The (Possible) Assassination of Paul Wellstone, by Ted Rall
www.questionsquestions.net/docs0209/1101_rall.html
People expressed similar fears after Commerce Secretary Ron Brown and Missouri Governor Mel Carnahandied in plane crashes--the latter weeks before facing an election challenge from future Bush Attorney General John Ashcroft but the whispers of assassination following the Wellstone tragedy are more widespread and gaining mainstream currency far beyond the usual conspiracy nuts.
The Death of Senator Wellstone: Accident or Murder?
www.wsws.org/articles/2002/oct2002/well-o29_prn.shtml
President Bush Expresses Heartfelt Non-Political Sadness Over the Passing of Leftist Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone - WHITEHOUSE.ORG
www.whitehouse.org/news/2002/102902.asp
An early article from Portland Indymedia http://portland.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=29306&group=webcast contained what is still one of the most apt observations about the whole affair:
Sherlock Holmes solved at least one case by noticing that something that should be present was missing. In the Hound of the Baskervilles, he solved the case by noticing that no one reported a barking dog. So what's missing in terms of the Wellstone plane crash? For the last 14 months, anytime there has been a plane crash, the media go way overboard in assuming that this must somehow be a terrorist incident. The initial reaction of the media in the first hours of the event is always now "oh my, I hope this isn't happening again. I hope this isn't another terrorist attack." Just a few days ago, there was a news story that Al-Queda may be targeting US Senators. The story referred to the possibilities of sniper attacks on golf courses. Just a few days later, a US Senator dies. So, what's missing? Sen. Wellstone's plane crashes, and there is absolutely no speculation that this is a terrorist attack. Somehow the media immediately knows that this plane crash was caused by bad weather, and this is in no way a terrorist attack. The media dog has been barking "terrorist" steadily for 14 months. Today the dog didn't bark.
Did the Stock Market Rally Because Sen. Wellstone Died?
http://slate.msn.com/?id=2073185&device=
Was Wellstone Murdered?
www.onlinejournal.com/Media/Ramares110702/ramares110702.html
www.realhistoryarchives.com/collections/conspiracies/waswellstonemurdered.htm
Was Paul Wellstone Murdered?
This was rescued from Google's cache after the original AlterNet piece disappeared from the 'net.
By Michael I. Niman, AlterNet
October 28, 2002
Paul Wellstone was the only progressive in the U.S. Senate. Mother Jones magazine once described him as, "The first 1960s radical elected to the U.S. senate." He was also the last. Since defeating incumbent Republican Rudy Boschowitz 12 years ago in a grassroots upset, Wellstone emerged as the strongest, most persistent, most articulate and most vocal Senate opponent of the Bush administration.
In a senate that is one heartbeat away from Republican control, Wellstone was more than just another Democrat. He was often the lone voice standing firm against the status-quo policies of both the Democrats and the Republicans. As such, he earned the special ire of the Bush administration and the Republican Party, who made Wellstone's defeat that party's number one priority this year.
Various White House figures made numerous recent campaign stops in Minnesota to stump for the ailing campaign of Wellstone's Republican opponent, Norm Coleman. Despite being outspent and outgunned, however, polls show that Wellstone's popularity surged after he voted to oppose the Senate resolution authorizing George Bush to wage war in Iraq. He was pulling ahead of Coleman and moving toward a victory that would both be an embarrassment to the Bush administration and to Democratic Quislings such as Hillary Clinton who voted to support "the president."
Then he died.
Wellstone now joins the ranks of other American politicians who died in small plane crashes. Another recent victim was Missouri's former Democratic governor, Mel Carnahan, who lost his life in 2000, three weeks before Election Day, during his Senatorial race against John Ashcroft. Carnahan went on to become the first dead man to win a Senatorial race, humiliating and defeating the unpopular Ashcroft posthumously. Ashcroft, despite his unpopularity, went on to be appointed Attorney General by George W. Bush. Investigators determined that Carnahan's plane went down due to "poor visibility."
Carnahan was the second Missouri politician to die in a small plane crash. The first was Democratic Representative Jerry Litton, whose plane crashed the night he won the Democratic nomination for senate in 1976. His Republican opponent ultimately captured the seat from his successor in November.
While an article in the New York Times on Saturday pointed out the danger politicians face due to their heavy air travel schedules, the death of a senator or member of Congress is still relatively rare, with only one other sitting U.S. Senator, liberal Republican John Heinz, dying in a plane crash since World War II. Heinz, who entered office as an outspoken opponent of the Vietnam War, later emerged as a strong proponent of health care, social services, public transportation and the environment. He also urged reconciliation with Cuba. He died when the landing gear on his small plane failed to function, and a helicopter dispatched to survey the problem crashed into his plane.
One former senator, John Tower, also died in a small plane crash. Tower was best known as the chair of the Tower Commission, which investigated the Reagan/Bush era Iran/Contra scandal.
Another member of a prominent government commission who died in a small plane crash was former Democratic representative and House Majority Leader Hale Boggs. Boggs was best known as one of the seven members of the Warren Commission, which investigated the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The commission found that Lee Harvey Oswald was acting alone when he killed the president. Boggs, it turns out, had "strong doubts" that Oswald acted alone, but went along with the commission findings. Later, in 1971 and 1972, he went public with his doubts. He was presumed dead after the small plane carrying him and Democratic Representative Nicholas Begich disappeared in 1972.
Texas Democratic Representative Mickey Leland also died in a plane crash. In his case, the six-term member of Congress and outspoken advocate of sanctions against the apartheid government of South Africa, died while traveling in Ethiopia. Another American politician to die overseas in a plane crash was the Clinton administration's Commerce Secretary, Ronald Brown, whose plane went down in the Balkans.
Anyone familiar with my work knows that I'm certainly not a conspiracy theorist. But to be honest, I know I wasn't alone in my initial reaction at this week's horrible and tragic news: that being my surprise that Wellstone had lived this long. Perhaps it's just my anger and frustration at losing one of the few reputable politicians in Washington, but I also felt shame. Shame for not writing in my column, months ago, that I felt that Paul Wellstone's life, more so than any other politician in Washington, was in danger. I felt that such speculation was unprofessional and would ultimately undermine my credibility. In the end, my own self-interest triumphed, and I never put my concerns into print. Neither did any other mainstream journalist, though I know of many who shared my concern.
When I heard Wellstone's plane went down, I immediately thought of Panamanian General Omar Torrijos, who in 1981 thumbed his nose at the Reagan/Bush administration and threatened to destroy the Panama Canal in the event of a U.S. invasion. Torrijos died shortly thereafter when the instruments in his plane failed to function upon takeoff. Panamanians speculated that the U.S. was involved in the death of the popular dictator, who was replaced by a U.S. intelligence operative, Manuel Noreiga, who previously worked with George Bush Senior.
There is no indication today that Wellstone's death was the result of foul play. What we do know, however, is that Wellstone emerged as the most visible obstacle standing in the way of a draconian political agenda by an unelected government. And now he is conveniently gone. For our government to maintain its credibility at this time, we need an open and accountable independent investigation involving international participation into the death of Paul Wellstone. Hopefully we will find out, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that this was indeed an untimely accident. For the sake of our country, we need to know this.
Dr. Michael I. Niman teaches journalism and media studies at Buffalo State College.
