CBS Evening News Online Edition - 2004-10-15

Channel: malgent

Transcript

Language: English (original, YouTube automatic captions)

[0:00] Hello everybody, I'm Dan Rather and

[0:02] welcome to the CBS Evening News online

[0:04] edition. Just ahead, we report and put

[0:07] into perspective for you charges that a

[0:09] Republican funded group destroyed

[0:11] Democratic voter registration forms.

[0:14] Also, the struggle to get a flu shot and

[0:17] why it isn't getting any easier. And a

[0:20] consumer alert about a phone plan that

[0:23] sounded so good and went so bad for

[0:26] thousands. It's all starting now on the

[0:29] CBS Evening News online edition.

[0:33] >> With the election two and a half weeks

[0:35] away, there are accusations over voter

[0:37] registration fraud in several key

[0:39] states. CBS News correspondent Vince

[0:42] Gonzalez has been investigating.

[0:44] >> John Kerry was in Nevada this week

[0:46] looking for votes, but some of his

[0:48] supporters may get a rude surprise on

[0:50] election day. Local Democrats were

[0:52] targeted in a scheme that

[0:53] >> CBS station KLAS in Las Vegas reported

[0:56] worker claims that a supervisor at a

[0:58] Republican voter registration group

[1:01] called Voters Outreach destroyed

[1:03] completed Democratic registration forms.

[1:06] >> We caught her taking the Democrats out

[1:08] of my pile and she she grabbed the

[1:10] Democrats. She handed them to her

[1:11] assistant and he ripped them up right in

[1:13] front of us and threw them in the

[1:14] garbage.

[1:15] >> Employee Eric Russell says he grabbed

[1:17] these forms out of the trash. Voters's

[1:19] Outreach claims Russell destroyed the

[1:20] forms himself because of a dispute over

[1:23] back pay. Voters Outreach was created by

[1:26] Nathan Sprawl, the former head of the

[1:27] Arizona Republican Party. His company

[1:30] received almost half a million dollars

[1:31] from the Republican National Committee

[1:33] for work in several swing states. Sprawl

[1:36] says the charges are without merit and

[1:38] there was no destruction of any voter

[1:40] registration forms. Oregon's Secretary

[1:42] of State is looking into complaints.

[1:44] Forms were destroyed there, too. We've

[1:46] had several complaints filed with the

[1:48] elections division and I've had a

[1:50] conversation with the attorney general

[1:51] and we are investigating

[1:54] >> to sign up voters at Oregon libraries.

[1:56] The company sent letters claiming to be

[1:57] nonpartisan and use the name of a larger

[2:00] established voter registration

[2:02] organization. Megan exposed them.

[2:05] >> Well, I'm a reference librarian, I

[2:07] guess. I mean, we always try to check

[2:10] our facts. Democrats are calling for a

[2:12] federal investigation, but Republicans

[2:14] call the controversy a disingenuous ploy

[2:17] to shift focus from the voter fraud

[2:19] rampant among John K's Democrat

[2:22] supporters. They site reports of

[2:24] Democratic groups accused of voter fraud

[2:26] in key states, including Florida, where

[2:28] Republican registration forms were

[2:30] allegedly torn up. This brawl is a sneak

[2:33] preview of the battles both sides will

[2:34] be waging right down to election day and

[2:37] beyond. Vince Gonzalez, CBS News, Los

[2:40] Angeles.

[2:41] >> More testing confirmed the worst today.

[2:43] Not a single one of the 48 million doses

[2:46] of flu vaccine made by Chiron can be

[2:49] salvaged. Testing of more batches found

[2:51] they too are contaminated. This comes as

[2:54] Americans are already scrambling for flu

[2:56] shots only to find confusion,

[2:59] disappointment, and worse. CBS's Sharon

[3:02] Alfonsi has the inside story.

[3:06] Across the country, where lines for flu

[3:08] shots are slow and long,

[3:09] >> we back up, please.

[3:10] >> Tempers are short and quick.

[3:12] >> These aren't Yankees tickets. Nobody

[3:14] needs to be out here at 4:00 in the

[3:15] morning to wait online.

[3:16] >> But around the country, they did.

[3:18] Standing in Boston, driving through in

[3:21] Green Bay. Some who were turned away had

[3:23] to be taken away.

[3:25] >> I want a police officer.

[3:26] >> It all proved too much for some. A

[3:28] California woman collapsed and died

[3:30] after she waited for her flu shot for

[3:32] more than 5 hours. does. I sure do think

[3:35] it it's an emergency.

