"Killing hope: Cover-up of the stolen 2004 election" by Pete Johnson (1-5-09 Online Journal)

[bobthedrummer]

"Any hope of prosecuting the perpetrators of the stolen 2004 presidential election ended when Mike Connell died Dec. 19 in a plane crash."

http://www.onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_4189.shtml

[SammyWinstonJack]

1. K&R

[deathrind]

34. You have to wonder...

By all accounts this man was a smart guy. Papers had been filed w/ the DoJ citing threats against him by his lawyer, his own friends warned him... why would he put himself at such great risk by continuing to traveling like that...

[Vinnie From Indy]

35. It is almost a rule that guys like Connell are, in fact, idiots.

While guys like him can be geniuses in their field, they have not a prayer against the likes of BushCo when it comes to political intrigue. He was undoubtedly a marked man the minute he began working on the theft project. Every well run criminal enterprise deals with guys like Connell the same way - they eliminate the threat the moment the asset is no longer needed.

It could well be that Connell thought he had the upper hand and that his knowledge would ultimately keep him safe. I imagine the Bushies had a good laugh at Connell's attempt to protect himself by secreting damning information somewhere as a life insurance policy of sorts. His lack of understanding with whom he was dealing doomed him the minute he signed on.

[democraticinsurgent]

2. Excellent article!

And another sad story highlighting the passing of democracy.

[truedelphi]

3. K & R and marking so I can read later. n/t

[Pooka Fey]

4. K&R excellent info.

[Frustratedlady]

5. We need to keep the Connell thing alive.

We need valid answers to the crash and an answer from the investigation. Where is that at now? K&R

[Tuesday_Morning]

6. k & r

[mod mom]

7. Pete's my buddy...

I'll have to email him and let him know he made DU's greatest page! :hi:

[glitch]

8. What a coincidence! K & R nt

[Greyhound]

9. And we just accept it... K&R n/t

[johan helge]

10. How can a man like that fly a private plane?

Why make it so easy to kill him?

[KoKo]

16. He only had 500 hours of flight time...that's not a lot. He must have been

very sure of himself even with the pressure he was under. :-(

[creeksneakers2]

37. Simple answer

He wasn't really threatened. That's why he continued to fly.

[DeeDeeNY]

11. K & R

[Joe Chi Minh]

12. Is this man a fifth columnist? "In all probablility...!" Oh, well, that's it, then.

There's nothing more to be done."

Why would 36 DUers want to Recommend this?

[sce56]

15. Because ever since the theft of 2000 we have been paying attention to the corruption of our voting

system!

Bush never was fairly elected he was selected by the Supreme Court when they stopped the counting! We even have Republicans admitting on tape they would fix the election!
Just watch Rep. Pete King (R) of NY say
Watch a clip here from Alexandra Pelosi's HBO film "Diary of a Political Tourist"](yes Nancy's Daughter) catches a tipsy Congressman Peter King (R) of NY making a comment at a White House function before the election had even been started declaring that, "It's already over. The Election's over. We Won."

When Pelosi asks, "How do you know that?" King replies, "It's all over but the counting. And we'll take care of the counting."
This was recorded in he summer of 2003 a year before the 2004 election! Elections have been stolen in the last two presidential races involving Bush!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvnEe6n2MW4

[Joe Chi Minh]

41. Precisely.

[certainot]

13. NTSB does not investigate as if murder is possible

unless maybe there's a missile involved so they can blame it on terrorists. if there is any mystery they'll blame it on pilot error, as usual.

the final NTSB report will take months and the head of the NTSB is a bush/nixon guy.

americans who want to get to the bottom of this will have to light a fire under their reps if they want a real investigation.

[creeksneakers2]

14. Some of the weaknesses of the murder theory

I'd like to clarify that I am only writing about the progress of this conspiracy theory from the time in 2006 when it was born up until the day Connell was deposed, November 3, 2008. There are other questions from the earlier days of this that could be included, if there is interest in discussing the merits of the conspiracy theory.



In the original version of the story, there were threats from Karl Rove against Connell to make him take the rap for stealing the 2004 Ohio election. The problem with that idea was that there never was any evidence that Connell did anything wrong. There wasn't even proof that the election was stolen in the first place. All the suit that named Connell as a witness had was a theory about how Connell MIGHT have stolen the election. Experts who reviewed the claims found it was unlikely that Connell could have stolen the election in the manner theorized. The experts said they needed more information to make a conclusion.

Since the suit that subpoenaed Connell had so little merit, it makes no sense that Connell, let alone Karl Rove would be threatened by it. The original threat story from the conspiracy theory said Connell was supposed to take the rap for stealing the 2004 Ohio election. But if Connell would have taken the rap, he would have had to have admitted that the 2004 election was stolen in the first place. A revelation like that would probably lead to people in the White House going to prison. So why admit to something like that when there is no evidence against you? Why threaten somebody when that could make them expose everyone?

