Presidents, CIA Directors, and Mid East collaborations

September 11, 2001

Reference Information

Why Richard Clarke's "apology" is misleading.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/04/02/opinion/meyer/main610106.shtml

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/mmedia/nation/032404-8v.htm

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/nation/nationalsecurity/americaatwar/

He is not talking about the National Commission on 9/11, but that the Commission is not looking at the following:

--Islamists of Iran – CIA – Carter administration 1977-1981

--Islamists of Afghanistan –CIA – Carter administration 1977-1981

--al-Qaeda – Saudi – CIA – Reagan administration collaboration in Afghanistan 1981-1989

--al-Qaeda – Saudi – CIA – Bush I administration collaborations in Afghanistan and Sudan 1989-1993

--al-Qaeda – CIA – Clinton administration collaborations in Albania, Algeria, Bosnia, Chechnya, Iraq, Libya, & Sudan 1993-2001

Remember, George Bush was picked to be director of the CIA in 1976, he testified to Congress that he had never worked for the CIA before. Of course, it did not make much sense to appoint a director who had no such back- ground but Congress approved him anyway.

Presidents & their CIA Directors

Ford	George H. Bush	30 January 1976--20 January 1977
Carter	Adm. Stansfield Turner, USN	9 March 1977--20 January 1981
Reagan	William Casey	28 January 1981--29 January 1987
G. H. Bush	William Webster	26 May 1987--31 August 1991
G. H. Bush	Robert Gates	6 November 1991--20 January 1993
Clinton	R. James Woolsey	5 February 1993--10 January 1995
Clinton	John Deutch	10 May 1995 --15 December 1996
Clinton	George Tenet	11 July 1997--2004
W. Bush	Porter Goss	24 September 2004

For comprehensive reading on the subjects mentioned above, please refer to our back issues list.

http://www.covertactionquarterly.org/backissues.html

CLARKE, RICHARD A (STATE DEPT / NSC)

Profile: Richard Clarke

Four successive US presidents have picked Richard Clarke to defend the country against terrorists. His fourth boss, George W Bush, may be regretting the choice. Mr Clarke has turned on his former master, a year after stepping down as the cyber-security adviser charged with protecting America against an "electronic Pearl Harbour".

He has accused President Bush of doing a "terrible job" fighting terrorism - of ignoring the al-Qaeda threat before 11 September 2001 and distorting it afterwards. His comments coincided with the publication of his book, Against All Enemies - a scathing account of his tenure under Mr Bush.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3559087.stm

• Covert Action Quarterly 1999-#67 (50)
• Covert Action Quarterly 1999-#68 (60-1)
• Hartung,W. And Weapons for All. 1994 (149)
• Intelligence (Paris) 1998-05-04 (15)
• Intelligence (Paris) 1998-06-22 (13)
• Intelligence (Paris) 1999-09-13 (8)
• Intelligence (Paris) 2002-07-15 (2)
• Mangold,T. Goldberg,J. Plague Wars. 2000 (11-2)
• Miller,J. Engelberg,S. Broad,W. Germs. 2002 (151-2, 154, 224-5, 231-2)
• New York Times 2001-09-28 (B5)
• New York Times 2001-10-01 (B6)
• New York Times 2001-10-04 (D1, 8)
• New York Times 2001-10-10 (B6)
• New York Times 2003-02-15 (A12)
• New Yorker Magazine 1999-04-05 (36)
• New Yorker Magazine 1999-07-12 (60)
• Prados,J. Keepers of the Keys. 1991 (509)
• Prados,J. Presidents' Secret Wars. 1988 (385)
• Washington Post 1989-08-15 (A17)
• Washington Post 1991-02-10 (C4)
• Washington Post 1992-03-14 (A1, 17)
• Washington Times 1993-11-10 (A9)

Namebase Search

http://www.namebase.org/cgi-bin/nb06?_CLARKE_RICHARD_A%20%28STATE%20DEPT%20%2F%20NSC%29

Education is the key to unlock the truth.

__________________________

"FBI Agents Expose the Truth About the Hidden Forces Behind 9/11"

MORE FBI AGENTS EXPOSE "THE OCTOPUS"

A steady stream of whistleblowers - I wonder why?

by voxfux

Two courageous FBI agent's revelations send mixed messages. First, the carefully scripted opening salvo from the two agents is the clasic diversionary couching technique which is now standard LieSpeak. The agency, "failed," this time the word was, "incompetent." But if you know the pressure these agents feel for what they are doing you would know that they had no choice but to speak in these terms. And while the whole thing could be a disinfo psy-op it is possible that their whistleblowing is indeed a brave and daring act. For sure if they are indeed genuine and they spoke what I believe could really be on their minds (That there are people in the highest positions of power in the US who are behind the attacks) they would be destroyed.

And so it is possible that their expose could be a genuine effort to cautiously let a little more of the cat out of the bag.

The now classic "failed" and "incompetent" framing of the issue is, of course, a typical disinfo tactic designed to divert us from the real terms, "complicit," and "treasonous."

That's how it's done - by framing the answer to a question as only one of two possible choices - failure and/or incompetence - the real and terrifing details of what actually happened is never even presented as a choice.

But the truth is a VERY DIFFERENT story.

The terrifing truth is that industrialists here in America ploted this failed attempt at global conquest through an attempt at rallying the US population by means of a sudden and terrifing attack. Another Pearl Harbour. Know your history.

But these FBI agents send us a hidden message when they describe their supervisors, literally screaming at them and threatening them if they attempted to arrest known terrorists who these two agents had in their reach. Agent Wright, a 27 year veteren of the FBI said that his supervisor told him to, "Let sleeping dogs lie." They are telling us that those terrorists were protected AT THE HIGHEST LEVELS OF THE US GOVERNMENT.

And that means only one thing - that a descision was made by the architects of the New World Order that a sudden and terrifing attack was desperatly needed to prop us this republic, to give the idiot President Bush and the American people a diversionary and unifying threat to focus on while his dad and his dad's friends LOOT THE US TREASURY THROUGH INSIDER ARMS DEALS FOR OUTDATED AND USELESS WEAPON SYSTEMS MADE BY INSIDER COMPANIES CONNECTED TO BUSHES FATHER.

Our intelligence agencies desperately needed to to prop up this idiotic Bush or else his presidency was going to quickly DESTROY THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. And so the planes of September...

Americans need to demand to know the name of that FBI supervisor who aided and abetted the terrorist activity and charge him with treason and mass murder against the people of the United States of America. That supervisor's life and liberty must be held accountable until he talks and exposes who he got his orders from.

Then when we find out who he got his orders from, that person must be charged with treason and mass murder until he reveals who he got his order from. And so on and so on, until we follow the crime up the chain to the top. Then and only then will we get to the bottom of this most horrific act of terrorism perpetrated against the people of the United States of America.

Here's ABC's report:

Dec. 19 — Two veteran FBI investigators say they were ordered to stop investigations into a suspected terror cell linked to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network and the Sept. 11 attacks. In a dramatic interview with ABCNEWS, FBI special agents and partners Robert Wright and John Vincent say they were called off criminal investigations of suspected terrorists tied to the deadly bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa. U.S. officials say al Qaeda was responsible for the embassy attacks and the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States.

"September the 11th is a direct result of the incompetence of the FBI's International Terrorism Unit. No doubt about that. Absolutely no doubt about that," Wright said. "You can't know the things I know and not go public."

In the mid-1990s, with growing terrorism in the Middle East, the two Chicago-based agents were assigned to track a connection to Chicago, a suspected terrorist cell that would later lead them to a link with Osama bin Laden. Wright says that when he pressed for authorization to open a criminal investigation into the money trail, his supervisor stopped him.

"Do you know what his response was? 'I think it's just better to let sleeping dogs lie,'" said Wright. "Those dogs weren't sleeping. They were training. They were getting ready."

The FBI says its handling of the matter was appropriate at the time.

"Truthfully, if 9/11 had not occurred, we wouldn't be here [giving the interview]," said Vincent, a 27-year veteran at the bureau until he retired a few days after being interviewed by ABCNEWS. "Because of 9/11, we're here because we see the danger."

‘You Will Not Open Criminal Investigations’

The suspected terrorist cell in Chicago was the basis of the investigation, yet Wright, who remains with the FBI, says he soon discovered that all the FBI intelligence division wanted him to do was to follow suspected terrorists and file reports — but make no arrests.

"The supervisor who was there from headquarters was right straight across from me and started yelling at me:

'You will not open criminal investigations. I forbid any of you. You will not open criminal investigations against any of these intelligence subjects,'" Wright said.

Even though they were on a terrorism task force and said they had proof of criminal activity, Wright said he was told not to pursue the matter.

In 1998 al Qaeda terrorists bombed two American embassies in Africa. The agents say some of the money for the attacks led back to the people they had been tracking in Chicago and to a powerful Saudi Arabian businessman, Yassin al-Kadi. Al-Kadi is one of 12 Saudi businessmen suspected of funneling millions of dollars to al Qaeda and who had extensive business and financial ties in Chicago.

Yet, even after the bombings, Wright said FBI headquarters wanted no arrests.

"Two months after the embassies are hit in Africa, they wanted to shut down the criminal investigation," said Wright. "They wanted to kill it."

The move outraged Chicago federal prosecutor Mark Flessner, who was assigned to the case despite efforts Wright and Vincent say were made by superiors to block the probe. Flessner said Wright and Vincent were helping him build a strong criminal case against al-Kadi and others.

"There were powers bigger than I was in the Justice Department and within the FBI that simply were not going to let it [the building of a criminal case] happen. And it didn't happen, " Flessner said.

He said he still couldn't figure out why Washington stopped the case — whether it was Saudi influence or bureaucratic ineptitude.

"I think there were very serious mistakes made," said Flessner. "And I think, it perhaps cost, it cost people their lives ultimately."

