JFK Assassination 60 Anniversary Books Podcast

You know, like in the Sopranos, they just quote it all the time. Um, and now we're watching like this breakdown thing, uh, that Michael Imperial Lee and, um, Steven, uh, yeah, it's called, um,

Tom (03:23.282)
Oh yeah, I know what you're talking. Sharippa.

Tom (03:32.086)
It's like a companion podcast to the Sopranos by two of the Sopranos, right?

Chris Lyons (03:32.323)
watching some random

Chris Lyons (03:38.669)
Yes, it's great. Um, it, because they, they kind of, they must have, um, I don't know if they have it in front of them, like a screenplay style or if they're watching it on a screen, um, and they, they basically just go through every episode and then, um, they, not only do they talk about what's happening in the story, they talk about other little funny anecdotes and, um,

Tom (03:40.434)
It is...

Chris Lyons (04:09.837)
you know, different things that happened on the show, different people like, oh, in this scene, you know, the guy walking by me in the diner is actually David Chase, the director, or the creator, you know, just little nuggets. I love that inside baseball stuff.

Tom (04:33.294)
That is cool. And I just became aware that those guys were doing like a reaction companion production like that, which is brilliant. I mean, everybody who's been on an iconic show or movie should do that just to claim for their own personal brand, some of the traffic and Google searches and stuff that happens around the product that they were a part of. But those guys are gonna own.

Maybe that's the freshest Sopranos content being made as well, so Google's really going to like it. Now, maybe those guys are going to own 5% of Google searches next year for the Sopranos. I'd like to own 5% of Google searches for the Sopranos next year. And all they had to do was sit down with a couple of webcams and talk. So brilliant move on their part.

Chris Lyons (05:28.15)
And you can see it sometimes in some of these shows where it appears forced and it just doesn't have a good flow to it and they watch it. They're separate, but they both have the same background. So the way they put it together, they kind of look like they're together. They have like a red kind of like a satin curtain background.

but in little headphones, but it's just so funny just to watch them.

Tom (05:57.634)
That's awesome. I think that's, I don't know, I like ideas like that. I think anytime you can put together a production that's like easy, sustainable, like fun for the participants and so it's not a job to do it, you know? Man, you'll win so much more that way. I've had a couple of conversations in the last week where I had to tell somebody, I was like, I don't know what the coolest idea is for you to.

Chris Lyons (06:12.491)
Right, exactly.

Tom (06:23.182)
start this project, but I know the only idea that keeps you in business a year from now is the easiest idea. What's the easiest thing for you to talk about? What's the most fun thing for you to do? And in a situation like that, that's just a layup. You know, but in that's no, that's almost like for an actor to do media that recounts their old media is, you know, no different than a detective to do make media.

Chris Lyons (06:34.028)
Mm-hmm.

Tom (06:53.106)
recounting one of their old cases. It's like, well, you did the work. You might as well be the one to tell the story and have ownership of that audience kind of thing. I love that stuff though. In terms of those guys, like just starting a production, like boom, I imagine quick, sustainable, but still like really fun to listen to. You can't beat that. What's, oh, and I should mention, let me see.

Chris Lyons (07:15.31)
Mm-hmm.

Tom (07:25.074)
I have had a bunch of weird conversations lately about...

I think topics in the justice space, where more than one person has come to me with a project that has been like, hey, I want to talk about this case. And the case exists in a niche or the case itself points out a particularly

unjust groove that's been worn into the justice system through the years. You know, it's one of those things that people fall into. It's a good way to describe. And those are the stories that are becoming infuriating to people to hear because they can picture themselves or a loved one. And so. Those conversations where somebody says, I've got this case, I want to talk about this case. If it highlights a greater issue.

I mentioned this to you not because I have a pitch for you, but because you're in this nonprofit true crime space. This could almost be like a vehicle. You ran if it were the thing you were interested in. But what I keep telling these people is you've got a criminal law injustice story, but right off the top of my head, I can see that your story would apply in other jurisdictions, other states.

it would apply, it's a sort of ubiquitous issue in some way. Or perhaps the way different states handle it points out the inequity in the way your state handles it. So it makes your one topic of discussion for call it a podcast or a series or whatever you want to call it. What if you then found 10 other lawyers who had a client with the same story? And so now instead of us doing

Tom (09:22.394)
one story for you for 10, 15 grand, we go get 10 lawyers together who all have the same focus and we do a quarter of a million dollar project.

with the efficiency of scale where you guys are sharing the branding look, the voice over talent, the music resources, a single website with this overall justice topic. You know, I spoke to a guy who wants to talk about family law and inequities between the sexes in a family court.

Chris Lyons (09:56.663)
Oh sure.

Tom (09:59.894)
That's a home run. That is a home run. That would get so much love and hate on LinkedIn from people who are educated and or ignorant. I was like, oh my God, dude, this should be not only a series you do, this should be maybe a cooperative project where you find or I find or we find lawyers in other states and or foundations or nonprofits who want to fund that type of project. So now...

You've just gone from like a 10 or $15,000 little media project that, you know, hey, great heart and soul and out to make a difference. But would it make more difference if we surrounded it with 10 other stories, built a big platform, had them sharing it, had their friends sharing it and brought in, you know, foundations to fund it, that kind of thing. So I've had, I've had like four conversations in the last few weeks where a compelling topic came in as like a $15,000 project.

and went back to the prospect as a $150,000 project, but let's go get some friends. Let's by the end of year one, let's have grant money in an account, maybe. So those, and that's been very interesting. And in three of those instances, that's now the project. Like they didn't even on the first call, they were like, okay, I don't even wanna talk about doing a little thing anymore.

because I can certainly find 10 other lawyers who have, you know, 10 grand for their story and will get, I will, they will, and everybody involved will get much more out of the project than if they did it standing alone. And I guess it just goes back to something we've talked about before, which is there's no rules. And so the shape and form that your media project and how you are able to make a splash with it, really.

Chris Lyons (11:40.983)
Mm-hmm.

Tom (11:55.562)
basically just stay within moral and ethical boundaries. And those are the rules. Like, do whatever you want. And found that fascinating. Didn't know if you guys, I'm still trying to shoehorn you into some kind of media production thing. So I'm always gonna throw ideas at you. But I was just thinking, you know, that's a new wrinkle for you to file away as we continue our journey together in media.

Chris Lyons (12:04.101)
Mm-hmm.

Tom (12:30.478)
But what do you think of that? Is that crazy? People call for a $15,000 podcast and I'm like, no, you need a quarter million dollars and 10 buddies. But for 10 law firms, that's not that big a deal.

Chris Lyons (12:43.413)
No, I think it's the podcast space is so unique because with, I think one of the most frequent programs I see is Riverside and it's almost like idiot proof. And then, you know, really, I mean, all your guests need to have is a webcam and a microphone and a face and

Tom (13:11.982)
Thank you.

Chris Lyons (13:13.029)
that they're in business. One of the things with podcasts, whatever the topic is that I think is so interesting is it doesn't matter what you say, or, oh, the boss isn't gonna like it, or we're gonna lose sponsors, or I don't have sponsors, or whatever. I mean, really, people will just start.

making content about something they feel important about or they find interesting, a hobby or whatever and it can just, it's so unfiltered and you know now I still like to watch traditional news media sometimes but it's so strange like when you know they have like where I live, Bay News 9.

And they have these little interviews and it's basically like a 60 second segment of them interviewing somebody but about, you know, specific topic. But they have to go into the studio and have the makeup and they make all the little computer cuts and everything. They usually ask them kind of standard, very boring questions. They don't really delve into anything.

And then they're like, OK, that's all the time we have. No, you have you own the studio. You have as much time as you want. And they it's just so different after watching something that is polished, but really dry. It just has no interesting substance to it at all. And then on a podcast or anything that is kind of

Tom (14:47.632)
Yeah.

Chris Lyons (15:10.329)
not in the mainstream, you know, like you're not working for a

Tom (15:14.718)
And you're not structured with a commercial every five minutes. So you're not structured to an hour if your guest, if your guest starts, you know, cracking the atom essentially. Yeah, you can allow them to continue. Yeah, so, or you can interrupt them like I just did. That's how I roll.

Chris Lyons (15:25.049)
going off the reservation.

Chris Lyons (15:30.757)
Mm hmm. Every like episode of TV, I had talked to a guy who had worked in Hollywood, a comedy episode like a sitcom episode, it had to be 22 and a half minutes of screen time because they needed the intro. Then

commercials built in and then the credits at the end and it's funny because if you watch Not something that's new if you watch a show that is being rebroadcast like in syndication They do that thing where they actually will speed up The intro and speed up the credits or they'll put it in the little box in the corner You know and then the next thing is coming on it's because they're trying they you know time is money so they're trying to squeeze in you know while you're watching the

credits of law and order from 1992, you know, they can cram in a commercial for Crest or whatever.

Tom (16:39.478)
I think that's hilarious. That just makes me think of the person on that episode who called their family and they were like, hey, this is the episode I was on. I only made it on TV once. You guys turn it on now. It's on whatever, turn it on. And then their family turns on the, the only episode they were on of whatever. It's one of those, as soon as the episode's over, their credits shrink down to a little bar at the bottom of the screen that goes a thousand miles an hour. That would be so disappointing if I were that big player.

Well, that's what I think about when you tell me that story. I'm like, the poor son of a bitch, who that was their episode and they can't show their mom their name.

Chris Lyons (17:16.741)
Sometimes when we go to the movies, if we go to a real movie theater and sit there, I always like to sit nowadays and watch all the credits all the way through because sometimes they'll have funny outtakes or little nuggets of things in the credits. Think about it, you sit there for a full five minutes and it's just a list of names of hundreds of people.

sometimes probably thousands of people who contributed to that production in some way in like a feature film and they get you know 1.3 seconds of blurry screen time they use that awful white font which somehow no matter how big you make it is blurry it's like who chose that but you know and then you know.

key grip, second grip, best boy, all these positions that are just important for the production. But yeah, their whole claim to fame is you're in blurry white writing on a black screen for two seconds. It's always feel like the hundreds and hundreds of people that are involved in a big production.

You know, and that's what they get. There I am, mom, look.

Tom (18:46.994)
It's, speaking of big productions, I almost, it's, I should point out, and I'll maybe even get this out today that it is the 60th anniversary of the JFK assassination in Dewey Plaza. Shout out Dallas, that's why I got my cowboy hat on today.

Chris Lyons (19:08.353)
Okay, I was gonna ask you if you were on the ranch today or what was going on.

Tom (19:13.778)
I'm at Dealey Plaza. I'm just a dude hanging out, watching a motorcade who's probably gonna be whacked in two years because of sauce.

Chris Lyons (19:16.087)
Okay.

Tom (19:26.79)
It's sort of like Kennedy anniversary Halloween mix is what I'm doing.

Chris Lyons (19:32.677)
So I watched, because there's been a lot of programs on, because it's, you know, today, as you said, is 60 years, which is just amazing. One program I watched that I think was made by, I want to say maybe National Geographic, and they had a lot of interviews with some of the few folks who are still

alive and they had, you know, because I mean, you got to think, you know, if you were 30 in 1963, you know, that was 60 years ago. So they had the male Secret Service agent that was assigned to Jackie Kennedy and he's 92. And it was very interesting to see him speak.

Chris Lyons (20:31.545)
guy on there who was assigned to the presidential detail and after the assassination, he quit the secret service. He just couldn't do it anymore. I mean, especially, he was a young guy at that time. He was very young in his career and to suffer the loss of the president, that's their entire mission.

Um, he, he just emotionally, I don't think could, could handle it, you know? Um, and he ended up resigning his post and, you know, doing something else with his life. But.

Tom (21:16.226)
Well, they were disparaged. I mean, you can't, how are you gonna be the guys who slow the car down till a near stop, get the president's head blown off, and then you're not gonna be what? You're gonna have it easy? You're gonna get a free pass? I would imagine it was rampant alcoholism and depression. And it's just like, you know, I'm sure that's a terrible position to be in. At the same time, why the car is only going seven miles an hour through a triangulated kill zone is beyond me.

Chris Lyons (21:18.502)
course.

Tom (21:45.442)
But I think the agent you're referring to with Jackie Kennedy, very famous, and I still had to look it up because I've just got too many names in my head from too many books for the last week in the last run up to this was Clint Hills, that ring a bell? The guy who was kind of Jackie Kennedy's assignee. Yeah. And there were, well, what about, have you ever read about

Chris Lyons (22:06.253)
Yes, yeah.

Tom (22:15.13)
Agent Bolden, the agent who was imprisoned, actually sent to prison. He disputed the narrative and wound up in prison for some of that. I can't even remember what the charges were, but they were some really secret service Bolden.

Chris Lyons (22:45.713)
So I can't reveal their name, but I was speaking to somebody last night about a different case and it was getting pretty late and I mentioned that I was going to be on your show today and that I've been reading Kennedy stuff and watching Kennedy programs and just how terrible it was even all these years later.

And this person told me that a family member of theirs, who is now deceased, was at the Bobby Kennedy shooting when it occurred.

Tom (23:31.478)
Wow, they're lucky they didn't get shot then.

Chris Lyons (23:32.484)
Yeah.

Yeah, that person, that family member of theirs is now deceased. But, you know, it's like I didn't want to rush to it too quick, but I had like a notepad and a pen and wanted to be like, oh, okay. You know, because I was so interested to talk to them, but the person had died a number of years ago again, I mean, and that was in.

Well, what, Robert was in 68. Yeah.

Tom (24:05.602)
68.

Tom (24:10.294)
Yeah. Nine people in that room took lead.

Chris Lyons (24:18.416)
Really?

Chris Lyons (24:21.801)
Wow.

Chris Lyons (24:24.953)
You know, the thing that I was talking about now, I mean, nowadays, if something is caught on camera, it's not really that big of a deal between cell phones and security cameras. Ring doorbells, all this stuff. But to think in 1960 that the assassination of a president was caught on film by.

