It's Not A Stretch To Say Nunes' House Intel Committee Bears Analogs To LBJ's Warren Commission

Devin Nunes - turned the House Intelligence Committee into a political charade for Trump and his own personal PR machine to attack other investigations. In may ways the whole fiasco - and Nunes' role in it- bears numerous similarities to LBJ's use of the Warren Commission to cover his ass, and deflect serious scrutiny, in that case - into the JFK assassination.

"This Intelligence Committee Report is a farce in so many ways. It's a farce in view of what happened - allowing witnesses to come in and refuse to answer questions and then no follow up, no subpoenas, no attempt to hold anyone in contempt. And it's a farce in claiming Putin wasn't  trying to elect Trump. Not just because the intelligence agencies have concluded otherwise, but a grand jury of 23 average Americans returned an indictment that explicitly said the Russians were trying to elect Donald Trump. They're ignoring that evidence completely ."  Former DOJ specialist Matt Miller, on 'All In' last night


Who would ever have believed another abominable "investigation"  like the politically motivated Warren Commission's could ever be resurrected again? For those who need a memory jog, this charade was conceived by LBJ to provide protective cover for himself by launching into a pseudo-investigation of the assassination of JFK.   Like the just concluded House Intelligence Committee - largely run as a charade to protect Trump by his water boy Devin Nunes- the Warren Commission was designed as an elaborate foil to protect Johnson.  And as I will show,  many of the negative aspects applicable to the WC also applied to the Nunes' fake House Intel investigation, including omitting key witnesses, ignoring issuing subpoenas, not calling back witnesses and not properly questioning others.

Faced with clearing his name from any suspicious involvement in Kennedy's assassination  (though Jackie suspected his role until her dying day - as she revealed in taped conversations to historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr.) he first attempted to form a “Texas Commission”, with staff entirely composed of Texans. He soon realized this wouldn't wash as it would appear too cozy, too inbred.

So he conceived of going for name cachet and gravitas in then Chief Justice Earl Warren,  to head the "Warren Commission". Johnson needed the credibility of Warren so the media would accept the commission as a bona fide government entity as opposed to a creature of Johnson's whim and machinations. The problem was Warren iitially rejected LBJ's pleas  to lead the Commission. But the ol'  polecat Lyndon wasn't done.  He managed to coerce Warren into service by threatening exposure of his FBI files. Johnson's taped words were - after speaking to Warren (cf. Michael R. Beschloss, Taking Charge:The Johnson White House Tapes 1963-64, 1997, p. 72, as cited by Russ Baker, in 'Family of Secrets', p. 46): 

"Warren told me he wouldn't do it under any circumstances...He came down here and told me 'No'...twice. And I just pulled out what[FBI Director} Hoover told me about a little incident in Mexico City....And he started crying and said: 'I won't turn you down...I'll just do whatever you say' "

The incident showed LBJ would  even resort to rank blackmail to get his way to endow his political whitewash with name cachet and specious validity.  In an analogous sense we've seen how Devin Nunes would resort to actual treason - via release of classified files- to confer false gravitas on his House Intel committee investigation, even after he'd recused himself.

And just as Nunes cherry-picked and distorted witness testimony as well as evidence, so also the W C distorted and cherry-picked its own evidence. For example, Commissioner Gerald Ford altered the initial autopsy report from:

A bullet had entered his back at a point slightly above the shoulder to the right of the spine."

To read:

"A bullet had entered the back of his neck slightly to the right of the spine."

This was done to conform with  WC lawyer Arlen Specter'single bullet myth. Thr death certificate revealed the back wound to be at the president's "third thoracic vertebra.”  The neck has seven CERVICAL vertebrae, and this observed and verified wound was described as three THORACIC vertebrae lower than the neck itself..  Ford insisted this was “a small change, …intended to clarify meaning, not alter history”. But alter history is exactly what it did! For by altering the original autopsy report, Ford and his cohorts succeeded in conferring a measure of validity on Specter’s single bullet theory. This is despite the fact that analysis of the resulting trajectory doesn’t even conform to basic laws of Newtonian dynamics.

This evoked memory of Nunes' performance in March last year when he ran to the White House claiming to have "new information' about the House committee's findings.  In truth, he did not release any real information, he only put up an elaborate facade  by going hysterical over the "unmasking" of Trump campaign personnel - which was totally valid given foreign intel intercepts had shown their communications with the Russians.  which induced the media to make its own interpretations. Hence, he created a smokescreen for what he was really up to, i.e. distracting from the Mueller investigation while trying to impugn it at the same time..  This is analogous to the smokescreen created by Ford, Specter and the Warren Commission in their alteration of the autopsy report in the JFK assassination.

Nunes' performance  had all the hallmarks of a classic disinformation and obfuscation hit which I've seen many times before in other investigations, not only the WC. These disinfo hits usually occur just as said "noose" is tightening or when an investigation is finally coming toward a unifying resolution.  For example, just as the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) in 1978 was finally coming to a definitive conclusion for a grassy knoll head shot in the JFK assassination, based on acoustic tests by Weiss and Barger, two MIT scientists, up pops Norman Ramsey - an outlier no one ever heard of. Never mind, Ramsey's panel (with little or no experience and background compared to the MIT team) managed to muddy the waters sufficiently by their absurd interjections. The Ramsey Panel analysis was alleged to have  'refuted' the original Weiss -Barger study, but in fact only showed that the Weiss group had omitted some considerations. The Ramsey analysis certainly does not 'nullify' the Weiss/Barger analysis since up to now it has not been  reproduced, so cannot be accepted as a bona fide scientific conclusion. 

Perhaps the most cogent similarity lies in the failure to call key witnesses. In the case of the WC, as reported by former Justice Dept. agent Walt Brown, 200 witnesses- "each with knowledge at least as valuable as that given by the 488 commission witnesses" were not asked questions.   These included:

- Tom Alyea (who allegedly first filmed the sniper's 'nest')

 - Charles A. Crenshaw (Parkland surgical resident at the time – who observed the gaping rear head wound)

 -   Julia Ann Mercer - spotted a truck on the triple underpass with a rifle inside, driven by Jack Ruby

 -  William Harper -  found the occipital bone fragment 25’  behind the limo

 -  Guy Banister - ran the Camp St. office from which Oswald  distributed leaflets;

 -   Joseph Milteer -the right wing zealot who predicted the assassination by sniper;

 -  Sergio Archacha Smith -believed to be the person who fired at Gen. Edwin Walker;

  - Mary Moorman -took the Moorman photo at the instant of the head shot;

   - Aquilla Clemons - observed the Tippitt shooting, and saw another man – not Oswald, doing it;

   - Silvia Duran - consul employee who could have testified to the identity of the ‘Oswald' seen in Mexico City;

-  Gordon Arnold : stood on the grass in front of the knoll's picket fence when a shot made him hit the dirt - (later sent to Alaska);

-  Orville Nix - took the Nix film from the opposite side of Elm St. to Abraham  Zapruder ;

-  Mary Muchmore- whose original film was cut/mutilated on return;

In the case of the House Intelligence Committee, member Democrats have estimated that "scores of key witnesses" were never brought forth for questioning.  These have included:

- George Papadopoulos who had admitted contacts with the Russians long before Christoper Steele's dossier emerged

-  Carter Page, deemed a key Russian agent, implicated from 2013 via intel intercepts and other communications

- Wilbur Ross, who had become head of a Cyprus bank that helped Russian oligarchs launder money e.g.

https://boingboing.net/2017/02/28/new-secretary-of-commerce-wil.html

Other witnesses, e.g.  Eric Prince, up to his ears in shady dealing with the Trumpies in the Seychelles, were brought in but not fully questioned. For example, Prince may have been key to setting up a Trump-Russia backchannel through an Emirati conduit, but this was never pursued/ Much like the alleged Oswald pot shots at Gen. Edwin Walker were never pursued by the WC. It is worthwhile to note that not even Walker himself, in a deposition, believed Oswald made the shot.  (This was supported by Robert Surrey, one of Walker’s aides who spotted two men prowling around the residence days before the shooting.  The car was described as a 1957 Chevrolet and one of the man as dark-complexioned.)

Other superficially vetted  House Intelligence witnesses included Jared Kushner, and Donald Trump Jr.. Neither of whom fully answered questions or provided ancillary documents to support their claims.

In other cases (e.g. Hope Hicks, Steve Bannon) there was total stonewalling, under some specious "order"  from the White House.   NO subpoenas were issued by the House Committee to force any cooperation whatsoever. They didn't even try.  So it is kind of choice to read now, according to one House member, a Texas Republican:

"We found no evidence that the Trump campaign or anyone associated with it colluded with the Russians,"

So just like the Warrenites concluded no conspiracy after their pseudo investigation so also the House Intel Committee  concluded that no conspiracy existed between Trumpies and Russians - despite all the evidence to the contrary.

In the case of the Kennedy assassination, it was left to the HSCA to conclude in 1979 for a "probable conspiracy" (96 percent probability) based on the 4 shots (appearing as impulses) in the acoustic record of  Weiss and Barger. In an analogous sense, it appears it will be up to the Robert Mueller investigation to find for evidence of conspiracy (often incorrectly called "collusion") in the Trump - Russia case.  In the meantime, the ranking member of the House Intel Committee - Adam Schiff - had these words to offer about the conclusion:

"By ending its oversight role in the only authorized investigation in the House, the Majority has placed the interests of protecting the President over protecting the country, and history will judge its action harshly."

Interestingly, the same general take, of mischievously "protecting a President" instead of protecting the country, could now be said of history's parsing of the Warren Commission.  We now know this was purely an elaborate political and PR charade designed to tamp down national fears and exonerate Johnson from having any role in the tragic events of Nov. 22, 1963.  As one wit put it: "To commit the perfect crime, all that's needed is to be in charge of the investigation that follows."

See also:

• Trey Gowdy admits that the Republican House Intelligence report is fundamentally wrong 

Ken Burns' Series On Vietnam War A Must See For All Citizens

Once more, documentary TV series ('The Civil War', 'Baseball') creator Ken Burns has produced a gem, this time an 18-hour series on the Vietnam War to be televised over ten days on PBS starting Sunday.  Burns in a recent WSJ spotlight piece acknowledges the series" takes no sides on the war", neither left nor right. What he does is to enlist a wide range of eyewitnesses to history, including U.S. and Vietnamese veterans (including the North Vietnamese), family members and anti-war activists. All play their role and contribute to the series' staggering breadth and depth.

To Burns' credit the series is also unsparing in its rightful criticism of military and political leaders (with more than ample reason, as I will subsequently show).  These felons of history - especially the odious LBJ - deliberately carried out nefarious policies (like using Agent Orange on crops) in support of an unpopular and corrupt South Vietnamese regime, then escalating engagement despite doubts that they could prevail. This dynamic was particularly applicable to Johnson and Nixon given JFK had earlier (1963) tried to extricate the U.S. from this miasma that killed over 58,000. There is no issue on that, nor that  John F Kennedy actually attempted to prevent it by signing  National Security Action Memorandum 263. 

Burns goes all the way back to the French establishment of Indochina in 1858 as the spark point for future conflict, but the American involvement is less defined. What we do know is that soon after the 1960 election  Johnson - according to FOIA released documents- secretly courted the military to fire up American aggression though Kennedy was steadfastly against it  The back channel efforts to curry favor with the military (especially prime JFK hater Gen. Curtis Lemay) entailed setting up a network to receive actual Vietnam intelligence behind Kennedy’s back – while ensuring the spooks and Pentagon sources delivered only doctored pap to JFK.    (Months later Kennedy became aware of this which clinched one more reason for him to dump Johnson from the 1964 ticket) In many nations, this would be regarded as high treason, and anyone who did it (and was found out)  put before a firing squad.

Much of the credit in digging up the relevant records goes to Military Science Professor John Newman in his book, JFK and Vietnam which documents that by November 24, 1963 – two days after Kennedy was dead (and before he was even laid to rest)-  a policy shift transpired toward massive commitment to American military forces in Vietnam – despite Kennedy’s NSAM 263.  

