The Michael Connell Threatened By Karl Rove Story starred Brad Friedman, Brett Kimberlin, Larisa Alexandrovna, and Cliff Arnebeck. Brad and Brett are co-founders of the Velvet Revolution. Their primary fundraising carrot has been offering huge rewards for whistleblown proof of election fraud. Arnebeck has served as their attorney.
Alexandrovna played the intrepid reporter. She claimed Michael Connell was her source, was scared, and ready to talk. We're talking about the bookend to a B film-noir double feature (see
Curtis, Clint and the assassinated dog for info on the first show). It was definitely juicy convolution yet wasn't going to be nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. Perhaps
The Onion could have handed it a trophy in the category of creative bunk.
There was never any substance to it. Connell was never going to spill any beans. Imho, his small aircraft failed due to either icing or pilot disorientation. It happens.
Unexpected twists and turns are no sweat for Team Numbnuts. They are adept at improvising. Michael Connell having his knuckles cracked by Karl "Corleone" Rove was Act 1. If he refused to take the fall for the stolen 2004 election, things were going to get much worse. When he tragically died in late 2008, the script morphed a tragic accident into a probable murder.
Weinergate was easily improvised into having been a Team Breitbart production. That's putting aside the possiblity "Dan Wolfe" was a Team Numbnuts creation.
Apparently I was one of the key players in bringing down Congressman Anthony Weiner. Brett's associate Neal Rauhauser said so, thus I guess it's true. I must be suffering amnesia.
Oh, who am I kidding? Of course Connell was assassinated via a sabotaged plane. Andrew hired me to play the fake lefty. We- myself, Mandy, Dustin, Patterico, Aaron Worthing, and donkeytale formed the core of Team Themis Volume 2. We tried our best on behalf of HB Gary to derail Brad Friedman's intrepid journalist career. What skills he has. He's a modern day Edward R. Murrow, for crying out loud.
And were we ever terrified Andrew was gonna fire us after
BRADBLOG.COM did the following feature concerning the MYSTERIOUS DEATH OF BUSH/ROVE/GOP IT GURU MIKE CONNELL. SCARY BUT "FACTUAL" STUFF! It was too close to the truthiness.
Connell died when the single-engine aircraft he was piloting just prior to Christmas 2008 crashed in flames near Akron. The tragedy came just weeks after he was compelled by a federal judge to give a deposition in a long-standing 2004 federal election fraud lawsuit, on the heels of reports that Connell had been threatened by Rove to "take the fall" for whatever happened in '04. After Worrall's year-long investigation, he believes it's highly likely that Connell was, in fact, murdered.
The Maxim article Brad referred to can be
read here.
Ok, I'm done with the satire. None of this is funny, even if for some reason Worrall's article was in the Maxim humour section under this banner:
Team Numbnuts couldn't care less about the harm they do to others. They cybersmear, post outrageous hoaxes, file false criminal charges, and commit perjury (see
see Vanilla, The Thrilla in).
Here we can see how the Connell family's sorrow was compounded by some lame hoax. It's all about the bottom line to Team Numbnuts. Nearly all of us have empathy, so this stuff is virtually impossible to understand. Was the money suckered off of people such as Lori Grace worth selling their souls?
With his wiry hair and designer glasses, Spoonamore looks like a character in a Tim Burton movie. A lifelong Republican, he is also one of the world’s acknowledged experts on cybersecurity, with a résumé that includes work for the U.S. armed forces and the FBI. In his spare time he has devoted thousands of hours to investigating cyberfraud in American elections. “I know I sound crazy when I talk about this stuff. No one wants to believe it. They say, ‘No one would steal an election.’ And I go, ‘Yeah, they would. And that’s exactly what they did.’ ”
100% HOAX!
Larisa Alexandrovna's big scoop in the script was
One Of My Sources Died In A Plane Crash Last Night.
I don't usually reveal sources, but I think this is incredibly important. Michael Connell died in a plane crash last night. He was a key witness in the Ohio election fraud case that I have been reporting on. More importantly, however, he had information that he was ready to share....
I have been to Mr. Connell's home. Mr. Connell has confided that he was being threatened, something that his attorneys also told the judge in the Ohio election fraud case. When I met with Heather, his wife, I did so carefully because of the threats he was getting....
In fact, it was through following the Siegelman-Rove trail that I found evidence leading to Connell. That is how I became aware of him.
socratised interjection: That's the Ticket!
Mike was getting ready to talk. He was frightened.
He has flown his private plane for years without incident. 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.
According to
this newspaper article:
On Dec. 19, Connell flew alone in his single-engine Piper Supercub from a small airport near Washington, D.C. The plane crashed on its final approach to his hometown Akron-Canton Airport, between two houses. The cause is still under investigation but is presumed accidental.
The blogosphere refuses to accept this. "Mike was getting ready to talk," writes one online journalist who labels Connell a source. "He was frightened."
