New inductee - Ross Douthat

Ross Douthat hates JFK, and he hates the people who like JFK.  That's a prerequisite for getting something published in the New York Times.  Here's his latest - The Enduring Cult of Kennedy.

It's clear he knows nothing of JFK

It's also an attack on Steven King's book.   And it's clear he didn't read Steven King's new book either.

This little shit was on Real Time with Bill Maher back on June 17, 2011.  He was representing, surprise, the Right side of the panel.  Douthat is the co-author (he couldn't even write it himself) of a book "The Grand New Party."

Also on the panel was Chris Matthews.  Matthews consistently ate Douthat's lunch throughout the entire show.

In a segment on Rep. Anthony Weiner's resignation and wondering why he had another press conference Douthat commented that Democrats didn't really want to rally around Weiner because he was always on TV and not involved in the actual business of legislation. Douthat pointed out that, "He [Weiner] was on the last time I was. So, I'm not really in a position to-

And the brilliant Kevin Nealon's quiped "That's where I know you from. Okay.  It was killing me.  I kept thinking, who is this guy?"

Max Holland Asks, "Have You Been Zaprudered?"

Ruprect "The Monkey Man" Murdoch, still not under arrest or indictment for illegal phone hacking, just adores little ol Max Holland.  Murdoch is the only thing giving any space and credence to Holland.

The end of JFK conspiracy theories? Digital technology proves Oswald DID act alone...and reveals grainy image of him standng at window.

Yeah, right.

London's "The Daily Mail:

It was over in a few seconds but the assassination of John F Kennedy has generated decades of painstaking, and for some unsatisfying, analysis.

Yet as the 48th anniversary of that tragic event in Dallas nears, a team of historians and retired Secret Service officers has used new technology to categorically confirm in their minds the judgement that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.

Historian and journalist Max Holland, who has investigated the 'Where were you?' moment for years, led a team which digitally enhanced a number of home videos taken on November 22, 1963.

His team studied Abraham Zapruder's famous footage as well as many other lesser-known films, and brought them all together for the first time to establish a narrative more clear than ever before.

The group will present their findings in documentary 'JFK: The Lost Bullet'  on the NatGeo channel this Sunday at 9pm ET.

'I'd say a main thrust of it is to break the stranglehold that the Zapruder film has on our perception of what happened,' Mr Holland told Fox News.

'In a sense, we've all been 'Zaprudered'. The film was so graphic, disturbing, mesmerising, that it became more of our perspective on the assassination than even the perspective of the assassin, which should never have happened.'

The team also discovered, in the amateur footage taken that day by Robert Hughes, a shadowy figure moving on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository building - a person believed to be Oswald.

Shadowy figure: The team also found footage which showed a person they think is Oswald moving on the sixth floor of Texas School Book Depository building.  

Oswald was an employee at the Texas Schoolbook Depository, which overlooked the motorcade.

Contemporary investigators found that in March 1963, Oswald, using the alias 'A. Hidell', purchased a 6.5mm Carcano Model 91/38 rifle by mail order. It is widely agreed this was the gun which killed JFK.

Mr Holland told Fox News: 'Our conclusion is that he fired three shots in about 11 seconds, which is almost double the 'Six Seconds in Dallas' meme that most people know when they think about the assassination: six seconds, three shots in six seconds.

'We say three shots in 11 seconds, which is a much easier - for I'd say, someone of Oswald's skill - effortless task.' 

President Kennedy was assassinated as he travelled in an open-top car in a motorcade through Dallas. Texas Governor John Connally was also injured.

Within two hours, Oswald was arrested for the murder of a policeman, then early the next morning he was charged with assassinating the President.

On the morning of November 24, nightclub owner Jack Ruby shot and killed Oswald as he was being transferred to the county jail.

There have been numerous conspiracy theories around JFK's death, with everyone from the American Mafia and the KGB to FBI director J. Edgar Hoover and sitting Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson accused of involvement.

Each and every year hundreds of sceptics flock to the site to discuss the latest developments and pay their respects.

When asked by Fox News if there are any 'holy grails' of JFK assassination research still not investigated, Mr Holland cited Oswald's tax returns, which have never been released. 

It's a team, god damn it, he's leading a team! Did you notice the names of the other members of the team? Me neither. 

Almost boasting of the intellectual property theft that is the hallmark of anti- JFK conspiracy works please notice the line "This digitally remastered version was ripped from the documentary Image of an Assassination: A New Look at the Zapruder Film produced by H.D. Motyl MPI teleproductions 1998."  In other words, they didn't digitally remaster a god damn thing!  They ripped it from a 1998 DVD!  They stole it!  When you illegally rip something from a DVD are you given a cable TV show as a reward for doing so? NO? They did for Max.  

