December 17, 2004
Students for an Orwellian Society
Go to the link below to get all of the live links to current ongoing examples of "doublespeak" and "newspeak."
It's double plus good.
http://www.studentsfororwell.org
*Ingsoc Condition Alert System*
Current Condition:*
Good*
*Students for an Orwellian Society*
/Because 2004 is 20 years too late./
*trap*
*What is SOS?*
Students for an Orwellian Society (SOS) is a nationwide student group. Although SOS has always been a nationwide student group, there is evidence to suggest that it first appeared at *Columbia University*
As an Oceania-wide organization, SOS has a number of local chapters. For a partial listing, see our *contact*
George Orwell
George Orwell
*Successes*
As to be expected, SOS has been quite successful. Since the events of
11 September, we have been able to convince a number of figures in
national and local politics to help forward our aims. How could they do otherwise?
Our successes can be shown to fit into the three major ideals of Ingsoc as expressed by Orwell:
*War Is Peace*
o Oceania (commonly called the US and Britain) is at war with
*Afghanistan*
Oceania has always been at war with *Afghanistan*
*Iraq*
o Eurasia (commonly called Russia, Pakistan, etc.) is *allied
with Oceania*
war against Afghanistan. Eurasia has *always been allied*
with Oceania.
o US Congressman Charlie Rangel *has been arguing for*
return of military conscription (?*The Draft*
way of /reducing/ war.
o It's not easy to *capture someone killed the year before*
you harness the power of Ingsoc. When you've got Ingsoc on
your side, though, it's so easy that the US *did it again*
o Three cheers for *Homeland Security drone patrols*
o In order to fight terrorism, *we must cause it*
Rumsfeld.
o *It's okay*
that there were no *?weapons of mass destruction?*
in Iraq; that's *not why we went to war*
equally okay that there are *so many*
o The Nobel prize committee has been considering *nominating
George Bush and Tony Blair*
their prestigious Peace prize.
o Just like in /1984/'s Room 101, the Miniluv operations in
Guantánamo Bay *were authorized to*
?exploit[] a prisoner's phobias, sometimes using muzzled
dogs in interrogations.? Doubleplusgood!
o *According to the Bush administration*
the *Duelfer report*
conclusively showed that there were no *weapons of mass
destruction*
justifies the war in Iraq.
o ?I just want you to know that, when we talk about war, we're
really talking about peace.? ? *George W. Bush*
President of the United States
o ?Protecting [an] Islamic cultural center? *involves fighting
a war inside it*
York Times on the Web/ shows.
*Freedom Is Slavery*
o The *Anti-Terrorism Act*
ensures US citizens' freedom by ensuring the FBI's ability
to examine their activities.
o Security cameras have been placed around the Columbia campus
and around the *island of Manhattan*
o If you are buying postage, *do not ask for stamps without
flags on them*
would clearly be a sign of lack-of-patriotism, and we at SOS
are glad to see that the Post Office is cracking down on it.
o We encourage all true citizens of this country to join
*Operation TIPS*
promise, will help further an Orwellian society in ways that
we at SOS cannot even begin to fathom.
o There's really nothing we can say about DARPA's *Total
Information Awareness*
project except to thank them for *all*
*their*
*work*
o While Victory Gin is not (as far as we know) yet available,
the sale of *freedom fries*
is an important first step; freedom fries and freedom toast
are also now available *in Congress*
Also, check out *Victory Beer*
o The truly Orwellian and praiseworthy Transportation Safety
Administration gets our thanks for *spotting
anti-Americanism*
in passengers' baggage.
o Flying while wearing certain buttons *may not be permitted*
okay to wear a button saying, ?Hooray for Tony Blair,? though.
o Similarly, *carrying a note*
that you do not have a bomb in your bag is equivalent to
saying that you /do/ have a bomb.
o When flying, you may use the toilet. However, if it is
occupied, /do not/ *wait in line*
for it to become free. Only a terrorist would do that.
o We've been notified that Apple Computer company, which once
made public anti-Orwellianism pronouncements, is now *coming
around to our side*
(Note: Link contains a quicktime movie.)
o The Junior Anti-Sex League is *offering grants*
to organizations which support its work.
o In London, feel *secure beneath the watchful eyes*
*Transport for London*
o We're pleased to see the *subpoena*
of the National Lawyer's Guild and other anti-war activists.
It's time to keep those activists *in their place*
o In the UK, the wrongly convicted are *charged for their
?food and lodgings?*
while in prison.
o A student in Washington state was disciplined and questioned
by the Secret Service for *drawing ungood pictures*
President.
o On surveillance cameras: ?The value we gain in public safety
far outweighs any perception by the community that this is
Big Brother who's watching.? ? *Ron Huberman*
Executive Director, Chicago Office of Emergency Management
o Wearing a t-shirt which says ?Protect Our Civil Liberties?
is, of course, obscene, and will get you *kicked out of*
campaign rallies.
*Ignorance Is Strength*
o Osama bin Laden's messages will *no longer be shown*
will improve the strength of the bloc.
o There is no dissent in this country. Those who disagree with
President Bush are merely *confused*
o The /New York Times/ published an *excellent piece of
doublethink*
magazine section on Sunday 18 November. It is bad that
Al-Jazeera fails to take American positions seriously. It is
good that American media doesn't take Arab positions
seriously. And all this from *an Arab-American scholar*
Bush the First once called ?more anti-Arab than the Israelis.?
o Government agencies are requesting that certain *government
reports be removed from public libraries*
excellent indication that SOS is having influence at the
highest levels!
o The /Guardian/ reports that PR firms have *begun creating
false citizens*
try and shift the debate on certain key issues. Big Brother
is certainly pleased!
o Do not wear a ?Give Peace a Chance? t-shirt at the mall, or
carry a protest sign when passing through. It may *be
illegal*
o It's good to know that the recent pro-war rallies have been
*sponsored by Clear Channel*
wouldn't want people expressing their opinions without the
help of media conglomerates!
o We're pleased to learn that the government has *been
removing*
information from websites which do not agree with the
current administration's policies. For example, the CDC's
website *no longer points out*
that condoms are an effective means of stopping sexually
transmitted diseases.
o *Thanks, **/Time Magazine/*
removing articles from your website!
o Reading an article critical of the government is a serious
form of thoughtcrime?and, fortunately, *the FBI takes such
things seriously*
o *Do not email President Bush*
o Youths in Arabic-speaking countries are encouraged to read
*/Hi/** Magazine*
o A *recent study*
showed that thanks to /Fox News/ and other Minitrue news
sources, *most Americans believe*
untrue things about the war in Iraq.
o We are proud to present a *special report*
specific instance of doublethink in the /New York Times/.
o The FBI urges you *not to carry almanacs*
labeled a terrorist.
o The Civil War *will not be taught*
in US History courses in Georgia.
o ?Those who cast the votes decide nothing; those who *count
the votes*
everything.? ? Stalin, a man truly ahead of his time.
o In the grandest pro-Orwellian tradition, science is
(fortunately) *no longer a tool*
for objective truth, but rather one to *promote an agenda*
Huzzah!
o The UC-Davis /Aggie/ has published *an excellent article*
o It's a good thing that the Department of Homeland Security
has *asked its employees*
to be on the lookout for good photo-ops for the President.
o *It's okay*
the government to lie, *according to the*
General Accounting Office.
o Students who publicly and personally *question the Vice
President's wife*
are guilty of a crime.
o A teacher was arrested in Tampa, Florida because *a
bookmark*
was carrying is a concealed weapon.
o Thank the Department of Homeland Security for *not
forgetting Poland*
instead *protecting us*
from dangerous 12-year-old Polish choir boys.
*Failures*
Any reports of failure are almost certainly lies, the work of
thoughtcriminals. Kindly ignore them. SOS does not fail.
*T-Shirt Design Contest*
We're considering printing SOS T-Shirts. Please email *Minitrue*
one of them enough to print up a bunch, we'll send the artist a free
shirt or two, as well as some other incentives if we come up with any.
We're more inclined to print designs that use a small number of colors (one or two). The *rules and entries thus far*
*Posters*
It is the duty of all citizens to print out 300 posters weekly and place them around campus. We may be monitoring you at any time. For your convenience, we provide posters here. You need *Acrobat Reader*
o *Report Thoughtcrime*
o *War Is Peace*
o *Freedom Is Slavery*
o *Ignorance Is Strength*
o *Big Brother Is Watching You*
The folks at SOS-Davis have *well over 100 different posters*
*Flyer*
SOS is pleased to present a special *flyer about ROTC*
Training Corps and a truly Orwellian organization. We know you find it useful.
*News Service*
The SOS chapter at Berkeley has constructed a *goodspeak news service*
*CNN*
or *FOX News*
*Sticker*
*Sticker*
*Events*
The *Empty Space Theatre*
Similarly, *The Orwell Project*
presented performances of /1984/ and /Animal Farm/ in February and early March at the Connelly Theater in New York City. Party members who attended a performance highly recommend it.
The *1984 + 20 Project*
readings of /1984/ on April 4, 2004. See their website for more
information.
The *National Council of Teachers of English*
*1984+20*
*Contact Us*
We already know what you're thinking. There's no use hiding. To report incidents of aberrant behavior or thought among your classmates, please email *miniluv@studentsfororwell.org*
For local contacts, the *MSCD*
*UC-Davis*
own web sites.
SOS chapters are also active at *Columbia*
*Oberlin*
*NYU*
High School*
*UC-Berkeley*
*SUNY-Stony Brook*
*Trinity Chrisitan Academy*
College*
*Hopkins High*
*YIHS*
Posted by Chuck at 08:30 AM | Comments (0)
December 11, 2004
Why we don't hear about casualties of War?
In Iraq, the U.S. Does Eliminate Those Who Dare to Count the Dead
By Naomi Klein
The Guardian U.K.
Saturday 04 December 2004
You asked for my evidence, Mr. Ambassador. Here it is.
David T. Johnson,
Acting ambassador,
US Embassy, London
Dear Mr. Johnson,
On November 26, your press counsellor sent a letter to the Guardian taking strong exception to a sentence in my column of the same day. The sentence read: "In Iraq, US forces and their Iraqi surrogates are no longer bothering to conceal attacks on civilian targets and are openly eliminating anyone - doctors, clerics, journalists - who dares to count the bodies." Of particular concern was the word "eliminating".
