Life in OUR America, Volume 2, The Livyjr Files Options

[Livyjr]

Livyjr -----

The forum suggested using PayPal.

Would you be willing to send the above information on to them?

A.B.

If I can figure out how.

As Gabrielle stated above somewhere, I can't use PM, either, and so, I don't know how to contact "management" to pass along this information!

I certainly don't want to have to go through Paypal to post in here!

[Livyjr]

Thanks for the boot in my virtual ***, Mr. A.B.!

And, of course, you are right!

And sadly, I am human, and so, am capable of perhaps "over-feeling" from time to time, especially up here in this corrupt hell of a place where God has me set down on earth, for the moment, anyway!

I feel like Diogenes laying in a gutter, all bloodied up, teeth kicked in, lantern smashed, yada, yada, yada!

[Abu Beacon]

I watched a video of  "Network" a few weeks ago, Paddy Chayefsky's 1976 CLASSIC about television and the beginning of "News as Entertainment"

This phenomenon is now at maturity - - there simply IS NO NEWS THAT IS NOT ENTERTAINMENT.

And entertainment is NOT neccessarily pablum, nosirree, Livyjr.

"If it bleeds, it leads," is a maxim of local news programming. Show us the bleeding body!

Show us  the burning house! Shove the mike into the woman's face and ask her, "How do you FEEL, Mrs Murphy, now that you've lost everything you ever had?"

Zoom to close-up of the tearful woman.

"I...I...I don't know what I..."

"That's it from here Steve, now back to you."

"Thanks, Mary. Don't touch that dial, because we have Dick coming up with the weather right after THESE IMPORTANT MESSAGES...

And the "going out" piece has to be a feel good piece so you'll stay tuned for the next hour of drivel the station is serving up. No tragedy here, thank you very much.

300 channels, and not a one to watch.

That's why I've given up watching TV.

You can still "Inform yourself" via BBC radio, Pacifica Radio, occasionally NPR, and the web (thanks again, Al Gore) which I think is best of all.

Yes, there are a lot of lies out there on the web, but the days of Walter Cronkite are OVER.  There are a lot of lies on TV!!!

"And that's the way is it, Wednesday, March 9th. This is Walter Cronkite saying, Good Night."

And Good Night to you, too Walter.

And to you John Boy.

In todays local newspaper, there was an article by one of the good columnists on that subject.

He is saying that the era of big Broadcast-news anchors is over and has been for years.

He also cites the statistic : The average age of the people who watch the news on the three networks is 60. ( I don't think he counted Fox )

This age group is not what the television moguls are really interested in.

The younger group, who they really want are not watching network news.

The columnist considers network news not much more than entertainment now.

He goes on to tell about a short period in his life when he was heading up the local 6:00 P.M. news, the tricks he had to use during the twice yearly rating periods.

He would put on a mentalist on the show to tell people who called in where they would find lost items, and stuff like that.

Ratings would go sky high.

Guess he got sick of those type of games and went back to being a columnist in the paper.

The games people play!

A.B.

[Abu Beacon]

If I can figure out how.

As Gabrielle stated above somewhere, I can't use PM, either, and so, I don't know how to contact "management" to pass along this information!

I certainly don't want to have to go through Paypal to post in here!

It's easy.

Go to " My Assistant " at the top of the page as in after you click on "view new posts."

On the left side you will see a list of the administrators and moderators.

Click one of them and send your message.

A.B.

[Livyjr]

And here I am just returning from Volume I of "Life in OUR America", where I just retrieved this story above, on the Bush Co.'s plan to computerize even more of OUR personal data, thus making it available and accessible to identity thieves, as this next chilling story shows can be, and in fact, is the case, with data about us that is presently stored on computers, and sold, or traded as a kind of "commodity", out there in the real world:

Spam, Scams & Viruses

"ChoicePoint urged to make wider disclosure - More victims surface in data theft case; suspect arrested"

By Bob Sullivan, Technology correspondent
MSNBC

Updated: 4:29 p.m. ET Feb. 16, 2005

NEW YORK - A New York state legislator is calling on database giant ChoicePoint to reveal a wider list of consumers impacted by a recent data theft at the firm involving thousands of consumers.

Atlanta-based ChoicePoint maintains and sells background files on virtually every adult American, culled from millions of public and private records.

Last week, the firm sent some 35,000 letters to California residents telling them their personal data may have been stolen by criminals who set up fake companies and downloaded information from ChoicePoint.
 
The incident was first revealed by MSNBC.com on Monday.

So far, only California residents have been told their information may have been stolen, but experts believe the fraud likely involved consumers around the country.

California state law requires disclosure of such data leaks, but it is the only state in the country to do so.

Similar laws have been proposed in several other states, including New York. 

James Brennan (D-Brooklyn), sponsor of New York's disclosure law, says ChoicePoint should inform New York state residents if their personal information was exposed during the incident.

"California law requires that identity theft victims be given a chance to limit their losses by prompt notification."

"New York has no such law."

Criminals tricked ChoicePoint by posing as legitimate businesses to gain access to the various ChoicePoint database, which contains a treasure trove of consumer data, including names, addresses, Social Security numbers, credit reports and other information.

At least 50 suspicious accounts had been opened in the name of nonexistent debt collectors, insurance agencies and other companies, according to the company.

Experts said the scope of the crime is almost certainly nationwide.

‘This is extraordinarily serious’

“This is the worst in our seven years,” the Times quoted him as saying.

“This is extraordinarily serious.”

California consumers who received the letter from ChoicePoint expressed frustration; many had never heard of the firm before receiving the alarming letter.

"How dare they even try to make money using my Social Security Number in the first place," wrote one in an e-mail to MSNBC.com.

He requested anonymity.

"Where did they get it from?"

"I certainly didn't give it to them; I never heard of them before receiving the letter."

What's really interesting about all of this IS WHO WE ARE HEARING ABSOLUTELY NOTHING FROM, AND THAT IS GEORGE W. BUSH!

And why?

Why the silence?

Why do we never hear anything from George W. Bush concerning these scams, and these scammers?

WHY?

Top Stories - washingtonpost.com

"ChoicePoint Data Cache Became a Powder Keg"

Sat Mar 5, 9:45 AM ET

By Robert O'Harrow Jr., Washington Post Staff Writer

The man on the phone called himself James Garrett.

Speaking with a lilting accent, the man said he was an executive with a Los Angeles company called M.B.S Financial.

He told an employee at ChoicePoint Inc. that he wanted to open an online account with the company to receive electronic reports on people.

It was the kind of request that ChoicePoint, one of the nation's largest information services, gets all the time.

Thousands of corporate and government clients rely on the company to provide them with publicly available information on people for help in hiring, fraud detection, journalist research, national security and debt collection.

But the man's call last fall was different, according to a detective's description of the encounter and testimony presented in a later court hearing.

Unknown to ChoicePoint, the caller was not Garrett, an actor in the Los Angeles area.

Police said he was a con artist involved in a vast identity-theft scam that succeeded in making off with records of at least 145,000 people.

The real Garrett was just another victim.

The imposter's attempt to gain access to even more files would not only expose the scam, but spark a national outrage and congressional hearings over whether the nation's growing commercial data industry is doing enough to guard personal information.

Yesterday, the burgeoning scandal led ChoicePoint to cut off access to some sensitive data to thousands of small businesses.

The company also announced in filings with the government that two senior executives were under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission for stock trades that took place after they learned about the scheme last fall but before they made it public.

On the day the man called ChoicePoint in late September, he was close to getting what he wanted.

He had already filed an application for the right to download reports to his computer, for about $15 each, claiming he needed sensitive personal information like Social Security numbers to track down targets of his collection agency.

But to the ChoicePoint employee on the other end of the line, something wasn't quite right.

For starters, the caller used a Los Angeles copy store to fax his paperwork to open an account.

That seemed strange for a businessman, and even more so when an in-house investigator realized that similar requests had recently been made by others in the Los Angeles area.

Something also seemed out of kilter about the local government documents the man forwarded to prove his business existed.

Authorities in Los Angeles were called for help.

The officer assigned to the case, a sheriff's detective named Duane Decker, asked the company whether it could lure the man posing as Garrett back to the copy store as part of a modest sting operation.

ChoicePoint would convince Garrett he needed to go back to the copy store to sign a faxed copy of his application and send it back to the company.

The ruse worked.

On Oct. 27, a man claiming to be Garrett showed up as promised at the Copymat store on Sunset Boulevard.

He approached the counter, asked for a document filed for James Garrett and paid the bill.

Decker, lingering nearby, asked the man if he was Garrett.

