December 4th, 2009 marked the fortieth anniversary of the assassination of Black Panther leader Fred Hampton. [more inside]
posted by invitapriore on Dec 6, 2009 - 10 comments

Tom Sanford, a NY based artist, has created paintings depicting pop-culture icons before, but none have created a "regular trickle of hate mail/criticism" like this one. [more inside]
posted by dubold on Nov 12, 2009 - 67 comments

Lynette 'Squeaky' Fromme, former member of the Manson Family and would-be assassin of President Gerald Ford, is being released from prison after 34 years behind bars. But did she really try to assassinate Ford in the first place?
posted by Lutoslawski on Aug 6, 2009 - 80 comments

A couple of Neo Nazis were going to kill 88 blacks and behead another 14, culminating in the assassination of Barack Obama. They aren't the first to attempt to keep him out of the White House.
posted by gman on Oct 28, 2008 - 278 comments

Bill Gwatney, Chairman of the Arkansas Democratic Party, has been killed by an unknown gunman, who himself later died in a shootout with police. [more inside]
posted by 235w103 on Aug 13, 2008 - 57 comments

In an Instant. "Would a doctor come right here?" David Steiner, 65, reflects on how the night of June 5, 1968, changed his own life forever. (LA Times reg. req.)
posted by scody on Jun 5, 2008 - 24 comments

The U.S. Military's Assassination Problem: "Software like 'Bugsplat' is supposed to keep decapitation attacks precise. So why do we keep blowing up Iraqi wedding parties?" [more inside]
posted by homunculus on Mar 17, 2008 - 34 comments

"Exclusive: Help us examine the lost JFK files." The Dallas Morning News has put a chunk of documents found in a vault in Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins' office online in PDF form for the public to review for notable information. "Given the volume, we haven't been able to review most of the files. That's why we are calling on you. Here's your chance to review never-seen-before materials related to the JFK assassination." Though I was able to load one of the documents at first, it will likely require registration after a few attempts. [via]. [more inside]
posted by cashman on Mar 1, 2008 - 9 comments

NOT the JFK shooting but Robert Kenedy's One link,yes,but information worth thinking about. If this is true, then what does it tell us about other information the govt processes? [...]The official record states that senator Robert F Kennedy, like his brother before him, was killed by a crazed lone gunman. But the assassination of a man who seemed to embody so much hope for a bitterly divided country embroiled in an unpopular war still troubles this nation. [more inside]
posted by Postroad on Feb 23, 2008 - 60 comments

Arthur Bremer was released from prison today, after serving a 35 years of a 53-year sentence for the attempted assassination of George Wallace. After Harper's Magazine published Arthur Bremer's diary in 1973, the manuscript inspired both the character of Travis Bickle in the film Taxi Driver and the Peter Gabriel song "Family Snapshot". After Bremer shot Wallace, Nixon obsessed about the shooting on his audio tapes and pestered FBI agent Mark Felt for information, which Felt a.k.a. "Deep Throat" leaked to cub reporter, Bob Woodward. Woodward's relationship with Felt would later crack the Watergate scandal wide open, but Nixon's plan to portray Bremer as a George McGovern supporter remains less well-known.
posted by jonp72 on Nov 9, 2007 - 18 comments

On his deathbed, the former CIA spymaster E. Howard Hunt made a startling confession. Or so says his son, Saint...Maybe the Zapruder film can tell us if there was a second gunman on the grassy knoll. Or was that a hoax too?
posted by nasreddin on Apr 15, 2007 - 40 comments

Anyone remember the short-lived FPS game JFK:Reloaded? It caused quite a stir when it was released a little over two years ago. Since then, the game's development company discontinued the game and JFK:Reloaded is now considered abandonware. The full version can be downloaded here and a site dedicated to the game is located here.
posted by KevinSkomsvold on Mar 28, 2007 - 26 comments

The Memorial Gardens in Surrey has a pigeon problem, and has hired a marksman to come to town & conduct a three year program of pigeon sniping to resolve the issue. The people of Surrey respond, via some of the funniest letters to the newspaper I've ever read (letters published at the bottom of the article).
posted by jonson on Dec 6, 2006 - 33 comments

"I was in Dallas when we got the son of a bitch and I was in Los Angeles when we got the little bastard."

