JFK Conspiracy Theories: It Never Ends II

Hans · Mar 15, 2014

Pooneil said:
He sure had an extreme reaction to getting stiffed for the tip!

Well he provided giardiniera and you deserved to be belly shot if you don't tip!

.....oh wait that might be a 'Ndrangheta rule

tsig · Mar 16, 2014

JayUtah said:
Well, one can make a less foaming conspiracy theories.

I'm speaking, of course, of the actor who played Porkins in Star Wars, the late William Hootkins. Born in Dallas, Hootkins actually was questioned in connection with the Kennedy assassination. He went to school with the woman accused of harboring Marina Oswald and also studied Russian.

That's enough for most conspiracy authors to spin a web of intrigue and innuendo.

Wait, he's an actor and you're an actor, were you on the Grassy Knoll with a black powder rifle?

Tomtomkent · Mar 16, 2014

You are all so wrong.

I mean you are failing to even prove that JFK EVER existed....

Hans · Mar 17, 2014

Tomtomkent said:
You are all so wrong.

I mean you are failing to even prove that JFK EVER existed....

Well that's true and I even have my doubts that a place called 'Dallas' actually exists. I mean who would name a real city after a TV soap opera?

TheRedWorm · Mar 17, 2014

Hans said:
Well that's true and I even have my doubts that a place called 'Dallas' actually exists. I mean who would name a real city after a TV soap opera?

And what about the alleged state? Some people pronounce it tecks iss, some pronounce it tay hass; they can't get their stories straight because it doesn't exist!! Wake up, sheeple!!!

mikegriffith1 · Mar 17, 2014

Regnad Kcin said:
Why stop there? Why not also from above and below?

IOW, you're not interested in a substantive discussion on the evidence.

It's a simple point: If Rosemary Willis's act of looking backward toward the TSBD indicates a shot from behind, then numerous other bystanders' act of turning to look toward the grassy knoll logically indicates a shot from the front. And then there's the fact that a number of witnesses saw what clearly appeared to be gun smoke rising from a spot on the knoll, not to mention the fact that at least one patrolmen stopped his bike, jumped off, and charged up the knoll, and the fact that some people on the knoll dropped to the ground because they heard shots whizzing by them from behind (and one of those bystanders was a combat vet who knew the sound of bullets passing nearby you).

We also have acoustical evidence of a shot from the grassy knoll (and before you cite the NRC's pseudo-scientific reply, read physicist Dr. G. Paul Chambers' rebuttal to the NRC arguments). We also have photographic evidence of the smoke above the knoll, the same smoke that a number of witnesses reported seeing.

RoboTimbo · Mar 17, 2014

You've stretched the word "evidence" beyond the breaking point. Using your definition of the word, we have "evidence" that the driver shot JFK.

turingtest · Mar 17, 2014

bobtaftfan said:
IOW, you're not interested in a substantive discussion on the evidence.

It's a simple point: If Rosemary Willis's act of looking backward toward the TSBD indicates a shot from behind, then numerous other bystanders' act of turning to look toward the grassy knoll logically indicates a shot from the front. And then there's the fact that a number of witnesses saw what clearly appeared to be gun smoke rising from a spot on the knoll, not to mention the fact that at least one patrolmen stopped his bike, jumped off, and charged up the knoll, and the fact that some people on the knoll dropped to the ground because they heard shots whizzing by them from behind (and one of those bystanders was a combat vet who knew the sound of bullets passing nearby you).

We also have acoustical evidence of a shot from the grassy knoll (and before you cite the NRC's pseudo-scientific reply, read physicist Dr. G. Paul Chambers' rebuttal to the NRC arguments). We also have photographic evidence of the smoke above the knoll, the same smoke that a number of witnesses reported seeing.

Well, there's some brilliant conspirators for you- put the "patsy" in a high location where he couldn't be easily seen, firing a smokeless-powder rifle; but put the actual assassin(s?), who needed to escape detection, in a ground-level location, firing weapons that gave the location away to ear-witnesses, and emitted smoke "clearly" seen by eye-witnesses and easily photographed as evidence. No wonder it's taken fifty years to uncover this dastardly plot.

Seriously- shouldn't this sort of reverse engineering at least make a little bit of sense from a forward-engineering POV?

JayUtah · Mar 17, 2014

bobtaftfan said:
IOW, you're not interested in a substantive discussion on the evidence.

That was a comment on the substance of your evidence.

It's a simple point: If Rosemary Willis's act of looking backward toward the TSBD indicates a shot from behind, then numerous other bystanders' act of turning to look toward the grassy knoll logically indicates a shot from the front.