When the man said yes, Decker asked him to step outside.

As they left the store, the detective said he thought he had an easy case in hand.

He couldn't have been more wrong.

The man Decker stopped was Olatunji A. Oluwatosin, a 41-year-old Nigerian national.

Oluwatosin claimed he was picking up the paperwork for another man named Bobby, according to testimony at Oluwatosin's court hearing.

On the way out of the store with Decker, Oluwatosin dropped the paperwork he had just received from ChoicePoint and other forms for a company dubbed Gala Financial.

At the time, he was carrying five cell phones, only one of them in his own name.

Three credit cards bore the names of other people, including at least one woman.

At Decker's request, Oluwatosin shared his address in North Hollywood.

Once there, Decker said he found a printout of a ChoicePoint search involving another name, that of a man he later learned had lost $12,000 to identity thieves.

Decker also found a receipt for a public storage business not far away.

Before long, searching in unit B-245, Decker found what he later told a state court judge were the tell-tale signs of an identity theft operation: new televisions, electric generators and other products in shipping boxes stripped bare of details about where the goods came from.

The paperwork offered other leads.

Decker found addresses that turned out to be commercial mail services.

Investigators asked to see the unopened mail at some of those locations.

One clerk brought out two large bags containing credit card applications, financial statements and other mail that had been redirected from homes around the nation.

Driving to more than a dozen commercial mail services in one day, Decker and a postal inspector identified redirected mail from more than 700 people.

Further investigation revealed links to 22 other ChoicePoint accounts that had been opened under false pretenses.

"I realized that this was just absolutely huge and out of control," Decker said.

Identity theft and fraud has become a national problem in a few short years.

In 2003, federal authorities estimated that about 750,000 people fell victim to some identity scam.

Now the prevailing estimate is close to 10 million.

Driving the rise is a growing number of clever criminals who use people's Social Security numbers and other facts of their lives to take on their personas to run up credit cards bills, empty bank accounts and commit other crimes.

But consumer advocates say it's also the failure of so many information brokers, retailers and credit issuers to adequately protect records or do enough to stop swindlers by verifying the identities of customers.

Credit card companies, marketers and others have lost millions of files to hackers and identity thieves in recent years.

Two years ago, ChoicePoint itself was hit by another identity theft scheme involving personal records of thousands of people.

ChoicePoint, based in Alpharetta, Ga., has assembled a huge trove of personal data in recent years.

Much of that information, such as court rulings, driver records and real estate details, comes from government agencies.

The company also purchases information from the three major credit bureaus and other information services.

Its ability to create and electronically transmit exhaustive dossiers on people makes it a favorite of many Fortune 500 companies, government agencies and law enforcement and Homeland Security authorities.

Today, it has more than 100,000 customers and revenue approaching $1 billion, a large proportion based on the resale of details about individuals.

Before granting service, ChoicePoint typically requires a photocopy of a driver's license and business records on file with a state or local government agency.

A ChoicePoint employee would then verify that such a person and company exists.

Identity thieves skirted this system by using fake IDs and by setting up front companies on paper, registered with government agencies in phony names, according to court and company records.

Olatunji Oluwatosin pleaded no contest to identity theft in a California court last month.

He was sentenced to 16 months in state prison.

Authorities are still investigating who else may be involved in the scandal.

They believe others, possibly many others, worked with him.

ChoicePoint officials, meanwhile, said they have since identified more than 50 accounts that appear to be phony.

The company has warned people to watch for unauthorized activity on their credit reports and has offered to give them free access to that information, at an estimated cost of $2 million.

The real James Garrett said he first noticed that something was amiss when he received a call from a credit card company.

The company told him that a card in his name had been redirected to another address.

When Garrett went to police to report the fraud, police told him he was apparently part of an identity theft ring, possibly related to terrorist financing, Garrett said yesterday.

An investigator in the ChoicePoint case later told him that identity thieves had obtained not only his name and address, but his Social Security number, credit card password and mother's maiden name.

"They knew everything about me," Garrett said.

Behind the scenes, the case continues to expand.

Decker and other authorities in Los Angeles have discussed the case with the FBI and Secret Service, which has indicated it may have another identity theft suspect with ties to the ChoicePoint case.

The Federal Trade Commission has begun an inquiry.

At the same time, public ire is intensifying.

Congress is planning to hold hearings about the breach and the information industry in general.

Some of those hearings may involve questions about national security.

Democrats, including Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) have asked for a study about how terrorists might use information brokers like ChoicePoint.

In response to the thefts, ChoicePoint said in an SEC filing that it is "discontinuing the sale of information products that contain sensitive consumer data . . . except where there is either a specific consumer-driven transaction or benefit or where the products support federal, state or local government and law enforcement purposes."

"We fully support a continued national discussion of how to ensure that information is used responsibly, that the positive benefits of information use are preserved and that the illegal uses of data are severely punished," the company's filing said.

The company has defended the sale of hundreds of thousands of shares since November, before the scandal became public, by ChoicePoint chief executive Derek V. Smith and president and chief operating officer Douglas C. Curling, saying the transactions were part of scheduled sales arranged last fall.

Smith said he personally did not know about the security breach until January.

Decker, meanwhile, said that after four months it feels like his investigation is just beginning.

"Sometimes you're looking at Social Security numbers, and all of the sudden a name pops out and you realize, 'These are real people, all of them,'" he said.

"They could all be victims, if not now, in the future."

"The information is out there."

Special correspondent Kimberly Edds contributed to this story from Los Angeles.

[jeffmoskin]

The average age of the people who watch the news on the three networks is 60. ( I don't think he counted Fox )

This age group is not what the television moguls are really interested in.

The younger group, who they really want are not watching network news.

The columnist considers network news not much more than entertainment now.

And THIS fact which is often bandied about is one that boggles my mind.--

They want the 18 to 34 year old market.

WHY???

They don't have any money!!!

The people with disposable income are the geezer set. WE not they are the one's the admen should lust after.

Maybe they have figured out that we don't watch TV.

[jeffmoskin]

Livyjr -----

The forum suggested using PayPal. Would you be willing to send the above information on to them?

A.B.

I use PayPal quite a lot because I buy things on eBay.

I think the phishing scam relates to people who SELL stuff on eBay. Therefore, I would not hesitate to pay Michael ( I presume that is what we are talking about here ) his $7.95 using PayPal.

Or, send him $8.00 cash in a envelope.

[Livyjr]

In todays local newspaper, there was an article by one of the good columnists on that subject.

He is saying that the era of big Broadcast-news anchors is over and has been for years.

The columnist considers network news not much more than entertainment now.

Guess he got sick of those type of games and went back to being a columnist in the paper.

The games people play!

A.B.

Games, indeed, Mr. A.B.

In my case, this Kapostacy did what "IN THE TRADE" is known as a "SPLICE JOB", which is where the alleged "news" person takes some different "file footage", and then splices it together in such a fashion as to totally concoct a "story" out of it, as though the events depicted in the "SPLICE JOB" occurred in the order, or manner, presented as "NEWS".

Then, in this case, which was "presented" to the unsuspecting public as "BREAKING NEWS", she "used" her voice, feigning a really serious "tone", to "augment" what her "film footage" was allegedly portraying!

People become "mesmerized" when the news anchor, in this case Kapostacy, comes on right at the start of the film, and says in those hushed, serious tones, that what is to follow, is "oh, so serious, yada, yada, yada", and then when they "see" the "SPLICE JOB", THEY ARE HOOKED!

Why, it just HAS TO BE .....

THE TRUTH!

THE ABSOLUTE TRUTH!

BECAUSE .......

THE TELEVISION NEVER LIES!

TRUST THE TELEVISION!

TRUST THE TELEVISION!

THE TELEVISION NEVER LIES!

Don't believe me, just ask Chris!

Or Dan Rather

washingtonpost.com Highlights

"Dan Rather, leaving by the high road - Anchor wraps up 24 years at 'CBS Evening News' with final telecast"

"Now I'm guilty of a lot of things, and I've made a lot of mistakes -- but I haven't made that mistake -- of running, backing away," Dan Rather says.

By Tom Shales

Updated: 12:31 p.m. ET March 9, 2005

WASHINGTON - Emptying out his cubbyhole office in the CBS News building on West 57th Street in New York, wading through stacks and boxes of memorabilia accumulated over the years, Dan Rather came upon a piece of framed embroidery made and sent to him a couple decades ago by a nun who was, one might say, among the faithful -- a regular and loyal viewer.

"Be thou a soul to fullness grown," says one of her meticulously embroidered mottos.

"Arise to gain thy dreams."

