Comment of the week

John Kirsch – January 2

Let me ask this: How many of the people who write comments on this site, often on complex topics, have had articles on 11/22 published by reputable outlets that vetted the article before it was published?

And if anyone has had articles published by reputable outlets, how were those articles received?
Comments on websites, posts on personal blogs and self-published books don’t count.
What, in other words, are the actual credentials that people have that allow them to make authoritative pronouncements on highly technical matters?
My guess is that few if any of the people who comment on this site have any real credentials at all. And that few if any have had articles on 11/22 published by respected outlets.
Which means, in all honesty, that most of the comments are mere wool gathering, despite the writer’s efforts to dress up his/her words as authoritative pronouncements.

310 thoughts on “Comment of the week”

  1. Some interesting reading about “The Missing Doctor” Admiral Burkley’s statement to the HSCA

    http://leftlooking.blogspot.ca/2009/01/strange-case-of-jfks-personal-physician.html

    “In 1976 Burkley was contacted by an investigator for the HSCA named Richard Sprague. Through his lawyer, Burkley made a statement to Sprague that “others besides Oswald must have been involved.” Burkley surely became convinced of a conspiracy after seeing the conflicting wound patterns on the corpse on Nov. 22, 1963”

    1. Bob doesn’t realize that the lambdoid suture runs right through the center of the ” McClelland drawing” that supposedly showed the position of a posterior wound. Due to his fixation on two-dimensional drawings and his complete lack of gross anatomic knowledge he apparently is unaware of the true posterior extension of the parietal bone . His second reference with the lateral view confirms that he is unaware that the occipital bone forms the posterior floor of the skull and is not synonymous with the anatomic term ” occipital”. The majority of the occipital region of the brain does not ” underlies the occipital bone” but is actually superior to it. Bob, if you are going to claim anatomic knowledge you should at least use anatomic terminology.

      1. Wow, Photon, nice try at confusing a fairly straight forward issue. Think that will have everyone scratching their heads, and maybe you and John can get a day off? Not likely, my friend.

        Okay, let’s see if we can sort out all the rubbish you’ve dumped on us here.

        If you really want to get technical, and use the proper anatomical (not anatomic – sounds like some kind of bomb) terminology, there is no occipital or parietal region of the brain. There are, however, the occiptal lobe and the parietal lobe of the brain, and, if you look at this diagram, you will see they pretty much correspond to the area covered by the occipital and parietal bones.

        https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0e/Lobes_of_the_brain_NL.svg/250px-Lobes_of_the_brain_NL.svg.png

        So, if Dr. Kemp Clark said the wound was occipital, extending into parietal, there is no doubt he was referring to the back of the head, and likely the right rear of the head, as he also describes seeing cerebellum in the wound.

        Yes the cerebellum is in contact with the part of the occipital bone that forms the floor of the skull. However, this is merely another attempt, on your part, at obfuscation. As the wound was described several times as roughly fist sized, and being through both parietal and occipital bones, don’t you feel a bit silly trying to distract everyone by bringing up the floor of the skull, as the large wound could not have been anywhere near that part of the skull?

        I’m not quite sure why you brought up the lambdoid suture but, I thank you for that, as you have helped to confirm the large gaping wound was in the right rear of JFK’s skull. And, as the diagrams below show, the lambdoid suture is quite visible in a posterior view of the skull.

        https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fd/Lambdoid_suture.png/250px-Lambdoid_suture.png

        https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/75/Lambdoid_suture_-_animation03.gif/120px-Lambdoid_suture_-_animation03.gif

        https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/59/Lambdoid_suture_-_skull_-_posterior_view.png/120px-Lambdoid_suture_-_skull_-_posterior_view.png

        The lambdoid suture is shown in red in all three diagrams. It separates the occipital bone (lower) from the parietal bone (upper).

  2. John McAdams said:

    “You are exploiting the vagueness of the term “back of the head” to argue that the wound was in occipital bone.

    Anything behind the ear would be “posterior” and reasonably called “back of the head.”

    And you are picking one witness you find convenient, and ignoring a bunch of others.”

    More rubbish. Is that what you do for a living now, collect rubbish?

    Clark, along with many other Parkland physicians, did say the large gaping wound was in the occipital region. If you want to translate this to mean “back of the head”, that’s fine with me, John. Would you mind showing me this wound in the Back of Head autopsy photo, as I believe that photo shows the back of JFK’s head in its entirety?

    I chose to quote Dr. Kemp Clark as, being the director of neurological surgery at Parkland, he is more than qualified to locate a head wound. He also stated that he excused himself from the resuscitory procedures, in order that he might devote all of his attention to an examination of the large gaping wound in the rear of JFK’s head.

    The fact that there were more than enough doctors in the room for life saving duties, and that Clark passed off one of these duties to Perry, dismisses the fantasy that all of the doctors were too preoccupied for one of them to make a close examination of the head wound.

    1. Add to the statements by Parkland doctors with the independent identification of the Harper fragment by three additional doctors as occipital, and I think you have a good case that something is not quite right with the official autopsy photos.

      1. Dr. Robert Artwohl used to post about medical issues on another forum. He contacted one of the three Dallas doctors who saw the Harper fragment.

        QUOTE:
        In 1992, I wrote to Dr. Noteboom and asked by what anatomic criteria was the Harper fragment judged to be occipital. This is his response dated August 10, 1992:

        Dear Dr. Artwohl:

        In reference to you questions, as to what criteria were used to determine which part of the skull it represents, I haven’t the foggiest idea, since I have not kept up with all the theories and speculation. I only saw the skull fragment long enough to take some
        pictures.

        The only thing I remember is an area of greyish discoloration on the inner table, probably a bulletmark. The rather sharp curvature of the
        fragment does suggest occipital bone.

        Sorry I can’t be of much help.
        UNQUOTE

        https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en#!topicsearchin/alt.assassination.jfk/noteboom$20AND$20harper/alt.assassination.jfk/tta4AcOG59I

    2. Anything behind the ear would be “posterior” and reasonably called “back of the head.”~Prudhomme

      This is true Bob, BUT more than half of the skull behind the head is Parietal. This is why using the term “back of the head” leads to confusion as it is “lay language” and mention of the Occipital without reference to the Parietal is in my view disingenuous.

      More than the position of the wound, is that it is obviously blasted OUT – a wound of EXIT. This is what should be emphasized in our arguments, not an attempt to place the wound lower than it actually was.
      \\][//

    3. Clark, along with many other Parkland physicians, did say the large gaping wound was in the occipital region.

      Correct, which does not mean occipital bone was blown out. See my post above.

      1. John

        The director of neurological surgery at Parkland Hospital, Dr. Kemp Clark, made a careful examination of the large gaping wound in the rear of JFK’s head, and pronounced the wound as being occipital, extending into parietal.

        As the majority of the occipital region of the brain underlies the occipital bone (get it now, John?) how could part of the occipital bone not be blown out?

        1. No he didn’t make a careful examination and stated as much in his Warren Report interview where he pointed out that an autopsy would perform that function.
          Even Clark didn’t appreciate the magnitude of the head wound until Jenkins said “Boys, before you open the chest you better look at this” as he stood over JFK’s head.
          What was that comment about lies ,Bob?

          1. Oh, John, you really do think you are clever, don’t you. I can see why you like having your own forum, as troublemakers like me can be dealt with by a simple touch of the delete button. Nothing like being right strictly by default, eh?

            Now seriously, John, how long does the director of neurological surgery at Parkland Hospital need to look at a head wound, in order to accurately locate that wound on the skull? Five seconds, tops?

            I am a mere ambulance attendant, and my medical knowledge would pale in comparison to what Dr. Clark possessed. On trauma patients, we are trained to perform something known as a Rapid Body Search. This is done as soon as we have ascertained the patient has an airway, is breathing and has adequate circulation, without major bleeding.

            The Rapid Body Search (RBS) is designed to locate injuries on the patient, be they broken bones, bleeding, tenderness or swelling, etc. Know how long we are allowed for this search, that covers the entire body? A mere ten seconds!

            Please do not insult our intelligence by trying to tell us that a trained and experienced neurosurgeon, who had passed off his emergency duties to another doctor in order to devote his full attention to the head wound, could not accurately locate a large gaping head wound in ten seconds.

            I could have done it, and still been able to search the rest of the body in ten seconds.

            P.S.

            Sorry about making you and Photon work all day yesterday, as it was likely your day off.

          2. John

            Don’t you think that if the large gaping head wound was on the front right top of JFK’s head, everyone in Trauma Room One would have been able to see it plain as day, and have been able to fully appreciate the magnitude of the wound?

            Wasn’t it the fact this wound was in the right rear of JFK’s head, hidden from everyone’s view, that prevented everyone from appreciating its magnitude?

  3. John McAdams said:

    “Both the Clark and HSCA medical panels said the entrance in the back of the head was “occipital” in spite of explicitly putting it in parietal bone.”

    Hate to be the one to break it to you John but, the occipital bone ends part way up to the top of the back of the head, and the bone seen in the back of the head from there up is parietal bone.

    I cannot make excuses for the Clark and HSCA panels, but I believe you have just proven to everyone here that an occipito-parietal wound would be in the back of the head, and plainly visible in the Back of Head autopsy photo.

    Congratulations!

    1. Try to comprehend this:

      The entrance defect, according to the HSCA and the Clark Panel, was in the cowlick area. That’s explicitly in parietal bone.

      The HSCA called it an “occipital defect” and put it in parietal bone.

      The Clark Panel said of the bullet:

      It entered the occipital region 25 mm to the right of the midline and 100 mm. above the external occipital protuberance.

      That’s in parietal bone. And they call it “the occipital region.”

      Now: is that “the back of the head?” Certainly. And it’s also perfectly consistent with the photos and x-rays that you claim are faked.

      You want to be the “great defect” into occipital bone.

      The Boston Globe questioned the doctors in 1981 and reported:

      But speaking to the occipital question, Grossman [one of the Parkland doctors and] a neurosurgeon, suggested that part of the confusion surrounding the location of the head wound could be the result of the imprecision with which the term “occipital” is used. While the occiput refers specifically to a bone in the lower back section of the head, Grossman said many doctors loosely use the term to refer to “the back fifth of the head . . . there is this ambiguity about what constitutes the occipital and parietal area . . . It’s all very imprecise.”

      The “occipital region” is not the same as “in occipital bone.”

      1. You know something, John, sometimes I get the feeling that you really do believe all of the things you say, and that you are not just acting. The thought actually creeps me out.

        Your post is a classic example of the distraction and obfuscation you and your ilk employ to take the focus of readers away from what would normally be simple and straight forward.

        When the terms “occipital region” and “parietal region” are used, it is the parts of the brain being referred to, not necessarily the corresponding bones protecting those parts of the brain. For instance, while the occipital region of the brain underlies the occipital bone, the cerebellum also underlies the occipital bone, but is not called the occipital region of the brain.

        When Dr. Kemp Clark described the large gaping wound in the rear of JFK’s head as occipital and extending into parietal, it is safe to assume he was speaking of the occipital and parietal bones as landmarks. Given the size of the wound described, and that it was mainly in the occipital bone but also extended into the parietal bone, this large gaping wound should be visible in the Back of Head autopsy photo but, of course, it is not, as that photo is a fake.

        Any mystery surrounding the location of the head wound, described by Clark as occipito-parietal, is dismissed by this excerpt from Clark’s Warren Commission testimony:

        “I then examined the wound in the back of the President’s head. This was a large, gaping wound in the right posterior part, with cerebral and cerebellar tissue being damaged and exposed.”

        For those that do not know, cerebellar tissue is from the part of the brain called the “cerebellum”, and it is situated at the lowest part of the brain in the rear of the skull.

        See diagram of the cerebellum at link below:

        http://www.neuroskills.com/brain-injury/cerebellum.php

    1. If you can produce a subpoena, issued by the Warren Commission and summoning Dr. Burkley to testify before the WC, we may just believe that Burkley declined to appear before the WC.

    2. “Correction – I interpret this to be in effect to be declining to testify.”~MDG

      That is pure and groundless supposition MDG. If you want to suppose, let me propose a more rational speculation; I think that Burkley’s written statement would be an offer to testify. especially if it had pertinent medical information–which it most certainly must have.
      Wouldn’t a sincere inquiry have requested testimony from Burkley?

      Requests can be in the form of demands. as Mr Prudhomme points out they could have issued a summons or a subpoena as a legal technicality.

      I find your suspicions of Dr Burkley misplaced. I find your reasoning for suspicions to be unsound and built entirely on supposition.
      \\][//

  4. Burkley drew up a statement and gave it to the W Commission.

    He never testified however to the Warren Commission.

    I interpret this toin effect declining to testify.

    That’s one reason he has been referred to as the “Missing Doctor”.

  5. It is no surprise that proper autopsy procedure was not followed at Bethseda with the Parkland doctors available for pre-autopsy review.

    There is just no satisfying or believable answer as to why Burkley didnt volunteer information about the throat wound to Humes. This was JFK’s personal physician!

    Burkley also declined to testify to the Warren Commission. This is just another glaring and difficult thing to understand in the Warren Omission.

    Wasnt Burkley bound by his Hippocratic Oath to take care to do whatever was necessary to find out what happened to his special patient.

    Not at a time of Coup d’Etat!

    There were obviously some very powerful players calling the shots after the Murder of JFK.

    1. “Burkley also declined to testify to the Warren Commission. This is just another glaring and difficult thing to understand in the Warren Omission.”~MDG

      Burkley did not decline to testify to the Warren Commission, he was not called to testify to the Warren Commission.
      \\][//

  6. ” Pathologists generally talk to attending doctors before starting an autopsy.”
    That is nonsense-an unsourced comment by a non-physician. However,in point of fact the team at Bethesda had a physician in attendance who had witnessed the resuscitative efforts at Parkland and had actually aided in JFK’s treatment.

    1. “However,in point of fact the team at Bethesda had a physician in attendance who had witnessed the resuscitative efforts at Parkland and had actually aided in JFK’s treatment.”~Photon

      Why do we have to pull teeth to get you to name people Photon?
      Is this physician as anonymous as you are? Was he dressed as Zorro at the autopsy. Are you referring to Burkley? Why is almost every comment you make couched in the pretense of the mysterious? You seem intent on aggravating and annoying the readers.
      \\][//

      1. Willy, what I am trying to illustrate is that while multiple individuals in the CT community love to go off on tangents totally unrelated to the assassination, you folks simply can’t see the forest for the trees. If you really know something about a subject, you should be able to understand even the most elementary aspects of that subject. Of course I was referring to Burkley-but why should that be hard to deduct? Why didn’t Burkley volunteer information about the pre-trach wound in the neck to Humes? He was only a few feet away-yet you claim that his mention of a back wound at “about” T3 must be taken with absolute certainty as being correct.If it isn’t absolutely correct, your and other CT theories can’t be valid. Had Burkley simply mentioned that JFK had a throat wound none of the speculation of where the bullet went would have even occurred. But maybe Burkley didn’t even know about the wound at the front of the neck-which could explain why he never mentioned it in the death certificate. Doesn’t that destroy him as an effective witness and render the “about T3” comment meaningless?
        I mentioned the only verifiable cover-up related to the autopsy to see if any of the medical “experts” here actually knew about the medical evidence.Obviously after all of the questions nobody does. To me that is striking-a simple medical condition that I posted evidence for that could be confirmed by any internist can’t be recognized by people who claim to know more about JFK than the physicians who actually examined the body.

        1. “Of course I was referring to Burkley-but why should that be hard to deduct?”~Photon

          That is pure casuistry Photon, the real question is why the readership should be required to deduce anything?
          That you won’t speak plainly and honestly is not the fault of the readership, it is your purposeful doing.

          As I stated before, you play everything here as a mysterious game, you are disingenuous in the extreme, and your complaints as to “CT’s” being ignorant of particular subjects is utter sophistry and speciousness.

          You pretend to ‘facts” and attend to supposition:
          “Why didn’t Burkley volunteer information about the pre-trach wound in the neck to Humes?”

          You want to partake in guessing games. Burkley wasn’t in the ER immediately. Only the first attending doctors saw the original bullet wound in the throat.

          Under proper autopsy protocol, the Parkland doctors should have been present for pre-autopsy review and advice. The President’s clothing should have been made available. The Presidential Limousine should have been made available for forensic investigation at the same location as the autopsy was taking place. It was a crime scene itself.

          Would all of these conditions have been possible to achieve? This is the President of the United States; no effort should have been too great to find the answers as to what happened to the man.

          Instead there was a medical farce, a cheesy burlesque worthy of a Kafka novel.
          \\][//

          1. That you won’t speak plainly and honestly is not the fault of the readership, it is your purposeful doing.

            https://jfkfacts.org/assassination/tell-me-about-the-shooting-of-office-j-d-tippit/#comment-850759
            Photon: Collins amateur radio, blah, blah, blah.

            Photon is correct, a small part of Collins Radio of Dallas’s sales came from its amateur radio product lines.
            In the interest of accuracy, Collins Radio was acting as a CIA front, “leasing” the 174 foot long ship,
            “Rex” from owner Belcher of Belcher Oil. Flying a Nicaraguan flag, Rex sailed under CIA protection from
            customs protocol, to and from a wharf in West Palm Beach. Dispatching anti-Castro raiding parties fromCuban coastal waters.:
            http://maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=53255&search=rex_and+palm#relPageId=68&tab=page
            And:
            http://maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=53255&relPageId=69&search=rex_and%20palm
            Sam Kail, Military Intel liason to CIA in Cuba, and described as one of the last to leave Cuba, happened
            to purchase the Dallas home of the Collins Radio V.P. of sales.

            http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=9460&p=247241
            Who’s who in finance and industry: Volume 19
            Marquis Who’s Who, LLC – 1975 – Snipp

            …BOYLE, JOHN HARTFORD, electronics со. exec.; b. Chattanooga, July 6, 191 8; s. Hartford D. and Clementine (Zimmerman) В.; BB A-, U. Chattanooga, 1941; m. Paly Spearman. Mar. 23. 1946; children— John Michael. Robert Hartford, Patrick Joseph, Timothy Richard. Sharon Paty. Football coach U. Chattanooga. 1940-41; pilot European operations Am. Overseas Airlines, 1946-49; pilot mgr. European operations Pan Am. World Airways, 1949-52; vp corporate marketing Collins Radio Co., Dallas, 1952 — . Served to maj. USAAF. 1941-46. Home: 4722 Cherokee Trail, Dallas 75209. Office: Collins Radio Co., Dallas 75207.

            Executive Changes
            ‎- New York Times – Sep 29, 1962
            The Collins Radio Company has named John H. Boyle to vice president and general manager of the communication and data systems division; WW Roodhouse, …

            Register of Graduates and Former Cadets of the United … – Page 18
            https://books.google.com/books?id=1SXcAAAAMAAJ
            1972 –
            Clifford C. Cornell, Jun ’43, 1888 Baldridge Rd. W. P. Bagley, Ex ’40, 2481 Sherwood Rd. Robert L. Ashworth, ’38, 7216 Balmoral Rd. David Feldman, ’62, 1427 Medway Rd. Samuel G. Kail, ’39, 4722 Cherokee Tr

          2. Wasn’t an Oswald look-alike seen in a car owned by the Collins organisation after the Tippit killing.

            Quelle surprise.

