NH Primary: Pre-Election Polls Wildly Different Than Results Announced for Clinton/Obama

Brad Blog
Tuesday January 9, 2008

Other Pre-Election Numbers, For Republicans and Rest of Dems, Nearly Dead on the Money...

[UPDATED several times at end of article, and still developing with new updates...]

I'm not sure why Obama would have conceded so soon, given the virtually inexplicable turn of events in New Hampshire tonight.

What's going on here? Before proceeding, I recommend you read the third section of the post I just ran an hour or so ago, concerning the way the ballots are counted in New Hampshire, largely on Diebold optical-scan voting systems, wholly controlled and programmed by a very very bad company named LHS Associates.

Those Diebold op-scan machines are the exact same ones that were hacked in the HBO documentary, Hacking Democracy. See the previous report, as I recommend, which also includes a video of that hack, and footage of the guy who runs LHS Associates.

That said, the the pre-election pollster's numbers (NOTE: that's not Exit Polls, but Pre-Election Polls!) were dead-on, for the most part, on the Republican side, as well as on the Democratic side. Except in the do-or-die (for Hillary) Clinton v. Obama race. I'm watching MSNBC right now, and they all seem to agree that the results, for the moment, defy explanation.

Here's a screenshot of a round up of all of the latest polls from RealClearPolitics.com tonight, and more, to get an idea of the serious concerns here...

They were all not just wrong, but wildly wrong. But only for the Clinton/Obama race.

For a closer look, here's Zogby's predicted numbers, for both the Republicans and Democrats:

And here are the latest numbers from the MSNBC website (the numbers seem to be identical over at CNN and elsewhere):

As you'll note, the numbers in Zogby's latest polls, for all but Clinton and Obama, seem to have been dead-on the money for both the Republicans and Democrats. Edwards, for example, was polled at 17% in Zogby's poll, and he received exactly 17% in the MSNBC numbers, with 63% of precincts reporting. So are we to believe that only those voters who preferred Obama previously, decided to change to Hillary at the last minute? I suppose so.

This election was regarded as do-or-die for Clinton, after most in the media had already written her off after her "thumpin'" in Iowa. But Tim Russert just agreed with Brokaw and Matthews that "this was the most stunning upset in the history of politics."

They are already grasping for reasons that this happened: the crying; she found her voice; the women turned out; oldline Dems showed up, etc. All reminiscent, if you ask me, of "the evangelicals who turned out at the very last minute to vote for Bush in 2004" as the Exit Poll apologists wrote in what would become conventional wisdom at the time. (Where did they get that info? The Exit Polls, they'll tell you. The same ones that they will also tell you were wildly wrong on every other count, apparently.)

Olbermann just called it "a titanic upset victory" for Clinton.

So, with another nod to the third section of the article I posted earlier here tonight, what's going on here?

While I have no evidence at this time --- let me repeat, no evidence at this time --- of chicanery, what we do know is that chicanery, with this particular voting system, is not particularly difficult. Particularly when one private company --- and a less-than-respectable one at that, as I detailed in the previous post --- runs the entire process.

I should also note that some 40% of New Hampshire's precincts are hand-counted, which equals about 25% of the votes. All the rest are counted on hackable Diebold op-scan systems, with completely hackable memory cards, all programmed and managed by LHS Associates. As Bev Harris of BlackBoxVoting.org who seems to share my concern, says, LHS is the "chain of custody" in New Hampshire elections.

Other folks that I've spoken to, who follow this sort of thing, share my concern at this hour. Harris noted that it will be interesting to compare numbers of the hand-counted precincts with those counted on the hackable Diebold op-scan systems.

If I was Barack Obama, I'd certainly not have conceded this election this quickly. I'm not quite sure what he was thinking. And as far as offering an indication of whether he understands how these systems work, and the necessity of making sure that votes are counted, and counted accurately, it does not offer a great deal of confidence at this hour.

I'm trying to get in touch with his campaign, to let them know of these concerns. I hope you'll feel free to let them know as well, if any of you happen to be in touch with them, or a part of the campaign. I will, of course, be happy to discuss these concerns with them if they wish to call.

As mentioned, the numbers referred to above are not Exit Polls. They are Pre-Election Polls which are far less reliable than Exit Polls. So, if anybody knows where any decent Exit Polling data is, we'd appreciate it if you linked it in comments below...

---

UPDATE 9:18pm PT: This AP report includes information, said to be based on data from the Exit Polls. It indicates that the independents in NH, who may vote in either the R or D primary, voted mostly D, and were breaking for Obama. AP claims, however, that the same data show that Clinton's strength with women "offset that"...

Early exit poll data indicated six in 10 independents opted for the Democratic contest and Obama led among them, but Clinton's advantage among women offset that.
...
The results are from exit polls Tuesday in 50 precincts around New Hampshire for The Associated Press and television networks by Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International. The Democratic primary survey interviewed 1,800 voters, the Republican primary poll 1,301. The sampling error margin was plus or minus 4 percentage points for each exit poll.

Note: the Exit Pollsters used here were Mitofsky/Edison, the same ones who ran the infamous Exits in 2004 showing that, in state after state, Kerry should have won. They also later said their own polling was completely wrong (which is disputed strongly by statistics experts such as U. of Pennsylvania Prof. Steven F. Freeman Ph.D.) So, it's lovely that AP and the TV nets hired them again...

UPDATE 9:40pm PT: While the talking heads are trying to figure out what happened here on MSNBC, Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post, while paging through a stack of papers said to be Exit Poll data, just said: "Of those who made up their mind in the last three days, there was a slight favoring for Obama. If there was a huge difference in a move to Hillary, in the last three days, it doesn't seem to be reflected in the Exit Polling."

UPDATE 9:48pm PT: Olbermann repeated what Russert had said earlier, that Obama's internal polls showed him winning by 14%, Clinton's internal polls had Obama winning by 11%.

The effect of Obama being an African-American, the so-called "Bradley Effect", is now being discussed as the newest "reason" to explain the numbers. Though it's noted that it didn't effect Harold Ford in TN in '06, or even Obama in Iowa just five days ago.

