Did Orca Project intend to violate Ohio election laws?

Although Orca Project infamously failed on Election Day, its stated intent may have been in violation of election laws in Ohio - and, perhaps other states, as well.

Days before the election, Deborah Charles reported for Reuters on November 2nd, how poll watchers were "becoming as much a part of elections as voters and precinct workers."

State laws permit poll watchers "to ensure a fair election," but the intent behind the secretive "Orca Project" seemed to be a multi-state effort to spy on voters in order to inform "get out the vote" teams in the places where Republican candidates were in danger of losing on Election Day. In other words, instead of just watching, Orca Project volunteers may have been working to influence it.

The Reuters article noted that "some voting-rights advocates and others are questioning whether such monitors could become an intimidating presence that leads some people - namely minorities and the elderly - not to vote, and slows down the voting process for others."

"Some of the observers are credentialed by local governments to monitor the election from inside polling sites and will be allowed to challenge the right of people to vote. Some are lawyers representing the presidential campaigns and their parties, looking out for any irregularities that could be cited in a legal challenge of election results.

...

'You can be just as harmful outside as inside by creating disruptions,' said Eric Marshall, of the Lawyers Committee on Civil Rights Under Law. 'We shouldn't be having bullies creating disruptions or intimidating voters at the polling place.'"

"For months now, the Romney campaign has been putting together a high-tech voter monitoring operation to use on Election Day that will identify which of their committed supporters have voted -- and then corral those who haven't," Margaret Warner reported for PBS on November 5th, a day before Election Day 2012.

In a column titled "Romney's fail whale: ORCA the vote-tracker left team 'flying blind'," Maggie Haberman and Alexander Burns reported for Politico on November 8, that the "mega-app for smartphones that would link the more than 30,000 operatives and volunteers involved in get-out-the-vote efforts" had been "created and managed by the Romney campaign and was kept a secret among a close circle in Boston, according to POLITICO sources."

"It was supposed to be incredibly efficient and allow the campaign to streamline, from its War Room at the Garden in Boston, the efforts to maximize turnout of Romney backers," Haberman and Burns noted. "State officials were kept in the dark about exactly how it would work in the lead-up to Election Day, and there was never a dry run that included early voting, said one of the sources."

Politico linked to a November 8th post at the Ace of Spades HQ blog written by John Ekdahl, Jr., a conservative who signed up with the Orca Project.

"The entire purpose of this project was to digitize the decades-old practice of strike lists. The old way was to sit with your paper and mark off people that have voted and every hour or so, someone from the campaign would come get your list and take it back to local headquarters. Then, they'd begin contacting people that hadn't voted yet and encourage them to head to the polls. It's worked for years."

At Breitbart.com, Joel B. Pollack wrote, "As Republicans try to explain their Election Day losses in terms of policy, tactics, and strategy, one factor is emerging as the essential difference between the Obama and Romney campaigns on November 6: the absolute failure of Romney’s get-out-the-vote effort, which underperformed even John McCain’s lackluster 2008 turnout. One culprit appears to be 'Orca,' the Romney’s massive technology effort, which failed completely."

"A source within the Romney campaign," told Pollack that "Project Orca was supposed to enable poll watchers to record voter names on their smartphones, by listening for names as voters checked in. This would give the campaign real-time turnout data, so they could redirect GOTV resources throughout the day where it was most needed. They recruited 37,000 swing state volunteers for this."

Referring to the blog post at Ace Of Spades HQ, Pollack added that "Ekdahl describes how volunteers were expected to print their own materials, and were mistakenly not told to bring their poll watching credentials to polling places."

"Romney volunteers in Virginia confirmed that the campaign had relied entirely on Project Orca to turn out the vote in key areas such as Roanoke, where Romney and Ryan had made appearances. Volunteers who had driven to Virginia from safely-Republican Tennessee were shocked at the disorganization they encountered.

While the Romney campaign waited for Orca to function as planned, the Obama campaign had placed signs outside every one of the city's thirty-three polling places, and was fully staffed with two volunteers outside each polling place, and a strike list volunteer inside, all day long from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. The best that the short-handed Tennessee volunteers could manage was 40% coverage of polling places; the local GOP, they said, had relied entirely on the campaign's centralized Orca system in Boston to turn out the local vote."

In recent years, especially since the controversial 2000 presidential election, both parties have been using poll watchers to do more than watch, but the Orca Project seems like it was intended to go even further.