Film-maker Shane O'Sullivan has spent the last three years investigating the assassination of Bobby Kennedy in 1968. He has uncovered new evidence that at least three CIA agents were in the hotel the night he died. Tonight we [BBC's Newsnight programme] show the findings and ask could CIA agents have had something to do with the murder of RFK?

posted by orthogonality on Nov 20, 2006 - 75 comments

Am I allowed to write that I would like to hunt down George W. Bush, the president of the United States, and kill him with my bare hands?

Maybe just impeachment then
posted by criticalbill on Jun 8, 2006 - 78 comments

A little over a year ago, the Guiding Hand Social Club issued a stunning press release - after months of infiltration and planning they had fulfilled an assassination contract on the CEO of a major corporation and ransacked the corporation's hangers, stealing almost 20 billion ISK, worth over $16,000 USD at the time. See PCGamer's excellent detailed description of the event: pages 1, 2, 3, 4. As synthetic worlds like Eve-Online and World of Warcraft gain popularity, what should we make of this kind of behavior? Eve's own players respond. Also, a response with a little more perspective. And what's going to happen when the IRS catches on?
posted by heresiarch on May 14, 2006 - 58 comments

New York Times to release Bush/Blair memo tomorrow. The memo, which was mentioned previously, but never publically disclosed, confirms that George W. Bush and Tony Blair were determined to invade Iraq, regardless of UN approval, and despite what both leaders told their citizens. More troubling, the memo also indicates that Bush may have conspired to assassinate Saddam Hussein, which appears to violate Sec. 5g of Executive Order 11905, which states that "No employee of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, political assassination." This executive order was considered the law of the land even after 9/11, when Bob Barr proposed legislation H.R. 19, which was never enacted into law.
posted by insomnia_lj on Mar 26, 2006 - 74 comments

On February 21, 1965, Malcolm X was gunned down in Harlem. After being shot several times inside the Audubon Ballroom, he was pronounced dead on arrival at Vanderbilt Clinic, Columbia Presbyterian Hospital. Malcolm sez: "If violence is wrong in America, violence is wrong abroad. If it is wrong to be violent defending black women and black children and black babies and black men, then it is wrong for America to draft us, and make us violent abroad in defense of her. And if it is right for America to draft us, and teach us how to be violent in defense of her, then it is right for you and me to do whatever is necessary to defend our own people right here in this country." (from a November 1963 speech in New York City) Then, there's this 1964 speech.
posted by mickeyz on Feb 21, 2006 - 59 comments

Operation Anthropoid. In 1942, a group of Czech and Slovak exiles parachuted into their Nazi-occupied homeland and assassinated (hi-res pictures, scroll down) SS-Obergruppenfuehrer Reinhard Heydrich, one of the architects of the Final Solution, the "Butcher of Prague." For the first time since the end of the World War Two, a German museum is offering a close look at "Operation Anthropoid," the codename for the only successful assassination of a member of Adolf Hitler's inner circle.
posted by matteo on Jan 31, 2006 - 36 comments

JFK assassination 'was Cuba plot' says a new German documentary Rendezvous with death: Kennedy and Castro (Google translation). New facts have come to light.
posted by stbalbach on Jan 4, 2006 - 39 comments

Violence that had been building up in the Eastern coast of Sri Lanka has errupted in the capital with the assassination of the foreign affairs minister. Presumably the LTTE are involved in the killing, as they have been complaining for some time that the government has been sheltering a splinter group, conducting a covert-war. As one would expect, LankaWeb supplies a strong opinion on the assassination. One wonders if we will see Sri Lanka return to the state it was in some 10 years ago.
posted by chunking express on Aug 12, 2005 - 9 comments

"I am Colonel Tom C. McKenney, You must know how to reach Bobby Garwood. I directed an official mission to assassinate him behind enemy lines, because I believed what they told me. Would you tell him that I will crawl on my hands and knees to beg his forgiveness?"
posted by drakepool on May 30, 2005 - 22 comments

The Still Unsolved Stoffel Affair: How Is Known – but Not Who or Why Iraqi guerrillas calling themselves Rafidan – the Political Committee of the Mujahideen Central Command – have recently woken up and begun releasing a series of communiqués claiming to shed new light on the still unsolved deaths on December 8, 2004, of two Americans, Dale C. Stoffel, 43, whom they describe as “a CIA shadow manager in Iraq, close friend of George Bush,” and his associate Joseph J. Wemple, also 43.
posted by Postroad on May 10, 2005 - 8 comments

The Academic JFK Assassination site is an unbelievably thorough compendium of information on the Kennedy assassination. It's an excursion into conspiracy theories without any crackpottery. Some of the articles are immensely readable. See, for example, Richard Popkin's 1966 New York Review of Books article The Second Oswald.
posted by painquale on Apr 17, 2005 - 21 comments

Investigative journalist Gary Webb found dead of an apparent suicide. Webb is known for his Dark Alliance series, linking the CIA to drug trafficking. As you can imagine, not everyone responded well to his work, especially his employer. An interview with Webb can be found here.

