News ArticlesExcerpts of Key News Articles in Major Media
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The federal government is investigating the takeover last year of a leading American manufacturer of electronic voting systems by a small software company that has been linked to the leftist Venezuelan government of President Hugo Chávez. The inquiry is focusing on the Venezuelan owners of the software company, the Smartmatic Corporation...and its subsidiary, Sequoia Voting Systems of Oakland, Calif.. Smartmatic was a little-known firm with no experience in voting technology before it was chosen by the Venezuelan authorities to replace the country’s elections machinery ahead of a contentious referendum that confirmed Mr. Chávez as president in August 2004. With a windfall of some $120 million from its first three contracts with Venezuela, Smartmatic then bought the much larger and more established Sequoia Voting Systems, which now has voting equipment installed in 17 states and the District of Columbia. The concern over Smartmatic’s purchase of Sequoia comes amid rising unease about the security of touch-screen voting machines and other electronic elections systems. The concerns about possible ties between the owners of Smartmatic and the Chávez government have been well known to United States foreign-policy officials since before the 2004 recall election in which Mr. Chávez...won by an official margin of nearly 20 percent. But after a municipal primary election in Chicago in March, Sequoia voting machines were blamed for a series of delays and irregularities. Smartmatic’s new president, Jack A. Blaine, acknowledged in a public hearing that Smartmatic workers had been flown up from Venezuela to help with the vote.
David M. Walker...has a job as head of the Government Accountability Office, an investigative arm of Congress that audits and evaluates the performance of the federal government. That makes Walker the nation's accountant-in-chief. And the accountant-in-chief's professional opinion is that the American public needs to tell Washington it's time to steer the nation off the path to financial ruin. The vast majority of economists and budget analysts agree: The ship of state is on a disastrous course, and will founder on the reefs of economic disaster if nothing is done to correct it. There's a good reason politicians don't like to talk about the nation's long-term fiscal prospects. It reveals serious problems and offers no easy solutions. Anybody who wanted to deal with it seriously would have to talk about raising taxes and cutting benefits. Walker...has committed to touring the nation through the 2008 elections, talking to anybody who will listen about the fiscal black hole Washington has dug itself, the "demographic tsunami" that will come when the baby boom generation begins retiring and the recklessness of borrowing money from foreign lenders to pay for the operation of the U.S. government. To show that the looming fiscal crisis is not a partisan issue, he brings along economists and budget analysts from across the political spectrum. Their basic message is this: If the United States government conducts business as usual over the next few decades, a national debt that is already $8.5 trillion could reach $46 trillion. A hole that big could paralyze the U.S. economy. And every year that nothing is done about it, Walker says, the problem grows by $2 trillion to $3 trillion.
Two weeks before the midterm elections, at least 10 states...remain ripe for voting problems, according to a study released yesterday by a nonpartisan clearinghouse that tracks electoral reforms across the United States. The report by Electionline.org says those states, and possibly others, could encounter trouble on Election Day because they have a combustible mix of fledgling voting-machine technology, confusion over voting procedures or recent litigation over election rules -- and close races. The report cautions that the Nov. 7 elections, which will determine which political party controls the House and Senate, promise "to bring more of what voters have come to expect since the 2000 elections -- a divided body politic...and the possibility -- if not certainty -- of problems at polls nationwide." The report of the clearinghouse, sponsored by the Pew Charitable Trusts, is the latest of several warnings in recent weeks and months by organizations and scholars who say that electoral problems persist in spite of six years of efforts by the federal government and states to correct voting flaws. The decisions by many states to convert to electronic voting machines have yielded new concerns about whether they are secure and accurate, about paper records as backup proof and...about whether the electronic or paper record should be considered the official tally if a candidate demands a recount.
The House Appropriations Committee has let go about 60 private contractors who made up most of an investigative unit that was auditing billions of dollars in government spending, including the $62 billion federal relief package for Hurricane Katrina. The investigators...were released during the past week. The shake-up — which leaves only 16 full-time employees in the investigative unit — comes about a year after the Appropriations Committee's chairman, Rep. Jerry Lewis, R-Calif., launched the Katrina review by saying the unit would "conduct a wide-ranging assessment and analysis of disaster spending." At the time, Lewis said the unit had a tradition of "comprehensive" reporting. It's unclear how the departures will affect the work of the unit, whose contract staff is made up of former employees of the FBI, CIA and other government investigative services. Some of them had worked for the unit for several years. Scofield said he could not identify the specific work being done by investigators because much of the unit's inquiries involve classified information. Established in 1943, the investigative unit has focused mainly on defense and intelligence spending programs.
