By John Galt
October 14, 2011 – 05:00 ET
The markets are in turmoil, the radicals are camped in various cities with faux protests against whatever, and the world is starting to despise America again because of our weak, vacillating leadership.
1979-1980 under President Carter comes to mind but in this case, but the danger is far more serious than a Soviet nuke accidentally being fired on a major U.S. city, in fact the detonation will occur due to our own “citizens” who elect to implore the government to take radical action to support and save their political agenda of change, rather than offer ideas which would benefit our society as a whole.
Thus the most dangerous period of time in American history since the Civil War is upon us again and sadly, the leadership in our nation is lacking.
Or is it?
Excuse me while I adjust my tinfoil hat, but as one witnesses the garbage dump being created in various city parks around the nation via the “Occupy” movement, the idea that the extreme left acting coincidentally with a period of economic turmoil in world markets begs the question:
Can the President act unilaterally to stem a disruption to United States domestic financial activity?
According to Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr. the answer is yes:
(Source: The Daily Caller, Jackson, Jr: Obama should ‘declare a national emergency,’ add jobs with ‘extra-constitutional’ action, October 12, 2011)
Beyond the extraordinary commentary by the Congressman and the admission that the United States is still in a recession, the question as posed is yes, the President does have such authority as granted in U.S. Code Title 50, Chapter 34, Section 1701a:
(a) Any authority granted to the President by section 1702 of this title may be exercised to deal with any unusual and extraordinary threat, which has its source in whole or substantial part outside the United States, to the national security, foreign policy, or economy of the United States, if the President declares a national emergency with respect to such threat.
(Source: Cornell Law School, Legal Information Institute, U.S. Code)
It is quite apparent that since the evolution of the National Emergencies Act (Title 50, U.S.C.) the powers exercised since Lincoln are not only permissible as validated by the lack of intervention and action by the U.S. courts, but indeed, President Obama does indeed have the power to suspend Federal law, modify or dismiss contract law, and intervene in economic activity due to a declared national emergency.
How did this power evolve and the interpretation that the Executive Branch has such authority? Let’s review a little history from way, way , way back which culminates with the George W. Bush administration via the National Emergencies Act.
I. Evolution of Executive Authority to Intervene in Economic Activity
The original source of Presidential power can be traced back to the Civil War and the broad, somewhat unconstitutional actions of President Abraham Lincoln operating under the idea of extraordinary circumstances due to the conflict to allow the management and intervention into economic activity during a period of war. This view was expanded by the first of the Progressive Presidents, Theodore Roosevelt who believed the Executive Branch had a duty to use all powers available to the office to engage in any actions which were necessary for the nation. Indeed, it was Roosevelt’s belief that, for the President, “it was not only his right but his duty to do anything that the needs of the Nation demanded unless such action was forbidden by the Constitution or by the laws.” (Source: Theodore Roosevelt, An Autobiography ,New York: Macmillan, 1913, pp. 388-389 via CRS 98-505 by Harold C. Relyea, August 30, 2007)
However, as broad as this power was, the true expansion of this discretion occurred in 1917 under guess who:
President Woodrow Wilson
For those of my readers who are fans of Glenn Beck, this should not come as a surprise as during the First World War, Wilson engaged in actions which suspended the entire Bill of Rights for some citizens at almost every level and economically via the creation of the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917 (Click here to read entire law from Treasury.gov). Needless to say, every President since the Progressive era has exercised wide discretion by engaging in variations of this law via Executive Order or other decree since that era.
