Congress passes `doomsday' plan

[Emillereid]

Hope this isn't a dupe -- did a search and it didn't come up.

Is this the way the final coup d'etat is going to come about.

By Noelle Straub
Sunday, January 9, 2005

WASHINGTON - With no fanfare, the U.S. House has passed a controversial doomsday provision that would allow a handful of lawmakers to run Congress if a terrorist attack or major disaster killed or incapacitated large numbers of congressmen.

     ``I think (the new rule) is terrible in a whole host of ways - first, I think it's unconstitutional,'' said Norm Ornstein, a counselor to the independent Continuity of Government Commission, a bipartisan panel created to study the issue. ``It's a very foolish thing to do, I believe, and the way in which it was done was more foolish.''

     But supporters say the rule provides a stopgap measure to allow the government to continue functioning at a time of national crisis.

     GOP House leaders pushed the provision as part of a larger rules package that drew attention instead for its proposed ethics changes, most of which were dropped. ...

    http://news.bostonherald.com/politics/view.bg?articleid=62564

[Goldeneye]

1. OK, thats really creepy to think about

" killed or incapacitated large numbers of congressmen."

[LizW]

21. Actually, they don't even have to be killed

The Republicans can declare this plan in effect if some of the Congress just can't get there because of practically any reason.

Imagine some sort of attack or threat of attack during a holiday when lots of Congress is out of Washington. The chosen would have warning so they could get to Washington, and could act with the force of law before the Democrats could arrive. Civil rights could be suspended and martial law declared in a matter of hours.

Post-democracy America is here. The Constitution is history.

[havocmom]

34. hmm, put it in effect if some of the Congress can't get there for almost

any reason... You guys recall that little news story about Ted Kennedy being thwarted by TSA and missing his regular flight from home to DC? Gee, so if there is some important bit of legislation coming up, what happens if all the DEMs in Congress get treated to special attention at airports and all miss flights?

I just don't think it is tin foil time. I think it is time to call a coup a coup.

[Eloriel]

58. We had the coup

2000, remember? (And 2004, of course.)

I think this is the putsch part, isn't it?

[LibertyorDeath]

71. "I think this is the putsch part"

Exactly.... Right on schedule

[egoprofit]

43. it's creepy but we definately have to think about these things

before it's too late.

[Liberty Belle]

2. :kick:!

These people are freaking lunatics. They might as well burn the Constitution and be done with it.

[egoprofit]

44. shouldn't the constitution change??

we can't really expect something that old to never evolve, right? i don't think they had suicide bombers back then nor did we live in the world we do now.

we can't be stuck in old ways. i say change it if it makes sense to.

[neweurope]

45. Life has always been dangerous to life... Nothing really ever changes.

The constitution has served you very well. I don't think changing it will be a very good idea. Of course PATRIOT has changed a lot already.

[Just Me]

54. The Constitution was intentionally broadly worded with certain CLEAR

mandates concerning the most dangerous aspects to human liberty and justice, the greatest danger being concentration of wealth and power (hence a "balance of powers" mandate), such that it could grow as our society grew.

However, I am curious as to how you would change the Constitution.

Would you destroy those aspects of the Constitution which protect due process? Would you scrap the Constitution all together?

Btw there were "terrorists" even when the Constitution was drafted, and well thereafter,...or so they were called depending upon who was characterizing whom *LOL*.

[Lizzie Borden]

67. Evolve?

It's worked really well all these years, and there is no reason for it not to continue. There is considerable peril in changing it. Do you actually think that the intellectuual power of those now in Congress is equal to that of the people who wrote our Constitution? 'Fraid not.

[Just Me]

77. Makes one wonder what "old ways" the poster speaks of,...huh.

Our national history,...contains "old ways" (very embarassing),...which our Constitution granted at least some liberty to grow out of and progress to this day.

I'm definitely not anti-reform to our Constitution; but, certainly question those who would SCRAP the whole thing (our neoCONimperialist rulers & followers) in order to simply get what they want rather than serve the best interests of ALL "the people".

[TankLV]

81. We've got a live one, here, folks!

Beginning to crawl out of the woodwork for this one!

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

3. When you combine that tidbit of info with this thread it is disturbing

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1137118

[Misunderestimator]

63. Reducing a daily terror meeting to 3 a week??

:wtf: All I know is that when I reduce meetings that were daily to an every-other-day schedule, it's because the urgency is gone and there's nothing to worry about but the status quo. Hmmmm.