(ADDED: Josh Holland from Alternet points out via email, correctly, concerning my point about the "Bradley Effect" not coming into play in Iowa: "The 'Bradley effect' would not work in an open caucus, where everyone can see whom everyone else is supporting. The theory requires the privacy of a voting booth." He's correct. Thanks for pointing that out! --- BF)

UPDATE 11:06pm PT: As we know, the presumption is always that the polls were wrong. Never the results. Despite how much less transparent the system used to count votes is than the system used to collect polling data. With that in mind, Matthew Yglesias at The Atlantic, makes the following point, in a post headlined "How Wrong Were the Polls?", suggesting that the only numbers that changed here were Clinton's. She surged. Everyone else, even Obama who just had an historic victory in Iowa five days ago, did not...

Commenter Brian makes an observation "No one is talking about how the polls actually nailed Obama's number. Obama didn't lose this election. He stayed steady and Hillary surged ahead." That seems to be true. Here's a chart comparing the actual results to the most recent Pollster.com current standard estimate polling average.

Just as Brian says, the difference between the Obama poll level and the Obama vote total level seems to just be your basic statistical variance. The pollsters underestimated Clinton's level of support. People who were undecided as of the last round of polling seem to have gone overwhelmingly in her direction.

So where did her votes come from, if Exit Polling data showed, as mentioned by MSNBC above, that last minute deciders broke evenly, and even a bit more for Obama??

UPDATE 1/9/08, 12:49am PT: Bev Harris offers this very useful information in comments below. Worth elevating the key points up here to the original post:

New Hampshire, for the Democrats, was the exact opposite of Iowa. They used one of the worst voting systems in America and then handed programming of every memory card in New Hampshire over to a private outfit run by John Silvestro.

First order of business needs to be examining the published precinct results and comparing the hand count locations to the optical scam locations.

The results web site does not make this easy. You have to hover your mouse over each one of about 250 municipalities and then take a screen grab and then type it into a spreadsheet.

So far, no one I know has completed that task.

Here is the site with the municipality results:
http://www.politico.com/...imaries/nhmap-popup.html

Here is a comma delimited data file I created with the municipalities and whether they are hand counted or opscam:
http://www.bbvdocs.org/N...-08-votingsystems-NH.txt

I took the information from the NH Sec State site. A few of the locations do not have the voting system specified; if they have a low population, they are probably hand count.

Whoever gets the handcount vs opscam spreadsheet done gets two points. The tools are in the two links above.

Additionally, BeeSting then makes our night, with a pointer to this Ron Paul website, which lists all of the precinct results, and how each one of them was counted (by hand, or by Diebold/LHS Associaties/John Silverstro).

Thank you BeeSting and Bev both! Looks like we'll have lots to learn in the morning...

UPDATE 1/9/08 1:40am PT: Last update for the night. I hope. A quick note on all of this.

Over at Daily Kos, diarist "AHiddenSaint" has written a post quoting, and linking over to this one, by way of sharing his/her concerns about the NH results.

The result: an embarrassing thread of comments, smashing up AHiddenSaint for posting something that the dKos commenters feel is little more than "conspiracy theory". Foolishly (for them), they have taken a sentence from the original post, in which I noted that I "have no evidence at this time --- of chicanery," to wonder why I would therefore write such a post at all. Their claim: that I am some how charging that Clinton stole the election.

I have made no such claim. In fact, if there was skullduggery here, there are plenty of reasons to believe it could have been committed by any number of interested parties, who have nothing to do with the Clinton campaign.

Daily Kos, of course, is a Clinton-centric website, which, more disturbingly, purged diaries and diarists after the 2004 Ohio election, if they were judged to be questioning what went on there. I spoke to Markos (the site's founder) about that, when we were at a conference together in Vegas last Summer. He stills stands by his decision to purge those folks. That, despite so much that has come out since '04 to show that what happened was a travesty of democracy. As I told him then, he owes his readers an apology. He did add, however, that he has someone ("Georgia10") who now cover issues of Election Integrity on their front page.

The result of his purge, is the mindset of the commenters now seen over there. It seems to me they are are begging for a world of hurt, someday, when their candidate doesn't win, under questionable circumstances. They will, of course, have cornered themselves such that they won't be able to ask questions themselvses. In the bargain, they are now fostering a culture of fear. Fear of asking questions. Fear of insisting that our democracy be transparent, of the people, by the people and for the people. If it were only themselves they were hurting by fostering that culture, I wouldn't give a damn. But rest assured, their comments, actions and attitudes will be leveraged, as we move forward, to hurt all of us.

For the record, I am neither a Clinton supporter nor an Obama supporter (nor a supporter of anyone else in the race at this time, in any party.) I am a supporter of the VOTERS. Period. It's they --- us --- who could really use some support right about now. I intend to do exactly that. All damned year. No matter how many "tin foil hats" the shortsighted, self-destructive Kossack types, who are behaving like the worst of the Republicans, try to throw at me.

That's a promise. 'Night.

Ron Paul Votes Not Counted In New Hampshire District

Vote fraud confirmed, Clinton reversed mammoth pre-polling deficit to beat Obama, Diebold machines aid Giuliani, Romney

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet
Wednesday, January 9, 2008

Major allegations of vote fraud in New Hampshire are circulating after Hillary Clinton reversed a mammoth pre-polling deficit to defeat Barack Obama with the aid of Diebold electronic voting machines, while confirmed votes for Ron Paul in the Sutton district were not even counted.

According to a voter in Sutton, New Hampshire, three of her family members voted for Ron Paul, yet when she checked the voting map on the Politico website, the total votes for Ron Paul were zero.

With 100% of precincts now reporting, the map still says zero votes for Ron Paul as you can see below.

CLICK FOR ENLARGEMENT

It's not as if Sutton had a handful of voters like some other districts - a total of 386 people voted yet we are led to believe that not one voted for Ron Paul? Judging by the Iowa results, around 10% of residents would be expected to vote for the Congressman, returning a total of around 38 votes in this district. Let's be ultra-conservative and say just 5% support Paul - he'd still get 19 votes - but he got absolutely none whatsoever. Is there something wrong with this picture?

Greenville also tallied 144 votes yet not one for Congressman Paul.

Anyone else in Sutton who voted for Ron Paul needs to go public immediately with the charge of vote fraud and make it known that they were cheated out of their right to vote.

Diebold voting machines also did Congressman Paul no favors last night - compared to hand counted ballots Giuliani gained just short of 0.5% from electronic voting whereas Paul lost over 2%, which was the difference between finishing 4th and 5th, as this graph documents.