Gary Webb: I look like an idiot up here with all these mikes, the CIA agents are probably behind one or the other... [laughter from the audience]. - Jan 16, 1999
posted by odinsdream on Dec 13, 2004 - 45 comments

She was destined to lead us.
One year ago today, Sweden got it's own 9/11 trauma. Foreign Minister Anna Lindh died by the hand of a madman.
posted by mr.marx on Sep 11, 2004 - 21 comments

June 28th is the 90th Anniversary of the terrorist assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand which touched off the First World War. The world today is not much different then 90 years ago. Nuclear 1914: The Next Big Worry, by Henry Sokolski.
posted by stbalbach on Jun 28, 2004 - 7 comments

Hamas said, "... Sharon has opened the gates of hell and nothing will stop us from cutting off his head.''
a. is assassination of political/spiritual leaders justified?
b. how much of setback to peace in israel/palestine, is this move?
c. did the whitehouse pre-approve this arguably major expansion in israel's war against palestinian "militants"?
ny times link
posted by specialk420 on Mar 21, 2004 - 217 comments

Najaf, Iraq - Iraq's most powerful Shiite cleric, Ayatollah Ali Sistani, survived an assassination attempt Thursday when gunmen opened fire on his entourage, a security official in his office said...
Of related interest from Juan Cole: Reformers implore Sistani to Intervene in Iran Crisis Ali Nourizadeh of the Saudi newspaper ash-Sharq al-Awsat reports today that more than 400 Iranian writers and cultural figures, along with some members of parliament, have penned a letter to Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani of Najaf, requesting that he express his opinion on the "massacre of democracy and the transformation of parliamentary elections into a mere stage play."
See also The Shiite Surge for further background. We are living in interesting times.
posted by y2karl on Feb 5, 2004 - 15 comments

The U. S. Secret Service is going to extraordinary lengths to ensure the safety of George W. Bush's visit to London - including some not insignificant structural changes to the Palace (which have not as of yet been approved). The article claims that "There will be more armed men on the streets of London this week than at any time since the end of the Second World War." British security officials further describe operations as has having been "hijacked by the US secret service."

Everyone knows there's a possibility of violence against the president, especially in light of recent events. A measure of security is thus justified. However, are economic concerns being considered? Now, I have the utmost respect for the president's life - as much as I do for just about anybody. I hate the callousness of associating any sort of price on human life. But when security measures require 5,000 police officers and £4,000,000 (that's merely the cost footed by UK taxpayers, mind you), have we not yet reached the point where that money would have been better spent? -especially when the U. S. executive branch has a very robust official policy of succession in place. It's not like the government will suddenly evaporate if the president were to be killed.
posted by SilentSalamander on Nov 16, 2003 - 115 comments

Scandinavia in shock Swedish Foreign Minister Anna Lindh has been repeatedly stabbed in an attack in a Stockholm department store.
posted by dagny on Sep 10, 2003 - 68 comments

Dictators and their demises: a miscellany. Saddam and the Destruction of Civil Society in Iraq is the timely find, and deals with the entire history of Iraq since the Ba'ath party takeover, including a detailed ideological history of the party and the increasingly totalitarian aspects of Saddam's rule in Iraq. To ask whether democracy, even in a non-Western sense, has a chance in Iraq is to jump one step ahead of the game. The fundamental questions we need to answer first are: What was the nature of Iraqi civil society before the Ba`thist regime destroyed it? How did the Ba`th oliberate it? And can Iraqi civil society be rebuilt after Saddam has left the stage? [more inside]
posted by dhartung on Apr 9, 2003 - 19 comments

Is trying to assassinate a foreign leader illegal? Executive Order 12333, signed by President Reagan, says "No person employed by or acting on behalf of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, assassination," which confirmed and expanded the bans on assassination laid down by his two prior presidential predecessors. So why is the US government targeting Saddam Hussein and his sons? Has the executive order been secretly (and legitimately) revoked? Should it be? Does it even need to be revoked, even if just for appearance's sake? Has ignoring or revoking it been part of the plan all along? Does the Fourth Convention of the Hague really forbid assassination as well?
posted by Mo Nickels on Apr 9, 2003 - 49 comments

