HBO's John Oliver Blows It Conflating JFK Assassination With Kooky COVID Conspiracies

John Oliver- left- analogized John Hinckley's  1981 attempted assassination of Reagan with the 1963 Kennedy assassination on his show 'Last Week Tonight'.  Alex Jones (center) is the epitome of the low grade morons who create conspiracy codswallop- like his Sandy Hook false flag bunkum. Meanwhile, Mark Lane (left)  has all the attributes of a professional assassination researcher, see e.g.http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2016/05/rip-mark-lane-one-of-earliest-jfk.html

"How do we know that our own rational rejections of conspiracy theories are not themselves infected with beliefs so strong that they are, in effect, conspiracy theories too?" - Matt Ridley in 'Maybe We're All Conspiracy Theorists', The Wall Street Journal, Sept. 10-11, 2011

"Those who suffer from conspiracy phobia are fond of saying: 'Do you actually think there's a group of people sitting around in a room, plotting things?' For some reason that image is assumed to be so patently absurd as to invite only disclaimers. But where else would people of power get together - on park benches or carousels?"-

Michael Parenti in 'The Dirty Truths', p. 174

John Oliver, usually a bright guy, fell into the usual doo-doo trap of conflating unrelated conspiracy phenomena on his July 19th edition of 'Last Week Tonight'. What did he do?   In a whole segment headed 'Conspiracy Theories'- which included the cockeyed ideations about Covid -19 such as spun by  Judy Mikovits in her mockumentary 'Plandemic'-  he included the JFK assassination.   He cited it under the error of what he called "proportionality bias" or the erroneous belief that "big events must have big causes or actors".  

Hence,  Covid 19 has been rendered a huge event (by the media) because  Bill Gates wants to use it as an excuse to mount a vaccination scheme to inject microchips into an unsuspecting population to control them.  By the same token, "the JFK assassination caused such havoc and global shock that people could not believe one lone gunman did it" - so had to confect a much grander conspiracy.   

 Prompted by this misconstrued meme he goes on to compare the Kennedy assassination to the John Hinckley -attempted 1981 assassination of Ronald Reagan.  He plays a clip from a Barnard College "academic psychologist" named Rob Brotherton,  author of the book 'Suspicious Minds' e.g.

 who says:

  "The attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan was a similar event in all regards except the president survived.  It was a smaller event in terms of its outcome so therefore we're satisfied with smaller expectations.  And so there have been almost no conspiracy theories about the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan either then or subsequently."

Of course there were no conspiracy theories  after Hinckley's attempt on Reagan. Why would there be?  It's a 'chalk and cheese' difference  which Brotherton would know if he'd done the least bit of serious research into the JFK assassination, instead of making facile assumptions. First, the  two events are not the same in any respect, contrary to Brotherton's bollocks.  In the Reagan attempt it was one lone punk trying to fire a handgun at his target.  In the Kennedy assassination three teams of snipers had taken positions in Deaely Plaza for a triangulated crossfire to take him out.   The chances of success were  essentially 100 percent.

Sketch of Dealey Plaza and 3 of the 6  shots  fired at JFK (from Robert Grodin's 'Killing of a President')

The above  sketch shows the trajectories of 3 of the 6 shots fired at JFK.  Another reason comparing this hit to the attempted assassination of Reagan is imbecilic. Again, just because a person is a professor doesn't mean he can't also be an imbecile.  Certainly in matters of deep politics which requires vastly more familiarity than 'shoot from the hip' takes from dime store psychology.

Let's also note the rifles which fired that day in Dallas featured bullets with full metal jackets.  According to one 2001 echo correlation analysis (by D.B. Thomas) published in the journal Science and Justice (Vol. 41, p. 21), no fewer than 6 rounds had been fired at JFK including the fatal head shot that blew his brains backwards and which exposed the back of his skull -  missing on a Parkland table:

This photo appeared in the David Lifton book, 'Best Evidence', and was supported by Parkland surgeon Charles Crenshaw who attended to Kennedy's wounds.  See the Preface of  his book 'Conspiracy of Silence', a pdf version of which is given below.  

http://www.krusch.com/books/kennedy/Conspiracy_Of_Silence.pdf

Excerpt from Preface:

'Through the years, there have been a thousand instances when I have wanted to shout to the world that the wounds to Kennedy's head and throat that I examined were caused by bullets that struck him from the front, not the back, as the public has been led to believe. Instinctively, I have reached for the telephone many times to call a television station to set the, story straight when I heard someone confidently claim that Oswald was the lone gunman from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book De­pository, only to restrain myself-until now."

So no, with the high powered weapons arrayed against JFK he never had a chance.  With  the lone handgun pointed at Reagan, at least he did.  But I doubt either Brotherton or Oliver ever read a page of Lifton's book, or Dr. Crenshaw's. Why would they if they consider it on a par or spectrum with the piffle churned out by QAnon or the batshit crazy Covid quacks and deniers like Judy Mikovits?

Further, let's note the difference in enemies. Reagan was a hero of the military -industrial complex (MIC) as he proposed to spend trillions for new weaponry.  He did and by the end of his 8-year reign had run up a $2.7 trillion deficit. JFK was regarded as a traitor by the MIC  especially given his plans to pull out of Vietnam by calendar year 1965 under National Security Memorandum 263.

Add to that  his earlier rejection of Gen. Curtis Lemay's demand to bomb and invade Cuba during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, when Lemay compared him to Neville Chamberlain.  As per the source article in The Baltimore Sun ('Bomb Cuba! Lemay Urged JFK',   based on the declassified tapes, where we read:

"Blasting Kennedy's cautious approach, the Air Force Chief, Gen. Curtis LeMay, told the President at a White House meeting on Oct. 19, 1962, ‘This is almost as bad as the appeasement at Munich…"

Kennedy also did something Reagan would never have done, i.e. to sign the comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty with Khrushchev (in August, 1963)  which prohibited even anti-missile systems.  The Right wing and the military - national security complex went bonkers.   Finally, the coup de grace had to be JFK's effort at a secret rapprochement with Fidel Castro in the spring of 1963.  Key to this was ABC reporter Lisa Howard:

Who had  offered herself as an intermediary for the first bilateral talks between U.S. and Cuban officials in April, 1963.  (This was soon after doing a fairly sympathetic TV special with Castro earlier in the month. )   Further, Ms. Howard offered her 5th Avenue New York apartment as a venue for meeting with the Cuban ambassador to the UN.  This was already accepted as a report by the UK Guardian notes, e.g. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/nov/26/cuba.julianborger

Wherein we learn:

"The administration gave a nod to Ms Howard, who set up a chance meeting between Mr Attwood and the Cuban ambassador to the UN, Carlos Lechuga, at a cocktail party in her Park Avenue apartment.

