US election: how to make sure your vote is counted and other stuff to read - just to get you into the mood to throw the bums out on their butts

1. 12 Ways You Can Safeguard the Vote -- by Fran Korten, Doug Pibel, Paul Mozur and the staff and interns at YES! Magazine

Will it happen again? On November 7 we may see voters waiting in long lines, only to find they’re not on the voter rolls. We may see election workers struggling with malfunctioning machines. If you’re worried that we will wake up November 8 to find that, once again, election procedures in key races are in question, read on.

The staff at YES! Magazine has researched the recommendations of voting integrity advocates and offers 12 ways you can protect your own vote—and the fairness of the system. Please forward this checklist to others to help make our election system work.

BEFORE ELECTION DAY

1. Check your registration. Even if you think you're registered, you may not be. Check online at www.CanIVote.org . Or call your local election officials (find contact information at Overseas Vote Foundation) .

2. Mail with care. If you’re voting by mail, check carefully where you need to sign, how to seal the envelope, and how to mark the ballot. And note: Some ballots weigh more than an ounce and require extra postage.

3. Find out who’s in charge. Make a phone list of your county and state election officials—it may save valuable time on Election Day if you need to get registration verification or other information.

ON ELECTION DA Y

4. Vote early. If you encounter problems, you'll have time to sort them out and may be able to help others.

5. Take your government-issued ID (such as your driver's license). You may not need it, but it's best to have it.

6. Bring your cell phone, if you have one. If you have problems, or see problems, you can call a hotline immediately (see point #9).

7. Ask for a paper ballot. Some states, such as California, require polling places to have paper ballots available on request. If you don't want to use a machine, see if your polling place can provide a paper ballot. If machines aren't working or there are other problems, ask for an emergency ballot (although they may not be available everywhere).

8. Verify your vote. If you’re voting on an electronic voting machine, check the review screen to make sure it reflects your vote. If the machine produces a paper record (28 states require one), read it carefully to make sure it correctly reflects your vote. If it is incorrect, speak to a polling attendant—don’t leave until you’re sure your vote has been properly recorded.

9. Document and report. If you encounter difficulties, or see others experiencing difficulties (excessive lines, voter harassment, malfunctioning machines, etc.), make a detailed record. Get all the facts you can—location, names, specific problem.

We recommend two nationwide networks where you can report problems. One is 1-866-OUR-VOTE (1-866-687-8683), which will have volunteer lawyers in 15 locations standing by to provide assistance. The other is 1-866 My Vote-1 (1-866-698-6831), which will record your problem by voicemail, then forward your call to your local board of elections. Both will enter the information you provide into a database to use to support challenges to problem elections now and demands for reform in the future.

AFTER ELECTION DAY

10. Call your candidate. If there are questions about an election result, urge your candidate not to concede early; encourage that person to follow through with all available challenges and recounts. Ask how you can help.

11. Call your election officials. Let your county and state election officials know that you have concerns about the election and will be monitoring their response. Ask them not to certify the election before all challenges and recounts are finished.

INTO THE FUTURE

12. Work for fair, transparent elections. Voice your questions about voting machines, vote suppression, and election problems promptly. Keep the issue in front of your election officials. If we want clean, trustworthy elections in 2008, we have to start working on it now.

Want more information? Here are three websites from the leading edge on voting issues.
www.verifiedvoting.org
www.VotersUnite.org
www.truthout.org/voters.rights.htm


2. Election a Referendum on War and on Administration's Credibility -- by Helen Thomas/Seattle Post-Intelligencer

WASHINGTON - The war in Iraq is the issue in the critical Nov.7 election -- and it should be.

Voters surely will want to have a say on the national policy that has taken a huge human toll of casualties, both American and Iraqi, and is draining the U.S. Treasury.

Although they are not on the ballot, President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney are running scared, with Bush warning that the Democratic approach means that "the terrorists win and America loses."

