Moderators: Elvis, DrVolin, Jeff
by KUAN » Sun Nov 20, 2016 1:36 am
by OP ED » Sun Nov 20, 2016 1:51 am
by KUAN » Sun Nov 20, 2016 2:40 am
by maco144 » Sun Nov 20, 2016 4:46 pm
by maco144 » Sun Nov 20, 2016 4:47 pm
by JackRiddler » Mon Nov 21, 2016 1:12 am
OP ED » Sun Nov 20, 2016 12:51 am wrote:Hi Jack. Yeah it would be really complicated and difficult for a normal person to exert that kind of influence over elections. You would need them to have been designed to disfavor larger populations. This would concentrate the effective power in a few centers which would collectively decide the election. If you have close decisions you don't even need all five or six deciding States at one time. Two or three would do it. That's easy math.
You're still going to need the mechanisms to be hidden and unaccountable. Check.
And complete control over a dozen or a couple dozen powerful people to execute and spin the narrative.
But how could you control powerful people.
There's a historical solution for this problem too. Way back when it was called Operation Midnight Climax. And it's probably relevant as a concept to John Podesta and his circle being discussed in this context.
by bks » Tue Nov 22, 2016 1:28 pm
At least in 2004 we had Walter O'Dell's toast to Bush in Ohio.
RoveCyberGate.com
http://www.velvetrevolution.us/prosecute_rove/
UPDATE: 10/25/10: Calling All Hackers And IT Specialists: $20,000 Reward For Information About Vote Tabulation Manipulation In 2010 Election
Today, we announced a $20,000 reward for any hacker, computer scientist or IT specialist who can provide evidence that vote tabulation results were manipulated in such a way that the results changed the legitimate winner. The information must result in an arrest and conviction. Our announcement is posted on this Reward Poster. In short, evidence from past elections has pointed to tabulation manipulation by Karl Rove and GOP controlled operatives that may have changed the results of elections such as Ohio 2004 and Alabama 2002. See www.RoveCyberGate.com. In fact, in 2004, the Ohio Secretary of State election servers were suddenly re-routed to the GOP controlled servers at Smartech in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and the results flipped from John Kerry to George Bush. Bush�s IT guru Mike Connell was responsible for setting up that manipulation with the assistance of Ken Blackwell, and Connell was later killed in a mysterious plane crash after he indicated he was ready to talk about the matter.
In September of 2010, a team of computer scientists hacked into the Washington, DC computer servers and took control of the election results. These �good guy� scientists watched as hackers from Iran and China attempted to hack the servers. This shows how easy it is for election servers to be hacked.
Tipsters have indicated to us that there will be attempts to manipulate the tabulation results in the upcoming election. If so, we want these illegal intrusions to be detected, monitored in real time and reported. Send your tips to tips@velvetrevolution.us.
UPDATE: 1/20/10: Mainstream Press Finally Publishes Explosive Article About Connell And His Death
It has been years that we have been trying to convince the MSM that yes there is a real story underlying the supposed Bush win of Ohio in 2004. Now more than five years later, and only after the strange death of Bush IT guru Michael Connell, has the MSM finally had the courage to allow this story to be published. But no, it wasn�t the New York Times, Washington Post or 60 Minutes but rather, Maxim, a widely read magazine targeting men. We urge everyone to pick up a copy of the February issue of Maxim to read the full 3500 word expose�.
But this story will inevitably lead to greater coverage of the facts outlined by author/journalist Simon Worrall. There are new twists to the story that have previously gone unreported including the fact that Connell�s Blackberry with lots of Bush/Rove info on it disappeared at the crash site; that the site was cleaned up under the cover of night after a lockdown on information about the crash; that the �after action report� detailing the sabotage of Connell�s plane has been received by the NTSB and reviewed by intelligence officials who have indicated that it is genuine; that Connell�s last words were captured on tape and showed extreme surprise at something that happened in the cockpit; that a contract between Connell and the OH SOS shows that they had a subcontract with Smartech to reroute the 2004 election results through GOP servers with remote access, mirroring capabilities, and a Virtual Private Network accessible by anyone with a password; and that Robert Kennedy Jr. calls this case bigger than Watergate. More details can be found at The BradBlog.
UPDATE: 11/9/09: Connell�s Family Speaks Out, Warns Of Wrongful Death Suit Against Rove, Assassination Jackal Tipster Talks Of Sabotage
UPDATE: 11/5/09: NTSB Report on Connell�s crash cannot determine a cause.
UPDATE: 12/20/08: Michael Connell Killed: VR Demands Full State And Federal Investigation
Michael Connell, the Bush IT expert who has been directly implicated in the rigging of George Bush’s 2000 and 2004 elections, was killed last night when his single engine plane crashed three miles short of the Akron airport. Velvet Revolution (“VR”), a non-profit that has been investigating Mr. Connell’s activities for the past two years, can now reveal that a person close to Mr. Connell has recently been discussing with a VR investigator how Mr. Connell can tell all about his work for George Bush. Mr. Connell told a close associate that he was afraid that the George Bush and Dick Cheney would “throw [[him] under the bus.”
