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PROGRESSIVE  REFERENCE CONSERVATIVE*
  • American Blackout "Whatever you think you know about our election systems or Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, this film will make you question further why the news media fails to accurately inform the public. Directed by GNN's Ian Inaba, creator of Eminem's "Mosh" music video, American Blackout critically examines the contemporary tactics used to control our democratic process and silence voices of political dissent."  
  • Black Box Voting Ballot tampering in the 21st Century
  • BradBlog Griffin, the 'ragin cagin'.. voter suppression guy, Thompson campaign rejected him.
  • Campaign Finance Information Center Calculating influence: How it all adds up.
  • Campaign Legal Center in the public interest of campaign and media law
  • Center for Responsive Politics track money in politics
  • Clean Elections "Public Campaign is a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to sweeping reform that aims to dramatically reduce the role of big special interest money in American politics."
  • Common Cause  Soft Money issues, govt watchdog
  • Common Dreams, Blowback from 2004 election
  • CounterPunch The DLC and Israel Zionist Democrats
  • Democrats.com
  • DissidentVoice caging list lists, from 2004 Greg Palast story, secret document, emails, Bush campaign headquarters, Florida, disrupt voting, voter suppression, more below 
  • EcoTalk.org  Voting systems organizations and companies, great investigative work.
  • Election Protection Coalition, Ohio election fraud reporting.
  • Fairvote Public Interest Guide to Redistricting
  • Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Waterkeeper Alliance
  • FEC Watch  who gets how much from whom
  • FollowtheMoney
  • Free Press, The  Speaking Truth to Power, search verified voting
  • GeorgeWBush.org anti Bush site, received caging lists, and from Wikipedia about emails received: "The e-mails had the subject line "Re: Caging" and contained Microsoft Excel spreadsheet file attachments called "Caging.xls" and "Caging-1.xls"
  • Grace Public Fund Legislative advocacy group, action alerts.
  • and we also research the 'conservative' view
  • Former Senator Mike Gravel, 2008 Presidential candidate.  more
  • KnowtheCandidates automated self-serve news poster
  • Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. "Protecting Minority Voters: The Voting Rights Act, 1982-2005" pulls together research and testimony from voters around the country to urge lawmakers to renew the parts of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that will expire in August 2007.
  • League of Women Voters
  • NALEO  National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials.
  • Oped News Diebold evoting machines, Bush, Florida,  CEO Walden O'Dell 
  • Open Secrets and Unity08.org
  • Greg Palast privatization of FBI, see InQtel, Choicepoint
  • The Petition Site online sign petition for paper trail in 2004 elections  
  • Pew Hispanic Center Chronicling Latinos' diverse experiences in a changing America
  • Political Reform.net soft money, power elite, corporate economy
  • Political Stratey is changing to Daily News Online
  • Primary Monitor
  • Public Campaign, to reduce role of special interest money, links
  • Public Citizen, Ralph Nader
  • Pulp Syndicate new journalism, Progressive.
  • Public Eye, Political Research Associates, an invaluable resource in researching Right Wing Conservative thought, actions, beliefs
  • Republicrat, Republicrat 
  • Scoop   on stolen elections, Walden O'Dell 
  • US Government Watch
  • Verified Voting.org support voter verified paper trail, search
  • Notes: Peter Paul charged that the woes of Stan Lee Media were due to the involvement of Bill and Hillary Clinton. In 2000, Paul was the largest contributor to Clinton's New York Senate campaign. Just prior to the 2000 Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles, Paul organized a "Hollywood Farewell Gala Salute to President William Jefferson Clinton that snagged over $1 million for Hillary Clinton's Senate run in 2000. Present at the gala were Diana Ross, Patti Labelle, Toni Braxton, Cher, Michael Bolton, John Travolta, Brad Pitt, Jennifer Aniston, and Jason Alexander. Not only would Paul later be convicted for stock fraud, but three other gala organizers, Aaron Tonken, Raymond Reggie, and James Levin were all convicted on fraud charges unrelated to the gala fundraiser for Clinton. The fundraiser was the largest ever held for a political candidate in the United States. Stan Lee was the master of ceremonies for the gala. WMR 
  •  

    If only America 

    understood the Franklin pedophile scandal in Omaha,  Washington D. C., 1989, and the effect it would have on the election. Play the MP3 file and more

     

  • Recent News:
    • Obama birth certificate:    Democratic former Pennsylvania Attorney General Philip C. Berg filed a complaint late today in the U.S. Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania "for an emergency temporary restraining order prohibiting Barack Obama from running for president, and enjoining the DNC from nominating Obama as the Democratic presidential candidate.”  MORE BELOW  He's a life member of the NAACP and NRA, and very active in the 911 Truth movement ... ???
    • Berg files: Motion and Support Memo
    • Hillary Project  Clinton supporter sues Obama on grounds he is constitutional ineligble for Presidency
    • State Dept fired two, for peering at Obama's passport file.  AP / Yahoo  Bureau of Consular Affairs, Jan, Feb. of 2008,  Obama not notified until March.  more
    • more below
    • Illegal wiretapping began in Clinton White House, WMR 
    • Wikipedia,  Hillary Rodham cattle futures disguised bribery? more
    • Returned campaign contributions.  Hsu  New York Times
    • Bank Crozier, Grenada, bank accounts.  Riggs Bank
    • DLC official, anti-union, pro-business, pro-war... rarely mentioned in campaign.
    • Iran attack hawk, see AIPAC speeches
    • Whitewater, Madison Guaranty, conflict of interest.   scandal list
    • Whitewater, lost & then 'found' records
    • Travelgate, false statements to prosecutors
    • Vince Foster suicide
    • Filegate FBI reports on former Republican White House employees
    • Wal-mart board of directors
    • Lafarge board of directors more
    • Kathleen Willey, Clinton's murdered her husband WND but also see Salon debunk, destroy her credibility.  but see Clinton death list
    • Hillary promises no surprises in her past Washington Post
    • Bush crime family vs. Clinton crime family?
    • Peter Paul, former (convicted) business partner of Stan Lee,  who both founded Marvel  Entertainment, (after rehab), but company failed, according to Paul because of Bill & Hillary Clinton... lawsuits, fraud, abound.  Paul was largest contributor to Hillary's NY Senatorial campaign.  more  & WMR   Main stream press won't touch it during early 08 campaign.
  • ABC News: Congress watch.
  • Annenberg Election Survey, election survey
  • BBC, Caging list, Republican, RNC
  • Campaign Finance Information Center  calculating influence: How it all adds up.
  • Campaign Media Analysis Group, Cmag  monitor tv advertising nationwide.
  • Campaign Money  Campaign finance in American politics
  • Census Bureau voter registration statistics by demographic and socioeconomic data
  • Center for Responsive Politics Money in U.S. Elections,  Iraq Contracts, Media Ownership
  • Election Statistics Historic data, Electoral College, Redistricting, downloadable data, maps, charts
  • There's a lot more to this pic than you think  .... see Bush / Clinton crime families page index 
  • eResearch Resources Download, analyze Census data
  • FactCheck.org nonpartisan, reduce deceptions and confusion in U.S. politics
  • Federal Election Commission (FEC) , services, campaign finance reports, law, resources
  • Elections, state by state guide.  Guardian 
  • Political Money Line   FEC Info, Tray, subscription.
  • Project Vote Smart   Voter self-defense system, unbiased info.
  • Generation Vote races, parties, organizations, links, archives
  • Center for Voting and Democracy
  • International Society of Political Psychology, "purpose is to facilitate communication across disciplinary, geographic and political boundaries among scholars, concerned individuals in government and public posts, the communications media, and elsewhere who have a scientific interest in the relationship between politics and psychological processes. other search terms: negative campaign ads, dirty tricks
  • Los Angeles Times "Justice official is said to have favored GOP loyalists ... Schlozman, a Bush administration political appointee, was also in the process of dismantling the ranks of career attorneys in the division, former employees contend. ...controversial voting-rights suits. ... The Bush administration has focused on weeding out perceived fraud. Critics say that little fraud exists and that the crackdown has had the effect of discouraging voter participation " search terms: Republican loyalists, career attorneys left, Joseph D. Rich, 
  • Lijphart Election Archive University of California, San Diego, Social Sciences & Humanities
  • Living Room Candidate, Moving Image.us Presidential campaign commercials: starting from 1952
  • Miami-Dade Election Reform Coalition, non partisan,  wants voting paper trail. Republican leadership opposes it.
  • National Annenberg Election Survey, election survey
  • National Archives, Hillary Clinton records, 
  • National Election Studies  research data, guide to public opinion, electoral behavior
  • Pew Hispanics Center  Chronicling Latinos' diverse experiences in a changing America
  • RealClearPolitics
  • Sequoia Voting Systems has verifiable paper trail system.
  • University of Wisconsin Advertising Project  political advertising
  • Voter Information Services helping voters get behind the sound bites, Congressional info
  • Watch Blog left, right and independent election views
  •  
  • 95% of Black Americans will not vote for Republicans ... I wonder why?
  • click on image for site graphic index
  • Americans for a Republican Majority GOP Today
  • Barbour, Griffith and Rodgers, ...advisor to Carlyle Group,  emaciation of the 1933 Buy-America Act, by McCain-Eads-Diligence-Rothschild, and loss of tanker contract, ah too bad, see UK and EU NFU pages
  • Choicepoint  see
  • Citizens United, Hillary: The Movie
  • Clinton, 'first black president' smokescreen?
  • Delay Campaign.com an
  • Diebold and Diebold Election Systems Call for e-voting ban is overreaction.
  • Boycott NBC, Boycott ABC, Boycott CBS, Boycott Fox
  • Diligence: a business intelligence firm, chaired by former Conservative Party leader Michael Howard, see also Nick Day, and Mike Baker, Richard Burt,
  • DiscovertheNetworks Guide to the political left, from a conservative viewpoint....
  • EADS, Rothschild connection, tanker contract, McCain, 
  • Eagle Forum Congress Vote tracking database.
  • Election Assistance Commission Created by a Republican controlled Congress. and see  FEC link  Trent Lott control of U. S. election legislation.
  • Fellowship, Hillary problem?
  • Fletcher, Mindy Tucker, 
  • Foreign Voting Assistance Program Pentagon run. 
  • Georgia Republican Party chairwoman Sue Everhart said Saturday that the party's presumed presidential nominee (John McCain) has a lot in common with Jesus Christ.  WMR
  • GovExec West Wing Watch 
  • GOP Platform Republican National Committee, backdoor emails to and from White House, GOP underground, 
  • Hillary: The Movie
  • Iowa Daily Report Hold Democrats accountable for their comments on GWB 
  • Judicial Watch,  tracking Hillary Clinton documents release, 11,000 pages, highly redacted, transparency smokescreen, 
  • Log Cabin Republicans US largest gay/lesbian Republican organization
  • Lukoil
  • Lord Rothschild, search terms: RIT, Ltd. (formerly Rothschild Investment Trust), invested, Mikhail Khodorkovsky,  close to Boris Berezovsky, Henry Kissinger, and Rupert Murdoch, 
  • Trent Lott now the Chairman of the Committee on Rules & Administration of U.S. Senate.  which receives all proposed legislation on U.S. Presidential elections and more.
  • New America Foundation
  • Vote Republican serving Americas Conservatives
  • Real Clear Politics news, polls, links 
  • Republican National Committee  .
  • Sequoia Voting Systems has verifiable paper trail system.
  • Stop Democrats 
  • Top donors to Federal candidates
  • Democrats and Republicans responsible for the Military Industrial Congressional Complex, Blue Dog, Third Way, Dixiecrats,
  • Link Palfrey escort service?, CIA, Foggo, Wilkes, Cunningham? Cheney
  • Uhuh
  • Problems for Hillary?
  • Notes: 2007, Nov, Book party thrown for McLean, Virginia home of Charles and Lynda Johnson Robb, (Lyndon), for Jay Winik, globalization, 18th century, attendees: Cheney, Scalia, Clinton strategist Mark Penn (CEO of Burson & Marsteller who also represent Blackwater USA),  Romney strategist Russ Schriefer, National Counterterrorism Center chief John Scott Redd, former attorney general Richard Thornburgh, nosebleed punch?, Robb and Silberman cochaired whitewash commission on Iraq intelligence, Curveball is Rafid Ahmed Alwan AP more at NFU and more, at least on phone call was made to Pamela Martin & Associates from 1616 Anderson Road, McClean, Virginia 22102, who is Bruce Chiles? pseudonym, McCain customer also? 1994 Robb Senate race, wild party accusations, Robb, nude massage, Tai Collins, Miss Virginia, Playboy centerfold, affair. source: WMR
  • Why are 'Fundies' so easy to fool?  How responsible are they for the Iraq War?

    Nearly 80% of Christian Fundamentalists voted for Bush in 2000, 2004, 2006...and 94% of African Americans won't vote for Bush .... hmmm??? 

