Patterico's Pontifications

11/22/2013

Today Is the 50th Anniversary of the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 7:41 am



It’s a momentous occasion — a remembrance of one of the few days in history when everyone who was alive remembers where they were and what they were doing when they heard the news.

I want to say only a couple of things.

First, Lee Harvey Oswald was the killer. There is no credible evidence that anyone else was involved. Have you been to the Sixth Floor Museum in Dallas? You can stand very near the exact spot where Oswald took his shot, and look down at the “x” on the street that marks where Kennedy was hit. It doesn’t look that far. In pictures, it might look far, but pictures never tell the real story. It’s not that far.

Second, JFK had his faults, but he was a very witty and engaging personality who captured the country’s imagination. (And he lowered taxes!) His death was a tragedy for the country, as would be the death of any American president.

Dallas is holding its first memorial to JFK today. The city unfairly took a black eye for this assassination, when the only black eye it truly deserved was being a clone of those Eastern cities. (That’s the Fort Worth boy in me talking.)

I hope this is a day the country can come together, but in Harry Reid’s hyperpartisan America, I’m realistic enough to doubt this is possible.

325 Responses to “Today Is the 50th Anniversary of the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy”

  1. Ding.

    Patterico (9c670f)

  2. OK, I was born in 1961, so I was alive when Kennedy was shot and I don’t remember where I was. Hell, I don’t remember where I was when Reagan was shot.

    My mother claimed that her first thought was “Oh, the poor man. He’ll become another McKinley.”

    Pity that he didn’t.

    He was a second rate political hack with good teeth, nice hair, and an absolutely first rate political machine bought for him by his Daddy. One of the many tragedies of the Democrat party is that they BELIEVE the Kennedy hagiography, and keep nominating people who remind them of him. That gets them the likes of Clinton (good teeth, nice hair, the same satyriasis, two thirds of the Kennedy charm and about half of the smarts), and Kerry (same accent, same odd reputation for heroism associated with small boats … sadly, his personality is more like old Joe Kennedy’s).

    P.J. O’Rourke said of the Kennedys that “It’s always tempting to impute unlikely virtues to the cute.”

    The sooner we can forget this clan of Bog Irish mammy-jammers, the better.

    C. S. P. Schofield (e8b801)

  3. It’s not rocket science. I’m surprised you don’t mention the Hickey nonsense. I know the lawyer who represented the SS agent fighting the puerile story. What physics made his head snap back toward the round coming from the rear, whether Hickey or Oswald?

    This silly misdirection is as silly as single-shooter maroons.

    gilgamesh (1fbd99)

  4. P.J. O’Rourke said of the Kennedys that “It’s always tempting to impute unlikely virtues to the cute.”

    If people don’t understand the way that the superficial is a big dynamic behind the image of Kennedy, try to envision him with the face of, say, Herbert Hoover, his wife with the face of Bess Truman, and his two children living in the White House as teenagers (eg, George W Bush’s two daughters), or with the appearance of plain-looking brats.

    Of course, he also was liberal enough to not disturb many Democrats and left-leaning people in general, then or now, so he’d get a pass from them regardless of the facade built around him.

    Mark (58ea35)

  5. The anniversary of the Kennedy assassination would mean more to me had not the beatification of all things Kennedy become a thriving industry directed by grieving relatives and academic/political hacks for the last 50 years, and had not brother Teddy and the younger generation pissed away any goodwill the family had earned by behaving in an entitled and obnoxious fashion then fallen back on family tragedy every time they got into trouble.

    JVW (709bc7)

  6. What physics made his head snap back toward the round coming from the rear, whether Hickey or Oswald?

    PBS’s Nova series did a documentary on the assassination several years ago, which was narrated by none other than Walter Cronkite, and the scrutiny of the case by a science-based show with a long track record totally convinced me that the Warren Commission was correct.

    Mark (58ea35)

  7. I described my memories of that day and subsequent weekend on another thread. The WP and the NYT both ran pieces the other day that try to blame what they describe as an ultra-conservative atmosphere in Dallas as the reason for the assassination. It’s strange how they refuse to come to grips with the fact that it was a Castro-loving lefty who was responsible for this murder. A niece and nephew of JFK couldn’t bring themselves to set the record straight last Sunday w/Chris Wallace and the niece (RFK’s daughter Kathleen) scoffed at the notion that JFK was any kind of conservative.

    11/22/63 was a very sad day for the USA, and for far more than the loss of that man.

    Colonel Haiku (86ce72)

  8. I stood at that window looking out, along with walking around the memorial 25 years ago this past July and it gave me chills.

    Colonel Haiku (86ce72)

  9. Steve Hayward over at Powerline reminds us that today is also the 50th anniversary of the death of C.S. Lewis. He quotes this from Lewis’s Abolition of Man, and then adds his two cents immediately afterwards:

    The last men, far from being heirs of power, will be of all men most subject to the dead hand of the great planners and conditioners and will themselves exercise least power upon the future. . . Man’s conquest of Nature, if the dreams of some scientific planners are realized, means the rule of a few hundreds of men over billions upon billions of men.

    And thus, behold the constituency and ruling ethos of the modern Democratic Party.

    JVW (709bc7)

  10. Patterico:

    The city unfairly took a black eye for this assassination, when the only black eye it truly deserved was being a clone of those Eastern cities. (That’s the Fort Worth boy in me talking.)

    This West Texas girl agrees. Dallas is where the East begins, and that’s not a compliment.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  11. Of course, only Texans view the East as “beginning” in Dallas. Everyone else sees Dallas as where the East peters out.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  12. H/T Will Rogers.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  13. First, Lee Harvey Oswald was the killer. There is no credible evidence that anyone else was involved. Have you been to the Sixth Floor Museum in Dallas? You can stand very near the exact spot where Oswald took his shot, and look down at the “x” on the street that marks where Kennedy was hit. It doesn’t look that far. In pictures, it might look far, but pictures never tell the real story. It’s not that far.

    A second point always brought out the the second – grassy knowl theory is Kennedy’s head rocks backward after the shot hits the head which would imply a shot from the front.
    However, the two zapruder film frames immediately preceding the frame showing the head rocking back show brain matter spewing forward from the front of the head which demonstrates the shot was from the rear.

    Joe (debac0)

  14. He had faults and virtues. He was an unapologetic McCarthyite. That’s not a fault, it’s a virtue, though one that his worshipers would rather forget. But he was also a racist; he really had that gag reflex about interracial marriage, with which Richard Cohen tried to smear the TEA Party movement, and he didn’t repress it, he just kept it quiet.

    Milhouse (82b1e0)

  15. Penn & Teller did a demonstration with a head-sized melon, showing clearly how a shot from behind can make the melon fall backwards. (Of course I don’t know how many takes they had to do to get it right, but the fact that it can be done is enough to show that it could have happened on its own.)

    Milhouse (82b1e0)

  16. Oh great, I was in sixth grade headed back after lunch.

    I am so getting old.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  17. My favourite C.S. Lewis quote: “Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can’. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God.”

    Milhouse (82b1e0)

  18. Well, that and “What do they teach them at these schools?”

    Milhouse (82b1e0)

  19. What physics made his head snap back toward the round coming from the rear,

    Jet effect. Actually explained by Nobel award winning physicist Alvarez.

    SPQR (768505)

  20. I described my memories of that day and subsequent weekend on another thread. The WP and the NYT both ran pieces the other day that try to blame what they describe as an ultra-conservative atmosphere in Dallas as the reason for the assassination. It’s strange how they refuse to come to grips with the fact that it was a Castro-loving lefty who was responsible for this murder. A niece and nephew of JFK couldn’t bring themselves to set the record straight last Sunday w/Chris Wallace and the niece (RFK’s daughter Kathleen) scoffed at the notion that JFK was any kind of conservative.

    11/22/63 was a very sad day for the USA, and for far more than the loss of that man.

    To paraphrase another president – JFK did not leave the democrat party, the democrat party left JFK

    The left seems to forget that oswald tried to assassinate the Army General (walker? a fairly conservative general) in Dallas a few weeks prior to the kennedy assassination.
    The Left seems to forget the JFK was also anti-communist, something today’s left idolizes (and yesterday’s left idolizes).

    Joe (debac0)

  21. HHS has decided to commemorate this occasion in a most special way:
    http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2013/11/22/obamacare-2015-open-enrollment-set-to-be-delayed-one-month/

    — That’s right; they’re going to delay next year’s open enrollment until two weeks AFTER the 2014 mid-term elections . . . which, among other things, tells me that they have no confidence that the website will be working any better 12 months from now than it is right now.

    Icy (bd2739)

  22. People argued politics and broad economic theory, and most American families considered themselves either nominally Democrat or Republican in 1963. But most average citizens did not hate people of the other party and almost everybody still respected the office of the presidency. Presidents and first ladies still viewed the White House as both an historic symbol and as “the peoples’ house”. And schools still taught history and civics. Any fair discussion of the assassination and the nation’s reaction to it needs to be done through the lens of that time, not by today’s political ethos or what we now know of the Kennedy family.

    elissa (c37a48)

  23. JFK addressing The Economic Club of New York on December 14, 1962. He sounds strangely unlike any of today’s Democrats. RTWT:

    If we do not take action, those who have the most reason to be dissatisfied with our present rate of growth will be tempted to seek shortsighted and narrow solutions — to resist automation, to reduce the work week to 35 hours or even lower, to shut out imports, or to raise prices in a vain effort to obtain full capacity profits on under-capacity operations. But these are all self-defeating expedients which can only restrict the economy, not expand it.

    There are a number of ways by which the federal government can meet its responsibilities to aid economic growth. We can and must improve American education and technical training. We can and must expand civilian research and technology. One of the great bottlenecks for this country’s economic growth in this decade will be the shortages of doctorates in mathematics, engineering, and physics — a serious shortage with a great demand and an undersupply of highly trained manpower. We can and must step up the development of our natural resources.

    But the most direct and significant kind of federal action aiding economic growth is to make possible an increase in private consumption and investment demand — to cut the fetters which hold back private spending. In the past, this could be done in part by the increased use of credit and monetary tools, but our balance of payments situation today places limits on our use of those tools for expansion. It could also be done by increasing federal expenditures more rapidly than necessary, but such a course would soon demoralize both the government and our economy. If government is to retain the confidence of the people, it must not spend more than can be justified on grounds of national need or spent with maximum efficiency. And I shall say more on this in a moment.

    The final and best means of strengthening demand among consumers and business is to reduce the burden on private income and the deterrents to private initiative which are imposed by our present tax system — and this administration pledged itself last summer to an across-the-board, top-to-bottom cut in personal and corporate income taxes to be enacted and become effective in 1963.

    I’m not talking about a “quickie” or a temporary tax cut, which would be more appropriate if a recession were imminent. Nor am I talking about giving the economy a mere shot in the arm, to ease some temporary complaint. I am talking about the accumulated evidence of the last five years that our present tax system, developed as it was, in good part, during World War II to restrain growth, exerts too heavy a drag on growth in peace time; that it siphons out of the private economy too large a share of personal and business purchasing power; that it reduces the financial incenitives [sic] for personal effort, investment, and risk-taking. In short, to increase demand and lift the economy, the federal government’s most useful role is not to rush into a program of excessive increases in public expenditures, but to expand the incentives and opportunities for private expenditures.

    Under these circumstances, any new tax legislation — and you can understand that under the comity which exists in the United States Constitution whereby the Ways and Means Committee in the House of Representatives have the responsibility of initiating this legislation, that the details of any proposal should wait on the meeting of the Congress in January. But you can understand that, under these circumstances, in general, that any new tax legislation enacted next year should meet the following three tests:

    First, it should reduce the net taxes by a sufficiently early date and a sufficiently large amount to do the job required. Early action could give us extra leverage, added results, and important insurance against recession. Too large a tax cut, of course, could result in inflation and insufficient future revenues — but the greater danger is a tax cut too little, or too late, to be effective.

    Second, the new tax bill must increase private consumption, as well as investment. Consumers are still spending between 92 and 94 percent on their after-tax income, as they have every year since 1950. But that after-tax income could and should be greater, providing stronger markets for the products of American industry. When consumers purchase more goods, plants use more of their capacity, men are hired instead of laid-off, investment increases, and profits are high.

    Corporate tax rates must also be cut to increase incentives and the availability of investment capital. The government has already taken major steps this year to reduce business tax liability and to stimulate the modernization, replacement, and expansion of our productive plant and equipment. We have done this through the 1962 investment tax credit and through the liberalization of depreciation allowances — two essential parts of our first step in tax revision — which amounted to a ten percent reduction in corporate income taxes worth 2.5 billion dollars. Now we need to increase consumer demand to make these measures fully effective — demand which will make more use of existing capacity and thus increase both profits and the incentive to invest. In fact, profits after taxes would be at least 15 percent higher today if we were operating at full employment.

    For all these reasons, next year’s tax bill should reduce personal as well as corporate income taxes: for those in the lower brackets, who are certain to spend their additional take-home pay, and for those in the middle and upper brackets, who can thereby be encouraged to undertake additional efforts and enabled to invest more capital.

    Third, the new tax bill should improve both the equity and the simplicity of our present tax system. This means the enactment of long-needed tax reforms, a broadening of the tax base, and the elimination or modification of many special tax privileges. These steps are not only needed to recover lost revenue and thus make possible a larger cut in present rates, they are also tied directly to our goal of greater growth. For the present patchwork of special provisions and preferences lightens the tax loads of some only at the cost of placing a heavier burden on others. It distorts economic judgments and channels undue amounts of energy into efforts to avoid tax liability. It makes certain types of less productive activity more profitable than other more valuable undertakings. All this inhibits our growth and efficiency, as well as considerably complicating the work of both the taxpayer and the Internal Revenue Service.

    These various exclusions and concessions have been justified [in the past] as a means of overcoming oppressively high rates in the upper brackets, and a sharp reduction in those rates — accompanied by base-broadening, loophole-closing measures — would properly make the new rates not only lower, but also more widely applicable. Surely this is more equitable on both counts.

    Those are the three tests which the right kind of bill must meet — and I am confident that the enactment of the right bill next year will in due course increase our gross national product by several times the amount of taxes actually cut. Profit margins will be improved, and both the incentive to invest and the supply of internal funds for investment will be increased. There will be new interest in taking risks, in increasing productivity, in creating new jobs and new products for long-term economic growth.

    Other national problems, moreover, will be aided by full employment. It will encourage the location of new plants in areas of labor surplus — and provide new jobs for workers that we are retraining — and facilitate the adjustment which will be necessary under our new trade expansion bill, and reduce a number of government expenditures.

    It will not, I’m confident, revive an inflationary spiral or adversely affect our balance of payments. If the economy today were operating close to capacity levels with little unemployment, or if a sudden change in our military requirements should cause a scramble for men and resources, then I would oppose tax reductions as irresponsible and inflationary — and I would not hesitate to recommend a tax increase, if that were necessary. But our resources and manpower are not being fully utilized, the general level of prices has been remarkably stable, and increased competition — both at home and abroad — along with increased productivity, will help keep both prices and wages within appropriate limits.

    http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/jfkeconomicclubaddress.html

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  24. But most average citizens did not hate people of the other party and almost everybody still respected the office of the presidency.

    I don’t know. FDR was “that man” to Republicans.

    Milhouse (82b1e0)

  25. Interesting to note that the very same hyperbolic, irrational and hateful language directed at Kennedy back then (“wanted for treason”, etc) which many believe set the stage for his killing is quite reminiscent of the way all of you America haters speak about our current president.

    This day thus highlights the connection, and potential ramifications, of the kind of cancerous hatred for ideological and political opponents across 50 years of Anerican history. A sad day to be sure.

    Caligularity (6e7e19)

  26. Is Caligularity just another name for Tye? He sure sounds like it.

    Chuck Bartowski (11fb31)

  27. Caligularity obviously wants us to hearken back at the pleasant and respectful way that his side treated George W. Bush. You know, when they weren’t engaging in assassination fantasies and dark conspiracy theories.

    JVW (709bc7)

  28. Is Caligularity just another name for Tye? He sure sounds like it.

    Same jerkwad, different name.

    JVW (709bc7)

  29. “This day thus highlights the connection, and potential ramifications, of the kind of cancerous hatred for ideological and political opponents across 50 years of Anerican history.”

    Caligularity – Are you suggesting that we need more gun control so that another communist doesn’t kill an American president or a Palestinian kill a Democrat presidential candidate? Or are you suggesting that we need government censorship to reduce hate speech so that TV hosts don’t call people with opposing views and larger audiences sluts or suggest that people defecate or piss in the mouths of public figures they disagree with.

    Can you clarify?

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  30. I awoke on 23 Nov 63 in the Transient Barracks at a USAF installation near Peshawar, Pakistan at 0600 local, to find confusion everywhere.

    While we were sleeping, The President had been killed (Pakistan is 12-hours ahead of Dallas).

    Thankfully, we were spared the ordeal of non-stop media coverage – no radio (unless you had a short-wave unit that could pick up the BeeB), no TV, and it took a day or two for the English-language Pak paper (Hindustan Times) to catch up and you had to go into town to get a copy which we couldn’t do as we were on lock-down.
    The only news we got was that which was provided via DoD channels.

    askeptic (b8ab92)

  31. If JFK was being accused of Treason, why was he killed by a Communist?

    askeptic (b8ab92)

  32. 28

    Ahh, the old moral equivalence trope. Someone always brings this up, it’s the way you (and al Qaeda) think.

    Caligularity (01deef)

  33. “Caligularity obviously wants us to hearken back at the pleasant and respectful way that his side treated George W. Bush.”

    JVW – I was thinking more that he wanted to go back to the pleasant and respectful days when George Wallace campaigned for president for his side.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  34. As for me, I wondered if it was Perry.

    It is America lovers who speak disparagingly about our current President; it is the America haters who support a man whose policies are harming our country.

    The realistic Dana (3e4784)

  35. “Ahh, the old moral equivalence trope. Someone always brings this up, it’s the way you (and al Qaeda) think.”

    Caligularity – Ahh, and what, if any, substance do you believe has been contained in your comments?

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  36. No Caligularity, what I dislike is when your side pretends to be pure as the driven snow, even though your hands are filthy with the stain of the exact behavior that you claim to find so appalling on our side.

    To make it easy on you, let me remind you that your next move is naturally to call us all racists. Consider us denounced. Now please take your weak little troll game somewhere else.

    JVW (709bc7)

  37. He was killed by an irrational hater…you know the type (you all come here to express those type of views).

    Can you really be so delusional that you cannot see the hatred for Obama and “Liberals” (which he is not of course) dripping from nearly every one of Patsy’s posts? And from your own?

    Self-answering question of course.

    Caligularity (19c141)

  38. “it is the America haters who support a man whose policies are harming our country.”

    The realistic Dana – Except those people do not want to discuss President Dithering Blameshifter’s actual failed policies, but instead manufacture risible excuses why people oppose the man rather than the policies that they also opposed from other Democrats. Consistency and connecting the dots are not strong points of these droids.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  39. 34

    And up is down, black is white, and we’ve always been at war with Eastasia…

    Caligularity (19c141)

  40. 40 to 35.

    Caligularity (19c141)

  41. “He was killed by an irrational hater…you know the type (you all come here to express those type of views).”

    Caligularity – Heh. It’s pretty obvious that the only irrational hatred here is coming from you since you have not examples, or specifics to support your bloviations, just more sputtering diarrhea.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  42. 35

    “Harming”?? You act and think like he’s destroying America on purpose.

    Now it’s just a wee bit of harm.

    Cite ONE example NOT shared by Liberals (I.e. No NSA, drone strikes, Guantanamo) that reasonably supports this charge.

    Caligularity (b625dd)

  43. Caligularity’s World

    Being disgusted with the miserable ObamaCare rollout = irrational hatred
    Wondering why no one is held to account for Benghazi = irrational hatred
    Worrying that the Executive Office is in the hands of people who are incompetent = irrational hatred
    Thinking that doubling the national debt while staying mired in an economic slump is bad policy = irrational hatred
    Being skeptical about overtures to the mullahs in Iran and trust them to behave responsible = irrational hatred

    Do you think you are the first troll who has brought this tired act over to this blog? We’ll still be here long after you slink back to Kos or Media Matters, and you will still be a cretin and a fool.

    JVW (709bc7)

  44. 42

    Guess you missed the last thread where I did just that for filibusters.

    Here’s the rundown chief: it was of course ignored and slandered but never, of course, directly confronted.

    Facts dont mean crap to people who can’t think straight or who themselves can only argue with insults.

    Sucks to see your own tactics come back at ya ain’t it?

    Caligularity (b625dd)

  45. 44

    Yawn…is this all ya got? You’re only helping to make my point.

    Caligularity (b625dd)

  46. 37

    Pure delusion.

    Caligularity (b625dd)

  47. Throwing pearls before swine is recommended against.
    Working on follow that recommendation.

    MD in Philly (f9371b)

  48. Yawn…is this all ya got?

    Yep, and it is way more than you have brought here. I’m done with you now; life it too short to waste time on sniveling malcontents. Best wishes to you, and I sincerely hope your life turns around so that you no longer feel compelled to waste time being a Soros myna bird on conservative blogs.

    JVW (709bc7)

  49. “no confidence that the website will be working any better 12 months from now than it is right now.”

    This is a (further) delay in the employer mandate – they’re trying to make it so that people aren’t in the process of having meetings with their employer and discovering that next year’s insurance costs are going way way way up – right before the elections.

    It won’t really work, because the transition period has already been set for people’s insurance starting Jan 1, 2015. For my company it’s Nov. 1 to Nov. 30 and that means that my company has been negotiating for six months prior to that, slow back and forth leading up to a head.

    The rumors should start getting out early.

    But then, most reasonably sized companies already have Obamacare-compliant plans. Mine already qualifies.

    Smaller companies, however, and companies with low-wage employees who were using semi-catastrophic plans, my husband who works for Walgreens for example and is now on my insurance instead, they are seeing rates rise a little and deductibles shoot up now, and next year will be worse.

    luagha (5cbe06)

  50. the very same hyperbolic, irrational and hateful language directed at Kennedy back then (“wanted for treason”, etc) which many believe set the stage for his killing

    Many believe all kinds of strange things, but the fact is that he was killed by a communist.

    Milhouse (82b1e0)

  51. He was killed by an irrational hater

    No, he was killed by an irrational communist. Never forget that.

    Milhouse (82b1e0)

  52. “Guess you missed the last thread where I did just that for filibusters.”

    “Facts dont mean crap to people who can’t think straight or who themselves can only argue with insults.”

    Caligularity – Guess you missed the fact that this thread is about JFK. I saw your moronic comments on the filibuster thread, the one where you took a long break before coming back with fake “facts.” Look, the Left’s house organ for fact checking, Politifact, labeled Obama’s statement regarding “unprecedented” Republican obstruction of his nominees as “half true”, which for them means an outright lie, so find yourself some new facts.

    Labeling everything written here as irrational hate without pointing to specifics and making an argument, which you did on this thread, is a perfect example of the behavior you are denigrating and you are the only person exhibiting such behavior.

    Those are the facts and they are not in dispute.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  53. “You’re only helping to make my point.”

    Caligularity – The point that you are stupid and have no point?

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  54. “Harming”?? You act and think like he’s destroying America on purpose.

    Um, yes, he is. He said he was going to fundamentally transform America. His wife said she’d never been proud of America before his election. And we know his history with the New Party, his terrorist friends, his America-hating mentors. So what else should we think? When he was first elected Patterico was willing to ignore all that and give him the benefit of the doubt; he was willing to presume that 0bama really did want what was best for America, in his deluded way. But time has amply rebutted that presumption.

    Milhouse (82b1e0)

  55. Nonsense, #1, there is plenty of manufactured evidence to indicate LHO was involved, but he could never have been convicted in a court of law either of the assassination or of the murder of Officer JD Tippit. That’s why LHO was himself murdered, to silence him and to prevent a trial which would have exposed the conspirators.

    Any open minded examination of the facts will quickly reveal that LHO was set-up, he was a patsy, exactly as he stated on TV while in the custody of Dallas PD.

    Additionally, there is no X on Elm Street anymore, it was recently paved over.

    50 years ago today Jack Kennedy was surrounded by powerful enemies, he withheld air cover for the Bay of Pigs invasion and betrayed the CIA’s Cuban soldiers on the beach, he proposed ending the Oil Depletion Allowance, he refused to go to war in Vietnam and intended to withdraw all US forces by the end of 1965 with the first 1000 troops to be home for Christmas 1963, he refused to bomb Cuba during the Missile Crisis, he obstructed Second Naval Guerilla which was a CIA, Joint Chiefs program for another Cuban invasion (which caught LHO, David Ferrie, Guy Bannister and several of the Watergate burglars at their training base north of Lake Pontchartrain), he rejected Operation Northwoods, he refused to prevent his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy from attacking organized crime or from prosecuting Teamster boss Jimmy Hoffa, J Edgar Hoover knew RFK intended to force him into retirement, JFK fired CIA chief Allan Dullas (later strangely appointed by LBJ to the Warren Commission) and he fired Dullas’ CIA Deputy Director Charles Cabell, brother of Dallas Mayor Earle Cabell, and most significantly JFK intended to replace Lyndon Johnson as VP on the ’64 ticket. Congressional hearings revealing LBJ’s corruption were in session complete with direct witness testimony at the time of the assassination. (The hearings were recessed when news of the assassination reached Washington DC and were never resumed, the new President quashed them).

    Add the KKK and the Birchers who hated JFK for forcing racial integration and you’ve got a bitches brew of betrayed Cubans, Big Oil, JCS, Organized Crime, Teamster’s Union, FBI, CIA, LBJ, KKK, and the JBS all with a serious grudge against Kennedy.

    But, with a few bullets in Dallas including the convenient murder of a designated patsy, and with LBJ waiting in the wings to take over, Shazzam!, Suddenly relief was at hand, all that remained was to pull the wool over all the public’s eyes.

    So, LBJ appointed the Warren Commission to whitewash the assassination. The Commission’s report was every bit as fictional as JFK’s autopsy. Next, the CIA unleashed Operation Mockingbird to make sure anyone who questioned the official narrative was ridiculed into silence, the agency’s lapdogs in the print and broadcast media crushed opposition and played along lockstep with the absurd fairy tale of magic bullets, a lone nut, a movie so gruesome the public could not be allowed to watch, all tied up with a big bow on top complete with a mobbed up Jewish pimp conveniently bumping off the patsy on national TV to put the whole matter to rest.

    Now, according to all the government’s authorities including their propagandists in the free press assure us, it’s all been explained, there’s no need to go poking around asking questions and expecting straight forward answers. The WC’s honorable men reassure us the weight of the evidence we’re too fragile to see proves the WC’s conclusions. Ant to prove their case beyond a shadow of doubt they locked the evidence safely away so maybe sometime around 2039 or thereabouts all can be revealed. Trust your government, they wouldn’t lie to you, not ever, not even once.

    So, go to sleep like good little children and don’t point out there would have been no Vietnam war had JFK not been assassinated. Only nutty conspiracy theorists do that, you know, the ones who notice that LHO associated with some of the same CIA contract agents who were caught in the Watergate. The conspiracy nuts who smell a big fat stinking rat and ask questions like the ones NOLA DA Jim Garrison asked, Why was JFK murdered, what changed in America as a result of his death, and who benefited when LBJ became POTUS, besides LBJ of course?

    ropelight (1b87ed)

  56. I was 12 when JFK was inaugurated and 12 when he died, so I have a pretty good recollection of the times.

    Two observations:

    1. There’s been a lot of writing about whether JFK was a conservative. One thing that people may not realize is that pre-Vietnam liberalism was much more supportive of the Cold War than it was post-Vietnam. Yes, then as now they claimed to be more sophisticated than everyone else and their support was more soft than that of conservatives. But they supported the Cold War.

    2. Re: the conspiracy theories: If there had been a conspiracy somebody would have talked by now.

    Charlie Davis (35738e)

  57. One thing that people may not realize is that pre-Vietnam liberalism was much more supportive of the Cold War than it was post-Vietnam. Yes, then as now they claimed to be more sophisticated than everyone else and their support was more soft than that of conservatives. But they supported the Cold War.

    Pre-Vietnam liberals had lived through the horrors of World War II, so they understood the nature of totalitarianism, whether it was of the fascist or communist variety. They could look at the Soviet Union or Cuba or North Korea or China and realize that it was not a workers’ paradise or a model society, it was a police state which only survived through the suppression of liberty. After Vietnam a power vacuum was created in American liberalism and the radical extremists rushed in and pulled the party away from a vision where a thriving market economy would support an expansive welfare state towards a vision where the market economy was choking off the expansion of the welfare state and subjugating Americans into a life of slavery, and therefore must be brought to heel by bureaucratic liberalism and class-envy.

    JVW (709bc7)

  58. #57, Charlie, lots of people have talked, many of them eye witnesses to the assassination or Tippit’s murder and have been intimidated into silence or killed, the list is staggering. Google dead witnesses to jfk assassination and you’ll find a number of compilations.

    PS: It doesn’t matter who talks if you refuse to listen.

    ropelight (1b87ed)

  59. 49, 55

    Yep, that’s what I thought.

    Caligularity (263395)

  60. neener….neener….neener

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  61. Does anyone else picture Caligularity typing out one of his vapid comments and softly saying to himself, “Oooooohhh burnnnnn”?

    JVW (709bc7)

  62. I can understand in the context of 1963 why JFK was criticized. They had better options back then. But he was a stalwart opponent to communism, and a positive man who did a great job articulating what’s wrong with dependency.

    It’s a shame he died, and not just because it caused such bitter reactions. He was a better president than Obama, more conservative and principled than the last two GOP nominees ever were.

    I know JFK wasn’t perfect, but he was more decent than they are today, in my opinion.

    And yes, he was murdered by a deranged lefty, and that’s typical of nutty violence, but I don’t think it says anything about non-nutty lefties.

    It is pretty shameful how the left tries to condemn the right instead of focusing on the lone nut, and they do it a lot, and I guess that pattern started with JFK’s assassination.

    Dustin (303dca)

  63. Here’s a thought from someone who served under JFK, but was not a believer:

    His reputation is what it is because he had the good grace to leave the stage before the inevitable pratfall that awaited him in SE Asia.
    The followers were able to hold on to the myth of Camelot, not having to recognize that he set the stage for LBJ.
    In his second term, he would have been the target of the taunts: Hey, Hey, JFK, how many kids did you kill today!

    askeptic (b8ab92)

  64. He was a better president than Obama, more conservative and principled than the last two GOP nominees ever were.

    Dustin, you can praise JFK without trying to suggest that he was more principled than Mitt Romney (or John McCain for that matter). I also don’t think Romney would have raped a 19-year-old intern then pimped her off to one of his sleazy politicos, nor would he have fooled around with a mobsters girlfriend at the same time that his attorney general was cracking down on the mob. And that’s not even getting into the political aspect in which JFK had no problems double-crossing Diem or talking out of both sides of his mouth depending on who he was trying to flatter (check his conversation with Gov. Ross Barnett when the courts were trying to integrate the University of Mississippi). JFK had his virtues, but principle certainly wasn’t one of them.

    JVW (709bc7)

  65. Comment by JVW (709bc7) — 11/22/2013 @ 11:01 am

    To think about that would risk the loss of too many IQ points.

    askeptic (b8ab92)

  66. #63, Dustin, LHO wasn’t a deranged lefty, he was a CIA contract agent and an FBI informant. He was on the payroll and assigned to infiltrate both Interpen and Cuban exile groups associated with Brigade 2506.

    #64, askeptic, Camelot was Jackie Kennedy’s creation after the assassination. She invented the myth to give her dead husband a legacy his accomplishments didn’t merit. I don’t believe you’ll find reference to Camelot during JFK’s actual time in office, it would have been overly pretentious, bordering on hubris even.

    ropelight (1b87ed)

  67. The word, rope, may never have been used prior to 11/22/63, but the predicate was formed.
    Since I spent all of ’62 & ’63 beyond CONUS, I was able to form a more detached view of what was being written (again, No TV), and could see the pre-history being written.

    And, I disagree with your assessment of LHO’s professional contacts.

    askeptic (b8ab92)

  68. 67- …more…
    and most of ’64 also, returning just in time to watch the Daisy Commercial, and The Speech.

    askeptic (b8ab92)

  69. I’m pretty convinced that the only conspiracy regarding the Kennedy Assassination is a conspiracy to lock up any evidence (or “evidence”) that Oswald got support from Cuba or the USSR for 100 years. That Oswald was a communist was obvious, but if the country really got it into its head that the commies had killed Kennedy, things could have gotten very bad.

    If evidence (or “evidence”) that Kennedy was assassinated at the behest of the USSR were publicized, the Cold War would have heated up pretty damn quick.

    Pious Agnostic (c45233)

  70. I don’t believe that LHO was an “agent” or “operative” for the KGB. His animus towards JFK seems to have been grounded in the Anti-Castro policies of JFK’s administration – and LHO was a great admirer of Fidel.

    It is remarkable the great effort and resources that the Soviets undertook to paint the (to use a current term) VRWC as responsible for the shooting.
    They knew as well as anyone that Oswald’s connection to them could be devastating in their relations with the USA, if the American public turned against the Soviet Union for this killing.

    askeptic (b8ab92)

  71. The simple solution is Oswald and one rifle. You can add any number of elaborations and complexities if you want, but they’re not needed. Then you need to add more complexities and elaborations to cover up your initial conspiracy. Conspiracies. More and more.

    As more and more people in the USA are more and more ignorant about firearms, that one man and one rifle could do this seems more and more impossible to the average Joe. That’s truly sad.

    Some of what JFK planned for the USA and the world I did not then agree with. Some of it I fervently did. More than any other, his first inaugural address still rings in my mind.

    … And yet the same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe—the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state, but from the hand of God. …

    … Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty. …

    … Finally, to those nations who would make themselves our adversary, we offer not a pledge but a request: that both sides begin anew the quest for peace, before the dark powers of destruction unleashed by science engulf all humanity in planned or accidental self-destruction.

    We dare not tempt them with weakness. For only when our arms are sufficient beyond doubt can we be certain beyond doubt that they will never be employed. …

    … In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility—I welcome it. I do not believe that any of us would exchange places with any other people or any other generation. The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it—and the glow from that fire can truly light the world.

    And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.

    My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.

    Finally, whether you are citizens of America or citizens of the world, ask of us the same high standards of strength and sacrifice which we ask of you. With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God’s work must truly be our own.

    htom (412a17)

  72. #62… Your age, lack of both experience and historical perspective are showing Dustin. JVW is correct in his assessment.

    Colonel Haiku (eb4f5f)

  73. Patterico wrote, There is no credible evidence that anyone else was involved.

    Only if you discount the direct observations of several doctors and nurses at Parkland Hospital who saw JFK’s body firsthand only minutes after he was shot and before his body arrived at Bethesda Naval Hospital. There are several video clips on YouTube showing the Doctors in real time giving interviews to the assembled press corps shortly after the President’s body was taken from the hospital. The evidence is available and only a few clicks away.

    Parkland medical staff, doctors mostly but some nurses too, describe an entry wound in JFK throat near his adam’s apple which they enlarged with an incision during a tracheotomy, and they identified a second entry wound high on JFK’s right forehead above the right eye and just below the hairline. You can see one of the doctors using his index finger to locate the point of entry.

    Doctor Robert McClelland, who was in the OR with Dr Perry and Dr Jenkins as they were attending JFK at the moment he was pronounced dead is certain, There were at least two shooters (“absolutely”) and the assassination was likely a conspiracy involving government “elements.”

    McCellen also explained why his colleague, Dr. Perry, who also treated the President that day, would never speak of the assassination:

    If you ever even mentioned the assassination [to Dr. Perry], he would cloud up” and say, “I don’t talk about that, period.” A Secret Service agent approached Dr Perry shortly after he’d given a description of JFK’s wounds to the media – when he’d pointed to his neck and seemed to imply that the entrance wound was there. That agent supposedly threatened Perry, ordering him never to talk about the assassination again…”or else,”

    Dr McCelland was also had no doubt the massive wound in the back of JFK’s head was an exit wound. However, once the President’s body was abruptly and illegally removed from Parkland Hospital and taken to Bethesda both entry wounds suddenly became exit wounds and the massive hole in the back of JFK’s head mysteriously closed itself and somehow became the point of entry.

    Now, instead of Dr McCelland’s two shooters we conveniently have evidence for only one assassin shooting from above and behind the President. Talk about your magic bullets, Wow!

    ropelight (1b87ed)

  74. Per Stashiu last night on the “Reid goes Nuclear” thread… “I checked and found that caligularity is a previously banned troll and serial liar using the names: True American, Dry Powder, Powder Dry, elephantiasis, and Rational Republican (probably others as well, it was a quick scan as I am currently in the hospital.)”

    Get well, Stash and get bent Irregularity!

    Colonel Haiku (ee5253)

  75. Hey, Dustin! Jackson Browne is teh only “johnny-one-note” that counts…

    Colonel Haiku (ee5253)

  76. Adding to my comment at #74:

    To drive the point about evidence home, there is no way to reconcile the observations of the Parkland doctors with the Bethesda autopsy report which is pretty compelling evidence of a government cover-up.

    Add to that all the missing photographs and X-rays, along with the President’s missing brain, and compounded by the fact one of the autopsy doctors inexplicably burned his contemperaneous notes after he’d revised his report for the second time and throw in a few more mysterious deaths and you’ve got the making for a snazzy two-part episode of Crime Scene investigation.

    ropelight (1b87ed)

  77. The other thing about the shots is how they say it is hard to get off three accurate shots that quickly. But the first missed everything, many people thought it was a backfire (much more commonly heard on streets in those days).