The apartment then became a communications centre between Mr Attwood and the Castro regime. Castro's aide, Dr Rene Vallejo, called at pre-arranged times to talk to Mr Attwood, and in the autumn of 1963 suggested that Mr Attwood fly to Mexico from where he would be picked up by a plane sent by Castro."

Does anyone believe Reagan would have allowed anything analogous? Say secret meets with Libya's Muammar Ghaddafi? Give me a break. Yet Brotherton is dumb enough to believe the attempted hit on Reagan and the JFK assassination are "similar in all regards" without remotely processing why JFK's enemies were ten orders of magnitude more formidable than the lovesick little loser who tried to kill Ronnie Raygun.  And, of course, given all this, no one would have expected to see thousands of 'WANTED for Treason' posters, e.g.


As JFK faced in Big D the day he was killed.

But John Oliver is so mesmerized by Brotherton's balderdash, i.e. that the two events are similar except in one there was failure, that he responds: 

"Exactly! That kind of makes sense. So one man suddenly changing the world is inconceivable.  But one man failing miserably is not the least surprising."

But again, "one man" didn't change the world.  A coalition of conspirators did, including CIA  assets who had a bundle of reasons (including the firing of Allen Dulles).  For the extensive backstory read:

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/11/ike-jfk-also-hostage-to-national.html

 As I note, what most infuriated the CIA was Kennedy's willingness - after the Bay of Pigs debacle -  to exclude them from critical roles, assignments as well as reorganizing the agency, e.g. 

"Kennedy went further, creating a Defense Intelligence Agency, responsible to him, and soon mandating all overflights of Cuba be done by the Strategic Air Command, not the CIA. He also defined a list of directives on what the CIA could and could not, do. By the end of 1961, JFK's 'Special Group' had no less than 17 recommendations for the "reorganization and redirection of the CIA"."

Oliver's lack of preparation for his 5 minute blitz spot with Brotherton discloses a sad unwillingness to plow just a little into the background of the assassination, including the existence of Oswald's intel  (e.g. 201) files and connections.  Hence,  his arguing Hinckley  was  just "another lone gunman" but in an unsuccessful attempt, while Oswald (coincidentally)  happened to be successful.  Except one minor problem: Oswald never killed JFK.  No way in hell - not with the pathetic excuse for a WWII edition Italian carbine (Mannlicher-Carcano)  he was purportedly using, e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/11/frequently-asked-questions-on-fhe-jfk.html

John Oliver's egregious assumptions  to do with 'proportionality bias' applying to the JFK hit include not only this conflation but trying to put Oswald into the same 'lone nut' mold as Hinckley.  (Who had fantasies of offing Reagan to please his imagined paramour, actress Jodie Foster)  In this way, Oliver also succumbed to what I call  the "A useless nobody kills big shot in random world" meme.  This trope is not new but has been peddled in various forms for nearly 55 years now.  For example, mathematician John Allan Paulos fell for it when he wrote in his book Irreligion,(p. 6):

"Lee Harvey Oswald was an unprepossessing nobody who seemed ill-suited for the job of Giant-slayer. There had to be something more, and maybe there was, but one added reason for the intense fascination with other possibilities was that significant consequences must necessarily be the result of significant perpetrators."

But again, in this (JFK)  case there were  'significant perpetrators'  - but not Oswald.  Further we now have all the files available (which we didn't in 1964-65 when the Warren Commission Report came out), to at least know the Kennedy assassination was based on a coherent conspiracy - and also that Lee Oswald was not part of it, e.g.

A Hard Fact: All Necessary JFK Files HAVE Been Rel...

 Problem is the mainstream media was muzzled on presenting the details. (Likely on account of the CIA's 'Operation Mockingbird nexus). As author Michael Parenti opens eyes in his book, The Dirty Truths, Lee Oswald was no John Hinckley:

“Lee Harvey Oswald spent most of his adult life not as a lone drifter but directly linked to the U.S. intelligence community. All of his IQ tests show that he was above average in intelligence and a quick learner. At the age of eighteen in the U.S. Marines he had secret security clearance and was working at Marine Air Control in Atsugi Air Force Base in Japan, a top secret location from which the CIA launched U2 flights and performed other kinds of covert operations in China. The next year he was assigned to El Toro Air Station in California with security clearance to work radar. “

Parenti 's claims of an intelligence connection all emerged in John Newman's book, Oswald and the CIA - which I will bet neither John Paulos or John Oliver ever read. Though they feel themselves qualified to speak or write of Oswald:  a) being involved in the first place (other than a patsy) , and b) as a "nobody".   Indeed, examination of Oswald's CI/SIG file showed he had access to:

“The locations of all bases on the west coast, all radio frequencies for all squadrons, all tactical call signs, strength of all squadrons, the number and type of aircraft in each, names of commanding officers, and authentic codes of entering and exiting all ADIZ radar ranges.”

If then Oswald was as lame as claimed by the likes of Paulos, Oliver  and also  CBS anchor Eric Sevareid  in a special 55 years ago, i.e.

"Who could believe power and majesty can be wiped out in an instant by a skinny, weak-chinned little character".

Then he'd not have been entrusted with the critical material and information noted above.  Here, of course, Sevareid can perhaps be excused for his unprofessional belittling of Oswald's import because the JFK Records Act was still some 25 years away when Sevareid made that remark. But the  two Johns -- Oliver and Paulos -  ought to have known better and at least should have done some minimal serious research before either writing Oswald off as a nobody, or comparing him to the loser John Hinckley or worse, imputing the assassination to him at all. 

Lee Oswald then was no kook but a bona fide intel operative. Most researchers who've delved into this in much more depth than superficial 'buffs' come away with the conviction Oswald was set up as part of ZR/Rifle. A classic decoy.  However,  with the plot now turned against Kennedy. Oswald was likely used as the dupe or decoy so the actual perps (likely Cuban exiles, and trained assassins - from the Army's Ft. Benning Assassin school) could escape .   We also know these assigned mechanics would have used the CIA Assassinations Handbook, available since Operation PBSuccess in 1954, see e.g.

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB4/

As noted in Document 1:

"The idea of forming assassination teams ('K' groups) apparently originated with Castillo Arenas in 1952.  Adopting Castillo Arenas' concept the [  ] chief routinely included two assassination specialists in his training plans.  CIA training for sabotage teams in early 1954 also included creating a 'K' group trained to perform assassinations."

There is no doubt such a 'K' group was set to target Castro under ZR/Rifle (in 1962), but could easily be redirected to target Kennedy in late 1963.  The proof in the pudding was the letter ‘D’ – on the cover sheet of Oswald’s 201 file – indicating a  CIA Staff D  SIGINT or signals intelligence operation run in concert with the National Security Agency or NSA. As pointed out by Peter Dale Scott (Deep Politics Quarterly, Jan. 1994): 

“In 1961, when William Harvey headed Staff D, he was assigned the task of developing the CIA Assassinations Project, ZR/Rifle.”

When ZR/Rifle was turned from targeting Castro to JFK- probably in late 1962 or mid 1963, it was all over except for the triangulation of gunfire that took the 35th president out.  Far from being a case of 'Oh the JFK conspiracy theorists just couldn't handle a nobody taking out Kennedy' - it was instead a case of  'My God! What have we come to as a nation when a sitting president can be dispatched in a veritable coup d'etat?'  The latter was based on intelligent, energized researchers having the guts and will to dig deep into those earlier assassination templates and files. As opposed to taking the easy way out,  say by erroneously invoking a "proportionality bias" like John Oliver did.  

As Michael Parenti aptly put it (op. cit., p. 156):

“To know the truth about the assassination of John Kennedy is to call into question the state security system and the entire politico-economic order it protects. This is why for over thirty years the corporate-owned press and numerous political leaders have suppressed or attacked the many revelations about the murder unearthed by independent investigators like Mark Lane, Peter Dale Scott, Carl Oglesby, Harold Weisberg, Anthony Summers."

On the face of it, and in hindsight, Oliver would have done better in his main story on CTs to leave the JFK assassination totally out of his examples, and focus instead on the real nutso Covid crap like 'Plandemic'  etc.  

 The end result was that, while trying to focus on how the Covid conspiracy ideations are wreaking havoc on our pandemic response, the interjection of the JFK assassination needlessly muddied the waters via a useless conflation of real and unreal conspiracies.

See also:

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-pre-assassination-framing-of-lee.html

And:

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-pre-assassination-framing-of-lee_1807.html

And:

Government

The Pro-Trump CIA Man: QAnon Madness and Upward Failure

As The Right Spins Its "False Flag" Flatus Let's Not Conflate Conspiracy Crackpots With Actual Conspiracy Theorists -Researchers

Alex Jones (left) is a conspiracy kook, while Mark Lane is a conspiracy analyst. It's time the scribes in the mainstream media began to learn the difference!

As noted in my post of Oct. 24, it was mere hours after the news broke that explosive devices had been sent to George Soros, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and other prominent Democrats, that  deranged conspiracy ideation  (I refuse to dignify it with the term 'theory') was spawned in certain corners of conservative media.  The bombs, according to this hogswill, were not actually part of a plot to harm Democrats, but were a “false flag” operation concocted by leftists in order to paint conservatives as violent radicals ahead of the elections next month.  As Matt Miller put it last night ('Last Word', MSNBC) "This is coming from conservative circles that this was somehow a liberal plot to distract from the caravan  which they believe is what the election ought to be about. So again, you have this idea that because they were Democratic targets it's not a national crisis, but something we can again fight over - which is obviously a really reprehensible idea."

Sound familiar? If it does you might recall it comes right out of the playbook of  über -kook Alex Jones who fabricated the false flag bunkum that the Sandy Hook/Newtown massacre was a federal "false flag" operation. Those twenty  kids weren't really slain, they were merely child actors- as well as the teachers- in an elaborate script to befuddle the public and make them demand gun confiscation across the land. (Jones was also one of the nitwits who confected the cockeyed conspiracy codswallop that the Parkland shooting victims, who became gun control activists-  were all actors.)

Many of these lowbrow kooks, which is what they are, were  also foursquare behind helping to spread Michael Flynn's  Pizzagate conspiracy, i.e. that Hillary Clinton was keeping child sex slaves in the basement of a D.C. pizza parlor and exploiting them.

So no one need be a Mensa brainiac to know the template for this latest false flag conspiracy B.S. has been in existence from the Right's stooges and trolls for some time. Hence, it ought to have been of minimal surprise to learn this latest iteration shares the same deranged heritage, or "DNA" if you will. In this case, a wacko named  Jacob Wohl-   a pro-Trump twit who writes for Gateway Pundit (a Right wing troll farm)-   tweeted  the  refuse that the assorted pipe bombs were props, planted by Democratic operatives and amplified by a biased liberal media.  In other words, all a ruse to drive voters to the Dems. No, folks, you cannot make this shit up, this is real and happening in Rightist Trump World.

One is led to inquire what engenders this degenerate crap.  What defects in the brains of these losers causes them to spawn such bollocks, say instead of applying what gray matter they have to researching real conspiracies?  Well, one answer is that researching the real ones - like the JFK assassination  - actually takes hundreds of man hours of real work.  Just plowing through Oswald's CIA files - e.g. the  OS-351- 164 file from his  201- 289 248 CI/SIG file or his 74-500 file. as reported in the Appendices of  John Newman’s book, ‘Oswald and the CIA’- can take hours.   It's a damned sight more exacting than merely scribbling  an imbecilic text on 4 Chan, Reddit or Gateway Pundit.

Sadly, columnist Kevin Roose, in a recent  NY  Times piece : ' False Flag Theory on Pipe Bombs Zooms From Right-Wing Fringe to Mainstream',  appeared not to be able to distinguish this latest right wing baloney from serious conspiracy research. That is the nature of the work done by Mark Lane  - who would be called a REAL conspiracy theorist or better, conspiracy analyst.  (The analyst having often shown facts, evidence, data beyond the conjectures of theorists.)

 As articulated by Dr. Pat Bannister, the conspiracy research community is the province of mature, rational, educated adults. Serious people possessing some measure of intellect who bring their scientific, mathematical and other aptitudes to the investigation of multiple aspects of a putative real conspiracies - whether the BCCI banking conspiracy, Iran-Contra or the JFK assassination. These people put in real man hours and actually published their work in authoritative media and respected forums as opposed to spreading bunkum through the lowest dreg regions of the net.

