More Questions Raised About Death Of Bush Cyber Expert Mike Connell

[FourScore]

I just received this email from Velvet Revolution

UPDATE ON ROVE CYBER GATE
More Questions Raised About Death Of Bush Cyber Expert Mike Connell
Join Our Call For A Federal Criminal Investigation!

Eleven months ago, Bush IT guru Mike Connell was killed in a single engine plane crash shortly after being forced to testify in a civil deposition alleging fraud in the 2004 election. According to legal filings prior to the crash, Mr. Connell had received threats from Karl Rove and warnings not to talk. We have been covering this case in great detail at www.RoveCyberGate.com

Now in a new development, Mr. Connell’s wife and sister have spoken out together about their serious doubts that the crash was simply an accident. They disclosed that the FBI recently received a document from a black ops “assassination jackal” tipster who alleges that Mr. Connell’s plane was sabotaged while sitting at the airport prior to his last flight. Former ABC News reporter Rebecca Abrahams broke these developments Monday on The BRAD BLOG www.bradblog.com.

Today, we are renewing our call for a full federal investigation into the allegations of election fraud made against Mr. Connell, Karl Rove, Jeff Averbeck and other GOP conspirators, and expanding that call to include a criminal investigation into Connell's death. According to Mr. Connell’s his family, Mike’s best friend and confidant was none other than Barry Jackson, Karl Rove’s deputy and George Bush’s head of political strategies who was implicated in the White House email scandal. Stephen Spoonamore, a top expert in the field of cyber security, said last year that Mr. Connell had asked him how to permanently destroy White House emails.

There are many questions that need to be answered in this matter that can only be discovered by a criminal investigation with people called before a grand jury. You can help us notify the public of this under-reported story via ads in the broadcast media and press announcements with press releases and ads by donating here http://www.velvetrevolution.us/donate.php .

[orpupilofnature57]

1. Until Kkkarl is incarcerated ,Terrorism of every kind threatens national security.

What do you think Kkkarl is doing for Health care reform and who's interests does he serve?

[loudsue]

2. The previous administration IS/WAS Mafia.

Every single one of them, and the financial crash was THEIR doing, for the purposes of raiding the treasury before they were out of office.

[blm]

3. To be as powerful as BFEE and its Global Fascist Pals would be a hopeless daydream to MAFIA.

.

[bleever]

4. K&R.

Well worth reading the whole article on bradblog.

[Vinnie From Indy]

5. What mystery? BushCo had this guy whacked to keep him quiet

The dumbass had no idea with whom he was dealing when he signed up.

[spanone]

6. k&r

[clear eye]

7. The easiest ways to cause a crash of a small plane at a small airport are

1) to move or misadjust the runway lights to a wrong angle causing the pilot to come in too steep or to overshoot the runway, then put them back in place after the accident, or 2)to put a strong knockout drug mixed w/ a skin-permeable solvent on the controls. {Another much more expensive and hard to implement newish method is to strike the small craft w/ a powerful electronic pulse weapon, knocking out its electronics long enough to cause a crash. I've read speculation that Wellstone's plane was attacked like that, because people in the area described cell phone outages at the time of that crash. Of course w/ the unreliability of cell phones in remote areas, that's hardly concrete evidence.}

It's not necessary to tamper w/ the mechanics of the plane at all. Therefore extreme caution must be used in relying on tips alleging mechanical tampering. A false lead designed to be easily disproved or to distract investigators may be "leaked" by someone hired by the perpetrator so that when it doesn't pan out, the entire idea of murder looks wrong as well.

If no one wants to hunt down witnesses or any person to whom the murderer may have bragged (the surest way to get at what, if anything, happened), then this sort of dubious tip is even less likely to go anywhere.

[Joe Chi Minh]

8. Garage-doors were said to have mysteriously opened, as well.

[Techn0Girl]

10. As a commercially rated pilot....

I have been flying since I was 16 years old - for over 30 years now and I can tell you that your "tips" for bringing down a small plane are nonsense. They are the stuff of late night bad cable shows and have no basis in reality.

I'm not even going to go into what's wrong with them because they are so far out of reality that they just aren't worth it.

Why do people on the net write this kind of thing?

[clear eye]

14. I got them from a retired covert ops person.

So please do "go into what's wrong with them", b/c otherwise I have no reason to believe you over him.

[ddeclue]

21. You believe every idiot you talk to in a bar? I've debunked them for you below.

:eyes:

[ddeclue]

22. You believe every idiot you talk to in a bar? I've debunked them for you below.

:eyes:

[JoeyT]

12. Mechnical tampering is the kind that works, though.

AFAIK, the easiest way to crash a small plane would be to damage the stabilizers, damage the slats, damage the steering(for sake of simplicity we'll call it steering), damage the hydraulics, or some other form of mechanical failure.