The Republican Party will begin airing a hard-hitting ad this weekend that warns of more cataclysmic terror attacks against the U.S. homeland. The ad portrays Osama bin Laden and quotes his threats against America dating to February 1998. "These are the stakes," the ad concludes. "Vote November 7." The ad displays an array of quotes from bin Laden and his top lieutenant, Ayman al-Zawahri, that include bin Laden's Dec. 26, 2001 vow that "what is yet to come will be even greater." The ad also cites al-Zawahri's claim to have obtained "some suitcase bombs," followed by a scene that appears to show a nuclear explosion. Despite al-Zawahri's claim, portable nuclear devices are believed to be particularly difficult to produce and elusive to rogue regimes and terror groups.
Note: Promoting fear is the easiest way to cause people to feel powerless and surrender their freedoms and tax dollars to those in power. Click here for more.
The U.S. Marine Corps has threatened to punish two members of the military legal team representing a terrorism suspect being held at Guantanamo Bay if they continue to speak publicly about reported prisoner abuse, a civilian lawyer from the defense team said Saturday. The action directed at Lt. Col. Colby Vokey and Sgt. Heather Cerveny follows their report last week that Guantanamo guards bragged about beating detainees. The order has heightened fears among the military defense lawyers for Guantanamo prisoners that their careers will suffer for exposing flaws and injustices in the system. Defense lawyers for Guantanamo prisoners say the personal stakes are high and point to the Navy's failure to promote Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift after he successfully challenged the legitimacy of the Pentagon's war-crimes commissions. Two weeks after the Supreme Court ruled the commissions unconstitutional and lacking in due process, Swift was passed over for advancement and will be forced by the Navy's up-or-out policy to retire by summer. At least three other military defense lawyers for the 10 charged terrorism suspects have also been passed over for promotion in what some consider a subtle reprimand of their vigorous defense of their clients.
A Florida law that bars exit polling near voting places violates the press' rights under the First Amendment, a lawsuit filed by The Associated Press and five television networks alleges. The lawsuits...contend that state laws that prohibit asking a voter a "fact" or "opinion" within 100 feet of a polling place is unconstitutional. The AP and the five television networks - ABC, CNN, CBS, Fox News and NBC - formed a consortium to collect exit-polling data in Florida and other states. The news organizations had also challenged a 2004 directive by Ohio's elections chief against exit polling within 100 feet of a voting place. On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Michael H. Watson ruled the verbal order by Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell before the 2004 presidential election violated the press' rights under the First Amendment. A federal judge ruled in 1988 that a Florida law prohibiting exit polling within 150 feet of polling places was unconstitutional.
Note: A university study of exit polls in the 2004 election showed strong evidence of elections manipulations. Could this be why certain powerful individuals want to limit exit polls?
Police and prosecutors are facing allegations that they misled a judge and grossly exaggerated evidence against the only man to be detained in Britain over September 11. There is renewed scrutiny on two fronts of the role played by Scotland Yard and the Crown Prosecution Service in making unfounded claims that Lotfi Raissi trained the 9/11 hijackers. The Independent Police Complaints Commission has opened an investigation into the conduct of the Anti-Terrorist Branch detectives who arrested Mr Raissi in 2001 and prepared the evidence against him. The alleged terrorist link was one of a number of false allegations made against Mr Raissi. Prosecutors claimed in court that he was the “lead instructor” for the main hijackers who crashed aircraft into the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon. The FBI was said to have video material showing him in the company of Hani Hanjour, one of the hijack pilots. However, all the evidence was shown to be unsubstantiated and, in February 2002, District Judge Timothy Workman ordered Mr Raissi’s release. Mr Raissi has since made several unsuccessful attempts to obtain an official apology from the Home Office and the Metropolitan Police. Successive Home Secretaries have resisted his request for an acknowledgment that he was wrongfully arrested. Mr Raissi said: “My life has been ruined. I lost my freedom, my reputation and my career. The courts have said I am innocent — why does the Home Secretary not accept this?”
Almost half of all Americans believe the November elections have more influence than market forces. For them, the plunge at the pump is about politics, not economics. According to a new Gallup poll, 42 percent of respondents agreed with the statement that the Bush administration "deliberately manipulated the price of gasoline so that it would decrease before this fall's elections." Fifty-three percent of those surveyed did not believe in this conspiracy theory, while 5 percent said they had no opinion. The excitement—and suspicion—among U.S. motorists follows a post-summer decline in gasoline prices that even veteran analysts and gas station owners concede has been steeper than usual. The retail price of gasoline has plunged by 50 cents, or 17 percent, over the past month to average $2.38 a gallon nationwide, according to Energy Department statistics. That is 42.5 cents lower than a year ago, when the energy industry was still reeling from the aftermath of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, which damaged petroleum platforms, pipelines and refineries across the Gulf Coast. Fimat USA oil analyst Antoine Halff said there is no doubt that "the downturn in prices is welcome news from an electoral standpoint for the ruling party." But he scoffed at the notion that the U.S. president had the power to muscle around a global market.