Copyright © 2002 Alternet
Reprinted for Fair Use Only
Balanced article from World Net Daily (very right wing on-line publication)
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=29487
Cheryl's Daily Diatribe: Wednesday, October 30, 2002
The Murder of Paul Wellstone: Is It the Beginning of the End for America?
by Cheryl Seal http://www.unknownnews.net/cdd1030.html
The moment I heard the news that the unabashedly liberal, gloriously conscientious Senator from Minnesota Paul Wellstone had died in a plane crash, I could feel in my bones, in my heart, and in my soul that he had been murdered. Maybe not by the CIA (Bush has managed to alienate even this group, whose best advice is routinely ignored or slighted), but at the very least by GOP operatives. A serious accusation? Damn right, and I mean it, in all seriousness. I only half-seriously wondered if Mel Carnahan, running against John Ashcroft in Missouri in 2000, had been murdered. Remember him? His death occurred under almost identical circumstances: right before an election, at the height of a close race in which the victim had started to pull ahead, a popular, well-loved senator — suddenly dead in a plane crash. To the GOP's shock, the Missouri voters elected Mel anyway, and his wife Jean stepped in and took his place in Congress. Now Wellstone has been killed, another voice of Democracy silenced by those who would murder not just good men, but Democracy herself. The only difference between the Carnahan and Wellstone tragedies is that this time, the perpetrators made sure to get the wife, too.
Published on Tuesday, April 24, 2001 in the Madison Capital Times
Bush Fears Tenacious, Popular Wellstone by John Nichols http://www.commondreams.org/views01/0424-07.htm
The Bushies despise Wellstone, who unlike most Senate Democrats has been fighting spirited battles against the new administration’s policies on everything from the environment to the tax cuts for the rich to military aid for the "Plan Colombia" drug war boondoggle. Other Democratic senators who face re-election contests in 2002 are, according to polls, more vulnerable than Wellstone. But the Bush camp has been focusing highest-level attention on "Plan Wellstone" — its project to silence progressive opposition.
CIA will investigate Wellstone plane crash
National Transportation Safety Board http://www.ntsb.gov/Abt_NTSB/bios/carmody.htm
CAROL J. CARMODY - MEMBER
Ms. Carmody served as Acting Chairman from September 16, 2002, to January 18, 2003, and also served in this capacity from January 22 through September 23, 2001. ....
Her career includes: .... serving at the Central Intelligence Agency;
Democrats twice as likely [as Republicans] to die in plane crashes
http://www.scoop.co.nz/archive/scoop/stories/1c/83/200211201748.9b4c3d66.html
http://www.questionsquestions.net/docs0209/1101_wellstone.html
Was Wellstone assassinated?
The first question really was, how could anyone be crazy enough NOT to ask the question seriously? It has become quite fashionable to heap instant disdain and superior ridicule on any talk of foul play and conspiracy in high places as a sign of "mania" or "paranoia", but as some have pointed out, the fact that so many people were quick to raise suspicions is nothing but a healthy sign, regardless of what the story turns out to be! Perhaps the public is starting to wake up to reality and understand, "it DOES happen here"? What is undeniable is that politics by airplane crash is an old tradition and has been practiced around the world. Many people quickly recalled other shady "accidents" from the past. Some pointed out by Mike Ruppert:
Rep. Hale Boggs, D-La., was killed in 1972 and had been an outspoken member of the Warren Commission investigating the assassination of JFK. Various sources reported that he had openly expressed doubts about the commission's findings.
Rep. Jerry Litton, D-Mo., was killed while campaigning for a U.S. Senate seat from Missouri nearly two months before the 1976 election. This was exactly the same fate that was to befall Missouri Democratic Gov. Mel Carnahan twenty-four years later.
Rep. Larry McDonald, D-Ga. and the national chairman of the John Birch Society and creator of a private intelligence operation called Western Goals, was killed on KAL 007 after it had mysteriously veered off course on a flight to South Korea and ventured several hundred miles into Soviet territory. The plane was shot down by the Soviet air force. At the time, McDonald's Western Goals was being exposed in an LAPD intelligence scandal linked to massive domestic spying, the CIA and covert operatives like Gen. John Singlaub.
Rep. Larkin Smith, D-Miss. was killed in a private plane crash in 1989. At the time he had been working with veterans of U.S. Army Special Forces looking into the deaths of five Green Beret colonels, all of whom had been connected to a covert CIA drug operation known as Watchtower. [Details of Smith's death are included in the FTW package "The Tyree Papers."]
Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown, a Democrat, was killed in a plane crash in Croatia on April 3, 1996. There are many unresolved mysteries with this incident, not the least of which is a color photograph of a post mortem Brown, which is frequently displayed by comedian/activist Dick Gregory, clearly showing a bullet wound in the back of his skull.
John Tower, a recently retired Republican senator from Texas known for his heavy drinking, was writing a book about the Iran-Contra affair when he was killed in a plane crash in 1991. Tower had reportedly been extremely unhappy when he had been denied an appointment as secretary of defense by President George Herbert Walker Bush. Tower had also been the chairman of a Reagan-appointed independent commission investigating Iran-Contra.
In a recent investigative piece at FTW, Ruppert draws the following conclusions, which are supported by other researchers:
• icing or adverse weather conditions were not to blame.
• pilot error was very unlikely. Two very experienced pilots were on board.
• the King Air 100 is a remarkably reliable and safe aircraft.
Also, Ruppert reports off-the-record Congressional sources who believe Wellstone was murdered.
It should be remembered that Wellstone also was the chairman of the new securities reform committee. And it was Wellstone who was attempting to block the nomination of the notorious William Webster, former CIA and FBI head and the Best Friend of Big Business and the Big Accounting Firms, to be the new chairman of the SEC/ Accounting "Oversight" Commission. If the Republicans wanted to take anybody out, this was THE guy. -- Al Martin (Iran-Contra whistleblower) http://www.almartinraw.com/column77.html
Sherman Skolnick - the Secret History of Airplane Sabotage
http://www.skolnicksreport.com/shistory.html
How Very Convenient... by John Bottoms
http://www.strike-the-root.com/columns/Bottoms/bottoms25.html
http://members.shaw.ca/rb.ham/articles/02-10-28-coincidencetheory.htm
It has become standard technique for debunkers of conspiracy theories to counter with the coincidence theory. The coincidence theory assumes that if an act or series of acts seemingly benefits certain individuals and ideologies, it's all explainable as random chance or an act of God.
I'm sure that the unelected President Dubya's Christian base firmly believe that God himself is felling Democrats from the sky with righteous anger. Mel Carnahan, JFK Junior, Paul Wellstone. No doubt, God himself also mailed the anthrax to Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy.
The obvious comparisons to the death of Mel Carnahan, the Missouri Democrat who was running against John Ashcroft two years ago, have been avoided like the plague by the mainstream media. Also, Mr. Wellstone died 11 days before the election. If he had died 10 days before, the Democratic Party could have left his name on the ballot. He would be a shoe-in as a sympathy vote, then the Dems could find someone later to take his seat. As it is now, the Dems must replace Wellstone. This might be how Karl Rove envisions a Republican victory.
Coincidentally, this time the wife of the prospective Democratic Senator has also died. Fat chance of Mrs. Wellstone running in the place of her husband, as Jean Carnahan did in Missouri.
My belief is that if too many coincidences happen too many times, concurrently and benefiting a select group of sunsofbitches - then coincidence theory goes out the window. Conspiracy is afoot, my friend, and those involved have become emboldened by their deceitful successes since the stolen election and the 9-11 (The great deception) terror attack. Now they have become so arrogant as to be blatantly obvious.
