Officials discuss how to delay Election Day

[Steve Schacher]

This is the same speculation that occurred in 1997-1998 when the President Clinton signed executive orders transferring power to FEMA (under Janet Reno's Justice Department) should a disaster occur. Back then, it was under the guise of a calamity due to Y2K. Still, the same conspiracy theories of an "October Surprise" resulted, but never happened.

An interesting question left unanswered still is, what would happen if there were a MAJOR attack -- not an Amtrack explosion that kills 150 people, but, say, simultaneous explosions of dirty bombs in NYC, LA, SF, DC, Boston, Chicago, Miami, Dallas, Houston, St. Louis, etc.?

Or, what would happen if one of the candidates were assassinated just weeks before the election? The last time we saw something like that was in 1968 when Robert Kennedy was killed. With Kennedy, though, he was still only a primary candidate. The actual party nominee had not been chosen yet.

Now, for my own conspiracy theory, I would suggest that if we do wind up postponing the election, it will be at the request of the Democrats, moreso because their candidate is losing badly in the polls and want to buy more time than because of a Bush power-grab.

[Kartoffel]

Kalshion : Street is right. You need to drop the predujuce and look at things with an open mind. Go read some centrist, or even some *gasp* progressive news. With an open mind of course, else you'll just be calling it propaganda, or whatever.

Steve - There's been way more fearmongering now then there was then. If BushCo keeps on running those 'potential terrorist attacks in the next 100 years things', then the elections could very well be delayed just out of the public's fear.

Your question is a whole nother ballgame. That would be crippling the US civilly. It would be like 9/11 on the order of the entire US, not just New York City.

Assasination? Unlikely. IIRC, they have secret service bodyguards, and the secret service is going to be competent. Unless they're ordered not to be.

On your conspiracy theory - of course you think it would be the Democrats wanting to postpone it, with your bias and such. Not from any real evidence.

Going further, about the only thing that could propell Bush to victory honestly, is something big, like capturing bin Laden in October, or sometime around then. (There's some evidence to suggest this.) Remember al-Zarquaib (don't remember exactly how it was spelled, dont have the time to look up something so minor), the one deemed responsible for so much of the insurgent activity in Iraq? Bush had several opportunities to assasinate him in 2002, but did not, because it would weaken his rationale for his false war. Also, BushCo is laying pressure on Pakistan to find bin Laden before the elections. Reason why? His ratings have fairly steadily been slipping, and even though polls are not a paticularly accurate measurement, there's going to be some degree of accuracy in them.

[Kartoffel]

Kalshion : Street is right. You need to drop the predujuce and look at things with an open mind. Go read some centrist, or even some *gasp* progressive news. With an open mind of course, else you'll just be calling it propaganda, or whatever.

Steve - There's been way more fearmongering now then there was then. If BushCo keeps on running those 'potential terrorist attacks in the next 100 years things', then the elections could very well be delayed just out of the public's fear.

Your question is a whole nother ballgame. That would be crippling the US civilly. It would be like 9/11 on the order of the entire US, not just New York City.

Assasination? Unlikely. IIRC, they have secret service bodyguards, and the secret service is going to be competent. Unless they're ordered not to be.

On your conspiracy theory - of course you think it would be the Democrats wanting to postpone it, with your bias and such. Not from any real evidence.

Going further, about the only thing that could propell Bush to victory honestly, is something big, like capturing bin Laden in October, or sometime around then. (There's some evidence to suggest this.) Remember al-Zarquaib (don't remember exactly how it was spelled, dont have the time to look up something so minor), the one deemed responsible for so much of the insurgent activity in Iraq? Bush had several opportunities to assasinate him in 2002, but did not, because it would weaken his rationale for his false war. Also, BushCo is laying pressure on Pakistan to find bin Laden before the elections. Reason why? His ratings have fairly steadily been slipping, and even though polls are not a paticularly accurate measurement, there's going to be some degree of accuracy in them.

[Steve Schacher]

Well, it's not from any bias, it's from my own judgement, unless we are now to remove the word judgement from the lexicon and replace it with bias.

However, I was a bit tongue-in-cheek with my conspiracy theory, which is why I called it my conspiracy theory (which doesn't require evidence, as all good conspiracy theories don't).