Mr. Zapruder and then a few, a few other people had still images, but I think the only film was Zapruder, um, at least the one, the only one that was highly publicized and then in such a short time later that Oswald is killed by Jack Ruby. And that is also caught on film to think, you know, you two murders.

in 1960 back to back both caught on film. Like the odds are extraordinary. I mean, think about just catching a murder on film in the first place is extremely rare, but to have two murders, you know, to have the victim one murdered and then a short time later to have the suspect murdered by somebody else.

Tom (25:37.216)
Well...

Chris Lyons (25:51.829)
and both be filmed, I just think that is absolutely incredible.

Tom (25:57.042)
other than you're starting with the outlier of each victim at the time they were shot was probably the most famous person on the planet.

Chris Lyons (26:07.529)
Sure. Yeah, I mean...

Tom (26:09.822)
And by the time Oswald's taken lead in a parking garage, he's the most famous person on the planet. He's second to none in terms of fame and name recognition. So it's almost like when you're in that category, you almost have to expect a camera to be there. It's like for everything, if only those situations.

Chris Lyons (26:18.885)
Sure. Presidential assassin. Yeah, that's a...

Tom (26:39.102)
Um, but it is messed up when you think about the whole country watched a guy get murdered in a police building on TV.

Chris Lyons (26:50.989)
Yeah, especially then, not that the murder of somebody on television today would be less upsetting or mean less. But I think we could probably agree that our culture was a little more sheltered in 1960, in 1963, that, you know, to see the president murdered.

Or at least, well, they probably didn't put that film out right away like they would nowadays. I mean, it would be on Facebook in 15 minutes. But to know that the president was murdered and then, you know, several days later to see a live murder on television, probably anybody who saw that probably stuck with them forever.

Tom (27:31.408)
or live.

Tom (27:51.762)
I cannot, yeah, and my mom used to always tell me the story. Anytime the Kennedy assassination came up in any type of conversation, I, shout out to mom, she's, we have a little inside joke where she tells me the same story, let's just say more than once. And this is one of those stories where she'll start with, now stop me if I've ever told you this before. I don't stop her because I'm a polite son, and if I did, she'd never get a chance to speak if it was her.

She's like, as soon as they walked Oswald out on TV, her father stood up in the living room and said, oh my God, they should have that guy in a barrel when they transport him and not three seconds later, he's getting shot.

Chris Lyons (28:40.829)
From my world of criminal justice, one of the things that I thought was the most interesting was I forgot that Oswald actually, after he was in custody, actually spoke, not when he was going to be transported to, I think, what they called it, the city jail, because they were actually at the Dallas police headquarters and then they were going to transfer him.

to more long-term incarceration pending trial, but they basically held a press conference where they brought the suspect out to speak. That's absolutely insane. It's like he had killed officer, was it Tippett? So he.

Tom (29:33.426)
He was alleged to have killed officer Tippett.

Chris Lyons (29:35.681)
Okay. So he was alleged. Well, yes. And he was alleged to have killed the president, but, um, you know, they bring them into this, this press gaggle of all these people and clamoring reporters and everything. And they basically stick a microphone in front of him face and let him answer questions or they fire questions at him. Um, about, about the, the cases that to me is just so bizarre.

that they would even do that.

Tom (30:07.01)
Do you recall his responses to the press?

Chris Lyons (30:11.097)
Um...

Tom (30:12.438)
Very interesting response.

Chris Lyons (30:14.993)
So, um.

I don't know who it was, but you hear a male voice off camera say something about killing President Kennedy and he says something like, I'm not aware of that. I haven't been charged with that. And then, and then nobody's told me that, I think he said. And then the off, off camera or the off screen voice says, you know, yes, you have been charged.

Tom (30:33.601)
Exactly.

Chris Lyons (30:48.109)
with killing the president. Um, and he, he looks like that was the first time he was hearing that information, which is just so bizarre that, you know, they're going to hold a press conference, um, with the suspect president, ask him questions directly. And then, um, say, Oh, by the way, uh, you've been charged with, um, murdering the, the president of the United States and for him to look

pretty shocked and confused about it. Now, you have to remember too, this occurred in 1963. So that's three years before Miranda. The Miranda decision was in 1966. So, you still had, citizens still enjoyed the same rights, but they weren't expressly.

enumerated and explained to people upon their arrest like they are now. You know, this is three years before that, that decision. So, you know, and I knew guys who were cops in the sixties and into the seventies, and it was definitely not as standardized as, as it is today. So they might've just brought them into a room and started peppering them.

with questions and him not even realizing he doesn't have to respond.

Tom (32:21.307)
He got 12 hours of that and none of it was recorded, which nothing unusual about that.

Chris Lyons (32:29.254)
So at that time, that was not unusual.

Tom (32:35.238)
Audio recording on a capital crime was standard procedure in the 60s, according to the books I've read about that. I mean, you had kids recording the radio into eight tracks by that time. To think the police weren't going to get a $400 budget annually for tapes and recorders for their detectives seems preposterous.

Chris Lyons (33:01.881)
Well, you'd think even if you didn't routinely record most of your investigations, that would probably want to be one. Right. Yeah.

Tom (33:09.878)
You'd record this one, right? I'm like... Thank you. That's a fair point. Yeah, even if it wasn't standard, what the fuck? Somebody go to RadioShack. It's...

Chris Lyons (33:15.106)
Yeah, uh...

Chris Lyons (33:24.821)
Yeah, you know, we're spoiled nowadays where, you know, we have access to so many things and everything can be recorded and from 12 different angles and digital high quality digital images and all these different stuff. But yeah, if you're gonna if we're gonna blow the yearly budget, I mean, it was already November the year was almost over. Anyway, go ahead and let's dip into the.

the tape fund, crack open the closet. And even at that time, it'd probably be like a real-to-real magnetic. But wouldn't you want to record that? Just, I mean, yeah, very, very odd, that in itself. But the whole thing was odd. I mean, take aside.

Tom (34:16.955)
to some people.

Chris Lyons (34:23.077)
the dynamics of the shooting, you know, just the press gaggle in the basement and having people come in and coming and going and then having this, you know, seemingly impromptu press conference where the suspect himself is answering questions about the case. I can't think of any other case ever.

what in the United States and I don't mean like that, you know, I am good. I have been treated fair by my captors, you know, you know, where you're reading the, the hostage letter when you're tied up in a barn somewhere. I mean, this is in the United States with a person charged with a crime and they are in front of television cameras answering questions. I can't think of any other case.

Um, that is that significant where they just brought the suspect out and stuck them in front of the microphones and just let him, um, answer questions to the press directly. Can you?

Tom (35:37.642)
Yeah, well.

Tom (35:42.234)
not in any situation that was being operated in good faith in a democracy.

Yeah, no, that's the kind of thing you do for propaganda. That's the kind of thing you do. Yeah, it's just there's no goodwill behind that type of staging. They're just, they're just, or good faith. I don't mean goodwill. I mean good faith, operating in good faith. Yeah.

Chris Lyons (35:56.835)
Right.

Chris Lyons (36:04.973)
No, I, what, when I think of things like that.

Good faith. When I think of things like that, like I said, that's like after you've been in some awful country where you've been beaten with a hose for 12 hours and then you have to come out and say, I have been treated fairly by my captors. And renounce your...

Tom (36:31.726)
I pay extra for the host when I go to other countries.

Chris Lyons (36:38.261)
you know, capitalism is the devil or whatever. And, you know, while you're all black and blue and, you know, they got to clean you up to stick you in front of the cameras so you can, for whatever their cause, that's what that video makes me think of. It's just such a, it's just so bizarre. And I can't think of any other instance in the history of the United States

video media where such a high profile case where they put the defendant on national television to answer questions directly.

Tom (37:22.994)
It's weird and you know, I don't spend...

Tom (37:28.47)
I don't spend a lot of time shitting on the Dallas police. And really, maybe I should. Maybe that's more of a conversation to dig into because it's either amateur hour or there's at least a handful of elements who maybe didn't wanna slow these events, let's say. Maybe they didn't have a hand in them, but maybe they didn't wanna slow them. I mean, there's just a lot of things from the initial planning of the route and the staffing.

of security along the route. Decisions were made in this particular instance in this particular town.

Tom (38:08.434)
where the person who perhaps benefited the most from this occurrence had the bulk of his support, maybe there's just people letting things go. And this always leads to the argument, oh, conspiracy, big conspiracy. If people have like interests, they don't have to plan. They don't have to plan. They simply have to not impede one another.

And that's a conspiracy. I would have to disregard my job and let something flow through. Once I do that, I've essentially conspired. If it came from a place of bad faith, and I'm allowing it to go to a place of bad faith, whether I directly communicate with the people who are operating those waypoints of bad faith along the investigation.

As long as I don't operate ethically, morally, legally, and allows whatever nugget of the process to be corrupted, I don't have to have a conversation with them for that to be a conspiracy. I'm continuing their work and passing it to the person who has to do the next piece of the job. That's a functional conspiracy.

And if your goal is like whether you're in business and you're trying to get approval for something you wouldn't usually get approval for, whether you're in line at the cash register and everybody knows that the person ringing you up is getting this product wrong, and so you're all getting it. Maybe you didn't talk to each other, but you're not telling on the person in front of you and you're not telling on the person behind you and you're participating in the benefits gained by the action, you're a conspiracy.

against that particular cashier. If everybody in line's doing the same thing and nobody's talking about it, the fact that they're knowingly not talking about it makes it a conspiracy, is in my mind. And I think that's the nature of the Kennedy conspiracy. It's not everybody got into a room and talked about it. It's everybody who knew, oh, well, all I have to do is do nothing, or all I have to do is say this instead of this.

Tom (40:35.538)
and it's plain as day that people are dying all around me? I'm gonna do that. That's the nature of the Kennedy Conspiracy. And it's people like George Carlin have defined it well. In the 70s, when he was on a talk show getting pressed and people are like, oh, you're crazy, conspiracy this, conspiracy that. And he's like, listen, man.

If your interests are aligned, the goal is clear, and the impediments that need to be removed are clear, you don't have to have a single conversation, and you can get everything done that you need to get done. I subscribe to that.

Chris Lyons (41:10.361)
What, what I find interesting about, you know, you say, why would somebody be motivated to kill the president? Like what, uh, would they want to start something or stop something? So I started reading about, um, and I mean, also, and I don't know if you've ever thought about this, the stark contrast between Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson could

Tom (41:39.258)
I don't know if you're hearing me. One sec, I'm gonna close those sliders. I now have blowers and shit. And I don't know if they're registering yet, but they're gonna register. And in fact, if you wanna just keep talking, I'll just cut to a solo shot. I can still hear you, but I wanna get ahead of this.

Chris Lyons (41:55.83)
Um.

Lyndon Johnson and President Kennedy, I don't think really could have been any different. Kennedy is a Northeastern, Massachusetts, Irish Catholic. He was very handsome, intelligent, engaging. And then you have a super stark contrast of

Lyndon Johnson, who was a native Texan, very stoic, very imposing, who actually also, interestingly, was part Irish, but he was raised Baptist. I think one of the main things is that...

Kennedy, when he was elected, presented a lot of really idealistic things that he wanted to do in his administration. Probably what would you say were Kennedy's probably three biggest goals? I would say probably the Apollo program, racial, moving the ball forward.

for in terms of like racial and get integration and protections for minorities and

Chris Lyons (43:37.029)
like civil rights in general, I would say probably like for all, for all people, you know, integration, because I mean, at this point, there was places that were still actually segregated. You know, in 1960, I mean, there were places where a black person couldn't eat lunch at a counter, you know, which is.

insane if you think about that not really that long ago, just based on how you were born, how you look, which you have no say in, that you couldn't go into a restaurant and sit and order a sandwich and sit at the counter with a white person. And that was the law. It was just absolutely insane.

Tom (44:34.062)
So I would answer Kennedy's top three things differently.

I would say...

Tom (44:44.822)
His number one goal.

was probably peace with Russia.

Chris Lyons (44:53.083)
Okay.

Tom (44:53.974)
A lot of his effort went into going around the Department of Defense, around the Pentagon, around the Joint Chiefs, and having back-channel communications to Khrushchev directly. And Khrushchev had to go around his bureaus and his advisors because on both sides, if you take Khrushchev or Kennedy out of the equation, we're at nuclear war yesterday.

The psychopaths running our military and the psychopaths running the Russian military at the time wanted to let loose like a bunch of freaks, including the CIA. So Kennedy, I would say his number one concern with peace with Russia. I would say his number in particular order. Let me do these in no particular order because it's actually very tough. Peace with Russia.

Chris Lyons (45:42.129)
You're right.

Tom (45:49.966)
out of Vietnam, dismantled the CIA completely. Those were the three most important things on his plate.

Chris Lyons (46:00.493)
I would say probably peace with Russia because your domestic policy doesn't matter if everybody in your country is dead. So I definitely, I'm going to amend my list. Peace with Russia, definitely most important. Then

Tom (46:09.63)
Yeah.

Chris Lyons (46:23.413)
He did a lot for advancing civil rights and protections for people. I think when people think of civil rights for protected rights for people, they think usually of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but it's interesting because there are a series of different acts.

There's like 64, 68, 70, you know, where different language was being incorporated to offer more protections. It wasn't like, you know, they got it right in 64 and it was never amended again. There was things where they were at changing language and adding protection for more people in different circumstances.

Tom (47:20.338)
In perpetuity, you would think that's such a big undertaking that that's the kind of thing you're going to have to fine tune.

Chris Lyons (47:28.018)
So and then I would say

So Vietnam is so interesting to me because do you know when the conflict in what they call you know, Indochina, the Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, do you know when it started?

Tom (47:51.154)
No, I'm probably a better, I'm more familiar with like our timeline. Like when did the CIA start going over there and lying to their own president about what they're doing.

Chris Lyons (48:02.246)
So it's the conflict.

started in 1955. Basically, it was, I mean, the, there's a lot of interesting things, you know, I think a lot of people link Kennedy with huge events like the Cuban Missile Crisis, but when he took office already, things were happening in the East, in Vietnam that were already happening post World War II.

that he just got dealt. That was just his cards that he had to deal with.

