Teabaggers Roots go back to Dallas, 1963

[Nitro Express]

Never underestimate what an old military surplus rifle can do. It all depends on what kind of shape the barrel and muzzle are in. The ammo and of course the shooter. Some rifles just shoot better than others. You can't judge the whole lot just because the one you shot didn't shoot well.

[Nitro Express]

One thing for certain. Someone wanted the Kennedy's out of the White House. They got Bobby too.

[Nickdfresh]

Never underestimate what an old military surplus rifle can do. It all depends on what kind of shape the barrel and muzzle are in. The ammo and of course the shooter. Some rifles just shoot better than others. You can't judge the whole lot just because the one you shot didn't shoot well.

The Mosi-Nagants were quite good if unrefined. They were used by Soviet forces as late as The Afghan War as sniper rifles...

[Terry]

The two bits of circumstantial evidence that tend to stymie those opting for theories other than that of Oswald acting alone are the attempted Walker assassination and the murder of Tippit. Ballistics has matched the missile remains in both shootings to weapons owned by Oswald. Explanations for Oswald undertaking those actions other than Walker being Oswald's first choice and a botched attempt, and Tippit being a case of Oswald panicking and trying to elude capture strain credulity, to be polite about it.
The idea of Ruby being told to shoot Oswald to silence him, well, why would anyone doing such a thing wait until Oswald had been in custody for nearly two full days (with ample opportunity to disclose the names of any hypothetical conspirators he was working with to Dallas police)? And why give such a task to Ruby? Ruby was just as unstable as Oswald was, which naturally begs the question as to why anyone would trust Oswald with killing Kennedy.
There are a lot of illogical syllogisms floating around that are used to make dubious links and claims (e.g. the CIA had a file on Oswald, therefore the CIA did it / Ruby may have knew some low-level mobsters, therefore the Mafia did it). There are some Rashomon-like instances of discrepancies with eyewitnesses at Dealey Plaza but this isn't anything unusal in the case of many events (purple monkey dishwasher / Johnny and the Mothers are playing Stomping At The Sovoy in Vermont tonight), and it is also clear there were suspicions of active plots to murder Kennedy in the fall of 1963 that, if true, were clearly conspiracies. Suspicions strong enough to cause alterations by the Secret Service to the travel plans of JFK in Chicago, Miami and Tampa. Oswald also led an unconventional life full of odd choices and circumstances. All of this makes it not all that difficult for rational people to think there had to be more to the Kennedy assassination than there was. I felt that way for a long time.
I no longer do. I think Oswald thought of himself as someone with a great destiny, who fantasized about being important. In this, he is no more unusual than many people. I think he did do some fairly impressive things for a person of his limited formal educational background and impoverished circumstances. After being in the Marines and defecting to Russia, I think a mundane life of menial jobs and a Russian wife who was asserting her independence from him (she basically looked at Oswald as a sad-sack loser with little more than a head full of daydreams after a couple of years in America with him) just slowly pushed him over the brink. It takes hard work and persistence to attain greatness. Oswald lost patience with that and opted to become notorious as a way of getting fame and a permanent place in history. The irony for Oswald is that he had so little time to relish his newfound fame before some OTHER nutter did HIM in. I wonder about Oswald's last moments, dying while on the way to the hospital, which emotion he felt more: a sense of triumph or regret. Kharma didn't take long to return to him, in any event.

[Nitro Express]

The Mosi-Nagants were quite good if unrefined. They were used by Soviet forces as late as The Afghan War as sniper rifles...

The Soviets would take the ones that grouped better during test firing and set those aside for sniper rifles. Then they would scope them. I tend to shoot mosins better than mausers because a mosin stock fits me better. I've never shot a carcano but knowing what I know from shooting various mosins, mausers, enfields, krags, M1 Garands, 1903 Springfields is never underestimate arms people today think are beat, old, and inaccurate. If they have clean rifling, an undamaged muzzle, good ammo and a shooter that knows what they are doing, they usually shoot quite well.

[Nitro Express]

A high powered rifle round hitting a head is just going to make it explode. People say a round came from the front because the skin, skull, and brains blew back. It's going to blow everywhere. Also when bullets pass through liquid they distort and no longer travel in the line of flight.

All I know is Kennedy wanted to keep us out of the Vietnam war. The warmongering generals hated him. He signed the Green Hilton Agreement to give the Federal Reserve Bank some competition. He wanted to bust up the CIA and throw it into a million pieces. Kennedy had enemies everywhere including his own vice president.

I don't buy the lone nutcase theory because Jack Ruby killed Oswald. Why would a scumbag like Ruby want to kill Oswald? Dead men tell no tales. No way would a scummy club owner with mob ties kill a guy like Oswald because the president had been shot. The Kennedy's were at war with the mob. A guy like Ruby would probably give Oswald a free lap dance because he killed that backstabbing SOB.

