Martial law?

Okay, so what exactly did Brad Sherman mean by "a few members were even told there would be martial law in America" if Congress voted down the bailout plan? In a follow-up to his comments in the House debate, Rep. Sherman said he was simply repeating an example of "the increasingly unbelievable things that had been said while the House considered the bailout package."

Not everyone's reassured, given that the Army has brought a combat team stateside for active duty here in the US, the first time military forces have been deployed on a non-emergency basis on US soil since the Civil War. After watching our civil liberties being chewed away in at atmosphere of hyperpartisan fearmongering, and following hard on the mass arrests at the Republican National Convention, it's not hard to see the groundwork being laid for even wider suppression of Constitutional rights.