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. VR also told a close associate of Mr. Connell’s not to fly his plane because of another tip that the plane could be sabotaged. Mr. Connell, a very experienced pilot, has had to abandon at least two flights in the past two months because of suspicious problems with his plane. On December 18, 2008, Mr. Connell flew to a small airport outside of Washington DC to meet some people. It was on his return flight the next day that he crashed.
On October 31, Mr. Connell appeared before a federal judge in Ohio after being subpoenaed in a federal lawsuit investigating the rigging of the 2004 election under the direction of Karl Rove. The judge ordered Mr. Connell to testify under oath at a deposition on November 3rd, the day before the presidential election. Velvet Revolution received confidential information that the White House was extremely concerned about Mr. Connell talking about his illegal work for the White House and two Bush/Cheney 04 attorneys were dispatched to represent him.
An associate of Mr. Connell’s told VR that Mr. Connell was involved with the destruction of the White House emails and the setting up of the off-grid White House email system.
Mr. Connell handled all of John McCain’s computer work in the recent presidential campaign. VR has received direct evidence that the McCain campaign kept abreast of the legal developments against Mr. Connell by reading the VR dedicated website, www.rovecybergate.com.
VR demands that the Ohio Attorney General and the United States Justice Department conduct a complete investigation into the activities of Mr. Connell and determine whether there was any foul play in his death. VR demands that federal law enforcement officials place the following people under protective custody pending this investigation. Heather Connell who is the owner of GovTech Solutions, Randy Cole, the former President of GovTech Solutions, and Jeff Averbeck, the CEO of SmartTech in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Both GovTech and SmartTech have been implicated in the rigging of the 2000 and 2004 elections and the White House email scandal. Our prior request to have Mr. Connell protected went unheeded and now he is dead.
UPDATE: 11/4/08: Connell Stonewalls At Deposition: Attorney Instructs Him Not To Answer Key Questions
The first deposition of Michael Connell took place yesterday in Cleveland. Connell was put on notice that he was being questioned about election fraud. Connell quickly adopted the posture of many Bush staffers who have been questioned about wrongdoing, such as Scooter Libby, Alberto Gonzales, Karl Rove, Stephen Hadley, Donald Rumsfeld and others. Attorney Cliff Arnebeck said that Connell is a classic ”Bush/Rove Team player” who was schooled on how to not answer.
Connell’s attorney helped Connell by telling him not to answer many questions including, “Who directed you to set up the Swift Boat Veterans For Truth IT Network.”
The only admission of substance was, after an initial denial, Connell said that he brought Triad and SmartTech into the Ohio election game. Of course, these are the two companies identified by Spoonamore as rigging the election, Triad by pulling hard drives prior to the recount and SmartTech by running the election results through its GOP servers in Chattanooga before they got to the Ohio election computers.
Mr. Arnebeck said that Connell denied that there were “any” problems at all with any voting systems and he never heard of any fraud. He said he did not “know of any vulnerabilities” to voting systems in Ohio. In other words, he said that everything’s fine, no one did anything wrong, and everyone should trust people like him to count their votes.
Mr. Arnebeck “Connell has just ensured that he is Exhibit A of the soon to be filed RICO lawsuit against Karl Rove et al for manipulating elections.” Arnebeck also said that Connell demonstrates the epitome of unethical conflicts of interest for running George Bush’s election IT network while counting the votes in the key state of Ohio.
The silver lining to all of this is that Connell and his handlers know that their gig is up. They should not believe for a minute that Connell’s two hour performance yesterday will do anything to slow down our investigation. Once the dust clears from today’s election, the attorneys will go full force to charge Connell and others with Racketeering and Corrupt Practices.
UPDATE: 11/1/08: Late yesterday, a Federal Judge in Akron, Ohio ordered Mike Connell to submit to a deposition hours before the presidential election to talk about possible election manipulations.
The full story is here. Mr. Connell, it’s time to tell the truth and get with the new dynamic, the one called accountability. Yours is the first of many depositions to get to the bottom of this shameful chapter in American democracy. You have a unique opportunity to do the right thing now. The Bush family is not going to protect you or cover for you any longer.
UPDATE: 10/28/08: Attorneys filed a motion to compel testimony of Connell to interrogate him about his knowledge of the inter-workings of the GOP computer systems. See Memo here. They included an affidavit of Spoonamore stating that the Ohio 2004 election was manipulated by a inside Man in the Middle King Pin attack. See Affidavit here.
UPDATE: 10/23/08: VR Calls For DOJ Investigation Into Why Bush/Rove IT Expert Mike Connell Asked How to Destroy White House Emails
Reporter Rebecca Abrahams wrote this week at Huffington Post that on October 11, 2006, longtime Bush/Rove IT expert Michael Connell met with cyber security expert Stephen Spoonamore to learn how to destroy data on White House computer hard drives This was during the height of the United States Attorney scandal and during the tenure of Connell's former employee, David Almacy, as director of the White House Internet and E-Communications Director.
Abrahams quotes from Spoonamore's emails which reference notes taken at the time of the meeting. Connell was accompanied at the meeting by Randy Cole, the former President of Connell's company, GovTech Solutions, now running for Ohio Congressional seat 41. When Spoonamore realized that Connell and Cole were asking how to destroy White House data, he terminated the conversation and told them that what they were asking about was illegal.
