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Tuesday Reads

Posted: November 19, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Barack Obama, Crime, Criminal Justice System, morning reads, U.S. Politics | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , |57 Comments

Harvard-Square-Out-of-Town-News

Good Morning!!

We’re only a few days from the 50th anniversary of the day the President of the United States was shot down on a Dallas street. You’d think an event like that would lead to a serious investigation and efforts to bring those involved to justice.

Instead we were told within hours that President Kennedy had been murdered by Lee Harvey Oswald. Two days later Oswald was shot dead in the Dallas Police station by Jack Ruby, and the investigation, such as it was, ended.

At the time, even FBI director J. Edgar Hoover told newly sworn President Lyndon Johnson (in a recorded phone call) that the case against Oswald was too weak to get a conviction. Later, Dallas Police Chief Jesse Curry would say, “We don’t have any proof that Oswald fired the rifle, and never did. Nobody’s yet been able to put him in that building with a gun in his hand.”

Oswald supposedly shot Kennedy with a rifle at 12:30 from a window on the 6th floor of the Dallas Book Deposititory Building. Approximately 90 seconds after the shooting, Oswald was seen by Dallas police officer Marion Baker and Oswald’s boss Ray Truly in the lunch room on the 2nd floor of the building calmly drinking a coke. From Wikipedia:

According to Baker, Oswald did not appear to be nervous or out of breath. Truly said that Oswald appeared “startled” when Baker aimed his gun at him.  Mrs. Robert Reid—clerical supervisor at the Depository, returning to her office within two minutes of the assassination—said that she saw Oswald who “was very calm” on the second floor with a Coke in his hands.

Victoria Adams

Victoria Adams

Meanwhile, a young woman named Victoria Adams was watching the presidential motorcade from a window on the 4th floor of the book depository building. From a review of the book The Girl on the Stairs, by Barry Ernest:

She was an employee who worked in the same building as one Lee Harvey Oswald. The problem caused by her presence is very simple and easily summarized. Adams, along with her friend Sandra Styles, stood on the fourth floor of the Texas School Book Depository at the moment of the murder. She testified to hearing three shots, which from her vantage point appeared to be coming from the right of the building (i.e., from the grassy knoll). She and Styles then ran to the stairs to head down. This was the only set of stairs that went all the way to the top of the building. Both she and her friend took them down to the ground floor. She did not see or hear Oswald. Yet, she should have if he were on the sixth floor traveling downwards. Which is what the Commission said he did after he shot Kennedy.

This is the first problem, in a nutshell. Why did Adams not see a scrambling Oswald, flying down the stairs in pursuit of his Coca-Cola? Because of the Warren Commission’s timeline, we know Oswald had to have gone down the stairs during this period in order to be accosted in time by a motorcycle policeman. In addition, as we are later to discover, Adams also reports seeing Jack Ruby on the corner of Houston and Elm, “questioning people as though he were a policeman.”

Adams soon learned that the government didn’t want to hear what she had to say about what she had observed–and not observed on the day of the assassination. She was repeatedly “badgered” to change her story. She was also pressured by the investigator for the Warren Commission when she was interviewed in Dallas. Adams eventually moved away from Dallas, married and changed her name. Author Barry Ernest found her and talked to her before she died, and her story remained the same.

Recently Adams’ friend Sandra Styles was interviewed on the Travel channel. Styles still says she saw no one on the stairs. She says she believes Oswald probably shot Kennedy, but perhaps there were others involved “pulling the strings.” Watch the interview at the link.

Along with the fact that no gunshot residue was found on Oswald’s hands (although he was accused of shooting Dallas police officer JD Tippit with a handgun) or on his cheek (where it would be if he had shot a rifle), that is enough reasonable doubt for me to believe that Oswald was what he claimed–a patsy.

Here’s a longer video with most of the statements Oswald made in custody before he was killed by Jack Ruby.

We were told that Oswald was a lunatic, a loser who wanted to be famous for killing the most powerful man in the country.  But to me, he didn’t sound crazy, and if he wanted to be famous for the assassination of the president, why did he repeatedly say he hadn’t and ask for a lawyer to defend him?