The letter suggested that my charge was "baseless" and asked the Guardian either to withdraw it, or provide "evidence of this extremely grave accusation". It is quite rare for US embassy officials to openly involve themselves in the free press of a foreign country, so I took the letter extremely seriously. But while I agree that the accusation is grave, I have no intention of withdrawing it. Here, instead, is the evidence you requested.
In April, US forces laid siege to Falluja in retaliation for the gruesome killings of four Blackwater employees. The operation was a failure, with US troops eventually handing the city back to resistance forces. The reason for the withdrawal was that the siege had sparked uprisings across the country, triggered by reports that hundreds of civilians had been killed. This information came from three main sources: 1) Doctors. USA Today reported on April 11 that "Statistics and names of the dead were gathered from four main clinics around the city and from Falluja general hospital". 2) Arab TV journalists. While doctors reported the numbers of dead, it was al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya that put a human face on those statistics. With unembedded camera crews in Falluja, both networks beamed footage of mutilated women and children throughout Iraq and the Arab-speaking world. 3) Clerics. The reports of high civilian casualties coming from journalists and doctors were seized upon by prominent clerics in Iraq. Many delivered fiery sermons condemning the attack, turning their congregants against US forces and igniting the uprising that forced US troops to withdraw.
US authorities have denied that hundreds of civilians were killed during last April's siege, and have lashed out at the sources of these reports. For instance, an unnamed "senior American officer", speaking to the New York Times last month, labelled Falluja general hospital "a centre of propaganda". But the strongest words were reserved for Arab TV networks. When asked about al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya's reports that hundreds of civilians had been killed in Falluja, Donald Rumsfeld, the US secretary of defence, replied that "what al-Jazeera is doing is vicious, inaccurate and inexcusable ... " Last month, US troops once again laid siege to Falluja - but this time the attack included a new tactic: eliminating the doctors, journalists and clerics who focused public attention on civilian casualties last time around.
Eliminating Doctors
The first major operation by US marines and Iraqi soldiers was to storm Falluja general hospital, arresting doctors and placing the facility under military control. The New York Times reported that "the hospital was selected as an early target because the American military believed that it was the source of rumours about heavy casualties", noting that "this time around, the American military intends to fight its own information war, countering or squelching what has been one of the insurgents' most potent weapons". The Los Angeles Times quoted a doctor as saying that the soldiers "stole the mobile phones" at the hospital - preventing doctors from communicating with the outside world.
But this was not the worst of the attacks on health workers. Two days earlier, a crucial emergency health clinic was bombed to rubble, as well as a medical supplies dispensary next door. Dr Sami al-Jumaili, who was working in the clinic, says the bombs took the lives of 15 medics, four nurses and 35 patients. The Los Angeles Times reported that the manager of Falluja general hospital "had told a US general the location of the downtown makeshift medical centre" before it was hit.
Whether the clinic was targeted or destroyed accidentally, the effect was the same: to eliminate many of Falluja's doctors from the war zone. As Dr Jumaili told the Independent on November 14: "There is not a single surgeon in Falluja." When fighting moved to Mosul, a similar tactic was used: on entering the city, US and Iraqi forces immediately seized control of the al-Zaharawi hospital.
Eliminating Journalists
The images from last month's siege on Falluja came almost exclusively from reporters embedded with US troops. This is because Arab journalists who had covered April's siege from the civilian perspective had effectively been eliminated. Al-Jazeera had no cameras on the ground because it has been banned from reporting in Iraq indefinitely. Al-Arabiya did have an unembedded reporter, Abdel Kader Al-Saadi, in Falluja, but on November 11 US forces arrested him and held him for the length of the siege. Al-Saadi's detention has been condemned by Reporters Without Borders and the International Federation of Journalists. "We cannot ignore the possibility that he is being intimidated for just trying to do his job," the IFJ stated.
It's not the first time journalists in Iraq have faced this kind of intimidation. When US forces invaded Baghdad in April 2003, US Central Command urged all unembedded journalists to leave the city. Some insisted on staying and at least three paid with their lives. On April 8, a US aircraft bombed al-Jazeera's Baghdad offices, killing reporter Tareq Ayyoub. Al-Jazeera has documentation proving it gave the coordinates of its location to US forces.
On the same day, a US tank fired on the Palestine hotel, killing José Couso, of the Spanish network Telecinco, and Taras Protsiuk, of Reuters. Three US soldiers are facing a criminal lawsuit from Couso's family, which alleges that US forces were well aware that journalists were in the Palestine hotel and that they committed a war crime.
Eliminating Clerics
Just as doctors and journalists have been targeted, so too have many of the clerics who have spoken out forcefully against the killings in Falluja. On November 11, Sheik Mahdi al-Sumaidaei, the head of the Supreme Association for Guidance and Daawa, was arrested. According to Associated Press, "Al-Sumaidaei has called on the country's Sunni minority to launch a civil disobedience campaign if the Iraqi government does not halt the attack on Falluja". On November 19, AP reported that US and Iraqi forces stormed a prominent Sunni mosque, the Abu Hanifa, in Aadhamiya, killing three people and arresting 40, including the chief cleric - another opponent of the Falluja siege. On the same day, Fox News reported that "US troops also raided a Sunni mosque in Qaim, near the Syrian border". The report described the arrests as "retaliation for opposing the Falluja offensive". Two Shia clerics associated with Moqtada al-Sadr have also been arrested in recent weeks; according to AP, "both had spoken out against the Falluja attack".
"We don't do body counts," said General Tommy Franks of US Central Command. The question is: what happens to the people who insist on counting the bodies - the doctors who must pronounce their patients dead, the journalists who document these losses, the clerics who denounce them? In Iraq, evidence is mounting that these voices are being systematically silenced through a variety of means, from mass arrests, to raids on hospitals, media bans, and overt and unexplained physical attacks.
Mr. Ambassador, I believe that your government and its Iraqi surrogates are waging two wars in Iraq. One war is against the Iraqi people, and it has claimed an estimated 100,000 lives. The other is a war on witnesses.
Posted by Chuck at 11:42 PM | Comments (0)
December 10, 2004
Whitewashing Torture
Whitewashing torture?
By David DeBatto / Salon
Dec. 8, 2004 | On June 15, 2003, Sgt. Frank "Greg" Ford, a
counterintelligence agent in the California National Guard's 223rd
Military Intelligence (M.I.) Battalion stationed in Samarra, Iraq,
told his commanding officer, Capt. Victor Artiga, that he had
witnessed five incidents of torture and abuse of Iraqi detainees at
his base, and requested a formal investigation. Thirty-six hours
later, Ford, a 49-year-old with over 30 years of military service in
the Coast Guard, Army and Navy, was ordered by U.S. Army medical
personnel to lie down on a gurney, was then strapped down, loaded
onto a military plane and medevac'd to a military medical center
outside the country.
Although no "medevac" order appears to have been written, in
violation of Army policy, Ford was clearly shipped out because of a
diagnosis that he was suffering from combat stress. After Ford raised
the torture allegations, Artiga immediately said Ford
was "delusional" and ordered a psychiatric examination, according to
Ford. But that examination, carried out by an Army psychiatrist,
diagnosed him as "completely normal."
A witness, Sgt. 1st Class Michael Marciello, claims that Artiga
became enraged when he read the initial medical report finding
nothing wrong with Ford and intimidated the psychiatrist into
changing it. According to Marciello, Artiga angrily told the
psychiatrist that it was a "C.I. [counterintelligence] or M.I.
matter" and insisted that she had to change her report and get Ford
out of Iraq.
Documents show that all subsequent examinations of Ford by Army
mental-health professionals, over many months, confirmed his initial
diagnosis as normal.
An officer at the California Office of the Adjutant General in
Sacramento, Calif., Sgt. Maj. Patrick Hammond, has known Ford for
over 15 years during their service in the California National Guard.
Hammond said, "I have never had any reason to question his honesty
and I don't do so now." This reporter served in the military with
Ford in Iraq for seven months and can also attest that he is sane and
level-headed.
Ford, who has since left the military, claims that his superiors
shipped him out of the country to prevent him from exposing the
abusive behavior. "They were determined to protect their own asses no
matter who they had to take down," he says.
Col. C. Tsai, a military doctor who examined Ford in Germany and
found nothing wrong with him, told a film crew for Spiegel Television
that he was "not surprised" at Ford's diagnosis. Tsai told Spiegel
that he had treated "three or four" other U.S. soldiers from Iraq
that were also sent to Landstuhl for psychological evaluations
or "combat stress counseling" after they reported incidents of
detainee abuse or other wrongdoing by American soldiers.
Artiga and other higher-ups in the 223rd M.I. Battalion deny Ford's
charges. But in the aftermath of the Abu Ghraib scandal, federal
agencies including the Department of Defense, the Army's Criminal
Investigation Command (CID), and the FBI are finally looking into
them. The Department of the Army's Office of the Inspector General
has launched an investigation, according to Ford and his attorney,
Kevin Healy, who have been contacted by investigators. If Ford's
allegations are proven, the Army would be faced with evidence that
its prisoner abuse problem is even more widespread than previously
acknowledged -- and that some of its own officers not only turned a
blind eye to abuses but actively participated in covering them up.
The 223rd M.I. Battalion was one of the first divisions to enter Iraq
after the U.S. "Shock and Awe" aerial bombardment ended, in mid-April
2003. (I also served in that unit in-country from April through
October 2003. I met Ford in February 2003, at Fort Bragg, N.C., and
continued to stay in contact with him until he was shipped out of the
country. I have also since left the military.) The battalion's
mission was to collect counterintelligence. Its agents, highly
trained soldiers responsible for force protection and for
investigating national security crimes committed against the Army,
were divided into small units called Tactical Human Intelligence
Teams, or THTs. Every day, these teams went out from their forward
operating bases in Iraq and interacted with the local people in an
effort to gather critical intelligence on such matters as the
location of conventional and unconventional weapons and the
whereabouts of the fugitives depicted on the Pentagon's 55-most-
wanted playing cards. It was arguably one of the most sensitive and
important jobs in the entire Iraqi theater of operations. As the team
sergeant of his THT, Ford was second in command of his four-person
team and responsible for training, discipline, logistics and
supervision of day-to-day operations. He was also the team's
designated combat life saver, or medic.