It's a rare opportunity to weigh in on the nation's foreign policy and to send a message to the president who led the country into an unnecessary war.

This is also a chance for the voters to assess the political fate of the do-nothing rubber-stamp Congress, where lawmakers failed to question the president's motives in creating the Iraqi disaster.

The majority of Democrats on Capitol Hill went along with the October 2002 resolution that the administration took as the go-ahead for the invasion and occupation of the oil-rich country.

Democrats can't complain, but they can see the light and change their minds. They might even be able to propose an exit date and escape being accused by GOP opponents of not supporting the troops -- despite Bush's desperate rhetoric -- since some Republicans are looking for a way out of the quagmire, too.

Other Republican candidates seem to be shying away from the war issue as they put some distance between themselves and Bush. Many aren't eager for the traditional side-by-side public appearances with the president.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said last week that Republican candidates should steer clear of the war in Iraq and get Americans focusing on pocketbook issues.

Not all are taking that advice.

Rep. David Dreier, R-Calif., said in a recent column in the Christian Science Monitor that although "the struggle (meaning the war) is incredibly difficult, the Republican approach is working for America."

Karl Rove, White House political adviser, has been urging party candidates to stick with the tried-and-true emphasis on national security and the war on terrorism, promising it would play well at the polls.

The president also has thrown in a last-minute diatribe against gay marriage.

To take over Capitol Hill and turn Bush into a real lame duck, Democrats need to win 15 seats in the House and six in the Senate.

In a midterm correction to help beleaguered Republican candidates, Bush has now rejected the slogan "stay the course" that he and his top advisers had used to flay the Democrats, whom they accused of wanting to "cut and run."

The administration also has been talking loudly about benchmarks and timetables to assure voters that there is some movement toward an Iraq exit strategy.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki denies there is any deal on timing of withdrawal of American troops and dismissed such talk as a campaign ploy for U.S. domestic consumption.

Bush told ABC-TV's George Stephanopoulos on "This Week" on Oct. 22: "We've never been 'stay the course,' " a claim that smoothly ignored repeated statements by the president and other administration officials over the past three years.

The election is not only a referendum on the war but also on the administration's waning credibility.

(Commonly referred to as "The First Lady of the Press," former White House Bureau Chief Helen Thomas is a trailblazer, breaking through barriers for women reporters while covering every President since John F. Kennedy. For 57 years, Helen also served as White House correspondent for United Press International. She recently left this post and joined Hearst Newspapers as a syndicated columnist.)


3. Political Amnesia? -- by William Fisher

Unless you happen to live in Southern Louisiana, Mississippi, or Alabama, you're unlikely to have heard from office holders or their challengers the one word that was supposed to be a defining issue of the 2006 mid-term elections.

The word is Katrina.

During late August of 2005, and in the months following, virtually every news cycle led with graphic, grisly accounts of the death and suffering caused by the hurricane and subsequent flooding.

House and Senate Committees held dozens of hearings and issued blistering reports on the failures of "all levels of government" to anticipate and prepare for this unparalleled natural disaster. Lawmakers rushed to the floors of their respective houses to inveigh on the subject and spread the blame around by pointing fingers at the many who they thought culpable.

Billions of dollars were appropriated for relief. After he finally got around to putting his feet on the ground in New Orleans, President Bush praised the then head of FEMA, Michael Brown, for doing "a heck of a job." The President then told the nation he accepted full responsibility and ordered his Homeland Security assistant to produce a report detailing "failings at every level of government." She did.

But only one person was ever held accountable, the same Michael Brown, who was fired (and claimed he was made the scapegoat du jour). The hapless mayor of New Orleans, Ray Nagin, who hunkered down in a hotel suite while his people drowned, was re-elected. Mr. Brown's boss, Michael Chertoff, the head of the Department of Homeland Security - who decided to go to a conference in Atlanta the day the hurricane struck and the levees were breached - is still in his job (and keeping a lower-than-low profile in this political season.) His boss, Mr. Bush, is also still in his job. This is the "decider" who was in such an extreme State of Denial in his presidential bubble that his staff had to prepare a CD to show him the extent of Katrina's devastation.

A little more than a year ago, Katrina, and our public response to it, became metaphors for the gross incompetence of our government. How, people asked, could we respond to a terrorist attack if we couldn't handle a hurricane and a flood?

(William Fisher has managed economic development programs in the Middle East and in many other parts of the world for the US State Department and USAID for the past thirty years. He began his work life as a journalist for newspapers and for the Associated Press in Florida. Go to The World According to Bill Fisher for more.)


4. The Single Woman: The X Factor in the 2006 Election? -- by Celinda Lake/SF Chronicle

Forget NASCAR dads and security moms. The upcoming election belongs to the single woman - if she wants it.

Today, approximately 48 million, or almost half of American women are unmarried, a huge number that reflects a significant trend. Unmarried women as a group have significant influence on our culture and how we live our lives. Including who we elect to office (more on that later).

Who is the single woman? For starters, they are not all Carrie Bradshaw. Nor are they all Golden Girls -- or Gilmore Girls, for that matter.

They are twentysomethings working their first job out of college. They are divorced mothers raising two kids on their own. They are widows stretching their Social Security check to pay their bills. They are "Multicultural Mavericks," young, ethnically diverse urban dwellers who set cultural trends. Many of them are independently happy, refusing to put their lives on hold by waiting for Mr. Right.

Despite their considerable power, neither the Democratic Party nor the Republican Party has really focused on what single women want, or on how their candidates can speak to single women's needs. Which is why, four days before election day, whether they will vote is up for grabs.

What we do know from our own research is that unmarried women overwhelmingly believe the country is headed in the wrong direction. The war in Iraq tops their agenda, followed by the economy -- especially jobs, wages and gas prices. For younger single women, education is also a primary concern, while for older women, Medicare and Social Security top their list.

Yet in the 2004 election, despite being the fastest growing demographic in the country, 20 million single women did not vote, which also makes them the single largest bloc of nonvoters. Single women are also the most likely to "drop off" in the midterm elections. Nearly a quarter of single women who voted in 2004 are expected to stay home from the polls this year.

Given that recent elections have hinged on little more than half a million votes (or, in the case of Florida, a few hundred), single women have the power to tip the balance by exercising their vote.

They should. Political candidates would do well by doing a better job of reaching out to them as constituents. After all, according to the latest Census Bureau figures, single households now outnumber married ones. The face of America is changing, and single women are a big reason why. That should make them the No. 1 "get" for political candidates. Whether single women will realize their own political power as voters remains an open and unfinished chapter.

(Celinda Lake is president of Lake Research Partners, a Democratic strategy firm in Washington, D.C., She is the author of " What Women Really Want: How American Women Are Quietly Erasing Political, Racial, Class and Religious Lines to Change the Way We Live ,")


5. The Power of a Social Movement Can Beat the GOP Double Chickenhawks -- by Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman

It's never been more true that the one thing we Americans can say with pride about George W. Bush is that we have never elected him president of the United States.

The regime is even more despised than ever, in part because the derogatory term "chickenhawk" now applies in all its worst double meanings.

And while Bush and Karl Rove crow that they're about to "win" again, we think they are about to run into their worst nightmare: a full-blown grassroots social movement.

The GOP strategy for stealing 2006 is much the same as in the presidential elections of 2000 and 2004, and in key Senatorial elections in 2002: mass disenfranchisement of mostly urban Democratic voters, combined with mass inflation of mostly rural Republican votes.

The primary tools for disenfranchisement include the decimation of voter registration lists and outright harassment of would-be Democratic voters. In Ohio alone, there has been the electronic disenfranchisement of some ten percent of the state's registered voters, along with the virtual abolition of the recount process. The attack also includes trashing ballots once cast, combined with fraudulent tabulations and rigged electronic voting machines whose software is kept secret.