Muslim Agent Refused to Record Fellow Muslim, Agent Says

Perhaps most astounding of the many mistakes, according to Flessner and an affidavit filed by Wright, is how an FBI agent named Gamal Abdel-Hafiz seriously damaged the investigation. Wright says Abdel-Hafiz, who is Muslim, refused to secretly record one of al-Kadi's suspected associates, who was also Muslim. Wright says Abdel-Hafiz told him, Vincent and other agents that "a Muslim doesn't record another Muslim."

"He wouldn't have any problems interviewing or recording somebody who wasn't a Muslim, but he could never record another Muslim," said Vincent.

Wright said he "was floored" by Abdel-Hafiz's refusal and immediately called the FBI headquarters. Their reaction surprised him even more: "The supervisor from headquarters says, 'Well, you have to understand where he's coming from, Bob.' I said no, no, no, no, no. I understand where I'm coming from," said Wright. "We both took the same damn oath to defend this country against all enemies foreign and domestic, and he just said no? No way in hell."

Far from being reprimanded, Abdel-Hafiz was promoted to one of the FBI's most important anti-terrorism posts, the American Embassy in Saudi Arabia, to handle investigations for the FBI in that Muslim country.

The FBI said it was unaware of the allegations against the Muslim agent when he was sent to Saudi Arabia or of two similar incidents described to ABCNEWS by agents in New York and Tampa, Fla. They said Abdel-Hafiz contributed significantly to many successful terror investigations.

In a statement to ABCNEWS, the FBI also defended the agent, saying he had a right to refuse because the undercover recording was supposed to take place in a mosque.

But former prosecutor Flessner said that was a lie and the mosque was never part of the plan.

"What he [Abdel-Hafiz] said was, it was against his religion to record another Muslim. I was dumbfounded by that response," said Flessner. "And I had perfectly appropriate conversations with the supervisors of his home office and nothing came of it."

Closing In on Bin Laden Money Trail

On Sept. 11, 2001, the two agents watched the terror attacks in horror, worried that men they could have stopped years earlier may have been involved.

The White House confirmed their fears. One month after the attacks, the U.S. government officially identified al-Kadi — the same man the FBI had ordered Wright and Vincent to leave alone years earlier — as one of bin Laden's important financiers.

Al-Kadi told ABCNEWS he can prove his total innocence, repeatedly denying, from his office in Riyadh, any connection to bin Laden or al Qaeda.

"Not even one cent went to Osama bin Laden," he said.

But on Dec. 6, U.S. Customs agents, as part of their own investigation, conducted a midnight search of a Boston-area company believed to be secretly owned and controlled by al-Kadi.

The company provides computer software to the FBI and other key federal agencies, which means al-Kadi and his employees could have had access to some of the government's most sensitive secrets.

Al-Kadi is on the U.S. government's "dirty dozen" list of leading terror financiers being investigated by the CIA. The federal government says it is pursuing possible criminal charges.

"I was relieved that Customs was picking it up … where we failed big time," said Wright. "There's so much more. God, there's so much more. A lot more."

Source:
http://www.voxfux.com/archives/00000072.htm

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ELECTION COMPANY HAS LONG CRIMINAL HISTORY

Double Standard on Exit Polling and Voter Fraud

A bitterly contested presidential election was held recently. The opposition candidate lost narrowly, by less than three percent of the vote, but now a large segment of the electorate is crying foul.

There was evidence of fraud--supporters of the opposition candidate being kept from the polls while supporters of the incumbent were voting more than once in those "red" regions of the country where the incumbent president's party was most popular, people crying foul in those regions where the opposition was stronger --and besides, exit polls showed the opposition candidate winning handily.

The country? Not America. It's the Ukraine.

The response to this evidence of a possibly stolen election? Hundreds of thousands of protesters have camped on the streets of the capital, insisting that opposition candidate Viktor Yushchenko be declared the winner. Yushchenko himself has declared victory and even took a symbolic oath of office.

And in the U.S., the Bush administration, citing the exit polls and evidence of fraud that have been raised, has urged government authorities in Kiev "not to certify results until investigations of organized fraud are resolved."

Secretary of State Colin Powell went further, warning that failure legitimizing the election results in the Ukraine could have "consequences for our relationship" with the country. Speaking with a straight face, he said, "We cannot accept this result as legitimate, because it does not meet international standards and because there has not been an investigation of the numerous and credible reports of fraud and abuse."

What's this?

Roll back the film a minute.

Isn't the Bush administration facing much the same situation in the U.S., absent the mass street rallies? Did we just have a national election that would meet "international standards"?

In Florida, Ohio, New Mexico, and other battleground states in the U.S., there is considerable documented and anecdotal evidence of fraud, including organized efforts in Florida and Ohio by Republican Party authorities to hinder or depress the urban (read black and Democratic) vote, in the deliberate denial of voting rights to people of color, and of possible widespread fraud in the registering and the counting of votes. And exit polls universally showed opposition presidential candidate John Kerry winning handily in the key states of Florida and Ohio, victory in either one of which would have handed him victory.

Indeed, a University of Pennsylvania researcher, studying those exit poll results, has concluded that the consistent shift from Kerry to Bush from exit poll prediction to official tally result is a statistical impossibility, leaving fraud as the only explanation.

Yet in Ohio, where a recount of all votes requested by two small third parties, the Greens and the Libertarians, could conceivably overturn the state's pro-Bush result and hand the presidency to Kerry, the Republican-run Secretary of State's office is doing everything it can (with the help of a federal judge appointed by George Bush) to delay that recount until the state's electoral college meets and hands its 20 votes irrevocably to Bush., making the recount moot.

Where are the government calls to hold off on such a certification of Bush's election win until issues of fraud are "resolved."

Meanwhile, the mainstream media, while making much of the crisis in the Ukraine, have pretty much dropped the whole story of voter fraud in the U.S. election. Indeed, while exit polls are cited as providing strong evidence that Yushchenko probably was the real winner over governing party candidate Viktor Yanukovych in the Ukraine, in the U.S. media, the prevailing wisdom is that the U.S. exit polls--heretofore said to be far more accurate than pre-election polling--were simply wrong.

In contrast to feisty Ukraine opposition candidate Yushchenko, U.S. opposition candidate John Kerry almost immediately conceded victory to Bush, despite mounting evidence of massive fraud in Ohio and Florida, and despite earlier pledges to fight hard and to make sure "every vote is counted."

Little wonder that in the Ukraine, where people take their new democracy seriously, the victims of fraud have taken to the streets demanding an overturning of the tainted results, while in the U.S., voters on the losing side of this electoral scandal are reduced to private whining.

Even so, the idea of this president, who took office the first time in the face of widespread voter fraud and disenfranchisement in the state of Florida, thanks to a decision by a Supreme Court packed with members of his own party, and who "won" the Nov. 2 election thanks to similar tactics in Ohio and Florida, telling the Ukraine to hold off on declaring a winner until allegations of fraud can be investigated and resolved is hard to swallow.

Almost as hard to swallow as the media that report this without even a passing note about its irony and hypocrisy.

Source:
http://www.thiscantbehappening.net/

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Thugs, Racketeers Counting American Votes


“An electronic voting system is to a mechanical one what a nuclear bomb is to a hand grenade... If someone manages to sabotage it, the results can be catastrophic."

November 24 2004-Venice,FL.
by Daniel Hopsicker



While Ukrainians poured into the streets of their capital Kiev to protest a presidential election they say was stolen by that country’s current regime, here in the U.S. a little-known election company called Sequoia Pacific, responsible for putting our own ‘current regime’ in power four years ago, was at the center of controversy last week... for the second Presidential election in a row.

While U.S. newspapers have been filled with quotes from American officials pontificating about election miscues in the Ukrainian election, doubts have been raised anew about the accuracy of the election results of Sequoia Pacific, fingered for blame four years ago in the Florida Vote Snafu which marred the 2000 election.

“Mum’s the word"

Senator Richard Lugar, ‘monitoring’ butterfly ballots in Cyrillic, issued a statement calling the Ukrainian election “unfair.” And a top White House representative said authorities in the Ukraine appeared to have indulged in a "concerted and forceful program" of fraud.

Yet a MadCowMorningNews investigation into the ownership of the companies that count America’s votes has uncovered evidence indicating the crisis of democracy in Kiev is hardly more serious than the one taking place in Washington, D.C.

One of America's two major election companies, Sequoia Pacific, has a felony 'rap sheet' an arm-long. In the endless news coverage of the recent Presidential Election, this news has somehow failed to surface, perhaps because if it had, people might start pouring into the streets here, too.

Yet even as Sen. Lugar and the unnamed White House official were making their righteous statements about the virtues of democracy in foreign countries, researchers at the University of California, Berkeley were announcing their findings of irregularities in three Florida counties using electronic voting machines from Sequoia Pacific and industry giant Election Systems & Software, the U.S.'s two largest election services companies.

Where are International Observers when you need them?

The "irregularities" resulted in a so-far inexplicable 260,000 additional votes for President Bush.

A New York Times editorial demanded a “Fair Vote Count.” But the editorial writers were referencing—not embattled citizens in the states of Ohio and Florida—but those of the Ukraine. The Times said, “International observers alleged systemic voting abuses.”

What the Times and almost all of the major media refuse to address is the fact that there has, to date, been no credible counter-argument put forward to counter the loud and vociferous assertions of numerous computer experts who insist that electronic voting machines can be rigged. And that if they can be rigged, they are… because if you leave the bank vault open, sooner or later someone is going to rob it.

The persistent allegation that American elections might not be as open and honest as has thus far been made known has received no serious coverage.

Why the official silence?

Let’s take a look.

Racketeers Anonymous

Two of the three Florida counties cited, Broward and Miami-Dade, used machines made by Election Systems & Software (ES & S). Palm Beach County uses machines from Sequoia Voting Systems. (The company which has so far received the most critical scrutiny, Cleveland-based Diebold Election Systems, has no touch-screen machines in use in Florida.)