Please, if you read any of the hundreds of articles that will appear in the corporate media over the next few days, think about these basic facts; because they probably will not appear in the news stories. After 50 years, there is so much information out there–and so many ridiculous theories as well–that it is extremely difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff.

But remember that a conspiracy is just cooperation between two or more people to commit a crime (or cover one up).  A conspiracy doesn’t even require a second shooter. It just requires that someone besides the person who pulled the trigger knew something or did something. If no one else but Oswald was involved, why has there been a 50-year effort by the government and the media to keep information about the assassination and “investigation” secret from the American people?

Personally, I think Jefferson Morley’s website “JFK Facts” is the best place to get accurate information and avoid nonsense about the assassination of President Kennedy. Morley is a former Washington Post reporter who has spent years trying to get the CIA to release the last 1,100 JFK-assassination-related files they are keeping secret. The CIA (and the FBI) had extensive knowledge of Oswald before the shooting, and there is quite a bit of evidence to suggest that he was an intelligence asset. Morley identifies the “top 7 JFK files the CIA still keeps secret.”  These files involve CIA personnel who knew about Oswald and his history as well as Soviet defector Yuri Nosenko, who had access to KGB files on Oswald.

Yesterday someone actually asked White House press secretary Jay Carney about the embargoed files. It’s reported in a story by McClatchy DC on plans for the Obamas and Clintons to visit Kennedy’s grave.

Secretary of State John Kerry told Parade magazine this week that he had “serious doubts” that gunman Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in killing Kennedy, but the White House wouldn’t say Monday where Obama falls on the conspiracy theory.

“I haven’t had a discussion with the president about Kennedy’s assassination — President Kennedy’s assassination,” Press Secretary Jay Carney said. He said he’s also not talked with Obama about whether classified files that have not yet been released in the case should be released.

It’s time for Obama to order the release of the files. If the CIA has nothing to hide and Oswald was a lone assassin who acted alone, why not?

Matrix

I still have room for a few more reads. This one is really interesting, and it asks a question that seems very relevant: “Do We Live in the Matrix?” From Discover Magazine:

In the 1999 sci-fi film classic The Matrix, the protagonist, Neo, is stunned to see people defying the laws of physics, running up walls and vanishing suddenly. These superhuman violations of the rules of the universe are possible because, unbeknownst to him, Neo’s consciousness is embedded in the Matrix, a virtual-reality simulation created by sentient machines.

The action really begins when Neo is given a fateful choice: Take the blue pill and return to his oblivious, virtual existence, or take the red pill to learn the truth about the Matrix and find out “how deep the rabbit hole goes.”

Physicists can now offer us the same choice, the ability to test whether we live in our own virtual Matrix, by studying radiation from space. As fanciful as it sounds, some philosophers have long argued that we’re actually more likely to be artificial intelligences trapped in a fake universe than we are organic minds in the “real” one.

But if that were true, the very laws of physics that allow us to devise such reality-checking technology may have little to do with the fundamental rules that govern the meta-universe inhabited by our simulators. To us, these programmers would be gods, able to twist reality on a whim.

So should we say yes to the offer to take the red pill and learn the truth — or are the implications too disturbing?

Go read it–it’s fascinating and disturbing.

Today is the 150th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg address. From CNN:

Gettysburg

It has been 150 years since President Abraham Lincoln got up in front of thousands of people in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, to dedicate the Soldiers’ National Cemetery at a turning point in the Civil War.

His words are some of the most memorable in American history, forever stamping our collective minds with “four score and seven years ago,” and “all men are created equal,” and of course a “government of the people, by the people, for the people.”

A few more links on the anniversary:

The Wichita Eagle: Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address changed the American psyche, KU professor says

The LA Times: Not right the first time, Lincoln wrote this Gettysburg Address twice

The Atlantic: The Gettysburg Address at 150–and Lincoln’s Impromptu Words the Night Before

So . . . this post has mostly focused on history. I should include a few links to current news stories, but I can’t bring myself to do it; I’m going to end here, and post my news links in the comment thread. I hope you’ll do the same.

Have a great day!

57 Comments on “Tuesday Reads”

  1. bostonboomer says:
    November 19, 2013 at 10:45 am

    Breaking news: VA state senator and former candidate for governor has been hospitalized after being stabbed by his son, who then shot himself.

