rs Of Toleration, Connell Crash…Ohio, Impeachment And Cheney Approves Shredding Of The Constitution…Again!
Given all the discussion of the role of religion in world politics in the past two decades and commitment of this blog to the acceptance of individual differences and toleration of, with respect for, differing beliefs this is an essay that cannot be denied inclusion.
All too many bitter, even catastrophic situations begin with the simple words: “I Believe” and I would remind everyone that inherent in those words is the flip side of the coin: “I Do Not Believe”, but it is my concern that, that very difference not become the foundation of fundamental polarization and division.
I find extremist advocacy of either point of view to be an act of divisiveness and intolerance. It is a battle without victory possible. When we reach the point where we determine one’s value by the belief in a God or non-belief, and by the content of ones character and the manner in which they contribute to society and how they treat their brothers and sisters in humanity; then we have lost sight of the very word toleration.
| |
Mike Connell Was Warned Not To Fly Before Plane Crash
Dec 22, 2008, 00:27-
(WMR) -- WMR has learned from knowledgeable sources in Ohio that Republican Party computer networking guru Mike Connell was warned not to fly in anonymous warnings conveyed to principals in the ongoing federal civil lawsuit of King Lincoln Bronzeville Neighborhood Association v. Blackwell, stemming from GOP-engineered vote fraud in the 2004 Ohio presidential election, as well as a potential Ohio racketeer-influenced criminal organization (RICO) criminal proceeding against former Bush White House aide Karl Rove and Blackwell, in the conspiracy to illegally steer Ohio’s 20 electoral votes to the Bush column in 2004.
Connell’s Piper Saratoga single-engine plane crashed during the evening of December 19 in Uniontown, Ohio, as it was preparing to land at Akron-Canton airport. There were no other passengers and Connell was killed in the crash. Connell had flown to College Park, Maryland, the previous day. Connell, who lived in Akron with his wife Heather and four children, often flew to Washington for activities related to his IT businesses.
Connell’s name surfaced as a key player in Rove’s election fraud conspiracy after this year’s July 17 Columbus news conference hosted by Cliff Arnebeck, the Ohio attorney who has been representing plaintiffs in the federal civil suit against former Republican Secretay of State J. Kenneth Blackwell. On the phone at the conference was John McCain campaign adviser and computer security specialist Stephen Spoonamore who identified Connell as a key player, as well as potential trial witness, in the GOP’s conspiracy to flip Ohio votes in the 2004 election.
Spoonamore and Connell had reportedly worked together on foreign elections in programs sponsored by the International Republican Institute (ISI) and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). Both had traveled abroad together on special election projects to ensure “fair voting” procedures.
For the first time, WMR has learned that the GOP vote flipping conspiracy was in place earlier than the November 2004 general election and was used to deny votes to Democratic candidates John Edwards and Dennis Kucinich in the March 2, 2004, Democratic primary. John Kerry won the primary with 52 percent of the vote to 34 percent for Edwards and 9 percent for Kucinich.
After Connell was identified as a potential witness in the civil case against Blackwell and a possible criminal Ohio RICO case against Rove, Blackwell, and perhaps others, the plaintiff attorneys received a tip from a high-level source in the McCain presidential campaign that Rove had issued a threat against Connell. Connell had worked for the 2008 McCain presidential campaign on the development of its web pages.
WMR has learned from our Ohio sources that five threats against Connell were conveyed to the election fraud plaintiff attorneys with the last tip being “Connell is in danger.” One of the threats reportedly made by Rove to Connell was that Connell could forget about a pardon from President George W. Bush if he did not “take the fall” in the event criminal charges were brought and that his wife Heather, who was used as a majority stockholder for one of Connell’s web design companies, GovTech Solutions, would be prosecuted for illegal lobbying. Connell’s other company is New Media Communications, Inc.
We have also learned that one additional tip was relayed to Connell’s wife and it was to the effect that Connell “was in danger and he should not fly his plane.”
Connell’s firms received contracts to place its servers behind the House of Representatives firewall courtesy of then-House Administration Committee Chairman Bob Ney (R-OH), later jailed for his role in the Jack Abramoff lobbying-influence peddling scandal. Connell also designed and ran the web sites for the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the House Judiciary Committee. WMR has learned that through effective GOP control of these web sites, the Bush White House was able to monitor all committee e-mails and documents, including planning documents for House Judiciary Committee impeachment hearings against Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.
We have also learned that Connell’s IT firm did classified web site development work for the CIA.