  • Democratic former Pennsylvania Attorney General Philip C. Berg filed a complaint late today in the U.S. Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania "for an emergency temporary restraining order prohibiting Barack Obama from running for president, and enjoining the DNC from nominating Obama as the Democratic presidential candidate.” The complaint wants the court to declare that Obama is not a "natural citizen" and is not, therefore, qualified to run for President of the United States. The court is being asked for a temporary restraining order and expedited discovery. The defendant is named as: BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA, a/k/a BARRY SOETORO, a/k/a BARRY OBAMA , a/k/a BARACK DUNHAM, a/k/a BARRY DUNHAM, THE DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE, and THE FEDERAL ELECTION COMMISSION Case number: Case #08-CV-4083  Philidelphia  

  • Forrestal fire    RockFreePress  Madsen reprint:  WMR has learned additional details regarding the deadly fire aboard the Navy aircraft carrier, the USS Forrestal, on July 19, 1967 in the Gulf of Tonkin. The additional details point to then-Lt. Commander John McCain playing more of a role in triggering the fire and explosions than previously reported.  ...  On January 16, 2006, WMR reported that according to a US Navy sailor who was aboard the Forrestal on the fateful day of the fire, “McCain and the Forrestal’s skipper, Capt. John K. Beling, were warned about the danger of using M-65 1000-lb. bombs manufactured in 1935, which were deemed too dangerous to use during World War II and, later, on B-52 bombers. The fire from the Zuni missile misfire resulted in the heavy 1000 pound bombs being knocked loose from the pylons of McCain’s A-4 aircraft, which were only designed to hold 500-pound bombs.”  ...  WMR further reported, “The unstable bombs had a 60-second cook-off threshold in a fire situation and this warning was known to both Beling and McCain prior to the disaster.” WMR also cited the potential that McCain’s Navy records were used against him by the neo-cons in control of the Pentagon, “The neo-cons, who have had five years to examine every file within the Department of Defense, have likely accessed documents that could prove embarrassing to McCain, who was on board the USS Forrestal on July 29, 1967, and whose A-4 Skyhawk was struck by an air-to-ground Zuni missile that had misfired from an F-4 Phantom.”    ...  It is believed by many crewmen and those who have investigated the case that McCain deliberately “wet-started” his A-4E to shake up the guy in the plane behind his A-4. “Wet-starts”, done either deliberately or accidentally, shoot a large flame from the tail of the aircraft.   ...  In McCain’s case, the “wet-start” apparently “cooked off” and launched the Zuni rocket from the rear F-4 that touched off the explosions and massive fire. The F-4 pilot was reportedly killed in the conflagration. “Wet starting” was apparently a common practice among young “hot-dog” pilots.  McCain was quickly transferred to the USS Oriskany (the only Forrestal crewman to be immediately transferred). Three months later, McCain was shot down over North Vietnam on October 26, 1967.

  • McCain, Deripaska, KGB, blackmail  WMR, Russia, Soviets, ...  McCain has always been arrogant and hostile in dealing with Vietnam-era POW/MIA family members. In his position as Executive Director of the US/Russia Joint Commission on POWs/MIAs, Norman Kass certainly has the access to Soviet and Russian files on POWs held by the Russians. If there is any evidence that McCain spent time being debriefed and possibly "broken" in Voronezh, that information would not only be known to the neocons but also to the Israelis. It would explain McCain's total subservience to the neocon plank, including his hawkish policies toward Russia.   ...   However, McCain also maintains a link to the Kremlin via his business ties to Russian mining billionaire Oleg Deripaska, who, according to former KGB officer Dmitry Gvozdev in an interview with the Moscow Post, may be serving as a Kremlin conduit to McCain. The Russians may be sending signals to McCain that they still have proof of the senator's collaboration with the Soviets during his POW status and that he may want to think twice about cutting deals with Georgia's Mikheil Saakashvili, pushing for NATO membership for Georgia and Ukraine, and adopting other anti-Russia stances.

  • WMR  "New York Times reporter R. W. Apple. Jr. reported on July 31, 1967, that Captain John K. Beling, the Forrestal's commanding officer, stated: "for some unknown reason, a plane parked near the carrier's island, midway up the 1,045 foot flight deck, experienced an "extreme wet start." This malfunction, comparable to what happens when a cigarette lighter is ignited after having been filled to full, occurs about once a week on attack carriers, but almost never so severely as it did yesterday."   ....    Apple continued in his report on the wet start: "A thick tongue of flame lashed backward from the parked jet, igniting a missile on one of the dozen or so planes parked near the fantail, their engines turning over in readiness for a strike launching scheduled for 11 a.m.   ....    The rocket 'shot across the deck,' Captain Beling said, 'and by a quirk of fate [emphasis added] smashed into a fuel tank under a plane on the port side.'" [The plane, a Skyhawk, the missile hit was McCain's, quite a quirk of fate since it was he who committed the wet start].  more search terms: Washington Post reporter Michael Leahy, McCain's shrapnel, USS Oriskany, 1967, prisoner of war, deliberately 'wet started' his A-4E, Zuni rocket, Admiral John McCain, Jr., Massey, Earnest, Stack, electrical surge, 'Johnny Wet Start', flame thrower antics, "a plane parked near the carrier's island",  experience, judgement, lies, cover-up, navy brat. full story
  • Common Dreams In a bold move "to restore trust to elections in Ohio," Ohio's newly-elected Secretary of State, Jennifer Brunner, has requested the resignation of all four members of the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections. The two Democrats and two Republicans were formally asked to resign by the close of business on March 21. Cuyahoga County includes the heavily Democratic city of Cleveland. Brunner is a Democrat who was elected to be Ohio's Secretary of State in November, 2006.  
  • WayneMadsenReport "WMR has learned that the Iron Mountain storage facility in Pennsylvania does store election software for the Ohio Secretary of State. Iron Mountain is an Escrow Agent for the Secretary of State's source code for Diebold and ES&S voting machines. The Congress is looking for a number of deleted e-mails between the Republican National Committee, the White House, and Justice Department concerning the firing of a number of US Attorneys for political reasons. Smartechcorp, a Chattanooga web hosting service with close links to the GOP, was discovered to be the hosting service for the Republican National Committee, the Bush-Cheney 04 campaign, and the Ohio Secretary of State's election night live results "Dashboard."
  • Counterpunch, "Why Hillary Has Always Been a Republican ... In the first of a series of profiles, Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair chart the formative years of Hillary Clinton. Watch her as she zigzags from Nixon campaigner and vote-fraud investigator in 1960 to Goldwater Girl and President of Young Republicans at Wellesley to her internship for Gerald Ford and campaigner for Nelson Rockefeller. Witness her reaction to the student protests at Yale and the demonstrations at Grant Park during the Democratic Convention in 1968. Learn how she and Bill vowed to "remake" the Democratic Party--using the Nixon model HRC learned about as a member of the House impeachment staff. And much more! Plus: David Price on anthropologist Andre Gunder Frank, the FBI and the Bureaucratic Exile of a Critical Mind."
  • WMR Bush / Clinton complicity in NSA illegal wiretapping.  A problem for Hillary? ...  1999 docs show NSA and Clinton White House hiding information about Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) compliance.  Illegal request for NSA wiretapping made in February 27, 2001 meeting ... Nacchio refused, then indicted for insider stock trading... 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, (they're all crooks?).  search terms: AT&T switching center, Folsom Street, San Francisco, 4ESS equipment, Mark Klein (whistleblower), see ( NFU NSA page) HPSCI, Porter Goss, attorney client privilege, Executive Order 12333, all concerning hiding  documents referring to legality of NSA activities, ... and Wilma A. Lewis, Mark Nagle, Marina Utgoff Braswell, Electronic Privacy Information Center, (Civil No. 99-3197 PLF), information withheld from FOIA, domestic wiretapping
  • Kathleen Willey, Clinton's murdered her husband WND but see Salon rebuttal, destroy her credibility.
  • Wayne Madsen Report. "On February 25, 2008, WMR reported: "WMR's intelligence sources in Africa are reporting that amid the post-election turmoil wracking Kenya, a three-person team (including a possible Korean-American woman) arrived in Nairobi last week and began asking questions about Barack Obama's father, the late Barack Obama, Sr."  Obama's passport files contain the dates and places of birth of Obama's parents and other pertinent data. The team also inquired about the Senator Obama Secondary School in Nyangoma-Kogelo in northwestern Kenya, the area where Obama's father, an ethnic Luo, hailed and where his grandmother, Sarah Ogwel Onyango, still lives." full story. and more    Rove /  Clinton ... Rove covertly providing assistance to Clinton campaign, ...same as in eresa Heinz Kerry 2004 attempt to dig up dirt, Orkand Corporation of Falls Church, Virginia, maintains Bureau of Consular Affairs documentation system.
  • ECS Apptis, Inc. (Apptis) was founded in 1983 as IntelliSys Technology Corporation (ITC), a small business providing services-based solutions to Federal Government customers. In 1999, after rapid growth and a name change to PlanetGov Inc., the company became a complete solutions provider offering a wide range of IT products and networking services. In July of 2004, after acquiring Technology and Management Associates, Inc. (TMA) and General Data System (GDS), they became Apptis, Inc. - "Applying Technologies, Inspiring Solutions". Apptis expertise includes enterprise design, installation, and operation; infrastructure planning and operation; information systems security; information assurance
= go to NFU pages                                 Obama, Passportgate and other dirty tricks 08                               top
PROGRESSIVE  REFERENCE CONSERVATIVE*
  • African American Religious Leadership Committee, Obama 
  • Barack Obama.com
  • Consortium News ... rank and file democrats have weathered three decades of Republican hardball politics, but now Clintons using Lee Atwater tactics: attacking their opponent on a strong point even when their candidate was more vulnerable, ie...Kerry, swiftboating, using the word 'kumbayah' from an old African spiritual song, ... DLCr, 
  • Consortium News, James Baker, Kelly, Tutwiler, Clinton passport files, 1992
  • DailyKOS Patrick F Kennedy, who is a Hillary supporter and former Asst. Sec of State or Bill Clinton? highest ranking passport department official.
  • Encyclopedia Dramatica Karl Rove, aka Moby Dick, Turd Blossom, MC Rove, political assassination, malevolent Bush, leader of the Texas Mafia, including Gonzales, Bartlett, Miers, Mark McClellan, Scott McClellan, Pat Wood, Rod Paige, Don Evans, 
  • Wayne Madsen Reports book: Overthrow a Fascist Regime on $15 a Day. WMR
  • KarlRoveSucks.com MATT APUZZO Associated Press Writer ``Scooter'' Libby said Tuesday that Bush administration officials tried to blame him for the leak of a CIA operative's name to cover up for Bush political adviser Karl Rove's own disclosures."
  • Outside the Beltway Belinda Stronach  Hillary Clinton adopts a new persona for every setting. She is alternately a lover, a fighter, a mocker, a whiner and a crier as she competes with Barack Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination. Whatever it takes!
  • TexansForObama  Clinton dirty tricks, Nevada, chained, locked caucus doors,
  • notes: violations detected by computer checks of 'flagged' files of high-profile people,, violations tip off supervisors, once the employees are fired its difficult to investigate, compel them to talk, plead Fifth Amendment, all was initially handled at the 'office level' until big wigs cornered,  and  for Obama: Kenya, father, Nairobi, Korean-American woman, ask questions about Barack Obama Sr. , dates and places of birth of Obama's parents,  also Nyangoma-Kogelo school, ethnic Luo, Sarah Ogwel Onyango, Obama's grandmother.  outrageous breech, private information,  
  • notes: Passportgate 08:  polygraph tests will be used on supervisors in the passport section, did employees have political motives, Acting Inspector General William E. Todd and chief IG investigator branch, James B. Burch, a former U.S. Secret Service agent, are leading the passport probe, which began Thursday. Attorney General Michael Mukasey said his department was no reason yet to investigate. Miss Rice and Mr. Kennedy did not learn of the breaches of Mr. Obama's personal data until The Washington Times e-mailed questions about the security breaches on Thursday.  Washington Times
  • Waxman, Rep, Henry, California democrat, sent letter, demanding names, Canada,
  • World Socialist Website  Passportgate 08 Bush administration illegally examined Obama passport file  ... Patrick Kennedy, undersecretary of state for management, claimed that top officials at the State Department only learned of the security breach Thursday afternoon, March 20, when a Times reporter called, although the files were accessed on January 9, February 21 and March 14 ... "
    • Summary, Passportgate 08:
    • Obama passport files rifled in Jan, Feb and March 2008, Obama not notified till March 20. Three names withheld from public.  Press mention of Clinton and McCain files just a smokescreen.
    • Companies involved in State Dept data security: Harris Corp who owns Orkand, WMR and  Bloomberg Harris 1 0f 3 largest Iraq companies.
    • Stanley Associates Inc 
    • WMR Story shifted from Stanley to The Analysis Company as it was determined that its CEO John O. Brennan is retired CIA and Obama advisor.  
    • Rice apologized within one day,  amazing in itself
    • All kept secret until Washington Times broke the story
    • Also, a major attempt to keep quiet that:  James A. Baker III, Clinton's chief of staff, and two other aides, hired criminal lawyers in 1992 to defend themselves in their implication of the State Dept illegal search of Clinton's passport files. New York Times  and Times Online more
    • But Clinton caught with 700 FBI background files on Republicans, 1997...CNN including James Baker, Scrowcroft, Fitzwater. all fueled by Craig Livingstone, a political operative placed as head of the security office.  FBI Files Flap. all this inspired by Billy Dale, Hillary and Travelgate.
  • Notes: Rove, master at digging through political opponents files to find 'dirt',  ...imprudent curiosity or dirty tricks, digging for dirt,  is it a new Watergate scandal, ... Mrs. Clinton's file was breeched in a 'training session'...right, the trainee was 'admonished', is there respect for citizen's privacy? ...  Howard L. Berman, California Democrat, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said would investigate the break-in. 
  • ECS Orkand  Harris Technical Services Corporation (formerly The Orkand Corporation) is a wholly owned subsidiary of Harris Corporation, dedicated to providing exceptional worldwide engineering, integration, and technical services. Harris currently supports the DoS Bureau of Consular Affairs in providing both software development and systems integration/maintenance services.
  • CNN
  • MSNBC Stanley Inc Stanley announced on Monday that it was awarded an additional $570 million contract to "continue support of the U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Consular Affairs/Passport Services Directorate."
  • Hoovers, Stanley Inc
  • Signs on San Diego Obama, passport, 
  • Times Online  Passportgate 08 A similar data breach took place in 1992 when State Department officials looked up data on Bill Clinton, then a presidential candidate, in an attempt to find out information from the late 1960s, amid unfounded political campaign rumors that Mr. Clinton had sought to renounce his citizenship to dodge the draft during the Vietnam War while a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford. They also tried and failed to find evidence that he secretly traveled to communist countries.
  • The Analysis Corporation, TAC, which is headed by John O. Brennan, former CIA agent who is an adviser to Obama's presidential campaign on intelligence and foreign policy   ... Terrorist Watch list ...  one of its employees involved ...  Washington Times  
  • Washington Technology  Orkand Wins $72 Million State Department Contract, 
  • Wikipedia, Reverend Dr. Jeremiah Wright, pastor, Trinity Unity Church of Christ (TUCC), Chicago megachurch, fiery sermons, Bill Clinton invited Wright to attend White House prayer breakfast, 1998, served in the 2nd Marine Division, and Navy, valedictorian, ... and Howard University, eight honorary doctorate degrees, 
  • Notes: Passportgate 08: Bush 41, James Baker, Kelly, Tutwiler, Clinton passport file break-in, evidence to uncover derogatory info on Bill Clinton, question his patriotism, loyalty, purpose of student trips to Russia, September 30, 1992, Assistant Secretary of State Elizabeth Tamposi, ordered aids to search for letter, Clinton renounce his citizenship?  suspicions brought to election campaign, city a small tear in the corner of the passport application, saying this evidence of tampering, thus allowing a FBI referral, leaked by Bush campaign, Newsweek poured gas on the story,  Oct 4 edition ... also put out KGB link to Clinton, 'agent of influence', via Washington Times article, ... but Spencer Oliver, chief counsel on the House International Affairs Committee, suspected dirty tricks, violation of the Privacy Act, ... see Archives warehouse in Suitland, Clinton files searched by political appointees, all this made it to Washington Post, embarrassed Bush41, Bush 41 fanned the flames, but McCarthy tactics charged, Bush backpedaled, Clinton countered with a Prescott Bush salvo, said PB confronted McCarthy (interesting), Joseph diGenova (a Bush / Reagan man)  named as special prosecutor, cleared Bush,  Consortium News
  • 95% of Black Americans will not vote for Republicans ... I wonder why?
  • AP / Yahoo  Passportgate
  • Remember the 1992, Clinton passport file scandal, James Baker ...?  New York Times  and Times Online   more below
  • CNN, push polling
  • Clinton, Hillary, in her book 'Living History', she claims credit for bringing Dick Morris (toe-sucker) back to the 'inner circle', third way mole?, National headquarters at 4420 North Fairfax Drive, Ballston, 
  • DLC Democratic Leadership Council
  • Fellowship, Hillary  file
  • Fox News, Rove now works for Fox, who is owned by Rupert Murdoch, who held a fund raiser for Hillary. 
  • Freeh, Louis,  why did he hate Clinton so much?
  • Harris Corporation, owns Orkand, Harris Corporation Board of Directors Thomas A. Dattilo, Terry D. Growcock, Lewis Hay III, Karen Katen, Stephen P. Kaufman, Leslie F. Kenne, Howard L. Lance, David B. Rickard, Dr. James C. Stoffel, Gregory T. Swienton, Hansel E. Tookes II,
  • Kennedy, Patrick F.   undersecretary of state for management, in charge of passport office   
  • New Year Tech Inc. of Vienna, Va., specializing in automated inventory management  part of passport processing, State Dept.
  • Orkand Corporation, Falls Church, contractor, State Dept, data security.
  • Merrill Lynch, appointed Stephen K. Berry as new head of government relations, and will report to the senior vice president and head of communications and public affairs—Margaret Tutwiler,
  • Mukasey, Attorney General, how will he be involved in the cover-up of this dirty trick?   Before entering a person's passport file, employees must answer "yes" or "no" in a screen that warns them: "You are permitted access to passport and consular personal records on a need to know basis" and "These are privileged records and are subject to the provisions of the Privacy Act of 1974." Entry into the system does not give users access to other government records, officials said.
  • NewsWeek October 4, 1992 Clinton passport file scandal
  • Stanley Associates Inc (identified as contractor in passportgate) 3101 Wilson Boulevard, Suite 700, in Arlington, Virginia. privately-held company established in 2002. president is Philip Nolan.  Defense Department is largest customer,  Stanley has contracts in Iraq; Georgia, South Korea; Huntsville, Alabama, Virginia, New Jersey, Oklahoma, and more worldwide.  3101 Wilson Boulevard, Arlington, Virginia
  • State Dept fired two, for peering at Obama's passport file.  AP / Yahoo  Bureau of Consular Affairs, Jan, Feb. of 2008,  Obama not notified until March.
  •   Master of dirty tricks
  • Republican Policy Committee
  • Stanley Associates Inc.  Stanley Inc. 
  • State Department, Condoleeza Rice, Secretary of State, apologized to Obama, hoping it will go away, ... spokesman Sean McCormack, search terms: unauthorized access,  ... reminds of George H. W. Bush, 1992, political appointee was demoted for searching Bill Clinton's files,
  • TownHall Blog Belinda Stronach, Bubba?
  • US Conservatives  About.com. Conservative Politics, party affiliation data, some conservatives in general have accused Rev. Jeremiah Wright of using Black Liberation Theology to promote black separatism Wikipedia
  • Washington Post Hillary, no surprises in her past  ... right
  • Washington Post  Passportgate 08 David H. Laufman, associate independent counsel in the earlier passport scandal and now a partner at Kelley Drye Collier Shannon in Washington, said that a violation of the Privacy Act would occur if the person who accessed the information also disclosed it to someone unauthorized to received it. Even then, he said, violating the act is only a misdemeanor.  no mention of James Baker?
  • Washington Times, (Sun Myung Moon organization) 1st to report the story, then  watered down, obfuscated, included Clinton and McCain.  and more
  • Bush / Clinton crime families research
 