    Two out of three isn’t some miracle for a trained marksman at that distance.

    Estragon (19fa04)

  78. @56– Charlie, how were you 12 when JFK inaugurated and 12 when assassinated? Since the former was 20 Jan 61, and the latter 22 Nov 63. [For the record, I was 16 and 19. And I do not dispute your observations.]

    gramps (c9132b)

  79. Some of us noticed that, but were too kind to ask.

    askeptic (b8ab92)

  80. ropelight, nonsense. The observations of doctors in an ER versus a more unhurried autopsy are of course going to differ.

    SPQR (39ad84)

  81. Estragon: CBS did a famous bit on this. They got a similar rifle, a similar scope, and a similar elevation. They put a dummy on a sled going about the same speed. And they had 11 marksmen try to duplicate the shots (three shots, at least 2 hits) and the timing (six seconds depending on how you count it).

    None of them were familiar with the style of rifle and didn’t do so great on their first attempts. They got markedly better on second and third tries with 7 of them scoring 2 of 3 and one of them making 3 of 3. All of them were familiar with bolt-action rifles and were easily able to make three aimed shots in the given time.

    luagha (5cbe06)

  82. The only “hatred” directed at JFK was anti-Catholic bigotry … and anti-Catholic bigotry is solely the province of the Democratic Party today.

    SPQR (39ad84)

  83. luagha, indeed. What most people don’t realize is that the range from Texas Book Deposity to the roadway beside the plaza was very short for a rifle.

    SPQR (39ad84)

  84. SPQR: Yes, it was 80 meters tops. As many have testified, at that distance for that rifle you don’t have to lead the target and you don’t have to adjust for bullet drop. It’s just point and shoot through the 4x power scope that Oswald had. (Part of the rifle when he bought it.)

    luagha (5cbe06)

  85. askeptic:

    In his second term, he would have been the target of the taunts: Hey, Hey, JFK, how many kids did you kill today!

    The last speech JFK gave was in Fort Worth at a BBB breakfast the morning of November 22nd. In that speech, he implied America could not leave South Vietnam because “Without the United States, South Vietnam would collapse overnight.” But that may have been disinformation designed to placate Texans, because earlier that year he told close advisers he planned to pull out of Vietnam.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  86. Ropelight, you are recycling old, long refuted conspiracy theories. Allow me to enlighten you.

    1. Initial speculation by Parkland doctors as to the throat wound were simply wrong. Since the bullet passed through soft tissue, both the entry wound and the exit wound were close to the same size. ER personnel are NOT especially qualified to tell whether a gunshot wound is an entry or exit wound. Finally, the doctors DID NOT speculate that the head shot was caused by an entry from the front. Small wound in back of head with a large wound in the right temple clearly shows a shot from behind.

    It should be noted that the ER personnel made other initial judgments that were later proven erroneous — like their belief that the throat wound was caused by a fragment deflected down from the head wound.

    2. There are no “missing photos and X-Rays,” as you assert. They are in the National Archives and were examined by the autopsy doctors in 1967, who released a written statement that these materials were genuine.

    3. The brain is missing — so what? It is customary for such organs to be returned to the family once the autopsy is complete. There is a written transcript in the National Archives that shows the brain was transferred to Kennedy’s secretary, Mrr. Lincoln, in April of 1966; it was later transferred to Robert F. Kennedy who probably disposed of it.

    4. I am unable to find any source for your assertion that Perry and McClelland believed “there had to be two shooters” or that McClelland ever claimed Perry was ordered to “shut up” by a government official. Produce a source, or I can easily dismiss your claim as just another conspiracy lie. Further, it would be absurd for a doctor to claim “there were two shooters” by just looking at the bullet wounds.

    There was no conspiracy, and I can bat down any argument you make for same.

    Gary (17253f)

  87. DRJ, the cables that came across my desk, including Eyes Only DIA analysis, never mentioned that there were any preparations undergoing to remove personnel from Vietnam. Personnel were being removed from Laos, as the political situation (if you can call chaos and war-lordism a “situation”) there was highly problematic.

    askeptic (b8ab92)

  88. I don’t know what to believe.

    Here in Philly Dick Morris has a radio show from 3-6 which I often listen to when I’m working on the house because I often don’t want to bother changing the channel…
    Today he had an interview with some guy who has written a book claiming it was a conspiracy headed by Johnson. Morris himself is certain it was a conspiracy and not just Oswald, though he has a list of many who would have wanted JFK gone. I never put much stock in Morris as being a “go to guy” for the truth, but neither did I ever think of him as someone who would be quick to go in for unfounded conspiracy theories.

    One thing that was claimed is that it is “fact” that LBJ ducked in the car he was riding in before the shots were fired.

    His list of people who wanted JFK gone included:
    -LBJ, because he was going to be off the reelection ticket and was going to be indicted by RFK
    -J. Edgar, who didn’t like working for RFK and was going to be forced to retire
    -the mob, who felt betrayed by RFK going after them after helping JFK win the presidency with the resurrection vote in Ill.
    -the CIA, who felt betrayed when JFK pulled out the promise of air support in the Bay of Pigs (Hmm, denying air support in a covert operation, that has a familiar ring to it)
    there were two other that I can’t remember (he said he could list 6)

    Supposedly Nixon “knew” it was a conspiracy once Ruby killed Oswald, as he knew who Ruby had worked for.

    They didn’t go into details of the how, but it sounded like at least part of the plot was that Oswald wasn’t the one who did the shooting but was manipulated into being the fall guy.

    Just passing it on.

    MD in Philly (f9371b)

  89. I believe you, askeptic. I think it’s liberal wishful thinking to believe JFK would stop worrying about the Communists after the Cuban Missile Crisis, just as it would be wishful thinking for liberals to believe Obama wants to give up his drones.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  90. Was this James Elroy, MD? Because Elroy wrote the same stuff in a couple or three novels.

    nk (dbc370)

  91. It IS true that the list of people who might have liked to see JFK dead is a lot like the Saturday Night Live ‘Who Didn’t Shoot JR’ skit.

    But that’s true of most presidents, except our current one. No one wants to make him a martyr.

    luagha (5cbe06)

  92. 7. …The WP and the NYT both ran pieces the other day that try to blame what they describe as an ultra-conservative atmosphere in Dallas as the reason for the assassination.

    Comment by Colonel Haiku (86ce72) — 11/22/2013 @ 8:06 am

    Yet this sort of thing was “funny” when George Bush was President. This is a review of a play about killing Dubya.

    http://www.villagevoice.com/2004-08-03/nyc-life/no-real-presidents-were-harmed-in-the-making-of-this-play/full/

    Nope. No climate of hate in NYC. It didn’t matter how many times they burned GWB in effigy. Or held up signs that said “we support the troops – when they kill their officers.” Nope, according to the editorial board of the NYT you have to go to what they consider redneck country to find a “climate of hate” (TM).

    I could list more examples of why I consider liberals vile, hypocritical, soulless, ghouls, but I think the contrast between the statements of the Democrats yesterday and when Bush was President demonstrates the concept.

    Turning to JFK himself I can think of nothing that demonstrates how overblown the myths about him have become as his medals displayed at the John F. Kennedy library.

    http://www.jfklibrary.org/Asset-Viewer/Wyn_KJvaFUOgyG_1-dY3eQ.aspx

    Lt. John F. Kennedy’s WWII medals

    It is a rare combination. A Purple Heart and a Navy and Marine Corps medal.

    The JFK library plays up the fact that the Navy and Marine Corps medal has the inscription “Heroism” on the face. Indeed it does. It is the highest award for valor not involving conflict with the enemy.

    Yet he has a Purple Heart, which means he was wounded in action with the enemy. And both medals were the result of the same incident; the night the IJN Amagiri rammed and sank Kennedy’s PT109. What gives?

    In fact, the Navy wanted to court martial Kennedy for negligently allowing a larger, less maneuverable Japanese destroyer to catch him unawares and sink his smaller, nimbler motor torpedo boat. The Elco MTB was also slightly faster as rated on paper, but that really depended on the condition of the vessel. Both Hara Tameichi, who skippered the IJN Shigure (which was behind the Amagiri and fired upon PT109 as it steamed past) and Russell Crenshaw who was gunnery/XO in the USS Maury operated in the Solomons at the same time, and they both reported that the constant operations really wore down the ships so they couldn’t make their rated speed.

    For an MTB to get rammed by a destroyer is a feat of ship handling right up there with a marksman who can empty a revolver from the inside of a barn and fail to hit the barn even once. The Navy was not impressed.

    But JFK’s dad had political influence and the Navy had to back off from the court martial. Joe Kennedy pushed to have the Navy award his son a medal for valor in combat but that was going too far and the Navy refused. They agreed to award him a medal for his efforts to rescue his crew. But unnecessary because a coastwatcher had seen the explosion and sent some of his local assistants to search for survivors. everyone in the know understood had he done his job as a MTB skipper he wouldn’t have had to rescue a shipwrecked crew. It’s not exactly a combination of medals I’d particularly relish, if people knew the real story. But most people only knew the romanticized version.

    This is the official report on the loss of the 109.

    http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq60-11.htm

    You’ll note that PT109 was leading in echelon formation PT162 and then PT169. PT162 spotted the Amagiri in time to turn and attack (the torpedoes failed to fire; a common occurrence with those lousy things) then turned within 100 yards of the destroyer to avoid collision. No one aboard PT109 spotted the Japanese ship in time to avoid collision. But they should have, just like the other boat had.

    If you read the report you’ll see that an Ensign George Ross, along as an observer and not in the chain of command as his own boat was being repaired, performed the much the same feats as Kennedy about as often as Kennedy. In fact one night they operated together. So if Kennedy’s actions were heroic, Ross’ were equally heroic. Yet I can find no record that Ross received the Navy and Marine Corps Medal. I guess his dad didn’t have any influence in Washington.

    Steve57 (338553)

  93. That was either Roger Stone, or Jerome Corsi, Nixon was on a trip to Dallas, for a conference with Pepsi Co, for his firm, coincidentally,

    One person who we now know was in Dallas, was the future head of Cuban secret Police, Fabian Escalante, he’s been pointing out everyone and his brother, a fellow named Gus Russo turned that detail up.

    narciso (3fec35)

  94. No one wants to make him a martyr.
    Comment by luagha (5cbe06) — 11/22/2013 @ 4:02 pm

    Several dozens of residents at a Caribbean sea-side location might disagree with you, and would happily make it so.

    askeptic (b8ab92)

  95. #81, SPQR, sure thing, ER doctors needn’t take notice of entry or exit wounds, why would they care witch direction the President’s assassins fired from. After all, What difference does it make?

    Additionally, if you’re going to alledge the Bethasda autopsy was unhurried, you ought to read the WC testimony of the performing pathologists. It might give you pause.

    #82, luagha, I paid $12.97 for a 6.5mm MC, ones with a plastic 4X scope cost $19.95 which I rejected because the tube diameter was only about half an inch and so restricted the field of view it took forever to find the target, it was like looking down a soda straw.

    The scope would have been useful only on the first shot, thereafter it would have been a major hindrance. Moreover, at only about 80 yards max open sights would been quicker and more accurate.

    #87, Gary, before you call me a liar, please type Robert McCelland, JFK into your search engine. You’ll find a number of references to his eye witness first hand account of JFK’s wounds. A video clip of his interview with Jeff Smith, NBC’s Dallas/Fort Worth channel 5 reporter on Wednesday 11/20/13 is at the top of the list.

    #89, MD, LBJ did duck. Back in the middle ’70 when I was in college Rusty Rhodes came to the campus with a film taken from the opposite side of Elm Street from the side Abraham Zapruder was on. It showed LBJ ducking just before the initial shots rang out. There was no doubt LBJ knew in advance what was about to happen.

    Also, Nixon knew Ruby because Ruby had once worked for Nixon and been paid for his efforts, researchers found the pay records. Additionally, Tricky Dick was in Dallas the morning of the assassination but hopped a plane for DC before the turkey shoot.

    Sorry for the disconnects, I can’t type fast enough to keep up.

    ropelight (1b87ed)

  96. Yes, I think it was Roger Stone.
    http://www.amazon.com/The-Man-Who-Killed-Kennedy/dp/1626363137

    MD in Philly (f9371b)

  97. Time Travels With Charlie!

    Colonel Haiku (f51bfe)

  98. ropelight, that’s a huge pile of horse manure. ER docs don’t have any such expertise and they certainly had no data on which to base any such claims. The throat wound was the exit of the bullet that entered JFK’s upper back, transited near his spine and hit Connelly.

    You don’t know what you are talking about regarding the Carcano.

    As for the ducking “before” the initial shots, that’s nonsense. Not least because its not even well established whether Oswald’s miss of the three shots was the first shot or not.

    SPQR (32a911)

  99. Interesting read, Steve57.

    Colonel Haiku (f51bfe)

  100. Now the last person to follow that rabbit hole, was Scott McClellan’s pop,

    narciso (3fec35)

  101. “The brain is missing…”

    Just think of all the trolls who have disgraced these pages… that ain’t so unusual.

    Colonel Haiku (f51bfe)

  102. Stay for a while, Dustin. It seems lately you’ve fallen into a habit of swinging by for a pitstop, taking a crap and skedaddling. Where are your manners?

    Colonel Haiku (f51bfe)

  103. “He [JFK] was a better president than Obama, more conservative and principled than the last two GOP nominees ever were.”

    Ponder on that a spell… not disputing the comparison between JFK and Teh Won, but that second part? Someone’s been slipping you some peyote buttons, bud.

    Colonel Haiku (f51bfe)

  104. #94, narciso, Gus Russo parrots the WC’s party line, even Gerald Posner sings his praises which is the kiss of death to serious researchers who regard Russo as a CIA disinformation agent.

    #99, SPQR, easy on the insults or you’ll get them right back and the give-n-take will degenerate even further, you weren’t in the ER with JFK’s blood all over you that afternoon in Dallas, neither are you a highly regarded surgeon as far as I know, and you really aren’t qualified to challenge the assessment of a surgeon who was there and has openly held the same views for 50 years.

    What I know about the 6.5mm Carcano I learned from buying and using one prior to the assassination. Did you happen to own one on November 22, 2963? I did.

    You don’t know what you’re talking about, I saw a film that showed LBJ ducking prior to any indications of a shot from Oswald or anyone else. LBJ hit the floor boards in anticipation of gun shots. I saw it with my own eyes, or are you going to call me a liar too?

    ropelight (1b87ed)

  105. The worst thing about the Kennedy assassination was that it gave rise to a conspiracy myth that we’re still not done with even now. The media, which was left-leaning even back then, went the extra step and told us all nonstop that we were two steps from paradise when an assassin’s bullet stopped everything, aided and abetted by right-wing whackos.

    It was the beginning of America’s liberals publicly holding their nation, its leaders, and its people in deep contempt, facts be damned.

    Dirty Old Man (354f80)

  106. I won’t say anything about JFK. May he rest in peace. He is a legend, now, in every sense of the word and any “truth” about him carries an asterisk and a question mark.

    The rest of the Kennedy family is something you take antibiotics for. (I actually met one of the nephews in Chicago and there was a creepiness about him that other people told me was not just my own impression.) They’ve been getting by on his dead bones and, to a smaller degree, Bobby’s, when they’re basically a staph infection on America’s behind.

    nk (dbc370)

  107. Occam’s razor would suggest the open affiliation of Oswald, his stay in Russia, his multiple contacts with Russian and Cuban officials, the motive of retaliation for, what we would later call blowback.

    narciso (3fec35)

  108. #89, MD, LBJ did duck. Back in the middle ’70 when I was in college Rusty Rhodes came to the campus with a film taken from the opposite side of Elm Street from the side Abraham Zapruder was on. It showed LBJ ducking just before the initial shots rang out. There was no doubt LBJ knew in advance what was about to happen.

    Wrong! LBJ flinched for a good reason. This was a couple of years before he learned to not buy off the rack but instead custom order from Haggar Slacks with specific instructions – a directive if you will – that they leave an extra inch “down where your nuts hang” otherwise it “is always a little too tight” and it’s “just like riding a wire fence” and “when I gain a little weight, they cut me under there. You never do have much margin there, but see if can’t leave me about an inch from where the zipper [belches] ends around under my… back to my bunghole.

    Teh big Texan had shifted in his seat to wave and had one of them dang pre-custom order “incidents”.

    Colonel Haiku (f51bfe)

  109. nk… tell teh truth. was it that damn William Smith and did he jump yer ass?

    Colonel Haiku (f51bfe)

  110. The magic bullet theory is really tough to buy, Gov. Connally was wounded in the chest, wrist and leg by the same bullet that went through JFK’s back and throat, that was found intact (as in not deformed) on Connally’s stretcher?

    When I watch the film Abraham Zapruder made that day, I can hear some physicists whispering in my ear: Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?

    MSL (5f601f)

  111. More on SPQR’s #99 comment. Your criticism of the ER doctors is absurd, ER docs don’t have any such expertise and they certainly had no data on which to base any such claims.

    JFK’s ER doctors didn’t base their conclusions on data, their observations were first hand, they were right there trying to save JFK’s life, they could see his wounds and if anyone needs expertise in the direction and extent of life threatening wounds and how they were inflicted, it’s surgeons. They are the experts.

    ropelight (1b87ed)

  112. Facts dont mean crap to people who can’t think straight or who themselves can only argue with insults.

    WHAT FACTS?

    Gerald A (66407e)

  113. FWIW, I think that as far as surgeons knowing an entrance wound from an exit wound, it would depend a lot on the surgeon. I suppose if they had seen a lot from years of big city surgery or Korean War experience, yeah, but I’m sure some wouldn’t have much of a clue.

    So Colonel, ya sayin’ he needed some “Ballroom pants” from Duluth trading Co.? Too bad they weren’t around for another 35 years or so.

    I agree that one communist (sympathizer wanna be, not card carrying secret handshake knowing, maybe) with a grudge could have done it. I imagine especially so back then, before they have all of the precautions they do now.
    On the other hand, he would also be the perfect guy to set up to take the fall, especially if then he was then quickly silenced.

    What would make a person, Ruby, go ahead and put himself in prison for life for killing someone that would have presumably been executed anyway?? What would a person have hanging over their head to make them do it??

    IDK.

    I do not remember the assassination, but I do remember lying on the floor in front of the B+W TV watching the funeral procession with the horse drawn carriage with the casket. (At least I think that is a memory).

    MD in Philly (f9371b)

  114. ropelight, ER surgeons are not experts in interpreting gunshot wounds. You are just making up crap.

    SPQR (768505)

  115. MSL, the bullet was deformed greatly. Every JFK conspiracy nut prints the same photo with the least deformed angle. Other angles show significant deformation. JFK conspiracy theorists are liars.

    SPQR (768505)

  116. I think that as far as surgeons knowing an entrance wound from an exit wound, it would depend a lot on the surgeon.

    Comment by MD in Philly (f9371b) — 11/22/2013 @ 6:21 pm

    An entrance wound is a well defined circular hole whereas an exit wound is jagged. At least one of the surgeons said in the press conference at the hospital that it was an entrance wound.