[Bluebear]

4. And they just announced "less chatter"

Everyone be vewy vewy quiet while we make our doomsday plan! No chatter, please!

[0007]

49. No chatter, please! Just quietly drop you head between your

legs and kiss your ass goodbye. The other alternative is to pay homage to junior and his omnipotent wisdom.

[Emillereid]

5. There are so many signs -- sometimes I feel like I'm reading

day to day history of Germany circa 1933. As if all these tidbits are pieces to a puzzle whose final picture -- though vague -- is dark and foreboding. Do you think it's time to leave the country yet? I mean I used to ask myself why people didn't see the tsunami that was Hitler's Germany coming and get out!

[mockingbich]

7. Americans aren't like Germans in the '30s

This country will FIGHT any attempt to truly destroy the Constitution. Right now nobody is paying attention because life is still good. ..that is changing fast

"The Americans will always do the right thing... After they've exhausted all the alternatives." - Winston Churchill

[wtmusic]

8. eh don't believe it

The Constitution is already ibeing dismantled here and now, and where's the fighting? Where are the people in the streets?

With TIA and Patriot II it will be far too late to make a difference should the powers that be decide to institute martial law. And life will continue to be good if you're rich, so why fight?

[leveymg]

14. Weimar Germany was wracked by civil war - Hitler was seen as the solution

by many. Irony. It may have been the fact that Germans were so greatly disposed to fighting each other that created the possibility for the election of a totalitarian leader.

[Niccolo_Macchiavelli]

65. civil war... naaa just government crisis

in a multy party sytem you need a coalition of parties to get a majority

but the coalition broke down or couldn't be formed. skirmishes between commies and nazis were gangfight level not "civil war"

[leveymg]

68. Political violence was organized and widespread during Wiemar

Niccolo -

Go back to your history books, or get new ones. Thousands of Germans were killed in the civil war period that followed the end of World War One. Each of the major parties -- the Social Democrats, the Communists, the Center-Right and the Fascists --had large militias, which fought each other with armoured vehicles, cannons and automatic weapons.

The Nazi Brown Shirts (SA) started out as the Friekorps, right-wing militias funded by the Junker elites to suppress the 1919 Soviets declared in Berlin and the industrial Ruhr region. The Spartacists, communist revolutionaries, at one point controlled large parts of Prussia. That uprising was crushed by the order of the Social Democrats who controlled the Reichstag until 1933.

One of the main reasons given by Germans for voting for Hitler was the belief that he was the only political figure strong enough to bring civil peace and prosperity after 15 years of military occupation, revolution, repression, hyperinflation, civil war, assassinations, riots, partial recovery and then Depression.

You would be wrong to assume that Hitler arose in a vacuum or that conditions in America today are nearly similar to Germany between the wars. We might be trending that way, but fortunately, our political crisis is much milder. If Americans started killing each other in large numbers, that might change. Let's hope not.

[elaineb]

70. Just some thoughts about your post

I've been interested in the Weimar period for a few years now, and you seem to suggest that Niccolo doesn't have it quite right. From the material I've read so far, I've gotten the same impression as Niccolo, that the so-called civil war was really more like gang-fighting in the later years (or at least closer to gang-fighting than an actual civil war). There were definitely short periods of widespread fighting, but didn't these subside as Hitler got closer to power? You yourself listed a number of things that Germans wanted solved in order to bring civil peace and prosperity, and the assassinations and factional fighting were only part of it.

Anyway, it seems to me the point is moot, because I think that what some of us are worried about now are the similarities in how the government seems to be accumulating power and subverting the constitution, rather than the similarities in civil society. It shouldn't be assumed that the only way a totalitarian dictatorship could come to power would be the exact same way it happened in 1930's Germany. The very fact that most American citizens have accepted the Patriot Act without protest is a terrifying thing. I'm not saying that the majority will also allow this "doomsday plan" to stand once they understand it, but what are the ways in which we can wake up people to the danger? Sometimes I'm optimistic that the American people will put the brakes on this before it goes any further, and sometimes I am in complete despair because this somehow no longer feels like the country I grew up in.

