Republican Faust: The Rise and Fall of Mike Connell - 1/3

by Nomad

The story of the rise and fall of Republican insider, Mike Connell isn't a familiar one. This investigation looks at the life and death of one of the people who was implicated in the rigging of the Ohio results in the 2004 presidential election. 

At about 6 p.m. on Friday, 19 December 2008, a single-engine 1997 Piper Saratoga aircraft, with only the pilot aboard, crashed into a residential area in Uniontown, Ohio as it was preparing to land at Akron-Canton airport.

Arriving  at the scene, fire crews found only burning wreckage of the plane scattered between homes on Charolais Street. The pilot had been thrown upon impact and had died instantly of massive blunt force trauma, his belongings scattered in the yards.

First responders arrived on the scene immediately after the crash. Even then, irregularities began. Simon Worrall in an article The Mysterious Death of Bush's Cyber-Guru, writes of those first minutes:

Capt. Lorin Geisner of the Greentown Fire Department was the first person to arrive at the scene. “We received a 911 call, so we contacted the tower and asked what size plane it was and how many souls were on board,” he recalls. “But we were informed that the tower was in lockdown and that no information was available.”

This was to be the first of many abnormalities in a case that would send shock waves through the blogosphere with speculations of sabotage and foul play. In the bewildering reality-bending world of conspiracy theories, the events that surround the Connell crash belong in a class all their own.

Sarah Palin: Fooling Some of the People

by Nomad

Back in March of 2001, speaking at the Gridiron Club dinner, George W. Bush made this remark, presumably in an attempt at humor. "You can fool some of the people all the time... and those are the ones you want to concentrate on." 
Perhaps nobody, since that time, has put those remarkably un-funnny sentiments into practice better than Sarah Palin. 


Palin is an instructive example of how a demagogue can collect enough of a following to become something of a phenomena in American politics. The techniques she has used have been effective for a small percentage of the population but seem now to have reached a kind of limit of diminishing returns. The Palin package, which has been sculpted and revised since the moment she was chosen as McCain's running mate, is a triumph of modern-day political marketing. 
Sadly, outside of the bloggers and their followers, practically the only challenge or threat the marketers, press agents and handlers ever faced was Sarah Palin herself. This is a person who obviously has a lot of skeletons scratching at her closet doors. Like a majority of politicians perhaps. 
More importantly, Sarah Palin's larger problem is her own behavior when challenged. 

The Santorums and the Bully's Defense: Rick and Karen Play the Victim Card

by Nomad

Victimhood and the Messiah-Complex

I saw this interesting video clip at The Raw Story. Here’s the background information to the clip. At  a question-and-answer event in South Carolina for mothers, “Moms Matter 2012″ Rick and Karen Santorum alleged that the gay community has been attempting to vilify her husband by portraying him as a gay-hating religious bigot.

Nothing could be further from the truth, Karen Santorum declared to the friendly audience. She took the microphone to defend her husband who meanwhile wore his best victim expression.

“As Rick’s wife, I have known him and loved him for 23 years,” she said. “I think it’s very sad what the gay activists have done out there. They vilify him. It is so wrong. He loves them. What he has simply said is marriage shouldn’t happen.”

It’s all very confused in Karen Santorum’s mind, it seems. She somehow managed to twist things around a great deal. Very conveniently.

Things You Should Know about the Rise of the American Police State

By Nomad

From Fiction to Fact

Here is a clip from that brilliant, strange but frightening film "Brazil." The film was a surreal tragic comedy involving a Dystopian authoritarian world where the last refuge of the common man is in his heroic dreams. 

Because of the threat of terrorism, the state relies on an aggressive policy of No-Questions-asked policy which soon becomes mere intimidation. 

Even then, sometimes things go wrong. But this was all fiction, you say. Just a harmless bit of entertainment. I mean, it couldn't happen in the free nations of the West. We have protections for our civil rights built into the system, after all. These have to be respected by authorities.
In America and Europe, according to the conventional wisdom, there are safeguards making sure abuse of power cannot happen here. That is a proud notion based on a small degree of truth and a great deal of wishful thinking. In fact, beginning with the war on drugs and dramatically increasing with the war on terror, the local police have become more and more aggressive in their assault on the rights of citizens.