When does the STUPIDITY end? Can I pencil in a date?
Morley flogs TV appearances that are more than a year old. Larry Schnapf has only now decided to look at the legislative history of the JFK Act.
Have you noticed Jefferson Morley flogging away his TV appearances from over a year ago? On his substack as though it’s new information? He’s done this a few times now.
He did it on July 21st, 2024 flogging his CNN appearance on Dec 17, 2022.
He did it on July 14th, 2024 flagging his appearance on Meet the Press Daily with Chuck Todd Wednesday, December 15, 2021. ( The Youtube.com date is incorrectly listed as being December 15, 2012. We know it’s December 15, 2021 because the NBC graphic says, “If it’s Wednesday…”.
Hey, remember Chuck Todd?
He did it again yesterday. On a Saturday night, July 27th, 2024 at 8:00 p.m. He writes, “CBS interviewed Jefferson Morley about the Mary Ferrell Foundation lawsuit against Joe Biden for violations of the JFK Records Act.” And he’s got a Youtube.com link to the CBS news segment. When did that segment air? December 26, 2022. The day after Christmas from more than a year ago on a slow news day when it was, you know, news.
So, this time I asked him why he’s doing this. Today I get this:
“Update. The lawsuit Mary Ferrell Foundation v Biden is reaching a critical stage. Next week we are asking the judge to grant us “discovery,” meaning the right to interview witnesses and compel the government to produce missing JFK records. Stay tuned!” With a link to the July 27th, 2024 post again flogging the CBS news segment from December 26, 2022.
And then there’s Larry Schnapf. Oi. He informs the people watching the Project JFK group that he never looked at the legislative history of The JFK Act until just recently. The Mary Ferrell Foundation sued Biden and NARA on Oct 19, 2022. As of today, July 28, 2024 that would be 648 days ago. And only now after losing most of the case, and on appeal decided to have a look at that. ( Larry starts at about 8:48 to explain that )
Larry has filed an interlocutory appeal. He is appealing some of the orders issued by the court when he was asking for injunctive relief, asking the Court to order NARA to do certain things. The Court said no. So, Larry’s appealing to the 9th Circuit while the rest of the original suit is still going on. The government responded to the appeal. And Larry has to respond to that by about the second week in August and then the 9th Circuit will decide if they want to hear the appeal. So, if they decide to hear this appeal it will happen in the Fall. So, while that is going on Larry is making requests for discovery in thinking he’ll get the chance to take depositions of current and former government officials. Those depositions should take place around the time pigs grow wings and fly.
So, Larry now wants to send people on a wild goose chase. He wants to send someone to go to Columbus Ohio, to look through the late Senator John Glenn’s papers. Why? Well, once upon a time the House and the Senate had separate bills on declassifying JFK assassination records. In 1992 the DOJ objected to the creation of the ARRB. So, according to Larry, John Glenn authored an amendment. But, it looks to me like Sen Ernest Hollings wrote it and Sen. Glenn sponsored it. It’s S. Amdt. 2764 to S.3006.
07/27/1992SenateS.Amdt.2764 Proposed by Senator Hollings for Senator Glenn. Technical committee amendments.
Text of this Amendment as Submitted is published on page S10379 in the Congressional Record daily edition, July 27, 1992. ( Actually it’s on p. 19498 to 19507, July 27, 1992. Almost exactly 32 years ago. )
In this amendment was a section on periodic review. Larry also wants people to go look at the Rep. Louis Stokes papers, he was from Ohio too, and Sen. David Boren’s papers, he was from Oklahoma and Rep. Jack Brooks, from Texas. They all played a part in the creation of the bills and then the legislation that became the JFK Act.
Remember how he wanted everyone to try and hunt down people in their 80’s and above who never talked to anyone before about the JFK assassination? To document their memories? That’s right, search the whole globe for new evidence from new people and hurry up about it before they die! And don’t ask him for any funds for this. And don’t let anyone lie to you, or scam you. And really do your homework, be thorough, ( it takes years folks ) so that you’ll know when you hear something that actually is new and interesting. And hurry, hurry, hurry cause they’re dying!
Well, let’s have some context and correct information about John Glenn first. Senator John Glenn was the chairman of the Governmental Affairs Committee. He held a hearing on Senate Joint Resolution 282 on May 12, 1992. You can read the report on that here. I have a hard copy of this. You can watch that hearing on C-SPAN. Larry says Glenn never held a hearing. Wrong.
And then in Sept. of 1992 the House substituted the Senate bill for its own bill.
Now Larry says he sent Chad Nagle to Archives II to take a look at what the ARRB had in their own files on the legislative history of what became Public Law 102-526.
He’s looking in the wrong place. The Senate bill was S. 3006, the House Joint Resolution was 454.
There were two massive volumes on the legislative history of the JFK Act. I have them somewhere in a box. I’m looking for them.
At the bottom of the JFK Act is a reference to the legislative history.
Those two House Reports. I think that’s what I have. They are hundreds of pages each, like 500 or more if I remember. I don’t think House Reports are online until 1995. But, a good Federal Depository Library should have them on microfilm or microfiche.
On April 2, 1997 the ARRB held a hearing on the possibility of taking the Zapruder film. This was in the original National Archives. You can see that here. Robert Brandeis spoke about the legislative history of the act in his remarks.
Back to Sen. John Glenn, in 1992 he held a year long investigation of NARA and issued a report, titled “Serious Management Problems at the National Archives and Records Administration” (S.Prt. 102-108).” Glenn looked at how NARA Hired an Inspector General. His report found:
The National Archives’ leadership decided to post the opening for the position of Inspector General only in the Washington metropolitan area, provided a response time of less than two weeks, and interviewed only Lawrence Oberg, one of two internal candidates, who was selected to head the new Inspector General office.
Why didn’t Larry Schnapf, et. al. do this legislative history homework before now? Lazy? Stupid? Both?
Larry might also want to mention the failure of NARA to make any progress on digitizing the entire JFK Records Collection per a Presidential order to do so. As they said in Monty Python’s Cricket Sketch, “Extremely well not played there. Yes, beautifully not done anything about. A superb display of inertia.”