Polls: Europe Negative on Bush Re-Election

1010wins.com

Dec 13, 9:11 PM EST

Polls: Europe Negative on Bush Re-Election

By WILL LESTER
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- International resentment of the Bush administration has spilled over to include bad feelings for the American people, too - at least in three European countries that opposed U.S. policies in Iraq.

People in France, Germany and Spain are more likely to have an unfavorable than favorable view of Americans, Associated Press polling found.

Just over half in France and Germany said they viewed Americans unfavorably. Almost half in Spain felt that way, while a third of Spaniards viewed Americans favorably.

The U.S. rift with longtime allies France and Germany is the most serious in years, and relations with Spain have been particularly frosty since Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero withdrew Spanish troops from Iraq last April.

President Bush pledged soon after his re-election victory on Nov. 2 that he would work to "deepen our trans-Atlantic ties with the nations of Europe." He plans a trip to Europe in February.

But the president, and Americans generally, have plenty of work to do to win over Europeans, according to international AP-Ipsos polls.

The polling suggests an increasing lack of European understanding of Americans rather than a surge of anti-Americanism, said Gilles Corman, the director of public affairs for Ipsos-Inra of Belgium.

Polling in the United States as well as Australia, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Spain was done for the AP by Ipsos, an international polling company.

A majority of people in Britain, France, Germany and Spain said they were disappointed by Bush's re-election.

"Above all, they appear to be worried about the consequences of this election," Corman said. "The predominant feelings about Bush's re-election in the European countries are disappointment and surprise more than anger."

Bush's re-election was greeted with dismay by many in Europe and prompted negative headlines in various newspapers.

"How can 59,054,087 people be so DUMB?" asked the Daily Mirror, a liberal tabloid in Britain that opposed the war in Iraq.

In France, Bush's re-election drew headlines like the left-leaning Liberation's "L'empire empire," a play on words that means "The Empire gets worse."

In Spain, relations with the United States have deteriorated since Zapatero's Socialist party unexpectedly won the March 14 general election just three days after the Madrid commuter train bombings. The terror attacks turned public opinion against conservative Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, a staunch Bush ally.

In Australia, Canada, Britain and Italy, people had a negative view of Bush, but a majority in those countries said they viewed Americans favorably.

"The negative view that Canadians have of George Bush does not extend to Americans in general," said Darrell Bricker, president of Ipsos-Reid Public Affairs-North America.

In Canada, about six in 10 Canadians said they were disappointed with the re-election. The president was asked last month during a trip to Canada about various polls that show Canadians and Americans drifting apart.

"We just had a poll in our country where people decided that the foreign policy of the Bush administration ought to - stay in place for four more years," Bush replied.

As reflected by his re-election, a majority in the United States view Bush favorably. Just over half in this country said they were hopeful and were not disappointed after the election.

The AP-Ipsos polls of about 1,000 adults in each country were taken between Nov. 19-27 and have margins of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

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Ohio Electors Vote Despite Challenge

1010wins.com

Dec 13, 10:36 PM EST

Ohio Electors Vote Despite Challenge

By CARRIE SPENCER
Associated Press Writer

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- The Ohio delegation to the Electoral College cast its votes for President Bush on Monday, hours after dissident groups asked the state Supreme Court to review the outcome of the state's presidential race.

As members of the Electoral College met across the nation to affirm the results of last month's election, the 20 GOP electors in Ohio voted unanimously for Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.

"The vast majority of people understand this election is over," said Gov. Bob Taft, who was at the electors' voting session in the state Senate chamber.

The challengers who went to the Supreme Court question whether Bush won the key swing state by 119,000 votes, guaranteeing his victory over Democrat John Kerry.

The court did not act on their request before the electors cast their ballots.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson and attorney Cliff Arnebeck of the Massachusetts-based Alliance for Democracy accused President Bush's campaign of "high-tech vote stealing."

Jackson said the challengers noticed Bush generally received more votes in counties that use optical-scan voting machines and questioned whether the machines were calibrated to record votes for Bush.

Critics of the election claim there were disparities in vote totals for Democrats, too few voting machines in Democrat-leaning precincts, organized campaigns directing voters to the wrong polling place and confusion over the counting of provisional ballots by voters whose names did not appear in the records at polling places.

The challengers allege unlawful ballots were added to the total and legally cast ballots were altered. Without listing specific evidence, the complaint alleges 130,656 votes for Kerry and John Edwards in 36 counties were somehow switched to count for the Bush-Cheney ticket.

The complaint also cites several reports of Election Day problems, including people who allegedly saw their vote "hop" to Bush on touch-screen machines after they voted for Kerry.

If the court decides to hear the challenge, it can declare a new winner or throw out the results.

"While the existence of anomalies could possibly be explained by human error or technical malfunctions, the fact that, in every case in Ohio known to the contestors, the error favored the Bush-Cheney ticket, strongly indicates manipulation or fraud," the challengers said in a court filing.

While members of the Ohio delegation to the Electoral College voted in the state Senate chamber, about 10 protesters walked a sidewalk nearby. State police said the group was denied a permit to demonstrate on Statehouse grounds.

Congressional Democrats sent a letter to the governor on Monday, asking him to delay the electoral vote or at least consider the results unofficial until the disputes are resolved.

