CIA Still Stonewalls on JFK Mystery Man by Jefferson Morley

Flouting a federal court order, the CIA refused Wednesday to make public long-secret records related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963.

At a federal court hearing in Washington, CIA attorneys declined to provide any records related to the secret operations of a deceased undercover officer named George Joannides whose role in the JFK story has never been explained by the agency.

A leading scientist has warned a new species of "humanzee," created from breeding apes with humans, could become a reality unless the government acts to stop scientists experimenting.

Leading scientists say there is no reason why the two species could not breed, although they question why anyone would want to try such a technique.

What, because they can isn't a good reason anymore?

My favorite news story of the day

Some inhabitants of the Isle of Lesbos, also known as Lesbians, are suing a gay group for having the word Lesbian in their title.

Canadian connection in the Martin Luther King assassination

In the worldwide manhunt for Martin Luther King's assassin 40 years ago, the RCMP and Toronto police appear to have overlooked some important clues and never fully nailed down the killer's Canadian connections, a CBC News investigation has found.

Was King assassination 'triggered' in Canada?

For his part, Ray had long claimed that he met a man named Raoul in Montreal in 1967, on his first trip to Canada. It was Raoul, Ray said, who dictated his movements until the day King was assassinated.

However, the U.S. committee's secret investigative plan, obtained by CBC News, goes beyond finding a Raoul.

It actually gives a last name to the infamous Raoul — Martell — and also sought a Rene Martinez, a Marjorie Holmes and a Clifford Andrews "concerning the allegation of a conspiracy to kill Martin Luther King Jr."

UFO crash in Alabama

What was it last night around Decatur that had people talking?

Friday night and into today, our newsroom has been flooded with people inquiring about a strange sighting in the western sky.

What did people see?

What we do know is that an object was in the sky that night. What it was is the focus of tonight's WAFF 48 Investigators Report.

"I saw it coming thru the sky back that way and it".

Cody Terry was driving by the Aquadome Recreation Center Friday night in Decatur when he happened to look up in the sky and he notice something strange.

When it was coming through the sky, I really thought it was an airplane that lost control so I came to a complete stop on the road. When I got out and looked at it was no sound coming from it."

No sound, and he says it didn't appear to be an aircraft.

"It speed up to maybe two hundred miles per hour it went straight to the ground and disappeared."

Some people say they saw Med-Flight back here but some people say they saw something else.

Cody says he saw three military helicopters in the air and ambulance on the ground.

"We saw what was in the ambulance and to me it looked like what was a giant pearl and it was shiny. It put off kind of like a diamond type reflection on it"."

For now what ever was in the sky will remain a mystery.

Photo of the Day

Lesbian al Qaeda operative Huma Abedin on a boat

Best headline of the 2008 Presidential campaign: "I grabbed Chelsea's Ass"

Connie Stevens, alleged McCain paramour

This week, McCain is featured in a cover story in the National Examiner, one of the weekly tabloids (and btw, the Examiner does not appear to have a website). The headline: "Shocking Charge: John McCain & Connie Stevens Affair!" There's a photo of John and Connie, arm in arm and all smiles; a subhead next to a mug shot of an unidentified man reads "HE ignited scandal -- then was MURDERED!" Well, this sounds promising, I thought to myself.

Here's the story in short order: a in 1999, a "shady businessman and one-time journalist" named Ron Bianchi went to the Arizona Republic to try to hustle a story that McCain was having an affair with his "friend" and political supporter Connie Stevens. Stevens, in case you don't know, was an actress and minor sex symbol back in the day. She's two years younger than McCain.

Well, apparently the Arizona Republic didn't bite. And here's when things start to get interesting -- in the Examiner's words, "Bianchi wound up dying in a hail of gunfire the following September -- a crime that's never been solved!" Moreoever, McCain himself "was reportedly grilled by cops in Gila County, where Bianchi's body was found."

And not to leave out Obama

Huma Abedin in the Globe

Yes, respected supermarket tabloid Globe has an article on Huma Abedin. Hillary Gay Love Scandal Revealed! The sultry beauty who's with her DAY and NIGHT

John McCain: Hero or Collaborator?

