It's Not Exactly a National Emergency by Don Bacon

These are the fourteen US "national emergencies" that George W. Bush has annually renewed with his signature within the past year, without a peep from Congress. Now obviously these are not truly national emergencies. They are fakes, dictated by a phony President, acceded to by a rubber-stamp Congress and abetted by a dictator-loving Supreme Court. The United States is in no way extraordinarily threatened by the Government of Sudan. But these Presidential decrees do have some purposes, don't they? First, they are ploys to give the US government some power it wouldn't ordinarily have. Secondly, they are meant to frighten US citizens about terrorism, among other things. (Terror means fright and the goal of terrorists is to frighten, so what does that tell you?) Thirdly, they might provide a President, a "Decider," some basis for military or other action against US citizens. Okay, not under a Balkans or Liberian "national emergency," but how about WMD or terrorism? Or Iran?

It's Not Exactly a National Emergency by Don Bacon