"The vote is required to move forward by law, and it will more forward," Taft spokesman Orest Holubec said. "The vote has been certified by the secretary of state, and all of the valid provisionals have been counted."

Carlo LoParo, spokesman for Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, said that for the challengers' accusations to be true, officials of both parties would have had to conspire to throw the election.

"That's simply a ridiculous assertion," he said.

Led by a coalition representing the Green and Libertarian parties, the challengers are paying for recounts in each of Ohio's 88 counties that will begin this week. The recounts are not expected to be complete until next week.

Kerry issued a statement last week saying reports of voting problems should be investigated to ensure there are no doubts in future elections. His campaign does not dispute that Bush won the election, but supports the recounts.

Elsewhere, an unknown Democrat earned a footnote in history by casting one of Minnesota's 10 Electoral College votes for John Edwards, Kerry's running mate - the state's first "faithless elector," the dubious name for those who bypass the candidate who won the state's popular vote in the general election.

No one claimed credit for the Edwards vote. Several electors said they suspected someone unconsciously mixed up the two Johns on the ticket. "I'm certainly glad that the Electoral College is not separated by one vote," elector Michael Meuers said.

In New Mexico, a district judge in Santa Fe refused to order an immediate recount of presidential votes, saying the matter should wait until the state canvassing board takes it up on Tuesday.

The board's chairman, Gov. Bill Richardson, reiterated his opposition to the statewide recount sought by the Libertarian and Green parties' candidates, saying it "will not reform our election laws."

The parties say a recount would point to possible problems with various types of voting machines.

Congress announces nationwide totals in January.

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Bush Detractors Plan Quiet Rejection

1010wins.com

Dec 14, 7:38 PM EST

Bush Detractors Plan Quiet Rejection

By DONNA CASSATA
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- No buttons, signs or unusual dress will distinguish the protesters from the thousands who will line the inaugural parade route next month, but at a set time, they say they will demonstrate against President Bush - by turning their backs on the chief executive.

Coupled with the widely expected pomp and pageantry of a presidential inauguration are demonstrations by protesters angered by Bush's policies, in particular the war in Iraq.

Getting ready for Jan. 20, 2005, various groups are using Web sites, e-mails, fliers and word of mouth to urge thousands of demonstrators to gather in the nation's capital.

Among planned events are an anti-war rally and three-mile march to the White House, a massive bike ride similar to those that disrupted traffic in New York City before the Republican National Convention, and a "die-in" to remind the nation of more than 1,200 U.S. dead in Iraq.

Through the Web site www.turnyourbackonbush.org, organizers are urging demonstrators to leave political buttons and placards at home, join other parade-goers on the afternoon of the inauguration and then, as Bush's motorcade passes, show the president their backs.

"Turning your back is as old as authority itself," said Jet Heiko, a Philadelphia-based protest organizer. "It's a very understandable symbol for defying authority."

On its Web site, the group called it a unique action because "we won't know who is participating until the moment it begins."

The DC Anti-War Network is organizing a rally and march to the White House on the morning of the inauguration, getting the word out through the Web site www.counter-inaugural.org/, which says, "Bush isn't going away, and neither are we."

The violence in Iraq was one reason more than 100,000 protesters filled New York City streets on a Sunday morning in August before the Republican convention. Organizers of the inauguration protests expect stronger feelings toward the war to persuade thousands to travel to Washington next month.

Heightened security, January weather and the calendar - the inauguration falls on a Thursday - are certain to limit the numbers.

In 2000, additional officers from the Metropolitan Police and other law enforcement agencies kept order, and no major confrontations occurred and only a handful of people were arrested. Security is expected to be even tighter for the first inauguration since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Four years ago, protest organizers capitalized on strong feelings over the disputed election, which had barely subsided, and the timing inauguration fell on a Saturday. This year's election was settled weeks ago, on Nov. 3, when Democratic Sen. John Kerry called to congratulate Bush.

Still, organizers hope to attract a crowd.

"We got 80 percent of people to protest the Republican Convention in New York in the last week," said Jim Macdonald of the DC Anti-War Network.

On the Net:

Official inaugural Web site: http://www.inaugural05.com

Protest organizers: http://www.turnyourbackonbush.org

Protest organizers: http://www.counter-inaugural.org

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Christians Aiming to Boost Religion (at expense of all others)

1010wins.com
Dec 14, 8:24 PM EST

Christians Aiming to Boost Religion

By ALLEN G. BREED
Associated Press Writer

Emboldened by their Election Day successes, some Christian conservatives around the country are trying to put more Christ into Christmas this season.

In Terrebonne Parish, La., an organization is petitioning to add "Merry Christmas" to the red-lighted "Season's Greetings" sign on the main government building and is selling yard signs that read, "We believe in God. Merry Christmas." And a Raleigh, N.C., church recently paid $7,600 for a full-page newspaper ad urging Christians to spend their money only with merchants who include the greeting "Merry Christmas" in ads and displays.

"There is a revival taking place in our nation that is causing Christian and right-minded people to say, `Wait a minute. We've gone too far,'" says the Rev. Patrick Wooden Sr., pastor of the Raleigh church. "We're not going to allow the country to continue this downward spiral to the left."

