Some things… ah people never change, and these two certainly won’t!!
Marion Algier – AskMarion
Sarah Palin Mocks Hillary Clinton with Awesome Photo
Our Weasel Of The Week!! 03.12.15
Showing posts with label scandal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label scandal. Show all posts
Saturday, March 14, 2015
Thursday, February 6, 2014
IRS’s Lerner Bombshell, Treasury Department Secretly Drafted New Rules To Restrict Activity of Conservative Groups… Yet Pres Obama Says No Smidgen of Corruption
Remember Lois Lerner?
Marion Algier - AskMarion:
The Daily Caller: The Obama administration’s Treasury Department and former IRS official Lois Lerner conspired to draft new 501(c)(4) regulations to restrict the activity of conservative groups in a way that would not be disclosed publicly, according to the House Committee on Ways and Means.
The Treasury Department and Lerner started devising the new rules “off-plan,” meaning that their plans would not be published on the public schedule. They planned the new rules in 2012, while the IRS targeting of conservative groups was in full swing, and not after the scandal broke in order to clarify regulations as the administration has suggested.
The rules place would place much more stringent controls on what would be considered political activity by the IRS, effectively limiting the standard practices of a wide array of non-profit groups.
“Don’t know who in your organizations is keeping tabs on c4s, but since we mentioned potentially addressing them (off -plan) in 2013, I’ve got my radar up and this seemed interesting…,” Treasury official Ruth Madrigal wrote in a June 14, 2012 email to Lerner and others obtained by Ways and Means and provided to The Daily Caller.
Ways and Means chairman Rep. Dave Camp blasted the off-the-record plan during a hearing Wednesday with IRS commissioner John Koskinen, and called for the administration’s newly proposed 501(c)(4) rules to be halted until criminal investigations into the IRS targeting scandal are complete.
“If Treasury and the IRS fabricated the rationale for a rule change it would tend to raise questions about the integrity of the rule-making process,” Camp said.
“I want to be perfectly clear – this committee will fight any and all efforts to restrict the rights of groups to organize, speak out and educate the public, just as unions are allowed to do so. We will get to the bottom of this, and I expect the IRS to produce – quickly – the outstanding documents the committee has requested,” Camp said.
“I believe the IRS has a long way to go in restoring its credibility. But, you can take a first step by complying with this committee’s request and stopping all action against 501(c)(4) groups until the appropriate investigations are completed.”
The new rules define more previously acceptable activities by nonprofit groups as prohibited “candidate-related political activity.” Communications and activities including voter registration drives and publishing voter guides, among others, are now classified as political activity. Grants and donations that 501(c)(4)’s give to other nonprofits are now subject to new record-keeping and increased scrutiny to prevent the money’s use for broadly-defined political activity.
The rules were “drafted in a manner, in my view, to shut down tea party groups” Rep. Camp said earlier this week.
New IRS commissioner Koskinen said that the rules should “put to rest all of the issues surrounding applications for tax-exempt status.”
But Madrigal’s email to Lerner proves that the regulations were being developed long before the IRS needed to publicly put anything “to rest.”
At least 292 conservative groups were subjected to unfair targeting between 2010 and 2012, against six liberal groups that were allegedly given similar treatment.
“They are both over-broad and under-inclusive,” said Foley & Lardner LLP partner Cleta Mitchell on the new rules.
“They’ve taken everything that 501(c)(4) organizations do in the normal course of business and proposed to convert that all to candidate-related activity, even if a candidate is never mentioned.”
Mitchell said that the rules are being “rushed through” for political purposes.
“The objective is to get the rules in place before the 2014 election,” Mitchell said.
Hmmmm… Remember the O’Reilly-Obama pre-Super Bowl interview just last weekend where the President said there was not a smidgen of corruption involved in the IRS situation where conservative groups were targeted?
Video: Bill O’Reilly’s Super Bowl interview with President Obama
Transcript of IRS Portion of the Interview:
O’REILLY: I’ve got to get to the IRS…
OBAMA: Yes.
O’REILLY: — because I don’t know what happened there and I’m hoping maybe you can tell us. Douglas Shulman, former IRS chief, he was cleared into the White House 157 times, more than any of your cabinet members, more than any other IRS guy in the history, by far.
OK, why was Douglas Shulman here 157 times?
Why?
OBAMA: Mr. Shulman, as the head of the IRS, is constantly coming in, because at the time, we were trying to set up the, uh, HealthCare.gov and the IRS…
O’REILLY: What did he have to do with that?
OBAMA: — and the IRS is involved in making sure that that works as part of the overall health care team.
O’REILLY: So it was all health care?
OBAMA: Number two, we’ve also got the IRS involved when it comes to some of the financial reforms to make sure that we don’t have taxpayer funded bailouts in the future. So you had all these different agendas in which the head of the IRS is naturally involved.
O’REILLY: Did you speak to him a lot…
OBAMA: — (INAUDIBLE).
O’REILLY: — yourself?
OBAMA: I do not recall meeting with him in any of these meetings that are pretty routine meetings that we had.
O’REILLY: OK, so you don’t — you don’t recall seeing Shulman, because what some people are saying is that the IRS was used…
OBAMA: Yes.
O’REILLY: — at a — at a local level in Cincinnati, and maybe other places to go after…
OBAMA: Absolutely wrong.
O’REILLY: — to go after.
OBAMA: Absolutely wrong.
O’REILLY: But how do you know that, because we — we still don’t know what happened there?
OBAMA: Bill, we do — that’s not what happened. They — folks have, again, had multiple hearings on this. I mean these kinds of things keep on surfacing, in part because you and your TV station will promote them.
