"He said that if you knew what I know, you wouldn't tell people either. Which is crazy. What does that mean?"Joe Rogan asked Tucker Carlson, toward the end of a 3-hour conversation. Carlson answered:
Well, that's his position on the UAP thing as well. Yeah, actually. And that's a lot of people's position on it. I mean, you know, Trump is saying: Of course, the CIA had knowledge of it. That is known. I mean, I mean, the whole thing, it's so funny. There's so many levels and there's so much I don't understand. But the whole JFK conspiracy industry, and it really is an industry, more books written on that than almost any historical topic is filled with wackos. Right? There are a lot of wackos in there. But that fact obscures the larger fact, which is the facts themselves tell an unbelievable story. And so whatever, I could get into it at great length.
But, yeah, yeah, they're still classifying documents 61 years later. Both Trump and Joe Biden have, in violation of my read of federal law, kept those documents secret. There's no living person connected to the Kennedy assassination. It was a couple generations ago. There's no one person whose secrets are being protected. It's an institution. Or maybe countries, there may have been countries involved, too. I mean, I don't know the answer, but there's clearly something worth protecting...
I spoke to someone who'd seen the documents two years ago, and I got one fact out of him, which is, yes, the CIA was involved. And by CIA, CIA is a huge organization. But James Jesus Angleton, the head of the operations directorate, had knowledge of this, which I think is well known. But that's the view of someone who saw the documents. So I thought that was news. So I went on tv and said that the next day, I'll never forget it, I went quail hunting, and I was driving back and I got a phone call from Mike Pompeo's lawyer. Mike Pompeo was the secretary of state, but before then, he was the director of the CIA. And in that position, he plotted the murder of Julian Assange. So he is a criminal as far as I'm concerned. But his lawyer called me and said, you know, you should know that anyone who tells you the contents of classified documents has committed a crime. He's threatening me, is in my car. I'll never — with my dog sitting next to me — I'll never forget this. And I said, are you really saying that to reveal that the US government had a role in the murder of a democratically elected president, to say that out loud, that's the crime.
What about the actual crime, which is murdering a president? Like, you're covering up for that. Mike Pompeo, he had no response at all. And so Mike Pompeo is the one who pressed Trump to keep those documents secret. And so it's like, what's crazy to me is not just that Pompeo did that. I think Pompeo is a really sinister person. And a criminal. I think that. I think that because the facts suggest that he was caught. Yahoo news Mike Isikoff wrote a long piece on this several years ago. His employees went to Mike Isakoff and said, hey, Mike Pompeo is plotting to murder Julian Assange, who has never even been charged with a crime in the United States as CIA director. That's illegal. You're not allowed. Federal employees are not allowed to just kill people they don't like. Okay, just to set the baseline here. So that's who Mike Pompeo is. But he somehow intimidated Trump into not releasing this. Well, okay, that's all bad, right? I think it's criminal behavior. What's crazy is how Mike Pompeo is treated. He's treated as, like a republican poobah in good standing. He fully expects to become the secretary of defense in a Trump administration, which is, like, completely insane....
Dang it, I've always been in the "Oswsld acted alone" camp!
Of course, saying that "the CIA was involved" is not the same as saying "the CIA planned" or "the CIA suborned." It could simply mean that Oswald was on their radar and they misread his readiness or ability to pull off the assassination, similar to what we do know about the 9/11 hijackers' pilot training and so on having raised red flags among lower level 3-letter agency members and higher-level people's having discounted their warnings, and they've covered up their prior knowledge because they don't want the blowback from having made that mistake.
I'd way rather find that that was the case than - well, the alternative. And it's an easy thing to have happen, erroneously judging how, when, and where a terrorist will act. Occam's Razor would totally allow it.
But... having now learned how deeply enmeshed parts of the government have been in social media, for instance, with the goal of steering public opinion and therefore election results and policy, can I rule out the active involvement in domestic assassination of an agency that was created to do things in the dark? The KGB absolutely did such things. The only thing preventing the CIA from acting exactly like the KGB would be the commitment of its leadership to Constitutional principles. And haven't we learned that our entrenched bureaucracies don't really have much of that?
Ugh. I'd rather be alive in an era of the potential for greater transparency than one of greater expectation of unearned trust, but that doesn't make it pleasant.
"JFK and the Unspeakable" by James Douglass. RFK Jr calls it the best book on the subject. Not having read everything on the subject I'll let RFK's anointment stand. It was a good read putting everything into context somrthing usually lacking in JFK assination books.
"[Trump] said that if you knew what I know, you wouldn't tell people either... What does that mean?"
Did Tucker answer the question? He talked a lot but he only circled around the question. He got very fixated on Pompeo, and he sets the scene and puts himself — my dog was sitting right next to me! — in the center of it.
Quite aside from whether Tucker answered the question, what's the answer to the question?!
Althouse, the answer to that question is essentially I could tell you but then I would have to kill you. You know, the old story about curiosity and the cat. There is no answer to that question by the nature in which it was phrased.
Tucker does make allusions to things without being specific. He does this a lot. But the overall picture he paints, I think, is mostly on target. I don't agree about the 'women and weak men' statement. He should know that there are plenty of strong women who would not put up with the shit, and would stand up to the 'evil' if confronted. I have a couple on my family. I'd have them by my side over any weak man, any day.
That said, I think a large chunk, possibly a majority of Americans understand that their government is no longer theirs. That it ceased being theirs years ago and with each election gets farther and farther from being a democratically elected and accountable government. It seems to have sped up since Obama's time in office, or maybe that's just my perception. But it's as if the curtain has been pulled back, and those running things do not care. They know they control the message, the power, the finances. They know there is little- aside from a mass rebellion- that the people can do about it.
So Americans at this point are sleepwalking into totalitarianism costumed as 'Democracy'. We see it in our media which touts, "Democracy dies in darkness' even as they censor key information and push false stories to meet their assigned duties. We see it all around us. And we walk around in a sort of ether, knowing what's happening, but not sure what to do about it.
Why wouldn't Trump — with all his unorthodoxy and nerve — release the documents?
Mostly because his administration, was just as orthodox as any other administration. The only unorthodoxy came from the reporting of the Administration actions
Trumps only unorthodoxy was ignoring the power players in DC.
I am interested in any official actions that were unorthodox. Knowing that Obama has set an extremely high bar for ignoring norms, during his third term.
Blogger Ann Althouse said... Why wouldn't Trump — with all his unorthodoxy and nerve — release the documents?
He was legally required to release the documents. Biden isn't releasing these documents either, so whatever the reason is, it crosses party lines.
I don't know. Maybe Trump had to show he would "play ball" on something.
I would imaging most of the attention paying American public realizes the JFK assassination was and inside job. The problem with releasing the documents, is EVERYTHING after that point is illegitimate.
It's also why even those in power who know Biden was installed via voter fraud...refuse to investigate voter fraud. If you have Presidents who were not legitimately elected, anything they sign is unconstitutional. They weren't granted the authority of the people to sign anything. Johnson and Biden are the best example. Ford too.
Also according to Tucker: After winning the biggest landslide re-election in American history, Nixon was taken out by the FBI and Bob Woodward. Deep throat was like in the top three at the FBI.
Who still believes we are a government of the people, by the people, and for the people"? That is now a delusion.
The CIA's modus operandi (which even follows their public job descriptions):
1. Hire case workers to develop relationships with foreign citizens and sympathizers 2. Place staff in embassy / military base locations. Collect information from contacts. 3. Share information and disinformation to guide or mislead other governments/organizations 4. Manipulate foreign politics to favor "US security, stability, and interests"
I'd be surprised if Oswald was not considered a key USSR contact and informer, and the CIA thought he was "their man" in fighting Communism. There have been plenty of double agent spies, as foreign allies and enemies change all the time and as many people spy for money or excitement (vs. patriotism or ethics). Their core motivation in hiding the details would be to protect their credibility and continue routine daily conduct (i.e., the ongoing 2024 deep state). Some nominal US "allies" would likely be horrified and/or not very friendly if it went public too.
See the state conduct portrayed in the Manchurian Candidate (film of 1962) and note that it was 'disappeared' for decades after the 1963 assassination. The US government was also involved with LSD/brainwashing in that era (see Timothy Leary and the Unibomber case). The current FBI, CIA, NSA, DHS, etc. actions are nothing new and we have never been allowed to see them. The public wasn't allowed to know about the CDC's 1932-1972 conscious nontreatment of black men with syphilis either.
Trump should promise to release the files if he's elected in November. Other things that need to be demanded of the intelligence community (mostly the FBI) are the names of all agents present at the 1/6/2021 riots; all information concerning Ray Epps; and all information regarding the possible retrieval of US Civil War gold bullion in Dents Run, PA in 2018. FBI Director Wray should have all of this information in his briefcase on Inauguration Day, along with his letter of resignation if he fails to bring these documents to the White House on Inauguration Day. If Wray fails to bring the documents, Trump as Commander-In-Chief should order the Marines into FBI headquarters to arrest all within and secure all data and documents.
I think Trump (if elected again) should declassify everything, as much as possible, as long as no one is endangered (I.e. present day espionage). Maybe choose a year and go backwards. Release all the Kennedy files. Release the MLK files. Release all the CIA files, and expose what they did in every country. Why should Trump protect the FBI and CIA? Why should he protect the reputations of government agencies, or Democrat heroes? What were the FBI files that the Clintons had at the White House? Etc. There’s no reason information should trickle out due to FOIA requests. Let it all come out, so we can see what our government was doing. Let them lose their credibility, so that we can purge these agencies and start over.
Why wouldn't Trump — with all his unorthodoxy and nerve — release the documents?
He was legally required to release the documents. Biden isn't releasing these documents either, so whatever the reason is, it crosses party lines.
If you haven't noticed Trump is not particularly political. He does not think of this in tribal terms and was never about one side winning or losing.
Trump solves problems. He is a business person.
Trump listens to the people he hires. He is an executive that out of 500+ business ventures hit bankruptcy less than 10 times.
Trump's primary failure was trusting Republicans like Mike Pompeo in Washington DC. Everyone who supports Trump recognizes this. There were some of us who have hated Republicans for a lot longer and saw this happening and called it out. I and others like me have been calling out the McCains and Romneys for a long time.
But right now we still support Trump and I believe we are gearing up for a revenge tour. Vivek is right and I believe Trump will end and combine entire agencies.
Republicans are the real problem here. This is not easy to see. For example there are however a small number of Republican voters who still managed to support Desantis despite the fact that he:
1. Graduated from Harvard 2. Became a JAG 3. Went into the House of Representatives in 2017-18 and helped Paul Ryan undermine Trump 4. Got elected Governor because of Trump 6. Said almost nothing about the persecution of Trump and obviously planned to benefit from it 7. Hired Mike Roe 8. Called most Republican voters Listless Vessels 9. Got record amounts of cash from the CoC/Club for Growth Republicans 10. Used it to attack Trump 11. Got exactly 0 counties in Iowa and ended his national political career
Desantis has every possible marker of being the next Romney/Pence/Pompeo/Barr and yet there is a small number of Republican voters who are actually butt hurt we will not support him.
Watching people claim "ooh, the CIA did it" and then claim Presidents are -legally- required to release the documents is amusing, but not actually intelligent. Besides which, the CIA would have had much better ammo to borrow from J Edgar Hoover if they really wanted to remove Kennedy over any lesser issue.
The whole argument is a red herring. The CIA had a lot to lose if any Democrat ever decided to avenge Kennedy, and would still have problems today. By contrast, the Dimona reactor is something Kennedy felt very strongly about to preserve NPT efforts. If Israel had shut it down, the survival of the nation would have been at stake. By contrast, by the time RFK was President, Israel wouldn't even care if the case was re-opened. "We can always sell your secrets to the Soviets and we have our own nukes now, so roll the dice."
I was never satisfied with the idea that the Cubans or the Mafia or ze Russians killed Kennedy. The clearest answer is the simplest: who are you absolutely not allowed to suggest killed him? There you go.
He doesn't know the answer. All he can do is speculate based on what he thinks he might know...which makes for an interesting and entertaining conversation on the podcast.
Maybe the answer is so boring nobody wants to hear it and many wouldn't believe it anyway so it's more useful and more fun for Trump to be coy.
I like Jamie's theory at 6:56AM: It could simply mean that Oswald was on their radar and they misread his readiness or ability to pull off the assassination
@Jamie: But... having now learned how deeply enmeshed parts of the government have been in social media, for instance, with the goal of steering public opinion and therefore election results and policy, can I rule out the active involvement in domestic assassination of an agency that was created to do things in the dark? The KGB absolutely did such things. The only thing preventing the CIA from acting exactly like the KGB would be the commitment of its leadership to Constitutional principles. And haven't we learned that our entrenched bureaucracies don't really have much of that?
Came here to say something like this, but Jamie has done it first and better than I could.
I went to high school with a guy who is a currently serving CIA officer. He was a straight arrow, smart, and patriotic. I hope he hasn’t been corrupted by the culture there. He still works in the field even though he’s approaching the end of his career. I hope that’s because the powers-that-be considered him too politically unreliable to stay in Washington to oversee their efforts as the Democrat Party’s Stasi secret-police force.
If the CIA were involved with the the assasination of an American president would they leave a paper trail and if so, would the information contained in such files be credible?
It doesn't make sense that we'd on the one hand accept that the CIA is so nefarious and duplicitious that they would commit such a heinous act and on the other hand accept their files as an accurate account of what ocurred
So, one reason for not releasing the CIA files is the belief that they are a red herring and wrongly implicate a person or a country.
A CIA report (here) notes that Oswald visited Mexico City in late September 1963 and had contact with the Cuban and Russian embassies.
What he told officials of those governments, so far as I know, is not publicly available. Whether those governments had advance notice of his intentions is unknown. What the CIA knew or might have known or what it told the FBI or other government departments appears to be unknown.
If the Cubans and Russians thought he was a nut and failed to take him seriously, they would have been terrified after Nov. 23 that the US might take severe military action against them.
If the CIA thought he was a nut and failed to take him seriously, that would be extremely embarassing and would have been something it would have wanted covered-up, much like US involvement in the creation of the Covid virus.
Oswald's visit to Mexico City has been much written about. Here's a Politico story.
"[Warren Commission] staff lawyer David Belin, who died in 1999, wrote in a little-publicized book that he came to believe that Oswald may have planned to head from Dallas back to Mexico by bus after the assassination because he had some promise of help from co-conspirators who were waiting on the Texas-Mexico border.
Belin’s theory, which he developed during his work on the commission, stemmed from his analysis of local bus schedules and of a bus transfer issued on the day of the assassination that was found in Oswald’s clothing. According to Belin, Oswald may have met with Cuban diplomats and others in Mexico City who saw the Kennedy administration as a mortal threat and who “promised financial and other support to Oswald if he was ever able to succeed” in killing the president. Belin said that, to his disappointment, there was no mention of his theory in the commission’s final report because, as he admitted, it was “pure speculation” that undermined Chief Justice Warren’s hopes to snuff out conspiracy allegations.
Belin’s theory would have made sense to another American official—diplomat Charles William Thomas, whose once-promising career was mysteriously derailed after he pressed colleagues in the U.S. embassy in Mexico to pursue unanswered questions about Oswald’s Mexico City trip. In late 1965, Thomas was told by a friend—a prominent Mexican writer, Elena Garro de Paz—that she had seen Oswald at a dance party during his visit to Mexico that was also attended by a Cuban diplomat who had spoken openly about his hope that someone would assassinate Kennedy. Thomas said he was also told that Oswald had a brief affair with a vivacious young Mexican woman, a committed Socialist, who worked in the Cuban consulate and who had introduced Oswald around town to other Castro supporters."
"who are you absolutely not allowed to suggest killed him?"
-JFK ordered it on himself due to his physical ailments and moral anguish over his repeated infidelity.
-Joe Dimaggio
-Elvis
-It's more than a little curious that presidents keep saying they will but never do release the info on both extraterrestrials and the Kennedy assassination. I'm not saying it was aliens but...
I really like the theory put across by the book Mortal Error. If this theory is true then I can totally understand why it’s still being kept under wraps.
Personally, I think Carlson has lost his mind. Using Isikoff as validation for loon claims is loony itself, as Isikoff was one of the major Russian collusion sponsors. Isikoff takes the claims of one or more anonymous leakers and turns it into accepted fact, although Isikoff's story even notes the Trump administration was perhaps more cognizant of legality than the late Obama administration. Carlson makes a number of claims about Pompeo, which are, at best, questionable. There could be any number of valid reasons for the government to not wish to reveal intelligence files from the Kennedy era although Carlson decides only one could be correct, that being the CIA took part on Kennedy's murder. I think Carlson has now morphed from "occasional libertarian silliness" to "outright nutcase".
I'm guessing it's most likely because we would all discover that "Protecting Our Democracy" has never meant what we thought it did - or rather, that the sentiment was never meant to imply that we were included as members or the 'Democracy', or belonged to it. Or rather, we belong to it, but not in the way we thought we did, as 'members'.
He is an executive that out of 500+ business ventures hit bankruptcy less than 10 times.
Yes, to add...I get frustrated by the equation of bankruptcy and failure by non-finance types. Yes bankruptcy is disruptive but it is part of the process that creates an organized and healthy system. Moreover, specific to real estate, it is more of a strategic tool than in other industries. We can argue about how healthy that is but in Trump's case it should not be assumed chapter reorganization is a marker of failure or incompetence, much as some would like it to be...
Achilles If you haven't noticed Trump is not particularly political. He does not think of this in tribal terms and was never about one side winning or losing.
Trump solves problems. He is a business person.
Trump listens to the people he hires. He is an executive that out of 500+ business ventures hit bankruptcy less than 10 times.
These are the facts that never make the equation, so never figure into the conclusion about anything Trump. Thus we are mired into pounding Trumps round actions, into the Star shaped hole of politics.
A great example is the Abrahams Accords. NEVER get any mention. Peace though trade is a huge successs. Thus exposing the State Dept as nothing but dilettantes.
All the left can do is pick up their own feces, and throw it at the crowd,
There’s speculation that one of the Secret Service agent mistakenly delivered the fatal shot, aiming for the assassin. That might be a motive for keeping the assassination documents secret. But what a terrible, horrible decision - if true. High time to declassify and publish all the documents.
Trump did this on a lot of issues. He'd say he was going to do X, and then Kushner or some subordinate talked him out of it. "wouldn't be prudent". I think if he's elected in November, he'll act differently. Placating the establishment got him (and us) nowhere.
As for why JFK files are still classified, I can think of three reasons:
1) Its bad for Israel; or 2) Its bad for the CIA; or 3) Castro/Cuba ordered JFK "hit" and LBJ and the establishment covered it up.
BTW, the CIA had someone "monitoring" Oswald. Why was his name redacted and kept secret for 50 years?
-The Israel angle comes up because of Jack Ruby and JFKs refusal to let Israel have nukes (reversed by LBJ). There are rumors that the Mossad was involved. Another angle is that Oswald became a Communist while in NYC. And the CPUSA was heavily Jewish.
- THe CIA angle comes up because someone in the CIA may have discovered Oswald was planning to assassinate JFK and for whatever reason didn't act on it, or pass it on to the secret service.
- The Cuba/castro angle comes up because LBJ/Establishment may have had direct concrete evidence that Castro was responsible for Oswald killing JFK and decided to cover it up, because they didn't want the Public to know. Had the USA public known in the 60s people would've demanded revenge. Even today, such a disclosure would have reprucussions for Cuba-USA relations since the Castro family still runs Cuba.
Jamie cites the most obvious answer: that the documents show that the FBI was watching Oswald but failed to stop him, and the files are being kept classified to protect the agency's reputation. I'm hard-pressed to think that a cabal of FBI agents wanted one year of LBJ serving out Kennedy's term so so much that they would risk their careers and personal freedom on a chaotic lunatic who could have blown their cover at any time before or after the assassination.
Trump didn't declassify because he saw no benefit to picking that particular internal fight. If it actually happened, Trump's response to the question was a joke; "if I told you I'd have to kill you."
I don't think Trump was legally required to release anything. There were laws in place *preventing* release before a certain date, but as far as I know they did not mandate release thereafter. Trump has authority to maintain classification.
The little green men from the UAPs had been collaborating with the CIA for years. They were helping the CIA spy on the Russians in exchange for help in abducting earth women. But the little green men wouldn’t allow humans to go to the moon, because space was their territory. So the CIA told NASA the moon landing would have to be faked. But the moon landing was Kennedy’s legacy, and he couldn’t accept faking it, so he had to go. The little green men made themselves invisible (of course they can do that; they have super-advanced technology) and killed Kennedy (they can also make bullets do weird things.) Then they helped Kubrick fake the moon landing. It all makes perfect sense.
Without going too deep into it, the cia executes a plot to make it look like someone making an attempt on the president’s life, only they mess it up and accidentally kill him instead.
Achilles is so right about Desantis. Club for Growth owns Florida. Marco Rubio should be radioactive, or squashed like a possum (sorry, Mr. O Possum). Squashed twice, because once never does the job (again sorry). Happily, Desantis does a fairly good job being a governor for Florida, though he set back real education reform for a good five to ten years with that bone-headed half-assed attempted coup to reform New College (which really needs reforming). That should have been as easy as shooting a Manatee in a barrel. Chris Rufo has zero political skills.
I also like Mr. O. Possum's points. He's right to point out the facts we do know about Soviet involvement with Oswald.
I'm a bit younger than 60. If I were to say to nearly anyone I know under, say, 70ish that Cuba and the Soviets at least indoctrinated or encouraged Oswald or that RFK's killer was a Palestinian nut, they would pee their yoga pants.
Keeping the files classified doesn't make any sense unless there is major institutional embarrassment involved- and those lists of institutions is limited to major U.S. political parties/historical figures, U.S. government agencies, and formal U.S. foreign allies.
I agree with Jamie. The involvement likely extends to the CIA knowing important details and then taking no action to warn the Secret Service and later covering up Oswald's links to the KBG and the Cuban DGI -- important details such as:
1) Oswald's attempted murder of Maj. General Edwin Walker
2) Oswald's visits to Soviet and Cuban embassies in Mexico City
3) Oswald's employment by the Texas School Book Depository
4) Ruth Paine, Marina Oswald's friend, knew much more than she several revealed to the Warren Commission, was a committed leftist, was suspected of passing classified information about Bell Helicopter to the KGB, and hosted known KGB operatives in her home who used it as a safe house where they interrogated Lee and Marina Oswald
5) the CIA officers assigned to watch and photograph comings and goings at the Soviet and Cuban embassies lied when they testified they missed photographing Oswald's visits
6) the instructions to lie about the CIA's knowledge regarding Oswald and his associates in Dallas came directly from J. J. Angleton, the Agency's chief of counterintelligence
I believe the CIA hid their knowledge regarding Oswald for four reasons, none of them legitimate:
1) to prevent some form of revenge-taking on the Soviets by the Johnson Administration
2) to prevent a thorough "house cleaning" at the CIA, which at the time was ineffective at countering the KGB, by the LBJ
3) to prevent Barry Goldwater from winning the presidency in 1964, who would have purged the arrogant and incompetent Yalies from the intelligence service
I generally agree with Jamie's comment. That said,
Blogger Ann Althouse said... "Why wouldn't Trump — with all his unorthodoxy and nerve — release the documents?
He was legally required to release the documents. Biden isn't releasing these documents either, so whatever the reason is, it crosses party lines."
LOL. Anyone hear of the Trump "Documents" case? His position is that as president he had plenary power to declassify any document as he saw fit. Evidently, the Intelligence Community disagrees and look where it put him.
He was legally required to release the documents. Biden isn't releasing these documents either, so whatever the reason is, it crosses party lines.
@Althouse, consequently the best guess is that there’s information in there that’s extremely embarrassing for multiple federal agencies. But it’s just a guess.
“So, one reason for not releasing the CIA files is the belief that they are a red herring and wrongly implicate a person or a country.”
Yes, why would anyone believe that the secret government documents are true, and not a time bomb placed in the record for a nefarious purpose. So declassification just completes a conspiracy to deceive.
The answer would be that if we look at the totality of information we may decern the truth. But still, no one will agree, and to the public the docs will be taken at face value.
Recommendation: Release them and let the chips fall, or freedom is damaged.
The reason the Abraham Accords don't get mentioned is because they seriously pissed off the Palestinians. Not, actually, so much the alliances themselves as that they happened without Palestinian input. The Palestinians demand to be in the loop about anything and everything concerning Israel. This is why they were likewise so pissed off when they demanded an end to Israeli settlements in Gaza in 2007 and the Israelis basically said, OK, we'll take out our ca. 7500 people and you'll have the place all to yourselves, complete with its marvelous Mediterranean coastline. And then did just that.
(There was some discussion at the time about whether the settlers would leave their properties intact on leaving. I have no idea how that turned out. Me, I'd've blown up with my own hands what I had built with those hands. No one else has the right to my labor, especially when taken under duress. But that's just me.)
That's not what Hamas wanted at all. They wanted endless negotiations and concessions and counter-concessions and counter-counter-concessions, and when they didn't get them they stalked off in a huff. This is about the time when "open-air prison" became common in news discourse. Though it will be remembered that Israel didn't have the only key to that prison, and on the Egyptian side there's the whole vast Sinai Peninsula.
“I don't agree about the 'women and weak men' statement. He should know that there are plenty of strong women who would not put up with the shit, and would stand up to the 'evil' if confronted.”
Given everything Americans have witnessed over almost a decade now… the approach taken… the corruption they don’t even bother to hide anymore… the weaponization of government institutions and the bureaucracy…
Do you really think they will allow Donald Trump to be re-elected? An argument can be made they’d sooner kill him.
Jamie said... Dang it, I've always been in the "Oswsld acted alone" camp!
Of course, saying that "the CIA was involved" is not the same as saying "the CIA planned" or "the CIA suborned." It could simply mean that Oswald was on their radar and they misread his readiness or ability to pull off the assassination...
Never really thought about it before, but maybe, maybe, Oswald was the CIA equivalent of the Whitmer kidnapping conspiracists. But somehow, at the end, someone or somebodies screwed up- and they weren't there to be heroes as they stopped Oswald...
But there are all kinds of possibilities. Made me think of Asimov's First Law of Robotics: A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. Change it to A robot may not injure a human being. Suppose that was the first law. A robot cannot strike a human being. Okay, yeah. A robot cannot drop a rock on human being. Well- maybe. The robot drops the rock, fully intending when the drop occurs, to stop it. But then, changes it's mind- and let's the rock hit the human. It's the inaction that harmed the human, not the action... He wrote a story about robots with modified laws with just that scenario. Maybe a plan was set into motion- with intentions to stop it....
“He was legally required to release the documents. Biden isn't releasing these documents either, so whatever the reason is, it crosses party lines.”
No, there is no legal requirement to release all the documents related to the assassination in unredacted form. Sections 6 and 9(d) of the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992 grant pretty broad discretion to the President to postpone release of documents or of particular information in documents to protect sources and methods.
Yes, as we've seen this weekend, there is still a national security consensus that crosses party lines.
This is all very confusing. I'm grateful to the lucid explanation that Smiling Jack offered at 10:09.....Some questions remain, however: If the Republican Party should include just Donald Trump and Marjorie Taylor Greene and exclude such covert deep state operatives like Michael Johnson, DeSantis, and Pence, how should this party go about winning any elections anywhere beside rural Idaho.....I'm not all that enthusiastic about Assange and Snowden. I don't think that they have our best interests in mind. They're the enemy of the intelligence community, but the enemy of your enemy is not your friend. Plus I'm not so sure that the intelligence community is our enemy as opposed to a group that sporadically fuck up and and are frequently hostile to right right wingers in America. They're not necessarily our friends but, by and large, I favor them over the Taliban and the KGB (or whatever they call themselves nowadays).
Carlson asserts that the Warren Commission never interviewed Jack Ruby. Is that true?
Mr. Shoot-Oswald-in-the-gut-on-live-TV Ruby. That shooting says "This is how far we will go if you breathe one word." Where "you" is anyone that knows something.
"'who are you absolutely not allowed to suggest killed him?
'Barack Obama?'
"Seriously, though, who? I honestly don't know who you mean."
LBJ?
I am not certain about any specific malefactor(s), but I do think the assassination of JFK was the result of an organized conspiracy by a number of people. Likely conspirators are those commonly named, (the Mafia, CIA, FBI via J. Edgar Hoover, and others unknown). Lee Harvey Oswald may have been the shooter, (or not), but if he was a (or THE) shooter, I don't believe he was the sole individual involved in the plotting and overall carrying out of the assassination.
"Both Trump and Joe Biden have, in violation of my read of federal law, kept those documents secret."
The actual law:
"Requires that each assassination record be publicly disclosed in full, and be available in the Collection no later than the date that is 25 years after the date of enactment of this Act, unless the President certifies that: (1) continued postponement is made necessary by an identifiable harm to the military defense, intelligence operations, law enforcement, or conduct of foreign relations; and (2) the identifiable harm is of such gravity that it outweighs the public interest in disclosure."
Carlson is wrong. And the Pompeo accusations all come from questionable, at best, sources, yet he cites them as known fact.
BTW, I share Carlson dislike of Pompeo. There's something very weird and offputting about these Killer-Clowns. Tucker says their delight in war and killing is due to a hole in their soul and an empty (or dysfunctional) private and family life.
Looking at the Neo-Cons, there's something to that.
If it were up to me, Trump would release everything about the JFK murder and all classified FBI and CIA files through 1975 and the State Department through 1975. A lot of caca will come out and some good stuff as well. I don't care who is exposed if they are wrong doers. Better to air out the dirty laundry and get the smell out than constantly putting Febreeze on them.
Famed prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi wrote the definitive book IMO about the assassination, "Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy". Along with his books about his prosecution of the Manson Family and OJ Simpson (the prosecutors were SO bad that OJ got away with a double murder), this book makes a clear and convincing case that Oswald acted alone. I don't recall if it addressed any secret connection between Oswald and the CIA or FBI, but the grassy knoll, the Oswald couldn't pull off that marksmanship, or any other wacko theories that have only a superficial chance of being supported by the facts -- he destroys those. A great read, about $17 on Audible.com.
Onassis was a friend of Jacqueline Kennedy, widow of U.S. President John F. Kennedy. They married on 20 October 1968 on Onassis's private Greek island, Skorpios.
Onassis offered Mrs. Kennedy US$3 million to replace her Kennedy trust fund, which she would lose because she was remarrying.[39] After Onassis's death, she would receive US$150,000 each year for the rest of her life. The whole marital contract was discussed with Ted Kennedy.[39] Onassis's daughter Christina made it clear that she disliked Jacqueline Onassis, and after Alexander Onassis's death, she convinced her father that Jacqueline had some kind of curse due to the assassinations of John and Robert F. Kennedy.[40] After Onassis's death, Christina settled with Jackie Onassis for $25 million in exchange for Jackie not contesting Onassis's will.[41]
During their marriage, the couple inhabited six residences: her 15-room apartment at 1040 Fifth Avenue in New York City, her horse farm in New Jersey, his Ave. Foch apartment in Paris (88 Avenue Foch), his house in Athens, his house on Skorpios (his private island in Greece), and his yacht Christina O.
Read "Final Judgement" by Michael Collins Piper and "Israel and the Bomb" by Avner Cohen. JFK's insistence to inspect Israel's secret nuclear weapons program was seen as a existential threat to Israel's existence. The Mossad, along with friends in the CIA, did what they thought they had to do. Why does James Jesus Angleton have a monument in Israel?
Read "Final Judgement" by Michael Collins Piper and "Israel and the Bomb" by Avner Cohen. JFK's insistence to inspect Israel's secret nuclear weapons program was seen as a existential threat to Israel's existence. The Mossad, along with friends in the CIA, did what they thought they had to do. Why does James Jesus Angleton have a monument in Israel?
I agree with what what mccullough said. It's just hard to accept that a deranged loser like Oswald could single-handedly assassinate a beloved president like Kennedy. Norman Mailer's novel Oswald's Tale sadly and reluctantly concludes that Oswald acted alone. I think this is the most likely explanation.
“Norman Mailer's novel Oswald's Tale sadly and reluctantly concludes that Oswald acted alone. I think this is the most likely explanation.”
Yes, the widely known Lone Gunman Theory. My 9 year-old mind was willing to go along with that theory. My dad was going along with it. Mom was going along with it. My older siblings all seemed to be going along with the theory. Until 2 days later when another lone gunman murdered the first lone gunman live on TV right before our own lying eyes.
For the next 5 years, LBJ with McNamara and the other “best and brightest” took the country deeper and deeper into a foreign war they had no intention of ending much less winning. But I’ve been told that that was all just a coincidence.
Releasing a classified file showing the FBI screwed up would damage the reputation of the then Head of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover.
Who hated Mr. Hoover for years, and years, and years? Oh right, the Leftwing and liberals. And the Democrats. And the media. Imagine the NYT's happiness if they could hang that on Hoover.
And the idea that Clinton/Biden/Obama would keep it secret because of their respect for J. Edgar Hoover is absurd. No, whoever is being protected is someone the Uniparty elite all admire. Thats either Israel or the CIA.
If you were the star of the most successful cable news program in the history of cable news, and the network which was making millions of dollars off you and was paying you millions of dollars decided to take you off the air, at the height of your popularity, while still paying you, and also decided to inexplicably pay hundreds of millions of dollars to "settle" a bogus "defamation" claim regarding allegations of questions regarding the reliability of voting machines...
...you might think that there could be some validity to "conspiracy" theories. You might not be ready to trust what you can't verify.
Angleton was the Mossad's man at CIA. And, not coincidentally, the mafia's. Meyer Lansky was a very, very good friend of Israel.
It was never a good idea to think you could create an organization with a mandate to break the laws of other countries, in order to achieve "our" goals, and that it would never break the laws of "our" country, in order to achieve what its members saw as those goals. Especially given that its actions were to remain secret. CIA was rogue from before the get-go. OSS was up to its ass in mafia in southern France, Corsica and Italy.
1. Why assume the CIA heads told each President the same story? And no matter what they were told, how could the Presidents independently verify if they were being told the truth? (Which makes Nixon’s statement to his CIA head more ominous - when he told Helms he knew who killed JFK, he was informing Helms that he knew the CIA was lying to him.) 2. There’s an interesting documentary on Amazon Prime (with ads): JFK: The Smoking Gun
I would not consider Joe Rogan an intellectual. But his conversations are intellectual. Why? Because he's bright enough and inquisitive enough and he takes his time. The long format allows his conversations to be smarter. This is the opposite of cable news and Twitter which regularly make smart people sound like fools.
Mark Groubert (filmmaker/journalist) has the most convincing story I think. LBJ was thoroughly corrupted in his hunger for power long before he became VP, and the CIA had aligned interests as well, with much at stake. There were still plenty of ex-OSS men in the CIA, left over from WWII and retaining that keenly-developed sense of ruthlessness that achieved unconditional surrenders from the Axis powers. The story Groubert tells is rich in some of the incidental detail, revealing the sentiments from LBJ and others: LBJ's insistence on a tour of his home turf, his angry rants when JFK wanted to change motorcade routing details and so on; or Curtis LeMay's arrogance, his offensive cigar smoking during the autopsy. It's a compelling story.
Add to that LBJ's abrupt and unwavering abandonment of a second Presidential term, and then Richard Nixon's subsequent rout in his second term - it kind of leads one to speculate that the intelligence services have been in charge of quite a bit, for some time. As Mr. Trump has found out.
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84 comments:
“Nice family you have there. Be a shame if something happened to them.”
That’s a crazy head of hair on Tucker.
Is there a straight answer in that reply, or any firm conclusion to be drawn? Sort of like listening to Harris ramble IMO.
Dang it, I've always been in the "Oswsld acted alone" camp!
Of course, saying that "the CIA was involved" is not the same as saying "the CIA planned" or "the CIA suborned." It could simply mean that Oswald was on their radar and they misread his readiness or ability to pull off the assassination, similar to what we do know about the 9/11 hijackers' pilot training and so on having raised red flags among lower level 3-letter agency members and higher-level people's having discounted their warnings, and they've covered up their prior knowledge because they don't want the blowback from having made that mistake.
I'd way rather find that that was the case than - well, the alternative. And it's an easy thing to have happen, erroneously judging how, when, and where a terrorist will act. Occam's Razor would totally allow it.
But... having now learned how deeply enmeshed parts of the government have been in social media, for instance, with the goal of steering public opinion and therefore election results and policy, can I rule out the active involvement in domestic assassination of an agency that was created to do things in the dark? The KGB absolutely did such things. The only thing preventing the CIA from acting exactly like the KGB would be the commitment of its leadership to Constitutional principles. And haven't we learned that our entrenched bureaucracies don't really have much of that?
Ugh. I'd rather be alive in an era of the potential for greater transparency than one of greater expectation of unearned trust, but that doesn't make it pleasant.
"JFK and the Unspeakable" by James Douglass. RFK Jr calls it the best book on the subject. Not having read everything on the subject I'll let RFK's anointment stand. It was a good read putting everything into context somrthing usually lacking in JFK assination books.
There's no living person connected to the Kennedy assassination.
Jackie’s Secret Service Agent, the guy that jumped on the back of the convertible after the shooting, is still alive.
The Govt likes to keep secrets. It's up to the citizens to decide if these are useful to know.
What Tucker said about Richard Nixon's removal, just before this, was pretty interesting too.
Mike Pompeo is a baddie. Good to know.
"[Trump] said that if you knew what I know, you wouldn't tell people either... What does that mean?"
Did Tucker answer the question? He talked a lot but he only circled around the question. He got very fixated on Pompeo, and he sets the scene and puts himself — my dog was sitting right next to me! — in the center of it.
Quite aside from whether Tucker answered the question, what's the answer to the question?!
Why wouldn't Trump — with all his unorthodoxy and nerve — release the documents?
He was legally required to release the documents. Biden isn't releasing these documents either, so whatever the reason is, it crosses party lines.
Mike Pompeo is plotting to murder Julian Assange
Bet the killed Andrew Breitbart too...
Althouse, the answer to that question is essentially I could tell you but then I would have to kill you. You know, the old story about curiosity and the cat. There is no answer to that question by the nature in which it was phrased.
Tucker does make allusions to things without being specific. He does this a lot. But the overall picture he paints, I think, is mostly on target.
I don't agree about the 'women and weak men' statement. He should know that there are plenty of strong women who would not put up with the shit, and would stand up to the 'evil' if confronted. I have a couple on my family. I'd have them by my side over any weak man, any day.
That said, I think a large chunk, possibly a majority of Americans understand that their government is no longer theirs. That it ceased being theirs years ago and with each election gets farther and farther from being a democratically elected and accountable government. It seems to have sped up since Obama's time in office, or maybe that's just my perception. But it's as if the curtain has been pulled back, and those running things do not care. They know they control the message, the power, the finances. They know there is little- aside from a mass rebellion- that the people can do about it.
So Americans at this point are sleepwalking into totalitarianism costumed as 'Democracy'. We see it in our media which touts, "Democracy dies in darkness' even as they censor key information and push false stories to meet their assigned duties. We see it all around us. And we walk around in a sort of ether, knowing what's happening, but not sure what to do about it.
In this, I think Tucker is absolutely correct.
“[Trump] said that if you knew what I know, you wouldn't tell people either.”
Tucker Carlson said that Donald Trump said that, but did Donald Trump say that?
Why wouldn't Trump — with all his unorthodoxy and nerve — release the documents?
Mostly because his administration, was just as orthodox as any other administration. The only unorthodoxy came from the reporting of the Administration actions
Trumps only unorthodoxy was ignoring the power players in DC.
I am interested in any official actions that were unorthodox. Knowing that Obama has set an extremely high bar for ignoring norms, during his third term.
Blogger Ann Althouse said...
Why wouldn't Trump — with all his unorthodoxy and nerve — release the documents?
He was legally required to release the documents. Biden isn't releasing these documents either, so whatever the reason is, it crosses party lines.
I don't know. Maybe Trump had to show he would "play ball" on something.
I would imaging most of the attention paying American public realizes the JFK assassination was and inside job. The problem with releasing the documents, is EVERYTHING after that point is illegitimate.
It's also why even those in power who know Biden was installed via voter fraud...refuse to investigate voter fraud. If you have Presidents who were not legitimately elected, anything they sign is unconstitutional. They weren't granted the authority of the people to sign anything. Johnson and Biden are the best example. Ford too.
Also according to Tucker: After winning the biggest landslide re-election in American history, Nixon was taken out by the FBI and Bob Woodward. Deep throat was like in the top three at the FBI.
Who still believes we are a government of the people, by the people, and for the people"? That is now a delusion.
The CIA's modus operandi (which even follows their public job descriptions):
1. Hire case workers to develop relationships with foreign citizens and sympathizers
2. Place staff in embassy / military base locations. Collect information from contacts.
3. Share information and disinformation to guide or mislead other governments/organizations
4. Manipulate foreign politics to favor "US security, stability, and interests"
I'd be surprised if Oswald was not considered a key USSR contact and informer, and the CIA thought he was "their man" in fighting Communism. There have been plenty of double agent spies, as foreign allies and enemies change all the time and as many people spy for money or excitement (vs. patriotism or ethics). Their core motivation in hiding the details would be to protect their credibility and continue routine daily conduct (i.e., the ongoing 2024 deep state). Some nominal US "allies" would likely be horrified and/or not very friendly if it went public too.
See the state conduct portrayed in the Manchurian Candidate (film of 1962) and note that it was 'disappeared' for decades after the 1963 assassination. The US government was also involved with LSD/brainwashing in that era (see Timothy Leary and the Unibomber case). The current FBI, CIA, NSA, DHS, etc. actions are nothing new and we have never been allowed to see them. The public wasn't allowed to know about the CDC's 1932-1972 conscious nontreatment of black men with syphilis either.
"National Security is at stake."
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056218/
https://www.cdc.gov/tuskegee/timeline.htm
Trump should promise to release the files if he's elected in November. Other things that need to be demanded of the intelligence community (mostly the FBI) are the names of all agents present at the 1/6/2021 riots; all information concerning Ray Epps; and all information regarding the possible retrieval of US Civil War gold bullion in Dents Run, PA in 2018. FBI Director Wray should have all of this information in his briefcase on Inauguration Day, along with his letter of resignation if he fails to bring these documents to the White House on Inauguration Day. If Wray fails to bring the documents, Trump as Commander-In-Chief should order the Marines into FBI headquarters to arrest all within and secure all data and documents.
I think Trump (if elected again) should declassify everything, as much as possible, as long as no one is endangered (I.e. present day espionage). Maybe choose a year and go backwards. Release all the Kennedy files. Release the MLK files. Release all the CIA files, and expose what they did in every country. Why should Trump protect the FBI and CIA? Why should he protect the reputations of government agencies, or Democrat heroes? What were the FBI files that the Clintons had at the White House? Etc. There’s no reason information should trickle out due to FOIA requests. Let it all come out, so we can see what our government was doing. Let them lose their credibility, so that we can purge these agencies and start over.
Ann Althouse said...
Why wouldn't Trump — with all his unorthodoxy and nerve — release the documents?
He was legally required to release the documents. Biden isn't releasing these documents either, so whatever the reason is, it crosses party lines.
If you haven't noticed Trump is not particularly political. He does not think of this in tribal terms and was never about one side winning or losing.
Trump solves problems. He is a business person.
Trump listens to the people he hires. He is an executive that out of 500+ business ventures hit bankruptcy less than 10 times.
Trump's primary failure was trusting Republicans like Mike Pompeo in Washington DC. Everyone who supports Trump recognizes this. There were some of us who have hated Republicans for a lot longer and saw this happening and called it out. I and others like me have been calling out the McCains and Romneys for a long time.
But right now we still support Trump and I believe we are gearing up for a revenge tour. Vivek is right and I believe Trump will end and combine entire agencies.
Republicans are the real problem here. This is not easy to see. For example there are however a small number of Republican voters who still managed to support Desantis despite the fact that he:
1. Graduated from Harvard
2. Became a JAG
3. Went into the House of Representatives in 2017-18 and helped Paul Ryan undermine Trump
4. Got elected Governor because of Trump
6. Said almost nothing about the persecution of Trump and obviously planned to benefit from it
7. Hired Mike Roe
8. Called most Republican voters Listless Vessels
9. Got record amounts of cash from the CoC/Club for Growth Republicans
10. Used it to attack Trump
11. Got exactly 0 counties in Iowa and ended his national political career
Desantis has every possible marker of being the next Romney/Pence/Pompeo/Barr and yet there is a small number of Republican voters who are actually butt hurt we will not support him.
Watching people claim "ooh, the CIA did it" and then claim Presidents are -legally- required to release the documents is amusing, but not actually intelligent. Besides which, the CIA would have had much better ammo to borrow from J Edgar Hoover if they really wanted to remove Kennedy over any lesser issue.
The whole argument is a red herring. The CIA had a lot to lose if any Democrat ever decided to avenge Kennedy, and would still have problems today. By contrast, the Dimona reactor is something Kennedy felt very strongly about to preserve NPT efforts. If Israel had shut it down, the survival of the nation would have been at stake. By contrast, by the time RFK was President, Israel wouldn't even care if the case was re-opened. "We can always sell your secrets to the Soviets and we have our own nukes now, so roll the dice."
I was never satisfied with the idea that the Cubans or the Mafia or ze Russians killed Kennedy. The clearest answer is the simplest: who are you absolutely not allowed to suggest killed him? There you go.
Listening to the Rogan/Carlson podcast now. It is interesting and yet somewhat off-putting at the same time, lol.
Did Tucker answer the question?
He doesn't know the answer. All he can do is speculate based on what he thinks he might know...which makes for an interesting and entertaining conversation on the podcast.
Maybe the answer is so boring nobody wants to hear it and many wouldn't believe it anyway so it's more useful and more fun for Trump to be coy.
I like Jamie's theory at 6:56AM: It could simply mean that Oswald was on their radar and they misread his readiness or ability to pull off the assassination
@Jamie: But... having now learned how deeply enmeshed parts of the government have been in social media, for instance, with the goal of steering public opinion and therefore election results and policy, can I rule out the active involvement in domestic assassination of an agency that was created to do things in the dark? The KGB absolutely did such things. The only thing preventing the CIA from acting exactly like the KGB would be the commitment of its leadership to Constitutional principles. And haven't we learned that our entrenched bureaucracies don't really have much of that?
Came here to say something like this, but Jamie has done it first and better than I could.
I went to high school with a guy who is a currently serving CIA officer. He was a straight arrow, smart, and patriotic. I hope he hasn’t been corrupted by the culture there. He still works in the field even though he’s approaching the end of his career. I hope that’s because the powers-that-be considered him too politically unreliable to stay in Washington to oversee their efforts as the Democrat Party’s Stasi secret-police force.
who are you absolutely not allowed to suggest killed him?
Barack Obama?
Seriously, though, who? I honestly don't know who you mean.
If the CIA were involved with the the assasination of an American president would they leave a paper trail and if so, would the information contained in such files be credible?
It doesn't make sense that we'd on the one hand accept that the CIA is so nefarious and duplicitious that they would commit such a heinous act and on the other hand accept their files as an accurate account of what ocurred
So, one reason for not releasing the CIA files is the belief that they are a red herring and wrongly implicate a person or a country.
A CIA report (here) notes that Oswald visited Mexico City in late September 1963 and had contact with the Cuban and Russian embassies.
What he told officials of those governments, so far as I know, is not publicly available. Whether those governments had advance notice of his intentions is unknown. What the CIA knew or might have known or what it told the FBI or other government departments appears to be unknown.
If the Cubans and Russians thought he was a nut and failed to take him seriously, they would have been terrified after Nov. 23 that the US might take severe military action against them.
If the CIA thought he was a nut and failed to take him seriously, that would be extremely embarassing and would have been something it would have wanted covered-up, much like US involvement in the creation of the Covid virus.
Oswald's visit to Mexico City has been much written about. Here's a Politico story.
"[Warren Commission] staff lawyer David Belin, who died in 1999, wrote in a little-publicized book that he came to believe that Oswald may have planned to head from Dallas back to Mexico by bus after the assassination because he had some promise of help from co-conspirators who were waiting on the Texas-Mexico border.
Belin’s theory, which he developed during his work on the commission, stemmed from his analysis of local bus schedules and of a bus transfer issued on the day of the assassination that was found in Oswald’s clothing. According to Belin, Oswald may have met with Cuban diplomats and others in Mexico City who saw the Kennedy administration as a mortal threat and who “promised financial and other support to Oswald if he was ever able to succeed” in killing the president. Belin said that, to his disappointment, there was no mention of his theory in the commission’s final report because, as he admitted, it was “pure speculation” that undermined Chief Justice Warren’s hopes to snuff out conspiracy allegations.
Belin’s theory would have made sense to another American official—diplomat Charles William Thomas, whose once-promising career was mysteriously derailed after he pressed colleagues in the U.S. embassy in Mexico to pursue unanswered questions about Oswald’s Mexico City trip. In late 1965, Thomas was told by a friend—a prominent Mexican writer, Elena Garro de Paz—that she had seen Oswald at a dance party during his visit to Mexico that was also attended by a Cuban diplomat who had spoken openly about his hope that someone would assassinate Kennedy. Thomas said he was also told that Oswald had a brief affair with a vivacious young Mexican woman, a committed Socialist, who worked in the Cuban consulate and who had introduced Oswald around town to other Castro supporters."
"who are you absolutely not allowed to suggest killed him?"
-JFK ordered it on himself due to his physical ailments and moral anguish over his repeated infidelity.
-Joe Dimaggio
-Elvis
-It's more than a little curious that presidents keep saying they will but never do release the info on both extraterrestrials and the Kennedy assassination. I'm not saying it was aliens but...
I really like the theory put across by the book Mortal Error. If this theory is true then I can totally understand why it’s still being kept under wraps.
Personally, I think Carlson has lost his mind. Using Isikoff as validation for loon claims is loony itself, as Isikoff was one of the major Russian collusion sponsors. Isikoff takes the claims of one or more anonymous leakers and turns it into accepted fact, although Isikoff's story even notes the Trump administration was perhaps more cognizant of legality than the late Obama administration.
Carlson makes a number of claims about Pompeo, which are, at best, questionable. There could be any number of valid reasons for the government to not wish to reveal intelligence files from the Kennedy era although Carlson decides only one could be correct, that being the CIA took part on Kennedy's murder.
I think Carlson has now morphed from "occasional libertarian silliness" to "outright nutcase".
I'm guessing it's most likely because we would all discover that "Protecting Our Democracy" has never meant what we thought it did - or rather, that the sentiment was never meant to imply that we were included as members or the 'Democracy', or belonged to it. Or rather, we belong to it, but not in the way we thought we did, as 'members'.
He is an executive that out of 500+ business ventures hit bankruptcy less than 10 times.
Yes, to add...I get frustrated by the equation of bankruptcy and failure by non-finance types. Yes bankruptcy is disruptive but it is part of the process that creates an organized and healthy system. Moreover, specific to real estate, it is more of a strategic tool than in other industries. We can argue about how healthy that is but in Trump's case it should not be assumed chapter reorganization is a marker of failure or incompetence, much as some would like it to be...
Achilles
If you haven't noticed Trump is not particularly political. He does not think of this in tribal terms and was never about one side winning or losing.
Trump solves problems. He is a business person.
Trump listens to the people he hires. He is an executive that out of 500+ business ventures hit bankruptcy less than 10 times.
These are the facts that never make the equation, so never figure into the conclusion about anything Trump.
Thus we are mired into pounding Trumps round actions, into the Star shaped hole of politics.
A great example is the Abrahams Accords. NEVER get any mention. Peace though trade is a huge successs. Thus exposing the State Dept as nothing but dilettantes.
All the left can do is pick up their own feces, and throw it at the crowd,
You and I are on the same page.
Carlson seems indifferent to the negative consequences of his vaguely formulated conspiracy theories.
But he makes a good point. Declassification is overdue.
There’s speculation that one of the Secret Service agent mistakenly delivered the fatal shot, aiming for the assassin. That might be a motive for keeping the assassination documents secret. But what a terrible, horrible decision - if true. High time to declassify and publish all the documents.
Trump did this on a lot of issues. He'd say he was going to do X, and then Kushner or some subordinate talked him out of it. "wouldn't be prudent". I think if he's elected in November, he'll act differently. Placating the establishment got him (and us) nowhere.
As for why JFK files are still classified, I can think of three reasons:
1) Its bad for Israel; or
2) Its bad for the CIA; or
3) Castro/Cuba ordered JFK "hit" and LBJ and the establishment covered it up.
BTW, the CIA had someone "monitoring" Oswald. Why was his name redacted and kept secret for 50 years?
-The Israel angle comes up because of Jack Ruby and JFKs refusal to let Israel have nukes (reversed by LBJ). There are rumors that the Mossad was involved. Another angle is that Oswald became a Communist while in NYC. And the CPUSA was heavily Jewish.
- THe CIA angle comes up because someone in the CIA may have discovered Oswald was planning to assassinate JFK and for whatever reason didn't act on it, or pass it on to the secret service.
- The Cuba/castro angle comes up because LBJ/Establishment may have had direct concrete evidence that Castro was responsible for Oswald killing JFK and decided to cover it up, because they didn't want the Public to know. Had the USA public known in the 60s people would've demanded revenge. Even today, such a disclosure would have reprucussions for Cuba-USA relations since the Castro family still runs Cuba.
My Money is on the CIA angle.
Jamie cites the most obvious answer: that the documents show that the FBI was watching Oswald but failed to stop him, and the files are being kept classified to protect the agency's reputation. I'm hard-pressed to think that a cabal of FBI agents wanted one year of LBJ serving out Kennedy's term so so much that they would risk their careers and personal freedom on a chaotic lunatic who could have blown their cover at any time before or after the assassination.
Trump didn't declassify because he saw no benefit to picking that particular internal fight. If it actually happened, Trump's response to the question was a joke; "if I told you I'd have to kill you."
I don't think Trump was legally required to release anything. There were laws in place *preventing* release before a certain date, but as far as I know they did not mandate release thereafter. Trump has authority to maintain classification.
I really like the theory put across by the book Mortal Error.
Which is what?
Jamie makes good points.
The little green men from the UAPs had been collaborating with the CIA for years. They were helping the CIA spy on the Russians in exchange for help in abducting earth women. But the little green men wouldn’t allow humans to go to the moon, because space was their territory. So the CIA told NASA the moon landing would have to be faked. But the moon landing was Kennedy’s legacy, and he couldn’t accept faking it, so he had to go. The little green men made themselves invisible (of course they can do that; they have super-advanced technology) and killed Kennedy (they can also make bullets do weird things.) Then they helped Kubrick fake the moon landing. It all makes perfect sense.
@Bob Boyd
Without going too deep into it, the cia executes a plot to make it look like someone making an attempt on the president’s life, only they mess it up and accidentally kill him instead.
"Federal employees are not allowed to just kill people they don't like."
"Who's being naive, Kay?"
Achilles is so right about Desantis. Club for Growth owns Florida. Marco Rubio should be radioactive, or squashed like a possum (sorry, Mr. O Possum). Squashed twice, because once never does the job (again sorry). Happily, Desantis does a fairly good job being a governor for Florida, though he set back real education reform for a good five to ten years with that bone-headed half-assed attempted coup to reform New College (which really needs reforming). That should have been as easy as shooting a Manatee in a barrel. Chris Rufo has zero political skills.
I also like Mr. O. Possum's points. He's right to point out the facts we do know about Soviet involvement with Oswald.
I'm a bit younger than 60. If I were to say to nearly anyone I know under, say, 70ish that Cuba and the Soviets at least indoctrinated or encouraged Oswald or that RFK's killer was a Palestinian nut, they would pee their yoga pants.
Keeping the files classified doesn't make any sense unless there is major institutional embarrassment involved- and those lists of institutions is limited to major U.S. political parties/historical figures, U.S. government agencies, and formal U.S. foreign allies.
Tucker's ratio of Interesting Stuff : Wacky Stuff is getting skewed. I have less patience with him these days.
I agree with Jamie. The involvement likely extends to the CIA knowing important details and then taking no action to warn the Secret Service and later covering up Oswald's links to the KBG and the Cuban DGI -- important details such as:
1) Oswald's attempted murder of Maj. General Edwin Walker
2) Oswald's visits to Soviet and Cuban embassies in Mexico City
3) Oswald's employment by the Texas School Book Depository
4) Ruth Paine, Marina Oswald's friend, knew much more than she several revealed to the Warren Commission, was a committed leftist, was suspected of passing classified information about Bell Helicopter to the KGB, and hosted known KGB operatives in her home who used it as a safe house where they interrogated Lee and Marina Oswald
5) the CIA officers assigned to watch and photograph comings and goings at the Soviet and Cuban embassies lied when they testified they missed photographing Oswald's visits
6) the instructions to lie about the CIA's knowledge regarding Oswald and his associates in Dallas came directly from J. J. Angleton, the Agency's chief of counterintelligence
I believe the CIA hid their knowledge regarding Oswald for four reasons, none of them legitimate:
1) to prevent some form of revenge-taking on the Soviets by the Johnson Administration
2) to prevent a thorough "house cleaning" at the CIA, which at the time was ineffective at countering the KGB, by the LBJ
3) to prevent Barry Goldwater from winning the presidency in 1964, who would have purged the arrogant and incompetent Yalies from the intelligence service
4) to protect J. J. Angleton
Is this the same conversation with Rogan where Tucker also decided that "we're the bad guys" for dropping 2 nukes to end WWII?
I generally agree with Jamie's comment. That said,
Blogger Ann Althouse said...
"Why wouldn't Trump — with all his unorthodoxy and nerve — release the documents?
He was legally required to release the documents. Biden isn't releasing these documents either, so whatever the reason is, it crosses party lines."
LOL. Anyone hear of the Trump "Documents" case? His position is that as president he had plenary power to declassify any document as he saw fit. Evidently, the Intelligence Community disagrees and look where it put him.
A great example is the Abrahams Accords. NEVER get any mention.
Ditto the Artemis Accords.
He was legally required to release the documents. Biden isn't releasing these documents either, so whatever the reason is, it crosses party lines.
@Althouse, consequently the best guess is that there’s information in there that’s extremely embarrassing for multiple federal agencies. But it’s just a guess.
When my wife was a kid, her neighbor was a Secret Service guy who was in the car behind Kennedy. He's in the films.
Long gone now...
“So, one reason for not releasing the CIA files is the belief that they are a red herring and wrongly implicate a person or a country.”
Yes, why would anyone believe that the secret government documents are true, and not a time bomb placed in the record for a nefarious purpose. So declassification just completes a conspiracy to deceive.
The answer would be that if we look at the totality of information we may decern the truth. But still, no one will agree, and to the public the docs will be taken at face value.
Recommendation: Release them and let the chips fall, or freedom is damaged.
iowan2,
The reason the Abraham Accords don't get mentioned is because they seriously pissed off the Palestinians. Not, actually, so much the alliances themselves as that they happened without Palestinian input. The Palestinians demand to be in the loop about anything and everything concerning Israel. This is why they were likewise so pissed off when they demanded an end to Israeli settlements in Gaza in 2007 and the Israelis basically said, OK, we'll take out our ca. 7500 people and you'll have the place all to yourselves, complete with its marvelous Mediterranean coastline. And then did just that.
(There was some discussion at the time about whether the settlers would leave their properties intact on leaving. I have no idea how that turned out. Me, I'd've blown up with my own hands what I had built with those hands. No one else has the right to my labor, especially when taken under duress. But that's just me.)
That's not what Hamas wanted at all. They wanted endless negotiations and concessions and counter-concessions and counter-counter-concessions, and when they didn't get them they stalked off in a huff. This is about the time when "open-air prison" became common in news discourse. Though it will be remembered that Israel didn't have the only key to that prison, and on the Egyptian side there's the whole vast Sinai Peninsula.
“Gavin Newsom… the smell of sulfur and hair oil…”
Spot on !
“I don't agree about the 'women and weak men' statement. He should know that there are plenty of strong women who would not put up with the shit, and would stand up to the 'evil' if confronted.”
I believe he was talking about politicians.
I've thought what Jamie posits for a long time. At a bare minimum, the DC Organs knew MUCH more about Oswald than they have ever let on.
And I don't rule out the possibility that he was their guy doing their bidding on 22 NOV '63.
Given everything Americans have witnessed over almost a decade now… the approach taken… the corruption they don’t even bother to hide anymore… the weaponization of government institutions and the bureaucracy…
Do you really think they will allow Donald Trump to be re-elected? An argument can be made they’d sooner kill him.
Jamie said...
Dang it, I've always been in the "Oswsld acted alone" camp!
Of course, saying that "the CIA was involved" is not the same as saying "the CIA planned" or "the CIA suborned." It could simply mean that Oswald was on their radar and they misread his readiness or ability to pull off the assassination...
Never really thought about it before, but maybe, maybe, Oswald was the CIA equivalent of the Whitmer kidnapping conspiracists. But somehow, at the end, someone or somebodies screwed up- and they weren't there to be heroes as they stopped Oswald...
But there are all kinds of possibilities. Made me think of Asimov's First Law of Robotics: A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. Change it to A robot may not injure a human being. Suppose that was the first law. A robot cannot strike a human being. Okay, yeah. A robot cannot drop a rock on human being. Well- maybe. The robot drops the rock, fully intending when the drop occurs, to stop it. But then, changes it's mind- and let's the rock hit the human. It's the inaction that harmed the human, not the action... He wrote a story about robots with modified laws with just that scenario. Maybe a plan was set into motion- with intentions to stop it....
“He was legally required to release the documents. Biden isn't releasing these documents either, so whatever the reason is, it crosses party lines.”
No, there is no legal requirement to release all the documents related to the assassination in unredacted form. Sections 6 and 9(d) of the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992 grant pretty broad discretion to the President to postpone release of documents or of particular information in documents to protect sources and methods.
Yes, as we've seen this weekend, there is still a national security consensus that crosses party lines.
This is all very confusing. I'm grateful to the lucid explanation that Smiling Jack offered at 10:09.....Some questions remain, however: If the Republican Party should include just Donald Trump and Marjorie Taylor Greene and exclude such covert deep state operatives like Michael Johnson, DeSantis, and Pence, how should this party go about winning any elections anywhere beside rural Idaho.....I'm not all that enthusiastic about Assange and Snowden. I don't think that they have our best interests in mind. They're the enemy of the intelligence community, but the enemy of your enemy is not your friend. Plus I'm not so sure that the intelligence community is our enemy as opposed to a group that sporadically fuck up and and are frequently hostile to right right wingers in America. They're not necessarily our friends but, by and large, I favor them over the Taliban and the KGB (or whatever they call themselves nowadays).
