Originally published at: Trump Isn’t Waiting For The Insurrection Act To Turn The Military On American Citizens
President Trump teases his backup plan to use the military against Americans in blue cities on a near weekly basis. “We have an Insurrection Act for a reason,” he told reporters earlier this month. “If people were being killed and courts were holding us up, or governors or mayors were holding us up, sure, I’d…
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Why set himself up for a failure? Why follow the rules when you don’t have to? Why risk pissing off Putin? Why would he even be looking for trouble in this particular aspect of American life if he didn’t have big plans? Media, by and large, is not raising hell about him knocking down the part of the White House.
That he destroyed the East Wing which was significantly expanded during the time of FDR, foretells his malevolence and the harm ahead for middle class American people that FDR championed. We think we do but we don’t really know the depths of his depravity. He’s like Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal” come to life.
ETA: More colorful writing style and rage baiting.
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Trump and the radical right are not giving up the levers of wealth and power no matter what the electorate want.
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It really is only a matter of time before the Insurrection Act is put into place and activated. There are no guardrails to prevent this happening, even if the scenarios used to justify it are simply images in his rather addled brain.
We no longer have a working legislature. We no longer have a working SCOTUS. All bets are off and he will do it when it suits him with no obstacles.
I mean, hell, look at what he’s doing in the international waters off central America. You think he cares about propriety and legality? It is to laugh.
ETA: just got a notification from the Guardian that there was another alleged drug boat struck in the Caribbean.
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In former times one would think getting convicted of 34 felonies in criminal court close to an election would be enough to sink a candidacy. But here we are with a president who is a convicted (but yet to be sentenced) …
CRIMINAL
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I wonder how some – the operative word being “some” – at NGB (National Guard Bureau) are dealing with all this. There are significant differences between how the ARNG & ANG function under Title 32 and Title 10. The former is the Guard in its usual status within each state and the latter when federalized. Note that most of those at NGB serve in a Title 10 status, while even those on full-time duty in the states are under Title 32. Not to mention that much of the full-time support for the Guard is carried out by those serving as Military Technicians, civilian GS employees wearing uniforms. You might begin to see how there are issues within issues with the Guard.
To be honest, this rather interesting workaround being used by the Trump folks is something that was always on the table for someone in power to exploit. Notice the total absence of any mention of the Army Reserve or the other service’s Reserves? Could be a reason…
All this should warrant a rethink of the National Guard and its functions, probably won’t happen, to be honest given its lobbying power, but the Guard is Trump’s ace in the hole for the Insurrection Act and his continued forcing of authoritarian rule down our throats.
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At the risk of sounding hopelessly naive, I think there is one guardrail that could still prevent it, and that’s military establishment traditions. How far would the military go if he ordered martial law? As Hegseth put it in a recent speech, the job of the military is to kill people and break things. They are not trained in nonviolent law enforcement against civilians. The Kent State protester killings and the blowback from that was a lesson that the senior military brass will be well aware of.
So I think one reason Trump hasn’t invoked the insurrection act yet – one reason among many, including fear the SCOTUS might not back it – is that he can’t be sure the military would do what he wants them to do. This is not their mission.
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None had faith that the higher courts would hold the line.
It’s a bad sign with everyone except the Supreme Court has no faith in the common sense of the Supreme Court.
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courts grapple to determine how much presidential discretion this little-used statute affords. . . Bipartisan judges from California, Oregon and Illinois all found that conditions on the ground in Los Angeles, Portland and Chicago did not warrant deploying the Guard, . . . the Trump administration immediately appealed to the Supreme Court
The Court could issue a Solomonic decision that says Trump the Unitary has the power but facts still matter and they do not support his claim that Portland is burning to the ground and Chicago is a literal war zone. But such a decision is outside this Court’s skill set. They will let him invade blue cities in blue states right now, which will set the stage for military deployment to maintain peace and tranquility at voting sites in blue districts throughout the country. Not sure how he’ll deal with mail in voting, but that may not be necessary if voter intimidation meets his goals.
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Pete is quoting a Limbaugh, tough guy talking point from forty years ago. It passes for profound among Republicans.
The job of the military is to defend the country and keep the peace. Trump’s Gestapo isn’t that. It’s a pseudo justification for unamerican activity.
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What lesson is that? None of the guardsmen were criminally convicted.
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Well, I guess this explains why they just started calling us terrorists, rather than radicals or lunatics as he had been … When you’re a terrorist, common wisdom apparently decrees that they can and likely should execute you on the spot, no questions asked.
Guess that’s what’s percolating around in their little heads now, when it comes to protests. That makes the dumping shit video pretty minor pushback, when you think of it.
And despite his being generally a little too much of a weakling to carry this kind of stuff out himself, I expect this kind of action against humans has felt pretty okay to him ever since he threw the rock at the head of the baby next door.
Repressing hs full enthusiasm for this all these years may explain his major sexual-violence activity. too, I think – ramming his fingers under the skirt, into the underwear and into the vagina of women he doesn’t know. That’s not “groping,” as accounts often have it, but rape, and it’s called that in at least a few laws, as one of the New York judges noted. And rape is certainly act of total aggression number two in war zones.
Right now, we aren’t hearing about him doing any vicious finger rapes, so the boat-sinking murders are probably giving him some relief from his no doubt continual mad urges to murder every single “terrorist” Democrat as soon as possible. That, and knocking down the White House to the surprise of everyone, I guess.
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The lesson that in a time when the country is divided, it’s never a good idea to tarnish the traditional respect civilians have for the US military by killing innocent civilians.
The Kent State massacre wasn’t the only thing that ended the Vietnam War, but it was one of the reasons the government and military lost public support for the war.
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I think the sane and rational parts of NGB are painfully aware of the damage this is doing to the Guard’s “brand,” as well as to morale and retention.
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When fascists are on the march, they don’t stop. But they must be stopped, somehow.
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Trump’s acts as president are the barroom boor’s fantasies writ large. Every ‘we need to round them up…’ dolt’s opinion given flight.
Good news is, these dummies don’t have a military big enough to occupy the country, particularly one as well armed as we are. There is a fierce red line on gun ownership and it is immutable to political party.
Trump is inevitable the moment you allow one person to accumulate enough power/money to sink us all, then let them pass it on to their dumbfuck son.
If you couldn’t take it with you, and couldn’t leave it either, mankind would evolve more in the next 100 years than it did in the last thousand.
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What a sad little man (boy) he is. 79 years old, and he behaves like a five-year old. 25 47. Like now.
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spot on
I just wish the legacy media would woman up and admit this as well.
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