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"How To Steal the Caucuses? ... Claim to be hacked, and then "reconstruct" the vote. LHR Jr."
Last updated: December 19, 2011 5:08 a.m.
Iowa GOP worried by hacker threat to caucus vote
Associated Press
IOWA CITY, Iowa – With two weeks remaining before Iowa kicks off the 2012 campaign with its first-in-the-nation presidential caucuses, the state Republican Party is taking steps to secure its electronic vote collection system after receiving a mysterious threat to its computers.
A video claiming to be from a collective of computer hackers has jolted party officials with a worst-case scenario: an Iowa caucus marred by hackers who successfully corrupt the database used to gather vote totals and crash the website used to inform the public about results that can shape the campaign for the White House.
While confident in the safeguards protecting the vote count itself, and aware the video may be a hoax, members of the state Republican Party's central committee told The Associated Press they are taking the threat seriously and have authorized additional security measures to ensure hackers are unable to delay the release of results.
The party fears such a delay could disrupt the traditional influence of the Iowa caucuses. Candidates who do well tend to gain momentum in the presidential race, while those finishing at the back of the pack may drop out.
"With the eyes of the media on the state, the last thing we want to do is have a situation where there is trouble with the reporting system. We don't want that to be the story," said Wes Enos, a member of the central committee and the political director for Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann's campaign in Iowa.
The two-minute video features a computer-generated voice denouncing what it calls a corrupt political system that favors corporations and calls on supporters to "peacefully shut down the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses." The video claims to be from Anonymous, a loosely organized group of hackers that has claimed credit for attacks on targets ranging from the Peruvian government to Paypal.
A former activist for Occupy Des Moines, Clarke Davidson, has acknowledged posting the video on YouTube. He said he did so after masked men left it outside his tent near the state Capitol on Nov. 3.
Investigators aren't sure whether the video is authentic, and state authorities have not taken any actions since the call to "peacefully shut down" the caucuses does not amount to a crime, said Jim Saunders, director of the Iowa Intelligence Fusion Center at the state's Department of Public Safety.
Unlike most presidential primaries, which are conducted by state governments, Iowa's caucuses are run by the political parties. On Jan. 3, voters will gather in 1,784 precincts in Iowa's 99 counties to declare their preference for a candidate. Those results are then reported to the state party, where they are tabulated electronically and reported to the public on a website.
Ryan Gough, the state GOP official in charge of coordinating the caucuses, said the party was taking steps to protect its election data, but declined to comment on specifics so as not to give away "the game plan" to hackers."
The GOP is also encouraging the party activists who run the precinct votes to use paper ballots instead of a show of hands, which has been the practice in some areas. The ballots would provide a backup in the event of any later confusion about the results.
Drew Ivers, chairman of Texas Rep. Ron Paul's campaign in Iowa and a member of the state GOP central committee, said party officials and consultants will also monitor for any hacking threat using software and other methods, but added, "How do you stop a hacker? That's the question."
"If a hacker gets in and messes it all up, we can reconstruct (the results)," he said. "It would take a little while. It might take a day or two, but we can do it."
Among the early voting states, the hacking concerns have most spooked officials in Iowa. In New Hampshire, whose primary is one week after the Iowa caucuses, officials rely on a mostly manual process that uses paper and is less vulnerable to an attack on computer systems, said Assistant Secretary of State Anthony Stevens. In South Carolina, which follows 11 days later, State Election Commission spokesman Chris Whitmire said he was not aware of any concerns.
But Douglas Jones, a computer science professor at the University of Iowa who has consulted for both political parties, said the Iowa Republican Party is right to be concerned about the security of their computer systems. The Internet, he said, is "becoming more and more like the Wild West."
"It's very clear the data consolidation and data gathering from the caucuses, which determines the headlines the next morning, who might withdraw or resign from the process, all of that is fragile," Jones said. "If I were one of these 'hacktivists' who had no scruples, I would be really strongly tempted to see if I could get into the computer and see if I could make 'SpongeBob SquarePants' win."
http://www.journalgazette.net/article/20111219/NEWS03/111219444/1066/NEWS03
Monday, December 19, 2011
Why Ron Paul's Surge Is Making Them Nervous
by Jacob G. Hornberger
While big government statists in both the Republican and Democrat parties remain mystified over Ron Paul's surge in the polls in Iowa, the ones who seem most confounded by this phenomenon are the members of the mainstream media, who themselves are statist to the core. They just can't figure out how it's possible that increasing numbers of people are gravitating to the Paul campaign, especially when the mainstream media has either ignored Paul's campaign or done its best to ridicule Paul's libertarian positions.
