Suggested Answers to the Short Quiz

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Click here for our Short Quiz entitled “Big Tech’s Attempts to Cancel Reading Liberally.”

In short, Big Tech was upset that we focused 4 times on FISA and Authoritarian Rule By Our Intelligence Services.

By doing so, Big Tech was cancelling indirectly the champions of the non-FISA solution to terrorism --

1. Tim Russert the Moderator of Meet the Press 1991-2008 and the NBC’s Washington Bureau Chief 1990-2008;

2. Tom Brokaw the Anchor and Managing Editor of the NBC Nightly News 1982-2004;

3. Graham Allison the Founding Dean of Harvard U’s Kennedy School of Government 1977-1989 and (after serving as President Clinton’s Assistant Secretary of Defense for Policy and Plans 1993-1994) the Director of Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs 1995-2017;

4. U.S. Senator Sam Nunn - D-GA and Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman 1987-1995;

5. U.S. Senator Richard Lugar - R-IN and Senate Foreign Relations Chairman 2003-2007;

6. Thomas Kean - Chair of The 9/11 Commission; and

7. Lee Hamilton - Co-Chair of The 9/11 Commission.
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johnkarls
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Joined: Fri Jun 29, 2007 8:43 pm

Suggested Answers to the Short Quiz

Post by johnkarls »

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Suggested Answers to the Short Quiz – Big Tech’s Attempts To Cancel Reading Liberally


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A. Introduction – Whom Big Tech Was Cancelling Indirectly

Question A-1

Was Tim Russert the Moderator of Meet the Press 1991-2008 and the NBC’s Washington Bureau Chief 1990-2008?

Answer A-1

Yes.

Question A-2

Was Tom Brokaw the Anchor and Managing Editor of the NBC Nightly News 1982-2004?

Answer A-2

Yes.

Question A-3

Was Graham Allison the Founding Dean of Harvard U’s Kennedy School of Government in which capacity he served 1977-1989? After serving as President Clinton’s Assistant Secretary of Defense for Policy and Plans 1993-1994, did Prof. Allison return to Harvard as Director of Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs 1995-2017?

Answer A-3

Yes – Yes.

Question A-4

In Big Tech’s continuous attempts to cancel Reading Liberally - Salt Lake, was Big Tech attempting to cancel us because of our four studies (5/10/2017, 12/13/2017, 5/16/2018 and 10/31/2018) of various ramifications of the UNITED FRONT of Tim Russert, Tom Brokaw and Graham Allison with respect to “Authoritarian Rule By Our Intelligence Services”?

Answer A-4

Yes.

Question A-5

BTW, was the UNITED FRONT of Russert – Brokaw – Allison CHAMPIONED BY former U.S. Senator Sam Nunn (D-GA and Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman 1987-1995), U.S. Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN and Senate Foreign Relations Chairman 2003-2007), and Messrs. Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton (Chair and Co-Chair of The 9/11 Commission)?

Answer A-5

Yes.


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B. The Issue Russert/Brokaw/Allison/Nunn/Lugar/Kean/Hamilton Were Addressing

Question B-1

Did the first of Osama bin Laden’s five fatwās, this one entitled “Declaration of War Against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places” and issued in 1996 say (translation courtesy of the PBS Newshour) – “A martyr’s privileges are guaranteed by Allah: forgiveness with the first gush of his blood, he will be shown his seat in paradise, he will be decorated with the jewels of belief (Imaan), married off to the beautiful ones, protected from the test in the grave, assured security in the day of judgement, crowned with the crown of dignity, a ruby of which is better than this whole world (Duniah) and its entire content, wedded to seventy two of the pure Houries (beautiful ones of Paradise) and his intercession on the behalf of seventy of his relatives will be accepted.”???

Answer B-1

Yes.

Question B-2

Has Iran Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said exactly the same thing about Islamic martyrs by-passing a fearsome Judgment Day and going directly to Heaven where each will immediately marry 72 virgins and where each can also enable 70 close relatives to also by-pass the Judgment Day when they pass away???

Answer B-2

Yes.

Additional information about Iran Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is available at viewtopic.php?f=570&t=1860&p=2566&hilit ... aab9#p2566.

Question B-3

BTW, is the belief that 70 close relatives of Islamic martyrs will by-pass the Judgment Day and go directly to Heaven when they pass away, the reason why news footage usually depicts relatives of martyrs REJOICING RATHER THAN MOURNING???

Answer B-3

So it would seem.

Question B-4

Did another of Osama bin Laden’s five fatwās require each of his followers to nuke 10 million Americans???

