I posted an article last night, noting that I had predicted on August 5, 2004, the possibility that the White House might want to invoke “terrorism” to ensure the United States did not have regular elections — something which, at the time, seemed outrageous in that the United States has never put off a regular national election; not for war, not for natural disaster.

Frankly, I was concerned about sounding like a fruit loop…

Since no one can really predict the future and since it seemed so “out there” (and because I think — for reasons which have nothing to do with reality and which I’ll give another time — that Bush will be re-elected for another term before this happens), I watered things down a bit by “predicting” it won’t happen until after his second term: “[H]e would declare that elections could not be held because the crisis facing our country was too severe.” I felt safe giving that as the reason even after a second Bush term because, of course, terrorism is here to stay. Our actions in Iraq have virtually guaranteed that. At this point, even “nuking” the entire Middle East won’t change that fact; Muslims around the world would (rightly, if we tried such a thing, I might add) take up the cause.

At any rate, no one called me a fruit loop.

But now, of course, the front page of CNN (online) for the last few days has been carrying a story about the possibility of putting off this year’s national election. So I’m not so fruit-loopy after all.

Frankly, this is the sort of story that would have our Founding Fathers literally up in arms. It’s the stuff for which the Second Amendment was written. Don’t get me wrong: I neither own nor want to own a gun. And I would not be advocating anyone overthrow the U.S. government, either. There are — for the time being anyway — other ways to deal with a potential rogue government, should it come to that. I’m just pointing out that for over 200 years, not even the Civil War and two World Wars have disrupted the right of the people to elect the President of their choice.

Until now….

And how can that happen? Because the Republican leadership — not the entire party (I hope), but the leadership — is corrupt through and through.

And that brings me to a question yesterday’s post brought to me via email.

The question was “Is this true?”

The answer is that, yes, the French government, according to Le Figaro, is investigating Halliburton and there is a possibility that Vice-President Cheney will be indicted by the French government. What’s not clear to me yet is whether it’s true that Cheney’s response to questions about Halliburton posed by Senator Leahy was “f*ck off.” I’m also not sure if it’s true, as the story Bob pointed out notes, that Bush said, “F*ck ’em all.” I suppose it’s possible, since he’s already beaten “Bring it on” to death — and rumor has it he isn’t enjoying the fact that his exit plan (oh…wait…) isn’t working well in Iraq because the insurgents continue to “bring it on.”

The United States press has not been completely silent on this issue, either. The liberal websphere sites have, of course, carried the story. And although it’s nearly impossible to find anything in the mainstream press nowadays — the story wasn’t interesting enough to the Republican Party, so it’s been somewhat stifled — the Boston Phoenix reports,

The Nigerian affair [which is what the French investigation is apparently about] hasn’t exactly been a secret. You won’t be reading about it in Project Censored’s annual round-up of “the news that didn’t make the news.” It has, after all, been reported in some detail on the front page of the Wall Street Journal, on Newsweek’s Web site, and on NPR’s All Things Considered. Dan Rather even gave it a quick, context-free mention recently on The CBS Evening News.

The February 10, 2004 Washington Post story — very difficult to find, but reproduced here — notes that at some point, our own Justice Department was conducting a similar investigation. Then, apparently, someone reminded them for whom they work.

Some of you might recall that Dick Cheney was implicated in the once-interesting story — now similarly relegated to the dustbin — regarding the “outing” of CIA Agent Valerie Plame. What you might not know is that this isn’t the only state secret that Cheney unveiled. After “someone” leaked a story about the much-rumored and much-debunked connection between Saddam Hussein and al Queda and after the Pentagon tried to discredit the story, Cheney confirmed the story.

Some of Cheney’s opponents, such as a group called Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, say he violated the law by confirming the validity of leaked classified information. Cheney’s defenders say the Pentagon essentially confirmed the leak in its statement and point out that Cheney may have been cleared to confirm the classified information.

The Pentagon had said, “the leak of raw intelligence data does serious harm to national security.” But what do they know? After all, do they have as much experience leaking national security information as Dick Cheney?

If you think this is interesting, the best part (to me) is the way our lack of knowledge about it dovetails with numerous articles I’ve written before about the corporate control of the American press.

No, if you want to find out what’s happening, you pretty much have to go to the foreign press. Vive Le Canada, for example, has this story, which notes,

Cheney is currently in trouble with the French because of Halliburton’s actions during Cheney’s reign over the company. Halliburton, in partnership with the French company Technip, was commissioned by Shell to build a $6 billion gas liquification factory in Nigeria. To do so it appears that Halliburton and Technip set up a company called Tristar registered in Madeira. It appears that Tristar spent $180 million bribing Nigerian officials. French judge Renaud van Ruymbeke has been looking into corporate corruption and investigating the actions of Technip in Nigeria. Shortly before Christmas, Judge van Ruymbeke sent notice to the justice department that Cheney might be indicted in the case.

The story notes that the Journal du Dimanche has questioned whether that money ended up funding Republicans. (You can read about that in this story here or here.)

Not that any of this matters. The only thing it will mean is that the United States will, after November, more than likely join the list of other nations with either Presidents or Vice-Presidents who are convicted criminals. It’s just that, usually, those have either been Third-World countries, or the convicts resigned.