[leveymg]

73. Quite true. By 1933, German civil war had subsided. But ...

what I was really objecting to was Mockingbich's statement that the Germans did not actively resist the rise of fascism. My response to Niccolo was a way to further flesh out the historical facts, not in any way meant personally. I admire Mocking's sentiment that Americans will resist, and agree in a limited way with Nic's point.

One of the irony's of Hitler's rise to power was that it came at a time when the real "threat" of a communist takeover had passed, and Germany had already moved far to the Right of where it had been in the early 1920s. The administrations that preceded the 1933 elections were increasingly conservative and authoritarian. In terms of economic and social policy, Hitler's stated program was not really a dramatic departure from Fritz von Papan's. The main difference was the Nazi obsession with race, and its commitment to military rearmament and territorial expansion.

As for the similarities with *'s brand of authoritarianism, I think that's a subject that deserves in-depth discussion. I'd be happy to continue that with you, Mocking, Nic or anyone else in this forum, which I feel honored to be part.

- Mark

[elaineb]

74. Agreed! This topic needs some serious discussion.

It would probably rise above my intellectual depth, but I'd love to switch to a discussion about the implications of this so-called "doomsday plan", rather than worrying about how closely social conditions in this country coincide with 1920's-30's Germany. I mean I definitely see many chilling similarities, but I think a lot of people close their minds when one makes a Bush-Hitler analogy, because they begin to look for the differences, and finding them, think the comparison must not be valid. So in a way it's a mixed blessing to have Hitler as a historical frame of reference. Some can see the similarities and are terrified, and some see the differences and conclude there's nothing to worry about as their civil liberties are slowly taken away and the government slowly morphs into a police state. Not saying it's gotten there yet, but the structures seem to be being put into place. And that is exactly what reminds me of pre-Hitler Germany right now.

Thanks for your informative comments about Hitler's rise to power. I've really become intensely interested in that period of time in Germany (almost morbidly so). And I agree with you that many Germans resisted the rise of fascism, and IMHO it's very short-sighted to think that it couldn't happen here, as if all Germans were just completely blindsided by the takeover but Americans wouldn't be. Optimistic as I tend to be about the freedom-loving vigilance of the American people, I'm pessimistic lately because the Patriot Act and similar usurpations of civil liberties hasn't met with much more resistance, and also the fact that with the military and technological weapons at the government's disposal, we probably don't have a prayer if the "bad guys" decide to take over once and for all.

[leveymg]

82. Look at Pinochet's Chile Under the "States of Exception" For the Model

"Doomsday plan" for post-democratic America. Chile has long served as a sort of human laboratory. The September 11, 1973 coup created an opportunity for experimentation with radical, new forms of neo-liberal economics, quasi-legal authoritarian rule, and social reorganization from above. For a discussion of the US motives behind the coup, you might read Hitchens, "The Case Against Henry Kissinger", which originally appeared in Harpers in March 2001. http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Kissinger/CaseAgainst1_Hitchens.html

You might also want to read, John E. Finn, "Constitutions In Crisis", Oxford Univ. Press, 1991, which provides a good overview of how formerly democratic states have imposed martial law and anti-terrorism legislation. Finn's discussion of the UK and Northern Ireland during the war with the IRA in the 1970s and 1980s is particularly useful. That book also gives an interesting comparison of the dissolution of democracy in Germany during the Wiemar Republic and the way the Federal Republic dealt with terrorism by the Red Army Faction and other revolutionary groups.

I would enjoy continuing our dialog.

- Mark

[IndianaGreen]

16. "Americans aren't like Germans in the '30s." Yes, we are!

We are repeating the same mistake of the Germans of believing that "Gott mit uns" (God is with us!). Have you seen how few of our politicians have called for an outright repeal of PATRIOT Act? Have you noticed how many of our military still believe that they are doing "Jesus work" in Iraq? Did you see how many of our elected representatives have objected to the Pentagon's proposal to expand our concentration camp in Guantanamo? Did you hear the crowds cheer when our troops marched into Iraq?

"Americans aren't like Germans in the '30s." Yes, we are!

[Suspicious]

"Yes, we are!"

Yes, we are - the only difference being, in my opinion, Americans are far more ignorant - and we have zero excuses for being this ignorant.

We have the benefit of Germany's lesson, and we have ignored it (well, a large group of us has, anyway).

