I’m getting ready to go out of town for a bit, and will need to rely on 6 or 7 of you to help keep San Diego County Registrar Mikel Haas’ misleading statements and out-and-out lies from making their way into “conventional wisdom”.
He’s working hard to cover his ass right now in regard to his horrendous administration of the June 6th U.S. House special election between Francine Busby and Brian Bilbray, in which he allowed programmed, hackable, election-ready Diebold electronic voting machines to become effectively decertified (at both the state and federal level) when he sent them home with poll workers for days and weeks prior to the election. As he well knows, that means he allowed illegal votes to be cast on those decertified voting machines used across the entire California 50th congressional district.
There are loads of articles on all of this today in the San Diego papers and on the local television news websites. That’s all good, in general, even though the reporters continue to allow Haas to pass on his knowing obfuscations, and the media is usually too lazy or ill-informed to bother to call him on it. So that’s your job now! Especially while I’m otherwise on and off the grid over the next several weeks trying to sneak in some much needed R&R.
(On that note, I’m leaving ASAP, but am scheduled to appear live tomorrow night on Catherine Crier’s CourtTV show at 5pm ET. Probably will have to do it from Vegas, where I’ll be nearby. Currently RFK Jr. is booked along with me on tomorrow’s show.)
So, very quickly before I scram, here are are Mikel Haas’ top three spins, lies and misleads of late that he’s shoveling out to media, as witnessed in coverage over just the past 24 hours on San Diego’s Channel 8, Channel 10, the North County Times and the San Diego Union-Tribune, just to name a few. (Channel 10 and the U-T story had the worst of them)
Please help such media out by giving them the facts to counter Haas’ ass-covering spin, misleads, red-herrings and bald-faced lies. Here are his latest Top Three most dangerous, disingenuous and misleading whoppers…
SPIN/LIE #1) Only poll inspectors took voting machines home, “we didn’t give them out like candy,” says Haas, so there’s nothing to worry about.
Actually, Haas gave them out like free cheeseburgers at the drive-up window in the parking lot. Literally. But never mind that. The notion that “only poll inspectors” took them home is an attempt to suggest that, even though CA Sec. of State Bruce McPherson’s own computer scientists on his Voting Systems Technology Board had recommended programmed memory cards never be in the custody of less than two elections officials at any one time, everything is okay because we can trust poll inspectors.
How absurd and disingenuous. For a start, those poll inspectors were required to pass little if any background checks. The notion that they’d never do anything untoward is equally disingenuous and, of course, Haas knows it. In a previous interview with Haas, he admitted that it was possible to tamper with the systems via the unsealed PCMCIA slots on the touch-screen systems as they were given to poll workers. But he wasn’t all that concerned, felt such an occurrence would be “highly improbable,” because, as he told me, workers “would have to want to commit a felony” in order to do that. “Which,” he added, “would knock out most of our poll workers in San Diego.”
Haas also claimed he’d never heard of an election official being indicted. Of course honest elections officials are the first to admit that nobody should ever be trusted and that our system is not built on trust, but rather checks and balances.
His spin also ignores that those “poll inspectors” have reported that they were not given any details instructions about security concerns and that many other people, besides themselves, would have had access to the voting machines as they sat in their cars and garages, etc.
Remember, it takes just one person to effect an entire election as reported by CA SoS McPherson’s own leading computer scientist, David Jefferson on the PBS News Hour, and later confirmed by a recent story in the Washington Post headlined, “A Single Person Can Reverse an Election.”
SPIN/LIE #2) The Red-Herring: “Only a few thousand votes were cast on touch-screen systems” in the CA50 race.
That’s true. But, as Haas well knows, (and yet presumes, correctly, that most media won’t bother to try and sort out) nobody has ever claimed that the touch-screen (DRE) systems are the sole concern here!
Diebold optical-scan systems were used all over the county and in the CA50 race and, in fact, it was a hack of a Diebold optical-scan system in December of 2005 that led directly to the very emergency security mitigation requirements issued by both the state of California and the federal authorities where were subsequently violated when Haas sent home the machines home with poll workers. Like candy. The federal and state laws were subsequently violated, and both the optical-scan and touch-screen systems used in the race were then effectively decertified for use upon that security breach.
