ledge of liberty

El Prestidente en Cognito

[Masked and Anonymous]

Let's see here... Silly hat?  Check.  Sunglasses?  Check.  Cowboy boots?  Check check.  Chewing tobacco??  Looks like it to me.  So, here's the question of the day -- is the disguise for want of not getting caught chewing tobacco in the Rose Garden or did junior just want to look cool for the press while chewing said tobacco?

Bush Touts Fox Slogan: "Fair and Balanced"

Bush concluded the final day of his 2-day Economic Summit (TM) with 40 minutes of closing words babble.  Why anyone lets this man speak without handlers and cattle prods is completely beyond me.  Anyway, here's a few of my favorite remarks.

• 4 years and a $236 billion surplus turned $413 billion deficit, but now Bush is "ready to work".

BUSH:  I -- but I didn't come up here to Washington -- I know a lot of people I my Cabinet didn't agree to serve to pass problems on. I like to confront problems. I like to -- I like to work with people so that we can say we left behind a better America, after it's all said and done. And I don't have that much time here in Washington. So I'm going to --  So I'm ready to work.

• Bush used the Fox News slogan "Fair and Balanced" when talking about "frivolous lawsuits" cluttering up the court system.  "Fair and Balanced"?  What ever happened to "Fair and Just"?

BUSH:  We believe, and many of you have -- believe that that money can be better spent; that it's possible to have a justice system that is fair and balanced; that if you have a claim, you should be able to go to an uncluttered court to have your claim adjudicated.

• Nicaragua, Guatemala, uh who the f*ck really cares -- Bush scolded Hilda Bankston for correcting him before the press.

BUSH: And lawsuits can just plain ruin somebody's life. Donnie headed a seminar yesterday, and I happened to be there, and we heard the story of Hilda Bankston -- I think Hilda is probably still here. There you go. First of all, Hilda was born in Nicaragua -- is that right?

MRS. BANKSTON: Guatemala.

BUSH: Guatemala -- see, I wasn't paying very close attention.  Maybe I'll get the rest of the story right here.  It's okay to correct the President -- just not in front of all the TV cameras.

America the Infomercial

[George Bush has some 'Challanges' (sic) at the Economic Summit]

Signs, slogans, scripts, and sycophants -- it's not an "economic summit", it's an infomercial.  The only thing missing is the George Foreman grill.

Video: Clinton Curtis testifies before House Judiciary

[Click to Watch Video]

Here's a video showing partial testimony of Clinton Curtis, the Floridian NASA computer programmer turned election fraud whistle-blower.  His claim being that he was hired by Congressman Tom Feeney (R-FL) to develop vote rigging software.  Clinton, or 'Clint' as on his affidavit, armed with a new book, is now bringing to light his apparent involvement.

As I've said before, I'm having a hard time believing this story.  Is this guy credible?  The whole story sounds too fantastical, all with the dead german shepherd and his website certainly doesn't exemplify the qualifications of a NASA computer programmer.

Here's a partial transcript of the testimony [via ignatz]:

Q: [Congressman Nadler] And did he ever express why he wanted a code to rig an election?

CURTIS: No. I immediately assumed that they were trying to keep you guys from cheating with it... so... [laughter] so... I wrote up the documentation of what you would look for in the source code. How you would make sure the you - CUT - Mrs. Yang, and said, here's your report. Here's your program. And she said, you don't understand, we need to hide the fraud in the source. In the source code.

Q: Hide the fraud, not reveal the fraud?

CURTIS: Not reveal the fraud because they needed to control the vote in South Florida, is what she said.

Q: That's what she said?

CURTIS: That's what she said.

Q: To your knowledge, to your knowledge, was this used?

CURTIS: I have no idea. I was ready to leave, so... (laughter) and and I was tired and left the company.

Q: In your testimony a minute ago I think you said just before you left in answer to Congresswoman Tubbs Jones question, that... would you just repeat what you said in terms of uh the the uh exit polls?

CURTIS: The exit polls should not be significantly different from the vote.

Q: And if they were you would conclude what?

CURTIS: I would conclude someone's playing with the vote?

Q: Not with the exit polls?

CURTIS: That's possible too.

Q: OK and that's why...

CURTIS: Something is definitely skewed.

Q: Something is skewed with one of the other above.

CURTIS: To select which one you'd have to see where the problem is.

Q: Let me ask you one further question. Assuming for the moment that such software, [UNINTELLIGABLE] such software to rig a vote was used, in one or more machines in Ohio or in Florida, couldn't you today detect that if you looked at the source code?

CURTIS: If you could get the machines and they had not been patched yet. I mean, once they get in and touch em', anything could happen. You could also set timers to do that, but then you could see the timer. Then you'd have to take those machines, decompile them, which I couldn't do, but possibly a Microsoft, an MIT something could do, you might... you might be able to.

Q: You might?

CURTIS: Depends on how good they are at destroying what they had.

Q: Destroying what they had by tampering the machine afterwards, or by programming them to destroy instructions in the first place?

CURTIS: Right. Because then since you...

Q: Either or both?

CURTIS: Either or both. You didn't actually seen what's in there, so you don't know if the code is running as a single executable or running in various modules. If it's running in modules you could make the code actually eat itself.

Q: Let me ask you one further question. We've.... I've heard that people who assume that lots of the election results, that a large fraction of the election result within the state may have been effected by deliberate fraud in a computer, are paranoid, because in order to do that you would have to have access to thousands of machines and that would be readily detectable. To what extent is that true?

CURTIS: In depends on the technology that used. If you use a central tabulation machine that fed in, all you'd have to do is set a flag. You set a flag; the central tabulation machine would flip your vote.

Q: So if you. So one person putting in bad code in a central tabulation machine could affect thousands and thousands or tens of thousands of votes?

CURTIS: Right.

Q: And...

CURTIS: And you could activate either automatically, or you could make is so that there's code existing on like an otonic (?) machine which feeds it, where you would punch it in, it would see the flag, the server would see the flag and then...

Q: And if you had a recount and no paper trail, would that be, as soon as that had happened, would that be reversible by seeing the discrepancy between the tabulator, the central tabulator code, and what the individual machines which had not been tampered with code?

CURTIS: Not if I wrote it.

Q: Why not? In other words...

CURTIS: In other words I could make it match.

Q: You could work back from the tabulator to the individual machines, so that the tabulator could tell the machines to switch their results?

CURTIS: Yes. It talks both ways. You could flip it to whatever you need.

Q: And they actually do talk to each other. this the machines and the tabulator?

CURTIS: As long as it's hooked up. As long as they are networked together, they can talk to each other.

Q: So in other words, there is absolutely no assurance whatsoever on anything with regards to these machines.

CURTIS: Absolutely none, unless you look at the source code and make sure it's safe before it goes in.

Q: Thank you very much. [APPLAUSE]

Chair: Thank you Congressman Nadler. I know that Congresswoman Waters has questions, then Senator Miller, and then Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones.

Q: [Congresswoman Waters] This will only take a moment, if you would come back to the ...

CURTIS: I'm new at this.

Q: As you know, there has been a lot of discussion about that, I think it is Diebold Company. Their relationship to the President and a group within the administration and supposedly comments about helping to insure that the President is reelected. In your world in your environment, have you heard any of these kind of discussion? Do you know people from Diebold... do you have any sense of any actions that may have been taken?

CURTIS: I don't know anything about that at all.

Q: Thank You

CURTIS: Sorry.

Chair: Senator Miller

Q: [Senator Miller] Thank you Madam Chair.

Chair: Sir.

Q: I suspect that people will attack you in terms of your credibility. Could you restate once again for the record your credentials?

CURTIS: I'm a programmer. I worked for NASA. I've worked for Exxon/Mobile. Worked for the Department of Transportation. And, other elements of my story, because this company... well let's get into it, why not? [LAUGHTER] This company also, they have a NASA contract. and they were basically downloading tons of information, I mean gigabytes worth, and handing it off to this little Chinese guy named Henry Ng [Lee or Nee?] and it didn't seem right and he was packing things and I wrote a program for DOT that allowed contractors to send their information into DOT and he was kind of the quality assurance guy for software. He put a wiretapping module in the program that went to the contractors so that it actually sent everything they sent back to Yang. So I reported all this and just last March, I think, he was arrested for attempting to send anti-tank missile chips to the capitol of Communist China. If that's correct, this is such a small thing. [LAUGHTER] Although I think that he only got a hundred dollar fine and no time.

Chair: Thank You.

Ohio: 92,000 Presidential ballots unexecuted

So 92,000 Ohioans showed up at the polls Election day, but chose not to vote for a Presidential candidate.  You know how it is; it's raining, you've been waiting in line 2 maybe 12 hours, you care about civic responsibilities -- but this Presidential candidate thing is so 20th century.

Kerry Lawyer Seeks Ohio Ballot Inspection  [AP]

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Democrat John Kerry is asking county elections officials to allow his witnesses to inspect the 92,000 ballots cast in Ohio in which no vote for president was recorded, a Kerry lawyer said Sunday night.

The request is one of 11 the Kerry campaign made in a letter sent over the weekend to Ohio's 88 county boards of election, which will begin recounting presidential ballots this week.

"We're trying to increase the transparency of the election process," said Donald McTigue, the lawyer handling the recount for the Kerry campaign. But he added that several requests — such as using independent experts to check election equipment, "are trying to push the edge of envelope."

Oddments: Third worldization edition

• Touchscreen voting machines aren't the only Venezuela/US bond these days.  A law just passed giving the Venezuelan government control over radio and television broadcasting.  [AP]
• The Canadian Supreme Court officially redefined marriage, approving a bill legalizing gay marriage.  [CP]
• Siting principles, Bush has flat-out refused an increase to payroll taxes -- an effort to save Social Security.  Bush nor Mcclellan have offered any answers as to where the trillions needed to save the program will come from.  [AP]
• Oh-my-God stop the f*cking presses -- Al Sharpton was paid by the Kerry camp!  Why is this news?  [AP]
• The House has approved the 9/11 intelligence bill.  This should get really interesting once we start reading through the 600 pages that weren't submitted until yesterday afternoon.  [WP]
• "I am an innocent man, convicted of a crime I did not commit... I have been persecuted for 12 years for a crime I did not commit", were the final words of Cameron Todd Willingham as he was tied down and executed in a Texas prison.  As it turns out -- he was telling the truth.  [Chicago Tribune]
  

Proclamation: Dress like the President Day

[Ambassador Jim Nicholson and President Bush]

Either I missed a memo or somebody's sharing a stylist.

Stalking Helen Thomas: Torture edition

Ledge of Liberty is officially stalking White House press correspondent, Helen Thomas.  We've always loved her, but there comes a point where love can become an obsession -- and this is that point.

Just days ago, the White House officially approved for use, intelligence attained through means of torture.  Now, we have White house Press Secretary,  Scott McClellan, delivering his usual sermon, high and mighty on the anti-terror platform.  The hypocrisy of which, only challenged by Helen's usual contumacy.

MR. McCLELLAN:  Helen, go ahead.

Q     Has the President given any orders to stop the ongoing brutalization of Iraqi prisoners?

MR. McCLELLAN:  Ongoing?  If you have something, you ought to let --

Q     Even after Abu Ghraib and the terrible shame that it brought to us, this still goes on.

MR. McCLELLAN:  If you have something, you ought to take it to the attention of the Department of Defense.

Q     I personally don't.  I've been reading in the papers recently, several days, that this is going on.

MR. McCLELLAN:  The President expects allegations of this nature, which are serious allegations, to be fully investigated.  He expects the Department of Defense to get to the bottom of any allegations that are made, to hold people responsible for wrongdoing if there is wrongdoing, and to take corrective action where appropriate.  The Department of Defense has a number of ongoing investigations.  These are issues that they take very seriously.  In terms of the policy, I think the President's policy has been made very clear.  We are a nation of laws and a nation of values, and we expect people to adhere to our values, as well as our laws.

Q     You don't adhere to the Geneva Conventions.  How can they know --

MR. McCLELLAN:  Actually, in Iraq, the Geneva Convention does apply, and we do expect it to --

Q     How about Guantanamo?

MR. McCLELLAN:  -- we do expect it to be adhered to.

Q     Thank you.

12/08/04 Press Briefing  [whitehouse.gov]

Incase You've Forgotten, it's 'George W. Bush, Commander in Chief'

[George Plays Dress Up]

This picture is a bit deceiving, as it gives the appearance of Bush swimming amongst a virtual sea of troops, when in fact, he's strutting down a fenced-in catwalk, yards from any troops.  But why shouldn't he strut?  Check out that new jacket!

Lost in a Masquerade [Maureen Dowd/NYT]

Rumsfeld to Troops in Iraq: Just make the best of it

Soldiers, angry over a lack of armor, endless deployments, and stop losses, met with Secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld today in Iraq.  Thousands soldiers cheered on as Rumsfeld was asked some seemingly obvious, yet difficult for the Secretary of Defense to answer, questions.

"Why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to uparmor our vehicles?"  One soldier asks.  "We do not have proper armored vehicles to carry with us north."

Troops Put Tough Questions to Rumsfeld  [AP]

CAMP BUEHRING, Kuwait - Disgrunted U.S. soldiers complained to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Wednesday about the lack of armor for their vehicles and long deployments, drawing a blunt retort from the Pentagon chief.

"You go to war with the Army you have," he said in a rare public airing of rank-and-file concerns among the troops.

In his prepared remarks earlier, Rumsfeld had urged the troops — mostly National Guard and Reserve soldiers — to discount critics of the war in Iraq and to help "win the test of wills" with the insurgents.

Some of soldiers, however, had criticisms of their own — not of the war itself but of how it is being fought.

Army Spc. Thomas Wilson, for example, of the 278th Regimental Combat Team that is comprised mainly of citizen soldiers of the Tennessee Army National Guard, asked Rumsfeld in a question-and-answer session why vehicle armor is still in short supply, nearly two years after the start of the war that ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

"Why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to uparmor our vehicles?" Wilson asked. A big cheer arose from the approximately 2,300 soldiers in the cavernous hangar who assembled to see and hear the secretary of defense.

Rumsfeld hesitated and asked Wilson to repeat his question.

"We do not have proper armored vehicles to carry with us north," Wilson said after asking again.

Rumsfeld replied that troops should make the best of the conditions they face and said the Army was pushing manufacturers of vehicle armor to produce it as fast as humanly possible.

And, the defense chief added, armor is not always a savior in the kind of combat U.S. troops face in Iraq, where the insurgents' weapon of choice is the roadside bomb, or improvised explosive device that has killed and maimed hundreds, if not thousands, of American troops since the summer of 2003.

"You can have all the armor in the world on a tank and it can (still) be blown up," Rumsfeld said.

Asked later about Wilson's complaint, the deputy commanding general of U.S. forces in Kuwait, Maj. Gen. Gary Speer, said in an interview that as far as he knows, every vehicle that is deploying to Iraq from Camp Buehring in Kuwait has at least "Level 3" armor. That means it at least has locally fabricated armor for its side panels, but not necessarily bulletproof windows or protection against explosions that penetrate the floorboard.

Speer said he was not aware that soldiers were searching landfills for scrap metal and used bulletproof glass.

During the question-and-answer session, another soldier complained that active-duty Army units sometimes get priority over the National Guard and Reserve units for the best equipment in Iraq.

"There's no way I can prove it, but I am told the Army is breaking its neck to see that there is not" discrimination against the National Guard and Reserve in terms of providing equipment, Rumsfeld said.

Yet another soldier asked, without putting it to Rumsfeld as a direct criticism, how much longer the Army will continue using its "stop loss" power to prevent soldiers from leaving the service who are otherwise eligible to retire or quit.

Rumsfeld said that this condition was simply a fact of life for soldiers at time of war.

"It's basically a sound principle, it's nothing new, it's been well understood" by soldiers, he said. "My guess is it will continue to be used as little as possible, but that it will continue to be used."

In his opening remarks, Rumsfeld stressed that soldiers who are heading to Iraq should not believe those who say the insurgents cannot be defeated or who otherwise doubt the will of the military to win.

"They say we can't prevail. I see that violence and say we must win," Rumsfeld said.

Clinton Curtis may be a Fraud, but there's Still Fraud in OH

This is turning out to be an interesting week for election fraud.  In a sworn affidavit, Clinton Curtis, a computer programmer from Florida, claims that he was hired by Congressman Tom Feeney to "develop a prototype of a voting program that could alter the vote tabulation in the election and be undetectable.”  Shortly after the story broke on the Brad Blog, it was reported that Clinton's dog was found killed.

Personally, I think this story is complete crap.  Why would a Congressman go through the trouble of hiring a contractor to write vote rigging software for use on individual machines, when it only takes 30 seconds to change vote tallies on central tabulators?

The central tabulator is a regular PC computer, just like the one you're using right now.  All Counties send their votes in to this central tabulator, and if any vote altering was to occur, it would only make sense for it to happen here.  One only needs to open the raw data file, no password necessary, and make any changes.  When the central tabulator is reopened, all the changes will take affect -- with no trace of fraud, no "vote-rigging" program needed, and no Clinton Curtis nessesary.

What is very real in Ohio, is widespread and systemic disenfranchisement, 92,000 ballots lost to spoilage, huge vote machine errors, and in Warren County, the illegal counting of votes under the guise of 'Homeland Security'.  Just ask yourself this -- does this sound like an election that does Democracy justice?

Following Lead of Dictators Past: The Bush Billboards

[Enter the Billboard Gallery or Submit a Billboard Picture]

Lawsuit: Presidential election challenged

[Click to Watch Video]

Voters to challenge US election  [The Guardian]
Ohio Election to be Investigated  [AP]
Federal Judge Rules: OH recount procedes in all Counties  [Cobb via Solarbus]
House Investigation of OH Sec. of State Blackwell Launched  [House of Reps]
Kerry Camp Joins Suit Over Ohio Votes  [NYT]
Cliff Arnebeck - Ohio Honest Election Campaign  [Alliance for Democracy]
Nearly a month later, Ohio vote fight goes on  [AP]
Arrests expected in voter fraud probe  [Ackron Beacon Journal]
It's Official:  Election stolen  [Ledge of Liberty]

Olbermann Slams Bev Harris - Bev Reacts

These two should be working together -- instead, they fight.  Why can't everybody get along?

Keith Olbermann accuses Bev Harris of not 'doing anybody any favors', failing to show for interviews, and refusing to share voter fraud evidence.  Now, in response Bev accuses Olbermann of telling 'untruth', canceling interviews, and lieing about requests for evidence.  Oy.

Something's fishy here, a failure to communicate, yes, but something more.  Someone at MSNBC must have fed Olbermann this info -- the canceling, the refusing to share evidence.  I mean, obviously Keith isn't making all these calls -- that's what interns and production assistants are for.  Something's amiss.

Either Bev's an evil villain in a do-good Gramma suit, or Olbermann's been given false info.  I think the latter.  Either way, this should get interesting.

OLBERMANN:  I’ve been avoiding this topic for four weeks now, but given what I understand are a lot of dropped jaws around the blogosphere, I think I better spill this.

I don’t think Bev Harris of Black Box Voting is doing anybody any favors.

I suggested as much tonight on Countdown and there were a lot of understandably surprised emails. Some profane, incidentally, which had previously been the exclusive province of those who notified me of their opposition to anybody covering anything about voting irregularities or especially Jesse Jackson’s F-Word.

Each and every day since our coverage of all this began on November 8, I have received a set of emails, some times a few, some times many, asking “Why don’t you have Bev Harris on Countdown?,” “Why don’t you run the Bev Harris videotapes?,” “Why don’t you show the voting tapes Bev Harris found discarded in the trash in Florida?”

Because she won’t let us.

I have not dealt with Ms. Harris directly, but my staff has, and though we have asked her on a regular basis to let us show these tapes on national television, she has declined. [Continue reading on MSNBC]

Note the 'I have not dealt with Ms. Harris directly, but my staff has'... interesting.  Bev responds...

HARRIS:  Black Box Voting requests retraction from Keith Olbermann, along with an explanation of why MSNBC alleged such an untruth. We have given Olbermann the opportunity to correct his factually flawed editorial by having Bev Harris appear on his show.

Contrary to Olbermann's assertions, neither he nor his staff have EVER asked Harris to show anyone the Volusia County tapes. They have not asked Harris to come on the show since November 8. Harris did not come to Florida until November 12.