    Gerald A (66407e)

  117. QUESTION-
    Doctor, is it the assumption that it went through the head?
    DR. MALCOM PERRY-
    That would be on conjecture on my part. There are two wounds, as Dr. Clark noted, one of the neck and one of the head. Whether they are directly related or related to two bullets, I cannot say.
    QUESTION-
    Where was the entrance wound?
    DR. MALCOM PERRY-
    There was an entrance wound in the neck. As regards the one on the head, I cannot say.
    QUESTION-
    Which way was the bullet coming on the neck wound? At him?
    DR. MALCOM PERRY-
    It appeared to be coming at him.
    QUESTION-
    And the one behind?
    DR. MALCOM PERRY-
    The nature of the wound defies the ability to describe whether it went through it from either side. I cannot tell you that. Can you, Dr. Clark?
    DR. KEMP CLARK-
    The head wound could have been either the exit wound from the neck or it could have been a tangential wound, as it was simply a large, gaping loss of tissue.
    QUESTION-
    That was the immediate cause of death — the head wound?
    DR. KEMP CLARK-
    I assume so, yes.

    Gerald A (66407e)

  118. Gerald A, that simply isn’t true. Least of all with a medium caliber, medium velocity, full metal jacketed bullet.

    Regardless, making the back-to-throat shot into a shot from front fits no rational conspiracy theory (not that there are any).

    SPQR (768505)

  119. The head wound is an exit from the neck? Hilarious. That transcript discredits their opinion utterly.

    SPQR (768505)

  120. MD… I dare say LBJ would’ve appreciated smart-looking, razor-creased slacks with room for “the boys”.

    I’m watching – okay, leering at- Megyn Kelly and she was showing some still photos and there were a couple that showed a young father down on the grassy knoll with what looked like a two year old son. In one of the photos – both with father and son laying prone on their stomachs, you could see a suspicious bulge the width of the back of the little boy’s pants. I’d never seen this photo before… was this kid strapped, was he “packin'” heat?

    Colonel Haiku (b924f9)

  121. By the way, the back to throat wound was likely fatal itself from spinal trauma.

    SPQR (768505)

  122. By the way, the back to throat wound was likely fatal itself from spinal trauma.

    Are you a doctor SPQR?

    Gerald A (66407e)

  123. SPQR

    My mistake.
    Warren commission exhibit ce399
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:CE399side.jpg

    You will have to draw your own conclusions, I don’t see much if any deformation. I suppose the opposite side could be deformed, but typically with a round projectile one would see evidence of that even from this vantage point.

    MSL (5f601f)

  124. Doctor Robert McClelland, who was in the OR with Dr Perry and Dr Jenkins as they were attending JFK at the moment he was pronounced dead is certain, There were at least two shooters (“absolutely”) and the assassination was likely a conspiracy involving government “elements.”

    I can see how doctors are trained to recognize government conspiracies. Heh.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  125. The head wound is an exit from the neck? Hilarious. That transcript discredits their opinion utterly.

    Comment by SPQR (768505) — 11/22/2013 @ 6:49 pm

    I don’t know whether that’s true. Again are you a doctor? In any case Clark said that while Perry said it was an entrance wound if you read a little more carefully.

    It also seems pretty clear that the FBI initially thought JFK was shot from in front. Their original theory which was outlined in Life Magazine during the early investigation was that Oswald began firing at Kennedy while the car was still approaching the TBD and then fired some more shots from behind after it passed the building. This was pointed out in Mark Lane’s book Rush to Judgement. It’s not clear when exactly they abandoned the theory but I think it may have been only after the emergence of the Zapruder film.

    Gerald A (66407e)

  126. MSL, there a reason you linked to the view with the least visible deformation like all conspiracy nuts?

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:CE399butt.jpg

    SPQR (768505)

  127. Gerald A, since you are not a doctor, you can shut up first.

    What I am, is trained to read statements for inconsistencies. I find your transcript of Clark hilarious and discredits him.

    I know what bullets do, Gerald, I have pulled enough from carcasses.

    As for the back shot, JFK’s arms rise in an involuntary reaction which is evidence of the spinal trauma.

    SPQR (768505)

  128. It was PERRY that said it was an entrance wound. Yeesh.

    Gerald A (66407e)

  129. I’m surprised Rick Perry knew an exit from an entrance.

    Colonel Haiku (d63e9f)

  130. Gerald, did you not read before posting?

    DR. MALCOM PERRY-
    The nature of the wound defies the ability to describe whether it went through it from either side. I cannot tell you that. Can you, Dr. Clark?
    DR. KEMP CLARK-
    The head wound could have been either the exit wound from the neck or it could have been a tangential wound, as it was simply a large, gaping loss of tissue.

    SPQR (768505)

  131. I know what bullets do, Gerald, I have pulled enough from carcasses.

    Oh I see.

    Gerald A (66407e)

  132. Because Romney!!!

    Colonel Haiku (d63e9f)

  133. Since neither Perry nor Clark are aware of the back wound, they discredit themselves.

    SPQR (768505)

  134. Comment by SPQR (768505) — 11/22/2013 @ 7:17 pm

    What exactly is wrong with what either said there?

    Gerald A (66407e)

  135. I’m surprised Rick Perry knew an exit from an entrance.

    It was Gaylord Perry.

    Gerald A (66407e)

  136. Gerald, you can’t figure out why saying the head wound could have been an exit from the neck is silly? Really? Besides that it would have required multiple 90 degree turns of the bullet?

    SPQR (768505)

  137. Sometimes I wonder at the complete absence of common sense.

    SPQR (768505)

  138. I know everybody loves conspiracy theories, but I’m old and what difference does it make in 2013?

    Ag80 (eb6ffa)

  139. I know of no reason why it COULDN’T have been an exit from the neck.

    It seems people who want to apply common sense to this want to do so inconsistently to say the least. Some scientist says his head could have jerked back when being shot from the front so that settles it. Maybe the scientist is correct, but that’s not what common sense would tell us.

    QUESTION-
    Would the bullet have to travel up from the neck wound to exit through the back?
    DR. MALCOM PERRY-
    Unless it was deviated from its course by striking bone or some other object.

    These are ER doctors for crying out loud. They saw LOTS of gunshot wounds. I have to assume they know what they’re talking about. That assumption would actually be COMMON SENSE.

    Gerald A (66407e)

  140. Well they’ve been churning this carp since 1963, the law defeated Garrison, who swallowed the first round of the desinformatya scheme, then Stone blew it up a quarter century later, a whole cast of even more delusional figures, like Fletcher Prouty, sowed the seeds.

    narciso (3fec35)

  141. SPQR

    I have seen the butt pic. Still not much deformation for a bullet that went through JFK’s neck (possibly hitting his spine in the process from your own words) then went through Gov. Connally, breaking a rib and a bone in his wrist. Here is the opposite side of the same projectile.
    http://www.jfk-info.com/33-3320a.gif
    You will find many views of that “magic” bullet at that nutcase liar site. I only cared about the evidence (pics of the “magic” bullet) not the site or it’s claims.

    Some experts say this “magic” bullet is possible, others say it’s not probable and thus not possible.

    You claimed the projectile was “deformed greatly”, the picture of the butt you linked to which is ever so slightly deformed is unconvincing to say the least. Commonsense screams about the impossibilities of that projectile damaging anything more than a ball of cotton.

    MSL (5f601f)

  142. I mean some scientist says his head could have jerked back when being shot from the front back so that settles it.

    Gerald A (66407e)

  143. MSL, the bullet is fattened longitudinally.

    Gerald, you still can’t see why a bullet can’t make two 90+ degree turns?

    Unbelievable.

    SPQR (768505)

  144. Caligularity – The point that you are stupid and have no point?

    Comment by daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 11/22/2013 @ 10:14 am

    Has a point he does Daley! Top of his head, pointy it is!

    Yoda (c1890a)

  145. Bullets can, and do, do strange things. You’d think it was simple, but ricochets can move in mysterious ways.

    htom (412a17)

  146. JFK addressing The Economic Club of New York on December 14, 1962. He sounds strangely unlike any of today’s Democrats. RTWT:

    Not bad, not bad at all. When I wonder if my disquiet about him is due to politics or pure ideology or something non-partisan, I realize it’s the latter. That’s because the myth of Kennedy is so heavily dependent upon the superficial (ie, the attractive politician and his attractive family), that his tremendous feet of clay (ie, the actual disreputable behavior behind the myth) would make me flinch regardless of his party affiliation or philosophy. Quite simply, if I could sincerely, honestly respect the reported trappings of “Camelot,” I’d have no trouble joining the bandwagon.

    Mark (58ea35)

  147. He was to the right of the party establishment, in someways similar to Hugh Gaitskell in the labor party, who passed away all too soon, and left a vaccuum that Harold Wilson and company, filled.

    narciso (3fec35)

  148. Gerald, you still can’t see why a bullet can’t make two 90+ degree turns?

    Unbelievable.

    Comment by SPQR (768505) — 11/22/2013 @ 7:43 pm

    I think we’re a little off course here. I’m not claiming the bullet that may have hit the front of his neck also exited the back of his head if that’s what you’re suggesting.

    As for the doctors speculating that the bullet could have entered his neck and exited the back of his head, they were not making any assumption about WHERE the bullet was fired from. Those assumptions didn’t come until later. So you cannot attribute any “two 90+ degree turns” assumption to the doctors either which seems to be your point. They were talking strictly from the standpoint of: Since the bullet entered the front it could have exited the back. They weren’t engaged in any deep analysis about trajectories. So your attempt to say this speculation somehow calls into question their competence is baloney.

    Gerald A (66407e)

  149. Ace nails lil’ boots (I think there’s a movie title there; “lil’ boots, smaller IQ”) tonight:

    http://ace.mu.nu/archives/345170.php#345170

    Enchanted Crocodiles, Mighty Sorcerers, and Lee Harvey Oswald

    Jung had spent some time as an anthropologist in Africa. In the book, he attempted to explain the differences between the mental states of Modern Man and “Archaic Man,” that is, Primitive Man.

    Primitive man. That’d be lil’ boots’ group.

    He noted that there was no real difference in actual intelligence.

    Carl Jung was speaking generally; differences between groups. There’s a huge difference in intelligence between lil’ boots and a sea urchin. Sea urchin coming out on top.

    However, their thought processes were quite unalike.

    It seems to him, as a civilized man, inexplicable that the primitive should disregard the obvious lessons of experience, should flatly deny the most evident causal connections, and instead of accounting for things as accidents or on reasonable grounds, should simply take their “collective representations” to be valid offhand. By “collective representations,” Lévy-Brühl means widely current ideas regarding spirits, witchcraft, the power of [shaman/witch doctor] medicines, and so forth. While it is perfectly understandable to us that people die of advanced age or as a result of diseases recognized to be fatal, this is not the case with primitive man. When old persons die, he does not believe it to be the result of age. He argues that there are persons who have grown much older. Likewise, no one dies as the result of disease, for there have been other people who recovered from the same disease, or never contracted it. To him, the real explanation is always magic. Either a spirit has killed the man, or sorcery has done so.

    Sorcery. Magic. The “climate of hate” (TM).

    Nothing happens for what appears to be the surface reasons. Evil forces cause them to happen. And by evil forces, lil’ boots means Rethuglicans. They, like sorcerers, cause every bad thing to happen.

    Take Obamacare. It didn’t crash on takeoff because of the impossible complexity of the task, the constant delays of requirements and of deadlines for purely partisan political reasons, and the incompetence of the Obama administration which is staffed by, as one CEO who as part of a business group recently met with the Obama administration put it, people they would never hire.

    (I’ll see if I can find the article I’m thinking of. One of my favorite parts is when one CEO who attended observed that when Obama put Valerie Jarrett in charge of the event it’s like Adam Sandler starring in a movie about inheriting a company and putting his sister in charge of advertising.)

    No. Incompetence, arrogance, secrecy, and complexity can’t possibly explain why the lightworker’s signature domestic achievement failed to achieve instant success. What can explain it?

    Aha! President Tiger Beat has found the answer. The evil Rethuglicans were “rooting for failure.” In other words, the GOP hexed Obamacare. As Ace observes:

    It is too hard to accept that the Great Progressive Hope could have been killed down by such a pissant little loser of a malcontent crocodile, I mean communist; therefore, he wasn’t.

    No, no piddly little crocodile, I mean communist, decided to kill Kennedy on its own; rather, it was bidden to do so by a conclave of Rightwing Sorcerers, sorcerers who poisoned the very air with Magic Words, Magic Words of great power, like “socialist” and “Anyone But JFK.”

    These Magic Words commanded the crocodile, I mean communist, to kill the King.

    And once this mythic structure is accepted, and internalized, why then it becomes a “collective representation,” and pre-logical presupposition informing all our interpretation of subsequent events.

    That’s lil’ boots in a nutshell. And I do mean nut.

    Steve57 (338553)

  150. SPQR,

    I have no idea how you get “two 90+ degree turns” either but it’s irrelevant anyway…

    Gerald A (66407e)

  151. #116, SPQR is certainly heavily invested in advanced ignorance and insane fantasy. According to him surgeons aren’t experts in bullet wounds. Well, if not surgeons who, tap dancers or violin players?

    #116, bullets fired through jello show more deformation than CE399. Any bullet that is supposed to have caused 7 wounds should look like a mushroom or a schizophrenic snowflake.

    #122, the Bethesda autopsy never determined a path from the back wound to the throat. In fact the FBI report indicated the back wound was shallow, only about an inch deep. The autopsy doctors were ordered not to establish the depth of the back shot or it’s relationship to the throat wound. Read the autopsy doctor’s report, it’s there in black and white.

    #134, according to SPQR the Parkland doctors are discredited because they didn’t turn JFK over and find his inconsequential back wound when they were trying to save a man’s life who’d had his head blown off. Yet, he doesn’t discredit the Bethesda autopsy doctors for failing to notice the treacheotomy concealed an entrance wound in JFK’s neck.

    #145, SPQR, what in the world are you attempting to communicate? I can’t believe my eyes. Are you actually pretending a bullet can change direction at 90 degree angles. Please explain.

    ropelight (1b87ed)

  152. #145, SPQR, what in the world are you attempting to communicate? I can’t believe my eyes. Are you actually pretending a bullet can change direction at 90 degree angles. Please explain.

    Comment by ropelight (1b87ed) — 11/22/2013 @ 8:34 pm

    No he’s saying the doctors were saying such a thing was possible and therefore were incompetent, but they were saying no such thing. They weren’t thinking about possible trajectories, for good reason, since for starters they had no information on which to base any such conclusions. They were just commenting strictly on the nature of the wounds.

    Gerald A (66407e)

  153. Thanks Gerald, I know SPQR is more intelligent than to think bullets change course as radically as UFOs. On most topics he’s usually reliably sensible, but when it comes to the JFK assassination it’s like he goes into some sort of a trance and regurgitates the WC’s straight party line.

    ropelight (1b87ed)

  154. The angle of the entrance from throat to exiting head would mean that JFK shot himself, as the bullet would have traveled in an upward direction directly from his lap it would! Conspiracy it is I say! Secret Service must have removed and destroyed the rifle he used or that never before seen at that time 6.5 mm pistol.

    Oh, and Jack Ruby was just a sleazy second rate nightclub owner and hood. My DPD Detective Dad knew him and about him rather well!

    Yoda (c1890a)

  155. That’s what SPQR is referencing by magical 90 degree turns of bullet!

    Yoda (c1890a)

  156. To have been fired from any direction other than Kennedy’s own lap and enter throat then exit the head, would mean that bullet would have had to make at a minimum of two 90 degree turns.

    Yoda (c1890a)

  157. 92-Steve57- thanks.
    What I remember is the tears falling from grown ups faces.

    mg (31009b)

  158. 152. …Are you actually pretending a bullet can change direction at 90 degree angles. Please explain.

    Comment by ropelight (1b87ed) — 11/22/2013 @ 8:34 pm

    If SPQR doesn’t mind, I’ll interject. Upon impact bullets can’t always be counted on to continue on a straight path to the target.

    The point of aim isn’t really the target. That’s really just a surface reference point. The actual target is the internal organ or central nervous system. You can hit the point of aim exactly, but if the bullet is unstable (as I hear the 6.5mm Carcano is), deformed, or deflected it won’t continue straight to the target. As a matter of fact as it comes into contact with tissue of various degrees of density it can do some pretty amazing things.

    Steve57 (338553)

  159. Well, Yoda, if a guy gets shot in the back from 60 or 70 feet high and 80 yards away that would indicate a downward angle in the neighborhood of 20 degrees or so. The bullet hit JFK at about 5″ below the neck line and 2″ to the right of his spinal column moving left from JFK’s right to his left.

    How that bullet was then able to change direction and travel uphill and to JFK’s right without leaving a trace through his body and emerge from his neck in the proximity of JFK’s adam’s apple is an unsolved mystery which seems to defy most of the laws of physics.

    ropelight (1b87ed)

  160. Not that I meant it can do two 90 degree turns. I was sort of ready, fire, aim on this one. I went back and looked at the comments.

    So I’ll just bow out and observe that bullets don’t always do what you expect, and neither do the things they impact always do what you expect. I never found it all that remarkable that Kennedy did move backward even though he was hit from the rear. He did move forward initially, but apparently he had some sort of autonomous reaction when he was shot.

    Except for one thing.

    153. …They were just commenting strictly on the nature of the wounds.

    Comment by Gerald A (66407e) — 11/22/2013 @ 8:40 pm

    The nature of the wounds has less to do with trajectories than terminal ballistics.

    Steve57 (338553)

  161. HUH? Bullet that entered back of his head is the one that exited his throat, all of it a downward trajectory! If the bullet had entered from the front, it would have had to take out at a minimum the windshield or floorboard thru front seat passengers and the front seat itself. There is no possible way that the bullet could have entered the front of his throat at a 30 degree upward angle or even a 20 degree angle without it having been fired from inside the car. I don’t remember seeing any guns firing from the inside of that open limousine!

    Yoda (c1890a)

  162. Steve, thanks, but you know as well as I do that a bullet will tend to continue along a relatively straight path till it contacts something hard enough to deflect it’s angular momentum.

    I’ve put 6.5mm Carcano rounds straight through 16″ of treated pine pole, through and through. There’s no way a shot 80 yards away into JFK’s back at a downward angle of 20 degrees is going to reverse direction and travel uphill to exit at his throat and not leave a trail through his body and only penetrate to a depth of about an inch. The facts are in the initial FBI autopsy report.

    The magic bullet didn’t weave it’s way from up to down, up again, then down, left to right, and right to left, not today and not 50 years ago.

    ropelight (1b87ed)

  163. Yes Steve bullets can do some strange things. While waiting to get a statement from a gunshot victim (.22 caliber revolver) at Baylor UMC in Dallas, two of the Dr.’s were trying to find the sixth bullet. 3 entry and exit wounds, two bullets clearly visible in body. One entry-no exit in front part of upper thigh with no sign of bullet. I noticed its nose peeking out from one of the lower back vertebrae on one of the X-rays. Bullet entered front of upper thigh, struck the bone and deflected upward to lodge against one of the lower vertebrae.

