Latest News on the Most Recent NH Republican Phone Scam

[_dynamicdems]

This e-mail was just sent out from the NH Democratic Party about the scam that is being perpetuated on behalf of Congressman Charlie Bass. Remember Charlie? Just a bit ago, one of his staffers was arrested for blogging (AS A DEMOCRAT ON A LIBERAL BLOG) on taxpayer time and equipment to undermine the candidacy of his Democratic opponent, Paul Hodes.

Some of this is NH specific (the volunteer hotlines and site) but I'm posting the entire mail in case there are any NH folks who didn't get this message.

In any case, let NH serve as a warning: if the Repugs are doing it here, you can bet they are doing or trying it elsewhere.

The New Hampshire Democratic Party continues to receive word that thousands of households in the Second Congressional District are receiving multiple misleading automated phone calls that sound as if they are coming from Paul Hodes when they in fact are NOT. The calls are, in fact, coming from the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC). Furthermore, these calls are going to people on the national "Do Not Call" list, which is a violation of state law.

The New Hampshire Democratic Party confirmed on Friday that these calls are indeed going to individuals on the Federal Do Not Call list and in New Hampshire, and according to NH RSA 664:14-IVa each violation shall result in a $5,000 penalty.

Yet despite the fact that his party is placing these illegal calls on his behalf, Congressman Charlie Bass has refused to call on national Republicans to stop breaking New Hampshire law. If Charlie Bass cannot stand up to his Party on illegal phone calls in his own district, how can he stand up for New Hampshire in the United States Congress?

The Republican Party and Charlie Bass are trying to suppress voter turnout on Election Day. They see that New Hampshire families are calling out for change and they are resorting to desperate and illegal measures hoping to scrape through to victory.

Here are the transcripts of the known calls. THIS IS NOT PAUL HODES' campaign.

Full transcript of one call:
In a positive upbeat tone. "Hello I'm calling with information about Paul Hodes... When it comes to taxes, liberal Paul Hodes has a plan to roll back some of the recent federal tax cuts, including relief from the marriage penalty, the increased child tax credit, the cut in income tax rate, and death tax relief. New Hampshire taxpayers can't afford Paul Hodes. Vote no on Paul Hodes. Paid for by the national republican congressional committee and not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee. www.nrcc.org. Goodbye."

Partial transcript for second call:
"?But liberal Paul Hodes says that the Medicare Part D prescription drug plan needs to be repealed which could leave many of New Hampshire's seniors desperate for help. Democrat Paul Hodes is apparently putting politics before a program that benefits senior citizens. Vote no on Paul Hodes. Paid for by the National Republican Congressional Committee and not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee. www.nrcc.org. Bye."

IT IS IMPERATIVE THAT WE ALL GET OUT THE VOTE ON TUESDAY SO THAT THESE REPUBLICAN DIRTY TRICKS CAN BE A THING OF THE PAST.

CLICK HERE or on the following link to volunteer: www.keepnhblue.com

OR CALL our office at [phone].

REPORT this or any other GOP dirty trick, email [e-mail].

ALSO, you can MAKE A FORMAL COMPLAINT to the New Hampshire Attorney General's office by calling the following toll-free hotline: [phone]

These people are scum.

[ChiciB1]

1. We MUST Get More Attention Here!! Same Thing Happening In FL!

I'm kicking this for you... You can kick my post or I will!

This needs to Go National!

[_dynamicdems]

2. Unbelievable! Voter suppression is going to backfire on these bastards!

Florida and NH can't be alone. They are probably doing it everywhere but they haven't been caught yet.

Thanks for the kick. I'm heading over to check out your post and give it a K&R now.

[ChiciB1]

13. Well Folks... This Went About As Far As My SPIT!!

I live in Florida and I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO!!! Charlie Crist is THE ATTORNEY GENERAL HERE!

Charlie Crist is running for Governor!! Jebby & Crist ARE THE PROBLEM!!

Are we simply going to do NOTHING?? I don't know who to call! Cruella Harris is my Representative!

Who do I call?? Ghost Busters?? Can't call the U.S. Attorney General, he would probably want to TORTURE me!

What do we do??? For this to be an "issue" AFTER the election will do NOTHING!!!

[_dynamicdems]

15. Call your state Democratic Party.

I don't know how much they can or will do, but it is worth a shot.