Mitt Romney profited the most from the Diebold swing, he received 7% more votes compared to hand counted ballots.

In the Democratic race the Diebold voting machines clearly swung the primary in Hillary Clinton's favor at the expense of Barack Obama, who had a commanding lead over the New York Senator going into the contest.

Zogby polling numbers had Obama leading Clinton by a whopping 42/29 per cent, yet Clinton eventually took the primary by three per cent.

"If I was Barack Obama, I'd certainly not have conceded this election this quickly," writes The Brad Blog. "I'm not quite sure what he was thinking. And as far as offering an indication of whether he understands how these systems work, and the necessity of making sure that votes are counted, and counted accurately, it does not offer a great deal of confidence at this hour."

"While I have no evidence at this time --- let me repeat, no evidence at this time --- of chicanery, what we do know is that chicanery, with this particular voting system, is not particularly difficult. Particularly when one private company --- and a less-than-respectable one at that, as I detailed in the previous post --- runs the entire process."

Clinton would not have beat Obama without the aid of Diebold voting machines. In precincts where electronic voting machines were used, Clinton got a 7% swing over Obama, having gained 5% in comparison to hand-counted ballots and Obama losing 2%.

As we reported yesterday, the contract for programming all of New Hampshire's Diebold voting machines, which combined counted 81 per cent of the vote yesterday, is owned by LHS Associates, whose owner John Silvestro has gone to great lengths to deflect accusations that the machines can easily be rigged.

After purchasing a Diebold 1.94w machine, the same system used in New Hampshire, a computer repair shop employee picked at random by Black Box Voting was able to zero in on the system's vulnerable memory card within just ten minutes. Hacking expert Harri Hursti testified in front of the New Hampshire legislature that the machines were wide open to fraud.

Dollar Falls, Gold Rises in Europe

LONDON (AP) — The U.S. dollar was mostly lower against other major currencies in European trading Tuesday. Gold rose.

The euro traded at $1.4710, up from $1.4696 late Monday in New York. Later, in midday trading in New York, the euro fetched $1.4721.

Other dollar rates in Europe, compared with late Monday, included 109.67 Japanese yen, up from 109.03; 1.1150 Swiss francs, down from 1.1162; and 0.9986 Canadian dollars, down from 1.0061.

The British pound was quoted at $1.9735, up from $1.9697.

In midday New York trading, the dollar bought 109.20 yen and 1.1127 Swiss francs, while the pound was worth $1.9727.

Gold traded in London at $874.20 per troy ounce, up from $857.30 late Monday. In Zurich, gold traded at $871.60 bid per troy ounce, up from $857.75.

Silver traded in London at $15.51, up from $15.13.

A New Low for Privacy in the U.S.

Bill Hahn
JBS
Tuesday January 8, 2007

Anyone, particularly anyone living in "the West" — that is Great Britain, the United States, etc. — who thinks that they aren’t falling prey to random surveillance might as well employ a rather well-known Sopranos technique and "fuhgetaboutit!"

Follow this link to the original source: "The US Sets the Standard … in Lack of Privacy!"

In a new online exclusive, and as a follow-up to his popular and in-depth article "Living Under Surveillance" for The New American, engineer and author Wilt Alston reveals that even he didn’t think America was as bad as it actually is when it comes to trading liberty and privacy for security. But, according to Alston, a new report sheds additional light on the situation and reveals how far down the slippery slope America has fallen.

The new report on surveillance around the world ranks nations with regard to the amount of effort they put into conducting surveillance on innocent citizens. Alston states that the study’s rankings are an indicator of the health of participatory government and freedom in a nation. The more pervasive the surveillance, the greater the attack on freedom. Unfortunately, as Alston notes, the report finds that the U.S., along with Great Britain and a few other nations, now has an "endemic surveillance society." In such a society freedom is much more likely to be trampled, a point not lost on America’s Founding Fathers.

Once again confirming that our Founders were indeed visionaries of freedom, Benjamin Franklin hit the nail on the head when he noted: "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."

Franklin and his compatriots knew that a federal government was a necessary evil that needed to be limited in its scope and power to prevent it from interfering with the rights and liberties of the people. To that end, the Founding Fathers attempted to prevent the government they created from expanding beyond its purpose by binding it with the Constitution. Unfortunately, politicians enamored with the idea of power have, over time, worked to loosen the bindings the Constitution placed on the growth of federal power, with the result that the nation was turned first into a welfare state and now into aforementioned endemic surveillance society.

This transition conflicts with the 4th Amendment which specifically guards a citizen’s right against unreasonable searches and seizures. After all, what is continuous public surveillance of citizens if not an ongoing unreasonable search? Such a practice runs counter to our most basic legal assumption, that we are innocent until proven guilty. Constant surveillance, on the contrary, is predicated on the idea that at any moment any person may commit a crime, or, in other words, that each citizen carries an incipient measure of guilt that has simply not been fully manifested. Endemic surveillance, in short, assumes guilt from the first.

Nothing could be more contrary to basic American beliefs and principles. Perhaps if Americans dusted off their copies of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, they would learn that government’s role to protect its citizens is not to be accomplished by monitoring and gathering and compiling information on the masses. This merely leads to trampling the privacy and Constitutional rights of law abiding citizens.

War-Hawks Attack Ron Paul With Smears

Abelardo J. Arias
Nolan Times
Tuesday January 8, 2007

The war-hawks will do anything to stop Ron Paul. They simply don't want his message of freedom and peace getting out. Fox News is losing market shares because they try to censor those who want to stop this war.

Now the war-hawks resort to calling Ron Paul a racist.

First, the New York Times claims that Ron Paul is in cahoots with KKK racists. Then they retract the story because the paper failed to properly investigate its own story.

Jamie Kirchick of the pro-war publication "New Republic", owned in part by Roger Hertog (a neoconservative), went on Tucker Carlson's show tonight to supposedly prove that Ron Paul is a racist, that he called Martin Luther King horrible things and is a secessionist (i.e. he probably supports slavery as well).

This is all hogwash. Brace yourself for the truth.