To Haas’ delight, Channel 10 translated Haas spin — incredibly — like this:
According to the supervisor, 98 percent of those who voted in the last election used optical scanners. The rest used electronic voting machines.Good god. Diebold optical-scan systems aren’t even “electronic voting machines” according to that report! Waytago, Mikel! Great serving of your constituents!
SPIN/LIE #3) $6000 per day was quoted to the requester as the cost (arbitrarily set by Haas) for the hand count of ballots in the CA50 race because the requester had required so many evidentiary documents, like chain of custody logs etc. when she made her filing.
This one is just an out and out lie. As Haas well knows (but hopes reporters and various politicos won’t bother to check out.) That $6000 per day price quoted to hand count requester Barbara Gail Jacobson for counting ballots — equating to $1 per vote, versus .14 per vote charged to hand count ballots in neighboring Orange County — was the same price he forced citizens to pay for previous hand counts in San Diego County!
As well, and as we’ve previously reported, Haas’ office initially quoted the price of $6000 per day to another voter on 7/3/06, prior to Jacobson’s having filed her request in the first place on 7/5/06 which included the document demands that Haas is now claiming are the reason for the $6000 quote. (The 7/3/06 email from Haas’ office, quoting $6000/day is right here. Jacobson’s 7/5/06 hand count request is right here.)
Yes, as per her rights, as the requester of the count, she asked for a number of chain of custody documents for ballots and voting machines (which Mikel Haas refused and still refuses to turn over to anybody), but the $6000 price that Haas attempted to charge her for the hand count had nothing to do with those documents.
Further, since Haas is only allowed to charge for real expenses for the next day’s counting, when Jacobson informed him that she wouldn’t need any counting boards assembled for the first day of counting (she’d need that day to examine the documents Haas was refusing to give to her) it should have lowered the cost required for the first days counting. It didn’t. Haas’ office instructed Jacobson she would have to pay $6000, no matter what, to begin the procedure. That’s illegal, of course.
Haas’ insipid habit of lying to the media and other folks who are inquiring with him about all of these things is an affront to the voters of San Diego. I hope they will join in the efforts to hold Haas accountable for his actions and continue to press to find out what it is that Mikel Haas is hiding. And why he feels it’s okay to mislead the very citizens he is supposed to be serving.
Legal efforts are still coming together to do just that (please donate at VelvetRevolution.us to support the effort!) and the folks in San Diego will be holding a rally to demonstrate on these points this Friday at Noon outside the Registrar of Voters office. Hopefully, BRAD BLOG concierge-in-my-absense, Winter Patriot, will be able to post the details for that rally shortly here.
And now, I gotta get outta here. Please save the world while I’m gone and don’t let the bad guys get away with their democracy-hating bullshit in the mean time! Thank you!
since nobody wants to post on this thread:
Pentagon Papers Author Daniel Ellsberg Says Government May Have Carried Out 9/11
Predicts Bush Regime Will Stage Terrorist Attack to Provide Pretext for Iran, Syria Invasion, And Justify Internment Camps for American People
Infowars | July 19, 2006
By Kevin Smith & Alex Jones
Daniel Ellsberg is a former American military analyst employed by the RAND Corporation who precipitated a national firestorm in 1971 when he released the Pentagon Papers, the US military’s account of activities during the Vietnam War, to The New York Times. The release awakened the American people to a systematic program of organized deception carried out by the Pentagon against the population to continue the Vietnam War.
Daniel Ellsberg, speaking on air to GCN radio host Jack Blood, stated his concerns that criminal elements of the US government were psychologically capable to have carried out 9/11. He warned that within days after a US military strike on Iran that Bush’s handlers would probably stage some type of terror attack in the West to legitimize the new war.