    Also knew of one perp that got shot in the leg with another 22. Bullet entered into the femoral artery and exited his heart. One shot-one kill! Guess he shouldn’t have beat the crap outa his girlfriend and caused her to just want to hurt him back a little by shooting him in the leg!

    22’s are notorious for this! Had a friend on another city’s PD that told me about a woman that shot a perp breaking into her house. Shot him in the head with a 22 she claimed! Found him staggering down a nearby street in a daze! Shot in the head he was! Bullet entered at a slight angle in forehead, penetrated skin, deflected by skull, and traveled around skull under skin, and then exited out the back! Had a terrible headache he did!

    Yoda (c1890a)

  164. The bullet that exited his throat didn’t come from his back! It came from the entry wound in the back of his head! The wound channel shows direct path from back of head to lower throat! I’ll type this real slow! Bullet had to enter the back of the head and travel downward at an angle and exit his throat. Otherwise, if it had traveled from throat upwards to exit the head, the bullet would have had to been fired from within the car, from the area of his knees or lap area. That is unless you have one of those magical guns that shoot reversible or 90 degree turning rounds.

    Yoda (c1890a)

  165. Conspiracy theorists! Hmmmmph! Fire doesn’t melt steal! 11ty!

    Yoda (c1890a)

  166. Hey Pat! Since you are from Ft. Worth at one time, ever hear of a Decker Hold?

    Yoda (c1890a)

  167. Of course, he was from Dallas County, he was!

    Yoda (c1890a)

  168. Yoda, the Parkland doctors said the throat wound was an entry wound. Deal with it.

    ropelight (1b87ed)

  169. Besides the absurdity of the “magic” ever so slightly deformed longitudinally bullet. Ones natural reaction is to first grab at the initial point of impact just like you see JFK grabbing at his throat. He didn’t grab at his back, he never even made an attempt to grab at his back. I have heard some “experts” claim JFK’s spinal column was damaged by the impact from the back which caused his elbows to rise up. To me it’s just more absurd “magic” ever so slightly deformed longitudinally bullet stuff. When the spinal cord is traumatized in such a manner typically a person loses the ability of all movement whether it’s involuntary or not.

    Watch the Zapruder film, but whatever you do, don’t believe your lying eyes…

    MSL (5f601f)

  170. To those talking about the angles of the shots, they lined up perfectly: you just have to understand how the limousine was constructed.

    Former Conservative (6e026c)

  171. 158. 92-Steve57- thanks.
    What I remember is the tears falling from grown ups faces.

    Comment by mg (31009b) — 11/22/2013 @ 8:59 pm

    Just so I’m clear, I didn’t actually say anything bad about JFK. He did at least volunteer to serve in the forward areas, in combat, whereas with his dad’s clout he could have remained at a desk job in the states.

    He did screw up though. But then lots of good people screw up. I recall CDR Kevin Mooney USN now retired. After the USS San Francisco hit an undersea sea mount head on back in 2005 he was ultimately relieved of command, went to Admiral’s mast, which awarded him a letter of reprimand that ended his career. Some people thought he had gotten a raw deal since the Navy had provided him with charts that didn’t show seamount. And in fact his command had been given a route from Guam to Brisbane that went right through that uncharted seamount.

    But CDR Mooney never thought he had been given a raw deal. He understood the essence of command. The safety of his vessel was entirely his responsibility. Had he reviewed all his charts, he would have known some of them did show that seamount. The bottom line was even before the Navy started the investigation into that collision Mooney said he expected to be held accountable and he took full responsibility. At mast he took full responsibility. He accepted the Navy’s judgement with grace, because the Navy’s verdict was no different than his own. As he said in his retirement speech:

    submarinebrotherhood.blogspot.com/2006/03/cdr-mooneys-retirement-speech.html

    Just after being ranked as the best submarine in the Force in engineering readiness, we set off from Guam to Brisbane, Australia in January 2005. You all know how the cruel sea punished us during this journey, so I’ll bypass the details, but please allow me to shed some perspective on the events that followed. After suffering the worst possible shock in the history of nuclear submarine operations, every single Sailor on SAN FRANCISCO – yes, every single one – did his military duty. Some did much more than their duty and acted in truly heroic fashion: Matt Parsons, Craig Litty, Billy Cramer, Danny Hager, Jake Elder, Max Chia, Chris Baumhoff, Doc Akin, Gil Daigle, and more: Key, Miller, Pierce, Powell, Smoot, McDonald. I could go on. But one hero clearly stands above all the others, he was my favorite Sailor, and the one who I miss every day, Petty Officer Joey Ashley.

    In the aftermath of our tragic grounding, we, the crew of SAN FRANCISCO, forged bonds that never can be broken: – not by investigations, nor Admiral’s Mast, nor punishments – not by grief, nor anger, nor sadness, and – never by distance, space, or timeWhy, you may ask, are these bonds so strong? Because as Chief Johnny Johnson surely would tell you, THERE ARE NO BONDS STRONGER THAN THOSE FORMED BY MEN WHO HAVE FACED DEATH TOGETHER.

    And on a very personal level, there is something even more remarkable: even though it was I who brought harm upon my men through my own shortcomings, today this room is filled with my SAN FRANCISCO brothers. Shipmates, I shall never forget your courage and loyalty and I was proud to serve as your Commanding Officer.

    Joey Ashley was the one Sailor killed. If I recall correctly he was about to get lunch in the enlisted mess. He was the one killed because he flew 25 feet or so head first into a pump when the boat stopped traveling at 35 knots and he didn’t. I think all the men who weren’t actually on watch and strapped in were wounded to one degree or another. The official tally was something between 20-25 wounded, but those were the men who were too badly hurt to stand their watches or do damage control. The rest carried on, because they still had to get to the surface and then get back to Guam broken bones or concussions or no. One of the reasons they did was because of their skipper, who really was a good s**t who among other things never tried to evade blame or shift it to others. That’s why his shipmates showed up at his retirement. That’s why Joey Ashley’s family never blamed him. In fact, that’s why the Navy let him stick around until retirement. They could have s**tcanned him right then and there but they didn’t. They let him get his 20.

    I see some of the same thing in JFK. He had eff’d up. He shouldn’t have been caught sleeping by the Amagiri. But he recovered nicely and worked hard to rescue his crew. I mentioned earlier it was unnecessary because a New Zealand coastwatcher had seen the fireball. But then JFK had no way of knowing about it.

    I still find it odd that he got a medal for the rescue and ENS Ross, who worked just as hard at no less risk to his life, didn’t. At least, I would find it odd if I didn’t know how Washington the timeless city works. But then George Ross did show up at the inauguration along with most of the PT109 crew. So that’s something. And when Kennedy rotated back to the states he trained some of the MTB crews who performed heroically at the Battle of the Surigao Strait, which is something else.

    But Kennedy did eff up that night in August 1943. The myths that grew up surrounding that night blow his actions all out of proportion. And I’ll leave it at that.

    Steve57 (338553)

  172. #172, FC, like Jim Garrison said, You can say an elephant can hang by his tail tied to a daisy.

    Magicians saw pretty girls in half right before your very eyes, they can make jumbo jets disappear in broad daylight, and some of them can even hang suspended in mid-air.

    But none of them can explain why both John Connolly and his wife always insisted he was hit be a separate bullet from the one that hit JFK.

    ropelight (1b87ed)

  173. ropelight, I don’t care if Connelly said so. It is meabingless, they didn’t know when JFK was first hit. They were not looking at him. You really have no clue, do you?

    SPQR (768505)

  174. But none of them can explain why both John Connolly and his wife always insisted he was hit be a separate bullet from the one that hit JFK.

    Shock, trauma, and the enormous fallibility of human memory during life-threatening stressful events.

    Former Conservative (6e026c)

  175. MSL, you really don’t know what you are talking about. The arm movement is involuntary.

    SPQR (768505)

  176. So, SPQR, the man hit by the bullet doesn’t know what he’s talking about, and the doctors in the ER who attended the dying President don’t know that they’re talking about, but you’ve got the straight scoop. Does that about sum it up?

    ropelight (1b87ed)

  177. “Yoda, the Parkland doctors said the throat wound was an entry wound. Deal with it.”

    ropelight – You keep saying that. McClelland did not even see the neck wound before the tracheotomy incision was made. Anything he said was based on what another doctor told him. They had Kennedy 20 minutes before he was declared dead and never turned him over to see the back wound. Relying on impressions of doctors with incomplete information sounds like a great idea!

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  178. SPQR, what in the world are you attempting to communicate? I can’t believe my eyes. Are you actually pretending a bullet can change direction at 90 degree.

    Pay attention. The conclusions of a doc who thinks that the neck wound is an entrance wound with a matching exit in JFK’s forehead is being used above. That path would require two 90 degree turns at velocity.

    MSL, the Zapruder film matches my description, not yours. Especially frame 313 which shows a bullet exiting JFK forehead, back of his head intact, consistent with a shot from behind him.

    SPQR (768505)

  179. ropelight, if you can’t deal honestly with what I am actually saying, don’t act like a ass by misrepresenting my comments. I am not amused by your clown act.

    SPQR (768505)

  180. daleyrocks, you’re not even half right. Dr McClelland actually operated the retractor to keep JFK’s throat tissue open so the dying President could continue breathing while Dr Perry and Dr Baxter performed the tracheotomy.

    ropelight (1b87ed)

  181. SPQR, if you insist on making a fool of yourself it’s not really my responsibility to pretend you know your ass from a hole in the ground. Just sayin’

    ropelight (1b87ed)

  182. There is no hard evidence of any shooter but Oswald. No other person, no other weapon, no other bullets.

    That is the bottom line.

    SPQR (768505)

  183. ropelight, since you can’t seem to deal with arguments directly, I am going to treat you as a clown from now on.

    SPQR (768505)

  184. SPQR

    Whatever you say. I have shot up lots of inanimate objects, never seen what you claim you want to see in the Zapruder film. Must be my laying eyes and all.

    And if the spinal cord is severed, even involuntary movement is impossible, that’s not a real hard one to figure out.

    MSL (5f601f)

  185. “daleyrocks, you’re not even half right. Dr McClelland actually operated the retractor to keep JFK’s throat tissue open so the dying President could continue breathing while Dr Perry and Dr Baxter performed the tracheotomy.”

    ropelight – I’m actually 100% right because I just finished rereading McClelland’s WC testimony. He did not see the neck wound before Dr. Perry obliterated it with the incision for the tracheotomy. Fact. He testified doctors never turned JFK’s body over and so never saw the back wound. Fact. He did, as you mention assist in inserting a new tracheotomy tube. Fact. The description he gave of the wound to a St. Louis paper a few days after the assassination relied entirely upon what Dr. Perry described to him. Fact. In front of the Warren Commission Dr. McClelland said it actually would have been impossible to determine if it had been an entry or exit wound and agreed that it was completely possible for it to be an exit wound when the location of the wound on the back, angle of the shot, caliber of bullet and muzzle velocity were given to him. Fact.

    Deal with it.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  186. daleyrocks, thanks for looking into it. Give me a day and I’ll do likewise and hopefully we can nail it down. I’m all in favor of accuracy.

    ropelight (1b87ed)

  187. #185, SPQR, well, have it your way, that’s certainly your prerogative. But do recall I cautioned you at #105 against using insults instead of facts and clearly warned that further insults would be repaid in kind.

    Now, as it stands, I’m not mad at you, and I’m not looking to get involved in a pissing contest. And, I did pay you a nice compliment at #155, but if you intend to treat me as though I’m some sort of a clown prepare yourself, and consider well the consequences of inviting guests to a feast when the price might be more than you can afford to pay.

    ropelight (1b87ed)

  188. daleyrocks
    First off the doctors where their to save a life not attempt to determine angles of entry or exist wounds, so you have that going for you.

    But seeing that you read their testimony to the warren commission, were you not a little taken aback like I was at the loaded questions that assumed if this that were true ( assumed facts while not claiming they where real facts) then wouldn’t this or that also be true (which somehow becomes a fact after the assumed non-facts as a basis)?

    It really sounded all pretty hokey poky to me. I ran across an old Walter Cronkite CBS clip where Walter was taking about the Warren report. What was interesting to me was Walter mentioned the Parkland doctors mentioning the entry neck wound and reports the limo also had evidence of shots from the front. I found that very interesting.

    MSL (5f601f)

  189. ropelight – No problem.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  190. #190, MSL, there’s an eye witness report from a Parkland Hospital doctor, a woman, not one of the ER doctors, who saw a conchoidal fracture in the windshield of JFK’s limo just below and to the right of the rear view mirror.

    She saw a small a round hole, about the same diameter as an ordinary pencil on the exterior surface and a much larger tapered hole a little bigger than a nickle on the corresponding interior surface.

    Which is the unmistakable sign of a projectile impact from the front.

    ropelight (1b87ed)

  191. Good lord, it’s after 3:15 EST. I’m going to bed or I’ll sleep till past noon Saturday and I’m looking forward to college football. Good night and God Bless!

    ropelight (1b87ed)

  192. I’ve put 6.5mm Carcano rounds straight through 16″ of treated pine pole, through and through.

    That’s the one thing I can opine about, because I have it from an expert I trust, my father. He told me the same thing. A 6.5mm would shoot through the trunk of a tree that an 8mm Mauser could not. He was very impressed with the penetration of the 6.5.

    On bullet deflection. The long, skinny, spitzers, like the Carcano and all modern military rounds I guess, are very well-shaped for going forward through air. Their shape, however, is exactly the opposite it should be for going through water. Visualize a jet fighter and a modern nuclear submarine. On the submarine the nose is the biggest part tapering down to a skinnier tail. When a bullet hits a liquid medium it immediately wants (the drag does it but you know what I mean) to keep traveling in the most efficient way so it begins to turn around. Tumbles. Until it hits another medium of different density. Which may make it change its tumble without changing its direction, or deflect its direction, or change both its tumble and direction. And so on and so forth, with all the things it runs through until it has lost all kinetic energy.

    As for the bullet’s deformation, that’s complicated. Real complicated. Bullet designers want, at the very least, to have only controlled deformation if any at all. When a bullet deforms, it uses its energy on itself instead of the target. It loses penetration among other things. They also want it to maintain its integrity as one solid mass for maximum mv2, not turning into fragments of geometrically lesser energy. And there’s the anti-dum-dum rule of the Hague Convention for military bullets. And all these things depend on the geometry, and the composition of the core, and the composition of the jacket, and the way the jacket is attached, and what gremlins are riding the bullet when it hits, …. I do not find it surprising that the Kennedy bullet deformed “only” the way that it did.

    nk (dbc370)

  193. I said all this stuff last year, right? And the year before? We need to find something new to talk about. I have always been attracted to big-eyed women. Dark-eyed, too, but the big is more important. Above all other attributes she may have. What do you guys like most in a woman? (Besides that, Haiku.)

    nk (dbc370)

  194. I like a woman that touches me to get my attention instead of vocalizing from a distance – even when that distance is extremely short.

    felipe (6100bc)

  195. If course, what I love best in a woman is her feminine genius.

    felipe (6100bc)

  196. I love everything about a woman… God’s gift to Man.

    Oliver Stone will be spanking his monkey while reading this thread for months…

    Colonel Haiku (221be5)

  197. No one cares about you more than a woman.

    mg (31009b)

  198. That family, bores me or annoys me. Neither good.

    Rodney King's Spirit (5c6cbf)

  199. #196 “I think of a man, and I take away reason and accountability”

    Rodney King's Spirit (5c6cbf)

  200. FWIW, I don’t think the discussion I heard discussed the shot or bullet trajectories or anything. I had the sense that perhaps the conspiracy was setting up Oswald to take the fall, that maybe the shots were fired as the Warren commission said, just that it wasn’t Oswald that did it as a lone gunman.

    The idea that LBJ ducked seems strange to me. Did he really think the shooter would mess up which car to shoot at? Did he think that multiple targets would be shot at to cover his involvement?
    Or was it a random act that just happened to occur at a moment that looked suspicious.

    But I do know that many people did/do not think LBJ was a very nice character and certainly capable of being behind such a thing.
    But then again, lots of people might have done a lot of things, but didn’t.

    For example, I could have won the Heisman trophy, 3 times even, as today is another college football Saturday,
    but I didn’t, not even once, even.

    MD in Philly (f9371b)

  201. Hmmm, sounds fishy to me, MD. Are you protesting too much?

    felipe (6100bc)

  202. I’m just trying to be clear as to what I heard. I never was much of one to worry much about it. I just thought it curious when a person like Dick Morris, who I consider pretty much a “main stream” political commentator, seemed so adamant about it being a conspiracy.

    And I was only 5 at the time. I wasn’t involved.

    MD in Philly (f9371b)

  203. I’m just being silly, MD. I was referring to the three heismans that never were.

    felipe (6100bc)

  204. Heh, SarahW.

    And if anybody knows the relative standing of child molesters, vis a vis politicians or anybody else, Woody Allen does.

    nk (dbc370)

  205. There is no hard evidence of any shooter but Oswald. No other person, no other weapon, no other bullets.

    Pretty much so.

    It irritates me because I’m sure that a good number of Americans who are the most cynical and skeptical about that conclusion — about the Warren Commission’s report — are the same ones who are so forgiving, so passive, so permissive about all the bilge that’s going on 50 years later, in this era of Obama’s IRS, Obama’s NSA, Obama’s Benghazi, Obama’s ACA, Obama’s Fast and Furious, Obama’s doctored unemployment stats, etc. To those people, a nice acronym comes to mind: “STFU!”

    Mark (58ea35)

  206. Did the autopsy document the depth and trajectory of JFK’s back wound?

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  207. The bullet that exited his throat didn’t come from his back! It came from the entry wound in the back of his head! The wound channel shows direct path from back of head to lower throat! I’ll type this real slow! Bullet had to enter the back of the head and travel downward at an angle and exit his throat.

    Comment by Yoda (c1890a) — 11/22/2013 @ 9:47 pm

    So in the Zapruder film when he’s clutching his throat the back of his had already been blown off, but somehow it’s invisible…

    Gerald A (66407e)

  208. Did the autopsy document the depth and trajectory of JFK’s back wound?

    Comment by DRJ (a83b8b) — 11/23/2013 @ 8:51 am

    I don’t think so. The person in charge of the autopsy had no background in forensics IIRC.

