Michael Griffith

In other words, Greenwald drags his partisan politics into the JFK case. Gee, who was president from 2008-2016? What was his name again? I'm fairly certain he was a liberal Democrat named Barack Obama, right? And, umm, who had huge majorities in Congress from 2008-2010? Did Greenwald sharply criticize Obama and the 2008-2010 Congressional Democrats for doing absolutely nothing to release those JFK assassination records? I think that's ridiculous.

Good for Senator Klobuchar. I wish she had gained more traction in the Democratic presidential primaries in 2020.

Thanks for the info. Just to give you some idea of prices on Kindle books, Dr. Mantik's new book JFK Assassination Paradoxes and Monika Wiesak's new book America's Last President both sell for under $10 as Kindle books, even though both are hundreds of pages long (and Mantik's book includes numerous graphics as well). Based on the excellent content in the free Kindle preview of the book that I just read, I hope the book sells really well and gets wide distribution. I'm just afraid that $19.95 will lose the book quite a few would-be buyers.

Larry, if you know John Hunt, you might tell him that he should consider lowering the price. $19.95 is rather high for a Kindle book. Also, he should consider putting it on Kobo and Smashwords as well. Anyway, the book looks excellent. I just finished reading the free Kindle sample of the book. I'll add it as a recommended book on my RFK assassination website.

Exactly. Hardway and Lopez were and are convinced that Oswald did go to Mexico City, but that he did not visit the Cuban Embassy or the Soviet Consulate. Richard Case Nagell was adamant that Oswald went to Mexico City because Nagell met up with him there. Also, it's highly doubtful that the "Oswald" who called the Soviet Consulate was the real Oswald, since the man spoke atrocious, barely intelligible Russian.

I don't see what's "extreme" about that belief. It is the standard Catholic-Protestant teaching about gender. Well into the 1960s, it was the belief accepted by the majority of Americans. Nor do I see how holding this belief imposes it on other people's lives. As I've said, my Christian church teaches something a bit different from this. It teaches that gender is a part of our eternal identity but that we were born male and female as spirits in our pre-mortal life, and that our gender is based on the gender with which we were born as spirits before we came to Earth. Now, as for the topic of this thread, I think the evidence is indisputable that a sizable and vocal minority of Republicans in the 1960s held radical views about JFK, i.e., viewed him as a traitor, as a willing communist sympathizer (if not an actual communist), as dangerously inept in foreign policy, as weak on national defense (a wholly unfounded charge), and as a socialist in dealing with the economy and the budget (a very odd charge given his tax-cut proposal, his farm policy, his monetary policy, and his conservative approach to the budget).

My religious belief is that God does not decide the gender of a child because each person's gender is a part of his or her eternal identity. In my church's teaching, a child is born a male because he was a male in heaven before he was born on Earth. I had a son who dabbled for about two years with transgenderism. He decided he wanted to be, or that he really was, a female. He changed his name and began taking gender-transition hormones. After about two years, he decided he was making a big mistake, stopped taking the hormone prescription, halted his transition, and returned to acknowledging his birth gender.

Not in the least bit, at least not to me. The lone-gunman theory does not call into question the validity of our form of government and does not cause us to doubt our intelligence agencies, our law enforcement agencies, and our news media. The conspiracy theory does all of these things.

This is one reason that I find it so very odd, if not bizarre, that WC apologists claim that many people embrace the conspiracy view of JFK's death to avoid facing the supposedly deeply disturbing implications of the lone-gunman theory. This turns reality on its head. I would truly love to believe that JFK was killed by a lone, disturbed assassin, and that there was no conspiracy of any kind behind his death. That would be a comforting thing to believe. The idea that JFK was killed by some lone nut is far less disturbing than the idea that a powerful, high-level conspiracy murdered him in a public execution and then launched an extensive cover-up.

For many years, I regarded JFK's handling of the Bay of Pigs as cowardly and shameful, even for a number of years after I came to believe he'd been killed by a conspiracy. Many, if not most, conservatives still feel this way. This is one of the first things that most conservatives will mention to support their claim that JFK was weak and timid in dealing with communism.

Oliver was actually very well educated, but that didn't prevent him from turning into a radical, fringe right-winger. He was a professor of classics and languages at the University of Illinois. He was one of the founders of National Review. But, starting in the '60s, he became increasingly radical and fringe. William F. Buckley parted ways with him in 1964 over an article he wrote about the JFK assassination. Oliver proved to be so radical that he got kicked out of the John Birch Society in 1966 after claiming that the world would be a better place if all Jews were "vaporized." In the last years of his life, his rabid anti-Semitism even led him to reject his long-time belief in Christianity. He concluded that Christianity was a Jewish plot and part of his imaginary worldwide Jewish conspiracy.