  • go to YouTube, McCain, Fox News, subliminal, Cindy McCain.  Fox affiliate five, 5, subliminal  promotion in logo
  • Hoovers  Stanley Inc ...The company provides IT services -- including consulting, systems integration, logistics, outsourcing, and engineering -- primarily to military and civilian agencies of the US government. Its clients have included the Library of Congress, the Department of Defense, the Department of Transportation, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, the Department of State, NASA, and the Smithsonian Institution. Stanley was started as a consulting firm in 1966 by Admiral Emory Stanley.  IPO, 2006:  Citigroup Global Markets Inc.; Wachovia Capital Markets, LLC; Raymond James & Associates, Inc.; Cowen and Company, LLC; Stifel, Nicolaus & Company Incorporated  ... company: Phil O. Nolan Chairman, President & CEO; Brian J. Clark, Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer & Treasurer; George H. Wilson, Executive Vice President; Greg M. Denkler, Executive Vice President; Chris J. Torti, Senior Vice President; Scott D. Chaplin, General Counsel, Secretary & Senior Vice President; E. Pat Flannery, Senior Vice President; Jim H. Brabston, Senior Vice President; Tom R. Fradette, Chief Accounting Officer, Corporate Controller & Vice President
  • Orkand Corporation, notes: The Orkand Corp. was awarded a five-year, $72 million contract by the State Department’s Bureau of Consular Affairs to support and maintain installed systems, operate a centralized integration and repair facility and create and maintain documentation for the installed systems. ... The company also will install upgraded systems and train bureau and department employees.  ... The main focus of the contract is ongoing support and care of installed bureau systems, as well as management and operation of the centralized integration and repair facility.  ... Orkand of Falls Church, Va., was awarded the work as a recompete of a contract it had won in 1995.   Harris Announces Completion of the Orkand Corporation  AcquisitionDr. Donald S. Orkand, outgoing president and founder of the Orkand Corporation.
  • Wikipedia Patrick F. Kennedy is currently director of the U.S. State Department's Office of Management Policy and is the Undersecretary for Management. Formerly Deputy Director for Management at the cabinet level Office of the Director of National Intelligence, he returned to the Department of State on May 7, 2007.  Kennedy is also the former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations for Management and Reform and previously served as Chief of Staff for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq. He was the Assistant Secretary of State for the Clinton Administration from 1993 to 2001. 
  • New York Times 1992  PROSECUTOR NAMED TO REVIEW SEARCH OF FILES ON CLINTON DAVID JOHNSTON, Published: December 18, 1992 Attorney General William P. Barr has arranged the appointment of an independent prosecutor to conduct a criminal investigation of the State Department's search of Bill Clinton's passport files, lawyers and Government officials following the case said today.  It is not clear who will be the primary subjects of the criminal inquiry by Joseph E. diGenova, a former United States Attorney for the District of Columbia who was appointed by a Federal appeals court panel in a sealed court document that has not been made public. ... James A. Baker III, the White House chief of staff and former Secretary of State, and two of his top aides have hired criminal lawyers to represent them in connection with the inquiry, although it is not known if Mr. Baker or either of the aides, Margaret D. Tutwiler, White House director of communications, and Janet G. Mullins, the White House political director, is under scrutiny. A White House spokesman said today that officials there were unaware of the appointment. Spotlight on Senior Officials   and file
  • World Socialist Website  The automated security controls were put in place at the State Department in the wake of a similar case of politically motivated snooping in 1992, when top officials of a previous Bush administration sought information to discredit the Democratic presidential candidate of that year, Bill Clinton.  In the 1992 scandal the trail back to the White House was clearly established, since Bush campaign manager James Baker—who left his position as secretary of state to run the reelection effort—was anxious to obtain material that could be used against Clinton. Baker was especially interested in Clinton’s visit to Moscow during the Vietnam War, while he was a graduate student at Oxford.  President George H. W. Bush made repeated references to this trip in the course of the 1992 fall campaign, seeking to smear Clinton as unpatriotic and disloyal. The Republicans circulated rumors that Clinton had renounced his citizenship as an antiwar gesture, and there were even McCarthyite-style suggestions he had become a “mole” for the Soviet KGB.   ....  the affair blew up into a minor sensation, with the appointment of an independent counsel who, well after the election, exonerated Baker and other top officials, including his top aide, Margaret Tutwiler, and Steven K. Berry, an assistant secretary of state.
  Obama's Birth Certificate Checks Out?
  • WayneMadsenReport  Legal challenge to be filed today (Aug 21, 2008) against Barack Obama's eligibility to run for President   ...   In what appears to be another indication that the Barack Obama campaign is still having trouble clearing up questions about the Illinois Senator's constitutional eligibility to run for President, later today, a legal team will file in the U.S. Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia a request for a federal declaratory injunction against Obama being on the ticket as a presidential candidate. The complaint,.... search terms: DNC, Federal Election Commission,  failed to establish that he satisfies the requirement that candidates for the presidency must be native born American citizens.   ...   The request for the declaratory injunction will state that Obama has failed to provide the necessary proof that he has a valid birth certificate proving he was born in Honolulu, Hawaii on August 4, 1961. The complainants against Obama's candidacy believe his Hawaii Certificate of Live Birth (COLB) has been digitally altered and is bogus. There are also reported discrepancies as to the hospital in which Obama was born. Two hospitals -- Queen's Hospital and Kapiolani Hospital have been referenced in various reports.
  • HotAir  Recently FactCheck representatives got a chance to spend some time with the birth certificate, and we can attest to the fact that it is real and three-dimensional and resides at the Obama headquarters in Chicago. We can assure readers that the certificate does bear a raised seal, and that it’s stamped on the back by Hawaii state registrar Alvin T. Onaka (who uses a signature stamp rather than signing individual birth certificates). We even brought home a few photographs… The document is a “certification of birth,” also known as a short-form birth certificate. The long form is drawn up by the hospital and includes additional information such as birth weight and parents’ hometowns. The short form is printed by the state and draws from a database with fewer details. The Hawaii Department of Health’s birth record request form does not give the option to request a photocopy of your long-form birth certificate, but their short form has enough information to be acceptable to the State Department. We tried to ask the Hawaii DOH why they only offer the short form, among other questions, but they have not given a response. The scan released by the campaign shows halos around the black text, making it look (to some) as though the text might have been pasted on top of an image of security paper. But the document itself has no such halos, nor do the close-up photos we took of it. We conclude that the halo seen in the image produced by the campaign is a digital artifact from the scanning process.
  • St. Petersburg Times sort of verifies Obama’s birth certificate because without the original they can’t verify the embossed seal on the back, but everything else checks out. I’m happy to believe them just because I think this is a weak line of attack and am anxious to get it off the table, the various e-mails we’ve gotten about it over the past week or two notwithstanding.
  • To get a U.S. passport, you have to show either a notice of being a sworn-in citizen, or a valid, certified birth certificate. They are VERY specific on this. As anyone who has gone through the passport hassle can tell you they don’t allow any facimilis. 5) Since no one has any record that he ever took a citizenship test, one can only assume that someone, sometime examined his birth certificate or else he’d never have gotten a U.S. passport
  • US District Court, Eastern District of PA  601 Market Street,  Philadelphia, PA 19106-1797,  Ph: 215-597-7704
  • StoptheACLU A prominent Philadelphia attorney and Hillary Clinton supporter filed suit this afternoon in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania against Illinois Sen. Barack Obama and the Democratic National Committee. The action seeks an injunction preventing the senator from continuing his candidacy and a court order enjoining the DNC from nominating him next week, all on grounds that Sen. Obama is constitutionally ineligible to run for and hold the office of President of the United States.  ...  Phillip Berg, the filing attorney, is a former gubernatorial and senatorial candidate, former chair of the Democratic Party in Montgomery (PA) County, former member of the Democratic State Committee, and former Deputy Attorney General of Pennsylvania. According to Berg, he filed the suit–just days before the DNC is to hold its nominating convention in Denver–for the health of the Democratic Party.   ...  “I filed this action at this time,” Berg stated, “to avoid the obvious problems that will occur when the Republican Party raises these issues after Obama is nominated.”.
  • Philip J. Berg is a 911  thruther. He also demanded the disbarment of three Supreme Court justices
    regarding Bush v. Gore [PDF]. Read his bio 
      ... NAACP-Life member and NRA-Life member,  law office in Lafayette Hill, Pennsylvania,  Phil Berg was highly involved in challenging the 2000 presidential election, A candidate for U.S. Senate in 2000, for Governor of Pennsylvania in 1990 and 1998 and Lt. Governor in 1994; State Committeeperson, eight years; and Committeeperson for thirty one years,  Current Lieutenant, Fire Police, Barren Hill Volunteer Fire Company and a volunteer member for past 22 years; former Secretary to the Board and Board Member of Valley Forge Convention & Visitors Bureau for 4 years; Alumni Representative for the Philadelphia area for the College of Law, University of Toledo for the past thirty-three (33) years;  
  • 911 for the truth WORLD TRADE CENTER RESCUE HERO SUES BUSH AND OTHERS UNDER RICO STATUTE, ALLEGES WILLFUL COMPLICITY IN ATTACKS THAT KILLED 3,000, Berg part of this process  
  • Wordpress Berg blog   New Jersey Stonewall Democrats Philip Berg speech, LGBT rights
Demographics    top
PROGRESSIVE  REFERENCE CONSERVATIVE*
 