Nearly 70 percent of the rescue and cleanup workers who toiled in the dust and fumes at ground zero have had trouble breathing, and many will probably be sick for the rest of their lives, doctors said Tuesday in releasing results of the biggest Sept. 11 health study yet. The Mount Sinai Medical Center study is conclusive proof of a link between recovery work at the World Trade Center ruins and long-term respiratory problems, doctors aid.
Faced with an angry minority of people who believe the Sept. 11 attacks were part of a shadowy and sprawling plot run by Americans, separate reports were published this week by the State Department and a federal science agency insisting that the catastrophes were caused by hijackers who used commercial airliners as weapons. The official narrative of the attacks has been attacked as little more than a cover story by an assortment of radio hosts, academics, amateur filmmakers and others. As a motive, they suggest that the Bush administration wanted to use the attacks to justify military action in the Middle East. A nationwide poll taken earlier this summer...found that more than a third of those surveyed said the federal government either took part in the attacks or allowed them to happen. And 16 percent said the destruction of the trade center was aided by explosives hidden in the buildings. Details are available at http://newspolls.org. The State Department report...is titled, "The Top Sept. 11 Conspiracy Theories" and says, "Numerous unfounded conspiracy theories about the Sept. 11 attacks continue to circulate, especially on the Internet." Produced by an arm of the State Department known as a "counter-misinformation team," the report is dated Aug. 28...at http://usinfo.state.gov/media/misinformation.html. Among those now propelling the argument that explosives took down the trade center is Steven E. Jones, a physics professor at Brigham Young University, coeditor with Mr. Ryan of www.journalof911studies.com, which published his paper, "Why Indeed Did the World Trade Center Buildings Completely Collapse on 9-11-2001?"
The Securities and Exchange Commission is looking into how voting-machine maker Diebold Inc. reports revenue. The informal inquiry into Diebold, which also makes security equipment and ATMs, apparently involves two occasions when the company had to restate revenue, company spokesman Mike Jacobsen said. Both situations involved the voting machine business. Diebold shipped voting machines in Ohio in the second quarter of 2005 and made a change to report that revenue in the third quarter. The SEC normally does not comment on investigations.
Note: For very concerning information on Diebold ownership, see http://www.WantToKnow.info/votingproblems
Eighty-nine Democratic members of the U.S. Congress last week sent President George W. Bush a letter asking for explanation of a secret British memo that said "intelligence and facts were being fixed" to support the Iraq war in mid-2002. The timing of the memo was well before the president brought the issue to Congress for approval. The Times of London newspaper published the memo -- actually minutes of a high-level meeting on Iraq held July 23, 2002 -- on May 1. British officials did not dispute the document's authenticity.
An instructor at the University of Wisconsin who has said he believes U.S. officials orchestrated the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, will be allowed to teach a course on Islam, the school said Monday. Some state politicians had called for the University of Wisconsin-Madison to fire part-time instructor Kevin Barrett after he spoke about his theories on a radio talk show last month. "We cannot allow political pressure from critics of unpopular ideas to inhibit the free exchange of ideas," Provost Patrick Farrell said in a statement. "To the extent that his views are discussed, Mr. Barrett has assured me that students will be free - and encouraged - to challenge his viewpoint." The university does not endorse Barrett's theories, Farrell said, noting they are widely believed in parts of the Muslim world.
Note: Kevin Barrett has drawn quite a bit of attention on Fox News and in the media in Wisconsin. Other than Fox and the above article, no major media picked up this story. In the charged interview on Fox News, he did quite a respectable job. You can view it at http://www.911podcasts.com/display.php?vid=135.
Michael Berg, whose son Nick was beheaded in Iraq in 2004, said on Thursday he felt no sense of relief at the killing of the al Qaeda leader in Iraq and blamed President Bush for his son's death. The United States said its aircraft killed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the insurgent leader who masterminded the death of hundreds in suicide bombings and was blamed for the videotaped beheading of Nick Berg, a U.S. contractor, and other captives. "I don't think that Zarqawi is himself responsible for the killings of hundreds of thousands of people in Iraq," Berg said in a combative television interview with the U.S. Fox News network. Berg said Bush was to blame for the torture of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad. "Yeah, like George Bush didn't OK the torture and death and rape of people in the Abu Ghraib prison for which my son was killed in retaliation?" Zarqawi's organization took responsibility for the execution of Nick Berg in May 2004. The video was published with a caption saying: "Abu Musab al-Zarqawi slaughtering an American." When an Islamist Web site showed the video of a man severing Berg's head, the CIA said Zarqawi was probably the one wielding the knife. The father said he was not convinced. "I have been lied to by my own government," he told Reuters on Thursday.
