I came across this curiosity while perusing writing jobs. One always suspects FOX News just makes things up on a daily basis. Note that the title of this job is not "fact checker" -- a common position for any news organization. This appears to be a gig to write copy for the FOX news ticker that runs below the main stories, and/or create those captions--"students say gunman was a loner"--that let viewers just tuning in get a general sense of the news being presented. I wonder, though, if they check any of their facts for either of these or if their "fact writers" simply transform rumor and innuendo into "fact" by putting them on television.

The GOP hubris bubble has burst and its time for them to wipe those smiles off their faces, eat some humble pie...and start shredding documents faster than Kenneth Lay.

FORWARDED BY BLACKBOXVOTING.ORG

Rumsfield replacement (Robert Gates) was director of voting company
by Bev Harris

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfield will resign, reportedly to be replaced by former CIA director Robert Gates.

Gates was on the board of directors of VoteHere, a strange little company that was the biggest elections industry lobbyist for the Help America Vote Act (HAVA). VoteHere spent more money than ES&S, Diebold, and Sequoia combined to help ram HAVA through. And HAVA, of course, was a bill sponsored by by convicted Abramoff pal Bob Ney and K-street lobbyist buddy Steny Hoyer. HAVA put electronic voting on steroids.

You can find copies of the VoteHere lobbying forms here: http://sopr.senate.gov/cgi-win/m_opr_viewer.exe?DoFn=0

I can't get them to save to pdf, perhaps you can. Enter search terms in both "registrant" and "client" fields and put in terms "Rhoads" "Livingston" and "Votehere" (one at a time.). Then look at the gravy train while it was in the process of derailing American democracy.

I first became acquainted with VoteHere when I met a source, Dan Spillane, who is the wonderful guy that identified the Diebold source code modules for me after I found the Diebold files. He is the person who introduced me, and subsequently everyone else, to the odd role of The Election Center and R. Doug Lewis in the elections industry.

Spillane also filled me in on The Livingston Group, VoteHere lobbyists, run by Bob Livingston -- the fellow that Hustler publisher Larry Flynt outed during the Bill Clinton blow job days. Larry Flynt offered a million dollars to anyone who could locate a Republican congressman committing adultery, and out popped peccadilloes by Livingston.

Livingston couldn't live that one down, so he resigned his post as House Speaker-Elect and became a lobbyist -- but that's not all! He also launched a group called "Center for Democracy" which was going to "monitor elections." This group also featured several good old boys from the tobacco industry and some mining companies.

Former VoteHere test engineer Dan Spillane was looking into all this because he had been fired after he questioned the certification process on a touch-screen system in which he had identified 250 flaws. It was way back in November 2002 that Spillane told me, "The voting machine industry is a house of cards. And the certification and testing process is the bottom card in the house of cards."

BUT DON'T RUN OUT OF THE ROOM TO TAKE A SHOWER YET. There's more.

VoteHere was a company shilling cryptographic solutions and filled with NSA types (another director was Admiral Bill Owens, another crony of Rummy, Perle and Wolfowitz). For some reason this company claims it was unable to prevent itself from being hacked. In this alleged hack, VoteHere claims that someone stole their source code. Said source code was offered to me in October 2003, an obvious attempt at entrapment which I refused.

Nevertheless, VoteHere claimed to the media that its master security experts had supposedly "tracked" the hacker and had identified the hacker as an activist in the election reform community.

For some reason, it was decided that I should be investigated in connection with this "hack" of VoteHere -- nevermind that I can't remember how to change the password on my own laptop. Therefore I was interviewed by the Secret Service several times about this. Curiously, they never seemed to ask any questions about VoteHere, only my role in finding the Diebold files and publishing the Diebold memos.

This nonsense eventually culminated in a gag order and a letter from the U.S. Attorney to appear in front of a federal grand jury with information on all the visitors to the Black Box Voting Web site. (As if they couldn't get that in less dramatic ways in post-Patriot Act America). Attorney Lowell Finley (now with http://www.VoterAction.org ) went to bat for me on this. A reporter named George Howland from the Seattle Weekly also got wind of it. When it hit the press, and with Lowell Finley's help, their harassment of me stopped.

VoteHere never sold any voting machines that I can find, but apparently did set up some deals to embed its cryptography into some voting systems. We found memos in the Diebold trash about VoteHere's crypto-crap, and Maryland Director of Elections Linda Lamone shows up in VoteHere-related letters. Sequoia Voting Systems signed an agreement with VoteHere, but its not clear to me whether they ever did anything about it.

Robert Gates stepped away from VoteHere shortly before he showed up in Chapter 8 of my book, Black Box Voting, in a short bit about the VoteHere company history. You can read that here: http://www.blackboxvoting.org/bbv_chapter-8.pdf

I don't know about you, but I'd rather use a paper, pencil, and count by hand at the polling place than have former CIA director Robert Gates fooling around with my vote.