Attorney General Michael Mukasey recently appointed prosecutor Nora Dannehy to investigate whether criminal charges should be brought against those involved in the US Attorney scandal. Today, in a press release, VR called for that investigation to include what role and knowledge Michael Connell and Randy Cole have regarding the destruction of White House computer data, and, as Abrahams suggests, whether Connell knows where the White House email backup is located.
UPDATE: 10/7/08: Velvet Revolution Calls On John McCain To Fire Michael Connell For Covering Up For Karl Rove In Federal Election Manipulation Lawsuit
Velvet Revolution today issued a press release calling for Republican candidate John McCain to fire computer expert Michael Connell from his campaign for covering up alleged election manipulations of Karl Rove and others. Mr. Connell, the GOP’s top computer expert, was subpoenaed based on a September 19th court order to testify under oath in an Ohio federal lawsuit looking into serious allegations that Mr. Rove has directed a strategy to illegally manipulate elections through the use of computer technology. Rather than cooperate in the investigation, Mr. Connell hired attorneys close to the Bush/Cheney Administration and refused to appear for the deposition arguing client (GOP) confidentiality. Those attorneys have said that they will do everything possible to keep Mr. Connell from testifying before the November general election. See press release pdf.
UPDATE: 10/3/08: VR Offers 100K Reward In RoveCyberGate Case
Today, VR offered a $100,000 reward for information from whistleblowers who have knowledge of election related criminal activity by Michael Connell, Randy Cole, Karl Rove and others. You can see the full ad here. The information must result in a conviction.
UPDATE: 10/1/08: VR Calls for Special Prosecutor to Investigate Connell and Rove
In light of Mike Connell’s stonewalling of the subpoena in this case, Velvet Revolution today called for Attorney General Mukasey to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the conduct, actions and knowledge of Michael Connell and his confidential work for Karl Rove and George Bush vis a vis election manipulations and destruction of data. VR also called on Congress to hold hearings and place Mr. Connell under oath to testify about election rigging, destruction of White House emails, and spying on Congress. See PDF news release.
UPDATE: 9/30/08: Stay Lifted, Depositions Ordered, Connell Subpoenaed, Connell Stonewalls
Many new turns in this case the past few days. On September 22, the federal court lifted the stay in this case and ordered depositions to begin, starting with Bush IT Expert Michael Connell. (See Order in PDF) A few days later, Connell was subpoenaed and ordered to produce documents. He hired three high powered GOP-connected attorneys and filed a Motion to Quash (See Motion in PDF) and an affidavit stating that his information is confidential.(See Affidavit in PDF) His attorneys have refused to make him available for deposition and have indicated that they will not let him testify unless forced to by the court. Attorney Arnebeck intends to secure a court order to enforce the subpoena.
UPDATE 9/18/08: Ohio Attorneys File Papers To Take Deposition Of Bush IT Expert Michael Connell And Others-Includes Spoonamore Affidavit
Yesterday, Ohio attorney Cliff Arnebeck asked the federal court in Columbus to allow him to place Bush IT guru Michael Connell under oath to ask him about his 20 year work for the Bush family, including his work for Jeb Bush in Florida 2000 and for Ken Blackwell in Ohio 2004. “The public has a need and right to know, before the next presidential election, that the top Republican IT expert shares a concern about the vulnerability of electronic voting systems to fraudulent manipulation, and that this is not just “conspiracy theory,” Arnebeck wrote. Arnebeck also advised the court that he would seeking depositions from others, including Karl Rove. See Court filing.
Attached to the filing are two affidavits, one from cyber security expert Stephen Spoonamore and the other from analyst Richard Hayes Phillips. The Spoonamore affidavit asserts that the election computer setup used by Ken Blackwell in 2004 provided the means and opportunity for the manipulation of the election results. “ The vote tabulation and reporting system, as modified at the direction of Mr. Blackwell, allowed the introduction of a single computer in the middle of the pathway. This computer located at a company principally managing IT Systems for GOP campaign and political operations (Computer C) received all information from each county computer (Computer A) BEFORE it was sent onward to Computer B. This centralized collection of all incoming statewide tabulations would make it extremely easy for a single operator, or a preprogrammed single "force balancing computer" to change the results in any way desired by the team controlling Computer C. In this case GOP partisan operatives. Again, if this out of state system had ANY digital access to the Secretary of State’s system it would be cause for immediate investigation by any of my banking clients.” See Spoonamore Affidavit.
The Hayes affidavit asserts that after reviewing hundreds of thousands of documents, ballots and other election records, “it is my conclusion that there is so much evidence of ballot alteration, ballot substitution, ballot box stuffing, ballot destruction, vote switching, tabulator rigging, and old fashioned voter suppression, that the results of the 2004 presidential election, would have been reversed” had there been a real investigation. See Hayes Affidavit. He insists that the time is now to take depositions from those implicated in the theft of that election.