On April 30th, 2009, Brad and Brett's friend Larisa changed her tune. Which begs the question why she couldn't do the same with her vouching for the double secret exoneration schtick, when I confronted her at Daily Kos. It should be easy to see why I got my ass cybersmeared and sued. It was because I busted this story wide open starting three and a half years ago.
Not so...There was never a threat on his person that I am aware of. The threat is - as I understand it - more like using the DOJ to go after him. That is not only plausible, I think it is probably likely. Just fyi
Hmmm. She was retreating from pushing the probable murder hoax. At that point in Connell hoax history, it had become fairly obvious the whole thing was fiction. I guess she was in damage control mode.
By the way, has anyone seen Larisa lately? She seems to have disappeared. Jason Leopold has returned. Brad's still plugging away. I bet Wayne Madsen and Mike Rivero are still blogging like nutjobs. Open note to Larisa: It's ok sweetie, you can come back. Not everyone realises you're a disinfo hack. This stuff has blown over. No one is listening and no one cares. Now it's all about right versus left, Breitbart versus BradBlog and Velvet Revolution. Truthiness rules. New convolution can always be added on for further obfuscation. There's a sucker born every minute.
Past Comments:Gus W: If I get this right, the only person ever to assert that Kimberlin was the source alleging Rove threatened Connell was "trouble-in-winter" from DU. Did you get separate corroboration somewhere else?
As "trouble" is himself anonymous and has not explained how he got this information, the question remains unanswered. Arnebeck and Fitrakis refuse to reveal who their source was either way, correct?
Although Bradblog apparently removed my comment asking the question "was Kimberlin in fact the source of the Rove/Connell threat?", this does not impeach the other aspects of the story. I believe the question "was Connell murdered?" is merely distracting from the real issue the FBI should be looking into - did Connell set up a riggable vote reporting network?
Me: Wow. Was the post removed completely, as if it never existed? Or was it the standard deletion with a derisive comment left by Agent99 or Brad?
That such a comment would be censored should tell you all you need to know about Brad Friedman.
Here you go.
In his email to Mukasey today, Arnebeck writes: "We have been confidentially informed by a source we believe to be credible that Karl Rove has threatened Michael Connell, a principal witness we have identified in our King Lincoln case in federal court in Columbus, Ohio, that if he does not agree to 'take the fall' for election fraud in Ohio, his wife Heather will be prosecuted for supposed lobby law violations."
12/20/08: Bush Insider Who Planned To Tell All Killed In Plane Crash: Non-Profit Demands Full Federal InvestigationA 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 sabatoged. 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.
pdf link of a declaration made to the Ohio courts by Cliff Arnebeck38. Our efforts to secure Connell’s testimony in our case, after a threat by Rove against Connell had been reported to us, were supported by the Ohio Secretary of State and Attorney General offices and two federal judges. This resulted in lifting the stay in our case to enable us to seek the deposition of Connell, and the court order for Connell’s appearance in court and at deposition, in Cleveland.
39. Had Connell chosen to seek protection in the course of these proceedings, we believe he would have received it. Without his pursuit of witness protection from law enforcement authorities, we could not obtain it for him.
Further Progress in this Case
40. Since the tragic death of Michael Connell, a new witness has come forward with evidence linking the election rigging activities of this decade to organized crime operations based in Enterprise, AL. This witness has inside knowledge of this organized crime operation. This witness has also opened communication for us with another witness who has inside knowledge of Karl Rove’s activities.
I declare under penalty of perjury that the foregoing is true and correct. Executed on May 22, 2009.
Clifford O. Arnebeck, Jr.
A sworn declaration by Brett KimberlinMEMORANDUM IN SUPPORT OF PLAINTIFFS' MOTION FOR EXPEDITED
HEARING AND MEMORANDUM IN OPPOSITION TO NONPARTY MICHAEL CONNELL'S MOTION TO QUASH
On July 19, 2008, two days after this news conference that was widely disseminated within the blogosphere, an anonymous tipster, describing himself as being within the McCain Presidential campaign, reported that Rove had threatened Michael Connell for the apparent purpose of intimidating him from giving truthful testimony against Karl Rove. See Declaration of Brett Kimberlin, Exhibit B, ¶ 3.
Wow, Gus W. says he got censored by BradBlog, yet he goes back and leaves another post like nothing happened. Thank you sir, may I have another.
After all the work Connell did for the Bushes, going back to pre-internet days, you'd think they would have issued a statement regarding the tragic loss of their dedicated IT specialist.
Weird that Mrs. Connell didn't comment on condolences, or lack thereof from Bush, Rove, McCain or staff. How did it seem to her in terms of her husband's hugely high-profile clients not publicly paying their respects?
I think the media silence on all this is stunning, especially Rachel Maddow (her decision?). The fact that the FBI is investigating the "Mark Felt" letters should be newsworthy. Can any of you media insiders get the story-behind-the-non-story?