New Inductee - Ron Capshaw

Writing for Andrew Breitbart is your first clue he's a full of shit liar that doesn't know anything about anything.

Ron Capshaw

Capshaw, like Alex von Tunzelmann, feels the need to review Oliver Stone's move JFK 20 years after its release.

Capshaw claims "Oswald was shown in documents released after the film by the Dallas Police that his fingerprints were on the trigger of his Manlicher Carcano."

Huh? Fingerprints? More than one fingerprint? On the trigger? I don't think so.  It's implied though not stated that the Dallas Police waited until after JFK, the movie, to show this important document.  Would that Capshaw could show the document.  I'd like to see it.

And he misspelled Mannlicher, it's Mannlicher Carcano.  Idiot.

And then there's this line, "Recreated shooting by world class snipers has shown that the head-shots did in fact come from the Sixth Floor Depository."

Well, there's several things wrong with that sentence.  What the hell is "recreated shooting?" Who are these "world class snipers?" Head-shots? Is this fool saying there was more than one head shot?

And again he gets a proper name wrong. The proper name of the building was the Texas School Book Depository, not the Sixth Floor Depository.  If you can't get the name of the building right, wow, are you stupid.

Capshaw believes a lot of Posner and Dale Meyers nonsense that computer animation analysis negates a grassy knoll sniper.  That's BS for several reasons.  First, it assumes only one grassy knoll sniper, two, the classic lie about the "Badgeman" sniper is to lie about his height based on lies about Mary Moorman's photo.

Capshaw thinks the American University speech is invalidated by the Ich Bin Ein Berliner speech.

And he believes the lie from Lamar Waldron that JFK was planning to invade Cuba in Dec of '63.  Everyone in the research community has debunked this total misunderstanding of this so called AM/WORLD story that Lamar peddles.  AM/WORLD is not what Lamar says it is.  JFK did not invade Cuba before, during or after the Bay of Pigs when there was a lot of pressure put upon him to do.  Nor did he do so before, during or after the Cuban Missile Crisis when thee was a hell of a lot more pressure put upon JFK to do.  Yet, JFK was going to do so in December, 1963 when there was no pressure to do so.  And McNamara didn't know anything about it?

Capshaw also believes Oswald tried to shoot Gen. Edwin Walker, which is another huge lie.  The Walker shooting was used after the fact to prove Oswald was capable of violence.  But, the police reports at the time of the shooting never thought Oswald was a suspect.  And steel jacketed slugs became copper jacketed ones after the fact.  Evidence was twisted around to force the conclusion that Oswald shot at Walker.  It's a lie.

But lies are what Breitbart peddles.  

New Inductees, for an old article still available online

We have three inductees with this article.  Kennedy, Vietnam, and Oliver Stone's Big Lie - John F Kennedy.  

1.) Bruce Loebs
2.) USA Today
3.) The Society for the Advancement of Education

It's the old classic, lying while accusing someone else of lying.  Is there a Hitler reference too? But, of course!  According to Loeb, Kennedy did not plan to remove U.S. troops from Vietnam.

Here Loeb is at his stupidest, okay, he's going to denounce the plan that he thinks Schlesinger made up whilest failing to grasp what an assassination actually is, ready?


"Schlesinger wants us to believe that Kennedy decided in 1962 or early 1963 to withdraw all U.S. forces, but continued to maintain troops in South Vietnam because he feared losing the 1964 election. The unavoidable conclusion from this tale is grotesque. If Schlesinger is right, the President willfully sacrificed American lives for political profit. During the Kennedy Administration, 108 Americans died and 486 were wounded in Vietnam, and these figures increased from the time of his assassination in November, 1963, until November, 1964, after the presidential election when Schlesinger maintains Kennedy would have begun to withdraw U.S. troops."


Did you catch this one?  According to Loeb, AFTER JFK is ASSASSINATED he's still supposed to be President of the United States and still in charge of U.S. foreign policy, especially in regards to Vietnam.


Loeb, like a schmuck, doesn't comprehend that the instant JFK died LBJ became president and LBJ was in charge of U.S. foreign policy, especially in regards to Vietnam.  


So, the reason why U.S. troops weren't coming out of Vietnam between November 1963 and November 1964 and more of them were going in is because Kennedy is dead, and his withdrawl plan died with him, you idiot! 