In essence, the U.C. researchers said that Bush got more votes than could have expected, and attributed the discrepancy to "irregularities" associated with electronic voting machines.

"The data show with 99.0 percent certainty that a county's use of electronic voting is associated with a disproportionate increase in votes for President Bush," the study said. "Compared to counties with paper ballots, counties with electronic voting machines were significantly more likely to show increases in support for President Bush between 2000 (election) and 2004."

“The association between electronic voting and increased support for President Bush (in the three Florida counties) is impossible to overlook," the U.C. Berkeley researchers stated.

What makes their conclusions difficult to dismiss as “anomalous evidence” is the nature and history of the election companies themselves...

Visible in the public record of Sequoia Pacific, a company counting one in three American votes, is clear and convincing evidence that the company has been run, perhaps for decades, as a Continuing Criminal Enterprise specializing in blatant and widespread bribery of public officials, with numerous felony convictions, Mob ties, and a history replete with stories of threats, coercion, and even murder.

Sequoia Pacific has a more colorfully-criminal corporate history, we learned, than that of any organization this side of the Gambino Family. In fact, the Gambino Family and Sequoia Pacific have had more than a nodding acquaintance, according to newspapers in New York reporting on the intrigue surrounding the awarding of a multi-million dollar contract for election machines in New York City during the mid-90’s, where Sequoia’s representative in the bidding gained notoriety for attempting to grease the skids al little at a marathon luncheon hosted by Salvatore Reale, a Gambino underboss who later pled guilty to racketeering.

Yet Sequoia Pacific is not unique... Instead, it is emblematic of the systemic wrongdoing of all three major election services companies.

A New Word for a New World

Sequoia Pacific’s record is riddled with instances of criminal bribery and political corruption.

It began its modern life as Automatic Voting Machine, spun off to shareholders of Defense contractor Rockwell in the 1960s. The company’s founder, Lloyd A. Dixon Jr. resigned as president and CEO on Jan. 10, 1973, and later went to prison, after being indicted by a New York federal grand jury for bribing Buffalo election officials.

The company was fined nearly $50,000 for bribing Texas and Arkansas officials… not a particularly auspicious beginning.

Then things got worse.

Last week we briefly related the sordid tale of the next owner of Sequoia Pacific, financier and corporate raider Louis Wolfson. Wolfson was convicted of bribing the only Supreme Court Justice ever forced to resign in disgrace, “Dishonest Abe” Fortas.

Fortas got caught palming a lifetime yearly “retainer” from the wily Wolfson’s family foundation... Alas for "Dishonest Abe," as he came to be called, the Law draws no distinction between “accepting a retainer” and “taking a bribe.”

Fortas cut himself a deal. He taped phone calls, at the FBI’s behest, with Wolfson, who was pleading with the Supreme Court Justice to dummy up. In the transcripts of these phone calls the word ‘cover-up’ enters the American lexicon for the first time.

Apparently Fortas coined it at the instant of need, when he said (probably for the tape recorder), “No I can’t do that! That would be a cover-up!”

The Modern Age had begun.

"Tacho Has Only One Question"

Dixon’s main competitor, Ransom Shoup, also got sent to the Big House, in 1979. The company which became E S & S, barely escaped a Justice Dept. investigation, but only after a change in Administrations in Washington.

“We had to get Ronald Reagan elected President to get this thing (the investigation) killed, “quipped E S & S’s President at the time.

In a November 29, 1985 Chicago Tribune article headlined “VOTE MACHINES CAN BE A DIFFICULT SELL” a company marketing director is quoted as saying that “Whether working in the United States, Europe, Asia, Africa or Latin American the first disquieting question of potential customers is always the same. ‘Can the things be rigged?’"

The election company exec, Ron Lawyer, spoke of meeting Shoup for the first time in Managua, Nicaragua, in the palace of then-Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza, to whom Shoup was attempting to sell voting machines.

"Tacho (Somoza) had one question," Lawyer told the Tribune. “Can I be guaranteed the election?"'


We first learned of Sequoia Pacific’s penchant for greasing the palms of corrupt public officials from the well-publicized news accounts in the year 2000 about Louisiana’s Commissioner of Elections Jerry Fowler, convicted of taking as much as ten million dollars over a period of a decade from Sequoia’s Southeast Representative, a man named Pasquale "Rocco" Ricci, from Marlton, New Jersey.

Even after pleading guilty to suborning democracy in the state of Louisiana for more than a decade, Ricci remained something of a mystery figure, we learned to our surprise.

When L.J. Hymel, the silver-maned and somewhat elaborately-coiffed US Attorney for Louisiana gave a press conference on the steps of the US Courthouse in Baton Rouge after Fowler's sentencing, an out-of-state reported posed a question to him…

"Was Pasquale Rocco Ricci of Marlton New Jersey—the man convicted of bribing Louisiana’s Commissioner of Elections for over a decade—a member of Organized Crime?"

"I don't know," replied Hymel. Apparently the question had not crossed his mind, or was of little concern. “I don’t know,” he repeated again, a little more forcefully this time.

The reporter persisted. "You're the US Attorney, and you don't know if the man who bribed the state Commissioner of Elections is a member of Organized Crime?"

From the shocked silence among the assembled members of what passes for a free press in the benighted state of Louisiana, it was clear that the question was akin to asking the U.S. Attorney whether he enjoyed having sex with small furry animals. It was a faux pas.

The reporter had violated a taboo.

Whether the man who fixed elections for Sequoia Pacific in Louisiana for over a decade was a member of organized crime was not considered a fit topic for discussion on the steps of the US District Courthouse.

And, indeed, the closer you look into the election services industry, the more the whole topic appears to have been placed off-limits. Had it not been, we would have already heard a lot more about Sequoia Pacific.

"Pressing Bernacker and getting Gambalucca"

Long-time Louisiana Governor Earl Long once claimed that with the right elections commissioners he could make the voting machines play “Home Sweet Home.” Commissioner of Elections and former pro football player Jerry Fowler would have been his kind of public official.

Fowler got himself in big gambling trouble at Harrah's casino in Atlantic City in the mid-'90's, which helped explained his taking bribes. It was at this same time when allegations of voting irregularity became commonplace in Louisiana.

Curiously, gambling was the burning issue on the ballot in state elections at the same exact time.

One proposition concerned Harrah's proposal to build a casino in downtown New Orleans. From one of five losing candidates that alleged vote fraud in a suit at this time, we learned of the strange death of the Supervisor of Elections in New Orleans just two weeks before voters went to the polls.

Tony Giambelluca, who held the keys to the warehouse where the election machines were kept, turned up an apparent suicide. He had chosen to take his life behind a garbage dumpster, which seems an odd decision. Given the choice, we figure most people would choose to end their existence in a slightly more scenic locale.

"Given the choice."

The discovery that the election scandal had already consumed lives certainly quickened our interest. The sad fact is that nothing becomes a true scandal in America anymore until after the bodies begin to pile up.

Voting machine tests performed and videotaped by a suspicious local candidate immediately after this election demonstrated that votes Susan Barnecker cast for herself during the test were electronically recorded for her opponent.

The test was repeated several times with the same result.

Manhattan Commissioner of Elections Douglas Kellner investigated Barnecker claims, then questioned the reliability of Sequoia Pacific machines. The issue quickly became a focal point among people who distrust electronic voting.

So? Rocco Ricci counts your vote. You got a problem with that?

But it was the efforts of another unsuccessful candidate, Woody Jenkins, the Republican Senate candidate in Louisiana in 1996, who lost the contested 1996 US Senate race by a hairsbreadth margin to Democrat Mary Landrieu, that led to prosecutions.

Allegations of voting irregularities by Republican Jenkins led to a year-long investigation. The probe quickly came across evidence of massive bribery, which became the focus of the investigation that followed, leading to charges that Elections Commissioner Fowler had squandered $8.6 million in state money on worthless election equipment, and taken kickbacks from voting machine contractors working for Sequoia Pacific, all in a scheme engineered by that company's executives.

Fowler was eventually sentenced to five years in prison.

But for Jenkins tenacious efforts the world might never have learned of Pasquale "Rocco" Ricci. And although Fowler's conviction was big news in the state's two major newspapers, the New Orleans Times-Picayune and the Baton Rouge Advocate, neither mentioned the name of the company on whose behalf he was being bribed… Sequoia Pacific, which was successful at keeping the company's name completely out of local newspaper and television coverage.

So although the defendants signed admissions stating that the entire scheme was carried out on behalf of the Sequoia Pacific Corp., the firm garnered zero negative publicity. No 'bad pub' at all.

That's clout.

More dummy front companies

Study of this case revealed some interesting details about the way the 'election services' industry works...

First, the scheme showed that there was collusion, rather than competition, between the two major election services firms, Sequoia Pacific and E S & S. Court documents revealed the two sold voting machines back and forth to each other until they had arrived at the figure they wanted the client, the state of Louisiana, to pay.

Nor was this an isolated case. The bribery conviction of Arkansas Secretary of State Bill McCuen, for example, revealed that E S &S’s predecessor company, Business Records Corp. of Dallas, arranged for contracts which led to Smurfit Packaging Corp. and its subsidiary, Sequoia Pacific Voting Equipment Inc.

More collusion.

Another discovery was that, like the CIA, Sequoia Pacific operates through a number of dummy front companies. For example, two Florida election execs, Glenn Boord and Ralph Escudero, pled guilty to conspiracy to compound a felony (public bribery), who had owned a paper voting-machine company called Uni-lect, which was just a front for Sequoia Pacific.

Pasquale "Rocco" Ricci's company, International Voting Machines, was also really Sequoia Pacific. So too was Harold Webb's Garden State Elections. (And also Herb Webb's Elec-tec.)