O’REILLY: But don’t…
OBAMA: But when (INAUDIBLE)…
O’REILLY: — think there are unanswered questions?
OBAMA: Bill, when you actually look at this stuff, there have been multiple hearings on it. What happened here was it that you’ve got a…
O’REILLY: But there’s no definition on it.
OBAMA: — you’ve got a 501(c)(4) law that people think is focusing. No — that the folks did not know how to implement…
O’REILLY: OK…
OBAMA: — because it basically says…
O’REILLY: — so you’re saying there was no…
OBAMA: — if you are involved…
O’REILLY: — no corruption there at all, none?
OBAMA: That’s not what I’m saying.
O’REILLY: (INAUDIBLE).
OBAMA: That’s actually…
O’REILLY: No, no, but I want to know what…
OBAMA: — (INAUDIBLE)…
O’REILLY: — you’re saying. You’re the leader of the country.
OBAMA: Absolutely.
O’REILLY: You’re saying no corruption?
OBAMA: No.
O’REILLY: None?
No?
OBAMA: There were some — there were some bone-headed decisions…
O’REILLY: Bone-headed decisions…
OBAMA: — out of — out of a local office…
O’REILLY: But no mass corruption?
OBAMA: Not even mass corruption, not even a smidgeon of corruption, I would say.
If there isn’t a smidgen of corruption, why was Obama’s new #IRS Chief apologizing… and perhaps already lying?
Then on Wednesday, 02.05.14, the new chief of the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, John Koskinen (74), a lawyer with little tax experience but with a reputation as a troubleshooter, apologized and promised that one of his priorities is to restore public trust in the IRS on the one hand but played down the IRS scandal as a minor issue with a handful of conservative political groups as if the matter was minor and settled (which it isn’t) on the other hand… just as new of the Lerner off-plan has emerged.
Video: IRS Commissioner Apologizes For Tea Party Targeting - Jenny Beth Martin - On The Recorded
It has also come to light that virtually the first thing Koskinen did after taking office as IRS Commissioner was to give out $62 million in bonuses to boost moral among IRS workers… Really? How about the moral of average Americans and those who have been targeted by the IRS with audits and delays of approval for their 501(c)(4)? Sounds a lot like same old same old to me?!?
Video: But as Carney Said Previously… An IRS Apology Is Not Concrete Evidence Of IRS Scandal
Bombshell Revelation: ‘Smoking Gun’ E-Mail Uncovered at IRS Congressional Hearing (Video)
Is it me… or does something just not ring true here?
Friday, January 31, 2014
Former Clinton WH Counsel Lanny Davis Struggles To List Hillary’s Achievements At State Dept
Audio: Lanny Davis Struggles to come up with any Hillary Clinton Accomplishment at State Department.
In an interview with Hugh Hewitt, Former Clinton White House Counsel and spin doctor Lanny Davis had a hard time listing Hillary’s achievement while Secretary of State:
HH: If I ever get in serious, serious trouble, I think I’m going to try and find Lanny Davis. Now only is he a friend of my friend, Michael Medved, and a friend of my friend, Mark Gearan. He is widely regarded as one of the great spin masters of Washington, D.C. He has brand new book out called Crisis Tales: Five Rules For Coping With Crises In Business, Politics And Life. Lanny Davis, welcome back to the Hugh Hewitt Show, great to talk to you.
LD: I love being on your show, Hugh. And I hope you never need my services, but thank you.
HH: Well, there are a couple of things in here. First of all, selling the planes to Pakistan when you came up with the nine words, the money or the planes, what’s fair is fair, that’s a beautiful chapter, but I still don’t want to sell planes to Pakistan. I mean, that was, I kept saying Lanny, you’re selling me. I don’t want them. It’s not fair. They’re running the Taliban, so what’s fair? Did that work?
LD: Well, first of all, this is way back when, so you’re dating me, and I have to date myself. So this is when Benazir Bhutto was the small d democrat, and elected by a popular landslide and ran a small d democracy with secular Islamic views. That was the ideal Islamic democracy in the world, Turkey being at the time another example. So this is when Pakistan was truly our friend and Benazir Bhutto was an inspirational leader. And we owed Pakistan, literally owed Pakistan $600 million dollars. We had their money, we had their planes, and they wanted one or the other back, and we were stuck and couldn’t give either one back. And that’s when I helped Prime Minister Bhutto with President Clinton.
HH: It’s a fascinating story. We didn’t know at the time that the ISI was helping the Taliban become our nightmare, so your hands are clean on that. But it’s a fascinating story. I also loved your mix up with Garry Trudeau, your fellow Yalie, over the misapplication of facts with regards to the Ivory Coast incident, covered in great detail. But I love your takeaway. Don’t represent yourself.
LD: My punch line is that Garry Trudeau had very good company in ignoring the facts that ultimately came out, which is that I was helping the State Department and the President of the United States get this thug out of the trenches in the Ivory Coast, and save lives. But I couldn’t tell everybody what I was doing, because it was covert. So I violated my transparency rule. I paid the penalty and I had a fool for a client, namely me.
HH: Well, Crisis Tales is full of good stuff, and I recommend it to anyone. But now I want your crisis advice for an old client of yours. Former Secretary of State Clinton brought up Benghazi sua sponte yesterday. That means on her own, for the benefit of the Steelers fans. And it raised more questions than it answered. When does she need to sit down and give us the specifics of what she was doing that night, where she went, and why she never called back Mr. Hicks?