Loeb is one of many that believe LBJ was following JFK's plans.  No.  LBJ reversed JFK's plans in Vietnam.  LBJ reversed it with 48 hours of JFK's death. The reversal is in NSAM 273.  


Loeb makes no mention of the huge black hole in the Pentagon Papers during the Fall of '63 when Kennedy and his advisors were meeting nearly everyday.


Loeb makes no mention of the Foreign Relation of the United States (FRUS) volumes released in the 1990's.


Loeb makes no reference to what was called The Thanksgiving Day Massacre where Kennedy fired people at the State Dept. and CIA who were not on board with his Vietnam policy.  Never again did anyone try to pressure Kennedy to send in combat troops into Vietnam.  


Loeb does what all extreme Right-wing losers do on this issue, they haul out Dean Rusk and Rusk's quote, "I had hundreds of talks with President Kennedy about Vietnam and on no single occasion did he ever express to me any ideas on that line." He adds that "Kennedy never said anything like that to me, and we discussed Vietnam--oh, I'd say hundreds of times. He never said it, never suggested it, never hinted at it, and I simply do not believe it."


If you will look at NSAM 263 you will find that the very first person it goes to,  before the Secretary of Defense, or any of the Joint Chiefs is... Dean Rusk.  So, Dean Rusk was lying.   


Loeb does not mention that JFK fired Walt Rostow, that Rostow was sent out to pasture for a year, and after Kennedy was assassinated LBJ brought him back in.  

Can someone introduce Thomas Ricks to George W. Bush?

Thomas Ricks wonders:
 Was John F. Kennedy the flat-out absolute worst U.S. president of the 20th century?
Is he kidding?  
Would JFK ignore a Presidential Daily Brief entitled "Osama Bin Laden Determined to Strike Within the U.S." 
Would JFK wave hello to Stevie Wonder? 
Did JFK utter these gems? 

"I'm telling you there's an enemy that would like to attack America, Americans, again. There just is. That's the reality of the world. And I wish him all the very best."

"You know, I'm the President during this period of time, but I think when the history of this period is written, people will realize a lot of the decisions that were made on Wall Street took place over a decade or so, before I arrived in President, during I arrived in President."

"And they have no disregard for human life." --George W. Bush, on the brutality of Afghan fighters, Washington, D.C., July 15, 2008

"Amigo! Amigo!" --George W. Bush, calling out to Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi in Spanish at the G-8 Summit, Rusutsu, Japan, July 10, 2008

“Families is where our nation finds hope, where wings take dream.”

"I know how hard it is for you to put food on your family."

New Inductee - Ion Mihai Pacepa

Welcome to The Liar's Club General Ion Mihai Pacepa, for your book  "Programmed to Kill: Lee Harvey Oswald, the Soviet KGB, and the Kennedy Assassination."  

Pacepa was the former head of Romania's secret security agency.  

The book is endorsed by Michael Leeden, one of the craziest Right-wing nutcases alive.

"A new book from General Ion Mihai Pacepa is cause for celebration....No novelist could have written a more exciting story, made all the more compelling because of Pacepa's first-hand involvement." -- Michael Ledeen, HumanEvents.com  

This is nothing more than Right-wing pornography.  

New Inductee - Dr. Neville Thomas Jones, Ph.D.

Why this guy?  Because he thinks Jackie killed JFK

Today's New Idiot - Frederick Kempe

Here we go again.

EVERY time a Right-wing nut has an allegedly scholarly article, essay, book, film, whatever, examination of President John F. Kennedy it ALWAYS boils down to "if only JFK wasn't such a fucking pussy about the Commies."

For the Right-wing nuts who know nothing of history, learn nothing from history, know nothing of context and what else was going on at the same time as whatever example of JFK being a fucking pussy about those god damn Commies they want to talk about it's always easy, and simple. You just smash the Commies and you win.  Game over. Nothing to worry about. No consequences. What's next? I'm surprised they haven't created The John Cleese "Commies, I hate 'em! " think tank.

And we got another goose stepping moron playing this game.  His name is Frederick Kempe.

And he's got a new little book out on JFK and Berlin: 1961

The book gets a positive review by previous Liars Club inductee Alex von Tunzelmann here -  FrederickKempe’s “Berlin 1961”. She gives it a positive review despite noticing that Kempe doesn't know the difference between The Bay of Pigs and Operation Mongoose, that Kempe doesn't think Castro was a "Socialist," by June of 1961, and that Kempe thinks the Berlin crisis of 1961 somehow leads to the Cuban Missile Crises of 1962!  