[Seshmeister]

The two bits of circumstantial evidence that tend to stymie those opting for theories other than that of Oswald acting alone are the attempted Walker assassination and the murder of Tippit. Ballistics has matched the missile remains in both shootings to weapons owned by Oswald. Explanations for Oswald undertaking those actions other than Walker being Oswald's first choice and a botched attempt, and Tippit being a case of Oswald panicking and trying to elude capture strain credulity, to be polite about it.
The idea of Ruby being told to shoot Oswald to silence him, well, why would anyone doing such a thing wait until Oswald had been in custody for nearly two full days (with ample opportunity to disclose the names of any hypothetical conspirators he was working with to Dallas police)? And why give such a task to Ruby? Ruby was just as unstable as Oswald was, which naturally begs the question as to why anyone would trust Oswald with killing Kennedy.
There are a lot of illogical syllogisms floating around that are used to make dubious links and claims (e.g. the CIA had a file on Oswald, therefore the CIA did it / Ruby may have knew some low-level mobsters, therefore the Mafia did it). There are some Rashomon-like instances of discrepancies with eyewitnesses at Dealey Plaza but this isn't anything unusal in the case of many events (purple monkey dishwasher / Johnny and the Mothers are playing Stomping At The Sovoy in Vermont tonight), and it is also clear there were suspicions of active plots to murder Kennedy in the fall of 1963 that, if true, were clearly conspiracies. Suspicions strong enough to cause alterations by the Secret Service to the travel plans of JFK in Chicago, Miami and Tampa. Oswald also led an unconventional life full of odd choices and circumstances. All of this makes it not all that difficult for rational people to think there had to be more to the Kennedy assassination than there was. I felt that way for a long time.
I no longer do. I think Oswald thought of himself as someone with a great destiny, who fantasized about being important. In this, he is no more unusual than many people. I think he did do some fairly impressive things for a person of his limited formal educational background and impoverished circumstances. After being in the Marines and defecting to Russia, I think a mundane life of menial jobs and a Russian wife who was asserting her independence from him (she basically looked at Oswald as a sad-sack loser with little more than a head full of daydreams after a couple of years in America with him) just slowly pushed him over the brink. It takes hard work and persistence to attain greatness. Oswald lost patience with that and opted to become notorious as a way of getting fame and a permanent place in history. The irony for Oswald is that he had so little time to relish his newfound fame before some OTHER nutter did HIM in. I wonder about Oswald's last moments, dying while on the way to the hospital, which emotion he felt more: a sense of triumph or regret. Kharma didn't take long to return to him, in any event.

Great post.

I used to think there was a conspiracy but if you take a step back and just look at the evidence from scratch you come to the following

a) Oswald was definitely a shooter
b) He wasn't someone you would ever dream of using in a conspiracy and there is no evidence of him having contact with anyone.

That means that either he was the lone shooter or there just happened to be a simultaneous attempt by others unknown to Oswald.

All the rest of the conspiracy theories is selectively taking things and ignoring the stuff that doesn't fit. A lot of these guys are intellectually dishonest, they have done lots of research and yet clearly deliberately don't mention other incredibly pertinent details like Oswald's previous assassination attempt.

For years I did wonder about the Ruby thing but the guy was a fucking nut job. Look up the letters he sent his brother from jail, this was not a rational guy.

[Seshmeister]

This just goes to show how unreliable eyewitnesses can be.


Ironically these frames are from a website saying they prove he was hit from the front when they prove the exact opposite.

[Nitro Express]

All they prove is a high velocity projectile hit Kennedy in the head and part of his head blew all over the place. I love the conspiracy theory of the limo driver turning around and plugging Kennedy.

What's amazing is the presidential limo had no armor. It had a bubble top in the trunk but it was just plexiglass. You look at the armored beast presidents travel in now it was a different world then. The presidential limos are so heavy now the motors routinely give out and fail.

Listen to the inside of the presidential limo at 1:49. It sounds like a rickety old wagon. Probably rides like one too.

Ha! Timothy Geithner looks at Obama like he's a little worm. The Federal Reserve boy wants no stinking burgers!

[Nickdfresh]

The angle of entry.

A simulation showing the shattered skull...

[Nitro Express]

Nice. Let's all go out for a pasta dinner now.

[Seshmeister]

Looks like a sore one...

[Nickdfresh]

...

All the rest of the conspiracy theories is selectively taking things and ignoring the stuff that doesn't fit. A lot of these guys are intellectually dishonest, they have done lots of research and yet clearly deliberately don't mention other incredibly pertinent details like Oswald's previous assassination attempt. ....

Oliver Stone would be the poster boy for intellectually dishonest. He lionizes Jim Garrison and only briefly shows members of his staff quitting. What he left out was that Garrison was increasing sounding like a crazy bitch, and was completely fabricating things that never happened, like his statements regarding the "coup" in Dallas that sounded more like the Chilean coup against Allende, including armored vehicles on the streets of Dallas and armed soldiers in full battle gear. Something no one has ever recounted and there is no record of anything even close to that taking place. He left the fact that Garrison was melting down towards the end of his pursuit of "the truth" out of the film to give this lunatic credibility and a heroic stature he does not deserve...

[Nitro Express]

Yeah but that movie gave us the best John Candy scene ever. John Candy as Dean Andrews. Classic!

[Seshmeister]

He's completely unrepentant.

As I said I heard him being interviewed recently (due to his new TV series The Untold Story of the US) and he doesn't take anything a back, instead blaming the US press for unfairly attacking the JFK movie.

He's clearly a smart guy and has done some brilliant work in his time but he seems to have a huge blind spot on this.