Dave Emory’s entire life­time of work is avail­able on a flash drive that can be obtained here. (The flash drive includes the anti-fascist books avail­able on this site.)

Lis­ten:
MP3 Side 1 | Side 2

Intro­duc­tion: A series of haunt­ing, politically-related deaths in Alabama have been ruled “sui­cides,” in spite of evi­dence to the con­trary. All of the vic­tims of these so-called “sui­cides” are linked to what one inci­sive blog has termed “Karl Rove’s Alabama.”

Bashinsky’s Corpse: “Mind if We Play Through?”

Linked to the polit­i­cal skul­dug­gery that appears to have engulfed for­mer Alabama Gov­er­nor Don Siegel­man, these deaths exem­plify an unpleas­ant real­ity that Amer­i­cans have cho­sen to ignore: polit­i­cal mur­der is an estab­lished tra­di­tion in the United States.

The pro­gram reviews the untimely death of for­mer Bush White House IT chief Mike Con­nell in a plane crash (fol­low­ing death threats against Con­nell [allegedly made by Karl Rove] and warn­ings that his plane might be sabotaged.)

Rest in Peace, y’all!

Connell’s tes­ti­mony in ongo­ing inves­ti­ga­tions might have shed light on the theft of the 2000 and 2004 elec­tions, as well as the destruc­tion of White House e-mails. At least five alleged sui­cides and mur­ders in Alabama involve peo­ple con­nected to the GOP power struc­ture that ele­vated Gov­er­nor Bob Riley, a power struc­ture forged by Karl Rove. These deaths also appear linked to the oper­a­tions of con­victed felon Jack Abramoff in Alabama.

The late Charles “Bubba” Major

The broad­cast relates the incred­i­ble cir­cum­stances of the death of Major Bashin­sky, whose corpse was found dead of a gun­shot wound on the bot­tom of a golf course pond.

• . . . Author­i­ties say [Major] Bashin­sky wrapped rope around parts of his body and attached a bot­tle that con­tained a copy of the note they found in his car. He stuck a label from a Golden Flake bag in the roof of his mouth and loosely bound his mouth with duct tape and his hands with rope. He then walked into the [golf course] pond and shot himself. . . .

Bashinsky’s cousin, Charles “Bubba” Major (a for­mer pro at the golf club on whose course Bashinsky’s corpse was dis­cov­ered) expressed dis­be­lief at the offi­cial account of the death:

• “. . .You prob­a­bly did not know that I [Charles “Bubba” Major] ran High­land Golf Course for 15 yrs 83–98 and thought it was ironic that they found Major’s body at High­land Golf Course, still have not heard the cause of death, but guess it will come out soon. For the record there is no way the body could have been there sev­eral days, with­out being seen because Hoot­ers had a golf tour­ney there Sat and had over 120 peo­ple going by that pond every 3 minutes. . .”

Major was found dead of an appar­ently self-inflicted gun­shot wound after mak­ing the above statement.

The late Ash­ley Turton

Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Gabrielle Gif­fords (D-AZ)

After not­ing the alleged sui­cides of a cou­ple of for­mer and active FBI agents, the pro­gram ana­lyzes aspects of the shoot­ing of Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Gabrielle Gif­fords in Ari­zona, and the mys­te­ri­ous death that same week­end of Ash­ley Tur­ton, the wife of Dan Tur­ton, Obama’s liai­son to the House of Representatives.

End­ing with dis­cus­sion of one of this country’s major polit­i­cal assas­si­na­tions, the pro­gram notes that Sirhan Sirhan has recalled key details of the assas­si­na­tion of Robert F. Kennedy under hyp­notic regression.

Pro­gram High­lights Include: The alleged sui­cide of Ralph Stacy; the alleged sui­cide of Bob Cavi­ness; the mur­der of Zoa White; the pos­si­bil­ity of a sec­ond sus­pect in the shoot­ing of Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Gif­fords; the pos­si­bil­ity that the pri­mary tar­get of the Gif­fords shoot­ing may have been a fed­eral judge with drug task force expe­ri­ence; a recount­ing of the “girl in the polka-dot dress”–a key aspect of the inves­ti­ga­tion into the assas­si­na­tion of Robert F. Kennedy; Sirhan’s hyp­notic rec­ol­lec­tion of a sec­ond gun being fired at the Ambas­sador Hotel; Ash­ley Turton’s work for Rudy Giuliani’s law firm; that firm’s suc­cess­ful nego­ti­a­tion of the merger of Duke and Progress Energy, to form the world’s largest utility.

1. Begin­ning with review of the appar­ent mur­der of Michael Con­nell, the broad­cast notes his links to the events under­ly­ing the inves­ti­ga­tion into a series of highly sus­pi­cious deaths in Alabama.

Connell’s tes­ti­mony in ongo­ing inves­ti­ga­tions might have shed light on the theft of the 2000 and 2004 elec­tions, as well as the destruc­tion of White House e-mails (the scan­dal sur­round­ing the e-mails over­laps the issue of Rove’s manip­u­la­tion of U.S. attor­neys and the con­tro­versy sur­round­ing Don Siegel­man in Alabama). Note the reports of Con­nell hav­ing been threat­ened by Karl Rove.

Michael Con­nell, the Bush IT expert who has been directly impli­cated in the rig­ging of George Bush’s 2000 and 2004 elec­tions, was killed last night when his sin­gle engine plane crashed three miles short of the Akron air­port. Vel­vet Rev­o­lu­tion (“VR”), a non-profit that has been inves­ti­gat­ing Mr. Connell’s activ­i­ties for the past two years, can now reveal that a per­son close to Mr. Con­nell has recently been dis­cussing with a VR inves­ti­ga­tor how he can tell all about his work for George Bush. Mr. Con­nell told a close asso­ciate that he was afraid that George Bush and Dick Cheney would “throw [him] under the bus.”