Does the Vietnamese government have damning audio and film evidence of Senator John McCain's collaboration with the enemy during the Vietnam War? This article Sen John McCain: The "Ultimate Rhinestone Hero" says yes.

Other sources have told the U.S. Veteran Dispatch that the Vietnamese are holding as much as fifty hours of film footage secretly taken of McCain during the time his KGB-trained handlers had him isolated from other U.S. prisoners of war.

Some of the film, according to the sources, is of McCain receiving special privileges during the time he claims he was being tortured and held in long-term solitary confinement.

The sources say interrogators have candid camera footage of McCain with the nurse, who allegedly supplied him with more than just medical attention during those lonely days and nights in so-called solitary confinement.

John McCain and the POWs

Some of the strongest criticism of John McCain comes from Vietnam-era POWS and their families. They damn him as betraying the cause of POWs left behind after the war ended.

Journalist Sydney Schanberg gives an interest account in The War Secrets John McCain Hides

But there was one subject that was off-limits, a subject the Arizona senator almost never brings up and has never been open about -- his long-time opposition to releasing documents and information about American prisoners of war in Vietnam and the missing in action who have still not been accounted for. Since McCain himself, a downed Navy pilot, was a prisoner in Hanoi for 5 1/2 years, his staunch resistance to laying open the POW/MIA records has baffled colleagues and others who have followed his career. Critics say his anti-disclosure campaign, in close cooperation with the Pentagon and the intelligence community, has been successful. Literally thousands of documents that would otherwise have been declassified long ago have been legislated into secrecy.

Beyond covering up the evidence, and enacting laws to cover up the evidence, as Schanberg shows, McCain also abused witnesses before the committee investigating the POW issue, including Dolores Apodaca Alfond sister of MIA pilot Capt. Victor J. Apodaca.

Other than the panel's second co-chairman, Sen. Bob Smith, R-N.H., not a single committee member attended this public hearing. But McCain, having been advised of Alfond's testimony, suddenly rushed into the room to confront her. His face angry and his voice very loud, he accused her of making "allegations ... that are patently and totally false and deceptive." Making a fist, he shook his index finger at her and said she had insulted an emissary to Vietnam sent by President Bush. He said she had insulted other MIA families with her remarks. And then he said, through clenched teeth: "And I am sick and tired of you insulting mine and other people's [patriotism] who happen to have different views than yours."

By this time, tears were running down Alfond's cheeks. She reached into her handbag for a handkerchief. She tried to speak: "The family members have been waiting for years -- years! And now you're shutting down." He kept interrupting her. She tried to say, through tears, that she had issued no insults. He kept talking over her words. He said she was accusing him and others of "some conspiracy without proof, and some cover-up." She said she was merely seeking "some answers. That is what I am asking." He ripped into her for using the word "fiasco." She replied: "The fiasco was the people that stepped out and said we have written the end, the final chapter to Vietnam." "No one said that," he shouted. "No one said what you are saying they said, Ms. Alfond." And then, his face flaming pink, he stalked out of the room, to shouts of disfavor from members of the audience.

I have reported on Army Colonel Earl Hopper previously. To see see an interview with him or to read the transcript, take a look at John McCain: Privileged 'War Hero', Liar, Colloborator, Traitor

Watch John McCain insult the sister of an American missing-in-action pilot, reduce her to tears, and then storm off in a huff.

Alexander Cockburn trashes John McCain again:

Meanwhile Cliff Schecter, author of The Real McCain says an AP reporter "recounted to me seeing John McCain wander off into the red-light district of Hanoi in 1996 when he was there to normalise relations with the Vietnamese", and that "a few reporters told me the McCains don't really live together anymore, and that until the campaign Cindy McCain spent much of her time in San Diego with their daughter, because her husband was just not Johnny-on-the-spot anymore."

Alexander Cockburn raises the question of John McCain's collaboration with his captors as a POW. His piece is a come-on to an article by Douglas Valentine which is available by subscription only. Save your money--it is available here for free.

