Paul Craig Roberts
In a speech to the Commonwealth Club, San Francisco, November 23, 2010, Peter Dale Scott gave a history of the various directives concerned with government continuity during a state of emergency. He showed that these directives could be used to supersede the Constitution.http://www.globalresearch.ca/continuity-of-government-is-the-state-of-emergency-superseding-our-constitution/22089
The ease with which both the Bush and Obama regimes were able to set aside the due process protections of the Constitution that prohibit indefinite detention and execution without conviction in a trial indicate that Professor Scott’s concern is justified that these directives could result in executive branch rule.
Scott describes how the executive branch efforts to provide government continuity in the aftermath of a nuclear attack dating from the Eisenhower administration were gradually converted into executive or national security (later Homeland Security) orders that confer secret powers to the White House for any event that the executive branch considers to be an emergency.
Generally these various executive orders and directives refer to “national emergencies,” or “national disasters.” However, President Bush’s National Security Presidential Directive/NSPD 51 and Homeland Security Presidential Directive/HSPD-20 issued on May 9, 2007 use the term “Catastrophic Emergency.” http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2007/05/20070509-12.html
The directives speak of “enduring constitutional government” which the president maintains by coordinating “as a matter of comity with respect to the legislative and judicial branches,” but it is up to the president and his advisor, the National Continuity Coordinator, to decide what constitutes constitutional government during a catastrophic emergency.
What comprises a catastrophic emergency? It is reasonable for a president to regard a government shutdown, which can threaten everything from national security to default and economic collapse, as a catastrophic emergency, and to take such steps as are necessary to prevent it, such as raising the debt ceiling, on his own authority.
The Federal Reserve also has the power to prevent a government shutdown. If banks are too big to fail, so is the federal government. If the Federal Reserve on its own authority can issue more than $16 trillion in loans to US and European banks in order to prevent their failure, the Federal Reserve can issue a loan to the US government.
I don’t expect either of these two possibilities to come into play. A shutdown and default of US debt obligations would terminate the US as a superpower and dethrone the dollar as world reserve currency. Neither Congress nor President Obama desire such an outcome. Also, Congress would not want a presidential directive to be implemented that subordinates their position and possibly eliminates their meaningful participation in governance. Therefore, I expect a resolution of the current standoff prior to the Treasury running out of money.
I did interviews on this subject with King World News and with Greg Hunter. The interviews are played to the sensational side, but I do not expect it to go that far. However, it could.
My interview with King World News is relatively short, but Eric King knows how to bring it to the most controversial point. What everyone should wonder is, “How did we, a free people protected by the US Constitution, become one step away from rule by Caesar?
http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/KWN_DailyWeb/Entries/2013/10/8_Former_US_Treasury_Official_-_President_To_Seize_Total_Power.html
My interview with Greg Hunter of USA Watchdog is, in my opinion, one of my best. The interview covers a broad range of issues or possibilities and makes it unnecessary for me to write a column about the government shutdown and its implications and possible consequences. http://usawatchdog.com/paul-craig-roberts-obama-could-govern-as-a-dictator/
Link:
http://paulcraigroberts.org/
RELATED ARTICLE:
Obamus Caesar: “No Limits On the Power of the President if He Calls for a National Catastrophe”
Mac Slavo
“President Obama is prepared to take power and begin to rule from day one.”
-Valerie Jarrett, Senior Advisor to the President of the United States
Should Congress and the President fail to come to an agreement on America’s debt ceiling we could well be facing a situation that leads Barack Obama to implement a last ditch strategy that would be nothing short of a complete takeover of the United States.
So says former US Treasury Undersecretary Paul Craig Roberts, who knows a thing or two about finance, debt and the inner workings of our government :
If the United States were to default, it would be the end of the US as a superpower. No one in Washington wants to lose that kind of power, so I fully expect that at the last minute a deal will be reached. Now, in the event that both sides play a game of ‘chicken’ to the very end, and we are down to the last hours, and fears of a default escalate dramatically, I think one of two things will happen….
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The first would be the Federal Reserve, on its own initiative, would simply lend the US Treasury whatever money it would need. You have to remember that the Federal Reserve lent to US and European banks more than $16 trillion in order to enable them to avoid default, or outright failure.
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The second possibility would be that President Obama, because of laws that are already on the books, would have the power to declare a ‘national catastrophe’ and simply assume the leadership of the government. This gets Congress and the courts out of the picture. At that point there are no limits on the power of the President if he calls for a ‘national catastrophe.’
This would mean that the President, on his own authority, could raise the debt ceiling. So, either of those two events would happen if it looked like no deal was forthcoming from the Congress. It could be that President Obama, or others in the Executive Branch, are planning to use this crisis to invoke that Executive Order.
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Of course. It means that essentially the President would become a ‘Caesar.’ That would also mean that the Congress had become like the Roman Senate, which lost its power and simply became a collection of notable figureheads. Generally when democratically regimes fail you end up with a Caesar, and a shutdown is of course the epitome of a democratic failure.
So this would give President Obama all of the justification for exercising the Executive Order so that the President can rule independently of Congress and the courts.
Listen to the Full Interview at King World News (via Steve Quayle)
The important thing to understand is that President Barack Obama relishes the power. This is evidenced by his desperate need to monitor and command drone strikes from the White House himself. He likes the thrill of being the decision maker and holding the lives of others in his hands.
He has already passed scores of executive orders, including restrictions on firearms accessories and ammunition, as well as provisions that would allow the U.S. government to take over all domestic resources, including the labor force, should a national catastrophe be declared.
Make no mistake. They want total control.
And they will let no crisis go to waste. For them, the debt ceiling negotiations reaching a stalemate may well be the outcome they are looking for, because it will justify the administration’s invocation of Executive Order and rule by decree.
The debt ceiling debate will likely have a resolution, just as it has twice in as many years under the Obama administration, but if it doesn’t you can fully expect the Executive Branch to take whatever action they deem necessary to “protect” the American people.
If that means declaring a “national catastrophe” then that’s what they will do.
Link:
http://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/obamus-caesar-no-limits-on-the-power-of-the-president-if-he-calls-for-a-national-catastrophe_10092013
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