The book is so bad even The New York Times bothers to notice.  Jacob Heilbrunn writes that despite Kempe's criticism of Kennedy, that he "was not focused on rolling back Communism in Europe,” points out that no American president ever was, not before JFK, or after.  "No American president ever seriously challenged Soviet hegemony in Eastern Europe. Not Eisenhower when revolts took place in East Germany in 1953 and Hungary in 1956. Not Lyndon B. Johnson during the Prague Spring in 1968. Not Ronald Reagan when martial law was declared in Poland in 1981."

But perhaps the best refutation of Kempe’s book comes from Richard J. Tofel who reviews the book at The Daily Beast - A new account of the 1961 Berlin crisis argues that Kennedy missed a chance to bring down the Soviet Union, but Richard J. Tofel says that misunderstands Khrushchev and Kennedy’s diplomacy.

Tofel writes that Kempe’s conclusions are “fundamentally wrong.” Also, “Kempe’s essential argument is that had Kennedy been tougher at his Vienna summit with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, and/or more aggressive in response to Khrushchev’s subsequent bullying on Berlin, the wall erected in August 1961 would not have been built, East Germany might have soon collapsed, and the fall of the Soviet empire might have been accelerated by as much as three decades.”

Do you see the mantra? If only JFK wasn’t such a fucking pussy, blah, blah, and blah.

But there is no evidence for the Right-wing, “if only JFK was tougher, then this would have happened,” ideology. Even Tofel points this out. “Kempe’s own strong reporting indicates how little support there is for the first of this set of posited dominoes.

“As the book points out in stark terms, the East German state was on the verge of disintegration as a result of its open borders with the West—and in the face of the West German economic miracle—with as many as 2,000 of its people fleeing each day.

“As Kennedy clearly saw, and as Kempe repeatedly notes but cannot fully recognize, Khrushchev could not permit the collapse of Walter Ulbricht’s German Democratic Republic. First, and most basically in the life of a politician, Khrushchev could not do so and remain in power. Had he tried, he would almost certainly have been removed—as he was in the aftermath of his later humiliations, notably the Cuban Missile Crisis.

“And Khrushchev could not have permitted an East German collapse for precisely the reason that Kempe finds such a scenario so appealing: because Khrushchev and his colleagues at the time knew that if East Germany fell into the arms of the West, Hungary and Poland and Czechoslovakia and the rest would likely follow.”

And writing as someone who does understand history he adds, “The central point of difference between 1961 and 1989, and the reason why Kempe’s argument is unconvincing, is because Khrushchev and his generation were simply not made of the same stuff as Mikhail Gorbachev and his generation. Khrushchev (and Leonid Brezhnev, Alexei Kosygin, and others around him) had lived as adults through the Second World War and had thrived, more or less, under Stalin. The death of scores of millions of their countrymen for a cause was something within their contemplation—indeed, within their experience. Moreover, these men, perhaps naively and in different ways to be sure, were committed heirs of the Bolsheviks, devoted children of the Revolution. (Khrushchev was 23 in 1917, Kosygin 13, Brezhnev 11.) In their lives, the Terror notwithstanding, Soviet communism had defeated Nazism and seemed to improve the lives of average Russian citizens. In their minds, communism was making progress. When Khrushchev said that the Soviets would soon “bury” capitalism, he knew he was exaggerating and blustering, but he almost surely believed that events were tending in that direction.

“To conclude that such men, like Gorbachev and his colleagues later, would have surrendered their hard-won empire without a fight is simply unsupported by the historical record. That is the lesson of their use of force in crushing uprisings in East Germany in 1953 and in Hungary in 1956 and in Czechoslovakia in 1968.”

Tofel instead of chastizing Kennedy for not having this childish “HULK SMASH!” approach to the Communist world praises Kennedy, “in terms of what he did after the Bay of Pigs, rather than what he said, Kennedy deserves far less criticism. He did not take Khrushchev’s bait and start a shooting war or blunder into one.”

Tofel concludes, “All of this matters today, for reasons Kempe knows well and states clearly in his book’s final words, where he casts the Berlin Wall as “the iconic image of what unfree systems can impose when free leaders fail to resist.” Before we see the wall that way, and guide ourselves accordingly in some future crisis, we need to appreciate the catastrophic cost such resistance would likely have entailed.”

But, wait a minute, let’s go back to the idea that if JFK was tougher he couild have ended The Cold War sooner. JFK did want to end the Cold War, but he wanted to do it without waging a war.  

This turn towards peace is exquisitely detailed in “JFK and the Unspeakable” by Jim Douglass.    

This methodology to end The Cold War without waging war against the Commies was seen as treason and that’s why JFK was killed.   

Part Two of DiEugenio's examination of Halberstam's book now online

Part II of Jim DiEugenio's examination of David Halbestam and his book "The Best and the Brightest," is now available.

David Halberstam and The Second Biggest Lie Ever Told: A Look Back at The Best and the Brightest

Today's New Idiot - Alex von Tunzelmann

Nothing like offering a new review to a movie that is 20 years old to promote your own book.

Alex von Tunzelmann's Red Heat: Conspiracy, Murder and the Cold War in the Caribbean, is published now by Simon & Schuster.

How dishonest can you be? And it looks like the movie is older than her!

Oliver Stone's JFK: a basket case for conspiracy

Will you look at the bullshit that gets published in Oklahoma?

It's written by a right-wing coward who won't tell you his or her name.  If you're gong to take this big of a swipe and Bobby Kennedy, jr., then tell us who you are.

JFK’s nephew has elitist, skewed vision

He’s been called the “Kook of Camelot.” He thinks 9/11 resulted from the relaxation of fuel economy standards under Ronald Reagan. He’s hobnobbed with South American dictator Hugo Chavez, and he thinks President Kennedy’s assassination was due to a right-wing climate of hate in Dallas in 1963.

Despite this, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is taken seriously enough that he shared the stage Thursday with T. Boone Pickens. The venue was a sustainable energy conference in Tulsa.

Kennedy and Pickens found common ground during the forum, but they couldn’t be further apart on many issues. Pickens, an Oklahoma native, and longtime fossil fuel extractor, is pushing a plan to reduce dependence on foreign energy in part by increasing the use of natural gas to operate motor vehicles.

Kennedy’s hard left views have blinded him to reality, including the fact that 9/11 happened because of anti-American hatred, not fuel economy standards. His uncle was assassinated in Dallas by a communist sympathizer, not a neo-Nazi. And Chavez is a dangerous nutjob.

This man was considered for the post of Environmental Protection Agency administrator. How would that have worked out for Pickens and natural gas producers who use hydraulic fracturing to release energy from shale?

Kennedy loathes conservative talk radio and TV and would abolish them if he could. His vision of America is diametrically opposite that of most Americans.

He got a polite welcome in Tulsa, the former Oil Capital of the United States, but his elitist vision is unwelcome nationwide.

Chris Mathews thinks people need grassy knolls

New Inductee - Chris Matthews

Chris Matthews is the personification of the inside the beltway mindset. He is the ultimate ass kisser.

Marvel Comics once had this space alien character that was the embodiment of a group mind. It was called The Uni-Mind. That's what Chris Matthews is, the physical embodiment of the D.C. power elite gestalt. Anything coming from official Washington is gospel according to Matthews and is parroted and promoted by him. Even if there is a reversal Matthews will parrot it as though there was consistency.

The Uni-Mind

An unholly amalgamation

of Blond and White

just like Chris Matthews!

He'll try and tell you he was against the Iraq war, but we don't forget so easily. None were more impressed with Bush's PR stunt of pretending he flew a plane and landed it on an aircraft carrier all by himself than Chris Matthews. At the time this is how Matthews spoke:

MATTHEWS: Let's go to this sub[ject]--what happened to this week, which was to me was astounding as a student of politics, like all of us. Lights, camera, action. This week the president landed the best photo op in a very long time. Other great visuals: Ronald Reagan at the D-Day cemetery in Normandy, Bill Clinton on horseback in Wyoming. Nothing compared to this, I've got to say.

[To his guest, Katty Kay from the BBC, a frequent guest.] Katty, for visual, the president of the United States arriving in an F-18, looking like he flew it in himself. The GIs, the women on--onboard that ship loved this guy.

A little later:

MATTHEWS: The incompetence became downright staggering when the Commander In Chief pranced onto an aircraft carrier with a "Mission Accomplished" banner flying overhead. The bozos couldn't even get the PR right.

Media Matters has more on Matthews revisionist history of his own statements in regards to the Iraq war here  -  Matthews claimed he has opposed Iraq war "from the beginning," that media coverage of war "sucks" -- but he has frequently contributed to problematic war reporting 

Matthews claimed he has opposed the Iraq war "from the beginning," that media coverage of war "sucks" -- but he has frequently contributed to problematic war reporting

He's always parroting the group-think. He just doesn't notice when there's a complete reversal. 

Now he wants to attack the racist Republicans who won't come right out and say they hate Obama because he's black, no, instead they concoct this lie, that Obama is not an American because he cannot produce his birth certificate. 