Tom (48:41.326)
Well, the history with the French and to your point, it came back to bite Kennedy a bit. He hung himself by his own petard, let's say, because when he was in the Senate and Vietnam was being discussed, this I'll paraphrase, but it was something to the effect of listen, you can't win a war against an enemy that is both everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

Chris Lyons (48:45.219)
Yes.

Tom (49:10.954)
You cannot do it. And

There's, he was at such odds with his military advisors, with the Pentagon, with the Hawks and the War Pigs in the Department of Defense, who were famous movie character type people at that time. Who's the guy, who's the Air Force nut who was portrayed by, in the movie, riding the new underground? I'm just gonna cut this part, because if I can, I can say like, but you know, Curtis LeMay, fucking Curtis LeMay was,

Chris Lyons (49:40.712)
Oh, yeah.

Chris Lyons (49:44.688)
Yeah.

Tom (49:46.43)
A psychopath. He was a psychopath. It was all Kennedy could do to keep that guy from bombing everybody all the time. Let's bomb Cuba. There were times Kennedy acquiesced in Vietnam and said to his close advisors, his friends that circle around him, the people he said things to, like, I have to break the CIA into 10,000 pieces.

or this whole thing is over. And

Tom (50:23.942)
He acquiesced on things in Vietnam because he's like, I have to lose this. He's like, I can't, I can't fight these guys on every line. I'm just going to let them bomb some shit. That's literally how his Vietnam decision-making went. So when he, when he made decisions on the offense in Vietnam, it was generally because he had just won six arguments in a row, wouldn't let the dogs off the leash and they were ready to be rabid. Like they were fearing.

coup from like, yeah, I mean, you know, a hammer, everything looks like a nail. And that's our military. So you know, there is a passage where he allows bombing. He's like, I just had to let him. He's like, I have to let them do something sometimes if I'm going to keep winning these other arguments. Like that's a conversation about human lives. When you think about it. Now it's a luxury. I get to have this Monday morning quarterback.

He saw the writing on the wall, didn't wanna be in Vietnam whatsoever. When he sat down, there were 2000 CIA advisors over there who were not supposed to be doing anything but having conversations. And they were in combat. They were killing people. These CIA guys were committing crimes every day at the behest of who, I don't know. But that's...

what Kennedy recognized, and that's why I would say...

If the conversations he's having with his personal advisors are, me and Khrushchev have to figure this out personally because they can't trust their own military and their own intelligence agencies. Vietnam is a complete ridiculous pursuit. Even those goals he recognized he couldn't move forward on.

Tom (52:24.318)
And I would argue civil rights probably falls under this umbrella because there are instances where, again, rogue operatives within our own government agencies perpetuated racial issues versus, you know, squelching racial issues that he couldn't accomplish any of his long-term goals if the CIA existed, including racial harmony, including peace, including out of Vietnam, and including, you know,

avoiding nuclear war. He felt the CIA was a direct impediment to accomplishing any and all of those goals and he absolutely felt the CIA needed to be dismantled because it was by then well off the chain. Shortly thereafter his head exploded all over the glass.

Chris Lyons (52:57.39)
So.

Chris Lyons (53:10.673)
Did he ever say that publicly or did he ever express like through a budget where he was interested in, you know, like terminating or substantially reducing their funding?

Tom (53:24.802)
He fired Alan Dulles, he fired the head of the CIA.

Chris Lyons (53:29.925)
Well, that's not unusual, because that's an appointed position by the president anyway.

Tom (53:38.258)
It's unusual to do it for cause.

Chris Lyons (53:42.825)
But what I mean is, if you think about it, in every presidential administration, all those key positions are appointed by the president. So, and I mean...

Tom (53:54.606)
But this is a Bay of Pigs firing. This isn't, oh, you're the other guy, I don't like your style. This is no, you fucking looked me in the eye and lied to me and tried to start a fucking war because you're a psychopath. That's an entirely different firing. Like you tried to start a private war with your private army and you lied to the president of the United States about it at every juncture. That's not a replacement. That's a...

Chris Lyons (54:06.766)
Hmm.

Tom (54:24.05)
You're a nefarious scumbag who's got to go. And then the first thing that Johnson does is put that nefarious scumbag on the warrant commission to investigate the death of the guy who just fired him for being a criminal scumbag.

Chris Lyons (54:40.869)
So what I find interesting is...

Tom (54:44.75)
That's Alan Dulles, by the way, for the listeners. We're talking about Alan Dulles.

Chris Lyons (54:49.061)
is that President Kennedy often gets attributed, you know, that he wanted to do a lot of positive things for the country. And he was just, even still today, you know, he just drips with charisma. You can't, I mean, I don't, he, to me, he's like irresistible to find him. I thought he was a great

Chris Lyons (55:20.962)
He just had a...

Tom (55:21.226)
A proven hero and a proven hero who, you know, would knew what suffering was, knew what like perseverance was, like, you know, I got, I got run over by a destroyer in a PT boat and dragged four guys to safety would have essentially broken back. And then gave up on life and just said, I can't. And he floated. But the, the current he was in was this.

Chris Lyons (55:27.47)
Okay.

He had served in the Navy.

Chris Lyons (55:35.373)
Yep.

Chris Lyons (55:40.686)
you know, um.

Tom (55:50.33)
wild island current that kept him exactly. And so he woke up the next day in the same place he fell asleep, which is like half a miracle. That's just really lucky and ended up surviving. But that's a guy who's looked death in the eye. He had all sorts of conditions as a child growing up. And Bobby Kennedy's tons, blood diseases, just all kinds of shit.

Chris Lyons (56:12.594)
He did, I was surprised to find that.

Tom (56:19.954)
And so Bobby Kennedy's quoted as saying that fully half of the days my brother was alive, he was in physical discomfort, pain. And.

Chris Lyons (56:31.025)
Yeah, because I mean, if you look at him, you know, and that might have been calculated political maneuvering, but he always was very tan. He was always active. You know, he was boating, doing something like a broadcasting strength by, you know, his youth and his being outdoorsy.

you know, and I don't know if that was intentional.

Tom (57:05.206)
No, the whole family was like that. They were whitewater rafting, class five rapids as a family before that was like a mainstream sport. These people were, they had legendary like touch football games that were supposedly just viciously competitive. Like they were, and they all sailed and boated and models. They all love models.

Chris Lyons (57:26.617)
Oh yeah.

Tom (57:33.878)
They were all sleeping with actresses. I mean, these guys got exercise, Chris.

Chris Lyons (57:34.157)
Well, they did. But what I find interesting is that John F. Kennedy

He, he, he comes in, he's the young guy, he is the fresh face. He's idealistic. He has all these different ideas, which at the time were not, you know, uh, widely accepted everywhere, especially, you know, in, in certain, uh, you know, parts of the country about integration and fairness and rights for different people. What I think history always misses is that.

All of these things were actually completed, or not all, but a lot of his major goals for the Kennedy administration were actually completed by Lyndon Johnson, which I think history, it's basically, I feel like Kennedy was the young guy. He had all these great ideas and, you know, harmony and wanted to enact protections for people and do all these great things. Put a man on the moon.

and do all these amazing things for the country. And then unfortunately is murdered. And then this terrible evil man, Lyndon Johnson, who was the vice president is standing in the wings and just can't wait to seize power and, you know, become the president and do these things. So, do his own things. But the only reason I think.

Kennedy's legacy as a president was so successful is actually because of Lyndon Johnson, not in spite of him. So Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, 1965, signed by Lyndon Johnson. The Higher Education Act of 1965, which is basically

Chris Lyons (59:46.637)
like now, like a federally structured student loan where, you know, they can't charge you 9,000% interest. And I mean, it's still very expensive for those people to go. But that was signed by President Johnson in 1965 to allow people to go to school, higher education.

which was something that Kennedy wanted. This is something that he, it was called the Immigration and Nationality Act, but sometimes they also call it the Heart Seller Act. So this is crazy. This is just like, you know, people wanna use the term systemic racism. Now they have no clue what it even means. So at that time,

to immigrate to the United States as an immigrant, they could just tell you no. So they actually had a policy where, and it was spelled out where they would, it was barred, the United States was barred from accepting people from Asia and what they called non-whites from entering the country. And when.

President Johnson in 1965, he signed this act and it basically changed the structure of that and instead of basing it completely on race and nationality, like we don't like your culture today so you're not getting into the country, it looked at people as individuals in terms of their skills.

Chris Lyons (01:01:42.481)
their native country and they wanted to come here and they had a chance of becoming a productive citizen. It was based on that as opposed to just a complete bar based on where they were from. It basically

Tom (01:02:04.386)
Well, on that point, that's, I mean, that is, that's an obvious step forward, but.

Put that bill in front of any president in the age of TV and see if he doesn't sign it in terms of political suicide. In the short terms you're talking about, the man's on TV and he's a politician. The first fucking thing he did was get rid of the first, the only Kennedy alive. He wasn't trying to carry on any Kennedy tradition. He fucking hated the Kennedys and was open about it.

Chris Lyons (01:02:19.277)
Well, you're right.

Chris Lyons (01:02:36.941)
He did... But what I mean that I find...

Tom (01:02:40.038)
All you're deciding to me is a bill that if anybody had not signed it, they were signing their own political death warrant. I'm not going to give them a single point for this bill. Not a single point. Doing the obvious decent thing, just, ah, I mean, doing the obvious decent thing while you're just sending American boys to a pointless death in Vietnam, sounds to me like, yeah, we might as well do this because then people will let me kill.

Chris Lyons (01:02:58.789)
So, so.

Tom (01:03:08.462)
killed their sons for another six months. You got to do, that's no more magnanimous than Kennedy letting them bomb people in Vietnam because he had to move forward. I don't see Lyndon Johnson moving forward if he doesn't sign a bill like that. I award him no points. I appreciate, I respect your opinion. I simply disagree with it. I don't see a president failing to sign that bill and surviving a week politically.

Chris Lyons (01:03:22.36)
So I've.

Chris Lyons (01:03:38.641)
Um, there's another interesting one that he did, um, the air quality control act of 1967, where it, uh, increased federal subsidies for like local state, uh, pollution control. Um, and he, he being president Johnson signed over, uh, 300 different environmental protection regulations into law.

um, in, in various stages and degrees. Um, but like, I, I was very interested when I started reading about, um, LBJ and where he came from and then the things that he did, because basically it's, um, you know, in on the Kennedy conspiracy, uh, can't wait to be sworn in as.

president and then brought us into Vietnam. So by the time Kennedy was assassinated, we had our, the United States, I mean, we had already been involved in Vietnam, not to the level that we were later, but since approximately November of 1955. So.

Tom (01:05:02.89)
and the withdrawal order had been issued.

Chris Lyons (01:05:06.437)
So, and he did, he ramped up, I want to say, at one point where, like you said, the term advisors, which is hilarious, you know, they had, say, I want to say like 2000 advisors there and then they upped it to like 12,000. And then he, right. And then it was up.

Tom (01:05:07.422)
less than a month before his head exploded.

Tom (01:05:29.502)
Not till London.

Kennedy had 2,000 and Kennedy had ordered the withdrawal of 1,000 to be followed by the second thousand. Kennedy was pulling us out of Vietnam. That order was issued. That order was rescinded by the guy who followed.

Chris Lyons (01:05:44.325)
And then.

Chris Lyons (01:05:50.165)
Um, yes, he brought, and then I think the number that I read was, uh, then in the later sixties, like when people started to really like publicly protest the Vietnam war and young men were being drafted. I want to say he moved like 168,000 men to, um, South Vietnam and Cambodia.

Um, and louse, uh, so I, I just always, because any president, you come into office, there's things that are happening before you were in office. And then there's things that you may do that are good, that you're not going to realize in either your administration or even your lifetime. I mean, Johnson did not win his.

uh, second reelection in 1968, he was, uh, succeeded by Nixon in who took over the office in what January of 69. Um, Johnson died in 72 and we weren't withdrawn from Vietnam until 75. Officially, like a hundred percent concluded, completely withdrawn, you know, on all.

levels and that was with the April 30th, 1975 with the fall of Saigon. But it's like, you know, when these powerful men come into office, there's problems that were occurring before they got there, they deal with them as best they can while they're in office. And then a new president comes in and the same thing is going on and they're just passing the...

the problem to the next administration. I just, I always felt that it was unfair that although President Johnson did send a lot of more troops to that area, that he was like labeled as this, you know, warmongering, you know, that he, he wanted that because

Tom (01:08:15.026)
Oh yeah, I think warmongers are 100% appropriate. I'd shit on his grave. The man killed American servicemen for no reason. The man had withdrawal orders that he went out of his way to say, no, no. We ain't making any money withdrawing from wars. This is the new business plan. And he handed the queso. How many fake wars have we had since Vietnam? And I respect if you don't participate in this conversation at all.

Name one that wasn't started with a bullshit story. There isn't one. Start with the Gulf of Tonkin, which is complete motherfucking bullshit and work your way all the way through to Ukraine. If we go into Ukraine, which we're already there, we've got idiot advisors on the ground. And it's all predicated on news that was written post 2014 when we installed a non-democratically elected comedian puppet.

We displace a democratically elected, and it's all the same game. And Johnson took, handed those keys over. He was the first. Kennedy saw the writing on the wall, had withdrawal orders. I would dispute that Johnson didn't have everything to do with Vietnam. Vietnam was over when he sat down in that desk. And Vietnam not only got new life, Vietnam got life times a magnitude of 10.

And that's when the deaths started happening. That's when the money got wasted, i.e. that's when people got paid. Next thing you know, by the time Obama's leaving office, we're in 70 countries. But it's the same business plan. And it's the same conversation that if we don't break the CIA up into 10,000 pieces, we're going to have bullshit wars. We're going to have illegal soldiers in dozens of countries. You know, we're going to have.

secret prisons in 20 countries around the world where we fly Lear jets in, drop some brown guy in a bag off, and that model persists. I see Johnson as the guy who prevented every good thing Kennedy wanted to happen on his list. He prevented peace with Russia. He prevented breaking up the CIA.