          3. This is all getting a bit silly. Why can’t people on here talk in a conversational manner instead of lecturing, trying to dominate or belittle?

  7. Willy Whitten
    January 17, 2016 at 5:59 pm
    Mr Prudhomme,

    The doctors at Parkland all referred to the head wound to be in the “occipital-parietal” NOT at the occipital protrusion.

    Do you understand the difference between the two?
    \\][//

    ————————————————————

    Willy

    Please save your insults for someone else.

    Yes, I know the difference between the EOP and the occipital bone.

    Many doctors, including Carrico, described the wound as either occipital or as being in the right posterior cranium. Add to this the observation by several of these doctors, including Dr. Kemp Clark (director of neurological surgery at Parkland Memorial Hospital), of cerebellar tissue present in the large gaping head wound, and I would say the head wound was chiefly occipital although, by some accounts, it did extend somewhat into the parietal and temporal regions.

    As you may or may not know, “cerebellar” tissue refers to that part of the brain known as the cerebellum, located at the bottom rear of the brain.

    http://www.neuroskills.com/brain-injury/cerebellum.php

    The texture of the cerebellum is markedly different from the remaining larger part of the brain (cerebrum) and it is highly unlikely a doctor of Clark’s education and experience would confuse cerebellar tissue for cerebral tissue.

    So, using common sense, if there was cerebellar tissue in the wound, was the wound lower down in the occipital region, or higher up in the parietal region, given the cerebellum is in the rear base of the skull?

    1. “Please save your insults for someone else.”~Prudhomme

      No insult meant Bob. I am speaking to the actual medical language used by these doctors and the photos of where they placed their hands. At the occipital-parietal.
      You should know full well that the brain was blasted by a supersonic shockwave that would have liquefied the entire right side of the brain, including the cerebellum.
      \\][//

      1. I know no such thing, Mr. Whitten. I have shot an untold number of deer in the head with soft point and hollow point bullets, and I have never seen a brain “liquefied” by the shock wave of the bullet.

        If the cerebellum of JFK’s brain was damaged, it was because a bullet passed low enough through JFK’s brain to damage it.

    2. So, using common sense, if there was cerebellar tissue in the wound, was the wound lower down in the occipital region, or higher up in the parietal region, given the cerebellum is in the rear base of the skull?

      Using common sense, the wound was as the photos and x-rays show it.

      The photos show the cerebellum intact.

      Want to go for fakery of the autopsy photos and x-rays?

          1. And yet, John, it was reported by doctors at Parkland Hospital that pieces of the brain were reported to have fallen out of the large gaping wound in the right rear of JFK’s head. Not to mention, everyone in the limo (and behind the limo) reported bits of JFK’s brain covering them and the limo. And we have z313 from the Zapruder film.

            Are you going to tell me that is just blood and cerebrospinal fluid seen ejecting from JFK’s skull in z313, John?

            Sorry, I’ve shot too many deer to believe that one. The brain goes out the exit wound in little pieces.

            Intact brain? Don’t make me laugh.

          2. Not to mention, everyone in the limo (and behind the limo) reported bits of JFK’s brain covering them and the limo. And we have z313 from the Zapruder film.

            I thought you believe the back of the head was blown out?

            If so, how did brain matter get on people in front of JFK?

            http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/exploded.htm

            Why do all the films (Zapruder, Nix and Muchmore) show the main axis of ejected brain matter to be upward and forward?

          3. Which brain Herr Doktor? The practically intact whole brain?

            Offer us a photo here to examine.

            They have not leaked out.

            The HSCA examined them, and Ida Dox drew a picture of one of them.

          1. More or less, John. The more they parade their paid liars for the benefit of the sheeple, the more obvious their lying becomes.

            But you’re a patriot, right? My country, right or wrong, or even when my country murders a president.

          2. I’ll make it as simple as I can for you, John.

            According to his medical report, Dr. Kemp Clark handed off heart massage to Dr. Malcolm Perry so that he could get a look at the wound in the back of the head. As director of neurological surgery, he was the most qualified one there to do this.

            Now put that big brain of yours to work, John, and consider this.

            If JFK had a large gaping wound in the top of his head toward the right temple, would Clark have to leave his position doing chest compressions to see it? I hardly think so. A quick glance into the large crater there would tell him their efforts would prove fruitless.

            But, with a wound in the back of the head, where it was not readily visible, Clark had to stop what he was doing and turn the head over to examine the wound, didn’t he?

    3. As Dr Robertson has recently stated, the wound interpretations at Parkland were unreliable and should not be considered as proving any blowout wound to the back of the head. That interpretation is not unique and is supported by medical literature including my references to published articles stating that ER interpretations of wound characteristics and ballistics are correct only 50% of the time.In this case it appears that none of the physicians except Clark and Jenkins actually looked closely at the head wound.
      The continued use of Parkland ER personnel wound interpretation as the most important ( only?) evidence of where JFK’s wounds were in the face of autopsy findings is simply not correct and contradicts standard medical practice of the necropsy being the final and correct method for determining bullet wound characteristics. If CTers can’t get past those facts they can never come to a correct conclusion about the medical evidence.
      Who said Bobby Kennedy witnessed the autopsy? I stated that RFK was in attendance and spilled the beans about the only real coverup concerning the autopsy-one that even the prosectors participated in.
      RFK M.D.

      1. https://jfkfacts.org/assassination/comment-of-the-week-11/#comment-850640

        http://www.nytimes.com/1992/05/20/us/doctors-affirm-kennedy-autopsy-report.html?pagewanted=all
        Doctors Affirm Kennedy Autopsy Report
        By LAWRENCE K. ALTMAN
        Published: May 20, 1992….
        Pathologists generally talk to attending doctors before starting an autopsy. Dr. Humes did not say why they did not call Parkland before they began work…..

        Commission Document 678: http://maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=11077&relPageId=2&search=rowley_and%20transcript

      2. We have gone over proper autopsy procedure on these pages before, like almost every other topic that becomes a carousel here.

        The JFK “Autopsy” was a farce. Anyone who claims otherwise doesn’t know what a real autopsy entails and how the proper procedures were ignored that night in the Bethesda morgue.

        If there are references to Rodney Fishbaine Kadiddlehopper MD on this page, I would like to see his full name spelled out as I just did.
        \\][//

      3. For anyone who believes or attempts to promote the mistaken concept that the doctors at Parkland Hospital were so rushed, and so occupied, in their efforts to save JFK’s life that they were unable to inspect JFK’s head wound (and thus accurately locate it), below is an excerpt from the medical report of Dr. Kemp Clark, Director of Neurological Surgery at Parkland Hospital, Dallas, Texas. For anyone unfamiliar with the word “neurological”, it meant that Clark was the head of the department dealing with surgery of the head and nervous system; making him more than qualified to locate the location of the head wound.

        “He was (illegible) that I (illegible) no carotid pulse. I immediately began closed chest massage. A pulse was obtained at the carotid and femoral pulse levels.

        Dr. Perry then took over the cardiac massage so I could evaluate the head wound.

        There was a large wound beginning in the right occiput extending into the parietal region. Much of the skull appeared gone at brief examination . The previously described lacerated brain was present.

        By this time an EKG was hooked up. There was no electrical activity of the heart and no respiratory effort – He was pronounced dead at 1300 hrs by me.

        W. Kemp Clark
        22 Nov 1963
        1615 hrs -”

        http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/russ/jfkinfo/app8.htm

        Do my eyes deceive me? Does it not say Dr. Clark allowed Dr. Perry to take over cardiac massage, so Dr. Clark could “evaluate the head wound”? (note the time on the report above – 1615 hours or 4:15 PM, 3 hours and 15 minutes after JFK was pronounced dead)

        In other words, at this point, there were more than enough doctors present to manage respiration and heart massage to allow Dr. Clark, a highly trained and experienced neurological surgeon, to evaluate the head wound.

        And where did Dr. Clark observe JFK’s head wound? In the right occipital region of the skull, extending into the parietal region (right rear of the skull); right where the Back of Head autopsy photo does NOT show a wound.

        The American public has been fed a great lie and you, “Dr.” Photon, are the defender of that great lie.

        1. In the right occipital region of the skull, extending into the parietal region (right rear of the skull); right where the Back of Head autopsy photo does NOT show a wound.

          So you think the autopsy photos are faked?

          Give me a straight answer.

          1. Judging by the overwhelming amount of evidence, including the medical report of the director of neurological surgery at Parkland Hospital, Dr. Kemp Clark, who passed off heart massage to Dr. Malcolm Perry in order to examine the large gaping wound in the back of JFK’s head, the only conclusion a sane person can draw is that the Back of head autopsy photo is either altered or not the back of JFK’s head.

            “Dr. Perry then took over the cardiac massage so I could evaluate the head wound.

            There was a large wound beginning in the right occiput extending into the parietal region. Much of the skull appeared gone at brief examination . The previously described lacerated brain was present.”

            http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/russ/jfkinfo/app8.htm

            The area of the skull described by Clark (right occipital extending into the parietal region) is on the back of the head and clearly visible in the Back of Head autopsy photo, yet there is no indication of a wound.

            Unless Clark was lying, and I see no reason for him to lie when he wrote his report a few hours after JFK was pronounced dead, the BOH autopsy photo must be the lie.

            How does it feel to be the defender of a lie?

          2. Kool Aid? No John, what I drink tastes more like the truth.

            Dr. Kemp Clark wrote his report regarding the ER care of JFK a scant three hours after JFK was pronounced dead. Unless he was part of some great conspiracy against the US Government, which I highly doubt, he had no reason to tell any lies in his medical report, and what we read there is likely the purest version of the head wound we will ever see.

            He clearly stated in his report that he handed off cardiac massage to Dr. Malcolm Perry, in order that he might examine the head wound closer. Do you think he got a good look at the head wound at this time? Do you think that Clark, as the director of neurological surgery at Parkland Hospital, was qualified to look at this wound, and to observe its location?

            Dr. Clark described the large gaping head wound as beginning in the occipital region, and extending into the parietal region. Did you know the occipital region of the head is completely in the rear of the head? Did you know that a good part of the parietal region of the head is also in the back of the head?

            If this is the wound Clark observed, why is it not visible in the Back of Head autopsy photos?

            Do you think Clark was lying?

            Do you think Clark was part of a big conspiracy against the US Government?

            Would this make you a Conspiracy Theorist?

          3. No matter what happens, John, you and your kind can never respond to the simple fact that Clark stopped what he was doing to make a careful examination of the large gaping head wound on JFK, and, after making a careful examination, reported that wound as being in the back of JFK’s head.

            Period.

          4. But Clark agreed with the Bethesda doctors description of the head wound and testified under oath to that effect.

          5. Photon

            This is an excerpt from Dr. Kemp Clark’s testimony to the Warren Commission:

            “Dr. CLARK – The President was lying on his back on the emergency cart. Dr. Perry was performing a tracheotomy. There were chest tubes being inserted. Dr. Jenkins was assisting the President’s respirations through a tube in his trachea. Dr. Jones and Dr. Carrico were administering fluids and blood intravenously. The President was making a few spasmodic respiratory efforts. I assisted. in withdrawing the endotracheal tube from the throat as Dr. Perry was then ready to insert the tracheotomy tube . I then examined the President briefly.
            My findings showed his pupils were widely dilated, did not react to light, and his eyes were deviated outward with a slight skew deviation.
            I then examined the wound in the back of the President’s head. This was a large, gaping wound in the right posterior part, with cerebral and cerebellar tissue being damaged and exposed. There was considerable blood loss evident on the carriage, the floor, and the clothing of some of the people present. I would estimate 1,500 cc. of blood being present.”

            Dr. Clark described, under oath, a large gaping wound in the back of JFK’s head. He is hardly “agreeing” with the Bethesda autopsy results, which indicate no large wound at all in the back of JFK’s head.

            For someone as informed about this case to make such a statement is irresponsible.

            Were you, perhaps, thinking of another doctor, and merely became confused?

          6. John McAdams

            As I have shown, Dr. Kemp Clark has plainly described, in both his medical report of 22/11/63 and his testimony to the Warren Commission of 21/03/64, a large gaping wound he observed in the rear of JFK’s skull.

            Why do you think Dr. Clark would go to the Archives in 1988, view the autopsy photos and agree that they depicted the wounds he recalled seeing on JFK’s head?

            Do you think Dr. Kemp Clark was lying when he wrote his medical report, and when he testified to the Warren Commission?

            Did he drink the Kool Aid before he went to the Archives in 1988?

            Give me a straight answer.

          7. Tom S.

            How many lies does a member have to post here, before that member’s posting privileges are suspended?

          8. Bob, have you ever considered that Dr. Clark’s definition of ” back of the head” is not the same as yours?
            Specter asked Clark in the same interview if he concurred with the prosectors opinion of the head wound location and path-which he did. He stated in the same interview:” I knew that an autopsy would be performed which would be far more meaningful and revealing than any cursory external examination conducted in the Emergency Room by me.” By making that statement Clark was admitting that his initial perceptions might not be accurate, certainly were incomplete and tempered by the acute resuscitative attempts made on a DOA patient who happened to be President. You forget that Dr. Clark in his 11/22/63 interview stated that resuscitative efforts went on for 40 minutes. And yet we are supposed to accept that everything he said in that interview HAS to be true and totally accurate ? Why? At the time of the interview Clark had spent no more than 30 minutes examining JFK, did not know he had a back wound, did not know he had an entrance wound to the back of the head, did not know that he had an intact cerebellum .

          9. By the way, Bob you neglected to mention Dr .Clark’s comments about your pneumothorax fantasy: ” Let me say that the presence of the deviation of the trachea…are by no means diagnostic of penetration of the chest and the placement of the chest tubes was a prophylactic…”
            Thereby explaining the standard of care now seen in American trauma centers in regard to placement of chest tubes without diagnosis of a pneumothorax-a standard that you have been completely unaware of.

          10. Photon

            Sorry but, it is not a matter of what I and Dr. Kemp Clark believe to be defined as the back of the head”.

            Dr. Clark clearly states, in his medical report written 3 hours after JFK was pronounced dead, that the large head wound was in the occipital region of the head and extended into the parietal region of the head.

            There is no need to quibble over what I and Dr. Clark mean by “back of the head”, as it seems to be universally accepted, in the medical world, that the occipital region refers to the back of the head.

            “From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

            Occiput

            The occiput is the anatomical term for the posterior (back) portion of the head or skull. In insects, the occiput is the posterior part of the head capsule.

            The word occipital pertains to the occiput.[1] Etymology:occipital : from Latin occiput “back of the skull,” from ob “against, behind” + caput “head” . distinguished from sinciput (anterior part of the skull).[2]”

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occiput

          11. Now, watch carefully, kids, as John and Photon attempt to spin their way out of this one with distractions, obfuscations, and ad hominem attacks that will grow ever more vicious as it becomes ever more apparent they are attempting to defend an outrageous lie.

          12. Photon said:

            “By the way, Bob you neglected to mention Dr .Clark’s comments about your pneumothorax fantasy: ” Let me say that the presence of the deviation of the trachea…are by no means diagnostic of penetration of the chest and the placement of the chest tubes was a prophylactic…” ”

            Please cite the source of this quote. When you do, also please quote this text without omitting the sections between the lines you have quoted.

            As John says, Give me a straight answer!

          13. The JFK head wound was”Occipital-Parietal”, according to every doctor to see it. NOT just Occipital. The photo’s of the doctors describing the wound by hand placement were uniform in showing it on the Right Occipital-Parietal a handwidth above the ear and about 3 inches above the occipital protrusion.

            Personally I would discribe the location as the upper rear portion of the skull – or the “Occipital-Parietal”. A blowout of the back of Kennedy’s head, and an obvious wound of EXIT.

            http://www.drawninblack.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/skull-human_skull_side.jpg
            \\][//

          14. In an earlier thread, McAdams argued that the first statements are the most trustworthy, before witnesses change statements to something more “interesting.”

            In this instance, he has no issue with a key witness changing his statements to be “less interesting” for the WC, like many witnesses did or were cajoled to do.

          15. Wow, I just assumed that Dr. Kemp had changed his statements for the WC like Photon had maintained. He hadn’t so my statement above doesn’t make sense.

            And it doesn’t appear from McAdams’ own site that Dr. Kemp was even included in that overview of the archive materials:

            http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/novadocs.htm

          16. And you have corroboration from another Parkland doctor who had this to say about the 1988 archive autopsy materials review, proving Bob’s point:

            “McClelland recounts when he was shown the JFK autopsy photos in 1988. He agreed the photos showed the president’s wounds as he saw them on November 22, 1963. The only exception, said Dr. McClelland, was the photo that showed the right rear JFK’s head. He said that a flap of scalp had been pulled over Kennedy’s fatal wound changing the appearance of the wound.”

            https://jfkfacts.org/assassination/what-did-dr-mcclelland-think-about-jfks-wounds/

          17. Bob, what does parietal mean?
            And how do you square your belief that Clark’s note is the absolute, unequivocal. Truth on this matter when he himself stated under oath that the definitive characteristics of the wounds would have to wait for the autopsy? The statement from Dr. Clark himself impeaches your argument that he was infallible. Can you quote to me any statement from Dr. Clark stating that he disagreed with any of the conclusions of the Warren Report after the report was released?Did you ever read Jimmy Breslin’s article about how Dr. Perry felt that his initial statements at the Nov. 22 press conference were inaccurately reported and omitted his qualifying statement about the throat wound-and that by taking those comments out of context it helped foster conspiracy theories that he did not support?
            I don’t have to spin anything-I have reported Clark’s own comments on the subject-comments you neglected to mention even though they came from your source. If you want to spin something I refer you to Dr. Clark’s comment about the chest tube placement-which refutes your favorite pneumothorax claim.
            You may wish to think that ER physician interpretations of bullet wounds are infallible . The medical literature that you and other CTers ignore proves otherwise. I have quoted articles from reputable medical centers published in peer-reviewed medical journals that prove that ER wound interpretations are often incorrect-even with trauma specialists. Have you ever seen a patient with a gunshot wound in the ER? If not, what makes you think that you know more than the physicians who conduct those studies.
            Dr. Robertson, despite being a conspiracy advocate, has come to the conclusion that the ER wound interpretations at Parkland were in error. It appears that only Jenkins and Clark had more than a brief glance at the head wound, which in great part was covered with hair and coagulated blood. As Clark didn’t know that JFK had a back wound, nor an entrance wound at the back of the head it would appear to any medical professional that he did an incomplete examination and deferred detailed evaluation of the head wound to the autopsy physicians. Why can’t you accept that?