The theft is hidden behind the escalating abolition of public reporting mechanisms. In 2006, this will include the virtual elimination of major media support for exit polling. Other staples of public reporting will also be crippled, as is now happening in Cuyahoga County (Cleveland), Ohio, and elsewhere around the US. Needless to say, there is much much more.

The GOP cover line is familiar. Bush/Rove now claim published pre-election polls are inaccurate. As they push/pull the vote count they will explain away unlikely Republican margins in rural areas by conjuring up mythological hordes of "evangelical voters." America hosts, to be sure, many millions of right-wing Christian voters. But as we have seen in our preliminary examinations of the 2004 ballots, the decisive numbers attributed to them may well exist only in the minds of the corporate media, in rigged loaves & fishes ballot counts, and in the Holy Ghost memory cards of electronic voting machines that cannot be monitored.

The GOP is desperate to keep control of both the Senate and the House. The realest terrors the Republicans face are public investigations into the astounding sinkhole of military, financial, insider theft, predatory sex, educational, ecological and other catastrophes they have wrought. Rarely in U.S. history has a single scrum of dirty tricksters evoked such widespread, abject hatred, for such good reason.

Part of the public ferocity is now doubly bound in the epithet "chickenhawk."

In the Vietnam era, it referred to war hawks like Bush, Rove, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and other dubious draft dodgers who preached patriotism and war while chickening out on their own military service. In the public mind, there is no hotter place in hell than for hypocrites who send others to die in battles they won't fight themselves.

Chickenhawk is also nasty street slang for despicable sex offenders who prey on children. The exposure of Republican Congressman Mark Foley's ghastly pursuit of Congressional pages reveals an astonishing streak of personal and political hypocrisy. Like so many of his fellow sex-obsessed neo-puritan GOP gay-bashers, Foley is gay himself. He is the ultimate poster boy for "moral values" conservatism.

Now we face the question of whether the Democrats will carry one or both houses of Congress. Immoderate, intemperate and incompetent at everything except stealing elections, the GOP has ruled the executive, judicial and legislative branches, as well as the corporate media, with an iron fist. The checks and balances so carefully crafted by the Founders have been obliterated. The consequences have been predictable.

From Iraq to the deficits, from insider theft to pompous theocrats, from the decimation of the environment to the destruction of our educational system, from the dictatorial shredding of our Constitution to the smug arrogance of the sanctimoniously ignorant., the US has never been saddled with a more thoroughly rapacious national regime.

Other US elections have been stolen. But none with such organized thuggery, or such a clear eye to permanent Rovian domination. These were not meant to be one-time thefts. The hacked voting machines, ex-felon disenfranchisement, Jim Crow intimidation, deliberately confusing butterfly ballots and other sinister tricks from Jeb Bush's Florida 2000 have morphed and multiplied. In our on-the-ground studies of Ohio 2004, we have documented scores of distinct tactics used to steal our state's electoral votes. More become obvious every day. Like a cancer, they've spread nationwide.

At bottom, this regime has updated and expanded for use against the people of the United States the covert tactics used by George H.W. Bush and other stealth operatives to overthrow inconvenient elected leaders throughout the Third World. As in countless targets for covert US takeover, the candidate's brother took Florida 2000, with the help of a secretary of state simultaneously serving as his campaign chair.

In Ohio 2004, Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell, again the Bush-Cheney campaign co-chair, also ran the election that gave George W. Bush a second term. This year he will count the votes in his own run for governor, and will manipulate the outcome of elections that could tip the balance in both the US Senate and House.

It is, to update an infamous phrase from Malcolm X, the chickenhawks come home to roost.

But the solution is now everywhere to be seen. It is in the birth of a social movement.

There's been a virtual blackout by the major media, plus indifference and even hostility from the Democratic Party about the subversion of our electoral process.