In the words of another researcher, Peter Dale Scott (Deep Politics and the Death of JFK, p. 30) it also proved  that Johnson – since 1961  - "had been the ally of the Joint Chiefs and especially Air Force Gen. Curtis LeMay."  Let us recall for reference it was LeMay who compared Kennedy to Neville Chamberlain when he refused to go all out to bomb and invade Cuba  during the height of the Cuban Missile crisis.

Scott summarized Johnson’s treason nicely (op. cit., p. 31):

“A back channel had been established whereby ‘the boys in the woodwork’ were feeding (Howard) Burris and Johnson a steady stream of accurate Vietnam intelligence reports which were denied to the President.”

These latter were almost uniformly false and “optimistic”.

He goes on (ibid.):

“Meanwhile, U.S. Army Intelligence in Honolulu kept producing a second series of reports, more accurate and gloomy. These were denied to the President and McNamara but supplied by a secret intelligence back channel to Johnson”

Kennedy eventually realized the only way to throttle Johnson and his backchannel was to write and  approve National Security Action Memorandum 263 to move all personnel from Vietnam by calendar year 1965.  Let's examine this in more detail because it remains controversial especially among disinformationists and revisionist historians.

What is often actually cited as the NSAM, i.e.

http://www.jfklibrary.org/Asset-Viewer/w6LJoSnW4UehkaH9Ip5IAA.aspx

Is in fact only the cover letter by McGeorge Bundy. It has only passing relevance to the actual content of the NSAM, but it does clearly state “the President approved sections IB(1-3) of the report". Which report? To find these, the researcher must turn to Document 142 in The Pentagon Papers: ‘Report of McNamara - Taylor Mission to South Vietnam'. Then the serious researcher will read:

IB(2) A program be established to train Vietnamese so that essential functions now performed by U.S. military personnel can be carried out by the Vietnamese by the end of 1965. It should be possible to withdraw the bulk of U.S. military personnel by that time.

IB(3): In accordance with the program to train progressively Vietnamese to take over military functions, the Defense Department should announce in the very near future presently prepared plans to withdraw 1,000 U.S. military personnel by the end of 1963.

Note the wording and that a partial drawdown of 1,000 was due for the end of 1963 and the bulk by 1965. Most lazy wannabes or pseudo-historians never get this far while some others that do mistake the "1,000" total for the entire intended lot.

Those of us (Kennedy assassination researchers) who acknowledge that LBJ had a role in his death  - at least enabling its execution-  underscore this occurred because if JFK lived LBJ's NSAM 273 (to activate the Vietnam War) could not have gone forward. Those who question this are left to answer the question:  IF untrue, why is it that LBJ found it necessary to issue NSAM 273, essentially nullifying JFK's NSAM 263? 

As pointed out by  Peter Dale Scott ( 'Deep Politics and the Death of JFK')  Johnson’s NSAM 273   “deleted Kennedy’s restrictions and sanctioned plans for U.S. operations to begin shortly thereafter”. (That is, after Nov. 21 – one day before JFK was shot dead in Dallas).  In other words, the fell plans for reversing Kennedy’s NSAM were already in existence a day in advance of the date JFK was killed. Scott notes (p. 30) a draft of this NSAM 273 had presumptively been readied for Kennedy to see. (The draft prepared for Kennedy’s signature spoke only of “additional resources” given by the South Vietnamese to fight North Vietnam – as per JFK’s original instructions in NSAM 263 – but this was the part deleted.)

I advise those who want to seriously delve further into the background to LBJ's NSAM -273 to check out the information in the link below:

http://www.jfklancer.com/NSAM273.html

Scott has also correctly observed that in the wake of this perfidy most media sources (e.g. Michael Specter in the NY Times) and talking heads (e.g. Noam Chomsky)  who prattled that “NSAM 273 continued Kennedy’s policies”,  did nothing of the sort. Scott further observes (p. 29)  that "even The Nation participated in this obfuscation of the record."  The Nation?  That icon of liberal media? You'd better believe it! At times, and too often to count, liberals can lose their bearings as much as conservatives.

Let’s bear in mind that the NSAM 273 perversion led directly to an even greater outrage, the fabrication of the Tonkin Gulf incident  in August 1964, when two U.S. gunboats - the Turner Joy and Maddox-  were allegedly attacked without provocation. This precipitated the Tonkin Gulf Resolution which directly led to the massive expansion in ‘Nam.  This is something Kennedy - having changed his Cold warrior stripes by late 1962- would never have done!

The Tonkin Gulf incident, for those who may not know, was confected on the basis that North Vietnamese had fired on U.S. gunboats in international waters. This was the immediate pretext for the entry into the war.  In 2005, an internal National Security Agency historical study was declassified; it concluded that the Maddox had engaged the North Vietnamese Navy on August 2, but that there were no North Vietnamese Naval vessels present during the incident of August 4. The report stated regarding August 2:

“At 1505G, Captain Herrick ordered Ogier's gun crews to open fire if the boats approached within ten thousand yards. At about 1505G, the Maddox fired three rounds to warn off the communist boats. This initial action was never reported by the Johnson administration, which insisted that the Vietnamese boats fired first”

And regarding August 4:

“It is not simply that there is a different story as to what happened; it is that no attack happened that night. [...] In truth, Hanoi's navy was engaged in nothing that night but the salvage of two of the boats damaged on August 2”


In other words, LBJ and  the U.S. war hawks like Lemay used it as a pretext to demand the Gulf of Tonkin resolution and launch a war that killed nearly 58,000. LBJ had finally delivered on his promise to the military-industrial complex to give them their war in return for having assisted in Kennedy's killing and its massive cover up.

Make no mistake, this cornpone Texas turd - so blindly idolized by too many uninformed liberals-   is nothing but a verminous traitor, racist and murderer. He not only saw to it Kennedy would meet his death in Dallas (including by altering the motorcade route and venue for his Dallas speech) but also created the  phony (Warren) commission to cover it up even as he manufactured a document to expand the war in Vietnam leading to monumental loss in blood and treasure.