A strong knockout drug mixed with a skin permeable solvent would allow the solvent to absorb and leave drug covered controls.
Moving the runway lights would only work if they were landing at night in extremely low visibility...and since most of them are concreted down would be difficult to accomplish and pretty obvious after the fact.
EMP only works like that in movies. In reality to hit a moving plane with an EMP pulse of that strength would take a sickening amount of power and disable everything that relied on a computer for a good distance around. Rather than simply disrupting cell phones and opening garage doors, it'd fry computers, TVs, appliances(anything with a board), etc. EMP as a weapon is mostly only good for pretty short ranges and for causing discomfort.

Not saying they didn't cause the plane to crash...I'm just saying mechanical failure is a helluva lot easier to arrange. A couple of minutes with the right tools versus a ton of easily traceable drugs/EMP/etc.

[clear eye]

15. I know for a fact, you're wrong about the absorption of drugs.

The lab researcher who discovered the paychedelic effects of LSD did so b/c he had been experimenting w/ it. Though he'd been using a hood to avoid inhaling fumes, and had washed his hands in DMSO, he began hallucinating and realized that he must be somehow experiencing an effect of one of the chemicals he'd been working with. When he was able to think straight again, he knew that the only way the drug could have entered his bloodstream was via permeating his skin. He later determined, through animal testing, that DMSO was able to transport many otherwise impermeable substances through skin, and he pinpointed the hallucinagenic effect to LSD.

Furthermore, this particular form of nastiness has been used for years in various vendettas involving truckers.

Of course misadjusting lights would only work at night in otherwise unlit areas (I don't think particularly low visibility is needed when the gen'l area is dark.) It was 6pm on Dec. 19th in Akron, Ohio--dark. As for your other "debunk", you've lost your credibility w/ me. I'd need to hear it from an engineer w/ experience in the field.

[ddeclue]

19. And the amount of time you spend pre-flighting and waiting to take off would expose

the drug issue before you were cleared to depart. You would already be experiencing the effects long before you got on the runway.

FAIL.

[clear eye]

16. What FAA investigators look for is tampered mechanics,

isn't it?

[ddeclue]

18. NO - they look at everything that could go wrong NOT simply mechanical failure.

[ddeclue]

17. As a pilot and an engineer this post is ridiculous tin foil crap.

1) How will the saboteur know WHICH airport to sabotage the lighting system on? The pilot is LEAVING an airport but doesn't have to file a flight plan at all so you really don't know where they are going unless the pilot tells someone. :crazy:

2) It would have to be a totally deserted airfield for you to go out and sabotage the lighting - even at an uncontrolled field.

3) Putting the lights back? Bwa ha ha.. you aren't going to be able to sabotage them and then quickly put them back. In many places there are alarm systems on this gear to alert ATC that it has failed not to mention airport security patrols and video surveillance.

After a plane crashes at an airport the authorities are going to be there almost immediately, even at uncontrolled airports. Airplanes have crash beacons called EPIRB's that go off on impact that will bring the authorities out assuming the smoke doesn't do it and no one sees the accident (very unlikely.)

4) The lights really aren't all that important except for night landings and if your plane has any kind of electronic navigation there is an electronic alternative. In any event you really don't desperately need the glideslope lights to land at most airports with a light aircraft because the runways are so long relative to what you need that you could land mid field and STILL have plenty of room left over to stop the plane.

5) You can't guarantee that a pilot is going to land somewhere even IF he tells you he will so trying to target an airport to tamper with the landing lights, ILS etc. is just preposterous. If things don't look right most pilots are smart enough to go to a nearby alternate.

6) Most of the time weather is VFR so messing with the electronics is utterly useless in a light aircraft - everything is mechanical not fly by wire like in big airliners. There is NO engine computer like in your car to disable and the ignition system uses a permanent magnet dual magneto system - it is extraordinarily reliable and invulnerable to EMP.

Stop believing all the CRAP you see in Hollywood movies and take the tinfoil off.

:crazy:

[clear eye]

23. I didn't say it was easy.

Neither are most of the hits professional assassins pull off. Yet some people make their living that way.

The people Connell was afraid of were colleagues. They usually knew where he was going. They often sent him places.

Someone wearing a mechanics suit would not necessarily be questioned if he had cased the airport and knew the least conspicuous way of getting onto the field. How would lights moved to a wrong angle signaling that they were in a different location along the strip "look wrong"? What would be so hard, once you got onto the field and completed the tampering, about alipping into a dark area and waiting until just after the crash to put them back into alignment?

Anyhow the main point I was making is that a real investigation would be interrogating everyone who was at both ends of the trip at the appropriate times. And pressuring people close to the most likely suspect, not trying to prove something about a long since scrapped plane's mechanics. How is that "tinfoil crap"?