LD: Well, first of all, I’m not sure Mr. Hicks ever called her. That’s not a fact. It’s actually not true that he ever called her. And secondly, she’s done that. She’s testified in front of two Congressional committees, and I’m sure she’d be willing to do it again and again and again, because the most decisive comment she made is when she was accused of a systemic failure in her own department by a panel that she appointed. Ambassador Pickering, a Republican administration senior official at the State Department and ambassador for a Republican president, Bush I, and Admiral Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, neither one of them exactly partisans, investigated what happened in Benghazi, and found that the State Department had a systemic failure of leadership at the mid-levels, that communications did not occur very well, and she accepted personal responsibility in all 64 recommendations for change. So…
HH: But Lanny, neither the Ambassador nor the Admiral spoke to her personally under oath, and she did in fact talk with Mr. Hicks. That’s under oath and testified to. She talked to him at 2am in the morning on a conference call, and she never called him back. I’m curious if you would recommend to her that she sit down for a one hour with Jake Tapper, or with Bret Baier, or with a serious journalist, not Andrea Mitchell, not someone who will lie down and sweep the ground before she walks on it, but a serious, probing question about why she ran away, because she ran away that night.
LD: Well, I don’t believe she ran away, but we shouldn’t debate things we are both uncertain of. Let’s both agree that this is an issue she has to address, will address. My philosophy is the more information out, the better for her. And at some point, I certainly agree with you she’ll have to retell the story. I think we have a difference of opinion whether she already has, but I certainly agree with your premise that as long as these questions are nagging, the ultimate solution, as I always say in my book, is tell it all, tell it early, tell it yourself. She’s very, very sorry about the loss of her friend. She’s taken responsibility, and I think she ultimately will follow even your advice, Hugh.
HH: Well, I like your advice. Tell it all, tell it early, tell it yourself. She has not told it all. She hasn’t told it early. What she has said, she’s used other people to do so. But what about, who would you recommend she sit down with for like a Chris Christie longest day press conference? He did two hours. Should she do the same sort of thing, Lanny Davis?
LD: Well, first of all, we’re just going to have to disagree in respect to have differences of opinion with being as to whether she already has answered all the questions. But I think she ultimately will have to do it again if she decides to run for president, and I have no idea who she should sit down with. I kind of laughed in the middle of your mentioning Andrea Mitchell, because the last time I saw Andrea Mitchell, she was extremely tough on the Clinton White House. But she’s got to sit down with a credible journalist and answer all questions if she wants to run for president. Not just Benghazi, but your life is transparent. It’s pretty tough out there as Chris Christie has discovered. I’m not satisfied with Chris Christie’s explanation. He could have spent four more hours, and he still hasn’t answered the basic question why did you sit and watch that traffic jam and didn’t pick up the phone and call your buddy at the Port Authority and say what the heck is going on here?
HH: And that, by the way, America, that was…
LD: He’s never answered that question.
HH: That was a perfect bit of Lanny Davis diversion. That was eloquent, actually. He knows I’m burrowing in on Hillary, and so he brings up Chris Christie and thinks it’s like shouting squirrel. But Lanny, I’ve got to go back. Jake Tapper said ten minutes ago we don’t know what she did that night. Nobody knows what she did after the 2am call with Hicks. Don’t we need a timeline? Don’t we deserve to know what the woman in charge of the State Department under siege actually did, because I think she ran away, and she has never answered with specificity and particularity what she did that night.
LD: So it looks like you just changed the topic from my Chris Christie point, but the answer is I’ve already given, I already gave you the answer, Hugh. So I don’t know if I can…
HH: All right. Let me ask…
LD: …more time, which is at some point, at some point, if she runs for president, Benghazi and every other issue she’s being criticized for, and I happen to believe that there are only a handful of people that hold Benghazi against her. I don’t think that that’s a serious political issue for her.
HH: Okay, then give me one more thing.
LD: But she’s got to do it. She’s got to do it if she runs for president. And she knows that.
HH: All right, one question, you’ve got a minute. Summarize for me what she accomplished as Secretary of State.
LD: Well, the biggest thing of all is goodwill around the world, which is what secretaries of State do.
HH: Like in Syria…
LD: I don’t know what any secretary of State…
HH: …and Egypt and Libya?
LD: I don’t know, well, Libya and certainly the intervention in Libya and getting rid of Qaddafi, you would say that’s a pretty good achievement for the President. But these are presidential achievements with a partnership of the secretary of State. What do secretaries of State do? For example, she was very instrumental in the details of the Iranian sanctions program, which has produced, apparently, some results. I’m very skeptical about this deal in Iran on the nuclear weaponry. But the credit she deserves on this sanctions program, which literally was her program in the State Department to enforce, but in partnership with Barack Obama.
HH: So her achievement is that…
LD: But this doesn’t change the question about the secretary of State having achievement. This is a secretary of State is the most popular woman in the world and restored relations with everyone in the world.
HH: All right, Lanny, we’re out of time, but your achievement is one that’s been swept away by the President.
End of interview.
Technorati Tags: Hillary,Lanny Davis,Hugh Hewitt,Secretary of State,Hillary Clinton,Truth,Benghazi,Scandals,Election 2016
Thursday, January 16, 2014
Justice Department and Holder Declining to Prosecute Alleged IRS Abuse… As Questions Continue to Arise
Exterior of the Internal Revenue Service building in Washington Photo: AP File
By Marion Algier – Ask Marion
A top Republican senator is pressing Attorney General Eric Holder for answers following allegations by a government watchdog that the IRS may have improperly accessed the tax records of a political donor or candidate -- but the Justice Department declined to prosecute the case.
J. Russell George, the inspector general who audited the IRS has claimed he turned over evidence of criminal behavior that the DOJ refused to press charges on. Among George's claims was that politicians were targeted for audits and that confidential donor and candidate tax information was accessed.
Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), questioned whether these breeches were politically motivated.