Lane, for example, was the first to expose the misdirection and artifice to do with Lee Harvey Oswald's USMC rifle test scores. This was in conjunction with the Warren Commission's questioning of Major Eugene D. Anderson in reference to Commission Exhibit No. 239.  Thus, the WC simply published Anderson's ambivalent speculations on what  weather conditions  for May 6, 1959 might have been, i.e. at first asserting "it was an ideal day".   But it was Lane who pointed out, 'Rush To Judgment', p. 124:

"Although the Commission adopted and published the major's speculation on what the weather 'might well have been'  there was no need for imprecision on this point. Whenever weather is a factor in a court case in the United States, the records of the United States Weather Bureau are subpoenaed and presented as a matter of course.  ... The Weather Bureau records show that the day was not 'windy, rainy, dark', it was sunny and bright and no rain fell."

 That, I submit, is the work of a serious researcher, not a wacko like  Jacob Wohl, Michael Flynn or Alex Jones.   Alas, Mr. Roose - unable to make any critical distinction between genuine theorists-analysts like Mark Lane and ignorant poppets such as Alex Jones, Jacob Wohl et al, writes:

"Conspiratorial thinking has always been with us — the grassy knoll, the moon landing, the Freemasons. But it has been turbocharged in the Trump era..."

Thereby conflating conspiracy thinking and analysis with paranoid ideations and blatant nonsense.  This occurred as soon as he dragged in "the grassy knoll".  Following on from his book 'Rush To Judgement', Lane prepared a video with eponymous title, in which actual assassination witnesses were interviewed including: S.M. Holland, Lee Bowers, Aquilla Clemmons,  Orville Nix and others. In the case of S. M. Holland, e.g.

Lane escorted him to the top of the Triple Underpass overlooking Dealey Plaza to assess the full layout including the grassy knoll, and the curve of Elm Street around the Texas School Book Depository. Subsequently,  Lane actually walked with Holland  to the picket fence on the grassy knoll, clearly revealing its height would have concealed an assassin. Holland also recounted for Lane the questions never asked him by the Commission.

The interview with railroad worker Lee Bowers (later found dead in a suspicious car accident) disclosed the movement of men and a vehicle ('58 or '59 Chevy, tires covered with mud) behind the picket fence on the knoll just before the assassination.

Lane's preliminary work in many ways set the stage for the research of D.B. Thomas (published in the journal Science and Justice, Vol. 41, p. 21, 2001) which showed the putative origin of the kill shot in the assassination, traced to the grassy knoll using echo correlation analysis. This was based on the inferred geometry:

Thomas incorporated  both the original acoustic data (in dictabelt recordings) from Nov 22, 1963 and  more recent evidence from August 1978, when a test shot was fired in Dallas’ Dealey Plaza to provide a fiducial mark for the putative Grassy Knoll shot.   This integration was such that the test shot could be compared with the impulse record obtained on Nov. 22, 1963, e.g.

 This enabled the  fiducial mark to be lined up to events recorded on the Zapruder film. Thus, the test evidence (mainly in terms of echoes and echo delay times received via an echogram from a test shot (See Fig. 1) was essentially used to confirm the microphone recording & positions for the shots made on the actual date, by resort to microphones placed at the same (or approximately so) locations.

The hypergeometric p-function was then used for differing weighting factor distribution sets, H{M..N, n, i} to assess significance or likelihood of occurrence. It's based on the number of echo  'windows'  M,  with each spanning 190msec (total time)  at 2msec width per window and n for assigned impulses in the evidence pattern, with 'i' the "coincident impulses" or those matching the original (11/22/63)evidence and the test result. 

The question was whether a succession of first impulses of given amplitude could be manifesting a signal or was merely random noise. Thomas found that for a given configuration for 2 motorcycles at designated locations, 1 for (Grassy knoll) shooter location and one for alignment of muzzle blasts with one pair of echoes, the p -value is 0.000012 or about 1 in 100,000 against the null hypothesis, i.e. that the impulses were from random noise. An alternative way to put this is that the odds are 100.000 to 1 against being random noise. Hence  in favor of the impulses comprising actual rifle shots.

For the test shot, using Thomas' sonar model and the muzzle velocity for a Norma 6.5mm Mannlicher-Carcano (which is very doubtful that the GK shooter used), one arrives at a 171 msec time for the shock wave to take the defined path to the microphone, from a distance of 28.3m.  (See geometry diagram above)  One must then add the time taken for the putative bullet to travel the distance to the time for the shock wave. In this case: 126 msec + 45 msec. The first parameter is relatively fixed since the distance from bullet to test microphone is fixed at 44.2m and the speed of sound defined for the sonar model was 350 m/s.

The second component changes depending on the muzzle velocity. A German Mauser, with muzzle velocity not much greater than 760 m/s will have its bullet traverse the 28.3 m distance in 37 msec, so that the time will now be: 126 msec + 37 msec or 163 msec, which is some 8 msec shorter. If the rifle used was a Remington Fireball with muzzle velocity 825 m/s then we have a total time: t1 + t2 = 126 msec + 34 msec = 160 msec, or 3 msec shorter.

In the “analytically determined” schema (e.g. actual data obtained on 11/22/63), all the above values change slightly. For example, the distance to Kennedy (from the GK shooter) becomes 30.5 m, and the speed of sound is 342 m/s given the air temperature was 18  C (64.4 F)  at the time of the assassination. The distance from the (GK) assassin to the nearest motorcycle was 67 m leading to the muzzle blast arriving at the motorcycle some D t = [67m/ 342 m/s] = 196 msec, after the shot. When air resistance is corrected for by + 11.5% (from the shooter location) the muzzle velocity resulting becomes 748 m/s (using a starting assumed bullet speed of 672 m/s). Because of a shooter “location uncertainty” of +/- 1.5 m (A<-> A') the muzzle velocity uncertainty is at least +/- 32m/s, so one is left with a range of: 748 +/- 32 m/s. Assuming Thomas’ parameters are correct, then this excludes a Remington Fireball as a possible candidate weapon, but it does permit either a German Mauser or a .30-30 Winchester.

The bottom line is that Thomas' investigation soundly reconfirmed the original acoustic tests and that the kill shot came from the grassy knoll.

