Flight 800: Breakthrough!

WorldNetDaily ^ | March 13, 2003 | Jack Cashill

[Bryan24]

Don't tell me your gonna defend the zoom-climb? That is the most laughable aeronautical farce ever attempted.

[AmericanVictory]

Nice of you to both admit and display your ignorance.

That the government admits the facts alleged by the plaintiffs, albeit by default, is precisely what it means.

The report does not say that the government does not contest the motion, but rather precisely that the government does not contest the facts alleged in support of plaintiffs' summary judgment motion. Therefore, by rule, the facts alleged by plaintiffs are conceded, though, if ambiguous, they will interpreted against the moving parties, for purposes of the motion ruling only, subject to being proven at trial, should there be one.

It thus seems that you are the wearer of the tinfoil hat.

In truth the government, up until now, has never actually brought out the truth in any such high profile investigation. Would you, for example, contend that the Warren Commission got to the truth of the matter, or the Waco investigation?

There are only two reasons for the government to fail to contest the facts: either (1) someone made a decision to allow the truth out (which would be a novel concept in our government) or (2) the government wanted to cut its losses and minimize damage because the truth coming out fully at trial, after full discovery, would be even more damaging than these allegations standing uncontested.

[1L]

When I was in private practice, my rule was never to file a MSJ if I wasn't pretty darned sure I could win it. I would settle the losers rather than file a useless motion, unless the plaintiffs weren't amenable to a reasonable settlement, in which case we took it to trial and either settled it on the courthouse steps or fought it out in front of the jury. (Surprising how many lawyers don't REALLY want to try a case, isn't it? :-D )

I take a different approach. Unless a MSJ would sound incredibly stupid, I file one -- for several reasons. First, it helps educate the judge of the facts and legal issues during the hearing. This can come in handly later during trial on legal matters, directed verdict arguments, JNOV arguments, and jury charge arguments. Second, most plaintiff attorneys are notoriously BAD at research and writing. For example, I know pretty much every common law and statutory duty in Texas (e.g. negligence law) and I make the plaintiff prove that any duty they are claiming is in fact legally based.

I've won several MSJs that I probably had no business winning. A judge WILL grant them if he is confident you can support him on appeal. I make sure he knows I will support him. But if he doesn't, I've lost no more than 8-10 hours or so and I've educated the judge and brough the plaintiff's thinking on damages down, because they now know trial is going to be a very tough fight.

[Drammach]

Go to the Worlnetdaily.com website, and check out the Jack Cashill columns.
The site has a full archive on his articles, and the TWA 800 investigation.
Jack's articles are very readable, and will give You an extensive history of the incident, investigation, and the cover-up.

[FBD]

"The Carnivore program doesn't exist."

OK, then I guess the links to the FBI and oversite hearings etc., are bogus...

[aruanan]

"The Carnivore program doesn't exist."

I didn't say this.

[Mudboy Slim]

"FReepin' fer what I KNOW is RIGHT!! LORD, Yeah!!"

FReegards...MUD

[Mudboy Slim]

"...do you conspiracy freaks know how weird you are?"

Are you denying the possibility that conspiracy could--IN FAVT--exist?! My my, you ARE a naive one...MUD

[FBD]

Inform yourself, before calling people crazy, etc.

You SHOULD care about what federal law enforcement engages in. To cover up mistakes is a conspiracy.

And shooting an unarmed women holding a baby is not something I want my federal law enforcement doing.

Ruby Ridge fiasco details below: (excerpt is from this site.)

http://i2i.org/SuptDocs/Waco/rrprosec.htm

...Unfortunately, the decisions of both the federal and state prosecutors mean that several of the criminals at Ruby Ridge will never be charged with anything.

Consider Larry Potts, the Washington FBI headquarters man in charge of Ruby Ridge.

The prosecutors investigated Larry Potts for approving the dramatic change in the "rules of engagement" for the FBI’s siege of the Weaver family’s remote Idaho cabin in August, 1992. According to the official FBI guidelines, deadly force is allowed only when necessary to protect someone against immediate danger. The rules of engagement are not based on the whims of FBI officials, or even on the acts of Congress. Instead, the limits on deadly force are implicit in the Constitution, and therefore decreed by the Supreme Court.

At Ruby Ridge, Idaho, the normal, constitutional rules of engagement were changed; the new rules were orders to kill any armed adult male seen on the Weavers’ property. The non-prosecution of Larry Potts is based on a disputed fact: it cannot be proven that Potts approved the order saying FBI agents "can and should" shoot.

But there is no real dispute that Potts approved an earlier change in the rules of engagement, saying the FBI "could" shoot any armed adult male. (Randy Weaver and his friend Kevin Harris often carried guns on their own property, as is completely legal under Idaho law.) Even if Potts didn’t approve the "order to kill" rules of engagement, he clearly did approve a "license to kill" rule, which is illegal and unconstitutional. But he’s getting away with it.

FBI sniper Lon Horiuchi-- who shot Vicki Weaver in the head while she was standing in the cabin doorway, holding her baby in her arms--is being charged with voluntary manslaughter by the local Idaho prosecutor. The federal government, though, is leaping to Horiuchi’s defense, because he was obeying an order. But the Nuremberg and My Lai prosecutions have established that "I vas just following orders" is no excuse for killing innocent people. The license-to-kill orders were so outrageous that other FBI snipers at the scene -- for example, the SWAT team from Denver -- agreed among themselves that the license-to-kill order should not be obeyed. The Denver agents chose to disobey the unconstitutional order, and instead to stick with the traditional rules of engagement.

Besides choosing to obey an illegal assassination order, Horiuchi lied under oath at Randy Weaver’s trial. Horiuchi claimed that he opened fire on Randy Weaver and Kevin Harris because the two men were threatening to shoot an FBI helicopter. But the trial judge found this testimony so blatantly false that he ordered the charges related to the testimony to be dismissed. (The helicopter was nowhere near where Weaver or Harris could have shot at it.)

Moreover, sniper Horiuchi violated even the illegal rules of engagement. True, he did obey the illegal orders when he shot at Randy Weaver and Kevin Harris, who were outside their cabin carrying guns.

But Horiuchi’s second shot violated even the license to kill rules; the second shot was the one that killed Vicki Weaver, as she was standing in the doorway of her cabin, holding her baby.

The rules prohibited firing a shot if it would endanger any children.

Horiuchi claims that he never saw Vicki Weaver standing in the doorway, and his shot that killed her was really intended to kill Kevin Harris, who was running back into the cabin. Let’s assume that Horiuchi was telling the truth about what he saw. (Let’s also ignore the substantial evidence that the FBI had plans to kill Vicki Weaver--who was not accused of any crime--because she was the "dominant" member of the family.)

Even Horiuchi’s version of the facts shows that he violated the rules. After the shooting, Horiuchi drew a diagram of the target he had aimed at. His drawing shows that he was aiming at a part of the door approximately ten inches above where he thought 16-year-old Sara Weaver was crouching. She wasn’t there, to be sure; but that’s where Lon Horiuchi was aiming -- just above the head of someone the rules of engagement prohibited him from endangering.

And when he fired, in violation of the rules of engagement, he killed Vicki Weaver and injured Kevin Harris.

This is the basis for the manslaughter charge against Horiuchi: his second shot was so reckless that he is culpable for the death that resulted.

True enough, but what about Horiuchi’s first shot: his intentional, illegal attempt to kill Randy Weaver? Why no charge for this crime? And why no charge for all the FBI officials--from field commanders all the way up to Larry Potts, who authorized the FBI snipers to shoot people illegally?

The FBI came on the scene a few hours after a shoot-out between a squad of U.S. Marshals and the Weaver family. Why are no charges being filed against the United States Marshal who shot fourteen-year-old Sammy Weaver in the back, as the unarmed Sammy was running home, away from the confrontation?

Amazingly, the only person being charged by the Idaho prosecutor for the initial shoot-out is the Weavers’ friend Kevin Harris. During that shoot-out, Harris killed a United States Marshal, and said he was acting in self-defense. The federal government prosecuted him for the killing in 1993, and he was acquitted.

The Constitution outlaws prosecuting a person twice for the same crime. But the Supreme Court has gutted this rule, by allowing separate prosecutions by the state and federal governments.

Given the strange decisions of the federal and Idaho prosecutors, Congress and the state legislatures should promptly take two steps: First, enact legislation barring double state/federal prosecution for the same alleged crime. Second, pass resolutions calling for a special prosecutor to investigate the federal officials responsible for the deaths at Ruby Ridge.



Paul Blackman and David Kopel are the authors of "No More Wacos: What’s Wrong with Federal Law Enforcement and How to Fix It" (Prometheus Books, 1997). Information about the book is available at http://i2i.org/Waco.htm.