    Gerald A (66407e)

  209. Please pass the lotion…

    Oliver Stone (a54afe)

  210. And I was only 5 at the time. I wasn’t involved.
    Comment by MD in Philly (f9371b) — 11/23/2013 @ 7:56 am

    I was sleeping in Pakistan at that moment, so don’t blame me.
    And, five years later, I was watching the TV feed of RFK walking through the Ambassador kitchen, so I guess Sirhan was a “lone gunman” too, but we should blame the VRWC that infested Los Angeles.

    askeptic (2bb434)

  211. Inside the minds of the JFK conspiracy theorists

    Starting with 9/11

    ……And yet, as Slate’s Jeremy Stahl points out, millions of Americans hold these beliefs. In a Zogby poll taken six years ago, only 64 per cent of US adults agreed that the attacks “caught US intelligence and military forces off guard”. More than 30 per cent chose a different conclusion: that “certain elements in the US government knew the attacks were coming but consciously let them proceed for various political, military, and economic motives”, or that these government elements “actively planned or assisted some aspects of the attacks”.

    How can this be? How can so many people, in the name of scepticism, promote so many absurdities?

    The answer is that people who suspect conspiracies aren’t really sceptics. Like the rest of us, they’re selective doubters. They favour a world view, which they uncritically defend. But their worldview isn’t about God, values, freedom, or equality. It’s about the omnipotence of elites.

    Conspiracy chatter was once dismissed as mental illness. But the prevalence of such belief, documented in surveys, has forced scholars to take it more seriously. Conspiracy theory psychology is becoming an empirical field with a broader mission: to understand why so many people embrace this way of interpreting history. As you’d expect, distrust turns out to be an important factor. But it’s not the kind of distrust that cultivates critical thinking.

    …..A decade later, a study of British adults yielded similar results. Viren Swami of the University of Westminster, working with two colleagues, found that beliefs in a 9/11 conspiracy were associated with “political cynicism”. He and his collaborators concluded that “conspiracist ideas are predicted by an alienation from mainstream politics and a questioning of received truths”. But the cynicism scale used in the experiment, drawn from a 1975 survey instrument, featured propositions such as “Most politicians are really willing to be truthful to the voters”, and “Almost all politicians will sell out their ideals or break their promises if it will increase their power”. It didn’t measure general wariness. It measured negative beliefs about the establishment.

    The common thread between distrust and cynicism, as defined in these experiments, is a perception of bad character. More broadly, it’s a tendency to focus on intention and agency, rather than randomness or causal complexity. In extreme form, it can become paranoia. In mild form, it’s a common weakness known as the fundamental attribution error – ascribing others’ behaviour to personality traits and objectives, forgetting the importance of situational factors and chance. Suspicion, imagination, and fantasy are closely related.

    The more you see the world this way – full of malice and planning instead of circumstance and coincidence – the more likely you are to accept conspiracy theories of all kinds. Once you buy into the first theory, with its premises of coordination, efficacy, and secrecy, the next seems that much more plausible.

    ….The appeal of these theories – the simplification of complex events to human agency and evil – overrides not just their cumulative implausibility (which, perversely, becomes cumulative plausibility as you buy into the premise) but also, in many cases, their incompatibility. Consider the 2003 survey in which Gallup asked 471 Americans about JFK’s death. Thirty-seven per cent said the Mafia was involved, 34 per cent said the CIA was involved, 18 per cent blamed vice-president Johnson, 15 per cent blamed the Soviets, and 15 percent blamed the Cubans. If you’re doing the maths, you’ve figured out by now that many respondents named more than one culprit. In fact, 21 per cent blamed two conspiring groups or individuals, and 12 per cent blamed three. The CIA, the Mafia, the Cubans – somehow, they were all in on the plot.

    Two years ago, psychologists at the University of Kent led by Michael Wood (who blogs at a delightful website on conspiracy psychology), escalated the challenge. They offered UK college students five conspiracy theories about Princess Diana: four in which she was deliberately killed, and one in which she faked her death. In a second experiment, they brought up two more theories: that Osama Bin Laden was still alive (contrary to reports of his death in a US raid earlier that year) and that, alternatively, he was already dead before the raid. Sure enough, “The more participants believed that Princess Diana faked her own death, the more they believed that she was murdered”. And “the more participants believed that Osama Bin Laden was already dead when US special forces raided his compound in Pakistan, the more they believed he is still alive”.

    …..Clearly, susceptibility to conspiracy theories isn’t a matter of objectively evaluating evidence. It’s more about alienation. People who fall for such theories don’t trust the government or the media. They aim their scrutiny at the official narrative, not at the alternative explanations. In this respect, they’re not so different from the rest of us. Psychologists and political scientists have repeatedly demonstrated that “when processing pro and con information on an issue, people actively denigrate the information with which they disagree while accepting compatible information almost at face value”. Scholars call this pervasive tendency “motivated scepticism”.

    Conspiracy believers are the ultimate motivated sceptics. Their curse is that they apply this selective scrutiny not to the left or right, but to the mainstream. They tell themselves that they’re the ones who see the lies, and the rest of us are sheep. But believing that everybody’s lying is just another kind of gullibility.

    RTWT

    http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn24626-inside-the-minds-of-the-jfk-conspiracy-theorists.html#.UpDiGOKFc5l

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  212. but we should blame the VRWC that infested Los Angeles.

    Considering all the tragedies that have impacted the Kennedy family for over 50 years, and their being an icon of the Democrat Party and American liberalism — and how murderers like Oswald or Sirhan have been tied with the left (or, more recently, the felons involved in cases like the Gabrielle Giffords shooting in Arizona) — there is a strange karmic quality about all of it.

    I recall a liberal commenting to me a few years ago about how Rush Limbaugh’s problems involving pain and drug addiction were somehow politically karmic in his case. Then it occurred to me if that’s applicable in that instance, it’s even more applicable to the various stories involving the Kennedy family, etc.

    Mark (58ea35)

  213. Interesting that Morris is putting this theory, forth, since his godfather, was Roy Cohen, who was partners with David Schine, who among other enterprises owned the Ambassador Hotel, and financed the ‘French Connection’ film,

    narciso (3fec35)

  214. Mark – Don’t forget about the Kennedy Wing of the Hazelden Center in Minnesota.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  215. J.F.K. seemed to hate the commies, I respect that.

    mg (31009b)

  216. #214… WTF, daley, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Sammy has grabbed your mind.

    Colonel Haiku (c0295c)

  217. Comment by felipe (6100bc) — 11/23/2013 @ 7:59 am

    What, are you saying I can’t play football???

    MD in Philly (f9371b)

  218. 😉

    MD in Philly (f9371b)

  219. 214. Very interesting article daleyrocks. Thanks. The author’s point that we are all in fact selective doubters and that all individuals have worldviews which we defend and hold, sometimes less critically than perhaps we could, is worth keeping in mind.

    elissa (ce1ea8)

  220. “#214… WTF, daley, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Sammy has grabbed your mind.”

    Colonel – Just the opposite. The article attempts to explain Sammy’s mind.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  221. i got teh blisters on my fingers from scrolling…

    Oliver Stone (776449)

  222. in teh Camelot
    had to push teh pram a lot
    Catholics you know

    Colonel Haiku (776449)

  223. elissa – I thought it was a good article and helps explain commentary on this thread. Why accept simple, commonsense explanations for events when specks of uncorroborated, isolated information can keep a desired conspiracy theory going on and on. Just like 9/11 Truthers – demolition of WTC 3 – they never show photos from the worst angle of the building. Heh.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  224. It should be noted that another 50th anniversary of Nov 22nd, 1963 is being celebrated today. No, not Aldous Huxley’s death in Ojai, but the first televised episode of Doctor Who, which aired that day. The 50th Anniversary episode simulcasts worldwide in about 30 minutes, wherever you are in spacetime.

    Kevin M (bf8ad7)

  225. People can make good money promoting conspiracies.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  226. absolved him of sins
    anointed bloody forehead
    an oppressive dream

    Colonel Haiku (776449)

  227. dreadful importance
    Dallas a striptease artist
    the cardboard box pile

    Colonel Haiku (776449)

  228. ungrateful nation
    eats barbecue Texas-style
    sons die in jungle

    Colonel Haiku (776449)

  229. conspiracies show
    remarkable persistence
    of world-class morons

    Colonel Haiku (776449)

  230. amphibious Oldsmobile
    with snorkle malfunction
    dead bimbo no comment

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  231. a man a miss
    a car a curve
    he kissed the miss
    and missed
    the curve
    Burma Shave

    Colonel Haiku (776449)

  232. I thought it was a good article and helps explain commentary on this thread. Why accept simple, commonsense explanations for events when specks of uncorroborated, isolated information can keep a desired conspiracy theory going on and on

    The Johnson and Nixon presidencies sundered the trust people had in their government — the credibility gap as it was called — so it’s not all that surprising that lots of folks thought they were being lied to here as well.

    The theories are mostly silly. There are only a few that pass even the most basic of tests. Occam says Oswald did it. Past that you have to ask, “Why would the cover it up?” and the answers to that limit suspects to a few. It wasn’t the mafia, it wasn’t Castro, it wasn’t the Dallas oilmen, it wasn’t anyone outside the government itself. LBJ, Hoover and or the CIA are just about the only ones possible that would make a coverup plausible and I think they’d let Hoover hang. That isn’t to say I think one of them did it, but that the rest of this crap is utter nonsense. I think Oswald did it, acting alone, or it was a coup by LBJ. Nothing else makes sense.

    Kevin M (bf8ad7)

  233. a waitress nightmare
    pinned between Kennedy Dodd
    a true clown sandwich

    Colonel Haiku (776449)

  234. A LOT of people testified to the Warren Commission that they heard shots coming from the direction of the railroad tracks (grassy knoll direction). You have to remember that by the time they were testifying the story that had been communicated to the public was that Oswald was the single shooter in the TBD. Under those circumstances I think people might be expected to change their story but they were all sticking to their story. Some also said they saw puffs of smoke from that area. Virtually all witnesses gave either the TBD, the railroad tracks or both as where it sounded like the shots came from. A tiny number thought they came from some other direction. A number of those who said it sounded like they came from the tracks were standing right in front of that area.

    Some examples:

    Mr Liebeler :Did you have any idea where they [the shots] were coming from?

    Mrs Baker :Well, the way it sounded — it sounded like it was coming from — there was a railroad track that runs behind the building — there directly behind the building and around, so I guess it would be by the underpass, the triple underpass, and there is a railroad track that runs back out there.

    Mr Liebeler :And you say there are some railroad tracks back in there; is that right?

    Mrs Baker :Yes.

    Mr Liebeler :Immediately behind Dealey Plaza away from Elm Street?

    Mrs Baker :Yes.

    Mr Liebeler :And is that where you thought the shots came from?

    Mrs Baker :Yes.

    Ochus Campbell, the vice–president of the Texas School Book Depository Company, was standing with Roy Truly on the north side of Elm Street, about 30 feet from the front entrance to the TSBD.

    Campbell says he ran toward a grassy knoll to the west of the building, where he thought the sniper had hidden.(Dallas Morning News, 23 November 1963)

    Mr. CAMPBELL advised he had viewed the Presidential Motorcade and subsequently heard the shots being fired from a point which he thought was near the railroad tracks located over the viaduct on Elm Street.(Warren Commission Document 5, p.336, 26 November 1963)

    I heard shots being fired from a point which I thought was near the railroad tracks located over the viaduct on Elm street. I … had no occasion to look back at the Texas School Book Depository building as I thought the shots had come from the west.(Warren Commission Hearings, vol.22, p.638, 19 March 1964)

    Faye and John Chism were standing close to the Stemmons Freeway sign on the north side of Elm Street.

    It came from what I thought was behind us.

    I looked behind me, to see whether it was a fireworks display or something. And then I saw a lot of people running for cover, behind the embankment there back up on the grass.(Warren Commission Hearings, vol.19, p.471, 22 November 1963)

    On hearing the second shot he definitely knew the first was not a firecracker and was of the opinion the shots came from behind him.(Warren Commission Hearings, vol.24, p.525, 18 December 1963)

    Harold Elkins was standing close to the crossroads at Main Street and Houston Street.

    I immediately ran to the area from which it sounded like the shots had been fired. This is an area between the railroads and the Texas School Book Depository which is east of the railroads.(Warren Commission Hearings, vol.19, p.540, 26 November 1964)

    Fischer was standing on the southwest corner of the crossroads at Houston Street and Elm Street, just opposite the TSBD.

    Mr Belin :Where did the shots appear to be coming from?

    Mr Fischer :They appeared to be coming from just west of the School Book Depository Building. There were some railroad tracks and there were some railroad cars back in there.

    Mr Belin :And they appeared to be coming from those railroad cars?

    Mr Fischer :Well, that area somewhere.

    Buell Wesley Frazier, who had driven Oswald to work that morning, was standing on the front steps of the TSBD.

    Mr Ball :Now, then, did you have any impression at that time as to the direction from which the sound came?

    Mr Frazier :Well to be frank with you I thought it come from down there, you know, where that underpass is. There is a series, quite a few number of them railroad tracks running together and from where I was standing it sounded like it was coming from down the railroad tracks there.(Warren Commission Hearings, vol.2, p.234, 11 March 1964)

    Sam Holland was standing on the railway bridge known as the triple underpass, at the west end of Dealey Plaza.

    When they got just about to the Arcade I heard what I thought for the moment was a fire cracker and he slumped over and I looked over toward the arcade and trees and saw a puff of smoke come from the trees and I heard three more shots after the first shot but that was the only puff of smoke I saw. … But the puff of smoke I saw definitely came from behind the arcade through the trees.(Warren Commission Hearings, vol.19, p.480, 22 November 1963)

    HOLLAND stated that he looked toward the fence to his left to observe anyone that he might see running from this fence but saw no one.The only unusual thing that HOLLAND could recall was an approximate one and one–half to two foot diameter of what he believed was gray smoke which appeared to him to be coming from the trees which would have been on the right of the Presidential car but observed no one there or in the vicinity.(Warren Commission Document 5, p.49, 24 November 1963)

    Mr Holland :I counted four shots and about the same time all this was happening, and in this group of trees — [indicating].

    Mr Stern :Now, you are indicating trees on the north side of Elm Street?

    Mr Holland :These trees right along here [indicating].

    Mr Stern :Let’s mark this Exhibit C and draw a circle around the trees you are referring to.

    Mr Holland :Right in there. [Indicating.] … And a puff of smoke came out about 6 or 8 feet above the ground right out from under those trees. And at just about this location from where I was standing you could see that puff of smoke, like someone had thrown a fire–cracker or something out, and that is just about the way it sounded. … There were definitely four reports.

    Mr Stern :You have no doubt about that?

    Mr Holland :I have no doubt about it. I have no doubt about seeing that puff of smoke come out from under those trees either.(Warren Commission Hearings, vol.6, pp.243f, 8 April 1964)

    Ed Johnson, a reporter for the Fort Worth Star–Telegram, was in the press bus, a few car–lengths back in the motorcade, and described his experiences in the next day’s paper:

    The shots snapped out in the brisk, clear noon air.Some reporter said, “My God, what’s that? It must be shots.”The caravan kept wheeling on, picking up speed.Some of the White House reporters yelled for the bus driver to stop. He kept on going, heading toward the Stemmons Expressway.Some of us saw little puffs of white smoke that seemed to hit the grassy area in the esplanade that divides Dallas’ main downtown streets.(Fort Worth Star–Telegram, 23 November 1963, p.2)

    Dolores Kounas was standing on the south side of Elm Street, opposite the TSBD.

    It sounded as though these shots were coming from the Triple Underpass. … She stated it did not sound like the shots were coming from that [TSBD] direction but rather from the Triple Underpass.(Warren Commission Hearings, vol.22, p.846, 24 November 1963)

    Although I was across the street from the Depository building and was looking in the direction of the building as the motorcade passed and following the shots, I did not look up at the building as I had thought the shots came from a westerly direction in the vicinity of the viaduct.(Warren Commission Hearings, vol.22, p.659, 23 March 1964)

    Gerald A (66407e)

  235. #202, MD, LBJ ducked. He knew what was going to happen and he took himself out of harm’s way. Why he did it is the subject of much speculation among cognoscenti.

    After AF-1 landed at Love Field, and as the motorcade was being assembled, JFK suddenly interceded and changed the previously arranged seating order. Over LBJ’s strenuous objections, JFK insisted that Governor John Connelly and his wife ride in the Presidential limo with him and Jackie, which meant that LBJ would have to ride with Senator Ralph Yarborough. The two men despised each other.

    LBJ had no way of knowing if the assassins got word of the last minute seating switch. Their instructions had been to target Yarborough as well as JFK, as both men were supposed to be in the Presidential limo.

    The assassins didn’t know it was now Connelly riding with JFK and went ahead and shot him too. LBJ didn’t know if the shooter teams got word of the switch whether they would go ahead and target Yarborough anyway. So in an abundance of caution and with self-preservation firmly in mind, LBJ decided to tie his shoes as his car turned from Houston onto Elm.

    ropelight (d6c853)

  236. her dreams drowned with her
    “just look for an air pocket!”
    coward swam away

    Colonel Haiku (776449)

  237. Don’t forget about the Kennedy Wing of the Hazelden Center in Minnesota.

    daleyrocks, when considering the dark clouds that have hovered over the Kennedy’s for decades, I didn’t even ponder the non-lethal cases that have roiled that family (or other than the story of their 2 assassinations and a fatal plane crash), which would more closely parallel the case of Rush Limbaugh.

    .hazelden.org: “The research shows that any adolescent who suffers a trauma in their adolescence is much more susceptible to drug and alcohol abuse,” said Christopher [Kennedy Lawford] in an interview with Hazelden’s Four Generations Overcoming Addiction. “My drug and alcohol abuse began when I was 13 years old after the assassination of my second uncle, Robert Kennedy. That event, combined with the assassination of my first uncle Jack and the divorce of my parents, made me think of the world as an unsafe place.”

    ^ Similarly, if trauma has affected members of that family, then I wonder how its prevailing politics also has influenced most of them? Are there any black sheep of the Kennedy clan who not only don’t lean left, but are truly conservative? If not, why not? But if so, is that due to — or in spite of — nurture or nature?

    Moreover, since this society is much further to the left than it was 50 years ago, why would people enthralled by liberalism in 1963 be just as enchanted by liberalism today — as most Kennedys, etc, apparently are — certainly after witnessing decades of urban-Detroit-style decadence and decline?

    Mark (58ea35)

  238. ““Why would the cover it up?” and the answers to that limit suspects to a few. It wasn’t the mafia, it wasn’t Castro, it wasn’t the Dallas oilmen, it wasn’t anyone outside the government itself. LBJ, Hoover and or the CIA are just about the only ones possible that would make a coverup plausible and I think they’d let Hoover hang.”

    Kevin M – You forgot about the Jooooos.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  239. @210, DRJ, in the early evening of 11/22/63 two FBI agents were detailed to meet AF-1 at Andrews AFB. James Silbert and Francis O’Neil, were given two distinct tasks: to accompany JFK’s body to Bethesda Medical Center, and to obtain bullets reportedly in the President’s body.

    Their report dated 11/26/63 states the following:

    During the latter stages of this autopsy, Dr Humes located an opening which appeared to be a bullet hole which was below the shoulders and 2 inches to the right of the center line of the spinal column.