[3:37] >> Doctors at this clinic have been told

[3:38] only to give the flu shot to those who

[3:40] are the highest risk. And while in some

[3:42] states that's a request, in others it's

[3:45] now an order. Health care providers in

[3:48] Michigan and North Carolina will be

[3:50] prosecuted if they give flu shots to

[3:52] low-risk people. And in Washington, DC,

[3:55] doctors could be fined thousands of

[3:57] dollars for each low-risk patient they

[3:59] vaccinate. In New Mexico, even the

[4:02] high-risisk pregnant women and healthy

[4:04] seniors are being ordered to hold off

[4:06] until more vaccines become available.

[4:09] Some physicians worry the nation's

[4:11] emergency rooms will soon be under

[4:13] siege.

[4:14] >> We have 130 million Americans that the

[4:17] CDC has identified as high-risk

[4:20] individuals and 55 million doses of

[4:22] vaccine. You do the math. President Bush

[4:25] suggested during Wednesday night's

[4:27] debate that help from Canada could be on

[4:29] the way, but Health and Human Services

[4:31] Secretary Tommy Thompson told reporters

[4:33] yesterday, quote, "It doesn't look

[4:35] promising."

[4:36] >> This is crazy. It It's like uh America

[4:38] telling it senior the government of

[4:40] America telling its seniors die already

[4:42] >> for those most at risk getting a flu

[4:44] shot now

[4:45] >> 248

[4:46] >> is feeling more and more like a long

[4:48] shot.

[4:50] >> Sharon Alonsy, CBS News, New York. Well,

[4:52] it seems as if bills for telephone and

[4:54] internet service grow by the month. So,

[4:56] offers of money-saving package deals can

[4:58] be very tempting. They can also be very

[5:01] costly. As CBS's Wyatt Andrews shows you

[5:04] in CBS's Friday Consumer Alert

[5:07] investigation.

[5:09] >> Who's making me a chocolate chip cookie

[5:11] today?

[5:11] >> To Vivian Cox Fraser of the Urban League

[5:14] in Newark, the deal was irresistible.

[5:17] >> Oh, the sales p was pitch was extremely

[5:19] persuasive. The pitch from a company

[5:21] called Nor Virgin offered to bundle all

[5:24] the agency's phone, cell phone, and

[5:26] internet service for roughly 25% off. A

[5:30] savings of almost $15,000.

[5:33] >> When you run a notfor-profit agency,

[5:35] everything counts.

[5:36] >> Nor sold the discounts to some 11,000

[5:39] customers, including John Turner, who

[5:41] runs a software company in Virginia. The

[5:44] catch, he says, was in this box.

[5:46] >> A magic box that would do all these

[5:48] things for you. No told its customers

[5:50] that all of those deep discounts

[5:52] depended on this, a very high-tech

[5:55] looking piece of gear noggin called the

[5:56] Matrix. And so every single customer had

[5:59] to sign an ironclad agreement to lease

[6:02] the Matrix for 5 years. What customers

[6:06] did not know was that Norgent had sold

[6:08] the leases to some of the country's

[6:10] biggest finance companies, including

[6:12] BB&T. That gave Norgence its money

[6:15] upfront. And guess what? In July,

[6:18] Norgence went bankrupt and all those

[6:20] promised phone services stopped. Now, in

[6:23] a mind-boggling turn of events, some of

[6:25] the finance companies still want to be

[6:27] paid for the box and are suing or

[6:30] threatening to sue the customers. BB&T,

[6:33] claiming it has lost money, wants the

[6:35] Urban League to pay $9,000.

[6:38] >> How is it that you don't have this

[6:39] service, but you still owe money?

[6:41] >> That's a question I want the answer to.

[6:43] In this growing national scandal, the

[6:45] attorneys general from five states want

[6:48] the threats ended.

[6:49] >> It's hard for me to believe that these

[6:51] leasing companies did not know that

[6:54] there wasn't something wrong with these

[6:57] leases.

[6:57] >> Officials at Norgence declined to speak

[7:00] to us, but their attorney blamed bad

[7:02] luck, writing, "The exponential growth

[7:04] of the company and changes in financing

[7:07] caused a downward spiral which could not

[7:09] be reversed. But the victims say this

[7:12] was a scam from the start and have asked

[7:14] the FTC to step in. Most of these

[7:17] victims are strong small businesses, the

[7:19] backbone of the economy, and agencies

[7:21] like the Urban League where a dollar

[7:23] saved is another child's served.

[7:28] >> Wyatt Andrews, CBS News, Newark. More

[7:31] stories are just a click away, but don't

[7:33] forget to join me on television for the

[7:35] on air edition of the CBS Evening News.

[7:38] On Monday's broadcast, a look at the

[7:40] issue of overtime pay. Millions depend

[7:43] on it, but the rules are changing. We'll

[7:46] show you where the presidential

[7:47] candidates stand in our CBS News

[7:49] election series. What does it mean to

[7:52] you? For cbsnews.com,

[7:55] I'm Dan Rather.