Posted by Jeff Benson on Nov 26, 2019
President Dennis Connolly reviewed upcoming event highlights.  See Dennis’ events email for details on all of these events:
-  White Bear Lake Rotary’s Thanksgiving Meals on Wheels program is in its 49th year.  About 20,000 meals will be prepared and distributed to 400 families on Thanksgiving Day.  Of course, a program of this size requires many volunteers, so they could use your help in preparing and delivering the meals.
-  Forest Lake Rotary is holding their 3rd annual Turkey Trot at the Forest Lake City Center, 1408 Lake St S. in Forest Lake.  To register or get more information, click here.
-  The giant Hmong New Year celebration will be on November 30- Dec 1 at the St Paul River Centre.  Click here for more information.
-  Don’t forget our Harvest Pack Event on December 10th.  All Rotarians, family and friends are invited to join in the event.  Please take the time right now to register yourself, and any helpers.  Click here to complete your registration.
-  The District Mid-Term meeting is set for January 11th, 8:30-3:00PM at Hamline University.
-  Our annual Irondale Choir Christmas Concert and Carol sing along will be at Risdall Marketing in Roseville on December 17th at 12:15PM.  An awesome meal will be catered by the exchange.
 
Happy Bucks Highlights:
-  Dave Hoel was happy about travelling to Puerto Vallarta and about his 74th birthday tomorrow.  He generously treated us with cake to celebrate his old age and we treated him by singing happy birthday.
-  Cindy Carlson was happy about her trip to Asheville, North Carolina.
-  Dennis Connolly visited the Bentleyville Christmas light show with his grandkids.
-  Jason Miller was happy to have his daughter home from school for the holidays.
 
Our speaker today was historian and author, David Yorks.  His topic was; “The Warren Commission Report: Fact or Fiction”.  Just days after the assassination of President Kennedy, President Lyndon B. Johnson created a commission to investigate the assassination.  Seven men agreed to serve on the commission but, according to David, six of those appointed were reluctant to do so for either political or personal reasons, or both.  Only Gerald Ford was excited to participate.  David believes that the Warren Commission suffered 3 major disadvantages:  1. Since most of the Commission members were reluctant to serve in the first place, their attendance was poor, with  each individual commissioner attending around 50% of the hearings.  2. The Commission had an unreasonable deadline and was grossly underfunded.  3.  Many government agencies withheld information or outright lied to the commission.  Since the Warren Commission, there have been five more government investigations into the events surrounding the assassination.  The most thorough investigation was conducted from 1976-79 by the House Select Committee on assassination (HSCA).  Unlike the Warren Commission investigation, the HSCA was not hampered by financial or time restraints, and new film, audio and previously classified documents were available to the HSCA.  The HSCA disagreed with the Warren Commission’s findings in the following ways:  While the Warren Commission found no evidence of conspiracy, the HSCA found that there must have been a conspiracy but could not specify who was involved.  The Warren Commission decided that only three shots were fired but the HSCA determined that four shots were fired.  The Warren Commission determined that the autopsy was properly conducted but the HSCA disagreed, since neither of the doctors involved had ever performed a gunshot autopsy before.  The Warren Commission determined that Jack Ruby had acted on his own in shooting Lee Harvey Oswald and that Ruby had no ties to organized crime but the HSCA could not rule out either possibility.  David pointed out several other inconsistencies and improbabilities of the Warren Commission’s findings.  He stressed that all the members of the Warren Commission and the HSCA were honorable men who were doing the best job that they could and didn’t imply any conspiracy in either investigative group.  But the question remains: what are the true facts surrounding the JFK assassination.  David and Dennis are shown below.