User:Kizzle/smoke/trial theme

Intro

Disclaimer

Issues

• Introduce personality of movie
• Anticipate preliminary rebuttal / Teach audience what to look for
• Anticipate:

• "Liberals hate America"
• "Sore Loser"
• "Bitter smear campaign"

• State thesis of the movie

• Key Elements of style

• Irreverance
• Accuracy
• Tempered vitriol

Commentary

Notes: All the CUTS in this scene are as if one is CHANGING CHANNELS ON AN OLD TELEVISION, THEY ARE QUICK AND FOLLOWED BY A VERY BRIEF MOMENT OF STATIC THEN TO THE NEXT SHOT.

STILL BLACK

"MR. SPEAKER, THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA"

FOOTAGE OF BUSH STATE OF THE UNION 2005, WHERE HE'S SLOWLY MAKING HIS WAY TO THE PODIUM WHILE EVERYONE IS APPLAUDING. COMMENTARY BEGINS ABOUT 10 SECONDS AFTER VIDEO

Theodore Roosevelt once said, "Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president or any other public official, save exactly to the degree in which he himself stands by the country. It is patriotic to support him insofar as he efficiently serves the country. It is unpatriotic not to oppose him to the exact extent that by inefficiency or otherwise he fails in his duty to stand by the country. In either event, it is unpatriotic not to tell the truth, whether about the president or anyone else."

CUT TO FOX NEWS RESPONSES TO FARENHEIT 9/11 - ASSEMBLE VARIOUS AD HOMINEM ATTACKS FROM NEWS FOOTAGE.

I am sure that in telling the truth, I will be labeled unpatriotic, a communist, a crackpot liberal, a partisan hack, and maybe, if I'm interviewed on FOX news, a traitor to this country.

CUT TO FOOTAGE OF WHITE HOUSE, SCOTT McCLELLAN's RESPONSE TO F9/11, DO NOT USE ANY FOOTAGE WITH MENTION TO F9/11

Scott McClellan, white house press secretary, will throw up his usual smoke screen without addressing any actual facts by passing off this movie as a bitter smear campaign because my candidate lost. All of these attacks, as per Scott's standard, will be made without seeing the movie.

I am none of these things.

CUT TO EMINEM VIDEO - MOSH

All you need to know about me, is that I listen to Eminem,

CUT TO ROBERT HORRY's GAME-WINNING SHOT IN GAME 4 of 2002 NBA WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS

I'm waiting for a Kings-Lakers western conference championship rematch so my team will win this time,

CUT TO COMMERCIAL of MISS THEO

I'm a Libra,

CUT TO SOME CHEESY FOOTAGE OF A COUPLE WALKING ON THE BEACH

and I enjoy pina coladas... and getting caught in the rain.

MONTAGE, EXACT VIDEO TBD

Needs to mention voting thesis more prominently

But most importantly, I love this country. In an unprecedented moment of clarity in recognizing the human condition, our founding fathers envisioned a country which revolved not around power, but around freedom and the pursuit of happiness. No other time in history have the people in power shown so much respect for the people they watch over and protect. We as a people through various angels sent to us have vigilantly defended this freedom endowed upon us and fought tirelessly to uphold these ideals expressed in the Constitution. Since then, politics has grown to become a self-serving machine which answers only to conduits of power and not the people it serves. I am afraid we are starting to stray from the path our forefathers put us on.

From the beginning, you will notice that the tone of this movie will be on par with the grandest of American conspiracy theories, Roswell, the JFK assassination, FDR and Pearl Harbor, and whether Lindsay Lohan's breasts are real. This is not your typical political documentary. While there will be some tasteless jokes here and there, I am asking you to consider the facts for themselves. Use your own head to come to conclusions, don't let Ann Coulter, Michael Moore, Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, LGF, DailyKOS, or ANYONE do the thinking for you. If you walk out hating this movie, tell 10 people why you hate it! If you walk out furious at our government, tell 50 people that you're mad as hell and you're not going to take it anymore! But whatever you do, do not sit back and become one with the herd. When you hear people bash this movie in the media, try to see if they actually dispute the content of the movie itself. Be especially careful with Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity, as they seem to avoid facts at all costs.

This movie is not about being liberal or conservative, but about being an American. The privilege to vote is one of the most vital posessions we have, and today, that privilege has been compromised. We have allowed special interests to control our ability to select a leader.

