"About a week ago some left-wing bloggers began circulating rumors that Bush had secretly signed something called the "John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007" that "allows the president to declare a 'public emergency' and station troops anywhere in America and take control of state-based National Guard units without the consent of the governor or local authorities, in order to 'suppress public disorder.'" I couldn't find the text of the law at the time, formerly H.R. 5122, or a reliable media account, so I decided not to report on it.I can now confirm the bloggers' account. Bush signed the JWDAA hours after the MCA, in a furtive closed-door White House ceremony. There is, buried deep down in Title V, Subtitle B, Part II, Section 525(a) of the JWDAA, a coup. The Bush Administration has quietly stolen the National Guard away from the states.
Here's the relevant section of Public Law 109-364:
"The [military] Secretary [of the Army, Navy or Air Force] concerned may order a member of a reserve component under the Secretary's jurisdiction to active duty...The training or duty ordered to be performed...may include...support of operations or missions undertaken by the member's unit at the request of the President or Secretary of Defense."
The National Guard, used to maintain order during natural disasters and civil disturbances and the sole vehicle available under U.S. law to enforce a declaration of martial law, has previously been controlled by state governors. They have now been stripped of that control. Thanks to the JWDAA, Bush or Rumsfeld can now deploy National Guardsmen in American cities without obtaining permission from state governors.
Section 526 of the Warner Act goes further still. It states that the "Governor of a State...with the consent of the [military] Secretary concerned, may order a member of the National Guard to perform Active Guard and Reserve duty..." The key word is "may." A governor can no longer deploy the Guard in his or her state without first getting Rumsfeld's permission.
Patrick Leahy (D-VT) sounded the alarm during senatorial debate, but U.S. state-controlled media ignored him. The Warner Act, he said, "includes language that subverts solid, longstanding posse comitatus statutes that limit the military's involvement in law enforcement, thereby making it easier for the President to declare martial law...We fail our Constitution, neglecting the rights of the states, when we make it easier for the president to declare martial law and trample on local and state sovereignty."
Only one governor, Kathleen Blanco of Louisiana, made a fuss over the Warner Act. A spokesman for the National Governors Association requested a wimpy "clarification" concerning what circumstances might prompt Bush to impose martial law. As far as I can determine this column marks the first time the JWDAA has been mentioned in the mainstream media.
Now the dark men who engineered America's post-9/11 police state have watched the public reject their policies. The incoming Democratic majority Congress will be able to hold hearings and launch investigations that could lead to their indictments and removal from office. John Dingell, the liberal incoming chairman of the Commerce Committee did nothing to dissuade GOP fears of "a blizzard of subpoenas": "As the Lord High Executioner said in 'The Mikado,'" Dingell recently joked, "I have a little list."
A year of crisis commences.
As ugly secrets surface, Bushists will turn desperate. Democracy has failed their grand schemes; token resignations like Rumsfeld's come too little, too late. Only tyranny can save their skins. Will the beleaguered neocons led by Cheney and Bush, cornered like rats, unleash their brand-new police state on their political opponents? Or will they tough it out and suck up the fines and prison sentences to come? The next year or two could go either way.
The nightmare is not over."
Monday, November 13, 2006
The nightmare is not over
Ted Rall:
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13 comments:
no, it definitely isn't over, and, if i hear any more about bipartisanship, cooperation, collaboration, and common ground, i'm gonna puke... we do not work to find common ground with criminals, and radical, ideological, extremist criminals at that...
we really do need to find a way to stop them.
may they all rot in hell. forever.
I often wonder who's running the world. It sure isn't Bush and Cheney. I thought it was the state department, but it isn't them, either. Today I saw a program on the history channel that said secret societies run the world's governments, and it doesn't matter who's in office. That sounds about right. They said in a few years the whole world will live in a watered-down version of Nazi Germany. If I hadn't been taking a nap I'd have gotten more details and done some reading. The idea behind the U.S. was we weren't going to let that happen. So, no doubt there will be plenty to do for as long as we're alive, and a free society will remain elusive. What a shame that is. Today TCM showed Dr. Strangelove. The movie is more relevant now than it was then. I saw it at the local theater for ten cents. I was in the fourth grade, and thought it was brilliant.
I've always been stumped about how my first inclination that there is an elite running things, there are Bush's handlers, there are people more powerful than the one's we see who are really in charge.
I have been stumped because such talk seems to be such a dead end. I never identify the puppeteers. Those of us who complain about the influence of the elites come off as deep paranoids.