Webb, a New Jersey elections equipment executive who participated in the bribery and kickback scheme that resulted in the conviction of Fowler, also played a key role in the infamous Martin County, Florida drama over Republican absentee ballots in the 2000 election.

New Jersey election services companies controlled by Webb were key suppliers to Martin County, Florida, which calls into question the version of events surrounding the tampering with absentee ballot applications testified to by Republican Party operatives in court in 2000.

In counties where their name never surfaced, Sequoia supplied both computer and punch card systems, and used tabulating machines from Sequoia Pacific disguised as being from other vendors, and used the same (doctored) machines as Louisiana, supplied by the same 'shadowy' sources.

When a reporter for the Fresno Bee interviewed Sequoia’s chief executive, the reporter told us later he had been "taken aback by his secretive nature." In truth, Sequoia’s chief executive has a lot to be secretive about…

As we will see next week, the company has decades-long ties to the Rockefeller Family, as well as to a very private organization, the bete noire of “conspiracy theorists” everywhere, the Bilderberger Group. During the endless cable news coverage of the Presidential Election, any of these stories would make an interesting and colorful item.

Funny how no one in the major media let slip a word. But not ‘funny’ ha-ha.

Funny strange.

Source:
http://www.madcowprod.com/11242004.html

____________________________

Secret Patriot Act II to give Hitler's Powers to Bush

By Sovereign
Wednesday, Nov. 17, 2004

Secret Patriot Act II to give Hitler's Powers to Bush that even some Republicans are scared about:

Congressman Ron Paul (R-Tex) told the Washington Times that no member of Congress was allowed to read the first Patriot Act that was passed by the House on October 27, 2001. Civil libertarians and Constitutional scholars from universally decried the first Patriot Act across the political spectrum. William Safire, while writing for the New York Times, described the first Patriot Act's powers by saying that President Bush was seizing dictatorial control.

On February 7, 2003 the Center for Public Integrity, a non-partisan public interest think-tank in DC, revealed the full text of the Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003. The classified document had been leaked to them by an unnamed source inside the Federal government. The document consisted of a 33-page section-by-section analysis of the accompanying 87-page bill.

The Patriot Act II bill itself is stamped "Confidential -Not for Distribution." Upon reading the analysis and bill, I was stunned by the scientifically crafted tyranny contained in the legislation. The Justice Department Office of Legislative Affairs admits that they had indeed covertly transmitted a copy of the legislation to Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, (R-Il) and the Vice President of the United States, Dick Cheney as well as the executive heads of federal law enforcement agencies.

It is important to note that no member of Congress was allowed to see the first Patriot Act before its passage, and that no debate was tolerated by the House and Senate leadership. The intentions of the White House and Speaker Hastert concerning Patriot Act II appear to be a carbon copy replay of the events that led to the unprecedented passage of the first Patriot Act.

There are two glaring areas that need to be looked at concerning this new legislation:

1. The secretive tactics being used by the White House and Speaker Hastert to keep even the existence of this
legislation secret would be more at home in Communist China than in the United States. The fact that Dick Cheney publicly managed the steamroller passage of the first Patriot Act, insuring that no one was allowed to read it and publicly threatening members of Congress that if they didn’t vote in favor of it that they would be blamed for the next terrorist attack, is by the White House?' own definition terrorism. The move to clandestinely craft and then bully passage of any legislation by the Executive Branch is clearly an impeachable offence.

2. The second Patriot Act is a mirror image of powers that Julius Caesar and Adolph Hitler gave themselves. Whereas the First Patriot Act only gutted the First, Third, Fourth and Fifth Amendments, and seriously damaged the Seventh and the Tenth, the Second Patriot Act reorganizes the entire Federal government as well as many areas of state government under the dictatorial control of the Justice Department, the Office of Homeland Security and the FEMA NORTHCOM military command. The Domestic Security Enhancement Act 2003, also known as the Second Patriot Act is by its very structure the definition of dictatorship.

I challenge all Americans to study the new Patriot Act and to compare it to the Constitution, Bill of Rights and Declaration of Independence. Ninety percent of the act has nothing to do with terrorism and is instead a giant Federal power-grab with tentacles reaching into every facet of our society. It strips American citizens of all of their rights and grants the government and its private agents total immunity.

Here is a quick thumbnail sketch of just some of the draconian measures encapsulated within this tyrannical legislation:

SECTION 501 (Expatriation of Terrorists) expands the Bush administration’s enemy combatant definition to all American citizens who may have violated any provision of Section 802 of the first Patriot Act. (Section 802 is the new definition of domestic terrorism, and the definition is any action that endangers human life that is a violation of any Federal or State law.) Section 501 of the second Patriot Act directly connects to Section 125 of the same act. The Justice Department boldly claims that the incredibly broad Section 802 of the First USA Patriot Act isn’t broad enough and that a new, unlimited definition of terrorism is needed.

Under Section 501 a US citizen engaging in lawful activities can be grabbed off the street and thrown into a van never to be seen again. The Justice Department states that they can do this because the person had inferred from conduct that they were not a US citizen. Remember Section 802 of the First USA Patriot Act states that any violation of Federal or State law can result in the enemy combatant terrorist designation.

SECTION 201 of the second Patriot Act makes it a criminal act for any member of the government or any citizen to release any information concerning the incarceration or whereabouts of detainees. It also states that law enforcement does not even have to tell the press who they have arrested and they never have to release the names.

SECTION 301 and 306 (Terrorist Identification Database) set up a national database of suspected terrorists and radically expand the database to include anyone associated with suspected terrorist groups and anyone involved in crimes or having supported any group designated as terrorist. These sections also set up a national DNA database for anyone on probation or who has been on probation for any crime, and orders State governments to collect the DNA for the Federal government.

SECTION 312 gives immunity to law enforcement engaging in spying operations against the American people and would place substantial restrictions on court injunctions against Federal violations of civil rights across the board.

SECTION 101 will designate individual terrorists as foreign powers and again strip them of all rights under the enemy combatant designation.

SECTION 102 states clearly that any information gathering, regardless of whether or not those activities are illegal, can be considered to be clandestine intelligence activities for a foreign power. This makes newsgathering illegal.

SECTION 103 allows the Federal government to use wartime martial law powers domestically and internationally without Congress declaring that a state of war exists.

SECTION 106 is bone chilling in its straightforwardness. It states that broad general warrants by the secret FSIA court (a panel of secret judges set up in a star chamber system that convenes in an undisclosed location) granted under the first Patriot Act are not good enough. It states that government agents must be given immunity for carrying out searches with no prior court approval. This section throws out the entire Fourth Amendment against unreasonable searches and seizures.

SECTION 109 allows secret star chamber courts to issue contempt charges against any individual or corporation who refuses to incriminate themselves or others. This sections annihilate the last vestiges of the Fifth Amendment.

SECTION 110 restates that key police state clauses in the first Patriot Act were not sunsetted and removes the five year sunset clause from other subsections of the first Patriot Act. After all, the media has told us: this is the New America. Get used to it. This is forever.

SECTION 111 expands the definition of the enemy combatant designation.

SECTION 122 restates the government’s newly announced power of surveillance without a court order.

SECTION 123 restates that the government no longer needs warrants and that the investigations can be a giant dragnet-style sweep described in press reports about the Total Information Awareness Network. One passage reads, thus the focus of domestic surveillance may be less precise than that directed against more conventional types of crime.

SECTION 126 grants the government the right to mine the entire spectrum of public and private sector information from bank records to educational and medical records. This is the enacting law to allow ECHELON and the Total Information Awareness Network to totally break down any and all walls of privacy. The government states that they must look at everything to determine if individuals or groups might have a connection to terrorist groups. As you can now see, you are guilty until proven innocent.

SECTION 127 allows the government to takeover coroners and medical examiners operations whenever they see fit.

SECTION 128 allows the Federal government to place gag orders on Federal and State Grand Juries and to take over the proceedings. It also disallows individuals or organizations to even try to quash a Federal subpoena. So now defending yourself will be a terrorist action.

SECTION 129 destroys any remaining whistleblower protection for Federal agents.

SECTION 202 allows corporations to keep secret their activities with toxic biological, chemical or radiological materials.

SECTION 205 allows top Federal officials to keep all their financial dealings secret, and anyone investigating them can be considered a terrorist. This should be very useful for Dick Cheney to stop anyone investigating Haliburton.

SECTION 303 sets up national DNA database of suspected terrorists. The database will also be used to stop other unlawful activities. It will share the information with state, local and foreign agencies for the same purposes.

SECTION 311 federalizes your local police department in the area of information sharing.

SECTION 313 provides liability protection for businesses, especially big businesses that spy on their customers for Homeland Security, violating their privacy agreements. It goes on to say that these are all preventative measures has anyone seen Minority Report? This is the access hub for the Total Information Awareness Network.

SECTION 321 authorizes foreign governments to spy on the American people and to share information with foreign governments.

SECTION 322 removes Congress from the extradition process and allows officers of the Homeland Security complex to extradite American citizens anywhere they wish. It also allows Homeland Security to secretly take individuals out of foreign countries.

SECTION 402 is titled Providing Material Support to Terrorism. The section reads that there is no requirement to show that the individual even had the intent to aid terrorists.

SECTION 403 expands the definition of weapons of mass destruction to include any activity that affects interstate or foreign commerce.

SECTION 404 makes it a crime for a terrorist or other criminals to use encryption in the commission of a crime.

SECTION 408 creates lifetime parole (basically, slavery) for a whole host of crimes.

SECTION 410 creates no statute of limitations for anyone that engages in terrorist actions or supports terrorists. Remember: any crime is now considered terrorism under the first Patriot Act.

SECTION 411 expands crimes that are punishable by death. Again, they point to Section 802 of the first Patriot Act and state that any terrorist act or support of terrorist act can result in the death penalty.