So, McCain leveraged some details to get some medical attention, not anything too contemptible. Who’s to judge someone in the position?

But McCain was held for five and half years. The first two weeks’ behavior might have been pragmatism, but McCain soon became North Vietnam’s go-to collaborator.

McCain provided his voice in radio broadcasts for the North Vietnamese. General Vo Nguyen Giap, a nationalist celebrity of the time, interviewed him. McCain’s uneasy compliance was a moment of affirmation for Vietnamese. His Vietnamese handlers thereafter used him regularly as prop at meetings with foreign delegations, including the Cubans. McCain became what he is today, a psywar stooge.

Vietnamese radio propagandists made good use of McCain. He was on the air so often that, on June 4, 1969, a U.S. wire service headlined a story entitled "PW Songbird Is Pilot Son of Admiral".

The story reported that McCain collaborated in psywar offensives, aimed at American servicemen. "The broadcast was beamed to American servicemen in South Vietnam as a part of a propaganda series attempting to counter charges by U.S. Defense Secretary Melvin Laird that American prisoners are being mistreated in North Vietnam."

I have not seen the wire service story mentioned but I'm sure the Democratic National Committee has a copy. It will be interesting to see to what extent attacks on John McCain's record as a POW reach the mainstream press.

This Pensito Review article contains a video discussion by some POW activists along with a transcript. Here is an excerpt of a part of the discussion between Congressman Bob Dornan and former Senate Chief Investigator, U.S. Senate Minority Staff, Tracy Usry.

USRY: Information shows that he made over 32 tapes of propaganda for the Vietnamese government. Certainly, you do what you need to do to stay alive. Nobody would fault anybody for that. But there comes a point in time when enough is enough.

REP: DORNAN: They made those transcriptions, and in the transcriptions, I heard a POW who heard them comin’ into his cell and said, “Oh, my God, is that Admiral McCain’s son? Is that the admiral’s son? Is that Johnny — telling us that our principal targets are schools, orphanages, hospitals, temples, churches?” That was Jane Fonda’s line. Where are those transcriptions? Believe me — they’re in the archives of the museum, the bragging military phony museum in Hanoi. McCain could not have wanted those [to] turn up in the middle of a presidential race. He knows that. I know that, and a few other people know that, and that’s why he went against Bob Dole’s legislation.

Many Hope for Obama-Clinton Ticket

"Hillary would be the LBJ of 1960 - both served longer and had more experience, and LBJ was willing to take the vice presidency. And Obama would only come into his own more as vice president," he said, referring to Lyndon B. Johnson, who was John F. Kennedy's vice president and then successor.

Oh, right and that turned out so well.

The Marilyn Monroe sex tape may be a hoax, according to The Smoking Gun.

A New York businessman's claim that he recently brokered the $1.5 million sale of a Marilyn Monroe sex tape is belied by the very FBI documents the man has cited to support his bizarre and unsubstantiated story, The Smoking Gun has learned.

Defamer has more: Debunking The Marilyn Monroe 'Sex Tape' Hoax

Why are the Pope and President Bush standing before the Confederate Flag?

Update: OK, so it's the Mississipi state flag. Welcome Metafilter visitors and thanks. Please come again.

Washington Post: McCain: A Question of Temperament

Former Senator Bob Smith (R): "His temper would place this country at risk in international affairs, and the world perhaps in danger. In my mind, it should disqualify him."

John McCain: "I have a temper, to state the obvious, which I have tried to control with varying degrees of success because it does not always serve my interest or the public's."

Jon Hinz Jon Hinz, former executive director of the Arizona Republican Party: "I've just seen too much. That temper, the intolerance: It worries me."

Covering Fingergate

Oh, my fucking god. This is what the media coverage of this campaign has come down to? Blogger Joseph Cannon, who voted for Obama before he turned on him, says that "this gesture is not accidental, and it certainly is not presidential."

Fox News: Did Obama Give a "Flip" Response to Clinton Attacks?

