JFK Assassination Forum

If the DPD thought the car had any relevance, why did they release it?

No offense, but these are just Trump-speak talking points. A "slightly" more nuanced perspective from the Journal of Democracy, written by two experts on Ukrainian politics:

A year ago, some in government thought that it might be possible to hold the presidential election despite the war, not least because the president would have won easily: According to data collected by MOBILISE (led by Olga Onuch) in partnership with the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS), Zelensky’s approval was sky-high at 85 percent in July 2023, even with few gains on the battlefield. That number has since dipped — to 77 percent in late 2023. More recent data from February suggest that trust in Zelensky also declined from 77 to 64 percent in February 2024, likely because of Zelensky’s unpopular decision to reshuffle the army leadership. Nonetheless, the president remains the most popular and trusted politician in Ukraine by a wide margin. Only military figures such as former army commander-in-chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi and army-intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov are more popular than Zelensky.

Ultimately the government chose not to hold elections — a decision that was in line with both the recommendations of local elections-focused NGOs and Ukrainian public opinion: According to a December 2023 survey, 84 percent of Ukrainians opposed holding a presidential election. When asked in February 2024 what should happen in lieu of elections, 69 percent preferred that Zelensky stay in office until the end of martial law. Even among those who dislike the president, it is hard to find anyone in Ukraine who supports holding a vote now. Opposition leaders such as former prime minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk have publicly recognized that, despite their disagreements with the president on most things, now is not the time to go to the polls and Zelensky’s legitimacy is not in question.

The most fundamental reason for not holding elections is that approximately a third of the country’s population would face enormous challenges participating — including around 6.5 million Ukrainians living abroad (over a million of whom reside in Russia) and five million living in Russian-occupied Ukrainian territories, as well as nearly four million internally displaced people and a million active military personnel. Finding and registering these displaced Ukrainians would be an enormous undertaking, one that would effectively be impossible in Russia or areas under Russian control, which include Crimea and five Ukrainian provinces. Locating Ukrainian military personnel would not be hard, but arranging a free and fair vote on the frontlines would be. How does one ensure a secret ballot in the trenches? In addition, active warfare in significant parts of Ukrainian-controlled territory creates obvious difficulties: Missile and other attacks occur almost daily in various parts of Ukraine, including large cities such as Kharkiv.

All this means that voter turnout would not only be low, but would systematically underrepresent those Ukrainians most directly affected by the war. Chosen by a rump of the population, winners of such elections might be considered illegitimate by at least some of the population. And Russia would likely make its own accusations of illegitimacy in an effort to polarize Ukrainian voters and cast international doubt on Ukraine’s democracy.

Very few democracies have held elections with an active military conflict on their territory. Among European democracies directly affected by World War II, only Denmark (under German occupation) held elections during the war. Great Britain did not hold elections between 1935 and the war’s end in July 1945. The United States did hold elections in 1864 during the American Civil War, but without the participation of nine Confederate states. This does not seem to be a good model to follow: The systematic exclusion of Southern states almost certainly exacerbated polarization in the country.

...

Thus, while it is certainly possible to hold some kind of elections in Ukraine, it would be nearly impossible to hold ones that are free, fair, and inclusive. Some Ukrainians fear that election campaigning would sow divisions in society at a moment when the country needs to remain united. Moreover, organizing elections now would divert scarce resources and attention away from defending Ukraine against the existential threat from Russia.

Free your mind, dude! There WAS a car waiting. But when Oswald saw Vinny and Guido the Knife, instead of Shirley and Babs as he'd been promised, he smelled a rat. He realized no one would whack him on public transportation, so he hopped a bus and hailed a taxi. After making sure Big Louie wasn't parked in front of Beckley, he grabbed his revolver and started down the sidewalk. Yes, it falls apart just a bit at that "started down the sidewalk" part, but other than that it's rock-solid.

If Oswald was a patsy, there would have been a car waiting for him near the TSBD that would have driven him to his death. I doubt they would have found his body.