Will Bush cancel the 2008 election?-We may have about a year to prepare (Wasserman & Fitrakis)

[kpete]

Will Bush cancel the 2008 election?
Posted by moderator on August 9th, 2007
by Harvey Wasserman & Bob Fitrakis
July 30, 2007

It is time to think about the “unthinkable.”

The Bush Administration has both the inclination and the power to cancel the 2008 election.

The GOP strategy for another electoral theft in 2008 has taken clear shape, though we must assume there is much more we don’t know.

But we must also assume that if it appears to Team Bush/Cheney/Rove that the GOP will lose the 2008 election anyway (as it lost in Ohio 2006) we cannot ignore the possibility that they would simply cancel the election. Those who think this crew will quietly walk away from power are simply not paying attention.

The real question is not how or when they might do it. It’s how, realistically, we can stop them.


............

So how do we cope with the harsh realities of such a Bush/Cheney/Rove dictatorial coup?

We may have about a year to prepare. Every possible scenario needs to be discussed in excruciating detail.

For only one thing is certain: denial will do nothing.

more at:
http://www.fraudbusterbob.com/blog/

[monktonman]

1. I'd just stop going to work

[book_worm]

2. Cancelling the election may be what finally wakes this country up

I think many people would take to the streets if it happened. But I don't think it will happen. I don't even think the military establishment wants Bush in there longer than his constitutional term. But I'll bookmark this just in case it does happen. Though if that happened I would think that sites like DU would probably be shut down as well.

[global1]

3. We Talk About The Possibility Of This Happening Here On DU - But ......

the thought never hits in MSM. If it did - it would make it harder for *Co to pull it off IMHO. They need the element of surprise and if people are talking about the prospect of this happening and more Americans are aware that *Co might try to do this - it just makes it that more difficult for *Co to engineer a cancellation.

The trick is - how do we get MSM talking about the this? How do we make more Americans aware of the fact that *Co has set the wheels in motion by Executive Orders - to make something like this happen?

[watercolors]

4. I don't think * has the stamina for

being president much longer, I have a feeling he wants out. He will keep us in Iraq till he is gone, just so history cannot say he failed, and put it on someone else's shoulders!

[RaleighNCDUer]

5. Though it's a possibility, I tend to agree.

It's much easier for them to steal the next election (though we're trying to make that more difficult) than to pull off an open coup.

OTOH, if it is clear that they cannot steal it, I wouldn't put it past them to create an emergency that will 'postpone' the elections as they clamp down martial law. Then, all bets are off.

[Cassandra]

7. Normally I would agree but...

he keeps putting people in the government who swear loyalty to Bush personally, which creeps me out.

[Hamlette]

11. watercolors has the right answer

there is no way Bush will even try to suspend the election for god's sake.

don't you people have something reality based to worry about?

[Maddy McCall]

6. Not going to happen.

[Sadie4629]

8. I've been hearing these ominous predictions

ever since Bush was selected by the SC in 2001. It hasn't happened yet. And it won't happen.

[Maddy McCall]

10. I've been hearing them since Clinton was elected the second time.

Republicans said the same thing about Clinton.

Of course, the current response to that is that Clinton didn't have the executive powers that Bush currently has.

I still don't see him doing it. I think that he'll be hellbent to get out of the White House in Jan 2009.

[Hamlette]

12. they did say it about Clinton, we are sounding more like the right everyday n/t

[regnaD kciN]

15. But the difference...

...as Maddy pointed out, is that Clinton didn't claim "unitary executive" powers, ignore laws via "signing statements," snoop on Americans without a warrant, abolish the Posse Comitatus Act and disparage the principle of habeus corpus, deny the 4th Amendment demands probable cause (even though it's stated in the text of the Amendment!), claim the right to imprison Americans indefinitely without trial, or issue orders permitting an executive branch takeover in case of "emergency."

It's one thing to suspect an administration you don't like of wanting to establish itself as a dictatorship on the basis of nothing more than your dislike of them; it's quite another to do so in the light of action after action by that administration laying the groundwork for such a dictatorship.

Drawing an equivalence between Clinton and Bush in this matter is a little like saying that Democrats had no right to complain about the 2000 (s)election, since Republicans were likewise convinced the Democrats stole the election in 1960. It's really apples and oranges, folks.

[Freddie Stubbs]

9. 'Great' minds think alike

http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a397785c82702.htm

http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a39eaacab3318.htm

[regnaD kciN]

13. While I think some concern is justified...

...I think the authors of this piece are mistaken in hypothesizing that this could happen "if it looks like Republicans will lose in 2008."

That assumes a one-to-one correspondence between the Republican Party and what Mike Malloy calls the "Bush Crime Family" (or what the article itself refers to as "Team Bush/Cheney/Rove") so that the latter would be satisfied to leave office as long as there's a Republican successor.

The problem is that none of the Republican candidates is a Bush family insider who would continue the pseudo-dynasty. Each would be likely to change the way things are done in ways that would cut the Bushes and their inner circle out of power. From the point of view of BushCo, is having a President Giuliani or a President Romney or a President McCain all that compelling a goal? Maybe if Jeb were running, or Condi, or if Cheney felt he had good enough health to run himself, BushCo would swing into action to tilt the election their way. But I don't think the current crop of candidates matters to them.

The upshot of this is that I think any Bush family coup, if it were to happen, would do so regardless of the likely outcome of the election. They'd snatch power to keep it away from any non-BushCo successor, Republican as well as Democrat.

Could they succeed? Overall, I tend to doubt it. While they may have jiggered the law to make such a takeover easier, it would really be dependent on two factors: the courts and the military. No matter how Bush has tilted SCOTUS, I don't think he has five votes for such a drastic step; in fact, I would even question whether all four of the currently-predictable Bush votes among the Justices would hold firm for such an action. And then there's the question of the military that would be asked to carry out such a coup. I'm not talking about the upper brass, who may have loyalties to the current administration; I'm talking about the grunts in the field and the low-level officers who are not beholden to the White House. When Soviet hardliners launched their coup against Gorbachev in August 1991, it fell apart because the average soldiers refused to fire on their own countrymen in support of the self-proclaimed junta. I can't help thinking that Bush would find the same troubles getting our military to go along with such a power-grab.

However...all of this could be off the table if the basis for such a takeover was a truly devastating terrorist attack, on a level much greater than 9/11. If there was, say, a successful nuclear attack against one or more American (likely northern and progressive, where life is cheap in the Republican view) cities that resulted in fatalities in six figures or more, all bets would be off. LIHOP II, anyone?

[DemGa]

14. Why? They've got what they've wanted

Their power lies in keeping the "host," the U.S. alive. This is utterly ridiculous IMO.

[L. Coyote]

16. Will aliens land in Kansas? About as realistic!!