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On Fake News, Mendacity, Social Media, and the Modern Circus

On Fake News, Mendacity, Social Media, and the Modern Circus

Last updated on: July 7, 2025 at 12:35 pm by Dan Peterson

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On Fake News, Mendacity, Social Media, and the Modern Circus 2025-07-07T12:35:39-06:00 Dan Peterson

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President John F. Kennedy (Wikimedia Commons public domain image)

The rant immediately below was posted to Facebook on 23 April 2025. I omit the name of its author out of charity but also because I don’t know him and have no wish to embarrass him. However, it’s definitely now in the public domain:

YUUP ! —— It took 50 years, but the truth is finally out. The Warren Commission lied. The government covered it up. JFK’s assassination was not the act of a lone gunman — it was a full-blown military intelligence coup. SCREW YOU, LBJ. I always smelled a Rat, and you were the Big one. JFK had signed The Tonkin Act, effecting pulling all troops out of Southeast Asia-(Vietnam). Lady Byrd Johnson owned control and interest in Kellog/ Brown & Root, later merge KBR, INC, Halliburton, Inc. who made most of the munitions the United States Military used to fight the Vietnam War. Just one small piece of the puzzle. Part – The Military Industrial Complex. The day after JFK was assassinated, President Lyndon Baines Johnson rescinded the Tonkin Act, giving President Lyndon Baines Johnson authority to increase involvement in the war between North and South Vietnam.

Declassified documents released January 30, 2025, expose what many of us have long suspected: JFK was murdered by the very system he tried to dismantle. He challenged the Federal Reserve, the CIA, and the shadow elite. He signed Executive Order 11110 to return to sound money. Within months, he was dead. And what followed was decades of lies, cover-ups, and silencing of truth.

The files reveal CIA death squads (Operation Execute), a “JFK hit memo” from the Federal Reserve, and names like E. Howard Hunt, David Atlee Phillips, and even George H.W. Bush linked to that dark day in Dallas. Even more chilling — JFK knew they were coming for him. A newly surfaced audio tape confirms it. “They’ll come for me soon… But if I fall, let history know I tried to warn them.”

Remind you of anyone???

The parallels to President Donald J. Trump are right in front of us. Two men, decades apart, both targeted by the same Deep State machine. Both tried to return power to the people. Both exposed the lies of the industrial and financial slavery system. And both paid — or are paying — the price for defying the system.

JFK’s death was the day America lost its innocence. But January 30, 2025, was the day the veil was finally lifted.

History isn’t just repeating — it’s screaming at us. The question is: are we listening now???

— [Author’s Name Redacted]

2025 MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!

On 2 July 2025, my friend and Interpreter Foundation colleague Steve Densley posted this response to Facebook and, with his kind permission, I reproduce it here. I think that it offers wise and tempering counsel:

I’ve seen this post pop up on my feed numerous times today. (It has been shared 74K times since it was first posted in April.) When you see posts making big claims like this one, it’s important to pause and analyze before we accept or share them. Here are some tips:

Check the Evidence

• Does the post provide verifiable facts or just dramatic statements? There is no evidence to back up any of the claims made in this post. We are just expected to take this guy’s word for what the newly disclosed documents say. When there are no links to official documents, reputable news outlets, or expert analysis, you should be skeptical.

• There are some claims you can check for yourself. For example, he claims “The day after JFK was assassinated, President Lyndon Baines Johnson rescinded the Tonkin Act.” Try Googling “Tonkin Act.” You’ll find that it was passed on August 7, 1964. Since JFK died in November of 1963, it was impossible for LBJ to rescind the Act on the day after JFK died since the Act did not yet exist.

Evaluate the Source

• Who wrote the post? Is he a recognized expert? His Facebook profile indicates he retired from Kraft as a packer. Reliable information usually comes from people with proven expertise in the subject.

Watch for Emotional Manipulation

• Does the text use strong emotional language (“SCREW YOU, LBJ”)? Conspiracy theories often rely on emotion rather than facts to persuade.

Look for Logical Fallacies

• Are there leaps in logic (“JFK signed X, so Y happened, therefore Z is true”)? Ask: does the conclusion follow from the evidence, or are there gaps and assumptions?

Seek Corroboration

• Is the story backed up by multiple, independent, and reputable sources? If only fringe sites or social media posts support a claim, it’s probably not reliable. This particular claim is huge, and depends on the facts that appear in recently declassified documents. It seems highly likely that if the documents confirmed a conspiracy, multiple, reputable, sources would have published on this already and not just some retired Kraft packer. Here’s one example of a reputable source that reports on the analysis of these documents: https://www.ap.org/…/newly-released-jfk-assassination…/

Consider Alternative Explanations

• Are other, less sensational explanations ignored or dismissed? Conspiracy theories often present a single, dramatic narrative and reject all other, often simpler, explanations.

Fact-Check

• Use fact-checking sites like Snopes or Politifact to see what evidence exists for or against the claim. For example, see here: https://www.politifact.com/…/no-jfk-did-not-plan-end…/

We live in a time of deep distrust of institutions and of each other. The stability of our society in countless ways depends on mutual trust. Please don’t further undermine that trust by spreading unverified, sensational, claims such as this.

Since he’s anonymous, I can’t absolutely guarantee that this is an actual photograph of the clown in question. (Wikimedia Commons public domain image)

You may have encountered the English noun tell, which refers to an unconscious, habitual give-away gesture or action that is thought to betray a deception. For example, someone may tend to look at the ground when lying, or a gambler may scratch his nose or ear when bluffing.

For the past ten or fifteen years, I’ve somehow attracted the obsessive notice of a wildly mendacious anonymous critic out there who goes by a moniker resembling “Everybody’s WC,” but to whom I sometimes refer as my “Mini-Stalker.” (Among his most recent tale tales are these two gems: [1] My work on Six Days in August and on our currently-in-production series of short videos under the title of Becoming Brigham is motivated by a homoerotic fixation on the late Brigham Young (d. 1877). [2] That fixation was also manifest in the fawning and painfully clingy attentions that I paid on the set of Six Days in August to the actor who played Brigham. According to my anonymous Mini-Stalker’s purported anonymous sources, my transparently gay behavior on set caught the embarrassed gaze of the entire film crew, even though, to the best of my recollection, I was never once present on the set of the film. Either he’s lying, or his “sources,” sensing his voraciously over-eager appetite for such nonsense, are lying to him. I’m inclined to the former explanation. It’s simpler.)

But back to “tells.” One of my Mini-Stalker’s tells is that when (as he often does) he writes “Folks, you just can’t make stuff like this up,” it’s an almost infallible indication that he has, in fact, just made something up.

Posted from Calgary, Alberta, Canada

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