 
  • Trent Lott now the Chairman of the Committee on Rules & Administration of U.S. Senate.  which receives all proposed legislation on U.S. Presidential elections and more.
  • Republican Policy Committee
  • US Conservatives  About.com. Conservative Politics, party affiliation data, 
  • Republican: more likely to be a man, college grad, in top income bracket, evangelical Christian, rural
  • Republican Party's Black problem. 
  • Democrat more likely to be a woman, senior citizen, gay, nonwhite, urban
MORE Witchenomics at Intelligent Design Jokes page 10
Election 2008    top
PROGRESSIVE  REFERENCE CONSERVATIVE*
  • Campaign Legal Center in the public interest of campaign and media law
  • Common Cause  Soft Money issues, govt watchdog
  • Rep. John Conyers 2004 election investigation
  • EcoTalk.org  Voting systems organizations and companies, great investigative work.
  • KnowtheCandidates automated self-serve news poster
  • MediaMatters, David Brock, founder, will chairmanship “ main vehicle for independent Democratic attacks on McCain, ,Progressive Media USA,” 
  • Moveon.org
  • Oped News Diebold evoting machines, Bush, Florida,  CEO Walden O'Dell 
  • SourceWatch Fund for America
  • CNN Money  "Palin renegotiated a new deal with a Canadian company, TransCanada, to build the $26 billion pipeline, which analysts say - if completed - is better financially for the state.  But analysts - and the McCain campaign itself - are quick to note that Palin will toe the line on the energy policies of her potential boss, who unlike Barack Obama does not favor a windfall profits tax.  Christopher Ruppel, an energy analyst at Execution LLC, a broker and research firm for institutional investors like hedge and mutual funds is more concerned with McCain's energy policy than Palin's past spats with the oil industry. "We don't think she will represent a big change from that."  The McCain campaign, which speaks for Palin, confirmed that stance.  MORE at Intelligent Design Jokes page 10
  • WMR  August 19, 2008 -- Rove intimidating Republicans into silence ...    Buoyed by an ineffective House Judiciary Committee under the control of gatekeeping staffers working for committee Chairman John Conyers, Karl Rove has effectively curtailed any effective investigation of past election fraud, including the 2004 presidential election, as a result of threats and intimidations directed against potential Republican Party witnesses. WMR has learned from informed sources in Ohio and Alabama, that Rove is concerned that a huge GOP technical election "flipping" operation will be revealed that will result in a series of prosecutions and at least one impeachment of a federal judge, a political ally of Rove.  ...  Rove, according to our sources, has threatened Republican Party official Mike Connell and his wife Heather if Connell testifies about GOP computerized vote-rigging. Connell has been a top technical wizard for Republican web-based campaign operations, including the firms GovTech Solutions and New Media Communications. WMR has learned from knowledgeable sources in Ohio that Connell and GOP cyber-security expert Stephen Spoonamore were approached by the White House to delete "smoking gun" emails from the White House system that revealed a conspiracy by the Bush administration to fire several U.S. Attorneys after the 2004 election. Spoonamore, a GOP supporter of John McCain and CEO of the computer security firm Cybrinth, has confirmed that Rove and the White House conspired to rob 2004 Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry of Ohio, thus ensuring George W. Bush's "re-election." According to our Ohio sources, Spoonamore directed attention to 12 Ohio counties where Kerry received fewer votes than down-ticket Democratic candidates.   full story
Bush  /  Gonzales / pedophile, sex scandals ... NFU page index
HOME     go to research
Abramoff / corruption  Washington D.C. Dept of Interior, emails, corruption, casinos, Florida, drugs MORE  DeLay
The Franklin Scandal, Below  Omaha, Lawrence King, BoysTown, sexual abuse, White House  1989 MORE  
Texas, Rove, youth prisons  Rove, Gonzales, Sutton, implicated in failure to prosecute sodomy MORE 
Secret prisons, sexual torture  Extraordinary Rendition, Bush, sexual torture, prisoner abuse,  MORE
8 U.S. Attorneys fired  Carole Lam fired, Abramoff, Cunningham, Foggo, Wilkes, Hookergate MORE
DiBiagio, Palfrey, Luna  Gov. Ehrlich,  DiBiagio fired, Luna murdered, Palfrey investigation, Hookergate MORE
CIA, Iran-Contra, Franklin  $38 million missing, Franklin Credit Union, CIA, Iran-Contra, Clinton, Bush MORE
Caging lists, USAttorneys fired   link:Rove assistant: Timothy Griffin, 2004 voter suppression, Goodling MORE
Mark Foley  Senate Page program, email sex scandal / hypocrisy MORE
Ronald Roskens, USAID,  Chancellor, U of Nebraska, fired, homosexual orgies, MORE
Ted Haggard  Gay male prostitute, cover-up, White House conference calls MORE
Jeff Gannon  White House visits, gay porn sites, Gosch, Guckert MORE
Blunt, Boehner, Hastert  Foley cover-up, Abramoff, Dept of the Interior, FBI Investigation MORE
Brian Doyle, DHS,  Arrested, use of a computer to seduce a child, Dept Homeland Sec. MORE
Tony Blair  Pedophile investigations, D-Notices, cover-up MORE
Michael Aquino  Presidio, sexual abuse investigation, day care centers, Reagan ties. MORE
Pope Benedict, Ratzinger  Catholic priest sexual abuse cover-up MORE
 

Alphabetic Subject Index, Franklingate

 
KoreaGate  Sun Myung Moon, Congress, bribery MORE
Sarkozy statement:  "I'm inclined personally to think that you are born paedophile .." MORE
Fascism and pedophilia  ... disturbing similarities ..German Christian Church and the Nazi Party .. MORE
Covenant House  Father Bruce Ritter, pedophilia, Iran Contra, Bush family connections MORE
John Mark Karr  Thailand, child sex rings, Bush connections MORE
John Lehman  "Coos Bay" pedophilia cover-up 1982, 9/11 Commission, Franklin cover-up MORE
Deborah Jeane Palfrey   D.C. Madam... threat to identify high-profile clients, Ullman, Cheney MORE
Venezuela  War on drugs? elections funding, pedophile networks MORE
Gen. William Boykin  Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, sexual torture of prisoners, Stephen Cambone MORE
Sagiv, Israeli diplomat  Israeli, Yosef Sagiv, Consulate in Atlanta, charged, exploitation of children MORE
Victor Ashe  Bush's bi-sexual? Yale roommate, Ambassador to Poland MORE
Ed McAteer  Knowledge of Bush / Ashe Las Vegas sexual encounter MORE 
Southern Baptist Convention  Failure to deal with clergy sexual abuse info  
Mormons  Unreported sexual abuse, lawsuits abound MORE
  GOP Pedophile list  
Washington Times, Casseday Huffington Post , Soliciting  internet sex with what he believed was 13 yr old. 2006  
GOP Dirty Tricks  GOP Dirty Tricks, 50 years, hundreds of entries MORE
 
Election Manipulation, Caging lists, RNC top
PROGRESSIVE  REFERENCE CONSERVATIVE*
  • Democratic Congresswoman Corinne Brown said the surveillance operation was part of a campaign of intimidation tactics used by the Republican Party to intimate and scare off African American voters, almost all of whom are registered Democrats.
  • Campaign Legal Center in the public interest of campaign and media law
  • Common Cause  Soft Money issues, government watchdog
  • Congressman John Conyers Michigan 14th District, "Politically, the district is heavily Democratic, the city of Detroit even more so: 94% voted for Al Gore and 5% for George W. Bush in 2000.
  • DissidentVoice caging list lists, from 2004 Greg Palast story, secret document, emails, Bush campaign headquarters, Florida, disrupt voting, voter suppression, African-American voting districts, BBC Newsnight investigation, "caging list", lists of voters predominantly in Democratic areas of Jacksonville, Tallahaasee, mass challenge voters on election day, only vote by provisional ballot, or provisionally, after signing an affidavit attesting to their legal voting status, 
  • EcoTalk.org  Voting systems organizations and companies, great investigative work.
  • GeorgeWBush.org anti Bush site, received caging lists, and from Wikipedia about emails received: "The e-mails had the subject line "Re: Caging" and contained Microsoft Excel spreadsheet file attachments called "Caging.xls" and "Caging-1.xls" Chickenhead Productions.
  • Oped News Diebold evoting machines, Bush, Florida,  CEO Walden O'Dell 
  • Palast, Greg Armed Madhouse, voter suppression lists
  • Pew Hispanics Center  Chronicling Latinos' diverse experiences in a changing America
  • ThinkProgress Goodling, caging, Griffin, search terms: 
  • BBC, Caging list, Republican, RNC and Republican Response BBC
  • Campaign Finance Information Center  calculating influence: How it all adds up.
  • Campaign Legal Center
  • FactCheck.org nonpartisan, reduce deceptions and confusion in U.S. politics
  • Living Room Candidate, Moving Image.us Presidential campaign commercials: starting from 1952
  • Sequoia Voting Systems has verifiable paper trail system.
  • Wikipedia caging lists examples, how they work:  From the Washington Post: "In 1981, the Republican National Committee sent letters to predominantly black neighborhoods in New Jersey, and when 45,000 letters were returned as undeliverable, the committee compiled a challenge list to remove those voters from the rolls. The RNC sent off-duty law enforcement officials to the polls and hung posters in heavily black neighborhoods warning that violating election laws is a crime.  The Washington Post continues: "In 1986, the RNC tried to have 31,000 voters, most of them black, removed from the rolls in Louisiana when a party mailer was returned. The consent decrees that resulted prohibited the party from engaging in anti-fraud initiatives that target minorities or conduct mail campaigns to 'compile voter challenge lists.'"
  • Help America Vote Act of 2002, created the Election Assistance Commission, and now talk of changing election date, 'terrorism' ?
  • Election Assistance Commission
  • Bush for President  Rangers and Pioneers,
  • Mindy Fletcher Tucker, Florida Republican state campaign spokeswoman, list was not put together to create a challenge list, 
  • Corinne Brown DiscovertheNetworks Guide to the political left, from a conservative viewpoint....
  • Sequoia Voting Systems has verifiable paper trail system.
  • Washington Times
  • RNC, Republican National Committee  .
  • Republican Policy Committee
  • Caging list notes: "When asked by Newsnight for an explanation of the list, Republican spokespersons claim the list merely records returned mail from either fundraising solicitations or returned letters sent to newly registered voters to verify their addresses for purposes of mailing campaign literature." and "Republican state campaign spokeswoman Mindy Tucker Fletcher stated the list was not put together "in order to create" a challenge list, but refused to say it would not be used in that manner." DissidentVoice
  • Washington Post
  • Washington Times, Sun Myung Moon organization
  • Greg Palast: June 2007, US Attorney Resigns Following Conyers’ Request for BBC Documents by Greg Palast June 1, 2007  Tim Griffin, formerly right hand man to Karl Rove, resigned Thursday as US Attorney for Arkansas hours after BBC Television ‘Newsnight’ reported that Congressman John Conyers requested the network’s evidence on Griffin’s involvement in ‘caging voters.’ Greg Palast, reporting for BBC Newsnight, obtained a series of confidential emails from the 2004 Bush-Cheney campaign. In these emails, Griffin, then the GOP Deputy Communications Director, transmitted so-called ‘caging lists’ of voters to state party leaders.  Experts have concluded the caging lists were designed for a mass challenge of voters’ right to cast ballots. The caging lists were heavily weighted with minority voters including homeless individuals, students and soldiers sent overseas.  Conyers, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee investigating the firing of US Attorneys, met Thursday evening in New York with Palast. After reviewing key documents, Conyers stated that, despite Griffin’s resignation, “We’re not through with him by any means.”  Conyers indicated to the BBC that he thought it unlikely that Griffin could carry out this massive ‘caging’ operation without the knowledge of White House Deputy Chief of Staff Rove.  Griffin has not responded to requests by BBC to explain this 'caging' operation. However, in emails subpoenaed by Conyers' committee, Griffin complains to Monica Goodling, an assistant to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, about the BBC reporter's reproduction of caging lists in Palast's book, "Armed Madhouse."  In the email dated February 5 of this year, Griffin stated that the purpose of 'caging' was to identify "fraudulent" voters. This contradicts one explanation of the Bush campaign to BBC that the lists were of potential donors and not in any way created to challenge voters.  Griffin confidentially wrote: "The real story is this: There were thousands of reported illegal/fake voter registrations around the country, so some of the Republican State Parties mailed letters welcoming new voters to the newly registered voters. … The Republican State Parties ultimately wanted to show that thousands of fraudulent registrations had been completed."  Last Wednesday, Goodling testified under a grant of immunity before the House Judiciary Committee that Gonzales' Deputy Paul McNulty, "failed to disclose that he had some knowledge of allegations that Tim Griffin had been involved in vote 'caging' during his work on the President's 2004 campaign."  Goodling's testimony prompted Conyers' request to the BBC for the Griffin emails.  MORE BELOW on CAGING LISTS
  • DissidentVoice from 2004 Greg Palast story: caging list lists, from 2004 Greg Palast story, secret document, emails, Bush campaign headquarters, Florida, disrupt voting, voter suppression, African-American voting districts, BBC Newsnight investigation, "caging list", lists of voters predominantly in Democratic areas of Jacksonville, Tallahassee, mass challenge voters on election day, only vote by provisional ballot, or provisionally, after signing an affidavit attesting to their legal voting status, 
  • BBC RNC response to BBC article excerpt: If the reporter had asked the Elections Supervisor in Duval County, the area in question, he would have learned that this area has been affected by massive fraud efforts this year as a result of the work of ACORN, a third party organization supporting the Kerry campaign and the Democrats.  He would have learned that many people who were registered this year in Duval County in fact do not have valid addresses. It seems his goal was not to obtain accurate information, but to help the Democrats launch a political attack.  In a year when reporters are under heavy scrutiny for showing political leanings toward the Democratic Party, I would think that your new organization would take greater care to understand the facts and use sources that will yield objective information, rather than carry one party's political agenda.  Please post this letter on your website and in any other place that the above-mentioned story appears. It is your responsibility to make sure that the facts are relayed to your viewers and readers. Full article (clever denial of exaggeration of voter fraud). 
  •  Ohio '04 election was not challenged to protect CIA election rigging technology  March 2012
    A source with close connections to the GOP has revealed to WMR that the 2004 presidential election, which saw votes for Democratic candidate John Kerry flipped to George W. Bush primarily in Ohio, used election "engineering" technology previously used by the CIA in eastern and central Europe and some western European countries like Sweden to ensure the results wanted by the United States.