Answer B-4

Yes.

Question B-5

Is a fatwā the solemn religious duty of every follower of the issuer (in the case of Osama, every member of Al Qaeda, ISIS (formerly Al Qaeda in Iraq), Al Qaeda in the Maghreb (North Africa), al-Shabbaab (Somalia, Kenya and Yemen), etc., etc.???

Answer B-5

Yes.

Question B-6

Is it IMPOSSIBLE TO REVOKE OSAMA BIN LADEN’S FATWĀ TO NUKE 10 MILLION AMERICANS now that Osama is dead (a principle the Brits learned in 1989 when trying to re-establish diplomatic relations with Iran following the death of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini during the course of which The Brits requested the revocation of Khomeini’s fatwā to assassinate Salman Rushdie, author of The Satanic Verses)???

Answer B-6

Yes.


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C. The Russert/Brokaw/Allison/Nunn/Lugar/Kean/Hamilton Solution vs. Congress’ Defiance

Question C-1

Was the Russert/Brokaw/Allison/Nunn/Lugar/Kean/Hamilton solution contained in Dean Graham Allison’s “Nuclear Terrorism: The Ultimate Preventable Catastrophe” (Times Books 8/9/2004)???

Answer C-1

Yes.

Question C-2

Was their opinion that the only way to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of terrorists while preserving democracy would be to control fissile material the way we used to control gold at Fort Knox???

Answer C-2

Yes.

Question C-3

And instead, didn’t the US Government (WITH THE COMPLICITY OF THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA) decide to deal with Osama’s fatwā to nuke 10 million Americans by VASTLY INCREASING THE POWERS UNDER THE FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE SURVEILLANCE ACT (“FISA”) to spy on everyone, INCLUDING AMERICANS WITHOUT any warrant from a FISA Court provided that either the Attorney General or the Director of National Intelligence declared an “emergency” pursuant to FISA Sec. 702(c)???

Answer C-3

Yes.


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D. Our Four Studies of Various Ramifications of Congress’ Defiance of the Russert/Brokaw/Allison/Nunn/Lugar/Kean/Hamilton Solution

Question D-1

Did our 5/10/2017 meeting focus on FISA and “Authoritarian Rule by Our Intelligence Services”? Was our focus book George Orwell’s classic “1984”???

Answer D-1

Yes – Yes.

Question D-2

Did our 12/13/2017 meeting focus on the Congressional renewal of FISA which would have expired in toto if not extended??? Was our focus book Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s “Heretic: Why Islam Needs A Reformation Now”???

Answer D-2

Yes – Yes.

Question D-3(a)

Did our 5/16/2018 meeting focus on, inter alia, the zillions of FISA abuses that had occurred (such as unmaskings of American citizens who had been surveilled without warrants) -- more than 100 American citizens even unmasked by Samantha Power, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations who obviously did NOT have a need to know such information???

Answer D-3(a)

Yes.

Question D-3(b)

BTW, did such FISA abuses comprise POLITICAL WARFARE and demonstrate the FAUSTIAN BARGAIN pursuant to which CONGRESS SOLD AMERICA’S SOUL (democracy and freedom from Orwellian-Style Authoritarian Rule) in exchange for protection (which is NOT absolute and may NOT EVEN be as good as the protection from controlling fissile material the way we used to control gold at Fort Knox) from having 10 million Americans nuked???

Answer D-3(b)

What do you think??? Let’s discuss!!!

Question D-4(a)

Did our 10/31/2018 meeting focus on the FISA abuses employed by our Intelligence Services against President Trump during the Russia Hoax??? Was the Russia Hoax definitively debunked by the Mueller investigation???

Answer D-4(a)

Yes – Yes.

Question D-4(b)

Was our focus book for 10/31/2018 “Gregg Jarrett’s “The Russia Hoax: The Illicit Scheme To Clear Hillary Clinton and Frame Donald Trump” (Broadside Books 7/24/2018) which had been a NY Times Bestseller since its issuance???

Answer D-4(b)

Yes.

Question D-4(c)

BTW, does the 2/28/2021 resignation as U.S. Attorney by John Durham (who was appointed to investigate and prosecute FISA abuses by individuals at the top of our Intelligence Services) mean that the AMERICAN TRADITION OF REFUSING TO PROSECUTE THE HIGHEST POLS & GOVERMENTAL OFFICIALS FOR THEIR NUMEROUS FELONIES will continue???

Answer D-4(c)

What do you think??? Let’s discuss!!!