"American Assassination" was edited and published by Sander Hicks, author of "The Big Wedding."
Co-author Fetzer is a long time conspiracy theorist promoting a mix of good and not-so-good "research" on various conspiracies.
His "Assassination Science" website promotes most of the false 9/11 conspiracy claims (no plane at Pentagon, the "pod") and there's even a link at the top of the page to a site pretending that the moon landing was faked.
It is a good thing this book was edited well, but that is a separate issue from the credibility of this co-author.
Fetzer was the main person behind the "Scholars for 9/11 Truth" group which mixed together some good claims with disinformation.
http://drenchkiss.com/wellstone_conference.html
Wellstone Was Murdered.
In "American Assassination," two professors explain how.
Who Killed Senator Paul Wellstone?
New Book Presents Damning New Research,
Authors, Publisher Call for Senate Investigation
Monday, October 25th (2004), 12 Noon
National Press Club * Holeman Lounge
529 14th St NW * Washington, DC
Two years ago, all eyes were on the Senate race of Senator Paul Wellstone. In the wake of the defection of Jim Jeffords, the White House hand-picked Norm Coleman to attempt to unseat the populist Wellstone. But Coleman still trailed Wellstone late in the campaign. On October 11th, Wellstone voted against the President's war on Iraq, despite a dire personal warning of "severe ramifications" from Vice President Cheney. As the result of his vote, Wellstone's popularity soared.
Then tragedy struck. Just ten days before his probable re-election, Senator Wellstone was killed in the mysterious crash of his small aircraft. On October 25, 2002, the American people suffered the loss of a leader for peace and justice. Some folks harbored suspicions. And some remember how the media blamed the weather.
After two years of research, James Fetzer, Ph.D. and Don "Four Arrows" Jacobs, Ph.D., prove that the weather did not kill Senator Wellstone. Nor were the two pilots incompetent, as the final report of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) would claim.
With impeccable logic, these two highly-lauded university professors ask the hard questions: Why the mysterious cessation of communication from the airplane right before the crash? Why did a passer-by experience cell phone interference at the exact time the pilots lost control? How did the FBI arrive at the crash scene, only an hour or so after the first responders, and eight hours before the NTSB?
At the time of Senator Wellstone's death, 69% of Minnesotans polled said they had a hunch a "GOP Conspiracy" was at play. Now, a new book makes the case that the common people were right all along..
On October 25th, on the two year anniversary of Wellstone's crash, Authors Jim Fetzer and Four Arrows will join Publisher Sander Hicks in Washington to reveal about what really happened that day. At the National Press Club, they will announce publication of American Assassination: The Strange Death of Senator Paul Wellstone.
"With new evidence and scientific rigor, Drs. Fetzer and Jacobs systematically appraise the alternative explanations for the death of a United States Senator. Their conclusion-that Paul Wellstone was the target of an assassination-is very disturbing. It should motivate authorities to launch a formal inquiry into the death of this remarkable American."
-Donald T. Phillips
Author, Lincoln on Leadership
"Meticulous research...rigorous analysis. Their efforts lead us to only one conclusion."
-David Gabbard
Professor, East Carolina University
Professor James Fetzer is the Distinguished McKnight University Professor of Philosophy at the University of Minnesota. He has published more than 20 books in the philosophy of science and on computer science, artificial intelligence, and cognitive science. Three of his books examine the death of JFK: Assassination Science, Murder in Dealey Plaza, and The Great Zapruder Film Hoax.
Four Arrows, aka Don Trent Jacobs, Ph.D., Ed.D. is an associate professor at Northern Arizona University. Author of 12 books on critical thinking and wellness, he is the 2004 recipient of the Martin-Springer Moral Courage Award. Of Cherokee/Creek/Scots/Irish ancestry, he has been a staunch activist for American Indian rights, as was Senator Paul Wellstone.
American Assassination is published by Vox Pop, the debut title of this imprint of the Drench Kiss Media Corporation. DKMC was founded recently by Sander Hicks. Hicks is the "punk of publishing" featured in the documentary Horns and Halos (broadcast recently on Cinemax) which detailed his republication of the prescient Bush biography Fortunate Son.
AMERICAN ASSASSINATION:
The Strange Death of Senator Paul Wellstone
Vox Pop #1 * DATE OF PUBLICATION: October, 2004
ISBN: 0-9752763-0-1 * $14.00 * Paperback * 235 pp * 5 x 8.1
http://raintaxi.com/online/2004winter/assassination.shtml
AMERICAN ASSASSINATION
The Strange Death Of Senator Paul Wellstone
Four Arrows and Jim Fetzer
Vox Pop ($14)
by Bradley E. Ayers
American Assassination challenges the reader to render careful, critical judgment about the causation of Paul Wellstone's death, when his chartered plane went down in a remote area of northeastern Minnesota in October 2002. Was the crash an accident, a bizarre twist of fate on the eve of the fiery, outspoken liberal Democrat's predicted reelection to the narrowly divided U.S. Senate? Or was the plane's destruction the work of threatened right-wing forces determined to sabotage our country's elective process for political gain?
Authors Four Arrows (aka Donald Trent Jacobs) and Jim Fetzer passionately assume the latter, but not without making a powerful case. Their thesis is structured around the fundamental, time-honored considerations when appraising any crime: did a potential perpetrator have the means, motive, and opportunity to commit the act, and is there human testimony or physical and circumstantial evidence to support each of these criteria? ....
Editor's Note: Bradley E. Ayers is a former Army special operations officer and author of The War That Never Was: An Insider's Account of CIA Covert Operations Against Cuba (Bobbs-Merrill, 1976). As a former commercial air charter bush pilot, he has flown into Eveleth, MN, the site of the Wellstone plane crash, many times under all varieties of weather conditions
www.freezerbox.com/archive/article.asp?id=309
Target Wellstone
BY RUSS WELLEN
BOOKS | 9.7.2004
American Assassination: The Strange Death of Senator Paul Wellstone
By Four Arrows and Jim Fetzer
Vox Pop, 199 pages, $14.00
So fierce is the competition in the crime fiction market today that only the cozy genre of mystery can still get away with a single murder victim. In padding the body count, however, authors lose sight of the first rule of a good crime novel: reanimate the corpse. In other words, the reader must get to know and care about the deceased.
When the plane carrying Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone to the funeral of a state lawmaker's father crashed, his wife, daughter, three staff members, and two pilots died as well. By writing American Assassination: The Strange Death of Senator Paul Wellstone (on Sander Hicks's new Vox Pop imprint), Four Arrows and Jim Fetzer honor all the victims. But demonstrating that a crime--massacre actually--was committed requires showing how Wellstone's Senate career constituted a monument to humanitarianism that demanded to be toppled as sure as Saddam's statue in Firdos Square, Baghdad.
Unfortunately, sniping from the left that he failed to hew to the party line obscured Wellstone's achievements (documented in an appendix to the book). In fact, his comprehensive approach to progressive causes, from reforming American farm policy to opposing GATT and NAFTA, paralleled how the right leaves no stone unturned in its relentless quest to roll back any legislation that could conceivably be called enlightened.
In light of the suspicious circumstances under which he died, you can't help but think that the right saw him as not one, but a plague of gadflies that had to be eradicated. He was in fact exposed to aerial spraying--intentionally, the authors maintain--while inspecting the effect of glycophospate on Colombian coca fields. With each vote, Wellstone more and more resembled a man marching to his doom.