Tom (01:10:33.674)
and he prevented getting out of Vietnam. Those, in my estimation, were the only things that mattered to Kennedy, because everything else was downstream of him. You get rid of the CIA, you have control of your own communication, your own propaganda, shit like that. You're not getting undercut by the agenda of a certain faction who maybe their bosses don't even know what's going on. Most likely, I don't think these things always go to the top. How could they?

Why would they?

Chris Lyons (01:11:04.901)
But if you look at, you can't put it all on Johnson because, because I mean, when general then president Eisenhower in the early 50s, he was concerned about communism that if a small, if the Soviets backed a small country and then that country became, what did they call it? The domino?

Tom (01:11:09.73)
No, of course not!

Chris Lyons (01:11:35.153)
It had a name, it had one of those clever names like the domino effect or something. Domino theory, you know that if the USSR funded and supported small countries and then they became communist countries that basically the communism would just spread in that way, not in a Hitler type conqueror.

Tom (01:11:39.274)
Domino Theory or something like that.

Chris Lyons (01:12:02.785)
war, but like in an ideological way that, you know, the, the idea of communism would spread and propagate that way, which then would create more enemies for the United States. I mean, really, if you look at Vietnam, it was a proxy war between democracy and communism.

Tom (01:12:26.346)
Yeah, being fought, being...

Chris Lyons (01:12:28.21)
funded by... I'm sorry, go ahead.

Tom (01:12:31.102)
Being swamped by...

people who are in disagreement with their own leader.

Chris Lyons (01:12:38.329)
Yes, we get we every time and if you can think of a successful outcome, I'd be glad to hear it. But every time I call it masters the universe, every time the United States has tried with even the best intentions, whether it's economically or like you said, pushing a certain leader into power or trying to push certain.

person out of power, whether it's in Central or South America, the Far East, Eastern Europe, Cambodia, Indochina, every single time that we have tried to do anything, even with noble intentions, we somehow always make it worse. I just I look at it and it's like,

Tom (01:13:35.798)
not for care prices, you're looking at it all wrong. You're looking at it all wrong. If you look on the bright side and you follow the stocks of the defense contractors, it's silver lining city. There's benefit galore.

Chris Lyons (01:13:38.565)
What's that?

Chris Lyons (01:13:50.197)
No, I mean, I mean the moral victory of, you know, really doing something good for the people that live there and really doing, you know, and we're not.

Tom (01:14:03.69)
Yeah, no, it's preposterous. It's generally bullshit. And it's, in my estimation, it's an economic thing. It has nothing to do with police in the world or wearing a white hat. It has to do with control and resources and narratives. It's, I don't support.

Chris Lyons (01:14:19.757)
Are you speaking for all people who wear white hats today because you're wearing a white hat?

Tom (01:14:26.744)
It's sturdier than it looks on camera, I will say that.

Chris Lyons (01:14:30.974)
But the example I would give is...

Chris Lyons (01:14:40.541)
in say Afghanistan, which I did not realize. You know, I was watching a program and they were talking about basically going back to Afghanistan. So I was thinking of like the early 90s of when we were there. I want to say probably President Clinton was in office when we had some minor things going on. This program

They were referring to Afghanistan in the 60s when there was border skirmishes between Russia and, you know, some of these other smaller countries who were basically just trying to survive. But everywhere where we have gone and tried to play Masters of the Universe, whether it's economic, political, or just even all out.

um, combat, I just feel like we have, we go in with noble intentions. We want to do things that are good. And, but we constantly involve ourselves in these other affairs. And it just, so

Tom (01:15:56.617)
We always employ strong men who are not good people.

Chris Lyons (01:15:59.897)
Well, but I mean, like, so, you know, like an example is, you know, whoever we're training or equipping or selling things to, you know, whether it's weapons or providing food or aid or whatever, 10 years later, we're fighting them.

Tom (01:16:17.23)
Cha-ching, it's a beautiful business model. And it started with Johnson, that's all I'm saying. It's a beautiful business model. It started with Johnson, it runs the world economy and it certainly runs our economy. Hell, the black budget side of it is probably bigger than our fricking economy. So that's my problem with Johnson is that Kennedy, I don't view any of the stuff that, I don't view these as Kennedy accomplishments that, or Johnson accomplishment. Like it's just.

it's the tide was moving in that direction. Kennedy was on the right side of many issues, but guess what being on the right side of many issues is? Politically smart. I mean, you have to be in some respect. And so I also think the only admiration I have for John F. Kennedy outside of, I mean, politically, like as a guy, I have all the admiration in the world for a guy who saves people when his folk gets run over and gives it.

offers his life for his country. Politically, my admirations are somewhat limited. I don't think he was a good person by any standard that we would measure him by today. I don't think today he'd even be electable, if only based on his heritage. And well, no, that's not true. You can get some real scumbags in office with shitty grandfathers today still. But.

His legacy to me is that...

He saw such a great future and he saw what was broken so clearly and he attacked it so clearly that was to me the clear point where the republic became disempowered. Where it seems to me the president's seat is the seat where you're answering to somebody other than the people for sure because the guy who didn't his head

Tom (01:18:20.65)
all over Dealey Plaza. And the mandate was break the CIA into 10,000 pieces so that the president can run the country again. If the president can't run the country and the people can't demonstrate their power through their vote, and the money behind the issue on both sides of that coin seems to be...

allegiance to defense no matter what side of the aisle you sit on and how far your chair ends up to the front of the room or the Oval Office, all straight line back to the Kennedy incident, which is the hyper culmination point that began with maybe Truman's speech about the military

Tom (01:19:19.378)
main problem in the world that we have to fear right now is that a power that's unelected will be running our country. And that was Truman's shit in his pants before he left office and saying things that nobody would say today. And I saw Kennedy's murder as the ending of the baton passing. And I think that the—Johnson turning the key.

and putting gas back into Vietnam entirely after the engine had been turned off and the gas station closed, period, was the official waving of a white flag saying, yeah, you guys are in control. I don't want my head exploding.

And that's pretty much a straight line through every conflict I've seen or looked at is you can find some bullshit, you can find the Gulf of Tonkin fraud, you can find the WMD fraud. The narrative around Ukraine, at least, is entirely fraudulent. I'm not saying a guy here isn't dead and a guy here isn't dead. What I'm saying is this story people are told about why

is entirely a lie and that the guy who's making all these bad decisions in Ukraine is our boy. I mean, there's a 2014 CIA coup in Ukraine and then we put a guy in who runs on, I'm going to make peace with Russia day one and day two says, fuck Russia, hell or high water, I won't give anything up. I'm pretty sure he learned that the president.

their answers to somebody.

Tom (01:21:12.93)
Ukraine's been part of our business plan for years. There's no, it's not an accident. The sons and daughters of 15 senators in Congress people are on boards in Ukraine. They weren't, they didn't just land there when the war started. They'd been there for a few years, just getting ready to decide where cash flows. I think it's not like any of this isn't just plain as day. I don't think...

It's a hard stretch. And I don't think if I was in that position, perhaps I'd even have the tenacity to not just go with the fricking flow. It's such a, what a lucrative system they've got set up. But that's what I blame Johnson for. And my, my legacy vision of Kennedy isn't, oh, he's the civil rights guy. He's no, he's, he talked about it loud enough that somebody after him was going to have to sign any bill on any of these guys, people were fired up. Country was ready to go.

You know, it wasn't going to be hip to be, you know, a warmongering racist. Like never really was. So I don't think the eventual, I think he probably accelerated the tide on some of those issues, but on the most important things to John F. Kennedy, those topics all got nipped in the bud.

Tom (01:22:38.382)
We manufactured a Cold War after that with an impotent superpower that we essentially kept propped up. We didn't destroy the CIA and Vietnam became a meat grinding cash cow. That's what I think of in terms of Jeff Katz think about. He saw the right things. They blew his goddamn brains out for it. But he saw the right things. And it always, I immediately think of

Truman speech when I think of JFK's head. And that's the idea that somebody's actually gonna be in control who wasn't the elected one. And I feel like that's plainly demonstrable. I don't recommend anybody look into it to the point where they see it the way I see it. It's not a healthy way to live. But, and if the wrong people get into power, people who say crazy shit like this don't have a good day for some reason. You know, whether it's the IRS or whoever.

The shit I talk isn't a good investment. But I'm just telling you what it looks like to me. And it all starts with Johnson handing the keys over. That's Johnson to me. And Kennedy to me isn't the guy who accomplished all this stuff. He's just the guy who pointed it out and got smoked for it.

Tom (01:24:05.118)
Yeah, he didn't get a chance to accomplish much, but he was a great order to your point. He planted some seeds and the seeds weren't going to go on water. Um, you know, you'd have had to have had a pandemic or something to distract people at that point from the real issues. Like they would have had to been a big deal. Um, but all they had was, uh, Vietnam. And nobody could make a big enough deal about that.

convince them to pull out. Who's representing who, who's in charge, and does it start with Johnson?

Chris Lyons (01:24:43.853)
I don't think so.

Tom (01:24:46.294)
Maybe not. I'm wrong about all this. I don't mind being crazy Uncle Tommy.

Chris Lyons (01:24:46.586)
because

Chris Lyons (01:24:51.161)
Because, I mean, every president has had some awful situation to deal with somewhere and they don't all get assassinated. You know, it's, I mean, in the, what, late 80s, early 90s, we were, the Middle East was boiling up and then...

really boiled up and then we had, you know, Desert Storm and Desert Shield and operations in Afghanistan and all these different things. I just feel like...

Tom (01:25:29.582)
But those are examples of a president going along with Truman's military industrial complex, who's the new boss, ever since that guy's. Nobody got their head blown off because my point is literally nobody stands up to war anymore. War is the business. And I would argue everybody sensed that day.

Now, yeah, Johnson didn't start it. I'm saying he put the keys back in the ignition, put gas back in the tank and said, yeah, go to town because I don't want to get shot. All I'm saying is every example you're given is an example that I think demonstrates they don't want to get their head blown off because there's no just examples of us spending our money that I can even think of.

Chris Lyons (01:26:17.189)
But if they control, if, you know, their fingers are on the strings that much and they control everything to that level, why would they just not have a guy elected who supports that agenda?

Tom (01:26:35.358)
Well, I think you don't get elected. I've only seen one president elected who didn't support that agenda. We went four years without a war. That's it. I've seen, and look where he is now.

Tom (01:26:50.802)
I mean, the only thing I told my friends during the last election was, I can't vote for Biden because we'll be at war with an 18 month.

I think I was wrong. I think it was quicker than that.

Syria, Ukraine. That's all I said. I said, as soon as one of the regulars gets back in office, we're at war. The only time in my life we've gone without some shady ass gray area conflict was for four years. And that motherfucker is getting bent over by every agency of the government who can get their hands on it.

Chris Lyons (01:27:31.845)
Did you read recently, I want to say it was, is it premier, is it Z? It was the Chinese premier. It's spelled X I I'm not sure how they say it. Um, Z that he went to San Francisco or is going to San Francisco.

Tom (01:27:45.986)
Sure. Yes, he.

Tom (01:27:52.279)
EY.

Chris Lyons (01:27:55.52)
He went already?

Tom (01:27:56.734)
Yeah, yeah, no, it was, it was San Francisco was awash with communist Chinese flags and they got all the homeless people off the street.

Chris Lyons (01:28:06.577)
Yeah, that was the thing that I read. And then I watched a brief news clip with, I think their governor is Gavin Newsom. And he basically said, you know, people are saying that we cleaned up the streets because we were going to have this visit. And then he said, well, yes, we did. And I was like, okay, that was anticlimactic. But yeah.

Tom (01:28:30.646)
smartest thing you can do.

Chris Lyons (01:28:36.733)
You know, what I found interesting kind of going back to the protecting people's rights and civil rights and, you know, everything is that on a Monday, you know, well, these, you know, people who are homeless and have mental health or maybe drug problems or, or down on their luck or for whatever reason, and are living in these terrible circumstances. Um.

You know, we have to protect their rights and we have to protect them. And if they want to live on a tent in the middle of the sidewalk, in front of your building and, and smoke fentanyl all day, then you just have to deal with it. But then companies coming over and they. Completely, you know, where did these people go? You know, did they house them somewhere temporarily? Did they relocate them out of, uh, you know, the, the eyeline, but.

it, because in my job now I deal with a lot of homelessness and drug use and mental illness, um, you know, constantly nothing like the, you know, skid row type areas out there in Los Angeles and in San Francisco, but, um, it just ticked me off that they were able to, in such short order, eliminate this issue, clean it up.

make it look good. But, well, I shouldn't say it again.

Tom (01:30:04.458)
Make people feel safe. Like make people feel safer than they did the day before anyway.

Chris Lyons (01:30:09.357)
Of course, you know, the example I always say to myself is wherever you are, if you're in a city, if, you know, would I send if I if my wife was home, and she said, I'm going to go to the store, I have to get a gallon of milk and a lottery ticket. Would I let her go by herself? I think that's like the my standard.

meter stick of an area like, you know, do I feel comfortable and businesses too, you know,

Chris Lyons (01:30:51.549)
If we're going to go out and we're going to go have dinner, is this a place that I would feel comfortable having her be there in the evening that, you know, we're not going to catch, uh, you know, crossfire or she's not going to get attacked and have her purse ripped off her shoulder. It just, it was just so disgusting because they've been dealing with this.

huge, huge homeless problem there. And I think it's hard to count homeless people, obviously, because they're hard to pin down and connect with resources and everything, but conservative estimates, I think that one that I read said that they estimate there's over 70,000 people homeless in...

I think this statistic was from Los Angeles, from LA County. But, um.

you know, then now we have company coming over and, you know, all right, cut the grass, uh, wash the sidewalk down. All right. Cover up that graffiti. Um, and I mean, you see it and it's like, it can be done, um, overnight. And it's, it's just, uh, it was just disgusting to me that they, um, wanted to put a good face on and just.

You know, the rest of the time, you know, they, and especially to that, the person that was coming was a communist is kind of hilarious because you have, um, you know, protecting these people's rights, you know, cause just because they're homeless or have a drug problem or suffer from mental illness doesn't give them any less rights than anybody else. Um, so, you know, they're always beating the drum of protecting.