Carlson asserts that the Warren Commission never interviewed Jack Ruby. Is that true?
Mr. Shoot-Oswald-in-the-gut-on-live-TV Ruby. That shooting says "This is how far we will go if you breathe one word." Where "you" is anyone that knows something.
Oswald clearly knew a tad too much.
"'who are you absolutely not allowed to suggest killed him?
'Barack Obama?'
"Seriously, though, who? I honestly don't know who you mean."
LBJ?
I am not certain about any specific malefactor(s), but I do think the assassination of JFK was the result of an organized conspiracy by a number of people. Likely conspirators are those commonly named, (the Mafia, CIA, FBI via J. Edgar Hoover, and others unknown). Lee Harvey Oswald may have been the shooter, (or not), but if he was a (or THE) shooter, I don't believe he was the sole individual involved in the plotting and overall carrying out of the assassination.
Carlson:
"Both Trump and Joe Biden have, in violation of my read of federal law, kept those documents secret."
The actual law:
"Requires that each assassination record be publicly disclosed in full, and be available in the Collection no later than the date that is 25 years after the date of enactment of this Act, unless the President certifies that: (1) continued postponement is made necessary by an identifiable harm to the military defense, intelligence operations, law enforcement, or conduct of foreign relations; and (2) the identifiable harm is of such gravity that it outweighs the public interest in disclosure."
Carlson is wrong. And the Pompeo accusations all come from questionable, at best, sources, yet he cites them as known fact.
He has lost all credibility with me.
BTW, I share Carlson dislike of Pompeo. There's something very weird and offputting about these Killer-Clowns. Tucker says their delight in war and killing is due to a hole in their soul and an empty (or dysfunctional) private and family life.
Looking at the Neo-Cons, there's something to that.
If it were up to me, Trump would release everything about the JFK murder and all classified FBI and CIA files through 1975 and the State Department through 1975. A lot of caca will come out and some good stuff as well. I don't care who is exposed if they are wrong doers. Better to air out the dirty laundry and get the smell out than constantly putting Febreeze on them.
Noynac said...
"Carlson asserts that the Warren Commission never interviewed Jack Ruby. Is that true?"
No. His interview starts on page 181 of the Warren Commission report.
Big download of the report.
The CIA has always been a joke. They couldn’t pull it off if they tried.
Same with the FBI.
Oswald was a fanatic Communist.
To deflect from Oswald’s Communism the Left concocted conspiracies.
The CIA is happy with the suggestion they were involved because it implies they aren’t totally useless bureaucrats.
Oswald killed JFK.
He rest is bullshit.
That was the scenario in delillos libra
Famed prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi wrote the definitive book IMO about the assassination, "Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy". Along with his books about his prosecution of the Manson Family and OJ Simpson (the prosecutors were SO bad that OJ got away with a double murder), this book makes a clear and convincing case that Oswald acted alone. I don't recall if it addressed any secret connection between Oswald and the CIA or FBI, but the grassy knoll, the Oswald couldn't pull off that marksmanship, or any other wacko theories that have only a superficial chance of being supported by the facts -- he destroys those. A great read, about $17 on Audible.com.
Fairly obvious
Jacqueline Kennedy
Onassis was a friend of Jacqueline Kennedy, widow of U.S. President John F. Kennedy. They married on 20 October 1968 on Onassis's private Greek island, Skorpios.
Onassis offered Mrs. Kennedy US$3 million to replace her Kennedy trust fund, which she would lose because she was remarrying.[39] After Onassis's death, she would receive US$150,000 each year for the rest of her life. The whole marital contract was discussed with Ted Kennedy.[39] Onassis's daughter Christina made it clear that she disliked Jacqueline Onassis, and after Alexander Onassis's death, she convinced her father that Jacqueline had some kind of curse due to the assassinations of John and Robert F. Kennedy.[40] After Onassis's death, Christina settled with Jackie Onassis for $25 million in exchange for Jackie not contesting Onassis's will.[41]
During their marriage, the couple inhabited six residences: her 15-room apartment at 1040 Fifth Avenue in New York City, her horse farm in New Jersey, his Ave. Foch apartment in Paris (88 Avenue Foch), his house in Athens, his house on Skorpios (his private island in Greece), and his yacht Christina O.
“Tucker says their delight in war and killing is due to a hole in their soul and an empty (or dysfunctional) private and family life.”
That’s a spot on description of Hamass and the rest of the insane Palestinians, R.C. Collins!
Read "Final Judgement" by Michael Collins Piper and "Israel and the Bomb" by Avner Cohen. JFK's insistence to inspect Israel's secret nuclear weapons program was seen as a existential threat to Israel's existence. The Mossad, along with friends in the CIA, did what they thought they had to do. Why does James Jesus Angleton have a monument in Israel?
Read "Final Judgement" by Michael Collins Piper and "Israel and the Bomb" by Avner Cohen. JFK's insistence to inspect Israel's secret nuclear weapons program was seen as a existential threat to Israel's existence. The Mossad, along with friends in the CIA, did what they thought they had to do. Why does James Jesus Angleton have a monument in Israel?
Forget Kennedy, I'm still wondering what happened to the missing pages in John Wilkes Booth's diary and what were the secrets contained thereon.
I agree with what what mccullough said. It's just hard to accept that a deranged loser like Oswald could single-handedly assassinate a beloved president like Kennedy. Norman Mailer's novel Oswald's Tale sadly and reluctantly concludes that Oswald acted alone. I think this is the most likely explanation.
“Norman Mailer's novel Oswald's Tale sadly and reluctantly concludes that Oswald acted alone. I think this is the most likely explanation.”
Yes, the widely known Lone Gunman Theory. My 9 year-old mind was willing to go along with that theory. My dad was going along with it. Mom was going along with it. My older siblings all seemed to be going along with the theory. Until 2 days later when another lone gunman murdered the first lone gunman live on TV right before our own lying eyes.
For the next 5 years, LBJ with McNamara and the other “best and brightest” took the country deeper and deeper into a foreign war they had no intention of ending much less winning. But I’ve been told that that was all just a coincidence.
Releasing a classified file showing the FBI screwed up would damage the reputation of the then Head of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover.
Who hated Mr. Hoover for years, and years, and years? Oh right, the Leftwing and liberals. And the Democrats. And the media. Imagine the NYT's happiness if they could hang that on Hoover.
And the idea that Clinton/Biden/Obama would keep it secret because of their respect for J. Edgar Hoover is absurd. No, whoever is being protected is someone the Uniparty elite all admire. Thats either Israel or the CIA.
If you were the star of the most successful cable news program in the history of cable news, and the network which was making millions of dollars off you and was paying you millions of dollars decided to take you off the air, at the height of your popularity, while still paying you, and also decided to inexplicably pay hundreds of millions of dollars to "settle" a bogus "defamation" claim regarding allegations of questions regarding the reliability of voting machines...
...you might think that there could be some validity to "conspiracy" theories. You might not be ready to trust what you can't verify.
Just sayin'.
Angleton was the Mossad's man at CIA. And, not coincidentally, the mafia's. Meyer Lansky was a very, very good friend of Israel.
It was never a good idea to think you could create an organization with a mandate to break the laws of other countries, in order to achieve "our" goals, and that it would never break the laws of "our" country, in order to achieve what its members saw as those goals. Especially given that its actions were to remain secret. CIA was rogue from before the get-go. OSS was up to its ass in mafia in southern France, Corsica and Italy.
1. Why assume the CIA heads told each President the same story? And no matter what they were told, how could the Presidents independently verify if they were being told the truth? (Which makes Nixon’s statement to his CIA head more ominous - when he told Helms he knew who killed JFK, he was informing Helms that he knew the CIA was lying to him.)
2. There’s an interesting documentary on Amazon Prime (with ads): JFK: The Smoking Gun
I would not consider Joe Rogan an intellectual. But his conversations are intellectual. Why? Because he's bright enough and inquisitive enough and he takes his time. The long format allows his conversations to be smarter. This is the opposite of cable news and Twitter which regularly make smart people sound like fools.
Mark Groubert (filmmaker/journalist) has the most convincing story I think. LBJ was thoroughly corrupted in his hunger for power long before he became VP, and the CIA had aligned interests as well, with much at stake. There were still plenty of ex-OSS men in the CIA, left over from WWII and retaining that keenly-developed sense of ruthlessness that achieved unconditional surrenders from the Axis powers. The story Groubert tells is rich in some of the incidental detail, revealing the sentiments from LBJ and others: LBJ's insistence on a tour of his home turf, his angry rants when JFK wanted to change motorcade routing details and so on; or Curtis LeMay's arrogance, his offensive cigar smoking during the autopsy. It's a compelling story.
Add to that LBJ's abrupt and unwavering abandonment of a second Presidential term, and then Richard Nixon's subsequent rout in his second term - it kind of leads one to speculate that the intelligence services have been in charge of quite a bit, for some time. As Mr. Trump has found out.
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