When John Durham resigned 2/28/2021 as U.S. Attorney, he did NOT resign as “Special Counsel for the Department of Justice to investigate the origins of the Trump-Russia collusion probe.”

Attorney General Barr appointed John Durham “Special Counsel…” in October 2020 under the same federal regulations that governed special counsel Robert Mueller in the original Russia probe.

HOWEVER, it is respectfully suggested that the Mueller investigation was NOT protected by federal regulations, BUT INSTEAD was protected by the microscopic attention given by Democrats and the mainstream media to any threat to the investigation, perceived or imagined.

IT WILL BE INTERESTING whether, in the presumed-absence of protection from the mainstream media, the Republicans (many of whom were/are “Never Trumpers”) can provide the same level of protection for the Durham investigation!!!

After all, the results of the Durham investigation were originally expected a year ago in early 2020!!!

And after indicting solely a junior FBI attorney in August 2020 for falsifying a document presented to the FISA Court (to make the document say that a Trump official was NOT a CIA asset, rather than the opposite), John Durham “does not seem to have a friend in the world” as the old saying goes!!!


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E. The Attempts By Big Tech To CANCEL Reading Liberally

Question E-1

Did the nation’s largest e-mail providers refuse on numerous occasions to deliver our weekly e-mails???

Answer E-1

Yes.

Question E-2

How did we first discover that Big Tech was censoring/cancelling us???

Answer E-2

“The Canary In The Coal Mine”

[From viewtopic.php?f=547&t=1793&p=2480&hilit ... b185#p2480).]

We became aware that on or about 9/1/2018, Major E-mail Providers were refusing to deliver our e-mails courtesy of our “Canary In The Coal Mine” – Barbara Washburn.

Barbara is typical of about 1/3 of our approximately 150 weekly e-mail recipients who are old friends whom I haven’t seen in decades but who like to keep in touch from their locations around the world -- at least in touch one-way by reading the e-mails.

[In Barbara’s case, she especially liked the e-mails that contained the quizzes and suggested answers because she was teaching high school history for the two years that I knew her 1965-6 after she received a Masters from Harvard Ed School and she liked the insights from someone (Yours Truly) who had read 12-15 historical tomes and biographies PER YEAR for the 33 years he was married to the co-author of the nation’s best-selling High-School World-History textbook (McGraw-Hill with National Geographic illustrations) in order to uncover overlooked nuggets for possible inclusion in the next edition, of which there were 6 during the 33 years. As well as continuing to read 20-25 tomes/biographies PER YEAR for the 19.5 years since the “gavel went down” because Old Dogs don’t learn new tricks.]

[Barbara also liked the public-policy raison d’être of our organization because, after I knew her, she attended Georgetown Law School and then spent her career as the chief tax-law lobbyist in Washington DC for General Motors.]

Nevertheless, Barbara is typical of about 1/3 of our 150 weekly e-mail recipients because even though I haven’t seen her in 52.5 years (she had never participated in one of our meetings via Skype), she had been receiving our weekly e-mails for more than a decade.

And when they stopped arriving in the early Fall of 2018, she e-mailed me to find out what had happened.

And both of us were appalled to find out that, like was to be discovered regarding the overwhelming majority of our other e-mail recipients, her e-mail provider (Verizon.net) was simply refusing to deliver them!!!

Question E-3

How did we know that the reason Big Tech was censoring/cancelling us was our non-partisan public-policy interest in Authoritarian Rule By Our Intelligence Services???

Answer E-3

“My Theory Based On Timing”

[From viewtopic.php?f=547&t=1793&p=2480&hilit ... b185#p2480.]

On four occasions we have discussed “Authoritarian Rule By Our Intelligence Services.”

Because of the public-policy implications of the way the U.S. Government decided to deal with Osama bin Laden’s fatwā to nuke 10 million Americans –

(1) Which is the solemn RELIGIOUS DUTY of all his followers including every member of Al Qaeda, ISIS (previously Al Qaeda in Iraq), etc., and

(2) Which cannot be revoked following the death of Osama bin Laden, the issuer of the fatwā -- as the Brits learned in 1989 when trying to re-establish diplomatic relations with Iran following the death of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini during the course of which The Brits requested the revocation of Khomeini’s fatwā to assassinate Salman Rushdie, author of The Satanic Verses.