In California, a group called the Committee to Save Merry Christmas is boycotting Macy's and its corporate parent, Federated Department Stores, accusing them of replacing "Merry Christmas" signs with ones wishing shoppers "Season's Greetings" or "Happy Holidays." The organization cites "the recent presidential election showing political correctness is offending millions of Americans."

(Federated, for its part, says that is has no ban on such greetings and that its store divisions can advertise as they see fit and store clerks are free to wish any customer "Merry Christmas." Macy's says its ads commonly use the phrase.)

The push from the religious right troubles Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

"This mixing of secular and religious symbols ought to be seen as a bad thing, not a good thing, for Christian believers," he says. "Unfortunately, some of the Christian pressure groups seem to have it backwards." He adds: "I think it's fair to say it's a mistaken notion that they have a mandate to put more nativity scenes up because George Bush was elected."

The battle over the manger on the city hall lawn is nothing new. People expect the annual tussle over the separation of church and state.

But the "keep the Christ in Christmas" contingent is particularly agitated this year over what its members see as a troubling trend on Main Street: Target stores banning Salvation Army bell ringers; UPS drivers complaining to a free-speech group that they have been told not to wish people a "Merry Christmas" (an accusation UPS denies as "silly on its face and just not true"); and major corporations barring religious music from cubicles and renaming the office Christmas bash the "end of the year" party.

"I think it is part of a growing movement of people with more traditional values, which make up the majority of people in this country, saying enough is enough," says Greg Scott, a spokesman for the Arizona-based Alliance Defense Fund.

Amid stories of schools banning the singing of carols on buses, Scott's group has distributed to more than 5,000 schools a seven-point legal primer citing 40 years of case law that says it is OK to mention Christmas in public places. And the group has about 800 lawyers waiting in the wings in case that notion needs to be reinforced.

To that same end, the Virginia-based Rutherford Institute, which says it received the UPS driver complaints, has reissued its "12 Rules of Christmas" guide to celebrating the birth of Jesus.

"I think the businesses and the schools have just gone too far; this is the final straw," says Institute president John W. Whitehead. "It's supposed to be a time of, what, peace and freedom and fun. And they've kind of made it into a secular ... kind of gray day."

Conservative radio and TV talk show hosts have chortled over some recent incidents of what they consider political correctness run amok.

In Kansas, The Wichita Eagle ran a correction for a notice that mistakenly referred to the Community Tree at the Winterfest celebration as a "Christmas Tree." And the mayor of Somerville, Mass., apologized after a news release mistakenly referred to the Dec. 21 City Holiday Party as a "Christmas Party."

But to many, the threats and demands that stores put up "Merry Christmas" signs are no laughing matter.

"Why not simply require stores owned by Jews to put a gold star in their ads and on their storefronts?" the Rev. Jim Melnyk, associate rector of St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Raleigh, wrote in a letter to the editor.

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Election 2004: Constitutional Conflict

The Constitution says the states have to tally the votes of their citizens before they can send their electors to the Electoral College. If Ohio doesn’t finish its recount before the College votes, or before the vote is unsealed before Congress on January 6th, shouldn’t one of us raise a formal objection to those Ohio electors’ votes?
-Keith Olbermann, MSNBC

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Ohio Recount: Xenia-phobia

Xenia-phobia
Keith Olbermann

December 13, 2004

SECAUCUS - If the subject weren’t so serious, the clunky maneuverings of John Kerry and Kenneth Blackwell would make for a nice modernized version of the Keystone Kops, or maybe Gilbert & Sullivan.

It’s hard to tell which of them is doing the worse job convincing anybody that there’s nothing to see here — keep moving — pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

Here is Kerry, insisting he is not invested in the outcome of an Ohio recount, asking through his lawyers to inspect the 92,000 ballots that contain no vote for president. And, through his interactions with Jesse Jackson and John Conyers, connecting into the Alliance for Democracy lawsuit to overturn or freeze the Ohio Electoral count, and into the assessment that Blackwell’s behavior “appears to violate Ohio law.”

And here is Blackwell, having insisted on 'Countdown' that there would be a re-count and his office would take no steps to prevent it, stepping on his own feet in Xenia, Ohio. Last Friday, Greene County election officials there tossed out two Green Party observers who had been given access to the examine the voting records there, attributing their actions to Blackwell’s directives that the so-called ‘canvassing period’ which follows every election be extended from ten days to more than a month because of the fact of the recount. Those county records, Blackwell’s people reasoned, needed to be sealed and handled with the “utmost care” until the recount was completed.

Just to round out the absurdity, those same two Greens returned to the Election Board building in Greene County (and what script editor would’ve permitted that coincidence?) on Saturday morning to find, they say, the facility unlocked, and all those ‘sealed’ voting machines and records out in the open where any passing vandal or political memorabilia junkie could’ve walked off with them (heck, I own two Broward County 2000 Voting Machines, if anybody would like to do a private recount). Greene County responded by insisting that while it was true that someone appears to have left the building unlocked, overnight, on Friday, and that nobody locked it up until Saturday afternoon, the other stuff — about the machines and records being unprotected — wasn’t true; they were inside locked rooms.

Well, that’s all right, then.

My MSNBC colleague and Newsweek chief political correspondent Howard Fineman shares my amazement at the Inspector Clouseaus of the Ohio Secretary of State’s office. If there’s nothing wrong in Ohio, it sure won’t be because Secretary Blackwell didn’t try to make it look like there was.