A tip­ster close to the McCain cam­paign dis­closed to VR in July that Mr. Connell’s life was in jeop­ardy and that Karl Rove had threat­ened him and his wife, Heather. VR’s attor­ney, Cliff Arnebeck, noti­fied the United States Attor­ney Gen­eral , Ohio law enforce­ment and the fed­eral court about these threats and insisted that Mr. Con­nell be placed in pro­tec­tive cus­tody. VR also told a close asso­ciate of Mr. Connell’s not to fly his plane because of another tip that the plane could be sab­o­taged. Mr. Con­nell, a very expe­ri­enced pilot, has had to aban­don at least two flights in the past two months because of sus­pi­cious prob­lems with his plane. On Decem­ber 18, 2008, Mr. Con­nell flew to a small air­port out­side of Wash­ing­ton DC to meet some peo­ple. It was on his return flight the next day that he crashed.

On Octo­ber 31, Mr. Con­nell appeared before a fed­eral judge in Ohio after being sub­poe­naed in a fed­eral law­suit inves­ti­gat­ing the rig­ging of the 2004 elec­tion under the direc­tion of Karl Rove. The judge ordered Mr. Con­nell to tes­tify under oath at a depo­si­tion on Novem­ber 3rd, the day before the pres­i­den­tial elec­tion. Vel­vet Rev­o­lu­tion received con­fi­den­tial infor­ma­tion that the White House was extremely con­cerned about Mr. Con­nell talk­ing about his ille­gal work for the White House and two Bush/Cheney 04 attor­neys were dis­patched to rep­re­sent him.

An asso­ciate of Mr. Connell’s told VR that Mr. Con­nell was involved with the destruc­tion of the White House emails and the set­ting up of the off-grid White House email system.

Mr. Con­nell han­dled all of John McCain’s com­puter work in the recent pres­i­den­tial cam­paign. VR has received direct evi­dence that the McCain cam­paign kept abreast of the legal devel­op­ments against Mr. Con­nell by read­ing the VR ded­i­cated web­site, www.rovecybergate.com. . . .

“Bush Insider Who Planned to Tell All Killed in Plane Crash: Non-Profit Demands Full Fed­eral Inves­ti­ga­tion”; Yahoo.com; 12/20/2008.

2. The lethal­ity man­i­fest­ing in Alabama appears to be con­nected to Karl Rove’s machi­na­tions in that state–gambits that appar­ently resulted in the pros­e­cu­tion of Alabama Gov­er­nor Don Siegel­man on cor­rup­tion charges, this in the wake of Siegelman’s sus­pi­cious defeat in the 2002 elections.

Note, in par­tic­u­lar, the pres­ence of Leura Canary and her hus­band Bill in this sce­nario. Both names crop up in con­nec­tion with the events appar­ently sur­round­ing the vio­lent deaths in Alabama.

Note, also, the vio­lence to which whistle­blower Jill Simp­son was sub­jected, after dis­clos­ing alle­ga­tions of Rove’s inten­tion to destroy Don Siegel­man politically.

Don Eugene Siegel­man (born Feb­ru­ary 24, 1946) is an Amer­i­can Demo­c­ra­tic Party politi­cian who held numer­ous offices in Alabama. He was the 51st Gov­er­nor of Alabama for one term from 1999 to 2003. Siegel­man is the only per­son in the his­tory of Alabama to be elected to serve in all four of the top statewide elected offices: Sec­re­tary of State, Attor­ney Gen­eral, 26th Lieu­tenant Gov­er­nor and Gov­er­nor. He served in Alabama pol­i­tics for 26 years.
After the expi­ra­tion of his gov­er­nor­ship, two of Alabama’s United States Attor­neys began a crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tion against him on accu­sa­tions of cor­rup­tion while in office. Indict­ments came in 2004 and again in 2005, and in 2006 he was con­victed on cor­rup­tion charges.[1] Since then there have been counter-accusations by var­i­ous for­mer attor­neys gen­eral and offi­cials that his pros­e­cu­tion was inten­tion­ally wrong­ful, engi­neered by pres­i­den­tial advi­sor Karl Rove and offi­cials of the U.S. Depart­ment of Jus­tice to gain polit­i­cal advantage. . . .

. . . Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Bob Riley defeated Siegelman’s Novem­ber 2002 reelec­tion bid by the nar­row­est mar­gin in Alabama his­tory: approx­i­mately 3,000 votes. The result was con­tro­ver­sial, as on the night of the elec­tion, Siegel­man was ini­tially declared the win­ner by the Asso­ci­ated Press. Later, a vot­ing machine mal­func­tion in a sin­gle county, Bald­win County, was claimed to have pro­duced the votes needed to give Siegel­man the elec­tion. When the mal­func­tion was cor­rected, Riley emerged the win­ner. Demo­c­ra­tic Party offi­cials objected, stat­ing that the recount had been per­formed by local Repub­li­can elec­tion offi­cials after Demo­c­ra­tic observers had left the site of the vote count­ing, thus ren­der­ing ver­i­fi­ca­tion of the recount results impossible.[9] The state’s Attor­ney Gen­eral, Repub­li­can Bill Pryor, affirmed the recounted vote totals, secur­ing Riley’s elec­tion. Largely as a result of this con­tro­versy, the Alabama Leg­is­la­ture amended the elec­tion code to pro­vide for auto­matic, super­vised recounts in close races. . . .

. . . Siegel­man has stated that he wants to see Karl Rove held in con­tempt for refus­ing to tes­tify before a House com­mit­tee that is inves­ti­gat­ing Siegelman’s conviction.[18] Although Siegel­man was con­victed, his argu­ment is he may not have been inves­ti­gated if not for Rove. . .