    • bostonboomer says:
      November 19, 2013 at 10:48 am

      Virginia State Sen. Creigh Deeds was stabbed by his son, Austin “Gus” Deeds, before the son fatally shot himself, Democratic sources tell News4.

      Gus Deeds died at the scene, and Creigh Deeds is in critical condition in the intensive care unit of the University of Virginia Medical Center in Charlottesville, the sources said.

      The incident happened in the older Deeds’ Bath County home (seen in the picture below) Tuesday morning, where police were called at 7:25 a.m. Deeds was transported by helicopter to the medical center.

      The investigation into the incident is ongoing.

      • janicen says:
        November 19, 2013 at 11:31 am

        Deeds was the Democratic candidate who ran against McDonnell for gov.

      • Fannie says:
        November 19, 2013 at 9:08 pm

        Very disturbing…………..the son Gus Deeds had a mental health evaluation the day before, and was released because the county did not have a “psychiatric” bed available to him…………….

        Want to know why we need ObamaCare?

    • RalphB says:
      November 19, 2013 at 11:10 am

      Another politician family suicide.

      Police: Katherine Harris’ Husband Commits Suicide

      SARASOTA, Fla. (AP) — Sarasota police say the husband of former Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris was found dead of an apparent suicide at the couple’s home.

      Police spokeswoman Genevieve Judge said Tuesday that Harris’ husband, Anders Ebbeson, committed suicide.

      Officers were called to the home between 7:30 and 8 a.m. Tuesday.

    • dakinikat says:
      November 19, 2013 at 12:02 pm

      How very sad! This American Life really pushes so many people over the edge that it’s sad. That they have easy access to guns makes it even more tragic because so many seem to take others with them.

  2. bostonboomer says:
    November 19, 2013 at 10:55 am

    Sorry for the late posting. I hope everyone didn’t give up on me.

  3. Fannie says:
    November 19, 2013 at 11:12 am

    FYI:

    Texas Deaths
    Dallas, Dallas Co. Tx.
    Parkland Hospital
    Street Address 1026 N. Beckley
    Death in City Limits Yes
    Name: Lee Harvey Oswald
    Date of death Nov 24, 1963
    Male, White, Married
    Born Oct 19, 1939 24 years old
    New Orleans, La.
    Father: Robert Edward Lee Oswald
    Mother: Margeruite Claverie
    Occupation: Printing, Book, Sheet Metal
    Military, Yes, 10-1956 – 9-1959
    SS# 433-54-3937
    Informant: Robert L. Oswald
    Cause: Hemorrhage, secondary to a gunshot wound of the chest
    Lived approx. 45 minutes.
    Homicide
    Deceased shot at close range while officers were in process of transferring him from city to county jail
    Time in injury 11:25 am, 24 Nov 1963 at City Hall, Dallas, Dallas Co. Texas
    Inquest held 11/24/169
    Pierce McBride, J.P. 310 Courthouse 3 Dec 1963
    Removal 25 Nov 1963 Rose Hill Burial park, Miller Funeral Homer, Fort Worth, Texas #3775

    my note:
    Wife Marina Nicohola Provsakova

  4. Fannie says:
    November 19, 2013 at 11:13 am

    BB, I have tried to post the DC of Lee Harvey Oswald, and it doesn’t show up on the post.
    Is their a reason for this? I was going to post Jack Ruby’s too……..do not have JFK.

  5. Fannie says:
    November 19, 2013 at 11:15 am

    Good Morning, I am not able to post anything.

  6. Fannie says:
    November 19, 2013 at 11:16 am

    BB……………I don’t know what is going on…….I tried to post the DC of Lee Harvey Oswald, and Jack Ruby…………….it didn’t post it………………should I try again? Is there a problem here?

  7. bostonboomer says:
    November 19, 2013 at 11:29 am

    NYPD denies gun permit to right wing nut John Stossel. He says he needs to carry a gun around with him to protect himself from abusive internet commenters.

    http://gothamist.com/2013/11/18/video_nypd_denies_gun_permit_to_mus.php

  8. RalphB says:
    November 19, 2013 at 11:42 am

    Richmond Times Dispatch: Virginia Republican State Senator John Watkins offers bill to create a state healthcare exchange — his third attempt.