“I think that Ken Blackwell and his people have behaved in a duck-and-cover mode a la Florida, even before Election Day,” Howard said in a conversation before his appearance on tonight’s edition of 'Countdown'. “By extending the ‘canvassing period’ until now, they make it look as though they have something to hide. They’re supposedly doing it in the name of security, but you can’t do that if you’re leaving the doors unlocked.”

Fineman suggests Blackwell’s personal pique at having had his reputation sullied in the last month — and the month before it — is also a factor. “The Secretary of State’s office hasn’t been doing such a great job because he’s been testy and impatient about the whole affair.”

It took us several phone calls today to get any explanation out of Secretary Blackwell’s office as to the events in Xenia. Carlo LoParo, the Secretary’s Press Secretary, finally came through just before dinner time. “When a county board of elections receives a formal request for a recount,” he said on Blackwell’s behalf, “all ballots, poll books and lists must be sealed to protect the record. Those documents can only be accessed in the presence of all parties involved in the recount through bi-partisan election officials — at least one Democrat and one Republican.”

In other words, the Greens’ observers were kicked out because they were neither Democrat nor Republican, even though the recount is being sponsored by, and funded by, neither the Democrats nor the Republicans.

The answer was a far cry from the seemingly genial exchange I had with Secretary Blackwell on November 29th’s Countdown:

KO: “As it plays into the recount, though, sir, are you saying that your office does not anticipate taking any steps to try to prevent a recount in Ohio?”

KB: “No, we haven‘t. We‘ve told the two officials candidates that have-the candidates that have asked for a recount that, once we certify on December 6, they have five days to certify, I mean, to ask for a recount. Once they ask for a recount, we will provide them with a recount. And that‘s what I‘ve said from the very first indication that they were interested in a recount. Once it was established that they were statewide candidates withstanding, our law says that they can ask for a recount. We will regard this as yet another audit of the voting process.”

Smoke — plenty of it. And little obvious means of telling whether it’s the smoke of a flawed election, or the stuff set ablaze by Ohio officials falling into the fireplace during their desperate, petulant, failing struggle to make themselves look good.

The problem, of course, is that those positing an Electoral College freeze, or a formal Congressional Challenge to Ohio’s Electors on January 6, are generating nearly as much smoke. Kerry’s attorney’s letter to the 88 County boards not only asks to see the 92,000 “undervotes,” but also, to permit independent examination of “the programming and calibration of the tabulating system, scanners, and electronic voting machines verified by independent experts.”

The problem — as Howard Fineman puts it — is that even acknowledging the delicate position Kerry finds himself in, and the easy target he would make himself by openly investing in an Ohio recount/investigation/protest, this all still smacks of “I didn’t care about the recount before I started caring about it.” Howard continues: “If Kerry and his lawyer really thought there was real mischief going on, they should have had all their guns out there investigating what happened in Ohio and they should have been strong and vocal.”

Fineman also reminds us that it is noteworthy that, with the voting machine disparities and the potential disenfranchisement in urban communities so superbly documented over the weekend by The Columbus Dispatch, this is a minority voting rights issue, and Kerry needs to play it perfectly. “It’s not insignificant,” Howard said, “that the Ohio Secretary of State, Representative Conyers, and Jesse Jackson are all black politicians who are caught in this power struggle.”

The irony of all this smoke is that the day’s only practical election news came not from Columbus, but from St. Paul. There, one of Minnesota’s ten electors presumably messed up big time and voted not for John Kerry, but for John Edwards. So — the Electoral College vote will change — now it’ll be Bush 286, Kerry 251, Edwards 1.

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McCain: 'No Confidence' in Rumsfeld

ABC News
McCain: 'No Confidence' in Rumsfeld
Sen. John McCain Says He Has 'No Confidence' in Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld
The Associated Press

Dec. 13, 2004 - U.S. Sen. John McCain said Monday that he has "no confidence" in Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, citing Rumsfeld's handling of the war in Iraq and the failure to send more troops.

McCain, speaking to The Associated Press in an hourlong interview, said his comments were not a call for Rumsfeld's resignation, explaining that President Bush "can have the team that he wants around him."

"I have strenuously argued for larger troop numbers in Iraq, including the right kind of troops linguists, special forces, civil affairs, etc.," said McCain, R-Ariz. "There are very strong differences of opinion between myself and Secretary Rumsfeld on that issue."

When asked if Rumsfeld was a liability to the Bush administration, McCain responded: "The president can decide that, not me."

McCain, a decorated Navy veteran and former Vietnam prisoner of war, is a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, which has oversight of military operations and considerable influence over the Pentagon budget.

Pentagon spokesman Larry Di Rita said McCain "has frequently expressed his views regarding troop levels in Iraq, and he is an important member" of the committee.

Rumsfeld has "relied upon the judgment of the military commanders to determine what force levels are appropriate for the situation at hand," Di Rita said.

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Delay sought in Ohio electoral vote

CNN.com

Delay sought in Ohio electoral vote

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- Dissident groups asked the Ohio Supreme Court on Monday to review the outcome of the state's presidential race, hours before the Ohio delegation to the Electoral College was to cast ballots for president and vice president.

The groups question whether President Bush won the key swing state by 119,000 votes, guaranteeing his victory over Democrat John Kerry.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson and attorney Cliff Arnebeck of the Massachusetts-based Alliance for Democracy accused President Bush's campaign of "high-tech vote stealing."