[Eloriel]

59. Yes, and here's proof

Well, an analogy anyway.

I think this is extremely important reading. It's an account, an excerpt from a book, of how Germans of the time could "allow" what happened. Very important, MUST READ material:

They Thought They Were Free
http://www.thirdreich.net/Thought_They_Were_Free.html

[leveymg]

84. Thank you for that link!

You're right - a MUST READ! Sent this on to friends by e-mail. Maybe this sort of article spread by us across the Internet is the virus that kills the Martian war machines.

Thanks again - Mark

[Hekate]

18. We have unwittingly elected our fascist leaders, we have had...

... our "burning of the Reichstag" equivalent to strike fear into everyone's heart (i.e., the attacks of 9-11), fascism has wrapped itself in the American flag and has been paraded as the finest of American patriotism and American values.

September 11, 2001 was the golden opportunity of a lifetime for Bush, the Neocons, and the extreme-right Christians. We have been subjected to an unending stream of propaganda ever since that time, greatly intensified during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. Americans are kept off-balance with one terror-alert after another.

Those of us who say differently are told to go to hell and/or Canada. You should read the letters to the editor in your daily newspaper -- really read them. The people of this country can't throw away their civil liberties fast enough. The USA PATRIOT Act and Patriot Act II are supposedly reasonable ways to ensure our safety and they are not going away: the news of Patriot II caused an outcry, so it was broken up into smaller pieces which have been inserted into numerous unrelated bills.

Americans have been scared to death and are constantly told that the only way to be safe is to lock themselves into a virtual prison and send their "volunteer" soldiers to wage war on the world. In the name of protecting us from terra, city after city in this country has been locked down to prevent protestors from exercising their First Amendment rights. When the event (such as WTO or Republican convention) is over, the new cameras remain on the corners of buildings, pointing at the passersby.

Worse things are on the way. Our economy is now in deep, deep trouble from Bush's insane policies, and if he dismantles Social Security the way he wants to our economy will go into free-fall. There's *nothing* wrong with Social Security -- my generation has been pre-paying for 20 years just so Social Security can handle our demographic bulge, and no less an authority than Paul Krugman says it is in good shape. Refer to Krugman's columns for info about the true effect on the entire economy of destroying this program. Notice that the Bush propaganda machine has commenced and the American people are being told daily that Social Security is in "crisis" and something must be done immediately.

Social upheaval is virtually inevitable if the economy tanks, and social unrest must be suppressed if we are to be safe from terra.

In the months leading up to the invasion of Iraq I had random contact with a handful of elderly Europeans. The first person to tell me she was getting flashbacks to 1930s Vienna was my mother-in-law, a Holocaust survivor. Next I encountered a Hungarian woman at some meeting, and again I heard about flashbacks. A Belgian couple. A woman from the former Soviet Union, not much older than I, who had been ordered to appear for a Homeland Security interrogation a hundred miles from where she lives; she was sick with terror, and not from Osama.

We're in trouble, Mockingbich, we are in trouble.

Hekate

[Eloriel]

62. Excellent post, Hekate

thank you.

[hatrack]

31. They've been pissing on the Constitution for about three years now

Anyone see any signs of "fighting back"?

Didn't think so . . .

[Mr_Spock]

53. I'm optimistic like you

...though there are times I wonder if people could possibly become and more complacent...

[tavalon]

10. I've seen it coming for a long time

Many here have seen it coming for a long time. We are fighting it with everything we have. Very possibly, we won't be able to stop it, but that very real possibility doesn't mean we shouldn't try.

[despairing optimist]

66. So then, 9/11 wasn't like Pearl Harbor but like the Reichstag burning

Makes sense to look at it that way, given how events have played out.

[jus_the_facts]

6. can you say....ANTHRAX...this time they might pull it off...

:(

[gumby]

9. Reagan did something like this too,

but it was "off the books." Jean Kirkpatrick was one of the "chosen." ackackack. I faintly remember Dan Rather's name as a "trusted source" to tell people about the New Government.

Remember the fleet of lead lined semi-trucks that would wisk them around so they could "govern?"

Vague memories at a late hour.

[LifeDuringWartime]

40. huh?

i have no idea what youre talking about. of course, i wasnt around back then. care to elaborate?

