crosbie (b. 1934)

Wendy Craig (b. 1934)

Richard Chamberlain (b. 1934)

Millicent Martin (b. 1934)

John Standing (b. 1934)

Vernon Dobtcheff (b. 1934)

Nanette Newman (b. 1934)

David Burke (b. 1934)

Geraldine Newman (b. 1934)

Renny Lister (b. 1934)

Priscilla Morgan (b. 1934)

Audrey Dalton (b. 1934)

Leila Hoffman (b. 1934)

Simone Lovell (b. 1934)

Magda Miller (b. 1934)

Robert Aldous (b. 1934)

Ram John Holder (b. 1934)

Jamila Massey (b. 1934)

Margaretta D’Arcy (b. 1934)

Leslie Saeward (b. 1934)

Maurice Podbrey (b. 1934)

Steve Emerson (b. 1934)

Peter Bland (b. 1934)

Michael Darlow (b. 1934)

Barbara Archer (b. 1934)

Joy Webster (b. 1934)

Jacqueline Ellis (b. 1934)

Jacqueline Jones (b. 1934)

Diana Payan (b. 1934)

Gillian Eddison (b. 1934)

Julie Andrews (b. 1935)

Julian Glover (b. 1935)

Jim Dale (b. 1935)

Anne Reid (b. 1935)

James Bolam (b. 1935)

Christina Pickles (b. 1935) 

Judy Parfitt (b. 1935)

Wanda Ventham (b. 1935)

Amanda Barrie (b. 1935)

Derren Nesbitt (b. 1935)

Nadim Swalha (b. 1935)

Gary Raymond (b. 1935)

Janet Henfrey (b. 1935)

Melvyn Hayes (b. 1935)

Susan Engel (b. 1935)

Amanda Walker (b. 1935)

Delena Kidd (b. 1935)

Derek Partridge (b. 1935)

Allister Bain (b. 1935)

Derry Power (b. 1935)

Phyllis MacMahon (b. 1935)

Rowena Cooper (b. 1935)

Lisa Gastoni (b. 1935)

Derek Partridge (b. 1935)

Jill Dixon (b. 1935)

Des Keough (b. 1935)

Barbara Angell (b. 1935)

Lucille Soong (b. 1935)

Anita West (b. 1935)

June Watson (b. 1935)

David Daker (b. 1935)

Shirley Cain (b. 1935)

Bobby Pattinson (b. 1935)

George Roubicek (b. 1935)

Glenn Beck (b. 1935)

Shirley Greenwood (b. 1935)

Isabella Rye (b. 1935)

Anna Barry (b. 1935)

David Andrews (b. 1935)

Michael Danvers-Walker (b. 1935)

Brian Blessed (b. 1936)

Richard Wilson (b. 1936)

Tommy Steele (b. 1936)

Edward Petherbridge (b. 1936) 

Ursula Andress (b. 1936)

John Leyton (b. 1936)

Jess Conrad (b. 1936)

Elizabeth Shepherd (b. 1936)

Sandra Voe (b. 1936)

Doug Sheldon (b. 1936)

John Golightly (b. 1936)

Peter Ellis (b. 1936)

Andria Lawrence (b. 1936)

Jon Laurimore (b. 1936)

Tony Scoggo (b. 1936)

Barry MacGregor (b. 1936)

Frank Barrie (b. 1936)

Kenneth Farrington (b. 1936)

Eileen McCallum (b. 1936)

Frederick Pyne (b. 1936)

Philip Lowrie (b. 1936)

Marian Diamond (b. 1936)

Anthony Higginson (b. 1936)

Elsie Kelly (b. 1936)

Ann Taylor (b. 1936)

Heidi Erich (b. 1936)

Keith Faulkner (b. 1936)

Ruth Meyers (b. 1936)

Julia Blake (b. 1936)

Heather Downham (b. 1936)

Robin Gammell (b. 1936)

Auriol Smith (b. 1936)

Frances White (b. 1936)

Anthony Hopkins (b. 1937)

Edward Fox (b. 1937)

Vanessa Redgrave (b. 1937)

Tom Courtenay (b. 1937)

Steven Berkoff (b. 1937)

Susan Hampshire (b. 1937)

Barbara Steele (b. 1937)

Shirley Eaton (b. 1937)

Kenneth Colley (b. 1937)

Ian Hogg (b. 1937)

Sheila Reid (b. 1937)

Valerie Singleton (b. 1937)

Suzy Kendall (b. 1937)

Gawn Grainger (b. 1937)

Tom Georgeson (b. 1937)

Alan Rothwell (b. 1937)

