Cliff Varnell

11 minutes ago, Robert Wheeler said:

Then ask them why they don’t put me on ignore. They won’t tell you, but it’s something worth pondering.

When a right-winger declares civil war I’m game.  Hiding behind an ignore button when it’s Game On is sheer cowardice.

1 hour ago, Robert Wheeler said:

In the meantime, the CDC says only 6% of Covid related deaths were Covid only deaths. That is, 94% of the deaths also had a co-morbidity.

Boy are people going to be pissed off when they find out the whole economic shut down was for nothing.

I don't think they are going to blame the Orange man.

https://www.healthline.com/health-news/cdc-expands-list-of-those-with-higher-covid19-risks
The agency is warningTrusted Source that people with type 2 diabetes, kidney disease, COPD, whole organ transplants, obesity, sickle cell disease, and women who are pregnant could experience more severe outcomes if they contract COVID-19. </q>
 
Over 30 million Americans have type 2 diabetes.

According to the Yellow-Bellied Jersey Loon they are expendable.

1 hour ago, Paul Brancato said:

This may be an area we disagree on. It is true that in modern times anarchists and left wing activists have been far less violent, but Antifa, by committing violent acts against property, gives law and order Republicans and Trump an easy target. You call it decentralized, I call it hidden sponsors. Antifa’s activities only help the Right and hurt the cause they claim to espouse. Know the tree by it’s fruits. 
 

Paul, how many people associated with Antifa have been arrested for violent acts against property in the last 3 months?  I know there was a group in NYC, but other than that it appears few and far between.

If the “deep state” is sponsoring Antifa violence it’s not getting its money’s worth.

Morticia Addams, my earliest celebrity crush.

On 8/28/2020 at 7:59 AM, Paul Brancato said:

I believe so. And btw the way, Robert, I most certainly do condemn Antifa, a covert operation if I ever saw one. 
 

Condemn Antifa for what?

It’s a highly decentralized ideological movement, Paul.  
 
Anti-fascists linked to zero murders in the US in 25 years

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/27/us-rightwing-extremists-attacks-deaths-database-leftwing-antifa

Donald Trump has made warnings about the threat of antifa and “far-left fascism” a central part of his re-election campaign. But in reality leftwing attacks have left far fewer people dead than violence by rightwing extremists, new research indicates, and antifa activists have not been linked to a single murder in decades.

</q>

https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/07/30/anarchists-and-antifa-not-according-to-the-data/

1 hour ago, Robert Wheeler said:

the kind of bitterness Kirk gets the ignore button for.

Wheeler takes cheap shots from behind his ignore button.  For a guy who has declared civil war he sure seems adverse to a fire fight.  Typical right-wing fecklessness.

36 minutes ago, Robert Wheeler said:

 

RFK Jr. is fighting the fascists in Germany, but here in the USA, according to you guys, he is the fascist.

Wheeler can find one in his mirror.

Kenosha protester threw a plastic bag at a junior nazi and got shot.  Wheeler celebrated.

What’s more fascistic than that?

On 8/22/2020 at 3:57 PM, James DiEugenio said:

Let us hear from McGovern and the late great Bob Parry on the NY TImes latest attempt to fortify RG:

 

https://consortiumnews.com/2020/08/21/ray-mcgovern-catapulting-russian-meddling-propaganda/

This deserves closer examination.

McGovern writes:

<quote on>
The “hacking of the DNC” charge suffered a fatal blow three months ago when it became known that Shawn Henry, president of the DNC-hired cyber-security firm CrowdStrike, admitted under oath that his firm had no evidence that the DNC emails were hacked — by Russia or anyone else.

(YouTube)

Henry gave his testimony on Dec. 5, 2017, but House Intelligence Committee chair Adam Schiff was able to keep it hidden until May 7, 2020.

Here’s a brief taste of how Henry’s testimony went: Asked by Schiff for “the date on which the Russians exfiltrated the data”, Henry replied, “We just don’t have the evidence that says it actually left.”

