Bad Deeds for 3-20-2009

Election Officials Committed Voter Fraud According to Indictment
Five Clay County, Kentucky officials, including the circuit court judge, the county clerk, and election officers were arrested Thursday after they were indicted on federal charges accusing them of using corrupt tactics to obtain political power and personal gain.

The 10-count indictment, unsealed Thursday, accused the defendants of a conspiracy from March 2002 until November 2006 that violated the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). RICO is a federal statute that prosecutors use to combat organized crime. The defendants were also indicted for extortion, mail fraud, obstruction of justice, conspiracy to injure voters’ rights and conspiracy to commit voter fraud.

According to the indictment, these alleged criminal actions affected the outcome of federal, local, and state primary and general elections in 2002, 2004, and 2006. Among them [emphasis added]:

• Clay County Clerk, Freddy Thompson, 45, allegedly provided money to election officers to be distributed by the officers to buy votes and he also instructed officers how to change votes at the voting machine.
• Election officer William E. Stivers, 56, allegedly marked votes or issued tickets to voters who had sold their votes and changed votes at the voting machine.
• Paul E. Bishop, 60, allegedly marked voters or issued tickets to voters who sold their votes and he also hosted alleged meetings at his home where money was pooled together by candidates and distributed to election officers, including himself. He was also accused of instructing the officers how to change votes at the voting machine.

Many of the voters, it seems, had no idea that their votes were manipulated after they’d left the touch-screen voting machine. While the Early Voting scheme involved finding voters who might wish to be paid to have their vote cast a certain way, the Election Day scheme, carried out in primary and general elections in at least 2004 and 2006, was accomplished by taking advantage of a “feature” on all DRE (usually touch-screen) voting systems and “voter unfamiliarity with new voting machines.”

Essentially, they tricked voters into leaving the ‘booth’ after pressing the “Vote” button on the ES&S iVotronic. That button, does not actually cast the vote, as one might think (and as these voters were told), but instead, it brings up a review screen of the voter’s “ballot.”

Instructing the voters that they were done, the conspirators then, after the voter had left, would change the voters’ votes as they saw fit, before finally pressing the “Cast Ballot” button.

(So here, finally, is a real possible case of voter fraud. Tell me how voter ID cards would prevent this. – JLV)

 

Diebold Admits ALL Versions of Their Software Delete Ballots Without Notice – Even the audit log system on current versions of Premier Election Solutions’ (formerly Diebold’s) electronic voting and tabulating systems — used in some 34 states across the nation — fail to record the wholesale deletion of ballots. Even when ballots are deleted on the same day as an election. That’s the shocking admission heard today from Justin Bales, Premier’s Western Region manager, at a State of California public hearing on the possible decertification of Diebold/Premier’s tabulator system.

 

90% of the Weapons Recovered in Mexico Originate From the U. S. – Guns recovered in some of the largest recent weapons seizures in Mexico are being traced deep into the United States — miles from the volatile border — revealing an expanding trafficking network that feeds Mexico’s violent drug cartels, according to government documents and U.S. investigators.

Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives records show 90% of the weapons recovered and traced originate from a growing number of sources spanning from the Northwest to New England. The trafficking routes have created what Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., described earlier this week as an “iron river of guns” flowing to the warring cartels, contributing to about 7,000 deaths in the past 14 months.

Some of the strongest recent evidence of the cartels’ expanding gun pipeline:

• Four months after the largest weapons seizure in Mexican history, U.S. investigators have traced 383 of the more than 400 weapons seized from a stash house in Reynosa, Mexico, to 11 states including Ohio, South Carolina, Virginia, Florida, Michigan and Connecticut, according to ATF records.
• Nearly a year after a gunbattle left 13 dead in Tijuana, the seizure of 60 guns has prompted probes in Seattle, San Francisco, Philadelphia and Denver.
• The guns, many of them high-powered assault rifles, are streaming across the border at such a pace that some are being recovered in Mexico within days after their purchase in the U.S, according to ATF records.

 

Concentration Camps in the USA: Our immigrant-Detention System is Out of Control – The U.S. detention system for immigrants has mushroomed in the past decade. A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement database, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, showed a U.S. detainee population of exactly 32,000 on the evening of Jan. 25. Of those, 18,690 immigrants did not have a criminal conviction, including for illegal entry or low-level crimes such as trespassing. More than 400 of those with no criminal record had been incarcerated for at least a year. A dozen had been held for three years or more; one man from China had been locked up for more than five years.