[gumby]

42. Check out tanyev's post at # 29.

here's the link
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0318-14.htm

[NIGHT TRIPPER]

11. So they are planning another terra "event" eh?-guess they'll hit congress

just by chance on a day when mostly Democrats are there .

nice...

Thank them for at least letting the American people know beforehand.
That was sure noble of them.

I expect the worst.
Martial law
and permanent Chimp-

I truly believe after observing the recent and past actions of the Rove/Bush crime family that there will never be another election--never-

get ready for the curfews

[LynnTheDem]

12. Well hell, we weren't using the US Constitution anyways!

So what the hey!

[magellan]

13. Proposed ethics changes dropped?

Who knew they had any ethics left to change? What were these, I wonder?

[tngledwebb]

15. How many warning signs and symptoms does it take to identify

a terminal malignancy?

The evil empire is here, and has been for at least four years, and only a few in America can see it or choose to call it what it really is: fascism.

Recall how the world refused to see the ugly truth previous to WW II, despite the signs.

And as always, denial is one of the most common reactions when faced with a diagnosis of a life threatening disease.

[Just Me]

17. Why do you suppose they did this under the radar?

:eyes:

Geez, I can't believe I am witnessing all this in my lifetime.

Our poor children.

[reprobate]

47. Nothing was under the radar.

9/11 was not under the radar. All the signs were there to be read afterwards by anyone on the web. Of course if all that you watched was the networks, in wasn't just under the radar, it didn't exist.

The iraq war wasn't under the radar. Most of the world knew the reasons for it, and it wasn't what the M$M said.

Put on your tin foil suit and try to follow me when I say that EVERYTHING that has happened from the nomination of Lil Boots until today has been *planned*. It has been in the works since daddy bush refused to take over iraq during GWI. The neocons had their plans even back then, but daddy thought they were crazies. So they bided their time and planned. They put their friends in the propper places so that 9/11 would work. The put their CIA stooges in the network newsrooms. Hell, they even published their plans on the web. Under the radar?

No, just under the educational level of the american public.

And I've changed my mind. The american people won't rise up in revolution. They are too brainwashed and cowed to do anything to upset the Great Exhalted Leader And Commander-Pope.

Our only hope comes from the rest of the world. We pulled their asses out of the fire over half a century ago. This time it's their turn. And I'm starting to believe it's possible. They are waging an economic war with * now. If he attacks any other country now, I think they just may have had enough. What do you think an economic blockade of america would do to the moneyed elite of the Corporate States of America?

Time to leave the country? Sure, if you can. Many of us simply can't due to economic, age, or many other reasons. Since I and mine can't leave, we'll just watch he destruction of our nation, and when and if 'we the people'start to rise against them, we'll join in and do what we can.

[Jose Diablo]

19. Preparation for the "Night of the long knives" n/t

[shadowknows69]

20. Despite what some of you may think of the NRA

I think it's time to make sure that we're a well armed populace.

[proudbluestater]

22. I saw this being introduced the other day, under the radar

It looks like the ultimate power grab to me. We all know who will be invited into the underground bunkers when something hits and most of them are not Democrats.

"But under the new rule, a majority of living congressmen no longer will be needed to do business under ``catastrophic circumstances.''

Instead, a majority of the congressmen able to show up at the House would be enough to conduct business, conceivably a dozen lawmakers or less.

The House speaker would announce the number after a report by the House Sergeant at Arms. Any lawmaker unable to make it to the chamber would effectively not be counted as a congressman. (I'm envisioning a foot race...)

The circumstances include ``natural disaster, attack, contagion or similar calamity rendering Representatives incapable of attending the proceedings of the House.''

[NYC]

37. I'm envisioning a locked chamber door.

Democrats in the hallway.

[AzDar]

23. Large numbers of Congressmen killed or incapacitated?? Doomsday???

Sorry, but that isn't at all what I'd call it!

[izzybeans]

24. I find this especially troubling...

since the continuity of congress is something that has been carefully constructed. I can't imagine there being this big of gap in continuity that the new rules could be pulled from thin air and pushed through. I thought there was already something in place for war time situations. Does anyone have any info. on the rules?

[truthisfreedom]

25. they're basically admitting that they have a terrorist attack planned.

why else would they go to such elaborate lengths to dodge, bob, and weave their way through the ethics crap only to use it to push this through "unnoticed"?