As far as fear-mongering goes, there is good cause for it. We were attacked by brutal people who don't mind taking civilians captive and beheading them. That indicates a foe who doesn't go by the past rules of engagement. Past administrations were faced with attacks as well, but chose to ignore them or treat them as police actions. Remember, there was the first WTC bombing, the embassy bombings, the barracks bombings, the USS Cole bombing. These events should have been considered acts of war, but weren't. And, it wasn't President Bush who turned the military on its own people in the first year of his administration (reportedly the motive for Timothy McVeigh's attack on the anniversary date a few years later), leading some to question his judgement. Let's not also forget the repeated claims in Congress and the White House in 1998 and on about bin Laden and Hussein. So, I think that it can be said that there was plenty of fear-mongering going on, just of a different kind.

Regarding assassination, I'm not thinking the lone-gunman kind, I'm thinking the large-scale bomb kind. How close does an assassin have to get to a candidate with a suitcase nuke or dirty bomb? The thrust of the question was of crippling the USA civilly, if rumors of 20 bombs already here are true. What would happen to an election if, say, five majore cities were hit within a week of the election, or one of the candidates was injured in an attack?

I've always thought that bin Laden was killed in the attack on Tora Bora. To be fair, I also thought that Hussein was killed in the shock-and-awe attack on the first night of the Iraq war, too. I still think that bin Laden is dead, if not from the attack then from his kidney ailment. One of the people filmed with him on the day after 9/11 surrendered today to Saudis. I wonder why? Probably, because he is 1) out of the loop, and 2) sick and useless. I bet the first question that he's asked is "When was the last time you personally met with bin Laden?" I suspect that his answer will be "At Tora Bora."

My opinion of the polls right now is that they are soft. I believe that the polls will break out soon. My belief is that the Kerry support is weak and is only being propped up by a duplicitous media that can only do so much with biased reporting. I'm looking at indicators such as the turnout for the Fahrenheit 911 vs The Passion movies; the slight movement in African-American polling (17% feel that Bush deserves re-election, a startling number that should be at about 5%); the fact that much of the basis for media bashing is being slowly discredited, most recently the Wilson-Plame-Niger Yellowcake story and the "Bush Lied" stories.

In short, I fully expect the elections to proceed as scheduled. I don't mind a little "devils advocate" planning for worst-case scenarios, though. That kind of stuff shouldn't be leaked, however, because it only feeds into partisan agendas even if the intentions are right.

[Steve Schacher]

Well, it's not from any bias, it's from my own judgement, unless we are now to remove the word judgement from the lexicon and replace it with bias.

However, I was a bit tongue-in-cheek with my conspiracy theory, which is why I called it my conspiracy theory (which doesn't require evidence, as all good conspiracy theories don't).

As far as fear-mongering goes, there is good cause for it. We were attacked by brutal people who don't mind taking civilians captive and beheading them. That indicates a foe who doesn't go by the past rules of engagement. Past administrations were faced with attacks as well, but chose to ignore them or treat them as police actions. Remember, there was the first WTC bombing, the embassy bombings, the barracks bombings, the USS Cole bombing. These events should have been considered acts of war, but weren't. And, it wasn't President Bush who turned the military on its own people in the first year of his administration (reportedly the motive for Timothy McVeigh's attack on the anniversary date a few years later), leading some to question his judgement. Let's not also forget the repeated claims in Congress and the White House in 1998 and on about bin Laden and Hussein. So, I think that it can be said that there was plenty of fear-mongering going on, just of a different kind.

Regarding assassination, I'm not thinking the lone-gunman kind, I'm thinking the large-scale bomb kind. How close does an assassin have to get to a candidate with a suitcase nuke or dirty bomb? The thrust of the question was of crippling the USA civilly, if rumors of 20 bombs already here are true. What would happen to an election if, say, five majore cities were hit within a week of the election, or one of the candidates was injured in an attack?

I've always thought that bin Laden was killed in the attack on Tora Bora. To be fair, I also thought that Hussein was killed in the shock-and-awe attack on the first night of the Iraq war, too. I still think that bin Laden is dead, if not from the attack then from his kidney ailment. One of the people filmed with him on the day after 9/11 surrendered today to Saudis. I wonder why? Probably, because he is 1) out of the loop, and 2) sick and useless. I bet the first question that he's asked is "When was the last time you personally met with bin Laden?" I suspect that his answer will be "At Tora Bora."