. . . Wit­ness Nick Bai­ley, who pro­vided the cor­ner­stone tes­ti­mony upon which the con­vic­tion was based, was sub­se­quently con­victed of extor­tion; upon being given 10 years in prison Bai­ley coop­er­ated with pros­e­cu­tors to lighten his own sen­tence. Although he engaged in over 70 inter­views with the pros­e­cu­tion against Siegel­man, none of the notes detail­ing these inter­views were shared with the defense. In addi­tion, after the case was tried it was con­firmed that the check he tes­ti­fied he saw Scrushy write for Siegel­man was actu­ally writ­ten days later, when he was not actu­ally present. . . .

. . . Alle­ga­tions that Siegel­man was pros­e­cuted at the insis­tence of Bush-appointed offi­cials at the Jus­tice Depaont­gomery whose hus­band was Alabama’s top Repub­li­can oper­a­tive and who had for years worked closely with Karl Rove, led fed­eral courts to release the accused on bail.[22] In June 2007, a Repub­li­can lawyer, Dana Jill Simp­son of Rainsville, Alabama, signed a sworn state­ment that, five years ear­lier, she had heard that Karl Rove was prepar­ing to neu­tral­ize Siegel­man polit­i­cally with an inves­ti­ga­tion headed by the U.S. Depart­ment of Jus­tice.[23] Simp­son later told The Birm­ing­ham News that her affidavit’s word­ing could be inter­preted in two ways, and stated that she had writ­ten her affi­davit her­self, whereas in her Con­gres­sional tes­ti­mony she had admit­ted to hav­ing help from a Siegel­man supporter.[24]

Accord­ing to Simpson’s state­ment, she was on a Repub­li­can cam­paign con­fer­ence call in 2002 when she heard Bill Canary tell other cam­paign work­ers not to worry about Siegel­man because Canary’s “girls” and “Karl” would make sure the Jus­tice Depart­ment pur­sued the Demo­c­rat so he was not a polit­i­cal threat in the future.[23] “Canary’s girls” sup­pos­edly included his wife, Leura Canary, who is United States Attor­ney for the Mid­dle Dis­trict of Alabama, and United States Attor­ney for the North­ern Dis­trict of Alabama Alice Martin.[23] Leura Canary did not sub­mit vol­un­tary recusal paper­work until two months after Siegel­man attor­ney David Cromwell Johnson’s press con­fer­ence in March 2002.[25][26][27]

In inter­views with the press, Simp­son has empha­sized that she heard Rove’s name men­tioned in a phone con­ver­sa­tion in which the dis­cus­sion turned to Siegel­man, clar­i­fied that she heard some­one involved in a 2002 con­fer­ence call refer to a meet­ing between Mr. Rove and Jus­tice Depart­ment offi­cials on the sub­ject of Siegel­man, and revealed that Karl Rove ordered her to “catch Siegel­man cheat­ing on his wife.“[20] The Annis­ton Star pub­lished an edi­to­r­ial stat­ing that, “If that’s his story, then Rove should not hes­i­tate to go under oath and answer ques­tions before a con­gres­sional committee.“[28] . . .

. . . On the other hand, Raw Story reports that Karl Rove advised Bill Canary on man­ag­ing Repub­li­can Bob Riley’s guber­na­to­r­ial cam­paign against Siegel­man in the elec­tion fraud con­tro­versy of 2002, based on the tes­ti­mony of “two Repub­li­can lawyers who have asked to remain anony­mous for fear of retal­i­a­tion,” one of whom is close to Alabama’s Repub­li­can National Committee.[29]

Simpson’s house burned down soon after she began whistle­blow­ing, and Simpson’s car was dri­ven off the road by a pri­vate investigator[30] and wrecked. As a result of the tim­ing of these inci­dents, Simp­son said, “Any­time you speak truth to power, there are great risks. I’ve been attacked,” explain­ing she felt a “moral oblig­a­tion” to speak up. . . .

“Don Siegel­man”; Wikipedia.

3. Ana­lyz­ing those sus­pi­cious deaths in Alabama, the pro­gram begins by high­light­ing the alleged sui­cide of Charles “Bubba” Major.

For the fourth time in roughly a year, a per­son with ties to Alabama’s corporate/political elites has com­mit­ted sui­cide under mys­te­ri­ous cir­cum­stances. This time, the deceased had fam­ily ties to a man who com­mit­ted a most pub­lic “sui­cide” in March 2010.

Charles “Bubba” Major died on Mon­day at age 59, and his funeral will be at 3 p.m. today at Moun­tain Brook Bap­tist Church. Bubba Major was a first cousin of promi­nent Birm­ing­ham attor­ney Major Bashin­sky, whose body was found float­ing in a golf-course pond last March and later was ruled a sui­cide, a find­ing we have reported is dubi­ous, at best.

Bubba Major was quoted pub­licly as say­ing the story of Major Basinsky’s death did not add up. Now, sources are telling Legal Schnau­zer this morn­ing that Bubba Major’s death has been ruled a suicide–and that has been con­firmed with today’s post from goodmorningfloridakeys.com, a blog writ­ten by Sloan Bashin­sky Jr., Major’s older brother.

This brings to four the num­ber of curi­ous sui­cides in roughly the past year in Alabama, all involv­ing indi­vid­u­als with ties to the state’s con­ser­v­a­tive rul­ing elites? We know about Major Bashin­sky and Bubba Major. The oth­ers are Ralph Stacy, an exec­u­tive with the Busi­ness Coun­cil of Alabama, and Bob Cavi­ness, an inves­ti­ga­tor in the office of for­mer Attor­ney Gen­eral Troy King. That list doesn’t include Zoa White, a woman who worked in the Riley admin­is­tra­tion and was found beaten to death in her Mobile home. That has been ruled a homicide.