Other than that, tell everyone you know. Send letters to the editors. If you have a liberal paper anywhere in your area, maybe the will print something.

It really bites that people are worried about Diebold but they are ignoring suppression. Classic diversion. Let me put it this way: if the Repugs were confident that they could Diebold us, they wouldn't be suppressing the vote. They wouldn't need to.

While everyone is looking in one direction, they are attacking from another. Bastards. What can we do but keep telling everyone we know?

You are right: AFTER the election is too damn late. We're stuck with Sununu in NH because of the crap they pulled in '02. Sure the story finally comes out and people are going to jail, but it doesn't change a thing for NH because we still got cheated in the election.

[salin]

3. gets worse

according to TPM: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/010819.php

If the caller hangs up - the autocaller dials back, again and again and again....

I would bet this is happening all over the place.

[_dynamicdems]

4. It might be part of a national campaign. It's happening in FL too.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=2929156&mesg_id=2929156

[ChiciB1]

5. Yes, The Term Is Robo-Calls... And It Is Happening!!

I posted too from Florida! I thought it was only because Jennings was ahead of Buchanan who has OUT SPENT her 4 or 5 to 1, but now it seems it's much more prevalent!!

They're doing it to Jim Davis too! My ignorance was assuming it was Crist & Jebby together, but apparently it's the Fish Head rotting down! Red-Rover et al!

Shameless cheating on a massive scale, and one still doesn't know about our ES&S voting machines here WITHOUT a paper trail are going to turn a worm or not. We did get a referendum on the ballot for paper, but it hasn't passed yet!!

How much better our lives would be without these scum-bags!!!

[Red Knight]

11. Yep--it's all over the place

Here in Pennsylvania too:

http://www.loismurphy.org/index.asp?p=5&r=95


6th District calls prompt complaints to FCC
Saturday, November 04, 2006
Some Democrats say Republican automated telephone messages criticizing candidate Lois Murphy are deceptive.

From the Reading Eagle

By Kori Walter
November 4, 2006

The answering machine in Leslie A. Rebmann's Union Township home has been filling up with messages lately.

They're not from friends or relatives.

Not even with messages from irate constituents in the southern Berks County township where Rebmann serves on the board of supervisors.

The campaign for the 6th Congressional District, one of the most expensive and tightest races in the country, has been keeping Rebmann's answering machine full.

Rebmann said she has been getting as many as three calls a day about the race between Republican incumbent James W. Gerlach and Democratic challenger Lois Murphy.

Most of the calls are automated messages also known as “robocalls” from the National Republican Campaign Committee trashing Murphy, said Rebmann, who is a also Democrat.

“I just ignore them now, but it's annoying,” Rebmann said. “More and more I have been letting the answering machine just take care of it.”

The Republican committee has launched hundreds of thousands of automated telephone calls in at least 53 competitive House races, The Associated Press reported.

The automated messages in Berks start by claiming to offer important information about Murphy, a Montgomery County lawyer making her second attempt to unseat Gerlach.

But the messages go on to criticize Murphy's positions on taxes, the war in Iraq and other issues.

Only callers who listen to the entire message find out that the calls are coming from Republicans, not Murphy's campaign.

“I felt they were very deceptive,” Rebmann said.

About a dozen Berks residents have filed complaints about the calls with the Federal Communications Commission, according to Murphy's campaign.

FCC rules say all prerecorded messages must begin by stating 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.

Wyomissing resident Jane B. Palmer said her caller identification system shows all zeroes when the automated calls come into her home.

Palmer, a registered Democrat, said she has received about 30 of the calls. She is among those who have filed complaints with the FCC.

“What pushed me over the line was the sense that it was a dirty trick,” Palmer said. “I talked to some of my friends and they thought the calls were coming from the Murphy campaign, and it's annoying.”

Palmer said she filed a formal complaint with the hope that the FCC will crack down on such tactics in future campaigns.

Amy Bonitatibus, Murphy's campaign spokeswoman, said the tactic appears to be backfiring against the Republicans.

“We have more than 30 people in the district who have filed FCC complaints and have said as a result that they are not voting for Jim Gerlach,” Bonitatibus said.

John Gentzel, a Gerlach campaign spokesman, stressed that the calls have not been coming directly from the two-term lawmaker's campaign.

“I understand what people are saying,” Gentzel said. “This isn't part of our campaign. The NRCC is doing them, apparently.”