    This opening was probed by Dr Humes with his finger, at which time it was determined that the trajectory of the missile extended at this point at a downward position of 45 to 60 degrees. Further probing determined that the distance traveled by the missile was a short distance in as much as the end of the opening could be felt with his finger.

    In as much as no bullet of any size could be located in the brain area and likewise no bullet could be located in the back or in any other area of the body as determined by X-rays and inspection revealing there was no point of exit, the individuals performing the autopsy were at a loss to explain why they could find no bullets…

    During the autopsy the FBI agents found out about the stretcher bullet discovered at Parkland Hospital and informed Dr Humes who formed the opinion the stretcher bullet caused the back wound and had subsequently worked its way out of JFK’s back during external cardiac message at Parkland.

    Caution: Keep in mind that subsequent to this report (after it became known a bullet struck the curb and debris injured James Teague) opinions changed rather dramatically. Now, there were only 3 empty 6.5mm cases in the Book Depository and a minimum of 4 separate bullet wounds.

    So in order to stay within the bounds of a single shooter, mustn’t open the conspiracy door, one of those bullets was just going to have to do double duty and thus was the magic bullet born.

    Dr Hume revised his autopsy report, twice I believe, and then burned the notes he’d written during the autopsy, just to make sure there was nothing in writing which might conflict with the fairy tale they were now committed to telling.

    ropelight (d6c853)

  240. 224- Ollie, try soaking them in cider!

    mg (31009b)

  241. The assassination of JFK,
    The Death of CS Lewis,
    And the “birth” of Dr. Who.

    MD in Philly (f9371b)

  242. The Zapruder film is a key piece of evidence in whether there were shots from the rear or the front.

    Most everyone has seen the zapruder film frames showing the head rocking back after the shot. What few people notice, is that the two immediately proceeding frames show brain matter spewing forward from the head. This indicates the shot was from the rear.

    joe-dal (93323e)

  243. One item that does bring Oswalds markmanship ability into question was his attempt on Gen Walkers life a few weeks earlier.

    Oswald was approx 40 yards from Walkers back window, Walker was sitting at the table just inside the house. With a slightly shorter distance and a stationary target, Oswald missed. Whether oswad got cold fingers as he shot, we will never know. but it does bring into question whether the miss depicted Oswalds true markmanship skills, or whether Oswald got off the shot of a lifetime on kennedy.

    joe-dal (93323e)

  244. ropelight,

    I know about Sibert-O’Neil. That’s why I wondered what the autopsy says about the back wound.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  245. This nasty fascist p.o.s. country will have ample opportunity to “come together” once asian handjob ladies can accept the food stamps I think

    happyfeet (864c60)

  246. “Kennedys” are to white trash what “Obamas” are to economy-raping socialists what assjack your healthcares as a bonus

    happyfeet (864c60)

  247. and wtf happened to Destiny’s manners?

    nobody tells me anything

    happyfeet (864c60)

  248. That’s supposed to be *Dustin’s manners*

    I swear to effing god I have no idea who this Destiny person is

    happyfeet (864c60)

  249. classy commentary happy….

    EPWJ (c3dbb4)

  250. email me for exclusive recipes

    happyfeet (864c60)

  251. joe-dal #247,

    Good Allah, man, Oswald’s shot at General Walker didn’t occur “a few weeks” before the JFK assassination.
    Rather, it took place seven months earlier in April 1963.
    And the shot missed his head by about an inch only because the trajectory slightly changed when the bullet slightly grazed the wooden part of the window frame when the bullet entered the house. Also, this shot was fired at nighttime.

    Elephant Stone (ea5f9b)

  252. Wasn’t it Pete Bondurant who assisted teh patsy Oswald?

    Colonel Haiku (4e5a95)

  253. Yes I too remember President Kennedy and how Conservatives hated him. He was as N**** Lover and and “appeaser’ and was about to “take our guns” Sound familiar?

    OldWioman (d863d4)

  254. The Warren Commission report included evidence on the Walker attempted shooting. It was a near miss — evidence suggesting that if Oswald was the shooter, he was a good shot. On the other hand, it also included evidence that two men may have been involved.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  255. No, it doesn’t sound familiar, Old Wioman. Please leave. Your racism isn’t welcome here.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  256. OldWioman, a left wing communist killed JFK. We realize it is painful for you to admit that it is yet another historical blotch on the left wing. But facts are facts.
    Also, the Democrat party is the historical home of slavery, the KKK, Jim Crow, and segregation—not the GOP.
    Some of you Alinskyites think math is hard, but history is not exactly your strong suit, either.

    Elephant Stone (ea5f9b)

  257. Well DRJ I guess you have very selective memory..
    Right wingers hated Kennedy..

    OldWoman (d863d4)

  258. Elephant stone are you kidding or what? or do you think we are stupid?

    OldWoman (d863d4)

  259. Do you want the truth elephant? I could explain it to you but I doubt you would admit it..

    OldWoman (d863d4)

  260. Yes it is true a left winger,.communist sympathezer killed Kennedy..but it is also true that the right wing hated him and spread much the same hate against him as the right is spreading against Obama..
    But you are totally deceptive in your history of who did what and when..

    OldWoman (d863d4)

  261. Oh! A history facts beatdown. My money’s on E.S. and DRJ.

    elissa (ce1ea8)

  262. OldWioman/OldWoman,

    You can’t handle the truth.
    And yes, I think you’re stupid.
    Thanks for playing, Alinskyite !

    Elephant Stone (ea5f9b)

  263. Anyone care for the facts regarding who did what for civil rights? Of course not,,,it doesnt fit the agenda,,.,But black folks know..

    OldWoman (d863d4)

  264. Oh Elephant you are just totally ignorant..but it fits the agenda so ..keep on..

    OldWoman (d863d4)

  265. Wait, Old Wioman/Old Woman, are you admitting that the right wing “hated” JFK even though JFK was white ?
    Oh Lordie, that does seem to squash the left wing mantra that our “hate” for Obama is simply because he’s black.

    You better go consult some better talking points.
    If your trainer doesn’t allow you to come out of your corner for round three, we understand.

    Elephant Stone (ea5f9b)

  266. Elephant Stone I just have to wonder what kind of party it is that has to rely on historical lies to make its case..

    OldWoman (d863d4)

  267. Elephant stone you are not even logical..

    OldWoman (d863d4)

  268. Old Wioman/Old Woman,

    Ask not what you can do for your country, rather, ask what kinds of freebies and entitlements your country can give you.
    Or something.

    Elephant Stone (ea5f9b)

  269. Good bye Elephant Stone,,,you dont get it and never will..

    OldWoman (d863d4)

  270. Shorter Od Wioman,

    Math is hard, but history is so much harder !

    Elephant Stone (ea5f9b)

  271. 257. Yes I too remember President Kennedy and how Conservatives hated him. He was as N**** Lover and and “appeaser’ and was about to “take our guns” Sound familiar?

    Comment by OldWioman (d863d4) — 11/23/2013 @ 3:18 pm

    Let’s say all of this is true. It’s not, especially the n***** lover part because the Democratic party was racist to the bone, but let’s pretend it’s true.

    OldWoman believes it was the sorcery of right wing hate that killed Kennedy. Not a communist’s bullet.

    After all, not all people who get shot die, do they?

    So it was Reich Wing hate that killed Kennedy. Ergo Reich Wing hate must be destroyed.

    By the way, OldWoman, did you get a belly laugh outta the Bush-bashing “I’m Gonna Kill the President?” A fantasy play about killing Bush?

    http://www.villagevoice.com/2004-08-24/theater/trick-or-treason/full/

    Trick or Treason
    Acting under seditious pretenses, with Bush-bashing intent
    A A A Comments (0) By David Ng Tuesday, Aug 24 2004

    I suspect you did.

    Steve57 (338553)

  272. He was killed by a man of the left, in contact with officials of enemy powers, that says nothing about the right, his brother was killed by a Palestinian, who was upset Israel was not annihilated,

    narciso (3fec35)

  273. Doesn’t matter, narciso. They’re too busy throwing virgins yet unborn into volcanoes to restart the economy to listen. Facts don’t matter to them. Only faith in their primitive Gaia worshiping religion. It was the unfaith of the Reich Wing that killed Kennedy, because it angered their gods.

    Steve57 (338553)

  274. #249, DRJ, here’s the description of JFK’s back and throat wounds from his official autopsy report:

    The second wound presumably of entry is that described above in
    the upper right posterior thorax. Beneath the skin there is ecchymosis
    of subcutaneous tissue and musculature. The missile path through
    the fascia and musculature cannot be easily proved. The wound
    presumably of exit was that described by Dr. Malcolm Perry of
    Dallas in the low anterior cervical region. When observed by Dr.
    Perry the wound measured “a few millimeters in diameter”, however
    it was extended as a tracheostomy incision and thus its character is
    distorted at the time of autopsy. However there is considerable
    eccymosis of the strap muscles of the right side of the neck and of
    the fascia about the trachea adjacent to the line of the tracheostomy
    wound. The third point of reference in connecting these two wounds
    is in the apex (supra-clavicular portion) of the right pleural cavity. In
    this region there is contusion of the parietal pleura and of the extreme
    apical portion of the right upper lobe of the lung. In both instances
    the diameter of contusion and ecchymosis at the point of maximal
    involvement measures 5 cm. Both the visceral and parietal pleura are
    intact overlying these areas of trauma.

    There is additional information in the report’s summary section. I’ll get it for you.

    ropelight (d6c853)

  275. kennedytrash came – alot
    obamatrash golfed – alot

    i have something in my pocket and it starts with the letter K

    happyfeet (2d66b0)

  276. DRJ, here’s the full autopsy reports summary section. The report is signed by Drs Humes, Boswell, and Finck.

    Based on the above observations it is our opinion that the deceased
    died as a result of two perforating gunshot wounds inflicted by high
    velocity projectiles fired by a person or persons unknown. The
    projectiles were fired from a point behind and somewhat above the
    level of the deceased. The observations and available information do
    not permit a satisfactory estimate as to the sequence of the two
    wounds.

    The fatal missile entered the skull above and to the right of the
    external occipital protuberance. A portion of the projectile traversed
    the cranial cavity in a posterior-anterior direction (see lateral skull
    roentgenograms) depositing minute particles along its path. A portion
    of the projectile made its exit through the parietal bone on the right
    carrying with it portions of cerebrum, skull and scalp. The two
    wounds of the skull combined with the force of the missile produced
    extensive fragmentation of the skull, laceration of the superior
    saggital sinus, and of the right cerebral hemisphere.

    The other missile entered the right superior posterior thorax above
    the scapula and traversed the soft tissues of the supra-scapular and
    the supra-clavicular portions of the base of the right side of the neck.
    This missile produced contusions of the right apical parietal pleura
    and of the apical portion of the right upper lobe of the lung. The
    missile contused the strap muscles of the right side of the neck,
    damaged the trachea and made its exit through the anterior surface of
    the neck. As far as can be ascertained this missile struck no bony
    structures in its path through the body.

    In addition, it is our opinion that the wound of the skull produced
    such extensive damage to the brain as to preclude the possibility of
    the deceased surviving this injury.

    A supplementary report will be submitted following more detailed
    examination of the brain and of microscopic sections. However, it is
    not anticipated that these examinations will materially alter the
    findings.

    ropelight (d6c853)

  277. Kodiak bear gummy!

    felipe (6100bc)

  278. By the way, what do you call a bear with no teeth?

    Gummy bear!

    felipe (6100bc)

  279. anyhoo happy anniversay everybody same time next year?

    i’ll make tasty white russians where you get to pick the cereal milk!

    corn flakes, lucky charms, cap’n crunch, or cinnamon toast crunch!

    and the love train rides from coast to coast

    every minute of every hour

    i love a sunflower!

    happyfeet (2d66b0)

  280. #277, narcisco, you neglected to mention Martin Luther King who was also supposedly killed by a lone nut. Then there was George Wallace and Ronald Reagan, they weren’t killed but their assailants certainly fit the lone nut pattern.

    ropelight (d6c853)

  281. Yoda, the Parkland doctors said the throat wound was an entry wound. Deal with it.

    Comment by ropelight (1b87ed) — 11/22/2013 @ 10:14 pm

    The Parkland doctors didn’t know their butt from a hole in the ground. The throat wound was an exit wound and was the only thing it could have been. YOU get over it!

    Yoda (c1890a)

  282. Anyone care for the facts regarding who did what for civil rights? Of course not,,,it doesnt fit the agenda,,.,But black folks know..

    If leftism were a race or ethnicity, that would be the only “race” you gave a damn about. I doubt whether your politics would change one iota regardless of the society you lived in. Regardless of whether your race/ethnicity/religion/sexual orientation/gender (or any of the bullet-point items touted by the left) were different from or identical to most of the other people in such a society.

    I bet your knowing that Jim Crow laws were instigated by Woodrow Wilson, a self-described liberal of the Democrat Party, or that Franklin D Roosevelt endorsed quotas against Jews and said they were to blame for anti-Jewish sentiment in 1930’s Europe (and repudiated mixed-race children), or his Democrat-Party successor, Harry Truman, who, while desegregating the military (and touting the idea of socialized healthcare in the 1940s), wrote and said things in private that would make even a Klu Klux Klanner blush. Or, more recently, how America’s “first black president,” Bill Clinton, has been described as using the “n” word in moments of nonchalant conversations—and who also said that Obama in the past wouldn’t have been running against Hillary, but instead would have been serving food to folks like her and Bill.

    The specter of Alec-Baldwin liberalism is quite a sight to behold.

    Mark (58ea35)

  283. Ropelight, Yoda. You need this.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcHPNUN-U8E

    You are welcome.

    felipe (6100bc)

  284. the southern Democrats hated Kennedy, old caligularity.

    Colonel Haiku (b984f0)

  285. #286, Yoda, here’s a bee for your bonnet. Dr Charles Crenshaw was also one of the doctors who treated Kennedy at Parkland Hospital. He said:

    Two wounds were visible. There was a small, round opening in the front of the midline of the throat. This became the site of Dr. Malcolm Perry’s tracheostomy incision. In the occipito-parietal region at the right rear of the head, there was an avulsive wound nearly as large as a fist…. I considered the throat wound to be an entrance wound and the large head wound to be an exit wound. Along with many of my Parkland colleagues, I believed at the time that President Kennedy had been hit twice from the front.

    ropelight (d6c853)

  286. Right, ropelight, there’s been a secret organization of assassins headed by Morgan Freeman, who recently recruited James McAvoy and Angelina Jolie,

    narciso (3fec35)

  287. More! Lotion!

    Oliver Stoned (b984f0)

  288. K for Ketamine!

    Oliver Stoned (b984f0)

  289. I remember much sadness around our home late ’63 (except for Christmas, when Santa made a wise decision and gifted me with a red Schwinn Stingray bicycle), and then in February, all Hell broke loose when teh Beatles arrived.

    Colonel Haiku (404b97)

  290. “Along with many of my Parkland colleagues, I believed at the time that President Kennedy had been hit twice from the front.”

    ropelight – What do they believe now with the benefit of better information? Or have people gotten to them and caused them to clam up?

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  291. In the process of reviewing the facts behind JFK’s overblown legacy, OldWoman has done me the service of reminding me of how much has been lost over the past 50 years due to the hatred liberals like she/he/it have for America.

    Who has heard of ADM Willis Augustus Lee? He won the Second Naval Battle of Guadalcanal in November 1943 (about the time JFK got to the Solomons).

    http://www.combinedfleet.com/battles/Guadalcanal_Campaign

    This page has a couple of good essays about the fighting on or about Guadalcanal, and good things to say about ADM Lee in particular.

    http://neveryetmelted.com/categories/willis-a-lee/

    65 Years Ago: One Marine, One Ship

    And

    “Stand Aside, This is Ching”

    ADM Lee suffered a heart attack and died before the war ended in 1945. Not uncommon for combat commanders due to the stress.

    It struck me that in the early ’60s he’d have been welcome at Kennedy’s inauguration had he lived. Because he was a bonafide hero.

    He would not have been welcome at Obama’s in 2009 because when he entered the Naval Academy in 1904, due to his last name and love of Asia, he was given the nickname of “Ching Chong China” Lee.

    He never repudiated that nickname. Today, this country would rather have an admiral quick to recognize cultural insensitivity rather than one that can win fights. In any case we don’t win fights anymore, we stop them. Hopefully by getting beaten.

    http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_24559668/san-ramon-fight-between-dougherty-valley-high-school

    SAN RAMON — Ann Benediktsson, a 15-year-old Dougherty Valley High School student, was walking home on Thursday when a classmate approached her to say she would soon face a peer in a fight.

    Ann’s mother, on the phone with her at the time, told her two things: Run home, and if a fight happens, do not fight back.

    “It was the hardest thing I have ever had to say in my life,” Kate Benediktsson recalled. “I felt useless.”

    Police and school administrators are investigating the fight that unfolded minutes later. But while Kate Benediktsson said the assault was the result of weeks, if not months, of bullying by a group of girls against her daughter, school officials said they are not treating the circumstances as such.

    Minutes after speaking to her mother, Ann ran into her peer in a park along with over two dozen other students, waiting to witness the event. While Ann attempted to keep her attacker from pulling her hair and socking her jaw, the bystanders pulled out their phones and filmed. In a video Benediktsson obtained of the fight that she later posted to YouTube, students can be heard egging on the fight, sometimes cheering when Ann’s attacker made contact.

    Ann never threw a punch.

    “I am proud of how I handled it,” Ann said. “I’m glad I didn’t hit back because the principal and teachers would have just said it was a spat between teenagers.”

    Our children are so well indoctrinated, aren’t they? Better to become someone’s prison b***h than suffer the wrath of the administrators.

    Steve57 (338553)

  292. ** 80s powerpop saxophone interlude **

    happyfeet (2d66b0)

  293. Comment by gilgamesh (1fbd99) — 11/22/2013 @ 7:55 am

    What physics made his head snap back toward the round coming from the rear, whether Hickey or Oswald?

    They saw the same thing with some people killed in the Vietnam War, on camera.

    It wasn’t something done by the nervous system.

    It contradicted the laws of physics, but the laws of physics were wrong.

    1968 Nobel Prize in Physics winner Luis Alvarez explained it.

    http://scitation.aip.org/content/aapt/journal/ajp/44/9/10.1119/1.10297

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luis_Walter_Alvarez

    In November 1966 Life published a series of photographs from the film that Abraham Zapruder took of the Kennedy assassination. Alvarez, an expert in optics and photoanalysis, became intrigued by the pictures and began to study what could be learned from the film. Alvarez demonstrated both in theory and experiment that the backward snap of the President’s head was fully consistent with his being shot from behind. He also investigated the timing of the gun shots and the shockwave which disturbed the camera, and the speed of the camera, pointing out a number of things which the FBI photoanalysts either overlooked or got wrong. He produced a paper intended as a tutorial, with informal advice for the physicist intent on arriving at the truth.[41]

    http://www.6911norfolk.com/d0lbln/105f06/105f06-wohl-alvarez.pdf

    Pushed to
    somehow demonstrate the effect experimentally, Luie got a few friends together, they wrapped seven cantaloupes in filament tape to add, like a skull, some tensile strength, and they shot them with a hunting rifle. Six of the seven melons recoiled toward the shooter. Figure 12 shows frames from a movie of one of the shots.8 Which way is the shooter? Which way does the melon go? Although a taped melon is not a head, the
    experiment demolishes the assumption that a shot object is always kicked away from the shooter.