Tell Congress to investigate Karl Rove’s cyber strategy to illegally manipulate elections. Click here to send an email to your Congress Members demanding immediate public hearings on whistleblower allegations that Rove architected and directed illegal attacks on Democratic candidates through the improper use of corporate funds channeled through fake Web-based front organizations, the improper political use of the Justice Department to prosecute opposition candidates, and the use of Internet based IT networks to alter election results.
by maco144 » Wed Nov 23, 2016 5:07 pm
by seemslikeadream » Wed Nov 23, 2016 5:23 pm
seemslikeadream » Mon Nov 01, 2010 8:34 am wrote:Karl Rove, You Got Served
by admin / Make A Comment / Filed under Blog
Karl Rove was served with a subpoena Sunday, Oct. 24th, 2010, as he arrived at CBS studios to appear on “Face the Nation.” The subpoena was to compel Rove to provide a deposition in a lawsuit that stems from the 2004 election in Ohio. Despite the fact that news crews from CBS and CNN taped Rove being served, neither have reported it or aired the footage.
I sat down with the attorneys who issued the subpoena, Clifford Arnebeck and Bob Fitrakis, who explained how their suit reached this point and what Mr. Rove’s legal obligations are, considering his aversion to appearing under oath
This is the sworn affidavit signed by the process server who personally delivered the subpoena to Rove. The server notes that two camera crews were filming the exchange, from CNN and CBS.
Below is a radio broadcast “Fight Back with Bob Fitrakis and Connie Gadell Netwon,” that I also was a guest on. The attorneys in the King Lincoln case discuss their subpoena to Rove, as well as their separate scheduled hearing with the Ohio Elections Commission to challenge the legality of campaign fund-raising across multiple party campaigns, as Rove’s groups have been doing this year in Ohio.
seemslikeadream » Mon Nov 01, 2010 9:52 am wrote:Sudden, mysterious death of Republican computer Guru Connell recalled
In a hearing conducted shortly before the presidential election in 2008 that garnered little attention from national or local media, Arnebeck deposed Michael Connell, Rove's former chief computer guru, whose long history working for the Bush family, and subsequently in Ohio as a contractor with Republican Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell during the 2004 election, is well documented.
Fitrakis and Wasserman write that Rove used Connell to establish the electronic tools and architectural framework through which the vote count manipulations that shifted the election from John Kerry to Bush were accomplished.
Arnebeck was in the process of deposing Connell a second time when the Ohio-based computer expert and experienced professional pilot died in a fiery plane crash while landing at his home airport in Canton in December, 2008. For conspiracy theorists, the fact that Connell had been deposed the day before the November 2008 election only adds to the mystery of circumstances surrounding his sudden death, and whether Rove can be tied to it in any way.
seemslikeadream » Mon Nov 01, 2010 11:57 am wrote:Election Attorneys File Racketeering Complaint Against Karl Rove and Tom Donohue's Elections Operations
Complaint Charges Fraud, False Statement And Illegal Coordination
WASHINGTON, Oct. 29 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The following is being issued by ProtectOurElections.org:
Yesterday, Ohio election attorney Cliff Arnebeck filed a two-count complaint with the Ohio Election Commission against The Partnership for Ohio's Future, an affiliate of the Ohio Chamber of Commerce, alleging two overarching charges under state racketeering laws. First, that the Partnership is "...not truly independent, but rather has been coordinated with the Republican candidates, their agents, committees, parties and their de facto coordinated national campaign being directed by Karl Rove." Second, that the Partnership is making false statements by saying that its ads are "not authorized by a candidate or a candidate's committee," when in fact they are. http://freepress.org/images/departments ... plaint.pdf
On Sunday, October 24, Mr. Arnebeck served Mr. Rove with a subpoena agreed to by Ohio's Secretary of State, Jennifer Brunner, in conjunction with illegal election activities.
The complaint asks the Election Commission to find that there is probable cause to believe that secret money given to the Partnership is an in kind donation to candidates running for office. Arnebeck attests that he has "...a confidential source who personally witnessed Karl Rove and Tom Donohue coordinating their activities to determine the outcome of a state Supreme Court election." Such coordination is illegal under state and federal election laws.
A hearing on the complaint is scheduled for 9 a.m. Monday, November 1, in Columbus. If the Commission grants Arnebeck's probable cause request, it would open Mr. Rove, Mr. Donohue and the Chamber of Commerce to widespread discovery that could lead to criminal prosecution based on charges of racketeering, money laundering and conspiracy. Coordinated activities between partisan candidates and groups like the Chamber of Commerce's Partnership for Ohio's Future and Rove's American Crossroads are illegal. The complaint also alleges that money contributed to Chamber operations that were used in elections came from foreign corporations, which violates federal law. The filing with the Ohio Election Commission is a critical step in testing the legalities of these coordinated efforts.
Jeff » Mon Dec 22, 2008 8:38 pm wrote:GOP consultant killed in plane crash was warned of sabotage: report
John Byrne, David Edwards and Stephen Webster
Published: Monday December 22, 2008
The Republican consultant accused of involvement in alleged vote-rigging in Ohio in 2004 was warned that his plane might be sabotaged before his death in a crash Friday night, according to a Cleveland CBS affiliate.
