Christopher Hall

Has anyone heard of Gerald Lyle Hemp? The following article appeared in my city's local paper today: http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2010/jan/03/a-wanted-man/ I would bet that he knew Barry Seale and that they worked in similar CIA-sanctioned drug running activities. He sounds a lot like Andrew (Drew) C. Thornton II, who "dropped into" Knoxville back in 1985: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_C._Thornton_II I strongly encourage anyone interested in Barry Seale and his exploits to pick up a copy of "Bluegrass Conspiracy" by Sally Denton. It was certainly a fascinating time, and I remember quite well Thornton's unfortunate and ignominious demise in a South Knoxville driveway in 1985. It set in motion a series of events which resulted in an apparent aviation sabotage incident (which killed a parachutist who used to study near me in law school as well as 16 others) and some black bears dying of cocaine overdoses.

I am guardedly optimistic about the prospects of this show being a force for good (e.g. America's Most Wanted). And I would certainly like to hear Jessie's opinion as to the JFK assassination (and the RFK assassination and the MLK assassination for that matter).

I saw the show yesterday afternoon on TruTV.com (used to be Court TV) around 3 pm. He went to the Alaska hinterland to try to go into the HAARP facility. The people there gave him a hard time and wouldn't tell what they do in that site. After an exchange of about 5 minutes, the cameraman's camera started acting up. The lens was moving around, you saw the cameraman's feet, the sound became static. They were actually controlling his camera with "waves." Anyway, the reason HAARP exists is to change weather patterns, like altering the gulf stream. They may have had something to do with Katrina in New Orleans, a major experiment. New Orleans is 97% a black population... it makes you wonder. Also the waves can pull planes out of the sky with little or no residue. Which makes me think of the plane in Pennsylvania on 9/11. Jesse said they will be concentrating on conspiracy theories that happened in the last 20 years, including 9/11. They will not investigate the Kennedy assassination. The show will air on truTV at 10 pm Wednesday night. Kathy C I enjoyed last week's episode on HAARP quite a bit. I hope that more investigative research follows. I wish that he would give his opinion (and support for it) on the JFK assassination.

The Frank Olson case has always reminded me of Abe "Kid Twist" Reles: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abe_Reles As the late Joe Valachi said in reference to Reles, "No one thought he went out that window on his own."

Kathy- I appreciate your sharing this and I wish you the best and a full recovery. Chris

I know that sniping is currently done in the US military with a spotter and a shooter (at least that's what I see on the Military Channel), but the assassination of JFK in 1963 was not a military sniping. There were other very successful snipings which took place in the civilian arena that lacked adherence to US military sniping protocals. Read "The Valachi Papers", for example. And irrespective of the extent to which the method of the execution of the JFK assassination may have differed from the manner in which a US Army sniping team would handle the job, the JFK assassination was both successful and audacious. I am agnostic about whether the man removing his hat is a signal, but I have no doubt that the UM and the DCM were casting a signal to commence sighting in the target and firing. I don't find planting people to signal the arrival of the Presidential limo to be remotely complicated or fraught with variables. To the contrary, I find it logical to have spotters at street level to signal the arrival of the target. I also don't accept the notion that the raising or pumping of the umbrella on a sunny day by the UM and the raising of the DCM's hand, right before the bullets started flying, to be fortuitous.

It's good to hear from you, Maggie. I enjoy reading your Deep Politics forum from time to time. Take care.

I half agree with you Christopher... I don't believe Witt was the Umbrella man. I'll fully agree with you if you can explain why the CIA coached him into saying completely the wrong story. Umbrella man is clearly standing still with the Umbrella open Yet he told the HSCA "I think I got up and started fiddling with that umbrella trying to get it open, and at the same time I was walking forward, walking toward the street". He has a clear view of the President. yet he told the HSCA he didn't see "because of this thing (the umbrella) in front of me....My view of the car during that length of time was blocked by the umbrella's being open". Why would the CIA coach someone to tell completely the wrong story ? I think that the CIA found Witt to take the fall as the UM. I don't think that it gave him the rather amateurish and changing explanation. Perhaps the CIA fed him parts of it, but the CIA didn't give him an inconsistent and shifting story. Some people are good liars and others can't keep a story straight. I suspect that Witt falls into the latter category. If you read "Plausible Denial" by Mark Lane, you get the impression that lying comes easier to some CIA types than simply telling the truth. Understandibly, these guys have to live a lie when they work undercover, so I would say that it comes naturally.

The UM and the DCM gave the "fire away" signal - nothing more, nothing less. How many other umbrellas are observable in Dallas from earlier parts of the parade route? Was waving an umbrella a popular form of deriding JFK? To shoot a poison dart at JFK, one would have to aim it and pull off a great shot to hit him in the throat area. The UM doesn't look like he's aiming the umbrella - he is just pumping it. I agree that Witt isn't the UM, but instead someone the CIA coached into perjuring himself for the benefit of the HSCA.

Last night's show was great. It was really interesting to see and hear all of the archival footage. I plan to watch tonight's show as well. John - I am sorry for starting this post when you had already opened a thread on this new topic.

The following series commences airing on the History Channel on Sunday: http://www.politico.com/click/stories/0910...ries_redux.html I suspect that it merits our attention, and I plan to watch it.

I stumbled across this at imdb.com: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1109300/ Maybe Bugliosi can play himself. I don't know who is producing the movie, who will have the leading roles, etc. My guesses for the leading and supporting roles: 1. JFK - Hugh Grant; 2. LHO - Billy Bob Thornton; 3. Jack Ruby - Robert DeNiro; 4. Jackie - Julia Roberts, Juliette Lewis; 5. LBJ - Tommy Lee Jones; 6. JEH - Phillip Seymour Hoffman; 7. RFK - still thinking about this one. I think that's all the cast that will be necessary to present Bugliosi's assessment as to how the events of Dealey Plaza, Dallas unfolded on November 22, 1963. Category: Fiction.

A trick that Cohn worked to perfection was calling Walter Winchell every Sunday afternoon, an hour or 2 before his notorious radio show, and feeding him with talking points of gossip against one or more of Cohn's numerous enemies. This was actually one of Roy's more ethical and moral techniques when viewed in comparison to the many other sleazy and corrupt methods that he regularly employed.

At least no one has done an Obama version of this: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0853096/#Scene_1 And I hope that no one ever does.

You only think that you know how sleazy, corrupt, fraudulent and manipulative Roy Cohn was until you have read this book. I don't blush easily, but it was almost disgusting reading how badly Cohn behaved. One of the money quotes is what he would tell young associates helping him on a case: "Don't tell me what the law is. Tell me who the judge is." He was disbarred a couple of months before he succumbed to AIDS. He "dated" Barbara Walters for 25 - 30 years, which damns her by association. He routinely held court at the Stork Club, he bought Malcom Forbes' 95" yacht (which sank as a result of a suspicious fire), he represented a host of Mafiosi (including John Gotti and Carmine Galente), as well as George Steinbrenner, Donald Trump, Si Newhouse and a whole bevy of other A-list New Yorkers. He would routinely stiff people who did business with him. He and RFK hated each other. McCarthy apparently chose Cohn as his chief counsel, over RFK, to alleviate charges of anti-Semitism resulting from the number of Jews he subpoenaed for interrogation. Ironically, I am almost through with a great book about Mickey Cohen (I will report on it when I finish it), and he seems like a solid citizen in comparison to Roy Cohn. The book is well worth reading (because Cohn was a prominent figure who traveled in political circles for several decades), but it really doesn't shed much light on anything related to the Kennedys or the JFK assassination.

Your timing on starting this post is serendipitous. I had planned to start a thread based on the following book ban by a Portugal Judge: http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-New...rtugese_Judge__ It appears that the Judge's book ban applies (somehow) across Europe and not just in Portugal. I am not familiar with civil rights and liberties in Europe, but I have read items (e.g. stories about legal stops and searches and this book ban) which make me wonder about civil liberties across the pond. For what it's worth, we have a problem with mall cops here, too. And we now have "Free Speech Zones" when royalty (usually POTUS) is in town for a visit.

"[They] wrote like exiled English colonials from an England of which they were never a part to a newer England that they were making. Very good men with the small, dried and excellent wisdom of Unitarians…They were all very respectable. They did not use the words that people have always used in speech, the words that survive in language. Nor would you gather that they had bodies. They had minds, yes. Nice, dry clean minds..... All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn." The first paragraph reflects Ernest Hemingway's criticism of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Nathaniel Hawthorne. These are excerts from Green Hills of Africa, which is a novelized account of Hemingway's first African safari in 1933 - 1934. Not bad for someone wh never set foot in a college. He was certainly the greatest prose writer of the 20th century, and he credits his much imitated writing style to writing instructions he received working as a newspaper reporter as a young man.

Thanks, Steve, and congrats on the new family addition. I have no doubt that the cost over here would be outlandish.

Nice try, Tom. I don't know how much education you have, but you obviously missed class the day they taught civil discourse in school. Most of the other forum members, at least the ones with whom I engage in discussion, are respectful and civil, even if we have polar opporsite worldviews. If I had wanted personalized attacks, sarcasm and shallow drivel which doesn't address substantive issues that I have respectfully raised with other forum members, I would have addressed my questions to you. Saul Alinsky would be proud. I will not communicate with you further.

This is great reading - thanks for posting it. What a curious place for a memo regarding an erstwhile Castro assassin to be found. Wasn't Cubela meeting with someone in Paris on 11/22/63 regarding a potential hit on Castro?

What choices do you, as a health care consumer, have under the NHS system? What do you do if you don't like your doctor or if he or she is incompetent? What kind of parameters does NHS give you to work within in making health care decisions? Are your choices limited if you are old and/or infirm? How are health care professionals and other providers compensated? Who sets their compensation and who pays it? Does GB have limits on the amounts that a patient can recover for malpractice? These are questions about your system, not challenges to it.

Thanks for all of the info, guys. I will try to read it tonight.

Good hunting.

When the Labour Government introduced the National Health System in 1947 they were heavily in debt (the cost of the Second World War). When they promised to do this in the 1945 general election they were described as Nazis (Churchill) and communists (they admitted to being socialists). However, the Conservative governments that followed, did not dare remove it because it was the most popular thing ever done by a British government. A recent survey showed that the NHS is the most popular aspect of British society. If Obama does bring in "socialised medicine", it will never be removed. That is why the far-right in America is spending so much money and energy on attacking the idea. John- How many people work for GB's national health care program? I read that it was 1,400,000. Is that true? Also, does it ration care based on age, health, etc.? Thanks. Chris

I agree with you, Terry, that there is serious grassroots opporsition to an expensive wholesale revision of the healthcare delivery system in this country by the government. Anyone who wishes to dismiss the widespread voter antipathy with respect this issue does so at his or her own peril. A lot of Democrats in Congress are finding this out over the break. They are hardly on vacation. To the contrary, they are suffering the wrath of citizens who will organize and vote in 2010. Many Congressional (at least House) Democrats sense a potential electoral ambush on this issue, and they are proceeding with a good bit of trepidation. I think that the overriding issues in 2010 and 2012 will be the deficit, taxes and inflation. Time will tell if I am right. Obama inherited a country which was in a state of financial disaster. But he augmented that crisis by: (a) supporting (along with Bush, Pelosi and Reid (and McCain, for that matter)) TARP ($700 billion), ( pushing throught the $800 "stimulus" legislation, © taking over the American auto industry via Federal subsidies and auto manufacturer ownership (I forget how many billion this purchase of electoral votes involves), (d) supporting the costly cap and trade proposal, and (e) now supporting a health care reform proposal that no one believes will be revenue neutral. Rightly or wrongly, Obama will own the issues of the deficit, taxes (they're coming, we all know it) and inflation (we all know that this is coming, too) by this time next year when Congressional mid-term elections occur. I have no interest in seeing a bunch of free-spending Democrats replaced with a bunch of free-spending Republicans, and the Republican Party is in disarray. They (e.g. my state's 2 Republican Senators) certainly don't represent my interests, which are largely libertarian. The voters spoke last November and they are speaking now. I respect people who think differently on this matter, and I think that trying to marginalize and malign large groups of voters who think differently is dangerous business. People who believe that dissent is the highest form of patriotism need to remember that they are not the only ones entitled to dissent from the prevailing political power structure.