Jackson said the challengers noticed Bush generally received more votes in counties that use optical-scan voting machines and questioned whether the machines were calibrated to record votes for Bush.

The dissidents claim there were disparities in vote totals for Democrats, too few voting machines in Democrat-leaning precincts, organized campaigns directing voters to the wrong polling place and confusion over the counting of provisional ballots by voters whose names did not appear in the records at polling places.

If the court decides to hear the challenge, it can declare a new winner or throw out the results. The challengers also planned to ask the court to stop the Electoral College delegation's vote until their case can be decided.

Protesters had been expected to demonstrate outside the Capitol as Electoral College delegates voted in the Ohio Senate chamber, but none were present as the vote began at midday.

Congressional Democrats sent a letter to Republican Gov. Bob Taft on Monday, asking him to delay the Electoral College vote or at least consider the results unofficial until the disputes are resolved.

Taft spokesman Orest Holubec said the governor would not postpone the vote or treat it as provisional.

"The vote is required to move forward by law, and it will more forward," Holubec said. "The vote has been certified by the secretary of state, and all of the valid provisionals have been counted."

Carlo LoParo, spokesman for Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, defended the election results. For the challengers' accusations to be true, he said, officials in both parties would have had to conspire to throw the election.

"That's simply a ridiculous assertion," he said.

Led by a coalition representing the Green and Libertarian parties, the dissidents are paying for recounts in each of Ohio's 88 counties that will begin this week. The recounts are not expected to be complete until next week.

Kerry issued a statement last week saying reported voting problems should be investigated to ensure there are no doubts in future elections. His campaign does not dispute that Bush won the election, but supports the recounts.

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Update on the Clint Curtis story

[Note: This is a revised version of a posting from Dec. 7]

blackboxvoting.org

Update on Clint Curtis story,
SATURDAY, DEC 11, 2004

Why the Feeney vote-rigging story sounds like disinformation, as Wayne Madsen writes it

The story hangs together better at BradBlog.com.

ABOUT DISINFORMATION: Like a good lie, it has elements of truth. Trouble is, the truth in Madsen's story doesn't relate to the nuts and bolts of the story.

DISINFORMATION IS DANGEROUS TO THE CLEAN VOTING MOVEMENT: Getting the facts is tedious, unexciting work, consisting of auditing and personal interviews, and it takes time. Many Americans want a magic bullet, a single shot that will blow the lid off everything at once.

That's risky. If the mainstream media continues to be bombarded with stories that sound credible, but aren't, when the real thing comes down the pike it will be ignored.

While MSNBC's Keith Olbermann and I had a run-in recently, I agree with Olbermann's earlier critique of the Madsen homeland security story, and this new Madsen story is just as weak. Most of both Madsen stories are bait and switch. Madsen wanders all over the place, recapping unrelated information from real news agencies, piggybacking onto their credibility, with only the most tenuous ties to what he is actually trying to prove. The work done on BradBlog is much more focused, and Brad seems to be a responsible researcher.

========================================

In my original critique, I raised questions about the Feeney vote-manipulation story; some of them related to Madsen's work. Brad Friedman, the author of BradBlog and the primary researcher for more credible work on Curtis, answered my original questions here. I have updated this section.

1. Madsen's article implied that Curtis's vote-rigging program was used in elections. Brad Friedman correctly points out that the Clint Curtis affidavit explains that he designed a prototype and did not put it into machines. (Many people have written vote-rigging prototypes, and the writing of a program doesn't prove anything about the integrity of the 2004 election.) The issue then becomes: Are Curtis's allegations about Tom Feeney correct?

- Documents do confirm that Curtis worked for Yang Enterprises, and that Feeney was involved with Yang. Documents do not confirm that Curtis met with Feeney and discussed vote-rigging. Curtis names witnesses in his affidavit, which is a good sign. The witnesses have not confirmed the story, yet.

2. I mentioned a second problem, in that several of the Florida counties used different software in 2000 than they do now, and that various Florida counties use different manufacturers and different systems. Writing one program that would tamper with ES&S punch cards and Diebold optical scans at the same time is unrealistic. However, since Curtis says he did not insert the software into any voting system, this is (almost) a moot point.

- The counties Curtis alleges Feeney wanted to rig were Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach. The first two used punch cards in 2000, switched to ES&S touch-screens in 2002, and used ES&S touch-screens in 2004. Palm Beach County used the infamous "butterfly ballot" in 2000, and switched to Sequoia touch-screens in 2002, and used those also in 2004. The Sequoia system has significant differences from the ES&S system, and the same software would not likely work for both

- Note that the Wayne Madsen article does a bait and switch when he discusses Volusia County. He starts by saying it is Feeney's district, and then actually goes on to report a story broken by Black Box Voting in October, 2003, about minus 16,022 votes for Bush in Volusia -- which appears to have nothing to do with the Feeney story. BradBlog takes care not to draw conclusions that aren't supported.