Ken Burns'  PBS TV series  effort revives the dark past of the Vietnam War and to the extent that it enlightens a nation too ignorant of that history, is laudable.   And while there is the acknowledgement of atrocities like the My Lai massacre, the series never loses sight of the service and sacrifice of the hundreds of thousands who either volunteered or were drafted. Many lf them  are still plagued by the memories that often keep them awake at night. They were, after all, the pawns of the warmongers like LBJ, Curtis Lemay, and William Westmoreland.

But before watching Burns' invaluable film it is also worth knowing how the U.S. involvement got started, the 'backstory' as it were - mostly only revealed in the last 10-12 years. We owe it to ourselves to learn more about how the Vietnam War affected soldiers and protesters alike. But it is also worthwhile historically to understand the perverse role of the warmongers that wasted all those years, lives and capital.

Johnson's cooperation with the military itself - and seeking to exclude JFK - was probably based on two horrendously wrong theories popular at the time: 1) The "Domino theory" which held that if  Vietnam fell the other nations in Southeast Asia would likewise fall, and (2) the "containment theory"  based on the notion North Vietnam was the pawn of the Soviets and China to expand their communist sphere of influence. In many ways, (2) dovetailed with (1).

As you watch the Burns' documentary just think of what might have been if Kennedy's NSAM 263 had prevailed, and hence, Kennedy had lived.

HBO's LBJ Movie 'All The Way' - Good, But More Hagiography Than History

Which portrayal do you accept: The scum ball who helped plan JFK's killing, or the rising civil rights star who brought two major pieces of legislation to finality. In fact, both can easily be valid - with the latter helping to burnish the reputation of the assassination architect.


"Who controls the past controls the future.  And who controls the present controls the past.”

In those immortal words of George Orwell (from ‘1984’) we at once beheld the importance of history in determining the quality of our lives, and outcomes of public policy. Sadly, and I hate to say this – too many liberals don’t know their own past, the nation’s past, and don’t want to. They believe merely because they are scribes at Salon.com, HuffPo or some other site, they’re entitled to weigh in on recent history and distort it. Worse, they want to remain gloriously ignorant - steeped more in hagiography, or misplaced hero worship – than actual history.

This leads us to Ph.D. history student Matthew Rosza, writing in salon.com last month, who exhorted  all liberals to watch the HBO premier movie 'All The Way', to see the analogies to our current election - with Hillary in the similar position to LBJ (not exactly outside the establishment) and the GOP's Barry Goldwater playing the 1964 version of Donald Trump.

But Rosza's premise is totally off base, as when he writes:

"Like Johnson in 1964, Clinton in 2016 is hampered by her problematic background on racial justice issues, from fueling the mass incarceration of racial minorities to supporting a welfare reform bill that disproportionately impacted African Americans. Also like Johnson, though, Clinton has now vowed to fight for important civil rights measures, including overhauling drug sentencing laws, prohibiting racial profiling, and forbidding employers from asking applicants about their criminal history. If she is elected, the non-white voters who helped put her into office will have a right and responsibility to hold her feet to the fire and make sure she gets these things done… but to do that, of course, she must become president first."

But Rosza's  take is too superficial, as telegraphed by even remotely considering Barry Goldwater in 1964 as playing an analogous role to Trump in 2016. In fact, there was no comparison, given Goldwater may have been many things but he was not a bloviating buffoon. Indeed, at Loyola University (New Orleans)  ca. September, 1964, nearly half the student body was hyped over the prospect of having a President Goldwater. Massive student rallies were held and you had to get to classes early to avoid the congestion in the quad. They viewed his conservatism as solid and real - unlike the way Trump's version is seen today.

Rosza's arguments mainly fail because while he dredges up a docudrama history of LBJ from HBO's movie  'All The Way',  he excludes all the real pre-presidential history we now know (such as revealed in Phillip F. Nelson's book imaged above). This,  even as he references  Hillary's actual history via her "problematic background" i.e. on racial justice issues etc.. The result is that he essentially compares the hagiography of one with the history of the other. This in fact is the primary thread that runs through his article: Hillary's actual historical problems, bad decisions vs. only the limited ones we get too see on HBO's  TV movie on LBJ. (To be fair the movie only covered LBJ's first year or so in office, but this is all the more reason not to make comparisons with Hillary._

Most of us who have pursued the documents track since the release of records via The JFK Records Act, have been seeking the skeleton key, if you will, or the linchpin that ties together all the disparate, apparently unrelated facts  of the Kennedy assassination– originally portrayed by the media as “coincidences”, "oversights"  or “mistakes”.  At the time too many of us, excessively gullible, accepted the media's blarney instead of they're being premeditated actions of LBJ to cover his own ass. These included LBJ orders issued for:

-        All of Kennedy’s clothing, including the bullet –holed suit coat - destroyed.

-        The blood spattered and bullet- impacted limousine ordered dispatched to  Detroit,, where it was cleaned, disassembled, then completely rebuilt then sent to Ohio

-        Zapruder film (altered with attempted juxtaposition of frames

-     Original autopsy notes of Dr. J.J. Humes   (burned)

-        Kennedy’s skull (re-imaged using mattes in re-done autopsy photos to make the massive wounds appear in the front and the entry wound in the rear- to comport with the Warren Commission Single Bullet theory[1])

-        Kennedy’s brain (missing from the time the body arrived at Bethesda). The brain would have shown the path of 'cavitation' clearly and added to the weight of evidence for a frontal shot.

Over the years many of us began thinking that none of the preceding were coincidence or error – but deliberate- ordered by LBJ to cover his nefarious tracks, including via the ruse of the Warren Commission which HE created!  I mean, Oswald couldn’t have done those things. Nor could any of these have been done by the Mafia, angry Cubans or even rogue CIA agents. The orders had to come from the top, since the evidence was all material, and in addition under control (at various times) of federal agencies, including: FBI and Secret Service.  In fact, the relevant records disclose that none other than Cliff Carter (one of the co-conspirators found guilty in the Henry Harvey Marshall slaying) gave orders for the actions which, if refused, were followed up by Johnson himself making telephone demands.

