random neuron misfires

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. Michael Connell was the chief IT consultant to Karl Rove and created websites for the Bush and McCain electoral campaigns.

When rescue attempted to gain information about the accident, so they could determine what equipment to bring, they were told that information was “locked-out“:

Captain Geisner expressed considerable frustration during several Raw Story interviews over what he alleges was the withholding of critical details by authorities.

“While en route to the fire, I asked dispatch to learn the size of the plane and the number of souls on board,” Geisner explained. “This was not provided us.”

Such details allow fire department officials to determine whether additional equipment is needed and if a wider search and rescue is required. Within fifteen minutes of the crash, after officials from Akron-Canton Airport had arrived on the scene, Geisner again sought to confirm the number of passengers.

“After calls were made I was told that the ATC [Air Traffic Control] was ‘all in lockdown,’ and that they said ‘we can’t release that information,'” Geisner said.

Todd Laps, Fire Chief of the Akron-Canton airport fire department and a liaison to the Transportation Security Administration and the Air Traffic Control, echoed Geisner’s account.

“I had some phone calls placed to see if I could get that number [of people on board]. It didn’t come in a timely enough fashion,” Laps said.

But Laps says that the words “lock down” were not used. When asked to clarify his earlier comments, Gaisner insisted that the words “lock down” had been used in reference to information.

“That info was not available,” Gaisner said. “It was secured — not given out — locked down.”

Michael also set up the official Ohio State Election website reporting the 2004 Presidential Election returns. Connell was reportedly an experiences pilot. He died instantly on December 19, 2008 when his private plane crashed in a residential neighborhood near Akron, Ohio.

Connell’s track record makes it clear why he was viewed as a liability in some circles.

Ohio Republican Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell hired Connell in 2004 to create a real-time computer data compilation for counting Ohio’s votes. Under Connell’s supervision, Ohio’s presidential vote count was transmitted to private, partisan computer servers owned by SmartTech housed in the basement of the Old Pioneer Bank building in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Connell’s company, New Media Communications worked closely with SmartTech in building Republican and right-wing websites that were hosted on SmartTech servers. Among Connell’s clients were the Republican National Committee, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and gwb43.com. The SmartTech servers at one point housed Karl Rove’s emails. Some of Rove’s email files have since mysteriously disappeared despite repeated court-sanctioned attempts to review them.

At 12:20 am on the night of the 2004 election exit polls and initial vote counts showed John Kerry the clear winner of Ohio’s presidential campaign. The Buckeye State’s 20 electoral votes would have given Kerry the presidency.

But from then until around 2am, the flow of information mysteriously ceased. After that, the vote count shifted dramatically to George W. Bush, ultimately giving him a second term. In the end there was a 6.7 percent diversion—in Bush’s favor—between highly professional, nationally funded exit polls and the final official vote count as tabulated by Blackwell and Connell. [source]

Watch this video, filled with pieces from Stephen Spoonamore, Cliff Arnebeck and others describing exactly what they believe happened here:

Michael Connell was deposed 1 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 email files and how they “went missing”.

Bob Fitrakis, co-author of “Did George W. Bush Steal America’s 2004 Election?” at the Election Protection Forum;Ohio Green Party candidate

Velvet Revolution reported that Michael Connell was afraid that Bush and rove would “throw him under the bus” if he was to expose what he knew or covered up.

Some pretty shocking news is coming out about the crash, much of it seems… eerily familiar.

“Under different political circumstances it might be possible to dismiss the Eveleth crash as a tragic accident whose causes, even if they cannot be precisely determined, lie in the sphere of aircraft engineering and weather phenomena. But the death of Paul Wellstone takes place under conditions in which far too many strange things are happening in America.

Wellstone’s death comes almost two years to the day after a similar plane crash killed another Democratic Senate hopeful locked in a tight election contest, Missouri Governor Mel Carnahan, on October 16, 2000. The American media duly noted the “eerie coincidence,” as though it was a statistical oddity, rather than suggesting a pattern.” [source]

An interesting anecdote about the Wellstone plane crash was that FBI agents arrived on the scene within an hour of first-responders reaching the site. This would be impossible, given the remote location of the crash, unless they left to head to the crash site, just as Wellstone’s plane was leaving the runway to take off for the flight.