Chris Lyons (01:32:55.781)
this disenfranchised group of people who are so susceptible to being the victims of predators. And then they say, oh, gee, the premiere is coming. And overnight, everything is eliminated, clean, and there's fences erected. It just really kind of ticked me off that they can do that for.

Tom (01:33:20.52)
I'm the guy with slave camps in this country.

Chris Lyons (01:33:25.125)
you know, this guy's visit when he's it's stupid because he's probably going to be in some armored limousine and drive by at 100 miles an hour. You know, and not even see have you ever have you ever seen a motorcade go by or yeah. They're not taken in the sites. They have they usually I've been part of them just being a local cop where I would.

Tom (01:33:42.583)
Yeah.

Chris Lyons (01:33:54.885)
You know, you would close an intersection and basically it's what they would call a hard closure, which means like all the cross traffic waits. So they had the hard green and you would, the motorcade would go through. I helped with, I think one with a sitting president and then maybe two with two vice presidents and it was a lot of work.

And it was a lot of coordination basically, so they could drive by at 100 miles an hour at three in the morning.

Tom (01:34:34.262)
The opposite of everything they did in Dealey Plaza.

Chris Lyons (01:34:39.781)
Yeah. Yes. Um, although I, I will, I will say, uh, I won't say who, but one person, uh, who was running for office cause Florida is a big stop, you know, people come and they want to campaign and they have rallies and different things, fundraisers and stuff, and we were given this brief with all this information and, um, you know,

Tom (01:34:40.795)
Basically.

Chris Lyons (01:35:08.217)
My involvement was very limited. It was basically, you know, close this intersection until they're all through. And, um, this person, you know, you're worried about their security and their safety and, uh, the limousine went by and the window was down and, uh, I was just so annoyed by that, where it's like, you know, if you're going to just drive with the window down, cause the person, they arrived really late, they,

arrived at like 11 at night and then they got to their hotel and stuff and we had to do this motorcade and be set up and you're set up hours in advance. And it was like three in the morning and I was on the very tail end of it. So the area where I was, it was a pretty area. There was some nice scenery and stuff to look at.

but when they drove by me and the window was down and they were looking out, I was really annoyed because I was like, you know, if you're so important and you need to be protected, keep the window up, okay? It's glass, you can look through it. It just annoyed me that probably.

Tom (01:36:23.594)
Yeah, you don't get to leave one window open on the subway.

Chris Lyons (01:36:27.663)
What's that?

Tom (01:36:28.566)
You don't get to leave one window open on the submarine.

Chris Lyons (01:36:32.209)
That's true. Can't.

Tom (01:36:33.422)
I mean, it's like, oh, we did it. We did everything else. We'll be good. That's what's gonna kill you, that window. But my thing is, I'm not big on like, dignitary. Like, I'm not gonna show up to the place that I think is probably one of the softer targets where people are gonna see that person on an annual basis. Like, I don't know.

Chris Lyons (01:36:37.654)
Yeah.

Tom (01:37:04.526)
Transitional spaces, man. I just don't, why inject myself into a place where there might be a person where other people want that? And yeah, I'm never gonna be a spectator for a dignitary. If that some bitch has one enemy anywhere, I'm not gonna be in the crowd.

Chris Lyons (01:37:16.396)
Yeah.

Chris Lyons (01:37:29.505)
There was, have you ever seen any interviews or anything with Jordan Peterson?

Tom (01:37:39.086)
Oh, what an orator. What a, boy, I listen to that guy. I just feel like a gorilla. He's smart and he can communicate an idea in an incredibly exquisite fashion.

Chris Lyons (01:37:45.829)
So he...

Chris Lyons (01:37:53.169)
So one, I don't agree with everything that he says, but he's very, very bright, and he's very interesting to listen to. And if somebody is presenting an argument that's contrary to yours, but they're doing it in a intelligent, respectable fashion, I think that's one of the ways I always challenge myself is to force myself to read and listen to things that are different than I think, or...

you know, opinions that I have because you're never going to expand or look at anything critically if you just reread what you already like and agree with and say, yep, right again, you know, so but getting back to him, he said, you know, how I prevented a lot of the disturbances and stuff on campuses. Are you familiar with this?

And he says, I started holding them at seven o'clock in the morning. And, um, I just, yeah. And he said it just cut down on so many of the problems. And when, um, two cycles ago, cause where I live, I'm right near Tampa. So a lot of times there's big, you know, presidential people and, and important government people and stuff that come here.

Tom (01:38:56.502)
Protester stopped showing up completely.

Chris Lyons (01:39:17.817)
And there was going to be some type of political event at USF in Tampa. And, um, I went to it and I didn't, it was that capacity. I couldn't get in unfortunately, but, um, it was ugly outside. I mean, it wasn't, you know, flipped police cars and dumpsters on fire or anything, but just people yelling at each other and a little shoving and, and stuff like that. But I was like, this sucks. I was like being down in it.

And then not even being able to get in. I was like, you know, there was, I just, my threat level was like a million because it's like, you don't know who's who. Um, you have all these people that are, you know, yelling and chanting. And then also it was at a college. So you have that younger element of people who are more energetic and show up and passionate and stuff. I was like, Oh no, never again. You know, I'm like looking at trash cans and.

Tom (01:40:14.036)
Highlight.

Chris Lyons (01:40:17.912)
Where's the IED?

Tom (01:40:19.468)
That's a real reactive crowd. That's not a real lots of forethought. And it's, that's the least academic atmosphere ever. What's going on these days.

Chris Lyons (01:40:34.341)
Yeah. They had, you know, like.

Tom (01:40:35.81)
Critical thinking is dead. The rise in the social sciences is like the death of sciences.

Chris Lyons (01:40:43.589)
They had like the, you know, when they make the sign, the long sign, that's like the paper, you know, where there's 20 guys holding it up and it has, you know, we hate whoever or we love whoever, but it, um, it's funny because I always used to make fun of stuff on PBS that it was so dry and boring and just so, you know, bland. But the thing is, is that on some of those shows, that's the only way you.

hear or learn anything interesting or get to hear somebody speak, even if you disagree with them, you know, there are certain people that are, I would really be interested to see speak. But if you go somewhere where they're getting shouted down and, you know, people are chanting and yelling at them, you don't even get to enjoy the, there's no discourse, you know, if it's just, you know, a shouting.

something in unison and then the other group shouting back. It just doesn't achieve anything. And sometimes they sit there and they do it for hours. I would just leave.

Tom (01:41:55.222)
Well, yeah, it's not intelligent, I guess, is the word I'm looking for.

Chris Lyons (01:42:02.873)
I think maybe now I'm just old and I just, it's just not down for the struggle anymore. But it's like, you know, if you wanna see somebody, like I said, there's people that I disagree with, that I respect, and I think that are very intelligent and interesting, but if you just go and shout at them, what good does that do anybody?

Tom (01:42:31.038)
Yeah, I don't, and it's funny, cause then you'd be hard pressed to get an example of why they don't like that person from them. You'd be like, well, what is it that they said? And what they'll tell you is, well, basically just a group think response, like they're racist or, oh, you know, it's my understanding that they're misogynist and or whatever checkbox that particular person wants to rage against. And

Tom (01:43:02.159)
I don't think anybody's going to look back on it in 50 years the way we look back on the 60s and revere some people who did great things and made great advancements in civil rights. It's like, no, now today it's Harvard students campaigning to continue a policy of racism against Asians who are applicants to Harvard.

It's like, where did we go? Like, that's the new cause is you've got the ACLU, Harvard, and a bunch of minority groups teaming up against Asian.

What decade is it now? So that's been unusual to watch. Just in the last few years, things like that have gotten wild. But.

I feel like Kennedy was like maybe the great example or the sort of statue of liberty on all these topics.

Tom (01:44:12.038)
I really don't think he got any of them done. And he signed and did some great shit. I think the most important thing he did was put pen to paper for a Vietnam withdrawal. I think that signaled this could be done by a brave man. And then you take a ride with no roof on your car. So.

Tom (01:44:34.886)
It is one big circle when rights are the conversation and their family name has a big sort of legacy in that space, but I don't give them credit for any of the, I like the Civil Rights Act of 1964. I don't, I think of that as a thing. I probably think of Martin Luther King before I think of JFK related to the Civil Rights Act. Or I just think of it as a piece of dry legislation in some ways too, because if you know what it says, that's the important part. But.

Yeah, I think he's more like this beacon of what could have been than what was in any way, shape or form. But yeah, and to get back to your point from five minutes ago, yeah, we're both old now, I think.

Chris Lyons (01:45:21.337)
Yeah, it's... Now...

Tom (01:45:26.194)
I was gonna say there's one book. I am into the Kennedy's Avenger book, which is a book you gave me about Jack Ruby. And it's two authors who have varying viewpoints on things like whether or not Ruby was vigorously defended or fairly defended or even offered remotely adequate representation. And the book, I haven't gotten all the way through it, but it'll be a good...

platform for me to reference other books because it's on a viewpoint that I don't share. It's of the viewpoint that, yeah, it was all just kind of worked out and these guys just did this shit because that's how they felt and the opportunity presented itself. And it's...

I do find, with the fact that there's one out of two authors who think Ruby had fair representation concerned me right off the bat, because they say that in the preface, he's like, well, you'll note we disagree on like Ruby's representation. And I'm like, how the fuck could you disagree on Ruby's, of all the things to disagree on, that would be the last related to Ruby. But maybe I just have more exposure to lawyers than these two authors as well. I mean, that could be fair, because I think some of the, just the standard of ethics related to Ruby's representation is, is

not even close to flying.

Chris Lyons (01:46:54.169)
So you think that they did not represent, his attorneys did not represent Ruby well?

Tom (01:47:01.778)
No, no, and unfortunately it leads to a discussion of where'd Ruby's lawyer come from? Who paid for Ruby's lawyer? That's who paid for Ruby's lawyer? That's who Ruby's lawyer is? What the fuck? The dude was all mobbed up out of the... Oh god, who's the big guy, the big mobster in Vegas in the 60s? The guy who ran shit.

Chris Lyons (01:47:20.125)
Who was it?

Tom (01:47:32.982)
Guess what? He and JFK shared a mistress.

And no, wait, that was Chicago. That was Chicago mob boss, shoot him. This guy was fucking everybody. That's a problem. From an intelligence security perspective, by the way, that's a problem. That's a fucking huge issue. I just wanna bring that up. Kennedy was not the cleanest whistle that they portray him to be.

Chris Lyons (01:48:05.207)
No.

Tom (01:48:05.686)
The fact that I'm confused about which mob boss's girlfriend he was also sleeping with should tell you something.

Chris Lyons (01:48:14.617)
You know, really, if you'd think if they were smart instead of an assassination with a firearm, that they would do some type of poisoning or exposure. Exposure, because I mean, if you like the ladies and you're in intimate situations, um, you know, where he was exposed to something, um, that would be fatal. Uh, it would be so much easier.

Tom (01:48:27.83)
That's well.

Chris Lyons (01:48:44.337)
Because the goal ultimately is to have the person.

Tom (01:48:46.71)
Yeah, but then you're killing an actress or a model?

Chris Lyons (01:48:50.777)
No, no, using them as the assassin.

Tom (01:48:56.206)
Oh!

Chris Lyons (01:48:57.113)
because they have access.

Tom (01:49:01.91)
Well, I think you got to kill them too. They have to have it and die. Otherwise you've got loose ends.

Chris Lyons (01:49:07.781)
Well that's the first rule of assassination, is kill the assassin.

Tom (01:49:10.316)
You can't give him a fatal STD and not have a dead actress on the same timeline.

Chris Lyons (01:49:15.862)
I meant more like a poison, like a poison, something like that or not.

Tom (01:49:22.678)
I think you're still hanging that broad out to dry. You gotta burn somebody in that one. You're not poisoning a present because they're gonna say, where's the only weak spot in the schedule? Well, it happens to be when he's banging at three o'clock on every Thursday. Like, I'm just saying, I'm guessing they thought of this. Like, but also here's the thing with Kennedy. It was in some respects, there was a built in,

methodology in that Kennedy's own Cuban hit teams aided him. So there were Cuban trained assassins who were supposed to execute these exact same triangulated

If you had a Dealey Plaza scenario, this is how you would do it. And if that's the prevailing theory, then, or that's one of the prevailing theories, then you would do the easier thing. It's like, ooh, you know, in bringing somebody in who's an actress or somebody like that versus having foreign nationals who are already trained to do some shit, that's the low-hanging fruit.

Yes.

Chris Lyons (01:50:35.609)
So, so we were talking about this the other day on the phone with that the United States has suffered for presidents who've been assassinated while they were in office. And one of them is Abraham Lincoln. And I find it so interesting that there's so much smoke and mirrors and different theories about President Kennedy and all the different.

actors and people that could be involved in this hexagonal conspiracy. Um, but then with president Lincoln, it's like John Wilkes Booth, one guy caught him in a barn, dead. And, you know, a president who was, you know, literally when the country was at war with itself, the civil war, the North and the South, and then over a huge issue of

slavery, which I'm sure slavery's primary motivation was money, you know, labor. But also, you know, people at that time, I think, felt that they were superior, uh, you know, to them, that the, the slaves were inferior people. So that not only did they feel, uh, they were superior to them in terms of, um,

intelligence and economics, but also that they weren't entitled to the same rights and protections as anybody else because of

how they were born. So, I mean, what more of a polarizing issue could you have than a divided country in half and then such an important issue like slavery, which is tied into the economics of the country. And what do we say? John Wilkes Booth. One guy acted alone.

Chris Lyons (01:52:48.029)
No questions, nothing to see here. I just always have found that interesting because there's so many.

Chris Lyons (01:53:00.105)
social and political and monetary motivations at stake. And that is never, never examined in any way.

Tom (01:53:11.21)
Well, I mean, to some level, didn't Booth have like support, like free meals along the way, that kind of thing?

Chris Lyons (01:53:21.005)
I think, I think he, he did have like a, a network of, um, people that did support him in that way. But I mean, like when, when we think of, uh, or I should say, no, we, when I think of conspiracy, you know, you think of the guys in the, the smoky room with the bare light bulb, you know, talking in code and cipher.

