What goes on here?

Jerome Corsi's breathtaking story in WND earlier this week is giving me heart palpitations.

In case you missed it, Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Fla., a former judge impeached in 1981 by a Democratic House of Representatives and only the sixth federal judge ever to be removed by the U.S. Senate, has introduced a bill to establish at least six emergency centers for U.S. civilians in the event of some future, unspecified crisis.

"The bill also appears to expand the president's emergency power, much as the executive order signed by President Bush on May 9, 2007, that, as WND reported, gave the president the authority to declare an emergency and take over the direction of all federal, state, local, territorial and tribal governments without even consulting Congress," the story continues.

And here's some further context: "As WND also reported, DHS has awarded a $385 million contract to Houston-based KBR, Halliburton's former engineering and construction subsidiary, to build temporary detention centers on an 'as-needed' basis in national emergency situations."

I don't like it.

I don't trust Washington.

And I sure don't trust Alcee Hastings.

(Column continues below)

In 1981, the former judge, appointed by Jimmy Carter, was charged with accepting a $150,000 bribe in exchange for a lenient sentence and a return of seized assets for 21 counts of racketeering by Frank and Thomas Romano, and of perjury in his testimony about the case. He was acquitted by a jury after his alleged co-conspirator, William Borders, refused to testify. Borders went to jail.

In 1988, the Democratic-controlled U.S. House of Representatives took up the case, and Hastings was impeached for bribery and perjury by a vote of 413-3. Even Nancy Pelosi and John Conyers and Charlie Rangel voted to impeach Hastings. He was then easily convicted by the U.S. Senate and removed from office.

The Senate had the option to forbid Hastings from ever seeking federal office again, but – unwisely – did not do so.

So Hastings came back in 1993 to win his House seat.

Now he is promoting the building of "camps" for U.S. civilians.

It is Hastings who clearly belongs behind bars, not in the House of Representatives sponsoring draconian legislation.

The biggest "emergency" this nation faces is the overreaching of our federal government and its lack of concern over constitutional limits on its power.

Maybe we need detention facilities for out-of-control Washington powerbrokers.

I don't know what's behind this move.

Maybe it's no more than a distraction to make us nervous and persuade Americans to keep their big mouths shut and follow orders.

Maybe it's no more than an effort to create more make-work jobs for the constituents of Alcee Hastings and his colleagues.

Maybe it's all just a big misunderstanding.

But, whatever it is, I don't like the way it smells.

I don't like the way it tastes.

And I know it is spawned in this the-Constitution-be-damned mentality that pervades Washington.

So let's expose it.

Let's kill it.

Let's lock it up and throw away the key.

And let's declare a real emergency – one that has already hit us like a smack in the face with a baseball bat: The Constitution is daily being breached by the very people sworn to uphold and defend it. If anyone in America deserved to be rounded up and detained for the good of the country, it is those who are blatantly exceeding the strict limits on their authority and remaking our nation in their own corrupt and power-hungry image.

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