Last night, I felt certain that Wayne Madsen was on to something important. Now, although I still urge everyone to follow his work, I feel less confident.
Madsen, you will recall, is the fellow who has encountered sources -- as yet unnamed -- who say that vote fraud can be connected to a mysterious company, allegedly Saudi-linked, called Five Star Trust. If you haven't read my previous post, you'll need to do that now before we proceed.
(Go on. I'll wait.)
(Back? Excellent. Let us continue.)
Madsen has written some excellent material in the past, which is the main reason why I placed great stock in his article. Here's his bio:
Mr. Madsen has some twenty-five years of experience in computer security and data privacy. As a U.S. Naval Officer he managed one of the first computer security programs for the U.S. Navy. He subsequently worked for the National Security Agency's National COMSEC Assessment Center, Department of State, RCA Corporation, and Computer Sciences Corporation.A serious fellow, no doubt about it.
He has testified before the House International Relations Subcommittee on International Operations.
He is also a freelance investigative journalist and a syndicated columnist. His columns have appeared in the Miami Herald, Houston Chronicle, Philadelphia Inquirer, and Atlanta Journal Constitution. He has appeared frequently as a guest commentator on television and radio.
Mr. Madsen is the author of The Handbook of Personal Data Protection (London: Macmillan, 1992)
And Five Star Trust, as noted earlier, is a seriously suspicious company. Take the wheeler-dealer most closely associated with the company, J.R. Horn. This guy was convicted of wire fraud in 2001; while out on parole, he commited the same crime (the figure of a billion dollars has been mentioned), only to be sentenced to a mere 18 months. I can't help but compare Mr. Horn's cushy fate to those well-known cases of minor pot dealers sentenced to years in prison.
So why now does a touch of "buyer's remorse" color my initial enthusiasm for Madsen's piece?
Because everything about this "FIve Star" company reeks of con artistry. Yes, consters do frequently butt up against the worlds of covert operations, money laundering, espionage and so forth. Here's the problem: When you stumble into the world of the professional con artist, how do you know when -- or if -- these David Mamet characters are lying to you?
Those who followed parapolitical controversies in the 1990s may recall the "three Rs": Reed, Russbacher, and Riconosciuto. If you recognise those names, you'll know the difficulties of dealing with any source saddled with legal troubles and an elastic attitude toward the truth.
All of which makes me wonder about just who has been feeding Madsen his information. I'm sure that the writer himself is honest -- but what about his sources? Even the smartest researcher can be played for a sucker.
Madsen has promised a follow-up report very soon, so perhaps he will provide more details. Until then, we (or at least I) must face another poser:
I received a letter from someone unknown to me, telling me to place certain information on my blog. I won't reprint this text here, but a cautious summary should do no harm.
The badly-written letter stated that Greg Palast is working with Madsen on the "Five Star Trust" angle, and that they both need funding. I was directed to a web page offering a PayPal donation button.
The writer connected Five Star to CyberNet, which figures in Jeff Fisher's charges. You can read a good discussion of this business here.
This same letter also connected Five Star to Accenture, the Enron-linked (actually, Arthur Anderson-linked) offshore company which has received government contracts for a system identifying visitors to this country (photographs, fingerprints, perhaps even iris scans) and which also received a contract to provide the military with an online voting system, which bears the unnerving name "Secure Electronic Registration and Voting Experiment" (or SERVE). The letter closed with an unclear reference to the Green party.
This missive struck me as very suspicious. If Palast and/or Madsen need donations, surely they would make their own plea directly; why would they have Mr. Anonymous Stranger act on their behalf?
In short: I smell a scam. I've phoned Madsen and written Palast, and will soon know the facts. In the meantime, let me know if you have received a similar mailing.
For god's sake -- double-check (and triple-check)before making any donations!
22 comments:
I've shown Madsen's lunacy to some friends, a few of whom voted for Kerry, and one question keeps popping up. Why would you people want to make yourselves appear foolish? Isn't it obvious that Madsen's writing is a word salad of every leftist cliche in the book? Throw together Enron, Arbusto, Saudi royalty, even poor Ollie North, and you get an incoherent mess that should-- but, unfortunately, doesn't--embarrass your side. He writes for people who like to read about alien abductions and yetis. Please, take a deep breath.
You have quite a penchant for dismissing things out of hand, Pomeroo. As always, you succeed in disproving nothing. How is Madsen's story any more far-fetched than the notion of thousands of Democrats in a dozen states walking in circles talking to dimwitted exit pollers repeatedly in hopes that early exit polls would get leaked and discourage people in Western states from voting? How is there any less evidence for it?