You know, okay, you're going to be here, you're going to be here, you're going to do this, you know, where it's, it's a pre-planned conspiracy. We're really a conspiracy in any, in anything is really just more than three people who take active steps to make an event occur. You know, um.

Tom (01:54:13.442)
More than three?

Chris Lyons (01:54:19.393)
I think it, yeah, in my state, I think the way the statute is written, because I base everything off of the law, I know it in my state, that it has to be three persons. But the main crux of it really is the steps towards action.

We sat in.

Tom (01:55:00.279)
I think it's two or more.

Tom (01:55:08.622)
I gotta get that right out of order. Yeah. Yeah, I just found like four criminal law firms to say it's two or more. And then I found a, well, Google right at the top has in their own section that under Florida law it says express or implied agreement. That's okay, so implied is what I was getting at 30 minutes ago when I was describing what I think

Chris Lyons (01:55:09.465)
Are you on the alarm?

Tom (01:55:38.982)
look like. But under Florida law, it says express or implied agreement between two or more people who commit a criminal offense if they intend to have the offense actually.

The conspiracy may relate to any degree to functional acts, conspiracy prosecutions, or most often, conspiracy theories. Oh shit. I never thought of that. I guess you could, any level, could be conspiracy related. Like, you could conspire to steal a candy bar. Um...

Chris Lyons (01:56:09.425)
Right. It's the plan and then, but not only the plan, but also taking steps towards making the plan occur. Like if you and I and a third person sat down and said, you know, we're going to rob a bank and we talk about it in the living room and then never do anything active to facilitate it.

Tom (01:56:13.986)
but not for the planet.

Tom (01:56:28.954)
Oh, and.

Chris Lyons (01:56:38.073)
You drive by the bank and kind of scope it out and see what's around. And I go to a store and I buy dark clothing and masks. And then the third person obtains weapons or something like that. Those are active steps in a conspiracy where it's beyond just talk. It's not just people sitting around saying, oh, if we did XYZ, it's when you're actually taking those.

Tom (01:56:44.237)
for it.

Chris Lyons (01:57:06.777)
those steps to make it become a reality. Um, so I think when people think conspiracy, that's what they think of. But, um, you know, conspiracy could also be in the form of, like you said, with Booth aid, you know, hiding, um, having a safe place for him to, to bed down, uh, lying about, you know, if he was.

Tom (01:57:13.102)
So.

Chris Lyons (01:57:34.853)
there or not, no, haven't seen them, don't know them, providing transportation for him, which I guess at that time would be a horse, you know, maybe false documents, you know, different, I don't know, they clearly didn't have driver's licenses, but if they had some type of identifying document that people carried having fake papers or maybe travel arrangements to get out of the country.

you know, travel to Europe or something like that.

Tom (01:58:10.85)
Well, and the idea that it can be expressed or implied, because expressed is direct communication. What implied means, you never have to fully expose in language, like in a form that would be proof audio-wise.

that you're going along. Implied would be obviously a lower level of provable communication. It's simply implied that, like I said, if I do execute my job or don't execute my job, I know that this snowball rolling downhill to me, that this big thing everybody's investigating, I know I can very well

throw a monkey wrench in if I follow process. Or I can get the hell out of the way, not be the person who ends up in a congressional investigation, and just sort of check some boxes so that this snowball doesn't gobble me up on its way down the hill. And that person just became part of the conspiracy, maybe had a protection for their own shit.

Chris Lyons (01:59:22.425)
So you're saying in your opinion that not only action, but inaction or omission could be make that person complicit.

Tom (01:59:29.653)
Yeah.

Tom (01:59:35.522)
Well, and I would say that inaction in the course of if you're supposed to do something as part of your job and you don't, that's taking action. But inaction could be the action that allows a conspiracy to flourish or somebody not to get caught. And all I'm saying is people are always like everybody couldn't keep a secret. Well first of all, most of these people don't want to know the secret.

Tom (02:00:02.61)
They just know that some people think this is suspicious. And that part of my job next week, I have to write some reports that are going to somehow make its way probably into this investigation. And it could be real mundane shit, like whose expense is on that?

four years ago in a congressman's trip to California. And I know that if I include or exclude information, it's a thing.

I don't know man. Last time this got investigated all those people died and people wrote books and now it's been investigated again. They want some fucking reports from my department. Fuck you. I'm not giving a shit.

Tom (02:00:46.914)
That person's now part of the conspiracy. I'm not saying it was intentional for them to get involved or willful, but if that conspiracy comes around to their universe, are they going to be the one who does what Jack Kennedy did and says, no, we're pulling troops out of Vietnam? Or in their case saying, no, it looks like there was a phone call or there was a meeting between these two people. Are they going to be that person? If Jack Kennedy can't be that person, how's Bob in a county get the Pentagon going to be that?

I'm not a fucking shit head. That's not how you get jobs at the Pentagon. I'm not gonna call it a death warrant. And I'm saying, if Bob doesn't... If Bob omits something that he knows and he doesn't get to come up to him long after he dies, that's probably the best way for his... ..kids to have a grandfather. Come on. I'm as human as I am. I'm not saying I'd be any better than Bob. I could just as easily be part of the... ..of an assassination cover-up as the next guy if I feel like...

Chris Lyons (02:01:22.181)
Yeah.

Tom (02:01:48.586)
I don't have the juice to protect myself if I don't go. And it's bigger than that. I can't stop it anyway. I mean, it's a wild world out there. I think that's how a conspiracy goes in this case. In a sprawling, it's, who's gonna be, are you gonna be the aide to the person who runs this position at the FBI? Who's like, oh yeah, no, we did do that. I've seen that.

Tom (02:02:15.902)
No, no, even less or so if you're at the CIA. You're not going to be the one person who raises their hand and says, well, actually, at the time, I thought that was pretty messed up. I told everybody I thought it was, no, you've never heard that in your life in a congressional meeting. That person, and I would argue that the number of people who were scheduled to testify before the Warren Commission, the House of Committee on Assassinations,

who somehow dropped dead in the week or two prior to their freaking testimony before these committees, well shoot, maybe those were the people who were going to say, yeah, I'm the one who said that. I don't know, it's, I'm just saying, I think that's how it can be. I think there's a weak point.

you know, hazy complicity where you're like, oh shit, this is on my desk. I'm part of this now. I gotta deal with it. Am I gonna be the two ball and the sore thumb and the grain of sand in the year? Or am I just gonna not bring up the fact that we have this memo from J. Edgar, freaking Hoover, or this letter from someone to J. Edgar Hoover, and we've had a copy forever. Like, I'm not gonna be that idiot. I don't know if I would either.

Chris Lyons (02:03:34.749)
So, so, so think of this is for, uh, in terms of efficiency and comparison. So, um, by your estimation, the, uh, a group of people either knowingly, maybe some unknowingly, um, participating in the assassination of a United States president, terrible, and then.

Tom (02:03:42.204)
So,

Chris Lyons (02:04:01.597)
LBJ is in office. He's out. He loses in 68 and Nixon is installed in January of 69. And his guys get caught doing a burglary to an empty room.

Tom (02:04:09.994)
anywhere.

Tom (02:04:20.662)
You have it.

Chris Lyons (02:04:22.253)
You know, kind of, uh, kind of hilarious. If you put it that way, you know, were you, uh, a group of, uh, people knowingly or unknowingly, uh, conspire, conspire together, um, and, and do this awful thing and kill president Kennedy and alter the trajectory of history. And then two administrations later, uh, you have.

Tom (02:04:34.466)
They had waves, they had waves and they had...

Chris Lyons (02:04:50.689)
a handful of people that break into what was it the Democratic offices at the Watergate Hotel. I don't know if it was a permanent office that they were using there, if it was just temporary. But go in there at nighttime and break in, steal some documents, look at things and then our

Tom (02:05:03.97)
No idea.

Chris Lyons (02:05:18.818)
It's a scandal for...

forever. I mean, even like we were talking about last time about the lexicon. So whatever, whatever you say, you know, insert name gate, you know, whatever gate, whatever, you know, you know, just because the last name or the second part of the name for the hotel was the water gate.

Tom (02:05:27.63)
We're getting caught red-handed.

whatever you say.

Chris Lyons (02:05:51.705)
you know, and it became, you know, the Watergate scandal. But I mean, think about even now, um, people use that, that term, you know, uh, gate, you know, that they attach it and that it instantly means some kind of horrible, uh, political scandal. Um, but yeah, so.

Tom (02:05:54.743)
Yeah.

Tom (02:06:02.337)
Thank you.

Tom (02:06:15.406)
Thank you for your attention.

Chris Lyons (02:06:19.93)
Yeah.

Tom (02:06:22.99)
What else do I have? Oh, I, yeah, let me recommend that. I was gonna say, anybody who needs a really great book on the Kennedy assassination, start exploring the topic.

Tom (02:06:41.937)
It's... What time is it?

Unspeakable. I need the author's name now.

Chris Lyons (02:07:02.581)
I can see you fine, but if the sounds pretty much totally dropped out.

Tom (02:07:03.365)
I know.

Tom (02:07:12.314)
Okay.

Tom (02:07:40.815)
microphone. You hear me now?

Chris Lyons (02:07:44.366)
Yes.

Tom (02:07:46.435)
Alright, we're back in business.

Oh, cool. Same recording. All right. And my upload's catching up.

So I'm gonna say, oh, James Douglas.

Chris Lyons (02:08:00.294)
for editing purposes for you for later. There was a part of it, and I don't know if it was on my side, or if I was not receiving it well, but you might wanna check that the audio on my side was really, really broken up for a period where it was like every other word.

Tom (02:08:25.387)
Oh really, okay, well, interesting. If that was my microphone, that'll be a problem. If it was, most likely it was a connection and what happens is everything gets recorded locally on either side, so if anybody's connection gets weird, it'll degrade what we see in real time, but it won't degrade what is actually recorded in HD. So hopefully, yeah, hopefully that's the case.

Chris Lyons (02:08:50.177)
Okay, I just wanted to let you know.

Tom (02:08:55.567)
The book I would recommend for anybody who wants to do, start reading about the JFK assassination. It's JFK and the Unspeakable, Why He Died and Why It Matters. It's James Douglas and it's just a fantastic, well-rounded look at the logistics around the assassination, the players and the timelines, as well as the investigations that were to take place subsequently.

So that's JFK and the unspeakable why he died and why it matters by James Douglas and the link is below or above depending where we posted this but that's the book great read to start with Yeah, James Douglas that's an it so many authors in my head I always Say the book and then say the author to some other JFK book which makes me look less than expert that's

not a Jordan Peterson style move.

Chris Lyons (02:09:54.497)
Are there more documents that in time will be declassified that will have anything significant in them? Like, is there any day people should have circled on their calendar or, or it's pretty much everything that is, exists.

Tom (02:10:13.347)
Well, that's an impossible question because I think some of them, to my knowledge, a lot of the most important documents have certainly been destroyed or were certainly, what would the word be, they were certainly catalogued to not be shared or ever even publicly catalogued. Like they were...

Chris Lyons (02:10:40.165)
So it's next to the Ark of the Covenant in the warehouse is what you're saying.

Tom (02:10:43.299)
Well, I'll put it to you this way, Dorothy Kilgallen's diary, I'd rather read Dorothy Kilgallen's research on the JFK assassination than yet, than have the Ark of the Covenant. That woman was murdered in what, 67 or 68 after five years of having access to people like Jack Ruby and mobsters and politicians and celebrities.

And she was not one of these mealy-mouth people who went along to get along. She was a passionate fool, if you will, because if she knew what I knew now, she would have known how it was going to end for her. She had a national stage. She was as famous as any woman, and she was referred to by Ernest Hemingway as the greatest woman writer on the planet. She was going after the conspiracy. She was visiting with monsters. She had talked to Jack Ruby.

In the book I'm reading now, they dispute that she ever had an interview with Jack Ruby. I can't find anybody else who really disputes that in the last decade or so. But she, her writings were taken by...

I want to say specifically Helms, those went to the hands of the CIA, confiscated, not for purposes of evidence or anything. Was it Richard Helms?

was the director and personally took the book. If there's anything I'm getting wrong in this conversation, it's that point. But her book was, all her files were taken, disappeared. You know, nobody saw anybody take them, of course. There's a couple people who were doggedly in pursuit of the truth. Those are the files I wanna read. I think the things that have been redacted and withheld

Tom (02:12:50.299)
from Warren Commission and subsequent investigations, if they've been redacted, they're worth reading. I don't think we're ever gonna read it. I don't think anybody's ever gonna see it. But I think the only stuff that's worth reading is the stuff that's been redacted or withheld or the stuff that was disappeared from death sites. There's a...

One of the deaths mentioned in the book Hit List by Richard Belzer and a co-author, forgive me, co-author, was I want to say the country musician, and I think his name was Jim Jones, and he was a musician. He wasn't like the other Jim Jones, cool idea. Yeah, he's written a ton of history books.

Chris Lyons (02:13:31.709)
The right Richard Belzer the comedian the actor

Oh, okay.

Tom (02:13:40.827)
and he wrote one that's just a list of like 60 people associated with the assassination who are rumored to have been hits. And he goes through them all and probably 45 of them, they argue this is probably a hit. And a bunch of them, they're like totally inconclusive, who could say? And some of them, they're like this is definitely not a hit. But a ton of them are so suspicious that they say, you've certainly got to consider that this was.

I mean, some of the deaths were even grouped together because the people were like two reporters working on the same project, for example. Two reporters who were in a room with Lee Oswald in an apartment in New Orleans the month before the assassination. Neither one of those guys lives long.

Tom (02:14:37.319)
It's that book and that format of just taking a look at them and saying, probably shady, worth looking at. How can they definitively say they can't in most instances? Except for ones where it's like a guy jumping out of a boat and shooting himself in the head twice. On instances like that, they're like, this is a hit. You know, this guy didn't shoot himself in the head twice and then jump out of a boat.

And yet the coroner reports a suicide. And that guy's FBI. And that's when he was subpoenaed to testify for the House Select Committee on Assassinations in a span of like six months where like five FBI higher ups all died of mysterious circumstances. Accidentally shot by a hunter in their yard. You know, double tap suicide jumping out of a boat, that kind of thing. And...

