Military records that Sen. John Kerry posted on his Web site yesterday raise new questions about the actions he took to earn several prestigious war medals and whether he deserved them.
The Navy awarded Mr. Kerry three Purple Hearts, a Silver Star and a Bronze Star in just four months of commanding a gunboat along rivers in Vietnam. It's an extraordinary record, say many veterans, and one that raises questions on its face.
For example, those military records do not show Mr. Kerry ever missing a day of duty for injuries, there is conflict between some of the accounts and Mr. Kerry's presidential campaign still refuses to release some records.
"The idea that John Kerry would have put in for three Purple Hearts during only four months in country is just ridiculous," said Mel Howell from Evansville, Ind., a retired Navy officer who flew helicopters in Vietnam. "Most of us came away with all kinds of scratches like the ones Kerry got but never accepted Purple Hearts for them." . . .
questions arise such as the conflicting descriptions in official records of the injuries Mr. Kerry sustained on March 13, 1969. It was the commendations he earned that day ? a Bronze Star and a third Purple Heart ? that let Mr. Kerry request a transfer out of Vietnam . . .
The Personnel Casualty Report from that day says Mr. Kerry "suffered shrapnel wounds in his left buttocks and contusions on his right forearm when a mine detonated close aboard" his boat.
But the citation for the Bronze Star that he was awarded for the same action described "his arm bleeding and in pain," saying nothing about arm bruises or shrapnel wounds anywhere.
"I don't want to say it's a lie, but it isn't true," said Charles Kaufman, a retired Air Force captain whose job once was to submit military award requests.
"His Bronze Star medal citation appears to be based on an injury he did not receive," said Mr. Kaufman, who now lives in Germany. "His arm was not bleeding. If the paperwork had said, 'Kerry had a bruised arm,' I wonder if he would have been given this medal for bravery?" [...] Yesterday, Mr. Kerry still refused to release medical records that more thoroughly describe the injuries. . . . The campaign won't release one document, called a "Sick Call Treatment Record," officials allowed the Associated Press to view it earlier this week. It said: "Shrapnel in left arm above elbow. Shrapnel removed and appl[ied] bacitracin dressing. Ret[urned] to duty."
"If it only required bacitracin and a Band-Aid, it sounds like a piece of hot shrapnel that was flying around and may not have even broken the skin," said Mr. Waller, adding that he'd never heard of a shrapnel injury that didn't require a tetanus shot and time off leading to a Purple Heart.
It was Mr. Kerry's first injury that already is the source of serious questions raised by his commanding officer at the time, Grant Hibbard.
Mr. Hibbard . . . Hibbard declined requests yesterday to be interviewed by The Washington Times, but he told the Boston Globe that Mr. Kerry's injuries were too minor to qualify for a Purple Heart.
"He had a little scratch on his forearm, and he was holding a piece of shrapnel."
It is an uncommon day when the nation's second-largest provider of voting systems concedes that its flagship products in California have significant security flaws and that it supplied hundreds of poorly designed electronic-voting devices that disenfranchised voters in the March presidential primary.
Diebold Election Services Inc. president Bob Urosevichadmitted this and more, and apologized "for any embarrassment."
"We were caught. We apologize for that," Urosevich said.
FORMER FIRST LADY BARBARA BUSH: Why should we hear about body bags, and deaths, and how many, what day it's gonna happen, and how many this or what do you suppose? Or, I mean, it's, it's not relevant. So, why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that.
Security bosses let thousands of al Qaida members into the UK during the 1990s, former spy David Shayler has claimed.
The renegade ex-MI5 agent, who was jailed for selling top secret documents to a newspaper, also claimed some of the terrorists were granted British citizenship . . .
He based his claims on information from French security service officials, who Shayler said, warned their British counterparts that al Qaida terrorists were trying to get into the country. . . .
Political Conversation: Condi’s Slip A pressing issue of dinner-party etiquette is vexing Washington, according to a story now making the D.C. rounds: How should you react when your guest, in this case national-security adviser Condoleezza Rice, makes a poignant faux pas? At a recent dinner party hosted by New York Times D.C. bureau chief Philip Taubman and his wife, Times reporter Felicity Barringer, and attended by Arthur Sulzberger Jr., Maureen Dowd, Steven Weisman, and Elisabeth Bumiller, Rice was reportedly overheard saying, “As I was telling my husb—” and then stopping herself abruptly, before saying, “As I was telling President Bush.” Jaws dropped, but a guest says the slip by the unmarried politician, who spends weekends with the president and his wife, seemed more psychologically telling than incriminating. Nobody thinks Bush and Rice are actually an item. A National Security Council spokesman laughed and said, “No comment.” [via c0balt]
This Freudian slip adds more crdibility to the reports on Cloak & Dagger radio that not only does Bush share intimate congress with Rice, but has with Kerry as well.
A Secret Service document written shortly after the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing described security video footage of the attack and witness testimony that suggested Timothy McVeigh may have had accomplices at the scene.