One more thing before we start, the fact that none of this was reported by the media is a travesty to this country. (Insert 2-3 sentence critique of the current state of media)

FOOTAGE OF OLBERMANN FROM COUNTDOWN ON OHIO IRREGULARITIES

I must give credit to one person, Keith Olbermann of MSNBC's Countdown, for he was the only one out of all the news networks that had the balls to say anything about the 2004 Election controversies.

Either FOOTAGE OF A CHICKEN WITH ITS HEAD CUT OFF RUNNING AROUND - or - FOOTAGE OF A MARIONETTE PUPPET DANCING AROUND LEARNING TO TALK, MAKE CONNECTING STRINGS PROMINENT

All the rest of you are a bunch of cowards who were too scared to lose their jobs all because Dan Rather trusted someone who maybe should have taken some night classes in Microsoft Word.

{ FWIW, i think of abu ghabu-whatever, the torture thing, how only a few people realized it was wrong, same thing with news reporting. }

FOOTAGE OF CROSSFIRE WITH JON STEWART AS GUEST, AUDIO OF "YOU'RE HURTING AMERICA" is JON's VOICE

As Jon Stewart said when he figuratively bitchslapped Tucker Carlson on CNN's Crossfire, "You're hurting America."

STILL BLACK

Let us begin.

TITLE - FOOL ME TWICE, PLAIN, NO MUSIC BACKGROUND

Trial/Mystery Theme

Issues

• Briefly state the framework of the movie
• Give a broad picture of how the content will be divided
• Make the comparison to a trial or mystery in highlighting how a case is built against someone

Commentary

In determining whether or not a criminal is guilty, we ask three questions: Why did they do it? How could they have done it? And did they have the opportunity?

The Trail

Exit Poll Discrepencies

Issues

[General Interim Report]

About Exit Polls

• What are exit polls?
• How accurate/reliable are exit polls really?
• Why does that have anything to do with voter fraud?
• Who is responsible for conducting exit polls?

Previous utility in determining fraud

• How have exit polls been used in other examples of monitoring fraud (Venezuala, Ukraine)?
• Why did the exit polls in these instances conflict with the official tally?

*But how come they didn't show problems in Florida in 2000? (answer: they did.)'

Exit Poll Controversies

• What is a swing state? What states constitute swing states? How long were they known to be swing states?
• What is the correlation between exit poll / actual counts in swing and non-swing states
• Why are the exit polls drastically different in in some counties in Florida, Ohio?

• Explain the 'Dixiecrat Effect'...support or deny its premises
• Explain the 'Kerry voters were more likely to respond then Bush voters' theory as cited in the Edison/Mitofsky report...support or deny its premises.

Show what happens when you take this hypothesis in good faith (kerry still wins!) Talk:2004_U.S._presidential_election_controversy,_exit_polls#new_map:Hybrid_us_map

Mitovsky Report

Analysis

Mitovsky Refuted?

USCountVotes analysis (2004_U.S._presidential_election_controversy,_exit_polls#USCountVotes)

• Reference the CalTech/MIT Paper, explain its conclusions

• Why was the CalTech paper's conclusions disputed?

• Reference the UC Berkeley paper, explain its conclusions

• Are the statistical models used in the paper correctly utilized?
• Name any other possible problems with the UC Berkeley paper

• Are the 2004 exit poll discrepencies more irregular than in years past? Why or why not?

• Why are the initial exit polls released by the NEP different than the final released exit polls?
• Why haven't the true raw exit polls been revealed?

Perfect place for some story telling: conyers and others chasing down raw data, including, 'i'd be perfectly willing to do the analysis myself' (since it appears either you are utterly incompetent when it comes to doing your job: statistics, or think i was born yesterday) 2004_U.S._presidential_election_controversy,_exit_polls#House_Judiciary_correspondance_regarding_exit_polls

Commentary

Lets assume for a moment that we knew for sure the election results weren't manipulated. How would we know? What kind of indicators would alert us to wrongdoings? A common method of

Motive

Why would they do it?

Diebold and the Voting Corporations

which leads directly into...

Means

Electronic Voting

• Illustrate personalities behind Corporation
• Illustrate ties to politicians (mostly Republican)
• Point out differences between Diebold ATMs and Diebold Voting Machines
• You MUST prove that Diebold was not merely incompetent but acted with purpose.
• Is there a difference between Target, Phillip Morris, Time-Warner, etc. donating to the republican party as opposed to an electronic voting company donating to the republican party?