Tom (02:15:40.315)
There were so many people who were going after it, who were, I think that somewhere there's a treasure trove that's been probably destroyed. Either that or some oligarch has it on his bookshelf. If he's got 30 kilogallons notes in Jack Ruby's personal diary. But to me, there's nowhere else to look anymore. You know, there's no.

There's no cell phone data to recompile some scene. There's no, like can you imagine now, like every person in Dealey Plaza having a device on them? Well, except for, except for, you know who's not gonna have devices on them. Can you imagine, can you imagine NSA not having a satellite over a presidential motorcade?

Chris Lyons (02:16:19.505)
Oh my god. Yeah.

Tom (02:16:35.087)
Is that even allowed?

Chris Lyons (02:16:35.587)
They do.

Tom (02:16:38.095)
If I've got the budget I'm doing that.

Chris Lyons (02:16:38.277)
Do they fall?

Chris Lyons (02:16:44.973)
Yeah, it's, um, and you know, probably, I mean, other than people who were small children along the route, you know, with their, their families and their parents and whatnot, anybody who was an adult who had any significant knowledge of anything or what, even if they're ear witnesses, eyewitnesses present, uh, if they were government workers or whatever, um,

They're old and in 10 years there, I think, you know, it's going to be like, uh, with like Auschwitz survivors, you know, the last eyewitness of anyone who had any direct, uh, knowledge of anything that is there so much time has passed. I think they're, they'll all be gone, which, um, you know, and then we'll just have archival interviews and footage.

you know, different interviews that, that they've maybe done over the years. But then, um, I don't, I don't know if that will make it die down or ramp it up, but, uh, because they'll never be anything new because anybody who could say anything or, you know, present, uh, testimony or evidence or, or even just an interview, um, will be gone.

Tom (02:18:12.823)
Yeah, well and maybe there'll be a couple deathbed style revelations like that Secret Service agent Landis wrote a book a couple months ago. What's he got to lose at this stage in his life if he wants to let it hang loose a little bit? He had also...

Tom (02:18:42.859)
I want to say, what was it, On the Kennedy, The Kennedy Detail? No, I think that's the book he read that inspired him to then write his own book about it. But there is some material out there that's really interesting. I don't think anything more has to come out, Chris, for if the general population knew just what was congressional record, I think they'd lose their freaking shit.

Tom (02:19:13.007)
the parts that highlight, wait, well, then if that's true, then this whole part of the story has to be at least questioned. There's so many of those that I think if people dug into the assassination of John F. Kennedy, just to the point of shit that's been revealed in front of Congress and the Senate and on those style committees, that would freak them out. I think if they read books by...

people who are involved in those investigations or, oh geez, DA in New Orleans, Jim Garrison's book, reads like true crime, except it's about a real story about the assassination of a president of the United States. I think, and that's, Jim Garrison has got to be at least a reputable source on what the nature of.

Chris Lyons (02:19:51.326)
Oh, Jim Garrison?

Tom (02:20:10.043)
pursuing an investigation on the topic was. You don't have to agree with his conclusions. You don't have to agree with his suspects, but you can't read what he was up against and think that there weren't forces in place to prevent an accurate good faith attempt at uncovering the truth of the John F. Kennedy assassination. And he's a district attorney in New Orleans.

the home of the mafia that also controls Dallas. And I don't know, it just seems to me if you read the book of that guy, and if you look at him as a reputable source, again, disagree with a bunch of shit he says, but listen to what he says about what he was up against and how they would discover a piece of evidence that a phone record from a specific, and that's the only record that the phone company doesn't have for that year when he goes to pull it.

Or it's just instance after instance after instance in his work where the people either die or the evidence had disappeared by the time the person who told him it was going to be there, by the time they get there, it's gone kind of thing. And he's got instance after instance after instance where he's like, oh, this is it, this is it. We got to go grab this evidence. We got to go grab this person. And either somebody's dead or some evidence just doesn't exist.

reading his book should freak people out on the topic of the Kennedy assassination. And then there's a myriad of video stuff that I have at kennedyassassinations.com, which I might put on a bigger conspiracy URL soon. I think I might broaden that and start talking about all kinds of crazy shit. But, what's that?

Chris Lyons (02:21:59.705)
You there. I said you're already there.

Tom (02:22:03.731)
It's um, yeah no good point. It's, shit now I even forget what I was talking about. Fucking.

Chris Lyons (02:22:12.976)
You sent a broader URL on Kennedy.com.

Tom (02:22:17.923)
Yeah, because I was pointing to a piece of information on the site and then I got sidelined by my e-commerce thoughts. What a sellout I am.

Chris Lyons (02:22:28.901)
You were talking about people who were getting approached and then either they were dying or their material disappearing.

Tom (02:22:37.307)
Oh yeah, I'm Garrison. Oh yeah, so the example of, if people just knew what was out there, and Garrison's book was an example, and then videos on YouTube, interviews, people going on TV, senators, congressional hearings, all these clips of people exposing conflict in the story that is accepted, or...

clear fuckery on those topics in those venues. Like there's just a massive archive of that. That's what I was saying. It's on the site. So many examples of people giving old interviews, a bunch of the old witnesses who are probably dead now, but who have gone on record with people. And probably some to their, not to their benefit long-term. I think compiling those and if people just,

watch many of these regular people talk about their experience with this whole weird entity that is the assassination, the conspiracy, the people involved, the cover-up, they'd be freaked out. So whether it's the level of people, all the information that's out there right now, if nothing else came out, I think if people dipped into that 10% in any vein, they'd be adequately freaked the hell out about what they think.

Chris Lyons (02:24:03.627)
So let's, for argument's sake, because I don't think we'll ever find middle ground on this, but let's say that it.

Tom (02:24:12.718)
That's good for content. If we start to agree, what do we have to talk about for God?

Chris Lyons (02:24:17.513)
That's boring. That doesn't sell any newspapers. If it was a conspiracy and he was murdered, what would be the motivation of people wanting him dead? What would his death either prevent from occurring or allow to occur that would be beneficial to

other people. So in my cop mind, basically motive, I would say not just pure hatred, not just we hate this person and we want him gone. I would rule out a religious ideology. So what is... Because you talk a lot about...

Tom (02:24:53.273)
benefits.

Chris Lyons (02:25:11.397)
different things that people said and saw in documents and things like that. But what would the death of president Kennedy either allow to occur or prevent from occurring that would be a benefit to these, these people? Like what's their motivation to do this terrible thing?

Tom (02:25:32.867)
Well, if Truman was thinking correctly, then what his death allowed was the transfer of power from the executive seat to the military industrial complex. That's the handoff point that I keep referring to. So at a lower level of importance, the Vietnam War. At a higher level of importance, the Vietnam War.

the CIA running the country and slash the military industrial complex slash in bed with organized crime. So organized crime who's in bed with the military industrial complex at this point vis-a-vis the intelligence community wants to see them gone. The intelligence community, factions of them that control hit squads trained to kill Castro want him gone because of the Bay of Pigs.

minimum. Every general that he employs, every Pentagon staffer, and every congressman on the take from Lockheed wants him gone.

I mean...

That's a lot of money in a lot of pockets. And boy, oh boy, Vietnam was a cash cow. So at a sort of lower level, it's, well, he enables a bunch of people to make money on Vietnam. At a higher level, it's, he allows people to do that going forward in perpetuity. If they, or rather they get rid of him, they're allowed to do that in perpetuity.

Tom (02:27:18.307)
Because not Johnson, not Nixon, not Ford, not Carter, not Reagan, not anybody is going to be the guy who writes their name on a piece of paper that says, get all our guys out of there tomorrow, ever again.

Chris Lyons (02:27:19.299)
So.

Chris Lyons (02:27:32.453)
So then my argument to that logic then though is so Kennedy's killed in the end of 63. Johnson is elected for the first and only time in 64 where he serves one term and then loses to Nixon in 68 and Nixon becomes president in January of 69. So he, LBJ and all the...

people who were in power between 63 and the end of 68, early 69. They're intelligent and sophisticated enough to make this terrible thing happen. But then the guy that they get in the driver's seat, they can't get him reelected.

Tom (02:28:19.979)
I don't think either guy in the driver's seat matters. What do they care who gets reelected? Have you ever said that?

Chris Lyons (02:28:25.137)
Well, because if you're predicating on the whole thing is to the military industrial complex to drive dollars into war for big business and people that are involved in that business, you have President Johnson who significantly deployed many, many troops to that area of the world. And that's.

equipment and hardware and, um, you know, all this money, and then he loses. And then, uh, Nixon is, uh, president in 69 and he w when, and I can't remember this, who started actually with the, um,

where we were actually not deploying as many people. Was it Nixon that actually started stepping down?

Tom (02:29:28.527)
I don't know, but I also, I think you're putting way too much emphasis on the president after 1963. What difference does it make? Can you name a single president that the military industrial complex didn't bully into a bunch of bullshit expenditures? And you can't keep Vietnam, Vietnam was unpopular enough that somebody was going to have to say, I'm not going to be the guy who stays in there anymore. And presidents are going to come and go.

But the fact of the matter is the last president who said, no, you guys can't just do this. Is the last president to say you guys can't just do this. You can't name a president other than Trump who doesn't have a shitload of bullshit war under his, under his bio, so to speak. And I don't think that I think the president part of the equation is not the important part. I don't.

I don't think they cared if Johnson's there or not. And I think interests driving this are probably fluid. It's like who's so-and-so playing with, who's so-and-so in the Pentagon playing golf with, and which contracts is he in? And guess what, this guy retires, and so there becomes a different area. I mean, it's just a big business like any other big business. I'm not saying those things wouldn't be fluid, and I'm not saying it's this certain group of people making this decision.

I'm saying certain things are going to pop up in Congress and they're going to be like, we got to fund this. And some dude at the Pentagon, when that happens, just became the most important motherfucker on the planet because he just became the linchpin between Lockheed, Raytheon, you name it, you name it, Boeing and those dollars. And so the power just shifted way over here. All those same power players are still running the show, but the way that they get access to the government and the taxpayer dollars is going to shift all the time.

That includes presidents. I mean, that's just all parts of the state. I don't know how to distinguish between Republicans and Democrats. So the president to me seems pretty much interchangeable. They're going to fight a war. Who cares who they are? They're going to fight a war.

Chris Lyons (02:31:26.711)
So what I'm saying is...

Chris Lyons (02:31:34.449)
So, so if with that as your argument as to that the players and the persons are interchangeable and the interests and the beneficiaries are going to change, what then is their motivation to kill the president and not either wait him out to be to, you know, either serve his term or his two terms and then where he's gone. Or to.

You know, smear, discredit him, undermine him, you know, backdoor politically, outvote him with like a super majority type thing, as opposed to the very, very public, awful act of killing him, if, I mean, if they had waited, he could have potentially lost the election. I mean, I don't, I think he was very popular and he probably would have been reelected had he been.

had he not been assassinated but even then he only you can only be in the seat for eight years and then you're termed out and then you know what I mean if

Tom (02:32:46.787)
Well, I think here's the thing though, killing JFK wasn't a tough sell to the group of people I mentioned that I think come into play, which is rogue CIA factions, intelligence, certainly somebody at the FBI has got some issues related to this story, organized crime, anti-Castro dissident hit teams.

Tom (02:33:17.603)
Remember, Bobby Kennedy is alive and he is a piece of shit in the eyes of everybody on the organized crime side of the table. That's enough.

Chris Lyons (02:33:27.473)
No, he was, he was, he was prosecuting the unions and, um, very hard on.

Tom (02:33:34.136)
You've got organized crime all over the country would jump up and down to put this guy away, plus his father stiffed them when they cheated on the election. Organized crime's got a list as long as my arm of reasons to kill JFK. Intelligence community, forget about Vietnam, has a list as long as my arm of reasons they want to kill JFK. Not the least bit of which being that they know he wants to make them go away, Chris. He said...

I want to break the CIA into 10,000 pieces forever. That's real.

Chris Lyons (02:34:08.389)
He said that publicly.

Tom (02:34:11.452)
I know that.

Chris Lyons (02:34:11.629)
Or, I mean, maybe not that exact quote, but he had...

Tom (02:34:16.323)
He's on record with his personal advisors. It's not, I can't put that out. That's him saying that though. But that's like, that's autobiographies written by the people around him.

Chris Lyons (02:34:19.685)
So he was...

Chris Lyons (02:34:29.836)
Okay, so he didn't.

Tom (02:34:30.527)
That's his relationship with the CIA. If you've seen his relationship progress with the CIA, he should hate them, and they should be concerned that the president of the United States hates them. The relationship was poisonous, illegal, toxic, dishonest, criminal, treasonous, warmongering, fucking insane, man. And Alan Dulles got his ass canned. And then Alan Dulles gets put on a committee by, you know.

Johnson to investigate the guy. So that's all. But there's reason to kill him doesn't just well, first of all, if you want to control the world and putting him to sleep puts you in the driver's seat for the next 60 years and any war you press a button for you're going to get a billion dollars, which is not an unfair way to characterize it and wild generalizations. If that's the investment and all it takes is whacking one guy.

Chris Lyons (02:35:02.017)
Yes, and so...

Tom (02:35:29.311)
in the most friendly town in the country to whack this guy.

with a police force and a local constabulary who's fully influenced by Johnson, with local sheriff's departments and stuff being called off of what they would usually do. So they'd ordinarily be on the route here and there. No, no, you guys don't worry about today. We got, those conversations happened. And like county sheriffs are on record being like, yeah, man, they made us stand down. There's all these just as weird things. But...

In terms of motive to kill JFK, man, I think some of these very important people would have whacked JFK whether Vietnam was happening or not in that respect.

Chris Lyons (02:36:15.173)
So...

Tom (02:36:17.551)
Yeah, I don't think Wacken JFKs a tough pitch to a lot of a lot of powerful dirt bags in 1963.

Chris Lyons (02:36:24.025)
But if you have this elite clandestine organization who is in their business is secret disinformation.