No, it logically indicates, at best, an uncertain acoustic perception. Confusion isn't automatically to be resolved in your favor.

And then there's the fact that a number of witnesses saw what clearly appeared to be gun smoke rising from a spot on the knoll...

Because guns make so much smoke these days.

not to mention the fact that at least one patrolmen stopped his bike, jumped off, and charged up the knoll...

Because he said he saw the gunman? Or for other reasons?

and the fact that some people on the knoll dropped to the ground because they heard shots whizzing by them from behind (and one of those bystanders was a combat vet who knew the sound of bullets passing nearby you).

The Grassy Knoll is tiny. You're telling me a "combat veteran" heard bullets close enough to his head to put his reputation on the line to say so, yet for some reason couldn't see the actual gunman who can't have been farther away than you could get in a reasonably affluent living room.

Hans · Mar 17, 2014

JayUtah said:
Because guns make so much smoke these days

Because obviously if I was going to shoot someone in public I'd bring with me a black powder loaded percussion rifle.......One would have to ask Bob if he ever think these things out?

Mudcat · Mar 17, 2014

I think Bob perhaps only has a Hollywood understanding of fire arms and so thinks that modern fire arms produces lot of smoke when used.

turingtest · Mar 17, 2014

Mudcat said:
I think Bob perhaps only has a Hollywood understanding of fire arms and so thinks that modern fire arms produces lot of smoke when used.

He apparently at least thinks that's what conspirators who wanted to remain hidden would use. "Simple farmer, common-clay"-type conspirators, I guess; you know...morons.

JayUtah · Mar 17, 2014

Indeed I have yet to see any conspiracy theory in any field that holds up to even the slightest scrutiny when reasoned in the forward direction. It's always backfilling what "must" have happened based on trying to fit the evidence -- and not even all the evidence, just trying to fit the dubious outlying details.

FWIW I used to shoot black-powder pistols I built from kits. I've also fired a ton of modern firearms. The difference is night and day.

HSienzant · Mar 17, 2014

bobtaftfan said:
So it was all just a big, whopping coincidence. Let's see:

* Brading goes to New Orleans a few weeks before the assassination and "just happens" to use an office next to the office of Mafia kingpin Carlos Marcello's attorney, and by "sheer coincidence" David Ferrie frequently visited that same office. Gosh, figure the odds, hey?
* Brading, two days before the assassination, travels to Dallas with--whaddaya know!--four Mafia guys.
* Brading and his Mafia buddies check into the same hotel where, the very next day, Jack Ruby meets Lawrence Myers. Wow, cosmic "chance" again!
* Brading and his Mafia pals visit the Hunt office the same day that Jack Ruby does. Humm, figure the odds that Brading and Ruby would "just happen" to visit the same hotel and then go to the same office building and visit the same office within 24 hours.
* Brading is not only in Dealey Plaza during the shooting, but he goes into the Dal-Tex Building, the same building from which a number of witnesses believed shots were fired--and when asked what he was doing in Dealey Plaza and why he entered the Dal-Tex Building, Brading gives answers that a rookie detective could spot as implausible and suspect, not to mention contradictory.

You must be kidding to dismiss all of this evidence as mere chance. But to believe in the lone-gunman theory, you have no choice but to do so.

Please name the verifiable Dealey Plaza witnesses [plural] that thought shots came from the TSBD. Citations would be nice.

Hank

HSienzant · Mar 17, 2014

bobtaftfan said:
This is simply erroneous. You cherry-pick a handful of specific frames and conclude that there was no line of sight to JFK from the Dal-Tex Building.
To make matters worse, many on your side suggest that the alleged sixth-floor gunman fired at JFK when the limo was beneath the oak tree, i.e., when the oak tree was between the gunman and the limo.

Sigh. . . . When given the chance to explain, Willis stated that he heard shots from both directions.

And, uh, if the fact that Rosemary Willis turned to look back at the TSBD indicates that shots came from that direction, what do you say about the fact that a number of people turned to look toward the grassy knoll? If one person turning to look back means shots from the TSBD, then several people turning to look toward the grassy knoll should logically mean shots from the grassy knoll. It's not either/or. Shots came from the front and from the rear.