As I said, Madsen's fairy tale is a farrago of leftwing buzzwords thrown together in haphazard fashion. The technique is simple: he counts on the reader to make sense of the disparate elements. There is a very simple point almost everyone here fails to confront. The aggregate of the polls showed Bush winning by 2.5 points; he won by 3. Now, assuming that all those millions of votes were somehow added to his total by heretofore unknown means, then a) the national polls should have showed Kerry winning, or b) Bush's margin should have been much greater than it was. How do the polls display such accuracy when widespread fraud that cannot possibly be reflected in them is altering the actual vote totals?
To continue: I've mentioned these data before, but let's return to the results in Queens County, New York. In 2000, Gore beat Bush by 417,000 to 122,000. This year, Kerry won by 395,000 to 153,000. There was no campaign here; the polling places are completely controlled by Democrats; we vote on ancient machines. Somehow, Bush increased his vote by 27%. Explain, please.
Four years ago, the failure to develop an adequate ground game nearly cost the Republicans an election they thought was in the bag. For the past two years, they have expended vast amounts of money and resources in creating a volunteer army almost 2 million strong. As all of Bush's gains can be attributed to vote fraud, this immense effort must have achieved nothing. How can this be possible? To be more concrete, we look at Broward County, Florida. Last time, Gore won 388,000 to 178,000. My mother lives there and claims that she never heard from anyone connected with the Republican Party. This time, Kerry won 454,000 to 245,000. My mother was contacted by the Bush campaign four times in the last two weeks, and they even offered her a ride to the polls. You contend that Bush kept pace with Kerry entirely through vote fraud (in a county where the supervisors are all Democrats). Logically, then, the dramatically improved Republican effort made no difference at all. Again, explain how this could be possible.
Exit polls showed Kerry winning Pennsylvania by 20 points, New Hampshire by 17, and Alabama was "too close to call." These results are insane, are they not? Apart from tampering, can anything explain them?
As I said, Madsen's fairy tale is a farrago of leftwing buzzwords thrown together in haphazard fashion. The technique is simple: he counts on the reader to make sense of the disparate elements. There is a very simple point almost everyone here fails to confront. The aggregate of the polls showed Bush winning by 2.5 points; he won by 3. Now, assuming that all those millions of votes were somehow added to his total by heretofore unknown means, then a) the national polls should have showed Kerry winning, or b) Bush's margin should have been much greater than it was. How do the polls display such accuracy when widespread fraud that cannot possibly be reflected in them is altering the actual vote totals?
To continue: I've mentioned these data before, but let's return to the results in Queens County, New York. In 2000, Gore beat Bush by 417,000 to 122,000. This year, Kerry won by 395,000 to 153,000. There was no campaign here; the polling places are completely controlled by Democrats; we vote on ancient machines. Somehow, Bush increased his vote by 27%. Explain, please.
Four years ago, the failure to develop an adequate ground game nearly cost the Republicans an election they thought was in the bag. For the past two years, they have expended vast amounts of money and resources in creating a volunteer army almost 2 million strong. As all of Bush's gains can be attributed to vote fraud, this immense effort must have achieved nothing. How can this be possible? To be more concrete, we look at Broward County, Florida. Last time, Gore won 388,000 to 178,000. My mother lives there and claims that she never heard from anyone connected with the Republican Party. This time, Kerry won 454,000 to 245,000. My mother was contacted by the Bush campaign four times in the last two weeks, and they even offered her a ride to the polls. You contend that Bush kept pace with Kerry entirely through vote fraud (in a county where the supervisors are all Democrats). Logically, then, the dramatically improved Republican effort made no difference at all. Again, explain how this could be possible.
Exit polls showed Kerry winning Pennsylvania by 20 points, New Hampshire by 17, and Alabama was "too close to call." These results are insane, are they not? Apart from tampering, can anything explain them?
As I said, Madsen's fairy tale is a farrago of leftwing buzzwords thrown together in haphazard fashion. The technique is simple: he counts on the reader to make sense of the disparate elements. There is a very simple point almost everyone here fails to confront. The aggregate of the polls showed Bush winning by 2.5 points; he won by 3. Now, assuming that all those millions of votes were somehow added to his total by heretofore unknown means, then a) the national polls should have showed Kerry winning, or b) Bush's margin should have been much greater than it was. How do the polls display such accuracy when widespread fraud that cannot possibly be reflected in them is altering the actual vote totals?