Daniel Ellsberg: Actually, I have looked at a lot of that, and I’ll tell you without going into it all which would take a lot of time, I find some of it very implausible and other parts of it quite solid, and there’s no question in my mind that there’s enough evidence there to justify a very comprehensive and hard hitting investigation of a kind that we’ve not seen, with subpoenas, general questioning of people, and raising the release of a lot of documents, there’s no question that (D.E. chuckles) put it this way, very serious questions have been raised, about how much they knew beforehand and how much involvement there may been. Is the, is a administration capable, humanly and physiologically of engineering such a provocation?
Yes, I would say that, I worked for such an administration myself, Johnson, ah, President Johnson put destroyers in harm’s way in the Tonkin Gulf not only once, but several times, with the, with a lot of his people hoping that it would lead to a confrontation and claiming that it had.
this is the man who released the Pentagon papers.show a little respect and give him a thread.(please!)
http://www.infowars.com/article...911.htm#public
You selfish-less and delightful ray of sparkling hope and light for our Democracy,.. enjoy your well deserved rest and relaxation. Travel safe on your vacation journeys,.. we wait in anticipation for your return. The final push to the November election looks to be less than a cake walk or lawn party. This is an opportune time to rejuvenate the energies required to keep ahead of the election shenanigans that will likely
come into play.
The glittering rubies and crazy diamonds that comprise the fellowship of this blog will keep the home fires burning during your absence,.. just enjoy your well deserved travels/vacation.
Gee,.. I hope he does not renounce his citizen and just move to Canada,.. how close will he get to that boarder?
#########
Attention: Home base editing team,..
(paragraph to above posting)
His spin also ignores that those “poll inspectors” have reported that they were not given any details instructions about security concerns and that many other people, besides themselves, would have had access to the voting machines as they sat in their CARDS and garages, etc.
(it seems the above word (CARDS) should have been CARS
I thought he was talking about cards, as in house of 🙂
I have a really basic question, which maybe WP can answer, or maybe one of our readers in the CA-50 can answer.
WHAT IS GOING ON DOWN THERE RIGHT NOW?
What is the status of the Jacobson count request?
What happened at the Wednesday meeting?
Where can the latest updates be gotten? Is there a CA-50 Coalition Website?
OK, that was THREE questions.
I realize it’s probably unfair of those of us so far away from the front lines to request information, but those fighting the battle LIVE should realize that those of us watching from a distance (and, in some cases, funding the battle) have a lot at stake.
Really, the battle to VERIFY THE VOTE and HAND COUNT THE BALLOTS in the CA-50 is NOT a local battle (even if the soliders are local) but is the front lines of a NATIONAL battle for our Democracy and Electoral Integrity.
SO, what’s up?
Charlie L
Portland, OR
I thought you said sending the machines home decertified them and rendered the election invalid.
Now you say “effectively”, and the local Dems are calling for a ban of a practice you said had already been legislated out of practice.
What’s going on?
You collected money for a recount and now you are going on vacation.
What is happening to the recount? Didn’t you say the DNC was getting involved?
Are you cutting and running?
oldturk #2… Thank you, fixed it.
Chris #1… I don’t think it’s fair to have said that nobody wants to comment on this thread, and I think it is pretty disrespectful to continue to use so much of your commentary in your effort to essentially force the issue on everyone, which is also essentially an effort to hijack each thread. This applies most especially when you pipe up first. I hope you will consider your actions a little more carefully from here on out.
Floridiot #3… 😀
Make It Happen #5… Would you take your crank talking points on a long hiking trip please?
How are they talking points?
Please enlighten me?
You refused to answer other questions of mine about republicans, and now you are calling my questions “talking points”
Are you 16 or something, or is this cause so flimsy that it cant stand up to scurtiny?
Are we not looking for accountability and transperancy from elected officials?
Agent99, calm down, i didnt hijack shit, there were no comments on the thread so i figured i would get it started.
I invite you to write to all left gatekeepers and demand that they cover the Ellsberg story.
Here’s my letter (if you can improve on it, please do):
Dear {editor or reporter’s name},
Is it news when the most famous whistleblower in modern times speaks out on an issue that most refuse to address?
Is it news when one of the most famous anti-war activists speaks out about a war-related issue?
