Tag Archives: Kennedy assassination

local news

JFK Jr.: Where is he?

I cannot wipe the derisive sneer off my face as I read this item in the Dallas Morning News.

Some QAnon supporters — you know who those clowns are, right? — gathered in downtown Dallas earlier this week expecting to see the return of John F. Kennedy Jr., the son of the 35th president who was assassinated in Dealey Plaza on Nov. 22, 1963.

JFK Jr. died in a plane crash in 1999, but the QAnon goons think he’s been hiding all this time. They suggest his return will signal the re-emergence also of Donald J. Trump and that the 45th POTUS is going to run again for the White House in 2024.

Truly astounding … don’t you think? If not, well, you should think so!

I believe it is the stuff of loony bins, of psych wards, of rubber rooms, man!

Here, though, is the truly amazing aspect of QAnon nut jobs: some of them actually get elected to important public offices, such as in Congress. Yep. It has happened. It might happen again in 2022 and beyond.

QAnon supporters gather in downtown Dallas expecting JFK Jr. to reappear (dallasnews.com)

Spoiler alert: John F. Kennedy Jr. is as dead as his father. He ain’t coming back. Not ever.

I cannot speak to whether the former Liar in Chief is going to make a comeback. I am inclined to doubt that he will make the attempt, that all this blustering is for show and for “ratings.”

As for QAnon, I will keep sneering derisively at its idiocy.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Dallas set to begin long road back from grief

dallas-shooting-protest-390x285

It’s been said in recent days that the tragedy that struck Dallas is somewhat reminiscent of an earlier time, another tragedy, another moment of profound community sorrow.

The deaths of five police officers is tragic in the extreme and no one should give short shrift to the grief. Their families are shattered. A community is forced to ask itself “Why?” in the wake of the violence that erupted the other night near the end of a peaceful march through the city’s downtown district.

Dallas, though, has shown a community spirit that was challenged in the most horrific fashion imaginable. It occurred nearly 53 years ago when President John F. Kennedy was gunned down while riding in a motorcade through the city.

Those of us who are old enough to recall that terrible shock understand the national grief that enveloped us all. I’m not at all sure how one grapples with such grief when it happens in your community, with your neighbors directly involved.

Dallas suffered a terrible stigma as a result of that single act of violence in 1963. It took a while for the city to recover. It did.

It became an even more vibrant community. It grew out of its grief and has become one of the world’s — not just one of the nation’s — great cities.

It’s good to take note that communities far more often than not are able to dig deep to find the reservoir of encouragement from which they will build a path toward the future.

Whether they are struck by profound natural disaster or by the kind of violence that erupted the other night — and that which claimed the life of a world leader more than a half-century ago — they find a way back.

I am supremely confident that Dallas will recover and that it will emerge from this tragedy an even better community.

Some prayer and good wishes clearly are in order as Dallas seeks to collect itself.

Uncategorized

Obama lacks a Bobby Kennedy

Texas Monthly blogger/editor Paul Burka is a smart guy whose blog I read regularly.

He says in the post linked here that Barack Obama is “on the verge” of becoming a failed president.

http://www.texasmonthly.com/burka-blog/obamas-collapse

He talks about the still-new president developing a cult of personality, which has contributed, according to Burka, the failure of the Affordable Care Act rollout and the accompanying headaches.

I agree to a point. I’m not sure Obama is yet at the brink of a failed presidency.

What I think he lacks is someone in his inner circle who’ll tell him the truth. My favorite example of that kind of individual is worth noting this week in particular as the nation marks the 50th year since the shocking murder of President John F. Kennedy.

JFK had a truth-teller in his inner circle. His name was Robert Francis Kennedy, the president’s brother, the nation’s attorney general and someone who grew enormously into a powerful political presence in his own right — until his own death at the hand of an assassin in June 1968.

Bobby Kennedy could tell the president the truth. He could tell his brother when he messed up. He could give him unvarnished counsel, speak to him in blunt terms and help steer him toward a more prudent course.

Bobby had managed his brother’s winning 1960 presidential campaign. He could play rough and tough. RFK had his enemies, chief among them were Vice President Lyndon Johnson and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. LBJ hated RFK and the feeling was quite mutual. Hoover made a parlor game out of digging up dirt on powerful politicians and the Kennedys were not exempted from his prying eyes and ears.

Barack Obama has professed great admiration for the 35th president. He’ll do so again this week in ceremonies marking the half-century since his predecessor’s death in Dallas. One of the things that made Kennedy an effective president was his ability to listen to the harsh truth when he needed to hear it.

Robert Kennedy gave it to him. Barack Obama needs someone like that now.

Uncategorized

JFK murder myth will live forever

Myths never die.

They live forever. And ever.

Thus, the myth that Lee Harvey Oswald was part of some grand conspiracy to murder President John F. Kennedy will be with us as long as human beings populate the planet.

The nation is commemorating this coming week the 50th anniversary of the 35th president’s shocking death in Dallas. To no one’s surprise, much of the discussion will center on conspiracy theories.

Was there a second, or third gunman in Dealey Plaza that day? How did one bullet go through the president’s neck and hit Texas Gov. John Connally in the back? What about those “other gunshots” witnesses said they heard? Why did the president’s head snap backward if the shots came from behind his car?

Recent polls suggest fewer Americans today believe in these conspiracy theories than before. Still, most Americans still seem to buy into some of them … maybe all of them.

I’m not one of them.

This perhaps sounds naïve to the hard-core conspiracy crowd that keeps this myth alive, but I’ve accepted the Warren Commission report that it could find “no evidence” of a conspiracy.

Oswald was a loner and a loser who all by himself managed to fire three shots from an elevated window at a slow-moving limousine. Two of those shots hit the president, the final one being the fatal shot.

He had served in the Marine Corps and had scored reasonably well in marksmanship tests. He wasn’t a keen sharpshooter, but he was competent enough to have committed this crime.

That’s what I always have believed — and it’s what I will believe for the rest of my life.

The JFK murder conspiracy myth will outlive everyone.