Crusaders like Lance Payette remind me of the leftist psychotherapists who declare that people who oppose allowing minors to get transgender surgery and/or who oppose allowing males who identify as females to play in female sports must either be uneducated or bigoted--or both. When faced with the fact that polls show that the substantial majority of Americans oppose both, they label those Americans with a host of pejorative terms.

I recall a recent TV discussion between a liberal female TV host and a parent who objected to allowing teen boys who claim to be girls to use female restrooms and to participate in female sports. The TV host made clear her disdain for this knuckle-dragging parent. At one point she said in a sneering voice, "You're just not familiar with the research. If you read the research, you might feel differently."

The TV host was quite taken aback when, much to her surprise, this Neanderthal parent responded by mentioning studies that documented the negative emotional consequences of transgenderism and by mentioning articles written by people who underwent transgender surgery as teens and who now deeply regret it, some of whom said their therapists pressured their parents into allowing the surgery. The TV host summarily dismissed these materials as "right-wing garbage."

As I mentioned in my previous reply, notice how narrowly Payette defines what supposedly constitutes "edging toward the lunatic fringe" of the pro-conspiracy camp: those who doubt that Oswald shot JFK and Tippit.

As we've seen, even by this revised definition (as opposed to his earlier definition), many successful and highly educated people with degrees in relevant fields, including university professors and former federal investigators, qualify as "edging toward the lunatic fringe." 

In other replies, Payette has been even more extreme, accusing a large number of scholars and researchers of being part of the "lunatic fringe," including Dr. David Mantik and Greg Doudna, two of the most careful and respected scholars in the JFKA research community.

I won't bother dealing with John Corbett's even more extreme definition of the "lunatic fringe" (i.e., merely doubting that Oswald shot JFK), since he knows little about the JFK case and really has no business pretending to be in a position to comment credibly on it.

Payette knows that if he changed his "edging toward the lunatic fringe" definition to include those who posit a Mafia and/or anti-Castro Cuban conspiracy with Oswald as one of the shooters and with Oswald as Tippit's killer, he would be forced to apply that label to a long list of reputable, well-educated authors, not to mention the House Select Committee on Assassinations.

This, in turn, would cast further doubt on Payette's dubious claim that those who disagree with him have "a conspiracy-prone mindset."

As many people here know, quite a few pro-conspiracy researchers and scholars initially accepted the lone-gunman theory and only changed their minds years later when they began to seriously research the subject.

Thank you, you are doing precisely what I described in my original post! "Ghosts" are an UNDENIABLE phenomenon. The issue is, WHAT IS that phenomenon? There are literally hundreds of thousands of credibly reported ghost experiences spanning all of human history. The best 1000 cases, with which I guarantee you are not familiar, involve multiple highly credible witnesses and/or essentially identical reports of the ghost by witnesses who neither knew each other or anything about the ghost until they saw it. Cable TV is emphatically NOT full of shows about the phenomenon. It is full of fame-seeking crackpots with tinny "ghost detectors" who would shit their knickers if they encountered the real, well-documented phenomenon. To deny the existence of ghosts as a phenomenon would call into question everything that humans report about anything.

A similar but much more recent phenomenon is the "alien abduction" phenomenon. I don't happen to believe the explanation is "aliens" who are "abducting" humans. I really have no good explanation. Nevertheless, the number of reports and the consistency of reports from around the globe, from American medical professionals to African tribesmen, cannot be dismissed as though the phenomenon simply didn't exist. Something is going that has been termed "alien abductions" because that's what many people insist has happened to them. The rational response is not "There ain't no such thing" but rather "What the hell is this phenomenon?"

WITHOUT EXCEPTION, across almost all the fields of weirdness, those who insist "There ain't no such thing" are completely uninformed about the phenomenon.

