Info on Robert Gates

This from Bev Harris at Black Box Voting http://www.blackboxvoting.org

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

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

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

You can find copies of the VoteHere lobbying forms here: http://sopr.senate.gov/cgi-win/m_opr_viewer.exe?DoFn=0
?
I can't get them to save to pdf, perhaps you can. Enter search terms in both "registrant" and "client" fields and put in terms "Rhoads" "Livingston" and "Votehere" (one at a time.). Then look at the gravy train while it was in the process of derailing American democracy.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But that's just me.

-- Bev Harris
Founder, Black Box Voting

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

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

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

A new dawn in the USA

House Speaker Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Reid !!

Let's give ourselves a loud cheer !!

WE DID IT !!!

WOW - how good it feels!!!!!!

Went to bed last night somewhat worried that the WH Machiavellians would snatch our winning by some stoke of war or jail or what...

So when I got up this morning and saw we really still have a Speaker Pelosi and a good chance of taking the Senate - I was elated!

Today is a day to celebrate for us, our country and the world.....the nightmare of incompetent fascistic rule is coming to an end.

Let's see how many rats leave this sinking ship - and how quickly..

Now we push on to make sure that when the Dems officially take over, they do not catch "Potomac fever." and get stupid.

WE need to keep our sights on US - and let them know we are not going anywhere....

But for today - I just want to savor this important win : -)

Polls are closing in the East

Polls may be closing but the fraud continues..... Help MoveOn prosecute these treasonous repugs!

Press release from MoveOn.org

MoveOn Offers $250,000 Reward for Evidence Leading to Voter Fraud Conviction

11/7/2006 5:21:00 PM

To: National Desk, Political Reporter

Contact: Trevor Fitzgibbon, Laura Gross or Alex Howe, 202-822-5200, all for MoveOn.org Political Action

WASHINGTON, Nov. 7 /U.S. Newswire/ -- MoveOn.org Political Action is offering a $250,000 reward for new material evidence leading to a felony conviction for an organized effort of partisan voter suppression or electronic voting fraud.

Throughout the day accusations of election fraud and voter suppression incidents have been flooding into state and federal authorities throughout the country. In Virginia, the FBI has launched a criminal investigation into charges of voter suppression. In 20 Congressional districts, NRCC robocalls appearing to come from Democrats harassed voters with repeated calls in an apparently coordinated campaign to suppress the vote.

Complementing an earlier reward for whistleblowers, MoveOn's reward is being offered to anyone who provides this information.

Freedom - better quality

How's about a nice catchy tune behind some videos about the shrub...

You can hum the tune as you go to vote - for DEMS of course..

VOTE

We are having monster rain out here but we vote by mail so ballots can still be dropped off at a collection box all day up to 8PM

If you are in any area with bad weather - and I do know about that - do not stay home today. Vote as if your life depended on it...and your kid's lives, and the life of your country....And if you are having nice weather - go out and vote...and think about those voters standing in the rain.....and smile...it will make the repugs worry

Do not let the weather stop you - let the repugs stay home - if we vote in huge numbers they can not steal the election - they will try - they are trying with the robo calls - but talk to your neighbors, tell them about the robo calls, get them to go with you to vote - make it sociable - bring food if you expect long lines....bring a camera, your cell phone and don't forget to smile...

WE WILL TAKE BACK OUR COUNTRY

Got voter problems?

When you vote tomorrow - there are ways to protect your vote and to report ANY problems

Phone numbers to call for problems you encounter -[don't forget to take your cell phone with you]

1-866-OUR-VOTE
1-866-MY-VOTE-1
1-888-VOTE-TIP
1-888-SAV-VOTE
1-877-SEIU-VOTE

video your voting video the vote

and election protection are sites to look at before you go to vote.

Keith - America's hero !

Keith tonight on voting and the shrub.....

Olbermann: Where are the checks, balances?

Bush has been 'making it up' for too long, and the people have let him

We are, as every generation, inseparable from our own time.

Thus is our perspective, inevitably that of the explorer looking into the wrong end of the telescope.

But even accounting for our myopia, it’s hard to imagine there have been many elections more important than this one, certainly not in non-presidential years.

And so we look at the verdict in the trial of Saddam Hussein yesterday, and, with the very phrase “October, or November, Surprise” now a part of our vernacular, and the chest-thumping coming from so many of the Republican campaigners today, each of us must wonder about the convenience of the timing of his conviction and sentencing.