More and more Americans are realizing that Abraham Lincoln was a big-business white supremacist who wanted to forcibly deport the Negro slaves to Liberia in Africa. He said over and over that if he could win the Civil War without having to free one slave he would! Lincoln didn't fight to help the Negro slave in either the Northern territories or the South. He fought to prevent secession for his own political purposes. Lincoln, as Senator of Illinois, even supported a law keeping free Negro citizens out of that state. He only freed the slaves as a last resort because he was losing the war, but he still kept slavery alive in federal territories. Some hero of liberty!

There is no doubt that radical wackos and even racists are attracted to Ron Paul's message of liberty. But that does not for one second diminish the truth of Ron Paul's campaign or our need to return to the Constitution and end all foreign entanglements and occupations. The real racists are narrow-minded losers like these who oppose Ron Paul.

What some fringe associates of Ron Paul wrote in a newsletter years ago is as relevant to his candidacy today as Barack Obama's coke-snorting, Mike Hucabee's AIDS hysteria or Rudy Giuliani's cross-dressing. The war is real. The killing has to stop. And the time for the peace movement is now. MLK stood up to the pro-war establishment and forcefully spoke out against the Vietnam Quagmire and against Jim Crow. His critics silenced him with a bullet.

On Martin Luther King's Birthday, show the haters that Ron Paul's message of peace, freedom and prosperity is for all Americans, regardless of race, culture or religion. This will be the best money bomb yet for Ron Paul. We already broke the record in U.S. election history and we will do it again!

Ron Paul, muffled by Fox, wows Jay Leno

Andrew Malcolm
LA Times
Tuesday January 8, 2007

Last week, Mike Huckabee gave up the last half-day of campaigning for the Iowa Republican caucus and flew to Burbank, Calif., to appear on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno." Next day, Huckabee won.

So tonight, the night before the big New Hampshire primary, Ron Paul tried to pull a Huckabee. He flew all the way across the country for his own second appearance with Jay. And Leno, now a developing political kingmaker, greeted him with a most sympathetic hearing. You can see it on your NBC stations in a couple of hours. Paul's supporters, who financed a new eight-state ad blitz for their man, will be very happy with tonight's program.

It's not easy for a 72-year-old, 10-term congressman from Texas, who once before ran for president on the Libertarian ticket, to get much media attention. He's been polling a long time in single digits. But then a couple of things happened. Paul's thousands of outspoken, fervent followers set a new one-day fundraising record and reaped almost $20 million for him in the fourth quarter, likely more than any other GOP candidate. Then last week Paul came in fifth in Iowa with 10%, a lot better than the 4% of Rudy Giuliani, who'd criticized Paul strongly in an early debate.

But the best thing that happened to Paul in recent days was that despite his $20 million and his 10% showing in New Hampshire polls, Fox News excluded Paul from its Sunday night Republican debate with the big five -- Giuliani, Fred Thompson, Huckabee, Mitt Romney and John McCain. So Paul gets 10% in Iowa and gets excluded, but Rudy gets 4% and sits on the left end of the Fox Box desk. Hmmm.

There was quite an uproar and the New Hampshire GOP withdrew its sponsorship of the debate. Paul supporters, mocking the network's "Fair and Balanced" motto, flooded Fox with protests, calls and e-mails and are organizing a boycott of Fox sponsors. Never one to miss an opportunity, NBC's Leno invited Paul to appear and explain.

Introducing his guest as "a long-shot maverick," Leno said, "I'm trying to figure out why Fox News chose not to put you on."

"You know," Paul replied, "we tried to find that out. But they didn't return our call."

"You seem like a gentleman," notes Leno. "You don't seem like that type. But it seems like you should be kicking somebody's ass right now." [Laughter] [Applause] "You're being extremely polite for something I think you got screwed over, quite, you know, ....

I mean, I might not necessarily agree with you, but I think, as an American, we like to see everybody get an equal shot."

Paul speculates that Fox "didn't want to hear the message. Maybe they're intimidated. Maybe they're frightened. Maybe they don't want to hear the truth. Who knows?"

Full article here.

China planning to secure North Korea's nuclear arsenal: report

AFP
Tuesday January 8, 2007

China has contingency plans to dispatch troops into North Korea and secure nuclear weapons in the event of instability in the hardline communist state, according to US experts who have talked to Chinese military researchers.

Any intervention by Beijing would be done as far as possible after consultations with the United Nations but unilateral action was not ruled out, the experts said in a report published on the websites of two US think tanks.

"If deemed necessary, PLA troops would be dispatched into North Korea," the report said, referring to the Chinese People Liberation Army (PLA).

"China's strong preference is to receive formal authorization and coordinate closely with the UN in such an endeavor," it said.

"However, if the international community did not react in a timely manner as the internal order in North Korea deteriorated rapidly, China would seek to take the initiative in restoring stability."

The report was compiled by experts from the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the US Institute of Peace -- which published the report -- and Asia Foundation following their visit to China in June last year.

North Korea, which reportedly has up to 10 nuclear bombs, is currently involved in a denuclearization program in return for energy aid and diplomatic and security guarantees under a six-party mechanism involving also the United States, China, Russia, South Korea and Japan.

The program hit a snag recently after Washington accused Pyongyang of not meeting a December 31 deadline for a full declaration of its nuclear programs.

"According to PLA researchers, contingency plans are in place for the PLA to perform three possible missions" in North Korea -- humanitarian and peacekeeping missions and "environmental control" measures, the report said.

The measures are intended "to clean up nuclear contamination resulting from a strike on North Korean nuclear facilities" near the Sino-North Korean border and "to secure nuclear weapons and fissile materials."

The report -- entitled "Keeping An Eye On An Unruly Neighbor -- Chinese views of economic reform and stability in North Korea" -- said that in the event of instability in North Korea, China's main priority would be to prevent a flood of refugees.

This would be done by assuring supplies of food and strengthening border controls, it said.

"PLA officers maintain that they would attempt to close the border, but admit a lack of confidence that they could do so successfully, since the border extends 866 miles (1,394 kimometers) and can be easily penetrated," the report said.

Trans Texas Corridor Plans to Pave over Branch Davidians

Stu Nelson
JonesReport.com
January 7, 2008

Lets go back in time to February 28, 1993. We watch on the TV news as agents from the BATF storm a building somewhere outside Waco Texas. We hear that 4 BATF agents are killed. The news tells us all these people are religious gun freak fanatics whose leader is a child molester. Is that an accurate summation?