General: Compare ATMs to Diebold voting machines. Point out lack of quality in voting machines as compared to extremely similar product WITHIN SAME COMPANY. Only two possibilities, incompetence or fraud. Use motive section (political connections, prior irregularities, etc.) to prove incompetence unlikely, especially in the face of ATM quality.

Issues

About Diebold

• What is Diebold?
• Who is the president of Diebold?
• What ties does Diebold share with politicians?

Walden O'Dell CEO of Diebold said he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral voes to the President [1]. O'Dell has defended his actions, telling the Cleveland Plain Dealer "I'm not doing anything wrong or complicated." But he also promised to lower his political profile and "try to be more sensitive." But the Diebold boss' partisan cards are squarely on the table. And, when it comes to the Diebold board room, O'Dell is hardly alone in his generous support of the GOP.

One of the longest-serving Diebold directors is W.R. "Tim" Timken. Like O'Dell, Timken is a Republican loyalist and a major contributor to GOP candidates. Since 1991 the Timken Company and members of the Timken family have contributed more than a million dollars to the Republican Party and to GOP presidential candidates such as George W. Bush. Between 2000 and 2002 alone, Timken's Canton-based bearing and steel company gave more than $350,000 to Republican causes, while Timken himself gave more than $120,000. This year, he is one of George W. Bush's campaign Pioneers, and has already pulled in more than $350,000 for the president's reelection bid.

• Does Diebold management have a criminal record?Court papers filed in Maryland, Wired news, [2]

Dec. 17 2003 - "At least five convicted felons secured management positions at a manufacturer of electronic voting machines, according to critics demanding more stringent background checks for people responsible for voting machine software.

"The programmer Jeffrey Dean wrote and maintained proprietary code used to count hundreds of thousands of votes as senior vice president of Global Election Systems, or GES. Diebold purchased GES in January 2002. According to a public court document released before GES hired him, Dean served time in a Washington state correctional facility for stealing money and tampering with computer files in a scheme that "involved a high degree of sophistication and planning in the use and alteration of records in the computerized ... system that defendant maintained for the victim." (23 counts of First Degree Theft, case 89-1-04034-1)

"The other reported felons included a cocaine trafficker [John Elder] and a man convicted of engaging in fraudulent stock transactions."

Jeff Dean was specifically involved in the King County voting system, and is also mentioned specifically in the Diebold memos in connection with programming optical-scan software and the touch-screen Windows CE versions. King County provided him with a key to the computer room, the passcode to the GEMS computer and 24-hour access to the building. Diebold have indicated that he left when they took over GES, however internal records show he was retained, and continued to act as a "consultant".

King County WA. is the same county which Diebold internal memos say "are famous" for illicit access to voting systems and where a 3 hour section is missing from a security log during the September 2004 Primary.

About ES&S

• What is ES&S and its history?
• Who is the president of ES&S?

• What happened when Hagel stepped down as head of the company?[3]

"If You Want To Win An Election, Just Control The Voting Machines"

In 1992, investment banker Chuck Hagel, president of McCarthy & Co, became chairman of AIS. Hagel, who had been touted as a possible Senate candidate in 1993, was again on the list of likely GOP contenders heading into the 1996 contest. In January of 1995, while still chairman of ES&S, Hagel told the Omaha World-Herald that he would likely make a decision by mid-March of 1995. On March 15, according to a letter provided by Hagel's Senate staff, he resigned from the AIS board, noting that he intended to announce his candidacy. A few days later, he did just that.

A little less than eight months after steppind down as director of AIS, Hagel surprised national pundits and defied early polls by defeating Benjamin Nelson, the state's popular former governor. It was Hagel's first try for public office. Nebraska elections officials told The Hill that machines made by AIS probably tallied 85 percent of the votes cast in the 1996 vote, although Nelson never drew attention to the connection. Hagel won again in 2002, by a far healthier margin. That vote is still angrily disputed by Hagel's Democratic opponent, Charlie Matulka, who did try to make Hagel's ties to ES&S an issue in the race and who asked that state elections officials conduct a hand recount of the vote. That request was rebuffed, because Hagel's margin of victory was so large.

As might be expected, Hagel has been generously supported by his investment partners at McCarthy & Co. -- since he first ran, Hagel has received about $15,000 in campaign contributions from McCarthy & Co. executives. And Hagel still owns more than $1 million in stock in McCarthy & Co., which still owns a quarter of ES&S.

• What political ties does ESS&S have?[4]

• How did he know Bush?
• What was he caught lying for?