"There was, in fact, massive suppression of the Republican vote--by the Romney campaign, through the diversion of nearly 40,000 volunteers to a failing computer program," Pollack concluded.

On November 16, Wonkette's Rebecca Schoenkopf blogged about an unsubstantiated claim that "Anonymous had stopped Karl Rove from hacking the election by hacking Orca," and added "we think" to the headline.

Although anyone can claim membership in Anonymous, the "Anon2Rove" video which "warned" Karl Rove before the election wasn't released by any of the unofficial but recognized sub-factions. It was uploaded to YouTube by someone using the name "Charlene Zooz" who opened the account on October 22nd, and hasn't even signed back in since that date.

"Oh cool, Anonymous (we think it is Anonymous?) says Karl Rove was gonna vote fraud all the Machines, and that’s why he was so flabbergasted and refused to believe it when Fox called Ohio for Bamz, but they stopped him from stealing all the Machines by jamming up ORCA, because it was not actually a GOTV system but a 'steal the vote' system, but they stopped him, we are pretty sure that is what the following letter, which we guess is from Anonymous probably, says. Seems legit! But here is our question! If Anonymous hacked ORCA and caused it to explode miserably on Election Day, how could Anonymous ever prove that ORCA was actually a vote-thieving program? If they hacked in, couldn’t they have planted code to make it look like Rove was gonna fraud the election? (Not that we believe for a second that Rove wasn’t trying to fraud the election, we are just saying, it seems like 'logic.')"

Former Democratic operative Neal Rauhauser - who has spent the last two years trolling and harassing conservatives and even liberal critics [including me] - has claimed responsibility for many political hoaxes, in the past, and appears to be one of the driving forces behind this one.

But whether or not the Orca Project failed, its intention may have been in violation of laws in many states regarding elections and regulating poll watchers.

Ohio Election Law 3599.24 [A][4] Interference with conduct of election states that, "No person shall...[l]oiter in or about a registration or polling place during registration or the casting and counting of ballots so as to hinder, delay, or interfere with the conduct of the registration or election." "Whoever violates division (A)(1) or (2) of this section is guilty of a felony of the fifth degree. Whoever violates division (A)(3), (4),(5), or (6) of this section is guilty of a misdemeanor of the first degree," Ohio Election Law 3599.24 adds.

Since both major political parties use poll watchers and also operate and regulate the elections at state levels, alleged violations are usually routinely winked at, and hardly ever investigated. Even the FEC and FBI tiptoe around alleged violations, since it's a political mine field. While many supporters of losing candidates grumble and blame voting fraud by the winning side, the Democratic and Republican parties generally try to keep their distance, and only push for investigations if out-and-out violations can be proven.

The media is always quick to mock grumblers, and conservative SuperPAC honcho Karl Rove was ridiculed for what was referred to as a "melt down" during the Fox News 2012 Election Day coverage. The LA Times called it "sublimely weird television," but many conspiracy theorists on the Internet point to it as proof that the Orca Project may have been subverted by the so-called "Protectors."

An article at Ohio State University's Moritz College of Law, written by Director Mike Shecket notes that, "An examination of the laws in the 28 most competitive states in this year's election reveals a wide variety of approaches to the question of who may observe the voting process on Election Day."

"...Some state statutes are quite permissive in that they allow virtually any member of the public to enter a polling place to observe as long as they are not engaging in certain prohibited activities. For example, Section 7.41 of the Wisconsin Statutes is entitled 'Public's right to access' and provides that '[a]ny member of the public may be present at any polling place for the purpose of observation of an election, except a candidate at that election.' Other statutes are highly restrictive, listing only specific persons who may be present, generally the voters (sometimes for a limited period of time), election officials, and possibly law enforcement officers. An example from this restrictive end of the spectrum is Section 3-1-37(a) of the West Virginia Code, which reads in part: 'Except as otherwise provided in this section, no person, other than the election officers and voters going to the election room to vote and returning therefrom, may be or remain within three hundred feet of the outside entrance to the building housing the polling place while the polls are open.'