Ford spent his first weeks in Iraq at Balad Air Base, also known as
Camp Anaconda, about 50 kilometers north of Baghdad along the Tigris.
In early May, he was assigned to a THT that was headed for Samarra,
another 20 kilometers to the northeast. An ancient trading center
that dates to the Mesopotamian era, Samarra was known as a hotbed of
Sunni Arab loyalists, ex-Baath Party officials, and Islamist
extremists. The two-story police station the Army occupied was
located in the center of town, closely surrounded by taller
buildings, giving anyone who cared to fire on the Americans an
excellent field in which to do so. And fire they did. Almost every
night, Ford and his teammates would be forced to dive from their
bunks for cover as mortar rounds rocked the compound. The concussions
shook the foundation and broke whatever glass windows remained.
Fortunately, the Iraqi mortar crews proved wildly inaccurate, and no
Americans were killed, but several were wounded and the attacks never
let up. There was immense pressure on the THT to find out who was
behind the attacks and to supply the information to the "gunslingers"
of the 4th Infantry Division. It was in that environment that Ford
says he saw the incidents that led to the end of his long military
career.
Late last summer I met Ford for lunch on a sunny afternoon at the
Delta King Riverboat, which is tied to the docks in downtown
Sacramento. Ford has returned to his longtime job as a corrections
officer at Folsom Prison, and his wavy brown hair is longer than it
was when I knew him in Iraq. He has spent the past year trying to
clear his name, but apart from a few newspaper interviews he gave
after the Abu Ghraib scandal broke last spring, he has not told his
story to anyone until now.
Ford seemed calm and resolute as he talked about how the events that
took place in Samarra contradicted everything he thought he knew
about the military. For more than three decades, he said, he had
always served with "people that I knew I could depend on when it
really mattered. They were people that I would have sacrificed my
life to save if need be, and I knew they would do the same for me, no
questions asked."
He went on, "There were also rules and regulations to follow. Some of
the rules applied only in peacetime, some only in time of war. Some
always applied. You knew which was which. These simple, basic rules
were pounded into your head from the day you got off the bus at basic
training. You broke the rules, you paid the price. Period. Everyone
knew that simple fact, and everyone accepted it."
But Ford said those rules were savagely broken in Samarra in June
2003. He described multiple incidents of what he called "war crimes"
and "torture" of Iraqi detainees ranging in age from about 15 to 35.
According to Ford, his teammates, three counterintelligence agents
like himself -- one of them a woman -- systematically and repeatedly
abused several Iraqi male detainees over a two-to three-week time
period. Ford describes incidents of asphyxiation, mock executions,
arms being pulled out of sockets, and lit cigarettes forced into
detainee's ears while they were blindfolded and bound. These
atrocities took place in an Iraqi police station, Ford said. His
attempts to stop the abuse were met with either indifference or
threats by his team leader, who was himself one of the abusers,
according to Ford.
Ford clenched his fists tightly and shook his head slowly from side
to side. "I guess one of the things that pisses me off most is the
arrogance," he said. "The condescending attitude that my team had.
Some of the medics, too. Saying things like 'So what, he's just
another haji,' like they were scum or some kind of animal, really
just pisses me off."
Ford said he was fighting a raging battle with himself over whether
to report what he'd seen to his superiors at Anaconda or to confront
the team leader one last time. He felt "sick inside" about the
mistreatment of detainees, but he did not want to be a "rat," either.
Having worked as a corrections officer for almost 20 years, Ford knew
how he would be perceived among the troops if he snitched. "I didn't
want to have to watch my back at the same time I was dodging mortar
rounds from the Iraqis. I decided that I had to confront [the team
leader] and tell him, in no uncertain terms, that I would not stand
for any more of that kind of shit toward the detainees."
Ford said he found the team leader and had it out with him. "I told
him that if there was ever a court-martial over these incidents, I
would absolutely testify against him. I said that this kind of crap
has to stop or else I would report it to Artiga." According to Ford,
the team leader replied, "Fine, Greg, you do what you have to do." By
then, Ford said, he'd "had enough." He told the team leader that he
would be filing a complaint against him and the other agent as soon
as possible. He said the team leader told him he was "crazy"
and "seeing things" and no one would believe him anyway, so "knock
yourself out."
The next day, Ford said he rode with the rest of his team down to
Camp Anaconda, where the 223rd had its headquarters, as did the 205th
M.I. Brigade, which was made infamous by the Abu Ghraib scandal. Both
divisions were commanded by Col. Thomas Pappas. Upon his arrival,
Ford said that he immediately went to the company headquarters and
met with Artiga and 1st Sgt. John Vegilla. Ford said that it was
clear that Artiga knew he was coming. "I told them that I wanted to
request a formal investigation into allegations of war crimes
committed by my team against Iraqi detainees. I said I wanted to
request a removal of this whole team and their replacement by a
senior team, because they're bringing the house down. He looked right
at me and said, 'Nope, that never happened. You're delusional, you
imagined the whole thing. And you've got 30 seconds to withdraw your
complaint. If you do, it will be as if this conversation never took
place.'" Ford refused, and Artiga told him to "get out of here" and
that he would call him when the complaint was ready.
In an interview, Artiga denied making those statements. Vegilla did
not respond to interview requests.
A few hours later, Marciello, a senior counterintelligence agent,
arrived to accompany Ford from the transient tent where he was
staying to company headquarters to see Artiga and Vegilla. The slight
and bespectacled Marciello, who looks like a cross between Woody
Allen and Wally Cox, recently retired from the National Guard after
almost 35 years of service. According to Marciello, "Artiga then
instructed Vegilla to take Ford's M-16 and ammunition away from him
for safekeeping and said that he was revoking Ford's security
clearance. He [Artiga] also said that I was being assigned to escort
Ford 24 hours a day until further notice." Artiga then ordered Ford
to report immediately to Capt. Angela Madera, an Army psychiatrist,
at the base mental-health facility for a "combat stress evaluation."
Marciello says he escorted Ford to his meeting with Madera.
According to Marciello, he waited outside Madera's office for
approximately one hour while Madera interviewed Ford. After the
interview, "I escorted Ford back to his tent and then stayed with him
for the remainder of the day." To Marciello, Ford seemed frustrated
at the situation but calm and under control.
Marciello remembers being summoned the next morning, June 16, to
company headquarters by Artiga, who according to Marciello
was "really pissed" about the report Madera had written regarding
Ford. "He was pacing around in the office holding the report up,"
Marciello said. "Dr. Madera had diagnosed Ford as completely 'normal'
and 'not a danger to himself or others.'" Artiga was "just livid,"
Marciello recalls. "He took me in tow over to meet with Madera. Just
me and him. We practically ran over there. Once we got there, he held
up her report and asked her what she thought she was doing. He walked
right over to her and got right in her face. Then he told her that
this report cannot stay the way it is. He said that she will change
it to read that Ford is unstable and must be sent out of [the Iraqi]
theater immediately. He then said something to the effect that this
was a C.I. or M.I. matter and that he was telling her that she had
better see to these changes right now."
Artiga denied pressuring Madera to change her diagnosis and said he
did not recall whether Marciello or anyone else was in the room
during the meeting.
According to Marciello, "Madera was really shook up by the encounter
with Artiga ... She was trembling." With that, Marciello said, "Me
and Artiga just up and left Madera's office and headed back to the
company area. Artiga went back to the office and I went to find
Ford." Marciello found Ford in his tent and related what had just
occurred. "I told him to stay put and that I would return in a little
while." It was the last time Marciello saw Greg Ford.
The Geneva Conventions signed by the United States and 114 other
countries in 1949 give prisoners of war strict protections. They
cannot be assaulted, photographed (except for counterintelligence
purposes), threatened with physical harm, denied medical care and
medication, or deprived of food, water, clothing or sleep. They are
also entitled to have mail access and regular visits from the Red
Cross or other humanitarian groups.
The photographs from Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad that became public
in the spring showed interrogators flagrantly violating those
conventions. Seven low-level soldiers have since been charged, with
one conviction, but no one up the ladder has been held accountable.
Meanwhile, it has become increasingly clear that the mistreatment at
Abu Ghraib was symptomatic of a wider problem. The Department of
Defense is currently investigating more than a hundred allegations of
prisoner abuse. So far, not a single officer or high-ranking enlisted
soldier has been charged in any of them.
There are striking parallels between the conditions at Abu Ghraib
when the abuses took place and those at Samarra when Greg Ford says
he saw his colleagues torturing detainees. Both facilities were
suffering heavy casualties as the result of daily mortar attacks from
an invisible enemy. In both cases, the command became increasingly
frustrated at its inability to identify, locate and stop the
attackers and -- bolstered by directives from top military brass
to "set the conditions" for information collection -- allowed combat
troops and military intelligence operatives to use harsh tactics.
Both facilities were populated mostly by young reservists with no
combat experience. The majority of detainees, meanwhile, were
adolescents or old men of little to no intelligence value.
The M.I. units at both centers also shared a commanding officer, Col.
Thomas Pappas, who arrived in Iraq sometime in the middle of June
2003 and formally took charge of the 205th M.I. Brigade at an
elaborate change-of-command ceremony at Anaconda on July 1. The 205th
comprises Ford's 223rd M.I. Battalion and the 519th M.I. Battalion,
which played a part in the both the Abu Ghraib scandal and at least
one detainee death in Afghanistan, resulting in criminal charges
being filed. After Pappas ordered all members of the 205th to be
present at his change-of-command ceremony, three soldiers from the
519th were killed in a vehicular accident while traveling through
hostile territory from northern Iraq in order to attend.
The Army has already dealt with one case of abuse by soldiers
stationed at Samarra. At a recent court-martial in Fort Hood, Texas,
four enlisted soldiers from the 4th Infantry Division in Samarra were
convicted of manslaughter for forcing two handcuffed Iraqi men to
jump off a bridge over the Tigris River during an interrogation. One
of the Iraqis drowned. The soldiers' commanding officer, a lieutenant
colonel that regularly worked with agents of the 223rd, was
administratively disciplined for helping to cover up the incident.
Not long after Marciello left him, Ford said, Madera, accompanied by
an unknown male captain, entered Ford's tent and told him to get
ready because he was going to be "medevac'd" to Germany
immediately. "What the hell is going on here?" Ford remembered
demanding, but Madera told him to "be quiet," that he "had to leave,"
and that she would explain once they were airborne. She escorted him
to a waiting Humvee that took them to the base airstrip, where a C-
130 was warming up on the tarmac.