          18. Jimmy Breslin was doing quite well with that line he wore out repeating it so often, until he was discredited
            by the emergence of the disappeared White House transcript of the 22 November statements of Dr. Perry and Dr. Clark. Your introducing Jimmy Breslin into your argument is unreasonable. Breslin’s initial reporting from Dallas, allegedly speaking for Dr. Perry, was contradictory to your interpretation (and to Breslin’s) because it included this.:

            http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=15126
            Since November 24, 1963, Has Jimmy Breslin Been Writing A Script
            Started by Guest_Tom Scully_* , Dec 14 2009
            From “A death in emergency room one,” by Jimmy Breslin, published November 24, 1963.:

            “.The wound in the throat was small and neat. Blood was running out of it. It was running out too fast. The occipitoparietal, which is a part of the back of the head, had a huge flap. The damage a .25-caliber bullet does as it comes out of a person’s body is unbelievable….”

          19. I then examined the wound in the back of the President’s head. This was a large, gaping wound in the right posterior part, with cerebral and cerebellar tissue being damaged and exposed.

            You are exploiting the vagueness of the term “back of the head” to argue that the wound was in occipital bone.

            Anything behind the ear would be “posterior” and reasonably called “back of the head.”

            And you are picking one witness you find convenient, and ignoring a bunch of others.

            Carrico:

            http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/images/carrico_skull.GIF

            Grossman:

            http://www.jfklancer.com/pub/md/MD185-2.JPG

            Nelson:

            http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/nelson.jpg

          20. There is no need to quibble over what I and Dr. Clark mean by “back of the head”, as it seems to be universally accepted, in the medical world, that the occipital region refers to the back of the head.

            “From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

            Occiput

            [Emphasis added]

            You are treating “occipital region” as occipital bone square in the back of the head.

            But real world doctors don’t mean that.

            Both the Clark and HSCA medical panels said the entrance in the back of the head was “occipital” in spite of explicitly putting it in parietal bone.

            http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/occipital.htm

          21. Now, watch carefully, kids, as John and Photon attempt to spin their way out of this one with distractions, obfuscations, and ad hominem attacks that will grow ever more vicious as it becomes ever more apparent they are attempting to defend an outrageous lie.

            Irony alert!

          22. Tom S.

            How many lies does a member have to post here, before that member’s posting privileges are suspended?

            Oh, my!

            Prudhomme wants people who disagree with him banned.

          23. He stated in the same interview:” I knew that an autopsy would be performed which would be far more meaningful and revealing than any cursory external examination conducted in the Emergency Room by me.”

            Interesting that Clark was way less dogmatic about the wound than the buffs here.

          24. Oh my goodness! A full blown Lone Nut attack, and on a SUNDAY at that! This is going to cost somebody some overtime pay! 🙂

          25. Tom S., I was referring to Breslin’s article about Perry 30 years later after he had moved to New York. He had said virtually nothing about the assassination since 1964 and avoided all attempts to discuss the subject. The gist of the article was that Perry regretted what he said at the Parkland press conference and felt that it contributed to conspiracy theories, theories that he didn’t support and were based on misunderstanding of what he said and failure of the press to completely quote him.

          26. Once the White House transcript of the Parkland Hospital press conference of the afternoon of November 22, 1963 was “undisappeared,”
            in 1976 if I recall correctly, it is plain Dr. Perry’s and his boss’s Dr. Kemp Clark’s descriptions of the neck wound were identical,
            and matched quite well with what reporters in attendance had reported the two had said on the day they heard the two doctors say it.
            I think this is a more reasonable description of what happened than yours, and I did not even get into the Rowley copy of the “missing”
            White House transcript unearthed during the ARRB period, and stamped 26 November, 1963, or Rowley’s letter to Rankin in mid-1964
            describing the transcript and the sound or film recordings of the Parkland press conference as unlocated. If everything is merely a coincidence Photon, why waste any taxpayer funds on anything described as a homicide detective?

          27. In this instance, he has no issue with a key witness changing his statements to be “less interesting” for the WC, like many witnesses did or were cajoled to do.

            It’s not “changing your statement” when you give a vague statement, and the buffs interpret it a certain way.

            And they later you give a more precise statement, and it’s at odds with how the buffs interpreted the first statement.

  8. John McAdams
    January 17, 2016 at 9:54 pm
    They were trying to figure out what happened to the bullet that entered the back.

    Remember, they did not know there was a bullet wound in the throat.

    —————————————————————–

    Well, now, John, that is a good answer, I must admit but, there is just one little thing wrong with it, and it is so confusing, I am deeply perplexed by it.

    It seemed to be an accepted fact, at the autopsy and to the Warren Commission, that the good Dr. Humes attempted to probe the back wound with a finger, and was unable to insert his finger more than the first knuckle into this wound; indicating the wound was quite shallow and had not penetrated the pleural linings of the chest. By this time, an x-ray of JFK’s chest had been taken, and, shortly thereafter, the lungs and heart were likely removed.

    Know what the next logical step would have been?

    Give up? Simple. Look inside the pleural cavity with a light and see if there was a hole in the pleural lining in the area where the back wound was.

    See what I’m getting at here, John?

          1. They made the connection between the back wound and the throat wound much later, John, on the next day. I’m talking about ruling out a bullet going into the chest cavity on the night of the autopsy before Humes phoned Perry and found out the gash in the throat was a bullet wound. How did they rule it out then?

          2. I’m talking about ruling out a bullet going into the chest cavity on the night of the autopsy before Humes phoned Perry and found out the gash in the throat was a bullet wound. How did they rule it out then?

            Without doing a lot of research to see what, if anything, Humes said about that, they had the x-rays that showed no bullet in the torso.

            They certainly had no evidence a bullet was in the chest. And they certainly “cracked” the chest from the front.

          3. Well, from what I’ve read in the HSCA statements, they spent an awful lot of time in the autopsy dissecting organs, as if they were looking for something. Surely there must have been something besides the x-rays to help them rule this out?

  9. Bob Prudhomme I have a few questions regarding your comments of Jan 17.

    What about the shot that caused Connelly’s injuries? What about James McTague? You spoke about three shots to Kennedy. In your scenario, there would have to be five shots to include all the injuries.

    I also would appreciate if you would clarify if you were saying RFK was at the Official Autopsy and “he spilled the beans about the one coverup during the Official Autopsy”. I think I know what you mean but am asking for clarification.

    1. Hi MDG

      I was only speaking of the bullets that impacted JFK. The bullets that wounded Tague and Connally are another story altogether.

      I think it was another member that was discussing RFK being present at the autopsy. According to the Sibert and O’Neill FBI report, RFK was not present to witness the autopsy. I am not surprised at this, as I do not think I could witness the autopsy of a recently deceased close relative.

      1. I am not surprised at this, as I do not think I could witness the autopsy of a recently deceased close relative.

        Without having a copy of Manchester handy to check, I’m virtually certain Bobby was up on the 17th floor with the rest of the Kennedy entourage.

  10. Leslie Sharp

    I believe the Deep Politics Forum (JFK Assassination Debate) is the easiest place to find this thread. If I recall, the title is “The Most Important Error the FBI told the Warren Commission about the Rifle”, or something like that.

    1. I am approving this comment because Paul May recently contacted me (a PM on another forum)
      and requested that I pass this message on at Jfkfacts.org. I’ve known from information
      accompanying each comment submitted to JFKfacts.org, for several months that the few comments
      submitted previously here were accompanied by distant, general geographic location details
      than comment submitted by Photon were. The bottomline is that “this” Paul May has been submitting
      a very few comments, including this one, from a geographic location consistent with what I know
      of his background.

      I hope this helps explain to some of you why your comments addressed to “Paul May,” when he had not
      submitted a comment, were not approved and did not appear, these last several months.

      1. Tom S, while I disagree with your assassination orientation I have found you to be a breath of fresh air to this site-fair, open to other viewpoints and very liberal with allowing posters to express themselves with a minimum of the censorship that was starting to become overbearing before you came. In viewing other sites too often I have seen CT discussions degenerate into name calling and personal insults-usually between competing CT positions, as LN rarely participate ( excepting the courageous David Van Pein) and almost always are accused of being trolls or government agents. But I guess when the facts don’t support your position it is easier to resort to insults-it beats having to admit that you might have been wrong.
        Which leads me to the above comment calling me a fraud. No explanation, no documentation -just an insult. And yes I have noticed an increase in personal attacks, insults and name-calling directed toward us. I interpret that as being effective, as objective accurate evidence refuting my positions seem as rare as hen’s teeth.
        The original claim that I was ” Paul May” was posted by Jim DiEugenio, which should be evidence of how terrible his research skills really are.He simply had difficulty accepting that similar non-CT viewpoints could be held by more than two individuals. The Paul May he referred to I believe was from Georgia-while I have always maintained that my base has been in the greater Washington,D.C. area.

        1. Photon,
          Paul May privately informed me that his perception is that you have both admitted and denied
          you were him. I have no way, aside from reading all of your prior comments here, to confirm
          his opinion. I have, from the start, whenever I read it, refused to approve comments addressing you as “Paul May” or “May”. I’ve approved lots of comments, and I may have missed a couple. Too many comments address you as “Paul” and you seemed to ignore that, so I mostly have, also.
          If you disagree with Paul May’s opinion of what you have represented in your comments, please
          comment. I’m sure Mr. May will come back to see what has happened.
          I did not disclose geolocation details of either of you, but now I can confirm your claim of
          the geolocation approximation you are submitting comments from, and unless “Langley” keeps you at your desk 24/7, I can also confirm that there is a consistency of the geolocation of
          your submissions. IOW, this is a conflict between you and DiEugenio and Paul May got caught up in it through no identifiable fault of his own. I’ve made an extra effort to reduce this
          conflict because I considered it name calling. Yes, I could have refused to approve Paul May’s comment, but I invited him to attempt to clear this misinformation up, himself. If I was aware that you never represented that you are Paul May in any comment, I would have pointed that out to Paul May. DiEugenio took advantage of your electing to comment under a pseudonym, as have you. There are trade offs because obviously, you could not email DiEugenio an image of your DL to persuade him to retract his claim. I’ll share with you that I could, and I did. I had been accused on the Ed Forum of being the Tom S. appointed as Medicare admin. in the Bush admin. and I was emailing DiEugenio details I uncovered related to author Janney’s missing Crump trial witness-turned-CIA-assassin-of-Mary-Meyer based “novel”.

          1. Please see my JFK Facts post on September 20,2015 @ 7:12 PM. 3 separate individuals referred to me as ‘Paul’ in comments for the same topic.
            The only ‘ May’ that I am associated with is the birthdate that I share with JFK.

          2. Tom, posters, including me, have referred to “Photon” as Paul because, several months ago, Photon objected to Jeff Morley spiking his comments (I believe about the attack on the USS Liberty in Israel) as off-point.
            Based on the wording of Jeff’s comment to Photon, it became clear that he is named Paul. Whether his last name is May is undetermined.
            I continue to do my damndest to be Ed Connor.

          3. Ed,
            I cannot find Jeff’s comment, I did some searching only trying to more quickly dismiss this
            controversy. I am satisfied that the “Paul May” I am familiar with is the one who sent me a
            PM last week on another forum and posted a comment here today, and maybe three other times,
            in total, and that he is not posting as Photon. Photon volunteers no specifics linking him
            or herself to any specific individual, so I doubt he volunteered to Jeff that his first name
            is Paul. Although my searching turned up no comment of Jeff’s addressing Photon as Paul, I
            did see a number of comments indicating Jeff and Photon were not on the best of terms with
            each other. My search also indicated Photon was out of town briefly, recently. IOW, submitted
            comments are accompanied with just enough info to make it reasonably certain who is a spammer
            and who is likely distinct from another commenter, and that is also pretty much all we need to
            know to screen out most deception. A comment submitted this a.m. was of the 37th alias originating
            from the same IP#, so I won’t approve it, but it originates from a mid-west V.A. hospital,
            so it is possible there are signs up on the walls of that facility alerting readers to submit
            comments to Jfkfacts.org.

          4. While it’s true that Jim D first called Photon “Paul May”‘ and that Photon originally denied it, it’s also true that Photon said he was Paul May on several occasions to stir the pot. And that.’s the difference between the two, IMO. While I have had my disagreements with Paul, I have never known him to claim any special expertise. Unlike Dr. Photon,

          5. Pat, I have never claimed to be Paul May. Indeed, months ago Paul May on this denied posting under my title. Please quote anything that I have posted to the contrary.
            The only time that I recall ” stirring the pot” was in response to another poster who continuously referred to me as ” Paul”. In jest I paraphrased a quote from ” Jeremiah Johnson ” – ” mother May never raised such a foolish child”. Of course it went completely over the head of the poster who didn’t recognize the irony.
            I can guarantee you that DiEugenio will continue to refer to me ( if ever) as Paul May-as will others. Don’t blame me for poor research-it seems all to common in the ” research” community.

        2. “And yes I have noticed an increase in personal attacks, insults and name-calling directed toward us.”~Photon

          “Name calling – Personal attacks” How do we define these terms here? Is speaking frankly to be termed, “Name calling”?

          Is pointing out the attendance to an apparent ‘agenda’ to be consider a personal attack?

          Also, is pointing out that your insistence on anonymity leaves you open to question as per your supposed “expertise” and “accomplishments”. You cannot have it both ways Photon. You cannot make claims of being credentialed on one hand and insist on anonymity on the other.

          What is worse, you cannot make claims of expertise on subjects you clearly know little to nothing about. And you seem not to notice when others point out your obvious and fundamental errors on certain topics.

          Frankly I do not care what your name is, but I do want to know what your game is. You strike me as full spectrum disingenuous.

          That is not meant as an insult Photon, it is simply my honest assessment. And it also leaves me utterly without concern that you will strike back with some bitter criticism of myself. Because I couldn’t care less what you think.
          \\][//

          1. What errors are you talking about? Please document the errors you claim, plus the source impeaching them.

  11. I would like to ask Bob Prudhomme if he is saying in his comments of Jan 10 that a bullet entered Kennedy’s right lung and this is evidence of a fourth shot.

    You say most of the Bethseda witnesses reported the back wound as lower in Kennedy’s back.

    Who are these witnesses? Who did they report their observations to?

    You also say Humes was trying to divert attention away from this wound. More evidence of coverup.

    How many shots do you think were shot at Kennedy that day?

    1. Hi MDG

      I believe there was one bullet that entered JFK’s back, that it went into the top of the right lung (staying there) but I do not believe this is any kind of proof of four shots.

      I believe another shot entered the rear base of JFK’s skull, just to the right of the External Occipital Protuberance, and either grazed the base of the skull, or fragments went through the base of the skull. The majority of the fragments, believe, stayed in the vicinity of cervical vertebrae C3/C4, while one fragment went through the neck and exited at the throat.

      I believe the third bullet came from the front and caused the large blowout wound at the right rear of JFK’s skull, as reported by physicians at Parkland Hospital and many other witnesses.

      The very nature of these three wounds is the signature of a very exotic type of bullet that will come apart entirely in a wound, and was not available to a minimum wage earner in 1963.

      Regarding Bethesda witnesses, I recommend reading the report of FBI SA’s Sibert and O’Neill, available at this link on Page 4, second paragraph:

      http://www.jfklancer.com/Sibert-ONeill.html

      Both agents were present at the autopsy in Bethesda.

      1. Bob, as you give absolute credence to the Sibert-O’Neill report perhaps you can comment on the following:
        Who is the Adm. BERKLEY claimed to be present? As this is a form without error, there must be another record that claims that specific individual was there. Who is Bozwell, who also was claimed to have been there? Who is the individual Jerrol Crester, who is claimed to have been there? I find no Crester mentioned in any other source.
        According to you this report is completely accurate, so these three individuals must exist somewhere. And of course we know that the FBI and these two agents never,ever make mistakes the Sibert-O’Neill report is the most accurate and medically correct report on the autopsy- much more so than the reports of the prosectors or their comments on the findings, or of the observations and opinions of the other physicians present.
        I guess that we can discount the claims of RFK, because he is not listed in the Sibert report as actually being at the autopsy, even though he spilled the beans on the only real cover up of the autopsy.
        One last thing about the Sibert report that you might explain. Why doesn’t it mention any “blowout wound of the back of the head” that you and other CT medical experts claim was present? Even Randy Robertson, the dean of CT radiologists now states that there was no blowout wound in the back of the head. How do you account for that?

        1. “I guess that we can discount the claims of RFK, because he is not listed in the Sibert report as actually being at the autopsy”~Photon

          Okay, let’s have the citation of RFK being at the autopsy — in the actual morgue or theater that evening during the actual procedures.
          We all know Robert Kennedy was at Bethesda that night. Your new “revelation” that he attended the autopsy however, is “NEWS” in caps.
          \\][//

        2. Photon

          Your post is an almost comical example of ignoring the 800 lb. gorilla in the room while noticing errors in the tile work on the floor. But, that is to be expected of you, as I suspect you are well trained in methods of distraction and obfuscation.

          The FBI report spells a couple of names wrong. Really, Photon? This is your BIG rebuttal?? 🙂

          1. While the Sibert and O’Neill report does not describe a large gaping wound in the rear of the head, it also does not describe a large gaping wound anywhere else on the head.

            However, we do have the following excrpt from this FBI report I have always found interesting:

            “it was also apparent that a tracheotomy had been performed, as well as surgery of the head area, namely, in the top of the skull”

            As this observation was made as JFK’s body was unwrapped, after removal from the casket at Bethesda, who do you think performed surgery to the top of JFK’s head?

          2. “it was also apparent that a tracheotomy had been performed, as well as surgery of the head area, namely, in the top of the skull”~Sibert and O’Neill report

            However this was in the first report that was based on an aside by Humes when the body was first unwrapped. After a piece of bone was delivered to the morgue later, Humes realized that the “surgury” he mentioned was a misconception based on the straight edged appearance of the shards, and withdrew his innitial observation about surgery to the head.

            This was also added as an addendum to the final Sibert-O’Neill report.

            This little detail is something that David Lifton ignores to this day. There was NO SURGERY to Kennedy’s head prior to the autopsy at Bethesda.
            \\][//

        3. For any readers that wish to see first day reports of a large gaping wound in the rear of JFK’s head, written by the doctors attempting to save his life at Parkland Hospital (Dallas, Texas), I highly recommend reading their medical reports, found in Appendix VIII of the Warren Commission Report.

          http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/russ/jfkinfo/app8.htm

          You will see the term “occipital region of the skull” repeated several times. The occipital region overlies the occiptal bone in the skull, and this bone is at the rear of the skull.

          1. Bob Prudhomme, where would a reader interested in re-reading specifically your writings on the shot dispersion based on the FBI’s “experiments” with alleged murder weapon go? I asked this several weeks ago but the request may have been buried in the thread. If you’re uncomfortable with the request, no problem but I assure you it is coming from a genuine place of interest and respect for your analysis. Tks. LS

          2. Mr Prudhomme,

            The doctors at Parkland all referred to the head wound to be in the “occipital-parietal” NOT at the occipital protrusion.

            Do you understand the difference between the two?
            \\][//

          3. No, he doesn’t.
            There is no doubt that RFK was at the autopsy and was in a position to know about JFK’s abnormal neck-and admitted that years later.