Both Major Bashin­sky and Bubba Major had round­about ties to a law­suit brought by the estate of Sloan Bashin­sky Sr. against the Birm­ing­ham firm W and H Invest­ments. The “H” stands for William Cobb “Chip” Hazel­rig, an entre­pre­neur with ties to the Alabama gam­ing com­mu­nity. Hazel­rig is a part­ner in Paragon Gam­ing, a com­pany headed by Robert Sigler, of Tuscaloosa. Paragon is pur­su­ing a major gam­bling resort in Canada, and Rob Riley, the son of for­mer Alabama Repub­li­can Gov­er­nor Bob Riley, used to be involved in Paragon.

Bubba Major was known as one of the finest golfers in Alabama and was a long-time mem­ber of the pres­ti­gious Coun­try Club of Birm­ing­ham. And how is this for irony? An Inter­net search reveals that Bubba Major worked in sales at South­line Steel, a com­pany based in Besse­mer, Alabama. Who has a promi­nent inter­est in South­line Steel? None other than Chip Hazelrig.

Peo­ple with ties to the law­suit styled Estate of Sloan Bashin­sky v. W and H Invest­ments have a curi­ous way of turn­ing up as sui­cide vic­tims. Is that because Chip Hazel­rig has ties to Alabama’s Repub­li­can machine, built largely by Karl Rove in the 1990s and run by the Riley fam­ily in the 2000s? And is this ugli­ness dri­ven partly because of the GOP’s under-the-table ties to the gam­bling industry?

We know for sure that Chip Hazel­rig took some curi­ous actions last March, while Major Bashin­sky was miss­ing. Why would he show up for a visit with Sloan Bashin­sky Jr. in Key West, Florida?

What about Hazelrig’s ties to the Alabama GOP? Rob Riley dis­tanced him­self from Paragon Gam­ing only after a con­tri­bu­tion from Hazel­rig to Bob Riley’s guber­na­to­r­ial cam­paign was revealed to have come from some­one with ties to gam­bling. Bob Riley returned the con­tri­bu­tion, claim­ing that he was staunchly anti-gambling, and he went on to launch a cru­sade against elec­tronic bingo in the last year of his reign as governor.

The Riley family’s pub­lic stance on gam­bling, of course, rep­re­sents breath-taking hypocrisy. Bob Riley, it has been widely reported, was elected with mas­sive finan­cial assis­tance from Mis­sis­sippi Choctaw gam­ing inter­ests fun­neled through con­victed GOP felon Jack Abramoff. And it has been well doc­u­mented that Rob Riley has ties to Chip Hazel­rig, Robert Sigler, and their gam­ing interests.

Now, two peo­ple with ties to the Bashin­sky fam­ily, which was seek­ing an account­ing of $37 mil­lion invested with Chip Hazelrig’s com­pany, have turned up dead. Both have been ruled a sui­cide, but we have shown there are sig­nif­i­cant rea­sons to doubt the find­ing in the Major Bashin­sky case. The Bubba Major story is in its early stages, but we’ve seen signs that he was con­cerned about what had hap­pened to his cousin. Did that con­cern cost him his life? We would not be sur­prised if the answer is yes. . . .

“Another ‘Sui­cide’ Dark­ens the Polit­i­cal Land­scape in Karl Rove’s Alabama”; Legal Schnau­zer; 3/31/2011.

4. Exhibit­ing the para­me­ters of the so-called “sui­cides” in Alabama are the pre­pos­ter­ous cir­cum­stances of the alleged “sui­cide” of Charles “Bubba” Major’s cousin Major Bashinsky.

Note that Major was a golf pro at the club where Bashinsky’s body was found. Major felt it was impos­si­ble for his cousin’s body not to be dis­cov­ered. He was found dead roughly a year later.

. . . Author­i­ties say Bashin­sky wrapped rope around parts of his body and attached a bot­tle that con­tained a copy of the note they found in his car. He stuck a label from a Golden Flake bag in the roof of his mouth and loosely bound his mouth with duct tape and his hands with rope. He then walked into the pond and shot himself.

If he waded into the water, obvi­ously the water was shal­low. Being in Alabama in early March, the water prob­a­bly was not ter­ri­bly cold. This was on a pub­lic golf course where many peo­ple come and go. And yet the body remained sub­merged and unno­ticed for roughly 12 days?

I don’t pre­tend to be a foren­sic pathol­o­gist, but this seems unlikely–and offi­cials gave no indi­ca­tion that the body was weighted down by any object. . . .

. . .You prob­a­bly did not know that I ran High­land Golf Course for 15 yrs 83–98 and thought it was ironic that they found Major’s body at High­land Golf Course, still have not heard the cause of death, but guess it will come out soon. For the record there is no way the body could have been there sev­eral days, with­out being seen because Hoot­ers had golf tour­ney there Sat and had over 120 peo­ple going by that pond every 3 minutes. . .

. . . Back­ground note: Major’s body was spot­ted by golfers Mon­day fol­low­ing the Hoot­ers tour­na­ment. He went miss­ing 12 days before his body was found. He was alive most of that time. There was no ran­som demand. There was no note to law enforce­ment or the fam­ily or the media. There was only silence. . . .

“Should We Doubt a Find­ing of Sui­cide in Major Bashinsky’s Death?”; Legal Schnau­zer; 3/25/2010.

5. Bob Cavi­ness was yet another of the mys­te­ri­ous deaths in “Karl Rove’s Alabama.”

An inves­ti­ga­tor in the office of Alabama Attor­ney Gen­eral Troy King recently died under mys­te­ri­ous cir­cum­stances, adding to a grow­ing list of sus­pi­cious deaths in the final 12 months or so of Gov­er­nor Bob Riley’s two terms.

