What the President Could Do If He Declares a State of Emergency

I think the author of the article overstates the situation, but I do think that the use of executive orders is at least too common a thing, and in some cases of questionable legality. Americans tend to view the office of President of the United States as responsible for things it isn't really responsible for. Example: "The <Fill in name of president here> tax-cuts" (heard everywhere from the water cooler to the evening news).

On the subject of deploying the military inside the United States, the first thing I think of is the response to Katrina. That was slow-motion. I still don't know where the dividing line is between what was said to be happening then and what was actually happening then (in terms of bad stuff on the ground, particularly in New Orleans), but I remember watching the news day after day that week and wondering WTF am I looking at? So, there are times in which not only should a President of the United States be allowed to send the active military into an area inside the US, but in which it needs to be happen fairly quickly.

None of these powers are absolute and circumvent a check or balance by Congress. Veterans get carried away with this stuff sometimes fearing that a President will go crazy and suspend the Constitution under martial law or that Congress might do it on their own. The biggest problem with that theory is most attempts at takeover by a President would involve his Cabinent members who are actually the administrators, further at some point Congress would have to weigh in with a vote or affirmation. Last but not least we have the third branch to challenge called the Supreme Court. So I personally never buy into these living on the edge articles that imply a coup could be just around the corner.

POTUS has never been an absolute ruler under our Constitution, if he was he wouldn't have Cabinet heads that have to sign off on his actions and POTUS cannot assume the powers of a Cabinet head he has to go down the line of succession until he finds one that is compliant with what he wants and at some point having done enough of that the other Cabinet members can sign a form stating that POTUS is no longer fit to be POTUS............there are so many checks and balances. Congress has wargamed just about every avenue of a power grab and covered it with another check and balance.

For example while I worked for USAREC as a civilian contractor we had a computer program that would mobilize all the Army Recruiters for war. Execution of that program had a hidden Congressional Check and Balance. Once the program was executed to mobilize, the Secretary of Defence office was notified electronically troops were being mobilized and would prompt for his consent. Additional notifications as well were sent out to various Army Commands and Civilian overseers. So that whole avenue of approach of conducting a secret mobilization was made impossible.