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Tuesday, August 08, 2006

Preparing for martial law
Posted by Jill | 7:34 AM
Sweeping warrantless surveillance of the activities of all Americans. Executive branch-controlled secret programs. Signing statements warning that the president has no intention of obeying laws. And now, the federalization of the National Guard:

The nation's governors on Saturday launched a bipartisan drive to block a move to expand the president's authority to take over National Guard troops in case of natural disaster or homeland security threats.

At a closed-door luncheon on the opening day of the annual summer meeting of the National Governors Association, the chairman, Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R), told colleagues that a provision in the House-passed defense authorization bill would end the historic link between the states and their Guard units.

[snip]

Huckabee told reporters that the move to shift control of the Guard to the president during national emergencies "violates 200 years of American history" and is symptomatic of a larger federal effort to make states no more than "satellites of the national government."

Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack, the senior Democrat, called the proposal "one step away from a complete takeover of the National Guard, the end of the Guard as a dual-function force that can respond to both state and national needs."

The provision was tucked into the House version of the defense bill without notice to the states, something Vilsack said he resents as much as the proposal itself.

Under the provision, the president would have authority to take control of the Guard in case of "a serious natural or manmade disaster, accident or catastrophe" in the United States.


It's interesting that the notion of "returning control to the states" that Republicans advocated when Bill Clinton was president has now reverted to giving the president dictatorial control of everything. Have House Republicans forgotten that George W. Bush isn't going to be president forever? Or have they been informed that the voting apparatus has been fixed to ensure Republican victories in perpetuity? Are they short-sighted, or do they know something we don't?

And when are people going to realize what this Administration is trying to do?
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