But let us give history and coincidence the benefit of the doubt—let’s say it’s just “happened” that way—and for a moment not look into the wrong end of the telescope.

Let’s perceive instead the bigger picture:

Saddam Hussein, found guilty in an Iraqi court.

Who can argue against that?

He is officially, what the world always knew he was: a war criminal.

Mr. Bush, was this imprimatur, worth the cost of 2,832 American lives, and thousands more American lives yet to be lost?

Is the conviction of Saddam Hussein the reason you went to war in Iraq?

Or did you go to war in Iraq because of the weapons of mass destruction that did not exist?

Or did you go to war in Iraq because of the connection between Iraq and al-Qaida that did not exist?

Or did you go to war in Iraq to break the bonds of tyranny there, while installing the mechanisms of tyranny here?

Or did you go to war in Iraq because you felt the need to wreak vengeance against somebody, anybody?

Or did you go to war in Iraq to contain a rogue state which, months earlier, your own administration had declared had been fully contained by sanctions?

Or did you go to war in Iraq to keep gas prices down?

How startling it was, sir, to hear you introduce oil to your stump speeches over the weekend.

Not four years removed from the most dismissive, the most condescending, the most ridiculing denials of the very hint at, as Mr. Rumsfeld put it, this “nonsense.”

There you were, campaigning in Colorado, in Nebraska, in Florida, in Kansas -- suddenly turning this ‘unpatriotic idea’ into a platform plank.

"You can imagine a world in which these extremists and radicals got control of energy resources," you told us. "And then you can imagine them saying, 'We're going to pull a bunch of oil off the market to run your price of oil up unless you do the following.'"

Having frightened us, having bullied us, having lied to us, having ignored and rewritten the Constitution under our noses, having stayed the course, having denied you’ve stayed the course, having belittled us about "timelines" but instead extolled "benchmarks," you’ve now resorted, sir, to this?

We must stay in Iraq to save the $2 gallon of gas?

Mr. President, there is no other conclusion we can draw as we go to the polls tomorrow.

Sir, you have been making this up as you went along.

This country was founded to prevent anybody from making it up as they went along.

Those vaunted Founding Fathers of ours have been so quoted up, that they appear as marble statues: like the chiseled guards of China, or the faces on Mount Rushmore. But in fact they were practical people and the thing they obviously feared most was a government of men and not laws.

They provided the checks and balances for a reason.

No one man could run the government the way he saw fit -- unless he, at the least, took into consideration what those he governed saw.

A House of Representatives would be the people's eyes.

A Senate would be the corrective force on that House.

An executive would do the work, and hold the Constitution to his chest like his child.

A Supreme Court would oversee it all.

Checks and balances.

Where did that go, Mr. Bush?

And what price did we pay because we have let it go?

Saddam Hussein will get out of Iraq the same way 2,832 Americans have and thousands more.

He’ll get out faster than we will.

And if nothing changes tomorrow, you, sir, will be out of the White House long before the rest of us can say we are out of Iraq.

And whose fault is this?

Not truly yours. You took advantage of those of us who were afraid, and those of us who believed unity and nation took precedence over all else.

But we let you take that advantage.

And so we let you go to war in Iraq to oust Saddam or find non-existant weapons or avenge 9/11 or fight terrorists who only got there after we did or as cover to change the fabric of our Constitution or for lower prices at The Texaco or…?

There are still a few hours left before the polls open, sir. There are many rationalizations still untried.

And whatever your motives of the moment, we the people have, in true good faith and with the genuine patriotism of self-sacrifice (of which you have shown you know nothing), we have let you go on making it up as you went along.

Unchecked and unbalanced.

Vote.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15595139/
© 2006 MSNBC.com

DAMN them

I have done some phoning for Call for Change. Just called a NY lady who has changed her mind about the local Dem candidate as she has gotten lots of calls "from him." I tried explaining about robo calling and she just kept saying but the messages say they are form him...He's one of the names on the list that the repugs are targeting....