We apparently have a fascination in this country by engineering cover-ups around aircraft, it seems, by this “crime family masquerading as a political party”.

This follows shortly before members of the White House were ordered to search employee computers for missing e-mails.

“A federal court ordered on Wednesday all employees working in the Bush White House to surrender media that might contain e-mails sent or received during a two and a half year period in hope of locating missing messages before President-elect Barack Obama takes over next week.”

Not only were emails missing, but 700 days of emails went missing. That’s not just a mistake, that is intentional. That is almost TWO FULL YEARS of emails and backups that just up and vanished?

If your primary job is a System Administrator or Mail Administrator, missing a tape or two happens, forgetting to schedule a weekend backup happens… but forgetting to back up mail for two full years? No. That’s not a mistake, that’s a cover-up.

The Presidential Records Act of 1978 specifically holds the President responsible for this.

“Places the responsibility for the custody and management of incumbent Presidential records with the President.”

So when are we going to start holding these United States Citizens personally responsible for the crimes they’ve committed against the best interests of this country?

2008 has been one of the best years ever… in so many ways. So much has changed and changed me, to push me further and faster forward. I don’t think I’ve felt this good, this motivated or this happy about where I am in at least 20 years.

• I’ve finally released myself from the shackles of my marriage after spending 3 years and ~$40k slogging it through the courts to keep my daughter in my life. I was with my girlfriend-then-wife for 8 years, and realized over time that she wasn’t the person I married. I also refuse to tolerate adultery in my marriage, so I ended it. Being single and alone for over 3 years is tough, but not a permanent problem.
• I’ve created a bond with my daughter that transcends words and sign language. She’s coming into her own and is learning some new abilities to “talk” and “listen” without using words or traditional language as we know it. She’s a beautiful, amazing little girl with an eye-opening list of skills and abilities, even at her tender age. Sure, life as a single father is difficult and challenging, but I’ll sacrifice whatever I need to, for her to grow up happy, healthy and reaching any goal she wants for herself.
• I’ve met some interesting and amazing people this year, some of which who have shown me facets of myself that long lay dormant, atrophied or discarded as unreachable anymore. The good, bad and ugly were all on display this year. Michele, Marci, Jennifer, Valerie, Lilibeth, Amy, Allena, Rachel, Pat & Lisa, Casey and the rest of the Edwards family and many others; you all know who you are, and in some small and large ways, you’ve made a permanent impact on my life. The genie is out of the bottle, and isn’t going back in.
• I work with a great group of people in Manhattan, doing some really cool things with technology and environments that I’ve worked with and supported for 15+ years. I wouldn’t give this up for the world at any price. I truly love what I do. I do what I do for free, I just collect a salary to pay for all of the things I don’t necessarily like doing. Ed, Phil, Dennis and others; let’s hope the fun can continue through 2009 as it did in 2008.
• After 16 years of searching inside my head for the lost memories from the first 20 years of my life, I’ve recovered what I believe to be more than half of them, all in the last 10 months or less. Remembering “other people’s” memories is a bit disconcerting, but it’s all part of the process. There’s plenty more work to be done, but after believing that bad car accident in 1992 permanently robbed me of those memories, I now know I can get back those years and begin recovering who I was, and what made me who I am today. Not only have those memories come flooding back, but I’m also able to retain thousands of bits of information at what seems to be a geometric rate, bordering on eidetic. It’s like my brain went from knowing nothing, to limitlessly absorbing everything.

There’s a lot more work to do in 2009 and years beyond, but I have no doubt I’ll be able to step up to any challenge that life throws at me. I’ve survived horrible accidents, sadness, strife and plight in all manner of ways, and I’ve always come through on top, always looking ahead, never behind.

I feel as if a huge weight was lifted from my shoulders and the metaphorical “smog” I was breathing, impeding my oxygen flow is now gone. I can stand tall, inhale clean, fresh air and move forward again.

I’m coming out of a 16-year coma and I’m just waking up.