To continue: I've mentioned these data before, but let's return to the results in Queens County, New York. In 2000, Gore beat Bush by 417,000 to 122,000. This year, Kerry won by 395,000 to 153,000. There was no campaign here; the polling places are completely controlled by Democrats; we vote on ancient machines. Somehow, Bush increased his vote by 27%. Explain, please.
Four years ago, the failure to develop an adequate ground game nearly cost the Republicans an election they thought was in the bag. For the past two years, they have expended vast amounts of money and resources in creating a volunteer army almost 2 million strong. As all of Bush's gains can be attributed to vote fraud, this immense effort must have achieved nothing. How can this be possible? To be more concrete, we look at Broward County, Florida. Last time, Gore won 388,000 to 178,000. My mother lives there and claims that she never heard from anyone connected with the Republican Party. This time, Kerry won 454,000 to 245,000. My mother was contacted by the Bush campaign four times in the last two weeks, and they even offered her a ride to the polls. You contend that Bush kept pace with Kerry entirely through vote fraud (in a county where the supervisors are all Democrats). Logically, then, the dramatically improved Republican effort made no difference at all. Again, explain how this could be possible.
Exit polls showed Kerry winning Pennsylvania by 20 points, New Hampshire by 17, and Alabama was "too close to call." These results are insane, are they not? Apart from tampering, can anything explain them?
Pomeroo: you should be permanently banned for posting same thing three times! Spammer! Meanwhile, re Accenture and online voting for military and overseas. Guardian UK story estimated that approx 6 million expats had registered or tried to, but process was difficult and many not able to vote in time perhaps. Ditto military. But these votes would be scattered over many states. No question the surge of expat voters would have been prompted more by desire to boot Bush. Two stories in reputable papers said that online voting was to be counted by Omega Technologies. Among the findings I got from Google were that OT is involved with optical scanners and wireless networks.
As to Madsen, I did find his article intriguing but feel that ultimately the key to finding out if anything happened is probably going to come from the BBV investigation if anywhere, unless the unhappy techs that Madsen refers to do come forward.
Meanwhile, shouldn't we be urging our major media to make more of the GOP's flagrant voting suppression tactics, combined with those actions by GOP election officials to ensure smooth voting at GOP suburban precincts and long lines and 3 hour waits at inner city and college precincts, etc.
What is the burning question to me is, why would GOP commit such flagrant abuses of the Voting Rights Act unless it was needed to make a difference? And secondly, why has no-one been prosecuted?
I apologize for the triple-post, but, quite honestly, I couldn't begin to explain how it happened. Responding to a different column by Joseph, I criticized someone who was fabricating a ridiculous tale about Ollie North's drug-running, and mentioned that the post had appeared twice. Today, I noticed another double-post (see the first column, on Ohio).
I remember a few years ago when the far-right websites were abuzz with personal revelations of people who had assisted Bubba in carrying out his various murders. People say weird stuff, hoping to please their audience. As you probably suspect, I regarded Clinton as a sleaze who thought (correctly) that he could get away with anything. I never felt that I was bound to accept any wild story told about him.
The problem here is that there is no credible evidence of vote fraud by the Republican Party--none. The questions I asked get to the heart of the problem. You can't dismiss Bush's 27% improvement in Queens, because it is what it is: an example of Bush running stronger without any external factors, other than his enhanced appeal (or, if you prefer, his opponent's diminished appeal) to account for it.
The exit polls destroy the case for vote fraud. Either you believe that all the exit polls were correct--and that means Kerry was REALLY running close in Virginia, North Carolina, Alabama, etc.--and then all of the national surveys were wrong, or most of the exit polls were wrong and only those in Florida and Ohio were right. In the latter case, you need to point out counties with anomalous results. I've gone over those results with the proverbial fine-tooth comb: I simply can't find anything unusual.
Bush isn't worth lying about, at least, for me. He got my vote because the Democrats are irresponsible on matters of national security. I have absolutely no desire to be complicit in vote fraud, something that cannot be said about many Democrats.
When we talk about vote suppression, we should be able to produce one credible witness who attempted to vote and, for illegal and discriminatory reasons, was prevented from doing so. The Democrats can't seem to manage this rather simple and basic task.