Robert William “Bob” Cavi­ness died on Novem­ber 15 in Alexan­der City, Alabama, where he lived. Mul­ti­ple sources have told Legal Schnau­zer that Cavi­ness died from a gun­shot wound to the head, and his death appar­ently is being con­sid­ered a suicide.

Sources also say that Cavi­ness was friends with Ralph Stacy, a Busi­ness Coun­cil of Alabama (BCA) exec­u­tive who was found dead in his office in Sep­tem­ber from an appar­ent self-inflicted gun­shot wound. Cavi­ness and Stacy report­edly shared a com­mon faith and both were lay ministers.

An obvi­ous ques­tion: Was Bob Cavi­ness inves­ti­gat­ing his friend’s death and did he get too close to the truth for someone’s comfort?

Another ques­tion: Is this toxic envi­ron­ment a nat­ural by-product of efforts by Karl Rove and the U.S. Cham­ber of Com­merce to take over Alabama courts in the 1990s–which served as a pre­cur­sor to the Don Siegel­man pros­e­cu­tion and other nasty events in our state?

Cavi­ness was 46 years old, with a wife and two sons. He had worked for the Mont­gomery Police Depart­ment, mostly in drug inves­ti­ga­tions, for 20 years before going to work for the Attor­ney General’s Office. . . .

. . . The Cavi­ness case marks at least four sus­pi­cious deaths that we know of in 2010, all involv­ing peo­ple with some con­nec­tions to the Riley admin­is­tra­tion or its activ­i­ties. Cavi­ness’ boss, Attor­ney Gen­eral Troy King, is a Repub­li­can and once was a Riley ally. But the two have had a very pub­lic and ugly falling out over gambling-related issues. King has stated that elec­tronic bingo gen­er­ally is legal in Alabama, while Riley launched a cru­sade to shut down gam­ing facil­i­ties in Alabama.

Eleven lob­by­ists, leg­is­la­tors, and gam­ing figures–including the high-profile Mil­ton McGre­gor and Ron­nie Gilley–are under indict­ment on charges related to gam­bling leg­is­la­tion. The inves­ti­ga­tion has been led by U.S. Attor­ney Leura Canary, a Riley ally and George W. Bush appointee who, inex­plic­a­bly, has remained in office through­out the Barack Obama administration.

What are the other sus­pi­cious deaths? We have writ­ten sev­eral posts about Major Bashin­sky, Zoa White, and Ralph Stacy:

* Major Bashinsky–The 63-year-old son of one of the state’s best-known busi­ness­men was reported miss­ing in early March. About two weeks later, his body was found float­ing in a golf-course pond on Birmingham’s South­side, and his death was ruled a sui­cide. His father, the late Sloan Bashin­sky Sr., was the CEO of Golden Enter­prises, the maker of Golden Flake potato chips and snack foods. In the months lead­ing up to Major Bashinsky’s dis­ap­pear­ance, the Estate of Sloan Bashin­sky was involved in a law­suit with W and H Invest­ments of Birm­ing­ham, seek­ing an account­ing of some $37 mil­lion the elder Bashin­sky had invested with the firm–mostly in oil wells. A set­tle­ment was approved in the law­suit on March 1, two days before Major Bashin­sky was reported miss­ing. One of the part­ners in W and H Invest­ments is William Cobb “Chip” Hazel­rig, who once had a cam­paign con­tri­bu­tion to Bob Riley returned when it was dis­cov­ered that Hazel­rig was a found­ing part­ner of a com­pany called Paragon Gam­ing. Both Hazel­rig and Rob Riley, the governor’s son, had ties to a com­pany called Crim­son­ica, which is based in Tuscaloosa and run by a man named Robert Sigler.

* Zoa White–A for­mer Riley cam­paign worker, the 69-year-old White was found dead in her mid­town Mobile home on June 28. News reports have said she was beaten to death with a ham­mer. White had worked in the Alabama Depart­ment of Eco­nomic and Com­mu­nity Affairs (ADECA) under Bill John­son, who went from being a mem­ber of the Riley admin­is­tra­tion to one of the governor’s harsh­est crit­ics. John­son was so close to White and her fam­ily that he helped notify friends about funeral arrange­ments. Mobile police recently made an arrest in White’s mur­der, but they have said lit­tle about evi­dence found in the case. The pros­e­cu­tion will be led by Mobile County Dis­trict Attor­ney John Tyson, who is com­man­der of Riley’s anti-gambling task force. Sus­pect Car­los Edward Kennedy has been denied bond in the case and is rep­re­sented by a court-appointed lawyer.

* Ralph Stacy–He was in charge of strate­gic com­mu­ni­ca­tions and was a chief lieu­tenant to BCA pres­i­dent Bill Canary. Canary, who is Leura Canary’s hus­band, is a long-time asso­ciate of Karl Rove and U.S. Cham­ber of Com­merce Pres­i­dent Tom Dono­hue. Mont­gomery police have released few details about Stacy’s death, and the Mont­gomery Adver­tiser has writ­ten almost noth­ing about it. Stacy was 53, with a wife, Angel, and a daugh­ter, Savan­nah. Friends and col­leagues described him as a jovial man who was a pop­u­lar pub­lic speaker. Before mov­ing under the BCA ban­ner ear­lier this year, Stacy had served as direc­tor of the Cham­ber of Com­merce Asso­ci­a­tion of Alabama, which rep­re­sented the state’s 120 Cham­bers of Com­merce and had some 60,000 dues-paying mem­bers. The BCA, with about 5,000 mem­bers, report­edly had long cov­eted the siz­able mem­ber­ship over which Stacy ruled.