Not only the mainstream, but also most of the independent media has used Wellstone campaign manager Jeff Blodgett's profession of certainty that pilot error was at fault to back off from allegations of foul play. In other words, don't let them tar you with that darn conspiracy theory label because when you try to peel it off your skin comes with it.
But conspiracy theories don't only play with the Generation X-Files crowd; now they're scrutinized by the ever-more-credentialed, such as Dr. David Ray Griffin, the author of The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions About the Bush Administration and 9/11. Like Griffin, Jim Fetzer is a professor of philosophy (at the University of Minnesota, Duluth) and he's polished his philosopher's stone with three books on the death of JFK. Co-author Four Arrows is an associate professor at Northern Arizona University. (Though the authors fail to describe the division of duties, the interviews Arrows conducts suggests he's the leg man.)
Applying the principles of philosophy to the crime, Fetzer claims that when an investigator examining a hypothesis violates "the requirement of total evidence," "special pleading"--intentionally selecting evidence to create a biased result--occurs.
Excluding, and perhaps removing, evidence is exactly what official bodies seem to have set out to do. Only an hour after first responders arrived on the crash site at 11 a.m., the FBI materialized on the scene. In other words, they would have departed from St. Paul at 9:30--when Wellstone's plane was taking off.
After possibly spiriting away the cockpit voice recorder, the FBI announced the crash wasn't the work of terrorists. Meanwhile, the National Traffic Safety Board's lead investigator, Frank Hildrup, when asked why there was no public hearing, responded that they were reserved for "high profile cases."
As for the cause, at first the NTSB blamed icy conditions. However, when the plane didn't land at the Eveleth-Virginia (Minnesota) Airport, its assistant manager, Gary Ulman, had no qualms about immediately taking off to search for the crash site. Others, such as National Center for Atmospheric Research meteorologist Ben Bernstein, downplayed the icing theory as well.
Besides, the Beechcraft King Air A-10 boasted an elaborate de-icing system--you learn a lot about aviation in this book--such as pneumatic de-icing boots that inflate and deflate to break ice from the leading edges of the wing and tail. And when the King Air's maintenance records turned out to be in order, mechanical problems, along with the icy conditions, were disqualified as causes.
The NTSB then turned to the highly rated pilot, Richard Conry, a favorite of Wellstone's who had passed an FAA flight check two days before. Sixty seconds after his last conversation with the ground, during which he reported no problems, the King Air began drifting south, whereas a normal landing would have continued straight west. In other words, discounting his turn in the opposite direction before crashing, the NTSB adopted the conclusion that Conry and co-pilot Michael Guess's approach was too slow, stalling the plane and causing it to crash.
But even if the pilots failed to check airspeed and altitude--an almost unimaginable lapse--they would have been alerted by an alarm in plenty of time to regain speed. In other words, by arriving at this conclusion the NTSB demonstrated the same lack of concern for public scrutiny as the FBI did when it arrived early at the crash scene. More likely, the authors maintain, the King Air lost airspeed and altitude because the pilots were unable to control it.
Understanding the crash, they believe, requires establishing why the King Air suddenly stopped communicating. Another man on his way to the funeral, driving within a couple blocks of the airport at the time of the crash experienced otherworldly cell-phone interference. He reported hearing a sound "between a roar and loud humming voice...oscillating...screeching and humming noise."
Most responsible for narrowing the authors' search for a cause was the blue smoke typical of electrical fires that streamed out of the King Air's sheared fuselage for hours after the crash.
In an arresting passage, the authors cite a Time magazine article describing microwave weapons the US is developing to knock out enemy electronics. Supposedly they're capable of unleashing in an instant as much power as the Hoover Dam cranks out in a day. The authors report, among other accidents, an F-111 that crashed or aborted due simply to the radio transmissions (electromagnetic pulses) of other US military aircraft.
Suddenly the idea of electronic-jamming equipment sending a decoy VOR (landing guidance system) signal to the King Air becomes plausible. Obeying instrumentation that's tricked into believing the plane is several degrees off course, the pilot follows the signal straight into the ground.
Possible means mapped out, what about more specific motives than the general pugnaciousness of this former wrestler's progressivism? First, at the time of the crash the Republicans' Senate majority was in jeopardy because Vermont's Jim Jeffords had bolted the party. In an attempt to redress the balance, they threw all their support behind Norm Coleman, Wellstone's opponent in the upcoming election. When Wellstone voted against granting the president power to invade Iraq, his popularity surged.
Wellstone reported that before the Senate vote on Iraq, Dick Cheney had warned him that bucking the administration could result in severe consequences for both him and the state of Minnesota. Neither was the vice president happy about the legislation Wellstone had introduced to improve protection against asbestos poisoning. Cheney had left Halliburton in a position to be sued by its insurer for asbestos claims staggering in their potential for remuneration. Only his assumption of the vice presidency granted him immunity from deposition.
After Wellstone's funeral, you may remember how Republicans claimed the event was partisan, essentially garnering Democrats free campaign airtime. This, of course, stood in contrast, to the heartfelt way the Republican party grieved--by transferring money designated to fight Wellstone to defeating Democratic Georgia Senator Max Cleland. Corporate America was equally broken up: From the instant Wellstone's death was reported by AP--the rise in corporate fortunes that a Republican Senate signified needed no spelling out to investors--the Dow rose steadily.
By unraveling the conditions under which he died, Four Arrows and Jim Fetzer have not only paid tribute to Paul Wellstone, they've brought to light the facts surrounding yet another suspicious plane crash in a lineage that extends back to Governor Mel Carnahan and Senators John Tower and Hale Boggs.
Finally, let us recall the prescience Wellstone demonstrated in his statement to the Senate on Iraq: "The United States should unite the world against Saddam and not allow him to unite forces against us."
Duluth News Tribune
Duluth, MN
Opinions
Disturbing circumstances around crash of Wellstone plane raise questions of conspiracy
http://www.duluthsuperior.com/mld/duluthtribune/news/opinion/7297928.htm
Posted on Wed, Nov. 19, 2003
Point of View by JIM FETZER
Disturbing circumstances around crash of Wellstone plane raise questions of conspiracy
Minnesota Sen. Paul Wellstone was a serious man who cared profoundly about his fellow citizens. He took courageous stands against an administration that he viewed with profound suspicion, arguing eloquently against tax cuts for the rich, the subversion of the Constitution, and violating international accords. He would have led the opposition to the war in Iraq if only he had had the chance. Everyone knew it and he may have died because of it.
For nearly a year now, evidence has been accumulating about the event that ended the life of this magnificent human being. Whatever caused the crash was not the plane, the pilots, or the weather. In spite of what you may have heard, the plane was exceptional, the pilots well-qualified, and the weather posed no significant problems. Even the National Transportation Safety Board's own simulations of the plane, the pilots, and the weather were unable to bring the plane down.
This means we have to consider other, less palatable, alternatives, such as small bombs, gas canisters or electromagnetic pulse, radio frequency or High Energy Radio Frequency weapons designed to overwhelm electrical circuitry with an intense electromagnetic field. An abrupt cessation of communication between the plane and the tower took place at about 10:18 a.m., the same time an odd cell hone phenomenon occurred with a driver in the immediate vicinity.