    In November and December 2004, this editor wrote a series of articles that pointed to foreign programmers, off-shore CIA money tranches, and shady CIA contractors being involved with flipping the votes recorded by electronic voting machines in Ohio. The reaction was derission about the reports -- but not from the expected Republican peanut gallery, but from Democratic quarters, including then-MSNBC host Keith Olbermann and non-governmental organizations funded by George Soros.

    The following is what this editor wrote about the Ohio election fraud: "Sources within the U.S. Intelligence Community provided information on the financing -- via foreign funding sources, covert intelligence networks, and illegal pseudo-banking routes -- of programmers, election officials, and others to ensure that Bush and Cheney captured Ohio's critical 20 electoral votes . . . in Delaware County, Ohio, an armed, uniformed security policeman working for an entity called Global Security Services (GSS), LLC, headquartered in Severna Park, Maryland, interfered with the team of researchers who attempted to examine punch card ballots. GSS's web site says the firm is composed of "former career U.S. Secret Service and FBI Agents, Customs Agents, CIA intelligence and operations specialists, Special Operations personnel, U.S. Marshals, former state and local law enforcement and emergency services professionals." And in a revelation that supports this author's original findings that the 2004 vote fraud had significant foreign and U.S. intelligence links, including off-shore banking connections, the GSS web site states the company has 'a carefully developed a network of 11 affiliated offices in the United States and an additional 43 offices throughout Europe, Russia, the former Soviet Union and the Western Hemisphere. The network of affiliates and contacts also include a presence in the 'off-shore safe havens' found in the Caribbean, Europe, South America, Asia and the South Pacific.' This author's November and December 2004 articles stated that the money for the throwing of the 2004 election was tied to accounts in the Isle of Man, Vanuatu and the Cook Islands (South Pacific), Nevis (Caribbean), and the Bahamas.

    On November 25, 2004, I wrote the following: "November 25, 2004—According to informed sources in Washington and Houston, the Bush campaign spent some $29 million to pay polling place operatives around the country to rig the election for Bush. The operatives were posing as Homeland Security and FBI agents but were actually technicians familiar with Diebold, Sequoia, ES&S, Triad, Unilect, and Danaher Controls voting machines. These technicians reportedly hacked the systems to skew the results in favor of Bush . . . In one unprecedented action in Warren County, Ohio, election officials locked down the facility where votes were being counted. The officials said this was in response to a Level 10 high-threat terrorist warning being issued by the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI for Warren County. George Bush won 72 percent of the vote in Warren County, much larger than his percentage of victory statewide."

    Olbermann wrote about my story about foreign money and CIA involvement in the Ohio election as follows: "if any part of Mr. Madsen’s writing on the election is proved and valid, I’ll not only repeat my offer to pay his way for him to pick up his Pulitzer Prize — I’ll physically carry him there myself. There could very well be facts — even important facts — hiding in there somewhere."

    It should also be noted that Olbermann's big boss, Jeffrey Immelt, General Electric's CEO, was a generous donor to George W. Bush's presidential campaigns in 2000 and 2004.

    There was a very good reason why the story of election fraud in Ohio was tamped down and censored by the corporate media: those involved in the fraud can be tied directly to CIA election tampering operations in countries like Croatia. And one of those reponsible for implementing the election fraud overseas died in a suspicious plane crash in Ohio. Mike Connell, the GOP's information technology maestro was killed in a suspicious plane crash in December 2008 while flying from the Washington, DC area back to Akron, Ohio. Connell, who was due to give testimony in a federal court in Cleveland on the election malfeasance in Ohio, was involved from 2001 to 2004 in providing technical assistance for Croatian journalists in reporting on primarily, elections in that country. Connell carried out his work oin behalf of the CIA-connected U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the International Republican Institute (IRI), both of which were recently nabbed in Egypt conducting similar election "engineering" operations. USAID funds election engineering abroad through the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). IRI, an affiliate of the U.S. Republican Party, and the National Democratic Institute, an arm of the Democratic Party, are among the implementers of the CIA's election tampering and fraud abroad.

    SmarTech, the same Chattanooga-based firm that had provided the email servers that allowed to White House to communicate with the Justice Department privately and outside the jurisdiction of the federal archival laws and regulations, also ran the operation that permitted Karl Rove and other White House and Republican National Committee and state of Ohio officials to monitor and alter the election count in Ohio before the results were known to the press. SmarTech used then-state-of-the-art technology based on "onion routers" to mask its connections into the vote tabulation and counting systems in states like Ohio.

    Connell's GovTech Solutions and his other firm, New Media Communications, were closely linked to the Ohio election fraud. GovTech Solutions was hired by then-GOP Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell as a consultant to the office of the Secretary of State for the election. New Media Communications set up hundreds of Republican web sites, including gwb43.com, which was used by Bush White House staffers to send politically-connected emails in violation of government policies on mixing official duties with political work.

    Blackwell also contracted out backup servers to SmarTech. However, SmarTech did not develop its sophisticated election surveillance and engineering technology on its own. WMR has been informed by a GOP insider who was once closely connected to Rove that SmarTech of Chattanooga's technology came from Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)-funded research at nearby Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI), the non-profit branch of the Georgia Institute of Technology, that focused on covertly and securely "fixing" elections. We have been told that it is no coincidence that the technology database at GTRI is also known as "SMARTECH." GTRI's election research, which was actually funded through DARPA by the CIA and USAID, is based on the use of heuristic genetic algorithms to carry out massive election fraud where millions of votes must be altered to arrive at results that are logical and believable.

    The CIA/USAID election engineering program has an important sponsor in the U.S. Senate: Republican Bob Corker of Tennessee. WMR previously reported on Corker's ties to SmarTech: "SmarTech' servers were placed in the basement of the old Pioneer Bank Building in downtown Chattanooga. The parent company for SmarTech is Airnet. The SmartTech-GovTech Solutions-Media Communications operation resulted in the election tampering in 2004. There are also questionable ties between SmarTech and former Chattanooga Mayor and now U.S. Senator Bob Corker. There are reports of a connection between SmarTech's predecessor firm ST3, another web service provider called Coptix, and Corker. It also just so happens that Corker is the ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on International Development and Foreign Assistance, Economic Affairs, and International Environmental Protection, the sub-committee having oversight over USAID's budget.

    Reverend DeForest "Buster" Soaries, Jr., the former Ndw Jersey Secretary of State who was appointed by George W. Bush as the first chairman of the new Election Assistance Commission, had one major task: to ensure that the methods used to flip votes, all considered CIA secret proprietary data, never came to light. Working with his friend and fellow African-American Republican Blackwell in Ohio, Soaries ensured the CIA's secret was safe and that its election tampering technology would not be discovered to have been used inside the United States, a supposed violation of U.S. law. Soros was activated by his CIA task masters to put out the order that no NGOs funded by him were to investigate Ohio's election as fraud. This editor was with one such NGO. I continued to investigate Ohio against the wishes of a friend of Soaries and was terminated as a result. The official reason was that there was "pressure from above." The pressure was, in fact, coming from Soros and his CIA controllers.

    The early reports that Ukrainian and Brazilian programmers were used to write the software code that was later inserted into Ohio and other states' election tabuilating systems is bolstered by new information that these programmerfs were first used to alter elections in Europe and other countries where USAID election "assistance" was rendered.

     

Survey Research Sources    top
PROGRESSIVE  REFERENCE CONSERVATIVE*
  • Public Eye, Political Research Associates, an invaluable resource in researching Right Wing Conservative thought, actions, beliefs
  • Scoop   on stolen elections, Walden O'Dell 
Voting Machines    top
PROGRESSIVE  REFERENCE CONSERVATIVE*
Voting Rights Act   top
PROGRESSIVE  REFERENCE CONSERVATIVE*
  • AEI dedicated to ending the Voting Rights Act, search:  'outdate' and not needed.
  • Advanced Voting Machines, Texas
  • Bush for President  Rangers and Pioneers, 
  • DOJ Voting Rights Act
  • Trent Lott now the Chairman of the Committee on Rules & Administration of the U.S. Senate,  which receives all proposed legislation on U.S. Presidential elections and more.  Stripped of Senate leadership position for racist remarks.
  • Search terms: Ku Klux Klan, White Sheets caucus, Burning Cross caucus.
Top 50 PACS    top
PROGRESSIVE  REFERENCE CONSERVATIVE*
  • EMILY'S LIST
  • SERVICE EMPLOYEES INTERNATIONAL UNION COMMITTEE ON POLITICAL EDUCATION (SEIU COPE)
  • AMERICAN FEDERATION OF STATE COUNTY & MUNICIPAL EMPLOYEES- P E O P L E, QUALIFIED
  • DRIVE- DEMOCRAT REPUBLICAN INDEPENDENT VOTER EDUCATION- PAC FOR INT'L BROTHERHOOD OF 
  • UAW- V- CAP (UAW VOLUNTARY COMMUNITY ACTION PROGRAM)
  • MOVEON PAC
  • AMERICAN FEDERATION OF TEACHERS AFL-CIO COMMITTEE ON POLITICAL EDUCATION
  • VOICE OF TEACHERS FOR EDUC/CMTE ON POL EDUC OF NY STATE UNTD TEACHERS (VOTE/COPE) OF NYSUT
  • 1199 SERVICE EMPLOYEES INT'L UNION FEDERAL POLITICAL ACTION FUND
  • INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF ELECTRICAL WORKERS COMMITTEE ON POLITICAL EDUCATION
  •  ASSOCIATION OF TRIAL LAWYERS OF AMERICA POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE
  •  21ST CENTURY DEMOCRATS
  • UNITED FOOD & COMMERCIAL WORKERS INTERNATIONAL UNION ACTIVE BALLOT CLUB
  • AMERICA COMING TOGETHER
  • INTERNATIONAL UNION OF PAINTERS AND ALLIED TRADES POLITICAL ACTION TOGETHER POLITICAL COMM
  • LABORERS' POLITICAL LEAGUE-LABORERS' INTERNATIONAL UNION OF NA
  • NEA FUND FOR CHILDREN AND PUBLIC EDUCATION
  • NJ STATE LABORERS PAC / LABORERS POLITICAL LEAGUE
  • INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF ELECTRICAL WORKERS LOCAL 98 COMMITTEE ON POLITICAL EDUCATION
  • 36 UNITED TRANSPORTATION UNION (UTU) TRANSPORTATION POLITICAL EDUCATION LEAGUE
  • INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF FIREFIGHTERS INTERESTED IN REGISTRATION AND EDUCATION PAC
  • CARPENTERS LEGISLATIVE IMPROVEMENT COMMITTEE UNITED BROTHERHOOD OF CARPENTERS AND JOINERS

     

  • NRA POLITICAL VICTORY FUND
  • NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE
  • REPUBLICAN ISSUES CAMPAIGN
  • PRO- LIFE CAMPAIGN COMMITTEE
  • PRO-GROWTH ACTION TEAM (PAT-PAC)
  • VOLUNTEER PAC
  • AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE
  • DEALERS ELECTION ACTION COMMITTEE OF THE NATIONAL AUTOMOBILE DEALERS ASSOCIATION (NADA)
  • UNITED PARCEL SERVICE INC. POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE
  • CWA-COPE POLITICAL CONTRIBUTIONS COMMITTEE
  • NEW REPUBLICAN MAJORITY FUND
  • AMERICANS FOR A REPUBLICAN MAJORITY (ARMPAC)
  • 28 MACHINISTS NON PARTISAN POLITICAL LEAGUE
  • NATIONAL BEER WHOLESALERS ASSOCIATION POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE
  • CREDIT UNION LEGISLATIVE ACTION COUNCIL OF CUNA
  •  SHEET METAL WORKERS' INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION POLITICAL ACTION LEAGUE
  • NATIONAL FEDERATION OF INDEPENDENT BUSINESS/ SAVE AMERICA'S FREE ENTERPRISE TRUST
  • FEDERAL EXPRESS POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE
  • AMERICA'S FOUNDATION FKA FIGHT- PAC
  •  BLACK AMERICA'S POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE
  • BUILD POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE OF THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF HOME BUILDERS
  • 42 2003 PRESIDENT'S DINNER COMMITTEE
  • KEEP OUR MAJORITY PAC
  • DELOITTE & TOUCHE FEDERAL POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE
  • AIR LINE PILOTS ASSOCIATION PAC
  • NATIONAL RIGHT TO LIFE POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE
  • NATIONAL COMMITTEE FOR AN EFFECTIVE CONGRESS
  • UNITED ASSOCIATION POLITICAL EDUCATION COMMITTEE

     

 

GOP Election dirty tricks, Caging Lists
June 16, 2004   African-American Voters Scrubbed by Secret GOP Hit List by Greg Palast As reported for Democracy Now!