Rather's voice warms.

"Pretty nice, huh?" he says.

Among the other embroidered words of wisdom:

"Today's trials were meant to make you strong."

With a few parting words and possibly -- but unlikely -- a few parting shots, Dan Rather will make his last appearance tonight as anchor of "The CBS Evening News," 24 years to the day since his first telecast as anchor and a full year sooner than he planned.

As virtually all of our world knows, Rather agreed to step down in the wake of a scandal involving a discredited "60 Minutes Wednesday" story on George W. Bush's supposed preferential treatment while in the National Guard.

The case, which resulted in four of the top people in CBS News being told to leave, has caused a tremendous schism within the organization, ruining Rather's exit not only by moving it up a year but also by hanging a dark cloud over it.

Rather, who's had many trials and certainly seems a soul to fullness grown, is told it's a shame he couldn't be leaving on a high note.

Rather: 'Leaving on a high note'

"First of all, from where I sit, I am leaving on a high note," Rather says, "and a higher note than I deserve and certainly a higher note than I ever thought possible when I walked into this job."

"Secondly, what's gone on these past few months, it all goes with the territory, as the cliche goes."

"It's part of the turf, particularly if you're determined to at least try to be an independent reporter."

"And I understand that very well."

(Rather's amazing 42-year career at CBS News, including a discussion of the flawed Bush report, will be recapped in a fascinating and evocative documentary, "Dan Rather: A Reporter Remembers," produced by Judy Tygard and airing at 8 tonight, after Rather's farewell newscast.)

In addition to the indignity of leaving the anchor chair prematurely, for weeks Rather has had to endure attacks from not only outside but inside CBS News -- like a combination of Davy Crockett and Julius Caesar.

In a devastating Ken Auletta piece for the New Yorker, such venerable CBS personalities as Mike Wallace and Walter Cronkite were quoted as saying they preferred watching Peter Jennings over Rather and basically dismissed him.

Then on Monday, just two days before Rather's farewell, old man Cronkite, the anchor Rather replaced, had the stupefying temerity to say that he thought Bob Schieffer, the "Face the Nation" host who'll fill in on the "Evening News" until a remodeled program is hatched later this year, would have made a better anchor.

"I would like to have seen him there a long time ago," Cronkite said of Schieffer on CNN.

He also said Rather "gave the impression of playing a role more than simply trying to deliver the news to the audience."

Talk about bad form.

"A codgerly old ass," one Rather loyalist, asking not to be identified, said of Cronkite.

"He stayed alive just so he could see this moment."

However pathetic Cronkite's remarks make him seem, they enforce the image of "Dan Rather -- Alone at the Top."

Unlike some of Rather's adventures over the years -- the coolest anchor, he's one of the few men over 60 who can successfully still wear jeans -- this one is dead serious.

Rather will not be dragged into a mud fight.

"I've said consistently to everybody that I'm not going to respond to that," he says.

But he agrees to continue.

"First, this is parenthetical, but I've been moved, and I like to think I'm not moved easily, by how many people, particularly people who make the place go -- technicians, editors, writers, researchers, producers, people I've worked closest with -- have taken the time and trouble and had the grace to come up to me and say encouraging and supportive things."

"And that means a lot to me. . . . . Now, close parentheses."

Rather often includes punctuation in his remarks.

"This is no big deal, but when you ask me about those specific quotes from those specific people, this is what I have to say, and it's all I have to say: That the accomplishments of these men speak for themselves."

"Individually and collectively, they've had some of the truly great careers in television news, at CBS or anywhere else."

"Since that's the way they feel, they're entitled to express their opinions."

"They've earned the right to voice them."

"Period."

Although Cronkite's later comments made things worse, Wallace said yesterday he and Rather are still friends, and that Auletta's piece was originally going to be about changes in network news generally, not just Rather and CBS.

"I wrote a note, and Dan wrote a note, and I wrote a note, and Dan and I have it all straightened out now," Wallace said yesterday from his home in New York.

"It has to be remembered, too: He's just the best damn reporter there is."

There may not be lots of other CBS News veterans coming forth to cheer Rather, because one says he was threatened with the loss of his own job if he did.

Rather is obsessive in his loyalty to CBS News, but it begins to seem like unrequited love.

"My attitude is, I want to move forward now," says Rather.

"I want to get through Wednesday as gracefully and as classily as I know how and then take a little time to myself and then move right into the next phase of my work."

"Thank God my health is good, I feel vigorous, feel strong, and I want to get into both '60 Minutes Wednesday' and '60 Minutes' and try to do some great journalism."

There are possible problems even with that plan, however.

Leslie Moonves, the CBS president who charged into the scandal and has not been even slightly supportive of Rather or of CBS News, has implied "60 Minutes Wednesday" may be canceled if its ratings don't improve.

And there is some question how welcome Rather will be at "60 Minutes" in the wake of the scandal, even though he's an alumnus (1975-81).

Some insiders think Rather should have done more to protect the discharged employees and should have threatened to leave if they were let go.

The major flaw of the original story was that documents used to support its allegations were not thoroughly verified.

Rather likes to think of himself as a "reporter-anchor," but he hardly has the time to go rummaging through files and halls of records to check on the authenticity of documents that are decades old.

Dogged by bias allegations

All this has been argued to death and could be argued until doomsday.

One of the sad things about it is that it gave the right wing, which has had its sights on Rather for years now, something to cheer and dance in the streets about.

Over the years, ultra-conservatives have made Rather their public enemy No. 1.

They deluged him with hate mail, founded a Web site called Ratherbiased.com and were the prime suspects when a computer was used to jam his phone lines.

He says he doesn't know how he became such a lightning rod for controversy.

"What I do know is that it's not something I worry about," he says.

"I've never worried about it."

"I am independent as a reporter -- determinedly independent and, when I think it's necessary and advisable, I'm fiercely independent."

"And I think the determination to stay independent is part of what's made me what you call a 'lightning rod.'"

"There's always somebody of some political persuasion or some ideological belief and/or partisan political agenda who takes the attitude, 'If you don't report the way I want you to report, if you're not going to reflect my biases, then I'm going to try to hurt you, ruin you if I can, by hanging some negative label on you and calling you names like 'biased.'"

"And at that point, you're in the classic fight-or-flight situation."

"Now I'm guilty of a lot of things, and I've made a lot of mistakes -- but I haven't made that mistake -- of running, backing away."

"I haven't done that, I'm not doing it and I'm not going to do it."

Former CBS and CBS News president Sir Howard Stringer, just named chairman of the entire Sony empire, was once the executive producer of "The CBS Evening News" and remains a Rather admirer.

He used to talk about the unique experience of walking down the street with Rather and feeling all eyes upon them, of Rather's magnetism and "larger than life" persona.

Near the end of "A Reporter Remembers," Stringer says that whatever mistakes were made with the National Guard story, Dan Rather has compiled "an extraordinary body of work."

The question is whether he will be able to keep compiling it.

Obviously if the decision is entirely his, he will.

News — and a news giver

Rather has always been the news as well as being a news giver.

Over the years, he appeared in headlines more often than any of his competitors -- whether for his on-air shouting match over Iran-Contra with George H.W. Bush, his tiff with a Chicago cabdriver or his mugging by a mysterious psychotic who reportedly uttered the seemingly meaningless "What's the frequency, Kenneth?" while clobbering Rather on a New York street.

Some doubted the story's veracity, but years later the same man murdered an NBC stagehand and inadvertently revealed he had attacked Rather, an expression of his clinically paranoid-schizophrenic delusions that people on TV were sending out invisible signals that controlled his life.

On the documentary tonight, Rather points out the man never actually said "What's the frequency, Kenneth?" though that later became the title of an R.E.M. song.

The mugger did ask "What's the frequency?," though, and at one point "addressed me as 'Kenneth,'" Rather says.

It's sort of like "Play it again, Sam," one of those famous quotes that was never said.

Some of Rather's fans breathed a sigh of relief when the man was finally found and the story thus verified, because Rather does seem to run on an electrical current that is his alone.

There is, inescapably, a tension in his appearances on the air -- thus shock-jock Don Imus's irreverent observation at the 1996 Radio and Television Correspondents' Association dinner that Rather delivers the news "like he's making a hostage tape."

But is it tension, or urgency?

Rather believes the news is serious business.

He's not going to lean back in his chair and deliver it to viewers conversationally.

He's not trying to be your friend.

For that reason and others, his departure from the evening-news wars tonight may mark the end of more than one era.

The networks love the revenue that news programs like "60 Minutes" bring in, but they hate the messiness of news, the trouble news causes, the awful unpredictability of it all ("reality" prime-time shows, entirely different, are carefully packaged and controlled).

CBS News, having weathered many a crisis, has hit a larger than usual iceberg this time.

Andrew Heyward, president of the news division, is considered by many to be much more loyal to the corporate side than to news.

For years, the great CBS News presidents -- Richard Salant, William Leonard, Fred W. Friendly -- saw part of their job as standing up to incursions by bottom-liners from the corporate side.

Heyward has been all but invisible since the scandal broke and never publicly offered to resign.

Instead, he and Moonves have been consorting on a revamped "Evening News" that could move the broadcast in the direction of "The Today Show" and other morning magazines -- something lighter and more fun and tailored to attract the 18-to-34-year-olds who rarely watch now.

The great days of network news, days Rather lived through first as a devout radio listener and then as one of the troops -- may be long over.

"Look for it only in books," as is said of the South in the prologue to "Gone with the Wind."

Asked if the old-style news president is an extinct species, Rather declines to answer, the only question he wouldn't even entertain.

But on the matter of network news being in terminal decline, he says he sees the dangers but doesn't think the situation is irreversible.

"Some people conclude the sun is rapidly setting on what was once considered solid broadcast journalism," he says.

"And what makes some people concerned about it is bloggers, paid political operatives posing as White House journalists, paid hucksters hustling political programs all lumped together in a soup that's served up as professional punditry."

"The concern is that we'll reach the day, if we aren't careful, that the premium is no longer put on journalists getting to the truth behind official policy statements but rather making sure that reporters, and the press in general, trample on no toes that would result in the denial of access to those wearing the shoes."

Without mentioning the current Bush administration and the attitudes toward the press it encourages, Rather says, "I confess that I am concerned that we may be reaching the point where too many members of the press fear being labeled unpatriotic or partisan if they challenge the actions or decisions of political leaders of any persuasion.

"What the country doesn't need, particularly just now, is a press that's docile -- never mind obsequious or intimidated."

"I don't agree with those who say, 'Dan, it's already happened,' but I do recognize there's some danger."

Rather, 73, still has plenty of fight left in him, more than a lot of us ever have at what we imagine are our best moments.

Surely it has occurred even to him that it would be nice to just get up from the anchor desk and walk away -- leave all the aggravation and warfare behind.

Rather confesses that he and his brilliant and strong-willed wife Jean -- whom he usually refers to as "Jean Rather" -- did consider this option.

"We did discuss it."

"Jean Rather presented that case in an eloquent way."

"I don't want to mislead you; she did not say, 'This is what I think you should do.'"

"She did say, 'In making a list of things to consider, you should consider this, and I know you better than any other living person and if I don't mention it, you might not think of it.'"

"She fixed some of her famous Jean Rather Prison Chili and we had about two spoonfuls' worth of time discussing it."

"And that was pretty much it."

Dan Rather is not going gentle into that good night.

He's not the type to go gentle, for one thing, and as far as he's concerned, night hasn't fallen by a long shot.

And that's part of our world, Wednesday, March 9, 2005.

Arise, Dan Rather, to gain thy dreams . . . .

[Livyjr]

I use PayPal quite a lot because I buy things on eBay.

I think the phishing scam relates to people who SELL stuff on eBay.

Therefore, I would not hesitate to pay Michael ( I presume that is what we are talking about here ) his $7.95 using PayPal.

Or, send him $8.00 cash in a envelope.

Oh, I have no objections to sending him a money order for the fee, but that was not given as one of the payment options.

In fact, the only one seemed to be Paypal, and when I heard that name, a light and warning went off!

I am a believer in this forum, but not in these computer places like Choicepoint and Paypal!

And I sure am not a believer in George W. Bush's plan to make even more of OUR identity material available to the thugs and thieves who are fueling the growth of HIS economy, for the reasons which follow in this next story about, you guessed it, CHOICEPOINT!

THIS, AMERICA, IS THE HORROR WORLD OF BUSH CO.!

Turn everything upside down and inside out, and why, YOU THEN HAVE ARRIVED AT THE TRUTH, Bush Co. style!

And keep in mind that IT IS THIS COMPANY WHICH IS PROVIDING LAW ENFORCEMENT IN AMERICA WITH ITS INFORMATION, ON YOU, INCLUDING WHETHER YOU ARE SUSPECTED OF BEING A TAY-RIST!

SO!

Very serious business, indeed, AND IT IS PLACED RIGHT SQUARE IN THE HANDS OF AN INCOMPETENT PACK OF FOOLS, who apparently are well connected right to George W. Bush's REPUBLICAN PARTY!

Surprise, surprise!

Spam, Scams & Viruses

"ChoicePoint files found riddled with errors - Data broker offers no easy way to fix mistakes, either"

EXCLUSIVE

By Bob Sullivan, Technology correspondent, MSNBC

Updated: 4:41 p.m. ET March 8, 2005

Deborah Pierce held a rare and precious document in her hands.

It was the story of her life, as told by ChoicePoint Inc.

She wasn't supposed to see it; an anonymous source had smuggled the report to her.

But there it was, her "National Comprehensive Report," 20 pages long, a complete dossier of all the digital breadcrumbs she's left behind during her adult life.

At least, that's what it was supposed to be.

Pierce said she felt an uneasy twinge in her stomach as she began to flip the pages.

A dozen former addresses were listed, along with neighbors and their phone numbers.

Almost 20 people were listed as relatives -- and their neighbors were listed, too.

There were cars she supposedly owned, businesses she supposedly worked for.

But the more closely she looked, the more alarmed she became: The report was littered with mistakes.

ChoicePoint, the now embattled database giant, aggregates data from hundreds of sources on millions of Americans.

The reports are then sold to thousands of companies and government agencies that want to know more about their clients, customers, or employees.

As first reported by MSNBC.com, the company last month warned 145,000 people that criminals posing as legitimate businesses had accessed that information, putting them at risk of identity theft.

The incident sparked discussion about the larger industry of data collection, made up of companies known as commercial data brokers.

ChoicePoint is the largest, but there are hundreds of other firms that collect and sell private information for profit.

ChoicePoint also has a host of important government clients, including the FBI and other intelligence agencies.

The Alpharetta, Ga.-based company declined to be interviewed for this story, pointing a reporter toward the firm's Web site for additional information.

The company separately announced Tuesday that it has hired a top official at the Transportation Security Administration to review how the company screens its customers.

Pierce, a privacy advocate, obtained her report nearly two years ago, long before the current controversy.

Thanks to the unknown source -- perhaps a company employee, Pierce said, but she has no way of knowing -- she got a rare privilege most consumers don't: a chance to see what ChoicePoint knows about her.

She didn't like what she saw.

Glaring errors and omissions

What first caught Pierce's eye, she said, was a heading titled "possible Texas criminal history."

A short paragraph suggested additional, "manual" research, because three Texas court records had been found that might be connected to her.

"A manual search on PIERCE D.S." is recommended, it said.

Pierce says she's only visited Texas twice briefly, and never had any trouble with the law there.

"But if I was applying for a job, and there were other candidates, and this was on my record, the company would obviously go for another person," she said.

"It raises a question in your mind."

It's not clear prospective employers would see that part of Pierce's file as part of an employment background check.

The firm declined to answer specific questions about Pierce's report -- or to confirm its authenticity -- but said it was likely designed for law enforcement officials.

"It is ... only intended for trained investigators who use the information as a directional guide of where to go to confirm facts in the public record," said spokeswoman Kristen McCaughan.

Internet searches indicate the reports are also sold to private investigators.

On ChoicePoint's Web site, the National Comprehensive Report is described as a collection of searches that glean data from "national and state databases for a summary of assets, driver licenses, professional licenses, real property, vehicles, and more."

"Each report offers the ability to add associates to the report, which include relatives, others linked to the same addresses as the subject and neighbors."

Knowing former addresses and neighbors — assuming such information was correct — would be of obvious utility to law enforcement officials investigating a crime.

But even if the report was only marketed to law enforcement, Pierce said she was still concerned about who might end up seeing the information.

And there were many more inaccuracies that troubled her.

Under former addresses, an ex-boyfriend's address was listed.

Pierce said she never lived there, and in fact, he moved into that house after they broke up.

The report also listed three automobiles she never owned and three companies listed that she never owned or worked for.

Under the relatives section, her sister's ex-husband was listed.

And there are seven other people listed as relatives who Pierce doesn't know.

"There are all these other people in my file."

"I find that offensive," she said.

Most alarming to Pierce is the fact that, with all this information, the ChoicePoint report she received had glaring omissions, too.