I now realize what I did. After I hit the "Publish Your Comment" button, I waited impatiently for the notice that my post had been saved. Nothing happened, so I hit the "preview" button--then I hit the "publish" button again. Mea Culpa. Sorry.
To continue what I was saying: Joseph describes Madsen as a serious guy. Read Madsen's article about Bush's attack on Iran. Serious? Yes, he says things that you want to believe, but they are silly things that bear no relation to reality. His Iran article is full of the same preposterous allegations, fabricated sources, and unnamed, nonexistent "officials" that apparently characterize all of his writing.
You know where I stand politically. Nevertheless, truth is far more important than the Republican Party.
Dr. Gonzo: "Oh god-fuck! I think I see the pattern here".
A scammer(s), have chosen to manipulate 'the left' for some quick cash, setting up some stuff for people to find, dangling a mythical "centre of the spiders web" and now set up 2 or more unwitting participants to 'investigate', then sending out emails asking people to donate to help fund the investigation. If Kerry was President-Elect (and there's still time for that, you fuckers, not that it'd be able to do anything to fix the economic melt-down thats on the horizon which BushCo. deserve to be in charge of) them a similar scheme would undoubtably be floating around attempting to manipulate 'the right', after a bit more digging Madsen will come out red faced apologising for being pawn & et al.
Pom, your anger of the enfranchised never ceases to amuse.
LamontCranston.
Pomeroo: "I've mentioned these data before, but let's return to the results in Queens County, New York. In 2000, Gore beat Bush by 417,000 to 122,000. This year, Kerry won by 395,000 to 153,000. There was no campaign here; the polling places are completely controlled by Democrats; we vote on ancient machines. Somehow, Bush increased his vote by 27%. Explain, please."
You're the one that should explain.
I can't tell you how much it pisses me off when people claim that Democrats control the polling places in New York City. The worst part...is that too many Democrats believe that, too. The Board of Elections is bipartisan.
Queens County Board of Elections Commissioners:
Stephen H. Weiner, Comm. R
Terrence C. O'Connor, Comm. D
Kathryn James, Dep. Ch. Clerk R
Barbara Conacchio, Chief Clerk D
Why Are We Back In Iraq?
It shouldn't piss you off because it's completely true. I've worked many times as the sole Republican (or, one of two) in my polling place. The Democrats who run the show are nice people, and although they have often relegated me to such vital duties as buying the doughnuts, they are not criminals. I can't speak for the honesty of those officials in the Manhattan and Bronx districts where Democratic candidates often receive more than 100% of the total vote. The point is, obviously, Bush ran better here because he ran better almost everywhere (in 45 of the 50 states). Democrats attempted similar sleight-of-hand in Florida four years ago. We kept hearing about Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris, but nobody mentioned that they had absolutely nothing to do with counting the votes. In the twenty-five counties with the highest rates of ballot spoilage, twenty-four had Democratic supervisors (the officials directly responsible for handling the ballots); the other supervisor was an enrolled independent. Myths die hard.
It's completely true in your opinion...But these are the facts...(I'll reprint it since for some reason you didn't see it)
Queens County Board of Elections Commissioners:
Stephen H. Weiner, Comm. R
Terrence C. O'Connor, Comm. D
Kathryn James, Dep. Ch. Clerk R
Barbara Conacchio, Chief Clerk D
You continue to labor under the delusion that you're making a point. Yes, we all agree that there are four commissioners, two of whom are Republicans. I repeat: there is no Republican organization in the City of New York (except for Staten Island), and almost no Republican presence at the polls. After Giuliani was robbed in 1989, his first attempt at the mayoralty, he hired poll-watchers in 1993. Much Democratic fraud was prevented, but not all. Sharpton famously accused Republicans of intimidating "illegal immigrants" and demanded an investigation. Someone whispered in his ear; the investigation idea was dropped. Let me repeat: there was no Republican campaign in NYC and it's hard to find a Republican poll-worker.
People on this site have spent four weeks chasing their own tails without perceiving the gaping hole in their position. Start with what William James would call the brute fact: Bush led Kerry by 2.5 points in the aggregate of all national polls. This is the Rome to which all roads lead. If Kerry leads by 5 points, and then Bush wins by 3, you wonder what happened. Comparing the actual outcome with the polls strongly urges the conclusion that nothing happened.
