Responding to Rafael Cruz’s allegations that God wants his son, Ted, to be president—and that if anyone else were to be president, it could result in “the destruction of America”—Donald Trump implied in an interview with Fox News that the elder Cruz had something to do with killing John F. Kennedy.

A weird relic rested on the bookcase in my family's last home in New Orleans: a wooden pipe that had belonged to Jim Garrison, the Orleans Parish district attorney who tried and failed to convict a local businessman named Clay Shaw for the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The pipe still smelled of the tobacco its owner had packed and lit before setting it down at a cocktail party. Garrison—that's him on the right—had left the party and forgotten his pipe. And because he was still a hero to some, and especially to my mom, she took Garrison's pipe home as a souvenir.

Next month more than 650 personal items of John F. Kennedy's are set to go for auction. They include photographs, mementos, gifts from foreign leaders during Kennedy's presidency and even clothing. All the items up for auction are from the personal collection of David Powers, who served as a Special Assistant to Kennedy during his presidency, and worked with him from the 1940's to Kennedy's death in 1963.

This morning, under the shadow of controversy, the city of Dallas demolished an apartment building that was once home to Lee Harvey Oswald, the man who assassinated President John F. Kennedy. The 10-unit apartment building located at 604 Elsbeth Sreet was vacant and has been for years. Oswald, his wife and his daughter lived in the building until March 1963 — seven months before Oswald would allegedly shoot and kill the President as well as Dallas Police Officer J.D. Tippit.

The last batch of President Kennedy's secret Oval Office recordings was released today, just barely missing the deadline for everyone's "Best Secret Presidential Recordings of 2011" year-end lists. Archivists from the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library have been declassifying and releasing portions of the tapes, recorded so super duper secretly not even Kennedy's top aides knew of their existence before his death, since 1993.

The night before his assassination, President John F. Kennedy attended an event for the League of United Latin American Citizens in Austin. Roy Botello took a silent film of him and his wife, Jackie, arriving at the event. After sitting in a drawer for 47 years, the footage is now on the internet.

Yesterday was the 50th anniversary of John F. Kennedy's inauguration. How did you celebrate? Nancy Pelosi, for one, posted a photo of her with Kennedy at an inaugural ball on January 20, 1961. It's the one on the left, duh.

The History Channel has decided to cancel its 8-part miniseries The Kennedys, starring Katie Holmes, because the "dramatic interpretation is not a fit" for the channel. Good! The show was developed by the guy behind right-wing torture fetish show 24.

The coffin that once held JFK's assassin Lee Harvey Oswald—or did it?—sold at auction for $87,469.

Now's your chance to own some American history: An auction house in California is selling the casket that held the body of John F. Kennedy's alleged assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, from 1963 until 1981. Bidding starts at $1,000.

Theodore C. Sorensen, John F. Kennedy's speechwriter and special counsel, died today after suffering a severe stroke last week. Sorensen wrote large portions of JFK's Profiles in Courage, along with Kennedy's most well known speeches. He was 82 years old.

John F. Kennedy married Jacqueline in 1953, but he was also creeping with many international beauties—including Sweden's Gunilla von Post, who's now auctioning off her love letters from the horndog president-to-be. He's lucky there was no internet back then.

Update: JFK yacht pic's fake; plus TheSmokingGun.com has a 50-year-old FBI memo mentioning it. And, UPDATE 2: TSG also posted the original 1967 Playboy photo of a sexxxy yacht party that TMZ stole. Here it is! [TSG. Click to enlarge.]

November 24, 1963: Jack Ruby shoots Lee Harvey Oswald, the accused murderer of John F. Kennedy. It airs on live television.

• Today host Ann Curry moved during the national anthem at the Republican National Convention, because NBC hates freedom. Then she pointed at a nice lady from Alaska and yelled, because she is a terrorist. The Virgin Islands were also terribly offended. [P6]

Where did John Edwards and Rielle Hunter have their first romantic interlude? At the Loews Regency Hotel on Park Avenue, which happens to be one of Edwards favorite hotels in town. (We're guessing, however, that the hotel's owner, Jonathan Tisch, won't be including this little fact in the official hotel brochure in the near future.) But Edwards isn't the only married man who picked the five-star property to carry on behind his wife's back. In 1997, former football star Frank Gifford—the husband of Kathie Lee—bedded nude model Suzan Johnson in suite 521. (Gifford later claimed a tabloid had set him up.) After the jump, a few of the hotels where some of the rich and powerful have cheated on their wives, stashed their goomahs, and/or ran up a huge mini-bar bill.