But the reality that two consecutive presidential elections have been stolen has pierced hearts and minds deep inside the American mainstream. Powerful reports from the Conyers Congressional Committee, the Government Accountability Office, the Carter-Baker Commission, the Brennan Center, Princeton University and others have all come to the same conclusion: it can take just a few keystrokes to steal an election.

After mercilessly attacking those of us who broke this story through the internet---as well as Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.'s definitive articles in Rolling Stone---major media outlets such as the New York Times, Lou Dobbs, HBO and others have suddenly discovered that our electoral system is more than just broken. Bobby's father's admonition to "fear not the path of truth for the lack of people walking on it" has finally turned that path into a highway for the saviors of our democracy.

Throughout the US, millions of citizens despair that the GOP will, in fact, steal this election. And well they might.

But the solution is now everywhere to be seen. It is in the birth of a full-fledged social movement, this time for the restoration of American democracy.

In the past half-century, we've seen a social movement for civil rights arise out of a single woman's refusal to get out of her seat on a public bus. The mass movement to stop the war in Vietnam grew out of the early refusal of a very few individuals to submit to the military draft. Two reporters turned a "third rate burglary" into the resignation of a president who'd just carried the electoral votes of 49 states. Scattered "no nukes" protests in conservative rural communities stopped an atomic power industry that promised a thousand reactors in the US by the year 2000, but was able to deliver less than 150.

Today the movement for green power---solar, wind, biofuel and other natural energy sources---once considered marginal and powerless, has birthed a multi-billion-dollar industry destined to deliver a "Solartopia" powered by clean, cheap, reliable and very profitable renewables.

But election protection remains the wellspring from which all future social movements will flow. So far, we have won the preservation of the ballots from both Florida 2000 and Ohio 2004. In New Mexico and Maryland, a Democratic and a Republican governor respectively are calling for a return to paper ballots. In Ohio and throughout the US, citizen lawsuits are forcing concessions on voter ID, ballot access and other issues critical to the restoration of democracy.

On Tuesday, thousands of fiercely committed activists and everyday citizens will go to the polls not just to vote, but to monitor, to double-check, to facilitate, to protect, to inquire, to film, to investigate, to persist, to prevent, and to not give up. They are bound and determined to make sure that another GOP theft either does not happen, or at least does not go unnoticed this time around.

Toward that end, we now urge any election activist who observes any irregularity or problem with Tuesday's voting to write us at: democracy@freepress.org. Your report will be published there for all to see, as part of an on-going national record that needs to be compiled, studied and acted upon.

No social movement succeeds immediately. The campaign to save the American electoral system has hung on by a thin thread. Its concerns are just barely hitting the mainstream. This Tuesday, it's everyone's duty to do more than just vote. And no matter what the outcome, this issue will be with us for years to come….for as long as it takes.

We have taken our democracy for granted for too long. Merely voting is no longer enough.

It won't be easy to restore and update the free election process that is our legacy. But we have seen the consequences of two consecutive un-elected presidencies. We know what we're up against.

And we know there is no alternative to winning, however long it might take.

(Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman are co-authors, with Steve Rosenfeld, of What Happened in Ohio? , just published by The New Press. Fitrakis is of counsel and Wasserman is a plaintiff in the King-Lincoln lawsuit that has preserved the Ohio 2004 ballots. Fitrakis is an independent candidate for Ohio governor, endorsed by the Green Party; Wasserman is author of Solartopia! Our Green-Powered Earth, A.D. 2030)


6. America's Point of No Return -- by Robert Parry/Consortium News

Now that George W. Bush has reframed Election 2006 around John Kerry's "botched joke" and the notion that a Democratic victory means "the terrorists win," Americans must begin looking seriously at what the continuation of Republican majorities in Congress would mean for the country.

In many ways, Election 2006 not only marks the last chance to exact some accountability from those responsible for the disastrous Iraq War and other failures, but it also represents a point of no return for a nation hurtling toward a future of endless warfare abroad and a new-age totalitarianism at home.