What's stunning is your cognitive dissonance.
Look, I used to be a regular at BradBlog. Brad offered me the opportunity to be a guest blogger. That never came to fruition, because I started to pester him about Brett Kimberlin. I was an idiot. I was propping up that disinfo blogger for months. Are you man enough to admit your mistakes?
Denial isn't a river in Egypt.
Let's see. This is you writing at Oped News praising all the prime suspects at the center of the hoax.
HuffPo Heavyweight Asked To Retract Report on Slain Rove IT Guru "Conspiracy Theories"Dude, my username at HuffPost is Broccolli. I snuck comments in at the beginning of the Edsall comment thread. Thankfully, they weren't censored.
[Update 5/24/12: Those were actually eventually deleted with myself banned. Basically I was telling the writer Edsall, "No dude, don't retract a thing. This story is indeed a rubbish conspiracy hoax." Here are those comments I screenshot before posting.
Here's a bonus screenshot I just noticed saved. It was made at Daily Kos.
Here is what Edsall attached to his article after feeling pressure from Larisa, VR, and others.
UPDATE: An earlier version of this story claimed: "Connell's death provoked a groundswell of commentary among conspiracy theorists on the web, including Larisa Alexandrovna, Raw Story, Velvet Revolution, ePluribus Media, and TheZoo." To be fair: Larisa Alexandrovna acknowledged that suspicions that Connell's death was the result of sabotage were unproven, and she urged that empirical evidence be pursued. Her articles and those that she cites legitimately raised questions that in many cases are worthy of pursuit (See Alexandrovna's letter concerning this story here.) I regret using "conspiracy theorists" to describe Larisa Alexandrovna, Raw Story, and the others.
The Intriguing Death Of Top GOP Consultant Michael Connell[End of Update and back to my response to Gus]
I was Prepostericity at Democratic Underground. This disinfo crowd has inside power there. I was not only banned but nearly every post I made was deleted way after they had been written. Freelance journalist Joe Lauria told Mark Singer I had become a player. He had become aware of the meta brouhaha in real time. I ended up talking with Joe quite a bit on the phone. He said that unfortunately the media would only hire him to do the story if there was proof of election fraud, that internet convolution while interesting couldn't be the focus of a piece.
I carried on to DailyKos, where Larisa and her buddy Michael Fingerit (MajorFlaw), the dude exposed by Dave Weintraub (DFQ), got me banned.
You need to snap out of it. The longer you pursue the path you're taking, the more of a gullible chump you are coming across as.
No one's saying you're in on the scam. These guys are pros. There's been a lot of money involved. I am a fricken nobody who was just the right person at the right time to bust their act.
Others also deserve credit. Creeksneakers2 did a good job exposing the fact that there's zero proof the Ohio elections were rigged the way Spoonamore presents it. I was one of a few in the forefront of going for the head of this disinfo octopus. You don't know that, because they censored my posts. I had one thread going in DU's electoral integrity forum. It had close to 100 posts and 5,000 views. In midstream, I was banned and all of it poof gone nada no cache zip no more.
I'm trying to show you some tough love. Snap out of it. The election integrity movement has become totally infiltrated. It has been perverted into a big time confidence game. Until you face up to that and stop promoting the people who have turned the obvious into tinfoil, that the 2004 election was stolen, you are not accomplishing what you truly want to.
If you go to BradBlog again, this is what I suggest. Confront Brad. First get your questions together. Read the links just supplied. They are making you look like a fool. Tell him you are from OpEd News. Tell him you are taking screenshots of your posts, and that if he persists in censorship, you will do all you can to expose that. Otherwise keep helping him line his pockets with cash while having a good chuckle at useful idiots like yourself.
The fact is these people are proven liars or deluded. My guess is the former.
There's more reason to believe Brett Kimberlin might have been behind the murder of Julia Scyphers than Karl Rove had Michael Connell murdered via plane sabotage.
Brett apparently had a very awkward relationship with Julia Scyphers' 11 year old granddaughter. It appeared that Kimberlin was grooming her to be his future wife.
BRETT KIMBERLIN WAS BELIEVED BY POLICE TO HAVE SET THOSE BOMBS, BECAUSE HE WAS TRYING TO DIVERT THE ATTENTION OF THEIR SMALL STAFF'S MURDER INVESTIGATION, IN WHICH HE WAS PRIME SUSPECT NUMERO UNO. JULIA'S HUSBAND FRED EVEN LATER FINGERED AN ASSOCIATE OF BRETT'S AS BEING THE MURDERER. BUT HE DIED OF CANCER AND WAS LOST AS A WITNESS.
The truth will emerge at some point.
The momentum has shifted. Friedman, Arnebeck, Kimberlin, and Alexandrovna are finished in regards to credibility. That's why, imho, they should be investigated for fraud.