[Lerkfish]

26. agreed. They've tipped their hand here that MIHOP is already planned.

worthless scum.
I wonder how many americans will be "sacrificed" to sate their hungry for absolute power?

[leesa]

27. Here we go. Those of you still planning for the 2008 election may

just as well stop. Don't think it's gonna happen

[Ripley]

28. Oh great! 12 Repukes running the country!

But didn't they already set up some kind of "shadow government" after 9/11? I thought that was bizarre. Who are these shadow people...folks like Frist's 3rd cousin who is a useless VP at some HMO in Chattanooga?

[tanyev]

29. Even more scary--

This has been a pet project of Cheney and Rumsfeld since the 80s.

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0318-14.htm

At least once a year during the 1980s Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld vanished. Cheney was working diligently on Capitol Hill, as a congressman rising through the ranks of the Republican leadership. Rumsfeld, who had served as Gerald Ford's Secretary of Defense, was a hard-driving business executive in the Chicago area—where, as the head of G. D. Searle & Co., he dedicated time and energy to the success of such commercial products as Nutra-Sweet, Equal, and Metamucil. Yet for periods of three or four days at a time no one in Congress knew where Cheney was, nor could anyone at Searle locate Rumsfeld. Even their wives were in the dark; they were handed only a mysterious Washington phone number to use in case of emergency.

Rumsfeld and Cheney were principal actors in one of the most highly classified programs of the Reagan Administration. Under it U.S. officials furtively carried out detailed planning exercises for keeping the federal government running during and after a nuclear war with the Soviet Union. The program called for setting aside the legal rules for presidential succession in some circumstances, in favor of a secret procedure for putting in place a new "President" and his staff. The idea was to concentrate on speed, to preserve "continuity of government," and to avoid cumbersome procedures; the speaker of the House, the president pro tempore of the Senate, and the rest of Congress would play a greatly diminished role.

[hatrack]

30. Norm "AEI" Ornstein doesn't like it?

Well gee, Norm, they're your boys. You and your think-tank pimped Bush, the liberation of Iraq, tax cuts and all the rest moving heaven and earth to get these clowns in power. And now you don't like what they're doing? Why don't you just SHUT THE FUCK UP!!!

[FizzFuzz]

32. I keep thinking of the people I know who refuse to see what's going on

and I almost think that enrages me the most.

#One is a Jewish "fundamentalist" whose eyes glitter at the thought of blasting Arabs (and she goes into tirades about being a social liberal but liberal values don't count now, she want a future for her children) and is highly political, but only reads the sickest online blogs and loves Faux news.

#Many of the others are born-agains and evangelical christians who sincerely believe they are good and true and right, and they do what their pastor tells them, I guess. Some of them worship the ground Sean Hannity walks on. They all guy the "moral high-ground" crap and think the smirk* is one of them.

#Another example is a guy who thinks Clinton ruined the economy, and when I try to show him a simple graph delineating the budget deficit since 1960 (you know that simple but powerful graph? It's made its way around the internetS)...anyway when I try to offer him any simple easy to digest fact, he runs away. Online, literally disappears in the middle of my sentence

I've mentioned these three examples probably too many times already, but they're right in my everyday life and they drive me crazy--I can't even describe the feeling, knowing we are on a runaway train, and yet a too-large number of Americans follow THESE three lines of thinking. And there seems to be nothing I can do to "wake them up".

One commonality they all have though, is that they all represent feeders at the trough of pre-digested simulated news-food product. The journalists who should have been sounding warnings from the beginning have been systematically bought and or sabotaged out of the field.

I really think we need to focus on enlarging our media--Air America is a good start, but IMO, it really needs to be the focus. IF it's not too late already....

[Radio_free_america]

33. End of republic ?

As said senator Byrd, we remain silent.

Doomstay is here.

[daleo]

35. CIA has throttled back on the anti-terror meetings too.

From every day to three per week, with the other agencies such as FBI, etc. There might be something in the works.

[genieroze]

36. How convenient for them. They create a crises that jeopardizes the

rest of us and they get protected. Evil scumbags

[Emboldened Chimp]

38. Get ready for Operation Handmaid's Tale

[knitter4democracy]

46. OMG! I had the same reaction

Okay, how did that one go--killed the President and several in Congress all on the same day, right? Said we were under a state of emergency and took everything over. Yup. They're getting there, just a couple decades too late.

