Bush could seize absolute control of U.S. government

[Thomas Veil]

If this guy is trying to scare the crap out of me, he's doing a bangup job:

Bush could seize absolute control of U.S. government
By DOUG THOMPSON
Publisher, Capitol Hill Blue
Jan 13, 2006, 07:42

President George W. Bush has signed executive orders giving him sole authority to impose martial law, suspend habeas corpus and ignore the Posse Comitatus Act that prohibits deployment of U.S. troops on American streets. This would give him absolute dictatorial power over the government with no checks and balances.

Bush discussed imposing martial law on American streets in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks by activating “national security initiatives” put in place by Ronald Reagan during the 1980s.

These “national security initiatives," hatched in 1982 by controversial Marine Colonel Oliver North, later one of the key players in the Iran-Contra Scandal, charged the Federal Emergency Management Agency with administering executive orders that allowed suspension of the Constitution, implementation of martial law, establishment of internment camps, and the turning the government over to the President.

John Brinkerhoff, deputy director of FEMA, developed the martial law implementation plan, following a template originally developed by former FEMA director Louis Guiffrida to battle a “national uprising of black militants.” Gifuffrida’s implementation of martial law called for jailing at least 21 million African Americans in “relocation camps.”* Brinkerhoff later admitted in an interview with the Miami Herald that President Reagan signed off on the initiatives and they remained in place, dormant, until George W. Bush took office.

Brinkerhoff moved on the Anser Institute for Homeland Security and, following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, provided the Bush White House and the Pentagon with talking points supporting revised “national security initiatives” that would could allow imposition of martial law and suspension of the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, the law that is supposed to forbid use of troops for domestic law enforcement.

Brinkerhoff wrote that intentions of Posse Comitatus are “misunderstood and misapplied” and that the U.S. has in times of national emergency the “full and absolute authority” to send troops into American streets to “enforce order and maintain the peace.”

Bush used parts of the plan to send troops into the streets of New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. In addition, FEMA hired former special forces personnel from the mercenary firm Blackwater USA to “enforce security.”

Blackwater USA, in its promotional materials, describes itself as “the most comprehensive professional military, law enforcement, security, peacekeeping, and stability operations company in the world,” adding that “we have established a global presence and provide training and operational solutions for the 21st century in support of security and peace, and freedom and democracy everywhere.”

Blackwater is also a major U.S. contractor in Iraq and has a contract with the Bush White House to provide additional security work “on an as-needed basis.”

The Department of Homeland Security established the “Northern Command for National Defense,” a wide-ranging program that includes FEMA, the Pentagon, the FBI and the National Security Agency.* Executive orders already signed by Bush allow the Northern Command to send troops into American streets, seize control of radio and television stations and networks and impose martial law “in times of national emergency.”

The authority to declare what is or is not a national emergency rests entirely with Bush who does not have to either consult or seek the approval of Congress for permission to assume absolute control over the government of the United States.

The White House press office would neither confirm nor deny existence of Bush’s executive orders or the existence of the Northern Command for National Defense.* Neither would the Department of Homeland Security.

But my sources within the White House and DHS tell me the plans are in place, ready for implementation when the command comes from the man who keeps telling the American public that he is a “war time president” who will “do anything in my power” to impose his will on the people of the United States.

And he has made sure that power will be absolute when he chooses to use it. Somebody please tell me this guy is a conspiracy nut and this isn't really true.

Link (http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_7986.shtml)

[cslewis]

Somehow, it doesn't surprise me.

[OnceUGoMac]

Not that I would support this by any means, but Lincoln did the same thing during the Civil War. Martial Law was implimented in the South for years during the Reconstruction. Some how, if this did occur, the Union would survive. There's no way it would happen now given the political climate and current culture wouldn't have it. Then again, Capitol Hill Blue isn't the most respected source, imo.

[zimv20]

Not that I would support this by any means, but Lincoln did the same thing during the Civil War. Martial Law was implimented in the South for years during the Reconstruction. Some how, if this did occur, the Union would survive. There's no way it would happen now given the political climate and current culture wouldn't have it.
gore addressed this point in today's speech (http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Text_of_Gore_speech_0116.html).


There have of course been other periods of American history when the Executive Branch claimed new powers that were later seen as excessive and mistaken. Our second president, John Adams, passed the infamous Alien and Sedition Acts and sought to silence and imprison critics and political opponents.

When his successor, Thomas Jefferson, eliminated the abuses he said: "[The essential principles of our Government] form the bright constellation which has gone before us and guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation... [S]hould we wander from them in moments of error or of alarm, let us hasten to retrace our steps and to regain the road which alone leads to peace, liberty and safety."