I hope all the Dems on those lists get on the local TV and radio stations tonight and explain what is going on//

Guess if you cant win on the merits - you CHEAT LIE AND STEAL its the Repug mantra

more on robo calling

This just in from the DCCC - see if your District is on the list below and then beware

Dirty Tricks 2006: GOP Spends $600k on Late Night Attack Phone Calls

Republicans Caught Making Calls to Democratic Voters in the Dead of Night to Anger and Turn Them Off to Voting and Dampen Turnout

NRCC Has Spent $2.1 Million on Calls, Nearly $600,000 on Attack Calls in the Last Week Alone.

(Washington, D.C.) – Today, with memories of past intimidation in the minds of voters, national Republican operatives are phoning voters at all hours of the night, especially at 2:00 a.m. and 3:00 a.m. to try and dampen Democratic turnout. Reports of these calls have come in from New Hampshire, where the GOP has been forced to stop the calls, and FCC complaints have been filed in Pennsylvania because of the calls. Republicans have spent $2.1 million on calls like these, targeting 46 Democrats in the last week alone. In terms of precedent, in 2002, Republican Party officials in New Hampshire and Washington with ties to the White House jammed phones to prevent Democrats from voting. This is just the latest example of why it’s time for a change in Washington.

“With no record of accomplishment on the economy or border security and no strategy to speak of in Iraq, the only thing Republicans have left to sell is fear itself and Americans aren’t buying,” said Bill Burton, communications director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. “It’s time for a new direction in Washington because Americans deserve bipartisan solutions to the problems we face, not more dirty tricks and illegal calls meant to intimidate.”

Illegal Phone Calls By GOP Designed to Turn Off Voters. The Republican National Congressional Committee has agreed to end its automated calling campaign that left the state Democratic Party swamped with phone calls from voters who believed the messages were coming from Democrats. New Hampshire residents had been complaining to the Democrats, party Chairwoman Kathleen Sullivan said, because they thought the calls are coming from congressional challenger Paul Hodes. Instead, they were coming from the National Republican Congressional Committee, on behalf of Rep. Charles Bass, but sound, at first, as though they may be from the Hodes' campaign. Under state law, delivering prerecorded political messages to numbers on any federal do-not-call list is punishable by a fine of $5,000 per call. [AP, 11/5/06, LINK]

Pennsylvania Voters Filed FCC Complaints on Misleading NRCC Ads. According to the Associated Press, “Bruce Jacobson, a software engineer from Ardmore, Pa., received three prerecorded messages in four hours. Each began, ‘Hello, I'm calling with information about Lois Murphy,’ the Democrat running against two-term incumbent Rep. Jim Gerlach in the Philadelphia-area district. ‘Basically, they go on to slam Lois,’ said Jacobson, who has filed a complaint with the FCC because the source of the call isn't immediately known. FCC rules say all prerecorded messages must ‘at the beginning of the message, state clearly the identity of the business, individual, or other entity that is responsible for initiating the call.’ During or after the message, they must give the telephone number of the caller. ‘The way they're sent is deceptive. The number of calls is harassing. The way her stances are presented in these stories is deliberately misleading and deceptive,’ said Karlyn Messinger, another Murphy supporter from Penn Valley, Pa., who filed a complaint with the FCC.” [Associated Press, 11/2/06]

NRCC Spends Thousands on Calls Attacking Hayhurst Record on Immigration from Callers with Foreign Accents. According to the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, “The telemarketing business used by Republicans to flood northeast Indiana with phone calls attacking Democratic congressional candidate Tom Hayhurst promises its political customers ‘a geographically neutral dialect’ to drum up voters. But many people who received the calls said the messages were delivered by voices with Indian or Hispanic accents. Many telemarketing companies hire call centers in India and other countries because of cheap Internet-based telephoning. A representative at FLS headquarters did not respond to a request for an interview. The NRCC paid $13,747 to the telemarketing firm to make thousands of calls this week describing Democrat Hayhurst as ‘bad on immigration’ or an advocate of higher taxes.” [Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, 11/5/06]

NRCC Has Spent $2.1 Million on Calls, Nearly $600,000 on Attack Calls in the Last Week Alone. As of last week, the NRCC had spent $2.1 million on phone banks. From 10/30 to 11/3, the NRCC spent $597,232.75 on phone calls solely designed to attack 46 Democratic candidates. [www.fec.gov]

Last week alone, the NRCC spent the following money on attack phone calls on the following Democratic candidates. One news report estimated each call costs only 5 cents each.

