After the Pledge of Allegiance

Compliments of UsCountVotes.org

Prominent Statisticians Urge Investigation of 2004 U.S. Presidential Election Results
Written by Kathy Dopp
Saturday, 29 January 2005
Press Release:
Monday, January 31, 2005

Prominent Statisticians Refute 'Explanation' of 2004 U.S. Exit Poll Discrepancies in New Edison/Mitofsky Report and Urge Investigation of U.S. Presidential Election Results.

President Bush won November's election by 2.5% yet exit polls showed Kerry leading by 3%. Which was correct?

"There are statistical indications that a systematic, nationwide shift of 5.5% of the vote may have occurred, and that we'll never get to the bottom of this, unless we gather the data we need for mathematical analysis and open, robust scientific debate.", says Bruce O'Dell, USCountVotes' Vice President.

The study, “Response to Edison/Mitofsky Election System 2004 Report”, was co-authored by a diverse group of professors and academicians specializing in statistics and mathematics. The USCountVotes team included Josh Mitteldorf, Ph.D., Temple University Statistics Department; Kathy Dopp, M.S. in mathematics, USCountVotes President; Steven F. Freeman, Ph.D., Visiting Scholar & Affiliated Faculty, Center for Organizational Dynamics, University of Pennsylvania; Brian Joiner, Ph.D., Professor of Statistics and Director of Statistical Consulting (ret), University of Wisconsin; Frank Stenger, Ph.D. Professor of Numerical Analysis, School of Computing, University of Utah; Richard G. Sheehan, Ph.D. Professor, Department of Finance, University of Notre Dame, Elizabeth Liddle, M.A. (UK) Ph.D. candidate at the University of Nottingham, Paul F. Velleman, Assoc. Professor, Ph.D., Department of Statistical Sciences, Cornell University; Victoria Lovegren, Ph.D., Lecturer, Department of Mathematics, Case Western Reserve University; Campbell B. Read, Ph.D. Professor Emeritus, Department of Statistical Science, Southern Methodist University. Their study does not support claims made by Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International that exit poll errors were to blame for the unprecedented 5.5% discrepancy between exit polls and official 2004 election results.

According to this analysis by a group of senior statisticians, the new data just released by the exit-pollsters shows that the possibility that the overall vote count was substantially corrupted must be taken seriously. “Now we have statistical evidence that these reports were the tip of a national iceberg. The hypothesis that the discrepancy between the exit polls and election results is due to errors in the official election tally is a coherent theory that must be explored,” said statistician Josh Mitteldorf.

Their paper titled "Response to Edison/Mitofsky Election System 2004 Report" notes that the Edison/Mitofsky report offers no evidence to support their conclusion that Kerry voters “participated in the exit polls at a higher rate than Bush voters”. In fact, the data provided in the Edison/Mitofsky report suggests that the opposite may have been true: Bush strongholds had slightly higher response rates than Kerry strongholds.

The statisticians go on to note that precincts with hand-counted paper ballots showed no statistical discrepancy between the exit polls and the official results, but for other voting technologies, the overall discrepancy was far larger than the polls’ margin of error. The pollsters at Edison/Mitofsky agreed that their 2004 exit polls, for whatever reason, had the poorest accuracy in at least twenty years.

USCountVotes, a nonprofit, non-partisan Utah corporation was founded in December 2004. Its mission is to create and analyze a database containing precinct-level election results for the entire United States; to do a thorough mathematical analysis of the 2004 election results; and to fully investigate the 2004 Presidential election results. USCountVotes actively seeks volunteers and accepts donations to help make this unprecedented civic project a reality – visit www.uscountvotes.org for further information.

For more information, contact Bruce O'Dell, Vice President of US Count Votes, in Minneapolis, MN: bruce@uscountvotes.org 612-309-1330

The statisticians' study is available online at
http://uscountvotes.org/ucvAnalysis/US/USCountVotes_Re_Mitofsky-Edison.pdf

The full text of the Edison/Mitofsky report is available at
http://www.exit-poll.net/election-night/EvaluationJan192005.pdf

Another long article and the best on Iraq I've read yet. Eliot Weinberger, using the words of those responsible, creates a timeline detailing the fraud and travesty the invasion was and still is. I found it in the London Review of Books. If nothing else, it shows how flawed human memory fails to connect the dots--one of the prime vehicles for George Bush's political success. As far as I'm concerned, every single person in the USA should be forced to read this, not that it would change the deranged thinking of those who have their heads firmly lodged in their asses.

Actually, it just occurred to me how this would lend itself to a dramatic reading. Three or four voices reciting the following would be quite dramatic. There would be a few hurdles (Weinberger's permission, and so forth), but it could be done. Just imagine, Eliot Weinberger, playwright.

My quotes are only a fraction of the original article. The whole thing must be read.