[anigbrowl]

25. oh dear

"Someone wearing a mechanics suit would not necessarily be questioned if he had cased the airport and knew the least conspicuous way of getting onto the field. How would lights moved to a wrong angle signaling that they were in a different location along the strip "look wrong"? What would be so hard, once you got onto the field and completed the tampering, about alipping into a dark area and waiting until just after the crash to put them back into alignment?"

Look, if the lights on the landing strip are wrong enough to cause someone to crash a plane, don't you think that they would probably look wrong to other people too? Like other pilots in the area, who might report into ATC? Have you ever walked along the landing strip at a small airport? Don't you realize it would take some considerable time to adjust them all, then adjust them all back again? Even if the lights were in the wrong position, and the plane started making an approach along an unsafe trajectory, this would be noticeable on radar and the air traffic controllers would be asking the pilot why he was coming in at that angle.

As for your 'main point', a real investigation starts by examining all the available evidence and asking questions based on that, not by making up random theories and looking for evidence to fit, which is the exact opposite of the scientific method. Your theory amounts to this: someone we dislike (Rove) may well have benefited from his death + 'these people are capable of anything'.

If someone points out there's no evidence for tampering having occurred, you can just say 'they were so clever they avoided leaving any evidence!'. How convenient. Look, if we were dealing with such criminal geniuses that they could completely cover their tracks, how come we know about the shoddy administration of the WH email system in the first place? It's a hell of a lot simpler to scrub an electronic audit trail than it is to kill someone at a distance. Even for professional assassins, simplicity is a virtue. your theoretical scenarios are hopelessly and needlessly complicated.

[clear eye]

27. Connell SAID he'd gotten death threats from people who were involved.

He asked for protection before he would testify. How dare you claim that I'm inventing reasons to believe that he might have been murdered?!! How dare you try to discredit me by arguing against what I "can just say", when I haven't said it?!!

You've just done more to earn your ignore than any DUer I've ever read. Your post is simply foul.

[ddeclue]

29. We DARE because you are full of crap and we've shown you HOW.

now go away and wrap yourself in tin foil quick before the black helicopters come for you.

[ddeclue]

26. PREPOSTEROUS CRAP from someone who knows NOTHING about flying.

YOU SIR ARE NOT CREDIBLE.

[FourScore]

9. kick

[bluetrain]

11. Always the small plane crash! Not the most creative assassins.

[SpiralHawk]

13. "Smirk." - xCommander AWOL (R)

[malaise]

20. Wouldn't it be beyond irony is this is the one charge

that sticks against Rove? Fingers and toes crossed.

On with a full federal investigation.

[Jim Lane]

24. A question from someone ignorant of aviation

I seem to recall that one possibility raised by investigators was that Connell crashed because he ran out of fuel, a bit short of reaching his destination. This was thought suspicious because Connell was an experienced pilot who would have known how much fuel he needed for the trip, and would not have taken off with an inadequate fuel supply.

Now, suppose a Rove henchman had access to Connell's plane in the hangar before takeoff. Could he have done something to effect this result, e.g. fiddle with the fuel gage, or make a small cut in the fuel line that would cause a slow but steady loss of fuel once the engine began operating? Would that be a way of causing a crash, yet leaving no evidence that could be picked out of the debris of the plane?

[Amerigus]

28. Does the plane crash controversy have to be part of the vote integrity case?

Last April I wrote "Has MSNBC Muzzled Maddow, Olbermann?"<1> and a related follow-up<2> in response to MSNBC's whitewash of the Connell saga.

Surely those two anchors have signed non-disclosure agreements and must abide by the decisions of their network execs in passing on this blockbuster story. But in trying to figure why MSNBC would allow Maddow to ride the left-most cutting edge of cable journalism yet stop short of reporting on Connell, one possibility stuck out more than any other I could muster. Though CBS News online carried one brief piece on Connell's death, the media whitewash has been otherwise across the board with no network seeming to want to risk being the first to stick their neck out.

If MSNBC reports it, NBC can not possibly then ignore it and like falling dominoes, all the other networks would have to follow suit. At first I wondered whether no one wanted to be the bringer of such depressing news, like hey, a US election was stolen. But if the evidence was compelling enough, why not?

My next hunch was that Velvet Revolution's involvement may be why so many are hesitant to break the story. Though it seems VR's reporting, motives and diligence have been solid throughout, some see Brett Kimberlin as too controversial. The Time Magazine 2007 piece "The Wizard of Odd"<3> offers a round up of Kimberlin's mixed history of pros and cons, but in the thick of the Connell deposition, it seems as far as I can tell, he was the sole uncorroborated source for the rumored threat to Connell by Rove that Fitzrakis and Wasserman passed on to AG Mukasey, in turn citing a "credible" source in the McCain campaign (who we are to believe would leak this only to Kimberlin?).