3. The techniques used to program a vote-rigging system in the affidavit by Clint Curtis still have some technical problems. Candidate-switching is not difficult, and there are a number of ways to accomplish it. Programmers have pointed out the the use of VB5 doesn't match use of Unix systems, but several programmers I spoke with were unaware that the Sequoia touch-screens, used in Palm Beach, create their ballots from WinEDS, and that program runs on Windows, and is so replete with security problems that the state of Texas refused to certify it. Now, when I get a high-speed document scanner, I'll post the Texas FOIA documents that show how susceptible the Sequoia WinEDS program is to tampering.

4. Most political shenanigans are not conducted by the candidate himself, but by operatives. It is certainly possible for a politician to hold several meetings in which he commits a felony in front of several witnesses, but that's not usually how it is done. A more common technique is an envelope full of cash left in a drawer of an operative, with at least one, sometimes more, buffer layers between the operative and the politician.

Clint Curtis says Feeney himself had meetings to directly discuss election rigging software. Could happen, certainly, but this seems unusual.

But this gets a bit more interesting. As I was checking this out, I got a report from someone completely unrelated, on an entirely different kind of vote-manipulation endeavor, and Feeney's name came up in that, too. So the issue of Feeney's behavior is about as clear as mud.

5. The author says it will be difficult to write a program that will escape notice if the source code is examined. That's not quite true.

I originally wrote that putting a trigger into a program can involve a very small amount of code, hard to detect -- and you can comment the code such that it looks like it is there for another purpose. Also, the certifiers do a slipshod job of code analysis, and you could probably drive a greyhound bus through their examination of the source code.

But I've been receiving e-mails from programmers that point out something even more obvious: by slipping the rig into a .dll, a program that runs in the background in the operating system (which is never examined at all) you can certainly achieve vote-rigging and survive a source code review.

Programmers pointed out to me that Curtis, as a programmer, should have known that. However, according to his affidavit, Curtis got his degree in Political Science and History, not computer science. He was apparently a self-trained programmer. I won't go into the technical merits more here, because if he didn't put the program into voting systems, they aren't relevant.

6. Now, my most significant objection to the story, which goes to Curtis's credibility, still involves his statement on the affidavit saying that he filed a "QUITAM" whistleblower suit, that is "pending." First, he doesn't spell it correctly. The correct spelling is two words, "Qui Tam." Next, Qui Tam cases MUST be filed under seal. If a Qui Tam is filed in Florida, both the evidence and the existence of the case must be sealed, and only the Florida Attorney General can unseal it.

People have written to me to explain that Curtis did file a whistleblower suit, but did so a day after the deadline. That is not a Qui Tam, but an employment-related suit. In his affidavit, Curtis refers to filing lawsuits two different places. One is an employment suit, the other is a "QUITAM" suit. I found documentation of the employement suit and its dismissal, but saw no documentation at all about a Qui Tam suit. That means it's either still under seal, and therefore, by talking about it, Curtis just invalidated the suit and violated a court order, or there is no Qui Tam suit.

Please do show it to me, if you can find it in the dockets and it has been unsealed.

Black Box Voting board member Jim March and I filed a Qui Tam suit in California in November 2003, against Diebold Election Systems. Using a California law, we refused to seal the evidence, but still had to keep the existence of the case under seal. It did not come out from under seal until the California Attorney General got the court to unseal it, and the Associated Press covered the unsealing of the case. You cannot keep the unsealing of a Qui Tam case away from the press. The press has mentioned no FDOT Qui Tam.

This goes directly to Curtis's credibility. I was not able to get hold of him today, and I will keep trying tomorrow, so that we can learn the answer to this.

There are two other credibility-checking questions I need answered. First, a small scrambled egg on my face: I wrote "Court documents refer to a judgment against Curtis for copyright infringement. Actually, the court documents referred to might have been papers filed by an opposing party, i.e. Yang Enterprises, alleging the copyright infringement without proving it. According to the Daytona News-Journal, Yang says Curtis was "successfully sued" over copyright infringement.

Parsing words here: "successfully sued" may mean there was a judgment entered, but according to Brad Friedman, Curtis says the case was settled out of court without either side paying the other. ("Each side paid their attorney's fees and went their merry way.") "Successfully sued" could also mean an out-of-court settlement in which Curtis paid a settlement to the other party. It is really stretching it to interpret "successfully sued" as simply filing a case. The term "successfully sued" could be a smear by Yang or Feeney, or it could be that Curtis didn't fully disclose the problems with the copyright infringement case.

Because this goes to credibility, and in this case credibility is extremely important, the next two questions that must be answered are: Who was the former employer and what were the real terms of the settlement or judgment?

One more credibility test: When Curtis lived in Illinois, he ran for office as a Republican. While discussing his run for office in a letter to the Bloomington Pantagraph he accused a local attorney of stealing $28,000. The accusation might be accurate, since it apparently was an embezzlement, and those are much more common than people realize. I'd like to know the names of the attorney and the injured party.

My gut tells me -- but this is only speculation -- that Curtis was correct in blowing the whistle on the attorney for misappropriating $28,000. I say that because I've seen written up several financial fraud cases, met the embezzlers, it happens frequently. If he blew the whistle on a $28,000 theft and his charges were correct, that would shore up his credibility on the Feeney story.

I announced on a national radio show Friday that I will be happy to take what you folks throw at me, if I am wrong on these points. In the mean time, because the implications of this story are so significant, I think we need to continue to exercise caution and get the story to the point where it is truly bulletproof.