Well, for those of us in Texas, we have largely considered the best view of Waco was in the rear view mirror. Waco was a city you drove thru to get somewhere else. And, we had certainly never even heard of "those Branch people" before. Most of us did not really know what to make of this standoff outside Waco. The FBI, BATF, DPS, etc. ran pretty good propaganda…for a while.

This map shows the Branch Davidian property (in light red) off of Double EE Ranch road and the rebuilt Davidian church itself (circled in red) directly under the planned route of the Trans-Texas Corridor (the diagonal dotted line.

Now let’s remember April 19, 1993. This day was the 217th anniversary of the first battles of the American Revolution. Carol Moore points out in her book "The Davidian Massacre" that in 1775 a British expedition raided a Minuteman weapons stockpiles in Concord Massachusetts resulting in the Battles of Lexington and Concord.

That day, April 19, 1993 we were stunned to see tanks smashing into the side of those familiar walls. Tanks spraying nerve gas inside. Tanks used on a community of Americans. Then the fire started and everyone watching collectively said "Oh My God". The fire was blamed on the Davidians. Another collective word came out from all across America that starts with bull.

As the pictures come out of the aftermath, we see government agents grabbing "souvenirs", proudly having pictures taken and acting as though they had just won the Battle of the Bulge or Iwo Jima. Then researchers and film makers reveal the horror of "the truth" of the Waco Massacre. Video footage reveals snipers shooting Davidians escaping the fire. We find out about the gassing of women and children in the storm shelter. Later a sham trial in San Antonio for 9 survivors. Sent to prison for surviving something that is suppose to happen in Bosnia or Soviet Union or some distant African country run by war lords but NEVER, NEVER in America. We that love liberty and actually understand WHAT that is have said collectively…"NEVER AGAIN" "Remember Waco". This should be the "new collectivism".

Well, the Trans Texas Corridor (TTC) has its pavement rolling right over the top of the property called "Mt Carmel". We have the actual map route through Waco. We have since gotten copies, though McClendon county (Waco) claims they "no longer have them". We thought there was a moratorium of 2 yrs on the TTC. Well, as of Wednesday, 7-11-07, surveyors are out in force doing their job just outside the Davidian property.

The TTC route actually passes directly over the memorial church built there by volunteers over 7 months. Alex Jones, Mike Hanson and George Pullium put the call out and together literally hundreds of volunteer from many states and foreign countries answered the call to do something to honor the murdered at Mt Carmel.

Body parts from the 9-11 government sponsored attack are being found in lower Manhattan as you know. Paving roads with the remains of those that were murdered on 9-11. Now, the darkness continues with the TTC and the road going right over the crime scene at Mt Carmel. Psalm 94

Bill To Paul's Supporters: You're Nuts

Mike Memoli
NBC
Tuesday January 8, 2007

KEENE, NH -- Several Ron Paul supporters shadowed a much larger Clinton entourage as Bill Clinton greeted supporters downtown. The former president later called them "nuts."

During his third stop of the day, the former president posed for pictures and shook hands as he strolled down Main Street on this unseasonably warm Primary Eve day. Across the street, a few Paul supporters shouted his name.

Eventually, Clinton stopped outside a bakery, offered some remarks, and took questions. As he was answering one on Iraq, one of the Paul backers interrupted and shouted that the Sept. 11 attacks were an inside job, and that the U.S. didn’t need to be in Iraq and Afghanistan.

When he dropped an F-bomb, the crowd booed. Clinton, who had tried to talk over the man, gave up.

"You wanna know what I think?” Clinton said. “You guys who think 9/11 was an inside job are crazy as hell. My wife was the senator from New York when that happened. I was down at Ground Zero. I saw the victims' families. You're nuts."

Paulson Predicts Signs of `Slower Growth' Ahead

By Kevin Carmichael and John Brinsley

Jan. 7 (Bloomberg) -- Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said investors remain wary of U.S. markets and that further signs of ``slower growth'' will emerge before the economy shakes off the effects of the housing crisis.

``It will take additional time for markets to regain confidence,'' Paulson said in a speech to the New York Society of Security Analysts today in New York. ``We will likely have further indications of slower growth in the weeks and months ahead.''

The comments come as the Bush administration considers ways to invigorate an economy that some economists say may be on the verge of recession. The U.S. stock market is off to its worst start since 2000 as the housing slump and credit crunch weaken job growth and manufacturing.

Paulson didn't address the prospect of an economic stimulus package directly in his prepared remarks. While acknowledging that growth ``looks to have slowed considerably'' at the end of 2007, Paulson said the economy ``remains resilient'' and that he expects it to ``continue'' to expand.

``Let me be clear that no single policy or action will undo the excesses of the last few years,'' Paulson said. ``President Bush and his administration recognize the risk we face, and the primary importance of keeping the economy as strong as possible as we weather this housing correction.''

Paulson, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and the rest of the President's Working Group on Financial Markets met with President George W. Bush on Jan. 4.

Work With Congress

After the meeting, Bush said he will work with Congress to ``do everything we can'' to ensure the economy doesn't slip into a recession. The U.S. economy likely grew at an annual rate of 1 percent in the fourth quarter, according to the median estimate of economist surveyed last month, compared with a 4.9 percent rate in the third quarter.

Paulson, the former head of Goldman Sachs Group Inc., used the speech to assess the state of various capital markets.

He said equity and Treasury markets were functioning ``well.'' The U.S. market for ``high-grade debt'' is ``performing satisfactorily,'' and the ``high yield'' market is ``impaired but operational,'' Paulson said. The asset-backed paper market is showing ``progress,'' he said.

The speech was Paulson's first since a three-state trip last month to promote his plan to ease the subprime mortgage crisis, which includes freezing interest rates on loans to some borrowers. He said he expected mortgage servicers to ``begin fat-tracking borrowers in the next few weeks.''

In the remarks today, Paulson repeated a request that Congress pass legislation toughening oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two government-chartered enterprises that are the country's biggest sources of mortgage financing. With a stronger regulator, Paulson said the administration would back a temporary, higher limit on the size of loans the GSEs are allowed to securitize.

Iran confirms incident with U.S. ships: agency

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran on Monday confirmed there was an "incident" between Iranian and U.S. ships but gave no details, an Iranian news agency reported, after Washington said Iranian vessels threatened their ships in the Strait of Hormuz.