. <quote off>
 
From the testimony of Shawn Henry cited by McGovern:
 

https://intelligence.house.gov/uploadedfiles/sh21.pdf

<quote on, pg 24>

MR. STEWART of UTAH: And would you just conclude with what you discovered and how you discovered it and what you did with that information?

MR. HENRY: So we did - we did some forensic analysis in the environment. we deployed technology into the environment, into the network, software called Falcon that essentiatly looks at the processes that are running on different computers in the environment.

We also looked historically at the environment, using a different piece of software to look backwards at what was happening in the environment. And we saw activity that we believed was consistent with activity we’d seen previously and had associated with the Russian Government.

MR. STEWART of UTAH: And can you identify that as being -- with a fair degree of confidence that it's associated with the Russian Government?

MR. HENRY: We said that we had a high degree of confidence it was the Russian Government. And our analysts that looked at it that had looked at the types of attacks before, many different types of attacks similar to this in different environments, certain tools that were used, certain methods by which they were moving in the environment, and looking at the types of data that was being targeted, that it was consistent with a nation-state adversary and associated with Russian intelligence...

<pg 31-32>
  
MR. CONAWAY: Turn it over to the ranking member.

MR. SCHIFF: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I just have a couple followup questions. Then l,m going to turn it over to Mr. Castro. Welcome, and thank you for coming to testify. My colleague asked you whether the damage that was done to the DNC through the hack might have been mitigated had the DNC employed your services earlier. Do you know the date in which the Russians exfiltrated the data from the DNC?

MR.HENRY: I do. l have to just think about it. I do know.  I mean, it’s in our report that I think the committee has.

MR. SCHIFF: And, to the best of your recollection, when would that have been?

MR. HENRY:  Counsel just reminded me that, as it relates to the DNC, we have indicators that data was exfiltrated. We did not have concrete evidence that data was exfiltrated from the DNC, but we have indicators that it was exfiltrated.

MR. SCHIFF: And the indicators that it was exfiltrated, when does it indicate that would have taken place?

MR. HENRY: Again, it's in the report. I believe -- I believe it was April of 2016. l’m confused on the date. I think it was April, but it's in the report.

MR. SCHIFF: lt provides in the report on 2016, April 22nd, data staged for exfiltration by the Fancy Bear actor.

MR.HENRY: Yes, sir.  So that, again, staged for, sure which, I mean, there’s not -- the analogy I used with Mr. Stewart earlier was we don't have video of it happening, but there are indicators that it happened. There are times when we can see data exfiltrated, and we can say conclusively. But in this case, it appears it was set up to be exfiltrated, but we just don't have the evidence that says it actually was.

<quote off>
 

Could Ray McGovern be any more intellectually dishonest?

4 hours ago, Robert Wheeler said:

 

Good job kid, next time hopefully the state will permit qualified authorities to handle the situation.

If they don't, go with a bigger, better armed group next time.

 

We can be assured the Yellow-Bellied Jersey Loon won’t make the trip.

This is an excerpt from Salandria’s 1994 interview with David Starks:

David Starks:  Now you answered my second and third questions in one shot and I assume that your initial challenge to the single bullet theory would probably be what you would consider your most significant accomplishment in the case.

Vincent Salandria:  No. 

David Starks:  No?

Vincent Salandria:  Well, okay, I would say, No. 

David Starks:  Then the next question is what do you consider your most significant accomplishment?

Vincent Salandria:  I think my most significant accomplishment, Dave, is understanding that what I did, in terms of being the first one to attack the single bullet theory, was not important in understanding that, the government really probably wanted us to involve ourselves in the minutiae of the evidence. To take an endless microanalytic look at the evidence and to delve into that and to fetishize it and not to get out of it and to look above it and to take a macroanalytic look at the evidence and ascertain what it means. What it meant. What the motivation was. Whythe assassination was in fact perpetrated, and how it was going to operate in the society—the people who did it—how they were going to exercise their power and how they were going to change direction of the society. 

