John McAdams has passed on

[James DiEugenio]

Hank:

Please.  In this day and age, to say the WR is not speculative?  What are you going to say: its factual? 

How? 

What is your proof that LHO was in the window at the proper time?

What is your proof that anyone could do what the WC said Oswald did?

What is your proof that CE 399 was on Connally's stretcher?

How could you possibly get CE 399 into evidence in court?

How could a bullet from behind leave a large avulsive would in the back of Kennedy's skull?

Where did the 6.5 mm fragment come from in 1968?

How does a bullet go from a right left trajectory, to a left right trajectory to exit Kennedy's skull?  And exit above and to the right of his right ear, and land in the front seat. Cut in half, with the base and tip landing there.  But the middle part left in the rear of the skull?

How did Oswald send a coupon and payment to Klein's in Chicago for the rifle, which arrived, was sorted, and then deposited in about one day--a distance of  a thousand miles.  When Oliver Stone did that experiment, it took six days.  And recall, back then--no zip codes, no computers, no sensors. 

Note I used the word proof at the start.  Oswald had no lawyer to defend him or raise these questions.  Therefore, there was no standard that the WC had to meet.  This is why they never had to answer these questions.

 

Edited April 21, 2021 by James DiEugenio

[Hank Sienzant]

On 4/18/2021 at 10:12 PM, James DiEugenio said:

Take a look at who this guy is and what he does:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Uscinski

Can TP be serious with this approach?  

 

The logical fallacy of poisoning the well. 

That's where you don't rebut the claims, but say something you believe derogatory about the person. 

https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Poisoning-the-Well

== QUOTE ==

Poisoning the Well

(also known as: discrediting, smear tactics, appeal to ethos [form of])

Description: To commit a preemptive ad hominem (abusive) attack against an opponent.  That is, to prime the audience with adverse information about the opponent from the start, in an attempt to make your claim more acceptable or discount the credibility of your opponent’s claim.

Logical Form:

Adverse information (be it true or false) about person 1 is presented.

Therefore, the claim(s) of person 1 will be false.

== UNQUOTE ==

Can you be serious with your approach of utilizing a logical fallacy to rebut arguments that haven't been presented yet?

All the best,

Hank

[Richard Booth]

2 minutes ago, James DiEugenio said:

How did Oswald send a coupon and payment to Klein's in Chicago for the rifle, which arrived, was sorted, and then deposited in about one day--a distance of  a thousand miles.  When Oliver Stone did that experiment, it took six days.  And recall, back then--no zip codes, no computers, no sensors. 

And the postal money order that supposedly paid for the rifle was never deposited. No bank stamps on the money order. Then there are other suspicious details concerning that money order including the serial number on it and when it had to have been issued compared to when it was supposed to have been used. Then you have the fact that the person who comes forward with the money order is the wrong person. It's some guy at the National Archives. If I send a money order to someone, it would receive banking stamps on it when it passed through the banking system and was deposited, and it most certainly would not magically transfer itself out of the hands of the bank and into the hands of someone at the national archives.

Arguing with these people is a waste of time, Jim.

[Hank Sienzant]

On 4/19/2021 at 3:13 AM, Cliff Varnell said:

The Lone Nut is a cult.  It requires a true belief impervious to obvious fact.

Begging the question logical fallacy. 

Your assertions are not evidence.  

One obvious fact is that the rifle shipped to Oswald's PO Box was found on the sixth floor shortly after the assassination. Do you dispute that obvious fact? 

[Richard Booth]

4 minutes ago, Hank Sienzant said:

The logical fallacy of poisoning the well. 

That's where you don't rebut the claims, but say something you believe derogatory about the person. 

https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Poisoning-the-Well

== QUOTE ==

Poisoning the Well

(also known as: discrediting, smear tactics, appeal to ethos [form of])

Description: To commit a preemptive ad hominem (abusive) attack against an opponent.  That is, to prime the audience with adverse information about the opponent from the start, in an attempt to make your claim more acceptable or discount the credibility of your opponent’s claim.

Logical Form:

Adverse information (be it true or false) about person 1 is presented.

Therefore, the claim(s) of person 1 will be false.

== UNQUOTE ==

Can you be serious with your approach of utilizing a logical fallacy to rebut arguments that haven't been presented yet?

All the best,

Hank

Ah, the good ole' "McAdams Special" as I like to call it.

