I don't see anything out of the ordinary in this. If you look at it like a huge national disaster, say like the Yellowstone volcano erupts, then you will see this as a directive for the federal agencies to put a plan in place to handle the disaster.
However, the conspiracy folks are going to make a lot of hay out of this.
FWIW, I was a Unit Disaster Preparedness NCO when I was in the USAF. Down on the Gulf Coast, we had plans for everything from natural disasters (hurricane, tornado), to man made (terrorist, war), to "OMG!" (tsunami - Panic!).
I understand. Just as an activity in critical thinking, why do you suppose O didn’t do this at the beginning of his term? Seems like he would be on top of this, since he was so active initially with EO’s. I can’t see any way this one would have slipped his notice.
And also, I remember that press conference when Joe Biden said something to the effect, “People, something is going to happen in the near future to challenge this administration like none before. Don’t give up on us when that happens.” Seems like this EO would be particularly helpful for such a threat, and yet he is just now getting around to it?
Thinking out loud. Wonder what your thoughts might be.
What was the plan to handle a foreign enemy combatant in the White House? Or a coup by Hezbollah and communist operatives coordinated from the White House?
Just curious about that.
The danger in this - as with the NDAA - is that it leaves the determination of when there is a “national emergency” (or when somebody is “belligerent”) totally up to the discretion of Barack Obama, with no checks on his power to decide WHETHER he can do stuff or WHAT stuff he can do. That’s what the whole due process thing is about; it keeps any one person from being able to kill or enslave with no questions ever asked.
We don’t have due process any more; all the POTUS ever has to do is say a person was “belligerent” and was thus a terrorist and he can have ANY ONE of us assassinated at the snap of his little fingers, no questions ever allowed to be asked.
He has the means to do it covertly so that it appears to be a heart attack (ala Andrew Breitbart) or cancer so nobody would even think to ask questions anyway. How much of the stuff in this executive order could be done without anybody ever being allowed to report that it was done because we were in some secret “national emergency” that nobody is allowed to know about? What in the law would prevent Obama from saying there is some secret national emergency TODAY, and all of a sudden Obama starts stealing food supplies and jailing or killing anybody who might report on it? It wouldn’t have to be a big catastrophe that everybody knows about. He could start doing this stuff today under the cover of an “emergency” that only he knows about.