So what I think the most significant thing I did was to pull myself out of this microanalysis and to try to explain why it happened. To give a model of explanation. 

That, I think, is the important thing that I did. I departed from the rest of the critics, took myself away from them and said, Look, let’s try to make some sense out of this. Let’s try to say what it was behind the assassination and how the assassins are operating, if they are, to affect our society. That is I think—I did that very early and I think that was an important move.

Excerpt starts at 12:08

In his March 1965 Liberation article, Salandria brought together the witness statements of three Secret Service agents and the physical evidence.

https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/Essay_-_A_Philadelphia_Lawyer_Analyzes_the_Presidents_Back_and_Neck_Wounds.html

The Back Wound

Here we must shift our attention backward. We will examine the Commission's inference concerning a bullet which allegedly entered the back of his neck and exited through the lower front portion of his neck. We urge the reader to keep his mind open on the question of whether the back hit we are about to discuss has an exit on the front of the neck or whether it has an exit at all. Nothing we have examined so far would prove the Commission's conclusion that this shot in the back of the President exited from the front.

At this point in the exposition, each reader will have in mind Bennett's oft-repeated testimony that he observed a missile "hit the President about four inches down from the right shoulder" (W-111). Special Agent Clinton L. Hill saw the President's body being worked on at the morgue in Bethesda during the course of the autopsy. He stated to the Commission that just before the body was placed into a casket "I saw an opening in the back, about six inches below the neckline to the right-hand side of the spinal column" (II H 143).

Special Agent Roy H. Kellerman testified about his experience at Bethesda during the autopsy studies there.

There were three gentlemen who were performing this autopsy. A Colonel Finck -- during the examination of the President, from the hole that was in his shoulder, and with a probe, and we -- were standing right alongside of him, he is probing inside the shoulder with his instrument and I said, "Colonel, where did it go?" He said, "There are no lanes for an outlet of this entry in this man's shoulder." (II H 93)

If Colonel Finck was correct, if there were indeed no lanes of exit from such a wound, then that is the end of the Commission's theory that one assassin fired all the shots at the assassination site. Such a finding of no outlet would make the back wound a separate hit. It would make the front neck wound a separate hit. It would place one gunman in front of the President. It would add one bullet to the three shells found in the Depository Building, thereby making four, and thereby requiring another gunman to accomplish all the shooting in the maximum allowable time. But while Colonel Finck at the autopsy in Bethesda was making this judgment on the dreadful night of November 22nd, 1963, the United States Government was proclaiming to the world that one man and one man alone had performed all the gory work in Dealey Plaza. This conclusion, in the light of the opinions of the autopsy experts, was utterly out of joint with the facts apparent at that time. At best, it was premature.

All the above testimony of Special Agents Bennett, Hill, and Kellerman indicates a hit in the back of the President roughly four to six inches below the inferior neckline. Material supporting evidence was found in the clothing of the President. FBI Agent Robert A. Frazier testified about the President's clothing as follows:

I found on the back of the shirt a hole, 5 3/4 inches below the top of the collar, and as you look at the back of the shirt 1 1/8 inch to the right of the mid-line of the shirt, which is this hole I am indicating (V H 60)

...the coat hole is 5 3/8 inches below the top of the collar. The shirt hole is 5 3/4 inches, which could be accounted for by a portion of the collar sticking up above the coat about a half inch. (V H 60)

The bullet which made these holes would have only originated from behind the President, who was sitting erect, facing front, in the Presidential limousine. Both the Commission and the writer are in perfect agreement here. It would seem, also, that there is no room for disagreement with respect to where the missile which impacted on the President's back entered. But, alas, on this score, the disagreement between the writer and the Commission is sharp and goes to the core of the case.

The writer concludes from the evidence of Special Agents Bennett, Kellerman, and Hill that there was a wound in the President's back some 4 to 6 inches down from the neck line. The writer feels that the missile hole 5 3/4 inches below the top of the shirt collar and 1 1/8 inches to the right of the midline of the shirt, dramatically supports the testimony of these Special Agents. The missile hole in the President's coat: 5 3/4 inches below the top of the collar corroborates their testimony in a solid and impressive way. The Commission, however, concluded otherwise. Despite all the above evidence, the Warren Commission found that the hit in the back of the President was above the wound at the necktie knot. "The autopsy disclosed that the bullet which entered the back of the President's neck hit no bony structure and proceeded in a slightly downward angle." (W-91). We submit that the Commission was in grievous and obvious error.

The Warren Commission had to recognize that a bullet in the back 5 3/4 inches below the top of the shirt which did not exit, would end the lone assassin theory. For, if this bullet did not exit, the front neck wound constitutes a separate entry from the front. To add one bullet is to add one gunman, who cannot have fired from the Texas Book Depository Building. One gunman cannot be in more than one place at the one time.

An attempt was made to refute the evidence of the three Special Agents who stuck to the truth as they had seen it. The Warren Commission, trying to rebut this impressive evidence, hit rocks which caused its integrity to founder forever on the shoals of self-contradictory exhibits and finally fabrication and withholding evidence.

In his January 1965 article in Liberation, Salandria continued to hammer the clothing evidence:

https://ratical.org/ratville/JFK/HWNAU/VJSJan1965.html

Now we turn to plane geometry and the trajectories of the shots. For this purpose, we start with the holes in the clothing of the President:

An examination of the suit jacket worn by the President by F.B.I. Agent Frazier revealed a roughly circular hole approximately one-fourth of an inch in diameter on the rear of the coat, 5³/8 inches below the top of the collar and 1 ¾ inches to the right of the center back seam of the coat. (W-92) 

The shirt worn by the President contained a hole on the back side 5 ¾ inches below the top of the collar and 1 ¹/8 to the right of the middle of the back of the shirt. (W-92)

Strange Inferences

At the time the first bullet impacted upon the President, Governor Connally, according to the Commission, was seated in a position which placed him in front of the President (W-106). The first shot to hit the President was designated by the Commission as having hit the Governor at any place between Z frames 207 through 225 (W-106). During these frames the angle from a rifle in the sixth floor window of the Depository Building was roughly from 21° to 20° (W-102, 103).

One would expect such a shot with a downward trajectory from the sixth floor, hitting the President 5 ¾ inches below the coat collar and not hitting any bone, (W-88) (the autopsy report describes the bullet entering “the upper right posterior thorax” [W-541]) would continue its path downward at a roughly 20° angle and emerge from the abdominal area. Instead, this remarkable bullet turned upward.It then exited from the President, who was sitting perfectly erect (W-102, 103), and tore through the left portion of his tie knot (W-91).

One would certainly, once accepting this unusual and highly improbable course of the bullet, have to concede that it would fly harmlessly over the Governor’s head heading for the sky. But the Commission asks us to believe that this strange bullet changed direction in mid-air. No bullet ever has, unless spent. But this bullet was far from spent, for it had an entrance velocity after passing through the President of 1,858 feet per second (W-95).

In mid-air, the Commission turned this bullet downward into the back of the Governor, who was sitting erect with his back to the President (W-103). Then this extraordinary missile pierced the back of the Governor and emerged from his right nipple.

This earliest debunking of the lone-assassin theory has been vastly under-appreciated for close to 56 years.

The Warren Report 
Analysis of Shots, Trajectories, and 
Wounds: A Lawyer’s Dissenting View

