Very suspicious indeed. Similar to that Foster and Brown guys during the Clinton era.
Looks to me like this guy was taken out so he can't tell the truth.
So now what?
The Republican revisionists are still winning.
12-23-2008 Republican IT Guru Dies In Plane Crash
Federal investigators are looking into a small plane crash in Ohio which claimed the life of its pilot, a Republican media consultant who was instrumental in the presidential and gubernatorial campaigns of three members of the Bush Family.
Michael Connell,45, of Akron died Friday when his plane crashed near a vacant house in Uniontown while attempting to land at nearby Akron-Canton Airport.
But the fatal accident is also raising questions about Connell and his work for key political figures and lobbyists, which has targeted him in investigations over missing White House e-mails and a lawsuit alleging electronic voting fraud.
Following Last Friday's fatal accident, CBS Affiliate WOIO reported that Connell, who had recently been subpoenaed to testify in relation to a lawsuit alleging vote rigging in the 2004 Ohio election, was warned at least twice about flying his plane because his plane might be sabotaged.
Quoting an anonymous close friend of Connell's, WOIO correspondent Blake Chenault also reported that twice in the past two months Connell, who was an experienced pilot, canceled flights because of suspicious problems with his plane.
Neighbors told The Canton Repository that they heard what sounded like an engine sputtering before the crash and that the noise sounded like it was coming from a plane.
A Republican Loyalist
Beginning as a political campaign worker and congressional staffer, Connell became a key Republican media consultant who developed Internet strategies for the 2000 and 2004 Bush-Cheney campaigns. He was founder and CEO of Cleveland-based New Media Communications, which built Web sites for President Bush and former presidential nominee John McCain, according to the company's Web site. He was also chief IT consultant for Karl Rove.
The rise of the Republican Party in Washington in the '90s, and especially after the 2000 election, meant that Connell's network of connections was expanding as well. Having worked with Ohio Congressman Bob Ney and Governor Bob Taft, Connell's IT skills were sought after for the campaigns and Congressional sites for dozens of GOP candidates and officeholders. The New Media Communications Web site (now turned off, with a memorial to Connell in its place) boasted, "New Media?s client list reads like a 'Who?s Who' of Republican politics."
In 2000, Connell cofounded with his wife Heather GovTech Solutions to pursue government contracts.
GovTech's clients for databases, content management systems and other services included the White House, the Energy Department, several Republican-led Congressional committees and a few dozen congressional members' Web sites.
The Center for Public Integrity reported that in 2002 and 2004, the General Services Administration allowed federal agencies to purchase services directly from GovTech without a full bidding process.
Connell built the gwb43.com site, which shares mail servers with GovTech.
Much has been written about problems at the polls in Ohio that year, where voters in many (predominantly Democratic) precincts were forced to wait hours because of a shortage of working voting machines. A lawsuit being pursued by attorney Clifford Arneback seeks to answer questions about this and other ballot problems. [For example, in Franklin County Mr. Bush received 4,258 votes in a precinct where only 638 voters cast ballots.]
Questions have also been raised about how votes from Ohio counties were tabulated. Computer expert Stephen Spoonamore, a Republican who works in detecting fraud in network architecture and protecting computer infrastructures, has testified that the Ohio election returns he saw were indicative of a "KingPin Attack," in which a computer is inserted into the communications flow of an IT system, with the intent to change data as it passes to its destination.
It was later learned that Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell's office had routed Internet traffic from county election offices through out-of-state servers based at SMARTech in Chattanooga, Tenn. SMARTech hosts dozens of GOP Web domains.
Looks to me like this guy was taken out so he can't tell the truth.
So now what?
The Republican revisionists are still winning.
12-23-2008 Republican IT Guru Dies In Plane Crash
Federal investigators are looking into a small plane crash in Ohio which claimed the life of its pilot, a Republican media consultant who was instrumental in the presidential and gubernatorial campaigns of three members of the Bush Family.
Michael Connell,45, of Akron died Friday when his plane crashed near a vacant house in Uniontown while attempting to land at nearby Akron-Canton Airport.
But the fatal accident is also raising questions about Connell and his work for key political figures and lobbyists, which has targeted him in investigations over missing White House e-mails and a lawsuit alleging electronic voting fraud.
Following Last Friday's fatal accident, CBS Affiliate WOIO reported that Connell, who had recently been subpoenaed to testify in relation to a lawsuit alleging vote rigging in the 2004 Ohio election, was warned at least twice about flying his plane because his plane might be sabotaged.
Quoting an anonymous close friend of Connell's, WOIO correspondent Blake Chenault also reported that twice in the past two months Connell, who was an experienced pilot, canceled flights because of suspicious problems with his plane.
Neighbors told The Canton Repository that they heard what sounded like an engine sputtering before the crash and that the noise sounded like it was coming from a plane.
A Republican Loyalist
Beginning as a political campaign worker and congressional staffer, Connell became a key Republican media consultant who developed Internet strategies for the 2000 and 2004 Bush-Cheney campaigns. He was founder and CEO of Cleveland-based New Media Communications, which built Web sites for President Bush and former presidential nominee John McCain, according to the company's Web site. He was also chief IT consultant for Karl Rove.
The rise of the Republican Party in Washington in the '90s, and especially after the 2000 election, meant that Connell's network of connections was expanding as well. Having worked with Ohio Congressman Bob Ney and Governor Bob Taft, Connell's IT skills were sought after for the campaigns and Congressional sites for dozens of GOP candidates and officeholders. The New Media Communications Web site (now turned off, with a memorial to Connell in its place) boasted, "New Media?s client list reads like a 'Who?s Who' of Republican politics."
In 2000, Connell cofounded with his wife Heather GovTech Solutions to pursue government contracts.
GovTech's clients for databases, content management systems and other services included the White House, the Energy Department, several Republican-led Congressional committees and a few dozen congressional members' Web sites.
The Center for Public Integrity reported that in 2002 and 2004, the General Services Administration allowed federal agencies to purchase services directly from GovTech without a full bidding process.
Connell built the gwb43.com site, which shares mail servers with GovTech.
Much has been written about problems at the polls in Ohio that year, where voters in many (predominantly Democratic) precincts were forced to wait hours because of a shortage of working voting machines. A lawsuit being pursued by attorney Clifford Arneback seeks to answer questions about this and other ballot problems. [For example, in Franklin County Mr. Bush received 4,258 votes in a precinct where only 638 voters cast ballots.]
Questions have also been raised about how votes from Ohio counties were tabulated. Computer expert Stephen Spoonamore, a Republican who works in detecting fraud in network architecture and protecting computer infrastructures, has testified that the Ohio election returns he saw were indicative of a "KingPin Attack," in which a computer is inserted into the communications flow of an IT system, with the intent to change data as it passes to its destination.
It was later learned that Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell's office had routed Internet traffic from county election offices through out-of-state servers based at SMARTech in Chattanooga, Tenn. SMARTech hosts dozens of GOP Web domains.
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