Michael Knowles (b. 1937)

Jocelyn Lane (b. 1937)

Michael Kilgarriff (b. 1937)

Clifton Jones (b. 1937)

Paul Collins (b. 1937)

Anna Dawson (b. 1937)

Marlene Sidaway (b. 1937)

Jeremy Spenser (b. 1937)

Freddie Davies (b. 1937)

Justine Lord (b. 1937)

Davyd Harries (b. 1937)

Hugh Futcher (b. 1937)

Anne Cunningham (b. 1937)

Anne Aubrey (b. 1937)

Vic Taliban (b. 1937)

Dorothy Paul (b. 1937)

Denis Tuohy (b. 1937)

Claire Neilson (b. 1937)

Patricia Collins (b. 1937)

Jan Waters (b. 1937)

Dorothy Paul (b. 1937)

Brian Grellis (b. 1937)

Kenneth Alan Taylor (b. 1937)

Yvonne Buckingham (b. 1937)

Eileen Helsby (b. 1937)

Ray Donn (b. 1937)

Terrence Scammell (b. 1937)

Pauline Devaney (b. 1937)

Rosie Bannister (b. 1937)

Jeanne Roland (b. 1937)

William Gaunt (b. 1937)

Rosaleen Linehan (b. 1937)

Norman Coburn (b. 1937)

Rosie Bannister (b. 1937)

Luciana Paluzzi (b. 1937)

[darkmaga-returns]

Remember to add your book recommendations in the comments below.

Today’s book is:

God's Bankers: A History of Money and Power at the Vatican by Gerald Posner

From a master chronicler of legal and financial misconduct, a magnificent investigation nine years in the making, God’s Bankers traces the political intrigue of the Catholic Church in “a meticulous work that cracks wide open the Vatican’s legendary, enabling secrecy” (Kirkus Reviews). Decidedly not about faith, belief in God, or religious doctrine, this book is about the church’s accumulation of wealth and its byzantine financial entanglements across the world. Told through 200 years of prelates, bishops, cardinals, and the Popes who oversee it all, Gerald Posner uncovers an eyebrow-raising account of money and power in one of the world’s most influential organizations. God’s Bankers has it all: a revelatory and astounding saga marked by poisoned business titans, murdered prosecutors, and mysterious deaths written off as suicides; a carnival of characters from Popes and cardinals, financiers and mobsters, kings and prime ministers; and a set of moral and political circumstances that clarify not only the church’s aims and ambitions, but reflect the larger tensions of more recent history. And Posner even looks to the future to surmise if Pope Francis can succeed where all his predecessors failed: to overcome the resistance to change in the Vatican’s Machiavellian inner court and to rein in the excesses of its seemingly uncontrollable financial quagmire. “As exciting as a mystery thriller” (Providence Journal), this book reveals with extraordinary precision how the Vatican has evolved from a foundation of faith to a corporation of extreme wealth and power.

You can buy the book here (Amazon link).

[ramrodd]

Case Closed: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Assassination of JFK - Gerald Posner

COMMENTARY:

Jackie Kennedy streched entirely across the splatter field behind Kennedy's head on the boot to grab a chunk of Kennedy's brain that had defied Newton' lasw of motion to travel AGAINST the trajectory of a bullet fired fro the rear, That chuck of brain was deposited on the boot by a bullet ftaht hit Kennedy from the front to become at least the 4 bullet fired at Kennedy in Daly Plaxa. And the visual evidence from the Zapruder film and forensic study of Kennedy's suit jacked and shirt is that the shot to his throat was the first bullet to hit him and it came from the front, The hot to the throat is an entrance wound,   Posnar claims in his first discussion of the back and throat wounds that the threads from the suit jacket and shirt went into the back wound characteristic of an entrance wound and that the threads from the shirt collar and tie were coming out of the wound, characteristic of an exit wound. But in his description of the Bethesda autopy, there was no time to do a foresncie study of his wardrobe because Jackie and Robert were waiting to receive the body to make an open casket presentation, But a YouTube video  documents a forensic study of the jacket and shirt that indicated that the hole in the jacket was several inches below the hole in the shirt when hanging on a manniken and the technicians determined that, when Kennedy jerked his arms up to clutch at his throat, his Jacket was pulled up while his shirt remained anchored in place, which meant that the shot to the throat, which we see Kennedy cluching when he comes out from behind the sign in the Xapruer film came first from the front and the back woun an instant later. This isn't the only place Posner fudges the data, Thre were four political murders taht had the John Birch Societ a a common denominatorL the Biem brothers 19 days before JFK, MLK and George Lincoln Rockwell, who was killed to sever any ties to Pat Buchanan, who had just become a speech writer for Nixon, Posner is trying to divert attention form the John Birch Society, which has evloved into Project

[isxist1]

Start of the End for the Stars of Motown

Motown

Fall of 1968 The Record Label Motown moved from Detroit to Los Angeles. Directly the Year after 1969 Glady Horton Leaves the group "The Marvelettes" to live and rise her family of new born's.