This suggests to me the most likely explanation is that one of our new electromagnetic weapons was employed.
The politics of the situation were astonishing. The senator was pulling away from the hand-picked candidate of the Bush machine. Its opportunity to seize control of the U.S. Senate was slipping from its grasp. Its vaunted "invincibility" was being challenged by an outspoken critic of its most basic values. Targeted for elimination, he was going to survive. Here's one man's opinion: Under such conditions, the temptation to take him out may have been irresistible.
Among the striking indications that something was wrong with the NTSB in its inquiry into the causes of the crash is that Carol Carmody, a former employee with the CIA, the head of the team, announced the day after that the FBI had found no indications of terrorist involvement. Yet it is the responsibility of the NTSB to ascertain the cause of the crash, which has yet to be determined to this very day.
So how could the FBI possibly know?
The FBI's prompt arrival was peculiar. As Christopher Bollyn of American Free Press reported (
www.rumormillnews.net, Oct. 29, 2002),
"According to Rick Wahlberg, sheriff of St. Louis County, a team of FBI agents was quickly on the crash site about noon, less than an hour after (assistant manager Gary) Ulman and the (fire) chief had first located the site and found a way to access the wreck. This FBI team had come from the distant Twin Cities in record time!"
When Bollyn "asked Ulman if he had notified the FBI about the accident, Ulman said he had not spoken with the bureau at any time. Asked how the FBI got to the site so quickly, Ulman said that he assumed they had come from Duluth. AFP contacted the Duluth office of the FBI and was told that the team of 'recovery' agents had not come from Duluth but had traveled from the FBI office in Minneapolis."
I calculate that this team would have had to have left the Twin Cities at about the same time the Wellstone plane was taking off. Gary Ulman confirmed to me that the FBI had been on the scene no later than 1 p.m.
I have reviewed the log books maintained by the Sheriff's Department at Eveleth and have discovered that they are grossly incomplete and cannot confirm when the FBI showed up.
The FAA has told me that its records of private aircraft arriving in Duluth that morning have been destroyed, even though they might verify the FBI's early arrival. And the NTSB has canceled sessions where it would ordinarily take input from the public.
Michael Ruppert (fromthewilderness.com, Nov. 1, 2002) has reported, "The day after the crash I received a message from a former CIA operative who has proven extremely reliable in the past and who is personally familiar with these kinds of assassinations. The message read, 'As I said earlier, having played ball (and still playing in some respects) with this current crop of reinvigorated old white men, these clowns are nobody to screw around with. There will be a few more strategic accidents. You can be certain of that.' "
If you think that's a stretch, consider: Hundreds of young Americans have been put in harm's way by a war that was promoted on the basis of lies about weapons of mass destruction, collaboration with Osama bin Laden, and Sept. 11.
Some 3,000 Americans were killed when the Twin Towers collapsed, and yet the president and the vice president of the United States have done everything they can to obstruct a open and honest investigation of the causes of that traumatic event. And when a leak from his own administration leads to the exposure of a CIA operative concerned with weapons of mass destruction, the President tells us "we may never know."
This is a corrupt administration.
One of the oddest events since the election is that Wellstone's successor in the U.S. Senate, Norm Coleman, has been placed in charge of the Senate Investigations Committee.
That is an extraordinarily sensitive responsibility to be placed upon a freshman senator with no previous experience. My guess would be that it has never happened before. But the reasoning behind it may not be that difficult to fathom: Would anyone be less inclined to pursue the Wellstone death?
One man's opinion: The evidence presented here and elaborated elsewhere in detail establishes a prima facie case that this death was no accident, that the motives were political and begs the question: Was the White House involved?
An investigation by the St. Louis County prosecutor would be most welcome.
In the chorus of memories for a man who made a difference, let us bear in mind that truth is our only defense against an onslaught of lies that have dominated a media that appears too weak or too complicit to resist.
JIM FETZER, a professor in the philosophy department at University of Minnesota Duluth, is the editor of three books on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy: "Assassination Science: Experts Speak Out on the Death of JFK" (October 1997); "Murder in Dealey Plaza: What We Know Now that We Didn't Know Then" (August 2000); "The Great Zapruder Film Hoax: Deceit and Deception in the Death of JFK" (September 2003).
http://www.liberalslant.com/jt123003.htm
Latest government report on Wellstone 'accident' finds its scapegoats, many questions remain
By: Jackson Thoreau - 12/30/03
I'm for the little fellers, not the Rockefellers. - Sen. Paul Wellstone
Shortly before he died in a mysterious airplane crash 11 days prior to the 2002 elections, Minnesota Sen. Paul Wellstone met with Vice President Dick Cheney, probably the Bush administration's most evil public face.
Cheney was rounding up Senate support for the October 2002 vote on giving the administration carte blanche to invade Iraq, with or without blessing from the United Nations. Cheney strong-armed opposing politicians like the most vindictive of mafioso leaders, and opponents usually gave in.
But not Wellstone. Whatever you thought of his progressive brand of politics, he wasn't a wimp. And that's what made him more than dangerous in the eyes of people like Cheney.
At a meeting full of war veterans in Willmar, Minn., days before his death, Wellstone told attendees that Cheney told him, "If you vote against the war in Iraq, the Bush administration will do whatever is necessary to get you. There will be severe ramifications for you and the state of Minnesota."
Wellstone cast his vote for his conscience and against the Iraq measure, the lone Democrat involved in a tough 2002 election campaign to do so. And a few weeks later on Oct. 25, as he appeared to be winning his re-election bid, Wellstone, his wife, Sheila, his daughter, Marcia Markuson, three campaign staffers, and two pilots died in a plane crash in Minnesota.
Talk about "severe ramifications."
My first hunch upon hearing about the tragedy was that the Beech King Air A-100 was tampered with by right wingers, possibly the CIA, either directly or through electromagnetic rays or some psychic mind games.
And nothing I have heard or read since then has made me drift from that hunch.
I'm not alone. The Duluth News Tribune featured a column by Jim Fetzer, a University of Minnesota-Duluth philosophy professor and author, in November 2003. Fetzer wrote that an FBI "recovery team" headed out to investigate the Wellstone plane crash BEFORE the plane went down. "I calculate that this team would have had to have left the Twin Cities at about the same time the Wellstone plane was taking off," Fetzer wrote.
That apparent prior knowledge was similar to Dallas police putting out an all-points bulletin for accused John F. Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald at 12:43 p.m. in 1963 for shooting a police officer. The problem was the officer was not shot until 23 minutes later.
Fetzer also noted that Wellstone's plane was "exceptional, the pilots well-qualified, and the weather posed no significant problems." He wrote that "we have to consider other, less palatable, alternatives, such as small bombs, gas canisters or electromagnetic pulse, radio frequency or High Energy Radio Frequency weapons designed to overwhelm electrical circuitry with an intense electromagnetic field. An abrupt cessation of communication between the plane and the tower took place at about 10:18 a.m., the same time an odd cell phone phenomenon occurred with a driver in the immediate vicinity. This suggests to me the most likely explanation is that one of our new electromagnetic weapons was employed."
Michael Ruppert, publisher of From the Wilderness, wrote that the day after the crash he received a message from a former CIA operative who was familiar with those kinds of assassinations. The message read, "As I said earlier, having played ball [and still playing in some respects] with this current crop of reinvigorated old white men, these clowns are nobody to screw around with. There will be a few more strategic accidents. You can be certain of that."