SECTION 421 increases penalties for terrorist financing. This section states that any type of financial activity connected to terrorism will result to time in prison and $10-50,000 fines per violation.

SECTIONS 427 sets up asset forfeiture provisions for anyone engaging in terrorist activities.

There are many other sections that I did not cover in the interest of time. The American people were shocked by the despotic nature of the first Patriot Act. The second Patriot Act dwarfs all police state legislation in modern world history.

Usually, corrupt governments allow their citizens lots of wonderful rights on paper, while carrying out their jackbooted oppression covertly. From snatch and grab operations to warrantless searches, Patriot Act II is an Adolph Hitler wish list.

You can understand why President Bush, Dick Cheney and Dennis Hastert want to keep this legislation secret not just from Congress, but the American people as well.

Bill Allison, Managing Editor of the Center for Public Integrity, the group that broke this story, stated on my radio show that it was obvious that they were just waiting for another terrorist attack to opportunistically get this new bill through. He then shocked me with an insightful comment about how the Federal government was crafting this so that they could go after the American people in general. He also agreed that the FBI has been quietly demonizing patriots and Christians and those who carry around pocket Constitutions.

I have produced two documentary films and written a book about what really happened on September 11th. The bottom line is this: the military-industrial complex carried the attacks out as a pretext for control. Anyone who doubts this just hasn’t looked at the mountains of hard evidence.

Of course, the current group of white collar criminals in the White House might not care that we're finding out the details of their next phase. Because, after all, when smallpox gets released, or more buildings start blowing up, the President can stand up there at his lectern suppressing a smirk, squeeze out a tear or two, and tell us that See I was right. I had to take away your rights to keep you safe. And now it’s your fault that all of these children are dead. From that point on, anyone who criticizes tyranny will be shouted down by the paid talking head government mouthpieces in the mainstream media.

You have to admit, it’s a beautiful script. Unfortunately, it’s being played out in the real world. If we don’t get the word out that government is using terror to control our lives while doing nothing to stop the terrorists, we will deserve what we get - tyranny. But our children won’t deserve it.

HOW THE PATRIOT ACT COMPARES TO HITLER'S
ERMÄCHTIGUNGSGESETZ (ENABLING ACT):

At http://www.furnitureforthepeople.com/actpat.htm
You can read the following 4 Articles:

1) How the Patriot Act Compares to Hitler's Ermächtigungsgesetz (Enabling Act)
2) A 21st Century Comparison of The Enabling Act and The Patriot Act
3) Ten Key Dangers of The Patriot Act that Every American Should Know
4) Bill Moyers' NOW Comments on the Patriot Act

~~Please tell your congress and senators to repeal the Patriot Act and to throw out current legislation advocating a second act.

Thank You, for your support!~~

Source:
http://www.rickieleejones.com/political/patriotact.htm

Additional resources:

Citizens for Legitimate Government
http://legitgov.org

American Civil Liberties Union
http://aclu.org

Electronic Frontiers Foundation
http://eff.org

National Lawyers Guild
http://nlg.org
______________________________

In their Own Words

Gee, what could they be talking about?
No comment is really necessary; their own words.

Above the phony Left / Right divide we can hear from those who are way above all that. Above mere countries, their loyalties lie with cults and clubs. Their goal, a world dominated by an Elite "unrestrained by traditional values" with you a willing slave. When W puts the UN into Iraq do you think it will really change the goal? Right hand, Left hand... you get hit with both fists.

Quotes:

We are grateful to the Washington Post, the NY Times, Time Magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost 40 years....It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subjected to the lights of publicity during those years. But, the world is more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supernational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national autodetermination practiced in past centuries.”
- David Rockefeller speaking at the Bilderberger meeting in June 1991 in Baden Baden, Germany


"The technotronic era involves the gradual appearance of a more controlled society. Such a society would be dominated by an elite, unrestrained by traditional values."
- Zbigniew Brzezinski, CFR member and founding member of the Trilateral Commission, and National Security Advisor to five presidents.


"I think the subject which will be of most importance politically is Mass Psychology... Its importance has been enormously increased by the growth of modern methods of propaganda. Although this science will be diligently studied, it will be rigidly confined to the governing class. The populace will not be allowed to know how its convictions are generated."
- Lord Bertrand Russell


"If I were reincarnated I would wish to be returned to earth as a killer virus to lower human population levels."
- Prince Philip Duke of Edinburgh, leader of the World Wildlife Fund – quoted in 'Are You Ready For Our New Age Future?', Insiders Report, American Policy Center, December '95)


"The interests behind the Bush Administration, such as the CFR, The Trilateral Commission - founded by Brzezinski for David Rockefeller - and the Bilderberger Group, have prepared for and are now moving to implement open world dictatorship within the next five years. They are not fighting against terrorists. They are fighting against citizens."
- Dr. Johannes B. Koeppl, Ph.D., former German defense ministry official and advisor to former NATO Secretary General Manfred Werner.


"Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to befoul the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of today."
- Theodore Roosevelt, 19 April 1906


"Since I entered politics, I have chiefly had men's views confided to me privately. Some of the biggest men in the United States, in the field of commerce and manufacture, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it."
- Woodrow Wilson, The New Freedom, 1913


"The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the large centers has owned the government of the U.S. since the days of Andrew Jackson."
- President Franklin D. Roosevelt in a letter written to Colonel House November 21, l933


"The high office of the President has been used to foment a plot to destroy the American's freedom and before I leave office, I must inform the citizen of this plight."
- President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, in a speech made to Columbia University on Nov. 12, 1963, ten days before his assassination.


"The people about us are unaware of what is really happening to them: They gaze fascinated at one or two familiar superficialities, such as possession and income and rank and other outworn conceptions. As long as these are kept intact, they are quite satisfied. But in the meantime they have entered a new relation: a powerful social force has caught them up. They themselves are changed. What are ownership and income to that? Why need we trouble to socialize banks and factories? We socialize human beings."
- Adolf Hitler in a letter to Hermann Rauschning

Source:
http://homepage.mac.com/kaaawa/iblog/C337802379/E879320504/
http://homepage.mac.com/kaaawa/iblog/C337802379/E1557478132/

______________________________

AN ADDENDUM ON MR. BLACKWELL

NOVEMBER 3, 2004. Earlier today, I wrote and posted a long article on Ken Blackwell, the secretary of state of Ohio, the man responsible for overseeing the whole (suspect) voting process there. The passionate supporter of the president.

There is another piece to the puzzle.

If we are to believe the Ohio exit polls, it was the issue of VALUES that energized the Bush Christians to come out of the woodwork in great numbers, from outlying districts, and cast their votes yesterday for the president.

Well, there was a very specific teaser that did the trick, that got these people racing to the polls. The statewide ballot measure banning gay marriage.

And who certifies the necessary signatures (several hundred thousand) on petitions to get all ballot measures officially entered into the voting process? The secretary of state. Ken Blackwell.

Who carried the water by campaigning for the gay-marriage ban in Ohio? Ken Blackwell.

JON RAPPOPORT http://www.nomorefakenews.com

______________________

ENTER, MR. BLACKWELL: WAS HE BUSH'S TRUMP CARD IN OHIO?


NOVEMBER 3, 2004. As all America now knows, Ken Blackwell is the secretary of state of Ohio. He controls every aspect of the voting process, from his office.

It was Blackwell who supposedly told Andy Card that there were not enough provisional ballots on tap to make up the difference between Kerry's count and a possible victory for Kerry. In other words, no need to actually tally those provisional ballots.

We've heard stories that, in Ohio, certain precincts didn't have enough voting machines ready to handle what everyone knew would be an avalanche of voters---some of whom ended up waiting nine hours to cast their ballots---some of whom wandered off into the night, too frustrated to stand and stand and stand. It is ultimately Blackwell that presides over the disposition of those machines.

We know that Blackwell told CNN last night that, if a count of provisional ballots was necessary under his watch, he would assure it would be done in a very orderly fashion: 10 DAYS to prepare the ballots and check them out, and then the ACTUAL count would follow. CNN anchors almost fell into a funk when they realized that it could take a month or more to complete the job. Imagine how such a prospect could have backed Kerry into a corner. Rolling the dice on overtaking Bush during this post-election tally, the media of the nation on his neck for an "unconscionable delaying tactic"---"Kerry is ruining America and making it a laughingstock"---the Republican hounds after him every minute of every day---"the Democrats are creating their greatest moment of shame"---I have to wonder why Kerry finally conceded the election. Was it because he really thought there weren't enough provisional ballots to make a difference? Or was it because he knew he would be relentlessly accused of distracting and weakening "a nation at war against terrorism?" And who, besides Ken Blackwell, has the true number of provisional ballots in his pocket?

What we don't know is: who is Ken Blackwell? Does he have a built-in political bias? Did he favor one of the candidates? If so, how fervent is his passion?

Here is an excerpt from an Ohio government website devoted to the work and credentials of Blackwell. You be the judge. And oh yes, Blackwell is a Republican. Actually, he's been the co-chair of the committee to re-elect George Bush in Ohio.

http://www.sos.state.oh.us/sos/blackwell/

Chief Elections Officer

As Ohio's chief election officer, Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell oversees the elections process and appoints the members of boards of elections in each of Ohio's 88 counties.

He supervises the administration of election laws; approves ballot language; reviews statewide initiative and referendum petitions, chairs the Ohio Ballot Board, which approves ballot language for statewide issues; canvasses votes for all elective state offices and issues; investigates election frauds and irregularities; trains election officials and reimburses counties for poll worker training costs.