https://ratical.org/ratville/JFK/FalseMystery/LawyersDissentingView.html

You will recall that Secret Service Agent Glen A. Bennett, stationed in the right rear seat of the President’s followup car saw a “shot hit the President about four inches down from the right shoulder” (W-111). “An examination of the suit jacket worn by the President by F.B.I. Agent Frazier revealed a roughly circular hole approximately one-fourth of an inch in diameter on the rear of the coat, 5 3/8 inches below the top of the collar and 1 3/4 inches to the right of the center back seam of the coat” (W-92). “The shirt worn by the President contained a hole on the back side 5 ¾ inches below the top of the collar and 1 1/8 inches to the right of the middle of the back of the shirt” (W-92). “The tie had a nick on the side of the knot” (W-92). The Commission would have us believe that a trajectory of a bullet from the sixth story downward would hit the President four inches from the right shoulder, or 5 ¾ inches from the top of his shirt collar, and ranging upward emerge from his neck tie knot without having hit any bones. This proposed trajectory of down and then up fails to comport with a sixth-floor shot, and if possible at all, must have been fired from a lower level. Further they ask that this same bullet which exited flying upward after not hitting any bone in the President (W-88) then changed direction in mid-air and coursed downward striking the Governor in the back, chest, right wrist, and left thigh (W-92)...

Having read the Report, I conclude that the evidence offered by the Commission indicates there was more than one rifleman firing on November 22, 1963. There were more than three shots. If Oswald was one of the gunmen, then with that gun, from that vantage point, in that timespan, suggested by the Commission, he could not have been alone in the performance of the terrible work that destroyed our President and wounded two other men.

...

I’m crying.  The man was my #1 hero.

Rest in peace, Hank, rest in power...

So the Democrats are responsible for a Trumper murdering two people?

Looks like the fascists stayed away last night.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/kenosha-protests-peaceful-night-chaos-shootings-72648378

2 hours ago, Richard Booth said:

I believe it's normal for people to have differing opinions and I don't see any particular need to argue with others or "prove" people to be wrong. 

It's just not that important to me, arguing.  

 

This *is* a Forum given to debate, isn’t it?

What’s wrong with debate?  It’s a great way to learn things, I find.

2 hours ago, Richard Booth said:

 

Ultimately the worst thing about this community is the tendency for there to be cliques that fight with each other over the most absurd things. I've seen that in my own area of research (which is not JFK related) and it seems to exist in any and every community, it must be a normal human trait. That is unfortunate and it speaks to why a lot of people are silent or do their work alone without talking to others or networking.  

I don’t find my disagreements with Jim DiEugenio absurd or petty.  In the pursuit of historical truth it is imperative that we are clear on the facts regarding the Bay of Pigs, the overthrow of Diem, the partition of Laos in ‘62, the prima facie case for JFKA conspiracy, and Trump/Russian collusion in the 2016 election.

DiEugenio avoids these weighty, substantive historical discussions with me because I’ve proven him wrong on all of them.

8 minutes ago, Richard Booth said:

You are incorrect. I was not referring to you. I do not know who you are.

The person I was referring to who went unnamed, and will remain unnamed, made some comments about DiEugenio on another platform recently. He said that we need to "get rid of Jim" and that he needs to go the route of Fetzer.

Again, I wasn't referring to you and I do not know who you are. Anyway, for whatever that's worth, you will probably go back to thinking I was talking about you and I will go back to not knowing who you are.

I stand corrected, and I apologize.  

Please understand that I’m only 1 of 2 DiEugenio critics on this Forum, and since I recently blasted one of his RussiaGate denial posts I jumped the gun.

No hard feelings I hope, good luck on your research.

Just now, Richard Booth said:

I didn't accuse you of jealousy. I don't even know who you are.

I do believe I’m the only one who has criticized DiEugenio in the past week.

3 minutes ago, Richard Booth said:

Classy.

You think accusing someone of jealousy without the courage of confronting them directly shows class?

17 minutes ago, Richard Booth said:

 

I have seen another person trashing you lately (within the last week) and it was uncalled for. I believe it may be some kind of jealousy, actually. Your current work with Oliver Stone is recent, and I tie personal attacks I am seeing to that. There is no other plausible explanation for these attacks and the simplest answer, Occam's Razor, is petty jealousy.

 

I’ve been a frequent critic of Jim DiEugenio for:

1) His statement some years ago that the location of JFK’s T3 back wound is “unknowable” when it’s the most readily known fact in the case.  If he produces a video for K&K correcting his stand on the issue I’ll beat his sycophants to the draw in my praise.