Indeed, one could argue that the trivialization of this important U.S. election - with major U.S. news outlets devoting two days of breathless coverage to Senator Kerry's clunky joke - is confirmation of America's rapid descent into a dark fantasy world incapable of separating meaningful fact from silly irrelevancies.

More than 2,800 American soldiers are dead along with possibly hundreds of thousands of Iraqis in what is likely just a small down-payment in blood for President Bush's Iraq War - yet the U.S. press corps is obsessed with Kerry's supposed affront to the troops, though the joke seemed actually to be aimed at Bush and the former Democratic presidential nominee isn't even on the ballot.

All that's left now is for the Washington pundits - many of the same people who climbed aboard the Iraq War bandwagon in 2002-03 - to explain to the nation on Election Night how Bush and his political team brilliantly engineered a dramatic come-from-behind win or how the Kerry gaffe and the overconfident Democrats blew it.

But the recent goofiness aside, the stakes for the Nov. 7 congressional elections remain extremely high and are likely to get even higher.

The elections have become a referendum on whether the United States will wage a virtually endless "World War III" against Muslim radicals - a kind of global version of Iraq - and whether the U.S. Constitution will be effectively repealed, replaced by a new system without "unalienable rights" for citizens and with an all-powerful President.

If Bush follows the pattern of 2002 and 2004, he will interpret a Republican victory on Nov. 7 as a mandate for pursuing and expanding his policies.

Plenary Powers

Continued Republican majorities in the House and Senate will amount to an endorsement of Bush's assertion of "plenary" - or unlimited - powers as Commander in Chief for the duration of the "war on terror."

The founding notion of the United States - that power rests in the hands of the citizens who possess unshakeable rights spelled out in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights - will have effectively come to an end.

Rather than citizens possessing "unalienable rights," Bush will get to decide which rights are allotted to which Americans. After all, if Bush possesses unlimited "plenary" powers, that means other Americans only get to have the rights that he is willing to share, much like a Medieval monarch granting favors to his subjects.

That is the tradeoff of liberty for safety at the heart of Bush's argument for a Republican victory. As Bush has stated repeatedly, he views the fundamental duty of the government as protecting Americans, rather than the traditionalist view that the primary responsibility of the President and other officials is to defend the Constitution.

During a typical stump speech on Oct. 28 in Sellersburg, Indiana, Bush explained his view of his historical legacy:
When people look back at this period of time, the question will be, did we do everything in our power to protect the American people and win the war on terror? And we are in a war. It came to our shores on September the 11th, 2001, and on that day, I vowed to use every element of national power to defend the American people and to defeat the terrorists.

Bush's words were greeted with cheers and chants of "USA! USA! USA!"

Yet, Bush's goal of doing "everything in our power" to make Americans safe and to eliminate something as vague as terror is a recipe for totalitarianism.

Bush began asserting his claim to unlimited power shortly after the 9/11 attacks, though often in secret or in patchwork ways that left the larger meaning unclear.

For instance, in spring 2002, Bush ordered the indefinite military detention of American citizen Jose Padilla as an "enemy combatant." Administration officials deemed Padilla a "bad guy" who was contemplating a radioactive "dirty bomb" attack, though no such charges were ever filed and no evidence ever presented in court.

The point of the Padilla case was that Bush could override habeas corpus rights of a fair trial and detain anyone he wanted indefinitely. Only 3 _ years later - facing likely reversal by the U.S. Supreme Court - did Bush turn Padilla over to the civilian courts to face unrelated charges of supporting a terrorist group.

But Bush now knows he has four solid Supreme Court votes for his reinterpretation of the U.S. system of government - John Roberts, Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. All Bush needs is one more vacancy among the five other justices to secure the court's blessing for his all-powerful executive.

