JFK - 3 shooters 6 shots

[profmunkin]

All the illusion of a real trial, but not more then a fraud.

It could not be an illusion of a trial simply because it was not a trial.  There was no defendant and could be no sentence.

You state the obvious, but the obvious is also that the Warren Commission Report was the indictment against Oswald, he was proclaimed guilty of the assassination the President and Tippet and this judgement was sold as absolute fact to the American Citizens. The fact the Commission was under Chief Justice Earl Warren gave the illusion that this indeed was sanctioned by the court and had a value of fairness.

[profmunkin]

Count the agents in the followup car. Note particularly that the right-hand running board, behind Rybka, already has two agents. In fact, when we see the followup car later in the motorcade, we can see that it is completely full: four agents on the running boards, the driver and Roberts in the front seats, two JFK aides in the jump seats, and two agents in the back seat. Where, exactly, would agent Rybka have stood when the motorcade was going too fast for him to safely cling to the limo's rear step?

The fact of the matter was explained by Blaine and Hill: Rybka was never even assigned to ride in the motorcade; he was supposed to stay at the airport and wait for its return. He was joking with his co-workers. And since Blaine and Hill know far more about this than you do, I'll go with their report, thank you very much.
 

Rybka and the other agent should stand on the back of the limo where there is the provision for 2 agents to stand?
Are you saying agents could stand on the running boards at higher speeds, but they couldn't hang on if the limo drove at high speeds?
Why would they not have designed the footholds and hand holds on the limo to support agents when traveling at higher speeds?

Oh wait a minute, you were kidding, right...lol
"He was joking with his co-workers"...rofl

[ka9q]

Not true, again.

Mark Lane approached the WC on behalf of Oswald's mother and asked to be appointed the defence for Oswald, the commission consented.
Shortly thereafter they recended the offer to allow Lane to participate.

Sorry, but the publicity-hungry Mark Lane was never Oswald's defense attorney. Oswald never hired him as his attorney. He never consented to Lane being appointed as his attorney. While he was in custody, Oswald mentioned only the name of attorney John Abt; never the name Mark Lane. And in this country the Constitution guarantees a criminal suspect the right to legal representation of his choice. A dead person cannot exercise choice unless he does it before he dies, as in writing a will.

[ka9q]

Rybka and the other agent should stand on the back of the limo where there is the provision for 2 agents to stand?
Are you saying agents could stand on the running boards at higher speeds, but they couldn't hang on if the limo drove at high speeds?
Why would they not have designed the footholds and hand holds on the limo to support agents when traveling at higher speeds?

As I explained, it was unsafe for agents to ride on the rear of the limousine at high speeds. Since the motorcade began and ended with freeway stretches, any agents riding on the rear of the limousine would have to fall back to the running boards of the followup car (the "Queen Mary"). And those running boards already had two agents each.

Oh wait a minute, you were kidding, right...lol
"He was joking with his co-workers"...rofl

That's exactly what Blaine and Hill said. And since they knew Lawton and were actually on the Kennedy Detail themselves, I trust their take far more than yours or anyone else who wasn't there and didn't know them.

Oh, by the way, the name of the agent who stops and shrugs his shoulders at the airport is Don Lawton, not Rybka. I got the name Rybka from that video you cited. I should have known better than to trust a conspiracist video to get even the most basic and verifiable facts right.

So, once again, I ask you: where would Lawton have ridden when the motorcade was at high speed?

[ka9q]

You state the obvious, but the obvious is also that the Warren Commission Report was the indictment against Oswald, he was proclaimed guilty of the assassination the President and Tippet and this judgement was sold as absolute fact to the American Citizens. The fact the Commission was under Chief Justice Earl Warren gave the illusion that this indeed was sanctioned by the court and had a value of fairness

I know you can't seem to understand this, but the Warren Commission was not a criminal court of law. It could not find Oswald legally guilty of anything because Oswald was dead and we have no provision in this country to try dead people. Nor was it a grand jury, so it could not issue an 'indictment'. The Warren Commission was a fact-finding body, with subpoena powers. And finding and exhaustively analyzing facts and generating conclusions based on those facts is exactly what they did.

The conspiracy nuts have never been able to seriously challenge those conclusions, although they certainly claim to have.

[ka9q]

Here is the excerpt from The Kennedy Detail regarding Lawton at the airport:

Finally, Clint Hill dropped back into position on the left running board of the follow-up car as Bill Greer picked up the speed. Don Lawton was still jogging alongside. Emory Roberts stood up and motioned him back with a Lawton! What in the Sam Hill are you doing? kind of look. The motorcade was just starting and the last thing Roberts wanted was the president getting upset over an agent blocking the view for the people who had come to see Jackie and him. Lawton turned to the follow-up car with a big grin and put up his arms in mocking protest as he dropped back to the sidelines.