George pointed out one case where information was willfully accessed against the current US law and in his letter to congress said, "we presented evidence of a willful unauthorized access to the Department of Justice, but the case was declined for prosecution."
The DOJ is refusing to pursue any charges against the IRS for audits or harassment of politicians, Conservative Groups or Donors or related individuals.
This is hardly the first time Eric Holder has refused to prosecute a case against democrats and liberals.
He also refused to prosecute the two New Black Panthers, who committed voter intimidation, even though career attorneys at the DOJ, strongly recommended it. Holder has also refused to prosecute Wall Street big wigs like Jeffrey Katzenberg, Jon Corzine, and the board of Solyndra, all large contributors to President Obama's campaigns, and how about all the other Obama administration scandals from Fast and Furious to Benghazi, just to mention a few.
And for anyone out there that thinks these scandals don’t or won’t affect them… There has also never been an answer as to why none of the Tea Party and other Conservative Groups were never granted their non-profit status through the IRS in 2012… or any answers to 2012 Voter Fraud allegations in general. When it affects our votes or the election process, it affects all of us.
'Coincidence? You decide': Sarah Palin's father 'horribly harassed' by IRS under probe led by Obama donor, her brother claims
- In a January 11 Facebook post, Chuck Heath Jr. accused the IRS of going after his dad Chuck Heath Sr.
- He said the elderly man said he had been 'horribly harassed' six times since Palin became the GOP vice presidential nominee in 2008
- Heath Jr. suggested the new found interest was no coincidence, but part of an IRS's heightened security of conservative groups
Sarah Palin's father has been 'horribly harassed' by the IRS, her brother has claimed.
In a January 11 Facebook post, Chuck Heath Jr. accused the tax man of going after his dad Chuck Heath Sr. six times since Palin became the GOP vice presidential nominee in 2008, suggesting the new found interest is no accident.
'Coincidence? You decide,' he wrote on his page.
Harassed? Sarah Palin's father Chuck Heath Sr, pictured above, has been 'horribly harassed' by the IRS, her brother has claimed
'My father, who worked multiple jobs and faithfully and honestly paid his taxes for fifty years, had never heard a word from the IRS.
'In 2008, his daughter was tapped to run for vice president of the United States. Since that time, he has been, in his words "horribly harassed" six times by the agency.'
He added: 'They've tried to dig up something on him but he's always operated above board. Government and politics are ugly. Kudos to the few that are trying to clean it up.'
Attack: In a January 11 Facebook post, Chuck Heath Jr., pictured working his sister's campaign, accused the tax man of going after his dad Chuck Heath Sr six times since Palin became the GOP vice presidential nominee in 2008, suggesting the new found interest is no accident.
Support: After streams of anti-Obama comments to his post, Heath Jr responded, 'Thank you guys for the support. I know Dad appreciates it'
Heath Jr. was suggesting the attention allegedly directed towards his father was part of the IRS's heightened scrutiny of conservative groups.
On Monday, The Wall Street Journal reported that the FBI doesn't plan to file criminal charges in the probe, after it failed to find enough evidence of political bias to prove a violation of criminal law had occurred.
The news will likely intensify debate over the politically charged scandal.
After streams of anti-Obama comments to this post, Heath Jr. responded.
'Thank you guys for the support. I know Dad appreciates it,' he wrote.
'I wasn't going to say anything about the IRS targeting him when he told me about it a few months ago. I guess I feared some kind of retaliation from them.
'But when I heard the person heading up the IRS investigation for their targeting of Tea Party groups was a major Obama donor, I felt compelled to say something.
'We are all so sick of cronyism and backdoor tactics that bring good people down.'
Barbara Bosserman, a trial attorney within the IRS's Civil Rights Commission, is leading the internal investigation. According to reports she is a frequent donor to the Democratic National Committee and President Obama.
Chuck Heath and Chuck Heath Jr., Sarah Palin’s father and brother, like her children, are private citizens who are being harassed at every turn by the media and now the IRS because they are related to her. Sarah’s great sin… she stood up to the corruptocrats in Alaska and won and gave life to the McCain ticket after her rousing VP nomination acceptance speech and scared the Hell out of the establishments in both parties and the ruling elite everywhere. Why? Because she is and would represent the American people and continue to call out the beltway politicians and power elite. So they had their minions in the media destroy her with lies, frivolous law suits… all of which she won, and continuous attacks on her and her family.
In a recent interview Roger Ailes said, “The only two people I knew who got worse press than Sarah Palin were Richard Nixon and George W. Bush — much of it unfairly, most of it unfair to her family.”, and she is still standing strong and Undefeated. CNN Said Palin Influence Far from Diminishing and Jim DeMint at the Heritage Foundation said there was no more valuable endorsement in conservative circles than that of Sarah Palin… as Ted Cruz and others have said, Palin is the Kingmaker. Ailes also knows that Palin just might take another shot at the big job herself… after all who better to go head to head with Hillary Clinton. The DNC’s carrot would be electing the first female president. It truly would be the battle of the Century! And Ailes as well as the powers that be know it!
Election 2016 is a make or break it election for America’s future direction and definitely for Conservatives the Republican Party! Conservatives have lost their credibility because the don’t stand up for their own! And Progressives, Obama, Reid, Pelosi and Holder will do anything and everything to steal that election (2014 and 2016).
Time for all of us to get involved!!