45-year-old Republican operative Michael Connell was killed when his single-passenger plane crashed Friday into a home in a suburb of Akron, Ohio. The consultant was called to testify in federal court regarding a lawsuit alleging that he took part in tampering with Ohio's voting results in the 2004 election.
Without getting into specific details, 19 Action News reporter Blake Renault reported Sunday evening that 45-year-old Republican operative and experienced pilot had been warned not to fly his plane in the days before the crash.
"Connell...was apparently told by a close friend not to fly his plane because his plane might be sabotaged," Renault said. "And twice in the last two months Connell, who is an experienced pilot, cancelled two flights because of suspicious problems with his plane."
Renault called Connell's death "untimely."
The National Transportation Safety Board and Federal Aviation Administration are now investigating the crash. According to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, no new information has been made available since the incident occurred.
Connell was the subject of a lawsuit by liberal lawyer Clifford Arnebeck, perhaps most well known for suing on behalf of 37 Ohio residents to block Bush's electoral college victory in 2004. Arnebeck had alleged Connell's involvement in a ploy to "flip" votes from then Democratic nominee Sen. John Kerry to then-President George W. Bush.
Connell was ordered to testify in the suit in October, and told a federal court that he had no involvement and knew of no plan to switch votes in Ohio in 2004.
The Plain Dealer made no mention at all of the suit in their article Monday.
Connell was the founder of Ohio-based New Media Communications, which created campaign Web sites for George W. Bush and John McCain.
Arnebeck warned the Justice Department that Connell's safety was in jeopardy earlier this year. In July, he wrote an email to Attorney General Michael Mukasey, requesting witness protection for the GOP operative, which was carbon copied to Democratic Congressmen John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI) and Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), who were sympathetic to his 2004 lawsuit over Ohio's electoral votes.
"I have informed court chambers and am in the process of informing the Ohio Attorney General's and US Attorney's offices in Columbus for the purpose, among other things, of seeking protection for Mr. Connell and his family from this reported attempt to intimidate a witness," Arnebeck wrote. "Because of the serious engagement in this matter that began in 2000 of the Ohio Statehouse Press Corps, 60 Minutes, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, C-Span and Jim VandeHei, and the public's right to know of gross attempts to subvert the rule of law, I am forwarding this information to them, as well."
Connell's exploits as a top GOP IT 'guru' have been well documented by RAW STORY's investigative team.
The interest in Mike Connell stems from his association with a firm called GovTech, which he had spun off from his own New Media Communications under his wife Heather Connell’s name. GovTech was hired by Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell to set up an official election website at election.sos.state.oh.us to present the 2004 presidential returns as they came in.
Connell is a long-time GOP operative, whose New Media Communications provided web services for the Bush-Cheney ’04 campaign, the US Chamber of Commerce, the Republican National Committee and many Republican candidates.
Alternative media group ePlubibus Media further discovered in November 2006 that election.sos.state.oh.us was hosted on the servers of a company in Chattanooga, TN called SmarTech, which also provided hosting for a long list of Republican Internet domains.
“Since early this decade, top Internet ‘gurus’ in Ohio have been coordinating web services with their GOP counterparts in Chattanooga, wiring up a major hub that in 2004, first served as a conduit for Ohio's live election night results,” researchers at ePluribus Media wrote.
A few months after this revelation, when a scandal erupted surrounding the firing of US Attorneys for reasons of White House policy, other researchers found that the gwb43 domain used by members of the White House staff to evade freedom of information laws by sending emails outside of official White House channels was hosted on those same SmarTech servers.
RAW STORY Investigative Editor Larisa Alexandrovna said Connell's death should be examined carefully in a blog post Sunday, but stopped short of alleging foul play. She reported on Arnebeck's lawsuit and Connell's enjoined testimony earlier this year.
"He has flown his private plane for years without incident," Alexandrovna wrote. "I know he was going to DC last night, but I don't know why. He apparently ran out of gas, something I find hard to believe. I am not saying that this was a hit nor am I resigned to this being simply an accident either. I am no expert on aviation and cannot provide an opinion on the matter. What I am saying, however, is that given the context, this event needs to be examined carefully."
more at link, including video report:
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Killed_GO ... _1222.html
seemslikeadream » Tue Dec 23, 2008 1:40 am wrote:http://www.democracynow.org/2008/12/22/republican_it_specialist_dies_in_plane
http://www.alternet.org/rights/114674/r ... o_testify/
Republican IT Guru for Rove and McCain Warned of Sabotage, Dies After Crashing His Plane -- Was Set to Testify
By Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!. Posted December 22, 2008.
Mike Connell, the chief IT consultant to Karl Rove, had reportedly asked for protective custody from the government before he died. Tools
Amy Goodman: A top Republican internet strategist who was set to testify in a case alleging election tampering in 2004 in Ohio has died in a plane crash. Mike Connell was the chief IT consultant to Karl Rove and created websites for the Bush and McCain electoral campaigns. He also set up the official Ohio state election website reporting the 2004 presidential election returns.
Connell was reportedly an experienced pilot. He died instantly Friday night when his private plane crashed in a residential neighborhood near Akron, Ohio.