Once in L.A. the move caused 300 employees to lose their Jobs with the company. This does not stop the Label from finding New Talent.

Robbie & La Toya (Parents of The Jacksons) have an abusive relationship even though the Group has just added Michael as the lead Singer making the Group change it's name from "The Jackson 4" to "The Jackson 5".

They won Talent Shows - Opened for Bobby Taylor, The Vancouver's Motown Got Interested. They had them Audition for the Labels Record Producer at the Time Gordy. He signs them instantly!

Their First Album a Collaborative One with Diana Ross Titled "Diana Ross: Presents the Jackson 5" The Jackson were since then known for their Bubblegum sound.

Citation: "Motown; Music, Money, Sex and Power" By Gerald Posner

[healthchoicerhodeisland]

Watch the Livestream Link in bio Sunday, March 5 4:00 p.m. “Healthcare American Style” John Abramson Harvard Medical School 8:00 p.m. “Anthony Fauci and the Public Health Establishment” Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Author, The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health ______ Monday, March 6 4:00 p.m. “Big Pharma and Big Government” Jordan Schachtel Investigative Journalist 8:00 p.m. “What’s in the Pfizer Documents?” Naomi Wolf CEO, The Daily Clout ______ Tuesday, March 7 4:00 p.m. “Big Pharma and the Chinese Communist Party” Brian T. Kennedy The American Strategy Group 8:00 p.m. “Big Pharma and the Opioid Epidemic” Gerald Posner Author, Pharma: Greed, Lies, and the Poisoning of America #healthpolicy #healthfreedom #healthchoice #medicalfreedom #informedconsent #bebrave #pharma #criticalthinking #hillsdale https://www.instagram.com/p/CpYJ8ZEuKE5/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[cyprustravelclub]

Why the Vatican Created Its Own Bank `God's Bankers' Provides Look at Vatican Bank's Secrecy Gerald Posner, author of "God's Bankers," discusses the history and operations of the Vatican Bank with Bloomberg's Pimm Fox on "Taking Stock." (Source: Bloomberg)

[mysharona1987]

RE: The JFK files.  I’d urge people to read ‘Case Closed' by Gerald Posner or ‘Reclaiming History’ by Vincent Bugliosi. They both made incredibly good cases for Oswald acting alone.

The “back and to the left” thing isn’t so controversial if you know the medical science behind it. 

[geraldposner]

Gerald Posner on reaching his conclusion that Oswald alone killed JFK  

[shehasworktodo]

He Wants You to Know...

For the Men

"The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make His face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you; The Lord lift up His countenance upon you, and give you peace."

-Numbers 6: 24-26

This message is for you, the one afraid to die alone, the dead man walking, staring at the sky with ungrateful eyes even though he knows where the stars came from. To the one I hope has found someone to pray with in his life of luxury, who's kicking down doors, the one that God made a "full-blown genius", who feels guilty when he goes to church even though the pastor says he's saved, who knows that it's okay to not know, whose life is in the Hand of God.

This is for you, the one who isn't looking for love, the one mistreated, the one who says they don't care, the one with dirty laundry, whose heart is lost, who calls out for help but does what he wishes. This is for the one who chose a mile over a never ending, a limited forever, swearing to God, a sinner in a church like me, who sometimes wants to die, who wished her the best even when she already had it, who looks in the mirror and doesn't see himself, who visions getting married and having kids, wishing he could feel nothing, who sold their soul, prays on a bed he's had a hundred in. To the one who was too young to feel something real, the one that misses who he was...

This is for you, the one that just wants to breathe, who God knows is here, who He, God, loves very much, who objectify, hate all they love, love the things that don't make sense, don't think about the future, who keep their distance from, who believe they waste their time, who try to fill the hole but still feel alone, who still can't find the girl, but until then...

You find pleasure in your hands around the necks of others, and make fun of the noose that hangs around yours. I want to ask you:

Who are you in this world?