Fast forward to the post September 11, 2011 time period where emergency decrees and actions were being issued almost daily as the National Emergencies Act (Title 50, U.S.C., section 34). President Bush stretched those powers on September 8, 2005 where under a new interpretation of those authorities delegated under the act, he issued Proclamation 7924 which was entered into the U.S. Federal Register as follows:
Please notice the key portion of this document:
And, as to such contracts to be performed in such jurisdictions, I do hereby suspend, until otherwise provided, the provisions of any Executive Order, proclamation, rule, regulation, or other directive providing for the payment of wages, which provisions are dependent upon determinations by the Secretary of Labor under section 3142 of title 40, United States Code;
This does not sound like a Constitutional action and was questioned in fact by a Congressional Research Service report, National Emergency Powers, prepared by Harold C. Relyea on August 30, 2007:
An anomaly in the activation of emergency powers appears to have occurred on September 8, 2005, when President George W. Bush issued a proclamation suspending certain wage requirements of the Davis-Bacon Act in the course of the federal response to the Gulf coast disaster resulting from Hurricane Katrina. Instead of following the historical pattern of declaring a national emergency to activate the suspension authority, the President set out the following rationale in the proclamation: “I find that the conditions caused by Hurricane Katrina constitute a‘national emergency’ within the meaning of section 3147 of title 40, United States Code.” A more likely course of action seemingly would have been for the President to declare a national emergency pursuant to the National Emergencies Act and to specify that he was, accordingly, activating the suspension authority. Although the propriety of the President’s action in this case might have been ultimately determined in the courts, the proclamation was revoked on November 3, 2005, by a proclamation in which the President cited the National Emergencies Act as authority, in part, for his action.
(CRS 98-505, pp. 18-19, available at this link)
Thus a non-foreign threat to U.S. economic activity was used to invoke those powers delegated under the National Emergencies Act and the precedent was established that a President does indeed have the power to engage in the suspension of basic Constitutional rights proscribed via the Bill of Rights to suspend established Federal and private contract law. Thus the video from the Congressman above via the Daily Caller should become even more disturbing to the reader.
II. The Old New National Emergency
The extension of Title 50, the National Emergencies Act, by President Obama should not have come as any surprise to any logical thinking individual. No President in modern history has ever surrendered the enhanced powers envisioned under the first Progressive Presidents and in fact have slowly evolved an expansion of those powers as outlined above. Unfortunately for the American people, the idea that a “national emergency” which would allow such broad action to occur has escaped their daily lives and selection of men of character to serve as their representatives.
The emergency as outlined above in the video is ongoing to millions of citizens and despite the hypocritical Occupy Wall Street faux protesters, the risks to our financial system and viability of our economy is still in doubt. The financial system is being buffeted by a resumption in the foreclosure tidal wave which promises to be far more severe than the 2007-2009 time period due to the stagnant economy and declining wages of the majority of citizens. This promises to destroy more communities forcing an acceleration in municipal bankruptcies (See Municide February 21, 2008) and a probable growth in the number of corporate bankruptcies (Reuters via The Huffington Post October 11, 2011: Corporate Bankruptcies Could Return With New Recession: Experts). Such a vicious cycle will certainly increase unemployment far beyond the real number of 22% as illustrated by John Williams of www.shadowstats.com:
As this old crisis returns for another period of massive deleveraging which will induce a wave of deflation that destroys the value of assets for most average Americans, the crisis will expand beyond the unemployed and into the Baby Boomer and retirement age groups creating a new societal and economic crisis far worse than the 2007-2009 recession. However, this disaster does provide an opportunity as Rahm Emanuel reminded us in 2008:
III. The Cry for Real Change
This brings our little story here to the point where the protesters on Wall Street, two political parties, and financial elites unite in an effort to “save the country” because after all, it is what more than 70% will demand by the time polling has begun when the markets crash and layoffs accelerate. Retirees will become the featured story all day and night on the mainstream media as there are tens of thousands, perhaps millions, who were suckered into the creative refinancing of their homes during the 2004-2007 insanity and now face eviction in their twilight years as income loss and health issues accelerate foreclosures.
The middle aged offspring along with the AARP and other unknown Soros type groups will spring out of the darkness demanding a restoration of lost monies due to the collapse of our financial system and a suspension of foreclosures to prevent the constant bombardment of images of eighty something year old grandmothers begging for change while eating cat food out of a can in the streets. Meanwhile the useful idiots with college degrees in Mauritanian art will demand jobs based not on their qualifications, but their degree which requires the repayment of loans now in the possession of guess who; that’s right that United States government and I.R.S.