That's not what Phil Willis' testimony was in 1964 before the Warren Commission....

http://jfkassassination.net/russ/testimony/willis_p.htm

...
Mr. LIEBELER. How many shots were fired altogether, Mr. Willis?
Mr. WILLIS. Three shots.
Mr. LIEBELER. Do you have any question about that at all?
Mr. WILLIS. No, sir.
...
Mr. LIEBELER. Did you actually observe the President when he was hit in head?
Mr. WILLIS. No, sir; I did not. I couldn't see that well, and I was more concerned about the shots coming from that building. The minute the third shot was fired, I screamed, hoping the policeman would hear me, to ring that building because it had to come from there. Being directly across the street from the building, made it much more clear to those standing there than the people who were on the side of the street where the building was.
Mr. LIEBELER. So you thought you had picked out a particular building at the time when you heard shots?
Mr. WILLIS. Absolutely.
Mr. LIEBELER. What building was that?
Mr. WILLIS. The Texas School Book Depository Building.
Mr. LIEBELER. You were pretty sure?
Mr. WILLIS. I felt certain. I even looked for smoke, and I knew it came from high up....

Five years later, it's still NOT what he was saying (testimony at the Clay Shaw trial).
http://jfkassassination.net/russ/testimony/willis_pshaw.htm

...
Q: I show you what the State has previously identified as S-33 and I ask you whether or not this is the photograph that you took at the time you said you heard the first shot?
A: Yes, sir.
Q: After having taken this photograph, Mr. Willis, what did you do?
A: My two little daughters were running along down the hill paralleling the Presidential car there and I yelled to one of them, which is the firs thing I did, and then I heard at least two more shots and then I started looking for them and looking down and hollering for them to come back to me and they came running back crying.
...
Q: While in Dealey Plaza after having heard the first shot that made you take that one picture, will you tell us whether or not you heard any other noises similar to the first noise?
A: Yes, sir.
Q: How many did you hear all told?
A: I assumed two more.
Q: So it'd be a total of three, is that correct?
A: Yes.
Q: Will you tell us the area in which you heard these shots coming from?
A: I was looking down here and I felt certain that they came from my right in that area across there.
Q: Mr. Willis, did you have occasion to see any affect that any shot may have had on any occupants in the Presidential limousine?
A: Honestly, no, sir, because I was trying to use the view finder for the camera and I was more interested in getting the whole car than focusing on an individual. I did not.
MR. OSER: I tender the witness.
CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR. DYMOND:
Q: Mr. Willis, you say that to the best of your recollection, in considering the circumstances of excitement, that you heard three shots, is that right, sir?
A: Yes, sir.
Q: Now as I understand it, Mr. Willis, you were standing here at the point indicated by the flag with your name on it on State Exhibit-35, is that correct?
A: Yes, sir, by that tree.
Q: And you say you were looking down here, and by down here do you mean down Stemmons Freeway?
A: Yes, sir.
Q: And you say the shots came from your right, is that correct?
A: They sounded as if they did.
Q: Is it not a fact that the Texas Book Depository was to your right?
A: Sir?
Q: Was the Texas Book Depository to your right?
A: Yes, sir.
Q: That is all, sir.

Three shots, from the TSBD. In his testimony to the WC and in the Shaw trial. He said nothing about hearing shots from two different places in the first five years after the assassination. You got something decades later, I presume, when his memory was not as strong and he was possibly influenced by books about a conspiracy and a grassy knoll shooter?

Hank

HSienzant · Mar 17, 2014

bobtaftfan said:
No, I meant "evidence."

They are. (Well, actually, Brading traveled to Dallas with three Mafia guys, not four. I was including Brading in the count.)

Because the patsy was not framed in that building. There's also the fact that Dallas authorities failed to do even minimal investigation of the two men who were arrested in/coming out of the Dal-Tex Building.

This said, if memory serves, there is some photographic evidence of a shot from the Dal-Tex Building (a bystander seeming to react to a startling event, such as a gun shot), though I might be thinking of the County Records Building.

No, you're thinking of an allegation by Harold Weisberg, who claimed in WHITEWASH or PHOTOGRAPHIC WHITEWASH, or both, that the person sitting on the fire escape in the Altgens photo appeared to be "in some distress" but claimed that the magnification available did not allow him to ascertain anything further.

But the image shows nothing of the sort, and neither do other images showing the man on the fire escape of the Dal-Tex building.

In short, you're remembering the claim, but not the fact that there's no evidence behind it. If you beg to differ, present the evidence of "a bystander seeming to react to a startling event".

Thanks much.

Hank

HSienzant · Mar 17, 2014

bobtaftfan said:
So it was all just a big, whopping coincidence. Let's see:

* Brading goes to New Orleans a few weeks before the assassination and "just happens" to use an office next to the office of Mafia kingpin Carlos Marcello's attorney, and by "sheer coincidence" David Ferrie frequently visited that same office. Gosh, figure the odds, hey?