Ruppert also interviewed two Democratic Congress representatives who said they believed Wellstone was murdered. One said, "I don't think there's anyone on the Hill who doesn't suspect it. It's too convenient, too coincidental, too damned obvious. My guess is that some of the less courageous members of the party are thinking about becoming Republicans right now."
Even National Transportation Safety Board officials found aspects of Wellstone's accident puzzling. An article in the Duluth News Tribune a few days after the tragedy said that "for some still unexplained reason - [the plane] turned off course and crashed." It quoted Carol Carmody, the NTSB's acting chair and reportedly a former CIA employee, as saying, "We find the whole turn curious."
NTSB blames pilots
But in November 2003, the NTSB blamed the two pilots of Wellstone's plane, Richard Conry and Michael Guess, for the crash. The pilots flew too high and too fast when they began a left turn toward the runway, then let it slow to dangerous levels, the NTSB said.
The NTSB also accused Conry and Guess of not even monitoring the instruments. "One of them should have been monitoring the instruments," said Bill Bramble, a human performance investigator for the NTSB.
Still, NTSB board member Richard Healing called the conclusion "speculative," pointing out that the report did not say how the pilots missed the red flags or why they failed to make adjustments.
"We don't know why," Healing said. "It's quite speculative."
The conclusion was especially disturbing considering the NTSB's own simulations, which included flying a plane at abnormally slow speeds and being unable to bring it down. That by itself should have forced consideration of other possible causes.
The NTSB said that Conry made mistakes on previous flights that were covered by his co-pilots and was convicted of mail fraud related to a home-building business in 1990. But Wellstone had used Aviation Charter since 1992 and had flown numerous other times with Conry, with whom he was reportedly comfortable. Conry passed a proficiency test just two days before the tragedy, and some attorneys said regulations did not require revocation of a pilot's license because of a criminal conviction unless it involved drugs or alcohol.
While the NTSB said some fellow pilots questioned the skill levels of Conry and Guess, Conry had more than 5,000 hours of flying time, according to his management company, Aviation Charter Inc. of Eden Prairie, Minn..
Family members of Wellstone reached a $25 million settlement in mid-2003 with Aviation Charter.
Several pilots said the NTSB was just looking for scapegoats. "It is hard to believe that two experienced pilots would fail to monitor airspeed," one said.
As in the case of JFK, the scapegoats who took the blame were conveniently dead.
And many questions remained.
Electromagnetic pulse device suspected
More people than Fetzer and I believe that Wellstone's plane could have been hit with an electromagnetic pulse [EMP] device that caused the aircraft to suddenly turn off course.
Electromagnetic pulses from military craft may have been responsible for several civilian airline disasters in the late 1990s, according to an article in The London Observer. In particular, Swissair 111 in 1998 and TWA 800 in 1996 both took the same route over Long Island, experienced trouble in the same region, suffered catastrophic electrical malfunctions, and were flying at a time when military exercises involving submarines and U.S. Navy P3 fighter planes were being conducted.
Experts have even testified before Congress about concerns that terrorists may use EMPs, which they said were capable of short-circuiting computers, satellites, radios, radar, and traffic lights. An EMP shockwave can be produced by a device small enough to fit in a briefcase, they said. Stanley Jakubiak, senior civilian official for nuclear command, control, communications, and EMP policy for the Defense Department, admitted in 1999 Congressional testimony that the feds have studied EMPs for years.
U.S. Marine Corp Major M. CaJohn went farther than that in a 1988 report, writing that officials had sought remedies for the effects of EMPs at least since the early 1960s. The Air Force built an EMP testing facility called TRESTLE in 1980 at Kirkland Air Force Base in New Mexico. The Navy also erected an EMP testing facility called EMPRESS I at Point Patience on the Patuxent River in Maryland. Other agencies have their own EMP facilities.
Fetzer also reports on other instances and reports, including nuclear tests by Soviets and Americans in the 1960s resulting in gigantic releases of electromagnetic energy. There is also this 1998 U.S. Department of Justice document describing these devices:
http://www.ncjrs.org/txtfiles/sl298.txt
First developed in the 19th century, EMPs now are relatively easy to obtain. Anyone can acquire an EMP generator through the Internet, such as at http://www.amazing1.com/emp.htm.
Theoretically, a person a few miles from the runway could bombard the aircraft with an intense electromagnetic pulse, which could cause an electrical failure, instantly knock out radio communication, disrupt normal engine ignition, and cause loss of steering control. The steering control surfaces on these airplanes are controlled by individual electrical actuators that are mechanically linked to the rudder, ailerons, and flaps.
This type of sabotage would leave no physical evidence on the aircraft, although it's possible that people at the airport or in the general vicinity might have noticed electrical anomalies like radio noises, a crashed computer, telephone disruption, and so on.
A Texas software engineer wrote me that EMPs damage systems by generating an electrical pulse in the system wiring. Therefore, a component would not have to be directly exposed to an EMP to be damaged. An aircraft struck by an EMP pulse would not likely die, unless the plane was hit by an extremely powerful EMP pulse.
"More likely, an EMP strike would disable delicate electronic systems, leaving electrical systems intact," the engineer wrote. "After being struck by an EMP, the aircraft would likely function more or less normally, but without any control systems, instruments, or radios. This would account for the assertion that the Wellstone plane's engines were still running when the plane hit the ground."
Another electrical engineer wrote, "You don't need anything as elaborate as an EMP generator. Standard issue radio transmitters can screw up a landing."
Lawrence Judd, an Illinois attorney, wrote the NTSB to ask whether it has or will investigate the possibility that EMF weapons were used to bring down the planes of Senators Wellstone and Carnahan. Robert Benzon wrote him back, thusly, "The NTSB is unaware of any mobile EM force or EM pulse weapon system capable of disabling an aircraft at the ground-to-air ranges that existed in either of the accidents you mention in your email."
But Fetzer noted that what the NTSB may or may not be "aware of" depends on its state of actual or feigned ignorance. "In this day and age, there is no excuse for any such lack of knowledge about increasingly familiar weapons," Fetzer wrote me in an email. "It reminds me of the Warren Report's conclusion that there was 'no credible evidence' of conspiracy in the death of JFK. It all depends on what you are willing to consider 'credible.' Today, such a statement would be considered laughable - similarly that of the NTSB."
Weird cell phone interference reported
John Ongaro, a Minnesota lobbyist, wrote to Fetzer about his experience the day Wellstone died. Ongaro said he was driving to the same funeral that Wellstone and his party were flying to in Eveleth, Minn. While traveling north on Hwy. 53 near the Eveleth-Virginia Municipal Airport in the same area as Wellstone's plane, he received a call on his cell phone at precisely the same time Wellstone's King Air veered off course.
"This call was in a league of its own," Ongaro said. "When I answered it, what I heard sounded like a cross between a roar and a loud humming noise. The noise seemed to be oscillating, and I could not make out any words being spoken. Instead, just this loud, grotesque, sometimes screeching and humming noise."
What he heard may very well have been electronic interference from an EMP or microwave weapon.
One writer to talk show host Jeff Rense suggested a scenario involving "black op specialists" in a van or truck full of radio/instrument landing jamming equipment. "As Wellstone's plane approaches the airport, the VOR/ILS jamming equipment is activated, and a 'decoy' VOR signal is sent to the plane, thus tricking the plane's instruments [and the pilot] into believing the airport is somewhere several degrees off the true course to the runway," S.H. wrote. "The pilot follows that signal straight into the ground. The non-descript van, full of covert electronic jamming equipment, casually leaves the area, looking just like any other TV repair truck or moving van."
