I think it is time for the president to shit or get off the pot. Action is required now. The voting public will support him without question. The anarchist must be dealt with today or we may not have a country left. All the so called moderate democrats as well as all democrats have not spoken out against these riots. What are they afraid of? The squad?
Interesting article by DANIEL HOROWITZ. A must read.
The hallmark of a first-world country is not that violence
never occurs within its borders, but that once it does, the damage is mitigated
immediately and the perpetrators are punished and future criminals deterred.
Yet here we are, over 80 days into this national insurrection by terrorist
groups like Back Lives Matter and Antifa, and there is no end in sight. Trump
is president today, not just after November 4. It's time for him to use
his inherent power to put down the insurrection.
The fact that crowds can celebrate about shooting a Trump supporter in cold
blood, rampage through Oakland and chant "death to America," and burn down
Kenosha until it looks like Beirut demonstrates that we are no longer dealing
with belligerent protests or even rioting, but with deadly terrorism. Our
tactics – both at the state and federal levels – must comport with this
reality.
On the state level, the notion that somehow police must
stand back and allow "protests" to fester until they get out of hand
and uncontrollable is absurd. When there is clear and present danger that
gatherings lead to violence, they can be dispersed. As the Supreme Court said
in Cantwell v. Connecticut (1940), "When clear and present
danger of riot, disorder, interference with traffic upon the public streets, or
other immediate threat to public safety, peace, or order appears, the power of
the State to prevent or punish is obvious." Thus, any discussion of
"right to protest" is out the window, especially after an 80-day
track record and trail of devastation in its wake.
Then there is the federal role. The notion that the
Constitution and statute somehow keep the federal government neutral or removed
from an organized insurrection is misguided and dangerous. From the early days
of the Whiskey Rebellion through the Civil War-era insurrections, the federal
government has been at the forefront of restoring peace when states are either
inherently incapable or unwilling to protect civil liberties and punish violent
forces, especially when they cross state lines and are national in scope.
Many commentators continue to make the mistake of believing
that the president needs permission of a governor or mayor to send in federal
forces to quell a rebellion. But the updates to the Insurrection Act in 1871 were
specifically designed to empower the president to put down insurrection
precisely in a scenario where state governments are turning a blind eye (or
encouraging) the uprisings.
The original Insurrection Act of 1807, first passed by
Congress in the form of the Militia Act of 1792, gave the president permission
to send in the military to a state "upon the request of its legislature or
of its governor if the legislature cannot be convened." However, during
the post-Civil War era, when states in the South turned a blind eye to KKK
violence toward black people, Congress saw a need to give the president
unilateral authority, a power that is codified in law to this very day. And for
good reason.
The Insurrection Act of 1871 reflects the spirit of the 14th
Amendment, which was ratified just a few years earlier. The entire point of the
14th Amendment was to empower the federal government to enforce fundamental
rights against states precisely when state governments where involved in those
violations. In those days, Southern states allowed white terrorists to
terrorize black people, punished black people for self-defense, and did not
pursue justice against white perpetrators. The 1871 act pushed by President
Ulysses Grant was, in a sense, the implementing legislation of the 14th
Amendment's Privileges and Immunities Clause, which gave the federal government enforcement power over
states that violate those natural rights.
According to the Washington Post, "[President] Grant's target was the violent Ku Klux Klan, which was, according to the
Coakley book, inciting 'its members to commit crimes, including murder, against
Republicans and blacks' and rarely facing prosecution."
Sound familiar? Reverse the races and that is what is
happening today. Blue states and cities are openly greenlighting Antifa and BLM
to destroy public and private property, randomly attack white people and/or
Trump supporters, take over roads and stop, threaten, and attack motorists, and
rarely face prosecution, while those who defend themselves are charged with
murder.
The 1871 act was created for exactly this sort of uprising
fueled by racial discrimination. Not only does the law, codified as amended
in 10
U.S. Code §253, §332-333, not require state permission for the president to
dispatch armed forces, it specifically charges him to do so when "the
constituted authorities of that State are unable, fail, or refuse to protect
that right, privilege, or immunity, or to give that protection; or opposes or obstructs the
execution of the laws of the United States or impedes the course of justice
under those laws" [emphasis added].
Per §332, the threshold for unilaterally calling in the
military, even against the wishes of the state government, is when
"unlawful obstructions, combinations, or assemblages, or rebellion against
the authority of the United States, make it impracticable to enforce the laws
of the United States in any State by the ordinary course of judicial
proceedings, he may call into Federal service such of the militia of any
State."
That threshold is clearly evident, nearly three months into
this uncontrolled mayhem in so many cities.
The president is also vested with the power to "take
such measures as he considers necessary to suppress, in a State, any
insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy" in
the aforementioned scenario.
The time has come for the president to actually suppress the
insurrection. What happened in Portland when DHS dispatched agents was a
disgrace. They were dispatched in a very defensive posture to defend a federal
building and wound up being blinded with lasers. This is a terrorist group they
are dealing with, and it requires appropriate force that stops the violence.
They must go on offense, seek out and confront the perpetrators, and shoot to
kill when the rebels are using deadly force.
Concomitantly, the Department of Justice must harness every
existing statute – from anti-terrorism laws (18 U.S. Code § 2383) to
cross-state racketeering laws (28 U.S. Code §1952) – to prosecute all of the
criminals being released or ignored by state and local prosecutors. They must
also go after local DAs who are violating civil rights and charging victims of
the mob with crimes for legitimately defending their lives. It's now reached
the point that in New Jersey, civilians will be charged with crimes for calling 911 when they feel
threatened if the subject of the call is black and the call is deemed false by
authorities. No such charge will be made if the races are reversed.
As the Washington Post observes regarding the implementation
of the 1871 law: "After learning that the KKK was still thriving in
several South Carolina counties, he [Grant] organized more than 1,000 soldiers
to round up several hundred Klansmen. 'Scores' of suspects were arrested, many
of them interrogated for several weeks without an indictment. By Jan. 1, 1872,
the Army had detained more than 600 men, and most of them were tried and
convicted in federal court."
Trump has the facts, the law, and the American people on his
side. Now is the time to read BLM the Riot Act. Now is the time to defend
America, not after he wins a second term. As Reagan said, "If not us, who?
And if not now, when?"
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