The "somehow" is that Biden is a liberal Democrat and most of our news networks are dominated by liberal "journalists." Just compare their coverage of Biden with their coverage of Joe Manchin. Even though Manchin's voting record is about 70% liberal, most liberals view him as a traitor and a closet Republican. The folks who wear "tolerance and inclusion" on their sleeves and lecture everyone else about being "tolerant and inclusive" are very intolerant and biased toward anyone who disagrees with them.

If this is true, then one wonders why the CIA and the FBI have so fiercely objected to releasing all the files. On most JFK-case issues, I find Litwin to be a dogmatic, unconvincing WC apologist. I find it incredible that he still denies that Oswald worked with Banister, Ferrie, and Shaw. However, I agree with Litwin on many historical issues and enjoy and agree with most of his posts in the USMB's History subforum. It's too bad he has such a gaping blind spot when it comes to the JFK case.

The FBI was monitoring news stories out of Dallas from 11/22/63 onward for quite some time. Memos and files don't always tell the whole story, and sometimes they tell a false story. I find it hard to believe that the FBI and others in the cover-up "missed" the Dallas newspaper and TV stories about the Tague curb shot. I suspect they tried to avoid generating any paperwork on it, and to avoid acknowledging it, for as long as possible. I am not disputing that the perceived timing problem of the non-fatal hits on JFK and JBC appears to have played the driving role in the formation of the SBT, but I also suspect that at least a few folks knew about Tague's wounding early on and that this may have also played a role.

Harold Weisberg documented that the Tague curb shot was known and reported much earlier than June 5: As we have seen, Tague's wounding . . . and the fresh "hole," "scar," or "mark" as it was variously referred to, was known immediately and reported immediately, first by the police and the sheriff, and during the next two days by the newspapers and TV. (Never Again, pp. 505-506; cf. pp. 454-463)

One of the first things I realized a few years after I began to study the JFK case was that "professional historians" are frequently uninformed and unreliable--and very biased.

This is good exposure, since Fox News has the largest audience of any of the cable TV networks. Bravo to Tucker Carlson for having you on. I'm sure that Tucker's stance is distressing to fellow Fox News analyst Sean Hannity. Hannity is a decent and sincere neocon, but he swallows the lone-gunman myth hook, line, and sinker. I still can't believe that Fox lets Mark Fuhrman have his own show on Fox Nation. I get that people can repent and change and turn over new leaves in life, and perhaps Fuhrman has done so. However, he's never publicly admitted and apologized for his brutalization of certain black suspects when he was with the LAPD, nor has he confessed to planting evidence in the OJ Simpson case. I think Fuhrman should have done some serious jail time for his crimes, and I would never even consider giving him his own show until he confessed his crimes.

Good for them. Perhaps they were emboldened by Tucker Carlson's pro-conspiracy primetime monologue a few days ago. Whatever the case, the more media figures who speak out, the better.

David Lifton uncovered a great deal of crucial evidence, and for that alone he deserves great praise. I think Doug Horne has the better of the argument regarding when the pre-autopsy surgery was done, but Lifton deserves high praise for making the first case for pre-autopsy tampering. Lifton also merits high praise for developing the evidence of a casket switch, of multiple caskets, and of a decoy ambulance.

I'm not at all surprised that The American Conservative (commonly called TAC) would publish this article. TAC is a right-of-center journal that rejects neo-conservatism and embraces the original American principle of non-intervention in foreign affairs. TAC was sharply critical of George W. Bush's foreign policy. I don't always agree with TAC's articles, but I respect TAC as a serious and thoughtful political journal.

Joe, Allow me to humbly suggest that you lower the price of the Kindle version of your book. $30 for a Kindle book is unusually high. To give you some idea of a standard price, Dr. Mantik's new book, JFK Assassination Paradoxes, which is very long and contains numerous photos and graphics, sells for only $9.76 as a Kindle book. Monica Wiesak's new book, America's Last President, which is over 300 pages long, sells for only $8.99 as a Kindle book. Anyway, I read the sizable free Kindle preview of your book on Amazon and was very impressed with it. Judging from the segment I read, your book appears to be an excellent, informative work on the media's poor and harmful handling of the JFK case.

Napolitano is no doctrinaire right-winger, and I've always regarded him as a straight shooter. He's much more of a libertarian than a Republican. He attacked several of Trump's foreign policy moves as unconstitutional. However, as you probably know, he was fired by FoxNews after multiple allegations of sexual misconduct. I'm curious about your comment regarding the "defamation of LBJ." LBJ was an utterly, thoroughly corrupt man and politician, and there is evidence that suggests he had advance knowledge of the assassination.