Johnson also violated federal and state laws with assorted usurpations, destruction of material evidence (as listed above) , not to mention hijacking Kennedy’s body instead of allowing the autopsy to be performed at the same Parkland Hospital in Dallas.

Further, by of his creation of The Warren Commission on November 29, 1963, LBJ acquired the total power to block any House, Senate or Texas state investigations, while awarding himself the power to control all evidence that might possibly surface, and either ignore it, suppress it or allow it to be distorted- thereby further distancing himself, all in the name of “seeking justice”.  To quote a notable wit: “To commit the perfect crime it is only necessary to be in charge of the investigation that follows.”

Thus after much deliberation, we realized (some reluctantly) it could only have been ONE man – LBJ – who also had the most to lose if he didn’t get rid of Kennedy at just that juncture of time. In the words of author Phillip F. Nelson (Chapter 6: The Conspirators, in LBJ: The Mastermind of the Kennedy Assassination, p. 317):

“The crime could only have been accomplished with at least the acquiescence and foreknowledge of the only man capable of choreographing the massive cover-up which was immediately launched. It is axiomatic that since the cover-up started before the shots were fired, the order for JFK’s assassination could only have come from his successor, Lyndon B. Johnson.”

So I hate to break this to Rosza and others (like Elias Isquith, Maureen Dowd and even Bill Maher),  but most of us who’ve been involved in deep politics and researching the JFK assassination have finally come to realize that LBJ indeed was involved as one of the prime architects in taking him out – for all the reasons I delivered in the LBJ hagiography post from January 5th last year, e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2015/01/hagiographers-masquerading-as.html

We only regret it took us over 20 years to realize Craig Zirbel was right all along! (Dating from his 1991 expose of Johnson's role in 'The Texas Connection'.

Unsaid in that blog post, not yet revealed, is the way LBJ secretly courted the military to fire up the Vietnam War though Kennedy was steadfastly against it – ultimately made clear in his National Security Action Memorandum 263. Hence, the lingering smoking gun of Johnson’s guilt pertains to his disgusting back channel efforts to curry favor with the military (especially prime JFK hater Gen. Curtis Lemay). This entailed setting up a network to receive actual Vietnam intelligence behind Kennedy’s back – while ensuring the spooks and Pentagon sources delivered only doctored pap to JFK.  In many nations, this would be regarded as high treason, and anyone who did it (and found out)  put before a firing squad.

Much of the credit in digging up the relevant records goes to Military Science Professor John Newman in his book, JFK and Vietnam which documents that by November 24, 1963 – two days after Kennedy was dead (and before he was even laid to rest)-  a policy shift transpired toward massive commitment to American military forces in Vietnam – despite Kennedy’s NSAM 263. 

In the words of another researcher, Peter Dale Scott (Deep Politics and the Death of JFK, p. 30) it also proves that Johnson – since 1961  - "had been the ally of the Joint Chiefs and especially Air Force Gen. Curtis LeMay."  Let us recall for reference it was LeMay who compared Kennedy to Neville Chamberlain when he refused to go all out and bomb Cuba and invade it during the Cuban Missile crisis.

Peter Dale Scott summaized Johnson’s treason nicely (p. 31):

“A back channel had been established whereby ‘the boys in the woodwork’ were feeding (Howard) Burris and Johnson a steady stream of accurate Vietnam intelligence reports which were denied to the President.”

These latter were almost uniformly false and “optimistic"

He goes on (ibid.):

“Meanwhile, U.S. Army Intelligence in Honolulu kept producing a second series of reports, more accurate and gloomy. These were denied to the President and McNamara but supplied by a secret intelligence back channel to Johnson”

If this duplicity was all there was it would be bad enough but the real smoking gun – I’d even say fired gun – goes off when it is learned how a secret NSAM (273) had been prepared by Johnson that effectively nullified Kennedy’s restrictions for further U.S. Vietnam involvement set out in NSAM 263..

Johnson’s NSAM 273   “deleted Kennedy’s restrictions and sanctioned plans for U.S.operations to begin shortly thereafter”. (That is, after Nov. 21 – one day before JFK was shot dead in Dallas).  In other words, the fell plans for reversing Kennedy’s NSAM were already in existence a day BEFORE JFK was killed. Scott notes (p. 30) a draft of this NSAM 273 had presumptively been readied for Kennedy to see. (The draft prepared for Kennedy’s signature spoke only of “additional resources” given by the South Vietnamese to fight North Vietnam – as per JFK’s original instructions in NSAM 263 – but this was the part deleted.)

Peter Dale Scott correctly observes that in the wake of this perfidy most media sources (e.g. Michael Specter in the NY Times) and talking heads (e.g. Noam Chomsky) have prattled that “NSAM 273 continued Kennedy’s policies” which it did nothing of the sort – as I showed. Scott further observes (p. 29)  that "even the Nation participated in this obfuscation of the record."  The Nation?  That icon of liberal media? You'd better believe it.

Lastly, let’s bear in mind the NSAM 273 perversion led directly to an even greater outrage, the fabricat.tion of the Tonkin Gulf incident  in August 1964, when two U.S. gunboats - the Turner Joy and Maddox-  were allegedly attacked without provocation. This precipitated the Tonkin Gulf Resolution which directly led to the massive expansion in ‘Nam. As I’d previously written in March, 2013:

In other words, LBJ and  the U.S. aggressors used it as a pretext to demand the Gulf of Tonkin resolution and launch a war that killed nearly 58,000. LBJ had finally delivered on his promise to the military-industrial complex to give them their war in return for having assisted in Kennedy's killing and its massive cover up.

Make no mistake, this historically  reconstructed Texas turd - so blindly idolized by too many uninformed liberals-   is nothing but a verminous traitor, racist and murderer. He not only saw to it Kennedy would meet his death in Dallas (including by altering the motorcade route and venue for his Dallas speech) but also created a phony commission to cover it up even as he manufactured a document to expand the war in Vietnam leading to monumental loss in blood and treasure.

