Boebert appears to confuse Oliver Stone with Roger Stone during JFK records hearing
Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) appeared to confuse Oliver Stone, an American filmmaker and a witness before House lawmakers on Tuesday, with political strategist Roger Stone during a hearing on the release of new documents related to the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
'You wrote a book accusing LBJ of being involved in the killing of President Kennedy. Do these most recent releases confirm or negate your initial charge?' Boebert asked.
'No, I didn't,' Oliver Stone said. 'If you look closely at the film, there's no — it accuses the President Johnson of part, being part of, complicit in a cover-up of the case, but not in the assassination itself, which I don't know.'
Jefferson Morley, editor of the JFK Facts blog and another witness before the House task force, stepped in to suggest that Boebert had mistaken the witness.
'I think you're confusing Mr. Oliver Stone with Mr. Roger Stone. It's Roger Stone who implicated LBJ in the assassination of the president. It's not my friend Oliver Stone,' Morley corrected the Colorado Republican.
'I may have misinterpreted that and I apologize for that. But there seems to be some alluding of, like you said, incompetence or some sort of involvement there on the back end,' Boebert responded. 'Sorry, I'm going to move on.'
Roger Stone, a longtime political operative and Trump ally, authored the 2013 book 'The Man Who Killed Kennedy: The Case Against LBJ.' Oliver Stone, a director, worked on the controversial 1991 political thriller 'JFK,' which stoked conspiracy questions surrounding Kennedy's death.
Oliver Stone was speaking on Tuesday before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee's Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets, in an inaugural hearing related to the so-called JFK files that comes a few weeks after the National Archives last month released more than 2,000 files related to the Kennedy assassination. The move followed an executive order from President Trump.
Experts have said the latest release does not contradict the Warren Commission's conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone gunman in the assassination. But multiple witnesses on Tuesday raised questions about the investigations and long-held conclusions about the case.
'I ask the committee to reopen what the Warren Commission failed miserably to complete. I ask you … to reinvestigate the assassination of this President Kennedy from the scene of the crime to the courtroom,' Oliver Stone told lawmakers in his opening statement, contending that the CIA's 'muddy footprints are all over this case.'
Task force Chair Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) said in a release announcing the hearing that lawmakers 'will get to the bottom of this mystery.'
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
11 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Readers and writers: A sobering look at the vanishing prairie
A sweeping look at the vanishing American prairie and two crime novels set in Minnesota are this week's offerings to our readers. 'Sea of Grass': by Dave Hage and Josephine Marcotty (Random House, $32) Agriculture has altered — and damaged — the very biological and chemical cycles that created the extraordinary prairie in the first place, from the creation of soil to the flow and purity of water, to the ebb of wildlife and the circulating of elements in and out of the atmosphere. It's created intractable pollution problems that endanger human health and cripple other ecosystems, from its damage to insects to the dead zone in the Golf of Mexico. — from 'Sea of Grass' In this timely and important book, subtitled 'The Conquest, Ruin, and Redemption of Nature on the American Prairie,' award-winning former Star Tribune writers Hage and Marcotty explore and explain the environmental crisis caused by the disappearance of thousands of acres of American prairie that once stretched from Montana to Illinois, eastern Minnesota to northern Texas. The North American prairie, they write, is one of Earth's four great temperate grasslands, the others being the steppes of Central Asia, the Pampas of South America, and the veld of southern Africa. It is also one of the most threatened ecosystems on Earth, home to small insects and big grazing mammals. Before the Industrial Revolution took hold in farming, the untouched prairie grasses created a web of roots that could grow as deep as two feet into the ground. When white settlers arrived in the 19th century they brought with them plows that tore up the prairie for the first time. These pioneers used rudimentary plows, but when steel plows became available farmers were able to plant and harvest much more food per acre to feed a growing population. This affected the prairie's biological diversity as rivers were rerouted, synthetic nitrogen became a standard fertilizer and the delicate symbiosis of the prairie was uprooted. Over decades the prairie was converted into some of the richest farmland on Earth, but the country paid a terrible price The authors help us understand what that price means in chapters examining river, dirt, bugs and water. For Minnesotans, the discussion about rivers might be the most important as we learn how the Mississippi picks up fertilizer runoff from rivers that flow into it, growing more polluted as it rolls through the Twin Cities southward until the pollutants create a 'dead zone' of chemicals in the Gulf of Mexico. Now industrial agriculture is plowing up the remaining grasslands at the rate of 1 million acres a year If the sea of grass is to be saved, the authors argue, it will take cooperation between farmers who care about the land, help from the federal government and efforts by eco-conscious consumers. Although we are losing everything from bees to oysters, 'Sea of Grass' ends with hope that comes from people like South Dakota writer and buffalo rancher Dan O'Brien, who sees the great creatures that once roamed the prairie as far as the eye could see as a way to restore the animals' ancestral home. Books about environmental devastation are increasingly common as we watch the natural world we once knew disappear. 'Sea of Grass,' written clearly and with passion, is one of the best. The authors will introduce 'Seas of Grass' during a free program at 7 p.m. Thursday at Magers & Quinn, 3038 Hennepin Ave. S., Mpls. 'Rattlesnake Bluff': by Cary J. Griffith (Adventure Publications, $16.95) '..they hadn't anticipated a rattlesnake's denning instincts, the keen skillset of a wolf dog's nose, the remarkable aptitude of a DNR herpetologist, DNA analysis of isolated rattlesnake populations, or the use of implanted chips to track rattlesnake specimens. Or that an apparently forged confession might contain the details of what actually happened. — from 'Rattlesnake Bluff' A rattlesnake found on the seat of a Bobcat at a construction site sends U.S. Fish & Wildlife Special Agent Sam Rivers and his wolf dog Gray into investigating a 23-year-old crime in the fifth book in this appealing series. This is no ordinary rattler; it's an eastern massasauga, an endangered species that doesn't belong in Minnesota although it might have escaped from a Wisconsin research facility where a scientist is implanting snakes to track their movements. Rivers is joined by local DNA personnel as he tries to figure out if he needs to shut down the site where the snake was found, holding up construction of expensive homes. When Gray tracks the scent of two bodies buried in the bluff, everything changes. The readers know how the decayed bodies of a young brother and sister got to their rocky resting place but Sam does not. Meanwhile, Sam's boss in Denver is not happy with him staying in Minnesota and getting behind on paperwork he avoids. The cast includes a mysterious person who called himself Der Furher as a teenager, Sam's fiancee who just wants him to come home, and a woman contractor working hard in a business dominated by men. 'Rattlesnake Bluff' gets more complicated and dangerous as Sam and others get closer to figuring out what the snakes have to do with the building site and learn new details about the night the young siblings were killed when hit by a car. Rivers is a smart guy who knows his flora and fauna as well as his duty to wildlife, even snakes. Readers who can't stand the thought of snakes, even on the page, will be happy to know that the creatures are not described in great detail and one of them is dead. The author, who also writes nature-based nonfiction, grew up roaming the woods, fields and waters of eastern Iowa, where he developed a lifelong love of wild places. 'Payne Avenue': by M.T. Bartone (Modern Prose Press, $13.99) Eddie laughed as he tightened his grip on O's wrist before quickly yanking out the little screwdriver. O screamed as he pulled his mangled hand away from Eddie. He held it gingerly in his other hand, close to his chest. — from 'Payne Avenue' Set in the neighborhoods surrounding St. Paul's Payne Avenue, this is the story of the rise and fall of Eddie Bracchio, a gangster who returns to St. Paul from Brooklyn and sees ways to build a criminal empire while betraying his powerful boss. A wave of new owners brings fresh energy to independent bookselling Readers and writers: Immersion, writing from the heart help non-Native novelist access the culture 12 new books to send restless readers on a summer road trip Literary calendar for week of May 18: 'Weird, Sad and Silent' Readers and writers: Selections for Mental Health Awareness Month Eddie begins slowly, recruiting two teen boys to become his drug dealers. Carefully and sometimes violently, he replaces the neighborhoods' low-level crime bosses and builds a successful illegal business, siphoning money that's rolling in through the books of a restaurant he helps an old woman open. What Eddie wants most, though, he can't have — beautiful Kate De Luca, who's married and has no idea Eddie wants to control and possess her. When Kate suffers a tragedy, the plot becomes hers as she ponders revenge. 'Payne Avenue' is long at 154 pages, which sometimes slows the plot. But the author does a fine job of giving readers a sense of place, with characters moving along the streets that surround Payne Avenue in this tale of a killer whose ambition is his ruin.
Yahoo
11 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Pritzker to consider Illinois bill mandating gun owners lock up firearms
A bill that would require gun owners to keep any firearms in a locked box whenever a minor is present will soon head to Gov. JB Pritzker. Senate Bill 8, also referred to as the Safe Gun Storage Act, is the latest gun safety measure pushed by Democrats in the General Assembly. It passed the House 69-40, with Republican lawmakers warning that it could be found unconstitutional if challenged in court. The bill mandates that gun owners store their firearms in a secure, locked box in any place where they know or 'reasonably should know' that a minor without permission to access a firearm, an at-risk person or someone who is prohibited from obtaining a firearm can access the weapon. Gun owners who violate the act would be subject to civil penalties. The law would apply to both handguns and long guns, such as rifles and shotguns. Under the state's current criminal code, firearm owners are required to store their guns in a place that's inaccessible to a child under the age of 14 – SB8 raises the age requirement to a child under 18 and mandates that the gun must be locked away or equipped with a device making it temporarily inoperable. It also defines an at-risk person as someone who has shown behavior or made statements that a 'reasonable person' would consider indicative that the individual may physically harm themselves or others. 'An estimated 30 million children in our country live in a home with at least one firearm, with 4.6 million children living in homes with unlocked and loaded guns,' bill sponsor in the House, Rep. Maura Hirschauer, D-Batavia, said during floor debate. 'We are all familiar with the chilling statistics that guns are the No. 1 cause of death for our children in the United States.' The bill exempts firearms carried on a person who has a concealed carry license. The gun owner also would not be liable if a minor, at-risk or prohibited person uses the firearm in self-defense or uses it after accessing it illegally – for instance, in circumstances like breaking and entering. The Safe Gun Storage Act also makes changes to a variety of existing Illinois gun laws, including a mandate that firearm owners report a lost or stolen firearm within 48 hours of the owner finding the firearm missing, instead of the current 72-hour timeframe. Illinois State Police would also be given the ability to revoke a firearm owner's identification, or FOID, card if a gun owner fails to report a stolen or lost firearm twice or more under the bill. If a minor, at-risk or prohibited person gains access to an unlocked firearm, the bill provides the gun owner could face civil penalties ranging from $500 to $10,000 if the gun to hurt or kill another person in a crime. A separate section of the bill allows for a $1,000 fine and a Class C misdemeanor charge against a gun owner if a minor under the age of 18 causes death or bodily harm while accessing a firearm without permission. That language previously only applied to minors under the age of 14. 'Safe firearms storage and responsible gun ownership are practices on which all of us in this room, gun owners and non-gun owners alike, can agree,' Hirschauer said. 'Safe gun storage can reduce unintentional injuries, suicides and intentional harm, like school shootings, by stopping unauthorized access.' Under SB8, if a firearm owner fails to store their firearm in a secure, locked box and a minor, at-risk or prohibited person illegally obtains the firearm and uses it to hurt themselves or others – the owner could be charged with negligence. The Safe Gun Storage Act also requires Illinois State Police to expand an online database that was required under a previous law to house all information on the make, model and serial number of reported lost or stolen firearms. By Jan. 1, 2027, ISP would have to make the portal accessible to licensed firearm dealers, who would be required to cross-reference the database to ensure any firearms they are selling or transferring are not a firearm listed in the database. Another aspect of the bill classifies anyone traveling through the state with a firearm that's prohibited under state law as gun trafficking – a felony charge that can result in up to a 15-year prison sentence. During debate about the bill on the Senate floor in April, Sen. Neil Anderson, R-Andalusia, took issue with the bill giving Illinois State Police the ability to revoke a person's FOID card. He said that aspect of the bill would not pass the