    Sammy Finkelman (8cd742)

  294. ropelight,

    Thank you. Let’s set aside whether the bullet came from the front or the back. As I read your excerpt, the autopsy said the wound in JFK’s back was made by the same bullet that caused his neck wound. Is that how you read it, too?

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  295. Comment by joe-dal (93323e) — 11/23/2013 @ 2:02 pm

    two immediately proceeding frames show brain matter spewing forward from the head. This indicates the shot was from the rear.

    They had more moementum than what the bullet started with, so there was a recoil.

    http://www.6911norfolk.com/d0lbln/105f06/105f06-wohl-alvarez.pdf

    A three-body interaction — What Luie saw in the Zapruder film is that the interaction of the bullet with its target was, because of the jets of blood and brain, not a simple inelastic 2-body collision.

    He modeled the interaction with three bodies: a bullet, a jet, and a target, with masses mb, mj , and mt. Suppose the jet carries off a fraction
    f of the kinetic energy of the bullet. Then

    Kj =
    p2
    j

    2mj

    = fKb

    = f p2
    b
    ——
    2mb

    From this, the momentum of the jet in terms of that of the bullet is given by

    p2
    j
    = f
    mj

    mb
    times
    p2

    b

    Now if f(mj=mb) is greater than one — say f = 1/10 and mj/mb = 15 — then pj is greater than pb; the jet carries off more momentum than the bullet brought in, and in the same direction as the bullet. Conservation of momentum, pb = pj +pt, then requires that pt be negative|that is, that the target move backward, toward the shooter.

    Sammy Finkelman (8cd742)

  296. 258. Comment by DRJ (a83b8b) — 11/23/2013 @ 3:18 pm [Warren Commission on the the Walker attempted shooting evidnece suggested] that if Oswald was the shooter, he was a good shot. On the other hand, it also included evidence that two men may have been involved.

    No, because Oswald didn’t get to General Walker’s house by car! He had also selected that date because services were held at the church next door every Wednesday so his arrival and departure would not attract much attention. The two cars driving off immediately after the shot therefore had no reason to have any connection with Oswald.

    The two men peeking in windows two nights before may have just been because of General Walker’s notoriety, and that kind of thing happens without there being any special significance to it. Oswald had visited the areas before and taken pictures but he hadn’t been noticed. He had already selected the shooting location a month before, and then ordered the rifle.

    Sammy Finkelman (8cd742)

  297. #299, DRJ, yes, that’s how the autopsy report reads, with a few qualifiers sprinkled about. Here’s a few examples from the section at #279 which opens with a description of the back wound:

    The second wound presumably of entry is that described above in the upper right posterior thorax.

    The missile path through
    the fascia and musculature cannot be easily proved.

    The wound presumably of exit was that described by Dr. Malcolm Perry of
    Dallas in the low anterior cervical region. When observed by Dr. Perry the wound measured “a few millimeters in diameter”, however it was extended as a tracheostomy incision and thus its character is distorted at the time of autopsy.

    Later, in the summary section (#281) after being taken to the woodshed, the military doctors conformed their opinions to the official narrative. They are much more certain, emphatic even, with only one example of weasel wording in the 3rd paragraph from the bottom.

    As far as can be ascertained this missile struck no bony structures in its path through the body.

    ropelight (d6c853)

  298. Comment by daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 11/23/2013 @ 11:25 am

    Just like 9/11 Truthers – demolition of WTC 3 –

    7 World Trade Center. Actually outside the World Trade Center compound, across Vesey Street, near the telephone company building, which was also badly damaged. 3,4, 5 and and 6 WTC all inside the compound, relatively small rise buildings and all destroyed.

    3WTC was the Vista International Hotel, later he Marriott hotel, 4 WTC was the Commodities Exchange or Southeast Plaza building, one to the west one to the east of 2 WTC, 5 WTC was the Northeast Plaza Building and and 6 WTC was the US Customs House.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_World_Trade_Center

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_World_Trade_Center

    On September 11, 2001, 7 WTC was damaged by debris when the nearby North Tower of the World Trade Center collapsed. The debris also ignited fires, which continued to burn throughout the afternoon on lower floors of the building. The building’s internal fire suppression system lacked water pressure to fight the fires, and the building collapsed completely at 5:21:10 pm.[5] The collapse began when a critical internal column buckled and triggered structural failure throughout, which was first visible from the exterior with the crumbling of a rooftop penthouse structure at 5:20:33 pm.

    No, nobody ordered the building demolished.

    Sammy Finkelman (8cd742)

  299. Comment by daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 11/22/2013 @ 8:57 am

    http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/jfkeconomicclubaddress.html

    You notice one thing there:

    He’s worried about the balance of payments, he’s worried that too big a tax cut could cause inflation, but he’s not worried about the deficit.

    Our true choice is not between tax reduction, on the one hand, and the avoidance of large federal deficits on the other. It is increasingly clear that no matter what party is in power, so long as our national security needs keep rising, an economy hampered by restrictive tax rates will never produce enough revenues to balance our budget — just as it will never produce enough jobs or enough profits.

    Surely the lesson of the last decade is that budget deficits are not caused by wild-eyed spenders but by slow economic growth and periodic recessions, and any new recession would break all deficit records.

    In short, it is a paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high today and tax revenues are too low and the soundest way to raise the revenues in the long run is to cut the rates now. The experience of a number of European countries and Japan have borne this out. This country’s own experience with tax reduction in 1954 has borne this out. And the reason is that only full employment can balance the budget, and tax reduction can pave the way to that employment.

    The purpose of cutting taxes now is not to incur a budget deficit, but to achieve the more prosperous, expanding economy which can bring a budget surplus.

    I repeat: our practical choice is not between a tax-cut deficit and a budgetary surplus. It is between two kinds of deficits: a chronic deficit of inertia, as the unwanted result of inadequate revenues and a restricted economy, or a temporary deficit of transition, resulting from a tax cut designed to boost the economy, increase tax revenues, and achieve, I believe — and I believe this can be done — a budget surplus. The first type of deficit is a sign of waste and weakness; the second reflects an investment in the future.

    That doesn’t sound like either today’s Democrats or Republicans. It sounds like Jack Kemp.

    But that speech, of course, is where Jack Kemp got it from.

    Of course JFK goes on to give a little bit to the other side of the argument.

    Nevertheless, as Chairman Mills of the House Ways and Means Committee pointed out this week, the size of the deficit is to be regarded with concern, and tax reduction must be accompanied, in his words, by “increased control of the rises in expenditures.” This is precisely the course we intend to follow in 1963.

    He also gives arguments as to why other ways to achieve growth aren’t so good, according to him.

    Sammy Finkelman (8cd742)

  300. #295, daleyrocks asked, What do they (the Parkland doctors) believe now with the benefit of better information? Or have people gotten to them and caused them to clam up?

    First, I’m unwilling to accept there is any better information on JFK’s wounds than what the Parkland doctors got first hand.

    They were the first to tend JFK’s wounds with the exception of the one on his back they apparently didn’t find, they cut his clothes off, tried to keep him breathing, tried to stem the loss of blood. Others only saw JFK’s dead body, the Parkland doctors saw a dying man who was still warm and breathing, albeit with difficulty. JFK was alive when he was brought into the ER and he died in their care.

    Every observer who came later saw a cold dead cadaver, the Parkland doctors saw a US President, or at least his last few moments. I can’t agree that anyone down line had better information, and if you’d reflect on the facts for a minute or two, I’m confident you’ll see my point, you may not agree with me, but I do have a point.

    Now, as to the other matter, as you reported at #187 Dr McClelland changed in opinion when he testified to the WC to conform more closely with the autopsy’s conclusions. Now, he’s gone back to his original observations. (I still haven’t checked it out his WC testimony for myself.)

    And, I know that Dr Perry conformed his opinion after he was exposed to the WC’s accumulated evidence. As for the others, I don’t know, but if you’ll extend my time to respond, I’ll sure as hell look into it. I promise.

    ropelight (d6c853)

  301. 88. On supposed Jack Ruby-Nixon connection:

    http://jfkmurdersolved.com/nixonruby.htm

    Problems with this letter:

    It has a Zip code on the letterhead. Of course
    it is actually two separate documents.

    So it could be a copy somebody mailed to somebody else in the 1960s or later. The letter needs an explanation. And the explanation is it is from the House Assassinations Committee in 1978. But somebody got rid of all identifying information. The missing ifnormation would have carified this.

    It is the wrong Jack Rubinstein.

    That should be the prominent member of the Young Communist League in the 1920s whose death was reported in the New York Times, July 8, 1989, p. 29. (“Jack Rubenstein, 81, Labor-union Official.”)

    Sammy Finkelman (8cd742)

  302. “Every observer who came later saw a cold dead cadaver, the Parkland doctors saw a US President, or at least his last few moments. I can’t agree that anyone down line had better information, and if you’d reflect on the facts for a minute or two, I’m confident you’ll see my point, you may not agree with me, but I do have a point.”

    ropelight – I agree that the doctors at Parkland were focused on Kennedy’s breathing and restoring blood loss and we agree that they missed the wound on his back, a major oversight in assessing what happened. I have no idea whether the president was still alive when he was brought into the ER since he was put on assisted breathing as soon as possible. He was declared dead what 20-25 minutes after arrival and then the fight over the possession of the body began. Not exactly an environment for a calm evaluation of how the president’s wounds occurred. My position is that people reviewing the incident later had the benefit of better information, such as where Oswald was position, the type of weapon he was using, etc. The Parkland doctors had none of that information.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  303. My position is that people reviewing the incident later had the benefit of better information, such as where Oswald was position, the type of weapon he was using, etc. The Parkland doctors had none of that information.

    How does any of that relate to what type of wound he had in his neck? Or do you mean once the lone gunman narrative was established, that proves it must have been an exit wound, which would be a classic example of circular reasoning?

    Gerald A (66407e)

  304. “He’s worried about the balance of payments, he’s worried that too big a tax cut could cause inflation, but he’s not worried about the deficit.”

    Sammy – What are you talking about? Just review what you highlighted and the number of times the word deficit is mentioned.

    It does sound very much like today’s Republicans. sorry, grow the private sector, not the government. Growing the government crowds out the private sector. Kemp agreed. Nothing could be simpler.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  305. “How does any of that relate to what type of wound he had in his neck?”

    Gerald A – I think knowing that Kennedy had a bullet would on his upper right back might be relevant to understanding why he had a bullet wound lower on his neck, don’t you? Then again I’m not a doctor.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  306. “7 World Trade Center.”

    Sammy – Thanks. I thought I had the wrong building number. The Truthers never show the building with the middle almost consumed by fire, the always show it from an intact angle to make the argument it was deliberately demolished.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  307. 308.“He’s worried about the balance of payments, he’s worried that too big a tax cut could cause inflation, but he’s not worried about the
    deficit.”

    Comment by daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 11/23/2013 @ 8:33 pm

    Sammy – What are you talking about? Just review what you highlighted and the number of times the word deficit is mentioned.

    I found the part where he mentioned the deficit. But…he’s not worried about it.

    He argues that it should not be exacerabated by increasing expenditures more rapidly than necessary – spending more than can be justified on grounds of national need or spent with maximum efficiency. He argues that a stimulus program is bad idea (although he accepts its economic benefits) – the wrong way to go. The government might not retain the confidence of the people if it did that. It demoralizes the economy.

    But in principle he’s not worried about the deficit. He’s for not spending more than necessary just for the general principle of the thing or because it will build support for what they do want to spend money on.

    He says a deficit is going to happen anyway, and the way out is economic growth.

    He says to do nothing would lead to support for proposals “to resist automation, to reduce the work week to 35 hours or even lower, to shut out imports, or to raise prices in a vain effort to obtain full capacity profits on under-capacity operations.”

    Sammy Finkelman (8cd742)

  308. It does sound very much like today’s republicans…Kemp agreed.

    Nobody’s talking any more about the government, or government policy, having any effect on economic growth. Or almost nobody. Everybody kind of agrees on (historically) low economic growth continuing on for as long as the eye can see.

    Talk about the Social Security deficit is based on that. It only ruuns out of money if economic growth stays low. And the projections are low.

    President Kennedy argues that the only way to end the deficit is for the economy to grow. THE DEFICIT WAS NOT CAUSED BY INCREASED SPENDING – or at least not by increased spending that could be avoided – at least then.

    He says recessions caused or exacerbated deficits. That’s what he argues. Republicans never make this argument now, or even concede the point. Has anyone argued the recession caused the deficit to go up? Of course, Obama added to that the “stimulus.”

    It does sound very much like today’s Republicans. sorry, grow the private sector, not the government. Growing the government crowds out the private sector. Kemp agreed. Nothing could be simpler.

    Kennedy’s not arguing crowding out. He’s arguing investment capital is being taxed away. Crowding out is an argument about borrowing. Kennedy argues the balance of payments problem (a worry then, now nobody cares or knows what it is) prevents an expansion of the money supply. (At that time the dollar was backed by gold, so you could worry that if too many dollars were held abroad it would be impossible to maintain a price of $35 an ounce.)

    The important point is that President Kennedy argues that the way to end deficits is to grow the economy (and he says tax cuts are a way to do that.)

    Sammy Finkelman (8cd742)

  309. “Nobody’s talking any more about the government, or government policy, having any effect on economic growth. Or almost nobody.”

    Sammy – You must mean nobody that you read or pay attention to. Idiots like Krugman may ignore it, but plenty of people talk about it.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  310. “The important point is that President Kennedy argues that the way to end deficits is to grow the economy (and he says tax cuts are a way to do that.)”

    Sammy – Yes. Just like the TEA Party, right?

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  311. Sammy – Your comments 311 & 312 and prior ones about Kennedy’s 1962 speech which I linked early in the thread are among the most incoherent and self-contradictory I recall you ever making on this blog. If I thought you were doing it on purpose I would congratulate you. Instead I just don’t think you have any clue what you are talking about and are in over your head once again.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  312. No contradiction. Kennedy doesn’t think the deficit is a problem. He thinks low economic growth is a problem. He also says (to people who care about the deficit) that the only way the deficit will go down or become a surplus is if there is robust economic growth

    That was his campaign slogan in 1960: “Let’s get this country moving again.”

    He also argues that a tax cut is the best way to get higher growth – that while unnecessary government spending could also do it (as was believed by Keynesians), that’s not really a good idea.

    Sammy Finkelman (8cd742)

  313. All this was the “New Economics” one of whose chief proponents was Arthur Heller.

    Sammy Finkelman (8cd742)

  314. Oswald was NOT a COMMUNIST or a LEFT WING radical. He played both sides. At times he was a right wing radical and at times he was a left wing radical.

    Walter (ffc03c)

  315. joe-dal #247,

    #255 “Good Allah, man, Oswald’s shot at General Walker didn’t occur “a few weeks” before the JFK assassination.
    Rather, it took place seven months earlier in April 1963.
    And the shot missed his head by about an inch only because the trajectory slightly changed when the bullet slightly grazed the wooden part of the window frame when the bullet entered the house. Also, this shot was fired at nighttime.

    Comment by Elephant Stone (ea5f9b) — 11/23/2013 @ 2:49 pm”

    My apologies – april 63 vs few weeks, prior. Unfortunately, I as speaking from memory. I was also unaware of the bullet hitting the wood frame. Granted the shot was at night, but 35-40 yards away while Walker was sitting at a table in a well lit room. Vs 75-80 yards away at a moving target.
    While almost completely convinced of the single gunman theory from the rear (oswald only), this is probably, the only piece of evidence/ was oswald that good of a shooter to have hit the moving target.
    One of the most convincing pieces of evidence of the shot from the rear is the zapruder film which shows blood and brain matter exiting the from the head in the two frames immediately prior to the head rocking back.

    Joe (debac0)

  316. Walter, I didn’t know that the memory care facility had WiFi …

    SPQR (768505)

  317. #307, daleyrocks, JFK was alive when he was brought into the ER, he went into cardiac arrest on the operating table and died while being treated. Several of the surgeons then went to assist those already attending John Connelly.

    Your position is: …that people reviewing the incident later had the benefit of better information, such as where Oswald was position, the type of weapon he was using, etc. The Parkland doctors had none of that information.

    True, the Parkland doctors had no information on LHO, his position in the TSBD, or the type of weapon presumably used in the assassination. Their observations were direct, intimate, and confined almost exclusively to what they could see and touch on the table before them conditioned only their training and experience plus whatever wild and panicked rumors they happened to hear in the few moments between the time they were alerted and the time the motorcade reached the Hospital, bolstered by whatever snippets of information they may have gotten in the few seconds it took for the President’s Secret Service handlers to get him into the ER.

    The opinions of the Parkland doctors were formed looking at JFK’s wounds, they were uncontaminated by preexisting assumptions about who or how many shooters caused them, or where the shots came from. They looked at then neck and head wounds and concluded both were entry wounds.

    It wasn’t till after 3 expended shell casings and the 6.5mm MC rifle were found in the TSBD and LHO was designated as the lone assassin that it became necessary for only 2 bullets to cause all 9 entrance and exit wounds in JFK and JC. (one hit the curb and debris injured James Teague).

    So, if you can’t ignore the government’s idiot narrative, if you can’t free yourself from the confines of the magic bullet’s straight jacket, then at the very least consider the possibility Parkland surgeons reported what they saw.

    ropelight (48ded2)

  318. #322, I botched the last sentence in the 3rd paragraph from the bottom. Here’s a replacement:

    The Parkland doctors looked at the neck and head wounds and concluded the neck wound was an entry wound, and they concluded the bullet that caused JFK’s head wounds entered his forehead above the right eye and just below the hairline and exited from the back of his skull blowing out his brains and leaving a hole about fist size.

    ropelight (48ded2)

  319. 247. 255.

    Comment by Elephant Stone (ea5f9b) — 11/23/2013 @ 2:49 pm

    Oswald’s shot at General Walker….in April 1963…missed his head by about an inch only because the trajectory slightly changed when the bullet slightly grazed the wooden part of the window frame when the bullet entered the house. Also, this shot was fired at nighttime.

    The first shot he fired at Kennedy also missed. In fact it missed the whole car.

    The Warren Commission didn’t have that right. They settled on two shots, and said if there were 3 shots the extra shot occured in the middle.

    There were 5 seconds between the first and the second shot. Nowadays drivers are trained to speed up when something like that happens, but then, he driver slowed down.

    Sammy Finkelman (ebcaa1)

  320. wasn’t that Walt Rostow,

    narciso (3fec35)


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