"Madera ordered me to lie down on a gurney that had been in the rear
of the Humvee so she could strap me down. I again asked what was
going on, only this time a lot more pissed off. I said that I was
perfectly able to walk." Ford said Madera insisted, telling him it
was the order of "[Lt. Col. Timothy] Ryan and Artiga" that he
be "bound and secured" when taken "out of country." "I saw that I had
no choice and finally said OK, anything just to get the fuck out of
there," Ford recalled. With the help of the male captain, who Ford
said identified himself as a medical officer, Madera strapped him to
the gurney.
Just then, Ford claimed, Ryan, Artiga's superior officer, pulled up
in his Humvee and walked over to where Ford was lying on the
gurney. "He looked down at me and said, 'Don't worry. We are going to
get you the best treatment available.' I was enraged at that point,
and it was a good thing I was strapped down. I just stared back at
Ryan with looks that I hoped could kill, but I didn't say nothing.
What was the point? He had won that round."
Ryan did not respond to interview requests for this story.
The propellers of the huge turboprop engines on the C-130 sent
scorching blasts of superheated air back toward the group, almost hot
enough to singe the skin on a face. (When I left Iraq from the same
tarmac a few months later, I did get burned from the blasts.) As
Ford's gurney sank into the steaming tarmac, Madera and the other
medical officer wheeled him up the long ramp and into the aircraft's
cavernous interior. Once they were airborne, Madera unstrapped Ford
and motioned for him to sit next to her on one of the hard benches
that run along the sides of the plane. "She told me that she was
forced to get me out of Iraq ASAP by Ryan and Artiga, who she claimed
were scared to death by what I might say. She also told me that she
wanted me to get out of Iraq as soon as possible because she feared
for my safety." Ford said Madera also told him, "These people are
serious and very scary." She apologized for having orchestrated such
an exit, but said there was no other way. "I told her that I
understood, but felt as though I had just been kidnapped." According
to Ford, Madera replied, "You were."
Madera did not respond to several requests to be interviewed for this
story.
The C-130 took Ford to Kuwait, where he cooled his heels inside
transient tents for two to three days and waited for the 223rd to
issue him an order. The order never came -- in violation of Army
regulations -- but eventually he boarded another aircraft, still
accompanied by Madera and the other officer but now acting on his own
volition, and flew to the Army Regional Medical Center in Landstuhl,
Germany. "The first thing they kept asking me at Landstuhl
was, 'Where are your orders?' How'd you get out of theater?' I mean,
I was probably asked that 50 times when I was there. Everybody asked
me that. They have a reception group that meets you there and even
the Air Force people when I was getting off the plane said, 'We don't
know how you got on this plane because you don't have any orders. We
don't have a single set of orders for you.'"
According to a senior official at the California National Guard
headquarters in Sacramento, Ford should have had what is known as
a "medevac" order from his unit in Iraq (205th M.I. Brigade) in order
to leave the country. No one is allowed out of a theater of
operations without either a medevac order or a standard set of
written orders authorizing travel to a destination. Ford had neither,
which is a violation of Army policy.
After a brief stay for evaluation at Landstuhl, Ford says, he was
flown to the United States, where he went first to Fort Sam Houston,
Texas, and then to Fort Lewis, Wash., where he was placed in the
Madigan Army Medical Center. At Fort Lewis, Ford filed a complaint
with the Army's Criminal Investigation Command, or CID, in which he
cited both the uninvestigated "war crimes" allegations and the
retaliation that he says followed.
At every stop along the way, from Kuwait to Germany to the United
States, Ford was evaluated by Army mental-health professionals and
given a clean bill of health. Doctors at each location confirmed
Madera's original diagnosis -- that he was mentally stable. Ford
supplied me with documents from all of the hospitals he visited,
showing diagnoses of "normal," "not delusional," "not paranoid," "no
evidence of hallucination," "stable mental condition," and other
similar remarks. There is nothing to suggest that any of the Army
medical personnel who evaluated Greg Ford after he made his
allegations in Iraq felt that there was anything wrong with him. Tsai
at the Army Regional Medical Center in Landstuhl, Germany, gave Ford
a final diagnosis of "Stable Mental Condition." Dr. Thomas Hardaway
of the Brooke Army Medical Center at Fort Sam Houston, Texas,
wrote, "there was not any indication of overt paranoia or delusional
quality to what he was saying about his circumstances." He went on to
say, "There is nothing on my initial screening evaluation indicating
any overt pathology or personality problems ... Release patient from
Behavioral Medicine Clinic."
Finally, in February 2004, eight months after he blew the whistle,
Ford was released from active duty and given an honorable discharge,
and in October, 10 months after his initial application, he was
formally retired from the Army.
Even if Ford's allegations of prisoner abuse turn out to be false,
the Army's treatment of him betrays an outrageous attempt to cover up
a potential scandal and a blatant disregard for its own rules.
According to both Ford and a credible witness, Marciello, Ford was
strapped to a gurney and bundled off to a mental ward on the basis of
a coerced diagnosis for an indefinite period of time, all before any
investigation was even started, much less completed. When a CID
investigator finally began pursuing the matter in the fall, Artiga
told the investigator that the 223rd had "looked into it" and
found "nothing wrong." If what Ford and his witnesses say turns out
to be true, then the officers involved could face criminal charges
ranging from threatening and intimidation, perjury, and assault to
false imprisonment, conspiracy and obstruction of justice. The list
of potential breaches of Army regulations is just as long,
including "conduct unbecoming of an officer," a serious offense in
the military.
In addition to Ford and the other soldiers treated by Tsai, other
Army whistle-blowers have also reported this type of mistreatment.
According to a May 25 report by United Press International, Julian
Goodrum, a decorated lieutenant in the U.S. Army Reserves, was
allegedly locked in a psychiatric ward as punishment for filing a
complaint over the death of a soldier in his command. He had also
testified before Congress about the poor medical care Reserve
soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan were receiving at Fort
Knox, Ky. After he escaped from the locked ward, he was charged with
being AWOL and was even given a $6,000 bill for room and board during
his involuntary hospital stay. Still another whistle-blower, Sgt.
Samuel Provance of the 205th M.I. Brigade, was stripped of his
security clearance and assigned to administrative duties in Germany
after reporting abuses at Abu Ghraib. Provance told me in recent e-
mails that he has been harassed by other soldiers and commanders
since he made his allegations and has become something of a pariah in
his unit.
In August 2004, Ford filed a report on his allegations of war crimes
and abduction with the Sacramento office of the FBI. That office
forwarded the report to the Bureau's headquarters in Washington,
which in turn passed it along to the Department of Defense. Ford says
he met with investigators from the DoD's Office of the Inspector
General in the last week of September. "It was obvious from their
line of questioning that their mission was to cover up for DoD and
the Army," Ford said. Special Agent Karen Ernst of the FBI's
Sacramento office told me that the Bureau "may" have jurisdiction in
the matter and is prepared to step in if the DoD "drops the ball on
this." Although she would not offer an opinion of Ford's case, she
did say that they only file reports if they believe the allegations
have "some merit."
The Department of the Army Office of the Inspector General has also
launched an investigation into Ford's allegations. Although by policy
they can neither confirm nor deny the existence of a current
investigation, Ford said that investigators have flown out to
California to interview him and have conducted several follow-up
interviews as well as requested documents and e-mail records from
him. Requests through the Freedom of Information Act to the Army or
the DoD for any reports relating to Ford and his allegations have
resulted in a flurry of letters stating essentially that the case
is "complex" and that it will take additional time to compile all of
the requested documents.
Neither the California Office of the Adjutant General in Sacramento
nor the state's Judge Advocate General (JAG) office would officially
comment, but staff at both places told me off the record that they
hoped Ford would be vindicated and the officers in question punished
for "abuse of authority."
According to an Army CID special agent who is familiar with Ford's
case, "This is a classic case of a whitewash. A coverup. The agent in
Iraq never even looked at the 15-6 investigation the 223rd supposedly
did. No one was ever interviewed until Abu Ghraib hit the fan." When
I asked him whether the CID was complicit in an Army coverup of the
case, he said, "Absolutely ... Do you have any idea how ugly this
case could get if they ever really looked into it? It would open up a
whole can of worms that they just don't want to touch." The agent,
who refused to give his name for fear of retaliation, added, "Based
on everything I know about this case, I believe Ford. I have seen too
many similar cases not to. It fits the pattern. Everyone involved in
this blatant coverup should be criminally prosecuted. For this to
have dragged on for over a year without being investigated is
ridiculous." In September, the CID conducted two telephone interviews
with Marciello, but no one else in the 223rd has yet been
interviewed, including myself.
His nightmarish experience with the Army in Iraq has changed him
forever, Ford told me as we sat on a bench near the fountain in front
of California National Guard headquarters in Sacramento. He said that
he intended to devote the next few years, and maybe even the rest of
his life, to working with individuals and organizations in the fight
for human rights and dignity. He specifically mentioned Amnesty
International and the World Organization for Human Rights. The latter
has formally requested that Attorney General John Ashcroft file
criminal war-crimes charges against high-ranking administration
officials, including Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and
President George W. Bush, over the revelations coming out of Abu
Ghraib. Ford said he hoped to join in pushing for that action.
Posted by Chuck at 11:00 PM | Comments (0)
What you want read in the Newspapers in Michigan
Bush + Republicans + Amway = Fraud
(1rst In A Series On Amway Consumer Fraud Scandal)
Former Amway insider, Eric Scheibeler, has written a
must read new book called "Merchants Of Deception."
This one time member of the Amway motivational cult
has turned whistleblower and FBI witness and boy does
he have some tales to tell.
In the book, Scheibeler exposes an Enron sized fraud
with Amway raking In billions of dollars annually, and
the billionaire founding families Being the largest
soft money contributors to the GOP, with funds that
have Been generated from what may turn out to be one
of the largest consumer fraud scandals in history,
perpetrated by the world's largest multi-level
marketing company (MLM).
The former Federal Auditor has also has a website,
www.merchantsofdeception.com, that reveals the close
ties between Amway and Republicans.