 

Intelligence Made it Clear That Saddam Was Not a Threat, According to Diplomat – Carne Ross, who was a first secretary at the United Nations in New York for the Foreign Office until 2004, said that the intelligence made it “very clear” that Saddam Hussein did not pose a significant threat to the UK, as was being claimed at the time by ministers, and that tougher enforcement of sanctions could have brought his regime down.

He said he tried to inform ministers about his misgivings over the developing momentum towards war, taking them aside during their visits to New York or having brief conversations in their car to the airport.

But he said he was aware that speaking out too often or too openly – even in internal debates – about his concerns about the government’s policy direction would damage his career by winning him a reputation as a “naive troublemaker”.

Ross’s evidence, by video link from New York, came days after Jack Straw, who was foreign secretary at the time, used the first ministerial veto under the freedom of information act to ban the release of cabinet minutes on the decision to go to war.

 

One-Third of the United States’ 800 Bird Species are Endangered, Threatened or in Significant Decline – A review of bird populations in the United States was released March 19 by Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar. Nearly a third of the United States’ 800 bird species are endangered, threatened or in significant decline, the new report shows. Bird populations are critical indicators of the health of our environment — “like the canary in the coal mine,” Salazar said at a press conference.

 

Former Bush Administration Aide Stole Nearly $600,000 From a Nonprofit Group that Promotes Democracy in Cuba – A former Bush administration aide was sentenced March 18 to 2 1/2 years in federal prison for stealing nearly $600,000 from a nonprofit group that promotes democracy in Cuba. Felipe E. Sixto of Miami pleaded guilty last year in U.S. District Court in the District to stealing from a federally funded program. Today, U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton called the crime an “elaborate scheme” that badly damaged the nonprofit group, the Center for a Free Cuba, where Sixto worked from 2003 through July 2007. He continued stealing from the center after he switched jobs to become an associate director for intergovernmental affairs at the White House, prosecutors said.

 

Fox News Edited Clip To Make It Look Like Biden Recently Declared ‘Fundamentals Of The Economy Are Strong’ – After weeks of economic doom and gloom, the Obama administration is now singing a slightly different tune,” Fox News’s Martha MacCallum said. She then played clips of Romer and other administration officials making seemingly positive comments about the current state of the economy. One of the clips was of Vice President Biden saying, “The fundamentals of the economy are strong!” After the segment, MacCallum said, “All right, well the mantra for the weekend is clear, looking at what was said over the course of the shows on Sunday.”

But the clip of Biden seemingly making a recent remark about the strength of the economy is grossly inaccurate. The Biden statement was actually from last September — during the presidential campaign — when he was quoting Sen. John McCain (R-AZ). Here’s what Biden really said:

Ladies and gentlemen, I believe that’s why John McCain could say with a straight face as recently as this morning and this is a quote, “the fundamentals of the economy are strong.” That’s what John said. He says that “We’ve made great progress economically in the Bush years.”

 

Dick Cheney’s Fearmongering is Assisting al Qaeda According to Colin Powell’s Former Chief of Staff – Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell’s former chief of staff who left the Bush administration in protest, has written an essay on slamming Cheney’s fearmongering. Wilkerson calls Cheney “evil” and says his detainee policies were only “assisting” terrorists.

 

Bush Said He Will Write Book With Authoritarian Voice – George W. Bush said that he doesn’t know what he will do in the long term but that he will write a book that will ask people to consider what they would do if they had to protect the United States as president. He said it will be fun to write and that “it’s going to be (about) the 12 toughest decisions I had to make. I’m going to put people in my place, so when the history of this administration is written at least there’s an authoritarian voice saying exactly what happened,” Bush said.

If you are in doubt, here is the definition: authoritarian – a person who insists on strict obedience to authority.

And here are some synonyms: Big Brother – an authoritarian leader and invader of privacy, oppressor – a person of authority who subjects others to undue pressures, undemocratic – not in agreement with or according to democratic doctrine or practice or ideals.

Regards,

Jim