          4. Photon continues to make this bold assertion, and I will continue to demand a citation and source for this assertion until Photon provides such or admits he is making it up out of whole cloth like many of his disingenuous comments:

            “There is no doubt that RFK was at the autopsy and was in a position to know about JFK’s abnormal neck-and admitted that years later.”

            Well Photon, cough it up, where is your proof of this allegation.
            \\][//

          5. No more pre-assassination “neck posts” will be approved until late Tuesday afternoon. The next Comment of the week will be the place to feature (contain) neck condition and neck medical history comments.

      2. I believe there was one bullet that entered JFK’s back, that it went into the top of the right lung (staying there) but I do not believe this is any kind of proof of four shots.

        But not only did the autopsy fail to mention such a bullet, the x-rays fail to show it.

        1. Hi John

          Any idea why the autopsy doctors spent so much time looking for a bullet in the chest, if they were so certain no such bullet entered the chest?

          1. http://www.nytimes.com/1992/05/20/us/doctors-affirm-kennedy-autopsy-report.html?pagewanted=all
            Doctors Affirm Kennedy Autopsy Report
            By LAWRENCE K. ALTMAN
            Published: May 20, 1992….
            Pathologists generally talk to attending doctors before starting an autopsy. Dr. Humes did not say why they did not call Parkland before they began work…..
            ….
            Photos: Drs. James J. Humes, left, and J. Thornton Boswell, who performed the autopsy on John F. Kennedy, broke a 28-year silence (Dennis L. Breo) (pg. A1); Dr. George Lundberg, editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association, said that the interviews with the doctors who attended John F. Kennedy after he was shot were to “help calm the ardor of the honest conspiracy theorists who have simply not had access to the facts.” (Marilynn K. Yee/The New York Times) (pg. B7)

            Correction: June 9, 1992, Tuesday An article on May 20 about the autopsy of President John F. Kennedy included an erroneous reference from The Journal of the American Medical Association to the history of statements by the doctors who performed the autopsy and others who treated him in the emergency room. Some of them spoke previously in public about the matter; they were not breaking a 28-year silence.

            Parkland Hospital Press Conference Transcript, stamped Secret Service Chief November 25, 1963 :
            http://22november1963.org.uk/jfk-parkland-hospital-press-conference

            http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/master_med_set/md41/html/Image0.htm

            Secret Service Chief Rowley informed Chief Counsel Rankin that he looked high, he looked low, for the Parkland press
            conference of doctors Perry and Kemp discussing the entrance
            wound to the President’s throat, but apparently not in his
            own files!
            Commission Document 678: http://maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=11077&relPageId=2&search=rowley_and%20transcript

            It is always a pleasure to have the opportunity to present on Dr. McAdams’s interpretation of what seems controversial, but according to him, is unremarkable.

        2. Mr. McAdams,

          Pardon me for interrupting this thread, but you have yet to answer my question that I asked of you on a different thread. I will post the question for a third time:

          “The question I asked you yesterday and you have not answered still stands:

          If LHO is guilty, then he is a murderer times two.

          Allen Dulles, we both KNOW was responsible and or helped kill millions of innocent men, women and children in the name of “democracy.”

          Mr. McAdams, who is more “evil?” Your use of the word evil is quite telling. A “lone nut” that grew up without a stable home life, and what appears to be a mentally disturbed mom is “evil” in your mind, but a power hungry bureaucrat that kills for money is not “evil?”

          Gee John, it is almost like you are doing what you accuse the CT side of doing business on this site. Avoiding a simple, direct question, and asking me a completely different question.

          The question still stands, John. Who, in your mind, is “more” evil?

          Dulles, who killed millions of innocent people in foreign countries for money, or LHO, who might have killed two people out of “anger” or because he was “deranged?”

          FYI—I WILL answer your question directly. Yes, I believe Allen Dulles is FAR more involved in the assassination than you would like anyone on this site to believe.
          You could always join Tom S. or Jefferson Morley and do research that could provide more answers.

          1. Mr. McAdams, who is more “evil?” Your use of the word evil is quite telling. A “lone nut” that grew up without a stable home life, and what appears to be a mentally disturbed mom is “evil” in your mind, but a power hungry bureaucrat that kills for money is not “evil?”

            So you are admitting that Oswald shot Kennedy?

            You just want to talk about how “evil” Dulles was.

          2. “So you are admitting that Oswald shot Kennedy?”
            ~McAdams

            Another instance of McAdams scurrilous mode of obfuscation.

            Steve Stirlen plainly said; “If LHO is guilty,” “IF” Herr Doktor, a very specific qualifier.

            He went on to ask McAdams who was more evil, Dulles or Oswald, when the numbers of those murdered is tallied.

            Of course McAdams does not answer that question at all, but makes another quip instead.
            \\][//

          3. John,

            No, I asked YOU a question. A simple and direct question. If, and it’s a big if, LHO is a murderer times two. Dulles is a murderer times two or three million.

            Your refusal to question the CIA is disappointing, but to be expected.

            The question still stands: Dulles or Oswald?

          4. No, I asked YOU a question. A simple and direct question. If, and it’s a big if, LHO is a murderer times two. Dulles is a murderer times two or three million.

            I don’t think Dulles murdered any two or three million people. I think you are assuming the regimes the CIA supposedly overthrew were benign humanitarian ones.

            But if we assume Dulles was a terrible person, how does that make Oswald innocent?

            Since we are talking about the JFK assassination, it’s not really relevant how much you hate Dulles.

            Here, 27 years after 1989, some people still seem to have Cold War grudges.

  12. Photon
    January 13, 2016 at 6:43 am
    The mere fact that I published in that journal should establish what my qualifications are.That was the question posted initially.

    ———————————————————–

    You talk the talk, but can you walk the walk?

    I don’t believe you’ve ever published a thing. Give us a name, yours or the article, or go away.

  13. May I suggest affixing a date to the titles of the “Comment of the Week” threads so that they can be told apart?

  14. Carrico did his best I’m sure. There was already a call out for the arrest of LHO. That’s was the most important thing for the plotters and those forced to go with the Coverup.

    The ones we need to be concerned about were those who were already determining how to explain 3 shots.

    It is completely unbelievable the shot to the back was not noticed “that they had just not thought to turn over the wounded President”.

    We can be sure the doctors in Dallas and at Bethseda both saw the shot to the throat also. It wasnt about the actual wounds it was about synchronizing cover stories.

  15. Why would a surgical resident not be allowed to intubate patients on a regular basis, especially if there is an entire team of vastly experienced doctors standing by to supervise? How else are they to gain the necessary experience?

    It is not fair at all to discount Dr. Carrico’s experience at intubating patients, simply because he was a second year surgical resident. For all we know, he may have had the opportunity to perform many intubations at Parkland, and could have been the most talented doctor in the room at this task.

    Once again, if Carrico was a bumbling resident fresh out of medical school, with no experience intubating patients, do you really believe he would be allowed to intubate the POTUS, or even be allowed into Trauma Room One?

    Now, why not address the clear indications a pneumothorax was present, including a bullet entrance wound observed 5.75″ below JFK’s collar line?

    “If no pneumothorax was noted at autopsy, there simply was no pneumothorax.”

    Please, I have a chest cold, and it hurts to laugh.

    1. Surgical residents don’t routinely intubate patients; the only time that they do is perhaps during ER rotations. You seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of the duties of Surgeons and little concept of Postgraduate medical education in the US. Surgeons rarely if ever intubate patients-there is no need for them to do so- and I’m sure Bob can tell us why.
      Bob, you have never incubated anybody but yet you claim to be an expert in the procedure. Bob, you have never placed a chest tube and don’t even know what is used for drainage, yet you claim to be an expert in the procedure. Bob, you have never seen an autopsy, yet you feel comfortable ignoring the standard for final medical diagnosis-and I assure you that finding a pneumothorax post-mortem or finding parietal pleural punctures for chest tubes are routine anatomical pathological findings. The more you write on this subject the more evident how little you really know about the subject.

          1. Peculiar reference for a medical journal. Even If just a joke.

            I searched the Pharos site, but couldn’t find anything published by a Photon. What name shall I search for, Photon?

            While I was there, I figured I might as well search for the term “JFK” on Pharos, which returned a single result. An article by a Genevieve Boland, MD, about her late father, James Pius Boland, who was a
            doctor at Parkland, and treated Conally and witnessed Jackie carrying a piece of skull in her hands.… But he is apparently no longer with us.

            http://alphaomegaalpha.org/pharos/PDFs/2013-3-Boland.pdf

          2. Name the article, please. You see, it’s not that I don’t believe you, it’s just that I don’t believe you.

            Besides, I thought you were a lawyer a few months back.

            Or was it an Indian chief?

          3. Photon, why would you not simply link to your most recent article in the Pharos?

            A perfect example of your ongoing attempts to reduce this site to a “child’s game” – leaving it vulnerable to ‘parlour games’ ridicule. Do you deliberately add fuel to suspicion of those serious about the investigation that you are not here in good faith? If you sincerely believe you have something to contribute in support of the Warren Commission conclusions why would you denigrate that contribution by such adolescent tactics? You brought the virus of other forums to this one under the guise of ‘patriotism’. Not cool.

          4. The mere fact that I published in that journal should establish what my qualifications are.That was the question posted initially.

          5. The “fact” that Photon published in that journal should be established by some form of evidence before our dear lightbeam is laughed off of the forum.

            A link to the “article” in question would be sufficient.
            \\][//

          6. Photon

            January 13, 2016 at 6:43 am

            The mere fact that I published in that journal should establish what my qualifications are.That was the question posted initially.

            Photon,

            You have offered that you have been published. Please share proof that you have been published by sharing the name of your work and in which issue of Pharos it was published.

            The Warren Commission Report is a publication as well. Claiming that it is existence of proof does not prove anything without authentication of the claims, which have come under scientific dispute at nearly every evidentiary claim. Please authenticate your claim of being published in Pharos.

  16. Bob, how many times do you think surgical residents in the US get a chance to intubate anybody? I have never heard of a GeneralPractice residency, so that aspect of your story doesn’t make sense- unless you didn’t really know what was going on, which seems more likely.
    If no pneumothorax was noted at autopsy, there simply was no pneumothorax.

  17. Carrico reported diminished breath sounds in JFK’s right lung, following intubation with an endotracheal tube. As I have already demonstrated, the chances of this being a result of Carrico over inserting the ET into JFK’s left bronchus, without this being immediately noticed and corrected, are slim to none.

    What else would the diminished breath sounds on the right indicate? What other clues were present?

    1) Carrico heard diminished breath sounds in the right lung.
    2) JFK’s trachea was observed to be deviated slightly to the left by Dr. Malcolm Perry et al, to the point Perry was required to sever the strap muscles on the left side of JFK’s trachea, in order to complete the lateral tracheotomy incision.
    3) Despite the official WC version telling us a bullet entered JFK’s back at the level of vertebrae C7/T1, the vast majority of Bethesda witnesses reported an entry wound in JFK’s back lower down at about the level of vertebra T3, about 1.5-2 inches to the right of the spinal midline. This is well below the apex of the right lung, and the only place this bullet could go wass into the right lung.
    http://classconnection.s3.amazonaws.com/92/flashcards/1616092/jpg/posterior_lungs1341270126571.jpg
    4) When Perry made the tracheotomy incision, he observed air bubbles in the mediastinum, indicating leakage of built up air pressure in a pleural cavity into the mediastinum. Proof of this is Perry’s call for chest tubes to be inserted into the pleural cavities; the proper procedure to relieve a tension pneumothorax. These air bubbles could not be from the wound in the trachea as, with the accompanying hole in the neck tissue, escaping air (and blood) would escape through the hole in the neck, and have no chance to build up in the tissues adjacent to the trachea.

    The clinical signs of tracheal deviation and diminished (sometimes absent) breath sounds in one lung are recognized as very strong indications of a collapsed lung and a build up of escaped air in the cavity surrounding that lung. In short, a tension pneumothorax, precisely what Perry set out to relieve once he understood all of the signs.

  18. Photon said:

    “Absence of breath sounds in one lung means the end of the tube was advanced beyond the bronchus supplying that lung- exactly the initial presentation in Parkland and a simpler explanation than the pneumothorax fantasy that you maintain.”

    The resident I was speaking of was not a surgical resident. She was on her way to becoming a general practitioner, and she was employed at that time in a tiny hospital in a northern community of 2000 people with NO surgeons at all employed there. Any patient requiring surgery must be medevacced by plane to a larger centre.

    While Carrico was a 2nd year resident, he was also a 2nd year surgical resident in a large Dallas hospital that likely had a volume of patients thousands of times greater than our little hospital, and I would be willing to bet more intubations were performed there in a day than our little hospital saw in two years; especially considering the American propensity for gun violence.

    Do you really think such a clumsy apprentice would be allowed to intubate the POTUS? And, if he did over insert the ET into a bronchus, and reported diminished breath sounds in one lung, wouldn’t there be enough high calibre surgeons present to tell him to re-insert the ET, as the diminished breath sounds could indicate he was in a bronchus? For that matter, I would tend to believe Carrico had far more experience than our resident (a first year resident fresh out of school, BTW) and would have immediately recognized his mistake and corrected it.

    1. Photon would like us to believe Dr. Carrico inserted an endotracheal tube too far down JFK’s trachea and that it went into the bronchus of his left lung and, for this reason, there were diminished breath sounds in JFK’s right lung when they auscultated JFK’s chest by stethoscope.

      The right bronchus is greater in diameter than the left bronchus, and it is also a much straighter path into the right bronchus from the trachea, as compared to the sharp turn from the trachea into the much narrower left bronchus. This is why, in the majority of cases, over insertion of an ET will result in the tip of the ET entering the right bronchus, not the left bronchus, as Photon would have you believe.

      https://anatomy.wikispaces.com/file/view/trachea.jpg/127724399/trachea.jpg

      The only support Photon can produce for this argument is the slight deviation of JFK’s trachea to the left, as observed in his neck by Perry et al. He would have us believe this slight deviation, in the neck, was sufficient to pull both lungs sideways far enough to straighten out the angle of entry into the left bronchus, and allow the ET to wander into the left bronchus, instead of the right, and produce diminished breath sounds in the right lung.

      I’ll let you folks in on a secret. If the ET is over inserted into the bronchus of one of the lungs, breath sounds are not just diminished in the opposite lung, they are absent altogether.

      1. After listening to David Lifton, and reading Sherry Fiester’s book, Enemy of Truth, these discussions (no offense intended towards you, only McAdams, Photon and company) seem superfluous.

        1. Of course they do. You only accept medical claims from non-physicians who don’t know what they are talking about.Speer, Prudhomme and Fiester simply do not have the medical knowledge that they claim to have.
          Does the term Macintosh mean anything to you? Or Mr Prudhomme for that matter?

  19. Dear Mr Kirsch
    I think you make a valid point, but one that also has issues. The ‘open access’ nature of the discussion on controversial topics such as this is a problem in that such an astonishing mass of ill thought out noise or simply erroneous nonsense has to be waded through to get at the nuggets of high quality work.
    Conversely there is a problem in relying only on peer reviewed sources. That approach works well within a dominant paradigm but this topic is in an earlier stage of competing paradigms. Peer review would therefore act to filter out ideas from competing paradigms to that subscribed to by the particular journal.

    Whilst I have often had a similar thought to yours, on balance I do not think ideas outside the mainstream would develop without ‘open access’ and we have to accept and manage the problems this produces. In short ‘caveat emptor’ or ‘buyer beware’ with all such sources of information.

    1. ” . . . waded through to get at the nuggets of high quality work.” — Anthony

      Trained investigative reporters must know there are no shortcuts to “high quality” facts. Why would anyone expect one forum, jkfacts.org to be the “go to place” for definitive answers to the assassination investigation. It’s a hard slog and online forums are but one small percentage of the search. This forum in my opinion has welcomed and encouraged NEW material and for that reason alone it has earned respect, notwithstanding the complications that come hand in hand with a 50 year old investigation. Why would a skilled reporter fault it for failing to provide immediate gratification?

  20. Lee Bowers saw from the railway tower on 22/11/63 what he told Mark Lane.

    Bowers didnt live much longer after that as he was run off the road. He didnt die immediately but lived long enough to say he felt he had been drugged at one of his stops.

    Mr MacAdams I’m sorry but its that kind of story. Murder of A President!

    Lose the W Commission Report. It’s a big world outside of that tome!

    1. Bowers didnt live much longer after that as he was run off the road.

      http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/bowers.txt

      And of course you trust Mark Lane to give you the full account of Bowers.

      Did Lane tell you that Bowers said the two men behind the fence were not together?

      Did Bowers say he saw anybody shoot at Kennedy?

      To Lane (but not to the Warren Commission) he mentioned a “flash of light.” Do you think he could see the muzzle flash of a gun, in broad daylight, with the gun pointed in the opposite direction?

      And if he could see the muzzle flash of a gun, why could he not see somebody shooting it?

      1. Prof McAdams. The answer to all the questions below is yes. I’m posting them in case anyone misconstrues your posts.

        1. Did Lee Bowers testify to seeing two people behind the picket fence?
        2. Did Lee Bowers testify to seeing a flash of light?
        3. Is there any other testimony suggesting a shot may have come from somewhere near the location of these people?
        4. Did anyone react after the shooting in a way that suggests something significant had happened near the location of the two people?
        5. Is it conceivable that the two men had an involvement in the assassination of JFK?

        1. First of all, are you admitting that Bowers said the two men were not together, and that he did not see them do anything suspicious?

          2. Did Lee Bowers testify to seeing a flash of light?

          To Lane, but not to the Warren Commission. To the WC he said:

          I just am unable to describe rather than it was something out of the ordinary, a sort of milling around, but something occurred in this particular spot which was out of the ordinary, which attracted my eye for some reason, which I could not identify.

          Are you claiming he saw the muzzle flash of a gun? If so, do you really think he could see any such thing in broad daylight? With the gun pointed in the other direction?

          3. Is there any other testimony suggesting a shot may have come from somewhere near the location of these people?

          If you are talking about the earwitness testimony, yes, some witnesses thought the shots came from the direction of the Grassy Knoll. More thought the shots came from the direction of the Depository.

          Only a tiny handful thought the shots came from two directions. But overwhelming witness testimony shows shots from the Depository.

          4. Did anyone react after the shooting in a way that suggests something significant had happened near the location of the two people?

          No, some ran down the sidewalk toward the retreating limo, and then they just milled around.

          Nobody ran up toward the Grassy Knoll until Clyde Haygood got into the Plaza, parked his motor, and ran up toward where the Stockade Fence connects to the Triple Underpass.

          People then followed him up there.

          5. Is it conceivable that the two men had an involvement in the assassination of JFK?

          You mean in spite of their not being together, and Bowers not seeing them doing anything suspicious, and at least one of them hanging around after the shooting?

          It’s conceivable that space aliens killed Kennedy. It’s just not very likely.

          And buffs should not lie about Bowers, and try to make him a conspiracy witness.

  21. Tom S.
    January 9, 2016 at 1:26 am
    What does “dealt with severely” refer to? Bob, are you planning on inviting Doyle over here?
    —————————————————————–

    Now there is an idea! I wonder if the DPF could spare him for a while.

