Where there's smoke, there's a smoking gun.

Two things I believe regarding the 2004 US presidential election:

1. We will soon have incontrovertible evidence of fraud, and
2. It won't make a bit of difference.

With respect to the first point, investigative reporter Wayne Madsen has posted a follow-up to Thursday's story, "Saudis, Enron money helped pay for US rigged election." Madsen's claims get quite specific here regarding the money involved. Either this is how it went down, or he is the patsy of an elaborate disinformation campaign to discredit investigations. I trust Madsen's instincts enough to doubt it's the latter. Also, investigations hardly need discrediting when they are hardly credited beyond the blogosphere.

Madsen:

November 26, 2004—Additional information on the buying of vote riggers with Saudi and former Enron funds has been obtained. The epicenter for the vote rigging operation is Dallas, Texas, and the operation may involve retired FBI agents who used a well-established "good ole boy" network to arrange for access to polling precincts by electronic voting machine technicians who took advantage of various November 2 security "lockdowns" to illegally alter the tabulation of votes in favor of Bush. Some of the retired agents may have used courtesy credentials issued upon retirement to fool unsuspecting polling place workers.

The cost of the operation was estimated at $29 million with the money sent via a circuitous network of offshore trust companies and shell activities. This reporter has obtained a copy of a bank check for $29,600,000 that was allegedly sent to cover the cost of the Texas-based vote rigging operation. The check is dated October 22, 2004, and was made payable to "Five Star Investment Ltd.," a trust said to have long connections to Saudi-funded operations in Texas and around the world. The payer is identified as "Equity Financial Trust," a Houston-based "brass plate" and post office box entity tied to offshore Cook Islands "folding tent" accounts used to hide away profits amassed by the former Enron as well as Saudi financiers.

On October 6, 2004, some two weeks before Equity Financial Trust transferred the money to Five Star Investment Ltd., the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions for Canada listed Equity Financial Trust, along with Bankers Financial and Security Trust, Falcon Financial and Trust, and Unity Virtual Trust Group as "unauthorized financial institutions." In fact, the check for $29.6 million, which is marked "Not to exceed fifty million dollars," is drawn on the Laurentian Bank of Canada's Toronto branch. Its serial number is 317675450 3 and the bank number is 23-97/1020. The bank instrument is issued by Integrated Payment Systems, Inc. of Englewood, Colorado, and Bank One, NA, Denver, Colorado.

It is noteworthy that a number of companies operated by past Bush campaign contributor Pierre Falcone, under criminal investigation in France for weapons smuggling in Angola, are called "Falcon." Several non-governmental organizations, including Global Witness, have tied Falcone to questionable Halliburton activities when Vice President Dick Cheney headed the firm.

Some of the vote riggers who were guaranteed a minimum payment for their services have started talking about the operation because they did not receive the money they were promised.

It's interesting to note the Canadian connection. An October 15 special alert of the US Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, entitled "Entities That May Be Conducting Banking Operations in Canada or the United States Without Authorization," included Equity Financial Trust as one of six "entities, or persons representing them...reportedly operating in Canada. They may be violating provisions of the Bank Act (Canada) or other Canadian financial institution regulations. They may also be conducting unauthorized banking transactions in the United States. Any proposed transactions involving these entities should be viewed with extreme caution."

This is a fascinating story to watch develop. Madsen is either in the process of landing the biggest fish of his life, or he's going to wind up in its belly. But now at least there is a money trail to follow, which is heartening, because there usually is with crimes of this order, and this particular crime would certainly require one.

A damn shame, though, that it won't change anything.

Even if we move beyond smoke to the smoking gun, I'm afraid events are now well beyond the scope of America's vestigial justice system to rein in the High Cabal. I fully expect George Bush's mouth will continue to defy butter to melt with words like this regarding the Ukraine: "There's just a lot of allegations of vote fraud that place their elections, the validity of their elections, in doubt. The international community is watching very carefully. People are paying very close attention to this, and hopefully it'll be resolved in a way that brings credit and confidence to the Ukrainian government."

I shouldn't say it won't change anything. Selection 2004 is raising up fresh divisions of so-called kooks, tinfoilers and paranoiacs, who recognize the world is not what they'd presumed it to be. And that is something.

As an aside, I find it interesting I've already seen sentiments like this expressed: If this is such a big story, why Wayne Madsen, and not someone more mainstream?

By way of an answer, consider what Jeffrey Bale writes in "'Conspiracy Theories' and Clandestine Politics":

Very few notions generate as much intellectual resistance, hostility, and derision within academic circles as a belief in the historical importance or efficacy of political conspiracies.... The idea that particular groups of people meet together secretly or in private to plan various courses of action, and that some of these plans actually exert a significant influence on particular historical developments, is typically rejected out of hand and assumed to be the figment of a paranoid imagination.

The mere mention of the word 'conspiracy' seems to set off an internal alarm bell which causes scholars to close their minds in order to avoid cognitive dissonance and possible unpleasantness.

Anything that could be popularly described as a "conspiracy theory" is immediately subject to dismissal by the mainstream media. The respectable American Left, which is already marginalized, makes a habit of it, too. David Corn does this all the time. And though I haven't been listening, apparently Al Franken on Air America Radio regularly ridicules those who suspect the election was stolen. I don't blame them, really; it's in their nature. It's an issue of paradigms. The merits of the particular charges are irrelevent. If it's "conspiracy," they are predisposed to hysterical blindness.

They don't really study the evidence. They don't really give a fair hearing. When the word "conspiracy" is whispered, their eyes glaze over and their brain switches off.

The left is already considered dubious in the American marketplace of ideas. For spokespersons of the left to get mainstream hearings is rare enough. Those would be jeopardized by the individuals making themselves vulnerable to the accusations of mental illness that are inevitably hurled towards "conspiracy theorists."

That's why, despite his other qualifications, it's Wayne Madsen's story. He doesn't balk at going there. That's why the story is still on the "fringe," published by the "alternative media." That's why all the important American stories these days are being broken by so-called kooks, tinfoilers and paranoiacs.