Our greatest President, Abraham Lincoln, suspended habeas corpus during the Civil War. Some of the worst abuses prior to those of the current administration were committed by President Wilson during and after WWI with the notorious Red Scare and Palmer Raids. The internment of Japanese Americans during WWII marked a low point for the respect of individual rights at the hands of the executive. And, during the Vietnam War, the notorious COINTELPRO program was part and parcel of the abuses experienced by Dr. King and thousands of others.

But in each of these cases, when the conflict and turmoil subsided, the country recovered its equilibrium and absorbed the lessons learned in a recurring cycle of excess and regret.

There are reasons for concern this time around that conditions may be changing and that the cycle may not repeat itself. For one thing, we have for decades been witnessing the slow and steady accumulation of presidential power. In a global environment of nuclear weapons and cold war tensions, Congress and the American people accepted ever enlarging spheres of presidential initiative to conduct intelligence and counter intelligence activities and to allocate our military forces on the global stage. When military force has been used as an instrument of foreign policy or in response to humanitarian demands, it has almost always been as the result of presidential initiative and leadership. As Justice Frankfurter wrote in the Steel Seizure Case, "The accretion of dangerous power does not come in a day. It does come, however slowly, from the generative force of unchecked disregard of the restrictions that fence in even the most disinterested assertion of authority."

A second reason to believe we may be experiencing something new is that we are told by the Administration that the war footing upon which he has tried to place the country is going to "last for the rest of our lives." So we are told that the conditions of national threat that have been used by other Presidents to justify arrogations of power will persist in near perpetuity.

Third, we need to be aware of the advances in eavesdropping and surveillance technologies with their capacity to sweep up and analyze enormous quantities of information and to mine it for intelligence. This adds significant vulnerability to the privacy and freedom of enormous numbers of innocent people at the same time as the potential power of those technologies. These techologies have the potential for shifting the balance of power between the apparatus of the state and the freedom of the individual in ways both subtle and profound.

Don't misunderstand me: the threat of additional terror strikes is all too real and their concerted efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction does create a real imperative to exercise the powers of the Executive Branch with swiftness and agility. Moreover, there is in fact an inherent power that is conferred by the Constitution to the President to take unilateral action to protect the nation from a sudden and immediate threat, but it is simply not possible to precisely define in legalistic terms exactly when that power is appropriate and when it is not.

But the existence of that inherent power cannot be used to justify a gross and excessive power grab lasting for years that produces a serious imbalance in the relationship between the executive and the other two branches of government.

There is a final reason to worry that we may be experiencing something more than just another cycle of overreach and regret. This Administration has come to power in the thrall of a legal theory that aims to convince us that this excessive concentration of presidential authority is exactly what our Constitution intended.

This legal theory, which its proponents call the theory of the unitary executive but which is more accurately described as the unilateral executive, threatens to expand the president's powers until the contours of the constitution that the Framers actually gave us become obliterated beyond all recognition. Under this theory, the President's authority when acting as Commander-in-Chief or when making foreign policy cannot be reviewed by the judiciary or checked by Congress. President Bush has pushed the implications of this idea to its maximum by continually stressing his role as Commander-in-Chief, invoking it has frequently as he can, conflating it with his other roles, domestic and foreign. When added to the idea that we have entered a perpetual state of war, the implications of this theory stretch quite literally as far into the future as we can imagine.

[Roger1]

Then again, Capitol Hill Blue isn't the most respected source, imo.

That's too bad. He's picked up on some stuff that the main stream media has overlooked, and he seems to be fairly balanced in his political views (go through the archives). I actually think it's one of the better sites, myself.

[skunk]

http://www.counterpunch.org/
Tyrant in the White House

Bush Crosses the Rubicon

By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

Dictatorships seldom appear full-fledged but emerge piecemeal. When Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon with one Roman legion he broke the tradition that protected the civilian government from victorious generals and launched the transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire. Fearing that Caesar would become a king, the Senate assassinated him. From the civil wars that followed, Caesar's grand nephew, Octavian, emerged as the first Roman emperor, Caesar Augustus.

Two thousand years later in Germany, Adolf Hitler's rise to dictator from his appointment as chancellor was rapid. Hitler used the Reichstag fire to create an atmosphere of crisis. Both the judicial and legislative branches of government collapsed, and Hitler's decrees became law. The Decree for the Protection of People and State (Feb. 28, 1933) suspended guarantees of personal liberty and permitted arrest and incarceration without trial. The Enabling Act (March 23, 1933) transferred legislative power to Hitler, permitting him to decree laws, laws moreover that "may deviate from the Constitution."