Tribunal Law

Bush also has relied on the Republican majority in Congress to save the kangaroo courts he devised for trying alleged "unlawful enemy combatants." After a 5-4 majority of the Supreme Court struck down Bush's tribunal plan in June, Bush and GOP leaders pushed through a legislative version.

The Military Commissions Act of 2006 explicitly stripped non-U.S. citizens of habeas corpus rights, but also included vague wording that would seem to cast American citizens who allegedly aid terrorists into the same draconian system.

"Any person is punishable as a principal under this chapter who commits an offense punishable by this chapter, or aids, abets, counsels, commands, or procures its commission," according to the law, passed by the Republican-controlled Congress in September and signed by Bush on Oct. 17.

"Any person subject to this chapter who, in breach of an allegiance or duty to the United States, knowingly and intentionally aids an enemy of the United States ... shall be punished as a military commission … may direct." [Emphases added]

The references to "any person" and specifically to those with "an allegiance or duty to the United States" would seem to apply to American citizens, placing them inside the military commissions and outside the reach of regular civilian courts.

Another provision of the law states that once a person is detained, "no court, justice, or judge shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider any claim or cause of action whatsoever … relating to the prosecution, trial, or judgment of a military commission under this chapter, including challenges to the lawfulness of procedures of military commissions."

That court-stripping provision - barring "any claim or cause of action whatsoever" - would seem to deny American citizens habeas corpus rights just as it does for non-citizens. If a person can't file a motion with a court, he can't assert any constitutional rights, including habeas corpus.

Other constitutional protections in the Bill of Rights - such as a speedy trial, the right to reasonable bail and the ban on "cruel and unusual punishment" - appear to be beyond an American detainee's reach as well.

Padilla asserted in court papers that he was not only held in a small isolation cell but tortured, including threats of execution and long periods in "stress positions" - actions allegedly taken even before the Military Commissions Act was passed, solely on Bush's authority. [NYT, Nov. 2, 2006]

The new tribunal law also applies to alleged spies, defined as "any person" who "collects or attempts to collect information by clandestine means or while acting under false pretenses, for the purpose of conveying such information to an enemy of the United States."

Since the Bush administration and its political allies often have accused American journalists of conveying information to terrorists via stories citing confidential sources, it's conceivable that this provision could apply to such articles, either for journalists or their sources.

It's also likely that Bush would execute these powers during a serious terrorist incident inside the United States. Amid public anger and fear, Bush or some future President could begin rounding up citizens and non-citizens alike with little thought about a limited interpretation of the law.

It could take years before the U.S. Supreme Court even addresses these detentions and - given the increasingly right-wing make-up of the Court - there would be no assurance that the justices wouldn't endorse the President's extraordinary powers.

All-Powerful President

Since 9/11, Bush also has asserted his right to ignore the Fourth Amendment's requirement of a court warrant for searches and seizures. Bush took that action in secret when he approved the wiretapping of Americans making or receiving overseas phone calls. Bush bypassed a special court created to handle such matters under the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

When the secret wiretapping was revealed by the New York Times in December 2005, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales defended the program, citing inherent presidential powers during wartime.

Through extensive use of so-called "signing statements," Bush also has claimed the right to ignore or reinterpret laws as he sees fit.

Bush's rationale for his unlimited power is being sold to his excited supporters as he stumps for Republican candidates in the days before Election 2006. In the Indiana speech, Bush portrayed the choice in stark terms, between his sensible approach to the "war on terror" and the recklessness of the Democrats.

"When al-Qaeda or an al-Qaeda affiliate is making a phone call from outside the United States to inside the United States, we want to know why," Bush said. "In this new kind of war, we must be willing to question the enemy when we pick them up on the battlefield."

Referring to the capture of alleged 9/11 conspirator Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Bush said, "when we captured him, I said to the Central Intelligence Agency, why don't we find out what he knows in order to be able to protect America from another attack."

Bush then contrasted his eminently reasonable positions with those held by the nutty Democrats.