By marrying the two groups together over the past two decades, the left has achieved an astonishing victory thus far insuring that the middle shall be squeezed, as it has throughout history, to choose alliances of convenience to survive rather than persevering to protect and correct the Constitutional system our Founding Fathers created. All that would be needed to guarantee a coup for the Progressives and the extremists is a situation which causes the monied class to engage in support for radical change.
Thus, enter the financial crisis re-emerging to bring about the cries for real change.
IV. The Constitutional Convention of President Barrack Hussein Obama
“We want one class of persons to have a liberal education, and we want another class of persons, a very much larger class of necessity in every society, to forgo the privilege of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific difficult manual tasks.”
- Woodrow Wilson
The great alignment as envisioned almost a century ago by will only occur after the culmination of the screams from the masses in the previous section meet some if not all of the following criteria:
1. Collapse of international trade and financial activity.
2. Republicans blocking all efforts to increase taxes, pass meaningless jobs creation bills, and a triggering of a new debt ceiling crisis.
3. Further acknowledgment by the Federal Reserve that they are powerless to intervene with effective action to stem the disaster. Such an admission was made Wednesday when the President of the Federal Reserve of Dallas stated:
“There are limits to what a central bank can do,” Fisher said during a speech today in Abilene, Texas. “We can provide fuel, but we cannot provide incentives for those who create jobs” to “step on the gas pedal.”
(Source: Bloomberg, October 12, 2011, Fisher Says Fed Has ‘Done Everything It Can’ to Boost Jobs )
4. Americans are restricted from or have difficulty accessing credit and ultimately their funds in financial institutions.
The pattern President Obama will likely follow will be that of his historical ideologues, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Italian Prime Minister Benito Mussolini. First, a national emergency will be declared as outlined in the acts mentioned above. This will give him broad powers to exercise capital controls, declare bank holidays, initiate price freezes, freeze all foreclosure proceedings, and freeze all layoffs and pay cuts for a period of time. The severity of such actions will cause a hue and cry by the Republicans but a compromise will be offered as an olive branch to help resolve what will become a “Constitutional Crisis” which threatens the very survival of our nation.
President Obama will strike a deal with the Republicans to accelerate the process for enough remaining states to convene a Constitutional Convention, to modify amendments, change the structure of the Federal Reserve Banking system as a part of the Constitution and probably as a branch of the government within the Treasury Department, and allow the introduction of a new structure to “accommodate” changes to our new societal and economic conditions. This dangerous prospect would be timely with the charter of the Fed coming up for renewal in 2013, demands for a new international currency standard outside of the dollar, and the stunting of globalist expansion throughout history now having an opportunity to repair the “mistakes” of America throughout the last one hundred years.
While I pray such an event never occurs, the current status of our economy, the massive instability in our political system, the upheaval underway in the Middle East probably leading to a wider conflict involving the United States, and the pending collapse of the European Union would provide the platform for those who proclaim that an international effort is needed to save our Republic and the civilized world. The changes which would occur to the original document might also grant those of the elite class who are currently in power along with those who have an intense desire to centralize control of the financial affairs of the West, will prevent a reversion back to era of freedom most of us have enjoyed during our lifetimes. The dangers of these revisions will be ignored and obscured by guarantees of international peace, domestic economic and political stability, and promises to restore that which was lost to those of the middle and lower class strata. This should terrify any American but after three full generations of Progressive education, most will will welcome a modern structured society which sacrifices some of our older freedoms for a unified more stable world. That is why I believe the slant of this event will not only involve the modern version of Progressive thought as portrayed by both political parties, but an internationalist involvement via the world’s financial elites to insure that the new power structure is preserved and virtually irreversible.
There is my outline for why the Obama administration has not been so repentant nor mysteriously disillusioned by the legislative defeats experienced over the Tea Party era of the past year and a half. It would explain why those individuals that departed the administration readily found employment within powerful groups which would hold sway over the participants within a modern convention structure. Lastly, it provides a logical conclusion for those who desired permanent hope and change but were usurped by those dratted souls who believe in that “damned” piece of paper. The changes needed by the extremists and elites could never be executed under a divided government unless the crisis were so severe, it united not just our nation but the entire Western world.
Just imagine; all that will be required to initiate this coming era of hope and change was outlined by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton years ago:
“It takes a village.”
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