It occurs to me, though, that thinking there are these elites who run the world is just another way of saying most people believe that force works, and that those who have the most force will be able to get their goals accomplished ahead of the rest of us. It's the principle that the world is about getting things done, and that force is the gold standard for getting things done for sure, that implies there are shadowy people even more powerful than the dunderhaeds we can watch.
So long as we believe politics is about the art of accomplishment and force works we will have good reason to suppose there are powerful guys behind the scenes.
So, I have great sympathy for those who believe there are these secret societies, and inviisible elites. Since most people believe force works, there probably are very powerful people behind the scenes doing great evil.
Two things:
All the kissy-face bipartisan sweetness is, IMNHO, merely a pro forma dance designed to keep the lid on (and the paper shredders from being overheated) betwixt now and January. There is still ample time for the thugs to do a great deal more damage, so until the power actually does change hands, discretion is probably wise. Annoying. But wise.
Second, as to who is really pulling the strings, think bankers (and other corporatists, of course), and not just in the U.S.
we have evidence that there is a perma-gov (or deep-state) in turkey, for example. we *know* that it exists, today. for one reason or other, most people refuse to acknowledge the possibility that it happens 'here.'
objective observers would probably marvel not at the existence of the 'deepstate' - but at the ignorance/denial that a deepstate could possibly exist 'here'.
Uranus: Today I saw a program on the history channel that said secret societies run the world's governments, and it doesn't matter who's in office.
and fucking people dissed me for posting on the last Bilderberg thang back in june.
carlysle group, anyone?
fuck 'em all.
LeeB, I hope you are right. But one problem we have had for the past six years was the Dems lack of opposition to Bush administration criminality. There was some but not to the degree warranted by the Executive Branch abuse of power.
I say it's a corporate elite who by way of things like the revolving door and deregulation have blurred the lines between government and corporate interest. So instead of government acting in the public interest, they act in the corporate interest even when doing so comes at the expense of the general public.
And corporate media propaganda is unrelenting. That sure helps disguise very cynical policies.
Mmm . . . Bilderbergers . . . the more I see how things go, the more I believe that this private clique of capitalist parasites are behind most of the suffering in the world.
There is a lot of interesting info on the 2006 meeting. The journalist from the Islamist Yeni Safak became a "convert". Not such a shock if you know about Turkish-Islamists, and next year's meeting is supposed to be set for Istanbul.
And let's not forget those happy fascists at the Trilateral Commission.
Speaking of Bilderbergers, has anyone seen Marc Grossman's social network? Enjoy.
Noise: "But one problem we have had for the past six years was the Dems lack of opposition to Bush administration criminality. There was some but not to the degree warranted by the Executive Branch abuse of power."
Job One is still ours. We have to keep the pressure on. If we want them to behave as our representatives instead of our bosses, we have to stay on it.
We sent shock waves through the conventional wisdom with this election and the level of anger that translated into an unexpected turnout. It would be a huge mistake for us to settle back into the old patterns and act as if the job was complete, message received, and so everything is swell.
For progressives, the next push is not only to take out more thugs in 2008; it is to support primary challenges against the next class of DINOs and they ALL need to hear from us with a continuing persistence they have never before experienced.
Even though KGB has been very accomodating by confessing to his crimes on television, that doesn't mean that investigations to get the evidence on the record in a legally-sufficient fashion can be skipped over. Plus, there is the matter of the time required to get a sufficient number of Republican Senators on board with the idea of convicting the creeps, which is unlikely to happen unless their constituents are brought around by the evidence to demanding action.
We have to keep the fax machines hot. And while we're at it, we also need to remember that whether or not we succeed in getting these criminals removed from office is not the entire story. They still could (and should, IMNHO!) face criminal indictments WHENEVER (and however) they happen to leave office. Mebbe they can arrest KGB when he's trying to slip out of the country and escape to the new BFEE hide out in Paraguay.
Please!Please!Please!Please!
Thanks Rimone, Mizgin and everybody. Those are the culprits. I linked this article by William Rivers Pitt above which talks about the Carlysle Group. I'm all messed up over here. There's a virus going around and apparently I caught it because I've been asleep the past 5 days and nights. Lots of activity here. We aren't finished with Janet's house, and had wanted to be by tomorrow. Kiss me, it's my birthday.
Oh boy, thanks Rimone! Gee, and I got kissed besides. Thanks to you, I did well this year. I'm going to party with you every year on my birthday.
wheeeee, Uranus! xxx
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