Well, I think you are way, way off base here. I honestly can't fathom what you are looking at in the skull x-rays and head photos. First of all, the overlapping bone does not cover the area that is occupied by the white patch. This isn't even a close call. And, good grief, if the overlapping bone corresponds with the red flap above the ear, how in the world can you believe that it constitutes the white patch? Have you replied to Dr. Mantik's response to your critique. Here is some of what he says therein: Does the overlapping bone (on the lateral X-ray) explain the “White Patch”? No, it does not—nor could it even do so in principle. First, these are two distinctly different areas, as should be obvious from the right lateral X-ray—the White Patch is much more posterior than the overlap area. See my image of the White Patch in [i]Assassination Science[/i] 1998, p. 160, or slide 5 in my Dallas lecture, or my Figure 5 just below. . . . In my Figure 2, I have identified the external auditory canal, which Speer ignores; that structural feature clearly locates the external ear—without any ambiguity. Speer also ignores the evidence of the AP X-ray (my Figure 1). Notice there how the wing lies far out in space, quite detached from the skull. On the other hand, if the wing had extended far posteriorly (as Speer wants to believe), then some part of it would be seen much more medially in the AP X-ray, but it is not there. This argument is so powerful that little else need be said. But there is more. Second, the ODs of these two areas are quite different: on the right lateral X-ray, the mean OD of the white patch (0.625 ±.055) is almost the same as the petrous bone (0.55), whereas a typical OD (1.33) for the overlap site is noticeably higher (than the White Patch), and it does not appear nearly so white to the eye. That visible difference is dramatically obvious in Figure 5 (especially on the right sided image). Speer claims that the White Patch was caused by three overlapping layers of bone. Despite his unrelenting caricature to the contrary, I have always accepted three layers of bone at the overlap site, although I have never emphasized this because no one (before Speer) had offered such a novel explanation for the White Patch. Incidentally, the three layers of overlapping bone should be obvious to anyone after viewing the AP X-ray (an image that Speer overlooks). He also argues that, because the ARRB experts (p. 10 and also Chapter 19b, pp. 26-27) noticed such bone overlap, they therefore support his conclusion that the overlap explains the White Patch. But that is simply absurd. . . . Third, the White Patch is so dense that whatever physical object it represents must appear somewhere on the AP X-ray film. I made this argument from the very beginning, even at our first press conference in New York City (1993). That transcript is reproduced in [i]Assassination Science[/i] 1998 (p. 155) and warrants a quote here: On the frontal [AP] X-ray, such an extremely dense [physical] object should have been as visible as a tyrannosaurus rex in downtown Manhattan at noon. However, when I looked at the frontal X-ray, there was no such beast to be seen. No one has even tried to explain this paradox. Even worse, Speer seems oblivious to it. Let’s next focus on the OD issues for overlapping bone, a quantitative exercise that Speer totally neglects. For these JFK skull X-rays, here are the pertinent OD changes (∆ODs) across various layers of bone: one layer = 0.45; two layers = 0.90; three layers = 1.35. The difference for one layer is easily measured at fracture lines; amazingly enough, Speer believes that I ignore these fracture lines (p. 9). If an extra bone layer truly explained the White Patch, then sites just outside the White Patch should yield ODs that are higher by about 0.45 (one layer). But that is not the case—on the contrary, the ODs suggest a difference of more than just one layer of bone. Of special interest is the OD over the occiput, at the very back of the skull (very close to the White Patch), where the bone is viewed tangentially: the data there suggest a ∆OD (compared to the White Patch) of not just more than one layer, but actually about two bone layers (i.e., it is much less white). In other words, the White Patch is truly an anomaly (much too white and with ODs that are far too low). It cannot possibly arise simply from overlapping bone. On the other hand, of course, a deliberate superposition of this area in the dark room could easily explain this paradox. That the ODs of the White Patch and the petrous bone are not nearly so identical (to one another) on the left lateral X-ray should also raise some doubt that not all is well in OD land. Now recall that three layers of bone yield a ∆OD of 1.35. Since the measured OD (cited above) in the overlap area is already 1.33, the OD without the three layers of bone would be 1.35 + 1.33 = 2.68. The ODs in the maxillary sinuses (mostly air) are 2.89, so this value of 2.68 clearly suggests substantial missing brain in the overlap area. But the site in question (medial to the overlapping bone on the lateral X-ray) lies near the middle of the brain, where the autopsy photographs show no missing brain tissue! ([url=https://themantikview.org/pdf/Speer_Critique.pdf]https://themantikview.org/pdf/Speer_Critique.pdf[/url])

It should be added that some of the 1/6 rioters were not Trump supporters but were leftist agitators dressed as Trump supporters. Although they were wearing pro-Trump buttons, hats, etc., they stood out like a sore thumb and many Trump supporters who were near them suspected they were not who they were pretending to be. Anyway, all this being said, and taking due notice of the presence of FBI informants, this does not in any way excuse the conduct of those Trump supporters who took part in the storming of the Capitol. Their actions were inexcusable, and I have no problem with their being prosecuted (although I think some of the sentences that have been handed down have been excessive).

This stuff is at least several decades behind the informative curve. It is surprising to see anyone who claims to be a serious student of the assassination repeating the myth that Oswald was any kind of a radical leftist. And the case against Oswald in the Walker shooting is downright pathetic and flimsy. Walker's own description of the bullet that was fired at him contradicts the claim that Oswald fired at him.