Palast, who first reported this story for BBC Television Newsnight (UK) and Democracy Now! (USA), is author of the New York Times bestseller, Armed Madhouse.  The Republican National Committee has a special offer for African-American soldiers: Go to Baghdad, lose your vote.  A confidential campaign directed by GOP party chiefs in October 2004 sought to challenge the ballots of tens of thousands of voters in the last presidential election, virtually all of them cast by residents of Black-majority precincts. Files from the secret vote-blocking campaign were obtained by BBC Television Newsnight, London. They were attached to emails accidentally sent by Republican operatives to a non-party website.   search terms: Amy Goodman, discussion with Palast, scheme:RNC mailed voters letters in envelopes marked  'do not forward', to be returned to sender, then mailed to the US homes of military personnel stationed overseas, thus undeliverable, and subject to challenge by the RNC, voter forced to file 'provisional ballot', RNC leaders in scheme include Tim Griffin, Brett Doster, ... file caging.xls, also targeted African Americans, blacks, felons, Katherine Harris, 

  • Clinton cabinet
  • Secretary of State Warren M. Christopher, ; Madeleine Albright, 
  • Secretary of the Treasury Lloyd Bentsen, Robert E. Rubin, Lawrence H. Summers, 
  • Secretary of Defense Les Aspin, 1993 William J. Perry, 1994, William S. Cohen, Attorney General Janet Reno, 
  • Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt, 
  • Secretary of Agriculture Mike Espy, Dan Glickman, Secretary of Commerce Ronald H. Brown, Mickey Kantor, William M. Daley, Norman Y. Mineta, 
  • Secretary of Labor Robert B. Reich, Alexis Herman, 
  • Secretary of Health and Human Services Donna E. Shalala, 
  • Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Henry G. Cisneros, Andrew M. Cuomo, 
  • Secretary of Transportation Federico F. Pena, Rodney Slater, Secretary of Energy Hazel R. O'Leary, Frederico F. Pena, Bill Richardson, 
  • Secretary of Education Richard W. Riley, 
  • Secretary of Veterans Affairs Jesse Brown, Togo D. West, Jr.,
  • and Morris, Gergen
Sodahead  Rumor one: Obama was born in Kenya. Rather unlikely, as it would require everyone in his family to lie about this in every interview and discussion with those outside the family since young Obama appeared on the scene. However, if it were true, it would probably raise a major question of “does he qualify as a natural-born citizen”? If Obama were born outside the United States, one could argue that he would not meet the legal definition of natural-born citizen under because U.S. law at the time of his birth required his natural-born parent (his mother) to have resided in the United States for “ten years, at least five of which had to be after the age of 16.”

Ann Dunham was 18 when Obama was born – so she wouldn’t have met the requirement of five years after the age of 16.

(Interestingly, apparently there isn’t much paperwork on Obama’s parents’ marriage. Obama: From Promise to Power, page. 27: “Obama later confessed that he never searched for the government documents on the marriage, although Madelyn (Obama’s maternal grandmother) insisted they were legally married.” Also note that Obama’s father apparently was not legally divorced from his first wife back in Kenya at the time, a point of contention that ultimately led to their separation.)

Rumor Two: Obama’s middle name is not “Hussein” but “Muhammad.”

As Politifact notes, all available public records going back to 1991 refer to the candidate as “Barack H. Obama.”

It is theoretically possible, if not plausible, that Obama changed his name at some earlier point in his life, as he was sorting out his issues of culture and identity. But this would mean that Obama recognized how emotionally-charged the name “Muhammad” would become in American life long before the 9/11 attacks. And if you’re going to change your middle name from that of the central figure in Islam because you fear controversy, picking the last name of the highest-profile anti-American dictator in the Middle East (Saddam) doesn’t seem like a huge improvement.

Rumor Three: His mother did not want to name him after his father, and his birth certificate says “Barry.” Perhaps the most plausible of the rumors, as Obama was known by that name through much of his childhood and young adulthood. If true, this would spur a new round of “When Barry Became Barack” stories – a minor headache for the campaign, but hardly a major scandal.

 

Who makes the vote-counting machines? Serendipity
This is an article about just three things: disclosure, conflict of interest and potential for manipulation. It is not a conspiracy theory or a political point of view. I think you'll agree with me: We don't care who wins the election, as long as it's who was VOTED FOR.

If we lose confidence in our voting system, it won't matter what we think about any issue. Voting won't matter. Democracy won't matter.

A lethal combination: Three nasty little guys that don't belong anywhere near our voting system keep showing up at the polls. Their names are Nondisclosure, Conflict of Interest, and Potential for Manipulation.

How credible is the information in this article? Click the links and you'll find verification, often on the companies' own web sites. Click footnotes and you'll find sources and excerpts.

Disclosure: This section covers: - Why we need to know who owns voting machine companies - Who DOES own them?

Conflict of interest: [NEW see PHOTOCOPIES — The Nebraska Problem]

This section covers:

- Why voting machine companies need to disclose conflict of interest - Which owners have a conflict of interest?

Potential for manipulation: This section covers: - Can voting systems be manipulated? - Examples of voting machines that got it wrong

Disclosure:

Why we need to know who owns voting machine companies

The most basic process in democracy — voting — begins with the mechanism we use: the ballots, the machines that register the votes, and the computer code that counts the votes.

"Democracy is more in the counting of the votes than the casting of them." — Crispin Hull, Canberra Times, Australia

Just a handful of companies sell ballots, machines and program counting codes. They lobby, make campaign donations, and sometimes bribe government officials to choose their vote-counting systems (see sidebar at left). Understaffed election officials are required to make purchase decisions, then supervise the use of machines they can't repair, can't always check for accuracy, made by companies they know almost nothing about.

Unfettered by any disclosure regulations about ownership or political affiliations, private individuals own the companies that control almost all the voting machines in America. Do the people who own them have conflicts of interest? We don't know. Do they employ anyone with a criminal record? We don't know.

Because current vote-counting systems are not sufficiently protected from manipulation, and are getting less and less auditable, it is now very important to know who has access to the machines. There is no place for secrecy in our voting-counting system. Secret voting, yes. Secret vote-COUNTING, no — in fact, it's unconstitutional.

For some inexplicable reason, the U.S. is rushing to eliminate the only physical record of the mark made by each voter, going to straight touch-screens with no paper trail. Canada doesn't allow this. Neither does Japan. Why are we so casually throwing away the only real audit trail that protects our vote?

With touch-tone screens, we simply have no paper trail for millions of votes, with private, secret, and (according to computer security experts), insecure programming for vote-counting machines that invites tampering. It takes only ONE true believer with access to manipulate the counting code.

Therefore, disclosure of ownership, flagging conflicts of interest, has become critical.

The single largest group of people with access to voting machines are the technicians that work for the election machine companies. According to computer experts, a single programmer — or technician — has the potential to manipulate a system. Voting machine companies typically send technicians out to custom-program local machines. If the machines miscount, in most cases only technicians from the voting machine company can look at the code and diagnose the problem. Companies that make vote-counting machines should be required to disclose the names of significant owners, officers and executives along with any conflicts of interest, because they have such extensive access, and because manipulation is not difficult to do.

Private companies can bid to do the lotteries. But they have to disclose who they are. Is it not true that VOTING, the basis of our entire democratic system, is as important as the lottery?

Who does own the voting machine companies?

A work in progress — I started with the biggest company, ES&S, which handles at least 56 percent of the vote counting in the U.S. For the other companies, I've got sketchy information, most of which comes from swapping research with reporter Lynn Landes. See her web site for more: http:www.ecotalk.org.

Election Systems & Software (ES&S)

* = potential conflict of interest, see conflict section

Election Systems & Software operated under the name American Information Systems from its inception in the early 1980s until around 1998.

* = It was founded by Todd and Bob Urosevich, originally under the name Data Mark.

* = The Urosevich brothers obtained financing from the Ahmanson family, who took a 68 percent controlling interest.

The investment group related to the Ahmansons sold their shares in 1987 to the McCarthy Group (35%) and the World-Herald Company, Inc. (45%)

* = Involved with the McCarthy Group: Michael R. McCarthy, Chairman [See McCarthy Conflicts — FEC document photocopy: McCarthy is designated Principle Campaign Committee of a Candidate]

* = Senator Chuck Hagel: According to the Congressional Quarterly, Republican senator Chuck Hagel was Chairman of American Information Systems. [See Hagel Conflicts — Document photocopies for Senator Hagel; He lists the McCarthy Group as an asset, valuing his investment in McCarthy at up to $5 million, and omits mentioning that he was CEO and Chairman of the Board for the voting machine company, American Information Systems / ES&S.]

Omaha World-Herald Company: Employees own approximately 80%. Of the 280 employees, only 28 currently own more than one-half of one percent. World-Herald employee stockholder maximum is 15%, so under the ownership rules, it is possible for just a few shareholders to hold significant sway in voting.

* = ? - Two of the 28 main shareholders (John Gottschalk and A. William Kernen) are on the Board of Directors for the Omaha World-Herald and ES&S. In 1995, both went public with an effort to reoganize the company so that they could concentrate less on the newspaper and more on other World Company investments. The reorganization was blocked in a lawsuit, which later settled.

* = ? - The Omaha World-Herald also owns: World Investments Inc., World Marketing Inc., World Events Inc., World Diversified Inc., World Newspapers Inc., MBS (a New York database marketing company), ACE Mailing Services (Atlanta, Georgia), Art & Technology (Omaha), Lee Marketing Services (Dallas, TX), World Technologies Inc. (Omaha), World Marketing Integrated Solutions, Total Fulfillment (Tempe AZ), The Rylander Company (Chicago IL), Redstone Communications (Omaha).

Other ES&S owners: In 1997-98 American Information Systems acquired Business Records Corp., a Texas-based election company originally called Cronus Industries. Twenty percent of the stock of the merged company was given to BRC owners. Among the owners of BRC/Cronus:

Caroline Hunt, of the Hunt Oil family, through her investment group (Rosewood Financial Partners)

Alex Sheshunoff, a financial data publisher

The late P.E. Esping, formerly of Omaha, founded First Data Merchant Services

Charter Oak Partners, an affiliate of Rothschild Realty Inc., which is an affiliate of Rothschild, Inc.

C.A. Rundell, CEO of Integrated Securities Systems, Inc., associated with Dallas-based Renaissance Capital Group Inc.: Renaissance U.S. Growth & Income Trust P.L.C., known as Rusgit, and Renaissance Three.

Ed Belanger president and CEO of CDS Technologies

Buttonwood Capital Corp — Bass brother billionaires, I think.

L.D. Brinkman Corp. Its Vice-President and General Counsel Thad R. Finley also worked for Hunt International Resources Corporation.

William D. Oates of InterPro

All this, but we still don't know the names of the owners of ES&S. For all we know, Bugs Bunny is involved. Or an organized crime boss. Or the Ahmansons are still hanging around. Or Osama bin Laden. The point is, without disclosure we really have no idea who we are dealing with.

Diebold Election Systems / Global Election Systems:

In 2002 Diebold accquired Global Election Systems.

* = CEO is Bob Urosevich, who founded ES&S.

* = Howard Van Pelt and Larry Ensminger were with Global Election Systems, but are now with another voting machine company, Advanced Voting Systems, an offshoot of Shoup.

Accenture / Hart Intercivic:

Accenture was spun from Andersen Consulting in the wake of the Enron accounting scandal, and is now teaming up to go into the elections business.

Sequoia Voting Systems Inc.

Ownership: Eighty-five percent De La Rue, 15 percent Jefferson Smurfit Group; Smurfs are in the process of selling to Madison Dearborn Partners of Chicago.

* = Sequoia bought Business Records Corporation's optical scan vote tabulation business as part of a 1997 Dept. of Justice anti-trust action with ES&S — under a licensing agreement, both companies used the same equipment and software.

Conflict of interest:

Why voting machine companies need to disclose conflict of interest: I received a letter from ES&S attorneys that surprised me (the letter threatens all kinds of bad things if I don't take this page down — a photocopy of the letter is posted on this page. The ES&S lawyers seem to think that discussing the issues of nondisclosure, conflict of interest, and potential manipulation of our voting system constitutes defamation because, by implication, writing about these subjects implies the specific crimes of voter manipulation and voter registration fraud.

They are simply wrong: Talking about conflict of interest is not about alleging fraud. It is about conflict of interest. Conflict of interest involves motive and access, especially when security systems are weak. These are issues that are important to the public interest.

Conflict of interest for voting machine owners and officers should include: Active political agendas, running for office, holding an elected office, accepting a position as a campaign official, (obviously) criminal activities; vested interests in ballot issues, or relationships that are too intertwined with other companies, squashing competition.

Suppose Koch Industries (the billionaire private oil company who got caught by the FBI stealing oil from Native Americans in Oklahoma...) manufactured and programmed the voting machines your local election officials bought. Suppose a referendum came up: "Energy companies can drill for oil in your back yard, touch the YES or NO screen." Do you really want the oil guys owning the voting machines? Or at least, if they do, wouldn't it be best to require disclosure, easy-to-audit computer counting code, and a paper trail?

And if the oil example doesn't give you the willies, here's another:

Suppose you have (a) a voting machine manufacturer who is affiliated with organized crime (b) a high stakes gambling issue on the ballot. Obviously, a conflict of interest. And of course, you can't detect this problem unless you get disclosure of owners and officers and their affiliations.

Voting machine owners with possible conflicts of interest:

Election Systems & Software (ES&S):

* 1. Company founded by: Brothers Todd and Bob Urosevich. The brothers now run competing election companies (Todd is with ES&S, Bob is with Global Election Systems, now part of Diebold.) Together, these two companies count about two-thirds of the votes in America. Think of it like this: Suppose Bill Gates owns Microsoft and his brother Bob Gates owns Apple. (Hypothetical brother.)