-- Bev Harris

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Kerik had 2 sumultaneous affairs

New York Daily News
nydailynews.com

Now his double affair laid bare
BY RUSS BUETTNER
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Monday, December 13th, 2004



Former NYPD Commissioner Bernard Kerik conducted two extramarital affairs simultaneously, using a secret Battery Park City apartment for the passionate liaisons, the Daily News has learned.

The first relationship, spanning nearly a decade, was with city Correction Officer Jeanette Pinero; the second, and more startling, was with famed publishing titan Judith Regan.

His affair with Regan, the stunningly attractive head of her own book publishing company, lasted for almost a year.

Dramatically, each woman learned of the existence of the other after Pinero discovered a love note left by Regan in the apartment.

The revelations about Kerik's private life come as repercussions over his suitability to be nominated for the post of secretary of homeland security. Kerik, 49, married with two children from his current marriage, withdrew his name from consideration in a sudden and unexpected call to the White House on Friday night.

Kerik said that questions about the immigration status of his family's former nanny and failure to pay taxes prompted his decision to walk away from the job. But speculation has continued that there were deeper and more controversial reasons.

Yesterday, The News reported that a six-month investigation showed Kerik had accepted thousands of dollars in cash and gifts without proper disclosure, and had ties to a construction company that investigators believe is linked to the mob.

Now revelations about his private life also cast a shadow on his suitability for one of the administration's highest-profile cabinet positions.

Asked about the affairs and the secret love nest yesterday, Joseph Tacopina, Kerik's attorney, said Kerik and Regan had denied the affair in the past.

Tacopina said Kerik's "friendship" with Pinero ended in 1996.

He would not comment on the apartment.

Regan could not be reached for comment.

But sources with intimate knowledge of both affairs painted a picture of passionate, and sometimes volatile, liaisons.

The tumultuous Regan-Kerik romance carried on for months, through the writing, publication and promotion of his autobiography, "The Lost Son: A Life in Pursuit of Justice," which Regan's company published.

The two worked out together most mornings at the New York Sports Club in Rockefeller Center and often dined at Fresco restaurant in midtown, according to sources.

Kerik visited Regan's Central Park West apartment almost daily, and occasionally stayed the night, with his police detail camped outside.

They became so close that Kerik's two nieces stayed with Regan while the commissioner's sister was hospitalized, one source said.

Regan visited the Battery Park apartment several times, the source said, but apparently never knew that his actual residence at that time was an apartment on E. 79th St.

Furnished corporate rentals similar to the unit Kerik used, according to the sources, are advertised at monthly rents from $3,150 to $6,200. Representatives of Milstein Properties, whichs owns the Liberty View, could not be reached yesterday.

After one encounter, Regan left a romantic note, which was later discovered by Pinero. The two later spoke on the phone.

"She wanted to know if Judith was still seeing him," the source said. "She told Regan about their affair and Regan told her she was shocked."

Many close to Kerik in the mid-1990s assumed that someday he would marry Pinero, a career correction officer described as spirited and attractive by friends, a close friend and a former high-ranking Correction Department source said.

The relationship continued after Kerik married Hala Matli, a hygienist in his dentist's office whom he met in mid-1996 and wed in November 1998, according to multiple sources close to Pinero and Kerik.

Kerik's affair with Pinero is at the center of two lawsuits against the city, both brought by correction employees who claimed Kerik retaliated after they crossed her.

The city settled one last year for $250,000, The News reported at the time.

The second suit, in which Pinero and Kerik were deposed last week, was filed by former Deputy Warden Eric DeRavin 3rd, who claims Kerik quashed his promotion after he reprimanded Pinero. The city demanded a gag order on both depositions.

Pinero declined to comment.

But sources with whom she has spoken said that on her trips to the Battery Park City apartment, Pinero was shuttled in through a side service door.

"She's going to be my wife for as long we live. I support her 100%," said Pinero's husband, who asked that his name be withheld.

Yesterday, Kerik remained at his $1.2 million home in Franklin Lakes, N.J.

After announcing his decision to withdraw his name from the top homeland security post, he remained at the house over the weekend, emerging only twice to talk to media.

On both occasions, he stressed that he had made the decision to withdraw his name from consideration solely on the basis of problems with the family nanny.

He said he had realized on Wednesday evening that there were issues with the woman's immigration status and tax status.

He added that he wanted to avoid any embarrassment to the President, with whom he had stood side-by-side at a press conference announcing his nomination just a week before.

Kerik, who had a national profile after the events of 9/11, had been one of Bush's most enthusiastic public supporters during the election campaign.

With Nancy Dillon

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Stop the Yammering

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Best Equipped?

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More Armor

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Run Spitzer Run

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The Incredible Failures

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Dec. 2004

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Civil Rights Lightning

washingtonpost.com
Civil Rights Lightning

By Michael Kinsley

Sunday, December 12, 2004; Page B07

Sometime during the late 1980s, some guy (I don't remember who) from some conservative think tank (CATO? Hoover?) asked me at some Washington reception whether the New Republic, where I worked as the editor, would be interested in publishing an article advocating gay marriage. It was the first that I had heard of the idea.

At the time, the virtue of marriage as a civilizer of men was a major conservative theme in the debate about the underclass. This fellow wanted to argue that if marriage turns a man from a rampaging animal into a productive member of society, it would be especially useful when both members of a couple are these uncivilized beasts. Encouraging stable and monogamous relationships was especially important, he noted, in the age of AIDS.