The Elections Division compiles and maintains election statistics, political party records and other election-related records. Statewide candidates' campaign finance reports are filed with the office, together with the reports for state political action committees (PACs), state political parties and legislative caucus campaign committees…

Mr. Blackwell is a member of the national advisory boards of Youth for Christ…and was formerly a domestic policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C… Mr. Blackwell has held the nation's highest security clearance…He is a contributing commentator for Salem Communications, delivering commentaries on Salem's more than 90 [Christian] radio stations nationwide…In 2004, Mr. Blackwell received the John M. Ashbrook Award given jointly by the American Conservative Union and the Ashbrook Center for Public Affairs. Past recipients of this award include President Ronald Reagan, Ambassador Jean Kirkpatrick and Charlton Heston.

End of excerpt

The Heritage Foundation is a very famous and influential politically-right think tank (and that is only the beginning of its story). Is there anyone in the American Conservative Union who voted for Kerry? Is the Pope Protestant? As for Salem Communications, here is a snip from its website:

Salem Communications Corporation is the leading provider of radio programming, online resources and magazines targeted to the Christian and family themes audience. For over 25 years our core business has been the ownership and operation of radio stations in major U.S. markets. We have also developed a radio network, which offers talk, news and music content options to stations through affiliate partnerships. We own and operate magazine publishing and Internet businesses, both of which share our commitment to our target audience. We continue to look for opportunities to strengthen our leadership position in the distribution and development of Christian and family themes content across multiple media.

End of snip

Now, here is an excerpt from an interview with Ken Blackwell done by PBS host Tavis Smiley (Feb. 5, 2004):

Tavis: …Let me ask you before my time runs out here. As I mention again, you are the Secretary of State, but there's a big rumor that you're gonna run for Governor in Ohio and that, if elected, you would be only the second African-American elected Governor in this country since Reconstruction. The first Republican--Doug Wilder, of course, being a Democrat in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Are you really gonna run? And how serious are you about this?

Blackwell: I'm very serious. I've had the good fortune of being the mayor of my hometown. I've been the Treasurer of this fine state here in Ohio. I've been a U.S. Ambassador and an Undersecretary of the U.S. Department of HUD. I think I'm ready to put on the hat of Governor and to lead this state to growth and prosperity and opportunity…

Tavis: Let me ask you whether or not you think the Buckeyes, the folk in Ohio, are ready for Kenneth Blackwell, a black Republican, as the top executive of the state.

Blackwell: I think so. The fact of the matter is that folks elected me Treasurer of this state. I was the top fiduciary in the state. That's a statewide election, and now I, in fact, oversee all elections in the state, so when people of this state trust me with their votes and trust me with their money, I think they're ready to trust me to be their Governor.

Tavis: How much campaigning are you gonna do for George W. Bush between now and November?

Blackwell: Well, we're gonna do a lot of work in Ohio. Let me just tell you--Ohio is the battleground state. There hasn't been a Republican president elected or reelected without carrying Ohio, and George Bush, when you factor out Ralph Nader, only won Ohio by one percentage point. This is a battleground state. It's gonna go right down to the last day…

End of PBS excerpt.

I’m not making the point that Blackwell is bad because he’s a Republican. I’m illustrating that this is a very ambitious man who’s positioned as a Republican FOR BUSH and for what Bush believes, right down to his shoes. A man who campaigned resolutely for Bush and THEN oversaw the state election which handed Bush a second term. A man who is a player in the Republican party, who knows the score, who can give favors and then ask for favors back, as he pushes his own career upward.

Is this a conflict of interest that could have led Blackwell to improperly set the conditions for a Bush triumph? Is the Pope Catholic?

Here are a few more tidbits on the Ohio election and Mr. Blackwell----

_____________________

Was The Ohio Election Honest And Fair?

Institute for Public Accuracy
www.accuracy.org
11-3-4

Interviews and Background

TERESA FEDOR
(via Greg Lestini glestini@maild.sen.state.oh.us)

Ohio State Senator Teresa Fedor said today: "There was trouble with our elections in Ohio at every stage. It's been a battle getting people registered to vote, getting to the ballot on voting day and getting that vote to count. There is a pattern of voter suppression; that's why I called for [Ohio Secretary of State] Blackwell's resignation more than a month ago. Blackwell, while claiming to run an unbiased elections process, was also the co-chair of the Bush-Cheney campaign in Ohio. Additionally, he was the spokesperson for the anti-business, anti-family constitutional amendment 'Issue 1,' and a failed initiative to repeal a crucial sales-tax revenue source for the state. Blackwell learned his moves from the Katherine Harris playbook of Florida 2000, and we won't stand for it."

BILL MOSS
bmoss@hbcuconnect.com

Executive vice president of HBCU Connect, which works to connect historically black colleges and universities, Moss said today: "I stayed in line two and a half hours. I've never seen anything like this in my life. There were fewer voting machines in the highly concentrated black areas, creating the long lines so as to frustrate the voters. But we knew the Republicans -- many of whom became Republicans because they opposed equal rights for blacks -- would try to drive down black turnout. ... [Ohio Secretary of State] Blackwell was confusing things by raising issues like the paper weight of cards."

SUSAN TRUITT
susan.truitt@lexisnexis.com
http://www.caseohio.org

Co-founder of the Citizens Alliance for Secure Elections, Truitt said today: "Seven counties in Ohio have electronic voting machines and none of them have paper trails. That alone raises issues of accuracy and integrity as to how we can verify the count. A recount without a paper trail is meaningless; you just get a regurgitation of the data. Last year, Blackwell tried to get the entire state to buy new machines without a paper trail. The exit polls, virtually the only check we have against tampering with a vote without a paper trail, had shown Kerry with a lead. ... A poll worker told me this morning that there were no tapes of the results posted on some machines; on other machines the posted count was zero, which obviously shouldn't be the case."

DAN WALLACH
dwallach@cs.rice.edu
http://www.cs.rice.edu/~dwallach,
http://www.accuracy.org/press_releases/PR062104.htm

Wallach is an assistant professor of Computer Science at Rice University in Houston specializing in building secure and robust software systems for the Internet. Along with colleagues at Johns Hopkins, Wallach co-authored a groundbreaking study that revealed significant flaws in electronic voting systems. He appeared on an Institute for Public Accuracy news release in June entitled "Electronic Voting -- Danger for Democracy."

BOB FITRAKIS
rfitrakis@cscc.edu

An attorney who monitored the election with the Election Protection Coalition, Fitrakis said today: "There were far fewer machines in the inner-city districts than in the suburbs. I documented at least a dozen people leaving because the lines were so long in African-American areas. Blackwell did a great deal of suppressing before the election -- like attempting to refuse to process voter registration forms. The absentee ballots were misleading in Franklin County. Kerry was the third line down, but you had to punch number four to vote for him. Bush was getting both his votes as well as Kerry's."

HARVEY WASSERMAN
windhw@aol.com
http://www.freepress.org/
departments/display/19/2004/810

Senior editor of FreePress.org, an Ohio-based web site, and co-author with Fitrakis of the recent article "Twelve Ways Bush is Now Stealing the Ohio Vote," Wasserman said today: "There was a huge fight around ensuring that the electronic voting machines had paper trails and there was resistance by the secretary of state, so there is no paper trail. There were some victories to ensure a paper trial -- by 2006. There were limited numbers of voting machines in African-American districts. Some people had to wait up to eight hours, far more than in predominantly white areas."

end of snip

Finally, here is an excerpt from an October 20 piece in the Globe and Mail:

At the centre of the uproar is Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, who has laid down a series of controversial election guidelines -- many of which public outcry or the courts have forced him to shelve.

Mr. Blackwell is a nationally known conservative who is eyeing a run at the governorship. He is also the co-chair of President George W. Bush's re-election campaign in Ohio. Democrats have been calling him the 2004 version of Katherine Harris, the Florida secretary of state they accuse of "stealing" the election for Mr. Bush four years ago...

The key battle in Ohio has been over the procedure for provisional voting when a person has moved and not updated their registration, or when a challenger questions whether the voter is properly registered.

Dan Tokaji, a specialist at Ohio State University in election law, said the issue could be a critical and contentious factor in Ohio, a bellwether state with a large number of votes in the electoral college.

"Provisional voting could be the hanging chad of 2004," Mr. Tokaji said, referring to the faulty Florida ballot that resulted in rejected votes.

In 2000, more than 98,000 provisional ballots were cast in Ohio, where Mr. Bush beat Democrat Al Gore by just 165,000 votes -- a winning margin of less than half a percentage point. The race is considered equally close this time, but with 500,000 new voters registered, the number of provisional ballots could be much higher.

Mr. Blackwell initially insisted that provisional voting could occur only at the proper polling station -- a person who showed up at the wrong one would be given directions instead of a ballot. But last week, a U.S. district court judge ruled that the guideline would violate federal law if it prevents voters from casting provisional ballots if they are in the right county.

Monday, Mr. Blackwell issued new guidelines that Democratic lawyers say fail to reflect the court ruling. Poll workers are now supposed to attempt to turn away provisional voters if they are at the wrong precinct, and give them a telephone number to locate the correct one. If the voters insist, the workers are to accept the ballot, while warning that it will not be counted...

end of Globe and Mail excerpt

You might read that last paragraph again. It describes something far worse than up-in-the-air provisional voting---it lays out a process by which who knows how many voters were essentially denied the right to cast even a provisional ballot, but were instead turned away...never to appear on any tally-number of "votes that might need to be counted after the election."

Final final: a quite reliable source tells me Ken Blackwell is a loyal Party soldier and follows orders, AND YET, relatively speaking, is one of the good guys. If so, think about the really slimy ones.

__________________________

THE BIG LIE GOES UNNOTICED

NOVEMBER 3, 2004. All the articles I've written on the election in the last two days begin, in a way, from the same place:

A television anchor sits at his desk and says, "The polls have just closed in the following states, and we can predict a winner in those states..."

I find this intrinsically on the same level as watching the king parade down the street with no clothes on in front of a crowd that doesn't seem to notice.