It's a lie, Matthews, you idiot! It's not a theory at all. It's a god damn lie. 

But morons like Matthews, and thousands of others like him in the media have this incomprehensible inability to call a liar a liar. Al Franken seems to be the only one with the spine to call liars liars. So, instead the lie is called "a theory," and the people who promote this idiotic lie, "Birthers." And since this LIE "Conspiracy Theory," is a bat-shit crazy one, therefore all "conspiracy theories" are bat-shit crazy.

Then, thinking he's laid a soild foundation he'll start by attacking those who believe there was a conspiracy in the JFK assassination. It doesn't matter to him that in the case of JFK a conspiracy is the truth, or that polls always showed more than 50% of the American people believe there was a conspiracy, that they had been and continue to be lied to about this. No. Only about 10 to 20% of the people think there was no conspiracy, and they are the one who hold power in D.C., and NYC. So, that's what gets published and broadcasted, that's what gets parroted by Matthews.

He has a new feature, "Let Me Finish," which is ironic as it's something he won't let any of his guests do.

Believe what I say! 

Or when you try to speak I shall interrupt you, 

for I am Mutant Tweety!

He was at it again the other night

People Need Grassy Knolls

MATTHEWS:“Let Me Finish” tonight with the grassy knoll. That was the place in Dallas—near the Texas Book Depository—that the crazies believe people shot at President Kennedy from.

Well, to the conspiracist mind, it‘s important to always have a grassy knoll. It‘s their grotto of denial, a place to travel mentally and find deliverance from reality. Those who don‘t like reality need a grassy knoll to get through the night.

I do not wish to do injustice to these desperados.  I know exactly why people need grassy knolls. They need them because they cannot bear the suffering that truth brings to the heart and to the mind. 

How could some loser—some misfit who went to the Soviet Union because he thought he liked communism and believed he could find a happy life there, [who] then came home and fell hard for Fidel Castro on the rebound, how could this squirt kill the regal Jack Kennedy? It doesn‘t balance out, does it? How could a nobody kill such a great somebody?  

Well, worst yet, how could a man of a hard left—a communist—kill Jack Kennedy.Why wasn‘t it a right-winger who killed him? Then we could blame it on them?

I‘ve got it. We‘ll come up with a conspiracy theory—don‘t actually have to prove anything, of course, that says—just say it.Just say it. It really was a right winger. It‘s that guy - oh, those guys over in the grassy knoll. Don‘t you get it? It was the right wing that killed our hero.

Well, a half century later, we‘ve got a new grassy knoll, another place for retreat for those who can‘t stand a hard truth. The truth is that Barack Obama is the president of the United States. Got it! President of the United States, duly elected leader of the country living right there in the White House. They can‘t stand that it is, in fact, a fact. No way around it. No way.

Just look at the history books. Look at the newspaper. Dang it! This guy is president. He was elected president. A majority of the people wanted him president and went out and voted for him.

I got it, with this—it didn‘t happen. You see, he wasn‘t born here. He‘s not eligible to be president.

I read it somewhere that he‘s from somewhere else. Can‘t put my finger on it but he‘s not really an American, you see? Not natural born anyway. He‘s from out there somewhere.

So, last night, the boobs in the Arizona legislature voted to require the candidates for president henceforth approved other documents besides the official document that the state of Hawaii issues as a birth certificate. [Does that sentence make any sense to you?] They want circumcision, baptismal records.They want something that nobody‘s ever wanted before from any candidate before.

What they really want is the same thing grassy knoll people want even now—deliverance from the truth they cannot handle.

Donald Trump—take a bow for giving new hope to grassy knollers everywhere.

That‘s HARDBALL for now.  Thanks for being with us.

Below is an email Jerry Policoff send to Matthews

Dear Chris,

I was not surprised by your arrogant and ignorant denunciation of conspiracy theorists who believe JFK was fired upon from the "Grassy Knoll." Of course the last official investigation of the assassination came to that same conclusion, based in part on scientific acoustics tests that virtually proved it (despite claims to the contrary those tests have never been refuted).

 I was never one of those people who had doubts or suspicions about the Warren Commission’s report on the President’s death. But five years after Jack died, I was having dinner with Kenny O’Donnell and a few other people at Jimmy’s Harborside Restaurant in Boston, and we got to talking about the assassination. I was surprised to hear O’Donnell say that he was sure he had heard two shots that came from behind the fence. "That’s not what you told the Warren Commission," I said. "You’re right," he replied. "I told the FBI what I had heard but they said it couldn’t have happened that way and that I must have been imagining things. So I testified the way they wanted me to. I just didn’t want to stir up any more pain and trouble for the family." "I can’t believe it," I said. "I wouldn’t have done that in a million years. I would have told the truth." "Tip, you have to understand. The family—everybody wanted this thing behind them." Dave Powers was with us at dinner that night, and his recollection of the shots was the same as O’Donnell’s.