Olbermann's producers had asked Harris to appear on the Countdown show twice, on Nov. 5 and Nov. 8. Each time, after Harris cleared her schedule to appear and shortly before the show, Olbermann's producers canceled the appearance without explanation.  [Continue reading on BBV]

Vote Reform: Florida to cancel Election Day

Florida election officials are willing to say goodbye to Election Day in favor of an 11-day 'election season'.  The new system would eliminate the use of precincts, replacing them with 'super-voting sites'.  This aspect of the reform is great -- the elimination of precincts would deal with all the redistricting problems that too many voters run into on election Day.

FL election chiefs: Get rid of election Day  [Miami Herald via Kos]

Florida's election supervisors, impressed by the success of early voting, proposed dramatic reforms Tuesday that would eliminate Election Day, replace it with an 11-day election season and do away with precincts.

The association of the state's 67 chief elections officials voted in concept at its annual winter meeting in Orlando to informally present the idea to the Legislature and to start rallying support for what its members concede would be a sea change in how Floridians vote.

''I think the voters spoke loud and clear in the general election of 2004 that they want other options than to be limited to 12 hours on a Tuesday to vote,'' said Bill Cowles, Orange County supervisor of elections and president of the Florida State Association of Supervisors of Elections. ``We should seize upon the opportunity in 2005 to make the changes so we can try it in 2006.''

This past election season marked the first time that Florida used early voting across the state and it was a proven success, as some voters waited in line for hours in order to cast their ballot ahead of Election Day.

Election supervisors say the experience showed them they could move away from the traditional Election Day and a precinct structure many believe is outdated. Instead of hundreds of precincts in a county, for example, voters could go to any of a few super-voting sites equipped with enough machines and personnel to keep lines at a minimum.  [Miami Herald]

Kos thinks the idea "pretty darn good" and I agree it's a step in the right direction, but voter reform needs to start with transparency.  It's the only way to reintroduce any integrity to our voting system.  Paper ballots are the constitutional right and we need to start from there.

Merriam-Webster: 'Blog' #1 word of 2004

The verdict's in; Merriam-Webster name's 'blog' the top word of 2004.  That's right, 'blog' -- not 'network', not 'news', not 'CNN' --  B-L-O-G.

Freed from the constraints that govern traditional print and broadcast news organizations, blogs spread gossip while also serving as an outlet for people increasingly disenchanted with mainstream media.  [CNN]

TOP 10 WORDS OF 2004

1. blog
2. incumbent
3. electoral
4. insurgent
5. hurricane

6. cicada
7. peloton
8. partisan
9. sovereignty
10. defenestration

Source: Merriam-Webster

Latest in U.S. Election Fraud

• Bev Harris has filed another lawsuit, this time against Palm Beach County, Florida, "naming Teresa LaPore as defendant, citing her for failure to comply with the Black Box Voting public records request of Nov. 2, 2004".  [BBV]
• Ohio election outcry growing  [AP]
• NY Daily news Columnist, Jaun Gonzalez, scolds the U.S. media for focusing on Ukraine voter fraud when fraud is widespread and apparent right here in the States.  [NY Daily News]
• "An attorney for a political advocacy group on Wednesday plans to file a "contest of election." The request requires a single Supreme Court justice to either let the election stand, declare another winner or throw the whole thing out."  [AP]
• Rev. Jesse Jackson, who supports a Supreme Court intervention and full Congressional investigation into the Ohio election explains, "This is about the integrity of the vote. This is not about the Kerry campaign".  [AP]

Bush Thanks Canada for Not Flipping Him Off

"I frankly felt like the reception we received on the way in from the airport was very warm and hospitable, and I want to thank the Canadian people who came out to wave - with all five fingers."  [G.W. via AP]

The truth is -- Bush's first visit to Canada since his Presidency was met by a barrage of

thousands of protesters, each armed with signs asking the President to "please leave" calling him an "assassin" and  "war criminal".  Hardly a "warm and hospitable" welcome.

In 2003, Bush imposed a ban on beef imports from Canada, all for a lone case of mad cow syndrome attributed to a piece of Alberta beef.  Prime Minister Martin made a not-so-subtle reminder during Bush's Canadian visit to lift the ban, serving the President Alberta beef for dinner.

Previously: LiveJournalist Flipped-Off by Bush
Photo: Bush flips the bird [via vidvote.org]