The 6th District includes part of Berks, including sections of Reading, and Chester and Montgomery counties and two precincts in Lehigh County.

[smartknowledgeu]

16. Yes, but what if you're vote doesn't even count !

Despite these dirty tricks, here is a sobering thought. What if your vote doesn’t even count?

John Kerrey allegedly privately confided to his closest colleagues that he believed Bush stole the 2004 Presidential election. He confided that the differences in certain voting districts between exit polls and “official” results in which electronic voting machines were employed were well beyond random chance and what could statistically be possible, and thus, appeared to involve fraud.

Russian dictator Jospeh Stalin once stated, “Those who vote decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything.” While it is generally accepted by people worldwide that this has happened numerous times in the electoral process of countries dominated by corrupt politicians and dictators, what if this has also happened in the U.S.? I’m not saying that it has, or even that I think it has, but what if?

If it seems ludicrous that this may have already happened in the United States, consider this fact. Clinton Eugene Curtis, a computer programmer, testified under oath before the U.S. House Judiciary Members in Ohio in 2004 after the U.S. Presidential elections that he had developed a software program capable of rigging election results for Congressman Tom Feeney (who was a former running mate of George Bushs’s brother Jeb and the Speaker of the House of Florida at that time). He further testified under oath, that the only way anyone could know that election results had been rigged was to view the source code. To this date, the source code of electronic voting machines used in voting districts with voting result anomalies during the 2004 Presidential elections has not yet been released (to my knowledge). Watch the video here http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/40755

Clinton Eugene Curtis testified, still under oath, that it was his belief, given the anomalies of the voting poll election results in Ohio, that fraud had been perpetrated during the 2004 U.S. Presidential elections. Furthermore, the General Accounting Office stated that it was impossible to verify the integrity of the 2004 U.S. Presidential election results.

So has the erosion of democracy already progressed to such a point, that like Joseph Stalin stated, voting doesn’t even matter because those that count the votes decide who wins? And do those that win determine the foreign policy direction of a country no matter the desires of the people? If there is any uncertainty at all regarding the answer to this question, the following steps are necessary to ensure the integrity of democratic processes:

(1) abolish all electronic voting machines; and
(2) have all voting ballots audited by an independent company with no political party affiliations.

Read the rest of my thoughts here about this matter here: http://www.smartknowledgeu.com/blog/

[rateyes]

6. Same thing in GA District 8

Jim Marshall v. Mac Collins. I've hung up on them 7 times already!

[salin]

8. reportedly it will KEEP dialing you back, unless you listen to the whole thing

document, document, document... the timing - the number (probably won't show) and try listening (if it doesn't kill you from disgust to do so) and write down the script they use. Send all of it along to local and regional tv, radio and newspapers. They get enough stories like yours - and they will be much more likely to report it.

[_dynamicdems]

9. No wonder Rove and Bush are still smiling.

I've started a new thread for this for national. Everyone has to be on the lookout for this as it is apparently not just a couple of states. This has to be stopped and correct information gotten out before Tuesday.

So far, NH, FL, GA... These bastards are going to cheat again. I think they are willing to sacrifice the few who may go to jail in a couple of years to change the outcome of the this election. That's pretty ruthless.

[sarge43]

7. Thanks for the info.

I'm calling the AG's office first thing tomorrow (yeah, I'm a Granitehead). I don't know if I've gotten any of these robocalls. I always hang up the second I hear that recording click. However, it doesn't matter. They're illegal in this state and if enough of us bitch about the degrading of our system, maybe something will finally happen.

I can't do much, but I don't have to stay silent.

[_dynamicdems]

10. It looks like the NHDP is already on this but the more phone calls to the AG

the better. Apparently it's happening in other states too. Maybe NH Repugs are less competitent than those in other states, but they do seem to get caught more often. I've started a new thread for people in all states to be on the alert for this kind of thing because it's now happened in three states according to posts in this thread. There is probably much more going on nationwide.

GOTV is more important than ever. These next two days will decide the future of our country. Let's work our asses off and hope the angels are on our site. We know which side the devils are on.

[sarge43]

12. Thanks again.

I'll still call.

If I receive any more robocalls, I'll hold down my bile and try to get as much as info as possible. Then, report it.

[sandyd921]

14. What creeps gopers are!

n/t

[FernBell]

17. criminal campaigning as usual