JFK Assassination Forum

   The goal of people like Owens is to achieve some level of notoriety = $$. Their role, (and it is a "role"), is no different than the "heavy" in wrestling match. People pay to see them, or in Owens case "click" on a computer. Nothing has changed here, as the bottom line is always $$. People believe that because someone is routinely on FOX NEWS or MSNOW, etc, that they are making all kinds of $$. That's just Not true. When you hear their position described as "contributor", they ain't makin' jack/$$. People you see with "news" shows on the weekend only, ain't makin' jack. They are basically auditioning for a regular "gig" during the week. They are  generally regarded as 1st in line, but their weekend duty is still that of "auditioning".
   Back when Johnny Carson was doing "The Tonight Show", his guests whether it was Burt Reynolds or that 89 yr old firefighter from Maine, were paid Union Scale/$$ to appear on the show. Of course, the "guest" also had to be a member of the Screen Actors Guild in order to appear on the show. For someone such as the 89 yr old firefighter, the 1 appearance on the show resulted in close to a net "wash" monetarily. This is what people such as Owens are making during their association with FOX NEWS. Same goes for clowns like Al Sharpton over at MSNOW. These people ain't making jack/$$.

Below is a screenshot of the video showing an ejected empty cartridge just after it bounced off of the rear bridge.




Based on what I can see in this video, I think that there is reason to believe that the slight indentations on the other empty cartridges besides CE 543 might have also been caused by an impact with the rear bridge. The reason that CE 543 didn’t have one of those marks (that some have assumed are some unexplained chamber marks) is that CE 543’s impact with the rear bridge was closer to the mouth of the cartridge.

The evidence is what one needs to base conclusions on. The evidence exists whether it is logical or not for it to exist.  Logic has more to do with assessing probabilities that the evidence that exists is wrong. Critical thinking is important in making sure one is not fooling oneself due to one's assumptions and biases. It is about looking objectively at the evidence, without bias or preconceived ideas, to reach conclusions that rationally follow from the evidence.
A lone-nut does not need a rational motive. So if you are assuming there must be a rational, credible motive you have just admitted you are approaching this with a pre-conceived idea about the assassin - that he cannot be a lone-nut.  I thought you were urging critical thinking.You were expecting the assassin to admit guilt?  You forgot to mention that his brother never believed him.
If you are assuming Oswald did only what made sense you are abandoning critical thinking.  Given that Oswald did not speak Russian and had never been to a communist country, did it make sense for Oswald to move to the USSR in October 1959 after his discharge from the US Marines?  Did it make sense for him to file a request with the US Embassy in Moscow in October 1959 to revoke his US citizenship?
If you are truly engaged in critical thinking, you might be wondering why they present no evidence - just hearsay anecdotes; and why these stories appear only in books written by people who make money off these kinds of stories.  You might also ask why they were able to bury the "truth" for 60+ years without a peep from anyone despite the need, conservatively, of hundreds if not thousands of people to carry out the plan and fabricate the evidence against Oswald and to cover it up afterward.

You really should not try to pretend you understand logic and critical thinking, when you plainly do not. You are a diehard lone-gunman theorist who is determined to reject all contrary evidence no matter what. Some of your arguments make me wonder if you even actually understood my statements. Anyway, a few points in reply:

-- Oswald spoke a fair amount of Russian before he went to Russia, and his Russian got even better after living there for over 2 years. The fact that you don't know this indicates your research has been inadequate.

-- No, Oswald was not a nut. He was actually highly intelligent and a voracious reader. You assume he was a nut and then you accuse me of not thinking critically because I did not also assume this! I did not assume this because it is not true, because the evidence shows he was highly intelligent.

Oswald’s tested IQ scores generally ranged from 103 in the fourth grade to 118-119 on subsequent tests. His 118-119 scores put him in the above-average category. Historical and psychiatric evaluations consistently classified his overall intelligence as above average. Notes British scholar Anthony Summers,

. . . evidence suggests Oswald was far from stupid. School records show that in several subjects he was three years ahead of his class, and his intelligence was noted by his officers in the Marine Corps. (Not in Your Lifetime: The Defining Book on the JFK Assassination, p. 77).

It is odd and rather comical that you would cite Oswald's defection as evidence of his supposed mental illness while ignoring the many aspects of his defection that indicate he was a false defector working for U.S. intelligence.

-- Yes, I would certainly expect Oswald to have admitted his guilt if he had killed JFK to make a name for himself in history.

Now that we've established that Oswald was not a nut, what is your theory about his motive? The only motive offered by your side is that Oswald was desperate to make a name for himself in history because he felt so insecure, wronged, and under-appreciated.