My point in writing this post and undertaking this exercise is to show the need for more scrupulous attention to details, as opposed to recklessly and lazily employing throwaway terms like "the grassy knoll"- to conflate one of the few genuine conspiracies with current wacko ideations.  The  latter referring to the false flag idiocy spewed by the Right's parade of morons, paper patriots  and shameless knuckledraggers.

By also showing more perception, intelligence and insight, writers like Roose will command more respect, especially in being able to discern poppycock from actual events that merit close analysis and research of the type I have shown.  Writers like Roose thereby emerge as more competent and informed when they write pieces on claptrap, paranoid conspiracy ideations - such as circulated by Jacob Wohl and Alex Jones.  The takeaway for serious journalists?  Do not insert "grassy knoll"  phrases or references as a kind of cheap homage to "conspiratorial thinking"  when criticizing today's incarnations of paranoid bunkum.

See also:

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2018/08/research-into-conspiracism-undermined.html

And:
Here Are 5 of the Worst Far-Right and White Supremacist Terrorist Attacks of Recent Years

Skeptics Society Still Tilting At JFK Conspiracy "Windmills"

You have to hand it to Skeptics Society Wunderkind,  Michael Shermer, who just can't let go of the JFK assassination conspiracy. Rather than sticking to the Loch Ness Monster, Biblical myths, Big Foot and UN black helicopter - "New World Order" fluff, he insists on venturing into the political conspiracy with the most heft.  Of course, when one indiscriminately plays with fire - as Tom Hanks found out, e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2015/12/tom-hanks-finally-gets-to-broadcast-his.html


One will get metaphorically burned, usually via his own arrogance. Recall, for reference, I  noted last year (Nov. 27 post) how  I warned the Skeptics bunch 22 years ago (in a letter published in their journal) of venturing in to hyper-skepticism .  I warned that this could backfire and was counterproductive. This was after the Skeptics journal took some initial critical shots at the claim for conspiracy in the Kennedy assassination - revealing like so many others before and since that they hadn't done their homework.

They managed to control themselves and steer clear of the topic for a while - but evidently have recently plumbed it once more, probably having run out of criticism to mount against the usual paranormal topics, like ESP, telekinetic spoon bending, alien abductions and the like.

But again, it's a bad idea to try to take on that event if you haven't done the necessary spade work, including plumbing the file documents released since the JFK Records Act. Thereby, skeptical critics are repeatedly broken on the 'wheel' of the JFK assassination because they treat it frivolously - without the respect it is due  - more often conflating it with nonsense pseudo conspiracies  or  relying on sources that have now been thoroughly discredited, such as Gerald Posner, see e.g. http://assassinationweb.com/twpos.htm


And Vince Bugliosi:

See e.g.

http://911research.wtc7.net/essays/green/BesmirchingHistory.html

http://realhistoryarchives.blogspot.com/2007/05/reclaiming-history-from-vince-bugliosi.html

http://www.reclaiminghistory.org/


The latest item from the Skeptics Society - received in the mail yesterday - is a pamphlet entitled 'The Top Ten Weirdest Things Countdown' and wouldn't you know that Number 5 would be the "JFK Conspiracy".

And we see right away in Shermer's intro, that he cites Bugliosi's cinderblock book, and Posner's nonsense. This is just in case his little spiel "doesn't do it for you".

Let's consider his points to see why none of what he writes supports his case and "the mother of all conspiracies" (but which is essentially solved) ought to shut him up once and for all.

1) The "big deal" made about Oswald's Book Depository job and being planted there by the conspirators - namely the national security state, including CIA. This was not any "coincidence" as Shermer tries to make it out to be

I've already been through this multiple times but here we go again. Like other WC hacks, Shermer leaves out any mention of Ruth Paine not informing Lee of a better job offer- which has been documented via files accessed by James Douglass (author of 'JFK and the Unspeakable'). the actual background on Paine had to await release of lots more files after the JFK Records Act.  Paine testified before the WC that Lee left his keys, and other possessions as he left for work on the fateful day. All of which are lies.

Ruth Paine herself was a deceitful, untrustworthy witness who never truthfully acknowledged, either before the Warren Commission or a later New Orleans Grand Jury, that her sister (Sylvia Hyde Hoke) in fact worked for the CIA - while her husband's (Michael's) mother, Ruth Forbes Paine Young, was connected to Allen Dulles (the former CIA Chief) who JFK fired after the Bay of Pigs. (James Douglass, 2008, JFK and the Unspeakable, Orbis Books, p. 169)

Let us also recall that Dulles was appointed by LBJ as one of the Warren Commissioners. Does anyone else find that ironic? The very guy JFK mistrusted and butted heads with would sit on the "blue ribbon" (sic) commission investigating his death?

Paine, who Warrenites seem to hold up as some kind of unquestioned paragon or model citizen, also never acknowledged in any of her testimony that she withheld from Lee the news of a better paying job offer made on Oct. 15, 1963. This came by way of phone call to the Paine Residence from Robert Adams of the Texas Employment Commission. According to the documented materials presented by author James Douglass (op. cit., p. 171):

"Adams spoke with someone at the Paines' number about his being prepared to give Oswald referral for permanent employment as a baggage handler at Trans Texas Airways for a salary $100 a month higher than that offered by the Book Depository's temporary job".

Adams then left a message with whoever took his call for Lee to contact him about the job, but this was never done. Adams tried to phone Oswald the next day, and was told he "wasn't here". Why? Why wasn't the better paying job information passed on to Oswald? Given Paine's background, and her connections to CIA people like her sister and Allen Dulles, the obvious reason is to put the patsy in place. Had Ruth Paine given the info to Lee to enable him to take the better paying job, there was no way the architects' plan could have succeeded. They could never have been assured that the one they were preparing for patsyhood would be at the place needed to take the fall.

Her refusal to give that alternative job information to Oswald therefore makes her at least an accomplice to the set up in the minds of most serious researchers like Douglass, and myself.


(2) "Oswald's Carcano bolt action rifle with his fingerprints on it was found on the sixth floor of the Book Depository where he was employed. His sniper's nest , built out of boxes, also had fingerprints on it."

Facts: As Carl Oglesby, a member of the Assassination Information Bureau and author of 'JFK - The Facts and the Theories' (1992) has noted, there is absolutely NO chain of credible evidence that connects any of those fingerprints to Oswald. Sebastian Latona, a fingerprint expert at the FBI laboratory, examined the rifle and the photographs, but concluded that no identifiable prints were present (Warren Commission Hearings, vol.4, p.21). The rifle was returned by the FBI to the Dallas police on 24 November. In the minds of many researchers, it is therefore plausible that any prints of probative value subsequently found were in fact removed from Oswald while he was dead, at the morgue, and transferred to the rifle. Oglesby noting the limited chain of evidence for prints, accepts this as well, in addition to expressing a distinct distrust of the Dallas PD (also shared by former Justice Dept. agent Walt Brown in his chapter 'Blue Death' in 'Treachery in Dallas')

In addition, No fingerprints were found on any of the three empty bullet shells found in the TSBD, or on the intact bullet. Nor were any prints found on the rifle clip that held the intact bullet and into which the shells must have been loaded by hand (Warren Commission Hearings, vol.4, pp.253, 258–60).  Even if Oswald had taken the precaution of wiping his prints off the rifle, it is doubtful that he'd have done the same for the clip or the bullets. This is the same man the Warrenites believe was careless and stupid enough to purchase a mail order rifle that was traceable when he could have simply bought the weapon at a local gun store with no paper trail. It doesn't add up!

Other problems: As Oglesby (op. cit. p. 96) points out: The WC claim that Oswald left the rifle in a Dallas gunshop to be sighted several weeks before the assassination to have the sight mounted can't be valid because the WC also insists he was in Mexico City. How could he be two places at once?

The rifle was purchased in the name of 'Alex Hidell' "whom Oswald supposedly pretended to be"  but "the only source for the Hidell information was the Dallas police who can't be relied on in this matter".  Oglesby goes on to note (ibid.) that: "Even one of the Commission's members, Burt W. Griffin, has discredited the role of the Dallas police in that investigation, telling reporter Robert Kaiser in 1975: 'I never thought the Dallas police were telling us the entire truth. Neither was the FBI".

The last was most salient in respect of Oswald's contacts with James P. Hosty, the likely agent who had Oswald purchase the mail order rifle as part of a gun running investigation. But Hoover shut this entire angle down, committed as he was to the lone gunman myth.

Latona maintained any prints found on the cartons were too old (3 days or more) to link to Oswald so had little or no probative value as the WC claimed. In addition the prints of many other workers were also on the cartons.

Lastly, paraffin tests disclosed no residue of gun powder on Oswald's face or hands.

(3) "Three bullet casings found on the Book Depository floor match what 81 percent of Dealey Plaza witnesses reported hearing: three shots."

Facts:  Left out by Shermer is the fact that " two -thirds (67 percent) of the ninety original witnesses the Warren Commission asked said that the shots had come from the grassy knoll" ('JFK - The Facts and the Theories', p. 94)

So we have kind of a mighty divergence here. Since, if most witnesses heard shots from the grassy knoll  there had to have been a lot more than three shots. Again also, since there is NO chain of credible evidence connecting Oswald to the casings or the rifle found  at the Book Depository, neither proves Oswald fired from there- or fired at all. Further, Ogelsby himself suspects they were planted compliments of the Dallas PD. They were already under pressure (from the Warrenites, and no doubt, LBJ) to seal the deal on the lone assassin bunkum, so why not? LBJ also had the Dallas cops in his pocket, especially after ascending to power as commander in chief.    All of this is further supported by former Justice Dept. agent Walt Brown in his chapter 'Blue Death' in Treachery in Dallas.

Acoustics tests conducted by the HSCA show there were no less than four shots fired that day with two of the shots coming within 1.6 seconds of each other, too close for the purported Mannlicher-Carcano rifle which had a bolt action recylcing time of 2. 33 seconds.  This was what led the HSCA to find for a 96 percent probable conspiracy - which Shermer doesn't reference at all. It's as if he regards the Warren Commission as the last word. (Despite it being a complete confection of LBJ.) Clearly, Shermer and his Skeptic Society cohort never even read the Report of the House Select Committee on Assassinations, or the Conclusion which informed the reader that a conspiracy had been determined.

Methinks then that Shermer and his Skeptics need to get with the program, adopt the finding of the only official governmental investigation and cease the jihad against conspiracy in the JFK case. 

Let me further add that a full six shot sequence has also been indicated by many experts (e.g. Robert Groden) as follows:

Shot 1 (miss) at Z150-52: Shows crowd reactions at missing frames (155-56), JFK reacts too

Shot 2 (throat shot): at Z-207; JFK reacts by Z220. (This had also been identified as a separate ENTRY wound by Parkland dr Malcolm Perry) e.g.

Shot 3  Connally shot(1st time), at 236-7, note his rotation motion, dropping of right shoulder. However, he still holds his Stetson so his wrist still not hit.

Shot 4  (fatal head shot), at Z312-13

Shot 5  Connally shot(2nd time) in wrist and thigh, at Z328 (approx.)

Shot 6  Tague sprayed with pavement (could be simultaneous with #5)

 (The JFK neck shot and Connally's shot are  separated by barely 29 frames, or about 1.6 seconds. This means that two rifles would have been needed.)

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.

Most importantly, the three- shot fable peddled by Shermer and assorted WC hacks is disproven by the 2001 paper ('Echo Correlation Analysis and the Acoustic Evidence in the Kennedy Assassination Revisited' ) of D.B. Thomas appearing in the journal Science and Justice. Vol. 41, p. 21, 2001.   The impulses are shown below, with the four highest amplitude peaks associated with rifle muzzle blasts (an association I will justify subsequently):

Thomas treated both the test evidence and actual data from the original date. He also used re- test evidence obtained in August, 1978 when a test shot was fired in Dallas’ Dealey Plaza to provide a fiducial mark for the putative Grassy Knoll shot – such that it could be compared with the impulse record obtained on Nov. 22, 1963 (also showing how this mark lined up to events recorded on the Zapruder film.) Thus, the test evidence (mainly in terms of echoes and echo delay times received via an echogram from a test shot (See Fig. 1) is essentially used to confirm the microphone recording & positions for the shots made on the actual date, by resort to microphones placed at the same (or approximately so) locations.  The geometry for Thomas' echo correlation analysis is shown below:

 The hypergeometric p-function was used for differing weighting factor distribution sets, H{M..N, n, i} to assess significance or likelihood of occurrence. It's based on the no. of echo  'windows'  M,  with each spanning 190msec (total time)  at 2msec width per window and n for assigned impulses in the evidence pattern, with 'i' the "coincident impulses" or those matching the original (11/22/63)evidence and the test result. The question was whether a succession of first impulses of given amplitude could be manifesting a signal or was merely random noise. Thomas found that for a given configuration for 2 motorcycles at designated locations, 1 for (GK) shooter location and one for alignment of muzzle blasts with one pair of echoes, the p -value is 0.000012 or about 1 in 100,000 against the null hypothesis, i.e. that the impulses were from random noise. An alternative way to put this is that the odds are 100,000 to 1 in favor of the impulses comprising actual rifle shots.

