As I was reading through the news this morning an article on Yahoo News caught my attention.
Governors object to Bush's Guard plan I noticed that with all the other stuff going on lately the Bush Administration is trying to quietly sneak in more power for itself. Suprise I know, but this one is a really dangerous power that will bite all of us when the next disaster comes around.
It seems that buried in the National Defense Authorization Act H.R. 5631 there was put as provision that allows Bush to
Federalize National Guard troops in the case of as the bill says a
"a serious natural or manmade disaster, accident, or catastrophe".
This bill has already passed the House and is the first thing on the Senate's agenda once they return from their August recess. So while it might seem like a small thing to do, it gives the President the power to disregard the will of the Governor of a state where a crisis has occured and send the troops in when he feels like it.
Given the track record of this Administration, I can only imagine what would happen if something disasterous happened in the U.S. what they would do. I can see it now heavily armed troops patroling everywhere with the last vestiges of our freedom fading away.
Getting around not being able to use the troops with impunity on domestic soil has been something the Bush administration has long wanted. Just look at the fight between Louisiana and the Administration in the aftermath of Katrina on whether to deploy the troops or not.
The world gets more interesting all the time. Most days I wish it would stop getting so interesting and let everyone have a break for a while to catch their breath.