I believe that the answer to both questions has to be yes.
Therefore, please reflect on whether Mr. Ellsberg might know a little more about some issues than you:
http://www.911blogger.com/2006/...t-for-911.html
Thank you for covering this important story,
{signed}”
dont be a gatekeeper and stop being so goddamned overbearing. its just a post.
Oh,.. my dear,..
BRAD,.. could you make a quick U-TURN ?
(careful A-99 has a double black belt in karate,..
be nice.)
Your tax dollars at work
Charlie: I’d love to tell you what’s going on with CA-50 but I really don’t have any idea. I’m trying to get some information, though, and I will definitely share it when it comes in.
Chris
I ask you to consider your disrespect and you decide to up it. Reconsider now, please.
There is a trend in America, where we are letting LIARS slide, and not be held accountable for their lies. And the corporate MSM has allowed our country to become like this. The corporate MSM is the #1 problem in this country. The corporate MSM does not report on and call ANYONE on their lies, if they are lying abouit e-vote fraud, disenfranchising people or 9/11.
Brad’s headline here, says that Haas is lying to the media. Is the media pointing out his lies and frying him for them???
Wake up San Diego, before it’s too late. We’re all being lulled to sleep in America, except for those of us on Brad Blog and blackboxvoting.org.
What is the objective of the MSM?
If somebody lies to the MSM, and they simply print the lies, what exactly is the MSM for? These are proven lies, and the media just prints them. Was it always like that? And we just never noticed??? It’s OK to lie in the MSM…THEY JUST PRINT IT FOR YOU!!!
Big Dan:
Yes. The media have always lied to the people. It wasn’t always this bad; it got a lot worse starting about 9AM Eastern tine on 9/11/2001. Some of us noticed a long time ago, but not all, not by any means. Thus the present troubles.
Notice this guy has that same “used car salesman” look, as that other guy who said, “trust me”…and is now indicted on 43 counts? They all have that same “look” in their official pictures… Would you buy a used car from this liar???
Ditto OldTurk #2… “You selfish-less and delightful ray of sparkling hope and light for Democracy.” Have a well deserved rest and clear your head from all this, if you can, for a week or two. (If he wants to come to Canada I will let him and even his lady stay with me… AND he will be allowed to smoke in my home. 🙂
Peace
and ITMF’sA
Big Dan #15
It’s been like that as long as I can remember. In the late 60’s I worked on an underground newspaper. Our main target was the official college paper and their rosey outlook on life, but we also took on the MSM on the subjects of Vietnam and other political happenings in the town and state.
As Winter has stated it has gotten worse. Whereas back then you got the news but with a major slant, today you just plain don’t get half the news through the MSM, and what you do get trends towards propaganda.
An MSM consortium (National Election Pool) still is in control of unreleased vital precinct and related exit poll data that could prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the 2004 presidential election was stolen. Am I wrong? Steve Freeman does a bang up job of analysis in his book Was the 2004 Presidental Election Stolen and earlier studies that, as far as I am concerned, takes it beyond a shadow of a doubt, but unreleased data makes the study much more difficult and lacking in the specificity that could clinch it.
Along with the bizarre election day exit poll antics – accurate data posted, “corrected” data posted, exit poll system breakdowns in 2000 and 2004 at critical moments…There is more than meets the eye in regard to the MSM and elections.
Re: Spin/Lie #2
The fact that any elections official, let alone anyone in the media, should act like because only a thousand votes may be illegal and/or corrupt due to machines is acceptable is equally ridiculous.
He is basically admitting fault if you read between the lines and then downplaying the problem as being no big deal because only a thousand votes are meaningless out of the total. Well, as an elections official you don’t just farking shrug and not care about such a thing. He should consider each vote to be equally sacred.
…and Arry #20…then is it BEYOND A DOUBT, that the MSM is complicit in all of this? They’re not DOING it, they are AIDING it, by supressing this information. Don’t forget, the MSM is owned by about 5 huge corporations who also make a lot of $$$ on the War in Iraq, and for that matter, ENDLESS WAR. If ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, & FOX are run by these corporations, then they have an agenda. It is by no means an accident, that they suppress this information. If we know it, THEY know it. So, their is a conspiracy by them to collectively suppress it.
