Monday, December 29, 2008

Why Al Franken should NOT be riding private planes

The Free Press: Speaking Truth to Power


by Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman
 
The tragic and suspicious death of Karl Rove's election thief in chief should send a clear message to Al Franken and other key liberals: don't be riding in any small private planes.

Death by air crash now seems to be the favored means of ridding the Rovian right of troublesome characters.

The most recent is Michael Connell, who died Friday night when his private plane crashed near his northern Ohio home. Connell was the information techology whiz kid who helped Rove steal the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections, along with a few in between---possibly including the 2002 senatorial campaign in Minnesota that followed the death of Paul Wellstone.

Connell was an expert pilot whose plane crashed in clear weather. He held virtually all the secrets to how George W. Bush was illegally foisted on the American people---and the world---for eight horrifying years. By manipulating computerized results in Florida 2000 and Ohio 2004 Connell made history. By some accounts, he was about to tell the attorneys in the on-going King-Lincoln-Bronzeville federal civil rights lawsuit how he did it. He also approached expressed a willingness to appear under oath before Congress. But now he is dead.

Current cover stories include the possibility that his plane ran out of fuel. But its crash was accompanied by a very large fireball explosion that burned for more than ten minutes. A trooper on the scene immediately identified Connell, but newspaper accounts say his body was charred beyond recognition.

Connell told various sources that he was being threatened by Rove. He canceled at least two previous flights due to mechanical failure. A father of four, his decision to fly from a highly restricted airport in Maryland remains a mystery. Connell reportedly did contract work for security-industrial agencies, like the CIA. Connell also openly acknowledged that he was the first IT contractor to move his servers behind the firewall of the US House of Representatves where he oversaw the websites of the House Judiciary Committee, Intelligence Committee, Ways and Means Committee, and Administrative Committee, arguably the four most powerful committees in the House.

He now joins such critical players as Paul Wellstone, Mel Carnahan, Ron Brown, Mickey Leland, John Tower, John F. Kennedy, Jr., and many more critical public figures who have died in small plane crashes at questionable moments.

In all cases there are non-nefarious potential explanations for their deaths. Conspiracy theories can, indeed, be frivolous.

But so can their out-of-hand dismissal by coincidence theorists.
 

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