* AZ-05: Harry Mitchell: $8210.76
* CA-04: Charlie Brown: $16,617.24
* CA-11: Jerry McNerney: $4120.28
* CA-50: Francine Busby: $2641.68
* CO-04: Angie Paccione: $10,456.32
* CT-02: Joe Courtney: $12,844.56
* CT-04: Diane Farrell: $44,964.56
* CT-05: Chris Murphy: $17,494.08
* FL-13: Christine Jennings: $24,638.82
* FL-16: Tim Mahoney: $16,428.72
* FL-22: Ron Klein: $3813.36
* GA-08: Jim Marshall: $10,546.68
* GA-12: John Barrow: $16,087.86
* IA-01: Bruce Braley: $8386.26
* IA-03: Leonard Boswell: $13,812.12
* ID-01: Larry Grant: $23,752.26
* IL-06: Tammy Duckworth: $11,474.31
* IL-08: Melissa Bean: $14,134.38
* IN-03: Tom Hayhurst: $13,746.88
* IN-09: Baron Hill: $12,852.36
* KS-02: Nancy Boyda: $4,093.74
* KY-02: Mike Weaver: $1,510.74
* KY-04: Ken Lucas: $15,242.10
* MN-06: Patty Wetterling: $21,053.90
* NC-11: Heath Shuler: $11,843.70
* NE-03: Scott Kleeb: $3,492.66
* NH-02: Paul Hodes: $19,321.98
* NM-01: Patricia Madrid: $6,702.42
* NV-02: Jill Derby: $10,934.16
* NV-03: Tessa Hafen: $12,197.70
* NY-19: John Hall: $16,123.62
* NY-20: Kirsten Gillibrand: $11,143.38
* NY-24: Mike Arcuri: $6,824.82
* NY-25: Dan Maffei: $17,183. 46
* NY-29: Eric Massa: $10,855.26
* OH-01: John Cranley: $9,236.64
* OH-02: Victoria Wulsin: $7,953.84
* OH-15: Mary Jo Kilroy: $11,826.84
* PA-04: Jason Altmire: $23,111.61
* PA-06: Lois Murphy: $14,253.66
* PA-08: Patrick Murphy: $18,969.36
* PA-10: Chris Carney: $3,942.00
* TX-22: Nick Lampson: $2,258.61
* VA-02: Phil Kellam: $14,345.58
* WA-08: Darcy Burner: $14,992.80
* WI-08: Steve Kagen: $20,794.68

If you live in one of these districts, be on Republican dirty trick alert.

Robo Calling

Please please please - if you are in one of the states the repugs are targeting with robo calls - DO NOT believe that the Democratic Candidate is making those calls. That's what the repugs want you to think.

When you have not got a real platform to run on, what do you do? You make endless calls to probable Democratic voters saying this is a message from X [the Dem candidate] and it goes on and on - if you hang up, you get called right back. You get called at
6 AM you get called late at night. You even get called in N.H. where such calling is illegal!!!!!

This is the way the repugs work - they do not care if they lie, cheat or steal - as long as they win...

Their motto? Democracy be damned!

They ARE all gay...

Who? The repugs!

I've said this before, but it bears repeating - in psychology we look at those who are vehemently anti anything. It generally means it's a trait within themselves they they can not deal with and so see it as a big bad "thing" out there that needs to be stomped on. Why? They are afraid of their own impulses coming to the fore.

Haggard is the current prime example of this. He IS a homosexual and there is nothing wrong with that. What's wrong is his fear of his own impulses leads him to say things like this: "The fact is I am guilty of sexual immorality. And I take responsibility for the entire problem. I am a deceiver and a liar. There's a part of my life that is so repulsive and dark that I have been warring against it for all of my adult life."

It's the seeing of themselves as repulsive and dark that causes them to rail against homosexuality and anything to do with civil rights for homosexuals. That is the problem. These very conflicted rabid anti-gay crusaders are GAY and so afraid of seeing it in themselves that they want to legislate for the entire country, if not the entire world, hoping that through some magic laws - their own impulses will stop. Or maybe they hope the laws will make homosexuals go away and they will no longer be tempted...

Sorry repugs - your psyche does not work like that...the more you fight off an impulse, the stronger it becomes..... you have to admit to the impulse and work from there.....like saying "I am an alcoholic."

And now let's look at who they hang around with...the shrub, Scotty, Karl, Ganon, and who knows?......we can go on a guessing game called: " Who else will be outed before Tuesday?"

Any ideas?