The Founding Dean of Harvard U’s Kennedy School of Government, Graham Allison, wrote a famous book about how to deal with Osama’s fatwā entitled “Nuclear Terrorism: The Ultimate Preventable Catastrophe” which recommended tight world-wide control by the nuclear powers of fissile uranium/plutonium the way the US Government used to control its supply of gold at Fort Knox.

Graham Allison's recommendations were NOT followed despite the endorsement and exhaustive supportive efforts of former U.S. Senator Sam Nunn (D-GA and Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman 1987-1995), U.S. Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN and Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman 2003-2007) and Messrs. Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton (Chair and Co-Chair of The 9/11 Commission).

And despite the efforts of Tim Russert to publicize the efforts of Nunn/Lugar/Kean/Hamilton on Meet The Press and Tom Brokaw’s participation in a Docu-Drama produced by Nunn/Lugar/Kean/Hamilton.

Instead, the US Government decided to deal with Osama’s fatwā to nuke 10 million Americans by VASTLY INCREASING THE POWERS UNDER THE FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE SURVEILLANCE ACT (“FISA”) to spy on everyone, INCLUDING AMERICANS WITHOUT any warrant from a FISA Court provided the Attorney General or the Director of National Intelligence declared an “emergency” pursuant to FISA Sec. 702(c)!!!

Is it any wonder that THE INTELLIGENCE SERVICES WOULD SOON BE WEAPONIZED for use against political opponents???

Our 5/10/2017 meeting focused on George Orwell’s “1984” featuring “Big Brother” – with our meeting topic trumpeted as “Authoritarian Rule By Our Intelligence Services.”

Our 12/13/2017 meeting focused on the issue again because FISA was up for renewal (it was extended for 6 years without change!!!)!!!

Our 5/16/2018 meeting approved one of our Six-Degrees-Of-Separation E-mail Campaigns – this one to US Attorney General Jeff Sessions which concluded (the entire letter is available for download in Section 1 of our Bulletin Board) –

“Accordingly, it was the unanimous opinion of the participants at our 5/16/2018 meeting that you should institute prosecutions for such obvious criminal behavior imperiling our national security as (A) the Clinton Foundation in general and Uranium One in particular, (B) Hillary putting top-secret documents on a personal computer server that was less secure than g-mail and that was hacked by at least 5 foreign governments, (C) Hillary and the DNC buying false “opposition research” from the Kremlin and distributing it to the mainstream media while masking their deeds by using the Perkins Coie law firm as their agent to accomplish these illegal activities, and (D) rigging the Democratic Primaries against Bernie Sanders who was the only candidate in 2016, other than Donald Trump, standing up for American workers (which should comprise a “slam dunk” case of criminally defrauding all of Bernie Sanders’ zillions of small campaign contributors). Saving our democracy requires no less!!! And, if you refuse, May God Have Mercy On Your Soul!!!”

During our recent sabbatical, our 10/5/2018 e-mail to our approximately 150 members announced a meeting on the subject of “Authoritarian Rule By Our Intelligence Services - Part IV.”

So is there any wonder that the Major E-mail Providers began refusing to deliver our e-mails???

And to begin trying to shut us down when they did???

Which, incidentally, was just before the 2018 mid-terms -- in addition to coinciding with their growing realization that we were NOT going to forget about the THREAT TO DEMOCRACY caused by the WEAPONIZATION OF THE INTELLIGENCE SERVICES!!!

The irony???

We have been viewing this as a long-term public-policy issue, since the Intelligence Services can be weaponized by any Administration, Republican or Democratic, to cause the Death of Democracy.

And it would appear that the Major E-mail Providers are viewing this simply as a short-term partisan political (vs. public policy) issue, for which they feel a need to go to war against us to protect the criminals in the last Administration.

I fully realize that their war against us may cause the death of our organization.

But nothing lasts forever!!!

And I cannot think of a more noble reason for our demise!!!

Question E-4

Did we create a stink on the basis that e-mail has effectively supplanted the US Postal Service and it is a MAJOR-LEAGUE FELONY for US postal workers to steam open and read letters in order to decide whether they want to deliver them???

Answer E-4

Yes.

Question E-5

Why did that “stink” fail to solve the problem???

Answer E-5

It would appear that Big Tech believes that it has a right to censor free speech!!!

BTW, Big Tech has continued to refuse to deliver our weekly e-mails if they are sent out in batches.

But apparently Big Tech does NOT have the gall to refuse to deliver them if they are sent one-by-one. Which, as explained in greater detail in the next Q&A, is what Yours Truly spends 2.5 hours doing pre-dawn every Saturday while listening to opera recordings.