Many of her former addresses aren't listed; and despite the host of other people listed on her report, many relatives and nearby neighbors were missing.

"I see my next door neighbor almost every day when I'm here."

"And he's not there," she said.

"If you were going to do an investigation on me, he'd be the one you'd want to talk to, not the burrito place on the corner."

" ... It really makes you call into question the effectiveness of this kind of data collection."

His ChoicePoint report said he was dead

Pierce's experience neatly parallels that of Richard Smith, another privacy advocate, who paid a $20 fee and received a similar report from ChoicePoint several years ago.

The company offers a wide variety of reports on individuals; Smith purchased a commercial version that's sold to curious consumers.

Smith's dossier had the same kind of errors that Pierce reported.

His file also suggested a manual search of Texas court records was required, and listed him as connected to 30 businesses which he knew nothing about.

Some of the mistakes on Smith's report were comical: That his wife had a child three years before they were married, that he had been married previously to another woman, and most absurd, that he had died in 1976.

"Pretty obviously the data quality is low," Smith said.

He equated a ChoicePoint report to the results of a Google search on a person -- solid information is mixed in with dozens of unrelated items.

The more common a name, the more extraneous information is produced.

"People who use this data should keep that in mind," Smith said.

No way to fix errors

Elizabeth Rosen has also spotted numerous mistakes in her seven-page ChoicePoint report.

Rosen, a nurse from Los Angeles, Calif., was the first consumer to complain to MSNBC.com after receiving a letter from ChoicePoint in February indicating her personal information had been stolen.

Rosen has since received a copy of one of her ChoicePoint reports, a "personal public records search," -- she's still awaiting others -- and already, she's spotted a series of mistakes.

"There are problems on five of the seven pages," she said.

The most serious involve two post office boxes she has owned, one in Florida and one in Texas.

She only held the boxes for a short while, but Rosen believes she's now been connected to every other firm that has rented those boxes.

In Miami Beach, she is listed as the owner of a firm named Adopt-A-Classroom.

In Texas, she's been tied to a nail salon, a deli, and a firm named Phoenix Investigations, among 44 other businesses.

She is also listed as an officer of a firm named "Reimbursement Specialists Of Central Texas, LLC."

But what really bothers Rosen is what happened next.

"I asked the guy at ChoicePoint how I can get these errors fixed," she said.

"And he said they can't."

Rosen was told she had to talk with each furnisher of the information individually -- to the private firm where she rented the P.O. box, for example -- and convince each one to update their information and then send it back to ChoicePoint.

Rosen figures there might be 100 different sources of information in her report, so fixing the errors would be just about impossible.

"I told them, 'I don't want to be spending 40 hours a week correcting your errors,’" she said.

The ChoicePoint data leak has sparked calls for congressional investigations and new legislation.

One bill, proposed by Florida Sen. Bill Nelson, would place companies like ChoicePoint in the same category as credit reporting agencies, which are governed by the Fair Credit Reporting Act and its subsequent revisions.

That law establishes detailed -- albeit imperfect -- procedures for correcting errors in personal information.

That's a start, Pierce said.

But fundamentally, she thinks lawmakers and corporations need to give more consideration to the compilation and use of such reports in the first place.

"Why are they entitled to have this information?"

"How useful is it, if it's not accurate?" Pierce said.

Meanwhile, Smith said compliance with such an accuracy requirement may be much easier said than done.

Companies like ChoicePoint, which has gobbled up dozens of smaller database firms in recent years, often have hundreds of different databases.

The data is often in very different formats, and not linked in any way.

Simply answering the question "What's in my file?" may be impossible.

"There's no business reason for them to do it," Smith said.

"Still, it would be nice if you could pay them ... and just ask, what do you know about me?"

Currently, consumers can order various fee-based reports at ChoiceTrust.com, ChoicePoint's consumer Web site.

A list of consumer products is available at ChoicePoint's Web site.

Bob Sullivan is author of Your Evil Twin: Behind the Identity Theft Epidemic.

[Livyjr]

It's easy.

Go to " My Assistant " at the top of the page as in after you click on "view new posts."

On the left side you will see a list of the administrators and moderators.

Click one of them and send your message.

A.B.

And here, Mr. A.B., I just tried that, and when I tried to P.M. Michael to try jeffmoskin's suggestion of sending in the money, the message that I got back was that I am not allowed to use the P.M. feature.

SO!

If somebody can crack this code .......

[Livyjr]

And THIS fact which is often bandied about is one that boggles my mind.--

They want the 18 to 34 year old market.

WHY???

They don't have any money!!!

Ah, BUT THEY DO, jeffmoskin!

Funny money, a la the credit card, or rather, a wallet full of them!

Max one out, what the hey, because they just keep sending you more and more of them.

Manna from heaven, to the admen!

I know younger people who have five or more of the things, and they just keep sending in the minimum amount and you know what, manna from heaven, to the credit card companies!

As to the poor fools themselves?

Well, to the admen and credit card companies, that is what GOD put young people down on this good, green earth for, to not know better.

[Livyjr]

In 1988, about March or so, I was a health officer in a corrupt county in the corrupt Empire State of New York.

In January of 1988, the New York State Public Health Law had been amended to allegedly demand greater accountability for state monies going to county health departments, and I had made it quite clear that as of January 1, 1988, I was going to toe that line, and make sure that it stayed "toed" by the BIG MONEY INTERESTS that were interested in "developing" the county that I was health officer in.

SO!

One day, I got a "summons" to report to the conference room on the fifth (EXECUTIVE) floor of the county building, where a big gathering of "land developers" were to meet with the county executive, ABOUT ME!

Now, a point that must be taken into consideration here is that the county had been established as a county health district back in 1946, while the charter form of county government, which provided for the office of county executive, did not come into being until 1975, and the point is that the county executive had absolutely no control over the workings of my office, or the health district, EXCEPT .....

Except for the fact that he "controlled" my boss, the county public health director, who had been executive secretary of the New York State Republican Committee, before being brought over to my county in or about 1977 to serve IN THE CAPACITY OF A MEDICAL DOCTOR, AND THEREBY take over operations of the county health department, to turn it into a "graft mill" for the Republicans, despite the fact that the man had no medical training or degrees whatsoever.

And here it must be added that the New York State Department of Health had "okayed" that deal, which was and still should be a matter of record in the corrupt Empire State.

SO!

There we all were, in that conference room including "Mr. JIMMY DEE", who was the "STATE HEALTH DEPARTMENT MAN" assigned as a "watcher" over me.

The developers got right to the point.

They had a suitcase, or briefcase of money with them, which the county executive, on TV Channel 13 out of Menands, New York later confirmed had within it $80,000, as I recall (I have a videotape of that "news" conference, so it is a part of the public record), and they made it clear that if I was not "gone" at his hands, that the money would go to a challenger of their choice in the upcoming election for county executive.

I'll never forget the look on the face of the State Health Department man, MR. JIMMY DEE!

He was positively gloating, like a cat just got a nice big plate of cream set right down in front of it, and no other cats allowed in the room while that one fat cat got to lap up all it wanted.

As to the county executive, well, they were talking his language, and he was hearing them with every ear that he had attached to his body.

In fact, I think some saliva was coming out of his mouth at the prospect of getting his hands on that money, right then and there, BUT ....

Of course, there was still some "arranging" that had to be done, as the county executive did not have the power himself to "get rid of" me.

NO!

That was yet to come, BUT .....

There was where the seeds were sown, and by then, the land developers had the State Health Department "necessary men" right where they needed them, in their pockets, BECAUSE they were operating through the Republican Party at the state level, and the state Republican Party then yanked strings for them from within.

That was done by having one particular state senator, whose name appears in here from time to time, "threaten" to remove certain job titles or line items from the funding for the state health department.

And I was "going down", that was for certain, unless I became "compliant", of course, which is the exact word used in a newspaper article published right around the time of that "meeting", to demonstrate to all the watching world the POWER these land developers wielded in the county, and to further demonstrate the SOLIDARITY that they had with the county politicians whose real job, or DUTY it was to protect the county residents from these developers!

AAAAHHHHH!

LIFE in George Pataki's corrupt Empire State of New York!

IF you are a politician, you just got to love it up here, as this next story shows!

Why, I have heard that some of these politicans of ours up here are now having extra arms surgically grafted onto their bodies, and a host of extra snouts grafted onto their heads, just so they can rake in more and more and more out of the "TROUGH", 'cause they just can't get enough with the two arms and one mouth that God gave them, and that's a fact!

"Stadium fight enriches the influence industry - Costly campaigns for and against Jets facility boost spending on lobbyists"

By JAMES M. ODATO, Capitol bureau, Albany, New York Times Union
First published: Wednesday, March 9, 2005

ALBANY -- Spending on lobbying in New York rocketed 20 percent to $144 million last year, fueled by the high octane fight over the New York Jets' bid to erect a publicly supported stadium over the state-owned rail yard on Manhattan's West Side.

Almost $29 million was spent on lobbying for the Jets project alone, driving the increase from 2003's $120 million total.

"It's the Super Bowl of lobbying," said Blair Horner, legislative director for the New York Public Interest Research Group.

"Lobbying in New York has become major league."

The Jets deal, which is linked to New York City's bid for a future Olympics, enriched teams of lobbyists working the pro or con angles, but especially the con, according to the 2004 annual report of the Temporary State Commission on Lobbying.

The report, released under a Freedom of Information Law request, shows that lobbying in New York broke all sorts of records, including that for the most spent by a lobbying client -- $13.3 million from CSC Holdings (Cablevision).

Cablevision is fighting the Jets deal to protect its Madison Square Garden property.

Added to the nearly $8.8 million that Madison Square Garden itself spent, the opposition forces reached $22.1 million in spending.

The CSC spending alone topped the biggest sum spent in the past -- Local 1199/SEIU and the Greater New York Hospital Association's $11.06 million in 2003 for lobbying on health care issues.

And the Jets spent almost $7 million in the fight, which is spilling into 2005 and resulting in even more lobbying fees.

Madison Square Garden retained 13 lobbyists to fight the stadium, including former U.S. Sen. Alfonse D'Amato and political strategist Arthur Finkelstein, who are close to Gov. George Pataki.

The Jets hired 12, including another former Pataki strategist, Kieran Mahoney, and former communications director Michael McKeon.

"When you're spending millions of millions of dollars it must be resulting in bone-crushing political pressure," said Horner.

Assemblyman Richard Gottfried and Sen. Thomas Duane, Democrats whose districts include the site of the proposed stadium, said TV ads run by both sides and other forms of lobbying are indeed causing a huge amount of interest, and they wondered whether campaign contributions will also be up because of the issue.

Both lawmakers oppose the Jets deal, which would require $300 million in state funding and an equal amount in New York City government funding, plus a $450 million loan from the city.

Gottfried said labor unions that help public officials get elected, and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg are advocating for the project.

"Of course, the city's lobbying efforts don't show up in lobbying reports," he said.

He said Cablevision is spending a fortune fighting the project, but if it didn't, the community would have been "steamrollered" by the Jets.

"That $30 million reflects the fact that this has become a major public issue," he said.

MSG also issued the largest single contracts, $1.16 million to Ask Public Strategies and the third-highest -- $394,936 to the Glover Park Group.

This was well above 2003's top contract of $360,000, given to Patricia Lynch Associates by Destiny USA.

Lynch received the same sum from the mall development company in 2004, but it rated fourth on the list.

"You'd be hard-pressed to find a legislator that hasn't had repeated contacts from both sides of this issue," said Assemblyman Michael Gianaris, D-Manhattan, a proponent of the Jets project.

Gianaris, a candidate for attorney general, said lobbying has been a growth industry in New York, and that's fine as long as people are expressing their First Amendment rights and it's all aboveboard.

Although overshadowed by the Jets fight, gambling and health care also were prominent lobbying issues.

The Oneida Indian Nation, represented by Lynch and others to fight attempts by out-of-state tribes to open casinos in the Catskills, spent $2.55 million last year.

Health and mental hygiene businesses, lumped together in one lobbying category, topped the list of spending among perennial Capitol issues at $18.76 million.

The leading lobbying firm overall continued to be Wilson, Elser, Moskowitz, Edelman & Dicker, which received almost $6.7 million in contracts, compared with $5.22 million in 2003.

Greenberg Traurig grew the most, 208 percent, largely because it recruited a host of lobbyists, while Mercury Public Affairs, the firm that Mahoney and McKeon lead, grew 88 percent.

The Lynch firm, headed by Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver's former top aide, grew 43 percent.

[Livyjr]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/07/national...print&position=

March 7, 2005

"Polls Show Los Angeles Mayor Facing Dead Heat in Primary"
By JOHN M. BRODER

LOS ANGELES, March 6 - James K. Hahn should be coasting to re-election as mayor of Los Angeles.

He has a solid political pedigree, a reasonably strong economy, a falling crime rate, the backing of the city's pre-eminent labor federation and a long list of endorsements.

Heading into the city's primary election on Tuesday, however, the polls show that the race is a dead heat involving Mr. Hahn and two other Democrats, Bob Hertzberg and Antonio Villaraigosa, both former speakers of the State Assembly and former roommates in Sacramento.

The two top vote-getters in Tuesday's nonpartisan primary will meet in a runoff election in mid-May.

Political analysts here are reluctant to predict the outcome of the primary, but several have said that Mr. Hahn has squandered the power of the incumbency, partly by failing to take advantage of the relative peace and prosperity in the city and partly because of his colorless demeanor.

He has also been damaged by a criminal investigation into the awarding of city contracts to large political donors and other charges of favoritism in the conduct of the city's business.

In the campaign's closing days, Mr. Hahn has opened two lines of attack against Mr. Hertzberg and Mr. Villaraigosa.

He has accused them of supporting California's experiment with energy deregulation and then cozying up to Enron and other energy companies that manipulated the state's energy supplies, leading to widespread power blackouts and brownouts in 2000 and 2001.

He has also said in advertisements that Mr. Hertzberg and Mr. Villaraigosa wrote letters urging President Bill Clinton to pardon a convicted crack cocaine dealer.

Mr. Hahn used that to great effect against Mr. Villaraigosa four years ago.

Mr. Hertzberg dismissed the mayor's charges as the flailings of a drowning man.

"You've got a desperate mayor doing desperate things," he said.

Mr. Hahn said that he had been written off before during his 24 years in public life and had come back to win each time.

"Always underestimated," Mr. Hahn said in an interview recently, "never defeated."

VOTES          PCT

Villaraigosa,  Antonio  124,561  33.07

Hahn, James (i)  89,189  23.68

Hertzberg, Bob  83,420  22.15

And from George Pataki's corrupt Empire State of New York, we whisk ourselves some 3500 miles, give or take, to the westward, to America's second largest city, and LE VOILA!

The Mayor's race, which we have adopted as OUR race of the moment in here, precisely because of the "corruption" element similar to New York State's that is present therein!

Does corruption in government really matter to people, or are we all so jaded that it is just HO HUM, business as usual; gotta go along to get along, as they say down there with all of their various snouts in George Pataki's capital city of Albany, New York?

Stay tuned:

Top Stories - AP

"L.A. Mayor, Councilman Head to Runoff Race"

8 minutes ago

By MICHAEL R. BLOOD, Associated Press Writer

LOS ANGELES - Incumbent Mayor James Hahn survived a close call, making it into a May runoff against a Hispanic city councilman after the third-place candidate conceded defeat Wednesday.

The outcome of Tuesday's primary election sets up a rematch of the 2001 runoff, pitting Hahn, who has been weakened by corruption and other problems, against councilman Antonio Villaraigosa, who is seeking to become the first Hispanic to win the mayoralty in the nation's second-largest city in more than a century.

Nearly 24,000 absentee and other ballots remained to be counted, but candidate Bob Hertzberg trailed second-place Hahn by 5,800 votes, a margin his campaign concluded was too great.

"I called Mayor Hahn this morning and congratulated him on his victory," Hertzberg said during a morning news conference.

Delayed because of foggy weather, the vote tally had continued into early Wednesday.

In 2001, Villaraigosa, a high school dropout who went on to become speaker of the California Assembly, was also the top vote-getter in the primary, but he lost the runoff to Hahn, 53 percent to 46 percent.

With 99 percent of precincts reporting early Wednesday, Villaraigosa led with 124,561 votes, or 33 percent.

The mayor tallied 89,189 votes, or 24 percent, while Hertzberg, also a former Assembly speaker, had 83,420 votes, or 22 percent.

Villaraigosa would have had to get more than 50 percent to have won the election outright.

"People want a fresh start, they want to get traffic moving again, they want to address the challenges that we face," said the liberal Villaraigosa, who opened his runoff campaign Wednesday with a symbolic visit to the San Fernando Valley, where moderate-to-conservative voters snubbed him in 2001.

Election officials blamed the weather for unusually slow returns.

Evening fog forced organizers to abandon plans to use two helicopters to ferry returns to the city's downtown election center.