2) His inability to grasp JFK’s blunders with the Bay of Pigs and the overthrow of Diem in Vietnam.

3)  His truly absurd denial of Trump-Russian collusion in the 2016 Presidential election.  He posits a “deep state” plot to deny Trump the presidency when there was clearly a “deep state” campaign to hype Hillary’s e-mail non-scandal and bury the Steele Dossier/Russian-DNC hack stories prior to the election.

That DiEugenio can’t handle criticism of his work is his problem.

As far as jealousy goes, ain’t anybody got sht on me, pal.  In 1980 I set off THE global DIY youth protest movement— hardcore punk rock.  Blow me.

2 hours ago, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

Thanks for that, James.

I'd guess you're referring to one or more of the images on my website's single-bullet theory page. You're welcome to use any of them, of course. If larger versions would work better, let me know; I may be able to find some.

Jeremy, your work on the back wound is excellent.  My only beef is that you’ve buried the lede— the low back wound should be the first objection to the SBT, not the third.  Connally’s wounds and hat are moot given JFK’s T3 back wound.

From Jeremy’s website:
 
JFK’s Back Wound was too Low

It makes no practical difference whether President Kennedy’s throat wound was located at or just above the knot of his tie. The balance of the evidence places his back wound several inches lower than either location.12

• The death certificate signed by Dr George Burkley, the president's personal doctor, who was present both in the emergency room at the hospital in Dallas and at the autopsy at Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland, located the back wound “at about the level of the third thoracic vertebra,” which is typically four to six inches, or 10 to 15 centimetres, below the top of the shirt collar.13
• The only surviving contemporary report of the autopsy supported this location.14
• The autopsy descriptive sheet, made by one of the pathologists during the autopsy, was the official diagram of the wounds to the body. It, too, placed the back wound in this location.15
• The backs of Kennedy’s jacket and shirt each contained a bullet hole located between five and six inches below the top of the collar, which matched this location.16 Although the jacket had bunched up slightly from time to time during the motorcade as Kennedy waved to the crowd, it had never bunched up sufficiently to allow a bullet to enter at the required angle. In a photograph taken no more than 1.2 seconds before any non–fatal shot from the sixth floor could have been fired, the jacket can clearly be seen to be at or very close to its normal position.17 Buttoned–up shirts tend to be much less flexible than jackets. President Kennedy’s shirt in particular could not have bunched up significantly: it had been made to measure; it was held in place by a belt; it had a long tail, on which Kennedy was sitting; and the hot weather would have caused the shirt to stick to the president’s back. The hole in the shirt lined up almost exactly with the hole in the jacket. </q>

The only fact I’d add is that in every photo taken on Elm St. there is a normal amount of shirt collar visible above the jacket collar.   The claim JFK was shot in the back at T1 would have required 2+ inches of shirt and an equal amount of jacket to elevate entirely above the top of the back without pushing up the jacket collar, a flat out impossible to replicate scenario.

1 hour ago, Ron Ecker said:

I'm amazed that you people (excluding Robert Wheeler) can stomach watching the Trump cult convention. 

I’m with you, Ron.  I can only take multiple seconds recaps on cable news.  Instead I watch the NBA and binge watch Lucifer on Netflix.

13 minutes ago, Robert Wheeler said:

Who here thinks the RNC convention should have had more celebrities like the DNC, instead of so many regular people?

I mean, we learn so much from celebrities and they are always so grounded.

America loves celebrities, they are always so generous with their political opinions and dieting advice.

The DNC really has its pulse on the mood of the electorate. 

Again!

Bribe recipient Pam Bondi gave a speech denouncing nepotism.

These loons have zero self-awareness.

48 minutes ago, James DiEugenio said:

In fact, in a video we are putting up soon at K and K, we are using a demonstration by him of the back wound. 

I’m looking forward to this with keen interest given the fact this issue *should* have been settled 54 years ago.