US News & World Report: Obama's Wayward Finger

If Obama did this on purpose, it's a sign of incredible immaturity. If he did it by accident, it's a sign of inexperience. If a president were to make an accidental gesture like that while talking about a foreign leader, for example, it could cause a global uproar.

One Youtube poster did the media's job and showed that the Obama was clearly just scratching an itch -- with two fingers not one. Watch it here. Yes that's right: video from another angle shows Obama scratching his face with TWO fingers. Have you ever flipped someone off using two fingers?

Watch Obama's full remarks here. He comments on "gotcha" and "slash and burn" politics and the ABC debate with intelligence and humor and passion and then says "but not this time!" He says that he is going to just brush off this sort of commetary, which he illustrates with an intentional gesture of brushing his shoulders. The media and parts of the blogospher respond by analysing and over-analysing whether Senator Obama was flipping off his opponent.

I never thought I would see the day when this blog would have higher journalist standards than the mainstream media.

This whole incident underscores everything Barack Obama said during and after the latest debate.

Operation Sudden Impact

RogueGovernment.com, a new site to me, reports on "Operation Sudden Impact" conducted in three states last weekend.

Federal law enforcement agencies co-opted sheriffs offices as well state and local police forces in three states last weekend for a vast round up operation that one sheriff’s deputy has described as "martial law training".

Law-enforcement agencies in Tennessee, Mississippi and Arkansas took part in what was described by local media as "an anti-crime and anti-terrorism initiative" involving officers from more than 50 federal, state and local agencies.

Given the military style name "Operation Sudden Impact", the initiative saw officers from six counties rounding up fugitives, conducting traffic checkpoints, climbing on boats on the Mississippi River and doing other "crime-abatement" programs all under the label of "anti-terrorism".

The war in Iraq is "a major debacle," according to a study in the Pentagon's National Institute for Strategic Studies.

The report said that the United States has suffered serious political costs, with its standing in the world seriously diminished. Moreover, operations in Iraq have diverted "manpower, materiel and the attention of decision-makers" from "all other efforts in the war on terror" and severely strained the U.S. armed forces.

"Compounding all of these problems, our efforts there (in Iraq) were designed to enhance U.S. national security, but they have become, at least temporarily, an incubator for terrorism and have emboldened Iran to expand its influence throughout the Middle East," the report continued.

Read the report

There is life on Mars according to William Shatner. Starts at 5:27 on the video.

I'm going to let you in on a little secret, that I have been told not to reveal. So I won't reveal who told me, but there is going to be new information about Mars. It won't be too long away, about the existence of life.

Chelsea Clinton hangs out with drag queens.

Bush makes devils hand sign again.

Jerome Corsi (video) on Directives NSPD51 and HSPD20

The Bush administration is acting "outside the constitution" according to WorldNetDaily columnist Jerome Corsi. It seems to me that Bush has claimed close to absolute power, at least in principle, and needs only a "national emergency" to claim it in fact.

NewsMax: Source: U.S. Strike on Iran Nearing

Contrary to some claims that the Bush administration will allow diplomacy to handle Iran’s nuclear weapons program, a leading member of America’s Jewish community tells Newsmax that a military strike is not only on the table – but likely.

“Israel is preparing for heavy casualties,” the source said, suggesting that although Israel will not take part in the strike, it is expecting to be the target of Iranian retribution.

“Look at Dick Cheney’s recent trip through the Middle East as preparation for the U.S. attack,” the source said.

Marilyn Monroe Sex Tape Sold for $1.5 Million

15 minute film of Marilyn Monroe blowing somebody but the buyer won't do the right thing and put it on the internet.

Rep. Geoff Davis (R) calls Obama "boy"

"I'm going to tell you something: That boy's finger does not need to be on the button," Davis said."

Update: Audio here

Washington Post: The Bush administration said yesterday that it plans to start using the nation's most advanced spy technology for domestic purposes soon, rebuffing challenges by House Democrats over the idea's legal authority.