In Ohio, other than voters casting their ballots, only election officials, employees, witnesses, challengers and police officers are permitted to enter the polling place. Ohio Rev. Stat. § 3501.35. In Ohio, a challenger is a person selected by a political party or group of five or more candidates who is allowed to observe all election proceedings while the polls are open. Witnesses, on the other hand, are only allowed to be present for the counting of votes after the polls close. Both challengers and watchers are required to take an oath of office. Ohio Rev. Stat. § 3505.21"

Ohio Election Law 3501.35 No loitering or congregating near polling places [A] [1] states, "During an election and the counting of the ballots, no person shall...[l]oiter, congregate, or engage in any kind of election campaigning within the area between the polling place and the small flags of the United States placed on the thoroughfares and walkways leading to the polling place, and if the line of electors waiting to vote extends beyond those small flags, within ten feet of any elector in that line."

"Except as otherwise provided in division (C) of section 3503.23 of the Revised Code, no person who is not an election official, employee, observer, or police officer shall be allowed to enter the polling place during the election, except for the purpose of voting or assisting another person to vote as provided in section 3505.24 of the Revised Code," Ohio Election Law 3501.35 [B] adds.

Poll watchers working for the Orca Project may have violated Ohio election laws - and perhaps laws on the books in other states, as well - since they seemed to be focused on affecting the national and state election results, instead of just watching for fraud.

Politico's Chief White House correspondent Mike Allen leaked Washington Post articles to Raw Story when he worked at Time

Update at bottom: Excerpts from bogus lawsuit regarding Allen's leaks to RAW STORY, which redacted his name

Last fall, I tweeted that Mike Allen, the chief White House correspondent for Politico, leaked Washington Post articles to RAW STORY, while he was working for Time Magazine.

Even though Mike Allen is one of America's most famous journalists, and has done many exclusive interviews with politicians such as former Vice President Dick Cheney, not one blogger or media organization reported on my tweets.

One of my tweets from November of 2011 - which convicted hacker Adrian Lamo claims may have resulted in a $500,000 judgment against me over the summer, even though I was never told about it - was "thanks @mikeallen for helping us scoop @washingtonpost on their own reporting."

I haven't heard from RAW STORY or any of its lawyers since February, when the judge ruled against them, initially. So I have no clue if they really obtained a default judgment against me for $500,000 without even sending me an email. And I fail to see how they can show cause that they lost even a nickel for tweets that no one in the media ever reported on.

(Editor's Note: RAW STORY publisher Roxanne Cooper broke the NDA first in the summer of 2011, when she spread lies about me at a Netroots convention to notorious cyber-bully Neal Rauhauser. At at hateful blog called "Breitbart Unmasked", Matt Osborne repeated these smears in an article bashing me. In 2012, I was also wrongfully sued for being in a conspiracy with Rauhauser and convicted bomber, Brett Kimberlin. The "evidence" tying me to Kimberlin was his alleged links to RAW STORY. Rauhauser bragged that he played a role in the RAW STORY lawsuit, and he has threatened me and harassed me, trying to get my address, so that he can make false complaints to the police about me. Since Rauhauser has a relationship with RAW STORY, I refused to share my address with them, after I had moved to another city. In truth, the main reason why RAW STORY sued me was because they didn't want me to probe their ties to Kimberlin, but I had to since I was being smeared over it, and falsely accused of crimes related to the convicted bomber.)

I'm a reporter and my main focus has always been on propaganda and media criticism, even before I was hired by RAW STORY in 2005, and was promoted to Managing Editor and then Executive Editor from January of 2007 to October of 2010.

Earlier today, ABC News reporter Jason Ryan thanked me for notifying them about key information they left out of an article related to - an ongoing story that some are calling - PetraeusGate. "Petraeus Affair: Shirtless FBI Pic Appears to Be Playful" now includes the fact that "Youssef Megahed was acquitted by a jury in 2009," which "Veteran FBI Agent Frederick Humphries Got Ball Rolling on Petraeus Probe" failed to note.

Also, Daily Dot's Kevin Morris credited me for tipping him on a story he published today: "Gen. John Allen didn't troll Jill Kelley on Wikipedia."

In October of 2005, I wrote an article called "Does the New York Times Have a Learning Disability?" which ran at New York University Professor Jay Rosen's highly regarded media criticism blog Press Think. The subtitle was "Why-the-heck-is-it that after six years, at least four major controversies, and two we’re-gonna-fix-it committees--each coughing up its lessons--the editors of The New York Times haven’t seemed to learn a blasted thing?"