    1. I can’t see the point a Kirsch’s comment. Its hasn’t got us anywhere and more tragically its wasted Photon and his team of researchers time. I’m glad I’m not a US taxpayer.

      I think if Mr Kirsch posts something relevant on this site we can read it, and possibly anoint him with our praise.

  22. I do wish Jeff would write another article. I’m tired of looking at Dulles condescending picture every time I look at the most recent comments.

  23. Jim Garrison put on his journalist’s hat in 1988 and wrote a terrfic book The Trail of The Assassins.

    It was way back in 1969 that he ventured into areas very few others did with regards to the JFK Assassination.

    He arrested and charged Clay Shaw in 1969 in the JFK Assassination.

    He did not win the case but he was on to the association of Clay Shaw, LHO, Dean Andrews and others in New Orleans.

    These associations grew with more and more information over many decades into revealing Oswald as a probable intelligence asset who had a relationship with the CIA.

    Oswald was well known to Angleton, and Dulles. We know this now.

    You wont read about this in the Warren Report but LHO was known to Dulles, Angleton, and others in 1963.

    Is there any possible defense of this major omission? Are there any WC Cheerleaders who want to defend this particular major lie & omission in this pathetic document created to explain to the American people what happened?

    If Garrison hadnt charged Shaw in 1969, how much longer would we have had to wait to get this information he & his investigation brought forth.

    I still remain amazed that that book got published in the United States considering the influence of the CIA on MSM in that time period in the US.

      1. Well, we certainly know from Helms’ testimony before congress that Clay Shaw was a CIA asset, meaning he perjured himself before Garrison.

        1. Well, we certainly know from Helms’ testimony before congress that Clay Shaw was a CIA asset, meaning he perjured himself before Garrison.

          Shaw talked to the Domestic Contact Service in the early 1950s. These were the folks who debriefed ordinary tourists and businessmen who had traveled abroad.

          They did not run spooks.

          The relationship ended in 1955.

          If you think Helms testified to anything different, post his testimony.

          But you can’t, since you are quoting a distorted version from some conspiracy book.

          1. Feel free to post his testimony yourself, McAdams.

            Sorry, that’s not the way it works. You make a claim, you back it up.

            It’s obvious you just accepted a distorted account from a conspiracy book.

      2. “One lie is shown here: the claim that people in the Quarter knew that Shaw was “Bertrand:”~McAdams

        McAdams borders on slander here when addressing the issue of Jim Garrison. It is clear from the perspective of what is known now that Shaw/Bertrand was in fact a CIA asset, and most likely as he is depicted in JFK, by Oliver Stone.
        Y
        McAdams still has not addressed why CIA was so concerned about Garrison as to put a full court press against his efforts; bugging his offices, infiltrating his team with moles, etc.
        \\][//

        1. McAdams borders on slander here when addressing the issue of Jim Garrison. It is clear from the perspective of what is known now that Shaw/Bertrand was in fact a CIA asset, and most likely as he is depicted in JFK, by Oliver Stone.

          No, no such thing is known.

          http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/shawcia.htm

          McAdams still has not addressed why CIA was so concerned about Garrison as to put a full court press against his efforts; bugging his offices, infiltrating his team with moles, etc.

          Untrue. If you disagree, post your evidence. And secondary essays from people like DiEugenio don’t count.

        2. JOAN MELLEN
          Official website of Author and Temple University Professor Joan Mellen. Her twenty-two books, most recently “A Farewell To Justice,” “Our Man In Haiti” and “The Great Game in Cuba,” explore the history of the Central Intelligence Agency and its role in the planning and cover-up of the Kennedy assassination.

          http://joanmellen.com/wordpress/
          \\][//

        3. McAdams still has not addressed why CIA was so concerned about Garrison as to put a full court press against his efforts; bugging his offices, infiltrating his team with moles, etc.,

          Still no evidence on this, I see.

          And the reason for that is simple: none exists. It’s a buff book factoid.

  24. Further evidence from Parkland Hospital of JFK having a tension pneumothorax in his right pleural cavity:

    “Dr. CARRICO – I believe we were to where the endotracheal tube had been inserted. After this, the President–his respirations were assisted by the Bennett machine. We again listened to .his chest to attempt to evaluate the respirations. Breath sounds were diminished, especially on the right, despite the fact that the endotracheal tube was in place and the cuff inflated, there continued to be some leakage around the tracheal wound”

    When combined with Dr. Perry’s observation of JFK’s trachea being deviated to the left, there can be no doubt whatsoever of there being trapped air under pressure in JFK’s right pleural cavity. As JFK’s right lung would be collapsed, it makes perfect that breath sounds would be more diminished in his right lung.

    1. ” despite the fact that that the endotracheal tube was in place and the cuff inflated, there continued to be some leakage around the tracheal wound.” The leakage accounts for the air in the mediastinum, not a pneumothorax. Breath sounds were diminished in the right lung because they intubated the left mainstem bronchus-usually the right mainstem get intubated in an e-tube advanced too far, but the bullet wound and resulting hematoma was the cause of left tracheal deviation. And Carrico could not be sure that the e-tube was actually in place, but I will let Dr. Prudhomme explain why-if he can.
      The subcutaneous emphysema explanation was a diplomatic way to account for chest tube incisions that did not penetrate the pleura. In the heat of the moment the residents simply didn’t complete the job. The kits to place a chest tube usually contain a trocar to penetrate the subcutaneous tissue and the pleura, but they often seem to be too traumatic. All of the chest tubes I have placed or seen placed were with a curved Kelly clamp that you can use to punch through the pleura and can grasp the tube to push in. Perhaps in the heat of the moment they used the trocar. Hooking up a chest tube to a water seal doesn’t ensure that it is in the pleural space; of course I don’t think Bob knows what devices are used for that purpose currently.

      1. Wrong, as usual, Photon.

        How do you know the endotracheal tube was incorrectly placed into the left bronchus?

        Considering the calibre of the doctors present in Trauma Room One, wouldn’t that be quite an amateurish mistake for them to make?

        Considering the tear in the trachea was directly adjacent to the opening in the throat, how could air escpaing from the trachea be trapped in the neck, as it would escape to the atmosphere? For that matter, how could blood from the trachea wound remain next to the trachea long enough to form a hematoma large enough to deviate the trachea, when it would simply run out the same opening? Your “theory” of a hematoma pushing the trachea to the left is just your usual nonsense; a deviated trachea is a sign of tension pneumothorax.

        Now, where you really messed up is by trying to state that, as the trachea was deviated to the left, the left bronchus was lined up straighter than the right bronchus, and the endotracheal tube went into the left bronchus, instead of staying above the bronchi where any skilled doctor would place it.

        If the tracheal wound was up near the larynx, why would the trachea be deviated way down below where it branches into the bronchi? Are you saying the swelling in the trachea was so great, it was able to drag the right lung sideways a couple of inches? Nonsense!

        To make matters worse for you, the angle of the left bronchus is normally much greater than that of the right bronchus. A misplaced endotracheal tube will inevitably go into the right bronchus, as it is a much straighter path. To accomplish the impossible feat you are suggesting, the right bronchus (and lung) would have to be dragged over a good ways JUST to make the two bronchi angles even, and even FURTHER to allow a straight course into the left bronchus.

        No, it is quite obvious these doctors correctly placed the tip of the endotracheal tube right where it belonged, just above the carina of the trachea. Although there was air leakage from the tracheal wound, enough air made it into the lungs to be able to hear breath sounds by auscultating the chest. Breath sounds were diminished in the right lung, simply because there was a growing pneumothorax there preventing the lung from expanding.

        1. Honestly, Photon, you post nonsense, but it is dangerous nonsense. On most forums, you would have been dealt with severely long ago.

          1. What does “dealt with severely” refer to? Bob, are you planning on inviting Doyle over here?

        2. How do you know that the ET was placed correctly? Obviously since you couldn’t answer my question you don’t know-or know how to determine.
          “Considering the calibre of the doctors present wouldn’t that be a quite amateurish mistake for them to make?” It was placed by a second year surgical resident who did not routinely perform endotracheal intubation. Your comment betrays your ignorance of how difficult it can be to emergently intubate a person, even if unconscious.Obviously you have never done it-it isn’t as easy as it seems on a Mannequin. Been there, done that.
          Bob if you don’t know all about a procedure nor have ever done one (or even observed one) don’t claim to be an expert. Your constant claims of medical diagnostic skills evaporate every time you post two dimensional illustrations to make points that are not supported by three dimensional reality.

          1. Photon

            I have witnessed patients being intubated with endotracheal tubes several times and, on one occasion, I was administering oxygen, via a bag valve mask, to a cardiac arrest patient we had brought into the ER. Just as we had transferred the patient onto the ER cart, a resident doctor interrupted me so she could intubate the patient. Once intubated, I removed my bag valve from the mask, connected it to the E.T. and continued artificial respiration.

            To those who may not understand the purpose for doing this, it was quite simple. With the bag valve mask, it was necessary for me to pull up on the patient’s jaw with one hand, in order to maintain an airway, while attempting to push down with the same hand, in order to maintain a seal on the mask: an extremely tiring endeavour, to say the least. By intubating, a patent airway was guaranteed, and my task was reduced to merely squeezing the bag valve every 6-7 seconds.

            How do I know when a patient is properly intubated? Very simple. When the resident first completed intubation, she accidentally inserted the end of the E.T. into the right bronchus, where the E.T. typically ends up with over insertion, as the angle of the right bronchus is much less than the sharp angle into the left bronchus.

            I knew the E.T. was improperly inserted, and in the right bronchus, because when I attempted the first ventilation, it was impossible to force any oxygen into the patient, almost as if someone had turned a valve off.

            Quite simply put, she had the end of the E.T. up against the wall of the right bronchus, effectively sealing the end of it. I informed her she had made a mistake (BIG mistake on my part) and, after a couple of minutes arguing with her, and being told I did not know how to operate a bag valve (oh yeah!), she was told by a senior doctor to redo the procedure and voila! Bob suddenly regained his bag valve operating skills, and was able to ventilate his patient!

            Every time you attempt to bamboozle the members of this forum with your nonsense arguments by speaking down to me, I will cut you down and expose you for the deceiver you are.

          2. So your resident didn’t properly intubate the patient? I thought that with the highly competent Parkland doctor( ie, AKA resident) that was impossible. You have just impeached your argument.
            The fact that your couldn’t ventilate the patient doesn’t tell you anything about where the ET was placed.
            The initial way to determine if the ET tube is correctly placed is to perform auscultation of both lungs after the procedure. Absence of breath sounds in one lung means the end of the tube was advanced beyond the bronchus supplying that lung- exactly the initial presentation in Parkland and a simpler explanation than the pneumothorax fantasy that you maintain

  25. Not one single doctor at Parkland reported JFK to be suffering from “possible subcutaneous emphysema”, as observed by Humes.

    Several doctors at Parkland not only reported the successful insertion of chest tubes into JFK’s pleural cavity, they also reported the connection of these chest tubes to sealed underwater drainage. This is the standard treatment for tension pneumothorax, and precisely what Dr. Malcolm Perry requested, after observing air leaking into JFK’s mediastinum while performing a tracheotomy on JFK.

    As observed by Dr. Malcolm Perry, shallow bi-lateral chest incisions at the 2nd intercostal space to relieve subcutaneous emphysema were not a “viable therapeutic technique”, mainly because 1) subcutaneous emphysema, unless extreme, is NOT a life threatening condition, and is normally treated by allowing the body to re-absorb air by itself and 2) on a pulseless, non-breathing patient, no ER doctor would address something as minor as subcutaneous emphysema while other critical interventions needed to be performed, unless the subcutaneous emphysema was so severe as to restrict breathing. JFK’s autopsy photos clearly show he was not suffering from severe subcutaneous emphysema.

    Humes needed to divert attention from the fact a bullet entered JFK’s right lung and stayed there. The “shallow back wound”, “shallow bi-lateral chest incisions” and “subcutaneous emphysema” were weak fabrications to support this lie.

  26. Photon
    January 7, 2016 at 8:06 pm
    Of course you wouldn’t know ,Bob. It is an exclusively American term.
    I refer you to Senator Jim Webb’s book ” Born Fighting” for information on this group. I am surprised that you reflexively reject American historical fact so easily based solely on who is presenting it.
    ——————————————————————–
    From a Scottish friend of mine, “If B.S. was music, Photon would be an entire pipe and drum corps!”

    1. Instead of a constructive criticism , a personal attack.
      A CT pattern repeated again and again when presented with facts that you simply will not accept, no matter how well documented .
      JFK did not have a pneumothorax.
      Humes made comments about chest incisions to treat ” subcutaneous emphysema” in an attempt to explain chest tube incisions that never penetrated the pleura; it was a heck of a lot more diplomatic than nothing ” unsuccessful attempts at placing a chest tube”- which is what actually happened.

  27. Has anyone yet observed a single 2016 presidential candidate being asked by a single representative of the “reputable outlets” if the candidate will fully enforce the 2017 release of all government documents per the JFK Records Act?

    1. Most outlets have had their repute impeached by Operation Mockingbird. “Reputable” outlets are characterized at the anchor desk and in the boardroom by people on CNN like Anderson Cooper who have no journalist training but do have multiple years interning at the Central Infiltration Agency. It’s become more likely that “repute” is a construct of hegemonic forces, not “freedom of the press”, regardless of if it wasn’t always that way pre-Panic of 1907.

  28. I could also mention Gerald Posner’s awful “Case Closed,” with its made-up quotes attributed to people he never interviewed. When that was published 22 years ago, it was treated as if God had written it and used Posner as the middleman to bestow it upon us.

    1. And like the other so-called newsies, Posner was quite well paid ahead of time for that pile of drivel.

      The professionals . . . .

  29. This reminds me of the complaints lazy hack pundits made when bloggers starting lighting a fire under their rear ends.

    Just consider the enormous embarrassments of the fairly recent past that have been suffered by such “reputable outlets” as The New York Times (Jason Blair, Judith Miller, just about everything it’s published about Bill and Hillary Clinton in the last 20 years) and The New Republic (Ruth Shalit, Stephen Glass, Charles Murray and his god-awful Bell Curve, Elizabeth McCaughey and her hopelessly dishonest article about the Clinton Health Initiative of 1993). Then ask yourself why this argument put forth by Mr. Kirsch isn’t subjected to gales of derisive laughter instead of being honored (if that’s what’s intended) as Comment Of The Week.

    1. Well I have been laughing so hard I fell on the 26 volumes of The Warren Report like it was a landfill festooned with the detritus of the DIS-Reputable. But when I pressed on them, like helium each volume floated TOWARD Langley looking for another patsy.

      I finished Talbot’s The Devil’s Chessboard and now I am at peace. Case solved. And on this list John Foster And Alan live on to dissemble, nitpick, hold the party line. It’s like 2 Pontius Pilates reincarnated in purple robes.

      But science in the next five years will FORENSICATE the crime and all the dodges, all the faux rebuttals lathered in smarmy authoritarianism, all the CERTITUDINOUS snake oil musk will stand naked and stinky in the light.

      And all the Long Island Clambake Journalists, the Martha’s Vineyard Jack Welch NBC crowd who allowed the Crime of the Century criminals to get away, will go to the fridge for more shrimp sauce, call an accountant in the morning, send more money overseas.

  30. I Love the comments on the site. I do not often write myself and don’t consider myself an expert but I have a deeper understanding of the issue at hand from the thoughts, debate, the challenging, the digging that goes on here. One still must do critical thinking & their own research but while these posts were gone from this site due to a lack of a moderator I missed it. I feel like it’s back and better than ever. Sometimes to vet a theory or share a “fact”. It won’t shed the light of a smoking gun but sure helps with the light new found understanding. Maybe Mr Kirsch did this as a homeopathic remedy to rally us ?

  31. I disagree with John’s comment. Some of the lamest nonsense ever spewed about the Kennedy assassination has been spewed by supposed experts, with all the proper credentials, who just so happen to either have no clue what they are talking about it, or be so blinded by bias they can’t make sense of the simplest thing.

    Having friends in the media and a spiffy C.V. is no match for a willingness to learn and a desire to share what one’s learned.

    1. Agreed to the max! I recall that some months prior to the 50th Anniversary of the murder of JFK, NPR ran a segment on some clown from either North or South Carolina who had a long-running newspaper column called “The Rambler” who claimed that in his rambling he ran across a woman who was former military during the 1950s, and worked on the rifle range at Atsugi Air Station in Japan, where Oswald was stationed.

      She stated — so said newsy claimed — that she witnessed Lee Oswald practicing every week at the rifle range.

      To anyone who served in the military in the 1950s and 1960s and 1970s well knows, WOMEN were not allowed on the military rifle ranges back then. PERIOD!

      Typical of the pure bullcrap by the so-called newsy class leading up to the 50th anniversary!

      1. First Woman Marine to qualify as Rifle Expert and Pistol Expert: Lt.Ruth Telander, USMCWR.
        In 1943. Your claim of women being banned from rifle ranges is nothing but B.S., at least as far as Marines go. Of course Sgt. you claim to have been in the Air Force so you OBVIOUSLY know all about the USMC.

        1. I stated that I served in in military intel in both USAF and USMC (NSG — Naval Security Group). Evidently your reading comprehension leaves much to be desired. But the point remains, and any military type please feel free to dispute me here, women were not allowed on military ranges back then. PERIOD!

          And Ruth Telander qualified at Camp Mathews, where competitive shooting was held, but it was not part of her training in the Marines back then!

          http://www.theusmarines.com/rifle-training-then-and-now/

          1. If the Woman Marines had Rifle teams in the 1950s where did they train? Please give one documented statement from an official source that confirms woman were banned from military firing ranges.
            Sgt., are you claiming that you were in the USMC? Where did you go to boot camp ? More importantly, tell us what TV station was across the street from NSG and what traffic circle is nearby.

          2. Oh my Dear Lord, I find myself agreeing with Photon. ;.) Photon, do you remember when I told you my mother was a Marine back in the 50’s? Well, I just got off the phone with her and sure enough, she had to get both rifle and pistol qualified during her time at boot camp at Paris Island. Once she got to El Toro, she never had to re-qualify.

            On a side note, I’d like to be there when you call my mom a “Woman Marine.” Trust me, they do not like it.

        2. Let me restate that to avoid all the endless sniping and parsing: no women were stationed as workers, DIs, etc., on rifle ranges in the military in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s to my knowledge, which this columnist, The Rambler, so claimed.

          Also, when I went through Parris Island in the 1970s, I was explicitly told women did not receive rifle range training.

          1. So let’s get this straight, Sgt. You were at Lackland a few months after Bush was there. That would put you there in 1968 or 1969. If you had an Air Force career of any note you would have been in that branch for at least 2-3 years, probably more if you had any intelligence duties-assuming training, schools , etc. And in the middle of that you went to Parris Island to become a grunt. So you just decided to drop out of the USAF to join the Marines?
            That is ridiculous. You never went through Parris Island and nobody told you anything about range requirements or training for women. You just made it up. You know nothing about the NSG- if you did you would have known the answers to the questions I posted. You can’t always get all of the facts off of a computer.