Witnesses hear an explosion, see a flash of light
One witness of Wellstone's crash, Megen Williams, who lived near the Eveleth airport, told the St. Paul Pioneer Press that she heard "a diving noise and then an explosion" as she prepared for work as a nurse in her home near the crash site. At first, she thought it was blasting at a nearby iron ore mine, and she didn't call authorities.
Another local resident, Rodney Allen, said the plane flew right over his house. "It was so close the windows were shaking," Allen said. He added that the craft was "crabbing to the right," then less than a minute later, he felt an impact and heard what he thought sounded like a loud rifle shot. St. Paul Pioneer Press, Oct. 26, 2002
Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board said the plane was last seen on air traffic control radar at 10:21 a.m., flying at an elevation of 1,800 feet. Radar tapes indicate Wellstone's plane had descended to about 400 feet and was traveling at only 85 knots near the end of its flight.
Another person saw a blond-haired man on CNN saying he observed a flash of light at the rear of the plane.
Don Sipola, a former president of the Eveleth Virginia Municipal Airport Commission, said "something" caused Wellstone's plan to veer off course at low altittude. "This was a real steep bank, not a nice, gentle don't-spill-the-coffee descent," Siploa said. "This is more like a space shuttle coming down. This was not a controlled descent into the ground."
The pilots of Wellstone's plane radioed that they were two miles out, clicked up the runway lights, and had the airstrip in sight, said Traci Chacich, the airport's office manager. That was the last that airport employees heard from them.
Weather not that bad
Some officials and media reports blamed bad weather, but witnesses said conditions were not that bad at the time of Wellstone's accident. It was cloudy with a little ice, but there was little wind. Other pilots landed without problem during that same time and said the conditions were not bad. Airport visibility was about 3 miles at the time the plane went down, which was adequate.
Another pilot who landed a slightly larger twin-engine plane at the same airport that same day a couple of hours before Wellstone's plane crashed, told the St. Paul Pioneer Press that he experienced no significant problems. There was very light ice, "but nothing to be alarmed about," pilot Ray Juntunen said. "It shouldn't have been a problem."
According to the NTSB, Wellstone's pilots received warnings of icing at 9,000 to 11,000 feet and were allowed to descend to 4,000 feet. Juntunen said he was able to see the airport from five miles out, and another pilot landed 30 minutes later and said the clouds were a little lower, but still not bad.
Frank Hilldrup, lead investigator for the NTSB, said the landing gear of Wellstone's plane appeared to be down.
The King Air had a reputation as one of the safest turboprops around, many manufacturers and pilot said. Some 50 accidents involving King Air A100s had occurred between 1975 and 2002, according to the FAA. Five were fatal, but three of those weren't the plane's fault.
Wellstone was target of apparent assassination in 2000
Wellstone was the target of an apparent assassination plot before. In 2000, as he visited Colombia to survey conditions there, a bomb was found along his route from the airport. He was also sprayed with the herbicide glyphosate by a helicopter above him while watching the Colombian police demonstrate its fumigation of coca plants. Officials called the incident an accident.
Wellstone was a vocal opponent of military aid to the Colombian government. While there, he visited human rights activists who said the government did not protect civilians. Wellstone told reporters he thought his Colombian hosts created the bomb story to dissuade him from traveling to certain areas of the country. "I don't know whether I was targeted, but I certainly know that the human rights activists are targeted," Wellstone said.
Among the weird events since Wellstone's death was that his successor in the U.S. Senate, Republican Norm Coleman, was named chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. As Fetzer said, that's a practically unheard of position for a freshman senator with no previous experience. Could that be why Congress has not opened a formal investigation into Wellstone's death?
For my part, I'm not a big conspiracy nut who worries about this kind of thing all the time - just an average one like Oliver Stone who knows there's something sinister and weird going on in our world. I have done extensive research into the JFK assassination in Dallas. The right wing of the CIA was heavily involved in that, from Oswald's CIA connections to the Dallas mayor at that time being the brother of the former CIA deputy director who lost his job after the Bay of Pigs fiasco and blamed that on JFK. The Dallas mayor may even have approved the change in the parade route on that fateful day so it would go right by the grassy knoll and building where Oswald and probably other snipers were, where JFK met his death.
I have interviewed numerous people who reported weird things that occurred during that time, such as key witnesses dying in strange ways like mysterious plane crashes and being run over by trains in the middle of the night. I have written numerous stories on this and covered it in my book on Dallas history - and have received my share of threatening phone calls, mail opened, and the like to know I was stepping on some powerful toes.
There were also numerous JFK murder witnesses committing suicide in the months after that tragedy. The CIA has done extensive mind control work for decades - I know at least one psychic personally who started working for the CIA in the 1980s - and could possibly convince someone through such mind games to commit suicide. Could they psychically work on making a plane crash? Who knows? Anything is possible.
Similarities with Carnahan, Kennedy crashes
What about Democratic Missouri Gov. Mel Carnahan, who was killed during a close Senate race when his small plane crashed right before the 2000 election? What about John F. Kennedy Jr., who had intelligence, political ambitions, charisma, and the name, dying in a 1999 plane crash?
In both of those cases, the planes were already descending towards their landing and then suddenly wandered off their approach paths and crashed, similar to Wellstone's craft. In all three cases, radio contact appears to have been cut off while the planes were still in the air, possibly indicating electrical failures on board.
In Kennedy's case, at least one witness saw a flash in the sky and heard an explosion before the plane went down, as in Wellstone's situation. Kennedy's plane was also left unguarded at Teeterborough Airport in New Jersey, and almost anyone could have placed something inside it.
The list of high-profile Democratic politicians killed in plane crashes goes on - Commerce Secretary Ron Brown in 1996, Rep. Mickey Leland of Texas in 1989, Rep. Jerry Litton of Missouri in 1976 [who was also involved in a hard-fought election at the time], House Majority Leader Hale Boggs of Louisiana and Rep. Nick Begich of Alaska in 1972. High-profile Republicans have died in crashes, including Sen. John Heinz of Pennsylvania and Sen. John Tower of Texas in 1991, but not as many as Democrats.
In fact, of 22 air crashes involving state and federal officials, including one ambassador and one cabinet official, From the Wilderness found that 14 - 64 percent - were Democrats and eight - 36 percent - were Republicans.
Add to that Raytheon Co., one of the biggest U.S. military contractors and manufacturer of the plane that crashed with Wellstone in it, being a huge donor to Republicans, and the mind continues to wonder. U.S. House Republican Majority Leader Dick Armey of Texas, for instance, received $48,201 alone from Raytheon in 1997-98. The Republican National Committee received at least $170,000 from Raytheon since 1999. Raytheon donates to Democrats, too, but more than twice as much money goes to Republicans.
Raytheon has all kinds of CIA connections, as does Bush, whose father, remember, was once director of the CIA. One of the more intriguing discoveries that emerged from the NTSB's own investigation of this case was that Raytheon not only not only manufactured EM force and EM pulse weapons, but also manufactured the King Air A100. No other entity would have been better positioned to have taken it down. See http://www.ntsb.gov/publictn/2003/AAR0303.htm
for more details.