Michael Connell was deposed one day before the election this year by attorneys Cliff Arnebeck and Bob Fitrakis about his actions during the 2004 vote count and his access to Karl Rove's e-mail files and how they went missing.
Velvet Revolution, a non-profit investigating Connell's activities, revealed this weekend that Connell had recently said he was afraid George Bush and Dick Cheney would "throw [him] under the bus." Cliff Arnebeck had also previously alerted Attorney General Michael Mukasey to alleged threats from Karl Rove to Connell if he refused to "take the fall."
Well, Mark Crispin Miller joins us now, a professor of media culture and communication at New York University, the author of several books, including Loser Take All: Election Fraud and the Subversion of Democracy, 2000-2008 and Fooled Again: How the Right Stole the 2004 Election & Why They'll Steal the Next One Too. Mark Crispin Miller us now in our firehouse studio.
Welcome to Democracy Now!
Mark Crispin Miller: It's good to be here, Amy. Thank you.
AG: Alright, well, we had you on right before the election, because that's when Mike Connell was being deposed. This news that came out of his death in a plane crash on Friday night, talk about what you understand has happened.
MCM: Well, I cannot assert with perfect confidence that this was no accident, but I will say that the circumstances are so suspicious and so convenient for Rove and the White House that I think we're obliged to investigate this thing very, very thoroughly. And that means, first of all, taking a close look at some of the stories that were immediately circulated to account for what happened, that it was bad weather. That was the line they used when Wellstone's plane went down. There had been bad weather, but it had passed two hours before. And this comes from a woman at the airport information desk in Akron. We're told that his plane was running out of gas, which is a little bit odd for a highly experienced pilot like Connell, but apparently, when the plane went down, there was an explosion, a fireball that actually charred and pocked some of the house fronts in the neighborhood. People can go online and see the footage that news crews took. But beyond the, you know, dubiousness of the official story, we have to take a close look at -- and a serious look at all the charges that Connell was set to make.
AG: Now, he had asked the Attorney General Mukasey for protective custody, because of threats to him and his wife?
MCM: He reported threats to his lawyer, Cliff Arnebeck, and Arnebeck -- also, Velvet Revolution heard from tipsters, as well, tipsters who also claimed that Connell's life was at risk. Stephen Spoonamore, the whistleblower who was the first -- who was the one to name Connell in the first place, also had an ear to the inside. He's also very connected. And all these people were saying Rove is making threats, the White House is very worried about this case.
Having heard all this, Arnebeck contacted Mukasey, he contacted Nancy Rogers, who is the Ohio Attorney General, and he wrote a letter to the court, telling all of them that "This man should be in protective custody. He is an important witness in a RICO case. Please do something to look after him." And they didn't respond to this.
AG: So, explain what this case is all about and exactly what Mike Connell has been doing over these last years. What does it mean to be Karl Rove's IT guru?
MCM: Well, the lawyers in the case refer to him as a high-IQ Forrest Gump, by which they mean that he seems to have been present at the scene of every dubious election of the last eight years. We're talking about Florida in 2000. We're talking about Ohio in 2004. We're talking about Alabama in 2002. He seems to have been involved in the theft of Don Siegelman's re-election for governor. There's some evidence that links him with the Saxby Chambliss-Max Cleland Senate race in Georgia in 2002. To be Karl Rove's IT guru seems to have meant basically setting it up so that votes could be electronically shaved to the disadvantage of the Democrats and the advantage of Republicans.
AG: What do you mean, "electronically shaved"? I mean, you've got all these precincts all over Ohio. They're counting up their votes. What does he have to do with this?
MCM: Well, specifically, there's a computer architecture setup called "Man in the Middle," which involves shunting the election returns from, you know, the state in question -- in this case, Ohio -- shunting them to a separate computer elsewhere. All of the election returns in Ohio in 2004 went from the Secretary of State's website -- this is Ken Blackwell -- to a separate computer in a basement in Chattanooga, Tennessee, which was under the control of another private company called SMARTech.
So we have now two private companies: GovTech Solutions, which is Connell's company, SMARTech, which is run by a guy named [Jeff] Averbeck. And the company -- the third private company that managed the voting tabulators in Ohio was called Triad. All three of these companies worked closely together on election night in Ohio in 2004. It turns out that the state's own IT person was sent home at 9:00 p.m. They said, "Go ahead. Go home. We'll take care of this." So that this trio of highly partisan and, let me add, Christianist companies basically took over the whole --
AG: What do you mean, "Christianist"?
MCM: Well, they're radical theocratic activists, particularly -- particularly Triad and SMARTech. You know, they are fervently anti-choice.
AG: Well, Mike Connell was, in fact -- many said that's what motivated him through all of this, his fierce anti-abortion stance.
MCM: He told -- Connell told Spoonamore that one of the primary reasons why he helped Bush-Cheney steal elections was to save the babies. I do think, though, that we have to draw a distinction between Connell, on the one hand, and the Averbeck and the Rapp family, on the other hand, because Connell was far less ferocious in his political views. He was an ardent anti-abortionist, it's true, but he wasn't quite as hardcore as the others. And in fact, you know, he was a little bit alienated from the others, and that's one of the reasons why he was inclined to talk, and so on.