"Security video tapes from the area show the truck detonation 3 minutes and 6 seconds after the suspects exited the truck," the Secret Service reported six days after the attack on a log of agents' activities and evidence in the Oklahoma investigation. [...] significant evidence kept secret for nine years [...] Secret Service spokesman Charles Bopp declined to discuss the video footage . . .
Other documents obtained by AP show the Secret Service in late 1995 gave prosecutors several computer disks of enhanced digital photographs of the Murrah building, intelligence files on several subjects in the investigation and a file detailing an internal affairs inquiry concerning an agent who reconstructed key phone evidence against McVeigh. . . .
Lawyers for Nichols say they have never been given the security video, photo disks or internal investigative file referenced in the documents. [...] The only video prosecutors introduced at trial showed the Ryder truck without any visible passengers as it passed a security camera inside a high-rise apartment building a block away from the Murrah building.
But the Secret Service log reported on April 24 and April 25, 1995, that there was security footage showing the Ryder truck pulling up to the Murrah building. The log does not say where such video came from or who possessed it.
A log entry on April 25 states that the security footage allowed agents to determine the time that elapsed between suspects leaving the truck and the explosion. [...] "A witness to the explosion named Grossman claimed to have seen a pale yellow Mercury car with a Ryder truck behind it pulling up to the federal building," the log said. The witness "further claimed to have seen a woman on the corner waving to the truck." . . .
"It is speculated that the woman was signaling the truck when a slot became available."
Defenbaugh said the FBI had talked to several witnesses suggesting two people had left the truck [...] a woman working in Murrah's Social Security (news - web sites) office who was rescued from the rubble and a driver outside the building both reported to the FBI seeing two men leave the truck, according to government documents. [...]
MR. RUSSERT: Before we go, you and George Bush were both members of Skull & Bones, the secret society at Yale. The rule is, if someone mentions Skull & Bones, you walk out of the room. If you're both in a...
SEN. KERRY: You trying to get rid of me here?
MR. RUSSERT: You're both in a presidential debate and the moderator says "Skull & Bones," you both leave the podiums?
SEN. KERRY: I doubt it.
MR. RUSSERT: You'll hang in there.
SEN. KERRY: I think you'll see both of us have our two--you know I'd love to have a debate with the president [blah blah blah blah blah blah]
MR. RUSSERT: Senator John Kerry, thank you for your views.
Barr McClellan did an interview with Black Op Radio on April 8 about how the History Channel has killed their documentary on LBJ's role in the murder of JFK. The documentary was largely based on McClellan's information. Check out part 1 and part 2 of the interview.
"Blood, Money & Power: How LBJ Killed JFK," my book on the assassination, centers on 68 exhibits showing a lifetime conspiracy between Lyndon B. Johnson and Ed Clark (the "secret boss of Texas)," a 1961 murder case with LBJ an unindicted co-conspirator, and the fingerprint match for Mac Wallace, one of three assassins. With a deep look into the sordid facts from LBJ's inner sanctum, we analyze the crime scene and conclude with a jury argument connecting the facts, leaving the reader to decide.
Most Americans have decided. The latest Gallup Poll shows only 11 percent believe in lone nuts. [...] Last November, Nigel Turner presented "The Guilty Men" on the History Channel, featuring 11 witnesses and researchers showing LBJ's involvement. Jack Valenti and Bill Moyers, representing the LBJ interests, tried to cancel the series. The History Channel refused, pointing out that the facts were "overwhelmingly researched," that free speech was to be protected, and that Valenti could prepare a response. Censorship failed.
The series, part of Turner's award-winning documentary, "The Men Who Killed Kennedy," proved a best-seller. In January, Valenti tried again, this time bringing far more pressure. The History Channel gave in, naming three historians to review the series.
My book was not mentioned; however, since I appear in "The Guilty Men," I offered full cooperation to the review panel even though one member had already stated LBJ had nothing to do with the assassination.
We have received no response. Recently we learned the History Channel has pulled "The Guilty Men" and will not sell it again.
There is no longer a reason for the review panel. What we should see is blocked. This ridiculous censorship says we are getting closer to what happened in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963.
You may also want to check out commentary from Prof. James Fetzer on Black Op Radio on this incident. Fetzer has edited three books on the assassination and appeared in another episode of the Men Who Killed Kennedy documentary series. He has sent letters to the three 'historians,' questioning their credibility. He has yet to receive a response. April 8 - JFK talk picks up about halfway though this audio file. April 15 part one - JFK talk peters out towards the end this audio file. April 15 part two - JFK talk picks up about 10 minutes into this audio file.
Ever since first opposing the commission's formation, the Bush administration has clashed with the 10-member bipartisan panel over a range of access issues, including aviation records and presidential intelligence briefings.
WASHINGTON TIMES 20040422
ABC's Good Morning America March 18, 2003
From the Intellegencer column in New York magazine April 26, 2004
From NBC's Meet the Press April 18, 2004:
For background, see McClellan's op-ed from the Amarillo Globe-News March 13, 2004: 
April 8 - JFK talk picks up about halfway though this audio file.
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