One of the most amusing aspects to this phenomenon is when the mainstream media statists do their best to bring Paul's views to the general public, with the expectation that when people learn what he really stands for, they'll rush into the waiting embrace of big-government statists like, well, like Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney.
Yet, what actually ends up happening is that when people hear what Ron Paul stands for, instead of running for the big-government types, many of them say to themselves, "You mean, there is a candidate that stands for that? Well, that's the way I feel. I'm going over to the Ron Paul campaign."
Thus, the mainstream media effort to advertise Paul's libertarian views boomerangs on the statist press, and it confounds them to no end. So, many of the mainstream media statists return to simply ignoring the Paul campaign and acting as though Gingrich and Romney are the only two frontrunners.
A good example of this phenomenon involves Iran. During the GOP presidential debates, the mainstream media statists say something that could be interpreted like this:
- Mr. Paul, you don't want to bomb Iran, like the other candidates do. This is shocking . How can you expect people to take you seriously if you're not willing to bomb Iran? Don't you know that they're producing a nuclear weapon? Our government officials say so. What do you think our military is for?
- No, I do not believe that we should bomb Iran. That would involve killing and maiming several hundred thousand more innocent people, which would be added to the hundreds of thousands of innocent killed and maimed in Iraq.
- No, I don't believe that they're producing a nuclear bomb because the actual evidence doesn't support that assertion, and government officials often lie about such things in order to garner support for regime-change operations. Look at Iraq, a war which the mainstream media supported because it never doubted that government officials were telling the truth about those bogus WMDs.
- But even if Iraq was producing a nuclear weapon, it wouldn't affect anything anyway because they're not going to go out and start a nuclear war that would result in the obliteration of their country.
- And let's not forget that the Iranians might just be concerned with another U.S. regime-change operation, like when the CIA ousted their democratically elected prime minister in 1953 and installed a brutal unelected dictator in his stead. After all, it's not Iran that has the United States surrounded by military forces. It's the other way around.
- We've killed enough people around the world. It's time to end the wars and bring our troops home.
- No, I don't believe that they're producing a nuclear bomb because the actual evidence doesn't support that assertion, and government officials often lie about such things in order to garner support for regime-change operations. Look at Iraq, a war which the mainstream media supported because it never doubted that government officials were telling the truth about those bogus WMDs.
But there are obviously many Americans in growing numbers who are achieving a breakthrough on foreign policy the same breakthrough that libertarians achieved a long time ago. They're seeing the fundamental wrongfulness, in terms of both morality and religion, of attacking and bombing countries that haven't attacked the United States.
They're seeing how this type of thing produces anger and hatred for the United States, which then manifests itself in retaliatory terrorist attacks, attacks that are then used to take away our civil liberties here at home and that are also then used to go and bomb more countries, thereby ensuring this cycle of death, destruction, and loss of liberty continues into perpetuity.
They're also seeing what Paul and libertarians have long emphasized that all this imperialistic military aggression is expensive, to the point that it is hurtling us down the road to bankruptcy.
Moreover, the phenomenon starts to feed on itself. As more people gravitate to libertarian positions, it causes others to say, "Maybe I should check into libertarianism and see why people are so excited and passionate about it."
Whenever asked about the Ron Paul surge, statists always respond, "Well, he can't win." Since they've convinced themselves that he can't win, why are they so nervous? Because they see more and more people moving toward libertarianism and getting excited and passionate about it. And they just can't figure out what to do about it. Ignoring the phenomenon hasn't worked and neither has ridicule.
http://www.fff.org/blog/jghblog2011-12-19.asp
December 19, 2011
Why conservatives must adopt Ron Paul's foreign policy
By Jack HunterPublished: 1:18 PM 12/19/2011 | Updated: 1:28 PM 12/19/2011
Many Republicans love Ron Paul's limited-government philosophy but have problems with his foreign policy. This is understandable given the state of today's Republican Party. But what many Republicans probably don't realize is that Paul's foreign policy is part of his limited-government philosophy and it's a crucially important part. If the American right does not begin to at least consider Paul's foreign policy, it will continue to forfeit any hope of advancing a substantive conservatism.