• Who was Jeb Bush's first choice as running mate in 1998?
• What happened to the Hill when it tried to publish a story detailing Hagel's conflict of interest?

Sequoia

• Is there really a connection between Sequoia Pacific and criminal activity?

Problems with Voting Machines

• How secure are voting machines?

• Describe the incident where an alert poll worker noticed Gore's votes going down. Why did it occur? Why did Diebold say this occured? Is there explanation plausible?
• What kind of bugs are associated with voting machines?
• Who verified these bugs?
• Were these bugs fixed?
• Why was there only one password (1111)?
• Why did a programmer insert "This is just a hack for now"?
• Have voting machines been cracked before?

• Did Diebold know that its product was certified and tested? Did it present them as such?[5][http:/www.equalccw.com/lewisdeconstructed.pdf]

• How verifiable are voting machines?

• Why is there no paper trail?
• What is the history in congress that deals with debate over paper trails?[6]

Impact of Electronic Voting

• How many votes were cast electronically in the 2004 Election?

• In percentage of national votes
• In percentage of votes in Ohio (and maybe Florida)

Voter Suppression

Issues - KBaas

• KB, Keep in mind for example I don't know half of the stuff that you're talking about, remember to target it to someone who is not familliar with any of these events :).

• Theory of law? -consistent, unambiguous
• Voting process overview
• Brief outline of voting laws

A guide to voting in Ohio, America

Note: Whenever possible, ask "who was affected" and show a pie chart. Whenver possible, ask "how should it change (this year)?", "who is responsible?", and "how did it change?" If possible, after who is responsible, attribute to them (possible quote, such as "active voters", and show what that looks like on a graph, then show how it really looks (how it did change)

Another possible question to ask often: "Is this legal?" "No." "(Duh.)"

Reporting questions: who what when how why where'

"If you are a __, you are __% more likely to ___." "___ were ___ times as likely as __ to ___."

• addendum: was the democratic get-out-the-vote effort effective?

show long lines (what does it look like?)

show long lines graph and/or map (rep-dem) (and yes, those are democrats.)

show voter turnout graph? (rep-dem)

Then what happened? Let's go through this one step at a time...

• Registrating to vote

Law changes

Ballots being discarded (same guy from new mexico)

Ballots not being put in database (new this year)

In cuyahoga, over 10k

Lawsuit re. ballots being put in database - little or no avail

What will happen when a voter who's registration was not properly filed goes to vote? :provisional ballot

what percentage of these quasi-registered voters will get out to vote?: voter turnout percentage.

Voter registration growth scatter plot by %rep<->%dem

compare with voter turnout growth scatter plot, and turnout per reg.

registration and get out the vote efforts, from washington post article

• Voting ahead of time - Absentee ballots

History

lost in delivery to voter, or not recieved by vote date

lost in delivery from voter

couldn't vote provisional

• Going to vote

precincts (the big squeeze)

what are precincts?

how are they alloted?

why?

what happens when the pop density changes?

who is responsible for making the adjustment?

how did the population change this time?

how should the precincts have been changed?

how were they changed?

who was affected?

given wrong date to vote (up one or down one?)

who was affected?

finding my precinct - what if i don't know it?

What do the receptionist do (go thru process - show how reliable it is; you have to intentionally mislead)

precinct misdirection

how much?

where?

who was affected?

• When you get there
  • Do I get a ballot (machine) to vote on?

answer: maybe... (pie chart)

...it depends (pie chart per demographic (ethnicity?))

what is the law?

law: 100 voters per machine, 125 max

Why does this law exist?

go into detail, mathematically, be meticulous:

rate at which machine processes votes, how many people in one day, thus voters per machine.

why max? going over limit means no vote

with this formula, there shouldnt' be long lines.

who adjusts it?

how should it be adjusted?

how was it adjusted?

Poll Workers expecting more machines, there were less then last election

long lines

can we get a fox news clip? that would rock!

nearby, peace... (show republican district)

how many voters left?

1 in 5 leaving, witnesses.

Why?

people being called into work, or get fired

vehicles being towed

nearby, peace... (show republican district)

poll workers calling in

we'll get to it...

we'll get to it...

no. (order from blackwell)

Nader, lawsuit on election day: way to alleviate lines?

Damshroder: no.

show unused voting machines sitting in warehouse.

show & cite newspaper reporting it

Show how graph for franklin should look.

