Skip to main content

Flashback: Is the Bush Secretive Presidential Directive a Prelude to Dictatorship? Why is the Left Remaining Silent?

Jerome Corsi, coauthor of "Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry," said today on the Michael Savage Show that the left is remaining silent while only conservatives are warning about the secretive presidential directive that appears to be an unconstitutional power grab. Savage said the presidential directive appears to be a possible prelude to “dictatorship.”

In the World Net Daily, Corsi wrote:

“President Bush had signed May 9 a little-reported National Security and Homeland Security Directive (NSPD-51 and NSPD-20) that granted extraordinary powers to the president in the event of a declared national emergency, apparently without congressional approval or oversight.”

What concerned Corsi and Savage was Bush’s recent harsh attack on conservatives over immigration and the total silence by the leftist media and bloggers even as they are making excuses for the recent destruction of free speech in Venezuela by Hugo Chavez.


Bush's detention facilities
Posted: May 30, 2007
1:00 a.m. Eastern

Houston-based KBR, formerly the engineering and construction subsidiary of Halliburton Co., has a contingency contract in place with the Department of Homeland Security to construct detention facilities in the event of a national emergency.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, spokeswoman Jamie Zuieback confirmed yesterday in a telephone interview that the KBR contract for $385 million was awarded initially in January 2006 for a one-year base period with four one-year options. It has been extended into 2007. KBR held a previous emergency detention contract with ICE from 2000 to 2005.
Zuieback told this writer the primary intent of the KBR contract was to build temporary detention facilities that could be used in the event of a mass migration across the border that required ICE to respond on a quick basis to an illegal-immigration crisis.
(Column continues below)
"The idea of the KBR contract is to support the Army Corp of Engineers," Zuieback explained, "in case we experienced a sudden mass immigration and we had to respond quickly. We would need immediate detention facilities in the form of temporary housing that would enable us to determine if the large numbers of illegal immigrants were political or economically motivated, or if they were criminals or terrorists."
Zuieback confirmed that the KBR contract for detention facilities could apply to national emergencies, including natural disasters.
Several times, Zuieback insisted in the telephone interview that the KBR contract was a "contingency contract," specifying that detention facilities were to be built only when an immigration emergency or a national emergency, including a natural disaster, had been declared.
Heather Browne, spokeswoman for KBR, also sent me an e-mail yesterday confirming KBR built a temporary facility in New Orleans that provided cantonment for up to 500 federal detention officers who were tasked with maintaining law and order during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
Last week, WND reported President Bush had signed May 9 a little-reported National Security and Homeland Security Directive (NSPD-51 and NSPD-20) that granted extraordinary powers to the president in the event of a declared national emergency, apparently without congressional approval or oversight.
NSPD-51/HSPD-20, published on the White House website, rescinds Presidential Decision Directive 67 signed by Bill Clinton Oct. 21, 1998, and establishes a new White House office of the National Continuity Coordinator, a position now occupied by Frances Fragos Townsend, the assistant to the president for Homeland Security and Terrorism.
The new directive concentrates an unprecedented amount of emergency authority in the office of the president, specifying that the president now has the authority to direct "National Essential Functions" of all federal state, local, territorial and tribal governments, as well as private sector organizations in the event of a national emergency.
The directive loosely defines "catastrophic emergency" as "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."
The KBR contingency contract appears to give ICE the ability to have detention facilities constructed under the president's direction in response to a national emergency as declared under NSPD-51/HSPD-20.
The initial White House press release announcing the presidential directive included no background explanation of the directive or statement by the president. The press release merely posted NSPD-51/HSPD-20 on the White House website.
Sections 23 and 24 of NSPD-51/HSPD-20 specify that Annex A and the classified Continuity Annexes are incorporated into the directive, even though they remain secret and are not available for examination as part of the published document.
Still, Zuieback said she was not familiar with NSPD-51/HSPD-20. At her request, this writer e-mailed to her the White House website link to the directive posting.
The White House declined comment on the initial WND story and has not yet responded to the story or to my previous column on the subject.
Related story:
Emergency detention plan: 'This way to the camps!'



Jerome R. Corsi received a Ph.D. from Harvard University in political science in 1972 and has written many books and articles, including co-authoring with John O'Neill the No. 1 New York Times best-seller, "Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry." Corsi's most recent book was authored with Michael Evans: "Showdown with Nuclear Iran." Dr. Corsi's other recent books include "Black Gold Stranglehold: The Myth of Scarcity and the Politics of Oil," which he co-authored with WND columnist Craig. R. Smith, and "Atomic Iran."


[http://wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=55923]

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Nuremberg Trial-like Excuse which Cardinal Burke has so Staggeringly, so Stereotypically Proffered on the Promised “Formal Correction”

Does Cardinal Burke think Francis is an antipope? On at least five occasions, Cardinal Burke has rejected the magisterial nature of official papal teaching (in one case, pre-emptively dismissing a hypothetical official teaching of the Magisterium): Cardinal Burke has rejected the official teaching of Pope Francis in the new Apostolic Constitution Episcopalis Communio concerning the possibility that a pope can raise the final synodal document to the level of ordinary magisterium, if the pope chooses. (We covered the Episcopalis Communio here .) The whole apostolic constitution on the Synod is problematic. … This idea that either the Pope on his own or the Synod together with the Pope can create some new Magisterium [i.e. a new teaching of the ordinary Magisterium], is simply false. The Synod is a consultative body, to help the Pope to see how best to present the Church’s teaching in time. It’s not able to create ordinary Magisterium. As a canon lawyer, Cardinal Burk

"I Personally have No Doubt that Obama did in fact Orchestrate the Vatican [Pope Benedict] Coup, a[n]... Obama/Francis Partnership"

Attorney and World Net Daily (WND) contributor Scott Lively believes "that Obama did in fact orchestrate the Vatican [Pope Benedict XVI] coup, and... the Obama/Francis partnership behind the United Nation": Jesuit Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina became Pope Francis in March of 2013. I published  my first article about Pope Francis and the LGBT agenda  on August 1, 2013 when he was in the news for appearing to legitimize the concept of a “gay” identity as innate and unchangeable.  That concept is the false, anti-biblical premise of so-called “Queer Theory” (their term, not mine), a pseudo-scientific invention of “gay” political strategists, which underlies the entire LGBT political agenda. Francis infamously said in a media interview “If a person is gay and seeks the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge that person?”.   I actually defended him against the charge that this statement represented an endorsement of homosexual conduct, and gave him the benefit of t

Does Pop Star Justin Bieber have the Pfizer Vaccine Smile?

[https://twitter.com/ruhzistns/status/1535723071205777410/photo/1]     VERIFY: Is there a connection between the Pfizer vaccine and Bell's palsy? | 12news.com 12news.com The Eponymous Flower (Tancred) Canadian Pop Star [ Justin Bieber] Who Had Death Vaxx Canceling Tour — Has Facial Paralysis Does pop star Justin Bieber have t he Pfizer vaccine smile? Pray an Our Father now for reparation for the sins committed because of Francis's Amoris Laetitia. Pray an Our Father now for the restoration of the Church as well as the Triumph of the Kingdom of the Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Stop for a moment of silence, ask Jesus Christ what He wants you to do now and next. In this silence remember God, Father, Son and Holy Ghost - Three Divine Persons yet One God, has an ordered universe where you can know truth and falsehood as well as never forget that He wants you to have eternal happiness with Him as his son or daughter by grace. Make this a practice.