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!