If one can therefore watch 'All the Way' as basically a work of selective fiction -  which skirts over how LBJ ascended to power (it was no "accident" of history as the intro voiceover tries to portray)then s/he can't go too far wrong. The film can then be enjoyed as a docudrama glossing over LBJ's most serious character defects (and treachery)  even as it probably exaggerates his cruder habits. (E.g.  showing him talking to Hubert Humphrey while seated on an opened door  Oval office toilet then wiping his ass, as HHH turns away.)

Hillary may have a checkered past in terms of her ill-advised Iraq war vote, the Libya intervention, Wall Street connections and some inconsistencies regarding racial issues, but none of those remotely compare to what Johnson did to our 35th President  And for that he will live on in infamy for many of us, irrespective of how the media and LBJ lackeys, hagiographers try to portray him as a basic, cornpone hero for civil rights.

Hillary, if she becomes President (the first woman in U.S. history) will have earned it, and not because she masterminded an assassination of anyone to secure power. Then portrayed it as an "accident" of history and a terrible "burden" (boo hoo)  that was totally unsought -- as HBO does with the depiction of LBJ's ascension to the oval office..

See also:

http://www.jfklancer.com/NSAM273.html

Coin Debasement - Began With LBJ

July 23rd passed by this year and it's doubtful many people took notice, or pondered the significance. If you asked 100 people if the date had any special meaning to them- 99 would surely give a blank stare and say 'No' or 'Not sure'.  After all, who but a numismatics freak (coin, currency collector) would be aware it was the 50th anniversary of the Coinage Act of 1965 which stripped  all U.S. coins of silver and made legal tender out of base metal slugs.

Don't believe me? Dig into your pockets and pull out quarters. Check the dates on them. If 1964 or earlier they're the real deal.  If you look at the sides of the coins you won't see any copper rim or core to which the rest of the coin is bonded.  Now, take a quarter from 1965 or later and take a good hard look and that nasty copper band will be seen - all around the coin periphery.

For whatever reason we now know the debasement of our coinage began with LBJ. Perhaps it ought to be fitting that the same asshole who engineered the killing of John F. Kennedy, and launched the Vietnam War under a pretext, should also be responsible for passing the single act that debased our coinage.


JFK half dollar from 1964 - before being debased to  80 % silver on the outside and 19 % on the inside

For those not into numismatics or the history of U.S. coins, the original Coinage Act established the U.S. mint and declared the dollar as "the money of account" for the new Republic. It defined the dollar as 371 ¼ grains of silver or the equivalent in gold.  At the same time, the penalty for debasing coins struck under the law was death  (hmmmmm.....too bad LBJ couldn't have been sent back in a time machine to face the music for debasement that he escaped in the assassination.)

That was because since Alexander Hamilton's day our coinage, including dimes, quarters and half dollars, had contained 90 percent silver. When LBJ signed the 1965 Act the value of the dollar was almost the same as it was in 1792, 0.77 ounces of silver.

However, after the 1965 Act, the dimes and quarters would contain no silver - but only be composites: with faces of the same alloy used in nickels but now bonded to a core of pure copper. Debasement! Meanwhile, the new half dollar would have 80 % silver on the outside and 19 % on the inside

What was LBJ's rationale? Clever to say the least! He claimed that on account of "a worldwide silver shortage the only really prudent course was to reduce our dependence on silver to make our coins". He then made more egregious claims such as "silver coins will never disappear or even become rarities".  Really? Then why do so many collect them now?

LBJ insisted the new coins would be used along side the old ones and no one would be any the wiser. Well, not to numismatics freaks, especially as the pre -1965 coins have mostly disappeared from circulation. (Though occasionally, when I check my change, I do pick out an odd 1964 quarter, which I then stow away to save with others- as I want to recall what non-debased coins looked like!)

Meanwhile, those misers who opt to spend silver or gold coins they've hoarded are subject to a capital gains tax.

That's not all. The value of the dollar itself started sinking soon after the 1965 coinage act and by 1980 the dollar - originally valued at 0.77 ounces of silver- had sunk to 0.02 ounces of silver. Today it is valued at just 0.l06 ounces of silver.

Can states go their own way and commence minting their own pre-1965 type coins again? Nope. The U.S. Constitution prohibits states from coining money themselves or making anything but gold or silver coins legal tender. And btw, the coins are taken to be collector's items not the genuine, legit article.

Sadly, LBJ screwed this country in more ways than one. No wonder the Kennedys hated his guts.

Elias Isquith And Other Liberal Mouthpieces Need to Stop Covering Up for LBJ!

Henry Marshall (USDA official) was one of the bodies left behind in LBJ's rise to glory. Why don't liberals take their heads out of their asses instead of protecting a false icon?

“Who controls the past controls the future.  And who controls the present controls the past.”

In those immortal words of George Orwell (from ‘1984’) we see at once the importance of history in determining our lives, and outcomes of public policy. Sadly, and I hate to say this – too many liberals don’t know their own past, the nation’s past, and don’t want to. They believe merely because they are scribes at Salon.com, HuffPo or some other site, they’re entitled to weigh in on recent history and distort it. Worse, they want to remain gloriously ignorant - steeped more in hagiography, or misplaced hero worship – than actual history. See e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2015/01/hagiographers-masquerading-as.html

Therein I noted that

“it is when hagiography eclipses facts and history that the critical mind must take note and understand when the wool is being pulled over its eyes.  Sadly, too many in the U.S. today are unprepared to cast a critical eye on goings on, far less be disposed to expose a so-called history as really pulp hagiography.”

