The Death of a Constitutional Republic

"President Bush yesterday sought to federalize hurricane-relief efforts, removing governors from the decision-making process," reports the Moonie Times, otherwise known as the Washington Times. "It wouldn’t be necessary to get a request fro"Mr. McClellan was referring to a new, direct line of authority that would allow the president to place the Pentagon in charge of responding to natural disasters, terrorist attacks and outbreaks of disease."

In other words, Bush wants to erase yet another constitutional amendment - the Tenth, which states "powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people" - and he is using the misfortune of Katrina as an opportunistic wrecking ball. "Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco and Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour declined the president’s offer to federalize the state's National Guard troops in the aftermath of Katrina. So Mr. Bush wants Congress to consider empowering the Pentagon with automatic control." In other words, the misery and suffering of the people of Louisiana - deliberately exacerbated by FEMA and the Ministry of Homeland Security - will serve as a red carpet for Bush to systematically dismantle the cornerstone of the United States, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. It is, at minimum and as a start, a death knell for Posse Comitatus.