I can't decide which is more amusing: the CIA's use of "national security" to justify keeping secret its 50-year-old records in the JFK assassination or the mainstream media's response to the continued secrecy.

On the one hand, the CIA's use of "national security" to justify keeping 98 percent of the still-secret records is palpably laughable. However one defines that nebulous term "national security," one thing is patently clear: Nothing — absolutely nothing — would have happened to the United States if the CIA had been forced to let the American people see its still-secret, 50-year-old JFK records on October 26, 2018, as the 1992 JFK Records Act mandated. The United States wouldn't have fallen into the ocean. The federal government wouldn't have turned Red.

After all, what happened to the United States when only 2 percent of the long-secret records were finally released last week? Nothing. The United States is still standing and the commies have not taken over the federal government. But don't forget: For more than 50 years, the CIA has maintained, falsely as it turns out, that disclosing those 2 percent of its records would threaten "national security."

Although the mainstream media doesn't seem to be buying this national-security nonsense, they simply cannot bring themselves to reach the commonsense and logical conclusion: The 98 percent of the long-secret CIA records contain more circumstantial evidence of guilt — circumstantial evidence that demonstrates that Oliver Stone was right when he posited in his movie JFK that the CIA did, in fact, effect one of its storied regime-change operations right here in the United States on November 22, 1963.

There is something important to keep in mind about Stone's movie: It was the impetus that caused the American people to force Congress to enact the JFK Records Act in 1992, which forced the CIA and other federal agencies to disclose their JFK-assassination records to the American people. If Congress had not inserted the provision into the law that gave the CIA another 25 years to keep its records secret, the American people would have seen the records that the CIA is still steadfastly keeping secret 25 years ago.

The media emphasizes that the 2 percent of the records that were released contain no "smoking guns" that point to the CIA's guilt in the assassination. By "smoking gun" they are referring to a videotaped confession or a CIA memorandum setting forth plans for the assassination. Having convinced themselves of the validity of the official theory — that the president was killed by a lone-nut former U.S. Marine communist, they are unable to recognize the pieces of important circumstantial evidence that, over the decades, have filled in the overall mosaic of a CIA regime-change operation, one based on the purported need to protect the nation from a president whose policies and actions were supposedly threatening "national security."

In figuring out what happened in the Kennedy assassination, it's important that a person employ common sense, logic, and a critical mindset. It's the only way to pierce through all the so-called conspiracy theories about the assassination, some of which are undoubtedly designed to confuse and confound people from piercing through to the truth.

Why is the circumstantial evidence important? Because there never would have been a "smoking gun" videotaped confession or even a memorandum detailing the assassination of the president. There is no way that the CIA would be that stupid. In fact, long ago, the CIA made it clear that no CIA official should ever mention in writing any of its state-sponsored assassinations, for fear that the record might, inadvertently, come to light.

That means that in determining what actually happened, circumstantial evidence becomes critically important. No matter how much planning goes into a state-sponsored assassination, it's inevitable that some things will not go according to plan. It's like an army operation — no matter how much planning goes into it, things inevitably go wrong. And when things don't go according to plan, circumstantial evidence oftentimes demonstrates that.

The CIA knows that. That's why from the very beginning of the JFK assassination, secrecy was of the utmost importance. That's why most of the Warren Commission proceedings were shrouded in secrecy. That's why the records of the CIA, FBI, Secret Service, and military were ordered to be kept secret for 75 years after the Warren Commission issued its report. It's why they are still steadfastly keeping their records secret.