Did lame Congress enable Connell murder?

In many other countries this is kind of coincidence would have people spilling into the streets. The hotly disputed Ohio 2004 election count is what swung the election toward Bush, thus sealing our image in the world as fearful, hate-filled warmongers. 2000 came under the category "stuff happens." In 2004 the world saw us actually re-elect this monster.

 

There is really no question that Mike Connell's death has a smell of foul play that is apparent to anyone but the most Panglossian airhead. The fact alone that an experienced pilot's death came just before he was to explain, under oath, what appears to have been the rigging of the 2004 Ohio vote. But when you figure in that the plaintiffs' lead attorney in King Lincoln vs. Blackwell, Cliff Arnebeck, wrote a letter to Attorney General Mike Mukasey "seeking protection for Mr. Connell and his family from this reported attempt to intimidate a witness," well the smell gets worse than a week-old mackerel in the bedroom closet in the summertime. The letter said Rove warned Connell to "take the fall." And it doesn't stop there.

Ohio's CBS affiliate Action News 19 reported that Connell had been warned a couple of times not to fly. He had cancelled flight plans twice before. They have backed off from the report - gee, what Brown Shirt could have promised a nice weenie roast at the station, over a big bonfire?

Then you have motive. As Harvey Wasserman, the "conspiracy nut" who appears on Today, Nightline, National Public Radio, CNN Lou Dobbs Tonight wrote:

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.

Mark Crispin Miller was saying a full two months ago, on Democracy Now, just after the judge ordered Connell to testify:

Yeah, this event in a courtroom in Columbus may be one of the most important things to happen in this whole election and may be one of the most important things to happen in American history. I mean, this sounds hyperbolic, I know, but it is true.

Mike Connell is-has been named as Karl Rove's computer guru since 2000. The lawyers in the case refer to Connell as a high-IQ Forrest Gump, because he's been on the scene of every dubious election we've had over the last eight years, starting with Florida 2000.

As a result of Ohio's 20 electoral votes going to Bush in 2004, the administration was able to complete its destruction of the Constitution, break the law countless more times, and keep spending the kind of money in Iraq which would pay for a couple of $700 billion bailouts at no further cost to us.

Hey, this is what happens when you have a congress that starts out its term by putting "impeachment off the table." By never, ever, ever holding these people accountable, they start to think they can get away with anything. I venture that Connell might still be alive had a good, let's-just-set-a-couple-of-things-straight impeachment hearing been held at some point, win or lose, over vote-rigging, an open admission of having authorized torture, the kidnap and torture of an American citizen, Jose Padilla, under a laughable theory of wartime powers that last forever, illegal NSA spying, betrayal of a covert American agent...can we blame them for thinking they can get away with anything? And this too.

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