Here are some of my tweets from May of 2012:

Excerpts from bogus lawsuit regarding Allen's leaks to RAW STORY, which redacted his name

RAW STORY founder John Byrne wrote that he sent me an email which "discussed a confidential source relationship with an individual who provided us with information about upcoming news items to be published by the Washington Post Company and its family of sites."

"This information allowed Raw Story to plan its own coverage of news items in light of its coverage by other news organizations, which, in turn, helped us find ways of making our own stories distinct or connect to the items slated to appear elsewhere," Byrne added, which is not entirely true, since the majority of Raw Story articles based on Mike Allen's tips, especially those not written by me, contained nothing but Washington Post excerpts.

Byrne added, "According, our relationship to this reporter as a source of information informed our coverage and what news topics we emphasized, which in online media has a direct relationship to visitor traffic and thus also revenue from advertising. At present, this source is a correspondent at a Washington, D.C.-focused publication."

Proof Jason Leopold still uses socks to smear and pimp

Last October, I left some comments at the Kid Kenoma blog which referred to Jason Leopold, a former colleague of mine at RAW STORY who infamously published a bogus story at TruthOut in May of 2006 about Karl Rove being indicted after he stopped reporting for us. I didn't get promoted to an editorial position at RAW STORY until January of 2007, but because there were obvious flaws in his story, I refused to link to it, and - after arguing strenuously - we never did.

Unfortunately, for many years after, the albatross of Leopold's much maligned story hung around our necks, and we probably should have done more to distance ourselves from him than the December 15, 2005 Editor's Note called "Examining Raw Story's leak reporting."

Along with plagiarism, making up stories, and drug issues which he confessed to in his autobiography, Leopold also has a history of using "socks" to smear critics and pimp links to his stories. Conservatives and liberals have busted him for sock puppetry to promote his work or attack bloggers and journalists who criticize it, and some links to articles about Leopold's socks include "Jason Leopold, Sockpuppet Extraordinaire" at The Last Hurrah, "Because You Can Never Read Too Much About Sock-Puppetry" at Patterico's Pontifications and "Leftist Hate Campaign Against Blogger Gets Deadly Serious" at Newsbusters.

In March of 2006, Leopold admitted that he used at least one sock, and apologized for it:

"I might as well out myself and say that, yes, I am the 'harry shep' that posted comments here that were inflammatory and rude and obnoxious and mean and crude and were directed toward some of the people who run this site. It was a cowardly thing to do and I apologize. I acted impulsively because I had interpreted some of the analysis to be a direct "hit" on one of my stories. However, it became obvious to the people who run this site that my pseudonym was not a good cover because the IP address revealed my true identity. It was a total immature reaction and there was truly no excuse for it. So to the people who run this site I sincerely apologize for being such an immature, thin-skinned prick. I hope you can forgive me."

Not long after that confession, Leopold attempted to blame me as his sock, even though I had once refused his request to post a comment at Daily Kos attacking liberal blogger Empty Wheel for criticizing a story he wrote.

"I'm investigating the recent campaign to discredit Jason Leopold, and whether or not people were impersonating other people," a blogger emailed me in July of 2006. So I called that blogger, answered his questions, and we argued a bit, but he ended up deleting a story based on Leopold's lies.

That same blogger wrote other people at RAW STORY claiming I "had posted all this stuff as Jason," and one editor told me, he "looked at it, and said, '1. Where is the proof? I'm not seeing any., and 2. How did Ron's name even get brought into this?'"

"Upon re-examination, he had no proof, and Jason was a liar," the editor told me in late 2006. "And, he never answered the second question."

A couple days ago, on November 13, after I tweeted that I could prove Leopold smeared me using a sock a year ago, he denied it: "I don't need a 'sock' to smear you. I can and will and have done so easily under my own name. You're pathetic and also a lunatic."

I wrote some harsh stuff about Leopold at the Kid Kenoma blog last October, partly because I'd been getting smeared by conservative bloggers and accused of absurd crimes, and a few bloggers I knew refused to help me, but strangely defended Leopold instead.

However, I used my own name when I left the harsh words about Leopold, and I didn't lie.

On October 3, 2011, someone left the following comments at the Kid Kenoma blog using the name "siouxZ":

"Ron Brynaert is a lunatic who was fired from Raw Story because he is a lunatic and a conspiracy theorist. One only need to read his tweets from the past six months to arrive at that conclusion. No one will ever hire Ron to work for any news organization EVER."

"Ron Brynaert used to work at Kim’s Video in Manhattan and was caught in the bathroom smoking crack and masturbating. He was fired from there too. He’s actually one of the shittiest 'reporters' out there.There’s a reason he doesn’t have friends."

"I am not joking. There’s a reason Ron does not step foot in Kim’s or walks around St. Marks. Guy is a laughingstock. And a raging prick. You will not meet a bigger asshole than Ron Brynaert."

I've never smoked crack and I've never been caught in the bathroom masturbating, and I didn't leave RAW STORY or Kim's Video for any of the reasons "siouxZ" claimed. At times, I can be a "raging prick", and I acted like one when I mentioned Leopold in that same comment section, which I do apologize for.

I got mad at Leopold the other day because he gave a hat tip to another former colleague at RAW STORY for something she obviously saw on my Twitter timeline. And I was probably behaving like a "raging prick" when I did so, but Leopold just won't stop smearing me. And I think it's shameful that a person who has been fired for plagiarism, drug abuse and making up stories still is trusted by many liberal bloggers, who ignore work I do, because I go after both sides.

I have no idea who is behind the Kid Kenoma blog - but whomever it is - was kind enough to send me the IP address attached to the defamatory comments left under the name "siouxZ", after I sent him or her links to other posts on the web that suggested it was Leopold's sock.

On March 2, 2011, siouxZ left a comment at Cafe Whispers noting, "No one here in Australia seems to realize that David Hicks gave an exclusive interview to Jason Leopold to weeks ago," and left links to the interview and the story, with a short excerpt.

On March 23, 2011, siouxZ complained at the American Everyday blog, "Please IMMEDIATELY remove the pictures you re-posted without permission from the TO article," after a blogger criticized a story by Leopold.

The blogger "Willy Loman" aka Scott Creighton argued back that "there are NO pictures taken from the TO article without permission," and added "sioxZ, if you want to claim you have sole rights to a photo handed over by your Manchurian candidate, I would suggest you tell the guy to take it off his open sourced information sharing Wikipage…"

"See these stories by Leopold that the Australian mainstream media ignored, which inspired the SMH reports," siouxZ wrote at Neil's Final Decade on August 23, 2011 and included links to three of Jason's articles.

All those comments were left on blog posts that mentioned Jason Leopold, and the IP address Kid Kenoma sent me is from where he lives in Los Angeles, California.

But the most damning proof that Jason Leopold is "siouxZ" can be found on his own Wikipedia page, where he has apparently broken the rule against self-editing.

There were only 4 contributions attached to that IP address, and all were done on November 7. 2011 to Leopold's Wikipedia entry.

The first contribution was the subtraction of the following two sentences:

"According to a Washington Post report, the press release for Leopold's unpublished book 'Off the Record' stated that 'He says he was fired by the Los Angeles Times 'for threatening to rip a reporter's head off.' Leopold says he quit Dow Jones Newswires in a dispute over his beat but later learned the news service was planning to fire him because of a correction to one of his Enron stories: 'Seems I got all of the facts wrong.'"

The second contribution centered on two paragraphs referring to Leopold's book:

"Prior to the publication of 'News Junkie', Leopold's book was titled 'Off the Record'. The book's publisher, according to the Washington Post report, said the book has been dropped for 'business reasons.' The Post wrote that it was canceled following reported legal threats from Steven Maviglio, the press secretary to former Governor [[Gray Davis]], who, according to the manuscript, invested in energy companies using inside information. The author of the Washington Post story about Leopold's book, Howard Kurtz, was featured in News Junkie. Leopold called him 'lazy.'

In the book, Leopold also revealed many secrets about his life such as a prior [[drug addiction]], bouts with mental illness and suicide attempts. He also disclosed how he lied to employers about a criminal conviction for larceny that took place when Leopold was in his 20s and working in the record business."

Those two paragraphs were edited into a single, shorter one:

"Prior to the publication of 'News Junkie', Leopold's book was titled 'Off the Record'. In the book, Leopold also revealed many secrets about his life such as a prior [[drug addiction]], bouts with mental illness and suicide attempts. He also disclosed how he lied to employers about a criminal conviction for larceny that took place when Leopold was in his 20s and working in the record business."

The third contribution just cleaned up a section dealing which referred to him "as a senior editor and reporter" who had "returned to 'Truthout' as Deputy Managing Editor."