But that's just me.

-- Bev Harris
Founder, Black Box Voting

P.S. Since the HBO special, I have plenty of moral support, but even after the Secret Service interviews and all the rest of the nonsense my husband and I have had to put up with, there are others who have had it rougher.

I'd like you to take a moment to visit this Web site -- not affiliated with Black Box Voting -- to meet one of the heroic citizens in this movement who has faced the most brutal retaliation of all:
Stephen Heller. If you saw the HBO film "Hacking Democracy" you may remember a scene where I am chastising Diebold for lying about correcting problems with its product. I refer to "Release Notes." Those notes came from a source. Stephen Heller is being threatened with up to five years in prison for allegedly leaking me those documents. Kevin Shelley then decertified Diebold, and recommended criminal prosecution of Diebold. Diebold was never prosecuted, but Stephen Heller is being prosecuted RIGHT NOW. I hope you will donate to his defense. If not for citizens like him, where would your vote be now?

To contribute to Stephen Heller's defense fund:
http://www.hellerlegaldefensefund.com/

* * * * *

Black Box Voting is a nonprofit, nonpartisan 501c(3) elections watchdog group supported entirely by citizen donations. We refuse funds from any vendor or vested interest.

To support Black Box Voting: click to http://www.blackboxvoting.org/donate.html or send to:
Black Box Voting
330 SW 43rd St Suite K
PMB 547
Renton WA 98055

My wife Myra and I were lying in bed with the TV and the laptop on. I was reading a reply to something I posted on Roadfood.com and turned to Myra and said, "Oh yeah so I've confirmed that your great grandfather Harry Perry did indeed invent the lobster roll" (it is family lore and, in our kitchen, we have a sign that hung at Perry's restaurant that tells the tale of Harry inventing Connecticut's signature sandwich).

One second (literally) after I said this, a David Cross character on Comedy Central's new show, Freak Show said, "Now who wants lobster rolls?" and threw lobster rolls out into a crowd of cartoon extras.

Should anyone care? No, but it was just too crazy.

We're almost there folks! We are closing in on the time when images may fully supplant real and corporeal objects.

Am I babbling again?

Maybe. But it makes sense to me.

Cardboard-cutouts of American soldiers currently serving abroad are being used to sooth their Stateside children, according to this Boston Globe story (archived here ).

I can't decide if these ersatz family members might really be useful for some kids, or if it simply makes an already sad situation even sadder and more twisted. I can't imagine what happens when daddy gets killed, and all that's left is the cardboard cutout in the living room.

Who knew?

The Northern, Kurdish-controlled section Iraq, a region so relatively stable that it bills itself to tourists as "The Other Iraq", has been bombed by Turkey and Iran for at least four days without so much as a peep from the American press.

"Scores of Kurds have fled their homes in the northern frontier region after four days of shelling by the Iranian army. Local officials said Turkey had also fired a number of shells into Iraqi territory," writes the the UK's Guardian newspaper today.

Turkey, ostensibly United States's greatest ally in the Middle East, and Iran, ostensibly the United States's greatest enemy, have teamed up to shell the country that the United States is ostensibly trying to build and stabilize. Of more concern is that Turkey and Iran appear poised to cross the Iraqi border to attack the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) , according to reports filed by the Turkish Daily News.

"Citing a statement released on the official Web site of President Jalal Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), the [private Doğan News Agency (DHA)] agency said that Turkish and Iranian artillery units have been firing on the mountainous area since Saturday. The statement said the Turkish and Iranian units have been firing simultaneously, alleging that both Turkish and Iranian troops might cross the Iraqi border -- an apparent reference to a cross-border operation on the PKK camps."

In an unrelated(?) event, Turkish Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Hilmi Güler and Iranian Oil Minister Kazem Vaziri-Hamaneh, met in Ankara Tuesday to discuss expanding natural gas exports and other energy contracts. (See The New Anatolian)

The announcement on the same day it offered an apology (see the LA Times to baggage handlers and other ground workers, who will soon lose their jobs after their union agreed to allow the airline to outsource their work, for advising them to eat food out of the garbage as a way to save money.

Northwest recently gave out a four-page booklet entitled "Preparing for a Financial Setback" to workers who face impending layoffs and pay cuts amid a corporate restructuring. The company's tips to soon-to-be former employees include shopping in thrift stores, taking "a date for a walk along the beach or in the woods" and not being "shy about pulling something you like out of the trash."

Not surprisingly, Northwest is in full damage-control mode, is no longer handing out the booklet, and has been removed it the corporate Web site. PLEASE somebody send one to me!

