Wednesday, July 1, 2009

The Paul Wellstone Murder Revisited

Senator Paul Wellstone's plane crash
www.oilempire.us/wellstone.html

Ad sent by Republicans to Minnesota voters just before Wellstone's death (it resembles a death notice from the Mafia, not a campaign ad).

Published in the May 27, 2002 issue of The Nation
Paul Wellstone, Fighter
by John Nichols
www.commondreams.org/views02/0510-04.htm

Paul Wellstone is a hunted man. Minnesota's senior senator is not just another Democrat on White House political czar Karl Rove's target list, in an election year when the Senate balance of power could be decided by the voters of a single state. Rather, getting rid of Wellstone is a passion for Rove, Dick Cheney, George W. Bush and the special-interest lobbies that fund the most sophisticated political operation ever assembled by a presidential administration. "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 confides. "This one is political and personal for them." ....

"This race is going to be a case study of whether you can maintain liberal, progressive positions and win in this country in 2002," says Wellstone ...

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
www.fas.org/irp/news/2000/12/irp-001201-col.htm

Police Thwart Colombia Attack Plan On Wellstone
www.counterpunch.org/pipermail/counterpunch-list/2000-December/004162.html

Senator Wellstone Sprayed With Herbicide...

www.americas.org/news/nir/20001210_herbicide_douses_u_s_senator.asp
www.commondreams.org/headlines/120200-01.htm
www.usfumigation.org/Literature/Press_Articles/wellstone_sprayed.htm
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.

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.

Paul Wellstone

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 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)
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
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
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
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
www.scoop.co.nz/archive/scoop/stories/1c/83/200211201748.9b4c3d66.html

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) www.almartinraw.com/column77.html

A good summary of the basic evidence that Senator Paul Wellstone was assassinated just before the 2002 elections. Wellstone was predicted to win re-election, had voted against the invasion of Iraq, and was hated by the Bush family (one of his first acts in DC after winning election in 1990 was giving President Bush the First a tape of Minnesotans urging that there not be a war on Iraq).

"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 is the main person behind the "Scholars for 9/11 Truth" group which mixed together some good claims with disinformation, attracted lots of media attention (nearly all of it negative) and most of the people who joined split to form a rival group Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice. The latter was more careful to avoid the looniest claims, but did not achieve the hoped for attention and credibility.

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

www.oilempire.us/wellstone.html

No comments: