Bush grants self more power to declare Martial Law.

President Bush has signed into law a provision which,.. (revises) the Insurrection Act, a set of laws that limits the President's ability to deploy troops within the United States. The Insurrection Act (10 U.S.C.331 -335) has historically, along with the Posse Comitatus Act (18 U.S.C.1385), helped to enforce strict prohibitions on military involvement in domestic law enforcement.

Remember this when you vote in two weeks. Though Bush signed off on this thing, and we can't vote him out, we can sure do something about the losers in both houses who pushed this to his desk. And to those of you who say, "this isn't about Iraq, terrorism, or protesters, this is a response to the inability to deal with the aftermath of Katrina," I must, most respectfully declare Bullshit! If Bush and the Feds had been on the ball, and had not deployed Reserves and National Guard to Iraq in an underhanded attempt to avoid making the Iraq "police action" even more unpopular by instituting the draft.
Some of this is discussed on the "Wake up AMerica" podcast I linked to yesterday, but here are a lot more details. ( See I told you, it was worth your time to listen to the whole thing.)

Make no mistake about it: the de-facto repeal of the Posse Comitatus Act (PCA) is an ominous assault on American democratic tradition and jurisprudence. The 1878 Act, which reads, "Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army or Air Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both," is the only U.S. criminal statute that outlaws military operations directed against the American people under the cover of 'law enforcement.' As such, it has been the best protection we've had against the power-hungry intentions of an unscrupulous and reckless executive, an executive intent on using force to enforce its will.Unfortunately, this past week, the president dealt posse comitatus, along with American democracy, a near fatal blow. Consequently, it will take an aroused citizenry to undo the damage wrought by this horrendous act, part and parcel, as we have seen, of a long train of abuses and outrages perpetrated by this authoritarian administration.

via Slashdot