I'm getting to the point where I believe the elections will be suspended because of a timely terrorist threat. Martial law will be declared, and wackiness will ensue that makes current events seem tame by comparison.

GOP dirty tricks and fraud up the wazoo, trying to squeeze out one more 50.5% win, sure. But out-and-out suspending the Presidential election? I maintain that this, even the face of a new terrorist attack, is almost literally the last thing that the Powers-That-Be want to do. Not because of any ethical qualms (ha!), but because it strips off the mask. It's sooo much easier and cheaper to keep the peons in line if you can say that we live in a democracy and be technically correct. (On the logistical end of things, the fact that BushCo has spent the last six years methodically hollowing out the army and national guard doesn't help..) As long as it's Hillary who gets the Dem nod, and even if it looks like she is going to win in a landslide, the election will go on. The GOP Base may hate the woman with the fiery passion of a million white-hot suns, but the money men get along with her just fine. Edwards and Obama, true, are a bit more iffy, although for very different reasons. Edwards because he makes noises about not grinding poor people in the face with an iron boot, and Obama because there is a sizable portion of the US population which simply will not accept a black man becoming president.

Another potential wild card is the fact that Bush doesn't particularly want to be president anymore. This may or may not change even if he is told he has just been given shiny new Dictator Powers.

majority with a 100% turn-out, after all this is not Egypt,
50% plus one whatever the turnout may be that all thay need.
So stops the dems turning out and get the one vote, or better still, aren't the repukes already packing the electoral college?
Who need's the people then?

But I still think that Gore could win in 2008, even if he campaing'd only on global warming, because, mother nature will prove him right.
OK, I know, it's wishfull thinking, but , hey, "I have a dream".
And could "Hope is on the way" be a valid slogan for '08?

Dude, read an American High School civics textbook.

_{Turn back to the Constitution - and READ it.}

The most compelling evidence to my eyes is the fact that I can't see the Repubs going to all the trouble of shredding the Constitution and imbuing the Executive Branch with extraordinary-- nay, dictatorial-- powers unless they're damned sure that a Dem won't inherit the spoils of their hard work.

OTOH, we have a Dem congress now, and that's done bugger-all as a brake on George's administration, as witness this.

P.S.: Holy cow, Gonzales resigned???

You're right about the average GOPer not thinking ahead in this area, but BushCo has had the mass media and right-wing power-structure marching in lockstep behind them. If Hillary wins, all that goes away. We'll be right back at Whitewater and Lewinsky, at a time the economy is a crumbling shell, the army is broken and the federal government is infested with BushCo holdovers at every level. I said above that the money men probably don't personally hate Hillary or her husband, and I stand by that, but they will cheerfully feed the beast, which will snipe and gnaw at her every step of the way. If it's someone like Edwards who appears to actually want to make real changes, then it gets really ugly.

...here and above.

Can't say what's *more* disturbing...that the government has plans for declaring martial law without a War Declaration, or that they've managed to suck in Clergy to participate in telling their 'flock' "You're fucked, but it's OK..."

Makes me a little more glad I don't regularly attend church....or listen to the advice of priests. If a priest told me to bend over and smile because King George says I have no rights, I'd be inclined to tell him to start running.....fast. 'Coz after Georgie was removed and his regime stood up against the wall, folks will start coming for all those who helped enable that horror.

Remember France after WWII....and what happened to the Vichy collaborators

-5.75,-4.05 Rule of the Great:
When people you greatly admire appear to be thinking deep
thoughts, they probably are thinking about lunch.

not general civil libertarians.

It may not matter, but that's to me what was not in the excerpt.

Clergy Crisis Response Teams, as a concept,have existed at least as far back as 2000, but
volunteering in local disasters.

Nonetheless, since the current KSLA story is now on practically every left alternative news site;
-Truthdig, reported on the 20th that KSLA News is standing by its report on Clergy Response Teams trained by the federal government

-at least one published letter has been written to John Conyers, demanding information. It will be interesting to see whether and how he responds.

_{1."George Washington did not cross the Delaware for Capitalism," -Shmuley Boteach.
2.The Dems haven't punished the GOP enough, so you're going to reward the Republicans?}