Steven Jonas, MD, MPH
I am sure that you are all aware of the substance of this item that appeared on the Afternoon Buzz (Flash) on January 4, 2007: “W pushes envelope on U.S. spying. New postal law lets Bush peek through your mail.”
Well, here’s another event of the same type, only bigger, that could happen:
Dateline Washington, DC, October 24, 2008
Today President George W. Bush made two announcements critical to the nation’s future and, in the eyes of many observers, unprecedented ones. First he declared a National Emergency of unlimited duration, based on knowledge that has come to the National Intelligence Agency in the last several days of a terrorist plot of a magnitude, in the President’s words, “1000 times that of 9/11.” He said that of course he could release no details of the plot, on grounds of national security. Second, he issued what he has described as his “last Signing Statement,” last that is until the present National Emergency is, in his judgment, over.
This statement comes on the heels of the passage yesterday by the Congress of the over-ride of the President’s veto of the bill that if enacted would have removed all legal authority from any Presidential Signing Statements contravening Congressionally passed legislation. Congress then adjourned as is customary, two weeks before the date of the upcoming election (which will now apparently not take place). In the House, 64 Republicans had joined the 232 Democrats for the over-ride vote. In the Senate, 18 Republicans had joined 50 Democrats in favor of the over-ride, with the balance of the Republicans and one Independent voting against. That veto, his 69th, put President Bush one ahead of the 68 President Gerald Ford had issued against the votes of a Democratic Congress during a similar period of time in the White House.
In his Statement (already described by some as actually a “De-signing Statement), the President made it clear that he could not and would not abide by a piece of legislation that he termed “one that strips this Office of any and all power to do what the American people elected me to do: protect them.” Since the Congress had taken such an irresponsible and reckless position, he added, under his inherent powers as Commander-in-Chief, in the light of the National Emergency, he was postponing the national elections for all offices indefinitely. Since the 110th Congress had adjourned itself, he noted, as long as the National Emergency continued, it could not re-convene.
The President also announced that given the state of the nation, he was also mobilizing for the first time his new National Citizens Militia. This controversial corps is made up of veterans of the private security services which have burgeoned in the country during the Bush Presidency, seeing action both at home and abroad, and graduates of the so-called Christian Militia training academies. Its first two actions were to block all entrances to the Capitol and the Congressional office buildings and to displace the Secret Service as the guard for the President, his immediate staff and the White House. Its third was to place the Congressional leadership of both parties in protective custody.
So, you think that the most important issue facing the Congress is the War on Iraq, huh? Well, think again, my friends, it is only second.
Originally published on BuzzFlash on Fri, 01/05/2007 – 12:39pm. http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/jonas/041
Steven Jonas, MD, MPH is a Professor of Preventive Medicine at Stony Brook University (NY) a weekly Contributing Author for The Political Junkies (www.thepoliticaljunkies.net), Contributing Editor for The Moving Planet Blog (http://www.planetarymovement.org/), and a Columnist for BuzzFlash (http://www.buzzflash.com/).