Another problem with the original version of the threat story was that it claimed if Connell did not take the rap, his wife would be arrested for lobby law violations. As far as I can find, his wife isn't even a lobbyist. A recent article describes her as a stay at home mother of four who was listed on Connell's businesses but played no role in them.

Where did the story that Connell was threatened first come from? In court documents, plaintiff's lawyer Arnebeck says the witness is anonymous and they came across him after the suit got wide spread notice in the "blogosphere." So he's probably just some guy on the Internet. We all know how trustworthy anonymous people on the Internet are. In some places, the source is described as a higher up in the McCain campaign. How many high level McCain staffers follow left wing conspiracy blogs? Supposedly, the same source also told the lawyers that the 2008 election was going to be stolen too. Arnebeck used that to get his case back out of suspension, but dropped it just before the election where the claim would have been proven false.

So Connell goes ahead on November 3 and testifies he knows nothing. Why then was there was any reason for Rove to threaten Connell?

The story and the details changed after the first version. But it still came from people who would not substantiate their claims or name their witnesses.

[emlev]

17. "We all know how trustworthy anonymous people on the Internet are."

So who are you?

[lala_rawraw]

18. same as before

;)

[byronius]

19. Hey, they've got a thousand posts.

Must be legit.

Move along.

[creeksneakers2]

23. Someone who will back up what he says

I'm not claiming to be a witness. I'm an observer and anyone else can look at everything I looked at. Would you like a link to anything I've said?

[fasttense]

21. It was anonymous sources that brought down the criminal Presidency of Nixon.

But back then we didn't have a handful of monopolies running All the media.

I find it interesting how hard the corporate media tried to ignore the stolen election of 2004. No corporate journalist made any effort to validate the facts, even when the Senate had doubts about that state election. Numerous talking heads came out and reassured us the stolen election of 2004 was all one big giant conspiracy theory, just like creeksneakers2 is doing now. And yet the same media now tells us there are No WMDs when before the war on Iraq, they insisted America was in grave danger from these same WMDs.

Who are you going to trust?

[janet118]

27. It would have helped . . .

if the Kerry campaign had fought as hard to make sure the 2004 election was not tampered with as they had promised to do prior to the election. Remember all the lawyers they said were "on the ground" in Ohio - led by Cam Kerry no less. A lot of evidence could have been preserved and media coverage would have ensued if the Democratic candidate for president had had the backbone to demand and pay for a full investigation in real time.

It also seems that this Connell guy had information on the disappeared e-mails which would have been more directly connected to Rove & Co. and possibly more prosecutable. If this plane crash were not an accident, who gains? Connell certainly would be someone that would be better off dead in the eyes of those in the GOP who engineered crimes that they do not want to be held accountable for.

[Jambalaya]

30. Spoon up some more

How about trusting in Stephen Spoonamore:

Spoonamore 2008 Interview - “Paper ballots please..” « TheZoo Sep 30, 2008 ... Here, in this shattering new interview, Stephen Spoonamore goes into harrowing detail about the Bush regime’s election fraud, past, ...
tpzoo.wordpress.com/2008/09/30/stephen-spoonamore-2008-interview-paper-ballots-please/ - 78k - Cached - Similar pages

OpEdNews » Deposition of Spoonamore Admits Ohio Vote Theft Sep 19, 2008 ... A deposition reproduced here details the way in which the Ohio vote was stolen by manipulating computer totals. This is ON TOP OF the voting ...
www.opednews.com/articles/Deposition-by-Spoonamore-A-by-Stephen-Spoonamore-080919-58.html - 83k - Cached - Similar pages


YouTube - Velvet Revolution Interviews Stephen Spoonamore (segment 6) Segment 6 of 8:Stephen Spoonamore on electronic voting machines: "There is no system in the world that cannot be hacked. Diebold is lying."The comp...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9Kq4dxPwY8 - 111k - Cached - Similar pages


Diebold Coverup, Says SAIC Report And Stephen Spoonamore ... Computer cyber security expert Stephen Spoonamore got a copy of the 197-page unredacted report which listed hundreds of serious problems, and he released ...
www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/35726 - 75k - Cached - Similar pages

1 Declaration of Stephen Spoonamore ... File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - View as HTML
Sep 17, 2008 ... Executed this 17th day of September 2008. Stephen Spoonamore. Case 2:06-cv-00745 -ALM-TPK Document 62-2 Filed 09/17/2008 Page 4 of 4.
www.rawstory.com/images/other/SpoonamoreAffidavit.pdf - Similar pages

The Spoonamore Revelations: The Rig is In to Steal 2008 | Election ... Sep 26, 2008 ... Here, in this shattering new interview, Stephen Spoonamore goes into ... Spoonamore says that the GOP wanted e-voting to steal elections but ...
www.electiondefensealliance.org/spoonamore_revelations - 39k - Cached - Similar pages

[Jambalaya]

33. X-Men

BTW, Does anybody happen to know-or have seen-any references to exactly WHOM Connell was alleged to have met with just prior to his take-off? I haven't been able to locate any info.(Incidentally, I think if his widow would file a lawsuit against the plane's manufacturer for faulty systems'malfunction,much truth would come out in the defense discovery-in an effort for the company to defend itself.)