The Pentagon said five Iranian boats made aggressive maneuvers and showed hostile intent against three U.S. Navy ships on Saturday in the narrow entrance to the Gulf, a major oil shipping route.

The Pentagon said the incident was serious. It described the Iranian actions as "careless, reckless and potentially hostile" and said Tehran should provide an explanation.

But Iran played down the incident saying it was not unusual. Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini said that, as in other cases, this "incident" was resolved when the two sides identified each other.

"The example that happened on Saturday was similar to previous cases and is an ordinary and natural issue," Hosseini told Iran's official IRNA news agency.

"This is an ordinary issue that happens for the two sides every once in a while and after the identification of the two sides the issue is resolved," he added without giving details.

The incident was the latest sign of tension between Washington and Tehran, at odds over a range of issues from Iran's nuclear program to U.S. allegations of Iranian support for terrorism.

U.S. President George W. Bush is due to travel to the Middle East this week on a trip he has said is partly aimed at countering Iranian influence and what he has described as Tehran's "aggressive ambitions".

"We urge the Iranians to refrain from such provocative actions that could lead to a dangerous incident in the future," White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said.

Oil prices briefly rose on the news about the confrontation as dealers weighed the threat to oil shipments along the key shipping route. Crude futures jumped 49 cents to $98.40 a barrel before slipping back.

(Reporting by Hossein Jaseb and Zahra Hosseinian; writing by Edmund Blair; editing by Sami Aboudi)

IMF warns of economic doom

Story by JEFF OTIENO - DAILY NATION Publication Date: 1/7/2008

The International Monetary Fund Sunday warned that Kenya was facing an economic catastrophe if the current post-general election standoff is not addressed. IMF managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn also said the institution was concerned that supply disruptions due to violence in the country was affecting other countries in the region. Some of the countries that are already feeling the pinch of the post-election violence are Uganda and Rwanda which heavily depend on the port of Mombasa for imports like petroleum, machinery and other products. As a growing regional economic hub, Kenya is the transit point for one quarter of the GDP of Uganda and Rwanda, and one third that of Burundi. “I very much hope that the political leaders in Kenya will quickly and peacefully resolve the current dispute over the election results. This would open the way to further progress toward economic prosperity which could benefit all Kenyans,’’ said Mr Strauss-Kahn. Economic reform The fund was ready to support Kenya in its economic reform efforts. The concerns were supported by economic analyst, Dr David Ndii, who said the political violence experienced in Kenya will be felt for a long time. “It is important that there be political stability and confidence in the government of the day for the eroded investor confidence to be restored,” said Dr Ndii. He said the notion that calm would restore investor confidence as argued by some politicians was misplaced. Dr Ndii added that transit trade was a leading foreign exchange earner, apart from tourism and agriculture. “With the chaos that has been witnessed in the country it will not be surprising if the landlocked countries look for alternatives other than wholly relying on Kenya for their essential commodities,” he added. He said influential people who took part in the election fraud had done harm not only to the country but also to their businesses. “Investor confidence will be fully restored once Kenya holds another election that is deemed to be free and fair, whether it is next month or after five years,” Mr Ndii added. He said the cost of insuring buildings and infrastructure from political risks will skyrocket following the violence witnessed. Mr Strauss-Kahn said the Bretton Woods institution had noted with sadness the violence that has caused the deaths of many innocent Kenyans in the aftermath of the December 27 elections. “I offer my condolences to the families who have lost their loved ones to the violence and pay tribute to the people of Kenya who exercised their democratic and constitutional rights to vote. I note with concern that supply disruptions emanating from the developments in Kenya are affecting other countries in the region,’’ he said. The IMF and local economists concerns come a few days after a statement issued by the donor community which said the country was losing Sh2 billion daily. The joint statement, issued last week by the World Bank, Canada, Denmark, the European Commission, France, Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States, warned that the gains made in the past few years could dissipate due to the ongoing destruction. Business confidence “At stake is the pre-election Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rate of seven per cent, rising business confidence, increasing tourism, measurable progress in firm level productivity, significant gains in democratic development and the lifting of over two million Kenyans out of poverty,” said the statement. The donor community said Sh40 billion–about five per cent of market capitalisation– was wiped off the value of shares when business resumed at the Nairobi Stock Exchange after the elections.

Pentagon Says Iran Boats Provoked US Warships in Strait of Hormuz

By VOA News 07 January 2008

U.S. officials say five Iranian naval boats provoked three American warships in the strategic Strait of Hormuz on Sunday.

Military officials said Monday that the American ships prepared to fire after the Iranian military speedboats acted aggressively, charging the U.S. boats before veering away and dropping boxes in the water.

Pentagon officials say the Iranians used an open radio frequency to warn the U.S. ships that they would blow up after a couple of minutes.

The White House called the incident "provocative" and warned Tehran to refrain from such actions that could lead to a "dangerous incident in the future."

The Strait of Hormuz between Iran and the United Arab Emirates is a key shipping route for oil. Both the Iranian and the U.S. navies patrol the waterway.

Jesuits gather in Rome to elect new "black pope"

By Philip Pullella

ROME (Reuters) - There won't be any white smoke to tell the world he has been elected, but another sort of secret conclave began in Rome on Monday -- to chose the worldwide Jesuit leader who is known as the "the black pope".

At Jesuit headquarters a block from the Vatican, 225 delegates from around the world will choose a new superior general to run the largest and perhaps most influential, controversial and prestigious Catholic clerical order.

Their leader is traditionally known as "the black pope" because of the colour of the simple cassock he wears and because -- like the pope who dresses in white -- he has worldwide influence and usually keeps the position for life.

But this year's general congregation, as the meeting is known, is different. The current superior general, Father Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, 79, received permission from Pope Benedict to retire for reasons of age.

A soft-spoken Dutchman with white hair and a goatee, Kolvenbach has been in the job since 1983 and has won widespread praise for steering the Jesuits through one of their most difficult periods in their 468-year history.

Kolvenbach's charismatic predecessor, a Basque named Pedro Arrupe, had several conflicts with Benedict's predecessor, Pope John Paul, who believed the order had become too independent, leftist and political, particularly in Latin America.

