So I found an interesting thread to go with Wictor’s that I posted last night. It’s cliff notes from the CONTINGENCY article:
Intended as complementary to @ThomasWic’s thread at:
https://social.quodverum.com/web/statuses/105744162388816437
Following is my heavily edited CLIFF NOTES version of the original Newsweek article on secret “continuity of government” plans, which you can read here:
The article jumps around quite a bit, making it very easy for a casual reader to miss key points. I’ve taken what are, to me, the most salient and put them in a more coherent order.
In July 2016, Obama signed classified Presidential Policy Directive 40 on “National Continuity Policy,” establishing “essential functions” that government agencies were tasked to protect and retain.
Highest Level: National Essential Functions that posit “the continued functioning” of government under the Constitution.
To preserve Constitutional rule, agencies were ordered to have not just a line of succession but also one of “devolution”:
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DEVOLUTION
A duplicate chain of individuals secreted outside Washington and available in a catastrophic emergency.
These Above Top Secret “continuity of government” plans for “devolving” leadership to second-tier officials in remote and quarantined locations.
Under these extraordinary plans, “devolution” could circumvent the normal Constitutional provisions for government succession, and military commanders could be placed in control around America.
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Plans:
* May be temporary or for an extended period.
* Staff to be located at a geographically dispersed location.
* Government to provide leadership visible to the Nation and the world while maintaining the trust and confidence of the American people.
Federal Continuity Directive 1, issued days before Trump became president, says that devolution must establish “procedures to transfer statutory authority and responsibilities” to a secondary designated staff to sustain essential functions.
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New Territory
What happens if the legislature cannot meet or cannot muster a quorum?
Mission Essential:
There are more than a dozen different secret assignment plans, all under U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM). Most fall under three larger contingency plans:
* CONPLAN 3400 for “homeland defense” if America itself is a battlefield.
* CONPLAN 3500 for military assistance to civil authorities in an emergency short of armed attack on the nation.
* CONPLAN 3600 is the big one...
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* CONPLAN 3600 is the one under which the most secret plans to support continuity are nested.
The most “compartmented” (read=secret/autonomous) of underground laws to ensure government continuity include Octagon, Freejack and Zodiac.
These plans call on various military units in DC, North Carolina and eastern Maryland to defend government operations if there is a total breakdown.
Most of these plans have been quietly activated during presidential inaugurals and State of the Union addresses.
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A seventh plan – code-named Granite Shadow – lays out the playbook for extraordinary domestic missions that involve weapons of mass destruction.
“Military sources say that only the massive destruction caused by a nuclear device –
* * *
...or the enormous loss of life that could be caused by a biological agent...
* * *
– present catastrophic pressure great enough to justify movement into extra-Constitutional actions and extraordinary circumstances plans.”
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“WMD is such an important scenario...because it stresses the system most severely.”
My words: The pandemic is a WMD - a biological agent - which has already hit at the cost of many lives.
Me again: This was most certainly grounds for Trump AND Barr to activate Granite Shadow.
Under Granite Shadow “special authorities” are pre-delegated by the president and the attorney general.
These forces can supplant civil authority or engage in law enforcement only under the strictest conditions...
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STRICTEST CONDITIONS
Use of federal military forces in law enforcement must pass two tests:
TEST 1
* “insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy”
TEST 2
* When the public is deprived of its legal and constitutional protections.
* Local civil authorities must be “unable, fail, or refuse” to protect the civilian population.
END
Looks like a perfect storm to me. The “storm after the calm”, one might say.
And we are in the dreary eye of it now.
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https://social.quodverum.com/@StevenDouglas/105750381839846248
Line of Succession-pretty scary:
1 V. President Kamala Harris Democratic
2 Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi Democratic
3 President pro tempore Senate Patrick Leahy Democratic
4 Secretary of State Antony Blinken Democratic
5 Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen Democratic
6 Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin Independent
Thank you. I was reading the Newsweak article to my husband and kept to skip and pick and I hated how it was written. Too much fluff/emotion and not just the facts. Cliff version is great.
oh sorry see you posted this already