Instead, a fleet of cars was deployed.

No Los Angeles mayor has been bounced from office in more than 30 years.

Hahn, whose family has been active in Los Angeles politics since the 1940s, has been beset by the corruption allegations at City Hall and his own drab image in the most star-studded city in America.

Villaraigosa and Hertzberg had pounded Hahn over ongoing investigations at City Hall that centered on allegations that members of his administration traded city contracts for campaign donations.

The Los Angeles Times posted on its Web site results of an exit poll of 2,789 voters that found the investigations appeared to make a difference.

Nearly half of those surveyed said the corruption allegations affected their choice.

Running fourth in the counting was Councilman Bernard Parks, the black former police chief who was ousted in 2002 with Hahn's blessing.

The Times exit poll found that, as expected, Parks siphoned off significant black support from Hahn.

The race is non-partisan, and all four top candidates are Democrats.

Villaraigosa, 52, grew up in a broken home on the city's heavily Hispanic Eastside.

His up-from-the-barrio story defines his political image — the son of a Mexican immigrant who rose from a gritty neighborhood to the halls of power in Sacramento and Los Angeles.
___

On the Net:
Secretary of State: http://www.ss.ca.gov/elections/elections.htm

[jeffmoskin]

Oh, I have no objections to sending him a money order for the fee, but that was not given as one of the payment options.

from Michael's "Pinned" post:

If you can't or don't want to use paypal you can send a check or money order for $7.95 US payable to Common Ground Common Sense to the following address:

Common Ground Common Sense
330 9th St. E. #201E
St. Paul, MN 55101

[jeffmoskin]

VOTES          PCT

Villaraigosa , Antonio  124,561  33.07
Hertzberg , Bob  83,420  22.15
Hahn , James (i)  89,189  23.68

FINALS ARE IN!


Villaraigosa, Hahn in Runoff; Hertzberg Concedes
By Michael Finnegan and Jeffrey L. Rabin
Times Staff Writers

11:14 AM PST, March 9, 2005

Antonio Villaraigosa and James K. Hahn opened round two of the Los Angeles mayoral election — and a rematch of their bitter fight for city's top job — when they emerged from the fog today as the top vote getters.

Bob Hertzberg, who had been competeing with Mayor Hahn for second place, conceded defeat today at his Encino headquarters.

"I called Jim Hahn and talked to him this morning and congratulated him on his victory," Hertzberg said at a news conference.

Hahn and City Councilman Villaraigosa face off May 17.

Councilman Bernard C. Parks, a former police chief, and state Sen. Richard Alarcon (D-Sun Valley) finished farther behind.

With 99% of the precincts reporting early today, Villaraigosa won 33% of the vote Tuesday. Hahn had 23.7% of the vote, compared with 22.1% for Hertzberg. More than 24,000 absentee and other votes were yet to be counted, but Hertzberg trailed by Hahn by 5,800 votes.

After a campaign that failed to generate much excitement among voters, the result was a cliffhanger that pushed the suspense into this morning.

Election returns were delayed because dense fog grounded the two helicopters set to fly ballots downtown from San Pedro and the far corners of the San Fernando Valley. By 10 p.m., city officials scrambled to get the ballots trucked in and the Hertzberg camp was objecting to their handling.

For the second time in four years, Villaraigosa, who captured 124,561 votes, came a step closer to his goal of becoming the city's first Latino mayor since the 19th century.

"Some have said that there's not the spark in this campaign," Villaraigosa told exultant supporters celebrating at the Henry Fonda Music Box Theatre in Hollywood. "Some have said that there's not the same kind of excitement around this agenda. But make no mistake about it. L.A. is ready and we're ready. … We're ready to not just do the small things."

Hahn, who defeated Villaraigosa in a bitter 2001 contest, struggled to avoid becoming the first incumbent ousted from City Hall since 1973 — and the first in 72 years to lose office after a single term.

"I wanted to come out here and thank you from the bottom of my heart," Hahn told backers gathered at the Conga Room, a Miracle Mile nightclub. "Thank you again for everything. It looks great, everybody."

Accompanied by his mother, Ramona Hahn, the mayor sang along to "I Love L.A."

Hertzberg, rallying supporters at the AirTel Plaza Hotel in Van Nuys, alluded to the drawn-out count. "It's going to be a long night," he said. "I'm told the fog in the Valley stopped the helicopters from flying in some of the votes."

The Times exit poll of 2,789 voters Tuesday found that Villaraigosa had succeeded in expanding the electoral base he built in the 2001 mayoral contest.

A city councilman and former Assembly speaker, Villaraigosa gained support among whites, Jews, blacks and Valley voters, while carrying the Latino vote by an overwhelming margin, as he did four years ago. His support grew across the length and breadth of the city. He carried the Westside and Central City neighborhoods by large margins and ran nearly even with Hertzberg in the Valley — and with Parks in South L.A.

By contrast, the Times survey found signs of trouble for Hahn.

The poll found that the criminal investigation of alleged corruption in Hahn's administration took a substantial toll. Nearly half of voters surveyed as they left the polls said the allegations played a role in their choice; of those, a solid majority voted for someone other than Hahn.

The poll also found a collapse in Hahn's support among African Americans, his most loyal voting bloc in 2001. Most black voters opted for Parks, an African American councilman whose ouster as police chief in 2002 many saw as betrayal by Hahn.

The election Tuesday set the stage for a 10-week campaign between the top two vote-getters. To win without a runoff, a candidate needed more than 50% of the vote.

Facing polls showing him statistically tied for the lead with Hertzberg and Villaraigosa, Hahn went on the attack last week in his television advertising, running a scathing spot denouncing them as "Sacramento politicians" beholden to campaign donors.

Hahn picked up that theme again Tuesday, signaling he would use it in a runoff.

"If one of those two guys is in the runoff, I think we will have a chance to really show the difference in leadership styles, that I was there fighting for Los Angeles, while they were busy doing things that caused problems for Los Angeles," he told reporters.

Hahn inherited the loyalty of many black voters from his late father, longtime county Supervisor Kenneth Hahn, who represented South L.A. for decades. But many felt deeply betrayed by the mayor's move the following year to oust Parks as police chief.

In the Valley, the mayor's battle against secession alienated many voters, who had overwhelmingly supported him in the 2001 runoff.

In this campaign, Hahn tried to turn his twin liabilities into assets. In one TV ad, he looked straight into the camera and told viewers his "tough decisions" were not politically popular but were "the right choices."

Yet polls found that Hahn's attempts at political recovery had minimal success. Parks consistently ran ahead of him among black voters, and both Hertzberg and Villaraigosa outpaced Hahn in the Valley.

In the end, Republican strategist Arnold Steinberg said, Hahn's effort to defeat Valley secession in 2002 has endured as a source of political grief. "No one in the Valley was happy with him," Steinberg said, "and no one else in the city gave him Brownie points and said, 'Isn't it great he held the city together?'"

Hahn was further weakened by the criminal investigation into alleged City Hall corruption.

The mayor has denied any misconduct, and no one in his administration has been charged with a crime. But three top officials resigned, a grand jury subpoenaed Hahn's personal e-mails, and a public-relations consultant to the city was indicted.

As Hahn's political troubles deepened, an unusually strong field of challengers emerged to exploit his vulnerabilities — and every one of them attacked his ethics.

Responding to the Hahn attack ad, Villaraigosa ran a spot in the campaign's final days featuring grainy images of the mayor speaking in slow motion and flashing headlines on the corruption probe.

"It's kind of been like a four-against-one thing from Day One," Hahn said Tuesday.

Villaraigosa and Hertzberg entered the race with an important edge: expertise in raising huge sums of campaign cash. As Assembly speaker, each was in charge of collecting millions of dollars to strengthen the Democrats' lock on the lower house of the Legislature.

Villaraigosa began with another advantage over a newcomer: a name familiar to voters citywide from his 2001 mayoral run.

Also, the scrutiny that he endured in that race — including an exhaustive airing by Hahn of Villaraigosa's attempt to win early prison release for a convicted drug trafficker — gave Villaraigosa a thorough public vetting that helped him stay focused on his own agenda.

"People see my face on TV and in the newspaper, and I think this time around there's just more familiarity and greater support," Villaraigosa said Tuesday.

But the pillars of his 2001 campaign — organized labor and the Democratic Party — opted not to back Villaraigosa this year. Most of the city's union leaders have shunned the former labor organizer in favor of Hahn, who marshaled the powers of incumbency to win their support. The party endorsed no one.

Hertzberg, a Sherman Oaks lawyer, started as an unknown to most Los Angeles voters, despite his six years in the Assembly.