    Watkins said Monday that he will introduce legislation to create a state-based exchange under the State Corporation Commission, as he did unsuccessfully in the past two General Assembly sessions.

    Had Virginia chosen to create its own insurance marketplace, “it would have eliminated a lot of the problems with the federal exchange,” he said in a meeting with Richmond Mayor Dwight C. Jones and members of the City Council and School Board.

    Virginia is one of 36 states that chose to leave operation of the new health insurance marketplace under the federal government, which continues to struggle with big problems and low enrollment more than six weeks after the exchange opened for applications under the Affordable Care Act.

    … Just 1,023 Virginians enrolled in health plans on the federal exchange in its first month, but more than 32,000 people in the state completed applications for insurance coverage that would take effect Jan. 1.

    That 32,000 number isn’t too bad. Janicen, think this has a chance now?

  9. dakinikat says:
    November 19, 2013 at 12:20 pm

    http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2013/11/19/killing_an_unarmed_teenager_allegedly_threatening_women_what_will_it_take.html

    There’s Something Wrong With a Country That Lets George Zimmerman Have a Gun

    Amanda Marcotte:

    Guns are routinely advertised in this country with hypermasculinized power fantasies, even going so far as promising to restore your supposedly lost manhood. Little wonder then that abusive men, who are the epitome of those who use violence and control to establish their masculinity, frequently turn to guns as weapons to hurt and dominate their victims. Harvard researchers have discovered that batterers who own guns frequently use them to threaten their partners into compliance. Having a gun in the mix when there is an abusive relationship makes the relationship way more dangerous for the victim. A woman is five times as likely to be killed by an abuser if there’s a gun in the house, leading to 46 women a month getting shot to death by their partners or former partners. Notice I say “in the house.” Conservatives often like to tout gun ownership as a solution for women enduring domestic violence, but it’s distinctly bad advice to tell a woman who is being routinely hurt and threatened to bring a gun in proximity to a man who is very likely to use it.

  10. bostonboomer says:
    November 19, 2013 at 12:47 pm

    From the NYT

    The role of Dallas in the JFK assassination: The City With a Death Wish in Its Eye

    The atmosphere of hate in Dallas 1963 was very similar to the right wing attacks on Obama today.

    • RalphB says:
      November 19, 2013 at 1:09 pm

      Very true. H.L. Hunt and the other right-wing nut jobs were incredibly toxic. Hunt was funding a freaking aryan militia in the mountain west even back then.

      • bostonboomer says:
        November 19, 2013 at 3:57 pm

        Lyndon Johnson and Adlai Stevenson were each attacked separately by right wing mobs made up of very wealthy Dallas citizens.

    • ANonOMouse says:
      November 19, 2013 at 2:50 pm

      There was hatred toward JFK all over the South. On the day he was killed I heard stories of people celebrating his death. The South of that era hated Catholicism & Judaism almost as much as they hated AA’s. This region was mostly Southern Baptist and Church of Christ at the time and both Catholicism and Judaism were considered cults and an abomination against Christianity. When JFK was running for POTUS I read an op-ed piece titled “Should a Christian vote for a Catholic”. I can’t remember whether I read in a magazine or in the newspapers and I’ve spent many years trying to find that piece so that I could re-read, with no success. There absolutely was no love-lost for JFK in much of the South.

      • bostonboomer says:
        November 19, 2013 at 3:58 pm

        Yeah, when I was in high school a “friend” of mind told me that I wasn’t a Christian because I was Catholic.

        • JJ Lopez Minkoff says:
          November 19, 2013 at 7:52 pm

          Yup, Bebe hears that from her friends a lot.

        • Beata says:
          November 19, 2013 at 10:05 pm

          That is very common thinking in my part of the country. I also have been told by Protestants ( even some who are friends ) that Catholics “worship demons” because we venerate the saints.

        • NW Luna says:
          November 19, 2013 at 10:40 pm

          That is so strange. I just don’t understand the logic (well, there is’t any logic of course). I’ve heard that same comment before.

          When my (raised Catholic) mother took us kids back to the East Coast for a long visit my allegedly Protestant father (who never went to church) told her not to take us into any Catholic churches.She did take us into some beautiful churches, and told us not to tell. Perhaps Dad thought we’d turn into pumpkins or demons, lol.