For me, all of this is going way too far afield.

I think perhaps VR's above call for an investigation to expand into Connell's mysterious death goes farther than it needs to for electoral justice. If we want the biggest umbrella of support for an investigation of Ohio 2004, why not limit it to the most concrete, at least initially?

This would be the fact that Connell was handling the Bush campaign/Swift Boat and RNC websites at the same time he was setting up the official Ohio vote reporting apparatus. Then, the Spoonamore allegations that Connell came to him about making data disappear. Limiting it to this should be enough - this is the story - the most disturbing essential facts not in dispute that should send shockwaves through Americans left, right and center. The rest seems much more speculative and potentially divisive - including VR's alleged screenshots of the IP changeovers - limiting the scope would be wise if this story is to break through. The rest will certainly complicate any effort for bipartisan support into Congressional inquiry and is already way too hot to handle for the timid mainstream media.

Just one man's opinion, what do the rest of you think....? Gus W

<1> http://www.opednews.com/articles/Has-MSNBC-muzzled-Maddow--by-Gustav-Wynn-090403-914.html
<2> http://www.opednews.com/articles/Follow-Up-MSNBC-Muzzling-by-Gustav-Wynn-090410-244.html
<3> http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1574161,00.html

[BeFree]

30. Welcome, Gus

News about a stolen election? When? Where?

Yes, it is being covered up.

We've tried all the angles and we thought Connell was the ultimate smoking gun.

Then the plane crash. Back to square one.

[clear eye]

31. Fitzrakis and Wasserman didn't deny the VR report

and continued to provide VR w/ videos related to the election. That makes them the sources, not Kimberlin. The MSM could have gone to them directly. The most logical reason to explain their refusal is that Connell had pointed in the direction of Rove et.al. before his death, which would have to be part of the story or there would be no story. TV networks just won't imply the guilt of someone in a murder on that basis alone when the accused has close ties w/ people who have both enormous power and much wealth, and has shown he can kill w/ impunity.

When it came to breaking the Mafia, it was not TV and radio networks that led the charge. It took in the case of Chicago in 1929 a sudden loss of income due to the gradual rollback of Prohibition to make them vulnerable to the charge led by Eliot Ness. In the 1960s - 1980s, the activities against them were spearheaded right from the top by Pres. Kennedy's brother Bobby, later backed up by Congress with its passage of the RICO Act in 1970.

As the Republican Party has been the main beneficiary of the electoral misdeeds, it's hard to imagine Congress this time proceeding with a similar resolve. Also the guilty in this case involve the upper echelons of U.S. power in a way mobsters could only dream about.

Our best chance of ending these abuses lies w/ citizens working through their state gov'ts to eliminate the means of stealing elections w/o detection, to separate electoral officials from direct control by the political parties, and to crack down on corruption starting from the local levels. I don't imagine that there ever will be a national "vote integrity case".

[Amerigus]

32. I'd read Kimberlin was the source that Rove threatened Connell...

...learned from a McCain campaign tipster. Then the two lawyers ran with it, vouching for Kimberlin. Does anyone know if this is accurate?

[clear eye]

33. Not for sure, but it doesn't sound right

b/c Connell's lawyers had to tell W & F that they wanted to wait for protection before being deposed. So it would seem that W & F would have to know Connell was claiming to have been threatened, directly from his side, doesn't it? I don't remember reading anything that said Connell specifically accused Rove. Maybe Kimberlin just assumed Rove (as practically anyone would being Connell mostly worked for Rove and expected to be asked to testify about him), and that's what was meant by saying the original source was Kimberlin.

[Amerigus]

34. Found it - Kimberlin received the call from the tipster from the McCain campaign...

...according to troubleinwinter, all posted here on DU - http://journals.democraticunderground.com/troubleinwinter.

This was where I read it and it hasn't been challenged that I've seen. In fact things have been pretty quiet - MCM, BradBlog, Raw Story all have had little to say about Connell since I read Kimberlin WAS the source we learned this from with no explanation why a McCain staffer would go to Kimberlin. Then, VR (Kimberlin?) posted the above article....

See why I thought the media has shunned the whole story? If Kimberlin was wrong, it wreaks havoc on the credibility of the case because W&F bought it. But even if he's right, his checkered background becomes ammo for skeptics and Conservative attack dogs. The speculation over Connell's death really just gets in the way due to available evidence.

That's why I made the suggestion this call for investigations be narrowed down to the facts not in dispute so that the media will be more likely to cover it -

I see the big headline being something like "Bush/Swift Boat Webmaster Set Up Official Ohio 2004 Vote Reporting Network" and the sub-heading being "Top GOP Cybersecurity Expert Confirms Ohio 2004 Results In Question After Being Asked To Help Destroy Evidence".