Read more:
Criminal charges not expected in IRS probe The Wall Street Journal
Issa, Republicans Blast Decision Not to Pursue Criminal Charges in IRS Scandal
Holder implicated in IRS Cover Up
Book by Chuck Heath Sr. and Chuck Heath Jr. - Our Sarah: Made in Alaska (Kindle)
Friday, November 22, 2013
Remembering JFK 50-Years Later
Everyone who was alive the day of the Kennedy assassination knows exactly where they were the moment they heard the news that JFK was shot. The days of coverage are permanently imprinted on their minds… from Jackie crawling out onto the trunk of the limousine to recover the top of her husband’s head, to her blood stained suit worn at LBJ’s swearing-in on Air Force One, to the single black rider-less horse, to the vision of young John John saluting his father’s casket.
Here is a story of a woman who has made a lifetime hobby of researching the possibilities of what really happened that day and who was behind it.
"Kennedy Slain by CIA, Mafia, Castro, LBJ, Teamsters, Freemasons: President shot 129 times from 43 different angles."
Seeking the truth behind the tragedy of Kennedy's assassination
Barb Junkkarinen, a self-described JFK conspiracy theorist and self-taught scholar, has immersed herself in the grittiest details of an assassination that continues to fascinate Americans half a century later. (John M. Glionna / Los Angeles Times)
LA Times: Like most Americans, Barb Junkkarinen thinks there's more to the Kennedy assassination story. She uses hands-on research to bring reason to a debate rife with conspiracy theories.
By John M. Glionna - Reporting from Hillsboro, Ore. - Nov. 22, 2013
Barb Junkkarinen emerges from the bedroom with the gift her husband and son gave her one Christmas.
It's a 1940 Italian-made rifle, like the one Lee Harvey Oswald fired from a sixth-floor window at the Texas School Book Depository, killing President Kennedy on an autumn afternoon in Dallas. He'd spirited the weapon into the building by disguising it as a curtain rod.
"This is how Oswald carried his package," she says, holding the butt of the rifle low, the way witnesses described. "He had it cupped in his hand, like this."
Junkkarinen's husband, Juha, and son, Jason, nod at the demonstration they've seen again and again. They help adjust the unloaded weapon just so. They point out there's also a scope and ammunition.
Over more than half her lifetime, Barb Junkkarinen has made a hobby of delving into rumors, theories and contradictory facts that swirl around a killing that continues to titillate — and divide — Americans on the 50th anniversary of the events of Nov. 22, 1963.
In the world of online Kennedy discussion groups, she learned "lurkers" tune in but never post; "fringies" attribute a political motive to every turn; false witnesses claim to have been places they haven't. Those who believe Oswald acted alone are "lone-nutters."
And people like Junkkarinen are CTs, for conspiracy theorists.
She has amassed a trove of artifacts: autopsy reports, investigation documents, shelves of books and photos, and a model of the Lincoln Continental limousine Kennedy rode in when he was shot in Dealey Plaza. There's also a life-sized plastic model of a human skull she uses to make detailed arguments about bullet entry and exit.
Inside her Portland-area home office, she avidly dissects the latest theories of the paranoid and the emotionally unstable.
They include those who believe Kennedy was first hit in the throat with a bullet made of ice; that a man in Dealey Plaza fatally wounded the president with a dart fired from an umbrella; and that J. Edgar Hoover attended a party the night before the assassination celebrating JFK's imminent demise.
Junkkarinen rejects those theories. She blames gangsters and spies.
Junkkarinen, 62, can still picture where she heard the news: She was 12 years old, a seventh-grader sitting in the second seat in the row by the window at a Catholic school in San Diego. A superior whispered into the ear of her teacher, whose freckled face instantly turned red.
The nuns instructed students to say Hail Marys on Kennedy's behalf. Later, after Oswald was shot by Jack Ruby, Junkkarinen heard her father say, "Something's just not right here."
She recalls thinking: "Nothing's right about any of it, Dad."
By age 15, she'd read the lengthy report published by the Warren Commission, which had conducted the investigation of the killing. She graduated high school and studied to become a medical laboratory technician. She married Juha and moved to Oregon. She would read each new book that purported to solve the Kennedy assassination.
Seconds after the fatal shot, a Secret Service agent climbs aboard the president's limousine as the first lady, her husband slumped over in the backseat, crawls onto the trunk lid. (Ike Altgens / Associated Press)
The year 1980 brought a turning point: "Best Evidence: Disguise and Deception in the Assassination of John F. Kennedy" by David Lifton, which focused on medical evidence she understood, with descriptions from attending doctors on the locations of JFK's wounds. Junkkarinen checked it out of the library and read it three times.
She eventually dismissed Lifton's central premise — that the president's body had been altered to suggest gunshots fired from the rear, as a way to help prove the government's argument that Oswald alone killed JFK. But the book led her to pursue theories of her own.
Junkkarinen came to believe JFK's death was not the result of a lone killer, a view shared by many. A nationwide Associated Press-GfK poll of 1,004 adults in April found that 59% thought multiple people participated in a conspiracy to kill Kennedy, while 24% thought Oswald acted alone. About 16% were unsure.
Junkkarinen argues there were two conspiracies.
The point is not to say 'I got it!' We simply want to know the truth."— Barb Junkkarinen
The first, she says, involved a network of gangsters or spies who executed the killing. The second was a coverup by Cold War-era government officials convinced that Americans were incapable of understanding how such a network could assassinate the president.
A lawyer who has written a book about conspiracies says such theories apply a sensible narrative to troubling historical puzzles like the Kennedy killing, which was the first to mesmerize the entire nation on television.
"There's the suggestion everything changed after the JFK assassination," says Mark Fenster, author of "Conspiracy Theories: Secrecy and Power in American Culture."
And the hero in any conspiracy narrative, says Fenster: "The person who solves the puzzle."
Junkkarinen says she's not trying to be a hero. "We work quietly and diligently," she says. "The point is not to say 'I got it!' We simply want to know the truth."
