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11
JFK Assassination Plus General Discussion And Debate / Re: Gov. John Connally Grips His White Stetson Hat at Z-272
« Last post by John Corbett on Today at 01:27:52 PM »
Quote from: Lance Payette on Today at 01:05:02 PM
And then you look at the career of someone like Kuchar or Furyk and say, "How is this possible?"

For a tall guy,, Kuchar has one of the flattest swings on the tour. Furyk is just the opposite with a nearly vertical backswing. The guy I could never understand is Steve Stricker. He has almost no wrist cock but somehow generates enough power to be competitive. He's not one of the longest hitters but he's long enough.
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One of my favorite stories is from the early says of the senior tour, when unlikely characters like Walt Zembriski were winning. There was a phenomenon of 50+ year olds who said, "I've played to a 2 handicap for years just hitting balls on Wednesday and playing on Sunday. I'll bet if I worked at it 7 days a week, I could compete out there." So they'd quit their insurance jobs and study, practice and play 7 days a week. At the end of the year, their handicap was now 5.  :D I'm going to play today at a course where I have shot par 72 once and 73 numerous times. 76 would be my age. I will be happy with 85.

Earlier on, Zembriski qualified for the US Open. He was in the locker room when Tom Weikopf saw him and thought he was the locker room attendant and handed his shoes to Zembriski to be cleaned. Zembriski told him, "I'm not the locker room attendant. I'm a player and I believe I'm a shot ahead of you."
The guy I remember from the early days of the senior tour was Charlie Owens. I think his left knee was fused so that it couldn't bend and he played cross handed but he won a tournament. He wouldn't have been able to compete if they didn't allow the seniors to ride carts. I think they still can but you don't see many of them doing it any more.
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JFK Assassination Plus General Discussion And Debate / Re: Released Videos From The Pentagon's First Batch Of UFO Files
« Last post by Lance Payette on Today at 01:19:35 PM »
Quote from: Joe Elliott on Today at 03:24:59 AM
My Two Cents is that JFK was assassinated by Oswald alone and that we have not been visited by Alien Spacecraft. Space is just too vast. Too hard to make the journey. And there are philosophical reasons to believe that we cannot visit other starts and aliens cannot visit ours.

And the vast majority of those who have been deeply involved with the UFO phenomenon over the past 50+ years agree with you - few think "space aliens" in saucers explains the phenomenon. Repeating the "space aliens" mantra does not make this highly mysterious phenomenon disappear.

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I go along with the theory that universes are being created all the time, with different properties. In most of these universes, life never forms. In a small fraction of universes, life can form and does form and sometimes develops intelligent beings that wonder how they could be so lucky.

For which there is even less evdience than "space aliens." Some of the best physicists have admitted that the "many worlds" or "multiverse" hypothesis is little more than an an entirely evidence-free effort to avoid the theistic implications of the Intelligent Design explanation for the one universe we do know exists.
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JFK Assassination Plus General Discussion And Debate / Re: Gov. John Connally Grips His White Stetson Hat at Z-272
« Last post by John Corbett on Today at 01:14:40 PM »
Quote from: Andrew Mason on Today at 05:30:27 AM
You must be right because if that was the first shot that JFK is reacting to then JBC would not be reacting to being hit by it as he "clearly" is doing by z228.  If it was the first shot JBC would be reacting to it by turning around to try to see JFK and then shouting "oh, no, no" (as Nellie said he did before the second shot and, as Jackie said, this drew her attention to the Governor). And we can see that there is nothing like that occurring after z226.

Why would any sensible person put any credence in anything Nellie had to say. She was probably the worst witness in Dealey Plaza that day. Almost nothing she said was correct.
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JFK Assassination Plus General Discussion And Debate / Re: Why are so many Trump supporters attracted to the JFKA?
« Last post by John Corbett on Today at 01:10:22 PM »
Quote from: Tom Graves on Today at 05:37:12 AM
ME: Is this statement correct?