If a man came up to you on the street and said, "It's going to rain in exactly forty-one minutes, and I'll be at the bar across the way for a post-mortem," would you be the slightest bit curious? And if it DID begin to rain in forty-one minutes, would you cross the street and find that man and ask him how he knew?

I would.

But of course most Americans accept these network projections of winners, as they also see that, in many cases, there are NO raw vote totals in yet, just zero on the board.

These viewers think to themselves, "Well, they must have a good reason for doing that. They know something. They have those eixt polls, which are scientific, and they have computers, and they can work with the exit interviews and come up with a really good answer on the other end. I don't really care how they do it. I don't want to know. It must be complicated. I'd have to have a math degree to understand it. But they always seem to be right, except when they screwed up in 2000. I mean, it's like driving a car. I don't understand what goes on under the hood but I can still get from home to the supermarket."

But just as I'd want to know how the man on the street could predict the moment when the rain started, I want to know how these news anchors and their back-up experts do their work.

Because, for one reason, in the case of elections the back-up experts are using exit-poll data supplied to them by the Associated Press and its subcontractors---and the Associated Press ALSO provides the vote totals that later bear out these instant projections of winners in the various states.

That is not a thing to gloss over.

But it's the initial moment of shock that I'm pointing to, when the anchors look at the audience---with no vote totals yet counted---and say they're ready to make a call on the winner. That's the instant when you either sit up and say WAIT or you slump back and let it wash over you.

You can go either way.

In the last several weeks, I've been writing about a loosely analagous situation. The CDC trumpets the fact that, every year in the US, 36,000 people die from the flu. However, I've seen with my own eyes the actual stats buried deep in CDC documents online. And these documents give the lie to that 36,000 figure. For example, for the year 2000, when all was said and done, the CDC could only confirm SIXTY deaths from flu (where the virus was actually identified). Obviously, to reach that 36,000 number, the CDC has been doing projections. Computer projections. Based on what? Using what method? Telling what lies?

Once you admit that the networks' early projections of winners are bizarre, you can fan out and begin to ask other questions and try to answer them. You can break through the flimsy facade of 'everybody knows it must be okay' and consider the implications.

On November 22, 1963, one bullet traveled in sixteen different directions and ended up in pristine condition on a hospital cot. On June 5, 1968, Sirhan Sirhan fired, at the most, eight bullets (the load capacity of his gun) in the kitchen pantry of the Ambassador Hotel, and yet evidence of at least ten bullets was found.

That kind of thing.

Everybody knows...but they don't.

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WHAT I SAW LAST NIGHT

NOVEMBER 3, 2004. First of all, here is a website that is tracking the growing list of reports on problems at the polls yesterday and possible fraud at precincts:

http://www.votersunite.org/electionproblems.asp

Note that the page shown is only page one. So far, the site has referenced 222 situations.

At about 8:30 Pacific Time last night, as I was clicking channels, CNN or FOX analysts mentioned, in passing, that the vote total from Florida thus far---as relayed to the network from the Associated Press (AP)---was a great deal higher than the total that was being reported out of the Florida secretary of state's office. The secretary of state is in charge of elections. The TV anchors said that AP was getting its totals direct from the individual counties in Florida. Well, where was the secretary of state getting the totals? From the moon? This discrepancy could have been explained by the fact that the sec. of state's office was slow in posting results, whereas AP was in a hurry to relay totals to the TV networks. Still, I found it interesting. AP was the source contracted by all the major TV networks to send in vote numbers in all states.

Now we come to the exit-poll versus actual vote-count debate. This is breaking all over the Internet, as people compare exit-poll results from various states with actual vote totals. Some people are reporting that exit-poll results exactly mirror eventual voting results and winners in states where the electronic vote machines are backed up with a paper trail, but in certain states where there is no paper trail, the exit polls are at great variance with the vote outcomes. In other words, some states with no paper trail show exit polls favoring Kerry, but Bush turns out to be the winner. The implication is, with no way to verify the integrity and accuracy of electronic voting, computer manipulation was worked to give Bush victories through fraud.

Remember, exit polls are live interviews conducted with voters after they cast their ballots and leave polling places. These interviews are then crunched by a tallying system and put through a projection model to predict a winner, long before final vote counts are in.

Edison Media Research and Mitofsky are the firms contracted by AP to do these exit polls nationally.

Here is what I saw. Although all the networks were stating that 'exit polls taken early in the day suggested a big Kerry surge, whereas the unfolding night was showing a very strong Bush position,' the network early projections for winners were NEVER WRONG. The networks never had to retract any early prediction---and many of these calls were made with ZERO actual vote counts reported thus far.

Think about that. The networks, at the top of an hour, exactly as polls close in a number of states, put up winners (Bush or Kerry)---before any votes are counted. And these predictions never had to be reversed. Well, on what then, were these predictions based?

Exit polls.

So, whereas the networks are saying that, earlier in the day, exit polls were not good, not predictive, all of a sudden these polls are so good that the networks can call winners in a large number of states without a single counted vote showing on the screen.

Well, there are other factors, too, in making these early predictions: how those states went in 2000 and 2002---and also estimates based on Zogby and USA Today and other polls taken in the days and weeks before the 2004 election. However, the networks don't admit using these other factors---and I would have to say that predicting an actual winner with no votes counted based on such factors is pretty insane. And not just insane, but SUSPECT. Highly suspect.

I got the weird feeling that I was watching a hologram of sorts---"well, all these states went THIS way last time, so we're saying they'll do the same again."

And of course the red and blue maps did uncannily resemble the final 2000 election maps, even though, in the interim, 9/11 and Afghanistan and Iraq and WMD and Osama tapes and Internet activism and the Patriot Act and swift boats and Moore's film and so many other things had changed the American landscape to a remarkable degree.

I simply don't buy the 2000-2004 election resemblances.

I assume that, in the end, the vote totals and winners as relayed to the networks by AP will be exactly the same as the results compiled and reported by the secretaries of state of every state---although just to make sure, someone should check this.

However, the electronic (and other) manipulation of the 2004 vote is, to me, a monster issue.

If vote totals in the states were subjected to massive computer manipulation, both AP and the secretaries of state would get the same (false) numbers. If this manipulation was basically designed to present pretty much a mirror of the 2000 election, it would mesh nicely with the television networks' practice of making VERY early calls of winners based, in great part, on what happened in 2000. You would get a closed loop, a piece of grand hypnosis, with the networks prophetically getting out ahead of the final (rigged) vote counts through their sudden and early predictions, replete with charts, graphs, flashes of light, whoosh sounds, fast-talking anchors, screens constantly changing for the television viewer.

Of course, the results of 2000 do not perfectly match the results of 2004. Florida becomes Ohio.

There was plenty of press commentary before the election that Ohio would, in fact, become the Florida of 2004. And so it was.

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MORE LIGHTNING PROJECTIONS

NOVEMBER 2, 2004. As polls closed in the east, NBC handed out a host of projected winners, in most cases this time with zero vote tallies on the screens.

These projections, we assume, are coming from AP subcontractors who are working off of voter exit surveys....

Illinois/Kerry. NJ/Kerry. Tenn./Bush. Mass./Kerry. Maryland/Kerry. Conn./Kerry. Alabama/Bush. Oklahoma/Bush. Maine/Kerry.

It's like watching a cartoon.

No facts, just graphs and background music and whoosh sounds as they cut from one chart to another.

Of course, very few people question this charade. The experts must be basing their judgments on highly accurate computer projections based on a few exit-poll surveys blah blah...and they know what they are doing and this will be illustrated by the actual vote counts later on blah blah....AP, which is forwarding those actual vote counts to the networks, is beyond reproach blah blah...you are sinking into a deep sleep...you will believe....

But of course no one knows just how these supposedly highly sophisticated computer projections are really done...oh no, THAT is proprietary corporate information and YOU are just a peon so keep your nose to the grindstone and have faith....all is well, all is well...

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NETWORKS CALL STATES LIKE LIGHTNING

NOVEMBER 2, 2004. The INSTANT the polls closed in Indiana and Kentucky, CNN and FOX called these states for Bush, and Vermont for Kerry. At least in the case of Indiana and Kentucky, there were vote totals (not exit-poll survey numbers) on the screen, and they were significant numbers, far too many to represent just a few precincts.

It is physically impossible to get these vote totals in the door of the networks at the instant the polls closed, unless AP (which is delivering those totals to the networks) had them BEFORE the polls closed.

That would be illegal...and since the vote count does not START until the polls close, it means AP was working with totals of absentee ballots, and/or early voting results, in which people were permitted to vote before today. I don't know whether Indiana, Kentucky, or Vermont had such early-vote programs in place.

Even if AP was working with absentee or early-vote results, it still would be illegal for them to have such totals in their hands before the closing of the polls.

Or, AP is simply winging it, making up false numbers. Of course, no one would believe THAT. Too incredible to consider. I mean, we're all honest people in this room, right?

Here we go.

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WHO WILL TELL THE NETWORKS WHO WON?

NOVEMBER 2, 2004. Don’t worry, be happy, the vote count is in good hands. The Associated Press (AP) will be handling it for the networks, not that old disbanded and corrupt outfit called Voter News Service (VNS).

VNS was created by the major broadcast networks, whereas AP is…well, that’s hard to say. AP also appears to be a stepchild of major media.

Let’s start with a piece on AP by AP:

AP to Provide Sole National Vote Count on Election Night

Published: October 13, 2004 3:15 PM EDT NEW YORK

Determined to avoid a repeat of high-profile failures in 2000 and 2002, television networks will rely on new systems on Nov. 2 to help project election winners and analyze why voters made their choices, and they have turned to The Associated Press to count the vote for them.

The six news organizations that have formed the National Election Pool -- ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox News Channel and the AP -- say they're confident things will go better this time, based on test runs and the experience of people involved.