[atommom]

52. Me too. "They suspended the Constitution. Nobody minded..."

:scared:

[Emillereid]

56. I fear the future has been accurately depicted in both

Atwood's book and Marge Piercy's "He, She and It" - put the two together and they portend a bleak future indeed.

Art does indeed imitate life!

[Emboldened Chimp]

57. I think we're headed for some weird hybrid of 1984, Brave New World,

and Handmaid's Tales. Scary.

[Taxloss]

39. The "Reichstag Fire Decree"?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichstag_Fire_Decree

Now, only Marinus van der Lubbe is needed.

[tom_paine]

41. Sounds like the Imperial Congress just signed their Death Warrant

Though I imagine even the Busheviks aren't so monstrous that they would consider this option.

I could be wrong, though. Thus far the only limittatio on their monstrousness is what they can get away with.

Which is anything. Everything.

[alexisfree]

48. ok have ready your back up plans......!

this is getting too severe now.

[spooked]

50. A WEIRD QUESTION ABOUT ALL OF THIS AND ELECTION 2004

Background: We Have Been Under A "Continuity-of-Government" plan since 9/11 and it was further "enhanced in 2002"

http://archives.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/09/11/ar911.government.continuity/

"After ordering an increase in the nation's threat level this week, the White House took steps to "enhance" its continuity-of-government operations, a senior administration official told CNN Wednesday.

The senior official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, would not say how the operations, which have been in effect since shortly after the September 11 attacks, have been enhanced, but did say the changes were made because the threat level was raised Tuesday to orange, signaling a high risk of a terrorist attack."

A VERY STRANGE QUESTION FOR ALL OF YOU...

This crossed my mind this week as I came across the fact that our Government has been operating under a "Continuity of Government" plan SINCE 9/11.

COULD THERE POSSIBLY BE SOMETHING in this top-secret plan, and the "enhanced" versions that make it "legal" to steal an election??
So that everything CONTINUES as it is...Could it be written in these SECRET PLANS that elections can be "legally" rigged in the interest of NATIONAL SECURITY???

I'm beginning to wonder...

[robbedvoter]

83. It would almost make it OK, non? Legally stolen. No wonder they

all folded like that....:shrug:

[bobbieinok]

51. isn't this in Dr Strangelove???? ...all the male military and politicians

and nubile young women....

character played by George C Scott thought with this the 'end of the world' wasn't too bad

[brentspeak]

61. Let's hope Gen. Jack D. Ripper doesn't get his finger on the trigger

I do not want Donald Rumsfeld to have a psychotic breakdown and start talking about "precious bodily fluids".

[Deja Q]

55. How many repukie-dookies chimed that Mark Dayton was a coward??!?!?!?!

A few weeks before the election, he tucked tails and hid while the repukes skewered him alive.

[driver8]

60. I thought Congress was already using the Doomsday plan. n/t

[olddad56]

64. this should provide a clue into Bushco's plans for the future.

[robertpaulsen]

69. Kick

:kick:

[alexisfree]

72. june 6, 2006 make note: the end..enjoy your life now before

its to late.

[robertpaulsen]

76. That's my wife's birthday.

And no, I haven't checked her scalp for any strange birthmarks. :)

[shadowknows69]

78. please

people have said that about every june 6th permutation possible since we started counting.

[Kablooie]

75. Four legs good, Two legs better!

[ticapnews]

79. So this can be enacted in times of crisis like...

fixing the Social Security crisis...
fixing the tort reform crisis...
fixing the education crisis...
fixing the 22nd Amendment crisis...

At 4AM on a Sunday morning...

[TankLV]

80. Well, I was wondering how much worse these next 4 years will be.

This is about the 3rd or 4th items and gets worse every day.

We have a "shadow government" that has NEVER been activated or has even met until bunkerboy and his gang of criminals took control, WITHOUT THE KNOWLEDGE AND PARTICIPATION OF ANY DEMOCRATS.

We have bunkerboy UNILATERALLY changing the constitution by changing THE RULES OF SUCCESSION FOR PRESIDENT without any congressional vote or even debate.

we have REPUKES LOCKING OUT ALL DEMOCRATS FROM EVEN JUST DISCUSSIONS ON LEGISLATION because the repukes have all the votes anyway.

The master torturer will become AG.

And now this.