Bosnia. Here's a news story which has received precisely no attention over the last few days. We should all be joyful that international justice, still in its infancy, helped along by this man amongst others, has led Milosevic to trial.
posted by Pretty_Generic on Apr 3, 2003 - 12 comments

JFK Assassination: Up close and personal After years of silence, they're finally talking. Here's a first-hand account from my family who were about 10 yards away from the shot that killed JFK. They are clearly visible in the Zapruder film. Spooky.
posted by sparky on Nov 22, 2002 - 38 comments

Ten days ago in Yemen, a car carrying several men, including an American citizen, was blown up. They were deliberately killed by a missile fired from a CIA drone aircraft. The American is from Lackawanna, New York, about nine miles away from my house. When I first heard about this bombing, I thought of Orlando Letelier. Where are the lines now separating law enforcement and war, targeted strikes and murder?
posted by skoosh on Nov 13, 2002 - 38 comments

The CIA is back in the business of committing assasinations on foreign soil. Meanwhile, the administration still objects to Israel's policy of targeted killings because of its effect on the peace process.
posted by alms on Nov 5, 2002 - 38 comments

'The guy who tried to kill my dad.' Setting aside partisan bickering, this description of Saddam Hussein by George W. Bush today sent my mind reeling. Is this in reference to something published in the past that is just escaping my mind? The Reuters version of the story adds that it is reference to "an Iraqi plot to kill former President George Bush after the 1991 Gulf War." Anyone have a link to that older story?
posted by bclark on Sep 27, 2002 - 36 comments

Failed assasination attempt on Chirac at Bastille Day parade. According to police reports, the man who fired a rifle as President Jacques Chirac passed by in the parade celebrating the French revolution is a neo-Nazi with a history of emotional problems. Chirac was unhurt.
posted by me3dia on Jul 14, 2002 - 10 comments

From the "life is funnier than The Onion" department... A giraffe lept off a cliff to its death Wednesday in Nairobi after learning it was a prime suspect in the killing of an American priest at a luxury hotel. Perhaps it was upset about the recent pedophilia scandal in the church? (via The Morning News -- aw, come on! We needed a good laugh around here.)
posted by me3dia on Jun 27, 2002 - 13 comments

A political assassination on the controversial right winger Pim Fortuijn is reported in The Netherlands. Reports differ about the question if he has survived.
posted by tsja on May 6, 2002 - 31 comments

The Lie That Linked CIA to the Kennedy Assassination, an essay by the CIA
posted by vbfg on Mar 5, 2002 - 9 comments

There's big trouble in Flathead county (n.y. times link, reg. required) There's so much to ponder in this completely insubstantial story including the first time I know of that the Newspaper of Record has described someone as having "... a long history of being annoying".
posted by rdr on Mar 2, 2002 - 8 comments

"Thank you James Earl Ray for keeping the dream alive"
posted by stbalbach on Jan 16, 2002 - 26 comments

Nothing So Strange is a mockumentary about the assasination of Bill Gates. This Gates doppleganger plays the Chairman, while Microsoft isn't happy.
posted by owillis on Jan 3, 2002 - 17 comments

Afghan Opposition Chief Massood Dies "Since the Sept. 9 suicide attack . . . there have been conflicting reports about Massood's condition"
posted by sixdifferentways on Sep 16, 2001 - 1 comment

This is a very good article which does us the service of specifically addressing why it would be "okay" to (basically) assassinate Bin Laden. And you thought we'd just carpet-bomb.
posted by j.edwards on Sep 15, 2001 - 11 comments

Preface? "The leader of Afghanistan's anti-Taliban opposition, Ahmadshah Massoud, was mortally wounded by suicide bombers on 9 September, dying within minutes of the blast [...]. The assassins are understood to have been Algerians affiliated to the al-Qaeda organisation of indicted Saudi terrorist Osama bin Laden [...]"
posted by dagny on Sep 12, 2001 - 0 comments

Am I Shot Or Not? (Yeah, I know, but Ashcroft stories are boring.) The Belgian embassy says that Kabila has been assassinated; the British embassy isn't so sure. Strangely, if he has been killed, it's likely to improve the prospect for peace, as the surrounding nations will try to use the power vacuum as an opportunity to negotiate themselves out of the civil war.
posted by holgate on Jan 16, 2001 - 7 comments

Read the truth behind what actually happened the day the Bill Gates was assasinated. (via memepool)
posted by o2b on Dec 12, 2000 - 11 comments