American Reporter
Posted : 2007-08-01
DUMMERSTON, Vt. -- A message to all those concerned with the 2008 presidential election - Republican, Democratic and independent: it's irrelevant.
Who cares whether your candidate is for or against abortion or g*y marriage or tweaking the health care system? Who cares how he/she feels about Ronald Reagan? Who cares if they are for or against impeachment? It's as irrelevant as Jimmy Carter's observations on George W. Bush are not.
We, as Americans, are in a vast state of denial. We're acting as if everything is OK, as if times were normal, as if we can carry on, in 2008, as though the Bush administration never happened.
But everything that has not already changed is changing now.
A chill ran through my body a few days ago when the news broke that President Bush authorized the CIA to conduct a covert "black" operation to "destabilize the Iranian government."
According to ABC News , the plan includes "a coordinated campaign of propaganda, disinformation and manipulation of Iran's currency and international financial transactions." And this is in addition to our current massive multinational show of Naval force in the Persian Gulf.
At this point on the Outrage Express (which is what I call the bullet-train of fear that's been running through my veins since George W. Bush became President) I have two main focuses.
One is that the man is mad enough to start another war - possibly with nuclear weapons - against Iran. No diplomacy, no concern for life, no immediate threat, no nothing. And this is already well under way.
The other is that somehow, in some way, God - the one Mr. Bush claims is talking him through all of this madness, mayhem and murder - will convince him that times are so dangerous that he must stay in office even after his term is over.
I hear you saying, "She's paranoid, right?"
Then take a look at National Security Presidential Directive/NSPD 51, also called Homeland Security Presidential Directive/HSPD-20.
Under this directive, President Bush entrusts himself with leading the entire government - not just the Executive Branch - during a "catastrophic emergency."
He makes himself the American czar, in keeping with the war czar and the drug czar and whatever else kind of crazy czar he's got down there in Washington.
The correct word for it, however, would be "dictator."
Read the directive for yourself. It was released by the White House on May 9, and can be found at:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/05/20070509-12.html
I read it. I wept.
The directive sets out a plan in case of a "national emergency," also called a "catastrophic emergency," or "any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government functions."
Note that "regardless of location." Could be in Iran. Could be in New York.
The directive "establishes a comprehensive national policy on the continuity of Federal Government structures and operations and a single National Continuity Coordinator responsible for coordinating the development and implementation of Federal continuity policies."
What's a National Continuity Coordinator? "The Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism (APHS/CT) is hereby designated as the National Continuity Coordinator."
But this person - for obvious reasons, we can assume it's a man - has no "directive authority." He gets his marching orders from the top, from the President himself.
"The President shall lead the activities of the Federal Government for ensuring constitutional government."
Ensuring constitutional government? But doesn't constitutional government mean three equal systems? With checks and balances?
Forget it. According to this, during a "catastrophic emergency" constitutional government means "a cooperative effort among the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the Federal Government, coordinated by the President."
And doesn't that just make your blood run cold?
Yes, there's lip service about respecting "the legislative and judicial branches and with proper respect for the constitutional separation of powers among the branches, to preserve the constitutional framework under which the Nation is governed and the capability of all three branches of government to execute constitutional responsibilities..."
But the president has leapt to the head of the class.
And the duration of his new and improved powers? How long does he get to play king? It's open-ended - of course - "until normal operations can be resumed."
Some might argue that all the order contemplates is the same thing that happened when the attacks of 9/11 fell on New York City's mayoral election day. Under an agreement with the courts and incoming Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Rudy Giuliani st
Tags: