A Few Monday Reads

 Obituary:  Noted pathologist/coroner and JFK assassination conspiracy buff Cyril Wecht, 93, has died.

He was also prominent in Democratic Party politics, so he wasn't all bad, just off the rails when it came to the assassination.

I remember the mock trial of Lee Harvey Oswald back in the 1980s, and the prosecutor for the mock trial, Vincent Bugliosi, destroyed Wecht on the stand with the greatest of ease.

Snip:

The pathologist — a pioneer when he went into the field in the 1960s — conducted more than 20,000 autopsies during his career and consulted on post-mortem exams for another 40,000. He wrote dozens of books and hundreds of other professional publications, and he continued his speaking engagements well into the last years of his life.

He was the first civilian to examine the evidence in the assassination of John F. Kennedy. He believed that JonBenet Ramsey’s father killed her but it was an accident. He opined that Elvis Presley died of an overdose.

--

Poor Dr. Wecht was wrong on all three counts.

___________________________________

A Tennessee woman denied an abortion in that state despite carrying a severely deformed fetus slams the state's draconian law.

The law makes no exceptions for fatal conditions and also criminalizes physicians who perform the procedure outside of the allowed exceptions.

Ms Cecil recalled the doctor not knowing how to respond to her question about her options.

“That’s something that no one should ever hear,” she noted.

The doctor set her up with a specialist, where another ultrasound was conducted. That scan was more difficult, she says, because she could see the severity of the fetus’ condition. “I could see the brain not attached,” Ms Cecil said.

_________________________

Now This Is

interesting, to say the least:

A former U.S. attorney general on Tuesday accused the U.S. attorney in Pittsburgh of launching public corruption probes that targeted Democratic officeholders while looking the other way when presented with evidence of misconduct by Republican officials.

The incendiary remarks by Richard L. Thornburgh, a former Republican governor of Pennsylvania as well as the top Justice Department official from 1988 to 1991, represented some of the most extraordinary testimony yet in the continuing congressional investigation into allegations of politicization of the Justice Department under ousted Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales.

Thornburgh, now an attorney in private practice, represents nationally known forensic pathologist Cyril Wecht, who was indicted by a federal grand jury last year for allegedly misusing his elected position as the Allegheny County coroner. Prosecutors allege that Wecht directed employees at the coroner's office to spend substantial portions of their time performing tasks related to his private consulting business that reportedly grosses over $1 million a year.

Thornburgh said the indictment blew out of proportion what were, at most, a series of minor transgressions. He said prosecutors targeted Wecht because he was an outspoken and highly visible Democratic figure in western Pennsylvania. The case is set for trial in January.

Pass the popcorn, please.