Fred's Flim-Flam Written by Matt Douthit at Kennedys & King with an Afterword by James DiEugenio- powerful!

[Joe Bauer]

James Humes testimony to the ARRB in 1996 regards JFK's brain not being weighed during the 11,22/23/1963 Bethesda autopsy.

 

 

Page 74

Q. I'd like to ask you some questions about this. First, was this document, Exhibit 1, in your possession at any point during which you were writing the autopsy protocol?
A. Probably. Probably was. Over the weekend, yeah.
Q. I'd like to draw your attention to a few items on the first page of this document. Right next to the marking for brain, there's no entry of a weight there. Do you see that on the document?
A. Yes, I see that it's blank, yeah.
Q. Why is there no weight for the brain there?
A. I don't know. I don't really--can't really recall why.
Q. Was the fresh brain weighed?
A. I don't recall. I don't recall. It's as simple as that.
Q. Would it be standard practice for a gunshot wound in the head to have the brain weighed?
A. Yeah, we weigh it with gunshot wound or

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Page 75

no. Normally we weigh the brain when we remove it. I can't recall why--I don't know, one, whether it was weighed or not, or, two, why it doesn't show here. I have no explanation for that.

[Guest]

Hi

Edited February 15, 2023 by Lance Payette

[Tom Gram]

6 hours ago, Lance Payette said:

Well said, but I think it's hopeless. You'll note that in Jim's own flim-flam thread, he once again mischaracterizes my legal career and expresses dark doubts about who I really am (as well as Fred, again). I hardly think I could've been more up-front about who I am.

Ad hominems I don't mind since I am far from innocent myself. I do object to flat misstatements of fact, especially repetitions of them after they have been corrected once, and particularly this absurd tactic of suggesting people "aren't who they say they are." Jim seems prone to both.

Yesterday, in a post that accused me of maliciousness, the poster added that I was a "just a snake oil salesman here to disrupt" and quite possibly "mentally ill." I don't think he saw the irony. The same poster accused me of "stalking" for daring to visit someone's profile and pointing out that he had posted no biography.

The forum is a caricature of what it used to be and is supposed to be. (AND IT'S ALL LANCE'S FAULT!!!) All internet forums are 90% lunacy, but this one is theoretically supposed to be different. I can only blame the moderators, who seem incapable of dealing with issues even when they are reported. I see the forum as being on its last legs, but hopefully I'm wrong.

Just a thought, but if more people on this forum focused on contributing original  research instead of whining and complaining about other members, we might actually get something done. When I find something new that’s really interesting I post it at ROKC because they actually do that sort of thing. It’s fun to hang out here cause it’s a lot more active, but it’s a little discouraging when the front page is 9 threads worth of glorified b!tch!ng about each other. 

I don’t really see much of a difference between Litwin et al. telling people not to believe anything Jim D. says because he’s an “agenda driven huckster” or a potential “Russian disinfo agent” with any combination of the words “embarrassing”, “disgraceful”, or “moronic” thrown in for good measure, and Jim telling people not to believe Litwin because he can’t prove he was formerly a liberal and that he once believed in a conspiracy to assassinate JFK. It’s just different ways of saying that the other person can’t be trusted, so I don’t really see what the big deal is. Litwin’s blog is an ad hominem extravaganza targeted pretty much exclusively at Jim D., so is Jim’s afterword really that surprising?

That said, there’s plenty of stuff Jim says that I don’t agree with, and I don’t agree with using ad hominem attacks to dissuade people from reading someone’s book, or from watching someone’s documentary, etc. Litwin’s arguments, and Jim’s, should be evaluated on merit, but the whole thing has spiraled into a ridiculous internet feud so it can be tricky for people to stay objective and not take sides. 

I will say this though: some of Litwin’s conclusions are just as idiotic as the stuff he accuses Jim of doing. For just one example, Litwin actually says on his blog, unequivocally, that Mary Brengel was not a believable witness. Certain details in Brengel’s statements did change over the years, which is a normal consequence of aging memory, but her overall story was remarkably consistent over thirty years of statements to Garrison, the HSCA, and the ARRB. I was pretty surprised at this one, and it shows that Litwin is completely willing to distort obvious facts in his crusade to prove that Jim D. distorts facts. 

[Guest]

On 2/13/2023 at 3:15 PM, Tom Gram said:

Just a thought, but if more people on this forum focused on contributing original  research instead of whining and complaining about other members, we might actually get something done. When I find something new that’s really interesting I post it at ROKC because they actually do that sort of thing. It’s fun to hang out here cause it’s a lot more active, but it’s a little discouraging when the front page is 9 threads worth of glorified b!tch!ng about each other. 

Bye

Edited February 15, 2023 by Lance Payette

[Gerry Down]

1 hour ago, Tom Gram said:

I will say this though: some of Litwin’s conclusions are just as idiotic as the stuff he accuses Jim of doing. For just one example, Litwin actually says on his blog, unequivocally, that Mary Brengel was not a believable witness. Certain details in Brengel’s statements did change over the years, which is a normal consequence of aging memory, but her overall story was remarkably consistent over thirty years of statements to Garrison, the HSCA, and the ARRB. I was pretty surprised at this one, and it shows that Litwin is completely willing to distort obvious facts in his crusade to prove that Jim D. distorts facts. 

I've read Litwins article on Mary Brengel. Brengel never mentions Oswald at all in relation to Banisters office except in an article years later in which she says Delphine Roberts once told her that LHO had been in the office. But this mention of Oswald is missing in all her other accounts. That raises concern that she is just adding in this detail now years later in order to make herself more relevant for the article. 

If anything, Brengels account is suggestive Oswald was not in Banisters office at all. Only David Ferrie was there.

[Gerry Down]

29 minutes ago, Lance Payette said:

I agree, but is it realistic to think most participants here are willing and able to do anything resembling research? When I've undertaken and posted genuine research, the results aren't worth the effort - little to no substantive response and an immediate devolution into non sequiturs, slings and arrows, and obvious attempts at derailing. Three days later, the thread is buried by YouTube videos and rehashes of the same old, same old CT points, as though no one had ever heard them before. What did I accomplish? Why did I bother?

I don't see the point of 90% of the threads here. How many YouTube videos and rehashes of the same old CT points do we need? Limit it to serious substantive discussion, however, and it will soon be a very dead place with four posts a day.

I appreciate your threads and have found them very useful for my research.

We could do without threads by others posting videos of Lee Bowers and so on as though that is "new" info worthy of a brand new thread on the forum.

[Tom Gram]

1 hour ago, Lance Payette said:

I agree, but is it realistic to think most participants here are willing and able to do anything resembling research? When I've undertaken and posted genuine research, the results aren't worth the effort - little to no substantive response and an immediate devolution into non sequiturs, slings and arrows, and obvious attempts at derailing. Three days later, the thread is buried by YouTube videos and rehashes of the same old, same old CT points, as though no one had ever heard them before. What did I accomplish? Why did I bother?

I don't see the point of 90% of the threads here. How many YouTube videos and rehashes of the same old CT points do we need? Limit it to serious substantive discussion, however, and it will soon be a very dead place with four posts a day.

Let's face it: Most participants, here as at ROKC, want a CT echo chamber. Those representing the Lone Nut explanation are unwelcome intruders and always will be. It's essentially a quasi-religious war. If I weren't my own best audience and didn't enjoy exercising my brain and writing skills just for the sake of exercising them, my participation here would be entirely pointless. ("AND IT IS!" screeches the peanut gallery.)

Apart from actual research, the best I see that I can offer are occasional factual tidbits that others may not know and efforts to point out others' illogical thinking and misrepresentations of evidence. The latter efforts, of course, are seldom welcome. Do I kid myself that any of it makes any difference? Hell, no.

I really don't think there's any hope. The psychology and dynamics of internet forums are among my longstanding interests. All forums are just too disparate a mix of participants in terms of age, intelligence, education, emotional maturity, psychological fitness, ego and subject matter knowledge to expect anything different.

Realistically, I'd probably just limit participation to CTers, as has been suggested before. That's what's really wanted. (On the other hand, I've participated on several Christian forums where all participants theoretically shared the same statement of faith - and they were no different!)

I think I've just talked myself into self-banning again, or at least cutting way back. This is definitely not a better, healthier and more worthwhile place than it was the last time I departed. I have better things to do than beat my head against the wall and be told I'm offending the wall.

I appreciated your HTLINGUAL post - though your implication that Malcolm Blunt of all people is an agenda driven huckster was just downright ridiculous. Maybe you’ll get a better response if you tone down the rhetoric a bit - but I understand your frustration with posting research because I’ve experienced the same thing.

Also, ROKC is definitely conspiracy-oriented, but it’s hardly a CT echo chamber. They just have little tolerance for obvious bull$h!t and LNs and CTs wasting time trying to debunk each other instead of studying the actual evidence. If you were to post there and discuss the case in good faith and not just whine about conspiracy logic all the time you’d be welcome with open arms. Hell you’ve even been invited. You say you go on internet forums to exercise your brain and writing skills, so what better way to do that than to debate Greg Parker on his own website? There have been several highly entertaining and informative Doudna-Parker debates, and I think a lot of people would be interested in seeing a Payette v. Parker thread too. 

Check out Alex Wilson’s recent comment on the Litwin-DiEugenio feud to get an idea of some of the attitudes over there. The site is either down right now or my internet is crap so I can’t post the direct link but it’s the first thread up in the “Debunked” forum. 

[Guest]

On 2/13/2023 at 5:54 PM, Tom Gram said:

I appreciated your HTLINGUAL post - though your implication that Malcolm Blunt of all people is an agenda driven huckster was just downright ridiculous.

Hi

Edited February 15, 2023 by Lance Payette

[Pat Speer]

18 hours ago, Lance Payette said:

I think I said that about Morley and Newman and perhaps Jim D. rather than Blunt. "Agenda-driven hucksters" may have been unduly harsh, but I do think these characters are making a living out of creating "mysteries" where there really are none. I'm working on something along those lines now.

IMO, they are specialists in overwhelming people with so much detail, so many names, acronyms and numbers, that the average person is just going to assume they know what they're talking about and there is indeed some deep mystery. When I decide to explore some tiny aspect now and again, as I've done with Harvey & Lee, it doesn't hold up to scrutiny. Hence, I view their entire body of work more skeptically than the typical CTer, which isn't to say there is no value in it.

I also think it's fair to say that implicating the CIA in the JFKA has become an "agenda" that isn't entirely related to the JFKA. The Mafia angle, for one, is worthy of far more discussion than it gets.

I am forced to agree. When I began my deep dive into dark politics I noticed all the connections between the CIA and the Bush family etc, and took from this that there was a master plot that only a few were privy to--a New American Century and all that. One of the eye-openers as I remember was an op-ed piece by Brent Scowcroft, criticizing Dubya's invasion of Iraq. It seemed obvious the piece was written with Bush 41's approval. This led me to doubt my hypothesis there was some master plan  and that the Bush family was all acting in accordance with said plan.

When I later got sucked into studying the JFKA medical evidence, I discovered similar situations, in which individuals one would think were part of a plot said things they wouldn't have said if they were part of a plot. 

This led me to realize that the truth is much more nebulous than bad guys fib/good guys tell truth. I think the key to studying this case, and understanding the world, for that matter, is to realize that most everyone thinks they are on the right side of history...and doing the right thing. 

Let's take Dr. Humes. While I have little doubt he concealed certain facts and probably fibbed about others, it seems quite clear he was uncomfortable telling the whopping fibs necessary to sell the single-assassin conclusion. When he showed up to be interviewed by the ARRB, for example, he gave them the "talking points" supplied him by the justice dept. in preparation for his interview by Dan Rather. He could have just said they asked to interview him and he said yes and that he told the the truth, etc. But no, he gave the ARRB the talking points so historians would know his responses to Rather had been scripted by the justice dept. 

P.S. To be clear, I don't consider Jeff, John or Jim "Hucksters." While I think Jeff and Jim will exaggerate certain aspects of the evidence to fit their bias, I don't think they are motivated by money, or fame, or anything like that. As far as John Newman, I think Lance should take a closer look. I have spoken with John for hours, mostly about religion. He is not interested in blaming the CIA for our problems. In fact, his research has taken a turn over the past few years where he has begun to suspect the CIA was used as a patsy by the military. So, no, John is not an anti-CIA "huckster" if that's what Lance was claiming. 

Edited February 14, 2023 by Pat Speer

[Ron Bulman]

8 minutes ago, Pat Speer said:

I am forced to agree. When I began my deep dive into dark politics I noticed all the connections between the CIA and the Bush family etc, and took from this that there was a master plot that only a few were privy to--a New American Century and all that. One of the eye-openers as I remember was an op-ed piece by Brent Scowcroft, criticizing Dubya's invasion of Iraq. It seemed obvious the piece was written with Bush 41's approval. 

When I later got sucked into studying the JFKA medical evidence, I discovered similar situations, in which individuals one would think were part of a plot said things they wouldn't have said if they were part of a plot. 

This led me to realize that the truth is much more nebulous than bad guys fib/good guys tell truth. I think the key to studying this case, and understanding the world, for that matter, is to realize that most everyone thinks they are on the right side of history...and doing the right thing. 

Let's take Dr. Humes. While I have little doubt he concealed certain facts and probably fibbed about others, it seems quite clear he was uncomfortable telling the whopping fibs necessary to sell the single-assassin conclusion. When he showed up to be interviewed by the HSCA, for example, he gave them the "talking points" supplied him by the justice dept. in preparation for his interview by Dan Rather. He could have just said they asked to interview him and he said yes and that he told the the truth, etc. But no, he gave the ARRB the talking points so historians would know his responses to Rather had been scripted by the justice dept. 

Fibs, touché!

[Andrew Prutsok]

On 2/12/2023 at 1:20 AM, David Von Pein said:

And I still wonder WHY CTers refuse to admit this fact:

John Connally HIMSELF could not possibly have KNOWN FOR CERTAIN whether he was hit by the same bullet that struck JFK due to the fact that Gov. Connally DID NOT SEE John Kennedy at the point in time when Kennedy was first struck.

Therefore, based on his own personal observations, how can John Connally KNOW that the SBT is untrue. He can't. He couldn't. And he didn't.

I don't yet recall speaking to a single conspiracy advocate who will admit to the fact I just outlined in the above paragraph. Why is that?

~strokes chin in bewilderment~

Another Fact:

Governor John B. Connally's anti-SBT stance was derived almost totally from his wife Nellie's adamant anti-SBT opinions. And I don't see how anyone can possibly argue otherwise.

 

No it doesn't.

The all caps thing does not make this more convincing.

[W. Tracy Parnell]

13 hours ago, Lance Payette said:

IMO, they are specialists in overwhelming people with so much detail, so many names, acronyms and numbers, that the average person is just going to assume they know what they're talking about and there is indeed some deep mystery.

This is exactly the situation regarding Morley and the media. There are articles available by myself, Litwin, Myers and others that cast doubt on his various claims if they would take the time to look into it. But they don't because it is too much work and a story about an "Oswald operation" is too good to pass up.

[David Von Pein]

12 hours ago, Andrew Prutsok said:

The all caps thing does not make this more convincing.

I disagree (in this instance). Because the three things I put in ALL CAPS are absolute FACTS that (for some mysterious reason) almost all CTers just glide right past and ignore entirely.....as if John Connally HAD actually SEEN the President at the proper "SBT" timeframe and did KNOW FOR CERTAIN that the SBT was pure bunk. But neither of those things are true, and never were true.

So why do CTers continue to use John Connally as the perfect anti-SBT witness when he's really just the opposite?

 

Edited February 14, 2023 by David Von Pein

[Kirk Gallaway]

14 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

I am forced to agree. When I began my deep dive into dark politics I noticed all the connections between the CIA and the Bush family etc, and took from this that there was a master plot that only a few were privy to--a New American Century and all that. One of the eye-openers as I remember was an op-ed piece by Brent Scowcroft, criticizing Dubya's invasion of Iraq. It seemed obvious the piece was written with Bush 41's approval. 

When I later got sucked into studying the JFKA medical evidence, I discovered similar situations, in which individuals one would think were part of a plot said things they wouldn't have said if they were part of a plot. 

This led me to realize that the truth is much more nebulous than bad guys fib/good guys tell truth. I think the key to studying this case, and understanding the world, for that matter, is to realize that most everyone thinks they are on the right side of history...and doing the right thing. 

Let's take Dr. Humes. While I have little doubt he concealed certain facts and probably fibbed about others, it seems quite clear he was uncomfortable telling the whopping fibs necessary to sell the single-assassin conclusion. When he showed up to be interviewed by the HSCA, for example, he gave them the "talking points" supplied him by the justice dept. in preparation for his interview by Dan Rather. He could have just said they asked to interview him and he said yes and that he told the the truth, etc. But no, he gave the ARRB the talking points so historians would know his responses to Rather had been scripted by the justice dept. 

Good points, Pat, Lance

There's definitely there's an agenda driven narrative here.

 

I would say I'm like the majority of CTers here, but where I probably differ, is that  I think only in a plurality of possible suspects for who killed JFK, the CIA is the most likely, but what gave that a boost for me is that it  was reinforced  in the 70's when it was established the CIA and Mafia, my second suspicion were in cahoots. But over the years, I haven't sought to  continually  to reinforce that narrative, as the forum does, but to look for evidence against it. I think it was a small group of people, and I certainly don't buy a huge international conspiracy.

 

While there are  some really good new researchers, driven by solving puzzles with a sincere effort at getting at the truth.

Unfortunately the CIA connection has been a disaster, in that there's  a broader group, aided by authors who have also invested a lot of emotions in some cases for a lot of years that it all started 60 years ago, when we lost our democracy to the NSS and Military Industrial complex and they've passed on this control generation to generation to generation through their secret societies, and some "institutional memory" , to have now created a hidden shadow government, where absolutely nothing is as it seems.

 

Just how this was done, no one can ever say.

 

But now on top of that, it's become a parody within itself here, in that we have a new Trump or if not Trump, a social media induced, (using links and video clips as a currency),  component of a new  "conspiracy woke" who think the "deep state" is completely controlling our lives. They can literally get away with anything, and have,  and we'll  never ever know about any of  it, just like the JFKA. Every conspiracy that they've ever postulated that came to nothing was just further evidence of the inscrutability, and invincibility of the "Deep State."

 

 It's completely hopeless, you might as well not even get out of  bed in the morning. Thank God for the forum, because of the forum, you don't even need to, and testament to that is the countless hours they spend here. It goes from young into middle age , but it's become similar to the early 70's Who song. Teenage Wasteland.(Barbara O Reilly) but about conspiracies..

 

They're completely ADHD, unable to sustain a dialog or stay focused on any train of thought. Lots of allegations, never thought out in any detail. Unable to answer any detailed questions about their theories. To use a football analogy they're like a quarterback in the pocket, nervously scrambling because they rightfully fear  how easily their position can be undermined.

 

But they're actually given encouragement by some of the elders here, because they think they are nurturing skeptical thought.

But there's no  crisis of skeptical thought here! It's a JFK assassination conspiracy forum for chrissake!. Your not doing anything productive for their lives but to further make them waste hours of their lives going down to rabbit holes.

JMO

 

 

 

 

[Pat Speer]

4 hours ago, David Von Pein said:

I disagree (in this instance). Because the three things I put in ALL CAPS are absolute FACTS that (for some mysterious reason) almost all CTers just glide right past and ignore entirely.....as if John Connally HAD actually SEEN the President at the proper "SBT" timeframe and did KNOW FOR CERTAIN that the SBT was pure bunk. But neither of those things are true, and never were true.

So why do CTers continue to use John Connally as the perfect anti-SBT witness when he's really just the opposite?

 

Let's back up. The problem is not that Connally is an imperfect witness. I think most would agree with that. But you made out that his statements supported the SBT, when they do not.