  32. The Fourth Estate should have had its feet held to the fire for the last five decades for the professional onanism exemplified in this particular debate. How has this descended into a denigration of private citizens who attempt to rise to the occasion when in fact it was ‘expert journalists’ who failed their responsibility? Personally speaking, I don’t attend Camelot Conferences, I don’t dress in costumes, and in fact I lead a fairly ordinary life fraught with all of the incumbent challenges – economic, emotional, political, psychological and spiritual. I have a life, and I’m no Trekkie so I take umbrage with anyone, friend or foe, who suggests the pursuit of the assassination conspiracy is a hobby. It is a responsibility.

  33. There are intelligent people who believe the JFKA was a conspiracy.
    There are unintelligent people who believe that,too.
    There are intelligent people who believe that the JFKA was the work of a lone nut.
    There are unintelligent people who believe that,too.

    One obvious corollary – which may be comfortable to us , but is nonetheless unavoidable and true – is that there are some smart people who are wrong and some dumb people who are right.

    But I recall the wise words of my high school mathematics teacher : examiners score you not so much on getting the right answer , but by “showing your workings.” You have to support your reasoning.

    John’s points are reasonable : he will surely relate to that sagacious advice we received in school. Still,tolerating the words of the uninformed is a small price to pay for freedom of expression.

    And no matter how many favourable peer reviews a paper might receive,we will still have to listen to the counterarguments.That is to be welcomed.
    The pervasive “my expert is better than your expert” mindset in the JFKA debate will not wane at any time soon.

    I applaud the efforts of the scholarly researchers and those with specific professional prowess,who have shared their work with us.
    It can be very heavy going,very “dry”,for me to work my way through such articles , but it is worthwhile.

    Can I tell you all a secret? No matter how much the JFKA debate is infused with scholarship and science,it is riddled with emotion.Sit down,take a deep breath,relax – I know this has come as a big shock to you all.

    1. “I applaud the efforts of the scholarly researchers and those with specific professional prowess,who have shared their work with us.
      It can be very heavy going,very “dry”,for me to work my way through such articles , but it is worthwhile.”

      ditto.

  34. The problem with Kirsh’s overall notion is that some commenters here have had their disinformation published through mainstream “reputable” channels. What about the “authoritative pronouncements” of those who have been published but are lying through their teeth (keyboard) here? What makes an outlet reputable if it publishes disinformation and forgeries of history?

    1. Yes, and they also have a penchant to go on and on and on interminably on almost irrelevant items and subjects, and while David Atlee Philips and George Joannides and E. Howard Hunt have some importance, they all fall into the same category of disinformation specialists, while the crucial elements (ZR/RIFLE, Bissell, McGeorge Bundy, Jean Souetre, Lucien Conein, Pfc. Eugene Dinkin***, etc., are seldom paid enough attention to).

      *** Anyone who knows any reporters or concerned activists living in the LA area, might wish to contact them about contacting Eugene B. Dinkin, who is getting on in years and hasn’t been interviewed in many a year.

  35. Government, or any just authority, supposedly derives its authority from the consent of the governed, or its members. Unless that authority is of the first generation of consenting adults, each successive generation of those who govern and those governed, become more estranged. Within this estrangement lay the seeds of governmental duplicity hatched by schemers who seek to usurp legitimate power from those who are governed. Authoritative sources are an elite, but they are NOT gods over their fellows. They obtained their ‘expertise’ from others before them and, therefore, they are part of a continuum of learners who advance us all when that expertise/knowledge is beneficially used for all of humanity.
    Now, to give a perspective regarding the diversity and range of history present on this site. My name is Charles Kennedy, and I am not Irish or Caucasian, but African American. I am a living testament to the ugly American History stretching back to BEFORE the founding of this Nation. Kennedy’s views about emerging non-white countries essentially was that they had to fight and settle their own internal issues, unprovoked or aided by the CIA, or Russia. When you realize the implications for the amount of “wealth stolen from these emerging nations”, you can begin to appreciate why JFK was assassinated. If you were on the side of the true liberation fighters, then you were opposed to colonialism in all its manifestations, including US Neocolonialism and rule by proxy (US backed dictators). It was not about communism, but maintaining the status-quo of domination and exploitation of non-white nations, to extract the wealth of these nations, to enrich a class of people living sumptuously above the average person who unwittingly worked and perpetuated this tyrant class and their racist, white-supremacist system. Deal with this history people. The Kennedy Assassination is just a symptom of that dysfunctional system.

    1. Agreed. The motive was a much bigger than Cuba, Vietnam or even the Federal Reserve. JFK was a threat to a sought after world hegemony that could collect and impound the resources of earth so as to profit from them at the expense of those it could enslave, whether by whips or “civilization”. JFK’s position towards Africa and the Middle East and Europe were enormously more important and beginning to embarrass the cabal that wanted to exploit them through the US government as a collectivist democracy spreading vassal.

      1. Outstanding comments, theNewDanger, and since so much revisionism has been spewed forth about JFK (and MLK and RFK after their respective murders), let’s set the record straight in respect to an elaboration of your comments, Good Citizen.

        Counter-Revisionism

        Was President Kennedy responsible for the deaths of thousands, or up to one million, Indonesians?

        Negative, that was Eisenhower (CIA’s failed coup in Indonesia) and Lyndon Johnson (CIA’s successful coup in Indonesia)!

        Was President Kennedy responsible for the deaths of hundreds to thousands of Iranians?

        Negative, Eisenhower was responsible for the coup in Iran in the early 1950s.

        Was President Kennedy responsible for the deaths hundreds to thousands of Guatemalans?

        Negative, Eisenhower was responsible for the coup which overthrew Jacobo Arbenz’s administration!

        Was President Kennedy responsible for the deaths of millions of Vietnamese?

        Negative, Johnson and Nixon were responsible for those deaths!

        Was President Kennedy responsible for the deaths of thousands of Brazilians?

        Negative, Johnson was responsible for Operation Brother Sam!

        Was President Kennedy responsible for the deaths of thousands of Chileans?

        Negative, Nixon was responsible for the coup which overthrew Salvador Allende, and the replacement with the brutal mass murderer, Gen. Augusto Pinochet!

        Was President Kennedy responsible for the deaths of US Navy and Marine personnel aboard the USS Liberty when the government conspired with Israel on a false flag operation?

        Negative, that was President Lyndon Johnson!

        1. But the 1963 coup in Iraq that cost lots of lives (and started to bring Saddam Hussein to power) did happen on JFK’s watch.

          1. Good catch, and no, I’m not claiming perfection for JFK, simply that he was our last democratic president in office, and like FDR far closer to the working people of the nation then all the plutocrats’ lackeys which followed.

            A final word on Kirsch’s patronizing comment:

            In Seattle, WA, USA, an activist pressured the Seattle government to conduct a study to determine the extent of illegal foreclosures (fraudclosures) performed in that city. A study was undertaken covering just the time between January 1, 2013 and June 30, 2013, and the study found that almost every single foreclosure didn’t meet the legal criteria, and as such were fraudclosures – – the majority having been undertaken by Bank of America.

            Since the receipt of said study, the city government has been sitting upon this report, and nary a local reporter will touch it. (The study is known to us because the activist was accidentally sent a copy after its completion — see link below, please.)

            http://www.scribd.com/doc/281414769/Updated-McDonnell-Analytics-Final-Report-City-of-Seattle-Review-of-Mortgage-Documents-Hosted-by-KingCast-Mortgage-Movies

            These are the brave officials Kirsch speaks of.

            And then, of course, as others have mentioned, Operation Mockingbird:

            http://www.namebase.org/news17.html
            James (Scotty) Reston of the NYT was satisfied with an evasive answer, but when the Star-News editorial board met with Colby, they made some progress. The other shoe dropped with an article by Oswald Johnston on November 30: the Star-News learned from an “authoritative source” (Colby) that the CIA had some three dozen American journalists on its payroll. Johnston named only one — Jeremiah O’Leary — who was one of their own diplomatic correspondents. (The Star-News stopped publishing in 1981, at which point O’Leary joined Reagan’s national security staff. From 1982 until his death in 1993, he was with the Washington Times.)

            http://www.apfn.org/apfn/mockingbird.htm
            MOCKINGBIRD was extraordinarily successful. In no time, the agency had recruited at least 25 media organizations to disseminate CIA propaganda. At least 400 journalists would eventually join the CIA payroll, according to the CIA’s testimony before a stunned Church Committee in 1975. (The committee felt the true number was considerably higher.) The names of those recruited reads like a Who’s Who of journalism:
            Philip and Katharine Graham (Publishers, Washington Post) William Paley (President, CBS) Henry Luce (Publisher, Time and Life magazine) Arthur Hays Sulzberger (Publisher, N.Y. Times) Jerry O’Leary (Washington Star) Hal Hendrix (Pulitzer Prize winner, Miami News) Barry Bingham Sr., (Louisville Courier-Journal) James Copley (Copley News Services) Joseph Harrison (Editor, Christian Science Monitor) C.D. Jackson (Fortune) Walter Pincus (Reporter, Washington Post) ABC NBC Associated Press United Press International Reuters Hearst Newspapers Scripps-Howard Newsweek magazine Mutual Broadcasting System Miami Herald Old Saturday Evening Post New York Herald-Tribune

    2. I think the subtle distinction between the terms “Authorities” and “Experts” should be held in mind here.

      > Experts have skills and knowledge in a topic.

      > Authorities have the power to regulate and create rules, and enforce them. Authorities often are not experts themselves, but rely on select experts for opinions.
      \\][//

  36. I still believe journalists have the unique ability “the writing skills” to convey clearly the information they have found on this topic or any other.

    They have unique abilities to tell the story.

    It is quite clear however it has taken experts in many, many other fields to look at all the information that has come forth in this case.

    I think it is very, very important where the preponderance of evidence is headed in the JFK Assasination.

    It has taken 52+ years of work by so many experts. Journalists and writers have been important some more than others.

    People who told the truth like the Parkland Doctors but were threatened with loss of their livelihoods if they ever spoke of what they saw that day.

    Lee Bowers in the railroad tower behind Dealey Plaza explained what he saw but it was set aside.

    It has been recorded Jackie Kennedy thought her husband’s political enemies were responsible for killing her husband.

    I think it is so very, very important they told the truth to the extent they knew it!

    1. Lee Bowers in the railroad tower behind Dealey Plaza explained what he saw but it was set aside.

      In fact, he testified before the Warren Commission. He described seeing two men behind the Stockade Fence. They were not together. They did nothing suspicious.

      After the shooting one remained. Bowers could not say about the other, since his clothing blended in with the foliage.

      It requires a Mark Lane treatment to make him a conspiracy witness.

      1. John, you make it so simple sounding. The most rejectionist testifying witness called before the Warren Omission. His testimony was damning to the Omission and was ignored by them. People behind the fence on the grassy knoll?
        His death is another suspicious one in the name of

        http://www.amazon.com/Reclaiming-Science-Conspiracy-mathematical-disinformation/dp/1502715996/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1452219013&sr=1-1&keywords=reclaiming+science

        His friend and Texas Department of Public Safety officer Charles Good investigated the crime a day after as their was no investigation at the time.
        He interviewed a witness and concluded there where two cars involved and one ran the other off the road.
        Those are the facts.
        His wife told Penn Jones “They told him not to talk”.

  37. John Kirsch

    January 2, 2016 at 8:04 am

    Let me ask this: How many of the people who write comments on this site, often on complex topics, have had articles on 11/22 published by reputable outlets that vetted the article before it was published?
    Comments on websites, posts on personal blogs and self-published books don’t count.(This comment in itself is positioned in an unearned authoritative manner. Despotic hypocrisy much?)

    What, in other words, are the actual credentials that people have that allow them to make authoritative pronouncements on highly technical matters?

    My guess is that few if any of the people who comment on this site have any real credentials at all. And that few if any have had articles on 11/22 published by respected outlets. (your guess is no more valid than what you stated above that you feel “doesn’t count”)

    Which means, in all honesty, that most of the comments are mere wool gathering, despite the writer’s efforts to dress up his/her words as authoritative pronouncements.

    The farce of intellectual authority, repute, credentials, etc. is of no authority over an individual of noesis. It is unreasonable, invasive, and insufferable to cajole, indoctrinate, and/or coerce others into intellectually subjugating to a deceptively originated collectivist ecosystem of farcical authority sought by a groups that impose what they feel should be “authoritative” doctrine of those who should be considered to be of authority, repute, or credentialing, as their intellectual collectivist workforce trainings are within collectivist frameworks (https://goo.gl/SKEIrh).

    The individual must choose what to believe without despots maneuvering to intellectually en-serf them. Unpublished individuals’ opinions DO count; Kirsh is advocating they don’t count unless one is interwoven within the doctrinal agenda that is inherent within these reputable outlets. Kirsh is advocating for a persistent ecosystem of intellectual intimidation that puts down people who haven’t integrated themselves into hegemonic tonality intending to authenticate farcical authority and repute that can only been “earned” by professtitutes via groups/schools of thought controlled by unelected collectivist structures (UCS). Assuming authority within a predatory collectivist ecosystem does not sire authority, repute, or credentialing for its outlets – it makes those who uphold it to impose it pretentious despots.

    The hegemonic criteria of what is authority, repute, and credentialing is developed by very few to meet the strategic goal of the UCS that operate & benefit from organizing & controlling a parallel serfdom/workforce structure that the UCS manipulates in using capitalism, Marxism, socialism, communism, democracy, etc. where necessary to extract control from a majority of individuals to empower the UCS cabal. The UCS enacts economic, academic, government, military (police and military), and medical policies within the operative structure as if the UCS is “of the people.”

    It is the individual who decides the value of what he finds cogent or true, not despotic collectivists whose adjutants are obvious here.

    1. “It is the individual who decides the value of what he finds cogent or true, not despotic collectivists whose adjutants are obvious here.”
      ~theNewDanger

      A most splendid mini essay there my friend!
      \\][//

    2. “theNewDanger”! (as opposed to what, “theOldDanger?”): Good God, my friend, the things you do to the language! You push our precious mother tongue to the ground and kick the poor thing until it bleeds! Have you no mercy?
      Where is Mr. Language Person (the estimable Dave Barry) when I need him?
      Oh, well, I guess I’ve have to make do on my own. The things a former (and present) journalist must do to defend plain speaking and plain language.
      How shall I put it to you, “theNewDanger?” Your “comment” is a festival, a cornucopia, a mother lode, of gibberish!
      But I thank you, my friend, because you have, without meaning to, made my point even better than I could have.
      Why, after all, should we speak plainly and honestly when fakery is so much more fun?
      After all, we’re only talking about the unsolved murder of a president. So employ gibberish, use fake names, dawdle on minutiae. What does it matter, right?

      1. Personally Mr Kirsch,

        I have no idea of what you are talking about, because you said nothing at all specific in your response to theNewDanger.

        I find your response to be just generalized rhetoric and baseless disdain.Perhaps you should consult with your friend,
        Dave Barry before writing, because as it is you are struggling with mere ululation and textual glossolalia, leaving this reader quite baffled.
        \\][//

    3. I am reminded of the American (Ameritard ???) populace and so-called media professionals so blithely accepting of George W. Bush’s completely fabricated “military record” — I arrived at Lackland AFB for enlisted basic training not that long after George Weasel Bush completed his there, but I, like many thousands of others, finished still as an enlisted man, while the Bush somehow magically and miraculously came out of enlisted basic training after 6 weeks as an “officer”?????

      And next he magically becomes a “pilot” even though he never attended USAF flight school, which is mandatory (the unthinking media professionals glibly accepting that Bush was also unique in learning his piloting by going OJT at an ANG unit, which never happens, and never happened!

      Those are your so-called journalistic pros, sonny!

  38. I can honestly say that despite all the crap, ive been able to gain a clearer idea of the issues surrounding the assassination. The real problem is there’s one indispensable entity missing from these discussions and that’s the federal govt. And they aren’t providing answers to these questions anytime ever apparently.

    Not until the generation that loved JFk is good and buried.

    1. Thank you Mr Kilroy.

      My real name is Willy Whitten. I am Scot-Irish. My surname derives from the Gaelic, pronounced Wyd’n; a clan in the south of Scotland in the border area between what is now Scotland and Ireland, once known as “No-Mans-land”
      My mother’s side is Irish.

      I get chills up my spine every time I here The Gael.
      https://youtu.be/BR-csWS1bcM?t=3
      \\][//

      1. There is no border area between Scotland and Ireland, Willy. And the Scotch-Irish are descendants of lowland Scots ( not Highlanders) who spoke the English dialect Scots, not Gaelic and who were enticed by English promises for land in Northern Ireland to emigrate in whole villages to settle Ulster to create a Protestant implantation on the island. The same model was used for Jamestown, ergo the concept of “Plantations” in the New World. These Scotch-Irish left in droves for the New World after a generation or two of broken promises from the Crown, often forced to the frontier where their “seditious” tendencies were away from the cities. As such much of the Pioneer stock of the late 18th Century was Scotch-Irish.
        If you really are one of us,congratulations. I have Highland roots ,too-Clan Wallace.

          1. There is no doubt, GM. JFK loved Irish rebel songs and knew Irish history. That’s how understood the injustice of colonialism.

          1. I think you are full of it, as usual. No Scotsman I ever knew ever referred to himself as “Scotch”.

          2. Of course you wouldn’t know ,Bob. It is an exclusively American term.
            I refer you to Senator Jim Webb’s book ” Born Fighting” for information on this group. I am surprised that you reflexively reject American historical fact so easily based solely on who is presenting it.

          3. @Bob Prudhomme

            Aye you are quite right Bob, it is Scottish instead of Scotch! Scotch really refers to whisky. Incidentally, the Kennedy’s are an ancient Scottish clan. I know JFK and the rest of the Kennedys’ descendants were from Ireland. The Kennedy clan name is probably at least around 700 years old. The Wikipedia entry says that:

            The Kennedys claimed a blood kinship with the Earl of Carrick and supported Robert the Bruce during the Wars of Scottish Independence. In 1372, Robert II of Scotland rewarded John Kennedy of Dunure as chief of his name and ballie of Carrick.

            In about 1457 John’s direct descendant, Gillbert, was created Lord Kennedy. He was also a regent to the infant James III of Scotland. James Kennedy, brother of the first Lord Kennedy, was one of Scotland’s best loved bishops. James served briefly as High Chancellor of Scotland and was also Bishop of Dunkeld, and also later Archbishop of St Andrews. In 1455 he founded St Salvator’s College.

            Hugh Kennedy of Ardstinchar was a Scots mercenary who fought at the Siege of Orléans for Joan of Arc. As a result Joan figures on the arms of Kennedy of Bargany.

            In 1509, Sir David Kennedy, the third Lord Kennedy was created Earl of Cassillis. He was killed at the Battle of Flodden in 1513. The second Earl of Cassillis was murdered in 1527. Gillbert Kennedy, the third Earl, was one of four Scottish commissioners who were poisoned on their return from the marriage of Mary, Queen of Scots to the Dauphin of France in 1558. The third Earl had inherited his title at the age of twelve and one of his first acts was to sign the death warrant of Patrick Hamilton, the first Scottish Protestant martyr.