So, how come there’s thousands of news stories a day? But if you click back and forth between ABC, NBC, CBS @ 6:30, they all have the SAME 10 OR SO STORIES, ALL IN THE SAME ORDER, WITH COMMERCIALS ALL ON AT THE SAME TIME!!!!!!!!!!!
Click between them at 6:30, set up your favorites on your remote to those 3 channels and rapidly flick between them. And none of them cover e-vote fraud and 9/11. The most important stories, which are all connected because they work part-and-parcel with each other, ARE ALL NOT COVERED! BY ALL OF THEM IN UNISON!!!
BB2: I’m open to the fact that the MSM may always have been like this, but I just never noticed it. You’re probably right. But, then, what was all of this “liberal media bias” shit then???
A big problem is that exit polls will now be “adjusted” to conform to election “results” with true results probably not even posted publically. This is a major problem because exit polls are a key tool in checking election fraud. There must be neutral exit polling, and it won”t be the corporate MSM because its actions are beyond fishy; as Big Dan says, they are complicit in fraud.
Right you are, Arry #24. Exit polls that are “adjusted” to reflect the “actual results” are worthless.
Big Dan #23 said:
“…what was all of this “liberal media bias” shit then???”
What better way to cram their BS down our throats than claim they are biased against?
no disrespect Agent99, you came with the disrespect first.we have the same basic objectives, we just disagree with what issue is more important.it was just a post, nothing more.it didnt hijack the thread. everything is going to be ok.
corporate=republican=our media. the “liberal media” myth is a way for conservatives to play the victim and attack the messenger when they dont like the truth.
Big Dan: You wonder how the myth of the “liberal media” came about? Read “The Republican Noise Machine: Right-Wing Media and How It Corrupts Democracy” by David Brock (who founded mediamatters.org). Brock was one of “them” back in the Reagan days, but he “saw the light” and turned on them and confessed his ills (first in “Blinded by the Right” and then in the above book). I respect him for ADMITTING his mistakes, unlike so many of the newfound anti-Fascists (Sandra Day O’Connor comes to mind) who preach how dangerous the neo-Cons are, but never admit their own roles and complicity in what we are now fighting.
Anyway, I won’t do Brock’s book justice, but the bottom line is that back in the 1950’s they funded a badly stilted study that concluded the media was “liberal” (actually, PEOPLE in the media were liberal — reading and thinking will do that to you — but they were also good enough journalists to keep it BALANCED and not let their personal feelings get in the way of good journalism) and they pushed it out as a meme and pushed it and pushed it and pushed it until it became “truth.” (Refer to “the Big Lie” theory).
The media is now CORPORATE and not liberal at all.
There are still a few people practicing “journalism” inside the machine, and they occasionally get a moment or two, but the mass of the mainstream media is corporate-controlled right-wing dominated spin.
Charlie L. #4 asked re CA-50:
“WHAT IS GOING ON DOWN THERE RIGHT NOW? What is the status of the Jacobson count request? What happened at the Wednesday meeting?”
Brad answered these questions with this post on 7/13/06 and he also posted here on the same day about an interview of Ms. Jacobson by Thom Hartmann that can be heard here. In essence, Haas stonewalled Jacobson’s legal and legitimate demands, insisting that she put up the first $6,000 (of an estimated $120,000-150,000) to even sit down with him to discuss her requests. In addition, he gave no promise he would give her any of the information that she was legally entitled to. Consequently, she refused to pay the $6000 in the absence of any guarantees that she would get the information she needed to assure she got a fair hand count/”recount” and, on the same day, the deadline passed for her request or any request for a hand count or “recount”. Brad also briefly discussed this issue at the end of the post (above) related to this comment thread.