Is it coin­ci­dence that these deaths hap­pened in 2010, as Bob Riley’s term was wind­ing down and the gov­er­nor was engaged in a high-profile cru­sade against gam­bling inter­ests? Is it coin­ci­dence that these deaths occurred as ques­tions con­tin­ued to rise about Riley’s finan­cial sup­port from the Mis­sis­sippi Choctaw Indi­ans, report­edly laun­dered through GOP felon Jack Abramoff? Is it a coin­ci­dence that Bob Riley has strong ties to Bill Canary, Karl Rove, and the U.S. Cham­ber of Commerce–and Riley’s term is end­ing amidst a dis­turbingly high body count? It could be. Is it pos­si­ble that there is noth­ing sus­pi­cious about any of these deaths?. . .

“Another Mys­te­ri­ous Death Dark­ens the Polit­i­cal Land­scape in Karl Rove’s Alabama”; Legal Schnau­zer; 12/21/2010.

6. One of the “sui­cides” had been harassed by the FBI.

Alabama deputy attor­ney gen­eral before he com­mit­ted sui­cide last November–all because the agents mis­tak­enly thought the deputy AG was try­ing to help gam­bling mag­nate Mil­ton McGregor.

Robert William “Bob” Cavi­ness died from an appar­ent self-inflicted gun­shot wound on Novem­ber 15, as FBI agents Keith Baker and John H. McEachren III were con­duct­ing a harass­ment cam­paign against him, accord­ing to a report in The Mont­gomery Inde­pen­dent. Baker and McEachren were involved in an inves­ti­ga­tion of McGre­gor, which led to the ongo­ing pros­e­cu­tion of 11 indi­vid­u­als con­nected to gambling-related mea­sures in the Alabama Legislature.

We have reported on the Cavi­ness story as one of sev­eral mys­te­ri­ous Alabama deaths that seem con­nected roughly to the last year of Gov. Bob Riley’s admin­is­tra­tion. The most recent such death came just last week, when Birm­ing­ham busi­ness­man Charles “Bubba” Major report­edly com­mit­ted sui­cide in Moun­tain Brook. Major was a first cousin to promi­nent attor­ney Major Bashin­sky, whose death in March 2010 was ruled a sui­cide. Bubba Major had expressed doubts about the offi­cial cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing his cousin’s death, which came just days after the set­tle­ment in a law­suit the Bashin­sky fam­ily brought against an invest­ment firm with ties to the Riley fam­ily and the gam­bling industry.

How did Bob Cavi­ness incur the wrath of the FBI? Bob Mar­tin, edi­tor and pub­lisher of The Mont­gomery Inde­pen­dent, reports:

The Deputy AG, Robert William “Bob” Cavi­ness, was in the process of con­duct­ing a back­ground check on an indi­vid­ual with the last name of McEach­ern, who lived in the Auburn-Opelika area. It was a mat­ter involv­ing worker’s comp fraud.

The Inde­pen­dent was told by the AG’s office that Agents Baker and McEach­ern became sus­pi­cious when they found out through the state’s com­puter data base that some­one in the Attor­ney General’s office was con­duct­ing the search involv­ing McEachern’s name.

“They went bal­lis­tic” accord­ing to a source at the AG’s office, “and began harass­ing Bob and accus­ing him of try­ing to help Mr. McGre­gor,” AG offi­cials told us.

What was the fallout?

An inter­nal inves­ti­ga­tion was con­ducted by the AG’s office, which, at that time was under the direc­tion of Atty. Gen. Troy King.

The inves­ti­ga­tion com­pletely cleared Cavi­ness of doing any­thing improper.

“He was just doing his job but those idiots at the FBI wouldn’t let him alone. They (the FBI) were bound and deter­mined to tie Bob in with try­ing to help McGre­gor,” one AG offi­cial told our reporters. Baker and McEach­ern were the agents who arrested McGre­gor at his home.

Mar­tin reports that the AG’s office con­firmed that Cavi­ness’ death was a sui­cide. But a num­ber of ques­tions remain, in our mind. Did the AG’s office, now under Luther Strange, pro­vide any doc­u­ments to sup­port the sui­cide find­ing? Did the AG’s office con­duct an inves­ti­ga­tion of its own into Cavi­ness’ death?
What about Cavi­ness’ pos­si­ble ties to Ralph Stacy, the Busi­ness Coun­cil of Alabama exec­u­tive who report­edly com­mit­ted sui­cide in his office last Sep­tem­ber. Mul­ti­ple sources have told Legal Schnau­zer that Stacy and Cavi­ness were friends, that they shared a com­mon faith and were lay ministers. . . .

“FBI Harass­ment Pre­ceded Alabama Official’s Sui­cide”; Legal Schnau­zer; 4/4/2011.

7. Some FBI agents and for­mer agents have also become “sui­cides” lately, also vic­tims of appar­ently self-inflicted gun­shot wounds. What was he work­ing on?

The FBI wasn’t say­ing much last week about the sui­cide of an FBI agent, who shot him­self  in the Port­land, Maine area over the week­end of April 24, accord­ing to sources.

The agent was in his early 50s, one source said.

FBI agent Greg Com­cowich, a spokesman for the Boston FBI Divi­sion, which includes Maine,  told the ticklethewire.com:

“The type of ques­tion which you are inquir­ing (about)is not some­thing the FBI would com­ment on.”

Last year, an FBI agent assigned to Quan­tico com­mit­ted suicide.

“FBI Agent Com­mits Sui­cide in Maine”; ticklethewire.com; 4/27/2011.