This article, from the Independence Institute staff, fellows and research network, is offered for your use at no charge. Independence Feature Syndicate articles are published for educational purposes only, and the authors speak for themselves. Nothing written here is to be construed as necessarily representing the views of the Independence Institute or as an attempt to influence any election or legislative action.
Please send comments to Editorial Coordinator, Independence Institute, 14142 Denver West Pkwy., suite 185, Golden, CO 80401 Phone 303-279-6536 (fax) 303-279-4176 (email)webmngr@i2i.org

[Mudboy Slim]

"I don't care about Waco."

So MassMurder of 78 INNOCENT American Citizens is just fine and dandy with you, is it?! It's just fine that not one Federal employee was chastened fer ANYTHING regarding that raid by the KorruptKlintonKlan, a TankRaid that resulted in the needless deaths of two dozen children?! What a SICK person you claim to be!!

"It wasn't handled well, but that's what happens when law enforcement meeets crazy people. Bad stuff happens. And it's usually the crazy peoples' fault. As here."

Crazy people, eh?! You are one sick woman, the quintessential KlintonDupe...MUD

[Mudboy Slim]

"#3 The FBI Director and Janet Reno never obstructed any investigation."

"Which investigation do you assert they obstructed?"

SHEEEEESH!!! Ma'am, are you really this much of a MORON or do you simply pretend fer FReepers' amusement?! Which investigation DIDN'T the KorruptKlintonKlan Obstruct?! The whole Department of Justice was run by an inadequate MORON city bureaucRAT from Miami fer almost 8 years just so Klintoon could break laws at will and use his Attorney General as his Defense Attorney!! Are you too young or too STOOOOPID to realize this?! Seriously, you appear to be extremely Reality-challenged...seek help!!

MUD

[mlo]

Please explain, if you will, how the grant of summary judgment against the government will be a "minor point."

I didn't say granting it was. It hasn't been granted.

The "minor point" may have been the one(s) in the motion. Failing to respond to the motion only concedes the factual assertions in the motion and does not require the judge to grant summary judgement if the judge still believes there are outstanding issues.

This is why the actual contents of the motion are highly relevent to the story and why it was inexcusable to omit them.

You've also taken my comment out of context. It was only one hypothetical example of a reason not to respond to the motion.

[AmericanVictory]

Understood. However, it is extremely unusual, and certainly I have never encountered it, for DOJ lawyers to concede the kind of factual allegations described. Such a concession, in a case alleging cover-up consisting of false allegations as part of a conspiracy certainly reduces the governments chances of not suffering summary judgment inasmuch as it would seem to leave little room for interpretation against the movants.

My own feeling is that there are two possibilities as mentioned in another post. The one I would hope for is that the Bush administration is opening a door in a manner that cannot be successfully used against them to illustrate to President Clinton, now that he has opened up on them, how they can expose his corruption to the general public in an irrefutable manner which undermines his credibility as a critic of the war on terror completely. It still will not expose the truth about his sellout to China, but it's a start.

[Scholastic]

Bump!

[Scholastic]

Bump again!!!

[GEC]

Well, when you have no diplomatic relations with the host country, what are you going to do?

[sultan88]

Bookmarking. Add to our "airplane" files, f and G.

[sultan88]

"The French Club students who perished, along with their teachers and chaperones, were from the next town over from me here in PA."

Palladin, I grew up near that town also!!

FBD, thanks for the initial ping!

[acehai]

Ray Lahr has probably read more good aerodynamics books than any of us. You might want to click on ZOOM CLIMB, then come back and tell us why people who defend the CIA/FBI/NTSB idiocy are sane.

[MindBender26]

From Mr. Lahr: An aircraft that loses all of the weight forward of the wing is completely out of balance. When that happens, an aircraft will immediately pitch up and stall.

Should read: An aircraft that loses all of the weight forward of the wing is completely out of balance. When that happens, an aircraft will immediately pitch up and stall when it goes into a climb and eventually has consumed enough energy in the climb so that the angle of attack of the wing causes the aforementioned stall.

E-mail him and ask of he agrees with that statement.

Finally, up from the surface questions: Most simple. From where most of the witnesses were standing, the A/C was at or below the horizon. Why? Curvature of the earth. Many times have stood where those witnesses were and watched Europe-bound A/C that look like they are 500 feet AGL, until you realize they out over the Atlantic and are actually 15,000 feet AGL +/-.

Also, some witnesses are obviousaly BSing. One woman seen on TV many times said "I heard the loud roar of the missile launching, and turned around to see the missile streaking up to the plane." She forgot about speed of light/speed of sound!