  11. RalphB says:
    November 19, 2013 at 12:50 pm

    This asshat makes Cooch look better by comparison. Shane they had to stop their racist game.

    Raw Story: a href=”http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/11/19/greg-abbott-links-wendy-davis-to-satan-after-illegal-immigrant-game-is-cancelled/”>Greg Abbott links Wendy Davis to ‘Satan’ after ‘illegal immigrant’ game is cancelled

    Greg Abbott, the Republican candidate for Texas governor, has responded to the news that a former staffer had organized a “Catch an Illegal Immigrant” game at the University of Texas at Austin by linking his Democratic opponent, state Sen. Wendy Davis, to Satanism.

    Former Abbott staffer and chairman of the UT chapter of Young Conservatives of Texas (YCT) Lorenzo Garcia had claimed that the game was “intended “to spark a campus-wide discussion about the issue of illegal immigration,” but the event was canceled on Monday after it received national attention.

    In a statement, Garcia said that he was concerned that “the university will retaliate against them and that the protest against the event could create a safety issue for our volunteers.”

  12. bostonboomer says:
    November 19, 2013 at 12:50 pm

    Doctor who was a first year resident at Dallas’ Parkland hospital in 1963 discusses his experiences and observations of JFK’s wounds. He is still convinced that the wound on the Kennedy’s neck was an entrance wound and says the “the posterior part of his head was blown out.”

    http://www.myplainview.com/canyon/news/article_f6555d0a-48c4-11e3-bbd1-001a4bcf887a.html

  13. Fannie says:
    November 19, 2013 at 1:10 pm

    I meant to say earlier, was that twice I tried to post the death certificate of Lee Harvey Oswald, and was going to post Jack Ruby……….for some reason it did not post. Sorry, everything is okay with me……………..let me try again.

  14. dakinikat says:
    November 19, 2013 at 2:00 pm

    Reducing the World’s Most Powerful Woman to a DressThursday’s Roll Call story chiding the nominee for the Federal Reserve for not switching up her wardrobe is only the beginning.

    http://www.nationaljournal.com/politics/reducing-the-world-s-most-powerful-woman-to-a-dress-20131115

    • ANonOMouse says:
      November 19, 2013 at 2:41 pm

      I’m so glad she isn’t the sort of woman who is wrapped up in satisfying the fashion police. She likely figured out a long time ago that If they weren’t criticizing her clothes it would be her shoes, her hair, her makeup, her pearls or whatever else they could conjure up to put her down. She looks great to me. More power to her.

    • Beata says:
      November 19, 2013 at 10:09 pm

      She looks perfectly fine to me. I’m surprised she wasn’t attacked for her hair as well ( which also looks fine ). Lord, we just can’t win, can we?

  15. Fannie says:
    November 19, 2013 at 2:51 pm

    Texas DC

    Dallas, Dallas
    Parkland Memorial Hospital
    Jack Ruby
    Death 3 Jan 1967
    Male, white, Never Married
    Date of Birth 25 Mar 1911, 55 years old
    Born Chicago, Illinois
    Father Joseph Rubenstein
    Mother Fannie Rutkowski
    Night Club Owner, Entertainment
    WWII Veteran
    Informant Earl Ruby
    Cause Pulmonary emobli, secondary to bronchiolar carcinoma of the lungs, as per letter of Dr. Earl R. Rose, Dallas County, Medical Examiner dated Feb 1, 1967
    Held inquest 3 Jan 1967
    W.E. Richburg MD
    Removal 3 Jan 1967
    Westlawn Cemetery, Chicago, Cooke Co. Ill.
    Welland-Merritt, Inc.

  16. RalphB says:
    November 19, 2013 at 4:23 pm

    A commenter at LGF posted that the arrest and jailing of George Zimmerman kept him in one place long enough to be served the divorce papers from Shelly Zimmerman that he had been dodging. Karma 1, GZ 0.

  17. dakinikat says:
    November 19, 2013 at 4:54 pm

    Pope Scalia strikes again!

    The Associated Press ‏@AP 2m
    BREAKING: Supreme Court refuses to block Texas abortion restrictions.

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