Or maybe it depends on whay you mean by “is” …
Guest blogged by Winter Patriot
Here’s a chilling story from Salt Lake City, which one of our friends noticed at The Salt Lake Tribune. It’s the kind of tale that Brad eats for breakfast, but for me it’s the sort of thing I gag on.
I don’t mean “gag” in the way you might think, that the overwhelming nature of the sleaze takes away my appetite. Instead, I mean: Brad would be able to understand all this — and explain it to you — a lot better than I can. But he’s away — the slacker! — and so it falls to this lowly and nearly frozen blogger…
I’ve read the article, Lobbyist challenged on voting machines: Legal. But ethical? S.L. County’s lobbying firm also works for the devices’ manufacturer, several times, and the words of Derek P. Jensen are finally starting to seep into my very thick skull. I’m even starting to get a handle on the cast of characters! Listen:
Peter Corroon is the Mayor of Salt Lake County.
Blaze Wharton, Dan Hartman and Paul Rogers are principals in The Tetris Group, a lobbying firm which is paid to lobby for the Salt Lake County Mayor’s Office.
The Tetris Group also has other clients, one of whom just happens to be Diebold Election Systems, a manufacturer of touch-screen voting machines, on which The BRAD BLOG has reported many times — often in less than glowing terms.
Last month, as part of their bid for the lucrative statewide election machine contract, Diebold made a presentation at the Salt Lake County Government Center. They were escorted to this presentation by their lobbyists — the Tetris team — who also just happen to work for the county Mayor’s Office. One slight problem: the Mayor’s Office never asked Tetris to do this for to them.
Peter Corroon: “We never asked Tetris to go out and lobby the state to get the Diebold systems. They came in with Diebold…”
As regular readers of this space already know [all too well], Diebold’s machines are crap not always reliable, and as Jensen writes, Salt Lake County “leaders continue to unleash a litany of complaints.”
For their part, Tetris has set up what apears to be a classic runaround: Wharton is referring all questions to Hartman, who isn’t returning any phone calls. And Rogers cannot even be reached. So that end of the trail is set up just about the way we’d expect it.
Gavin Anderson is Deputy District Attorney of Salt Lake County and he says the push “to determine an economic conflict must come from the mayor’s office”, according to Jensen, who quotes Anderson as saying:
Maybe I’m nearly frozen but I’m still functional enough to realize that this sounds like a good idea!! Is there anybody home over at the Mayor’s Office?
And what does Diebold say? According to Jensen:
Wow! That’s mighty reassuring, is it not?
Well … don’t take my word for it. I’m too cold to make any sense anyway. You should read Derek P. Jensen’s Lobbyist challenged on voting machines and enjoy the full reassuring story in its original context.
Thanks, as always. I’ll be back. But I gotta go try and thaw out for a while. Brrrr! What a cold story!
P.S. I heard from Brad last night, albeit briefly. He is doing fine, getting some R&R, and heading back to the wild lands. He sends you his best regards. He also says “Watch for some heavy Cannon Fire, coming to a blog near you, on Monday”.
I can’t imagine what he means. But we shall see…
Gotta love how much of this stuff is oozing out now.
And BTW, WINTER!
You’re freezing?? You need to make a trip to southern Tennessee, where the temp sensor on my porch (in the shade) reads 94.9 and the heat index is hovering around 100! The creek’s dried up, there’s not even a breeze stirring, nothing’s moving out there except the butterflies and wasps…
Somebody remind me of this when I’m complaining about freezing my a** off while venturing out to get more firewood this coming winter.
Winter et al.,
Here’s another very recent version of the story that may be easier to read:
Lobbyist Firm May Have Voting Machine Conflict
Winter et al.,
This is sorta OT, but not really. I found it while trying to do more research on the Utah/ Diebold topic.
I had never heard of the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948, but it prohibits the dissemination of U.S. propaganda or “official news” designed to influence public opinion or policy.
This is a great article about Bushco and propaganda: A Taxpayer Slush Fund. Very much worth reading. The blogger who wrote it, Timothy Karr, calls himself a MediaCitizen. I can’t believe that the article has no comments!!! Maybe he’s been lost in the blogosphere. He would make a great Brad Show guest.
——-snippet—-
The Smith-Mundt Act of 1948 (22 U.S.C. ‘ 1461), forbids the domestic dissemination of U.S. government authored or developed propaganda or "official news" deliberately designed to influence public opinion or policy. The law singles out materials that serve "a solely partisan purpose." In the past, the GAO has found that administration agencies violated this and other federal restrictions when they disseminated editorials and newspaper articles written by the government or its contractors without disclosing the conflict of interest.
—–read more at link—-
So this is good old fashioned Salt Lake Values, huh?Diebold is so dirty, they’re trying to take over Utah now!!!!!
Its time to get these unreliable fraudulent machines out of the process. No more DIEbold or ES&S !!!!!
No more election fraud, and crooked lobbyists.
Doug E.
Good Job, Winter. I am shocked, shocked!!
FYI, the new mayor of Salt Lake County (Corroon) is the cousin of Howard Dean…
Corroon (not to mention Dean..) needs facts, and soon, to get on top of this stuff: blackboxvoting.org links, and details about the recent CA Diebold decertification, and ____??? [No way should the mayor, at least if he has any control over what the State of Utah may be requiring, be suckered into a Diebold touchscreen machine purchase.]
"…the federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA)…"
Which by now should be known far and wide as the federal
"Hose America’s Voters Act (HAVA)".