As the Founders understood well, it is hard-to-impossible to preserve limited government at home while maintaining big government abroad. History and experience tell us that one always begets the other. This certainly rings true as we spend trillions of dollars on domestic programs that we match with trillions more overseas. The Founders' talk of "entangling alliances" requiring "standing armies" was recognition of the inherent dangers of war and especially permanent war. "Mr. Republican" Sen. Robert Taft would echo similar sentiments a century and a half later in his battles against New Deal liberals. President Dwight Eisenhower's warning about the "military-industrial complex" reflected the same concerns within a 20th-century, post-WWII context.
Almost alone, Ron Paul today carries on this important Republican tradition. Like every other conservative, Paul believes that America must have a strong national defense he simply believes we can no longer afford our current irrational offense.
Unfortunately, unlimited Pentagon spending remains the big government too many Republicans still love. During the Reagan era, when we were fighting a global superpower that possessed thousands of nuclear weapons, this made sense. It does not make sense anymore. Today, we are fighting individuals, or collections of individuals, with infinitely less military capabilities and no particular attachments to nation-states. Ask yourself this: What, exactly, does having thousands of troops stationed in Afghanistan do to prevent some sick individual from trying to blow up his underwear on an airplane? Just as important, ask this: Does having thousands of troops in places like Afghanistan make it less likely or more likely that some sick individual will try to blow up his underwear on an airplane? Our own military and CIA intelligence tells us that our overseas wars actually encourage terrorist attacks. A majority of the members of the U.S. military agree, or as a Pew Research Poll of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans published in October revealed: "About half (51 percent) of post-9/11 veterans say that the use of military force to fight terrorism creates hatred that breeds more terrorism."
These are basic questions that Americans desperately need to ask. Ron Paul is asking them. The other candidates don't even consider them questions.
Which brings us to conservatism's fate. Want to know why Paul is the only GOP presidential candidate who has proposed substantive spending cuts $1 trillion in the first year? It's because only Paul addresses Pentagon spending, the largest portion of our budget after entitlements. What the Republican candidates who eschew Paul's foreign policy are essentially saying is this: We support limited government in theory but in practice it's simply too dangerous. Paul continues to make the same argument that former Chairman of the Joints Chief of Staff Mike Mullen has made: that our debt is the greatest threat to our national security. Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney and the other GOP candidates do not see our debt as a similar threat if they did, they would be calling for bigger spending cuts.
As for national security concerns, Paul's $1 trillion in cuts still allows for a defense budget four times greater than China's and larger than even President George W. Bush's 2005 defense budget. This is how drastically Pentagon spending along with all government spending has grown under President Obama. Cries from the GOP field that Obama is "weakening" our defense with "cuts" mirrors liberal shrieking about conservatives hurting the poor or seniors by reforming welfare or entitlements (just ask Paul Ryan).
Big-government advocates always claim that any changes or reductions in the status quo would be catastrophic. Conservatives always argue that not only can we no longer afford such spending, but that reducing big government will be better for all parties involved in the long run. Republicans can remain doubtful about whether Paul's foreign policies will actually make us safer (they will, if our own intelligence and military members are to be believed). But they cannot doubt that Paul's foreign policy addresses a cost we can no longer afford (our current foreign policy and related spending costs about $1.2 trillion annually, roughly our entire deficit).
The only GOP candidate offering the kind of cuts the tea party has said it desires is Ron Paul. If Paul's foreign policy makes him beyond the pale politically, then the tea party's desires become academic. This is a matter of fact and basic math, or as Rush Limbaugh explained in October:
- Ron Paul is about to show the Republican presidential field what a serious fiscal reform plan looks like. He is going to propose $1 trillion in real spending cuts. What this indicates is something, folks, that we have got to face, if we are serious about this. Fooling around the margins isn't going to get it done. A 2% tax cut here, or a 3% tax variation over there is not going to fix what's wrong. Genuine, big spending cuts are the only thing that is going to bring us back …
To disqualify Paul because of his foreign policy views is to also disqualify any chance of actual spending cuts. Until conservatives learn this lesson and begin to apply their limited-government philosophy comprehensively, conservatism itself will largely remain a moot point.
Jack Hunter writes at the "Paulitical Ticker," where he is the official Ron Paul 2012 campaign blogger.
http://dailycaller.com/2011/12/19/why-conservatives-must-adopt-ron-pauls-foreign-policy/
The great thing about Christmas is
seeing the joy on little children's faces!
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The Debates and Gary Johnson
Posted by David Boaz
Karl Rove writes in the Wall Street Journal that "the debates have allowed every potentially serious candidate to be seen by large audiences." One thing that has generally made presidential candidates serious is experience in executive office, especially as governor. After voters elected Carter, Reagan, Clinton, and Bush minor over a period of 30 years, it became conventional wisdom that governors make much stronger presidential candidates than senators. After senators swept the field in 2008, and Sen. Barack Obama won, that preference seemed in doubt. But now voices on both left and right are asking whether President Obama's lack of executive experience is indeed a problem.
So it's worth asking how much executive experience the Republican candidates have. Here's what I come up with:
Rick Perry 11 years
Gary Johnson 8 years
Jon Huntsman 5 years
Mitt Romney 4 years
Michelle Bachmann 0
Newt Gingrich 0
Ron Paul 0
Rick Santorum 0
So Rove thinks "the debates have allowed every potentially serious candidate to be seen by large audiences." And yet the Republican party and the big media have excluded the candidate with the second-most experience as governor. And so I wonder again, how does the establishment exclude a Republican governor who got elected twiceand served his full termsin a Democratic-leaning swing state, had a successful record, vetoed more bills than all other governors combined, proposed the boldest policies in the country on both school choice and drug policy reform, and then left the state with a budget surplus?
As James Peron wrote at Huffington Post,
- Johnson sees himself as socially liberal and fiscally conservative. Most polls show that a large percentage of voters fall into this category. A majority of voters supports depoliticized markets and balanced budgets, a majority supports gay marriage, and half the public wants to legalize marijuana, which is a plurality. A majority thinks sending troops to Iraq was a mistake and wants out. You'd think Gary Johnson would be a natural choice for them.
http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/the-debates-and-gary-johnson/
Newt Gingrich: Fascist, Socialist, Statist
Posted by Laurence Vance on December 18, 2011 09:42 AM
Newt is such a creep that one term will not do. Here is Newt in 1993:
- I am for people, individuals—exactly like automobile insurance—individuals having health insurance and being required to have health insurance. And I am prepared to vote for a voucher system which will give individuals, on a sliding scale, a government subsidy so we insure that everyone as individuals have health insurance.
And here is Newt in 2007:
- Our federal government should take the lead on this vital issue, an effort that may require strong incentives to encourage enterprise and drive the formation of private-public economic partnerships.
How can anyone who calls himself a conservative or a Tea Party member support this guy? Their hatred of Ron Paul is only exceeded by their love of war, militarism, and the police state.
Gary Johnson National Town Hall - Current Events: NDAA, SOPA, IRAN,...
Public Event · By Gary Johnson
-
- WhenToday
- Time5:00pm until 6:30pm
-
- Where
- Description
(5:00pm PST / 8:00pm EST)
Presidential candidate Gary Johnson will host a live national on-line Town Hall Monday, December 19. The Town Hall will focus primarily on current events: NDAA, SOPA, IRAN,.... The Town Hall will be conducted on Yowie.com from 8:00 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. EST.
Bring your questions for Gary Johnson. The Town Hall will be an interactive live video chat, and anyone who wishes to participate can do so by going to www.yowie.com orwww.GaryJohnson2012.com.
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Illegal immigrants have no right to arms
12/16/2011
Dec 16 (Reuters) - Illegal immigrants do not have a right to bear
arms
under the U.S. Constitution, a federal appeals court ruled on Friday.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit, based in Missouri,
rejected an appeal brought by Joaquin Bravo Flores, who was charged
with possessing a firearm. Agreeing with the 5th Circuit, the court
concluded that the protections of the Second Amendment do not extend
to undocumented immigrants.
Executing a search warrant in 2010, police uncovered a semi-automatic
handgun in Bravo Flores' Minneapolis apartment. A grand jury indicted
him for being an alien in possession of a firearm in violation of
federal law. He was sentenced to three years in prison.
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HOME > BLOG > "No God But Allah" Appearing on U.S. Dollar Bills
June 30, 2011
"No God But Allah" Appearing on U.S. Dollar Bills
Bet you thought you'd never see this in your lifetime
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A lady in Monte Vista, CO had this dollar bill. This is her story. You don't think we're in a war. What thoughts come to mind! These are starting to show up around our country!
After dinner she took a $1 dollar bill out of her purse and displayed it on the table. Underneath the words "In God We Trust" someone had stamped the dollar bill in red ink---NO GOD BUT ALLAH. We asked her where she had gotten this dollar bill. She said it was part of her change in Alamosa, CO. We took a picture of her dollar bill. If anyone tries to give you one of these dollar bills as change...please refuse it and ask them to give you a dollar bill that has not been defaced.
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