"Until 2020, the radical agenda wasn't in the Democrat mainstream. That all changed when AOC shocked the Democrat establishment in 2018 by beating 10 term congressman Joe Crowley in the Democrat primary. Suddenly all the once sensible Democrats got scared and embraced the far left because most congressman and senators realized they were more likely to lose in the primaries than in the general elections. They lacked the guts to oppose policies that would have seemed unthinkable 10 years earlier. They embraced the goofiest policies such as open borders, cashless bail, and men in women's sports."

GROK: Partially correct on the timeline and AOC's win but overstated as a sudden "shock" that radicalized the entire mainstream party— the leftward shift on these issues was more gradual, driven by multiple factors including voter trends, activism, and reactions to Trump-era politics.{/quote]

BS. Once moderate Democrats caved to the far left for fear they would get primaried. Fetterman is the only moderate Democrat in the Senate and he will probably be primaried in 2028. He would be wise to switch parties now. Arlen Specter switched from Republican to Democrat to try to save Senate seat in Pennsylvania. It didn't work.
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nytimes.com

AOC's 2018 Primary Win

This part is accurate. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), a 28-year-old Democratic Socialist and former Bernie Sanders organizer, defeated 10-term incumbent Rep. Joe Crowley (a powerful House Democratic Caucus chair) in New York's 14th district primary on June 26, 2018, by about 57%-43%. It was a major upset that symbolized progressive energy against the establishment.

nytimes.com

It did energize progressives and highlighted primary threats from the left. Some moderate Democrats expressed concern about moving too far left post-2018, while others saw it as a signal to adapt.

cnn.com

Broader "Radical Agenda" and Mainstream Shift

The claim that the "radical agenda" was absent from the Democratic mainstream until ~2018-2020 is an oversimplification. The party had been shifting left on cultural and economic issues for years:

Pre-2016/2018 trends: Democratic voters and platforms moved progressively on issues like immigration, criminal justice, and identity. Pew data showed Democrats viewing immigrants more positively over decades (e.g., from ~32% in 1994 seeing them as strengthening the country to much higher later). Bernie Sanders' 2016 run already pulled the party left on economics and inequality.

npr.org

The 2016 platform and Obama-era policies were more centrist on some fronts (e.g., border enforcement rhetoric from earlier Democrats like Schumer or Clinton), but activism on criminal justice and social issues grew steadily.

trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov

AOC's win amplified visibility (e.g., via the Squad and Justice Democrats), and the 2020 primaries/campaign saw more progressive rhetoric. However, establishment figures like Biden won the nomination, and many "radical" policies didn't become universal party law. The House flipped in 2018 with many moderates in swing districts.

nytimes.com

Specific Policies

Open borders: Democrats have long supported legal immigration, asylum, and pathways to citizenship, but "open borders" is a rhetorical charge—not official policy. Pre-2018, leaders like Schumer criticized illegal immigration. Post-2016/Trump, the party unified more around humanitarian framing and opposed strict enforcement, with further shifts under Biden. This was evolutionary, accelerated by polarization, not solely AOC.

npr.org

Cashless bail / criminal justice reform: Bail reform (reducing cash bail for low-level offenses) predates 2018. Efforts date to the 1960s-80s, with modern pushes in the 2010s over racial disparities (e.g., Kalief Browder case). New York passed major reform in 2019 (effective 2020); similar in other blue areas. 2020 George Floyd protests and "defund the police" (mostly activist-driven, not universal Democratic policy) intensified it, but many Democrats later walked back amid crime concerns.

nytimes.com

Men in women's sports (transgender athletes): This became a flashpoint later. Significant Democratic support for inclusion aligned with gender identity grew in the mid-late 2010s with broader LGBTQ+ advocacy. Pre-2018, it was niche; it gained traction post-2018/2020. Many Democrats (and earlier polls) showed internal division or opposition to blanket policies, with recent post-2024 election pushback from some moderates.

npr.org

Primary vs. General Election Fear

There's truth here: Safe blue districts face more primary pressure from energized progressives (low-turnout primaries favor activists). This dynamic exists on the right too (e.g., Tea Party, Trump). Post-2018, more progressive challengers ran, but establishment candidates still dominated many races. The party's 2020 platform and Biden's win reflected a balance, not full capture.

theatlantic.com

Bottom line: AOC's win was a notable moment that boosted the left's profile and contributed to caution among incumbents. However, Democratic shifts on these issues were underway due to changing voter bases (more college-educated, urban, diverse), cultural trends, and reactions to national events—not a single 2018 "shock" turning "sensible" Democrats into radicals overnight. The party remains factional, with moderates often prevailing in national/general election contexts. Claims of sudden embrace of "goofiest" policies reflect partisan framing more than a clean pre/post-2018 break.

8 web pages

The bottom line is that the Democrats have always had a radical left element but the radicals were sent to the back of the bus. Once AOC beat Crowley, the radicals took over the driver's seat and the moderates in the party meekly submitted for fear of getting primaried themselves.
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JFK Assassination Plus General Discussion And Debate / Re: Gov. John Connally Grips His White Stetson Hat at Z-272
« Last post by Lance Payette on Today at 01:05:02 PM »
Quote from: John Corbett on Today at 05:06:56 AM
I briefly got down to a 3 handicap and kept a 4 for a couple years but as I aged, I gradually went up to double digits. I came close to shooting my age a couple years ago. I missed a 25 footer for birdie to miss by a stroke. Another time I birdied 2 of the last 3 holes to miss by a shot. The final hole I chipped in from about 15 years right of the green so I never threatened to hit the magic number. I've always thought golf was one sport where you could become very good through acquired skill rather than innate athletic ability but as you observed, there is a ceiling that most people could never break through. I read a long time ago that if you can't consistently shoot 65 on your home course, don't even bother going to the Q-school. I used to be part of a pot game on weekends of guys 40+ years old. One of them had a son who won a high school state championship, played college golf for a few years then tried it on the mini-tours. He would occasionally come out and play with us and had no trouble breaking 70. I saw him come out one day with a bad hangover. Our first hole is a 500 yard par-5 and he cold topped his first two shots. He than took out a 3 wood and knocked his third shot on the green from about 270 and made birdie. He shot 67 that day. He played on what is now the Korn Ferry Tour. I think it started out as the Hogan Tour. He never won enough to break even. He never came close to getting his card on the big tour. He did become pals with Nolan Henke on the Hogan Tour and caddied for him for a while but that was the only way he got on the big tour.

And then you look at the career of someone like Kuchar or Furyk and say, "How is this possible?"

One of my favorite stories is from the early says of the senior tour, when unlikely characters like Walt Zembriski were winning. There was a phenomenon of 50+ year olds who said, "I've played to a 2 handicap for years just hitting balls on Wednesday and playing on Sunday. I'll bet if I worked at it 7 days a week, I could compete out there." So they'd quit their insurance jobs and study, practice and play 7 days a week. At the end of the year, their handicap was now 5.  :D I'm going to play today at a course where I have shot par 72 once and 73 numerous times. 76 would be my age. I will be happy with 85.
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JFK Assassination Plus General Discussion And Debate / Re: Why are so many Trump supporters attracted to the JFKA?
« Last post by John Corbett on Today at 01:01:23 PM »
Quote from: Jarrett Smith on Today at 05:30:26 AM
I highly doubt Americans will want a return to the Biden/Obama disaster. This whole Iran mess goes back to Jimmy Carter a good decent man, but weak weak weak like most liberals. The bulk of proud Americans aka conservatives know Iran can't have nukes, and any sane person want's the border to remain closed.

If you don't have borders, you don't have a country. I wish I was as confident as you that the Democrats will not return to power. What we are seeing now is the result of decades of indoctrination by our education system from the lowest levels to higher education. I don't know when this started because I didn't see it when I attended a public high school back in the late 1960s. Millennials and Gen-Zers are being taught that socialism is just fine and a disgusting number of them believe political violence and quashing free speech is perfectly acceptable. The Democrat Party has encouraged this kind of thinking that wouldn't have been politically viable even 20 years ago.

The electorate is fickle and only once since WWII has either major party controlled the White House for three consecutive terms (Reagan/Bush). The party in power gets blamed for whatever goes wrong which is why power swings back and forth between the two major parties. To make matters worse, if the Democrats get control of both houses of Congress, they can admit new states without presidential approval. The Constitution gives Congress sole power to admit news states. It won't happen but I would like to see the GOP take preemptive action by making Guam and American Samoa new states. Since those are military bases, they would be reliably Republican Senate seats. That would offset plans by the Democrats to make Puerto Rico and DC states. They would need to dump the filibuster to do that, but they might as well since the Democrats will do that as soon as they get control of the Senate. That would also allow them to get the SAFE act through and prevent the Democrats from shutting down parts of the government they don't like. 
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JFK Assassination Plus General Discussion And Debate / Re: Ed Smith dang near spilled the beans
« Last post by Tom Graves on Today at 10:38:08 AM »
Quote from: Benjamin Cole on Today at 10:08:14 AM
TG-

AFAIK, Bagley, who I never met but who writes well and who is well-regarded, and who has street cred (a real world veteran CIA officer, not a JFKA hobbyist) said--

1. LHO was likely a witting asset of someone at the CIA.

2.Bruce Solie was a possible KGB mole. (In my layman's view, this may even be likely.)

Victor Marchetti way back in the 1970s said the CIA was so infiltrated with KGB assets he was unsure who was running the joint.

Former intel officer and researcher John Newman has groused in a similar fashion, and says LHO was a Solie-KGB asset.

So, LHO as a KGB asset, then meets KGB'ers in MC, and then takes part in the JFKA assassination.

That is not a tale the WC wanted to tell.


We'll probably never know whether or not Lee Harvey Oswald killed JFK (all by himself, imho) for the KGB, for Castro, for [fill in the blank], or if he did it of his own volition to "Advance the Dialectic" and "Hasten the End of Late-Stage Capitalism."

What those of us who have read Tennent H. Bagley's Spy Wars, "Ghosts of the Spy Wars," and Spymaster, and John M. Newman's Oswald and the CIA and Uncovering Popov's Mole do know for sure is that the CIA was penetrated by a mole or two or three or four in the 50s, 60s, and 70s, that putative KGB staff officer Yuri Nosenko was a false defector-in-place in Geneva in June 1962 and a false (or perhaps rogue) physical defector to the U.S. in February 1964, and that Anatoly Golitsyn-hating J. Edgar Hoover protected Kremlin-loyal triple-agent FEDORA from the CIA for several years.

In other words, the KGB's 1959-on Sun Tzu-based "Master Plan" (which James JESUS Angleton's critics like to call "The Monster Plot") that Golitsyn tried to warn the Agency and the Bureau about was real.

Oh yeah, and those of us who have read Angleton's Church Committee testimony and done some digging around at the Mary Ferrell Foundation website have figured out that the "Byetkov?" he mentioned was KGB security officer Ivan Obyedkov, and that it was he who spoke with forgetful Oswald or "Oswald" over a sure-to-be-tapped-by-CIA phone line on 10/1/63 and volunteered to him the Department 13-radioactive name "Kostikov."

Those of us who been able to understand what Angleton was saying in his unique way in the poorly transcribed transcript know that Obyedkov was a Kremlin-loyal triple agent, i.e., the CIA mistakenly believed that it had successfully recruited him.