Junkkarinen's research has taken her to Kennedy archives and to Dealey Plaza. She speaks at conferences and advises fellow conspiracy theorists on their theories.
"In a field known for hysterics, Barb is grounded," said Josiah Thompson, a fellow conspiracy theorist and author of the 1967 book "Six Seconds in Dallas." Thompson is a former Yale philosophy professor who became a private investigator.
TIMELINE: THE JFK ASSASSINATION
"She patrols down the center of the freeway of reasoned debate on this topic," he said, "pointing out all the nuttiness along the way."
In one paper published by a group devoted to Kennedy assassination followers, Junkkarinen explains that the small gadgets found in Dealey Plaza today are not government eavesdropping devices, as an online poster claimed, but water sprinkler sensors.
Junkkarinen's family and friends have supported her work. Both husband and son have served as presidential stand-ins, lying atop a gurney with a taped-on plastic wound, when she needed a model for presentations with titles such as "The Back of Kennedy's Head."
During one talk at her home, friends flinched when she produced the autopsy photos. A psychologist had trouble sleeping for weeks.
"I guess she didn't realize all that goes into an autopsy," Junkkarinen says.
Sitting at her desk, Junkkarinen surveys half a dozen storage boxes of Kennedy materials spread across the floor.
"Now, where is that skull?" she says of the item she ordered from a medical supply company. She says it provides context, like the carbine.
When Junkkarinen got the Oswald rifle, her mother asked, "What do you want with that? Let the man be dead."
Junkkarinen took the rifle, widely known as a Mannlicher-Carcano, to a shooting range and fired it. The weapon "kicks like a mule," she says. While she believes Oswald carried the gun into the book depository, she calls him a pawn and theorizes he never fired the weapon that day.
She says shooting the rifle has bolstered her contention that it could not have been fired three times in just seconds, as the government claims. "That's my approach," she says. "I want to see and hold things for myself."
She never finds the skull but shows off a gift from Jason — a mock front page from the satirical publication the Onion with the headline: "Kennedy Slain by CIA, Mafia, Castro, LBJ, Teamsters, Freemasons: President shot 129 times from 43 different angles."
Junkkarinen smiles. She gets the humor.
Like the late-night phone call from a woman with a cigarette-tinged voice: "I just want you to know you're right," she whispered, "and I can prove it." Or the day Jason, now 26, came home from school with a question from his teacher, Sister Mary Ann:
"Why would a second-grader be able to spell the word 'assassination'?"
Still so many questions and no real answers…
Related:
JACKIE KENNEDY: LYNDON JOHNSON KILLED JFK
PBS Whitewashes Oswald’s KGB Connections
Who Killed the Kennedys? – Some Great Links and Resources
For Those Looking To Do Some of Their Own Research:
Who Really Killed Kennedy?: 50 Years Later: Stunning New Revelations About the JFK Assassination (Kindle)
JFK's Last Hundred Days: The Transformation of a Man and the Emergence of a Great President (Kindle)
The Hidden History of the JFK Assassination (Kindle)
Killing Kennedy: The End of Camelot (Kindle)
JFK: The CIA, Vietnam, and the Plot to Assassinate John F. Kennedy
The Man Who Killed Kennedy: The Case Against LBJ (Kindle)
We Were There: Revelations from the Dallas Doctors Who Attended to JFK on November 22, 1963 (Kindle)
They Killed Our President: 63 Reasons to Believe There Was a Conspiracy to Assassinate JFK
Mortal Error: The Shot That Killed JFK (Kindle)
Survivor's Guilt: The Secret Service and the Failure to Protect President Kennedy (Kindle)
Jacqueline Kennedy: Historic Conversations on Life with John F. Kennedy (Kindle)
SPECIAL: Jacqueline Kennedy - In Her Own Words: 9/13/11 – Video
The Kennedys [Blu-ray] – Mini-Series Video
Saturday, August 10, 2013
Friday, August 2, 2013
The Council Has Spoken!! This Week’s Watcher’s Council Results - 08.02.13
JoshuaPundit on Aug 02 2013:
Alea iacta est… The Council Has Spoken!, the votes have been cast, and we have the results for this week’s Watcher’s Council match up.
“There is another class of coloured people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Having learned that they are able to make a living out of their troubles, they have grown into the settled habit of advertising their wrongs — partly because they want sympathy and partly because it pays. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs.” - Booker T. Washington
“No one will really understand politics until they understand that politicians are not trying to solve our problems. They are trying to solve their own problems — of which getting elected and re-elected are number one and number two. Whatever is number three is far behind.” – Thomas Sowell
This week’s winner, Joshuapundit’s The Great Divider is my reaction to President Obama’s little speech on race after the Zimmerman verdict.What he had to say pretty much passed unnoticed by the legacy media, but as I point out, a lot of what he had to say merited notice for what it revealed about him and his mindset. Here’s a slice:
Video: Obama Talks About Trayvon, part 1
Video: Obama Talks About Trayvon, part 2
President Obama had a few things to say last Friday about the Zimmerman trial, about Trayvon Martin, and of course about race.
It amazes me that the full import of his remarks will pass unnoticed by the legacy press and indeed by most of America. Because what the president had to say was nothing less than astounding coming from a sitting president of the United States.
It’s necessary to translate his remarks. As the president said, context is important.
President Obama started out after the pro forma remarks by upping the ante. Now, it’s not just that if he had a son he would have looked like Trayvon, but that 35 years ago he was Trayvon:
But I did want to just talk a little bit about context and how people have responded to it and how people are feeling. You know, when Trayvon Martin was first shot, I said that this could have been my son. Another way of saying that is Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago. And when you think about why, in the African- American community at least, there’s a lot of pain around what happened here, I think it’s important to recognize that the African- American community is looking at this issue through a set of experiences and a history that — that doesn’t go away.