Bush, for his part, issued some strange comments immediately after Wellstone's crash, even for him. He called Wellstone - who was an articulate, energetic, intelligent political science professor for 21 years before he was a senator - a "plain-spoken fellow." He said he wanted to issue his "condolences for the loss of the Senate." Did he mean the Democrats' sudden loss of the Senate, which occurred the day Wellstone died? Did he know something more than he let on?
Bush once called Wellstone a 'chicken shit'
There was no love lost between the Bush clan and Wellstone. In 1990, as Wellstone challenged the Persian Gulf War preparations, Bush Sr. even referred to Wellstone as a "chicken shit." When Wellstone first met Bush Jr. in 2001, the latter disrespectfully called him "Pablo."
As The Nation said in May 2002, getting rid of Wellstone was a passion for Bush, Karl Rove, and Cheney. "There are people in the White House who wake up in the morning thinking about how they will defeat Paul Wellstone," a senior Republican aide told The Nation. "This one is political and personal for them."
No senator had a more consistent record of voting against Bush administration proposals in 2001. Wellstone voted against the Homeland Security Act and many of Bush's judicial nominees. He pushed for stronger environmental programs, for genuine measures to counter corporate fraud, and for investigations into Sept. 11 and $350 million that was missing from the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
Freepers' comments I read about this tragedy were mostly tasteful - on the surface - though some jokes and conspiratorial posts were published on their right-wing site. Right after the news of the crash, some posted comments like "prayers for control of the Senate." Several comments were removed by the moderator. One that was not said, "You do realize that as we sit here praying for one of our biggest political enemies' safety, President Bush will be blamed by the Democrats [including the rabid leftists at DU and other brain-sucking sites] for the crash."
Another joked, "Maybe it was shot down by a right wing militia. We've got to ban handguns." And another said, "Ted Kennedy may have been on [the plane]." Then there was this ramble: "Politically speaking, would this be good or bad news for the GOP if he's dead? I could see him winning now like Carnahan in 2000 so that Gov. Jesse could appoint his successor. I'm thinking this is probably not good news."
And this comment: "Any bets on how quickly the Democrats will have his wife take his place on the ballot?" Hello? Sen. Wellstone's wife died in the tragedy, remember? Another post predicted that "[Republican Senate candidate in Minnesota] Coleman's campaign is dead." And then there was this message: "I pray that Wellstone and all of his aides survive, and live to see themselves defeated handily on Nov 5th...unless this is yet another of Tom 'Caligula' Daschle's election schemes." Someone else added, "Carnahan II? Ventura is the governor, not a D...this time."
Such conservatives' glee at the demise of probably the most powerful real progressive in the country was entirely evident in such comments. Many contained themselves, but we know what they're really thinking, don't we?
And a few days after Wellstone's death, right wingers were selling and displaying on their vehicles insensitive bumper stickers with messages like, "He's dead, get over it." How's that for "compassionate conservatism?"
###
More good stories
There are many good stories on the Wellstone crash out there. Those include:
http://www.assassinationscience.com/FuturisticWeaponry.pdf
http://www.duluthsuperior.com/mld/duluthtribune/news/opinion/7306797.htm
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/110102_wellstone.html
http://news.mpr.org/features/2003/03/03_zdechlikm_wellstone/
http://www.alternet.org/print.html?StoryID=14399
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0210/S00206.htm
http://www.conspiracyplanet.com/channel.cfm?channelid=78&contentid=652&page=2
Jackson Thoreau, a contributing writer for Liberal Slant, is co-author of "We Will Not Get Over It: Restoring a Legitimate White House". The 110,000-word electronic book can be downloaded at http://www.geocities.com/jacksonthor/ebook.html
or at http://www.legitgov.org/we_will_not_get_over_it.htm
Thoreau also co-authored a book on Dallas history from the perspective of African-Americans, civil rights advocates, and others.
His articles can also be found at: www.americaheldhostile.com
Thoreau can be emailed at: jacksonthor @justice.com
or jacksonthor@ yahoo.com
All rights reserved.
liberalslant @entermail.net
http://www.counterpunch.org/madsen1025.html
October 25, 2002
Pappy Bush on Paul Wellstone:
"Who Is This Chickenshit?"
by WAYNE MADSEN
Before we all get sucked into George W. Bush's eulogies of the late Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone let us not forget what his father, Bush 41, called the Senator at a White House reception for newly-elected members of Congress in 1991.
Wellstone, who ran on a progressive platform, did not think Bush 41 cared one wit about education, health care, and workers' safety issues.
So when Wellstone met Bush in a typical White House pro forma reception line, he used the occasion to urge Bush on three different occasions to spend more time on issues like education and cautioning him against the Persian Gulf War. Of course, Bush was more concerned about fighting the war against Iraq (sound familiar?) and could care less about Wellstone's issues.
After Wellstone violated Bush 41's sanctimonious White House protocol, Bush was overheard saying, "Who is this chicken shit?"
Now after Senator Wellstone was tragically killed in a plane crash and "General" Karl Rove is obviously busy trying to figure out how the tragedy can benefit the GOP's chances of winning control of the Senate, I think it's time to answer old man Bush's question.
Far from being a chicken shit, Wellstone actually cared for people, unlike your pathetic son who could not even find a few minutes to attend one or two funerals of his Washington, DC area neighbors who were tragically shot and killed by a couple of snipers. No, Mr. Bush 41, Paul Wellstone was not a chicken shit, that epitaph is better reserved for you and your moronic son.
Bush was entertaining a brutal dictator at his awful Texas ranch while a group of Democratic leaders -- Governors Glendening and Warner, Senators Sarbanes and Mikulski, DC Mayor Williams, County Executives Duncan and Curry were celebrating the capture of the snipers and consoling the families of their victims. And then we were told that Paul Wellstone died in a plane crash with his wife, daughter, staffers, and pilots. First confirmation of the tragedy came not from the Senator's office or that of Minnesota's governor, but from the scruffy Crawford Ranch. I wanted to puke right then and there on the spot.
Mr. Bush 43: are you the President of the United States or the President of a corporate America resident in Texas? Senator Wellstone certainly knew the answer to that question.
The best memorial for Senator Wellstone is for Democrats, moderate Republicans, and progressives everywhere to turn out the vote on Election Day and keep the Senate Democratic and give the gavel in the House back to Richard Gephardt. It is the best tribute to the late and much-admired "boat rocker" from Minnesota.
Wayne Madsen is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist and columnist. He wrote the introduction to Forbidden Truth.
History Of Assassination And Poisoning Attempts On Senator Wellstone
Surviving Assassination Attempt - Wellstone Denounces Militarization of Columbian Aid
http://nuance.dhs.org/lbo-talk/0012/0044.html
State Department Briefing On Attempted Wellstone Hit
http://www.fas.org/irp/news/2000/12/irp-001201-col.htm
Police Thwart Colombia Attack Plan On Wellstone
http://www.counterpunch.org/pipermail/counterpunch-list/2000-December/004162.html
Sen Wellstone Sprayed With Herbicide...
http://www.americas.org/news/nir/20001210_herbicide_douses_u_s_senator.asp
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines/120200-01.htm
http://www.usfumigation.org/Literature/Press_Articles/wellstone_sprayed.htm
http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread7851.shtml
Just before the plane crash, Senator Wellstone announced that he had contracted Multiple Sclerosis, which is thought to be linked to toxic exposure such as the biocides sprayed by the US government on Senator Wellstone during his fact finding mission to Columbia.
