Heil to the chief

Imagine living in a nation very much like Pee-Wee’s Playhouse, except run by a less competent Benito Mussolini. One wrong move, natural or unnatural, and that’s what the United States could become now that Bush has slipped through two new hush-hushed directives that give the office of the presidency full, unfettered control of all things American in the event of a “catastrophic emergency.” A “catastrophic emergency,” it seems worth mentioning, is defined as just about anything the president unilaterally declares something to be.

National Security Presidential Directive 51 and Homeland Security Presidential Security Directive 20, signed into law without any of that tedious Congressional approval business, allows the president, without anyone else’s okay, to seize control after “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.” Once declared, the White House, through a president-appointed “National Continuity Coordinator,” will run all levels of federal and local government, as well as private-sector activities. Most ironically, the explained goal of this suspiciously fascistic usurpation is to maintain an “enduring constitutional government.”

by Scott Saxon