8. Another for­mer FBI agent allegdly shot her­self to death in the Hous­ton area. What had she been work­ing on?

The body of a miss­ing for­mer FBI agent from Har­ris County was found Thurs­day near her car in Waller County just north of Rolling Hills.

Patri­cia Dur­ney, who had been reported miss­ing the day before, was retired from the Fed­eral Bureau of Inves­ti­ga­tion and work­ing in the pri­vate sec­tor. Her car was found Thurs­day morn­ing in a clear­ing off Wig­gins Road, which set off a multi-agency search for her. A law enforce­ment heli­copter and air­plane cir­cled the area while law enforce­ment offi­cers searched on the ground with the air of dogs.

Agents from the FBI, Texas Rangers, Texas Depart­ment of Pub­lic Safety and Waller and Har­ris county sher­iff offices responded.

“The inves­ti­ga­tion con­tin­ues, how­ever the ini­tial inves­ti­ga­tion does not reveal any evi­dence of foul play,” the Waller County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release.

Her body has been taken to the Har­ris County Med­ical Examiner’s Office. Uncon­firmed, pub­lished reports indi­cate Dur­ney died of a sin­gle gun­shot wound to the head.

On Thurs­day, Sher­iff Glenn Smith said they were wait­ing for crime scene inves­ti­ga­tors to exam­ine the area to help deter­mine if the death was mur­der or suicide.

“Body of For­mer FBI Agent Found in Waller County” by Joe South­ern; yourhoustonnews.com; 2/19/2010.

9. The pro­gram high­lights some of the con­sid­er­a­tions at the core of the inves­ti­ga­tion of the shoot­ing Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Gif­fords in Ari­zona. (These will be dealt with at greater length in a future program.)

10. Quite apart from ques­tions as to the ide­o­log­i­cal moti­va­tion of Jared Lee Lough­ner, the media have quickly dropped reports of a sec­ond pos­si­ble sus­pect in the case.

. . . With the local sheriff’s office and the FBI inves­ti­gat­ing, sus­pi­cions that the sus­pected gun­man, Jared Lee Lough­ner, had an accom­plice would com­pli­cate the the­sis that the shoot­ing was the work of a lone and men­tally unbal­anced young man lash­ing out at the gov­ern­ment. The exis­tence of a co-conspirator could point to a more cal­cu­lated plot, and per­haps shed more light on the motive for the attack.

“We are not con­vinced that [the man in cus­tody] acted alone. There is some rea­son to believe he came to this loca­tion with another indi­vid­ual, and that indi­vid­ual is involved,” said Clarence Dup­nik, Pima County sher­iff, at a press con­fer­ence Saturday. . . .

“Gabrielle Gif­fords Case: Sec­ond Man Sought in Mass Ari­zona Shoot­ing” by Cheryl Sul­li­van; Chris­t­ian Sci­ence Mon­i­tor; 1/9/2011.

Ash­ley Tur­ton Death Car: What do YOU think?

11. A hor­ri­fy­ing politically-related death occurred the same week­end that Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Gif­fords was shot. The fiery death (mur­der?) of Ash­ley Tur­ton, wife of Dan Tur­ton, Pres­i­dent Obama’s liai­son to the now GOP-controlled House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives received lit­tle atten­tion, and was read­ily dis­missed as an unfor­tu­nate accident.

Of course, Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Gif­fords is a mem­ber of that same House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, due to con­vene shortly after that deadly weekend.

Was a mes­sage being send to the Obama White House?

The car fire that led to the sud­den death of Ash­ley Tur­ton was caused by the impact after a low-speed crash, accord­ing to the major crash inves­ti­ga­tion unit of the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Police Department.

“It’s quite pos­si­ble that the vic­tim was maneu­ver­ing the car and came in con­tact with some kind of flam­ma­ble chem­i­cal mate­ri­als,” D.C. Fire spokesman Pete Piringer said.

Tur­ton, 37, was the for­mer chief of staff to Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) and wife of White House liai­son to the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Dan Tur­ton. She worked as a lob­by­ist for the Raleigh, N.C.-based util­ity giant Progress Energy.

Tur­ton was found dead in her car Mon­day morn­ing, which was dis­cov­ered ablaze in a row house garage, pre­sum­ably the Tur­ton home, in the 800 block of A Street South­east near East­ern Market.

Police said there was a heavy fire in the garage at 4:45 a.m. that caused sig­nif­i­cant dam­age to the 2008 BMW X5, which was par­tially backed out into the dri­ve­way and looked singed. Fire dam­age could also be seen on a cor­ner of the brick home Monday.

When the fire was extin­guished, fire­fight­ers dis­cov­ered Turton’s body inside the car. . . .

“Tur­ton Car Fire Caused by Low-Speed Crash, Police Say” by Rachel Blade, Jes­sica Brady and Ann Palmer; Roll Call; 1/10/2011.

12a. Ms. Tur­ton worked for Rudy Giuliani’s law firm, which had just suc­cess­fully nego­ti­ated the merger of Duke Energy with Pro­gres­sive Energy, to form the largest U.S. utility.

In the con­text of Ms. Turton’s lob­by­ing activ­i­ties, it is impor­tant to remem­ber that K Street lob­by­ists have, as a mat­ter of cus­tom, given gen­er­ously to both par­ties. Under the influ­ence of GOP big­wig Grover Norquist, how­ever, lob­by­ists have increas­ingly been favor­ing the GOP. Might Ms. Turton’s work have threat­ened that dynamic?

The Bureau of Alco­hol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explo­sives is now assist­ing D.C. Fire and EMS and D.C. Police with an inves­ti­ga­tion of a deadly fire that killed a key Wash­ing­ton lobbyist.

37-year-old Ash­ley Tur­ton was killed in a fire as she backed out of her garage early Mon­day morning.