Deign your opponent a crackpot buff and move along. If your opponent brings up the facts again, deem it a "factoid" and move along. 

[James DiEugenio]

Hank, let me repeat my questions which you did not reply to, instead you quote something I wrote about Uscinski. And then you say I am not responding with facts.  

Please.  In this day and age, to say the WR is not speculative?  What are you going to say: its factual? 

How? 

What is your proof that LHO was in the window at the proper time?

What is your proof that anyone could do what the WC said Oswald did?

What is your proof that CE 399 was on Connally's stretcher?

How could you possibly get CE 399 into evidence in court?

How could a bullet from behind leave a large avulsive would in the back of Kennedy's skull?

Where did the 6.5 mm fragment come from in 1968?

How does a bullet go from a right left trajectory, to a left right trajectory to exit Kennedy's skull?  And exit above and to the right of his right ear, and land in the front seat. Cut in half, with the base and tip landing there.  But the middle part left in the rear of the skull?

How did Oswald send a coupon and payment to Klein's in Chicago for the rifle, which arrived, was sorted, and then deposited in about one day--a distance of  thousand miles.  When Oliver Stone did that experiment, it took six days.  And recall, back then--no zip codes, no computers, no sensors. 

Note I used the word proof at the start.  Oswald had no lawyer to defend him or raise these questions.  Therefore, there was no standard that the WC had to meet.  This is why they never had to answer these questions.

 

[James DiEugenio]

Hank actually wrote this:

One obvious fact is that the rifle shipped to Oswald's PO Box was found on the sixth floor shortly after the assassination. Do you dispute that obvious fact? 

First, its the wrong rifle.  

Second, no one ever recalled LHO picking up any rifle. 

In fact, according to USPS rules he could not have done so since the order was not in his name.

Hank is in the Von Pein/Litwin school.

[Hank Sienzant]

On 4/19/2021 at 11:29 AM, W. Niederhut said:

I'm talking about formal logic and the philosophy of science, not propaganda or public opinion.

Contrary facts absolutely invalidate theories.  A valid theory must provide a logical explanatory framework for the facts.  It is invalidated by any contrary fact.

Hence, as I said, it is far easier to invalidate scientific/forensic theories than to validate them.

The "Lone Nut" theory of the JFK assassination has absolutely been invalidated by many contrary facts.  Period.

JFK was not murdered by shots fired solely by a lone assassin in the TSBD.

Well, then JFK wasn't shot and killed at all. Because there is no theory that explains all the eyewitness and earwitness testimony and incorporates all the hard evidence. Some people heard no shots, some heard only one, two, three, and on up. No theory can reconcile disparate and contradictory earwitnesses testimony like that. But by far the most common number mentioned was three. 

Some witnesses thought the first two shots were closer together, others thought the last two were. You cannot reconcile those facts because they are mutually exclusive. 

Some witnesses thought all the shots came from the knoll. Some thought all the shots came from the depository. If you're going to credit both those groups as being right, then no solution is possible, because those groups are mutually contradictory. 

Either you admit that some evidence points in the wrong direction or we're not getting anyplace. 

Ball in your court.

Once you admit some evidence points in the wrong direction, we can begin to discuss which evidence should be discarded and why. But if you seriously think a solution to a crime has to reconcile all the testimony, or it can be discarded, you're absolutely wrong. That is never the case. 

All the best,

Hank

[Hank Sienzant]

On 4/19/2021 at 3:16 PM, W. Niederhut said:

Nonsense.  What I said is definitional-- a tautology.

By definition, valid theories are frameworks for explaining all of the known facts.

If a scientific/forensic theory is contradicted by facts it is not valid, by definition.

The "Lone Nut" theory is contradicted by numerous facts-- everything from the wounds and ballistics to the obvious retrograde trajectory of JFK's head during the fatal shot.

The FBI's own ballistics tests showed that a fatal head shot fired from the TSBD would have blown off the right side of JFK's face.

The people still believe the WCR's Lone Nut theory are simply misinformed about the facts.

 

 

Not to belabor the point, but the solution of a crime will always - always - have loose ends because witnesses are human and make mistakes. So you get a witness who says "A" and another witness who says "Not A". 

The solution to the crime is to rely on the hard evidence, not the witnesses. 

And to object to another point of yours, you state " the obvious retrograde trajectory of JFK's head during the fatal shot".

That is false. There is no obvious retrograde trajectory of JFK's head *during* the fatal shot. In fact, as David Lifton learned from Nobel Prize winning physicist Richard Feynman (see Lifton's tome), the bullet moves the head forward during the fatal shot. The President's head moves backward starting with Z315, about a ninth of a second after the bullet that struck him in the head left his head. Travelling at 2400/feet per second, the bullet could have travelled over 250 feet if not stopped by something else. Momentum is imparted upon contact, not a ninth of a second later. Your argument there is false. 

All the best,

Hank

[Hank Sienzant]

On 4/19/2021 at 4:55 PM, Eddy Bainbridge said:

I don't think someone who genuinely admired a great man would prod a group of people who disagree that the man was great, into criticising him so soon after his passing. 

It takes someone with a big ego and no compassion to do that. I hope that you, Mr Parnell, might reflect on this behaviour and apologise to Mr McAdam's family. 

So coming to McAdams defense "prods" others into attacking him, making the one who comes to someone's defense the guilty party here. 

Wow.

Through the looking glass, I guess. Black is white, and white is black. 

Right, Eddy? 

Is that your final answer? 

All the best,

Hank

[James DiEugenio]

The evidence with which the WR used to incriminate Oswald had a very big problem with it:

It was not challenged under standard adversary procedure.   Stanley Marks was a lawyer.  In his two books, Murder Most Foul and Two Days of Infamy, he illuminates this problem continuously. In the latter, he writes that the public did not comprehend this at all when the WR was issued.  And he adds that when Clay Shaw's lawyers tried to get the Commission evidence into court, the three judge panel would not accept it on those grounds. (See pp. 1-3)

All of the central tenets of the WR have been shown for decades to be dubious at best.  As time has gone on, some of them have been shown to be spurious.  In police investigator language, the core evidence in a homicide case is usually considered the ballistics and the autopsy.  As I noted above, you cannot even prove Oswald ever ordered and accepted that rifle for delivery. 

As far as the autopsy goes, it is very clear today that Specter understood what his job was. This is why he never called the Newmans, Sibert and O'Neill, and Burkley.  They would have all been devastating to the case he was trying to make.

The perfect illustration that Specter was conducting a cover up is what happened to Finck on the stand at Shaw's trial. Night and day.  That cross examination broke open the case as to what happened at Bethesda. (BTW in his review of the trial Litwin never discusses this issue.  Incredible.)

Kennedy's back wound and skull wound were not dissected.  In a high profile murder by gunshot wound case? Henry Lee was shocked at how bad the autopsy was.  He said that in about 70 per cent of the cases he takes on, he can pretty much do his criminalist job--that is measure all the elements and come to a conclusion that will help the police solve the case.  In about 15 per cent, he can make a strong recommendation. In only a small percentage can he do nothing.

He said that was the case with JFK.  The underlying materials were so shoddy that he could not make any real determination.  This from the man who is probably the leading criminalist in America.

 

Edited April 21, 2021 by James DiEugenio

[Hank Sienzant]

On 4/19/2021 at 8:39 PM, Cliff Varnell said:

6.5mm Full Metal Jacket rounds don't leave shallow wounds in soft tissue.

Oswald had an unchallenged alibi as recorded by FBI SA James Hosty -- he'd gone  outside to watch the P. parade.

Like I said, this is a tutorial not a debate.

May I remind you that Oswald said in the hallway, when asked where he was during the assassination, said he was in the building, because he worked in the building? 

== QUOTE ==

1st REPORTER : Did you kill the President?

LEE HARVEY OSWALD : No, sir, I didn't. People keep -- [crosstalk ] Sir?

1st REPORTER : Did you shoot the President?

LEE HARVEY OSWALD : I work in that building.

1st REPORTER : Were you in the building at the time?

LEE HARVEY OSWALD : Naturally, if I work in that building, yes, sir

== UNQUOTE ==

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/oswald/etc/script.html

This tutorial, is it designed to expose that Oswald lied about his whereabouts during the shooting? 

Just curious.

Hank

[W. Niederhut]

23 minutes ago, Hank Sienzant said:

Not to belabor the point, but the solution of a crime will always - always - have loose ends because witnesses are human and make mistakes. So you get a witness who says "A" and another witness who says "Not A". 

The solution to the crime is to rely on the hard evidence, not the witnesses. 

And to object to another point of yours, you state " the obvious retrograde trajectory of JFK's head during the fatal shot".