The dictatorship of the Roman emperors was not based on an ideology. The Nazis had an ideology of sorts, but Hitler's dictatorship was largely personal and agenda-based. The dictatorship that emerged from the Bolshevik Revolution was based in ideology. Lenin declared that the Communist Party's dictatorship over the Russian people rests "directly on force, not limited by anything, not restricted by any laws, nor any absolute rules." Stalin's dictatorship over the Communist Party was based on coercion alone, unrestrained by any limitations or inhibitions.

In this first decade of the 21st century the United States regards itself as a land of democracy and civil liberty but, in fact, is an incipient dictatorship. Ideology plays only a limited role in the emerging dictatorship. The demise of American democracy is largely the result of historical developments.

Lincoln was the first American tyrant. Lincoln justified his tyranny in the name of preserving the Union. His extra-legal, extra-constitutional methods were tolerated in order to suppress Northern opposition to Lincoln's war against the Southern secession.

The first major lasting assault on the US Constitution's separation of powers, which is the basis for our political system, came with the response of the Roosevelt administration to the crisis of the Great Depression. The New Deal resulted in Congress delegating its legislative powers to the executive branch. Today when Congress passes a statute it is little more than an authorization for an executive agency to make the law by writing the regulations that implement it.

Prior to the New Deal, legislation was tightly written to minimize any executive branch interpretation. Only in this way can law be accountable to the people. If the executive branch that enforces the law also writes the law, "all legislative powers" are no longer vested in elected representatives in Congress. The Constitution is violated, and the separation of powers is breached.

The principle that power delegated to Congress by the people cannot be delegated by Congress to the executive branch is the mainstay of our political system. Until President Roosevelt overturned this principle by threatening to pack the Supreme Court, the executive branch had no role in interpreting the law. As Justice John Marshall Harlan wrote: "That congress cannot delegate legislative power to the president is a principle universally recognized as vital to the integrity and maintenance of the system of government ordained by the Constitution."

Despite seven decades of an imperial presidency that has risen from the New Deal's breach of the separation of powers, Republican attorneys, who constitute the membership of the quarter-century-old Federalist Society, the candidate group for Republican nominees to federal judgeships, write tracts about the Imperial Congress and the Imperial Judiciary that are briefs for concentrating more power in the executive. Federalist Society members pretend that Congress and the Judiciary have stolen all the power and run away with it.

The Republican interest in strengthening executive power has its origin in agenda frustration from the constraints placed on Republican administrations by Democratic congresses. The thrust to enlarge the President's powers predates the Bush administration but is being furthered to a dangerous extent during Bush's second term. The confirmation of Bush's nominee, Samuel Alito, a member of the Federalist Society, to the Supreme Court will provide five votes in favor of enlarged presidential powers.

President Bush has used "signing statements" hundreds of times to vitiate the meaning of statutes passed by Congress. In effect, Bush is vetoing the bills he signs into law by asserting unilateral authority as commander-in-chief to bypass or set aside the laws he signs. For example, Bush has asserted that he has the power to ignore the McCain amendment against torture, to ignore the law that requires a warrant to spy on Americans, to ignore the prohibition against indefinite detention without charges or trial, and to ignore the Geneva Conventions to which the US is signatory.

In effect, Bush is asserting the powers that accrued to Hitler in 1933. His Federalist Society apologists and Department of Justice appointees claim that President Bush has the same power to interpret the Constitution as the Supreme Court. An Alito Court is likely to agree with this false claim.

This is the great issue that is before the country. But it is pushed into the background by political battles over abortion and homosexual rights. Many people fighting to strengthen the executive think they are fighting against legitimizing sodomy and murder in the womb. They are unaware that the real issue is that America is on the verge of elevating its president above the law.

Bush Justice Department official and Berkeley law professor John Yoo argues that no law can restrict the president in his role as commander-in-chief. Thus, once the president is at war--even a vague open-ended "war on terror"--Bush's Justice Department says the president is free to undertake any action in pursuit of war, including the torture of children and indefinite detention of American citizens.

The commander-in-chief role is probably sufficiently elastic to expand to any crisis, whether real or fabricated. Thus has the US arrived at the verge of dictatorship.

This development has little to do with Bush, who is unlikely to be aware that the Constitution is experiencing its final rending on his watch. America's descent into dictatorship is the result of historical developments and of old political battles dating back to President Nixon being driven from office by a Democratic Congress.