A spokesman for D.C. Fire and EMS says the ATF rou­tinely helps out on most fire inves­ti­ga­tions because they bring in valu­able resources. At this point, they are eval­u­at­ing all pos­si­ble sce­nar­ios, but have not deter­mined a cause. Offi­cials are also await­ing an autopsy report to deter­mine the cause of death.

Offi­cials do believe the BMW SUV that Tur­ton was in ini­tially had a low-impact crash which was fol­lowed by a fire. The airbags did not deploy.

Inves­ti­ga­tors say they’re look­ing at all pos­si­ble sce­nar­ios and are check­ing the vehi­cle main­te­nance records as well as whether the garage door was working. . . .

. . . In the tough world of pol­i­tics, she made her pres­ence known with her insight and a smile. Tur­ton worked as a lob­by­ist and had close ties to the White House. But if you talk to friends, she was the exception.

The 37-year-old was one half of a well-known and well-liked Wash­ing­ton power cou­ple who accom­plished a lot. Ashley’s hus­band, Dan Tur­ton, is the point per­son for the White House when it comes to mov­ing leg­is­la­tion through Congress.

“She never let that change her per­son­al­ity. She was still a very reg­u­lar per­son. The kind of per­son that if you met, you’d would think was a nice per­son and a smart per­son, but you wouldn’t nec­es­sar­ily sus­pect that she had sub­stan­tial con­nec­tions to cor­ri­dors of power,” said Scott Segal, a lob­by­ist with Bracewell & Giuliani.

From Capi­tol Hill to K Street, she stood out first as a top staffer on the Hill, then as a lob­by­ist for Progress Energy. . . .

“Friends Remem­ber DC Lob­by­ist, Ash­ley Tur­ton, Killed in Mys­te­ri­ous Fire” by Roby Chavez; myfoxdc.com; 1/13/2011.

12b. More about the Duke, Progress merger:

Merger mania in the util­ity indus­try con­tin­ues with the grand­daddy of them all–at least so far. Duke Energy and Progress Energy have announced their intent to merge in a deal that would cre­ate the largest util­ity in the United States and among the largest in the world with a $37 bil­lion mar­ket cap­i­tal­iza­tion, $65 bil­lion enter­prise value, and $20 bil­lion in revenue. . . .

“Duke, Progress Energy to Cre­ate Largest U.S. Util­ity” by Travis Miller; Toronto Star; 1/10/2011.

13. The pro­gram con­cludes with exam­i­na­tion of an aspect of the inves­ti­ga­tion into the assas­si­na­tion of Robert F. Kennedy.

Con­victed assas­sin Sirhan Sirhan was manip­u­lated by a seduc­tive girl in a mind con­trol plot to shoot Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, and his bul­lets did not kill the pres­i­den­tial can­di­date, lawyers for Sirhan said in new legal papers.

The doc­u­ments filed this week in fed­eral court and obtained by The Asso­ci­ated Press detail exten­sive inter­views with Sirhan dur­ing the past three years, some done while he was under hypnosis.

The papers point to a mys­te­ri­ous girl in a polka-dot dress as the con­troller who led Sirhan to fire a gun in the pantry of the Ambas­sador Hotel. But the doc­u­ments sug­gest a sec­ond per­son shot and killed Kennedy while using Sirhan as a diversion.

For the first time, Sirhan said under hyp­no­sis that on a cue from the girl he went into “range mode” believ­ing he was at a fir­ing range and see­ing cir­cles with tar­gets in front of his eyes.

“I thought that I was at the range more than I was actu­ally shoot­ing at any per­son, let alone Bobby Kennedy,” Sirhan was quoted as say­ing dur­ing inter­views with Daniel Brown, a Har­vard Uni­ver­sity pro­fes­sor and expert in trauma mem­ory and hyp­no­sis. He inter­viewed Sirhan for 60 hours with and with­out hyp­no­sis, accord­ing to the legal brief. . .

. . . The story of the girl has been a lin­ger­ing theme in accounts of the events just after mid­night on June 5, 1968, when Kennedy was gunned down in the hotel pantry after claim­ing vic­tory in the Cal­i­for­nia Demo­c­ra­tic pres­i­den­tial primary.

Wit­nesses talked of see­ing such a female run­ning from the hotel shout­ing, “We shot Kennedy.” But she was never iden­ti­fied, and amid the chaos of the scene, descrip­tions were conflicting.

Through the years, Sirhan has claimed no mem­ory of shoot­ing Kennedy and said in the recent inter­views that his pres­ence at the hotel was an acci­dent, not a planned destination.

Under hyp­no­sis, he remem­bered meet­ing the girl that night and becom­ing smit­ten with her. He said she led him to the pantry.

“I am try­ing to fig­ure out how to hit on her.... That’s all that I can think about,” he says in one inter­view cited in the doc­u­ments. “I was fas­ci­nated with her looks .... She never said much. It was very erotic. I was con­sumed by her. She was a seduc­tress with an unspo­ken unavailability.” . . .

. . . Sirhan main­tained in the hyp­notic inter­views that the mys­tery girl touched him or “pinched” him on the shoul­der just before he fired then spun him around to see peo­ple com­ing through the pantry door.

“Then I was on the tar­get range ... a flash­back to the shoot­ing range ... I didn’t know that I had a gun,” Sirhan said.

Under what Brown called the con­di­tion of hyp­notic free recall, he said Sirhan remem­bered see­ing the flash of a sec­ond gun at the time of the assas­si­na­tion. With­out hyp­no­sis, he said, Sirhan could not remem­ber that shot. . . .

“Con­victed RFK Assas­sin Says Girl Manip­u­lated Him” by Linda Deutsch [AP]; Yahoo News; 4/28/2011.