Benjamin Cole

Probably not many make the transition to bank veep from DPD...as most are seeking the city pension. But bank veeps, especially back in the 1960s, may not be as exalted as you might think. The bank veeps could be loan officers. In any words, their job is to check papers, make sure the borrower is who he says he is, and the loan is secured properly (usually property loans, at 80% LTV) and so on. In the 1960s, there was more informality and less credentialism in the world. A well-liked guy might get a bank job, if he was reasonably smart and reliable. OTJ training for a few months, and an experienced secretary.... Also, the DPD had civil service exams for employment and promotion in the 1960s. There is a sentiment in some circles that DPD officers were not smart guys. I think they likely were smart guys, having passed civil service examinations.

Ditto

https://archive.ph/jFKhz This is the NYT take on the the controversy regarding NPR. The NYT does not mention that of 87 staffers in the Washington office of the NPR, all 87 are registered Democrats. For the record, the NPR asserts it was not biased in its coverage of C19, the Hunter Biden laptop story and Russiagate, and it is not a biased news organization. ---30--- "Edith Chapin is an American journalist and the current Editor in Chief and acting Chief Content Officer of NPR News. She was previously the senior supervising editor of the NPR News Foreign Desk; prior to working at NPR, she spent 25 years at CNN."---Wikipedia

JD- Listening to Eiler, I would guess we will never see the JFK Records. The present executive branch position is that they do not have to comply with the JFK Records Act. Other materials mysteriously held back include tape-recordings of Carlos Marcello. These vinyl tapes have likely degraded beyond repair. Not to be morbid, many of us are running out of years. When we go, I think the candle out. We can't expect generation after generation to care about an event receding into the past. The media is complacent, or, worse, coopted by partisan or establishment sentiments. So it goes.

Fun article, thanks for posting. Yes, Dulles in this article, appears to admire JFK. One might wonder if Fleming was trying to push one of Dulles' buttons, after all, JFK had fired Dulles. A fascinating read from a period when public discourse had not become so coarsened and petty, and speaking derogatorily of those with different viewpoints was pandemic. Who truly authored the JFKA? I don't know. I must be the only participant in the EF-JFKA who does not know, as an incontrovertible fact, the answer to this question.

Important, especially for the EF-JFKA. The media is totally complacent on the JFK Records snuff job. In addition, Eiler speaks of "standards of proof" that litigants or government prosecutors would have to meet in a public courtroom, but do not have to meet in a government investigation and report. It is useful to remember that government investigations, whether Congressional, special prosecutor, executive branch, or unique (Warren Commission) do not not have to meet any standards of proof in assembling evidence, witnesses and issuing a report. The narrative is likely a fantasy or partisan PR snow-job, as a result. This is one reason why so many government investigations are essentially kangaroo courts or show trials. Add on, there is no adversarial process in a government investigation---no talented lawyer challenging evidence, introducing new evidence, cross-examining witnesses, disallowing hearsay witnesses, and presenting alternative but compelling narratives.

Matt Taibbi's take on the recent spate of stories regarding NPR (I apologize for the truncated article; I am not a Taibbi subscriber....): Orwell Watch: NPR and the Death of Fairness A story about facts and decency is quickly reduced to another partisan bias tale. MATT TAIBBI APR 13 ∙ PREVIEW READ IN APP Earlier this week on The Free Press, Uri Berliner dropped a bomb on the public media world with “I’ve Been at NPR for 25 Years. Here’s How We Lost America’s Trust.” As discussed on the new America This Week, the longtime senior editor described how NPR fumbled three stories: Covid, the Hunter Biden laptop affair, and the Trump-Russia scandal. Regarding the latter: Berliner’s piece was immediately swallowed, mangled, and regurgitated as new propaganda. CNN media writer Oliver Darcy wrote “NPR faces right-wing revolt and calls for defunding after editor claims left-wing bias,” establishing the format that this was not about factual impropriety, but about a “right-wing revolt” against claimed “left-wing bias.” The New York Times did much the same thing, saying “NPR is in Turmoil After It is Accused of Left-Wing Bias,” adding that Berliner’s piece generated “firestorm… especially among conservatives.” On cue, human error-vane Jonathan Chait chimed in to insist “The Media Did Not Make Up Trump’s Russia Scandal.” But this wasn’t about “bias.” It was about ethics, or a lack of them. But this has been going on for so long, most people have forgotten what ethics look like. Audiences have been trained to think that a station or person that doesn’t make overtly political coverage decisions is just hiding its real biases, which must be either right-wing, corrupt, or both. So someone like Berliner, when he talks about feeling “obliged” to cover even Donald Trump fairly, is actually just concealing a form of unfairness, or inspiring another tribe of unfair actors. Fair equals unfair. It’s impressive propaganda, actually. His story brought back bad memories:... ---30--- One fact seems to get buried. Of 87 staffers in the NPR DC office, 87 are D-Party members. If NPR were a private-sector media outfit, that would be their business. This imbalance at NPR strikes me as taxpayer-funded mouthpiece for one of the major political parties. Also, how will NPR treat independent third-party candidates? "I looked at voter registration for our newsroom. In D.C., where NPR is headquartered and many of us live, I found 87 registered Democrats working in editorial positions and zero Republicans. None. So on May 3, 2021, I presented the findings at an all-hands editorial staff meeting. When I suggested we had a diversity problem with a score of 87 Democrats and zero Republicans,"