            The Moray Kennedys were a branch of the clan who travelled north with the sister of the third Lord Kennedy, Janet Kennedy who had a son by James IV of Scotland, as part of the possession of the earldom of Moray.

            The rest of the history is here:

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clan_Kennedy

            Another good article is here:

            http://www.rampantscotland.com/clans/blclankennedy.htm

          4. Thanks GM for presenting a fine example of CT research standards.
            You have got the wrong family!
            The Irish Kennedys were originally the O’KENNEDYs out of the family of Brian Boru, High King of Ireland before the Norman Conquest-and centuries before your genealogy even started. If you want to learn about the Scotch-Irish stay on Wiki and type in the term in the search function.
            I must say I find it amusing to see such a fundamental error posted as a fact. Seems all too common from CT sources.

          5. This could get comical if it weren’t so significant. GM presents a Scots Irish history of The Kennedy Family. Photon introduces Brian Boru. Why not start with the family John F. Kennedy visited at New Ross, Co. Wexford to establish the ethos of his Irish DNA: Ó Cinnéide, the name is translated from Gaelic as “helmet head” or head/armour sadly enough. Search deep enough with an informed perspective and one will recognize the roots/parallels of the King Arthur legend.

          6. @Photon

            Thanks GM for presenting a fine example of CT research standards.
            You have got the wrong family!
            The Irish Kennedys were originally the O’KENNEDYs out of the family of Brian Boru, High King of Ireland before the Norman Conquest-and centuries before your genealogy even started. If you want to learn about the Scotch-Irish stay on Wiki and type in the term in the search function.
            I must say I find it amusing to see such a fundamental error posted as a fact. Seems all too common from CT sources.

            I specifically said that JFK and his wider family were from Ireland. I merely added that the Kennedy clan in Scotland dates back to well over 700 years, and possibly extends to around 1000 years. The close proximity and historical links between Scotland and Ireland are well known. It is not a stretch at all to say that Kennedys in Scotland and their Irish equivalents probably had close ties. That was all I was saying, and I do not appreciate the misrepresentations you have made about it, although I cannot say I am overly surprised…

            The second link provided in my original post on this thread contained the following:

            The Kennedy name also arose in Ireland (notably the ancestors of President John F Kennedy) and many Irish Kennedys emigrated to Scotland.

            @Leslie Sharp

            Why not start with the family John F. Kennedy visited at New Ross, Co. Wexford to establish the ethos of his Irish DNA: Ó Cinnéide, the name is translated from Gaelic as “helmet head” or head/armour sadly enough.

            The Kennedy family became associated with the south-west of Scotland when ‘Cunedda’, (which means ‘grim-headed’), a chieftain of the Votadini (located in what is now Lothian) was sent to establish settlements there at a time when Gaelic was the main language there.

          7. GM, don’t get me wrong and apologies if I offended. I’m thrilled you introduced this topic. It’s critical to understand the Kennedy family in light of British colonialism and the Plantation of Ulster.

            You are turning stones that few are willing to look under.

          8. @Leslie Sharp

            There was nothing offensive in your post. I quoted part of your post because I noticed a similarity in the Gaelic between grim headed and helmet head. Probably just a coincidence. There was nothing wrong with your post.

          9. “It is not a stretch at all to say that the Kennedys in Scotland and their Irish equivalents probably had close ties.” Actually it is a great stretch, with no basis in fact.
            The Kennedy clan in Scotland had no relationship with the O’Kennedys of Ireland, anymore than Andersons in England have any relationship with Andersons from Sweden, or Maximovs from Bulgaria have with Maximovs from Russia. Similar names arise from similar languages without any genealogical or social connection. But I find the assumption that THERE MUST be a connection almost stereotypical for CTers. Everything has to be connected, even in the remotest sense. Nothing ever happens by random event. Perhaps that concept can give some relief to Vikings fans today-their kicker must have been part of a conspiracy, because it was impossible for him to have missed the most important kick of his life.

          10. @Leslie Sharp

            It’s critical to understand the Kennedy family in light of British colonialism and the Plantation of Ulster.

            According to the Wikipedia entry for the O’Kennedys:

            To add to the confusion, there are the Kennedys of nine-county Ulster in the north of Ireland. The Kennedys who settled in Ulster are mostly of Scottish origin from the territories of Galloway and Ayr just across the Irish Sea 20 miles away. Many Scottish Kennedys were planters in Ulster, and many Scots went south to Dublin and mingled with the Irish clan.

            I wonder if the now prominent American Kennedy family changed their surname after the creation of the plantations in Ulster? It is very difficult to know because it might just have changed naturally. Also, Photon seems to have forgotten to mention the last sentence in bold for some reason! Which is a surprise because it is mentioned here on the Kennedy Society of North America website as well:

            http://www.kennedysociety.net/genealogy.htm

          11. I doubt very much that the Protestant Ulster Kennedys had anything to do with the Irish Kennedys, who at the time of the Ulster settlements were considered Papists better off dead. The only interaction they had was trying to kill each other.

          12. @Photon

            I doubt very much that the Protestant Ulster Kennedys had anything to do with the Irish Kennedys, who at the time of the Ulster settlements were considered Papists better off dead. The only interaction they had was trying to kill each other.

            ‘Mingling’ does not sound like they were trying to kill each other.

          13. GM, would that my own research filing system was sophisticated enough to easily extract some responses. I’ll have to retrace steps, but generally, I too believe that John Kennedy’s branch descended from Brian Boru, placing them in line with the High Kings of Ireland, not with the Kennedy’s of relatively contemporary Scotland. Added to that would be the unlikelihood that John F. Kennedy’s ancestors might have been Protestant in the North of the temperament suitable to the Plantation of Ulster.

            A simplistic, one paragraph version of a highly complex history: Irish tradition asserts that Scota, a daughter of the Pharaoh married a Milesian prince and together they journeyed from what is now called the Iberian peninsula in pursuit of the island we know as Ireland. A grave marker indicates that Scota died in Co. Kerry in the Southwest of Ireland; her people were called the Scotii. In the 600’s, a tribe of Scotii called the Dal Riata living in the North (‘Northern Ireland’ is a construct of 1922) traveled and settled in the land we know as Scotland, having asked for permission and granted by the Irish Kings to take the name with them, thus the name Scotland. Scots-Irish is a relatively speaking contemporary term, but some Americans including evidently photon seem to be comfortable substituting the English-driven pejorative “Scotch”, and choose a world history that began sometime around the 1500’s to fuel their rigid, manifest destiny Americanism.

        1. The Scots were originally from Scotia which was the Roman name for the land of the Gaels. or Hibernia where they lived. They raided the South West of what is now known as Scotland.

          1. Ray, We’re into mythology and tradition v. the ‘official’ history, the latter of which must be read thru a lens written by the victors. The debate is related to John Kennedy’s heritage, the DNA if you will that he shared with his ancestors and whether or not his lineage could ever be aligned with the Plantation of Ulster. Debating Julius Caesars appellation of Hibernia or the origins of the name of Scotland is only relevant to the assassination if we are considering the difference between adventure and conquest.

    2. Geez, they kept those papers, files and documents classified for an ungodly amount of time (supposedly to be declassified come 2017 [?????]) — same as those 28 redacted pages from the 9/11 Commission Report — the power of the corrupt, criminal federal workers to lord their power over the law-abiding!

      And once declassified, as with the expulsion order on Jean Souetre, the international assassin in Dallas on 11/22/63, it always turns out just to be covering their crimes!

      1. “They” serve up death for profits and influence, and then they hide behind government they’ve bought to control.
        They use the information distribution media they and their friends control to disappear the bad PR.:

        For example, you won’t find a wikipedia article devoted to this,
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddystone,_Pennsylvania#Industrial_history
        and it is not listed in top ten industrial
        accidents, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_industrial_disasters#Defense_industry

        because it just won’t do to have this sort of thing within the ken of the living American public.:

        https://deeppoliticsforum.com/forums/showthread.php?14584-A-Rich-Man-s-Trick&p=103703#post103703
        October 19, 2015
        http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=8040557
        …..Eddystone Disaster Victims Monument – Find A Grave

        Birth: unknown. Death: Apr. 10, 1917
        Decorations still appear at this grave site today – likely brought by descendants of some of these unidentified souls. Originally, there were 52 bodies laid to rest, but there were three more bodies added later making a total of 55 buried here

        https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1955&dat=19160121&id=UoEuAAAAIBAJ&sjid=Tp0FAAAAIBAJ&pg=3268,2861902&hl=en

        https://www.google.com/search?q=baldwin%20remington%20pryor%20vauclain%20site:news.google.com/newspapers&source=newspapers&gfe_rd=ssl&ei=qOWOVtESy5f6BY_-hNAH#q=pryor+vauclain&tbm=bks
        American Magazine, 1916: Americans made rich and powerful by the war – by Albert W. Atwood

        If journalists and their editors did do their jobs, we would tend more to be readers than stand ins.
        How does this work, John? Should I not notice that the people in 1963, and in Iran-Contra, and in the 2003
        Iraq invasion, or in the 2000 Florida hanging chad “debate” and the “non-precedent” SCOTUS ruling overruling
        the Florida Supreme Court are directly connected to the guys by blood, marriage, financial partnerships, who had it all sewn up by January, 1916, according to the Reading, PA newspaper article, resulting in 133 people, many who were girls and young women, blown to bits a year later and their memories disappeared?

  39. (http://snltranscripts.jt.org/86/86hgetalife.phtml):
    William Shatner: You know, before I answer any more questions there’s something I wanted to say. Having received all your letters over the years, and I’ve spoken to many of you, and some of you have traveled… y’know… hundreds of miles to be here, I’d just like to say… GET A LIFE, will you people? I mean, for crying out loud, it’s just a TV show! I mean, look at you, look at the way you’re dressed! You’ve turned an enjoyable little job, that I did as a lark for a few years, into a COLOSSAL WASTE OF TIME!

    [ a crowd of shocked and dismayed Trekkies…. ]

    I mean, how old are you people? What have you done with yourselves?

    [ to “Ears” ] You, you must be almost 30… have you ever kissed a girl?

    [ “Ears” hangs his head ]

    I didn’t think so! There’s a whole world out there! When I was your age, I didn’t watch television! I LIVED! So… move out of your parent’s basements! And get your own apartments and GROW THE HELL UP! I mean, it’s just a TV show dammit, IT’S JUST A TV SHOW!”

    link to the video; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZaB_G1WNT70

  40. 1. It may be a mistake to expect enlightenment from the comments section of a website. But the authoritative tone that many of the commenters on this site use invites judgment.
    2. Some thoughtful observers believe comments sections are problematic, that they haven’t proven to be the forums for reasoned discourse that Internet evangelists thought they would be.
    Examples of stories on this topic: http://bigthink.com/harpys-review/turning-the-tables-on-the-comments-section-the-best-and-worst-commenters-at-online-sites-and-magazines; http://bigthink.com/against-the-new-taboo/should-websites-remove-their-comment-sections; http://www.niemanlab.org/2015/09/what-happened-after-7-news-sites-got-rid-of-reader-comments/;
    3. As someone who read this site from the start and had high hopes for it, I believe the comments here generate a lot of heat but very little light.
    Commenters routinely make flat, authoritative pronouncements on complicated topics without showing that they have the ability to make such judgments in the first place. Reading these discussions is like going down the rabbit hole in Alice in Wonderland.
    4. I can imagine someone new to the issue coming onto this site for the first time and seeing comments by people with names such as “sgt_doom,” “Fearfaxer” and “Photon” and thinking, “Wow, these people really are a bunch of crackpots.”

    1. I agree with you, John. The Photons and John McAdamses appear to be gatekeepers of what I call the “Old Order”. This group (if you could classify them in one simple group) appear to me to be holding and defending ground as new research crops up, as aging witnesses come forward before they die to say something that the gatekeepers see as a threat to the old order. And one tactic that seems to be used quite frequently by these defenders is to look for tiny threads that conspiracy theorists leave hanging (inaccuracies or tiny flaws) and pull those threads hard, hoping to dislodge or discredit the argument in this way. Long threads ensue when these tactics are employed, with back and forth on the minutia by both sides. These are the “Rabbit Holes” from Alice in Wonderland that you talk about, am I right?

      What I like about this site is the new information that is posted, new research, new voices from the past (like the man who said he was with his girlfriend in Dallas in September of 1963 and who says he saw Oswald with some other men). This site collects those findings in a way that no other media site that I know of does, comprehensively. That’s why I keep coming back here.

      1. JSA: I’m reluctant to write another comment since none of the ones I’ve written so far have penetrated the hive mentality of commenters on this site.
        Anyway, how sensible is it to expect reasoned debate in the comment section of a website? But, as I said before, the authoritative tone of many comments here invites judgment and, I believe, whatever ridicule I can muster.
        (Caveat: Comments by “theNewDanger” and “sgt_doom” are beyond parody.)
        Too many of the commenters here treat the assassination like a parlor game. They eagerly take the bait from ankle biters such as Photon and McAdams who, time after time, take discussions down rabbit holes, where logic and common sense soon disappear.
        Can anything be done about this? Probably not. People clearly love to play games.

        1. Consider that I asked John Kirsch’s permission to use his comment as this week’s comment of the week.
          I only made the request of John because of special circumstances I had not encountered in the process of selecting prior comments of the week. IOW, John Kirsch extended himself to make this discussion possible.
          I am convinced he did so reluctantly. John Kirsch cares…. he certainly is capable of speaking for himself,
          but I want to make it clear he has treated me, and all other readers of and commenters to this segment fairly
          and we should keep to discussion of the opinions he has offered here from the POV of a member of the working press, and in the Dallas, TX region.

          1. As a distant member of that Dallas, TX region I respect his views as much as he does mine. To be honest, I think I’ve read more about the assassination than him, by quite a bit. Not that that matters to a journalist.

          2. TomS: Point of clarification: I used to live near Fort Worth, TX, but now live in Mexico City.
            Also: I consider myself to (still) be a journalist of sorts because I write a (very occasional) post for my blog.

          3. Excuse me, as I stated I am unfamiliar with Mr. Kirsch, but is this the same John Kirsch who was supposed to have made FOIA requests to ascertain whether the Mary Ferrell Foundation had really made THEIR FOIA requests? Strikes me as rather strange . . .

          4. “Rather strange,” why? What should the appropriate reaction of a journalist be to these details?

            http://jfklancer.com/dallas10/Program.pdf
            ….Robert was a crucial negotiator
            in the purchase of Mary Ferrell’s collection by businessman
            Ollie Curme and oversaw the creation of millions of pages of
            JFK assassination documents now online as the Mary Ferrell
            Foundation.

            Is it possible Kirsch is simply pursuing his calling and you are not curious or thorough enough?

            http://www.genlookups.com/ny/webbbs_config.pl/read/1743
            Curme, Henry Garrett: : Died at home on February 23, 2000 at age 76, under the loving care of his family and Hospice. Born on Dec. 31, 1923 in Niagara Falls, NY, he was raised in Claremont, CA…..
            In 1950 he joined Eastman Kodak Company where he became Lab Head in the Chemistry and the Clinical Products Divisions, retiring in 1986. ….Henry was a loving husband to his wife of 36 years, Nancy, and a devoted father to his three children and their spouses, …… Oliver Curme and wife, Cindy, of Weston, MA;

            What would satisfy, you, sgt_doom… less questioning, probing, information?
            John Kirsch seems to be offering an uncannily similar critique to anyone interviewing for employment and
            finding offers few and far between. Impressions matter, especially first ones.

          5. “John Kirsch who was supposed to have made FOIA requests to ascertain whether the Mary Ferrell Foundation had really made THEIR FOIA requests? ” — sgt. doom

            To set the record straight at least from a personal perspective, I became interested in the reports of the private acquisition of the private collection of Mary Ferrell and shared my curiosity about that transaction with John Kirsch, a fellow commenter who shared a unique perspective of Texas, although mine was from 1947 forward and John’s dated from his employment in the state several decades later. We collectively and independently pursued the history of the private purchase of the Ferrell collection by Oliver Curme, a Massachusetts investment banker; we filed numerous FOIA’s together and separately on numerous individuals; I talked with Mary’s daughter, I contacted the appraiser of the collection (to learn that as I had speculated the index cards she accumulated represented a significant portion of the overall value); we pursued the Curme/Foundation loans to author David Lifton (loans that represented 10% of the value of the Mary Ferrell Foundation) and we pursued IRS 501c3 (non profit tax status) records that must by law be made available to the public on a timely basis. Some of this is available on John’s blog. During the process of attempting to understand why Mary Ferrell would ‘sell’ her collection to an unfamiliar to date individual who purported to know NOTHING about the Kennedy assassination, the question arose whether or not Mary Ferrell always filed her own FOIA’s in search of assassination records or did others working in the same area of research chose to share their FOIA results with her, i.e. Bernard Fensterwald. That is the simple answer to your legitimate concern, sgt. doom. I can attest. My particular issue about the Mary Ferrel Foundation transaction was when does a valuable and perhaps critical (to the health of our country) collection of information related to the assassination finally become public property, and beyond that why would a portion of it be parked at Baylor University, home of Southern Baptists with their legacy in the early 1960’s. I understood on a purely practical level that Mary’s commitment over the years was expensive, and a foundation to ensure her final years were comfortable was none of my concern. However, the transaction transferred her collection to a private investment banker whose training began in Boston at the First National Bank and whose father was a long time specialist with Kodak. No accusations, I would not make that leap; I am simply observing the impact private lives and realities have on the investigation for better or worse.

            I stand with and behind John Kirsch’s integrity; I’m unhappy with his suggestion that those participating on this site are little other than hobbyists. We will have to agree to disagree as friends in healthy friendships often do.

        2. Caveat: Comments by “theNewDanger” and “sgt_doom” are beyond parody.

          That’s your opinion.

          I’ve grew up being taught that the assassination was committed by a lone assassin shooting a bullet through two people with nearly no damage to the bullet, a feat that can barely be recreated shooting through one cadaver. I am here to express my opinions on things related to the event and how it was a stepping stone of the world hegemony sought by a syndicate intent on purging all individuals from being able to think for themselves, and yes, self-publish to share their own thoughts without exclusion by that hegemony’s reputable outlets.

          It is nearly impossible to get a point of view favorably (and impartially) peer reviewed (outside of peer review open access), published, and/or marketed fairly of said point of view strongly dissents from the globalist hegemony’s US MIC’s official story, behavior, and attitude towards skeptics, which all thinking human beings should be, in my opinion (governments have proven to be untrustworthy monopolies on violence unworthy of the power they assume over the individual).