In Sacramento, he was widely seen as a pro-business moderate when he led the Democrats' heavily liberal caucus. In the mayor's race, he positioned himself as the most Republican-leaning candidate.

To that end, he played up his friendship and political alliance with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican. Hertzberg also kept tightly focused on a campaign agenda designed to appeal to Republicans, such as his vow to break apart the Los Angeles Unified School District and hire 3,000 police officers without raising taxes.

In the campaign's final stretch, Schwarzenegger appeared with Hertzberg to support the candidate's school district breakup proposal. And former Mayor Richard Riordan, the governor's education secretary, campaigned frequently with Hertzberg, including a joint appearance Tuesday.

Part of Hertzberg's campaign strategy was to replicate much of the coalition that elected Riordan mayor in 1993, with appeals to Valley, Jewish, Republican, conservative and moderate white voters.

Hertzberg also distinguished himself with eye-catching television ads that showed him as a giant towering over the city as he recited highlights of his campaign platform and called for a mayor "who thinks big for a change," a backhanded slap at Hahn's low-key personality.

Parks, a freshman city councilman, consolidated a strong base of African Americans in South Los Angeles, in effect stalling Hahn's drive to regain support among black voters.

Alarcon, the first of the major candidates to announce he would challenge the mayor, framed his campaign largely as a bid to curb the influence of developers and big campaign donors at City Hall. He was hampered, however, by a shortage of money.


http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/elect...-home-headlines

[jeffmoskin]

...Rather, 73, still has plenty of fight left in him, more than a lot of us ever have at what we imagine are our best moments.

Surely it has occurred even to him that it would be nice to just get up from the anchor desk and walk away -- leave all the aggravation and warfare behind.

Rather confesses that he and his brilliant and strong-willed wife Jean -- whom he usually refers to as "Jean Rather" -- did consider this option.

"We did discuss it."

"Jean Rather presented that case in an eloquent way."

"I don't want to mislead you; she did not say, 'This is what I think you should do.'"

"She did say, 'In making a list of things to consider, you should consider this, and I know you better than any other living person and if I don't mention it, you might not think of it.'"

"She fixed some of her famous Jean Rather Prison Chili and we had about two spoonfuls' worth of time discussing it."

"And that was pretty much it."

Dan Rather is not going gentle into that good night.

He's not the type to go gentle, for one thing, and as far as he's concerned, night hasn't fallen by a long shot.

And that's part of our world, Wednesday, March 9, 2005.

Arise, Dan Rather, to gain thy dreams . . . .

Rather was no Cronkite, but he was a cut above the likes of Tom Brokenjaw, a man with ZERO news experience, other than reading it here in L.A. in the 60s to being a host on the "Tom and Jane Show," A.K.A. The Today Show, which is anything BUT news.

Jennings IS a newsman, and I suppose comes across well. But he's a CANADIAN for God's sake. Not that there is anything wrong with being a Canadian in general, but can't we have an AMERICAN anchoring the ABC news???


Ironically, the "incident" which felled Rather is so trivial compared to the perpetual Lying and Distorting which are the basic FORMAT of Faux News and, really CNN too when you get right down to it.

I won't miss Rather (mainly because I don't EVER watch the news on TV, and rarely even programs on TV), but I think he's going out on a bum rap.

[Livyjr]

from Michael's "Pinned" post:

If you can't or don't want to use paypal you can send a check or money order for $7.95 US payable to Common Ground Common Sense to the following address:

Common Ground Common Sense
330 9th St. E. #201E
St. Paul, MN 55101

jeffmoskin, you're a miracle worker here!

Did anyone ever tell you that?

I had not seen this, and did not know about it.

THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR INFORMING ALL OF US OF THIS ADDRESS.

I shall have my money order in the mail, today!

[Livyjr]

I won't miss Rather (mainly because I don't EVER watch the news on TV, and rarely even programs on TV), but I think he's going out on a bum rap.

I won't "miss" him, either, as I simply do not watch TV, especially what is called by them, "THE NEWS"!

But I do have to agree with you on the "bum rap" aspect of this, as I was covering this "bit of news" on the John Kerry forum, and it got blown all out of proportion, by the Republicans, and in one hell of a hurry, to boot, with great effect, to cover over the fact that while the "memos" were not exactly originals, THEIR CONTENTS were accurate!

George W. Bush did not serve his time HONORABLY!

In fact, he didn't serve his time, and in the end, received a very questionable "honorable discharge", which likely could have been a result of being "DADDY's BOY", because it wasn't for doing the job he had signed up for.

But in my estimation, at least right where I was, this blunder by Rather et al was the straw that smashed John Kerry's back to smithereens.

The anger this story created was incredible, and it was real, tangible anger, where before there had been simply some doubts which were created by the lying, crying REPUBLICAN Swift Boat Boys.

The day this story broke, the alleged "forged" documents, I actually had people that I am friendly with climb right in my face as though I was the "perpetrator" of those alleged forged documents, and with the uproar, there was simply no way to get across the fact that the contents of the memos were factual.

Oh well.

One big botch job is how history is going to end up looking at that failed John Kerry campaign, and with that memo business linked to Terry McAuliffe, and the anger created by the whole thing, the Democrats are down in a real deep hole, and who knows if they will ever dig out again.

How did Forrest Gump say it: "Stupid is as stupid does?"

[Livyjr]

FINALS ARE IN!

"Villaraigosa, Hahn in Runoff; Hertzberg Concedes"
By Michael Finnegan and Jeffrey L. Rabin
Times Staff Writers

11:14 AM PST, March 9, 2005

Antonio Villaraigosa and James K. Hahn opened round two of the Los Angeles mayoral election — and a rematch of their bitter fight for city's top job — when they emerged from the fog today as the top vote getters.

Bob Hertzberg, who had been competeing with Mayor Hahn for second place, conceded defeat today at his Encino headquarters.

"I called Jim Hahn and talked to him this morning and congratulated him on his victory," Hertzberg said at a news conference.

Hahn and City Councilman Villaraigosa face off May 17.

And thank you again, jeffmoskin for serving as our rov....., er, "man on the scene", out there in sunny Los Angeles, the fabled City of Angels, and for providing us with some insight into this mayoral race which I am finding interesting, well, just because .......

As Mr. A.B. mentioned in a post to Gabrielle, and "theorectically", at least, I have "known" this since my earliest days, having been brought up and educated here in the corrupt Empire State of New York, "corruption" is just something that is out there, like venereal disease, and fungus, and other vermin, AND we don't think about it, BECAUSE .......

It is not us doing it, and we really have no control over it, and so .....

And so, it continues on, and when the politicians think no one is watching, or will scream, they ratchet up the action a few notches, because what they had yesterday just won't suffice for today.

Case in point is that article on New York State "lobbying" or "influence peddling" above!

The area around the State Capitol in Albany, New York is nothing but one great big "RED LIGHT" district with OUR politicians out there doing their damndest to keep those red lights burning brightly 24/7, because if they don't "hustle", "take the pump", as it is called here, well, the geetus, the moolah, it will go to someone else, and so .....

And it is not often, at least outside of New York, where corruption is just so much a part of the fabric of politics that it is not talked about in the alleged "news media", that we see a race like this one WHERE corruption is being made an issue.

Now, I do not want to be a Pollyanna here, and think that this is a sign of hope for the future, because it might be nothing more than a smart political tactic on the part of Villaraigosa to focus people on the corruption, BUT ...

I still took it as a sign of hope where the people interviewed in the exit poll were TURNING AWAY FROM Hahn because of the corruption.

Here, in the corrupt EMPIRE STATE OF NEW YORK, I truly believe it would be the opposite, that the most corrupt guy, the one who could actually demonstrate AND PROVE that he was corrupt, usually the incumbent, HE WOULD HAVE THE PEOPLE BEHIND HIM, as they would hope for some crumbs falling from his plate, while with a challenger, especially a reform challenger, there would be no crumbs, and hence, no support.

Politics in my area is actually referred to in the local newspapers as "BLOOD SPORT"!

What was done to me was actually referred to "having some sport with the boy"!

And so it goes.

Why do I think I keep hearing this tiny voice in my ear: "GET OUT OF SODOM AND GOMORRAH, DO NOT LOOK BACK, GET OUT OF ......."

[jeffmoskin]

I still took it as a sign of hope where the people interviewed in the exit poll were TURNING AWAY FROM Hahn because of the corruption.

It sould be noted that 3 out of 4 Angelinos voted for someone OTHER than James Hahn.

There's a vote of no confidence for ya.