That is false. There is no obvious retrograde trajectory of JFK's head *during* the fatal shot. In fact, as David Lifton learned from Nobel Prize winning physicist Richard Feynman (see Lifton's tome), the bullet moves the head forward during the fatal shot. The President's head moves backward starting with Z315, about a ninth of a second after the bullet that struck him in the head left his head. Travelling at 2400/feet per second, the bullet could have travelled over 250 feet if not stopped by something else. Momentum is imparted upon contact, not a ninth of a second later. Your argument there is false. 

All the best,

Hank

This is pure bunk, Hank, and I say this as a former physics tutor of undergraduates at Brown University in the 70s.

The retrograde trajectory of JFK's head and occipital skull fragments during the fatal head shot is obvious from the Zapruder film.  In fact, an occipital skull fragment hit one of the cops riding behind the limo, as I recall.  

This is basic Newtonian physics.  The fatal shot that knocked JFK's head violently backward and to his left could not possibly have been fired from the TSBD.   The CIA paid some yo-yo to publish a pseudo-scientific article claiming that the retrograde motion of the skull was secondary to de-cerebrate posturing-- but that is nonsense.  The retrograde motion was instantaneous on impact-- caused by the momentum of a bullet fired from the Grassy Knoll area to the front and right of the limo.

Edited April 21, 2021 by W. Niederhut

[James DiEugenio]

Before Hank replies with the tole DVP?McAdams well, his head bobbed forward before it went back, Josiah Thompson has brought that into serious question today.

Through the work of Dave Wimp, and we have posted that on this board at two points.

 

Edited April 21, 2021 by James DiEugenio

[Cliff Varnell]

19 hours ago, Chris Barnard said:

I have seen your concise and to the point proof a few times and it’s very hard for anyone to argue there wasn’t a conspiracy regarding the shirt hole and wound. Plus all those witnessed at Parkland. 

Even though bullets do some peculiar things and theoretical physics can explain some strange things, there is no way one bullet caused all those wounds, and ends up in tact. If you had no Oswald, and gave that case to any impartial detectives, ballistic experts or forensics, there is no way they come up with that scenario, its pure fantasy. 

I read the HSCA transcripts (I think) on the shell fish toxins and weapon used to fire them. I am still very much on the fence about whether a) Some high tech stuff was used b) Bullets were removed pre-autopsy (I know that argument rages).

On the fence is the place to be, Chris.  There are arguments on both sides.

Quote

I certainly can’t explain where the seemingly low calibre round that went in the throat has gone. Could the shallow back round have been retrieved? Could there still be some lead in JFK? Or mercury? 
 

I still think that Alek Hidell YouTube South Knoll simulation is the best scenario I have seen. I keep thinking why the low calibre round and if it was the ice bullet or shellfish toxin, what is the effectiveness and accuracy of a round like that at 100 yards?

From the 1975 Church Committee testimony of William Colby, Director of the CIA.

Church: 
Have you brought with you some of those devices which would have enabled the CIA to use this poison for killing people? 

Colby: 
We have indeed. 

Church: 
Does this pistol fire the dart? 

Colby: 
Yes it does, Mr. Chairman. The round thing at the top is obviously the sight; the rest of it is what is practically a normal .45, although it is a special. However, it works by electricity. There is a battery in the handle, and it fires a small dart. [self-propelled, like a rocket.]

Church: 
So that when it fires, it fires silently? 

Colby: 
Almost silently; yes. 

Church: 
What range does it have? 

Colby: 
One hundred meters, I believe; about 100 yards, 100 meters. 

Quote

 

I think that’s the distance to the south knoll bushes, possibly slightly further for the throat shot as it was a little higher up the road. If that came from the grassy knoll, then why the windscreen hole?

I don't know what to make of the t&t windshield defect.  I can't imagine anyone planning to put a bullet into the windshield.

My best guess -- errant shot from a nervous shooter.

Quote

This is what makes it so intriguing. 

Do you have a theory on what kind of weaponry and where it came from for the throat shot? Was it off target or was it to subdue.

JFK appears to be paralyzed after the throat shot.  What's the simplest explanation for someone acting paralyzed?

Quote

Is that over-elaborate or necessary to subdue him when a skilled marksman could just have taken him out in one go at that range.

No matter how skilled and cold-blooded these shooters had to have been, it's another level of tension when the target is the US President. 

What if the first shot only wounds the target and he ducks down?

Scorpion logic -- paralyze the prey first.

Edited April 21, 2021 by Cliff Varnell