For the test shot, using Thomas' sonar model and the muzzle velocity for a Norma 6.5mm Mannlicher-Carcano (which is very doubtful that the GK shooter used), one arrives at a 171 msec time for the shock wave to take the defined path to the microphone, from a distance of 28.3m. One must add the time taken for the putative bullet to travel the distance to the time for the shock wave. In this case: 126 msec + 45 msec. The first parameter is relatively fixed since the distance from bullet to test microphone is fixed at 44.2m and the speed of sound defined for the sonar model was 350 m/s.

The second component will alter depending on the muzzle velocity. A German Mauser, with muzzle velocity not much greater than 760 m/s will have its bullet traverse the 28.3 m distance in 37 msec, so that the time will now be: 126 msec + 37 msec or 163 msec, which is some 8 msec shorter. If the rifle used is now a Remington Fireball with muzzle velocity 825 m/s then the total time becomes: t1 + t2 = 126 msec + 34 msec = 160 msec, or 3 msec shorter still.

In the “analytically determined” schema (e.g. actual data obtained on 11/22/63), all the above values change slightly. For example, the distance to Kennedy (from the GK shooter) becomes 30.5 m, and the speed of sound is 342 m/s given the air temperature was 18  C (64.4 F)  at the time of the assassination. The distance from the (GK) assassin to the nearest motorcycle was 67 m leading to the muzzle blast arriving at the motorcycle some Delta t = [67m/ 342 m/s] = 196 msec, after the shot. When air resistance is corrected for by + 11.5% (from the shooter location) the muzzle velocity resulting becomes 748 m/s (using a starting assumed bullet speed of 672 m/s). Because of a shooter “location uncertainty” of +/- 1.5 m (A<-> A') the muzzle velocity uncertainty is at least +/- 32m/s, so one is left with a range of: 748 +/- 32 m/s. Assuming Thomas’ parameters are correct, then this excludes a Remington Fireball as a possible candidate weapon, but it does permit either a German Mauser or a .30-30 Winchester.

The bottom line is that Thomas' investigation soundly reconfirmed the original acoustic tests and that the kill shot came from the grassy knoll.

(4) "Tests with Oswald's rifle found that three shots are possible in the amount of time Oswald had to shoot."

This is total balderdash and Shermer ought to be ashamed of himself. In fact, the tests came no where close to replicating the alleged shots made by Oswald. To recap, by the end of the WC test trials, the Master Marksmen had each fired two series of three shots each (18 rounds in all) at 3 stationary targets placed at distances of 175’, 240’ and 265’ (the last coming nearest to the distance from the Texas School Book Depository to the head shot). Even Chief Simmons admitted that the targets were not placed where they ought to have been to emulate conditions on November 22, 1963.

Just one of the three expert riflemen was able to get off three shots in under 5.6 seconds – the designated time interval for total shots declared by the Warren Commission. And most to the point: none of the total 18 shots fired struck the targets in the head or the neck. In other words, from a technical standpoint of duplicating Oswald’s alleged shots- this trio of experts failed. Another key aspect: for the duration of the 18 rounds, two of the “master” riflemen were unable to reload and fire at the stationary target as rapidly as Oswald purportedly did for the moving limo.

(5) "The Carcano was the same rifle Oswald purchased  by mail order in March, 1963".

This was squashed by former British Intelligence officer Col. John Hughes-Wilson  who observes (p. 187, 'JFK - An American Coup  d 'Etat')  that the weapon supposedly used by Oswald was "40 inches long, weighed 8 pounds and purchased from Klein's Sporting Goods in Chicago". But....the Mannlicher-Carcano actually advertised in the magazine (from which Oswald allegedly ordered) was "a different model completely, a 36-inch, 5.5. pound carbine model".  This again supports the argument that Oswald was told to order the Mannlicher-Carcano as part of an FBI gun running investigation. We also know the FBI in New Orleans had access to Oswald's P.O. Box. So it would have been relatively easy to frame him, again in conjunction with the fake Mexico City cables crafted by David Atlee Phillips, as the "lone assassin".  The security state and its allies wanted to ensure the media would bite on this specious evidence, and they did.

Thus, the purchase of said rifle, just like the infamous back yard photos - which I already showed were faked, see e.g. http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/11/analysis-of-pixel-diffusion-in-oswald.html

 - were all part of the Oswald frame job, enabling the actual mechanics to get away scot free..

(6) "Coworkers saw Oswald on the Sixth floor of the Depository shortly before JFK's motorcsade arrived"

More nonsense.  And we have author James Douglass (op. cit.)to thank profusely for going into this in detail with his own research. Douglass writes, for example (p. 284) that "co-worker and witness Carol Arnold saw Oswald in the SECOND floor lunchroom between 12:15 p.m. and 12:25 p.m. when the Warren Commission had him on the sixth floor at that time preparing to shoot President Kennedy".

In addition, Douglass' research discloses (pp. 285-86) Oswald was in fact the man in the doorway of the Book Depository as seen in the Altgens photograph, and not Billy Lovelady as the WC claimed. (Many in the JFK research community still regard this as a "myth" but they need to read Douglass' work on it.)  And logically,  it'd be far easier for Lee to get to that TSBD doorway by 12:28 p.m. or so from the 2nd floor-  in time to see JFK's motorcade pass - than to rush four floors up to grab a defective weapon and fire 3 shots by 12: 31. As Douglass writes (ibid.):

"The Warren Report's reprinted version of the photo is a travesty of Altgens' work as a professional photographer. What the Report presents to the public is a reduced, cropped, indistinct printing of an FBI copy of a magazine copy of the original crystal clear picture. In this smaller, muddied FBI/Warren Commission print, the man in the doorway is impossible to identify. By deliberately using a smaller fourth generation print, the government made the image of the man too tiny and blurred to be recognizable".

Bur, of course we've seen this chicanery of images in WC exhibits elsewhere including the FPCC handbills (pointed out by John Newman in 'Oswald and the CIA') and also in the photo outside of Gen. Edwin Walker's home of a '57 Chevy supposedly used by Oswald - but with the license plate scratched out.