But how many organizations have someone who loves opera enough to have tossed more than 3,000 bouquets to opera stars over more decades than I would care to admit -- because that is the kind of "one in a million" feature that an organization needs to survive Big Tech's censorship/cancellation!!!

Question E-6

What “one in a million” feature of our organization enabled us to survive Big Tech’s censorship/cancellation???

Answer E-6

Excerpts from the “Meeting Report” for our 1/13/2021 meeting.

[The report is available at viewtopic.php?f=624&t=2020&p=2756&hilit ... b185#p2756.]

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First Excerpt

.....there is another kind of CENSORSHIP that our own group has faced on more than one occasion.

The first-time was 9/1/2018 when major e-mail providers refused to deliver our weekly e-mails to our members.

The “canary in the coal mine” was a former girl friend from my law school days whom I hadn’t seen or directly communicated with in 52 years but who had gone on to graduate from Georgetown Law School and to spend her career as the chief “in house” Washington DC lobbyist for General Motors. Like many of our members, she liked receiving our weekly e-mails and reading many of our focus books herself, even though she still has never participated in one of our meetings. On 9/1/2018 she sent an e-mail inquiring why she was no longer receiving our weekly e-mails.

Our 192 members use 32 different e-mail providers such as Gmail, Yahoo, AOL and Verizon. [The “canary in the coal mine” used/uses Verizon for her e-mail.]

Although the e-mail providers would NOT explain the reason for their refusal, it was obvious that they did NOT like our discussing “Authoritarian Rule By Our Intelligence Services” and FISA abuse – we have had four meetings that focused on various aspects of this issue.

We confronted many of them, most memorably Comcast because it was refusing to deliver our e-mails to more than a dozen of our members including George Kunath who is a former NYC partner with whom I have been having a weekly multi-hour gabfest about “everything under the sun” for 33 years and counting.

Both Comcast and Dreamhost, my e-mail provider and website host, refused to explain why Comcast was refusing to deliver to George Kunath the weekly e-mails from Reading Liberally’s e-mail hosted by Dreamhost!!!

But we “raised a stink” with all 32 e-mail providers based on the argument that they had effectively replaced the US Postal Service and it is a MAJOR LEAGUE FELONY for any letter sent via the US Postal Service to be steamed open and its contents read before the miscreant USPS worker decides whether to deliver the letter!!!

HOWEVER, the solution which was NOT offered by the 32 e-mail providers but was stumbled across by TRIAL-AND-ERROR, was to send out each e-mail individually pre-dawn on Saturdays.

NO GREAT HARDSHIP for Yours Truly, because I look forward to listening in the middle of the night once/week to one of 700-plus historic Metropolitan Opera live-broadcast recordings from their streaming service.

[Though nonetheless a small hardship because the Met’s streaming service, like its 12/year theatercasts around the world of live Sat matinee performances since 2006, is billed as “Hi Def” – when, in fact, the “Hi Definition” refers to video and the audio is the LOW FIDELITY with which the world has been plagued ever since the advent of digital audio!!! But I can’t complain too much because I have virtually every one of those Sat matinee performances from the 1960’s thru 2000 recorded on an open-reel Revox, the kind you see in movies about the CIA, which featured analog rather than digital!!! Because I am obviously too lazy in the middle of the night to dig out and play an open-reel analog recording of a Met radio broadcast rather than simply calling up the same performance from the Met’s digital library where, unlike my recordings, each is catalogued and cross-referenced in zillions of different ways including performers.]

BTW, another skirmish with the e-mail providers occurred 6/18/2019 but we “raised a stink” again and the effectiveness of our modus vivendi of sending out our weekly e-mails individually to our 192 members was restored.


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Second Excerpt (from an exchange of e-mails, a so-called “reply” to the meeting report)

Reur Q about why my Jan 13 Meeting Report contained a PS on the difference between digital and analog audio recordings that you claimed was 21.7% of the length of the Meeting Report itself –

FIRST, the brief discussion in the Meeting Report itself about the lengths to which our organization was driven by Big Tech CENSORSHIP in order to SURVIVE was extremely worthwhile.

After all, most organizations would have been killed by such CENSORSHIP!!!

SECOND, I did NOT want anyone to think that I was especially heroic for enabling our organization to survive such Big Tech CENSORSHIP!!!

But how many organizations have a person who likes opera enough that he has tossed more than 3,000 bouquets to opera stars over more decades than I would care to admit???

Because that is the kind of fortuitous luck that an organization needs to survive Big Tech CENSORSHIP!!!

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