ACLU lobbyist, gay rights/pro-choice activist Larry Frankel found dead

By GottaLaff

A town hall meeting in York, PA, on October 10, 2007, addressed LGBT discrimination. Featuring Larry Frankel, Legislative Director of ACLU-PA...

This is the kind of mystery I do not like to report:

Longtime Pennsylvania ACLU lobbyist and Executive Director Larry Frankel, who in the last year or so has become the lobbyist for the national ACLU, has apparently been found dead in Washington under mysterious circumstances. This is a breaking news story in which most key facts are still generally unknown.

Frankel was an outstanding lobbyist for the Pennsylvania ACLU in Harrisburg, taking positions on scores to hundreds of bills each year. He was a coalition builder reminiscent of Ted Kennedy in the U.S. Senate or William Brennan on the U.S. Supreme Court, who aggressively reached out to unlikely allies like the National Rifle Association to help persuade members of the legislature that the ACLU was addressing broad concerns.

His aggressive outreach removed the ACLU from the fringes or margins of state policy and moved it toward the center of direct involvement.

A proud gay man, he was militant on the issue of gay marriage [...]

Larry believed in the importance of facts in making decisions. His correspondence with legislators was full of facts. [...]

He made progress on hard issues, such as the death penalty and mandatory minimum sentences, by documenting their high fiscal costs. [...]

He was a strong voice on freedom of choice, equal rights for women, and freedom of speech. [...] But he was tenacious, factual, honest, and decent, and he earned the deep respect of virtually all with whom he came into contact. [...]

He was one of the finest human beings to serve as a lobbyist, and his daily work honored the lobbying profession, as well as the ACLU and the gay community.

I searched around and couldn't find anything else on this. If anyone out there knows more, or can link me to other sources, I'd greatly appreciate it.

After the Dr. Tiller assassination, this is more than a little worrisome, but the facts aren't in yet, so... it's wait-and-see time.

H/t: Galelem

Overnight Thread & Distraction

Being a huge ACD and Will Thomas fan, I cannot wait for this.

The mystery of the Obama Hope photo source

By GottaLaff

James Danziger, over at the Daily Beast, found the original photographer of the now-famous image used in the Fairey poster of Obama that we've all Obamicon'd. The guy had no idea it was his photo:

Reuters was initially—and understandably—put out that they hadn’t been credited as the original source of what turned out to be the presidential campaign’s most enduring visual image, but no laws had been broken.

Like it or not, Fairey's use of the picture is well within the parameters of what’s considered "fair use." His transformation of the image—flipping and re-orienting it, adding jacket, tie and the "O" Obama logo, and converting it to his block print style—make it consistent with all legal precedents for public use. (Fairey is the artist behind the now-famous Andre the Giant prints that are probably wheat-pasted all over your city.)

But perhaps the best proof that Fairey transformed the photo into something all his own is that Young, a Washington-based photographer who has taken, in his words, “thousands” of pictures of Obama, was not even aware that the most ubiquitous image of the election was based on his photograph. He’d seen the HOPE poster countless times and never made the connection to his own photograph, which he snapped at a 2007 Senate confirmation hearing.

Go read the whole article to follow the winding trail to the oblivious photographer. Imagine, not realizing it was your photo that was plastered everywhere on the Blogosphere and well, everywhere else.

I may take credit for an updated version of the Mona Lisa. I'll give her a new outfit, flip and re-orient, add a touch of make-up to her sly smile, and block print it. I could make a fortune! Anyone else in?

It would be like putting lipstick on a painting.

'Karl Rove's IT guru' Mike Connell dies in plane crash

By GottaLaff

Suspicious death or purely accidental?

A top level Republican IT consultant who was set to testify in a case alleging GOP election tampering in Ohio died in a plane crash late Friday night.

Michael Connell -- founder of Ohio-based New Media Communications, which created campaign Web sites for George W. Bush and John McCain -- died instantly after his single-prop, private aircraft smashed into a vacant home in suburban Lake Township, Ohio. [...]

Connell's exploits as a top GOP IT 'guru' have been well documented by RAW STORY's investigative team.

The interest in Mike Connell stems from his association with a firm called GovTech, which he had spun off from his own New Media Communications under his wife Heather Connell’s name. GovTech was hired by Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell to set up an official election website at election.sos.state.oh.us to presented the 2004 presidential returns as they came in.

Connell is a long-time GOP operative, whose New Media Communications provided web services for the Bush-Cheney ’04 campaign, the US Chamber of Commerce, the Republican National Committee and many Republican candidates. This in itself might have raised questions about his involvement in creating Ohio’s official state election website. [...]

“Since early this decade, top Internet ‘gurus’ in Ohio have been coordinating web services with their GOP counterparts in Chattanooga, wiring up a major hub that in 2004, first served as a conduit for Ohio's live election night results,” researchers at ePluribus Media wrote.

Here comes the eyebrow-raiser:

"...I have reason to believe that the alternate accounts were used to communicate with US Attorneys involved in political prosecutions, like that of Don Siegelman," [Laffy Note: Some background here] said RAW STORY's Investigative News Editor, Larisa Alexandrovna, on her personal blog Saturday morning. "This is what I have been working on to prove for over a year. In fact, it was through following the Siegelman-Rove trail that I found evidence leading to Connell. That is how I became aware of him. Mike was getting ready to talk. He was frightened.

"He has flown his private plane for years without incident. I know he was going to DC last night, but I don't know why. He apparently ran out of gas, something I find hard to believe. I am not saying that this was a hit nor am I resigned to this being simply an accident either. I am no expert on aviation and cannot provide an opinion on the matter. What I am saying, however, is that given the context, this event needs to be examined carefully."

"Mr. Connell has confided that he was being threatened, something that his attorneys also told the judge in the Ohio election fraud case," concluded Alexandrovna.

Rove's stench continues to permeate everything and everyone around him.