It's a lot of fun to believe in ghosts.  People are projecting a desire to be entertained, cope with boredom, tell stories, hope that there might be some type of life after death, deal with grief and loss.  Most of the fake spiritualists preyed on the grief of family members who wanted to communicate with their dead relatives.  Lots of different reasons.  For most people, they like to be scared.  That's why horror movies are a genre.  Who wants to be the guy around the campfire who says it's all nonsense?  And if ghosts are the spirits of dead people, then why do they haunt us with their clothes on?  Civil war ghosts are seen wearing uniforms etc.  A silly question but the answer might be revealing.  It's because that is the way in which the living conjure them up in their imagination or via hoaxes. 

The WCR and Reclaiming History are where to steer anyone who wants to know the truth of the JFKA without having the waters muddied by a bunch of nonsensical conspiracy crap.

The [Bible is] where to steer anyone who wants to know the truth of [reality] without having the waters muddied by a bunch of nonsensical [history and science] crap.

See how that works? Religious zealots are all the same, even if their religion is the LN narrative or Harvey and Lee. 

There are no ghosts, space aliens, Bigfoot, Loch Ness monster etc.   It's just fun for some people to pass the time.  Cable TV is full of shows about all the above.  Very similar to those that believe in a JFK conspiracy.  It's more interesting to entertain such fantasies than accept the boring reality.  It's mostly harmless unless someone goes off the deep end.  My guess is that many people who purport to believe in such things actually do not.

Really? I wonder aloud again if you suffer from bouts of amnesia. Go back and read our exchanges about when Connally was hit.

And, I'm still waiting for you to explain how a bullet whose impact Connally said felt like someone pounded him hard with their fist would have caused "JBC flipping his arm upward at Z226" but would not have driven his shoulder downward, would not have caused his cheeks to puff, and would not have caused a pained expression to appear on his face until Z238, when we know from forensic science that the pained expression alone would have occurred no more than 250 milliseconds after the moment of impact.

Of course, it's interesting and telling that Connally himself, the guy who actually experienced the wounding, identified Z234 as the moment of impact, which dovetails perfectly with what forensic science tell us about how long it would have taken for his shoulder to be driven downward, for the air forced from his lungs to cause his cheeks to puff, and for a pained expression to appear on his face.

But you guys have to ignore this plain, obvious evidence because it destroys your SBT fantasy.

It wasn't a dodge. McAdams would constantly repeat claims that had been thoroughly answered, just as you and other WC believers do here all the time.

It's funny how you cite Wecht when you like what he said, which is rarely, but then you turn around and trash him the rest of the time.

Anyway, you obviously don't know that Dr. Wecht changed his mind about pre-autopsy surgery once he read Horne's research and discussed the matter with Horne and Mantik. In fact, Dr. Wecht strongly endorsed Dr. Mantik's 2014 book JFK's Head Wounds, which, among many other things, lays out the essentials of the evidence for pre-autopsy surgery.

It's worth repeating for the sake of our readers that you have such a poor handle on JFKA research that just a few weeks ago you erroneously claimed that Dr. Wecht concurred with all but one of the FPP's major conclusions. This statement proves you had not even read his FPP dissent.

I notice you ignored the point that mortician Tom Robinson saw Humes sawing on the skull and that Robinson specified that the damage to the top of the skull was done by the autopsy doctors. None of the medical technicians at the autopsy recalled seeing this, because Robinson arrived before the autopsy began and because the med techs had not arrived yet.

Why do you suppose Humes suspiciously asked aloud, during the autopsy, if there had been surgery done to the head in Dallas?

Before you blunder and embarrass yourself again, you might, just this once, just for once, want to read some of the research that's been done on this issue before you comment on it again. The following article is a good introduction on the subject:

https://www.fff.org/explore-freedom/article/dominick-armentanos-fallacious-disagreement-with-doug-hornes-new-jfk-documentary/ 

The article was written by Jacob Hornberger, who holds degrees in economics and law, is a former university professor, and is now the president of the Future of Freedom Foundation.

I see you're predictably trying to dismiss Doug Horne's historic research on this issue by claiming that anyone who posits pre-autopsy surgery should not be taken seriously. Yeah, never mind that Horne was the Chief Analyst for Military Records for the ARRB, that he took part in nearly all of the ARRB's historic interviews with the autopsy witnesses, and that he holds a degree in history.