Show how graph for franklin does look.

blackwell "not registered voters, active voters"

why? (purported reason)

graph for franklin (w/ "active" voters)

show how it should look

show how it does look: yes, it looks like "active" voters is part of the formula: most likely, a cofactor on "%voting republican"

do statistical regression, to find formula. show variance, that it is statistically called a "good fit". (much better than... show variance for null hyp.)

do math on graph - wow, 1 in 5 leaving!

show map of county, machine distr.

"now let's zoom out a little bit" - zoom to map of state, machine distr.

show graph per county, statewide.

show unused voting machines.

calculate statewide from available data, if 100 machines per voter.

• • Will the machines work? - Broken machines answer: maybe. it depends...

Where?

broken machines per machine, by rep-dem.

Will the machines be repaired? (answer: no.)

• • How will I be treated? - Voter intimidation answer: it depends...

was there intimidation?

show video

• • What will I vote on? answer: it depends...

problems with voting machines - opt., electronic, punch.

allocation of type

graph showing correlation of demographics to technology

punch cards being saturated - show graph.

• • How will I vote? : answer: you will vote for george w. bush

electronic voting machines registering vote wrong

show voteprotect report (dem:88-rep:2)

• Provisional ballots

history - include HAVA.

prov. ballot rule changes (pre-election) - bday, envelope

voting wrong precint (even if right polling place) - vote not counted

lawsuit

field not required not filled out, ballot not counted.

no absentee ballot recieved? too bad.

Provisional ballots per total ballots by %rep<->%dem

Provisional ballots->uncounted prov. ballots per total ballots by %rep<->%dem

after election, counting provisional -

abnormally high number of unregistered

grade school math: 10k reg. not entered into database * 70% turnout = # "unregistered"

lawsuit re. prov. ballots - compare w/ reg. card if not in database. - no avail

show breakdown of reason prov. thrown out. (highest is not unregistered), cite source, narrate.

blackwell: "highest number prov. thrown out were unregistered"

Issues

• What happened in the 2000 Election with voting suppression?

• Who is ChoicePoint/Database Technologies?
• Reference Greg Palast's argument / "Bush Family Fortunes"

• What did State Rep. John Pappageorge, R-Troy, say about the Detroit vote?[7]

"If we do not suppress the Detroit vote, we're going to have a tough time in this election cycle."

• Does it matter that the authors of the article were employed as legal counsel to the Kerry campaign?

• Why were there such long lines for some machines?

• What did the interim report find about the long lines? [8]

"In precincts where there were fewer than 275 registrants per voting machine, Kerry received an average of 46.6% of the vote. In precincts with 275-325 registrants per voting machine, he received 55.7% of the vote. In precincts with the highest number of registrants per voting machine (over 325), and therefore likely the longest lines, Kerry received 65.3% of the precinct-level vote. Ratios of registrants per machine also appear to be negatively correlated with turnout percentages: in precincts with more registrants per machine, turnout figures were lower."

• What is another possible explanation for lower turnout?[9]

"Such an argument depends on an assumption that turnout differences associated with registrant to machine ratios were in fact caused by these machine availability differences. But other causal factors may also explain turnout differences. For example, prior research has demonstrated that less educated citizens of all races and partisan affiliations have lower turnout than better educated ones. If precincts with larger registrant to machine ratios have higher numbers of less educated registrants (perhaps because they are located in urban and less affluent areas), then one would expect lower turnout in these precincts, even if there were no effect of registrant to machine ratios on turnout."

• Is this rebuttal an adequate explanation? Why or why not? Does it actually refute the theorized effects of the voting machines?

• Why do long lines have anything to do with voter suppression?
• Were there any patterns to where the machines broke down?

"Of the 82 precints for which voters reported that one or more voting machines were not working, the vast majority were in neighboroods where over 75% of the population were black, while non-working machines were reported in only five precincts where less than 5% of the population were black"

• Is there a law covering the distribution of voting machines? Is it state or national? Was this law broken?

• Were voters intimidated on Election day? What organizations were alleged to intimidate voters? How do we know that they intimidated voters? From what sources do we know this information?

• What happened in Cuyahoga County, for example?

[10]

• What happened in Franklin County, for example?
• Who is Voter Outreach for America, and who are they funded by?

[11]

• How are absentee ballots sorted and who is responsible for getting them to the voters?

• What happened with Florida's attempt to use Felony purge list in 2004?

[12]

• Why were leaflets passed out that the election was November 4, and what areas were they primarily located in?