We also know that the only reason the CIA and the FBI believed on 11/23/63 that Kostikov was Department 13* was because the aforementioned FEDORA (KGB Major Aleksey Kulak) told Hoover in 1962 that Kostikov's charge at the U.N., Igor Brykin, was Department 13.

*The Assassination and Sabotage department of the KGB's First Chief Directorate (today's SVR)
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JFK Assassination Plus General Discussion And Debate / Re: Ed Smith dang near spilled the beans
« Last post by Benjamin Cole on Today at 10:08:14 AM »
TG-

AKAIK, Bagley, who I never met but who writes well and who is well-regarded, and who has street cred (a real world veteran CIA officer, not a JFKA hobbyist) said--

1. LHO was likely a witting asset of someone at the CIA.

2.Bruce Solie was a possible KGB mole. (In my layman's view, this may even be likely.)

Victor Marchetti way back in the 1970s said the CIA was so infiltrated with KGB assets he was unsure who was running the joint.

Former intel officer and researcher John Newman has groused in a similar fashion, and says LHO was a Solie-KGB asset.

So, LHO as a KGB asset, then meets KGB'ers in MC, and then takes part in the JFKA assassination.

That is not a tale the WC wanted to tell.

No nuke wars are good nuke wars.
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JFK Assassination Plus General Discussion And Debate / Re: Ed Smith dang near spilled the beans
« Last post by Tom Graves on Today at 08:20:54 AM »
Quote from: Benjamin Cole on Today at 06:18:14 AM
[...]

You seem to think it was fine for a KGB agent [Nosenko] to know the names and faces of the people he was lecturing in the CIA and the FBI.

"Usually, suspected KGB assets are watched."

LOL!

In this case, your boy Nosenko would have been watched by people from probable mole Solie's Office of Security -- IF they suspected that he was fake.

When Malcolm Blunt showed Tennent H. Bagley that someone had arranged with the Records Integration Division and the Office of Mail Logistics for the incoming non-CIA cables on Oswald's "defection" to be routed to a part of the CIA other than where they should have gone -- the Soviet Russia Division -- Bagley realized that someone had sent Oswald to Moscow to "defect." Bagley didn't realize that that person was probably Bruce Leonard Solie -- the same guy who ended up "clearing" false-defector-in-place-in-Geneva-in-June-1962 / false (or perhaps rogue) physical defector to the U.S. in February 1964, Yuri Nosenko, until Blunt showed him that in April of 1964, Solie had tried to talk W. David Slawson into letting Nosenko testify to the Warren Commission, even though CIA Counterintelligence and the aforementioned Soviet Russia Division had serious doubts about his bona fides. At that point, Bagley said, "Let's put Solie on the list [of possible moles]."



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JFK Assassination Plus General Discussion And Debate / Re: Ed Smith dang near spilled the beans
« Last post by Benjamin Cole on Today at 06:18:14 AM »
1. You are aware, aren't you, that after Nosenko was "cleared" by Solie he was given a gig at the Agency teaching "counterintelligence" to its and the FBI's new recruits?--TG

I am not sure what danger this posed to the US. The curriculum was likely approved.

Usually suspected KGB assets are watched, meaning if they leak info to the KGB, then they can be fed false info to leak.

2. The "national security state." Seems like a neutral expression. The US has 18 intel agencies, and a Department of War, biggest in the world. In some ways we all live in an panopticon, for reasons good and bad. If some leftie-weenie ideologues use this expression...so what? Frankly, the stalemate in Ukraine has been horrific in human terms, but a huge win for draining Russia to the bottom of the barrel. I am glad this happened. Maybe the national security state planned it out.

3. I am aware of your CT's regarding Solie, and many other CIA'ers, and the re-directing of cables. But Solie is not around to present his narrative. I will say this: Tennent Bagley said he thought LHO was a witting asset. If true, that would mean LHO was wittingly following orders of someone in the CIA, possibly Solie. Interesting.

4. There may be KGB-G2 files that exonerate or implicate Solie. We will never see them. It is a blind spot.



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