* 2. Vested interests: ES&S was given its grubstake (while operating under the name American Information Systems) in 1984 when the billionaire Ahmanson family injected enough cash to get ahold of a 68 percent ownership. (2) This wealthy family has been instrumental in making the Republican Party take a hard right turn — pouring money into conservative Christian candidates and right-wing agendas.(3)

They were instrumental in getting at least 24 conservatives into the California legislature; launching prop. 209, California's successful anti-affirmative action law; financing Prop. 22, California's effort to ban gay marriages; financing efforts to remove evolution from school curriculi; and financing the Chalcedon Institute, which reportedly believes in the death penalty for homosexuality and other "sins." The Ahmansons are heirs to the Home Savings of America fortune, which was the largest savings and loan association in the world during the rollicking 1980s (while the S&L scandals were taking place.) Howard Ahmanson is a major benefactor of the Christian reconstructionist movement, whose followers wish to turn certain tenets of the Bible into national law.

* 3. Skating too close to criminal prosecutions and kickbacks...02/05/2002, The Baton Rouge Advocate reports that Arkansas Secretary of State Bill McCuen pleaded guilty to felony charges that he took bribes, evaded taxes and accepted kickbacks. Part of the charges related to election systems. Tom Eschberger, who became a Vice President for ES&S, took an immunity deal and testified against McCuen.

And in Florida, Jeb Bush's first choice as running mate in 1998 was Sandra Mortham. According to the Tallahasee Democrat (10/6/2002) Mortham, was a paid lobbyist for ES&S and received a commission for every county that bought its touch-screen machines. Mortham says there was nothing improper about the deals, but Broward County Commissioner Ben Graber disagreed, alleging conflict of interest.

And let's look at Alex Sheshunoff, from the BRC merger: He was sued by the SEC for manipulating the stock price of BRC using a technique called "marking the close." The web address of the SEC filing against Sheshunoff is http://www.sec.gov/litigation/admin/3437419.txt

The Nebraska Problem

* 4. The Nebraska Problem: Look at the documents, see the loop: ES&S, according to the Nebraska Elections Division, is the ONLY vote-counting company certified to sell machines in Nebraska. ES&S counts 80 percent of the votes; the remaining 20 percent are hand counts.

ES&S is owned by the McCarthy Group; Michael McCarthy runs the McCarthy Group; Michael McCarthy is the Campaign Treasurer for Republican Senator Chuck Hagel; The FEC designates Michael McCarthy as a Primary Campaign Committee for Candidate Chuck Hagel; and Chuck Hagel's financials list the McCarthy Group as an Asset, with his investment valued at $1-$5 million.

Four documents are shown below, with links so you can authenticate them yourself:

P. 1-2 Corporate registration papers for ES&S, as submitted to Arizona Secretary of State in 2001:

Full Size

Page 1 [Click to Authenticate] (Scroll to "Scanned Annual Reports," click "2001")

Full Size

Page 2 [Click to Authenticate] (Scroll to "Scanned Annual Reports," click "2001")

McCarthy is designated Primary Campaign Committee for a Candidate

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[Click to Authenticate]

Full Size [Click to Authenticate]

* 5. The Nebraska Problem: Republican Senator Hagel was Chairman and CEO of American Information Systems (now called ES&S); And, Hagel was CEO and a partner in McCarthy & Company.(6)

According to his financial filings, Hagel's investments with the McCarthy Group are still between $1 million and $5 million. Hagel's largest single investment appears to be in the McCarthy Group, who owns a large chunk of ES&S, the firm responsible for counting Hagel's own votes.

Hagel investment in McCarthy Group

Full size

[Click to Authenticate] (Enter Hagel in search box, view section IIIB on financials)

Hagel came to Omaha from Washington D.C., where he worked with the first George Bush Administration. In news articles by the Omaha World-Herald, Hagel said he was coming to Omaha to become president and partner in the McCarthy Group and Chairman of American Information Systems.

In his congressional bio he is said to have come to Omaha "to prepare for running for office." The first thing he did was run American Information Systems, a vote-counting company. Hagel was the first Republican in 24 years to win a Nebraska senatorial campaign. He continues to disclose an investment of $1—5 million in the McCarthy Group, but he does not identify the underlying assets (ES&S). His disclosure documents omit any mention of American Information Systems at all.

* 6. John Gottschalk has been reported as a director for both the World-Herald Company Inc. (concentrating on the non-newspaper subsidiaries) and ES&S. He was also involved with Senator Hagel in the World USO, has relationships with James Baker; he is listed as a USO pal of George W. Bush.

* 7. The World-Herald Company, Inc. has a newspaper and, among all their other operations, a nationwide communications network with databases containing personal information on almost everyone in the USA, large direct mailing firms, phone message broadcasting, fax blasting, mass e-mailing, publicity, advertising, Internet services, printing, as well as elections services — and voter registration services(7). The World Companies have operations in Texas, Illinois, Georgia, Nebraska, California, Iowa and Arizona — and almost all of the companies listed above have nothing to do with newspapers. The concern here relates to access to these operations, which are sometimes used for political marketing, in combination with ES&S, which does voter registration services. It would be a conflict of interest for a voter registration program to have access these database and marketing capabilities IF political vested interests were involved. Because we don't have full disclosure — we don't know what percentage of stock the major World-Herald stockholders have, or which ones they are, and because we don't know if these companies are wholly owned subsidiaries or partnerships, it is hard to judge conflict of interest on this.

Potential for manipulation

Can voting systems can be manipulated?

Experts say yes, and it's getting worse! Did you know...

- That even when we use paper ballots, most states forbid even their election officials from looking at them? The ballots are removed from the counting machine and sealed in a box; only the number on the counter is used to tally the votes. Even recounts often don't involve looking at the ballots themselves (unless a hand recount is ordered). Yes, it's true. The most progressive states do a spot check with a hand count of 1 percent of the votes. One percent is inadequate! But most states don't even require anyone to look at the paper ballots at all.

- That the public cannot send in its own computer guy to audit the code? Yes, it's true: in most cases, election officials have to ask the company that provided the machines to troubleshoot problems. The voting machine companies went to court to have their counting code declared "proprietary" so no one can look at it. Computer experts who have analyzed the code say it is "spaghetti code" that is almost indecipherable.

- That there are standards for computer software programming, that make the code easy to audit, and even spot changes in the programming, and better yet, even provide a history of all the coding done? These are industry-wide standards that voting companies should use, but they don't.

- That it only takes ONE "true believer" to compromise a voting system? It could be anyone who gets access. There are many ways to do this. Implant a Trojan Horse that, as soon as a particular vote passes a "tipping point" will start throwing votes the other way; or, stick the mischief into the message (when the modem transmits a certain result, the receiving computer sends data back to change the database). For even more fun, a good programmer can have the code erase itself as soon as it does its work. Or, you can have the program perform random "errors" scattered across a system.

- That a touch screen that registers Democrat when you press Democrat doesn't have to count your vote as democrat. What you see on the screen involves a different process that how the machine counts the vote.

Can these things be tampered with? If you have any doubt, read this: article by Ronnie Dugger, who will show you how easy it is for a single individual with access to fudge the vote-counting on these machines, in ways that can never be detected. (See sidebar 2 for more information on misprogramming the machines.)

Poll workers count the votes, not election machines, right?

Wrong. The machines count the votes.

Surely there are SOME controls?

ES&S, for example, sends a prototype to Wyle Laboratories for an integrity check — but there is no way to know whether the code used on the actual voting machines is identical (or even remotely similar) to that on the prototype. Some states require that the machines pass tests prior to certification, but there is no system to verify that the machines being used have identical code. Some states require the master code to be on file in "escrow," but no one checks to see that the code held in escrow is identical to that used on the machines. Added to this, technicians go out and customize programming locally.

And voting machine companies don't just count the votes — they also print the ballots and help with voter registration. On the 31 Election Errors page you'll see many examples of misprinted ballots that can affect election outcomes. Things like jumbling the words, but only on the Spanish-speaking ballots. Or having chads that absolutely won't dislodge, but only for the Democratic and Libertarian candidates.

Might it be a bit reckless for Democracy to hand voter registration assignments over to a firm secretly owned by, say, a right-wing conservative activist (or any political zealot, for that matter) if the company also has access to databases containing the race and political preferences of almost everyone in the USA?

* * * * *

Six Ways to Fix Pesky Votes

1. Scrub the lists too clean: if Andersen commits a felony, Anderson loses his vote.

2. Hire a firm to check voter eligibility, pay them 27 cents a name instead of the going rate (2.7 cents a name). When they contract to verify accuracy for people they remove, write them a friendly note: "DON'T NEED."

3. "Reform" the flawed voting system by purchasing millions of dollars in new, automated voting machines. Order them from a private company in Omaha that refuses to divulge who its owners are, or reveal their political connections.

4. Don't do any big stuff (switching 5,000 Dem votes to Republican). Do little things. Lots of them. Diversify.

5. Choose methods that will be boring or hard to understand.

6. Make sure people have to use math or statistics to see what you did. (Raise your hands: Who loves math?)

And if you want specifics of what happened in Florida, where over 50,000 votes disappeared in election 2000, start running google searches on Greg Palast's articles, aired on BBC and printed in the Guardian, and belatedly, picked up by major media outlets in the USA like the Washington Post.

Examples of voting machines that got it wrong: 31 mistakes)

The Dallas Morning News reported this on 10/24/2002:

"Eighteen of more than 400 electronic voting machines were pulled out of service after early voting began Monday. Some voters complained that they selected one candidate but that the touch-screen machine marked a different candidate."

When there are errors in vote-counting, the explanations sometimes don't make sense.

For example, in the October 2002 problem in Dallas, where paperless, unauditable touch-tone screens were used and voters reported that the machines were registering votes for Democrats as votes for the Republican candidate, the explanations by county elections commissioner Bruce Sherbet transmits a ping to the bullshit meter of computer software guys:

"[Sherbet] said technicians were able to 'recalibrate 15 of the 18 machines taken out of service and return them to use.' The other three were replaced, he said. 'Every election, we have machines that have to be recalibrated, Mr. Sherbet said. 'Touch-screens have pluses and minuses.'"

The software engineers I've talked with say there is no such thing as "calibrating" software.

And then there's this: "'The problem can occur after the machines are moved and locked up each night,' he [Sherbet] said. 'Pixels on the machines' screens get misaligned during jostling and do not properly read voters' selections. However, technicians can realign them within minutes,' Mr. Sherbet said. He said he's not inclined to scrap the electronic ballots. "'All large counties are going to electronic voting,' Mr. Sherbet said."

On more than one occasion, the news articles reporting the problem quote voting officials saying that the miscounting was due to a "long ballot with many questions." But did you know...that the original vote-counting programs were derived from scholastic testing (You know, answer a thousand questions with five choices each, using a number two pencil.) Knowing this, you can see that even if a ballot had 30 things to vote on, with two answers each, that can hardly compare to the complexity of tabulating a thousand questions with five answers each. Yet, scholastic testing is highly accurate and quite consistent

Why the Sam Hill are we in such a hurry to eliminate paper trails?

In Florida when votes were lost, election workers had to retrieve the hard drive as a back-up, because there were no paper ballots. In Dallas, we just have to take someone's word that a computer screen that registers Republican when we push Democrat actually counted our vote correctly. In California, thousands of votes just disappeared due to a computer glitch. Even the tax guys insist on a paper trail. (Just try telling an IRS auditor that your computer ate it.)

About the Author

Bev Harris owns Talion.com, a publicity firm, and has been a professional writer for 10 years. She is the author of "How to Unbezzle a Fortune", a free online report with tips on how to identify accounting fraud and recover embezzled funds, a report that has become an underground hit among business owners who have been victimized. She began researching voting machine companies when she discovered that unauditable private, proprietary codes are used for vote-counting, and that ownership of these companies is also not disclosed — a situation that invites conflict of interest and abuse.

Footnotes: Sources and links to more information

1 The largest vote-counting company in the USA: Election Systems & Software, formerly American Information Systems. Source: Omaha World-Herald, "Omaha Ballot Company to Buy Dallas Competitor" by STEVE JORDON 11/22/1996 ..."An Omaha company would become the nation's No. 1 ballot counter in a planned $59.3 million combination with a Dallas-based competitor...American Information's share of the U.S. election automation market would increase to more than 50 percent from the current 15 percent..." and Source: Omaha World-Herald, "Election Firms' Deal Approved" by STEVE JORDON 11/20/1997 ... "Under a new agreement, American Information Systems and the former BRC division will be known as Election Systems & Software"

2 ...given its grubstake in 1984 when the multi-millionaire Ahmanson family injected enough cash to get ahold of a 68 percent ownership. Omaha World-Herald "Election Year Boosts Fortunes of Omaha Firm" by Howard Silber & Denise Tatum, 02/28/1984 ... "[Bob] Urosevich, who had founded his own company, called Data Mark, ended his business relationship with Westinghouse in 1979. With the help of Jim Lane, a computer expert who had moved from Westinghouse to Data Mark, the company designed a machine that linked a scanner with the type of microchips that are now used in products ranging from $5 pocket calculators to highly sophisticated computers. Company Name Changed: Urosevich took the plans to a family friend with Omaha roots — California millionaire William Ahmanson, chairman and chief executive officer of the H.F. Ahmanson Co., holding company for the nation's largest savings and loan association and a group of Omaha-based insurance companies. 'We needed growth money, and I felt Bill might be interested,' Urosevich said. 'He was.' William Ahmanson and his brother, Robert, invested in the company — they now own 68 percent of the stock and serve as directors — and the name was changed to American Information Systems. Lane is vice president and Todd Urosevich, the president's brother, is secretary-treasurer." [NOTE: The Omaha World-Herald article mentioned in 1 above, titled "Omaha Ballot Company to Buy Dallas Competitor" says "American Information was founded in 1980." This appears to be referring to Data Mark, which was founded around 1980 and became American Information Systems. Read differently, the Ahmanson brothers might have invested in 1980, changing the name in 1980.]

