Vin Suprynowicz

Arlen Specter, who as an ambitious young counsel to the Warren Commission intimidated witness Jean Hill in an attempt to make her repudiate her statement that she heard four to six shots at Dealey Plaza on Nov. 23, 1963, was also the chief architect of the “magic bullet theory,” in which a single bullet from the clunky Italian-surplus bolt-action rifle of Lee Harvey Oswald was presumed to have changed direction several times in order to wound both President Kennedy and Gov. John Connally.

This “single bullet theory” — accepted by the slimmest possible 4-3 majority of a commission headed by the man who signed the order to intern the Japanese-Americans in 1942 — had to be embraced to justify the single-assassin theory of the Warren Commission, a conclusion rejected by 81 percent of Americans, according to a 2001 Gallup poll. (President Kennedy’s head flew backward, as his brain matter sprayed in a cone to the rear. That was caused by a bullet from the rear? It’s possible. But John Connally, who was there, testified to the Warren Commission that “There were either two or three people involved, or more, in this — or someone was shooting with an automatic rifle.” (Warren Commission Hearings, vol. IV, p. 133.)

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On a party line vote, the Democrat-dominated Nevada Assembly on Tuesday backed a bill designed to neuter the 538-member Electoral College, guaranteeing the presidential candidate who wins the national popular plurality will always be declared president.

The purpose of Assembly Bill 413 is to see to it that Nevada’s five electoral votes go to the presidential candidate who wins the most popular votes NATIONWIDE, regardless of which candidates carries the majority of NEVADANS.

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On Thursday, The Associated Press reported “Nevada faces the largest budget deficit in the country for the upcoming fiscal year, according to a recent survey of states by the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal Washington, D.C., think tank.

“Nevada will have a 30 percent gap between spending and revenue, edging out Arizona, which faces a 29.8 percent deficit, according to the survey.

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Kevin writes in from Buffalo, N.Y., in response to my March 15 column, “Prohibitionists force pain patients to live in agony”:

Mr. Suprynowicz, Thank you for this article. As a chronic pain patient, I find it more and more difficult to get prescriptions for the medication I need to have a quality of life worth living.

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Back in March, an unnamed Missouri police officer leaked to the press a report issued by the Missouri Information Analysis Center (MIAC) — part of the law enforcement “fusion” effort now being organized by the Department of Homeland Security around the country — titled “The Modern Militia Movement” and dated Feb. 20, 2009.

The MIAC report specifically described supporters of presidential candidates Ron Paul, Chuck Baldwin, and Bob Barr as “militia” influenced terrorists and instructed the Missouri police to be on the lookout for supporters displaying bumper stickers and other paraphernalia associated with the Constitutional, Campaign for Liberty, and Libertarian parties.

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Attempting to restore both morale and fiscal sanity to a county hospital whose previous gang of imported Chicago operators face indictments for misappropriation of funds — a public hospital still hemorrhaging cash and thus requiring taxpayer subsidies at unacceptable levels — new (local) CEO Kathy Silver and her management team had some tough cost-cutting decisions to make, late last year.

They made those tough calls. One of them was to close the hospital’s outpatient oncology unit, which was projected to show an ongoing loss of $3.5 million per year. The unit was targeted for closure in part because those services are available elsewhere in the valley.

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I’m very lucky. Despite what our energetic young bankers-turned-derivative-peddlers have done — are still doing, that’s the amazing part — to our economy, I still have a job.

I was going to say I’m doubly lucky because it’s a cushy job that allows me to sit inside all summer in an air-conditioned office, but that wouldn’t be quite right.

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John Browning’s Model 1911 pistol, an engineering wonder for its day, still serves as a design platform for much modern pistolsmithing. Old examples, especially with military markings, are now highly prized on the collector market, where they can bring hundreds or even thousands of dollars each.

Yet 16 years ago, early in the Clinton administration, the politicians declared our government would no longer sell into the civilian after-market pistols being retired from military armories.

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The typical American automobile in the early 1920s was easy to describe. It was boxy and black, offered a manual transmission only, and sported a straight-up four-cylinder engine. Creature comforts were few. On the bright side, if your car tipped over on a sharp turn — as the top-heavy contraptions were wont to do — two strong men could usually set the thing upright , little the worse for wear.

On the front were four letters: “Ford.”

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A new era is dawning, we’re assured. The dark clouds of industrial pollution (OK, carbon dioxide is colorless, odorless, and non-toxic, but let’s not get bogged down in details) are about to be banished, ushering in a glorious new day of hygienic energy cleanliness and perfectly balanced global neither-warming-nor-cooling.

Not a single new nuclear or coal-fired power plant will be built in America, yay! Instead, all mankind will join hands, sing Kumbaya, and march united into a brilliant, clean, energy self-sufficient future.

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