It's only so big. Compared to the rest of the universe we are nothing but specks of dust. What do you gain from living so lavishly on a planet that can only offer you so much? You get fame, money, women, alcohol; a cycle that never ends. Who are you to be deemed the greatest? Who are you to work so hard only to lift up your own name? As much as I hope that you are happy, I hope that you also know happiness is temporary. As up is to down, left is to right, happy is to sad. You just want to be happy, but there is a God who wants to give you something that will never end. I want you to see true joy that can be yours if you only ask for it. This has been written just for you. Brace yourself and take your time, because it's going be long.

~

"And Adam said: 'This is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.'"

-Genesis 2:23

"Charm is deceitful and beauty is passing, but a woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised."

-Proverbs 31:30

You probably already know how powerful a woman can be. There's a woman in your life that's given birth to you. That woman struggled through so much pain to bring you into the world so that you can be the person that you are today. I do not know your story, so I will not try to tell it. You know who you are and where you stand, but know that you do not own anyone. No woman is yours to use and play with like some toy. Woman comes from man, a gift from the Creator Himself. He did not gift man with woman out of such care and design for you to dismantle them as if they were nothing. Woman is a gift for man. Women are subjective, not objective.

"And the Lord God said, 'It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him."

-Genesis 2:18

A woman is not a bitch, not a whore or a hoe, not a slut, not a cunt, not a thot. She is a child of God, same as you. Not all women get on their knees for the same reason. I'm sure you're old enough to understand that not all women are the same. You seek out the women who can please you for a moment, make you feel good for that little bit of time, because you have such an unlimited variety. You find the ones that are willing to do anything, be wild and adventurous, somewhat dangerous. You want the bad girls because the good girls aren't as fun. You seek out different women for a change in scenery. Do you see them as people? As mothers, daughters, sisters, friends? Do they truly make you happy? The same way God created you with such carefulness, such gentleness, such patience, such genuineness, such love... that love extends far beyond just when God created you.

"There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus."

-Galatians 3:28

Don't abuse your power over women. There are those that truly love and adore you, who want to have and hold your heart, treat you as if you were more than just a man with a really good label. You complain about the women that have treated you so poorly, who turned their backs on you, disrespect you behind your shoulder... Where do you look for these women? Are they the ones that idolize you or pay you no mind? Are they the ones that make you their god? Are they the ones that you make your goddess? There is a world of hurt if you think wild and crazy is forever. Maybe you're not looking for forever, which is why you're living the dream. You're satisfied with all the women you can get your hands on and don't care about whose toes you step on. If you're going to use the Lord's name, then respect His creation. You spend so much of your time diving into the sea of women you have at your fingertips and miss out on the beautiful gifts that God has for your life. Lord bless you if you make it out well.

~

"Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's." -1 Corinthians 6:19&20

"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?"

-Mark 8:36

"For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?"

-Matthew 16:26

"For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and is himself destroyed or lost?"

-Luke 9:25

I feel like this has been emphasized in the Bible so many times by three different people because the Lord knows its importance. You are what matters in this world, not your fame, not your fortune. You know that all of this glory will not last forever, so you enjoy it while you can. Don't associate your happiness with your riches. I believe in my heart that within yourself you are able to find true satisfaction in life rather than the life that surrounds you.

"For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows."

1 Timothy 6:10

"No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon."

-Matthew 6:24

I hear your words. Not only do I hear, but I listen. You are being heard. You do not go through these struggles alone. I cannot put myself in your shoes completely, but I share my heart with you in wondering what purpose we have in this life. I am a hypocrite. I hold grudges. I have the mind of a sinner and the body of a "saint", but I can truly say that I love you without knowing who you are. You don't owe anything to me, you don't owe anything to anyone. The Lord's love surpasses every fiber in my being, but I went out on a whim hoping that if you read this or not, you'd know that there's someone out there. There's someone out there who hears and sees what your heart is trying to express. I am just as guilty. I am no better than you or anyone I know. I sit here writing this as your love, your support, your friend and sister in Christ Jesus. I write to you as a sinner in need of a heart of gold, a servant of our God who wants you to know that He hears, He knows, He's listening. I pray that He's spoken to your heart and that you know He's right there just waiting for you to listen back.

All my love.