My opinion of the polls right now is that they are soft. I believe that the polls will break out soon. My belief is that the Kerry support is weak and is only being propped up by a duplicitous media that can only do so much with biased reporting. I'm looking at indicators such as the turnout for the Fahrenheit 911 vs The Passion movies; the slight movement in African-American polling (17% feel that Bush deserves re-election, a startling number that should be at about 5%); the fact that much of the basis for media bashing is being slowly discredited, most recently the Wilson-Plame-Niger Yellowcake story and the "Bush Lied" stories.

In short, I fully expect the elections to proceed as scheduled. I don't mind a little "devils advocate" planning for worst-case scenarios, though. That kind of stuff shouldn't be leaked, however, because it only feeds into partisan agendas even if the intentions are right.

[Guest]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Steve Schacher:

....My opinion of the polls right now is that they are soft. I believe that the polls will break out soon. My belief is that the Kerry support is weak and is only being propped up by a duplicitous media that can only do so much with biased reporting. I'm looking at indicators such as the turnout for the Fahrenheit 911 vs The Passion movies; the slight movement in African-American polling (17% feel that Bush deserves re-election, a startling number that should be at about 5%); the fact that much of the basis for media bashing is being slowly discredited, most recently the Wilson-Plame-Niger Yellowcake story and the "Bush Lied" stories.

In short, I fully expect the elections to proceed as scheduled. I don't mind a little "devils advocate" planning for worst-case scenarios, though. That kind of stuff shouldn't be leaked, however, because it only feeds into partisan agendas even if the intentions are right.

---

The probelm that Bush has right now is that there are a lot of Clinton holdovers right now that would like nothing better then for Kerry to get elected, ao they leak these things, hoping that it will push Kerry in the poles, and the media will make a BIG deal out of it, so that the little sheeple that are just looking to bash Bush, have another reason to do so.

This has been done countless times, the FBI, CIA, military, and of course other agencies are ALWAYS creating scenarios, in order to train to deal with them. Some of the exercises that I went through in the military were just plain insane, attacking Canada? Can we get real here?

Anyway, same old same old, it is the weekly Bush basher ammunition, that has some truth, but on it's face is ridiculous.

And I love how the media has taken this yellow cake thing and are trying to push it off as no big deal, yeah, right, sure thing.

The Bush lied thing has got no traction, so they are scrambling for something else....

[Guest]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Steve Schacher:

....My opinion of the polls right now is that they are soft. I believe that the polls will break out soon. My belief is that the Kerry support is weak and is only being propped up by a duplicitous media that can only do so much with biased reporting. I'm looking at indicators such as the turnout for the Fahrenheit 911 vs The Passion movies; the slight movement in African-American polling (17% feel that Bush deserves re-election, a startling number that should be at about 5%); the fact that much of the basis for media bashing is being slowly discredited, most recently the Wilson-Plame-Niger Yellowcake story and the "Bush Lied" stories.

In short, I fully expect the elections to proceed as scheduled. I don't mind a little "devils advocate" planning for worst-case scenarios, though. That kind of stuff shouldn't be leaked, however, because it only feeds into partisan agendas even if the intentions are right.

---

The probelm that Bush has right now is that there are a lot of Clinton holdovers right now that would like nothing better then for Kerry to get elected, ao they leak these things, hoping that it will push Kerry in the poles, and the media will make a BIG deal out of it, so that the little sheeple that are just looking to bash Bush, have another reason to do so.

This has been done countless times, the FBI, CIA, military, and of course other agencies are ALWAYS creating scenarios, in order to train to deal with them. Some of the exercises that I went through in the military were just plain insane, attacking Canada? Can we get real here?

Anyway, same old same old, it is the weekly Bush basher ammunition, that has some truth, but on it's face is ridiculous.

And I love how the media has taken this yellow cake thing and are trying to push it off as no big deal, yeah, right, sure thing.

The Bush lied thing has got no traction, so they are scrambling for something else....