But the fact is, to answer your question, that on election night in 2004, it had been Connell, with these other two companies working with him, who had managed the computer setup, enabling Ken Blackwell to study the maps of precincts and voter turnout very carefully and figure out how many votes they need. By shunting the data to Chattanooga, they kind of slowed down the data stream.
AG: Wasn't Karl Rove's email also there in Chattanooga on some of these servers?
MCM: Yes, yes. The same servers were used to host a whole bunch of highly partisan websites. And also, indeed, Karl Rove's emails were on that server, too.
AG: That have gone missing.
MCM: That have gone missing. Incidentally, Stephen Spoonamore, again, the whistleblower who's the one who named Connell, has told us -- and I've seen his own contemporary notes --
AG: And explain again who he was. Why was he in a position to whistleblow?
MCM: Stephen Spoonamore is a conservative Republican, a former McCain supporter and a very prominent expert at the detection of computer fraud. He's the star witness in the Ohio lawsuit, right, in which Connell was involved. He has done extensive work of this kind, involving computer security, and had therefore worked with Connell, knew Connell personally and knew a lot of the people who were involved in the sort of cyber-security end of the Bush operation.
Despite his conservatism -- or I suppose some would say because of it -- he's a man of principle -- I mean, believes in the Constitution. He believes elections should be honest. He's the one who came forward and named Connell.
And I have seen his notes of a conversation in which Connell asked Spoonamore how one would go about destroying White House emails. To this, Spoonamore said, "This conversation is over. You're asking me to do something illegal." But clearly, clearly -- this is the important point -- Mike Connell was up past his eyeballs in the most sensitive and explosive aspects of this crime family that, you know, has been masquerading as a political party.
AG: And what did Fitrakis, the attorney who has brought the suit with Harvey Wasserman, the Ohio lawsuit, learn in the deposition of Mike Connell in the day before the election, which hardly got attention, considering it was the day before this historic election?
MCM: Yeah. Harvey wasn't part of it. Harvey writes articles with Bob. It's Bob Fitrakis and Cliff Arnebeck are the attorneys. They learned very little. What they learned was that Bush-Cheney lawyer who accompanied Connell to the deposition was watching the whole thing like a hawk, repeatedly objected to questions. Connell was stonewalling like crazy at this deposition.
They only learned one thing. And that was, they got confirmation that it was Connell who brought these other private companies into the arrangement, in addition to his own GovTech Solutions. Again, there was Triad and SMARTech. It was Connell who brought those three companies into one unit, so that the three of them were, in effect, handling Ohio's election returns on election night under Connell's supervision. That's what we learned.
We also know, Amy, that since the deposition -- I want to make this clear; we said it before, I want to repeat it -- that Connell has indicated very clearly a desire to talk further, to tell more, whether it's his conscience bothering him or whether it's fear of some kind of a perjury charge because of how vigorously he stonewalled at the deposition. He made it known to the lawyers, he made it known to reporter Larisa Alexandrovna of Raw Story, that he wanted to talk. He was scared. He wanted to talk. And I say that he had pretty good reason to be scared.
AG: So why did he fly in -- why did he pilot his own plane when he was so afraid?
MCM: Well, that's a good question. We can't ask him, unfortunately. I mean, this is kind of a grisly thought, but, I mean, I think we should be asking where the body is. We're told that a trooper on the scene immediately identified Connell. But then we read elsewhere that there was nothing left but debris and that the fireball was enormous. So maybe he wasn't on the plane. I mean, who knows, when you're dealing with people as deep as these?
But the point is -- I can't stress this strongly enough -- we're dealing not just with a shocking accident, if that's what it was, and a convenient one. We're dealing not even just with a particular lawsuit that, you know, really requires vigorous promotion. The important point here is that this is all about our elections. That's what this is about. This is about democratic self-government.
The fact that Obama won so handily has caused a lot of us to sit back and relax. There's been a lot of popping of champagne corks and people drawing the conclusion that the system must work, because our guy won. Well, this is not a sports event. This is self-government.
In fact, the evidence strongly suggests -- and we haven't had a chance to talk about this since Election Day -- that Obama probably won by twice as many votes as we think. Probably a good seven million votes for Obama were undone through vote suppression and fraud, because the stuff was extensive and pervasive, in places where you wouldn't expect it.
The Illinois Ballot Integrity Project was monitoring the vote in DuPage County, right next door to Obama's, you know, backyard, Cook County. And two of them, in only two precincts on Election Day, saw with their own eyes 350 voters show up, only to be turned away, told, "You're not registered," people who were registered, who voted in the primary. All but one of these people was black. That's in Illinois.
People at the Election Defense Alliance have discovered, from sifting through the numbers, an eleven-point red shift in New Hampshire. That means that there's a discrepancy in Obama's disfavor, primarily through use of the optical scan machines, an eleven-point discrepancy in the Republicans' favor, OK?