[ramrodd]

Case Closed JFK 2/2

COMMENTARY:

Posners coda to his 1993 publication wherein he insists that the fatal head shot came from the rear continues to fail to explan how Jackie Kennedy was able to retrieve a chunk of Kennedy's brain by strechting full length arcoss the splatter field of the wound deposited across the boot of the limo in the direction of the origin of the shot. In essence, the existence of this splatter field BEHID the d wound in the direction of the shooter defies gravity, Here, in DC, we have an enormous archive of execution-style wounds to the back of the head from powerful weapons at close range and none of them cause the head to explode in the manner desplaed in the Aapruder film.  In addition, based on the pristine bullet retrieved from Connallys throught-and-through wounds, a shot to the head with the 6.5 munitions, the bullet would have made a neat hole going in and a neat hole going out, The thing is, the elements of the conspiracy that includes the John Birch Society isn't limited to the Kennedy assassication but extends to three other political assassinations beginning with the assassinations of the the Diem brothers in Vietnam, MLK and George Lincoln Rockwell. The John Birch Society is the common demoninator in these three political murders. After the godless commie cocksuckers in Hanoi declared their intentions to conquer the Repbbulic of Vietnam in 1962, there was a figorous debate at the Gneral Staff level of the Army as to whether to continue to pursue the George Marshll-Wisenhower Nation Building strategy or to abando it for a European battlefield scenario preferred by elements associated with Robert MacNamara and Curtis LeMay, This debate is largely left out of the Oliver Stone version of Vietnam In 1963, agents of the John Birch Society at State and the Pay of Pigs cowboys in the CIA engineered the coup and assassination of the Diem brothers that ended the debate and lost the war, My analysis of the diploacy at that point was that Kennedy and Khrushev had developed a constructive relationship and a diplomatic solution would have emerged that sustaine the parition, but the trinity of the Mafia, Cia and John Birch Society had orgained Kennedy's death. MLK's assassination was purely a John Birch Society project, as was the asassination of George Lincoln Rockwell, the America Fhurer, MLK's death was purely the same white supremacist impulse behind the current anti-DEI campaign of the Trump administration George Lincoln Rockwell's deaath became necessary when Pat Buchanan became a speach writer for Nixon and the John Birch Society wasnted to erase an link between the two men, Buchanan was raised here in the District and he was a typical Far Right street thug, George Lincoln Rockwell's headquaters were across the Potomac in Arlington: friends drove me past his ranch house of Lee Highway one night in 1964 when I was up here visiting. George Lincoln Rockwell was absolute catnip to a YAF thug like Buchanan, If you study the rheoric from Rockwell's National Socialist populism on YouTube, it is precisely the populist voice Pat Buchanan;s Presiedential stump speach and Steve Bannon's ghost writing for Trump's first inagural address, Buchanan was never indicted for Watergate, but he was up to his eyebalss in the Plumbers and the Plumbers was the leading edge of the Movement Conervatives in the Reagan administration with the SUpply Side Marxism of Project 2025. In this regards,  Gerald Posner's Case Closed is just a 6th Floor continuing deflection from the on-going nazification of the John Birch Society that began with William F, Buckley's Sharon Statement in 1960 committed to sabotaging Eisenhower's 1056 Presidential Platform, electing a Joe McCarth Clone and overthrowing the US COnstitution,   And Jackie Kennedy is the evidence that the case is still wide open and running Steve Bannon's agenda to dismantle the adminstrative state. Just for the record, Sirhan Sirhan, Mark Chapman and John Hinkley were authentic lone gunman

[retoxdiet]

My library only has two Gerald Posner books. Like, y'all. You could have bought every single one of his books with the ridiculous amount of money I pay in late fees, which one could argue could have been spent on the books for my own collection instead (well shit).

[normal-horoscopes]

CT, wanted to know if you had any advice for determining conspiracies/misinformation from like... real people sharing experiences & information. especially rn with things like worker’s rights movements being suppressed by corporate propaganda, the US government deflecting the responsibility of the pandemic onto individuals (instead of their policies), etc etc.

I know you do a lot of research and I was taught in school that “official sources” like the government were reliable. hoping you might have some tips or pointers for ppl like me

First off, there's really no magic bullet for this. If you want a great example of a journalist separating the genuine facts from the conspiracist chaff, check out Gerald Posner's "Case Closed: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Assassination of JFK" it's a fantastic read that demonstrates how to approach conspiracy-laden topics without getting lost. Within occult philosophy, we call the ability to tell fact from wooy nonsense discernment. (I'm going to cover this exact topic in my book.)

When I want to really dive into something, I start with the shotgun approach. I collect as much information as I can. I read books, articles, watch videos, delve into chat rooms, the works.

The main thing you want to look for at this point is conflicting narratives. Ask yourself where you see sources disagreeing. Weigh the different viewpoints against each other. Who has sources? Are those sources reliable? Does the person who wrote the source have anything to gain? Who pays their bills?

If you were to write out a timeline, it will probably look like a tree, or a river that branches when sources disagree, and recombines when the sources agree. The goal is to prune that tree into a single solid trunk by finding out which version of events is true to reality.

I hope this helps!