I invited him to give it a try but never heard from him. So after a while, we turned to a young writer named Andrew Sullivan (now among America's best known writers and thinkers on gay politics), who produced an essay called "The Conservative Case for Gay Marriage," which was the New Republic cover story for Aug. 28, 1989, and surely one of the first articles on gay marriage in a mainstream publication.

Gay marriage was such a novel idea that the cover image of a wedding cake with two little grooms on top wasn't even a deadening cliché. But even this article, or at least the motivation for publishing it, was slightly in the spirit of "A Modest Proposal" (Jonathan Swift's famous tongue-in-cheek essay advocating the eating of babies). Not that The New Republic was actually against gay marriage. We were using it as a thought experiment. The object was in part simply to stick it to conservatives and in part to use this arresting concept as a way to make people think about gay rights in general. Gay marriage itself seemed so far-out and unlikely to happen that whether you were actually for it was beside the point.

Government-sanctioned gay marriage still hasn't happened in the United States, except in Massachusetts. And President Bush has endorsed the effort to head it off at the pass with a constitutional amendment. But on Thursday the Canadian Supreme Court cleared the way for legalizing gay marriage, which the prime minister says he intends to do. The very focus of U.S. opponents on a constitutional amendment is evidence that they think the momentum is against them. Most supporters and opponents alike would probably bet that it's going to happen.

Take a moment to consider how amazing this is. Just 15 years after that New Republic essay, marriage is the defining goal of the gay rights movement. There were more modest possibilities, emphasizing tolerance and nondiscrimination. But gay rights have blown right past those milestones and are headed to the next one, which is official approval.

Gay marriage is on the verge of joining abortion rights on the very short list of litmus tests that any Democratic candidate for national office must support. Not gay rights, but gay marriage, or at least "civil union," which is an unstable half-step that is bound to turn into the real thing. Some say that this just illustrates how far Democrats and liberals have drifted outside the mainstream. But the mainstream, and even the right, are not far behind. Gay civil union, itself a radical concept from the perspective of just a few years ago, has widespread support outside of liberal circles. The notion that gay relationships should enjoy at least some of the benefits of marriage (hospital visitation rights being the unanswerable example) is probably a majority view. And even the most homophobic religious-right demagogue feels obliged to spout -- and may well actually believe -- bromides about God's love of gay people.

Today's near-universal and minimally respectable attitude -- the rock-bottom, non-negotiable price of admission to polite society and the political debate -- is an acceptance of gay people and of open, unapologetic homosexuality as part of American life that would have shocked, if not offended, great liberals of a few decades ago such as Hubert Humphrey.

This development is not just amazing, it is inspiring. American society hasn't used up its capacity to recognize that it harbors an injustice and it remains supple enough to change as a result. In fact, the process is speeding up. It took African American civil rights a century and feminism a half-century to travel the distance gay rights have moved in a decade and a half.

This is also scary, of course, because there is no reason to think that gay rights are the end of the line. And it's even scarier because these are all revolutions of perception, as well as politics. That means that all of us who consider ourselves good-hearted, well-meaning, empathetic Americans -- but don't claim to be great visionaries -- are probably staring right now at an injustice that will soon seem obvious -- and we just don't see it. Somewhere in this country a gay black woman, grateful beneficiary of past and present perceptual transformations, has said something today in all innocence that will strike her just a few years from now as unbelievably callous, cruel and wrong.

The writer is editorial and opinion editor of the Los Angeles Times.

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Update: Kerik Nannygate

Looks like my initial impressions were correct. The reports are coming fast and furious about many more problems Kerik has, such as failing to mention that a New Jersey judge had issued a warrant for his arrest in 1998 in a civil dispute over unpaid bills. A series of critical news reports about questionable actions have begun to surface about Mr. Kerik. The reports include Mr. Kerik's improper use of city personnel while in office, and potential conflicts between his business life and the role of the Homeland Security Department.

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Sequoia central tabulator audit log now online

blackboxvoting.org

Anyone with knowledge of how to interpret the log is encouraged to contact blackboxvoting.org with an offer to assist.

http://www.blackboxvoting.org/WinEDS-audit-Snohomish.pdf

This is the log for the central tabulator used in the Snohomish County Florida Nov. 2 election. This election is now being "hand recounted" (though it was run on Sequoia touch-screens).

This is the first Sequoia audit log we've been able to get our hands on. Riverside, California reportedly tried to claim it isn't a public record (it is) and we've had to file a lawsuit to get it in Palm Beach County.

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Kerik: Nannygate?

Breaking news: Bernard Kerik withdraws his name for consideration for Homeland Security Head.

Claiming a sudden discovery that he had a NannyGate problem, he withdrew his name from consideration. With all the other issues surrounding his past and present associations and dealings, it is highly unlikely that this is the reason. The odds are that there are many more skeletons in his closet, and he got wind of a really bad one that was about to break if he didn't pull out. It had to be something really big, because the Congress was ready to give him the job.

Yet another Friday night breaking news story hoping to be forgotten by Monday. The Bush administration has done this kind of thing over and over, with much success. Let's hope the press doesn't let this one fade so quickly, and does some research into the real reason for the withdrawal.

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