Obama vs. Clinton: the video game

Warren Commission Exhibit 393 (click on photo to enlarge)

Notice where the bullet hole is. The government would have us believe that a bullet entered at that location and came out the front of President Kennedy's neck.

New York Sun: U.N. Official Calls for Study Of Neocons' Role in 9/11

"It is possibly true that especially the neoconservatives thought there was a situation in the country and in the world where something had to happen to wake up the American people. Whether they are innocent about the contention that they made that something happen or not, I don't think we can answer definitively at this point. All we can say is there is a lot of grounds for suspicion, there should be an official investigation of the sort the 9/11 commission did not engage in and that the failure to do these things is cheating the American people and in some sense the people of the world of a greater confidence in what really happened than they presently possess."

Washington Post: Iran Top Threat To Iraq, U.S. Says

Last week's violence in Basra and Baghdad has convinced the Bush administration that actions by Iran, and not al-Qaeda, are the primary threat inside Iraq, and has sparked a broad reassessment of policy in the region, according to senior U.S. officials.

Evidence of an increase in Iranian weapons, training and direction for the Shiite militias that battled U.S. and Iraqi security forces in those two cities has fixed new U.S. attention on what Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates yesterday called Tehran's "malign" influence, the officials said.

Times of London: Spy photos reveal 'secret launch site' for Iran's long-range missiles

The secret site where Iran is suspected of developing long-range ballistic missiles capable of reaching targets in Europe has been uncovered by new satellite photographs.

Pat Buchanan: Petraeus Points to War With Iran

The neocons may yet get their war on Iran.

Ever since President Nouri al-Maliki ordered the attacks in Basra on the Mahdi Army, Gen. David Petraeus has been laying the predicate for U.S. air strikes on Iran and a wider war in the Middle East.

Buchanan points out that in 2006 Nancy Pelosi "pulled down a resolution that would have denied Bush the authority to attack Iran without congressional approval."

Jim Marrs talks to St. John Hunt, son of E. Howard Hunt, on video here.

Marrs asks St. John if his father had any regrets. Only one. Not the Kennedy assassination, not Watergate, not that his wife was murdered, not that his family was destroyed. He regretted that the Bay of Pigs was not successful.

Subject: An Appeal for Justice

(Via Ed Sherry this email appeal from the son of noted coroner and JFK assassination critic Cyril Wecht, whose recent trial ended in a mistrial).

Dear Friends, Colleagues and Students,

As many of you know, the U.S. Attorney's Office here in Western Pennsylvania Tuesday announced its intention to re-try my father, former Allegheny County Coroner Dr. Cyril Wecht, on miscellaneous charges of "public corruption" immediately on the heels of U.S. District Judge Arthur Schwab's declaration of a mistrial following the government's first such effort. The prosecutor not only wasted no time in doing so, but did not even take the customary and legally prudent step of polling the jurors to determine how they were split.

Without getting into my own thoughts on the original or ongoing motives for this prosecution, I feel it important to point out that this jury of my father's peers, following nearly two months of testimony by 44 prosecution witnesses, and despite the fact that the defense did not find it necessary to call any witnesses to the stand, were unable to return a guilty verdict on even a single count -- and this despite the fact that they'd extended their deliberations, under the judge's orders, far past the point of deadlock. By any reasonable standard, the case against my father would appear to lack substance at this point in time.

I'm writing to you as a son, as a Western Pennsylvanian, and as an American, to ask you to share your own opinions on this matter with the editors of our leading local daily newspapers, as well as with U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan herself. While Ms. Buchanan will not be easy to dissuade from her chosen course of action, there is reason to believe that, faced with ample public pressure, she will have no choice but to consider her office's alternatives. And in a society (and region) faced with the multiple blights of gang warfare, drug trafficking, child pornography and other criminal activities, there is no question she has some "alternatives" to pursue.

By contrast, if a second trial is permitted to proceed, as scheduled, on May 27, the costs to both my father (financial, professional and otherwise) and to the taxpayers of Western Pennsylvania (already conservatively estimated at over $200,000) will continue to climb.

