Will ‘Conspiracy Theory’ host Ventura dig into (MN Sen.) Wellstone assassination-by-plane-crash? (Don’t hold your breath)

By Andrew W. Griffin

Red Dirt Report, editor

Posted: November 4, 2011

[email protected]

COMMENTARY

OKLAHOMA CITY – There is a so-called “conspiracy” here in America that has gone largely under-investigated in the 9 years since the event happened – I refer to the death of U.S. Sen. Paul Wellstone, and 7 others, in a mysterious plane crash while campaigning in his home state of Minnesota for his re-election in late October 2002.

But there is someone with the perfect platform to get the issue back on the front-burner and I speak of former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura who is currently involved in filming the upcoming season of his TruTV program Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura.

Ventura, upset about the direction the country has been taking since 9/11/01, has, in recent years, been becoming more outspoken about government conspiracies and cover-ups that have proliferated and seemingly increased in America in the days since World War II.

And if you get a chance, check out 63 Documents The Government Doesn’t Want You to Read where Ventura has compiled an eye-opening collection of documents ranging from MK ULTRA mind-control experiments to the “free fall” of Building 7 in New York on 9/11 and much, much more. It’s a good read and quite informative, with plenty of documents revealed. In fact, Ventura himself is making headlines this week by also discovering that a judge had thrown out Ventura’s challenge to the TSA and their violations of his rights when he goes through airport security.

Red Dirt Report applauds Ventura for his coverage of these important issues that our government has kept hidden or flat-out lied about. Ventura has come a long way on the road to truth. His friendship with truth-seeking, new-world-order-exposing talk-show host Alex Jones has certainly opened his eyes and Ventura has had Jones as a guest on Conspiracy Theory.

And while he covers a wide range of conspiracies, one “conspiracy theory” that Ventura has thus far failed to address is the mysterious plane crash that killed Sen. Wellstone, his wife, several aides and two pilots. Polls out the day of the crash were showing that Wellstone was likely to be re-elected to a third term. He was extraordinarily popular in the Land of 10,000 Lakes.

In September 2006, the Spelunking Through the Chaos blog noted that Alex Jones interviewed Ventura and asked him about the Wellstone crash. The STTC blogger wrote: “After discussing government complicity in terror attacks, Jones asks Ventura about Minnesota Gov. Paul Wellstone’s plane crash in 2002 and whether or not it was taken down or simply crashed due to pilot error. Ventura got very loud at this question and said it was “pilot error” and that “I would’ve never flown that day.” He then dismissed Prof. Jim Fetzer’s research (which would include his book American Assassination which I reviewed for a Louisiana newspaper almost two years ago). I wonder if Fetzer (who will be on Hannity and Colmes tonight) will respond to Ventura’s comments on the Jones show.”

Not sure if Fetzer responded to Ventura’s comments on that Fox News Channel program over five years ago. But what is clear is that Ventura was not open to alternative explanations to the downing of Wellstone’s plane. Perhaps he’s reconsidered in the intervening years? *(ED. note: Since this story was published, Jim Fetzer tells Red Dirt Report that Hannity focused on 9/11 issues and did not address the Wellstone plane crash controversy).

Again, we should remind readers that the wrestler-turned-actor-turned-governor Jesse Ventura was the top guy in Minnesota at the time of Wellstone’s death and would later tap his friend, the political independent Dean Barkley, to temporarily fill in for Wellstone’s term until the White House-picked Norm Coleman took over a few months later.

With Gov. Ventura’s well-known independent streak, it is surprising he did not call for an independent investigation, when many people had suspicions – as noted in a St. Paul Pioneer Press poll after the crash – that black-op elements within the Bush government assassinated Wellstone on that chilly-but-not-inclement October day.

The word was getting out well in advance of this “accident” that Wellstone was a marked man, at least politically speaking. A year-and-a-half prior to Wellstone’s plane going down in a rural area of Minnesota’s Iron Range, John Nichols, a writer with the Madison Capital Times, wrote in his April 24, 2001 article “Bush fears tenacious, popular Wellstone” that Wellstone, going into the upcoming re-election campaign was undeniably going to run into the Bush-Cheney-Rove axis of the “politics of vengeance.”

As Nichols wrote at that time, just after George W. Bush entered office, “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.” In fact, speaking of “Plan Colombia,” Wellstone was sickened during a 2000 fact-finding trip to Colombia where a Colombian government spray plane dumped poisonous herbicide on him and his group.

Added Nichols: “the Bush camp has been focusing highest-level attention on ‘Plan Wellstone’ – its project to silence progressive opposition.”

Wellstone would later give an impassioned speech on the Senate floor about the lead-up to war in Iraq and how it was the wrong path to take. The neo-cons liked him even less after that.

The Madison Capital Times‘ Nichols, meanwhile,  noted how Tim Pawlenty – this was before T-Paw, a state representative, was governor – questioned the integrity of the political process when he was manipulated by the Bush-Cheney-Rove axis, which led to Norm Coleman to run as the Republican against Wellstone.

Wellstone was well-aware of what he was up against and told Nichols that “(E)ven if they can dictate the Republican nominee, the people of Minnesota still get to choose their senator.”