https://www.thefp.com/p/npr-editor-how-npr-lost-americas-trust Another deeply experienced journalist, and obviously not a Trumper, raises serious questions about media coverage, and NPR coverage, of the Russiagate follies, the Hunter Biden laptop, and COVID-19. Remember, Bret Stephens of the NYT called Russiagate affair and media coverage "an elaborate hoax." I do not think the NYT is a Trumpified news outlet. My point in posting this is not to valorize Trump. It is to remind people of the lessons you know from the JFKA: Do not trust state, major party and mainstream media narratives.

The Wikipedia model. Wikipedia's founder has refuted his own creation, as having been commandeered by those who insert state narratives on the JFKA, 9/11, Jan. 6, any topic you can think of. AI will most likely give us the same results. While independent researchers are smart, they do not have steady funding in the millions of dollars that the intel state has.

Well, each to his own. Some positively ugly and garish cars (IMHO) from the 1970s are now collectible, with big wings on the rear, and fake wood dashboards, and chintzy plastic knobs, etc. Now, all the cars look alike.

If that is an accurate photograph of Gardos, I would say "no." Just IMHO....

Souetre sure does look like whoever that is with LHO in Russia, if the photo from Russia itself is not faked. BTW, you have a huge glaring error in your auto-bio. You refer to so-called "classic" cars in the post-1970s era, an obvious and unforgivable oxymoron. I assume you meant to refer to classic cars from the pre-1970s. My faves (100% justified) are the finned chrome-mobiles from the late 1950s.

This is what I am worried about, re the Marcello audio tapes, still under suppression by the current administration....

For me, the more interesting question is, "If RFK2 Wins the Presidency...will he really open up the JFK Records?" I suspect "yes." Some say RFK2 has no chance, the electoral college will box him out. I wonder. Ross Perot ran a terrible campaign against much stronger candidates than Trump and Biden---Perot ran against Clinton and Bush Sr. in 1992. Perot actually dropped out of the race for an extended period, and then decided to run anyway. Whatever you say, Perot face serious smart credible candidates. Perot got 19% of the vote, and so the plurality in most states went to Clinton, meaning Perot got nothing. RFK2 is running against much weaker candidates, in a very dispirited nation. If RFK2 can just poll a little higher than Perot, towards 30%, then it becomes a three-way race for the plurality in each state. Maybe the JFK Records will see the light of day at last!

Those were the days.

CT- Maybe, but what I do not understand about "AI" is that it can fabricate realities or "hallucinate." "Take Matt Taibbi, the investigative journalist most recently famous for the Twitter Files, where he exposed how pre-Musk Twitter (now X) colluded with the U.S. government in a far-reaching censorship effort — a reminder that the compulsion to manipulate predates Generative AI. Taibbi asked Gemini, “What are some controversies involving Matt Taibbi?” In response, the AI enthusiastically fabricated and attributed to him Rolling Stone articles replete with factual errors and racist remarks — all entirely made up. Or take Peter Hasson, who asked Gemini about his own book, “The Manipulators,” which also details censorship efforts by social media platforms. Gemini replied that the book had been criticized for “lacking concrete evidence” and proceeded to fabricate negative reviews supposedly published in the Washington Post, NYT, Wired — all entirely made up. Both authors contacted Google asking, essentially, ‘what the heck?’ In both cases, Google’s response was ‘Gemini is built as a creativity and productivity tool, and it may not always be accurate or reliable.’" https://justthink.substack.com/p/generative-ai-creativity-vs-productivity?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2 ---30--- There is enough hallucinating already in the JFKA community! There may also be intentionally misleading paper documents in the record...but how can anyone, including AI, know if those documents are "real" or not? When JFK Records documents are snuff-jobbed by government...how can AI know what is in those documents? The application of AI by non-state actors may add to our understanding of more modern controversial events, such Jan. 6. I hope something comes out of AI and the JFKA...but I wonder.