3 ...[Ahmanson family has been] instrumental in making the Republican Party take a hard right turn — pouring money into conservative Christian candidates and right-wing agendas.

Footnote 3: Source 1 — San Francisco Examiner "Conservative group gears up for 2000 vote in California" by Zachary Coile 08/04/1999 ..."four donors, all major backers of right-wing Christian causes who together form one of the state's most powerful and conservative political action committees, the California Independent Business PAC...The same group, under a different PAC name, was instrumental in helping elect two dozen conservatives to the Legislature in 1994. The group is led by Howard Ahmanson, heir to the Home Savings & Loan fortune, who now dispenses millions in charitable and political donations through his Irvine-based Fieldstead & Co...Ahmanson is also a benefactor of the Christian reconstructionist movement, whose followers wish to turn certain tenets of the Bible into national law, according to Jerry Sloan, a former minister who heads Project Tocsin, a nonprofit group that tracks the religious right...In 1994, 24 of the 34 Republican legislative candidates backed by the group won."

Footnote 3: Source 2 — San Francisco Examiner "5 multimillionaires bend state politics to the right Goal is to take control of both Assembly, Senate" by Erin McCormick 11/01/1998..."Five rich but obscure Orange County businessmen, all with conservative philosophies and fundamentalist religious connections, have joined to become California's most generous campaign donors in an attempt to turn state politics hard right. Their political action committee, Allied Business PAC, has poured $4 million into state Assembly and Senate campaigns since 1992. ..The results these businessmen have gotten are noteworthy: They've helped put more than 30 new conservative candidates in the legislature, gotten one of the group's founders, Rob Hurtt, elected to the state Senate and shifted the boundaries of the state's political spectrum markedly to the right..key donor to the PAC has been Howard Ahmanson, who inherited the Home Savings & Loan fortune..."

Footnote 3: Source 3 — Comparative Literature "Performing virtual whiteness: The psychic fantasy of globalization" by Linda Kintz 10/01/2001 ... "Howard Ahmanson, a savings and loan heir long involved with Christian Reconstructionisn, a faction of the Religious Right at its most extreme. Identified with Rousas J. Rushdooney's Chalcedon Foundation, Christian Reconstructionism takes the extreme view that conservative Christians should take "dominion" over U.S. society and replace democracy with theocracy… The Ahmanson family donated $1.5 million to the Discovery Institute's Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture's research and publicity program to "unseat not just Darwinism but also Darwinism's cultural legacy"

Footnote 3: Source 4 — Reason Magazine November 1988 "Getting Cozy with Theocrats" by Walter Olson...Christian Reconstructionism...Among Reconstructionism's highlights, the article cited support for laws "mandating the death penalty for homosexuals and drunkards." The Rev. Rushdoony fired off a letter to the editor complaining that the article had got his followers' views all wrong: They didn't intend to put drunkards to death. Ah, yes, accuracy does count. In a world run by Rushdoony followers, sots would escape capital punishment--which would make them happy exceptions indeed. Those who would face execution include not only gays but a very long list of others: blasphemers, heretics, apostate Christians, people who cursed or struck their parents, females guilty of 'unchastity before marriage,' 'incorrigible' juvenile delinquents, adulterers, and (probably) telephone psychics. And that's to say nothing of murderers and those guilty of raping married women or 'betrothed virgins.'

"...Mainstream outlets like the Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post are finally starting to take note of the influence Rushdoony and his followers have exerted for years in American conservative circles...Prominent California philanthropist Howard F. Ahmanson Jr., who has given Rushdoony's operations [The Chalcedon Institute] more than $700,000 over the years..."

Footnote 3: Source 5 — Los Angeles Times "Enlisting Science to Find the Fingerprints of a Creator Education: Believers in 'intelligent design' try to redirect evolution disputes along intellectual lines" by TERESA WATANABE 03/25/2001 ..."Primarily funded by evangelical Christians--particularly the wealthy Ahmanson family of Irvine--the [Discovery] institute's $1-million annual program has produced 25 books, a stream of conferences and more than 100 fellowships for doctoral and postdoctoral research. Fieldstead & Co., which is owned by Howard and Roberta Ahmanson, has pledged $2.8 million through 2003"

Footnote 3: Source 6 — Los Angeles Times "CAMPAIGN 2000 PROPOSITION 22 Ban on Gay Marriages Wins in All Regions but Bay Area" by JENIFER WARREN 03/08/2000..."Over the last several years, 30 states have passed preemptive laws similar to Proposition 22. Knight says he took up the cause because he believes that if gays are allowed to say "I do," it will weaken the institution of marriage. In placing the proposition on the ballot, he received financial help from conservative Christian businessman Howard Ahmanson, a former trustee of an organization whose founder advocates the death penalty for homosexuality. Initiative opponents argued that the connection with such a controversial figure amounted to proof that Proposition 22 backers had a hidden motive--rolling back legal protections for gays."

Footnote 3: Source 7 — Emerge "Affirmative Action Wars" by Trevor W. Coleman 03/31/1998 ..."Yes on Proposition 209 [to eliminate affirmative action], significantly outpaced in fund-raising its main opponent...Large contributors made a big difference...Howard F. Ahmanson Jr., heir to the Home Savings of American fortune, contributed $350,000 through his Irvine, California based Fieldstead & Co.

Footnote 3: Source 8 — Sunday Mail "Zzzouter launches a `moral crusade'" 06/04/2000 ..."a fundamentalist Christian more in the mould of US multi-millionaire Howard Ahmanson Jr, who uses his fortune to promote so-called traditional family values...By waving fortunes under their noses, Ahmanson has the ability to cajole candidates into backing his right-wing Christian agenda."

Footnote 3: Source 9 — Los Angeles Times "Religious Right Stepping Up to Political Pulpit" by MATT LAIT; GEBE MARTINEZ 07/10/1996 ... Ten years ago, they were widely dismissed as a political fringe group. Today, conservative Christians are a driving force in the local GOP, helping to set the party's platform and raising millions of dollars to get their candidates elected. Money linked to religious conservatives from Orange County bankrolled the successful campaigns of dozens of legislative candidates over the last five years, giving Republicans long-sought control of the Assembly...The most influential figures in the local and state GOP are Garden Grove businessman Rob Hurtt, now the Republican leader in the state Senate, and banking heir Howard F. Ahmanson Jr. Individually and through political action committees they created, Hurtt and Ahmanson have used their fortunes to back candidates and legislation representing their Christian values. .."

Footnote 3: Source 10 — Los Angeles Times "Rich Source of GOP Funds" by GEBE MARTINEZ; ERIC BAILEY 07/10/1996..."To Republican politicians nationwide, Orange County's image is of a sprawling money tree, sagging with riches to be spent on the Grand Old Party. The image is no myth...The new big players are two ultraconservative Orange County businessmen drawn to politics by their religious beliefs: Howard Fieldstead Ahmanson Jr., the scion of a savings and loan fortune, and Sen. Rob Hurtt of Garden Grove, the Republican leader of the state Senate.

"Hurtt, Ahmanson and a political action committee they co-founded with two other Southern California businessmen helped fund the campaigns of nearly two-thirds of the Republicans in the Assembly, and almost half of those in the Senate. "The reason why we [Republicans] took over the Assembly was because of them," said William Buck Johns III, a member of the conservative Lincoln Club, another top contributor to state and local campaigns... During the first half of this decade, Ahmanson and Hurtt donated at least $7.1 million to local and state political causes. Their partners in what was originally called the Allied Business PAC--now known as the California Independent Business PAC--plowed another $1.4 million into state and local political campaigns over the same period. .."Their influence on the Republican Party, I think, has been smashing," said Jerry Sloan, president of Project Tocsin, a group that monitors the religious right. 'They have literally taken over the party.'

"Ruth Holton of California Common Cause said the contributions by Hurtt and Ahmanson reflect what is wrong with California's political process. Currently, there are no limits to the amounts an individual or political action committee can contribute to candidates in California, one of only seven states that do not impose caps on campaign contributions...Ahmanson is also the largest single donor to the Chalcedon Foundation, a small religious sect that advocates reconstructing society in accord with biblical tenets."

Footnote 3: Source 11 — The Orange County Register "A political action committee allegedly spurred the move to put a spoiler in the 67th District recall" by KIM CHRISTENSEN; JEAN O. PASCO; DAVID PARRISH; JOHN McDONALD 03/28/1996..."A threatened loss of funds from a powerful political action committee triggered the election dirty tricks that led to the indictment of Republican Assemblyman Scott Baugh, a campaign worker told the Orange County grand jury. Richard Martin, who along with two other GOP aides has pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges in the political scandal, said he was told that the executive director of California Independent Business PAC exerted pressure to place Democrats on the ballot to dilute the vote and ensure a Republican win in last November's 67th Assembly District recall election."

4 ...Election Systems & Software, the firm whose machines were involved in the 2002 flubbed Florida primary election...

Footnote 4 Source 1 & 2: PR Newswire, 01/30/2002 Election Systems & Software Captures Largest Election Contract in U.S. History by R. Jeffrey Berg, Director Corporate Marketing of Election Systems & Software, Inc. (ES&S)..."The 918,000 registered voters of Miami-Dade County are certainly the winners today," stated Aldo Tesi, ES&S president and CEO. "In selecting the ES&S iVotronic Touch Screen system, they are acquiring the most technologically advanced voting solution now available in the world." — and — PR Newswire, 12/12/2001 Election Systems & Software Wins Broward County Florida by R. Jeffrey Berg, Director Corporate Marketing of ES&S..."We are very excited to have been selected by Broward County as their vendor of choice," stated Aldo Tesi, ES&S president and CEO. "The world of elections is undergoing dramatic change, and ES&S is leading the modernization of election systems not only in Florida but worldwide."

5 at least one major shareholder is Michael R. McCarthy...Michael R. McCarthy is the current campaign Treasurer for Republican senator Chuck Hagel.

Footnote 5 Source 1: McCarthy Group official web site.

Footnote 5 Source 2: Hagel and McCarthy Documents

6 ...Prior to his election, Republican Senator Hagel was CEO of American Information Systems and a partner in the McCarthy & Company.

Footnote 6 Source 1: Senator Hagel Official Web Site..."Prior to his election to the U.S. Senate, Hagel worked in the private sector as the President of McCarthy & Company, an investment banking firm based in Omaha, Nebraska."

Footnote 6 Source 2: Congressional Quarterly profile of Chuck Hagel..."President, McCarthy and Co., investment banking firm, Omaha, NE, 1992-96...Board of Directors: American Information Systems, Inc."

Footnote 6 Source 3: Roll Call report Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) [net worth] $4 million; A Vietnam veteran who made millions in the cellular telephone business [Vanguard], Hagel has multimillion-dollar investment portfolios handled by Merrill Lynch and the McCarthy Group Asset management. According to his filings, his investments with the McCarthy group alone exceed $2.7 million; He also owns more than $100,000 worth of stock in Iron Road Railway and is owed between $250,000 and $500,000 in funds he lent his campaign committee.

Footnote 6 Source 3: The Omaha World-Herald 06/03/1994 "Welsh Named Top Executive, Board Member" by Steve Jordan...Chairman of American Information is Chuck Hagel, who also is a partner in McCarthy & Co., an Omaha investment firm. The World-Herald Co. owns about 45 percent of American Information and McCarthy & Co. owns about 35 percent, with senior managers owning the rest, Hagel said.[OUR NOTE: World-Herald also owns part of McCarthy]...Hagel said he had been acting as chief executive officer of American Information since November, when Bob Urosevich, one of the company's founders, resigned...Hagel said Urosevich's departure "was just a mutual agreement. The board and Bob felt that the time was right for a change in leadership." Two other co-founders remain with the company: Todd Urosevich, Bob's brother, as vice president and director, and Jim Lane as director and paid consultant.

7 ...voter registration services

Footnote 7 source 1: Election Systems & Software, Inc. from PR Newswire, 09/19/2002..."ES&S hardware and software solutions support the entire election process to include voter registration, ballot production, voting, vote tabulation, and results reporting."

Footnote 7 source 2 & 3: San Antonio Express-News, 08/28/2002 "COUNTY APPROVES COMPUTER VOTE DEAL" by Tom Bower..."When commissioners chose ES&S from among five proposals last April, they asked if the system could be in place in time for early voting in the upcoming Nov. 5 general election and were told yes...The system also includes 440 printers, for printing out mail-in paper ballots, as well as computer-based voter registration and ballot tabulation systems" — and — Omaha World-Herald 04/30/2002 "Election Systems wins Texas county contract" by Daniel P. Finney..."Election Systems and Software of Omaha has signed a $7.7 million contract with Bexar County, Texas, to provide election equipment. Bexar County, which includes the San Antonio metro area, has more than 825,000 registered voters. ES&S will provide 2,100 touch-screen electronic voting machines that will replace the county's paper ballots. The company also will provide Bexar with electronic voter-registration..."

12 ...Ownership in Election Systems & Software

Footnote 12 Source 1: Election Systems & Software official web site — "William F. Welsh II, Chairman...* Managed the merger of American Information Systems (AIS) and the election division of BRC Holding [Business Records Corp]. Structured the newly formed ES&S. Three years as President and CEO of AIS. Six years as President and CEO of Valmont Industries."

Footnote 12 Source 2:Omaha World-Herald 06/03/1994 "Welsh Named Top Executive, Board Member" by Steve Jordan..."William F. Welsh II, former top executive of Valmont Industries Inc., became chief executive officer of American Information Systems Inc., an Omaha-based election services company, Thursday. Welsh also joined American Information's board and became a major shareholder in the company, which had sales of about $10 million last year. ...Welsh declined to say how much of American Information he owns, saying the company is privately held."

 

Senate transcripts: http://govt-aff.senate.gov/psi.htm
Impacts of different voting systems on election strategies


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