"When it came time on whether to allow the Central Intelligence Agency to continue to detain and question terrorists, almost 80 percent of the House Democrats voted against it," Bush said, as the crowd booed the Democrats.

"When it came time to vote on whether the NSA [National Security Agency] should continue to monitor terrorist communications through the Terrorist Surveillance Program, almost 90 percent of House Democrats voted against it.

"In all these vital measures for fighting the war on terror, the Democrats in Washington follow a simple philosophy: Just say no. When it comes to listening in on the terrorists, what's the Democratic answer? Just say no. When it comes to detaining terrorists, what's the Democrat answer?"

Crowd: "Just say no!"

Bush: "When it comes to questioning terrorists, what's the Democrat answer?"

Crowd: "Just say no!"

Bush: "When it comes to trying terrorists, what's the Democrat's answer?"

Crowd: "Just say no!"

Yet, Bush realizes that the Democrats are not opposed to eavesdropping on terrorists, or detaining terrorists, or questioning terrorists, or bringing terrorists to trial.

What Democrats - and many conservatives - object to are Bush's methods: his tolerance of abusive interrogation techniques; his assertion of unlimited presidential authority; his abrogation of habeas corpus rights to a fair trial; and his violation of existing laws, such as FISA which already gives the President broad powers to engage in electronic spying inside the United States, albeit with the approval of a special court.

Bush's critics argue that all his "war on terror" objectives can be achieved without throwing out more than two centuries of American constitutional traditions or violating human rights, such as prohibitions against torture.

In Bush's exaggerated attacks on his enemies and the frenzy of his followers, Bush's rallies sometimes have the look and feel of proto-fascism.

Endless War

Another crucial issue before the voters on Nov. 7 is whether Bush will continue getting a blank check to wage the "global war on terror," which might well mean extending the conflict to Iran in the months ahead, especially if it resists demands for curtailing its nuclear ambitions.

Bush and his military advisers also have cited both Iran and Syria as allegedly supporting insurgents inside Iraq and aiding Hezbollah militants in Lebanon. If the Republicans hold both houses on Congress, Bush might well see that outcome as a carte blanche to double up on his Iraq wager by escalating and expanding the conflict.

That would presumably please neoconservative activists and prominent Republicans, such as former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who have spoken eagerly about waging "World War III" against Islamic militants around the globe.

Since much of the "World War III" talk is tossed about in a cavalier fashion, it is not clear if its promoters have weighed the likely consequences of fighting a global conflict with many of the world's one billion Muslims. How the United States would muster the vast numbers of troops needed for such an endeavor has never been explained.

In his stump speeches, Bush agrees that Election 2006 represents a crucial turning point for the nation, although his warning is of the dire consequences from a Democratic victory.

Bush urged the crowd in Sellersburg, Indiana, to contact their friends and "remind them the outcome of this election will determine whether this government does its most fundamental job, and that is to protect the American people."

On Oct. 30 in a speech in Statesboro, Georgia, Bush added, "However they put it, the Democrat approach in Iraq comes down to this: The terrorists win and America loses."

Despite the sometimes over-heated rhetoric, Election 2006 does come down to these fundamental questions:

Does the public's desire for more safety from terrorists trump the nation's historic commitment to constitutional liberties? Should the United States abandon its founding principles as a Republic where citizens possess "unalienable rights" and trade that in for a system where one man decides where to wage war and whom to imprison?

Is "World War III" between the United States and Islamic militants inevitable or should other alternatives be tried first aimed at reducing tensions and isolating the hard-core extremists?

Granted, these are difficult and complex issues for the U.S. press corps to explain. It's a lot easier to frame a story around John Kerry's joke.

But no American should go to the polls on Nov. 7 - whether voting Republican or Democratic - without recognizing what that vote will mean. The United States is at a dangerous crossroads. Indeed, it may be at a point of no return.

(Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq, can be ordered at secrecyandprivilege.com. It's also available at Amazon.com , as is his 1999 book, Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth.')