Rahimi test – referencing the 2023 United States v. Rahimi Supreme Court case, which ruled a court can temporarily revoke a perron's firearm rights if the court determines the firearm owner is a threat to public safety when in possession of a firearm. SB8 would allow Illinois State Police to revoke a person's FOID card, which Anderson said is in direct conflict with the Rahimi decision – which said only courts had the power to revoke a person's firearm rights. Bill sponsor Sen. Laura Ellman, D-Naperville, disagreed with Anderson, saying the Rahimi case did not exclude law enforcement from being able to revoke a person's FOID card. The bill passed the Senate on a vote of 33-19. A similar debate happened on the House floor Wednesday before the bill's eventual passage. Rep. Patrick Windhorst, R-Metropolis, took issue with the bill's creation of a potential negligence charge for gun owners who do not safely secure a gun that's used by a minor, at-risk or prohibited person to harm someone. He said he believed such a burden shift to be unconstitutional. Hirschauer responded that the burden shift only applies when the reasonable standard is met – when it's reasonably found that the gun owner should have known to safely store their firearm – or, if 'some terrible negligence' occurs. Windhorst also raised concerns about the fact that cable locks, which are locked cables inserted through a firearm's chamber and out of the magazine well, are not considered 'safe storage' under the bill. Under existing law about storing guns away from minors, a cable lock is considered safe storage of a firearm. Windhorst said that conflicts with the new language pertaining to gun storage, which does not mention devices that render a gun temporarily inoperable. 'Under the criminal code of this bill where we are changing our current child access protection law, a cable lock would suffice,' Hirschauer said. 'Under the new Safe Storage Act, it would not.' He also argued that the bill impeded the rights of concealed carry license holders who carry a gun in a vehicle, as some firearms owners currently store their gun in the center console or glove box. Under the Safe Gun Storage Act, the center console or glove box would have to be lockable in order to render the firearm safely stored. Windhorst also voiced concerns that the gun trafficking charges in the bill could be brought against a person passing through Illinois with firearms in their vehicle that are legal in their home state – a point which Hirschauer responded to by reading language in the bill that expressly excluded non-residents from the charges. 'If someone is a non-resident of Illinois and is passing through and they are a legal gun owner in the state in which they reside, if that state doesn't have a FOID card system and if they are authorized under federal law to own a gun, then they would not be subject to this,' she said. Rep. C.D. Davidsmeyer, R-Murrayville, raised concerns about the bill's definition of 'lawful permission' and its limitations on minors who hunt. The bill requires firearm owners to safely secure their firearm in a locked box when around a minor who does not have 'lawful permission' from a parent or guardian to access a firearm. On the House floor, Davidsmeyer asked what constitutes 'lawful permission,' to which Hirschauer answered it, 'could be several things.' When asked whether permission must be written down or notarized for parental permission of a minor using a firearm to hunt to be considered lawful, Hirschauer answered that 'hypothetical points are fact dependent.' Davidsmeyer said the question was not a hypothetical, and that it is an issue that will crop up in 'daily life' for minors who hunt. 'This bill, I believe, violates recent Supreme Court decisions under the Second Amendment and will likely be found unconstitutional,' Windhorst said at the end of debate. Hirschauer disagreed. 'Firearm theft compromises the effectiveness of our commonsense gun laws and often results in these weapons being acquired by people who are legally prohibited from possessing them,' she said. 'The reporting measures strengthened in this bill will give law enforcement the tools they need to crack down on lost and stolen guns.' Opponents to SB8 include the ACLU of Illinois, Illinois State Rifle Association and the Illinois State Crime Commissions; the Illinois State Police did not officially oppose or support the bill. SB8 passed the Senate 33-19 last month and awaits approval from the governor before it can become law. Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.
Yahoo
11 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Opinion - Marco Rubio declares war on the global censors
Winston Churchill once warned that 'appeasement is feeding the crocodile, hoping he will eat you last.' When it comes to the crocodile of censorship, history is strewn with defenders who later became digestives. Censorship produces an insatiable appetite for greater and greater speech limits, and today's censorship supporters often become tomorrow's censored subjects. This week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio stopped feeding the crocodile. On May 28, 2025, Rubio shocked many of our allies by issuing a new visa restriction policy that bars foreign nationals deemed 'responsible for censorship of protected expression' in the U.S. The new policy follows a major address by Vice President J.D. Vance in Munich challenging our European allies to end their systematic attacks on free speech. Vance declared, 'If you are running in fear of your own voters, there is nothing America can do for you. Nor, for that matter, is there anything that you can do for the American people that elected me and elected President Trump.' At the time, I called the speech 'Churchillian' in drawing a bright line for the free world. Rubio's action is no less impressive and even more impactful. Europe has faced no consequences for its aggressive efforts at transnational censorship. Indeed, this should not be a fight for the administration alone. Congress should explore reciprocal penalties for foreign governments targeting American companies or citizens for engaging in protected speech. After Vance spoke in Munich, I spoke in Berlin at the World Forum, where European leaders gathered in one of the most strikingly anti-free speech conferences I have attended. This year's forum embraced the slogan 'A New World Order with European Values.' That 'new world order' is based on an aggressive anti-free speech platform that has been enforced for years by the European Union. At the heart of this effort is the Digital Services Act, a draconian law that allows for sweeping censorship and speech prosecutions. Most importantly, it has been used by the EU to threaten American corporations for their failure to censor Americans and others on social media sites. After the World Forum, I returned home to warn that this is now an existential war over a right that defines us as a people —the very 'Indispensable Right' identified by Justice Louis Brandeis, which is essential for every other right in the Constitution. The irony was crushing. I wrote about how this nation has fought to protect our rights in world wars, yet many in Congress simply shrug or even support the effort as other countries move to make Americans censor other Americans. What was most unnerving about Berlin was how Americans have encouraged Europeans to target their fellow citizens. At the forum was Hillary Clinton who, after Elon Musk purchased Twitter on a pledge to dismantle its massive censorship system, called upon the EU to use the Digital Services Act to force him to resume censorship. Other Americans have appeared before the EU to call upon it to oppose the U.S. Nina Jankowicz, the former head of President Joe Biden's infamous Disinformation Governance Board, has recently returned to he EU to rally other nations to oppose what she described as 'the autocracy, the United States of America.' She warned that the Digital Services Act was under attack, and that the EU had to fight and beat the U.S.: 'Do not capitulate. Hold the line.' Former European Commissioner for Internal Markets and Services Thierry Breton even threatened Musk for interviewing Trump before our last presidential election. He told Musk that he was being 'monitored' in conducting any interview with now-President Trump. The EU is doubling down on these efforts, including threatening Musk with prosecution and massive confiscatory fines if he does not resume censoring users of X. The penalties are expected to exceed $1 billion. Other countries are following suit. Brazilian Supreme Court Judge Alexandre de Moraes shut down X in his entire country over Musk's refusal to remove political posts. These countries could remotely control speech within the U.S., forcing companies like X to meet the lowest common denominator set by the EU and anti-free speech groups. There are free speech concerns even in such measures designed to protect free speech. This policy should be confined to government officials, particularly EU officials, who are actively seeking to export European censorship systems worldwide. It should not extend to academics or individuals who are part of the growing anti-free speech movement. Free speech itself can counter those voices. These are the same voices that we have heard throughout history, often using the very same terms and claims to silence others. However, Rubio showed Europe that the U.S. would not simply stand by as European censors determined what Americans could say, read, or watch. As the EU threatens companies like X with billion-dollar fines, it is time for the U.S. to treat this as an attack on our citizens from abroad. Franklin Delano Roosevelt put it simply during World War II: 'No man can tame a tiger into a kitten by stroking it.' It is time to get serious about the European threat to free speech. And Rubio is doing just that — finally imposing real consequences for censorship. We are not going to defeat censors by yelling at them. Speech alone clearly does not impress them. Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University and the author of 'The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
