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Came across a 5,000 word article by Mark Ambinder in the National Journal. In it he writes about what happened immediately following the catastrophic attack on America on 9-11, and how it revealed the holes in our nation’s ability to reconstitute our government if it all went to hell in a handbasket.
The solutions that have been developed since then are not reassuring, especially concerning the Executive Branch. Too much power. Waaaaay too much power. Scary power, especially in the hands of a communist president…
“In 2007, Bush issued a homeland-security presidential directive that consolidated COG functions in the White House because FEMA was having trouble interacting with the Defense Department on crucial, classified issues. That directive also established, in public, the dual assumptions that guided Bush’s planning. The branches, led by the executive, would work together to prepare for catastrophes, but the executive branch would exercise unilateral authority to make sure that eight “national essential functions”—from “providing leadership visible to the nation and the world” to stabilizing the economy—continued to operate throughout a major emergency.
Read one way, the directive implies that, in an emergency, the executive branch has the authority to ignore Congress and the judiciary if it wants to. The body of law that governs national emergencies can certainly be interpreted that way. Many statutes and unclassified orders expand the authority of the military to carry out executive functions that amount to martial law (contravening the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which restricts what the military can do on American soil).”
I urge you to read the entire article. Once you start, you won’t want to put it down.
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