As a life long conservative, Scheibeler was
discouraged to both discover and document that "the
GOP seems to have been hijacked by political payoffs
from an industry that is rife with consumer deception,
and bogus 'business opportunity' selling." He goes on
to say that it's "time this secret influence peddling
and the harm it causes consumers and our democracy are
revealed. I was on the inside for nine years. I saw it
with my own eyes. I also have the internal documents,
financials, and the audio and video tapes to prove
it."
Merchants of Deception exposes the company's deceptive
marketing of phony business opportunities and other
secret scams by Amway's top promoters to sell
so-called success tools to unsuspecting recruits all
over the world. It also contains first hand accounts
of the Kingpin's fraudulent recruitment practices that
have led to an endless stream of lawsuits.
Scheibeler & Dateline Team Up In Sting Operation
In addition to writing a book and setting up a web
site, Scheibeler provided key documentation for the
May 7, 2004, NBC Dateline program that televised an
expose of the secretive and illegal pyramid business
run by Amway & Quixtar kingpins.
During its investigation, Dateline smuggled hidden
cameras into recruitment meetings in order to document
the company's deceptive claims and promises, and to
expose its multi-million dollar 'secret' business. The
expose verified the common allegation made in numerous
consumer lawsuits, that the company is merely a front
for a hidden pyramid business based on selling books,
tapes, and registrations to seminars and rallies to
new recruits, with nearly all participants losing
money.
According to Dateline, the FBI and the IRS are
conducting investigations into the scheme.
Republicans Will Do Anything For A Buck
Amway's billionaire founders, Rich DeVos and Jay
VanAndel, have been the largest soft money
contributors to the GOP on and off for the past 20
years. Together, DeVos and VanAndel gave $4,000,000 to
a 527, just 45 days prior to the last election. And
you can bet that they demand (and get) a bang for
every red cent.
Scheibeler's book reveals how GOP donations and
corporate promotion have resulted in a trade off for
political protection and tax reduction benefits for
the MLM. His web site provides a goldmine of
documentation to back up his claims, including
audiotapes.
By going to the site, you can hear Newt Gingrich
promoting Amway at a large event, or you can listen to
audio clips of then Texas Governor George W Bush.
There is even a clip sent by high-level kingpin
distributors from a private meeting within the White
House.
Scheibeler tells how some members of the GOP have been
paid as much as $100,000 for a single promotional
appearance at an Amway seminar. The list of high-paid
Republican speakers who have appeared at rallies over
the years, reads like a list of who's who in the GOP.
It includes former Presidents George Bush, Ronald
Reagan, Gerald Ford and former Vice Presidents Bob
Dole and Dan Quayle, along with other GOP heavyweights
like Gingrich, Oliver North, Senator Rick Santorum and
even the latest SE Regional Chairman for the
Bush-Cheney '04 campaign, Ralph Reed.
Scheibeler reveals just how much Republican law makers
have given back to Amway in return for the large
speaking fees and contributions, which includes tax
breaks and a blanket of immunity from investigations
into the company's illegal business practices. In
hindsight, it is more than evident that the money
bought a whole lot of regulatory protection for Amway.
Merchant's of Deception provides a good example of how
the racket works in the case of Newt Gingrich. His
speaking fees are reported to be in the $50,000 range.
The books explains how, after accepting speaking fees,
Gingrich arranged a reported last-minute modification
in a comprehensive tax bill that allegedly provided a
$283 million tax break to just one company -- Amway.
One report called the tax break a $283 million payoff.
"The payoff for Amway was not in the original House or
Senate version of the tax bill. House Speaker Newt
Gingrich intervened at the last minute to help get the
special tax break inserted in the bill." (San Antonio
Express-News Aug 12,1997).
Who Else Is Involved In The Amway Scandal?
Back in 1997, syndicated columnist Molly Ivins
described Amway's Lobbying power in Congress, "Amway
has its own caucus in Congress. Yes, the Amway caucus.
Five Republican House members are also Amway
distributors: Reps. Sue Myrick of North Carolina, Jon
Christensen of Nebraska, Dick Chrysler of Michigan,
Richard Rombo of California and John Ensign of Nevada.
Their informal caucus meets several times a year with
Amway bigwigs to discuss policy matters affecting the
company, including China's trade status," she said.
Ivins also noted that, "House Majority Whip Tom DeLay,
a onetime Amway salesman, also remains close to the
company." Which figures, because everybody knows
that if there's a buck to be made from a scam, DeLay
is sure to be lurking around in the shadows somewhere
nearby.
And the fund-raising power of this pyramid company is
not limited to the company's top dogs. The downline
distributors are often pressured to produce large sums
of money by soliciting small contributions from a
great number of people. And that money can add up
fast, considering that in 2000, Amway reportedly had
over 700,000 distributors.
In 1997, a request from Congresswoman Sue Myrick to
Amway Kingpin, Dexter Yager, for help in her fund
raising events, increased her campaign war chest by
more than $20,000 with small contributions from
distributors. The next year, another fundraiser aimed
at distributors brought in over $35,000.
W and Amway Are Tight
When it comes to W and Amway, it's a give and take
situation. They mutually provide "quid pro quo"
favors to each other. For instance, during the 2000
campaign, W used the company's voicemail network to
reach thousands of Kingpin Dexter Yager's distributors
with a personalized message from none other than Bush
himself.
Then last summer, when Amway co-founder Rich DeVos
attended a dinner party at the home of a friend in
Grand Rapids, MI, he got seated right across the
dinner table from W, according to the Orlando
Sentinel.
DeVos isn't shy about discussing his contributions to
Bush. "People ask Me sometimes why I support Bush,
"DeVos said, "I just tell them, 'Because When I walk
into the room, he says, "Hi, Rich." ' I've been a
friend to the family for a long time."
"I give the max," DeVos said proudly. "People talk
about buying access, But all I can tell you is that
politicians know the people who support them," he told
the Sentinel.
And DeVos ain't lying, he has been very generous to W
over the years. The $2,000 campaign Limit that he
gives directly to Bush, is but a fraction of what he
actually contributes. His wife, kids, and their
spouses, also make large donations to W and other
members of the GOP.
During the 2000 election cycle, DeVos, his wife, and
son contributed a combined sum of $760,000 to
Republican candidates and causes, and according to FEC
records, Amway itself contributed a whopping $1.3
million, with every dime going to Republicans.
Favored politicians are also aware that the Amway
perks don't necessarily end once they leave office.
For example, DeVos has remained such great friends
with President Ford over the years, that when Ford
travels, it's often on DeVos' private jet.
How Much Does W Protect Amway - Let Me Count The Ways
Scheibeler's reporting provides a well documented
expose of the Bush administration's direct involvement
in the regulatory protection of Amway, and verifies
that DeVos does get a lot of bang for every buck.
As we all know, there are rampant cases of improper
influence in the Bush White House. Right off the top
my head, energy and drug companies come to mind. But
Amway is different; its primary goal is not merely to
rip off tax payers. Its to literally protect its very
existence. The MLM completely relies on political
protection to prevent it from being shut down by
regulators and law enforcement.
And Bush has demonstrated that he was more than
willing to engage in the protection racket.
On his web site, Scheibeler is highly critical of the
FTC, and its current chairman, Bush appointee, Timothy
Muris, mainly because of the agency's utter refusal to
properly investigate and/or prosecute pyramid schemes,
despite the overwhelming number of well documented
complaints that have been filed with the agency.
Without a doubt, Amway's business practices are
flagrant violations of FTC rules. Three separate
federal court rulings have defined these types of
pyramid sales as illegal schemes, and there are any
number of websites on the internet that document the
financial harm caused to millions of people by Amway's
deceptive recruitment schemes. Yet, the Bush
administration has consistently ignored the company's
violations.
Scheibeler's web site attracts testimonials from Amway
victims all over the world. Complaints have come in
from Australia, New Zealand, UK, Germany, France,
Canada, and Slovakia. And the whole world watches as
the FTC turns a blind eye to the blatant exportation
of this "American" fraud.
In fact, it could be said that Bush has aided and
abetted Amway's criminal behavior. To begin with,
appointing Tim Muris to head the FTC was the
equivalent of setting a fox loose in the chicken coup.
Before his appointment, Muris was as an attorney with
the antitrust division of the law firm Howrey, Simon,
Arnold and White, LLP. And guess who the firm's
antitrust division counts as one of its largest
clients? Amway.
So here we have it, while Muris was at Howrey, and
while he was in charge of the FTC, his former law
partners were representing Amway in a class action
lawsuit initiated by a former Amway distributor that
alleged that the MLM's recruitment program was an
illegal pyramid scheme.
And there's more. The MLM's influence with the FTC
doesn't end with Muris, it extends beyond him. During
the Clinton administration, a company named Equinox
(an Amway clone), was prosecuted for violating the
pyramid scheme fraud statutes. One of Equinox's expert
witnesses was David Scheffman, and he testified
against the FTC and defended the scheme.
Scheffman claimed that the company's business model
was legitimate and not a pyramid scheme, based on the
assertion that company operated just like Amway. In
the end, Equinox lost the court battle and was shut
down, but guess where Scheffman ended up? Muris made
him the Chief Economist at the FTC.
Does the information above indicate any conflict of
interest violations within the Bush administration?
Probably not, since the term conflict of interest was
obviously deleted from the White House vocabulary when
Bush moved in.
By Evelyn Pringle
e.pringle@sbcglobal.net
Miamisburg, OH 45342
Posted by Chuck at 10:56 PM | Comments (0)
December 03, 2004
Netorks Bar Ad Promoting Tolerance
FAIR-L
Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting
Media analysis, critiques and activism
http://www.fair.org/activism/church-ad.html
ACTION ALERT:
Networks Bar Ad Promoting Tolerance:
A church's acceptance of gays is deemed "too controversial"
December 3, 2004
Three broadcast networks have rejected an advertisement from the United
Church of Christ, deeming the ad's message of tolerance to be too
controversial.
Citing the Bush administration's proposal of a constitutional amendment to
ban gay marriage, CBS and UPN have refused to run a UCC commercial that
advertises the church's acceptance of all people, including gays and
lesbians. NBC also deemed the ad "too controversial" to air (UCC.org,
11/30/04).
The ad depicts two bouncers in front of a church letting in two white
girls and a white heterosexual couple but turning away others, including
people of color, a man in a wheelchair, and two men holding hands. A
message reads, "Jesus didn't turn people away. Neither do we." As the
camera pans over a crowd of diverse UCC members, including a woman who
puts her arm around another woman, a voiceover states, "No matter who you
are, or where you are on life's journey, you are welcome here."
