[Firehouse]

I don't have any first-hand experience with the Machine, and my last visit to Tuscaloosa was decades ago. The real Machine was nothing at like what was described. I don't know if it still even exists.
No one should be terrorized for running for office, or for any reason. I'm truely sorry that young woman had such an experience.
Unfortunately, I am familiar with lexus/nexus and how agenda-driven radicals use it to promote their own causes. Journalists use lx/nx as a source, and if something ends up in the universe, then it likely will appear in a future story. For instance, just for example let's say that the story about a Machine operative threatening this young woman was not true. Let's say that the threat was made in order to dramatize her candidacy and make her appear to be a victim, or, that it was just some thug who acted on his own and assaulted a woman for his own perverted reasons.
Now, let's say that the Machine turns up again on campus and runs a legitimate candidate and does so honestly. The ln/nx story is still in the computer, and some journalist will dig it out and use it to trash the Machine candidate, whether the original story was true or not.
I'll give you two real examples. The man who started the homeless movement (Mitch someone, don't recall, he's deceased) admitted that he deliberately put forth the false number of 3 million homeless in the US because he felt that number would bring attention to his cause. The real number was and is closer to 10% of that: only 300,000 out of 300 million people in the US. Yet, just the other day I saw the 3 million number in a brand new story. Some lazy journalist churned up lx/nx and didn't see the later stories about the discovery of false numbers.
Second example is the story that NOW released (or if they didn't release it they propmoted it) about how there is a tremendous flood of emergency room patients on Super Bowl Sunday. They wanted to call attention to domestic abuse so they just made up a story about women being abused the day of the Super Bowl and released it to their friends in the media. It was proven to be a complete fabrication, and was reported as such later, but today if you search lx/nx you'll find the original story and some journaist will repeat it based on the original falsehood without checking further.
This may seem like a lot of talk for a little item, but people who hate Greeks use this kind of thing against us all the time. A charge will be made, later refuted, but the charge stays in the system.