If you have any thoughts on this matter, please make your voice heard by writing to one or more of the addresses listed below. The time to act is now, before new charges are filed.

On behalf of my father, my family, and the cause of justice, I thank you.

Sincerely,

Ben Wecht

p.s. For those unfamiliar with the case, here are some pertinent links to recent news items:

Retry Wecht? No
Some jurors skeptical of case against Wecht
The Wecht case: pronounce it dead
It's over: There is no need for a second Wecht trial

Federal prosecutors have announced that they plan to retry Wecht on all 41 counts.

Judicial Committee Chairman John Conyers is disturbed by reports that the FBI has been interviewing jurors in the Wecht trial.

I am deeply troubled by reports of FBI agents contacting former jurors who failed to convict Dr. Wecht. Whether reckless or intended, it is simply common sense that such contacts can have a chilling effect on future juries in this and other cases. When added to the troubling conduct of this prosecution, there is the appearance of a win at all costs mentality. The committee continues to investigate this matter.

Sign a petition on behalf of Dr. Wecht.

More Good News from Iraq

Yes, our brave robots are coming home. Brave but incompetent. It seems that “the gun started moving when it was not intended to move.”

Pew Research Poll: Historians Rate George W. Bush a “Failure”

Worst. President. Ever.

Video: Acusan a Obama de adicto y homosexual

Larry Sinclair's accusations against Obama as reported by a big puppet--in Spanish

Report: John McCain called his wife "you cunt"

He later said that it had been a bad day. I've had bad days too but I've never called John McCain's wife a cunt.

Upcoming book on King assassination

Stuart Wexler and Larry Hancock, authors of an upcoming book, "Seeking Armageddon: The Effort to Kill Martin Luther King Jr.," are exploring evidence that members of the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in Mississippi were involved.

40 Years Since Martin Luther King Assassinated

John Ray Remembers His Brother

On the afternoon of April 2, 1968, the phone rang at the Grapevine. It was James Earl Ray, calling for his brother from the New Rebel Motel on the outskirts of Memphis. James said he was there to meet the next day with a government agent named "Raul," a slim, red-haired man he'd met in Canada years before, back when he ran drugs and guns. Raul, James told John, had instructed him to bring the Remington rifle with him.

"Jimmy told me he wanted me to come see him in Memphis," John Ray recalls.

Dr. William Pepper asks Who Killed Martin Luther King?

Governmental agencies caused Martin Luther King to be assassinated. They used other foot soldiers. They caused this whole thing to happen. And they then proceeded with the powerful means at their disposal to cover this case up.

New photo of Hillary Clinton and lesbian al Qaeda operative Huma Abedin

Phil Ochs sings "I Ain't Marching Anymore"

President Bush sees Jesus, is not impressed.

Absolut Vodka is apparently printing this ad in Mexican magazines.

Jerry Zeifman, the now-retired general counsel and chief of staff of the House Judiciary Committee during the Watergate investigation, has some harsh things to say about one of the attorneys he supervised, none other than Hillary Rodham Clinton.

When the investigation was over, Zeifman fired Hillary from the committee staff and refused to give her a letter of recommendation – one of only three people who earned that dubious distinction in Zeifman’s 17-year career.

Why?

“Because she was a liar,” Zeifman said in an interview last week. “She was an unethical, dishonest lawyer. She conspired to violate the Constitution, the rules of the House, the rules of the committee and the rules of confidentiality.”

According to Zeifman, Hillary Rodham, and other staff attorneys, engaged in under-handed tactics (hard to believe, I know) aimed at preventing President Nixon from having counsel. Apparently, she was concerned that Nixon's counsel might cross examine E. Howard Hunt.

Why would they want to do that? Because, according to Zeifman, they feared putting Watergate break-in mastermind E. Howard Hunt on the stand to be cross-examined by counsel to the president. Hunt, Zeifman said, had the goods on nefarious activities in the Kennedy Administration that would have made Watergate look like a day at the beach – including Kennedy’s purported complicity in the attempted assassination of Fidel Castro.