The president said this while violent protests that amounted to riots were going on in many locales and random whites were being assaulted by blacks using ‘justice for Trayvon’ as their excuse.
This is quite similar to the logic terrorism groupies try to foist on the unwary to justify terrorist activities; ‘well you know I certainly don’t condone violence but you have to understand their rage.’ Needless to say, that never works the other way around when objects of terrorism like the Israelis defend themselves. Any response is deemed ‘disproportionate’. And make no mistake. President Obama’s excusing the Trayvon riots on the basis of experiences and history is yet another important message, given that all important context. When he says “this experience and history doesn’t go away” he is not only justifying that violence but letting America know that no matter what, our country is guilty and no matter how much money or good will we expend, it will never be enough. It will never end.
Which means of course that according to President Obama, blacks of necessity have to nourish grievance for eternity and are not responsible for their own actions, no matter what.
That was President Obama’s central message. As I pointed out earlier, President Obama’s entire stance on this is political in nature . Trayvon Martin was a useful smokescreen to divert attention from his own failures, the scandals permeating his administration and a tool to get black voters to the polls in record numbers in 2014 to support his agenda. It’s worth remembering that it was Obama’s Department of Justice that actually played a significant part in orchestrating, funding and organizing the violent protests that made the Trayvon Martin shooting a national issue. Because there’s money and power to be had by nourishing that black sense of grievance.
Roll that over in your mind a moment. Here we have a president whose Department of Justice deliberately assisted in fanning the flames that turned an obscure local incident into a national racial firestorm led, coordinated and abetted by President Obama’s intimate associate Al Sharpton. We have the president’s own willingness to exacerbate things further by making a national statement inserting himself into the matter and by.putting political pressure on local authorities to prosecute someone who had already been cleared of any wrongdoing after a through investigation by police with a case so shoddily put together that the special prosecutor had to bypass the grand jury mechanism standard in such cases to even have George Zimmerman charged and brought to trial.
Yes, President Obama’s quite right that the sense of racial grievance doesn’t go away. Especially when you deliberately pour gasoline on it .
The president’s attempt to embellish this message by whining about the indignities he supposedly suffered as a young black male..being watched when he went shopping in a store, walking across the street and hearing door locks on cars click, having women in an elevator clutch their purses tighter..’ was even more ridiculous coming from someone who has lived a life of privilege and ease his entire life and has known nothing but the best America has to offer.
Yes, this picture of the racist hell the president endured 35 years ago while going to the ultra elite Punahou Prep School in Hawaii tells it all, doesn’t it?
More at the link
In our non-Council category, the winner was Bill Whittle with The Lynching submitted by The Watcher. It’s an extraordinary video that examines the Zimmerman trial and in particular things about Trayvon Martin that would have a definite bearing on the public perception of the case if the media had covered them as they did every detail of George Zimmerman’s life. Do watch it.
Video: The Lynching
OK, here are this week’s full results. Only Bookworm was unable to vote this week but was not subject to the usual two thirds voter penalty:
Council Winners
- *First place with 4 1/3 votes! Joshuapundit – The Great Divider
- Second place with 3 votes – The Right Planet – The So-Called ‘Dialog on Race’
- Third place with 1 vote – The Razor - Primary Care Physicians: Between A Rock and a Hard Place
- Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote – The Noisy Room - Rolling In The Deep… With Communists
- Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote – Liberty’s Spirit - It’s Only Dead Jews-Who Cares? Not the Obama Administration For Certain
- Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote – Nice Deb - Drip-Drip-Drip – New Obama Scandal Emerges At DOE – Drip-Drip – Whistleblowers Illegally Gagged – Drip-Drip-Drip
- Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote – The Political Commentator - The Weiner-Huma-Hillary Unholy Alliance!
- Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote – The Colossus of Rhodey – What happens when you hire complete nitwits
- Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote – VA Right! – The NRSC Asks ‘Are You Still a Republican?’ – I’m Not Sure How to Answer That!
- Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote – Bookworm Room – A bit of Irish history with some sightseeing thrown in too
- Fifth place *t* with 1/3 vote – The Glittering Eye – Not Dead Yet
- Fifth place *t* with 1/3 vote – Simply Jews – Pissing on your mobile – it is a coming thing
- Fifth place *t* with 1/3 vote – GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD – Sinai Insurgency
Non-Council Winners
- First place with 2 2/3 votes! – Bill Whittle - The Lynching submitted by The Watcher
- Second place *t* with 2 votes – Diana West – Why Won’t the Media Cover Huma Abedin’s Ties to Global Jihad Movement? submitted by The Noisy Room
- Second place *t* with 2 votes – Caroline Glick – How to Respond to EU Sanctions submitted by Joshuapundit
- Third place *t* with 1 1/3 votes – Zenpundit - How to Lose the Next War submitted by GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD
- Third place *t* with 1 1/3 votes - According To Hoyt - Forever Young submitted by The Colossus of Rhodey
- Third place *t* with 1 1/3 votes - Hot Air – Man, all of these “phony scandals” have really been getting in the way of this economic recovery we’re in submitted by Rhymes With Right
- Fourth place with 1 vote - Michael Totten – Tunisia on the Brink submitted by The Mellow Jihadi
- Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote -The Elder of Ziyon – The Elephants in the Room 2013 submitted by Liberty’s Spirit
- Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote - Adina Kutnicki – Obama: Shield For Islamic Regimes exposed His Hand submitted by The Political Commentator
- Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote - Kevin Jackson/American Thinker – Obama, Alinsky and the Devil submitted by The Right Planet
- Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote - Roger L. Simon – Christie, Paul, Libertarianism, and the NSA submitted by The Razor
- Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote - Joel Pollack/Big Journalism – WSJ: Obama Worst President for Middle Class ‘in Modern Times’ submitted by Nice Debt
Honorable Mentions
- Ask Marion – Spying on America – Thor to O’Reilly: My Contacts Tell Me Government is Recording All Phone Calls - Updated
- Maggie’s Notebook – North Carolina: Teacher Tenure Reform Passed
- The Pirate’s Cove – Don’t Forget, Warming Really Isn’t About The Surface Temperature
Related: Forum: What Effect Do You Think Barack Obama’s Presidency Has Had On Race Relations? Why?