Unlike you, Washington Post editor George Lardner was impressed with Horne's research and even found Horne's evidence that the autopsy brain photos do not show JFK's brain to be credible:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1998/11/10/archive-photos-not-of-jfks-brain-concludes-aide-to-review-board/53b0858e-d0ed-4d9c-9d30-eda5ae71a84a/

It is amusing that you so fervently dismiss the idea of pre-autopsy surgery, without having read any of the research that supports it, and then you turn around and defend the preposterous SBT, a ludicrous theory (1) that has been refuted by every single wound ballistics test that was intended to duplicate it, and (2) that was definitively debunked by the 2023 Knott Laboratory SBT trajectory analysis, the most sophisticated and data-intensive SBT trajectory analysis ever done.

Phew! This nonsense is further proof that you have no business pretending to know enough about the JFK case to comment on it. The forum needs to create a sub-forum for people who know little about the case and who want to learn more. That's where you belong.

Now, no, it is certainly not "absolutely ridiculous" to think that a bullet could have only penetrated a few inches into Kennedy's back. The bullet could have been a squib load, i.e., a bullet with a defective cartridge that contained too little gunpowder. This would explain why so many witnesses said one of the shots sounded different than the others.

It is unfortunate that you routinely use adamant verbiage when making erroneous claims. You keep pretending that you have enough knowledge to be making categorical assertions, when you have no business doing so.

I notice you didn't say one word about the disclosed evidence that the autopsy doctors determined with absolute certainty that the back wound had no exit point, that they even probed the wound after removing the chest organs, and that the pathologists and the other men around the autopsy table could see the end of the probe pushing up against the lining of the chest cavity. BTW, this is the same thing that medical technician James Jenkins stated in a recorded interview in the 1970s.

I notice you said nothing about the fact that we know from the released transcript of the 1/27/64 WC executive session alone that the first two drafts of the autopsy report said nothing about the throat wound being an exit point for the back wound. One draft said the back wound had no exit point and said nothing about the throat wound as any kind of exit point. The other draft said that a fragment from the head shot caused the throat wound and said nothing about any exit point for the back wound.

The ARRB materials shed historic light on this vital disclosure by revealing that the autopsy doctors, along with the medical technicians and others who were near the autopsy table, could see with their own eyes that the back wound had no exit point.

These facts have been known since the late 1990s, but you guys have refused to face them and are still peddling the SBT myth.

M Griffith: "Of course, it's interesting and telling that Connally himself, the guy who actually experienced the wounding, identified Z234 as the moment of impact, which dovetails perfectly with what forensic science tell us about how long it would have taken for his shoulder to be driven downward, for the air forced from his lungs to cause his cheeks to puff, and for a pained expression to appear on his face."

According to JBC he did not feel any pain. Can you ask Dr Mantik how that could be when he suffered so horrific injuries, no doubt he can make up some BS to cover it.

Senator COOPER. That is when you heard the first rifleshot?
Governor CONNALLY. This was after I heard the first rifleshot. There was no pain connected with it. There was no particular burning sensation. There was nothing more than that. I think you would feel almost the identical sensation I felt if someone came up behind you and just, with a short jab, hit you with a doubled-up fist just below the shoulder blade.


Now, no, it is certainly not "absolutely ridiculous" to think that a bullet could have only penetrated a few inches into Kennedy's back. The bullet could have been a squib load, i.e., a bullet with a defective cartridge that contained too little gunpowder. This would explain why so many witnesses said one of the shots sounded different than the others.


A squib load is a firearm malfunction where a bullet does not have enough force to exit the barrel, becoming lodged and creating a dangerous obstruction.

Exactly how do you aim to place a shot that has to little of powder to achieve a proper trajectory. Can you ask lame brain DR Mantik, maybe he knows something about rifle rounds unlike his medical opinions.

The only thing that is still puzzling is who is the bigger con artist, M Griffith or Dr Mantik.