[troubleinwinter]

22. Confusing.

Is the "tipster" known to anyone? Doesn't appear to be. Are there other known sources?

This is why it's not easy to know what is fact and what is anonymous/cranks/second/third hand-

Arnebeck's memorandum:

MEMORANDUM IN SUPPORT OF PLAINTIFFS’ MOTION FOR EXPEDITED HEARING AND MEMORANDUM IN OPPOSITION TO NONPARTY MICHAEL CONNELL’S MOTION TO QUASH

On July 19, 2008, two days after this news conference that was widely disseminated within the blogosphere, an anonymous tipster, describing himself as being within the McCain Presidential campaign, reported that Rove had threatened Michael Connell for the apparent purpose of intimidating him from giving truthful testimony against Karl Rove. See Declaration of Brett Kimberlin, Exhibit B, ¶ 3.

Velvet Revolution's report of the memorandum:

A tipster close to the McCain campaign disclosed to VR in July that Mr. Connell’s life was in jeopardy and that Karl Rove had threatened him and his wife, Heather. VR’s attorney, Cliff Arnebeck, notified the United States Attorney General , Ohio law enforcement and the federal court about these threats and insisted that Mr. Connell be placed in protective custody.

Arnebeck Memorandum / VR reporting

an anonymous tipster a tipster

describing himself as as being within the McCain campaign a tipster close to the McCain campaign

reported disclosed

Rove had threatened Michael Connell Mr. Connell’s life was in jeopardy

I don't believe Brett Kimberlin's Declaration has been made public at this point. He is apparently the person who claims to have knowledge of the threats from the "anonymous tipster".

[RandomThoughts]

20. knowing we are being screwed

and doing something about it are two different things.

A women is being beaten by a few men on the side of the road.

100 people walk by and say, "thats wrong, somebody should do something."

They don't care if we know the election was stolen, they only care that we choose to not do anything about it.

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

24. Ummm, That Hope Was Gone In November Of 2004.

:crazy:

[thesquanderer]

25. After Jan 20?

the article says, "The question is, does Connell have friends who are courageous enough to see that justice is done on his behalf?"

If there are, perhaps they will be more willing to come forward when the party they are accusing is out of power...

[TheUnspeakable]

26. k and r wish KO or someone would cover this!

I.ve been on MSNBC website trying to figure out how to email Countdown directly,but having a hard time

[mnhtnbb]

28. It sure was a convenient accident.

[gristy]

29. He feared he was being targeted, and yet he flew his own private plane

That just doesn't make sense. Commercial aircraft would have been so much safer.

[creeksneakers2]

38. It doesn't make sense

That's why I don't believe the tale about his plane being sabotaged twice and Connell being warned his life was in danger and yet he continued to fly. It doesn't make sense because it isn't true.

[BonnieJW]

31. Since it appears that Connell knew he was in danger,

why didn't he hide evidence "in the event of my untimely death?" Unless he did and his wife is still afraid to bring it to light. She may have to proceed with great caution.

[malaise]

32. The best article on this subject to date

K & R

[HillWilliam]

36. Just thinkin' out loud here

but if Connell was a half-way decent IT guy, plus knowing how vindictive any repug can be, and if I were him (being an IT guy myself), wouldn't he have spread copies of proofs all over the place "in case something happens"? I have backups of backups of backups on different media, in case a device fails, or a medium fails, or (G'dde forbid) the house gets picked up and deposited in Oz or something.

Seems to me if he were going to snitch and had proofs, if he had spirited copies out once, (and if he had more than two brain cells in the same orbit) he'd've copied those and spirited those out to more hidey-holes for "just in case".

"All is lost" just doesn't add up to my IT mind...

...unless he was a total bozo. Somehow I don't think so.

[creeksneakers2]

39. Of course

And there would be no way for Rove to know Connell didn't plant proof elsewhere if he had wanted to kill Connell. This is another part of the conspiracy theory that doesn't make sense, which leads me to believe the theory isn't true.

[Cetacea]

40. "It's all over but the counting. And we'll take care of the counting."