When Arrupe suffered a stroke in the early 1980s Pope John Paul appointed a personal delegate to run the order to make sure it would not drift further leftwards, a move some Jesuits at the time resented as "papal martial law".

Kolvenbach, by contrast, has been credited with re-establishing good relations with the Vatican over the past 25 years while dealing with issues such as declining vocations and the future of the order founded by St Ignatius Loyola in 1540.

DECLINING VOCATIONS

In the 1960s, the all-male order officially known as the Society of Jesus peaked with some 36,000 members worldwide. It now has about 19,200 members involved in education, refugee help and other social services.

The election of Kolvenbach's successor is expected to take place in mid-January after days of prayer and what is known in Latin as "murmuratio", or murmurings, among the delegates about who might make a good superior general.

While politicking for the post is strictly banned -- delegates are obliged to 'turn in' anyone who actively seeks the top job -- some names have already circulated in religious media.

One is Father Lisbert D'Sousa of India, and some Jesuits have said it is time for the top job to go to someone from the developing world.

"This (the developing world) is not only the new center of gravity for the Society of Jesus but for the Church," Father James Martin wrote in America, the weekly of the U.S. Jesuits.

"And an election of a developing world general would be interesting as a possible bellwether for the next papal conclave, whenever that will be," he wrote.

The new Jesuit leader is elected by a secret ballot. After he is chosen, the delegates are not allowed to leave the room until Pope Benedict is informed, in keeping with a centuries-old tradition that the "white pope" be the first to know who the new "black pope" is.

But unlike a conclave to elect the real pope, a Jesuit general congregation can continue for weeks or even months after the new head has been elected in order to discuss the order's future challenges and priorities

Pope Benedict Calls for Global Commitment to Security

By VOA News 07 January 2008

Pope Benedict has given his annual "state of the world" speech, calling for a global commitment to security.

Pope Benedict XVI waves as he leaves St. Peter's square, 31 Dec 2007

In Vatican City Monday the Roman Catholic leader urged the world to prevent terrorists from obtaining weapons of mass destruction. He called for diplomatic efforts over Iran's nuclear program, which the United States fears will be used to build nuclear weapons. Tehran says its nuclear program is peaceful.

Pope Benedict also appealed for peace in many of the world's troubled regions, mentioning Burma, the Middle East, Kenya, and Sudan's Darfur region.

And he praised the agreement made by Israeli and Palestinians leaders in November to try to reach a peace deal by 2008. He urged the world to support that effort.

Israel to brief George Bush on options for Iran strike

Uzi Mahnaimi
London Times
Monday January 7, 2007

ISRAELI security officials are to brief President George W Bush on their latest intelligence about Iran’s nuclear programme - and how it could be destroyed - when he begins a tour of the Middle East in Jerusalem this week.

Ehud Barak, the defence minister, is said to want to convince him that an Israeli military strike against uranium enrichment facilities in Iran would be feasible if diplomatic efforts failed to halt nuclear operations. A range of military options has been prepared.

Last month it was revealed that the US National Intelligence Estimate report, drawing together information from 16 agencies, had concluded that Iran stopped a secret nuclear weapon programme in 2003.

Israeli intelligence is understood to agree that the project was halted around the time of America’s invasion of Iraq, but has “rock solid” information that it has since started up again.

While security officials are reluctant to reveal all their intelligence, fearing that leaks could jeopardise the element of surprise in any future attack, they are expected to present the president with fresh details of Iran’s enrichment of uranium - which could be used for civil or military purposes - and the development of missiles that could carry nuclear warheads.

In an interview with the Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot this weekend, Bush argued that in spite of the US intelligence assessment, Iran still posed a threat.

“I read the intelligence report carefully,” Bush said. “In essence, what the report said was that Iran had a secret plan to develop nuclear weapons.

“I’m saying that a state which adopted a nontransparent policy and had a secret plan for developing nuclear weapons could easily develop an alternative plan for the same purpose. So to conclude from the intelligence report that there is no Iranian plan to develop nuclear weapons will be only a partial truth.”

Israeli security officials believe the only way to prevent uranium enrichment to military grade is to destroy Iranian installations. Many Israelis are eager to know whether America would give their country the green light to attack, as it did last September when Israel struck a mysterious nuclear site in Syria.

China Communists sacked for having too many children: state media

AFP
Monday January 7, 2007

Authorities in a central China province have expelled hundreds of people from the Communist Party or their government posts for having more than one child, state media said Monday.

At least 93,084 people in Hubei province last year had more children than they were allowed under the policy of one per family, Xinhua news agency said quoting the provincial family planning commission.

They included 1,678 officials or party members, it added, saying about 500 had been expelled from the party and 395 stripped of their official posts.

Previous reports said the officials had also been fined.

The violators included seven national and local lawmakers or political advisors, Xinhua added.

"More party members, celebrities and well-off people are violating the policies... which has undermined social equality," commission director Yang Youwang was quoted as saying.

No information was given as to the punishments meted out to the more than 90,000 other people in Hubei who violated the "one-child" policy last year.

China's family planning policy began in the late 1970s as a way to control the world's largest population, now at 1.3 billion people.

Generally, urban families can have one child and rural families can have two if the first is a girl. About 400 million births have been averted thanks to the policy, the government has said.

But in recent years the policy has been routinely ignored in rural areas, while increasing numbers of China's urban new rich have been able to afford the requisite fines for violating the rules.

Chinese parents have traditionally favoured large families -- and sons, in particular -- to support them in their old age.

The policy has been notorious from the start for the harsh punishments and brutal methods used to enforce it, such as forced late-term abortions and the sterilisation of women.

Several areas of the poor southern province of Guangxi erupted in riots last year after officials launched a harsh crackdown to enforce the policy, with residents saying forced abortions were among the methods used by authorities.

Double Agent Gadahn Threatens Bush In Neo-Con Stunt

Jewish Zionist who once called Muslims "bloodthirsty terrorists" helps Giuliani's flagging numbers before New Hampshire primary

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet
Monday, January 7, 2008

Adam Pearlman, the Jewish Mossad agent who once wrote stinging essays condemning Muslims as "bloodthirsty terrorists", has once again popped up as an "Al-Qaeda spokesman" to boost the Neo-Con's imperial agenda by threatening George Bush on the eve of his trip to the middle east.