This was in reference to all the overblown hype and hoopla on how dear old “Lyndon” had really been the one to put the pedal to the metal on civil rights and pushed through those major pieces of legislation, the civil rights bill and the voting rights act. Do not believe it for a damned minute! LBJ was a feral, racist rat who also had JFK killed. He called the civil rights act “that nigger bill” and also used the word with abandon as his own tapes disclose, e.g.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1rIDmDWSms

And indeed, while Chairman of a civil rights commission in the Kennedy administration, he deliberately held up the pending legislation for THREE years! WHY? Well, so he could cash in later when HE was President to build a specious legacy! Now, salon.com writer Elias Isquith appears to have jumped head first onto the LBJ hagiography bandwagon with his piece: ‘Roger Stone vs. the World: The Conspiracy-Filled Mind of Legendary GOP Trickster’. See e.g.

http://www.salon.com/2015/01/28/roger_stone_vs_the_world_inside_the_conspiracy_filled_mind_of_legendary_gop_trickster/

He commits the error of retrospectively condemning  current claims as invalid by virtue of an author’s previous actions. In this case, because Stone was a former GOP dirty trickster (who perfected the dark political art of “ratfucking”), then he clearly cannot be trusted to speak the truth now regarding claims made in his new book,  The Man Who Killed Kennedy: The Case Against LBJ.  Isquith also fails to process that the exact same case against LBJ  has already been made by Philip Nelson and Barr McClellan in earlier books. Indeed, it was first made 24 years ago by Craig I. Zirbel in his 'Texas Connection',  showing clearly how all the pieces we'd thought were disconnected (disposal of JFK's clothing, removal of the limo, autopsy manipulations  etc.) made sense when it was understood that only LBJ could be the "choreographer".  The most  Roger Stone can be guilty of then, is merely rehashing the prior work of others.


As Stone notes in one response to Isquith:

“He was a crude, corrupt, sadistic, unprincipled psychopath. This is a man who I believe ordered at least 17 murders on his way to power, murders to cover up corruption or voter theft. I make a compelling case in my book — using fingerprint evidence, eyewitness evidence, and deep [research into] Texas politics — that Lyndon Johnson was the linchpin of the conspiracy to kill John F. Kennedy. He has the motive, means and opportunity. So it reads like a murder mystery, it reads like a thriller novel, but unfortunately it’s the truth.”

 Is it false or "conspiratorial" because a former Reepo operative said ir? HELL NO! I say it TOO! So do many others who've finally  - after decades - removed the blinders, irrespective of party or ideology. Perhaps the best documentation is by researcher Philip Nelson in his own book (which I have read): ‘LBJ: The Mastermind of the JFK Assassination”  Those who wish to see the video version of this rat's background (prohibited from being seen in the U.S. in 2003)  can see it here:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQzLBYZP3mE

Pay particular attention to the last 15 minutes and former federal agent Walt Brown's narration concerning the finger print found on one of the boxes forming the sniper's nest at the Texas Scool Book Depository.  The print was sent to a latent fingerprint expert and found to contain a 34 pt. match to the earlier fingerprint (at the Kinser murder scene) of Mac Wallace, one of LBJ's longtime henchmen.

 Most of us who have followed the documents track since the release of records via The JFK Records Act, have been seeking the skeleton key, if you will, or the linchpin that ties together all the disparate, apparently unrelated facts – originally portrayed by the media as “coincidences”, "oversights"  or “mistakes”.  Which too many of us, excessively gullible, accepted instead of they're being deliberately planned.

These included:

-        All of Kennedy’s clothing, including the bullet –holed suit coat - ordered destroyed.

-        The blood spattered and bullet- impacted limousine ordered dispatched to  Detroit,, where it was cleaned, disassembled, then completely rebuilt then sent to Ohio

-        Zapruder film (altered with attempted juxtaposition of frames)

-     Original autopsy notes of Dr. J.J. Humes   (burned)

-        Kennedy’s skull (re-imaged using mattes in re-done autopsy photos to make the massive wounds appear in the front and the entry wound in the rear- to comport with the Warren Commission Single Bullet theory[1])

-        Kennedy’s brain (missing from the time the body arrived at Bethesda). The brain would have shown the path of 'cavitation' clearly and added to the weight of evidence for a frontal shot.

Over the years many of us began thinking that none of the preceding were coincidence or error – but deliberate- ordered by LBJ to cover his nefarious tracks, including in the Warren Commission investigation which HE created!  I mean, Oswald couldn’t have done those things. Nor could any of these have been done by the Mafia, angry Cubans or even rogue CIA agents. The orders had to come from the top, since the evidence was all material, and in addition under control (at various times) of federal agencies, including: FBI and Secret Service.  In fact, the relevant records disclose that none other than Cliff Carter (one of the co-conspirators found guilty in the Henry Harvey Marshall slaying) gave orders for the actions which, if refused, were followed up by Johnson himself making telephone demands[2].

Johnson also violated federal and state laws with assorted usurpations, destruction of material evidence (as listed above) , not to mention hijacking Kennedy’s body instead of allowing the autopsy to be performed at the same Parkland Hospital in Dallas.

Further, by of his creation of The Warren Commission on November 29, 1963, LBJ acquired the total power to block any House, Senate or Texas state investigations, while awarding himself the power to control all evidence that might possibly surface, and either ignore it, suppress it or allow it to be distorted- thereby further distancing himself, all in the name of “seeking justice”.  To quote a notable wit: “To commit the perfect crime it is only necessary to be in charge of the investigation that follows.”

Thus after much deliberation, we realized (some reluctantly) it could only have been ONE man – LBJ – who also had the most to lose if he didn’t get rid of Kennedy at just that juncture of time. In the words of author Philip Nelson (Chapter 6: The Conspirators, p. 317):

“The crime could only have been accomplished with at least the acquiescence and foreknowledge of the only man capable of choreographing the massive cover-up which was immediately launched. It is axiomatic that since the cover-up started before the shots were fired, the order for JFK’s assassination could only have come from his successor, Lyndon B. Johnson.”

So I hate to break this to Elias and others (like Maureen Dowd and even Bill Maher),  but most of us who’ve been involved in deep politics and researching the JFK assassination have finally come to realize that LBJ indeed was involved in taking him out – for all the reasons I delivered in the hagiography link. We only regret it took us over 20 years to realize Craig Zirbel was right all along! (Dating from his 1991 expose of Johnson's role.)

Unsaid in that blog post, not yet revealed, is the way LBJ secretly courted the military to fire up the Vietnam War though Kennedy was steadfastly against it – ultimately made clear in his National Security Action Memorandum 263. Hence, the lingering smoking gun of Johnson’s guilt pertains to his disgusting back channel efforts to curry favor with the military (especially prime JFK hater Gen. Curtis Lemay). This entailed setting up a network to receive actual Vietnam intelligence behind Kennedy’s back – while ensuring the spooks and Pentagon sources delivered only doctored pap to JFK.  In many nations, this would be regarded as high treason, and anyone who did it (and found out)  put before a firing squad.