Note: There are many very strange circumstances surrounding the beheading of Nick Berg. For a report from Australia's leading newspaper on this, see http://www.WantToKnow.info/nickberg
The chief of Amnesty International USA alleged Sunday that the Guantanamo Bay detention camp is part of a worldwide network of U.S. jails, some of them secret, where prisoners are mistreated and even killed. "The U.S. is maintaining an archipelago of prisons around the world, many of them secret prisons, into which people are being literally disappeared, held in indefinite, incommunicado detention without access to lawyers or a judicial system or to their families," Schulz said. "And in some cases, at least, we know they are being mistreated, abused, tortured and even killed." A high-ranking Republican senator said Sunday that hearings on abuse allegations at Guantanamo Bay might be appropriate, and a top Democratic senator suggested closing down the prison. "Look, it's very difficult to run a perfect prison," Majority Whip Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said on CNN's "Late Edition." "But we have an open country. We have hearings on a whole lot of different subjects. We might well have hearings on this."
Steven Jones, the Brigham Young University physics professor embroiled in controversy over his theories on the Twin Towers' collapse, is retiring Jan. 1. "I am electing to retire so that I can spend more time speaking and conducting research of my choosing," Jones said in an interview Friday. "I appreciate the wonderful opportunity I have had to teach and serve and do research at BYU for more than 21 years." In September, the university...placed Jones on paid leave in order to conduct a professional review of his controversial Sept. 11 theories. The review...has been canceled due to Jones' retirement. The professor had given several public lectures on his theories of why the World Trade Center collapsed. Jones published the paper, "Why Indeed Did the World Trade Center Buildings Collapse?" online and began lecturing about his theories. Jones also recently was appointed co-chairman of Scholars for 9/11 Truth, "a nonpartisan association of faculty, students, and scholars, in fields as diverse as history, science, military affairs, psychology and philosophy, dedicated to exposing falsehoods and to revealing truths behind 9/11." He is also the co-editor of Journal of 9/11 Studies. He said he is not bitter toward BYU, and hopes to continue his research. [Jones' letter states] "Two structural engineering professors in Switzerland have recently spoken out as I have also done, declaring that explosives were with 'utmost probability' responsible for the collapse of World Trade Center 7 on Sept. 11."
The information that the Central Intelligence Agency has obtained by questioning men like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has provided valuable information and has helped disrupt terrorist plots, including strikes within the United States. For example, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed described the design of planned attacks of buildings inside the U.S. and how operatives were directed to carry them out. That is valuable information for those of us who have the responsibility to protect the American people. He told us the operatives had been instructed to ensure that the explosives went off at a high -- a point that was high enough to prevent people trapped above from escaping.
Note: What exactly did he mean by explosives going off in the planned attacks of building inside the U.S.? And wouldn't you want to hit low to keep more people trapped above?
An independent investigation has found that imprisoned former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham took advantage of secrecy and badgered congressional aides to help slip items into classified bills that would benefit him and his associates. Cunningham's case has put a stark spotlight on the oversight of classified or "black" budgets. Unlike legislation dealing with social and economic issues, intelligence bills and parts of defense bills are written in private, in the name of national security. That means it is up to members of Congress and select aides with security clearances to ensure that legislation is appropriate. Federal prosecutors found that Cunningham accepted $2.4 million in bribes, including payments for a mansion, a Rolls-Royce and a 65-foot yacht, in return for steering defense and intelligence contracts to certain companies. Cunningham pleaded guilty and was sentenced to more than eight years in prison. Efforts to direct money to specific projects or interests, called earmarking, are common. But more than a dozen government officials and other experts...agreed that the process is vulnerable to abuse because of its classified nature. Secret legislation long has been a tool for pet projects. A Democratic aide on the Senate committee from 1985 to 1991 said classified bills are the perfect place to slip in provisions not scrutinized. Rarely do members of Congress examine the legislation, which is stored in safes in each committee's windowless, vault-like offices.
SECRETARY RICE: Thank you very much. It is a pleasure to be here to swear in Dr. Gregg Rickman as our Special Envoy for Monitoring and Combating Anti-Semitism. Greg is going to serve as our first Anti-Semitism Special Envoy and this is a position that was created by the Global Anti-Semitism Review Act. I want to recognize the seminal role of Congress in creating this position. President Bush has said that defending freedom also means disrupting the evil of anti-Semitism. Today ethnic and religious differences are still viewed by some as a license to kill. And we are reminded of the sad history of humankind when prejudice and hatred turn violent against those who are simply different.
Note: Why not have a special envoy for monitoring and combating racism and prejudice?
Important Note: Explore our full index to revealing excerpts of key major media news articles on several dozen engaging topics. And don't miss amazing excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.