Chris Lyons (02:36:39.982)
in the shadows.

This didn't seem that it really went their way. You know, you had given the example that when Jack Ruby was in custody, that he had been injected with something and then a short term, short time later developed some kind of cancer. Why would you not employ something? Because I mean, if you're assassinated in such a horrible.

Tom (02:37:07.107)
Yeah, Ruby said that. I didn't say that. Ruby said he was involved in CIA projects that were working on that. Yeah.

Chris Lyons (02:37:17.565)
I'm just, I'm not saying that you asserted that, but you had quoted Ruby that he had said that, that he felt that he was injected with something, some kind of poison that made him later develop cancer. But what I'm saying-

Tom (02:37:31.439)
Well, no, he was dead three weeks later.

Chris Lyons (02:37:35.081)
Well, but it so when you know you assassinate somebody especially in such a hugely public way you are your You you make them an icon you make them a martyr for all these things Why would they do it in a way that would? Idolize him

that way when there are a million ways behind the scenes that, you know, it could have been made to look not as a criminal act or certainly not have occurred in front of the eyes of millions of people on television that would wouldn't if the goal ultimately is to remove him. Why not do it in a way that is less sloppy?

What you're saying with, you know, they have their hands in, you know, all these different pies and different things with military and different co-conspirators and everything. It seems like they did a pretty lousy job of tying off any loose ends or having...

Tom (02:38:53.743)
Do they?

Chris Lyons (02:38:55.925)
Yeah, if they have all these people that were interviewed and then a huge commission about it, why wouldn't they just use, have the, you know, his physician use the cancer booster or whatever and give him that and then, and then it's over and it looks like he was sick, he died in his sleep and it's over as opposed to creating this huge, uh, you know, I mean, president, I

Tom (02:39:14.555)
Thank you, Charity.

Chris Lyons (02:39:25.473)
I think President Truman died when he was in office. Do you ever hear about it?

Nobody cares. I mean, he, you know, especially at that time, I mean, those guys were under

Tom (02:39:37.596)
Well, I don't really care how JFK died either. Like it's, I don't know, I think maybe he had good security and it would have been harder to get his doctor to murder him for you. Seems like there's ways that could be tough to do. Maybe they don't hire a doctor who's exposed in some way where you could compromise him. I don't know. I mean, I know this. I know that doing it in the way that they did it.

probably sends a message to the next guy who sits in that now unimportant chair that if you like your head, you don't put pen to paper and start pulling troops out of our big plan. We got a big plan here. You thought 2000 was our plan? That ain't our plan. Our plan is a big fake world where we buy 3000 Bell Hueys.

Chris Lyons (02:40:25.169)
But then two administrations later, Nixon was pulling people out of Vietnam and he wasn't assassinated.

Tom (02:40:37.295)
Well, at that point, isn't it? It's, yeah, but things run their course. I mean, you can't kill everybody just for letting nature take its course. What they did was they changed nature with Kennedy. They created this new nature of the beast. Everybody's going along with it. Who do they have to kill? By then, by the time Nixon was done, they probably had three more wars in the planning. And they probably realized that maybe the Southeast Asia shit isn't as fun because people don't support it. Maybe we gotta find some people's support. Maybe like Russia.

Maybe we've got to start demonizing Russia more, making up stories about Russia, pretending Russia is ten times more capable militarily than it is, has ten times more money than it is. I mean, why not transition out of friggin' Vietnam if everybody hates you for it and find somebody that they'll rally in the streets to spend their money on like a bunch of goddamn sheep?

Chris Lyons (02:41:26.385)
So after Nixon resigned, Ford was in office. And I don't think Ford ran after, did he? I think he served the remainder of that term. And I don't believe he ran again, did he?

Tom (02:41:42.571)
I don't think, well, using that two terms, did he? I don't recall. I don't think so.

Chris Lyons (02:41:46.097)
I'm not sure. But what I'm getting to is then you get to the 70s, or the later 70s, and you have Jimmy Carter, who is a complete pacifist. And there was a lot of good opportunity with things that occurred in the Middle East where, you know, that was at the Ayatollah, I mean, where-

he would have these crowds of thousands of people just chanting and yelling, you know, all these terrible things. Um, it seemed like that would have been a really good opportunity to go into the Middle East at that time. Um, and that didn't happen. It's like, cause what I'm, I'm not, uh, I'm trying to say like.

Tom (02:42:39.733)
I never went to private school with one of the heads of the CIA.

Chris Lyons (02:42:44.197)
Like with your argument is if it's so based on the drive for the military or not the military, but private companies to make and manufacture and sell weapons, then why would you not just have one guy in a row after another who just wants to crush everybody everywhere?

Tom (02:43:07.479)
Well, when you say you though, who do you mean you? Why wouldn't you have one guy? Who are these people who are gonna control that? Because I haven't defined them. In fact, I don't think they exist. What I'm talking about is when interests align.

And once you've blown a guy's head off, and the people who sit in that chair know who run shit.

What do I have to tell you as president other than head of intelligence here is telling you we've got to go to war? What do you think that means we're telling you to do? What do you think that means as a president? That means we want some money. Plus, here's the other thing, by the time frame you're talking about the 70s, we've got CIA economic hitmen in every third world country by that point selling them damn projects. That's what we're up to on the intelligence side.

because maybe we learned a little lesson from Vietnam. It's not about outright getting stuck in a jungle. Maybe it's about you sell a dam or a canal in a third world country and you sell them the debt and then we own the resources and then we don't start having wars about that shit until they get wise in about 15, 20 years. And maybe that's 15 of the conflicts we had in the 80s. So maybe the 70s was plenty active. Maybe it was just active with us running economic hitman operations.

Chris Lyons (02:44:25.789)
economic destabilization and control as opposed to armed conflict.

Tom (02:44:31.235)
You know how you're going to sell Vietnam again, bro? That's an impossible task for any salesman. I know the last one didn't work, even though we seem to buy into it now. We've got like, we're pretty good at it now, but you know what I'm saying? After the initial Vietnam, there were, I mean, riots in Kent state and all that shit, dude, that was bigger than anything we're looking at in terms of protests. Now, so I think Vietnam wasn't still.

Chris Lyons (02:44:58.519)
Was Kent State where the National Guardsmen, they shot some of the protesters, right?

Tom (02:45:05.719)
Yeah, like eight students or something got killed. Yeah, so any president could get out of Vietnam. It was just, if you were the one who stopped it before it started, not a good move to be, not a good time to be running through Dallas with your top down. But I'm just saying, those interests got real active after that, stayed active through the 70s, through the 80s.

Chris Lyons (02:45:08.837)
That's a bad look.

Tom (02:45:35.295)
And here we are today, but it didn't have to be one Vietnam after the other. It could be, oh, well, you know, we set up hydroelectric dams and power plants and this and that same contractors, by the way, same CIA types, just not war. Just we're going in, Hey, you guys don't have any water, do you? Well, guess what? 25 years later, we're with them because they don't understand why we own their water. You know,

We go in with a dam or power plants or something like that. And so that was, and there's a great book called Economic Hitman, Stories of an Economic Hitman, something like that. And it's a guy who just goes through what his job was and how he'd go into countries and set up these deals to just absolutely destroy them economically and take ownership of the powers that be who then are fully beholden to the United States.

through these contractor corporations, CIA front shit like that. And so that's the same activity to me as Iraq, Ukraine, whatever, anywhere we can dip our toe in the pool of shipping some stuff around the world that goes boom, we don't seem to waste an opportunity to do so. But I think it looked differently through the 70s and the 80s. But a lot of the people we were fighting with in the 80s were people we were fighting with

doing shady business within the 70s. And a lot of people were fighting within the 2000s or people were doing shady business within the 80s, which is exactly what you said. But I think it's just two sides of the same coin is some kind of economic fuckery. Why are there 15 senators' kids on boards in Ukraine and then a war starts there? Just a coincidence for sure. And the other side of the coin is the war itself. It's like...

How did all those people end up there? Who are they connected to? What's the power? What are the promises? I don't know. I'm glad it's not being offered to me because I'm not sure I'd be above it.

Tom (02:47:47.279)
We're about to crack three hours. What else you got?

Chris Lyons (02:47:52.137)
I'm probably just to the point in my life where I'm just, uh, I've seen enough of these terrible things happen where I just feel that it's so terrible that some young man or woman who is patriotic and wants to do a, um, serve their country, um, that they go somewhere else and, uh, either pay with their life.

or are somehow horribly disfigured, either physically, mentally, or both, and then have to come back and try and reacclimate to the life and family. And that's the part of it that I see. And it's just...

It's just absolutely terrible. When I was younger, I was probably more pro-war in certain circumstances, especially after like 9-11. And as I get older and older, initially I was...

Chris Lyons (02:49:04.153)
Uh...

Chris Lyons (02:49:07.961)
Winston Churchill with, you know, to the beaches, to the streets, you know, fight and the, and the older I get, I feel I'm more Neville Chamberlain. Well, let's try and talk and let's have an agreement and maybe we can make a peace accord. Because the older you get and the more you see young people pay with their lives and horrible things.

happen to people. I think you become hungry for peace.

Tom (02:49:45.979)
couldn't agree more. Yeah, and the more you think about it like on the individual lives affected and then you look at the math when they throw big numbers at you it's hard to feel anything but if you have any like empathy at the individual level for what those numbers represent it's ungodly horrifying to consider. Yeah, I'm just I can't I'm not politically correct on the topic I just don't I don't I don't I don't support.

Somebody's coming in my country, let's raise holy, holy hell. But if you're not coming in my country, I'm not sure I got business spending money killing you and your relatives and shit.

Chris Lyons (02:50:29.389)
I just feel like when I look from post-World War II to now, that everywhere we have tried, no matter how noble our intentions, no matter how benevolent our touch is to try to do something, it just always somehow turns into a disaster. Whether it's economically or...

or militarily or both. I saw after we spoke the other night, I saw, if you want some good...

Tom (02:51:02.395)
Hope.

Chris Lyons (02:51:18.181)
some good watching. I think it was Argentina that just elected a new... have you seen him speak at all? Yeah, he is something else.

Tom (02:51:29.533)
Wow

Tom (02:51:34.139)
I'm excited.

Chris Lyons (02:51:49.025)
He got elected and he's like, I'm just gonna do and say what I'm gonna do. And I don't care where I stand about anything. Like he's, I don't know how long their terms are. Um, and people will either, he's going to be very polarizing. Um, people are either going to love him or hate him. But I saw some clip where he was, uh, going, uh, by the whiteboard. Did you see that? And it had the different, you know, levels of.

you know, Ministry of the Interior and this and that. And he, you know, they're in Argentina, so he speaks Spanish. And he would pick up the magnet off the board, and then he'd say, afuera, which is out. And he takes the name off the board and then just throws it over his shoulder. And then he goes to the next one. And he's just, I don't know if that was for dramatic effect or if he actually cut those.

offices, but he's just, I always imagine when I see politicians in other countries do things like that, imagining whoever is our president here doing that. I just imagine Biden going up or whoever is in office, but right now Biden going up to do a press conference with a huge black magic marker just crossing off.

federal agencies and just saying, nope, this one's done, this one's done, this one's done. I hope their country's been in kind of an economic depression for quite a number of years under socialism, really. So I think he's definitely going to bring some new ideas and some new energy. And I think that they had just suffered under...

socialism for so long, I think they were just, at some point you're just ready to try something different even if it's not where you fundamentally stand if you're just so beat down and basic needs aren't being met. I mean, really, what are the basic needs that a government should provide? Safety, clean water, electricity.

Tom (02:53:52.059)
You think, yeah.

Tom (02:54:10.309)
Thanks for watching.

Chris Lyons (02:54:15.005)
utilities, schools, roadways, you know what I mean? So if those things aren't being provided for under your system, and then this, his hair, he's got the crazy hair and he, very animated, very loud, uses a lot of profanity in his engagements with the press. I think...

I think we're gonna, he's definitely gonna become some meme and gif material, I think, in the next few months.

Tom (02:54:52.707)
Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. He looks like good humor. All right, I'm going to wrap this up just to see if I can get it turned around. This is going to be huge. But this is fun. We covered a lot of stuff too. And then we fell into familiar territory and started arguing about the candy assassination. It's going to be gold. It's been too long, but we killed a lot of birds with one stone. I will say that. Want to announce any websites?

Any upcoming events? Any merch?

Chris Lyons (02:55:26.341)
No, what I always imagine is if when we die there is some kind of all-knowing, benevolent, omnipotent being. I have so many different questions about things like this. That's what I would hope for. I can sit down at the big table on the clouds and say...

what really happened, who was involved, you know, and that I can have these types of answers that, that's what I hope for one day.

Tom (02:56:05.335)
I'll be like, hey, God, listen, I know you're busy. I just need like, I need like five minutes to talk about Jack Rook.

Chris Lyons (02:56:13.573)
Yeah.

Tom (02:56:15.475)
Good. I'll put some links to the Florida investigators network and thanks for your time, man. It was good to chat and we'll do it again soon. Maybe with some more, we'll do some digging into Lincoln.

Chris Lyons (02:56:31.937)
Okay, I'll dig into some Lincoln stuff. I think I'd say we're on pretty much polar opposite ends of Kennedy though, but it's very interesting. It's very interesting to talk about.

Tom (02:56:40.379)
Thank God. Well, that's how you end up with a three hour conversation instead of a 30 minute conversation.

Chris Lyons (02:56:49.837)
Right, because if I came on and you said, they hypnotized Oswald and he was killed by the CIA, and I went, yes, obviously. And then you said, all right, where are we getting lunch? You know, it would be a very short show.

Tom (02:57:00.387)
Well, obviously they did.

Tom (02:57:06.382)
HAHAHAHAHAHA

Tom (02:57:10.247)
Oh, yeah, that's exactly. All right, man. Where are we getting lunch? Oh, that's a good idea, actually. Good enough. Happy Thanksgiving. My love to you and yours. And I'll see you on the see on the LinkedIn. All right, man, thanks.

Chris Lyons (02:57:23.057)
doing.

Chris Lyons (02:57:27.373)
OK. Thanks.