Because ABC has a policy against accepting any religious advertising, UCC
did not attempt to place an ad on the network (San Francisco Chronicle,
12/2/04). Several networks accepted the ad, including ABC Family, Fox and
TNT.
According to the UCC (UCC.org, 11/30/04), CBS explained the rejection in a
letter to the group:
"Because this commercial touches on the exclusion of gay couples and other
minority groups by other individuals and organizations, and the fact that
the Executive Branch has recently proposed a constitutional amendment to
define marriage as a union between a man and a woman, this spot is
unacceptable for broadcast on the [CBS and UPN] networks."
CBS spokesperson Dana McClintock elaborated on that explanation two days
later (Newsday, 12/2/04): "If there is a public policy debate going on, as
there is on the issue of gay marriage, we do not accept advocacy
advertisements."
CBS and NBC have certainly not been consistent in their rejection of
advocacy ads. As Media Matters for America noted (6/18/04), CBS ran an ad
during the 2003 Super Bowl from the White House Drug Control Policy Agency
that suggested that casual marijuana smokers support terrorism-- a
controversial proposition, to say the least. And NBC in 1993 sold two
half-hour blocs of time to Ross Perot to criticize President Bill
Clinton's economic policies (Media Matters, 12/1/04).
But a network asserting that it would reject an ad for expressing a
political viewpoint is problematic in itself. Viacom, which owns both CBS
and UPN, has explained its policy in various ways after coming under fire
for refusing independent political ads on its networks in the past.
In October, Viacom's MTV Networks blocked an ad from the progressive group
Compare Decide Vote that compared the presidential candidates' policy
positions on issues important to young people. A Viacom spokesperson
argued that it didn't need to air such ads because "across all our
properties, we talk about these issues every day" (Media Daily News,
10/13/04).
When Viacom blocked an ad from the anti-war group Not In Our Name prior to
the Iraq War, CBS executive vice president Martin Franks argued that such
an advertising policy was necessary for a national network (New York
Times, 3/13/03): "How could you take an advocacy ad and have it reflect
the values of the entire nation?"
As FAIR has argued before, Viacom's position that its own coverage of
important political issues renders political ads unnecessary is arrogant
and unfounded (FAIR Action Alert, 10/18/04). And to argue that ads should
reflect the values of the entire nation holds them to an implausible
standard that the network's own programming would be hard-pressed to
meet-- as, for that matter, would its non-political advertising.
But in this case, it's hard to see how the UCC spot can even be considered
an advocacy ad at all. CBS makes quite a leap to interpret the UCC ad as
advocating for gay marriage or entering a public policy debate; the ad
never mentions or even implies that the gay couples featured are or wish
to be married, or that the UCC condones gay marriage. That the Bush
administration's opposition to gay marriage should lead CBS to block an ad
that simply notes a church's acceptance of gay people is astounding and
troubling.
While NBC's explanation of its rejection made no mention of the Bush
administration, it did seem rather concerned with the reaction of other
churches. "The problem is not that it depicted gays, but that it suggested
clearly that there are churches that don't permit a variety of individuals
to participate," said Alan Wurtzel, president of research for NBC (Boston
Globe, 12/2/04).
It's true that the ad's metaphorical message is that some groups are not
welcomed by some churches-- and that's a reality that has been made clear
in countless news reports on various Christian sects that have barred gays
and lesbians from being ordained, prohibited gay marriages and proclaimed
their opposition to homosexuality.
By blocking an ad that acknowledges the existence of homophobia in some
churches, NBC gives extraordinary censorial power to those churches. Both
NBC and CBS set a dangerous precedent by extending their advertising
policies to block ads that might, without advocating any political
position, contradict or offend the administration or its religious allies.
ACTION: Please contact CBS and NBC and urge them to reverse the absurd
policy that deems a church's acceptance of all people to be "too
controversial" to air.
CONTACT:
Les Moonves
Chairman, CBS; co-President & co-COO, Viacom
Phone: (323) 575-2345
Bob Wright
President, NBC
Phone: (212) 664-4444
As always, please remember that your comments have more impact if you
maintain a polite tone.
----------
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Posted by Chuck at 11:55 PM | Comments (0)
Conyer's Hearing on the Ohio Vote
Editor’s Note | Any who wish to see this hearing receive wide attention should contact their Senators and Representatives and ask that they attend. Furthermore, any who wish to see this hearing receive wide attention should contact the television network C-SPAN and ask them to broadcast the event in its entirety. C-SPAN accepts suggestions for events to be broadcast at events@c-span.org. The network can also be contacted via telephone at (202) 737-3220. - wrp
Also see below:
Letter from House Committee on the Judiciary to Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell •
Conyers to Hold Hearings on Ohio Vote Fraud
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Report
Friday 03 December 2004
Democratic Representative John Conyers, Jr. of Michigan, ranking Minority member of the House Judiciary Committee, will hold a hearing on Wednesday 08 December 2004 to investigate allegations of vote fraud and irregularities in Ohio during the 2004 Presidential election. The hearing is slated to begin at 10:00 a.m. EST in the Rayburn House Office Building in Washington DC.
Democratic Representatives Melvin Watt and Robert Scott will also be centrally involved with the hearing. Rev. Jesse Jackson will be in attendance, along with Ralph Neas (President, People for the American Way), Jon Greenbaum (Director, Voting Rights Project, Lawyers Committee For Civil Rights Under Law), Ellie Smeal (Executive Director, The Feminist Majority), Bob Fitrakis ( The Free Press), Cliff Arnebeck (Arnebeck Associates), John Bonifaz (General Counsel, National Voting Institute), Steve Rosenfeld (Producer, Air America Radio), and Shawnta Walcott (Communications Director, Zogby International). Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell has been invited to attend.
The term ‘hearing’ is technically not accurate in this matter, as Conyers and his fellow Representatives will be holding this forum without the blessing of the Republican Majority leader of the Judiciary Committee. Staffers from the Minority office at the Judiciary Committee describe the event as a ‘Members Briefing.’ That having been said, this event will be a hearing by every meaningful definition of the word. Expert testimony will be offered, and a good deal of data on potential fraud previously unreported to the public will be discussed and examined at length.
The hearing came together thanks to a confluence of events, and through the work of like-minded individuals who are deeply concerned about the allegations of vote fraud in the Ohio Presidential election. Tim Carpenter and Kevin Spidel, along with other members of Progressive Democrats of America, went to Washington DC to speak with the Democratic members of the Judiciary Committee about the need for an investigation into these allegations. They found Rep. Conyers, his fellow Judiciary Democrats, and their staffers already working on assembling such an investigation.
The core of what Conyers and his fellow Minority members will be discussing at this hearing can be found in the letter below, which was sent by the Minority office to Ohio Secretary of State Blackwell on 02 December. In the letter, Conyers, along with Reps. Watt, Nadler and Baldwin, outline a broad and detailed series of questions and concerns about the manner in which the Ohio election took place.
I will be traveling to Washington DC to begin t r u t h o u t coverage of this event on Tuesday night, and we will keep you posted on further developments as they arise.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
William Rivers Pitt is a New York Times and international bestseller of two books - 'War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You To Know' and 'The Greatest Sedition Is Silence.'
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Go to Original
One Hundred Eighth Congress
Congress of the United States
House of Representatives
Committee on the Judiciary
2138 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington DC 20515-6216
(202) 225-3951
December 2, 2004
The Honorable J. Kenneth Blackwell
Ohio Secretary of State
180 East Broad Street, 16th Floor
Columbus, OH 43215
Dear Secretary Blackwell:
We write to request your assistance with our ongoing investigation of election irregularities in the 2004 Presidential election. As you may be aware, the Government Accountability Office has agreed to undertake a systematic and comprehensive review of election irregularities throughout the nation. As a separate matter, we have requested that the House Judiciary Committee Democratic staff undertake a thorough review of each and every specific allegation of election irregularities received by our offices.
Collectively, we are concerned that these complaints constitute a troubled portrait of a one-two punch that may well have altered and suppressed votes, particularly minority and Democratic votes. First, it appears there were substantial irregularities in vote tallies. It is unclear whether these apparent errors were the result of machine malfunctions or fraud.
Second, it appears that a series of actions of government and non-government officials may have worked to frustrate minority voters. Consistent and widespread reports indicate a lack of voting machines in urban, minority and Democratic areas, and a surplus of such machines in Republican, white and rural areas. As a result, minority voters were discouraged from voting by lines that were in excess of eight hours long. Many of these voters were also apparently victims of a campaign of deception, where flyers and calls would direct them to the wrong polling place. Once at that polling place, after waiting for hours in line, many of these voters were provided provisional ballots after learning they were at the wrong location. These ballots were not counted in many jurisdictions because of a directive issued by some election officials, such as yourself.
We are sure you agree with us that regardless of the outcome of the election, it is imperative that we examine any and all factors that may have led to voting irregularities and any failure of votes to be properly counted. Toward that end, we ask you to respond to the following allegations:
I. Counting Irregularities
A. Warren County Lockdown – On election night, Warren County locked down its administration building and barred reporters from observing the counting. When that decision was questioned, County officials claimed they were responding to a terrorist threat that ranked a “10" on a scale of 1 to 10, and that this information was received from an FBI agent. Despite repeated requests, County officials have declined to name that agent, however, and the FBI has stated that they had no information about a terror threat in Warren County. Your office has stated that it does not know of any other county that took these drastic measures.
In addition to these contradictions, Warren County officials have given conflicting accounts of when the decision was made to lock down the building. While the County Commissioner has stated that the decision to lockdown the building was made during an October 28 closed-door meeting, emailed memos – dated October 25 and 26 – indicate that preparations for the lockdown were already underway.
This lockdown must be viewed in the context of the aberrational results in Warren County. In the 2000 Presidential election, the Democratic Presidential candidate, Al Gore, stopped running television commercials and pulled resources out of Ohio weeks before the election. He won 28% of the vote in Warren County. In 2004, the Democratic Presidential candidate, John Kerry, fiercely contested Ohio and independent groups put considerable resources into getting out the Democratic vote. Moreover, unlike in 2000, independent candidate Ralph Nader was not on the Ohio ballot in 2004. Yet, the tallies reflect John Kerry receiving exactly the same percentage in Warren County as Gore received, 28%.
We hope you agree that transparent election procedures are vital to public confidence in electoral results. Moreover, such aberrant procedures only create suspicion and doubt that the counting of votes was manipulated. As part of your decision to certify the election, we hope you have investigated these concerns and found them without merit. To assist us in reaching a similar conclusion, we ask the following:
1. Have you, in fact, conducted an investigation of the lockdown? What procedures have you or would you recommend be put into place to avoid a recurrence of this situation?
2. Have you ascertained whether County officials were advised of terrorist activity by an FBI agent and, if so, the identity of that agent?
3. If County officials were not advised of terrorist activity by an FBI agent, have you inquired as to why they misrepresented this fact? If the lockdown was not as a response to a terrorist threat, why did it take place? Did any manipulation of vote tallies occur?
B. Perry County Election Counting Discrepancies – The House Judiciary Committee Democratic staff has received information indicating discrepancies in vote tabulations in Perry County. For example, the sign-in book for the Reading S precinct indicates that approximately 360 voters cast ballots in that precinct. In the same precinct, the sign-in book indicates that there were 33 absentee votes cast. In sum, this would appear to mean that fewer than 400 total votes were cast in that precinct. Yet, the precinct’s official tallies indicate that 489 votes were cast. In addition, some voters’ names have two ballot stub numbers listed next to their entries creating the appearance that voters were allowed to cast more than one ballot.
In another precinct, W Lexington G AB, 350 voters are registered according to the County’s initial tallies. Yet, 434 voters cast ballots. As the tallies indicate, this would be an impossible 124% voter turnout. The breakdown on election night was initially reported to be 174 votes for Bush, and 246 votes for Kerry. We are advised that the Perry County Board of Elections has since issued a correction claiming that, due to a computer error, some votes were counted twice. We are advised that the new tallies state that only 224 people voted, and the tally is 90 votes for Bush and 127 votes for Kerry. This would make it appear that virtually every ballot was counted twice, which seems improbable.
In Monroe Township, Precinct AAV, we are advised that 266 voters signed in to vote on election day, yet the Perry County Board of Elections is reporting that 393 votes were cast in that precinct, a difference of 133 votes.
4. Why does it appear that there are more votes than voters in the Reading S precinct of Perry County?
5. What is the explanation for the fluctuating results in the W Lexington AB precinct?
6. Why does it appear that there are more votes than voters in the Monroe Township precinct AAV?
C. Perry County Registration Peculiarities
In Perry County, there appears to be an extraordinarily high level voter registration, 91%; yet a substantial number of these voters have never voted and have no signature on file. Of the voters that are registered in Perry County an extraordinarily large number of voters are listed as having registered in 1977, a year in which there were no federal elections. Of these an exceptional number are listed as having registered on the exact same day: in total, 3,100 voters apparently registered in Perry County on November 8, 1977.
7. Please explain why there is such a high percentage of voters in this County who have never voted and do not have signatures on file. Also, please help us understand why such a high number of voters in this County are shown as having registered on the same day in 1977.
D. Unusual Results in Butler County
In Butler County, a Democratic Candidate for State Supreme Court, C. Ellen Connally received 59,532 votes. In contrast, the Kerry-Edwards ticket received only 54,185 votes, 5,000 less than the State Supreme Court candidate. Additionally, the victorious Republican candidate for State Supreme Court received approximately 40,000 less votes than the Bush-Cheney ticket. Further, Connally received 10,000 or more votes in excess of Kerry’s total number of votes in five counties, and 5,000 more votes in excess of Kerry’s total in ten others.
It must also be noted that Republican judicial candidates were reportedly “awash in cash,” with more than $1.4 million and were also supported by independent expenditures by the Ohio Chamber of Commerce.
While you may have found an explanation for these bizarre results, it appears to be wildly implausible that 5,000 voters waited in line to cast a vote for an underfunded Democratic Supreme Court candidate and then declined to cast a vote for the most well-funded Democratic Presidential campaign in history. We would appreciate an answer to the following:
8. Have you examined how an underfunded Democratic State Supreme Court candidate could receive so many more votes in Butler County than the Kerry-Edwards ticket? If so, could you provide us with the results of your examination? Is there any precedent in Ohio for a downballot candidate receiving on a percentage or absolute basis so many more votes than the Presidential candidate of the same party in this or any other presidential election? Please let us know if any other County in Ohio registered such a disparity on a percentage or absolute basis.
E. Unusual Results in Cuyahoga County
Precincts in Cleveland have reported an incredibly high number of votes for third party candidates who have historically received only a handful of votes from these urban areas. For example, precinct 4F in the 4th Ward cast 290 votes for Kerry, 21 for Bush, and 215 for Constitution Party candidate Michael Peroutka. In 2000, the same precinct cast less than 8 votes for all third party candidates combined.
This pattern is found in at least 10 precincts through throughout Cleveland in 2004, awarding hundreds of unlikely votes to the third party candidate. Notably, these precincts share more than a strong Democratic history: the use of a punch card ballot. In light of these highly unlikely results, we would like to know the following:
9. Have you investigated whether the punch card system used in Cuyahoga County led to voters accidentally voting for third party candidates instead of the Democratic candidate they intended? If so, what were the results? Has a third party candidate ever received such a high percentage of votes in these precincts.
10. Have you found similar problems in other counties? Have you found similar problems with other voting methods?
F. Spoiled Ballots
According to post election canvassing, many ballots were cast without any valid selection for president. For example, two precincts in Montgomery County had an undervote rate of over 25% each – accounting for nearly 6,000 voters who stood in line to vote, but purportedly declined to vote for president. This is in stark contrast to the 2% of undervoting county-wide. Disturbingly, predominantly Democratic precincts had 75% more undervotes than those that were predominantly Republican. It is inconceivable to us that such a large number of people supposedly did not have a preference for president in such a controversial and highly contested election.
Considering that an estimated 93,000 ballots were spoiled across Ohio, we would like to know the following:
11. How many of those spoiled ballots were of the punch card or optical scan format and could therefore be examined in a recount?
12. Of those votes that have a paper trail, how many votes for president were undercounted, or showed no preference for president? How many were overcounted, or selected more than one candidate for president? How many other ballots had an indeterminate preference?
13. Of the total 93,000 spoiled ballots, how many were from predominantly Democratic precincts? How many were from minority-majority precincts?
14. Are you taking steps to ensure that there will be a paper trail for all votes before the 2006 elections so that spoiled ballots can be individually re-examined?
G. Franklin County Overvote – On election day, a computerized voting machine in ward 1B in the Gahanna precinct of Franklin County recorded a total of 4,258 votes for President Bush and 260 votes for Democratic challenger, John Kerry. However, there are only 800 registered voters in that Gahanna precinct, and only 638 people cast votes at the New Life Church polling site. It was since discovered that a computer glitch resulted in the recording of 3,893 extra votes for President George W. Bush.
Fortunately, this glitch was caught and the numbers were adjusted to show President Bush’s true vote count at 365 votes to Senator Kerry’s 260 votes. However, many questions remain as to whether this kind of malfunction happened in other areas of Ohio. To help us clarify this issue, we request that you answer the following:
15. How was it discovered that this computer glitch occurred?
16. What procedures were employed to alert other counties upon the discovery of the malfunction?
17. Can you be absolutely certain that this particular malfunction did not occur in other counties in Ohio during the 2004 Presidential election? How?
18. What is being done to ensure that this type of malfunction does not happen again in the future?
H. Miami County Vote Discrepancy – In Miami County, with 100% of the precincts reporting on Wednesday, November 3, 2004, President Bush had received 20,807 votes, or 65.80% of the vote, and Senator Kerry had received 10,724 votes, or 33.92% of the vote. Miami reported 31,620 voters. Inexplicably, nearly 19,000 new ballots were added after all precincts reported, boosting President Bush’s vote count to 33,039, or 65.77%, while Senator Kerry’s vote percentage stayed exactly the same to three one-hundredths of a percentage point at 33.92%.
Roger Kearney of Rhombus Technologies, Ltd., the reporting company responsible for vote results of Miami County, has stated that the problem was not with his reporting and that the additional 19,000 votes came before 100% of the precincts were in. However, this does not explain how the vote count could change for President Bush, but not for Senator Kerry, after 19,000 new votes were added to the roster. To help us better understand this anomaly, we request that you answer the following:
19. What is your explanation as to the statistical anomaly that showed virtually identical ratios after the final 20-40% of the vote came in? In your judgment, how could the vote count in this County have changed for President Bush, but not for Senator Kerry, after 19,000 new votes were added to the roster?
20. Are you aware of any pending investigations into this matter?
I. Mahoning County Machine Problems – In Mahoning County, numerous voters reported that when they attempted to vote for John Kerry, the vote showed up as a vote for George Bush. This was reported by numerous voters and continued despite numerous attempts to correct their vote.
21. Please let us know if you have conducted any investigation or inquiry of machine voting problems in the state, including the above described problems in Mahoning County, and the results of this investigation or inquiry.
II. Procedural Irregularities
A. Machine Shortages
Throughout predominately Democratic areas in Ohio on election day, there were reports of long lines caused by inadequate numbers of voting machines. Evidence introduced in public hearings indicates that 68 machines in Franklin County were never deployed for voters, despite long lines for voters at that county, with some voters waiting from two to seven hours to cast their vote. The Franklin County Board of Elections reported that 68 voting machines were never placed on election day, and Franklin County BOE Director Matt Damschroder admitted on November 19, 2004 that 77 machines malfunctioned on Election Day. It has come to our attention that a county purchasing official who was on the line with Ward Moving and Storage Company, documented only 2,741 voting machines delivered through the November 2 election day. However, Franklin County’s records reveal that they had 2,866 “machines available” on election day. This would mean that amid the two to seven hour waits in the inner city of Columbus, at least 125 machines remained unused on Election Day.
Franklin County’s machine allocation report clearly states the number of machines that were placed “By Close of Polls.” However, questions remain as to where these machines were placed and who had access to them throughout the day. Therefore, what matters is not how many voting machines were operating at the end of the day, but rather how many were there to service the people during the morning and noon rush hours.
An analysis revealed a pattern of providing fewer machines to the Democratic city of Columbus, and more machines to the primarily Republican suburbs. At seven out of eight polling places, observers counted only three voting machines per location. According to the presiding judge at one polling site located at the Columbus Model Neighborhood facility at 1393 E. Broad St., there had been five machines during the 2004 primary. Moreover, at Douglas Elementary School, there had been four machines during the spring primary. In one Ohio voting precinct serving students from Kenyon College, some voters were required to wait more than eight hours to vote. There were reportedly only two voting machines at that precinct. The House Judiciary Committee staff has received first hand information confirming these reports.
Additionally, it appears that in a number of locations, polling places were moved from large locations, such as gyms, where voters could comfortably wait inside to vote to smaller locations where voters were required to wait in the rain. We would appreciate answers to the following:
22. How much funding did Ohio receive from the federal government for voting machines?
23. What criteria were used to distribute those new machines?
24. Were counties given estimates or assurances as to how many new voting machines they would receive? How does this number compare to how many machines were actually received?
25. What procedures were in place to ensure that the voting machines were properly allocated throughout Franklin and other counties? What changes would you recommend be made to insure there is a more equitable allocation of machines in the future?
B. Invalidated Provisional Ballots
As you know, just weeks before the 2004 Presidential election, you issued a directive to county election officials saying they are allowed to count provisional ballots only from voters who go to the correct precinct for their home address. At the same time, it has been reported that fraudulent flyers were being circulated on official-looking letterhead telling voters the wrong place to vote, phone calls were placed incorrectly informing voters that their polling place had changed, “door-hangers” telling African-American voters to go to the wrong precinct, and election workers sent voters to the wrong precinct. In other areas, precinct workers refused to give any voter a provisional ballot. And in at least one precinct, election judges told voters that they may validly cast their ballot in any precinct, leading to any number of disqualified provisional ballots.
In Hamilton County, officials have carried this problematic and controversial directive to a ludicrous extreme: they are refusing to count provisional ballots cast at the correct polling place if they were cast at the wrong table in that polling place. It seems that some polling places contained multiple precincts which were located at different tables. Now, 400 such voters in Hamilton county alone will be disenfranchised as a result of your directive.
26. Have you directed Hamilton County and all other counties not to disqualify provisional ballots cast at the correct polling place simply because they were cast at the wrong precinct table?
27. While many election workers received your directive that voters may cast ballots only in their own precincts, some did not. How did you inform your workers, and the public, that their vote would not be counted if cast in the wrong precinct? How many votes were lost due to election workers telling voters they may vote at any precinct, in direct violation of your ruling?
28. Your directive was exploited by those who intentionally misled voters about their correct polling place, and multiplied the number of provisional ballots found invalid. What steps have you or other officials in Ohio taken to investigate these criminal acts? Has anyone been referred for prosecution? If so, what is the status of their cases?
29. How many provisional ballots were filed in the presidential election in Ohio? How many were ultimately found to be valid and counted? What were the various reasons that these ballots were not counted, and how many ballots fall into each of these categories? Please break down the foregoing by County if possible.
C. Directive to Reject Voter Registration Forms Not Printed on White, Uncoated Paper of Not Less Than 80 lb Text Weight
On September 7, you issued a directive to county boards of elections commanding such boards to reject voter registration forms not “printed on white, uncoated paper of not less than 80 lb. text weight.” Instead, the county boards were to follow a confusing procedure where the voter registration form would be treated as an application for a form and a new blank form would be sent to the voter. While you reversed this directive, you did not do so until September 28. In the interim, a number of counties followed this directive and rejected otherwise valid voter registration forms. There appears to be some further confusion about the revision of this order which resulted in some counties being advised of the change by the news media.
30. How did you notify county boards of elections of your initial September 7 directive?
31. How did you notify county boards of elections of your September 28 decision to revise that directive?
32. Have you conducted an investigation to determine how many registration forms were rejected as a result of your September 7 directive? If so, how many?
33. Have you conducted an investigation to determine how many voters who had their otherwise valid forms rejected as a result of your September 7 directive subsequently failed to re-register? If so, how many?
34. Have you conducted an investigation to determine how many of those voters showed up who had their otherwise valid forms rejected to vote on election day and were turned away? If so, how many?
We await your prompt reply. To the extent any questions relate to information not available to you, please pass on such questions to the appropriate election board or other official. Please respond to 2142 Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, DC 20515 by December 10. If you need more time to investigate and respond to some of these inquiries, we would welcome a partial response by that date and a complete response within a reasonable period of time thereafter. If you have any questions about this inquiry, please contact Perry Apelbaum or Ted Kalo of the House Judiciary Committee Democratic Staff at (202) 225-6504.
Sincerely,
Rep. John Conyers, Jr.
Rep. Melvin Watt
Rep. Jerrold Nadler
Rep. Tammy Baldwin
Posted by Chuck at 11:46 PM | Comments (0)
20 facts you should know about voting in America
>Did you know....
>
>1. 80% of all votes in America are counted by only two companies:
>Diebold and ES&S.
>
> http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/042804landes.html
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diebold
> http://www.essvote.com/HTML/about/about.html
>
>
> 2. There is no federal agency with regulatory authority or
>oversight of the U.S. voting machine industry.
>
> http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0916-04.htm
> http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/042804landes.html
>
>
>3. The vice-president of Diebold and the president of ES&S are brothers.
>
> http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/private_company.html
> http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/042804landes.html
>
>
> 4. The chairman and CEO of Diebold is a major Bush campaign
>organizer and donor who wrote in 2003 that he was "committed to
>helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."
>
> http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/07/28/sunday/main632436.shtml
> http://www.wishtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=1647886
>
>
>5. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel used to be chairman of ES&S. He
>became Senator in a surprise upset, with votes counted by ES&S
>machines.
>
> http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/columns/2004/03/03_200.html
> http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/031004Fitrakis/031004fitrakis.html
>
>
> 6. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, long-connected with the Bush
>family, was recently caught lying about his ownership of ES&S by the
>Senate Ethics Committee.
>
> http://www.blackboxvoting.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=26
> http://www.hillnews.com/news/012903/hagel.aspx
> http://www.onlisareinsradar.com/archives/000896.php
>
>
>7. Senator Chuck Hagel was on a short list of George W. Bush's
>vice-presidential candidates.
>
> http://www.businessweek.com/2000/00_28/b3689130.htm
> http://theindependent.com/stories/052700/new_hagel27.html
>
>
>8. Kenneth Blackwell co-chaired George Bush's Ohio election
>campaign. As Ohio secretary of state, he left no stone unturned to
>surpress the democratic vote.
>
>http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/113004Y.shtml#1
>http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2004/894
> http://67.15.90.110/article.pl?sid=04/10/29/1414219
>
> 9. Diebold's new touch screen voting machines have no paper trail
>of any votes. In other words, there is no way to verify that the
>data coming out of the machine is the same as what was legitimately
>put in by voters.
>
> http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0225-05.htm
> http://www.itworld.com/Tech/2987/041020evotestates/pfindex.html
>
>
> 10. Diebold also makes ATMs, checkout scanners, and ticket
>machines, all of which log each transaction and can generate a paper
>trail.
>
> http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0225-05.htm
> http://www.diebold.com/solutions/default.htm
>
>
> 11. Exit polls are usually excellent predictors of election
>results. Reputable analyses could not find and explanation of the
>discrepancy between exit polls and results of the 2004 presidential
>election.
>
>http://ucdata.berkeley.edu/
>http://www.buzzflash.com/alerts/04/11/Unexplained_exit_poll_discrep_v00l.pdf
>http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/23/international/europe/23ukraine.html?ex=110
>2245800&ei=1&en=3a3c24b7e64fe49
>
>12. A Diebold subsidiary employed 5 convicted felons as senior
>managers and developers. These people helped write the central
>compiler computer code that counted 50% of the votes in 30 states.
>
>http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,61640,00.html
>http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2004/10/301469.shtml
>
>
>13. Jeff Dean, senior programmer on Diebold's central compiler code,
>was convicted of 23 counts of felony theft in the first degree.
>
>http://www.chuckherrin.com/HackthevoteFAQ.htm#how
>http://www.blackboxvoting.org/bbv_chapter-8.pdf
>
>
>14. Jeff Dean was served jail time for planting back doors in his
>client's accounting software and using a "high degree of
>sophistication" to evade detection over a period of 2 years.
>
>http://www.chuckherrin.com/HackthevoteFAQ.htm#how
>http://www.blackboxvoting.org/bbv_chapter-8.pdf
>
>
> 15. None of the international election observers were allowed in
>the polls in Ohio.
>
> http://www.globalexchange.org/update/press/2638.html
> http://www.enquirer.com/editions/2004/10/26/loc_elexoh.html
>
>
>16. California banned the use of Diebold machines because the
>security was so bad. Despite Diebold's claims that the audit logs
>could not be hacked, a chimpanzee was able to do it!
>
>(See the movie here
> http://wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,63298,00.html
> http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4874190
>
>
> 17. 30% of all U.S. votes are carried out on unverifiable touch
>screen voting machines with no paper trail.
>
> http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/07/28/sunday/main632436.shtml
>
>
>18. All -- not some -- but all the voting machine errors detected
>and reported in Florida went in favor of Bush or Republican
>candidates.
>
> http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,65757,00.html
>
>http://www.yuricareport.com/ElectionAftermath04/ThreeResearchStudiesBushIsOu
>t.htm
> http://www.rise4news.net/extravotes.html
>
>http://www.ilcaonline.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=
>950
> http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0411/S00227.htm
>
>
>19. The governor of the state of Florida, Jeb Bush, is the
>President's brother.
>
> http://www.tallahassee.com/mld/tallahassee/news/local/7628725.htm
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10544-2004Oct29.html
>
>
>20. Serious voting anomalies in Florida -- again always favoring
>Bush -- have been mathematically demonstrated and experts are
>recommending further investigation.
>
>http://www.yuricareport.com/ElectionAftermath04/ThreeResearchStudiesBushIsOu
>t.htm
>
>http://www.computerworld.com/governmenttopics/government/policy/story/0,1080
>1,97614,00.html
> http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/tens_of_thousands.html
> http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1106-30.htm
> http://www.consortiumnews.com/2004/110904.html
> http://uscountvotes.org/
>
>Based on a list compiled by Angry Girl
>http://nightweed.com/usavotefacts.html
Posted by Chuck at 11:36 PM | Comments (0)