          The parody here is those who think “reputable” outlets have earned their repute. Their repute has been fractionally reserved out of thin air as marketed such that arm chair pundits won’t question them but will question those opposed to that clique and on what shoulders those outlets stand. That is why I take umbrage with your authoritative tone – it is pre-emptively dismissive of mostly well-thought out discussion here, whether commenters are published or not. Your subsequent replies have offered nothing to justify the point of view in the “comment of the week”, so I will leave it at this: There are no reputable outlets. There are no unbiased credentials. There is no “legal” or intellectual authority by which individuals should govern themselves. When it comes to debate, the only governing behavior is hegemony.
          You can’t have any of what you are saying we all should follow without rulers. I think rules are important and imperative for life to continue, but I determine what the ruling force and principles will be in my life. Subjugate your free will to rulers if you like. The gatekeepers in the “reputable” clique are almost as dangerous as the banks that prop up the standing armies who are ready with 450 million hollow point bullets to suppress any free speech once the UK and Egypt’s thought crime laws are adopted by Congress here. Good luck, reputable “free” press. Good bye.

        3. “Propaganda is the executive arm of the invisible government.”
          . . .

          I would ask Mr Kirsch to consider the implications and portent of these words by Edward Bernays; from his 1928 volume simply titled: PROPAGANDA.

          * * * *
          “The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society.
          p. 37

          In almost every act of our lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons […] who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires that control the public mind, who harness old social forces and contrive new ways to bind and guide the world.”
          p. 37–38

          If we understand the mechanism and motives of the group mind, it is now possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without them knowing it.
          P. 71
          . . . .
          \\][//

        4. Rabbit holes? There is too many rabbit holes on this site like the Stephen King movie etc, Information about the zeitgeist of 1963 is more revealing than WC “factoids” or doctored film clips https://youtu.be/lw3CaJd9D-8

          “Too many of the commenters here treat the assassination like a parlor game. They eagerly take the bait from ankle biters such as Photon and McAdams who, time after time, take discussions down rabbit holes”

          Who do you blame? Commenters? McAdams? Moderators?

          The critical thinking of McAdams does not say much for his credentials….

    2. Feel free to call me a crackpot if every time some so-called “journalist” or TV teleprompter reader claims that an old fellow resembles some completely different looking younger fellow (as with the so-called tramps, again and again and again) or if I state that some organized crime mobster had anything to do with the assassination because some movie journalist claimed that an ex-con claimed that Marcello mumbled something to him from another jail cell.

      I at least attempt to go by some things factual. . .

    3. I have to take strong issue with John Kirsch’s comments on the closing of comments, which appears to be related concurrently with the big push against any form of Network Neutrality.

      Most of the important information I have obtained off the Web came not from any articles, but from some sagacious commenter posting informational links, which was what the hyperlink was supposed to be about!

      But closing off the comments, search engines cannot pick up such data, and we are all the poorer for it!

      (I’ll have to research the ownership of those site links mentioned until I am clearer on this.)

    4. Not sure I hit the correct “reply” button but here goes. I’m replying to Leslie’s comment that begins, “John Kirsch who was supposed to have made FOIA requests …”
      1. I am interested in Mary Ferrell. Don’t mean to always invoke my time as a reporter but as a journalist I learned that the most important question you can ask in any given situation is, why?
      Why did Mary Ferrell keep all that JFK stuff on her property? According to a brief story about Ferrell (“Mary Ferrell: A quiet pursuit” in a special Dallas Morning News supplement published on 11/20/1983), she was a Republican who didn’t particularly like JFK and couldn’t be bothered to interrupt her lunch to see the president’s motorcade.
      (Note: I learned of this story from a post that mentioned “Into the Nightmare” by Joseph McBride.)
      2. Why did Oliver Curme acquire Ferell’s material and set up the Ferrell Foundation?
      3. I don’t mean to suggest any wrongdoing in any of this, merely to point out that I have yet to answer that most basic of questions: why?

  41. So what does define as reputable outlets? Conspiracy sites like CTKA? A lot of people publish conspiracy theories because they sell, not because they have any factual merit. Let’s face it, the vast majority of people who have an interest in the JFK assassination to the point of visiting websites or buying books are conspiracy theorists looking to find something ( anything?) to support a conspiracy. LNs don’t need to have their position validated because after 50 years there has been no real evidence for an alternative.
    Instead of asking who publishes on the events of 11/22, the real question should be who publishes ON THE TOPICS that the so-called experts claim expertise in. If you want to ask what makes an expert an expert, you need to start by looking at their actual qualifications to be able to make their claims. And in my experience that questioning drives CTers to the point of personal insults, attempts at changing the subject, or posting false information.

    1. “LNs don’t need to have their position validated because after 50 years there has been no real evidence for an alternative.”~Photon

      A most bold and spurious statement given all the evidence given here on this site to the contrary.
      \\][//

      1. Such as? Much of what I post has been to debunk factoids, impeach false witnesses, present factual contradictions to established conspiracy facts.
        Where did Tink Thompson go after I exposed his errors of fact in his claims about the Harper fragment, the Hargis statement and his inability to confirm his claims about a .30-.30 round? Off into the ether.
        Where did Sherry Fiester go after I exposed that her claims of certification and experience may have been exaggerated ? Off into the ether.
        Where did Jim DiEugenio go after I exposed his favorite witness Gordon Novel as a serial liar and fabulist? Off into the ether.
        Instead of posting considered rebuttals that may have an occasional fact, what I tend to get in response is impersonal insults, calls for censorship and claims that I must work for some sinister organization determined to stop all conspiracy “research.” There is nothing wrong with government organizations supporting individuals who put out factual information. There is nothing wrong with government information assets to be used to debunk lies, the faster, the better.

        1. “There is nothing wrong with government organizations supporting individuals who put out factual information. There is nothing wrong with government information assets to be used to debunk lies, the faster, the better.” — photon

          Do we have the bones of an admission?

          Of course promoting factual information and debunking lies runs tandem with a healthy society, and if ‘the government’ sponsors those efforts, all the better because they are servants of ‘we the people’. The problem, the deep and unresolved concern since 11.22.63 especially is that individuals within ‘our’ government have withheld documents that could possibly answer questions, assuage suspicion and yet ‘they’ continue to withhold. Not a healthy political environment by any standards, photon.

        2. Were the last two sentences of this post a admission or confession regarding your employment and purpose? Really? We should pay taxes so the Government can tell us what to think? Your going to think for us? If so, no thank you.

        3. “There is nothing wrong with government organizations supporting individuals who put out factual information. There is nothing wrong with government information assets to be used to debunk lies, the faster, the better.”~Photon

          This paragraph you have written is quite revealing. It is nothing less than an admission that you are a government asset.

          As far as relitigating those points you bring up, YET AGAIN, it is senseless to argue with someone who simply denies proven facts and reason.
          \\][//

    2. It appears Photon has generously offered an Argumentum ad Ignorantiam example:

      I. Argumentum ad Ignorantiam: (appeal to ignorance) the fallacy that a proposition is true simply on the basis that it has not been proved false or that it is false simply because it has not been proved true. This error in reasoning is often expressed with influential rhetoric. (http://goo.gl/MbZJO2)

      Fallacy Exposition Commission Exhibit 001

      Photon

      January 6, 2016 at 8:47 am

      LNs don’t need to have their position validated because after 50 years there has been no real evidence for an alternative.

    3. “The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’

      ‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.”
      ~Lewis Carroll
      \\][//

  42. Considering how the Mainstream Media treats the JFK case,how can one rely on professional journalists to research the case?

  43. As far as “non-experts” achieving excellence, let us not forget perhaps the prime example of all, William Shakespeare, attacked in his time, in print by the playwright Robert Greene in his Groats-Worth of Wit:

    “… there is an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tiger’s heart wrapped in a Player’s hide, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you: and being an absolute Johannes factotum, is in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country.”

    ‘Scholars differ on the exact meaning of Greene’s words, but most agree that Greene is accusing Shakespeare of reaching above his rank in trying to match such university-educated writers as Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Nashe and Greene himself (the so-called “university wits”).The italicised phrase parodying the line “Oh, tiger’s heart wrapped in a woman’s hide” from Shakespeare’s Henry VI, Part 3, along with the pun “Shake-scene”, clearly identify Shakespeare as Greene’s target. As used here, Johannes Factotum (“Jack of all trades”) refers to a second-rate tinkerer with the work of others, rather than the more common “universal genius”
    [See: Wikipedia]
    . . . .
    Whom amongst us remembers the name of Robert Greene?
    \\][//

  44. Didn’t Morley mostly leave the vaunted MSM exactly because they wouldn’t let him write or investigate what he wanted to on this case?

  45. I guess my question to John Kirsch would be; where were all the professional journalists digging into the Warren Report when it first came out?

    1. Aside from professional comedian, Mort Sahl, and graduate physics student, David Lifton, and individual women and men throughout the USA, none that I can think of?

    2. Sylvan Fox. Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter. Had to write a book in ’65 though – his paper didn’t want to touch it.

  46. The comment is particularly lame considering that all the “experts” in the media passed on the JFK murder. It is precisely those whose sense of disconnect was assaulted that did the early important work.
    My own experience with JFK websites is that there are too many who think of themselves as know-it-alls. I was enjoying one site for awhile, till a self-professed “expert” blowhard on the site started dismissing any comment not in tune with his own takes. I think some of these self-professed “experts” like being big fishes in small ponds and act like big shots without much contradiction in their playpen. Gimme clear thinkers who are making an effort to understand November,1963. After 50 years, it’s obvious the know-it-alls know very little.

  47. Let me ask this: How many times throughout the course of history have those who haven’t been accepted by “reputable” outlets (many of whom were ridiculed by “reputable” outlets) have latter been proven correct in their ideas and concepts?

    I guess a whole lot depends on one’s defintion of “reputable”.What one sees as being reputable another may see as being disreputable.What the majority sees as reputable is irrelevant because culture as a whole does not operate at a very high ethic as isevidenced by history. Being right doesn’t necessarily mean being popular or being of the opinion of the majority.

  48. As to Mr. Kirsch’s comment of the week, would he please provide examples of “reputable outlets” that he deems suitable for vetting and publishing? I happened upon Mr. Kirsch’s blog site recently to find it interesting that it provides updates and commentary on JFK assassination/cover-up research, including items about the researchers themselves. Critiquing the research community is not an altogether bad thing but a position that excludes voices from the debate due to lack of “expert” credentials is a bit harsh. To date myself, schools once taught critical thinking, logic and metaphysics. My generation doesn’t have to be experts to know that if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, likely it is a duck. The core components of the JFK construct are not that hard to figure out. The quandary becomes remaining loyal to a nation where such a monstrosity has taken place.

  49. What an elitist snobbish comment. Comments like that remind me of the bastards behind JFK’s murder. They thought they knew best. I totally agree with Leslie. My comments are from someone with barely a high school diploma maybe they should be excluded.

    1. Exactly and extremely well articulated, Good Citizen Terry Moore!

      I’m reminded of the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, when CNN’s Carol Costello fell for that simpleton Ukrainian “declassified Soviet advanced remote sensing” scam, which anyone could have debunked by going online for less than five minutes, and Costello ran with it for at least three consecutive days! (Their website, which never changed ownership, had just previously been selling “magic crystals” by the same staff members.)

      THESE are the people (along with the usual submediocrities like Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw, etc.) who are supposed to be telling us the breaking news?

      Not in my lifetime!

  50. One night, probably in 1880, John Swinton, then the preeminent New York journalist, was the guest of honour at a banquet given him by the leaders of his craft.
    Someone who knew neither the press nor Swinton offered a toast to the independent press. Swinton outraged his colleagues by replying:

    “There is no such thing, at this date of the world’s history, in America, as an independent press. You know it and I know it.

    There is not one of you who dares to write your honest opinions, and if you did, you know beforehand that it would never appear in print.
    I am paid weekly for keeping my honest opinion out of the paper I am connected with.

    Others of you are paid similar salaries for similar things, and any of you who would be so foolish as to write honest opinions would be out on the streets
    looking for another job. If I allowed my honest opinions to appear in one issue of my paper, before twenty-four hours my occupation would be gone.

    The business of the journalists is to destroy the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread.
    You know it and I know it, and what folly is this toasting an independent press?

    We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes.”
    ( Labor’s Untold Story, by Richard O. Boyer and Herbert M. Morais, published by United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America, NY, 1955/1979.)
    \\][//

  51. I don’t know what to think about this comment of the week. I first thought it was directed at Photon. Then I thought it was directed at those of us without a published article or PhD. Lastly I thought it might be directed at Tom.
    Bottom line is I’m glad we all have a place to question and comment about the deception regarding the single most important event in recent History.

    1. I confess to being ignorant about Kirsch, but my own “credentials”:

      I was in military intel in both the USAF and USMC (NSG), and have been following serious researchers, and doing my own research, for many decades.

      I have also done thousands of volunteer hours in the activist realm (unpaid) which has provided me with further experience and working knowledge.

      Also, I belong to the smallest minority in America, having received a perfect score on the Math Achievement Test on the old CEEBs (college boards).

      Plus, I have not only read thousands of pages of documents, studies, declassified data, and books, but also the top ten books on the JFK assassination, or pertinent information thereof:
      1) The Devil’s Chessboard, by David Talbot
      2) JFK and the Unspeakable, by James Douglass
      3) Brothers, by David Talbot
      4) Battling Wall Street: the Kennedy presidency, by Donald Gibson
      5) Reclaiming Parkland, by James DiEugenio
      6) Destiny Betrayed, by James DiEugenio
      7) Rockefellerocracy, by Richard James DeSocio
      8) Two Days in June, by Andrew Cohen
      9) The Strength of the Wolf, by Douglas Valentine
      10) Thy Will Be Done, by Gerard Colby with Charlotte Dennett

      (The last three may not dwell specifically on the assassination, but the incredible wealth of knowledge and detail makes for far greater comprehension of it.)

  52. My old tutor at the London School of Economics back in the 1960s told me that “a writer’s credentials are what he writes and nothing else.Rubbish written by a Nobel Prize winner is still rubbish. A work of genius written by the man who cleans the toilet is a work of genius”.

    1. M.J. Harrington: That is one of the best things I have read in a long while, and oh so true! Thank you for sharing!

  53. I agree with Leslie Sharp’s point. If you do not seek, you shall not find. I’d like to add a point about the reliability of “experts.” If you pay them enough, you can always rely on them to say or write whatever you want.

  54. John, with all due respect — because I do regard your professional training and experience to be exemplary — if we were to rely on ‘professional journalists’ to pursue the darkest corners of this investigation, we would still be locked in the handcuffs imposed by the Warren Report and subsequent commissions that were either complicit in the cover up, duped by liars or headed up by the very suspects in the coup d’etat. Consider the mainstream media we Americans mistakenly relied on for honest coverage of the assassinations of the’50’s ‘60’s and 70’s. We now know thanks to muckraking that we were lied to. Stifling the energy and dedication of citizen journalists is not the answer. Consider the publishers behind the ‘authoritative’ books on the assassination; how many were reliant on investors whose wealth was derived from military contracts? Conversely, consider the best intentions of authors who now recognize certain errors. We are still further along toward uncovering the truth than we were when CBS, Life Magazine, WW Norton et al had a stranglehold. So, I for one am encouraged daily by the fresh air of this forum, in spite of it’s flaws and foibles, because I consider it the “people’s forum”. Yes we should self audit, challenge one another, question good faith participation, but silence one another because we don’t carry credentials in journalism? I think not.

    1. I agree with Leslie on this matter. One needn’t be an “expert” or “published”, all one needs it the facilities of a critical mind, and a certain amount of lucidity to solve any problem.
      We all seem to forget the ancient way of the Autodidact, that was in place before compulsive schooling and societal indoctrination took over in the late 1800’s. See:
      https://hybridrogue1.wordpress.com/2015/04/26/compulsory-schooling-indoctrination/

      \\][//

    2. Must absolutely agree with Leslie – – how many of us would ever “qualify” by popular standards: Anderson Cooper interned at the CIA during his summers while attending Yale; Lewis Lapham’s brother was a covert CIA agent, and appointed to CIA general counsel by President George H.W. Bush, former CIA director; Stewart Alsop’s cousins were CIA operators (Kermit Roosevelt and Archibald Roosevelt); Cleveland Amory’s brother was deputy director of the CIA, etc., etc., etc.

      Would one rely upon the likes of story teller, Brian Williams, the submediocre like Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw, Carol Costello?

      David Ignatius of WaPo cannot give an interview without compulsively spewing the phrase: “conspiracy theory, conspiracy theory” like a demented robot!

      Jonathan Kay of Canada wrote a so-called book on truth seekers, all essentially factless, just ad hominem attacks, and received endless air time on CBC and NPR!

      On Diane Rehm’s show on NPR, it is forbidden to ever accuse another of lying!

      Where’s the journalism in America today? Haven’t seen it for many a decade, assuming it ever really existed?

      1. It’s on the Bill O’Liely show. He’s still insisting he was on the doorstep when the shotgun blast went off. Then he ran far, far away, for his own safety of course.

        1. Also, I had forgotten the senior editor in charge of fact checking at The New Yorker, who wrote an article some months back in The Nation, which infuriated me.

          In this article, this fellow (whose name I’m sorry to say I’ve forgotten) claimed that Jacobo Arbenz was a communist, and inferred “we” would have to expect the CIA to remove him back then!

          Of course, President Arbenz was a hardcore capitalist, simply trying to push forth minimal land reform to build a middle class in Guatemala, as he knew neither democracy, nor capitalism he believed, could flourish without a middle class.

          But Eisenhower’s main financial backer, Floyd Odlum, also was the majority shareholder in United Fruit (Cabots were minority shareholders, I believe) and thus was the democratically elected President of Guatemala overthrown, thanks to Eisenhower and the CIA.

          So the senior editor, head of fact checking for The New Yorker, is a sorry example of the present state of American journalism!

          1. We clothe truth with political labels intended as slurs, but it stubbornly endures.:

            According to Rosa Luxemburg’s brilliant insight into the political structure of imperialism {op. cit., pp. 273 ff., pp. 361 ff.), the “historical process of the accumulation of capital depends in all its aspects upon the existence of non-capitalist social strata.” so that “imperialism is the political expression of the accumulation of capital in its competition for the possession of the remainders of the non-capitalistic world.” This essential dependence of capitalism upon a non-capitalistic world lies at the basis of all other aspects of imperialism, which then may be explained as the results of oversaving and maldistribution (Hobson, op. cit.), as the result of overproduction and the consequent need for new markets (Lenin, Imperialism, the Last Stage of Capitalism, 1917), as the result of an undersupply of raw material (Hayes, op. cit.), or as capital export in order to equalize the national profit rate (Hilferding, op. cit.).- Ed Walker https://www.emptywheel.net/2016/01/07/the-origins-of-totalitarianism-interlude-on-the-commons/

            The birth of the Reagan presidency:

            http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/primary-resources/carter-crisis/
            Jimmy Carter delivered this televised speech on July 15, 1979…….
            We are at a turning point in our history. There are two paths to choose. One is a path I’ve warned about tonight, the path that leads to fragmentation and self-interest. Down that road lies a mistaken idea of freedom, the right to grasp for ourselves some advantage over others. That path would be one of constant conflict between narrow interests ending in chaos and immobility. It is a certain route to failure…

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