Based on the threats against Connell, the federal judge hearing the civil suit King Lincoln v. Blackwell, conveyed to Connell that the court would protect him if he came forward. On October 17, 2008, Connell’s attorneys attempted to quash an October 8, 2008, plaintiff subpoena for his court appearance. On October 31, U.S. Judge Solomon Oliver denied the motion to quash the subpoena and ordered Connell’s deposition to proceed on November 3, the day before Election Day. WMR has learned that on Friday, October 31, Connell was nervous and “beet red” during the hearing to quash the subpoena. On Monday, November 3, Connell was composed and it is believed that his top shelf law firm had been selected by Rove to represent Connell for the deposition. Rove’s intent was to ensure that there would be no deposition from Connell before the November 4 election.
WMR has also learned that Connell was prepared to testify before the House Judiciary Committee about the election fraud in Ohio and other states but that the offer of testimony was not acted upon senior staffers for House Judiciary Committee Rep. John Conyers (D-MI). A source in Columbus told us that some of Conyers’ senior staffers on his committee and in is office are not to be trusted on issues related to election fraud.
In addition, Rove and the Bush White House attempted to forestall testimony by election officials in Mahoning County and Youngstown, Ohio, on election fraud in 2004 by promising to have former Rep. James Traficant (D-OH), who is currently imprisoned after being convicted of corruption, released early in return for their silence. Traficant is not scheduled for release from federal prison until Sept, 2, 2009.
Cheney Defends Bush on President’s Role
WASHINGTON — Vice President Dick Cheney on Sunday vigorously defended the White House’s use of broad executive powers during the last eight years, saying he believed that historians would ultimately look favorably on the Bush administration’s efforts to keep the nation safe.
Mr. Cheney said the Bush White House had been justified in expanding executive authority across a broad range of policy, including the war in Iraq, treatment of terrorism suspects and the domestic wiretapping program. And he said the president “doesn’t have to check with anybody” — not Congress, not the courts — before launching a nuclear attack to defend the nation “because of the nature of the world we live in” since the terrorist strikes of Sept. 11, 2001.
The vice president also sharply criticized Vice President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr., offering a pointed response when asked about Mr. Biden’s plans to operate differently from him as vice president and about Mr. Biden’s remark during the Oct. 2 vice-presidential debate with Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska that Mr. Cheney had been “the most dangerous vice president we’ve had in American history.”
“If he wants to diminish the office of vice president, that’s obviously his call,” Mr. Cheney said of Mr. Biden in an interview on “Fox News Sunday.” He added that President-elect Barack Obama “will decide what he wants in a vice president.”
“And apparently, from the way they’re talking about it,” he went on, “he does not expect him to have as consequential a role as I have had during my time.”
It was the second interview that the usually media-averse vice president granted in a week, just short of a month before he and Mr. Bush are to leave office. Mr. Cheney’s unapologetic tone was in marked contrast to that in several recent interviews in which the president has been reflective, expressing regrets about his failure to win passage of Immigration legislation and to change the tone of the debate in Washington.
Mr. Cheney challenged Mr. Biden’s knowledge of the Constitution, saying he could not “keep straight which article of the Constitution provides for the legislature, which provides for the executive.” At the vice presidential debate, Mr. Biden said of Mr. Cheney, “The idea he doesn’t realize that Article I of the Constitution defines the role of the vice president of the United States, that’s the Executive Branch,” then referred to the article’s provision for the vice president’s limited role in the Senate.
There is ample precedent, Mr. Cheney said, for the Bush administration’s policies.
“If you think about what Abraham Lincoln did during the Civil War, what F.D.R. did during World War II. They went far beyond anything we’ve done in a global war on terror,” he said. “But we have exercised, I think, the legitimate authority of the president under Article II of the Constitution as commander in chief in order to put in place policies and programs that have successfully defended the nation.”
Mr. Cheney also said that the Supreme Court was “wrong” to override the Bush administration’s initial policy of detaining terrorism suspects without granting them access to the protections of the Geneva Convention or granting them the right to challenge their detention. And he said he strongly disagreed with Mr. Bush’s acceptance of Donald H. Rumsfeld’s resignation as defense secretary in 2006, saying, “he did a good job for us.”
“I did disagree with that decision,” Mr. Cheney said. “The president doesn’t always take my advice.”
On “This Week” on ABC on Sunday, Mr. Biden said his primary role would be to offer Mr. Obama what he described as “the best, sagest, most accurate, most insightful advice.”
The vice president-elect said he would “restore the balance” to the office, and he offered his own critical assessment of Mr. Cheney, saying the vice president’s recommendations to Mr. Bush on the war and counterterrorism issues were “not healthy for our foreign policy, not healthy for our national security.”
“His notion of a unitary executive,” Mr. Biden said, “meaning that, in time of war, essentially all power, you know, goes to the executive, I think is dead wrong.”
Mr. Biden said that he was still committed to closing the American prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and that he remained critical of the Bush administration’s surveillance and detention programs, saying, “we have created, not dissuaded, more terrorists as a consequence of this policy.”
No comments:
Post a Comment