In 1992, a year after the first Gulf War, I heard Dick Cheney, then secretary of defense, say that the US had been wise not to invade Baghdad and get `bogged down in the problems of trying to take over and govern Iraq'.

I heard him say: `The question in my mind is how many additional American casualties is Saddam worth? And the answer is: not that damned many.'

In July 2001, I heard Condoleezza Rice say: `We are able to keep his arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt.'

On 11 September 2001, six hours after the attacks, I heard that Donald Rumsfeld said that it might be an opportunity to `hit' Iraq. I heard that he said: `Go massive. Sweep it all up. Things related and not.'

I heard that Condoleezza Rice asked: `How do you capitalise on these opportunities?'

Step by step he convicts the players in their own words.

I heard the president, in the State of the Union address, say that Iraq was hiding materials sufficient to produce 25,000 litres of anthrax, 38,000 litres of botulinum toxin, and 500 tons of sarin, mustard and nerve gas.

I heard the president say that Iraq had attempted to purchase uranium - later specified as `yellowcake' uranium oxide from Niger - and thousands of aluminium tubes `suitable for nuclear weapons production'.

I heard the vice president say: `We know that he's been absolutely devoted to trying to acquire nuclear weapons, and we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons.'

I heard the Pentagon spokesman call the military plan `A-Day', or `Shock and Awe'. Three or four hundred cruise missiles launched every day, until `there will not be a safe place in Baghdad,' until `you have this simultaneous effect, rather like the nuclear weapons at Hiroshima, not taking days or weeks but in minutes.'

I heard the spokesman say: `You're sitting in Baghdad and all of a sudden you're the general and thirty of your division headquarters have been wiped out. You also take the city down. By that I mean you get rid of their power, water. In two, three, four, five days they are physically, emotionally and psychologically exhausted.'

I heard him say: `The sheer size of this has never been seen before, never contemplated.'

I heard Major-General Charles Swannack promise that his troops were going to `use a sledgehammer to smash a walnut'.

Relentlessly he proceeds.

I heard an American soldier say: `There's a picture of the World Trade Center hanging up by my bed and I keep one in my Kevlar. Every time I feel sorry for these people I look at that. I think: "They hit us at home and now it's our turn."'

I heard about Hashim, a fat, `painfully shy' 15-year-old, who liked to sit for hours by the river with his birdcage, and who was shot by the 4th Infantry Division in a raid on his village. Asked about the details of the boy's death, the division commander said: `That person was probably in the wrong place at the wrong time.'

I heard an American soldier say: `We get rocks thrown at us by kids. You wanna turn around and shoot one of the little fuckers, but you know you can't do that.'

I heard the Pentagon spokesman say that the US did not count civilian casualties: `Our efforts focus on destroying the enemy's capabilities, so we never target civilians and have no reason to try to count such unintended deaths.'

I heard him say that, in any event, it would be impossible, because the Iraqi paramilitaries were fighting in civilian clothes, the military was using civilian human shields, and many of the civilian deaths were the result of Iraqi `unaimed anti-aircraft fire falling back to earth'.


As the riots and looting broke out, I heard Donald Rumsfeld say: `It's untidy, and freedom's untidy.'

And when the National Museum was emptied and the National Library burned down, I heard him say: `The images you are seeing on television you are seeing over, and over, and over, and it's the same picture of some person walking out of some building with a vase, and you see it twenty times, and you think: "My goodness, were there that many vases? Is it possible that there were that many vases in the whole country?"'

I heard that 10,000 Iraqi civilians were dead.

I heard the vice president say that the war would be over in `weeks rather than months'.

I heard Donald Rumsfeld say: `It could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months.'

I heard Donald Rumsfeld say there was `no question' that American troops would be `welcomed': `Go back to Afghanistan, the people were in the streets playing music, cheering, flying kites, and doing all the things that the Taliban and al-Qaida would not let them do.'

I heard the vice president say: `The Middle East expert Professor Fouad Ajami predicts that after liberation the streets in Basra and Baghdad are "sure to erupt in joy". Extremists in the region would have to rethink their strategy of jihad. Moderates throughout the region would take heart. And our ability to advance the Israeli-Palestinian peace process would be enhanced.'

I heard the vice president say: `I really do believe we will be greeted as liberators.'

I heard Tariq Aziz, the Iraqi foreign minister, say: `American soldiers will not be received by flowers. They will be received by bullets.'

Their own words convict them.

I heard that air force regulations require that any airstrike likely to result in the deaths of more than 30 civilians be personally approved by the secretary of defense, and I heard that Donald Rumsfeld approved every proposal.

I heard the marine colonel say: `We napalmed those bridges. Unfortunately, there were people there. It's no great way to die.'

I heard the Pentagon deny they were using napalm, saying their incendiary bombs were made of something called Mark 77, and I heard the experts say that Mark 77 was another name for napalm.

I heard a marine describe `dead-checking': `They teach us to do dead-checking when we're clearing rooms. You put two bullets into the guy's chest and one in the brain. But when you enter a room where guys are wounded, you might not know if they're alive or dead. So they teach us to dead-check them by pressing them in the eye with your boot, because generally a person, even if he's faking being dead, will flinch if you poke him there. If he moves, you put a bullet in the brain. You do this to keep the momentum going when you're flowing through a building. You don't want a guy popping up behind you and shooting you.'

I heard the president say: `We're rolling back the terrorist threat, not on the fringes of its influence but at the heart of its power.'


I heard the president say: `Today, on bended knee, I thank the Good Lord for protecting those of our troops overseas, and our Coalition troops and innocent Iraqis who suffer at the hands of some of these senseless killings by people who are trying to shake our will.'

I heard that this was the first American president in wartime who had never attended a funeral for a dead soldier. I heard that photographs of the flag-draped coffins returning home were banned. I heard that the Pentagon had renamed body bags `transfer tubes'.

I heard a tearful George Bush Sr, speaking at the annual convention of the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association, say that it was `deeply offensive and contemptible' the way `elites and intellectuals' were dismissing `the sowing of the seeds of basic human freedom in that troubled part of the world'. I heard him say: `It hurts an awful lot more when it's your son that is being criticised.'

I heard the president's mother say: `Why should we hear about body bags and deaths? Why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?'

I'll stop quoting here, but by all means read the whole article.

By way of Barbara Tuckman's The March of Folly, John M. Novaks says governments repeat their mistakes because...

In the end, the follies of government may be named the failings of people. Those who endow a government with behavior are people with opinions and ideals. When those beliefs of individuals conflict with reality, human nature will often deny reality. Face and position become staked in the correctness of policy, and policy hardens in reaction; it becomes easier to follow consequences to their bitter end rather than face reality and change policy, with the resulting loss of face -- a sense that it is better to go for a supposed tiny chance of success, despite severe effects of failure, rather than accept the certainty of an already-failed policy, even though that acceptance would be better for the parties involved. This sort of mule-headed rejection of facts is endemic in human nature; it seems that no government to date has successfully eliminated its effects. Understanding history may at least allow us to reduce the damage of such behavior...

John M. Novak
www.johnmnovak.com

His direct application was Bush's current undertaking in Iraq. In other words, the principle Americans use for choosing an SUV, a fatty hamburger, or running the government is essentially the same.

He's right!

The plan is finally firming up. What the Bush Administration wants is a malleable government in Iraq, permanent military bases, and control of Iraqi oil. The proof (there’s been plenty of it before) is shown in how the administration is now allowing the U.S. military to voice sentiments such as this:

The insurgency in Iraq will last at least a decade and American troops alone will not be able to defeat it, a senior US military officer in Baghdad has predicted.

Speaking on the eve of Iraq's first free election for 51 years, the officer conceded: "Iraqis are the ones who will have to defeat the insurgency, not multi-national forces.

"It is not necessarily a growing insurgency but it is a resilient one," he told The Telegraph. "We're looking at a long-term insurgency, probably at a lower level of violence than now. Historically, you look at a decade – and this is no different."

They go even further:

The cautiously optimistic assessment has led to the Pentagon drawing up "best case" plans to cut US troop numbers in Iraq by half over the next 18 months as part of a wide review of the American military, The Telegraph has learned.
It is hoped that a new strategy for training Iraqi troops – in which thousands of US military advisers would be attached to local units as "mentors" - will lead to dramatic improvements in security.

President George W Bush is insistent that America will not "cut and run", but the administration is keen to have an exit strategy ready before the US mid-term elections in late 2006 - as long as the "mentoring" strategy works.

"The administration does not want to go into the mid-term elections where they are now," said Dan Goure, a Pentagon adviser and director of the Lexington Institute defence think-tank. Generals and Pentagon civilian planners were working to cut numbers from about 120,000 - though there are 155,000 covering the elections - to 60,000."

So, the original grand plan of creating the first-rules free capitalist society on earth, where greed is the only law, has been modified to—-diminish U.S. casualties (bad publicity), mold the new Iraqi government (shadow government), have permanent military bases (planes and tanks are power in the middle-east), dominate and control oil resources (SUV owners vote), and win in the 2006 mid-term elections. Nothing cynical here, eh?

Alberto Gonzales has no more business being the Attorney General than he does the Pope. Unfit even as G.W. Bush’s attorney and advisor when Bush was Governor of Texas (more poor, black, or mentally deranged folks executed in Texas than in all the blue states combined), Alberto Gonzales is constitutionally incapable of being anything other than Dubya’s lapdog. The very fact that torture is even a part of our national dialogue now can be laid directly at this fawning sycophant’s feet. To approve him as Attorney General would be something like letting Al Capone run the FBI—too stupid to even consider.