See you next week! Don’t forget to tune in on Monday AM for this week’s Watcher’s Forum, as the Council and their invited special guests take apart one of the provocative issues of the day with short takes and weigh in…don’t you dare miss it. And don’t forget to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter…..’cause we’re cool like that!
Technorati Tags: Watcher’s Council,scandals,phony scandals,Benghazi,Fast and Furious,smoke and mirrors,Obamaland,IRS-gate,NSA-gate,collection of articles,you be the judge,bloggers,news,Constitution,Barry,educate yourself,knowledge,freedom,history,Barry Soetoro,news nuggets,Politics,blogosphere,alternative media,race,race card,divide and conquer,spying,espionage,Trayvon Martin,Bill Whittle,Booker T. Washington
Wednesday, July 31, 2013
Watcher’s Council Nominations – “Phoney Scandals” Edition
JoshuaPundit on Jul 31 2013 | Nominations
I’m sure the families of Brian Terry, Chris Stevens, Glen Doherty, Tyrone Woods, Sean Smith and over 300 Mexicans murdered because of Fast and Furious are happy to know that. Words – polite words anyway – fail me.
Welcome to the Watcher’s Council, a blogging group consisting of some of the most incisive blogs in the ‘sphere, and the longest running group of its kind in existence. Every week, the members nominate two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council.Then we vote on the best two posts, with the results appearing on Friday.
Council News:
This week, Ask Marion, Maggie’s Notebook and The Pirate’s Cove earned honorable mention status for some great articles
So, let’s see what we have this week….
Council Submissions
- The Political Commentator – The Weiner-Huma-Hillary Unholy Alliance!
- Joshuapundit - The Great Divider
- The Noisy Room – Rolling In The Deep… With Communists
- Simply Jews – Pissing on your mobile – it is a coming thing
- GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD – Sinai Insurgency
- Liberty’s Spirit – It’s Only Dead Jews-Who Cares? Not the Obama Administration For Certain
- VA Right! - The NRSC Asks ‘Are You Still a Republican?’ – I’m Not Sure How to Answer That!
- The Colossus of Rhodey – What happens when you hire complete nitwits
- The Right Planet – The So-Called ‘Dialog on Race’
- Nice Deb – Drip-Drip-Drip – New Obama Scandal Emerges At DOE – Drip-Drip – Whistleblowers Illegally Gagged – Drip-Drip-Drip
- The Glittering Eye - Not Dead Yet
- The Razor – Primary Care Physicians: Between A Rock and a Hard Place
- Rhymes With Right – Defending The Monster In Court
- The Mellow Jihadi – I Buy a Whole Body Vibration (WBV) Machine
- Bookworm Room – A bit of Irish history with some sightseeing thrown in too
Honorable Mentions
- Ask Marion – Spying on America – Thor to O’Reilly: My Contacts Tell Me Government is Recording All Phone Calls
- Maggie’s Notebook – North Carolina: Teacher Tenure Reform Passed
- The Pirate’s Cove – Don’t Forget, Warming Really Isn’t About The Surface Temperature
Non-Council Submissions
- Adina Kutnicki - Obama: Shield For Islamic Regimes exposed His Hand submitted by The Political Commentator
- Caroline Glick – How to Respond to EU Sanctions submitted by Joshuapundit
- Diana West – Why Won’t the Media Cover Huma Abedin’s Ties to Global Jihad Movement? submitted by The Noisy Room
- Zenpundit – How to Lose the Next War submitted by GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD
- Elder Of Ziyon – The Elephants in the Room 2013 submitted by Liberty’s Spirit
- Downtrend.Com – Nancy Pelosi: Suppressing 2nd Amendment Rights Protects the Constitution submitted by VA Right!
- According To Hoyt – Forever Young submitted by The Colossus of Rhodey
- Kevin Jackson/American Thinker – Obama, Alinsky and the Devil submitted by The Right Planet
- Joel Pollak/Big Journalism - WSJ: Obama Worst President for Middle Class ‘in Modern Times’ submitted by Nice Deb
- Roger L. Simon – Christie, Paul, Libertarianism, and the NSA submitted by The Razor
- Hot Air – Man, all of these “phony scandals” have really been getting in the way of this economic recovery we’’re in submitted by Rhymes with Right
- Michael Totten – Tunisia on the Brink submitted by The Mellow Jihadi
- Bill Whittle – The Lynching submitted by The Watcher
- Hussein Aboubakr/Times Of Israel – The Holy Anti-Semitic Month of Ramadan submitted by Watcher
Enjoy! And don’t forget to like us on Facebook and follow us Twitter..’cause we’re cool like that!
Technorati Tags: Watcher's Council,scandals,phony scandals,Brian Terry,Chris Stevens,Glen Doherty,Tyrone Woods,Sean Smith,Benghazi,Fast and Furious,smoke and mirrors,Obamaland,IRS-gate,NSA-gate,collection of articles,you be the judge,bloggers,news,politics,history,educate yourself,knowledge,freedom,news nuggets,blogosphere,alternative media
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