The networks blamed Voter News Service, the company they had formed to count votes and conduct exit polls, for faulty data that led to the wrong calls in 2000. VNS tried to rebuild its system, but it broke down on election night 2002 and failed to provide usable exit polling information. VNS was then disbanded.

This time, the news organizations contracted with two veteran polling companies -- Mitofsky International and Edison Media Research -- to conduct exit polls. They agreed that the AP -- which has been tallying votes in elections since 1848 -- would be their sole source for vote counts, and the news cooperative has significantly beefed up its system in response.

The TV networks said they would be careful projecting winners after prematurely declaring Florida, and the 2000 election, for George W. Bush. (The AP did not declare Bush the winner on election night). The election wasn't ultimately determined for weeks after vote recounts and court fights.

Each of the organizations will use data provided by NEP to make its own projections election night. The organizations also have promised, for the first time in a presidential election, not to call states that span two time zones until all of the polling places have closed.

"We're just going to really, really be cautious," said Marty Ryan, Fox News Channel's executive producer for political coverage. "When we think we have it, we'll wait a few minutes and look again. Then we'll wait a few minutes and look again."

Both the exit polls and vote counts worked with no serious problems during the 2004 primaries and in stress tests, network officials said. Full dress rehearsals will be conducted on Oct. 23 and 30.

Four years ago, the networks relied on VNS for its count of the actual votes and used the AP's vote-counting as a backup. Now, the AP will go it alone.

The AP will have stringers calling in results from each of the nation's 4,600 counties. Hundreds of people will be assigned to input the information into computers, and others will monitor the systems to guard against problems. In all, a total of about 5,500 people will be working on AP's vote count on election night.

"We have real confidence in the reliability of the AP's vote count," said Kathleen Carroll, AP senior vice president and executive editor. "We also have enormous confidence in the journalists in the field and the bureau chiefs who will be using the data and their experience when they call winners in the race."

The AP relied on that experience on election night 2000 to resist calling the election for Bush, despite enormous pressure after the networks had made their projections.

Most of the AP election night staff has done the job before, said Tom Jory, the cooperative's director of elections tabulations. The AP also has built in new system redundancies to protect against computer or telephone system failures, he said.

Precautions are being taken to guard against human error as well. Using past elections as a guide, the AP's computer system is designed to spit out a warning if figures are entered that are significantly at odds with expected patterns -- just to make sure the numbers are rechecked.

"The AP has a long history of doing these things in general," said Dan Merkle, ABC News decision desk director. "With these other improvements, we feel very confident in the AP."

End of AP piece.

Now here is an excerpt from an article about, in part, AP, by Lynn Landes:

…But, can't the AP be trusted? Isn't it an objective non-partisan news organization? Some say no. The AP is batting for a Bush presidency.

In Online Journal, Stephen Crockett and Al Lawrence, the hosts of Democratic Talk Radio, wrote, "...the Associated Press ran a story that was widely published in newspapers and on the Internet, headlined "Bush Leads Kerry In Electoral Votes," that could have been written by the Bush campaign. The assignment of states to candidates, the headline and the conclusions were all simply wrong. The Associated Press should print a retraction and work to see that it is widely published." [I'm uncertain which article that was---JR]

And on WBAY TV in Green Bay, Wisconsin ran an AP article [October, 2004] reporting that Bush has won the election, weeks before the election is to take place. The AP reported, "At this hour, President Bush has won re-election as president by a 47 percent to 43 percent margin in the popular vote nationwide. Ralph Nader has 1 percent of the vote nationwide. That's with 51 percent of the precincts reporting." According to reports, the AP is now saying the article was a "test article," a never-heard-before journalistic practice.

Who is the AP? The Associated Press was founded in 1848. It is a not-for-profit news cooperative, some would say ‘monopoly’, that rakes in about $500 million dollars a year. The AP is owned by its 1,500 U.S. daily newspaper members. Their board of directors is elected by voting ‘bonds’.

However, it is not clear who controls the bonds. AP spokespeople would not give out information on who sits on their board, however AP leadership appears quite conservative.

Burl Osborne, chairman of the AP board of directors, is also publisher emeritus of the conservative The Dallas Morning News, a newspaper that endorsed George W. Bush in the last election. Kathleen Carroll, senior vice president and executive editor of AP, was a reporter at The Dallas Morning News before joining AP. Carroll is also on the Associated Press Managing Editors (APME)’s 7-member executive committee.

The APME "works in partnership with AP to improve the wire service's performance," according to their website. APME vice president, Deanna Sands, is managing editor of the ultra conservative Omaha World Herald newspaper, whose parent company owns the largest voting machine company in the nation, Election Systems and Software (ES&S).

* LYNN LANDES is one of the nation's leading journalists on voting technology and democracy issues. Readers can find her articles at EcoTalk.org. Lynn is a former news reporter for DUTV and commentator for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). Contact info: lynnlandes@earthlink.net / (215) 629-3553 end of Landes excerpt

Say what? AP ran a story before the election this year saying that Bush won?

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Here is a WorldNet Daily piece on THAT:

Prophecy? AP story 'reports' GOP sweep

TV news websites post test article announcing Bush victory

Posted: October 8, 2004
1:00 a.m. Eastern
© 2004 WorldNetDaily.com

An Associated Press "test" article declaring President Bush the winner of the 2004 election and a Republican majority in the House and Senate was posted on the websites of at least five television stations yesterday, prompting calls from confused readers.

The article, bearing an AP copyright, had all indications it was a real story on the sites of KVOA in Arizona, KAIT in Arkansas, WBOC in Delaware, WBAY in Wisconsin and WQAD in Illinois.

Twenty-six days before the general election, the story on WBAY's site, under the motto "Coverage you can count on," read:
At this hour, President Bush has won re-election as president by a 47 percent to 43 percent margin in the popular vote nationwide. Ralph Nader has 1 percent of the vote nationwide. That's with 51 percent of the precincts reporting. Bush has won 324 electoral votes in 33 states. He is leading in 4 states for a total of 43 more electoral votes. Kerry has won 105 electoral votes in 8 states and the District of Columbia. He is leading in 5 states for a total of 48 more electoral votes. Nader has not won any state and is not currently leading in any state. In the 435 U.S. House races, the Republicans have won 173 seats and are leading in the races for 56 seats. The Democrats have won 145 seats and are leading in the races for 56 seats. Independent and other party candidates have won or are leading for 3 seats. If these trends continue, the Republicans will retain control of the House. In the 34 races for the U.S. Senate, the Republicans have won 14 seats and are leading in the races for 4 seats. The Democrats have won 13 seats and are leading in the races for 3 seats. Independent and other party candidates have won or are leading for 1 seat. If these trends continue, the Republicans will retain control of the Senate and will gain 3 seats.

Later, WBAY-TV issued a correction, stating: "President Bush Did Not Win Election on October 7."

The station said the test article was picked up by WBAY.com's automated system.

"The headline of the AP story did not bear that all-important word for the automated filters ... 'test,'" the station said.

end of WorldNetDaily piece

I've never heard of a test article being sent out to media outlets. AP sends out actual articles all the time to outlets. Why would they need a test just for the election? Why would they pre-write such an article filled with actual (made up) stats? Why not just send "Hi, we're here. Did you receive?" Of course, again, the concept of a test article is completely foreign to me.

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FREE TRADE POINT

NOVEMBER 2, 2004. Since no president gets elected in the US if he opposes free trade, I thought I'd make a further point on this topic, which I have written about many times.

Free trade is constructed to grease the rails for giant transnational corporations. One aspect of that lubrication involves so-called protective tariffs. As in, the abolition of such tariffs.

Suppose, for example, a US-based transnational corporation is selling its goods to China. Suddenly, overnight, it has to pay a big duty on these goods when they arrive at China ports. That would cut profits and allow Chinese companies that make similar products to gain a domestic advantage inside China.

How might that sudden duty (tariff) have been laid on at China ports?

Well, if China were exporting goods to the US (any goods), and if those goods were priced much lower than US companies making the same goods were able to charge inside the US, this would throw those US companies into a tailspin. Lost jobs, lost profits, and so on.

So those US companies gain the ear of the White House, and the president decides to levy a tariff on these goods coming from China, to even the playing field. China then responds with tariffs on its end.

That back and forth situation creates a nightmare for big transationals seeking to move their goods into China.

Hence, free trade. All the signatories to the GATT treaty swear to eliminate these tariffs.

It matters not to these transnationals that US workers are thrown out of work because their companies can't compete against goods from, say, China. Unemployment in the US is simply part of "doing business."

The transnationals win. They are the true beneficiaries of free trade.

No matter what Bush or Kerry say, they support free trade. And they never even imagine a kind of self-sufficiency for the US in which the need for (cheap undercutting) goods from abroad are not necessary for America. That fantasy, in their minds, is not even on the radar.

"Global economic interdependence" is sold as the "new thing" that cannot be avoided, and the dreaded word "isolationism" is used to tar anyone who stumps for American self-sufficiency.

There are even people who claim to support a free market who say that America should never lay on protective tariffs on goods coming into the US.

But there are different types of free markets. To obstruct (with tariffs) commerce inside the US is far different from obstructing goods coming into the US that drastically threaten US jobs.

There is no public political debate on these matters. There are only slogans for the suckers. In part, that is because, for many years now, economic heavy hitters have considered all nations to be fictions. This concept bleeds right up into the White House. So-called Republicans, who are supposed to stand for a strong and independent America, and so-called Democrats, who are supposed to champion the rights of American workers, take on the same skin. They digest and acept the de facto notion that America is a fiction.

And having accepted that, the Democrats and the Republicans go on to make all sorts of bloviating pronouncements about America the Beautiful. The American people, at a loss to find an intelligent debate about these economic matters, weigh and assess the competing slogans like jewels laid out on velvet as they go to the polls.

JON RAPPOPORT http://www.nomorefakenews.com

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