You start to combine this with all the vote suppression, all the disenfranchisement, all the vote machine flipping that went on in this election, you realize, OK, Obama won, but millions of Americans, most of them African American and students, you know, were not able to participate in any civic sense, ironically, a lot of the same people, you know, who would have been disenfranchised and were disenfranchised before the civil rights movement. So the fact that a black president was elected, while cause for jubilation, see, ought not to take place at the expense of a whole lot of our fellow citizens who seem to have been disenfranchised on racial grounds. My point is very simply this: We've got to get past the victory of Obama and look seriously at what our election system is like, or else, I promise you, see, the setup that was put in place in this last election, in 2004 and in 2000, OK, will still be there in 2010, still be there in 2012. So we've got to take steps to do something about it now.
AG: Mark Crispin Miller, I want to thank you very much for being with us, professor of media culture and communication at New York University, most recent book Loser Take All: Election Fraud and the Subversion of Democracy, 2000-2008.
by Nordic » Mon Nov 28, 2016 3:58 am
AndrewBreitbart – Verified account @AndrewBreitbart
How prog-guru John Podesta isn't household name as world class underage sex slave op cover-upperer defending unspeakable dregs escapes me.
by Spiro C. Thiery » Mon Nov 28, 2016 7:30 am
Nordic » Today, 09:58 wrote:Brietbart seems to have had Podesta's number right before he died:
https://mobile.twitter.com/AndrewBreitb ... 8100561920AndrewBreitbart – Verified account @AndrewBreitbart How prog-guru John Podesta isn't household name as world class underage sex slave op cover-upperer defending unspeakable dregs escapes me.
And this:
by Searcher08 » Mon Nov 28, 2016 9:01 am
by Wombaticus Rex » Mon Nov 28, 2016 12:21 pm
by chump » Mon Nov 28, 2016 12:58 pm
https://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/2016 ... the-walls/
Podesta, WaPo article, photos of naked teens on the walls
by Jon Rappoport
November 6, 2016
(To read about Jon’s mega-collection, The Matrix Revealed, click here.)
Illegal? Immoral? Insane?
Much is being made of a “buried, suddenly removed” 2004 Washington Post article about Podesta and photos of naked teenagers on his walls at home.
First of all, the article is about Tony Podesta, not John Podesta. John is Hillary’s campaign chairman. Tony is John’s brother. Tony is also a political mover and shaker in Washington.
The WaPo article begins this way:
Married, With Art
Tony and Heather Podesta Are a Study in Power Collecting
By Jessica Dawson
Special to The Washington Post
Thursday, September 23, 2004; Page C01
“The collection started almost by accident. It was 1980, and Tony Podesta was bidding adieu to co-workers from Sen. Ted Kennedy’s just-failed bid for the presidential nomination. On their way out the door, staff members were handed whatever goodies remained — among them a tube of limited-edition prints donated to the campaign by the likes of Warhol and Rauschenberg.”
“A quarter-century later, those prints are history, but Podesta is counted among the nation’s most important contemporary art collectors. Inside the elite Chelsea galleries, he and his wife, Heather, are gossiped about, deferred to and ushered toward the choicest works. All the art stars know their names.”
Skipping down, we get to this:
“Political candidates eagerly tap [Tony] Podesta’s mojo, too: He spearheaded President Clinton’s successful 1996 Pennsylvania campaign, and Sen. John Kerry has hired him to work the same magic for him in the Keystone State this year [2004]. [Wife] Heather, 26 years his junior and several shades greener, carved a career aiding Reps. Robert Matsui and Earl Pomeroy; she joined Blank Rome’s law and government relations firm this spring.”
Tony has been very active politically, on behalf of Democrats.
The WaPo article eventually presents a shocker:
“’At political events [at Tony’s home], there’s an inevitable awkwardness’, former Clinton administration official Sally Katzen said at a Women’s Campaign Fund dinner at the Podestas’ home this summer. ‘The art is an ice-breaker. It puts people at ease’.”
“Not always. Folks attending a house tour in the Lake Barcroft neighborhood in Falls Church earlier this year got an eyeful when they walked into a bedroom at the Podesta residence hung with multiple color pictures by Katy Grannan, a photographer known for documentary-style pictures of naked teenagers in their parents’ suburban homes.”
“’They were horrified’, Heather recalls, a grin spreading across her face.”
—end of WaPo excerpt—
Tony Podesta: big-time art collector and patron of the arts; big-time mover and shaker in Washington; big-time campaign consultant for Democratic candidates; pictures of naked teenagers on his walls.
Does anyone stop to ask how permission was obtained to shoot those photos in the first place? And then to print them, sell them, show them publicly? The parents of the children gave their consent? The kids gave their consent? On what basis does anyone allow teenagers to make that kind of decision for themselves—or think that teenagers have the capacity to make such a decision? Technically, the whole operation may fall within the law (although I don’t see how), but on every other level it’s insane. And it’s child endangerment.
And a major political operative in Washington, Tony Podesta, sees no problem with it. He has the photos on his walls at home. He displays them for his Washington insider pals and donors. They may blush, but they look. And none of them raises a public objection. They keep their mouths shut, because this is Tony Podesta, and he’s a power player.
In the sewer called Washington DC.
Jon Rappoport
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