Now, if we assume that Bush magically "stole" all those millions of votes, we open a big can of worms. Where did his votes go, i.e., if he needed massive fraud to get him back to the position he was already in, according to the aggregate of ALL national polls, what happened? If he's leading by 3 AND he steals millions of votes, he--Duh!--wins by MORE THAN 3! If he steals all those votes and still wins by only 3, well, something very big has happened to his original support, but what? You are free to pretend that Kerry was winning all the way, but you run into a brick wall of reality. You can contend that the aggregate of all national polls had Kerry ahead, but it just isn't true. The reverse was true: Bush was ahead and he won. He won by almost the exact margin he was expected to win by.
There are people on this site who mistake the stuff that happens in every election for indications of fraud. According to Jeff Greenfield ("Oh, Waiter! One Order of Crow!"), the problems in 2000 arose when corrupt VNS data was over-weighting Kerry factors in Florida and computer glitches were assigning phantom votes all over the place. Joseph Cannon sees a conspiracy in every such glitch and ignores the fact that they always occur, are detected, and get corrected routinely.
I must correct the error in my last post: Greenfield was, of course, referring to the over-weighting of Gore, not Kerry, factors. Incidentally, we still don't have an "official" explanation for the networks' uncanny ability to call instantly states where the Democrat ultimately wins closely, but states where the Republican wins big are always "too close to call" until most of the votes are in. This year, Alabama was "too close to call." The final poll there was 57 to 30, Bush over Kerry; Bush won in a landslide; yet the exit polls said it was close. Nah, those exit polls weren't rigged.
"There is no Republican organization in New York."
And I'm delusional? They seem to have done pretty damn good in the last three mayoral elections.
As for Staten Island...Ah I see your point, now....you mean there is no overt Gop suppression in New York City except for Staten Island. Perhaps that explains why the number of registered Democrats outweigh Republicans 119,054 to 80,985...yet, somehow, anyone named Molinari or something close to it win by large margins.
As for New York City poll watchers, you're lying about that, too. 1894 - Bipartisan Control - The state establishes a system, in effect to this day, under which all election positions, from Board of Elections officials to poll watchers, must be divided equally between the two major parties.
And Joseph Cannon isn't a conspiracy theorist, he's spent a good amount of time debunking many of the initial reports in this election.
There is definitely acts of voter fraud, suppression and etc. committed by both sides...but only a Foxhead would argue that it's the Democrats who are more responsible.
As for what you wrote about Florida...you're lying again...a complete state recount using nearly any set of standards proves that Gore won the most votes in 2000. Believe what you want to believe..but that's the truth. Gore made a big mistake by asking for recounts in only some of the counties...but the Supreme Court would've stopped it anyway.
Don't worry...my site is also keeping tab of GOP allegations of Democratic acts of voter fraud, etc. This should be a non-partisan battle. Our electoral system is completely fucked. If you think Bush won by 5 million votes...fine...let's find out...support recount and election reform.
But...please...please...please...do a little googling before you write lies...it makes you look stupid.
Hi Joesph,
My name is Bozos for Bush, from DU and BBV. I just saw your blog for the first time, tonight. It's clear that the person/people behind the badly written letter which you suspect to be a scam, etc, is none other than Auditors and his friends at BBV.org's message boards.
I quote "What follows is a whole lot of information on Five also known as 5 Star Trust that has been compiled and needs to be followed up on, for certain, along with their donations to Accenture Inc. We have requested that Greg give us the link to his donation funds page, or someone that knows Greg, so that we can begin spreading his much needed funding across the web. We are prepared to fully back and fund any nvestigation that takes place. Without further influence here is
5 star trust."
Here is the link to prove my suspicions: http://www.blackboxvoting.org/cgi-bin/dcforum/dcboard.cgi?az=show_thread&om=116&forum=DCForumID4122&omm=14&viewmode=threaded
This guy and his "research team" have led a lot of people on a wild goose chase, which has spilled over to both Democratic Underground and CommonGroundCommonSense. After battling this guy for days, I finally tricked him by posing as "Amy Riderman" and he fell for it. Any help you can provide to DU to make them realize this is all a scam would be appreciated, as I got banned for of all things, trying to put a stop to all this garbage.
If you email me, I will send you specific links to all sorts of his bogus claims. Thanks!
John
Greg Palast is not involved in an investigation with Wayne Madsen.
People should only donate to Palast's investigative fund via his website at www.gregpalast.com
We are aware that someone (using various names) is attempting to solicit donations for a Palast/Madsen investigation. This person is in no way associated with Palast or Madsen and we would strongly advise people not to give this person any financial assistance.
Oliver Shykles (Senior Researcher for Greg Palast)
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