The fourth contribution was related to an article written by Leopold that Salon removed from its website after accusations that it had been plagiarized. Originally, the Wikipedia entry stated,

"According to Salon, Leopold's article 'used seven full paragraphs amounting to 480 words, virtually verbatim, from the FT. There were two attributions to the FT within the passage, but they appeared to apply only to the specific sentences that contained them, not to the full passage.' Leopold later admitted that he had been careless by not providing the 'FT' with additional credit, but insisted that Salon's editors had all the relevant documents, including the disputed White email, before the story was published.'"

But it was changed to:

"According to Salon, Leopold's article 'used seven full paragraphs about a specific contract amounting to 480 words, virtually verbatim, from the FT. There were two clear attributions to the FT within the passage.' Leopold later admitted that he had been careless by not providing the 'FT' with additional credit even though he had already credited the publication twice. He insisted that Salon's editors had all the relevant documents, including the disputed White email, which he later posted online on the New Zealand website Scoop, before the story was published."

The following lines were also removed:

"Commenting on the case, Kerry Lauerman of 'Salon' said that 'Leopold definitely represents the dark side of the web ... he became this sort of hero for throngs people online.' {{cite book|last=Russell|first=Adrienne|editor=S. Elizabeth Bird|title=The anthropology of news & journalism: global perspectives|url=http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=J6-dXBf76RkC&pg=PA278|chapter=Salon.com and New-Media Professional Journalism Culture|year=2010|publisher=Indiana University Press|isbn=0253221269|pages=278-€“9}}"

"Reverting possible vandalism," a Wikipedia editor wrote in response to the edits on November 7, 2011, and added some of the deleted parts back to Leopold's entry.

There are other interesting things at Wikipedia's revision history page for "Jason Leopold" connected to California IP addresses including the July 1, 2010 claim, "I am Mr. Leopold's attorney and Wikipedia has a complaint citing recurring defamation in this article with regards to the stated claims about Salon. A show cause order was issued as well."

Another comment by that same IP on June 21, 2010:

"I am Mr. Leopold's attorney. The passage BONEWAH included on Salon contains defamatory and libelous information. The context of this passage is wholly taken out of context. Mr. Leopold sued Salon in 2003 for false statements the organization made about this episode. It is covered in great detail in his book, News Junkie, as well as a legal letter to Columbia Journalism Review on this discussion page. Mr. Leopold ultimately prevailed and Salon apologized. In fact, a simple lexis search will show this article is still available from Salon. User BONEWAH has waged a war against Mr. Leopold extending several years now and have gone above and beyond to malign my client. You state that Mr. Leopold is only known for the Karl Rove episode. Perhaps that is true for you but not for the tens of thousands of people who read Mr. Leopold's work on a daily basis and invite him on television and radio to discuss his work. Your commentary is evidence of bias and in cherry picking passages to fit your agenda you have defamed Mr. Leopold and in doing so caused him serious harm. I demand this passage immediately be removed as it does not state the true nature of the facts. Moreover, this entire article is nothing short of a hit job by a select group of individuals who have made a career of sorts of defaming and libeling my client. There is absolutely no balance to this entry and the authors seem to have knowingly avoided including the accolades, particularly on issues related to Mr. Leopold's work in other areas as well as an award he received from The Military Religious Freedom Foundation, an organization nominated for a Nobel Peace prize for 2010. A simple search of this organization's website will provide you with the information you need. By continuing to keep this passage intact wikipedia is now a party to defamation. I would advise all interested parties to read the letter on the discussion page. My contact information can be found on the letter cited above to Columbia Journalism Review."

But on July 29, 2010, the same IP address argued, "I am not a representative nor associated with Mr. Leopold and you have no basis to suggest that I am. I am simply trying to add balance to this article that has long been biased and the neutrality questionable. The village voice story is relevant and must be included, particularly the quote from Paul Krugman."

In August of 2010, that IP address was blocked for "Block evasion: Disruptive editing: and long-term edit-warring on Jason Leopold."

Normally, I don't allow anonymous smear comments on my blog, but since they might be left by Jason Leopold, I'll make an exception for this article.

PS: "Cities in Dust" is the best song ever released by Siouxsie & The Banshees, and these lines sound appropriate: "We found you hiding we found you lying/Choking on the dirt and sand/Your former glories and all the stories/Dragged and washed with eager hands."