You are entitled to believe what you want about the Kennedy assassination, but branding people who believe something else based upon eyewitness testimony and scientific evidence as "crazies" says a lot more about you than it says about them.

Jerry Policoff

New inductee - David Halberstam for his book "The Best and the Brightest."

Jim DiEugenio does a superb job deconstructing this book which is held up as THE BOOK on Vietnam.

Simply put, the book has no footnotes.  You don't know where the hell he's getting his information from, or if he's just making stuff up.

David Halberstam and The Second Biggest Lie Ever Told: A Look Back at The Best and the Brightest

And we can add CNN to the list

CNN has this kind of David Letterman Top Ten list of "political Myths We Fall For."  Except they saw Spinal Tap so they crank it up to 11.

And coming in at #9 is The myth: Someone besides Lee Harvey Oswald killed JFK.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/POLITICS/04/20/political.myths/

Do they debunk anything? No.  They just say the Warren Comission said, blah, blah blah.  But they have an odd photo with it.  It's not from the Dallas motorcade on Nov 22, 1963

Where and when was this photo taken?

Is this a real photo?  That looks like Gov Connally

on the left side and rear of the limo.

Connally looks like he is Photoshopped into the photo

Who is sitting in front of Connally? Where the hell is Jackie? 

Was this taken the day before in San Antonio? If so, there's still

something very strange about this photo.  

Today's Idiot - Arthur Herman

Arthur Herman  is a New York Post asshole and an American Enterprise Institute visiting scholar which is another way to pronounce asshole.  He's two assholes in one!

This idiot regurgitates the right-wing unending bullshit that the failure of the Bay of Pigs was the fault of one, and only one man, JFK.  He is either completely unaware or choses to completely ignore the fact that the CIA's own internal Inspector General's report put the blame for the failure, not on JFK's shoulders, but on the CIA's.

These simple minded right-wing idiots actually think it was so simple, just send in the Air Force, or the Marines and the problem of Cuba would have been solved.  They never explain how.  They never tell what would the Soviets do if JFK did that? Would they take Berlin in response? Then what happens?

Does he mention that there was initial air cover from planes that flew from Central America?  Does he mention that because of the distance to Cuba and the distance to fly back meant they only had one hour to do anything over Cuba?  And does he mention that the CIA was so inept that the pilots of those planes were on local Central American time while the invasion force was on Eastern standard time?

Nope.

Does he mention that the CIA is still withholding information about the Bay of Pigs? Like Peter Kornbluh does on the National Security Archive website?

CIA SUED FOR 'HOLDING HISTORY HOSTAGE' ON BAY OF PIGS INVASION

Nope.

Did he attend the event at the JFK Library? Nope.  It's too bad, he would have learned something.

He would have heard Alfredo Duran, a veteran of the Bay of Pigs invasion.  He would have heard the  Duran as he recounted the story from his perspective.  He told of how he knew by 2:00 p.m. April 17, 1963 (EST) that "we were lost.  Already two of our supply ships were sunk and the rest had to leave the Bay. The airplanes that were to be supporting us, all B-25's were being shjot down, because of the distance they could not have machine guns in the tail guns. So, the Cuban air force just got behind them and shot them down. Our supply planes could not come in and land because they were also being shot down. Our landing had been completely disrupted because we landed in support boats. We were supposed to be landing on a sandy beach and we were actually landing in a place with rocks. Most of us were running against the rocks and we had to jump and more or less swim ashore with our gear, most of which had been lost.  We knew we were in trouble."

He continued giving his personal experience.  He was put in a sporting boat that should probably hold 10 people, but had 30 to 40 people in it, with all their gear.  His boat ran into rocks, and was overturned.

Once ashore there was confusion.  So, they quickly tried to adapt.  His company which was the 3rd battalion was to go to the city of Cienfuegos was instead ordered to go to the small town of San Blas which was basically a very small town, near a crossroad that came down from Havana down through the swamp.  The paratroopers were supposed to land in that town and instead landed in a swamp.   After they were there for 2 hours they started getting shelled from 120mm Soviet cannons and mortars.  They were shelled for 3 full days. Duran and his fellows had 2 mortars and  two 57mm recoilless rifles, and the rest were basically M-1 rifles to fight back with.  But, they held their position for three days.