-- Your problematic description of critical thinking seems to imply that you believe the majority of Americans and Europeans have failed to use logic and critical thinking with the JFK assassination and that that's why you are in the minority.

-- Your claim that pro-conspiracy JFKA books "present no evidence" proves that you've read few if any of them. A key component of critical thinking is to genuinely and thoroughly consider both sides of an argument before reaching a conclusion. You clearly have not done that.

-- I notice you brushed aside the reports of CIA officers and Mafia leaders admitting involvement in JFK's death, even though some of them are based on wiretap evidence. You have no problem accepting "hearsay anecdotes" that reflect negatively on Oswald, no matter how unlikely many of them are and even though a number of them have been proven to be false, but you wave aside accounts of CIA officers and Mafia leaders admitting guilt in the JFK because most of them are "hearsay anecdotes."

You even say that "these stories appear only in books written by people who make money off these kinds of stories." Oh, so former HSCA investigator Gaeton Fonzi was just out to make money with his book? And, BTW, some of those accounts come from informant reports and wiretaps.

One of your comments deserve special notice, because it reveals your bias and lack of research:

You might also ask why they were able to bury the "truth" for 60+ years without a peep from anyone despite the need, conservatively, of hundreds if not thousands of people to carry out the plan and fabricate the evidence against Oswald and to cover it up afterward.

One, where do you get "60+ years"? Fonzi's book, for example, came out in 1993, 30 years after the assassination and was substantially based on information that he obtained during the 1970s. Many of the accounts of Mafia leaders being involved in the assassination surfaced in the 1970s and 1980s--and, again, some were based on informant reports and wiretaps.

Two, it would not have required "hundreds if not thousands of people to carry out the plan and fabricate the evidence against Oswald and to cover it up afterward." That timeworn strawman has been knocked too many times to count. You guys just keep repeating the same debunked arguments over and over again, thread after thread, reply after reply, no matter how many times they're debunked before your very eyes.

The core problem here is that you simply don't know what you're talking about and you're too biased to do some actual research to educate yourself on the other side of the story.

There's a reason that only about 1/4 to 1/3 of the Western world buys your version of the assassination, and it's not because everyone who disagrees with you is failing to use logic and critical thinking--it's because you are failing to use logic and critical thinking.

Well, JVB is correct about one thing: I do want her to be silenced forever. Not dead, mind you, just silenced. A classic example of what plagues every area of weirdness: the desperate for attention wannabe.

I heard a clip of Candace Owens doing an antisemitic rant on Christian talk radio yesterday. It's absolutely astonishing how she has descended from far-right darling who used to seem more or less sensible on FOX News and other mainstream outlets to complete radioactive wacko. Come to think of it, they played a clip of Tucker Carlson, too.

This, too, makes no sense, and it contradicts what Zapruder himself said. Zapruder never indicated that he stopped filming at this time but only after the shooting when the limo sped out of sight after going under the triple underpass.

If Zapruder had intended to start filming only after the limo turned onto Elm Street, he never would have started filming when the lead motorcycles began turning onto Elm Street. He would have been able to plainly see that the two lead cars in the motorcade were still on Houston Street. He would have simply waited until the limo began to make its turn.

There's two reason we know Zapruder restarted his 8mm camera @Z133 and therefore the entire sequence was not filmed continuously!

1. The first frame when an 8mm camera is restarted allows more light to leak into the camera and as can be seen, Z133 is brighter than Z134. Also note that Z001 is even brighter but this effect varies iirc due to mechanical interactions of the camera and the amount of film left.
Look at the light blue car at the top of the frame, the lighter clothing and the lighter shade of the road.



2. When Zapruder restarted his camera and pushed the physical button, this made the next frame much blurrier and the frame after that shows a distinctive horizontal jiggle.



After Zapruder restarted his camera and the initial excitement, his panning becomes relatively smooth, well, up until his startled vertical jiggles after he heard shots.



Zapruder at first filmed over 7 seconds of essentially nothing, just the motorbikes, then he quickly shut off his camera and waited till he saw and confirmed he actually had Kennedy's Limo in his viewfinder.
Then when we first see the Limo in Z133, the cars at this point on Houston were barely visible behind the crowd.



BTW, this is such a silly argument and I don't know why it needs explaining.
Zapruder had about two minutes of film to play with and obviously the main event that he wanted to capture was JFK's Limo driving past him because at the time who knows what he may have filmed, the Limo may have stopped and JFK could have shaken hands with the crowd, who knows? So when Zapruder saw the motorbikes turning into Elm he started filming but when there was no Limo, he instinctively stopped filming to conserve his limited precious film, then when he was certain that the Limo was in sight, Zapruder started filming again. The critics must think that Zapruder had unlimited film but the reality is that Zapruder was well aware of his limited resources and wanted every frame to count!!

JohnM