Threats, blackmail, bribery and illegal bugging all in the name of journalism?
Jack Anderson, the bombastic muckraker who broke some of the biggest political stories of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, would have felt right at home at the
News of the World. A
devout Mormon, Anderson was "
part circus huckster, part guerrilla fighter, part righteous rogue," a crusading journalist who believed that God was behind his work, no matter how he went about it.
[more inside]
posted by not_the_water
on Jul 7, 2011 -
15 comments
In 1999, psychologist Robert A. Fein and Executive Director of the US Secret Service's
National Threat Assessment Center, Bryan Vossekuil,
published a study of 83 persons who had attempted or succeeded to assassinate a public figure (Google HTML view of pdf). Those 83 were all the people who were known to have attacked, or approached to attack, a prominent public official or public figure in the United States since 1949. The goal was to better understand the motives behind such actions, and included interviews with some of the subjects.
NPR covered the report today, interviewing Fein and discussing the findings. The summary was that the attacks were not political in motive, but attempts at gaining fame.
"They experienced failure after failure after failure, and decided that rather than being a 'nobody,' they wanted to be a 'somebody,' " Fein said. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief
on Jan 14, 2011 -
31 comments
The Dubai Job: One year ago, an elite Mossad hit squad traveled to Dubai to kill a high-ranking member of Hamas. They completed the mission, but their covers were blown, and Israel was humiliated by the twenty-seven-minute video of their movements that was posted online for all the world to see. Ronen Bergman reveals the intricate, chilling details of the mission and investigates how Israel's vaunted spy agency did things so spectacularly wrong
(previously)
posted by allkindsoftime
on Jan 5, 2011 -
73 comments
A Widow's Journey [MP3]. "In 1989, Appapillai Amirthalingam - the most prominent political figure of the Tamil community - was assassinated at his home in the Sri Lankan capital, Colombo. Twenty years on, the Tamil Tigers have been defeated by the military. Appapillai's wife and son travel back to their homeland in search of his legacy in an attempt to understand what the future holds for Sri Lanka's Tamil people."
posted by chunking express
on Sep 2, 2010 -
9 comments
The Ward Warren Film. Gary Mack, Curator at The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza, is calling it "the best home movie I have seen of the Kennedy arrival in Dallas on November 22, 1963." For the first time, color film of President and Mrs. Kennedy arriving on Air Force One that fateful day is being released for public viewing. [more inside]
posted by jjray
on Feb 15, 2010 -
13 comments
MLK Jr: The First Attempt : Nearly 10 years before he was assassinated, as Dr. King signed copies of his book
Stride Toward Freedom,
Izola Ware Curry, a part-time maid from Georgia, stabbed him in the chest with a letter opener, nearly puncturing his aorta. Though she was eventually indicted for attempted murder, Ms. Curry was found
incompetent to stand trial and committed to Matteawan State Hospital for the criminally insane. Characteristically, Dr. King
forgave her and requested that she be rehabilitated as a productive member of society.
[more inside]
posted by Alison
on Jan 18, 2010 -
7 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
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
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
"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
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