[ From - U.S. 57mm Recoilless Rifle comes this detail about this rifle:

Background & Operation
The first recoilless gun was developed during WWI by Commander Davis of the US Navy. It consisted of two gun barrels pointing in opposite directions connected to a common chamber. One barrel was loaded with the projectile, the other with an equal mass of small lead shot encased in grease. The propellant cartridge was placed in the central chamber and when fired the projectile and the "countershot" shot out both ends at equal velocities, leaving the gun static with no imparted recoil. The lead shot and grease quickly dispersed and lost energy, while the service projectile proceeded on to the target. This concept was developed for use in aircraft armament for attacking submarines but never used in combat.

The concept continued to be explored and soon it was realized the countershot could be eliminated, substituting the gas from the propellant as long as it was of sufficient speed and mass.

The attraction of a recoilless weapon is that a much lighter light artillery piece of a given caliber can be created, as it eliminates the need for the massive recoil mechanisms required for conventional artillery. In the case of the 57mm anti-tank gun this was a huge difference. Recoilless weapons found a perfect application with airborne infantry.

The major drawback is these weapons use a huge amount of propellant, four-fifths of the charge is exhausted from the jet. The back blast is also a significant hazard as well as a bright illuminating source, which gives away the position of the gun. (emphasis added.)]

One day one of Castro's commanders took a wrong turn and was captured by Duran and his men.  He gave Duran the opinion that Castro's fores really thought that the U.S. was coming in full force and that they were in for the fight of their lives. They were really afraid.  When he saw Duran was one of about 50 guys and the type of arms they had he knew these guys had already lost.  Unless America really comes in, it's over.  Where Duran was the attacking Cubans could only come at him on one road that had a swamp on either side.  This helped him defend his position.  At one time the invasion's air cover saw the Cuban forces on the road and successfully bombed them.  Duran believes there were 200 dead from this bombing.  By the end of the 3rd day they were out of food and supplies, and without ammunition.

One day it looked like help had arrived.  They got a supply drop. They got bullets for Springfield rifles, which they didn't have.  The bullets wouldn't work with the rifles they did have.

So, they started to fall back towards the beach.  They thought they would be resupplied there, or evacuated.  They divided into groups, one tried to go to the mountains, one group, which Duran was with tried to navigate the swamp to try to get to Havana. Very few got out.  Castro's forces basically encircled the entire swamp. Men were posted about every 10 feet.  Duran was captured near a sugar mill.

He asked to be shot.  But, Castro wanted them alive.  Castro knew it would benefit him to declare them as prisoners of war, to use them for his economic and political benefit.  Duran thinks that being categorized as prisoners of war saved his life and the lives of the other men.

The moderator asked Peter Kornbluh directly the question of if JFK sent in another sortie would that have saved the day? Kornbluh took on this "great betrayal" myth and debunked it in his book, "Politics of Illusion: The Bay of Pigs Invasion Reexamined."

                                                                   


The short answer is no.  There seems to be two camps on the issue, the retired CIA guys blame JFK, and  the Kennedy administration folks blame the CIA. The CIA's own Inspector General Report written by Lyman Kirkpatrick clearly blames the CIA for misleading Kennedy.
  
                                                                            

The CIA did not have the ability to do this.  That it thought it could was pure hubris from the 1954 Guatamala invasion and overthrowing of the democratically elected Arbenz.  

Eisenhower wanted a covert plan for the invasion of Cuba.  JFK initially got plans for a daylight invasion into Trinidad, not exactly a covert plan.  So, of course he made changes to it, like doing it at night and preferably in a small isolated place. 

Kornbluh put the blame for the failure on the neccessity for "plausible deniability."  We could not be seen to be publicly invading a sovereign country like this during the Cold War.  Things wold get out of control very quickly. We could not return to an era of gunboat diplomacy in Latin America.  That would anger too many allies.  The planes for air cover came from Nicaragua.  They flew for hours to get to Cuba, and then had to fly for hours to get back.  This meant a one hour window over Cuba before they would have to fly back, unless they could secure an airstrip.  

You can hear JFK talking to RFK about why this failed.  The planes were on Central American time and the invasion force on the U.S.S., Essex was on Eastern Standard Time.  Yes, the CIA were that fucking stupid.  Telephone Conversation, [President John F. Kennedy and Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy discuss the Stennis committee review of the Bay of Pigs], March 2, 1963. [Part 1] 

So, Mr. Arthur Herman, STOP TALKING SHIT!