Stories

Reuters
CTV.CA (Canada)
LA Times

...[and at the end of page 2]

Well there's a buried lead if I ever saw one. Okay, maybe it's not a classic buried lead because, on its own, it doesn't have much to stand on. But putting this quote in the second-to-last paragraph of a front page story? Boy howdy. Half the readers of this story won't get past the fold (or, online, click to see the second page), let alone get to the last two paragraphs.

"Senior administration officials have acknowledged to me that they are considering alternatives other than democracy," said one military affairs expert who received an Iraq briefing at the White House last month and agreed to speak only on condition of anonymity.

Go to story.
Archived PDF.

..."I am not the only one who hates Elmo. Vernon Chatman and John Lee, the creators of MTV2's dark 'Sesame Street' parody, 'Wonder Showzen,' think the evil red one is destroying the show.

'Elmo doesn't grow. People show him something and he laughs. He doesn't learn a lesson,' says Lee. 'It's the exact opposite of what old Sesame Street used to do. Elmo has been learning the same lesson his whole life, which is that Elmo likes Elmo.' " ...

-- Joel Stein in the LA Times

After supporting Joe Lieberman (though not very visibly) in the Connecticut Democratic senatorial primary, Bill Clinton gave JoeMentum a good bitch slapping on ABC's Good Morning America yesterday, saying he is in League with Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld.

Trancript:

JAKE TAPPER (ABC): Joe Lieberman said that this was basically liberals in the party purging moderates such as him and you out of the party, and that there needs to be a voice for more moderate national security voices.

CLINTON: Well, if I were Joe and I were running as an independent that’s what I’d say, too. But that’s not quite right. That is, there were almost no Democrats who agreed with his position, which was I want to attack Iraq whether or not they have weapons of mass destruction. And his position was the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld position.

Watch the video at Think Progress. (If link goes dead, hear an archived audio clip (sourced from the Rachel Maddow Show).

Bill must have felt some pleasure letting Lieberman hang out to dry. In the six years since Bush's black ops team kept him from the Vice President's office, Lieberman has not once criticized the Bush administration for its deceptions that led to the Iraq War, but back in 1998, he chastised Clinton, saying he was immoral and abused his office. Back then, Lieberman took Clinton to task over the Monica Lewinsky scandal, saying "such behavior is not just inappropriate. It is immoral."

With a wink to Lieberman, Bush and RNC Chair refuse to endorse GOP candidate.

Clinton's cold shoulder to Lieberman comes as Republicans warm up to the senator by refusing to support the Republican challenger.

This week, White House Tony Snow tripped over himself attempting to explain why Bush is not endorsing the Republican Connecticut senatorial candidate, Alan Schlesinger, leading some to speculate that Lieberman might actually make a switch to the Republican party. (Audio clip sourced from the Rachel Maddow Show.

Last week on Chris Matthews's "Hardball" (MSNBC), Republican National Committee Chair Ken Mellman also refused to endorse the GOP candidate. (Audio clip sourced from the Rachel Maddow Show.

But in reality, Fossello increasingly resembles so many of his Republican Congressional peers as multiple corruption scandals gain steam.

Yesterday, the Daily News reported Fossello changed his story regarding accusations he violated House rules by using more than $160,000 in taxpayer money for his reelection campaign. The "Muppetgate" allegations center around Fossella's using pictures of himself sitting with Sesame Street’s Elmo in conjunction with a direct-mail campaign promotion.

If misusing taxpayer money for a political campaign isn’t bad enough, The Brooklyn Papers recently reported that Fossella misused more than $52,000 of his campaign money for pleasure trips to Las Vegas and a skiing trip to Colorado, took $16,000 in gifts from political consultants and corporate sponsors for “fact-finding missions” to such places as the Turnberry Isle Resort in Florida.

One such political consultant, the now disgraced Jack Abramoff, hosted a $1000 per-ticket fundraiser for Fossella.

Democratic candidate Stephen Harrison hopes this fall to unseat Fossella, who thus far has refused to debate the challenger. I don’t know much about Harrison, but here’s hoping he is part of a 2006 Democratic Revolution that takes back the House and leaves New York City with 100% Democratic Congressional representation.

(Additional links to the above stories and more can be found at Harrison’s website).

More reading reading:

"Target the Corrupt Republican Campaign" blog

Harrison06.com

Vito2006.com

"Challenger wants 4 debates with Fossella" (Staten Island Advance)

Reuters reports that Chief GOP strategist Karl Rove (I know that's not his title anymore, but let's get real) called Lieberman on election day to "wish him well," though he denied offering Lieberman help from the White House.

Yesterday, ABC News's George Stephanopoulos wrote on his blog that source told him Rove called Lieberman and said "The boss wants to help. Whatever we can do, we will do."

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On the lighter side, Liebermania knows where it's at.