Executive Order Allows White House to Sieze Anyone's Assets

Or, Is George Bush After My Stuff?

George Bush yesterday signed an executive order entitled Blocking Property of Certain Persons Who Threaten Stabilization Efforts In Iraq. This entire order should be required reading of any freedom-loving citizen, but I'll excerpt the most alarming portions:

"Any person determined by the Secretary of Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense,

(i) to have committed, or to pose a significant risk of committing, an act or acts of violence that have the purpose of:
(A) threatening the peace or stability of Iraq or the government of Iraq; or
(B) undermining efforts to promote economic reconstruction and political reform in Iraq or to provide humanitarian assistance to the Iraqi people." (Emphasis added)

Can basically have all their assets seized by the government.

In other words, if the White House determines that any U.S. resident might somehow pose a risk, however benign, to the stability of the Iraqi government or its economic reconstruction efforts, that person's house, bank account and other assets can be grabbed, due process be damned.

If I write in this blog that I think the Malaki government is corrupt to the core and has no chance in hell of ever forging a political solution in Iraq, I could wake up in the morning with a Mayflower van outside my door. If my wife writes a letter to the editor saying she thinks it's immoral to give no-bid contracts to Haliburton (which is, unfortunately, involved in "promoting economic reconstruction in Iraq") she might find a zero balance in her bank account the next day.

Just another day in paradise. The Bush Administration is basically trying to quell all dissent, using the hammer of economic reprisal, and it's tired of the Constitution getting in the way.

I have been on record for quite some time saying impeachment would be a waste of time because the votes clearly are not there in the Senate for conviction and removal. I now have rethought my position.

At this point, we at least have to try. Bush is systematically destroying our Constitutional form of government, one right at a time, and even if we can't get rid of him and his cabal, we need at least to get into the record his sorry history of malfeasance. We owe at least that much to future generations of repressed Americans who will wonder how we lost so much in so little time.