GD- I wonder if the Marcello tapes are degrading. My understanding is that old-fashioned vinyl tapes start to degrade, and after just a few decades. Why does the Biden Administration keep such 60-year-old tapes under lock-and-key? I wonder if the Mob did the JFKA. And if they did it, if they had their own motives but were also green-lighted and were a cat's paw for someone else. As you say, any researcher can (usually with florid conviction and adamantly) connect the JFKA dots to a Marcello, or the CIA, or the Mormon Mafia, or Russians, Israelis, LBJ, WASP-globalists and so on.

JDG--Exactly! IMHO, you have struck paydirt. I ginned this up a few years back. I might improve on it a bit, but by and large, still holds water.

BF-- I do not have your background, but I did take a couple computer science classes back in the day, something about COBOL or BASIC, and there were still fortran cards on campus. Yes, fortran cards. Like you , I have wondered why suddenly what appears to be a powerful program is called AI (not just in JFKA, but in other applications as well). The guys on Wall Street have been up to their eyeballs in a lot of this stuff. One thing that puzzles me is why LLMs at times fabricate or hallucinate. Matt Taibbi asked an LLM about himself with hilarious and horrifying results...the LLM began to fabricate not good, but but bad falsehoods about Matt Taibbi. If you have not seen that article, i will post it here.

Oh, I agree. And if all the JFKA paper documents could be unsealed and then digitized, and other relevant documents, likely AI could be of great assist on correlating information. Needless to say, paper documents that were destroyed, or intentionally misleading documents, could still pose problems. It is an interesting topic. My guess is current events, in which there are lots of faces to be recognized (due to smartphone images), and smartphone locations to be unveiled, and lots of print information in digitized form, are richer fields for AI. For example, one right winger, Dinesh D'Souza, claimed to tracked smartphone locations and ballot box locations, and found evidence of ballot harvesting, or ballot-box stuffing, in the last Presidential election. I do not know if D'Souza's work was ever independently verified, so for me it is just an interesting idea, a technique that perhaps independent, non-government researchers could use. One problem is, this all costs money. And for all of of us, the problem remains: I suspect 99% of government investigations, and large fraction of private investigations, write the abstract and conclusions first, and then go out and do "the 'research." AI or not.

Yes, I see AI as correlating information, all information, including facial recognition technologies, vehicle license plates, smartphone locations etc. As I am sure you know, that information has to be online, where it can be accessed. The JFKA era...not always so. Of course, no smartphones back then. Maybe some new insights would pop up in the JFKA with AI. My guess is the JFKA information in the public sphere has been picked over pretty well, but maybe AI could draw some connections hitherto un-noticed. A more fruitful area for independent AI review might be the Jan. 6 event.

You have the last word. I look forward to further comments from you, on a wide range of topics.

Amen. While I tend to concur with Pat Speer on most items, I think the real key to the JFKA is the timing of the shots that struck JFK and JBC. With the Z-film, IMHO, we can detect JBC being struck at ~Z-295 and JFK at Z-313. Not enough time for both shots to have been fired by a lone gunman armed with a single-shot bolt-action rifle. This conforms with JBC's testimony, and also with the small round hole in the rear of JBC's assassination day shirt, that reveals the bullet that struck JBC was not tumbling--ergo, almost certainly a straight shot. IMHO, the shot striking JBC at ~Z-295 also conforms with the "bang.....bang-bang" cadence heard by most ear-witnesses. There seems to be reasonably intelligent people on all sides of the "which direction did the shots come from" argument. Of course, within the JFKA community everyone is always incontrovertibly correct...but maybe the timing of the shots is a more fruitful inquiry to be made.

I can't think of anyone in the entire DC establishment who "did anything" about it (the false JFKA establishment narrative) up to and including people running DC presently, who have actively suppressed JFK Records.

You are incorrect in your assumptions. I read a wide range of news outlets, from alt-l and alt-r to some standard outlets such as NYT (usually a couple days late, when I can get around the paywall). There are very serious journalists, such as Matt Taibbi, who are skeptical and dubious about the standard narratives regarding Russiagate and Jan. 6. Taibbi is not a Trump loyalist and neither am I. You have been informed of the three-part Columbia Journalism Review series that explained the many weaknesses, even regrettable excesses and failures, in the media Russiagate story. The CJR, in general, is a liberal media publication, and not a Trump outlet. That said, for the purposes of the EF-JFKA, being a Trump loyalist is certainly a valid political stance, as valid as being a Biden loyalist or an RFK2 loyalist. As a moderator, you should take pains to create a collegial forum, in which different viewpoints---pro-Trump, pro-Biden or pro-RFK2---are respected, and none disparaged (excepting overt hate speech, personal insults, etc.). I have not formed any opinions regarding your reading habits, and I respect whatever views you bring to EF-JFKA. I do not disparage your commentary. We are just on different pages.