In a new videotape, Pearlman, now calling himself Adam Gadahn, states, "The occupied territories are awaiting their first visit by the crusader Bush and the mujahideen are also waiting for him," reports ABC News.

According to the tape, Gadahn promises to welcome Bush "with bombs and traps."

Gadahn's appearance is also perfectly timed to boost the flagging poll numbers of Rudy Giuliani and other establishment Republican candidates who have invoked the imaginary threat of terror for political points scoring before the New Hampshire primary tomorrow.

But who is the mysterious Adam Yehiye Gadahn?

The FBI lists Gadahn's aliases as Abu Suhayb Al-Amriki, Abu Suhayb, Yihya Majadin Adams, Adam Pearlman, and Yayah.

Adam Pearlman is his real name and his grandfather is none other than the late Carl K. Pearlman; a prominent Jewish urologist in Orange County. Carl was also a member of the board of directors of the Anti-Defamation League, which was caught spying on Americans for Israel in 1993. Mike Rivero has the scoop at WhatReallyHappened.com.

Israel's Mossad intelligence agency was caught in 2002 creating a phony Al-Qaeda group to justify attacks on Palestinians.

Pearlman has a knack of releasing his tapes at the most politically opportune time for Bush, having first burst onto the scene shortly before the 2004 presidential election and then again right after Katrina when the President's approval rating was tanking fast.

Even more mainstream publications, like the Los Angeles City Beat, have dismissed Pearlman before as nothing more than "cartoonish propaganda."

Pearlman had a hippy upbringing, a brief but intense flirtation with death metal and before a sudden transformation, once referred to Muslims as “bloodthirsty, barbaric terrorists.” Pearlman was a hardcore Jewish Zionist and wrote essays and screeds bashing the Muslim faith. He even got into fights at mosques and beat up Muslim worshippers.

Pearlman, the hardcore Jewish Zionist who trashed Muslims and beat them up, grows a beard and suddenly becomes an "Al-Qaeda spokesman" - nothing suspicious here, move along!

Pearlman's personal history and the highly suspicious nature in which he suddenly professed his conversion to Islam in a single Internet posting and later appeared on the scene as a spokesman for "Al-Qaeda" are all the ingredients needed to draw the conclusion that Pearlman is working as a double agent and most likely for Mossad.

The new tape is once again the work of As Sahab, Al-Qaeda's alleged media arm and was released by the U.S. government affiliated IntelCenter organization.

The previous Pearlman tape, released at the end of May last year, was also obtained by the IntelCenter group, a U.S. government contractor, and its head Ben Venzke gave the tape credence in media interviews concerning the story, as he has done again on this occasion.

It also emerged that Gadahn was the scriptwriter for the September 11, 2007 Bin Laden tape in which segments of Bin Laden's previous statements were hastily slapped together and the contrast altered to make his dubious beard appear darker, an attempt to hoodwink viewers into thinking the tape was new material.

In our previous groundbreaking expose, we unveiled the ties between Intelcenter, a group that regularly 'obtains' Al-Qaeda tapes and the Pentagon. Intelcenter is an offshoot of IDEFENSE, which was staffed by a senior military psy-op intelligence officer Jim Melnick, who has worked directly for Donald Rumsfeld.

Intelcenter were behind the October 2006 release of the "laughing hijackers" tape that showed Mohammad Atta and Ziad Jarrah allegedly attending a 2000 Al-Qaeda meeting and reading their last will and testament.

Segments of the video that were interspersed with footage of the "laughing hijackers," Jarrah and Atta, showing Bin Laden giving a speech to an audience in Afghanistan on January 8 2000, were culled from what terror experts described as surveillance footage taken by a "security agency."

News reports at the time contained the admission that the U.S. government had been in possession of the footage since 2002, while others said it was found when the United States invaded Afghanistan in 2001, and yet it was still bizarrely reported that the tape, bearing all the hallmarks of having been filmed and edited by undercover US intelligence and having admittedly been in US possession for five years, was released over the weekend of September 31/October 1 by Al-Qaeda.

The video also contained segments that were first broadcast in a British documentary called The Road to Guantanamo, which was originally aired in March 2006. The context of the corresponding scene in the dramatized documentary featured U.S. interrogators attempting to coerce Gitmo detainees into confessing Al-Qaeda membership by showing them fake videos where their likeness had been computer generated to appear as if they were in attendance during Bin Laden's January 8 2000 speech.

The new Pearlman/Gadahn propaganda tape will no doubt be seized upon by bellicose Neo-Cons who desperately yearn for another terror attack like junkies yearn for their next hit. Unfortunately for them, crass videotapes presented by discredited intelligence double agents don't have nearly the same impact they did before masses of people started waking up to the fact that the entire war on terror is a complete fraud propped up by crude smoke and mirror stunts which manage to fool only the dumbest of Americans.

Sean Hannity on the run

Sean Hannity retreating to his hotel after protesters rallied outside of a restaurant he was visiting in Manchester, New Hampshire.

U.S. says Iran gunboats harassed warships

Officials describe incident as a 'significant provocative act'

BREAKING NEWS

By Jim Miklaszewski

Chief Pentagon correspondent

NBC News

updated 8:47 a.m. ET, Mon., Jan. 7, 2008

WASHINGTON - Iranian Revolutionary Guard gunboats harassed three U.S. Navy warships in the Strait of Hormuz Sunday, in what the U.S. military considers a "significant provocative act."

Military officials told NBC News that two U.S. Navy destroyers and one frigate were heading into the Persian Gulf through the international waters of the Strait of Hormuz when five armed "fast boats" of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard approached a high speed, darting in and out of the formation.

At one point a radio message from one of the Iranian boats warned, "You are going to blow up within minutes."

The Navy warships went into defensive mode, radioed the usual warnings to steer clear, and in the end no shots were fired. U.S. military warships believe the Revolutionary Guard boats were "testing our defenses," the officials said.

The United States expressed concern when the Revolutionary Guard forces took over Iranian naval operations in the Persian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz from the regular navy more than five months ago.

However, Sunday’s incident was the first significant act of provocation since then.

Revolutionary Guard forces also briefly took a number of British sailors into custody even though the British claim they were operating in international waters off the coast of Iraq.

Jim Miklaszewski is the NBC News Chief Pentagon Correspondent.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22537199/