"Okay, I've done my job, guys," Lawton said. "It's all yours now. Now go on and get out of here so I can have some lunch."

This was typical Don Lawton. He was joking, but the other agents could tell he'd rather be working the follow-up car than staying at Love Field with Rybka advancing the departure.

[profmunkin]

Sorry, but the publicity-hungry Mark Lane was never Oswald's defense attorney. Oswald never hired him as his attorney. He never consented to Lane being appointed as his attorney. While he was in custody, Oswald mentioned only the name of attorney John Abt; never the name Mark Lane. And in this country the Constitution guarantees a criminal suspect the right to legal representation of his choice. A dead person cannot exercise choice unless he does it before he dies, as in writing a will.

So what's your point.
That just because Oswald is dead he no longer deserves a defense?
Since he couldn't pick a defense he can't have one?
Since Lane wasn't among Oswalds known choices it disqualifies him?
That his family had no right to seek a fair hearing on the behalf of a member of their family murdered while in police custody?
That the family didn't have the right to try to clear the Oswald name of the associatin now and forever with assassination of JFK?
What is your point?

[ka9q]

Actually only discarded the pigeon watchers Romack and Rackley, it was just to absurd to think that anyone could attribute their testimonies to support TSBD for a source of the reports.

But they were not used to determine the source of the shots. There was already abundant evidence showing exactly where they had come from: the Texas School Book Depository. Since that had been established, Romack and Rackley, who were behind the TSBD, were asked to testify about the activity they witnessed at the rear of the TSBD immediately after the assassination.

Is that so hard to understand? Or are you literally blind to any words that do not tell you exactly what you want to hear, ie, that the JFK assassination was some sort of massive conspiracy?

[gillianren]

Oh, I've been waiting for Mark Lane's name to come up, because I read a piece of information about him this week that's too good not to share.

Did you know that Mark Lane is a Jonestown survivor?  It's true!  He was never Lee Harvey Oswald's lawyer, but he was hired by Jim Jones.  And he fed Jim Jones the same kind of paranoid conspiracy baloney that he's been spouting about Kennedy for nearly fifty years now, claiming that all kinds of people who defected from the People's Temple or who wrote pieces calling the practices thereof into question were "obviously" CIA plants trying to discredit the great Jim Jones.  It's entirely possible, in fact, that telling that kind of stuff to a man who was at very least paranoid already because of amphetamine addiction, if not actually a schizophrenic, was one of the things which led to what happened.  Which of course has not stopped Mark Lane from making plenty of money lecturing about the subject.  The Temple's other lawyer felt horribly, horribly guilty and instead devoted himself to doing good works until the day he died.

[ka9q]

So what's your point.
That just because Oswald is dead he no longer deserves a defense?

That's correct. Being dead, Oswald could not be the defendant in a criminal case, therefore the Sixth Amendment guarantee of assistance of counsel did not apply.

Note the phrase: assistance of counsel. That implies an active collaboration between the attorney and his client. How can a dead person actively assist his attorney in his defense?

Since he couldn't pick a defense he can't have one?
Since Lane wasn't among Oswalds known choices it disqualifies him?

Irrelevant because Oswald was dead and therefore neither subject to criminal proceedings nor entitled to a lawyer.

That his family had no right to seek a fair hearing on the behalf of a member of their family murdered while in police custody?
That the family didn't have the right to try to clear the Oswald name of the associatin now and forever with assassination of JFK?

That's an entirely different point. The surviving members of the Oswald family, like every other American, had every right to choose and hire attorneys to represent their own interests.  Indeed, Mark Lane represented Lee's mother Marguerite Oswald for a short time. But I don't think Lane helped her cause much when it became apparent that he was severely distorting and even manufacturing evidence. His telephone call with Helen Markham, one of the witnesses to the Tippit murder, would probably have gotten him indicted for perjury and witness tampering if there had been an actual trial.

The surviving Oswalds were certainly entitled to defend the family name if they wished, by finding and presenting any evidence that they thought helpful. Not only did four members of Oswald's immediate family (Marguerite, his mother; Robert, his brother; Marina, his widow; and John Pic, his half brother) testify or give depositions to the Warren Commission, the press eagerly gave them all an outlet.

Oswald family friends, such as Ruth and Michael Paine and George De Mohrenschildt, also testified. Although not family, they were certainly close enough to be personally tarred by association with someone so utterly infamous. So they too had a personal interest in proving Oswald innocent -- had that been possible. But nearly all the evidence that was actually given by Oswald's friends and family only heavily incriminated him. Especially Marina, the person who was by far the closest to him. Because of her we know that Lee had been responsible for the previously unsolved attempt on General Walker's life, and that demonstrated his ability and willingness to kill for political reasons.

Robert Oswald, Lee's brother, has repeatedly said that if he had evidence his brother was innocent he'd be shouting it from the rooftops. But he was convinced of his brother's guilt as soon as he met him in police custody, and he has never found any reason to change that view. He feels that it's often good to take a fresh look at things, but when you've looked at something several dozen times and you keep getting the same answer, it's time to just let it go. But I don't think the conspiracists will ever grant his wish.

So, your point?

[ka9q]

Did you know that Mark Lane is a Jonestown survivor?  It's true!

I just happened to learn that right before you said so.

It's entirely possible, in fact, that telling that kind of stuff to a man who was at very least paranoid already because of amphetamine addiction, if not actually a schizophrenic, was one of the things which led to what happened.

What an excellent insight! If this is what actually happened in Jonestown, it should serve as a very strong warning that paranoid conspiracy nonsense is not just innocent fun; it can sometimes cause a lot of real harm to a lot of real people.

While even the most paranoid conspiracists are fully entitled to First Amendment protection, I just wish they'd think really hard about what they're saying and doing and the effect it might conceivably have on the more unhinged around us.

[gillianren]

I just happened to learn that right before you said so.

I learned it a few days ago and was waiting for his name to come up in this discussion.  I knew it would, sooner or later, because one of the other things Mark Lane has been doing for fifty years is insinuating himself into the Kennedy mythos until his name basically has to come up eventually.

What an excellent insight! If this is what actually happened in Jonestown, it should serve as a very strong warning that paranoid conspiracy nonsense is not just innocent fun; it can sometimes cause a lot of real harm to a lot of real people.

I really recommend the book I read.  It's called A Thousand Lives: The Untold Story of Hope, Deception, and Survival at Jonestown, by Julia Scheeres.  The story is really heartrending.  I hadn't realized how many survivors there were--or how much responsibility conspiracists turn out to bear all the way around.  Jim Jones was admittedly on a lot of drugs, but I think there was already something wrong with him, given just how willing he was to jump on the "huge conspiracy of everyone is out to get me" bandwagon.

While even the most paranoid conspiracists are fully entitled to First Amendment protection, I just wish they'd think really hard about what they're saying and doing and the effect it might conceivably have on the more unhinged around us.

And what effect those people can have on others who are not so unhinged, it turns out.  By the last days of Jonestown, very few of the people there still believed much of what Jim Jones was telling them.  And unfortunately for everyone, Mark Lane was one of them, but he lived.

[Jason Thompson]

What is this non-sense that some evidence had to be recovered from the knoll.
The sniper had to leave the rifle or spent shells to have existed?

No, but there has to be more evidence than people hearing shots, which could have come from elsewhere.

At least 5 witnesses saw the sniper and the spotter,

Provide the testimony of these witnesses that conclusively identifies a sniper and a spotter.

4 witnesses saw a puff of smoke

One puff of smoke from three (or more, according to you) shots? Can you think of anything else that might have caused a puff of smoke? Smoke does not equal a rifle shot.

and dozens heard the sound of the report.

And several said it came from somewhere else entirely.

Witnesses also saw a sniper in the TSBD. Witnesses inside the TSBD also reported hearing the action of the bolt and the sound of spent shells hitting the floor above them. Now tell me why that carries less weight than some distant observations of a couple of guys and a puff of smoke.

[Jason Thompson]

Are you saying agents could stand on the running boards at higher speeds, but they couldn't hang on if the limo drove at high speeds?

Yes, because there is a big difference between hanging onto the side and hanging on to the rear of a moving car. But again, that's physics, so I don't envision you actually taking the slightest bit of notice of that.

Why would they not have designed the footholds and hand holds on the limo to support agents when traveling at higher speeds?

They did: the running boards. Your contention that every possible place for an agent to stand and hang on should be safe at every possible speed the vehicle is moving at is no more than assumption and speculation on your part. Again, there is a big difference in the physics of hanging on to the side of a moving vehicle and hanging on to the rear.

[Jason Thompson]

If you read the transcipt you would know that Bennett is referering to his actions after the 3rd shot, by then the knoll will be to his right and rear as they sped out of Dealey Plaza.

So, does the TSBD suddenly stop being right and rear of him as the car moves forward? You're really grasping at straws now if you have to wait until the knoll comes into an area relative to him that still encompasses the TSBD and use that as evidence of a shot from the knoll.