Much of the credit in digging up the relevant records goes to Military Science Professor John Newman in his book, JFK and Vietnam which documents that by November 24, 1963 – two days after Kennedy was dead (and before he was even laid to rest)-  a policy shift transpired toward massive commitment to American military forces in Vietnam – despite Kennedy’s NSAM 263. 

In the words of another researcher, Peter Dale Scott (Deep Politics and the Death of JFK, p. 30) it also proves that Johnson – since 1961  - "had been the ally of the Joint Chiefs and especially Air Force Gen. Curtis LeMay."  Let us recall for reference it was LeMay who compared Kennedy to Neville Chamberlain when he refused to go all out and bomb Cuba and invade it during the Cuban Missile crisis.

Peter Dale Scott summarized Johnson’s treason nicely (p. 31):

“A back channel had been established whereby ‘the boys in the woodwork’ were feeding (Howard) Burris and Johnson a steady stream of accurate Vietnam intelligence reports which were denied to the President.”

These latter were almost uniformly false and “optimistic”.

He goes on (ibid.):

“Meanwhile, U.S. Army Intelligence in Honolulu kept producing a second series of reports, more accurate and gloomy. These were denied to the President and McNamara but supplied by a secret intelligence back channel to Johnson”

If this duplicity was all there was it would be bad enough but the real smoking gun – I’d even say fired gun – goes off when it is learned how a secret NSAM (273) had been prepared by Johnson that effectively nullified Kennedy’s restrictions for further U.S. Vietnam involvement set out in NSAM 263..

Johnson’s NSAM 273   “deleted Kennedy’s restrictions and sanctioned plans for U.S.operations to begin shortly thereafter”. (That is, after Nov. 21 – one day before JFK was shot dead in Dallas).  In other words, the fell plans for reversing Kennedy’s NSAM were already in existence a day BEFORE JFK was killed. Scott notes (p. 30) a draft of this NSAM 273 had presumptively been readied for Kennedy to see. (The draft prepared for Kennedy’s signature spoke only of “additional resources” given by the South Vietnamese to fight North Vietnam – as per JFK’s original instructions in NSAM 263 – but this was the part deleted.)

Peter Dale Scott correctly observes that in the wake of this perfidy most media sources (e.g. Michael Specter in the NY Times) and talking heads (e.g. Noam Chomsky) have prattled that “NSAM 273 continued Kennedy’s policies” which it did nothing of the sort – as I showed. Scott further observes (p. 29)  that "even the Nation participated in this obfuscation of the record."  The Nation?  That icon of liberal media? You'd better believe it!

Indeed,  from all I’ve seen, and in exchanges with so-called “liberals” at various sites (e.g. smirkingchimp) it is clear to me this bollocks about NSAM 273 has been swallowed as completely as the crap that LBJ was this avid defender of civil rights. These libs would rather peddle these fairy tales – along with LBJ’s hagiographers and puppets – than face the brutal truth that a former DEM President was a bloody conspirator and murderer. ("Oh me oh my, we can't provide any more fodder to the Repukes! Better to hide the truth!")

But I make no apologies for bringing the truth out, any more than others have, and my only regret is too many choose to bury heads (and brains) in the sand emulating the ostrich.

Lastly, let’s bear in mind the NSAM 273 perversion led directly to an even greater outrage, the fabrication of the Tonkin Gulf incident  in August 1964, when two U.S. gunboats - the Turner Joy and Maddox-  were allegedly attacked without provocation. This precipitated the Tonkin Gulf Resolution which directly led to the massive expansion in ‘Nam. As I’d previously written in March, 2013:

“In 2005, an internal National Security Agency historical study was declassified; it concluded that the Maddox had engaged the North Vietnamese Navy on August 2, but that there were no North Vietnamese Naval vessels present during the incident of August 4. The report stated regarding August 2:

“At 1505G, Captain Herrick ordered Ogier's gun crews to open fire if the boats approached within ten thousand yards. At about 1505G, the Maddox fired three rounds to warn off the communist boats. This initial action was never reported by the Johnson administration, which insisted that the Vietnamese boats fired first”

and regarding August 4:

“It is not simply that there is a different story as to what happened; it is that no attack happened that night. [...] In truth, Hanoi's navy was engaged in nothing that night but the salvage of two of the boats damaged on August 2”


In other words, LBJ and  the U.S. aggressors used it as a pretext to demand the Gulf of Tonkin resolution and launch a war that killed nearly 58,000. LBJ had finally delivered on his promise to the military-industrial complex to give them their war in return for having assisted in Kennedy's killing and its massive cover up.

Make no mistake, this cornpone Texas turd - so blindly idolized by too many uninformed liberals-   is nothing but a verminous traitor, racist and murderer. He not only saw to it Kennedy would meet his death in Dallas (including by altering the motorcade route and venue for his Dallas speech) but also created a phony commission to cover it up even as he manufactured a document to expand the war in Vietnam leading to monumental loss in blood and treasure.

Anyone who doesn’t do the background work from the released document trail, and that includes Isquith, Maher and Maureen Dowd et al, doesn’t merit any pass to call out “excess conspiracy” on anyone else – even a former Reepo dirty trickster. Let’s be clear here that simply because one’s political past might be shady doesn’t mean he’s off target in his claims – especially concerning LBJ. The liberals and LBJ hagiographers who protect this POS merit no remote consideration – until they also do the grunt work of document parsing! 

See also:

http://www.jfklancer.com/NSAM273.html

Addendum (2/1): It was heartening to see Mel Brooks trying to set Bill Maher right on the last 'Real Time',  referring to LBJ  as the "bigot" who passed the civil rights bill. Sadly, Bill had imbibed too much kool aid - like too many libs, to accept the hard truth.

---

[1] Photo-optic specialist Robert Groden, however, believe that the skull was actually reconstructed using mortician’s plaster, then photographed. See the details in his book Killing Kennedy.

[2] Twyman, High Treason,  p. 92.