Thanks to Douglass (p. 286) there was uncovered another "little known film taken in front of the Book Depository immediately after the assassination". This was used by author Harold Weisberg in his book, 'Whitewash II'  to identify the distinctive pattern of the shirt worn by the man in question, including that it "had several buttons missing".  This shirt "matched exactly the shirt worn by Oswald after his arrest." (Which interested readers can see for themselves in assorted film archives from the date.)

Moreover, Oswald's shirt can also be compared with Billy Lovelady's which - as historian David R. Wrone (ibid.) noted, "is distinctly different".

Douglass did one better, and interviewed Oswald's roommate James Antony Botelho (from his time at the Santa Ana, CA Marine base in 1959)  who said that by looking closely at the Altgens photo - even in its 4th generation form, he could tell the man in the photo was Oswald. He told Douglass that Oswald "had a habit of pulling the collar of his T-shirt down and stretching it out of shape."  He noted "the T-shirt collar of the man in the doorway looked the exact same way."

Thus, even though the face could not be clearly seen, the distorted shape of the T-shirt gave away the identity to Botelho.  In addition (ibid.):,

"Whereas Oswald and the man in the doorway had the upper halves of their outer shirts unbuttoned, exposing t-shirts with identical pulled down collars, Lovelady had his outer shirt buttoned all the way up to the collar, covering his t-shirt."

Douglass concluded: "Based on clothing alone it was clear Lovelady could not have been the man in the pbotograph presented to the public."

WHY be there to see JFK passing by as opposed to the sixth floor readying a defunct rifle? Because (p. 331) :"Oswald told his wife Marina, as she revealed later (1993 interview with Tom Brokaw), that he 'liked and approved of the President and believed that for the United States in 1963, John F. Kennedy was the best President this country could hope to have."

In effect, Shermer's take and spin - like the Warrenites  - is pure propaganda and bunkum. Lee Oswald was not the crazed commie fanatic that the WC and its flunkies claim murdered Kennedy but a long time admirer who actually listened to his speeches, and checked out library books (William Manchester's 'Portrait of a President' and 'Profiles in Courage' from New Orleans Public Library - as its records show-  cited by Douglass on p. 330)

(7)  "Oswald left, picked up his pistol...shot officer J.D. Tippet....then ducked into a nearby movie theater and entered without paying. He pulled out his revolver and attempted to shoot an officer with his revolver but the gun failed and he said 'Well, it is all over now"

Pure hogwash as both Oglesby and Douglass note. First, as Douglass points out (p. 291), the concession stand operator (Warren 'Butch' Burroughs)  at the Texas Theater observed that Oswald entered the theater between 1:00 p.m. and 1: 07 p.m. "several minutes before Officer Tippet was slain seven blocks away. If true, this would eliminate Oswald as a candidate for Tippet's murder."

Indeed, he'd have to have covered seven blocks or nearly 0.6 of a mile in 3 minutes or less, making him one of the fastest men who ever lived. Indeed, Burroughs was adamant he sold popcorn to Oswald at precisely 1:15 p.m. "information that the Warren Commission did not solicit from his testimony".  But why be surprised, since the whole artifice of this Whitewash commission was based on cherry -picking what they wanted to solidify the lone gunman case against Lee. As Douglass observes (ibid.):

"When Oswald bought his popcorn at 1:15 p.m. this was exactly the same time the Warren Report said Officer Tippet was being shot to death"

So never mind being one of the fastest men on Earth, Oswald had to be capable of bilocation too!  There's a real paranormal phenomenon for Shermer and the Skeptic Society to sink their teeth into!

But if rationality prevails, it had to have been another shooter that took down Tippet and that's where the actual evidence points. Officer Gerald Hill had custody of the .38 supposedly found on Oswald. Hill testified to the Warren Commission that he'd found six live rounds in the chamber and two empty cartridges  (that came from an automatic weapon) at the murder scene. (Revolvers don't discharge shells after firing) but the WC dismissed his account because, well, they'd lose their "Oswald the killer" tale otherwise.

Given Oswald failed a paraffin test for nitrate residue, and given the preceding account, the evidence indicates Oswald never fired a gun that day, period. Full stop. 

Under furious pressure from authorities, most of the original  Tippet killing witnesses subsequently changed their testimony to saying the killer "looked like Oswald." What they were threatened with we don't know, but it's interesting that a number of other  witnesses who came forward that day (e.g. Julia Ann Mercer, Lee Bowers, S.M. Holland et al) were threatened or cajoled into conformity if they insisted anyone but Oswald was the perp - whether in the assassination or the Tippet killing.

Two witnesses never did alter their words: Jack Tatum and Aquilla Clemmons, mainly because the WC never called them or took statements. But Tatum later testified to the HSCA  and Clemmons related to researcher Mark Lane (in the documentary 'Rush to Judgment')  that the killer was clearly a heavy set white male

Given Oswald had to have been at the Texas Theater buying his popcorn - unless one subscribes to bilocation, this means Oswald had nothing to do with the Tippet killing.

Now, since Shermer mentions the Texas Theater incident too, let's delve into that. Douglass (p. 292) makes it known that the Dallas cops approached Oswald (in his seat) "almost as if they were provoking the suspected police killer to break away from his seat ..which would have given Tippet's enraged fellow officers an excuse to kill him".

But Oswald did no such thing. Nor did he attempt to fire any shots as Shermer babbles. Lee clearly and obviously knew by now he'd been set up as the patsy and the last thing he wanted to do was make these Dallas cops his judge, jury and executioners. No, he wanted to have his trial and his say, and how and why he'd been set up.

So, rather than mindlessly react he expressly said:  "I am not resisting arrest! Police brutality!"  He never said  "It's all over now" - those words were put into his mouth by the WC's cavalcade of faux witness puppets and liars.

Douglass' most trenchant observation is perhaps this one, on the whole basis for Lee's being used as the patsy (p. 364) because he exposed the earlier plot in Chicago on Nov. 2, 1963:

"If Oswald was the same 'Lee' who called in and saved Kennedy and (Thomas Arthur) Vallee in Chicago then Oswald had risked becoming what he in fact became, the ultimate scapegoat in Dallas, where there was no one to save Kennedy and himself. "

Shermer and his Skeptic Society buddies might do well to ponder those words, and the evidence against their baloney, as opposed to resurrecting it again.

See also this excellent lecture by Prof. David R. Wrone:

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