But they didn’t. You may remember that a week or so after Wellstone’s death, the elderly Walter Mondale gamely stepped in and lost, against the chaos of the Wellstone “memorial.” Sadly and perhaps understandably (think Jackie Kennedy and the Kennedy clan), the Wellstone family let the “official report” stand, that the plane went down due to icing on the wings and pilot error.

And Gov. Jesse Ventura? He took a largely hands-off approach, allowing the NTSB, FAA and FBI to handle the incident. It should be noted that this was five or so years before Ventura took a striking turn into conspiracyland.

As Prof. Jim Fetzer, recently of the University of Minnesota at Duluth noted in his book American Assassination: The Strange Death of Senator Paul Wellstone, which your Red Dirt Reporter reviewed in 2005, most Americans suspected Wellstone was murdered as part of a “GOP conspiracy.” Of course Wellstone was vocally against the impending invasion of Iraq and his strong voice would have possibly thwarted their plans to invade and topple Saddam Hussein, the neo-con’s cartoonish villain whom America had embraced some years earlier.

Red Dirt Report has communicated with Prof. Fetzer over the years since the release of that book and Fetzer, when asked about Ventura’s  has suggested that Ventura may not have been able to fully comprehend the “monstrous” nature of what had taken place on his watch and in his state.

As Fetzer told this reporter: “It is indeed ironic that he hosts a terrific program on conspiracy theories, because, in relation to the Wellstone plane crash, (Ventura) missed a whopper.”

Fetzer, along with John Costella, wrote a thorough piece in 2005 called “The NTSB Failed Wellstone” and in the interest of truth and justice, Fetzer and Costella call for a re-opening of the case involving Wellstone’s death and the others aboard that King Air A-100 that crashed near Eveleth, Minnesota, just 10 days before the election. One theory is that an electromagnetic weapon knocked out the onboard computer systems on the plane and led to the crash. A report of a “white van,” rapidly leaving the area where the plane went down, was reported, as was strange sounds caught on a cell phone. Fetzer noted in his research that a directed-energy weapon could be small enough to fit into a van. The excellent Snowshoe Films documentary “Wellstone: They Killed Him,” addresses the “white van” issue as well.

And in the article they also note that one of the pilots of Wellstone’s plane, Michael Guess, had allegedly known accused 9/11 terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui, and a disk Guess had of a 747 jumbo jet simulator, left at his workstation, was later found on Moussaoui’s laptop.

Sounds like shades of the Moussaoui connection to Norman, Okla. and the University of Oklahoma and his link to Nick Berg, the one-time OU student who later ended up getting beheaded while working in Iraq in 2004. Moussaoui reportedly borrowed Berg’s laptop to check his email while on a bus in the Norman area. Many believe the story is absurd. And it reminds us of the Oklahoma City TV report – researched by the late Michael P. Wright – that reported on the link to the OU Library and the alleged purchase of a plane ticket by a 9/11 hijacker. KOCO TV later denied such a report ever aired, as noted also by researcher Holland Van den Nieuwenhof in his scholarly 2006 article “Oklahoma: The Axis of Evil.”

But back to Wellstone. Fetzer, while a guest in May 2011 on Down the Rabbit Hole radio program, hosted by Federal Jack’s Popeye, reminded listeners that Vice-President Dick Cheney warned Wellstone – the conscience of the Senate – that if he opposed them on Iraq that there would be serious ramifications for him and for the people of Minnesota.

Cheney’s threat would soon come to pass and multiple federal agencies would be complicit in what Fetzer calls a “classic cover-up.”

So, while we commend Jesse Ventura for seeking the truth on everything from vote stealing in Ohio in 2004 (note the NTSB cover-up of Bush-Rove-IT guy Michael Connell’s mysterious plane crash death in 2008) to the death of honeybees from approved pesticides. Ventura is still interested in politics. Earlier this week, Ventura was a guest on The Alex Jones Show and when the subject of the presidential race came up, Ventura said if his favorite presidential candidate, Ron Paul, were to ask him to be his running mate, he would give it “serious consideration.”

Startlingly, Ventura told Jones that if Ron Paul is left out of the Republican debates from here on out, “we should start rioting in the streets.” Seems extreme, in light of the Occupy chaos in Oakland, California and elsewhere. Interestingly, a socially liberal, fiscal conservative former governor, Gary Johnson of New Mexico – just like Ventura, although not as animated and outspoken as Ventura – is actually running and for whatever reason, is hardly getting any attention at all from the Ron Paul-obsessed “truthers” and it’s not really clear why this is. You would think Ventura would be a big fan of Johnson, seeing as they share a lot of the same positions – libertarian, pro-freedom, largely – on the big issues.

That said, we are glad Jesse Ventura continues to shine a light on the troubling issues of our time and seeks answers. And now he has a powerful platform and lots of resources at his disposal to get a REAL investigation into the death of this great American. We hope that with his connection to Minnesota and his role as governor during the Wellstone crash, Jesse Ventura will consider seriously addressing this “conspiracy theory” on a future episode of his fascinating TruTV program. It will be the intellectually honest thing to do.

*(UPDATE: 3:42 p.m. Nov. 4, 2011)

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