In regards to “Make It Happen’s” Comment #5, you are obviously new to this blog if you think Brad is going to “cut and run” regarding this issue. Whether you meant it that way or not, your questions were a bit insulting to Brad and to those of us who regularly read his blog and know how hard he has pushed on this and on all voting integrity issues, always against the wind of the political establishment and the useless mainstream media. Although a reading of some of Brad’s recent posts and of some of the links in the above post would have answered your questions, I will try to do so here: As to your question about “effectively decertified” machines, the fact is that just a few months before this election, both the federal certification oversight body (NASED) and California’s own Secretary of State issued emergency “security mitigation requirements” in light of newly discovered and massive vulnerabilities in Diebold’s voting systems (even beyond those revealed by Hursti in his famous December 2006 hack). Certification of these machines in California was not absolute but was made contingent upon following these emergency security mitigation requirements. These machines were thereby effectively rendered illegal and uncertified for use in any California election, and at the federal level as well, when they were sent home with poll workers in the days and weeks prior to the election. To say otherwise is to make a mockery of any pretensions of security for these machines and of any trust in the integrity of our election system. Since neither Haas nor the CA SOS have chosen to follow these legally mandated security mitigation requirements, Brad can only claim they were “effectively decertified” by law, not that they were actually decertified, since the laws have so far been ignored.
The donations that were requested by Progressive Democrats of America and by VelvetRevolution.US were to try to force Haas and SOS McPherson to play by the rules. Had Gail Jacobson’s manual count efforts been successful, that money was to be used for paying the (excorbitant) costs demanded by Haas for the manual count. When the effort to get the hand count done was stonewalled by Haas, the money was channeled, as previously stipulated, to the more drawn out legal/court battle that is being put together to sue Haas, McPherson and possibly others for violating both the laws regarding machine certification requirements and state laws about recounts. As I said earlier, ALL of this has been explained in various previous posts on this blog and in links to VelvetRevolution.US. Unfortunately, a court challenge means that the wheels will grind much more slowly from here on. So far, the DNC has only joined the many others demanding the hand count (and they waited until after the deadline for voters to pay for a hand count). It is really only symbolic so far because they have pledged no money, to my knowledge, to support their demand. Hopefully, they will get behind the legal efforts that are now unfolding.
Hope that answers a few questions.
Subject: Actual ballot count.
This is for the people that are demanding actual ballot counts.
Do you think that the Republicans went to sleep after the CA 50 June elections?
They worked hard to get all those actual precincts ballots to match the “cooked” final results.
Any actual ballot count would corroborate that no fraud took place making the Dems look stupid… again.
Actual ballot count would have worked if done within hours of the actual election, now…. it is too late.
Better spend our energy in getting some better alternatives for the next election.
Abel
Charlie L #29
I think it’s worth having David Brock’s “Blinded by the Right” just because of the glossary in the back. A lot of times when you see someone on television telling a bald face lie, you can get the book and find out a little more about them from somebody who knew them personally.
He could have called the book, The Vast Right Wing Conspiracy!
I totally respect Mr. Brock for writing that book. It took a lot of guts.
organized corporate media swarm msm locations carry sign t-shirt hat so no can edit the shit out of clip go the fires accident scenes musics get in the path of cameras no news or news forced to cover us bumper stickers garage sale signs grafiti where is your local good morning show located
Some times it feels like one step forward, two steps back…I get so frustratrd with this “culture of corruption” a steady stream of lies, unaccountable blather, dirty tricks and misdeeds….we have a complete breakdown of law, (except for the laws that govern the less fortunate) seems as the whole world, in every country we have a OLIGARCHY – (“This name is given to designate the power which a few citizens of a state have usurped, which ought by the constitution to reside in the people”) or if you prefer a corporte feudal/fascism. I realize that some like the idea of a all powerful, all knowing, (not) benevolent, authoritarian government making decisions for them and “protecting” them from terrorists in any form…but I want freedom of speech, freedom from suspicion, privacy, freedom from religion (if I choose) a transparent government that does not meet and act in secret, accountability, that does not obstruct justice, as Bush has done…(which is much worse than lying under oath about a “personel affair”) and the right to a fair, transparent, easily verified voting system…!!!