There is today no constitutional party. Both political parties, most constitutional lawyers, and the bar associations are willing to set aside the Constitution whenever it interferes with their agendas. Americans have forgotten the prerequisites for freedom, and those pursuing power have forgotten what it means when it falls into other hands. Americans are very close to losing their constitutional system and civil liberties. It is paradoxical that American democracy is the likely casualty of a "war on terror" that is being justified in the name of the expansion of democracy.

Paul Craig Roberts has held a number of academic appointments and has contributed to numerous scholarly publications. He served as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration.

[mactastic]

Funny thing is, the GOP spent 8 years working to diminish presidential power when Clinton was in office. Remember all those righties claiming that Clinton didn't get executive privilege over and over? The oversight they claimed the president needed to have from Congress?

And now that's all history... until the next Democratic president. Then you can bet the GOP will be working to curtail presidential power as best they can.

You can bet that no Democratic president would be able to hide who met with him during energy policy meetings...

[solvs]

Every President has this at his disposal. Most are smart enough not to use it unless absolutely necessary. Even then sometimes. The implications are just too severe. I don't trust Bush with this power. We ask our soldiers to die for freedom, as so many have before them. Yet we are unwilling to fight for our own freedom because we are afraid. Or too busy. Or just lazy and uninformed. But mostly because we are afraid.

Ladies and gentleman, the terrorist have now officially won.

[thegreatluke]

How am I not surprised?

I can now honestly say that George Bush was the worst president ever.

How he managed to undo all the amazing things Clinton did during his presidency is beyond me.



EDIT: Wow, I had no idea this thread was ten months old. Sorry about that.

[SMM]

Every President has this at his disposal. Most are smart enough not to use it unless absolutely necessary. Even then sometimes. The implications are just too severe. I don't trust Bush with this power. We ask our soldiers to die for freedom, as so many have before them. Yet we are unwilling to fight for our own freedom because we are afraid. Or too busy. Or just lazy and uninformed. But mostly because we are afraid.

Ladies and gentleman, the terrorist have now officially won.

They won on 9/12.

[SMM]

In 1971-1973, the Nixon administration commissioned three studies by different 'think tanks'. One was Rand. The study involved the reaction of the American people to a suspension of the presidential election, if America was thought to be in a state of imminent threat. It gives me chills thinking about the men who put their puppet GW in a position of such unchecked power.

Bush is a zero. He is a front man for the immoral elite; the ultra powerful, behind the scenes guys (I could float some names, but that would be libel). I wonder how many times "GW having an accident" was on the table? I wonder how many shallow graves there are in West Texas, with former GW friends who knew him when...

[mrkramer]

They won on 9/12.

They didn't win then, they won when the Patriot Act was signed.

[lord patton]

I wonder how many shallow graves there are in West Texas, with former GW friends who knew him when...

Probably around the same number as exist in Arkansas.

Republicans sounded similar conspiracy theories when Clinton gave FEMA the power to take over in an emergency. You know, Clinton will fake an emergency, suspend elections, stay in power.

Which isn't to say Bush couldn't do the same or worse. Don't flame me. I'm just pointing out that these worst-case scenarios are always thrown around. I think Bush sucks, but our republic can survive him.

[Dont Hurt Me]

Bush & politicians played right into the terrorists hands. The Islamic extremist hate freedom & liberty and the first thing Bush & Republicans went after was our Freedoms & Libertys. Just gave it a fancy name like the patriot act. Its unconstitutional if you ask me. So Bush is spying on all Americans while letting millions of mexicans just stroll on into our country along with any terrorist that can walk. A Republican Govt attacking our Libertys & Freedoms. Even now the Fence Bush has bragged on is really just double talk with so many restrictions and red tape that it will never be built. It was just a political ploy by the republicans to appear to be doing something for election time. Nothing but spin and lies, thats part of the reason we booted out the republicans.

[KingYaba]

Clinton could have seized absolute control of the U.S. government

:eek:

[solvs]

They didn't win then, they won when the Patriot Act was signed.
I agree. They wouldn't have won if we didn't let them. If we hadn't played right into their hands and done everything exactly wrong.

I realize this thread is a bit old, but even with the Dems win, I still feel the same way.

[solvs]

Clinton could have seized absolute control of the U.S. government

:eek:
Yes, but despite being a perv who screwed up Waco and Elian Gonzales (and a bunch of other things) he never did. Bush and his buddies have done some pretty bad things, but at least I can say he hasn't either. Yet.

Something tells me though, maybe he just doesn't want the job any more. :p