The BFEE is up to something with the Gates appointment.

[hedgehog]

I couldn't figure out why Bush waited until after the election to dump Rumsfled. I'm sure there are Republicans all across the country today wishing Rumsfled had left last August. Here's the deal: If Gates had been appointed sooner, there would have been hearings before the election and the Democrats might have won even more seats. Isn't it a little odd that when the military is standing up to refuse to torture people, someone is brought in from the CIA to run things? Just what was Gates' connection to the Iran-Contra scheme? Did Gates have anything to do with the Iranians holding on to the hostages until after Reagan was safely elected? As it is, the Republican Congress can rush through the approval before Christmas when people are too busy to pay attention. After all, we can't leave such an important post empty while we're at war, right?

[goclark]

1. Same zebra different color nt

[Skink]

7. They've got weapons to sell.

The next phase of the war will be about arming all middle easterners to the teeth.

[bryant69]

2. That last one might be closer to the truth

I don't know that Bush really wanted to get rid of Rumsfeld - but he knew it could happen and he wanted to be ready to change the story immediately. This move takes the wind out of one of the Democrats biggest and most logical requests (i.e. to get rid of Rumsfeld). If Republicans had won, well, he could say "Gates, i'm sorry, but i'm sticking with Rumsfeld."

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[MADem]

3. Bush doesn't like to appear weak, or as though he is kowtowing to pressure

THAT is why he lied about Rummy. And who knows, he might have lied about Big "Fuck Yourself" Dick too, as he was in the same declaration.

Had he dumped Rummy well before the Army/Navy/USAF/USMC Times editorial, he might have convinced people that it was his own idea...hell, he could have gotten Rummy to say he was sick and needed to leave. But once that editorial came out, his back was flat against the wall, and it was too close to election day, in any event. Plus, there were calls for Rummy's resignation growing louder and louder, and Dimson likes to claim that he doesn't cave in to pressure.

Of course, we finally discovered that he will eventually cave in to pressure from his PARENTS. We should have gotten on their asses SOONER!!!!!!

Since Big Dick went a-huntin' on election day, he's joining the former Vice President Bush in the "Out of the Loop" club, it would seem. Wonder how long it will be before HIS "health" requires him to "regretfully submit" his resignation????

[formercia]

4. Inquiring minds want to know.

The stench of Iran-Contra and other games Bush gang have been playing still clings to that suit.

[acmavm]

5. Of course they are. They're bringing back the boys who can

pull dirty tricks and avoid prosecution, the real pros.

Remember who bush**s daddy is. You think he can't cover up some criminal activity. He wasn't the head of the CIA for nothing. In fact, if rumor is true, he's been covering up major criminal activity and murders for decades now.

[azurnoir]

6. May be

the American people are really tired of the country being run like a high stakes poker game, I suspect that "outrage fatigue" powered the election to a very great degree, look at how many here were waiting for KKKarls October surprise. There is serious shit going on and people are tired of this crap, it makes those playing look as if they truly don't care because they are above it any way, we don't have the time or energy to waste on political games.

[gerrilea]

8. I just got an email from BBV and Bev Harris about him...

I know alot of people here don't like B. Harris and BBV and I agree...the promises she made weren't kept...among other things...

But the email says that Gates was part of a group...Votehere that helped push through HAVA and the connections to some type of computer programming that was included into the Diebold machines...

I will post, if I can figure it out...the email...

I don't know if I trust Gates...and with this new info...makes me wonder what's really going on here...


Hope this info helps...

[gerrilea]

9. I hope this helps everyone...it just makes me wonder what's up....

As I said in my last post I would try to copy the email I got and here it is in it's entirety...


Permission to excerpt or reprint granted, with link to
http://www.blackboxvoting.org

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

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

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

You can find copies of the VoteHere lobbying forms here:
http://sopr.senate.gov/cgi-win/m_opr_viewer.exe?DoFn=0

I can't get them to save to pdf, perhaps you can. Enter search terms in both
"registrant" and "client" fields and put in terms "Rhoads" "Livingston" and
"Votehere" (one at a time.). Then look at the gravy train while it was in the
process of derailing American democracy.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[hedgehog]

10. Now, this is the kind of thing I'm talking about.

This guy came up through the CIA which probably menas that he was up to his eyeballs fixing elections overseas. It only makes sense he's bringing his skills home. AS I indicated above, look out for him to bring in the CIA to torture POWs or detainees or whatever the name du jour is.