Guest Post by John W. Whitehead
“I don’t need invitations by the state, state mayors, or state governors, to do our job. We’re going to do that, whether they like us there or not.”—Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf’s defense of the Trump Administration’s deployment of militarized federal police to address civil unrest in the states
This is a wake-up call.
What is unfolding before our very eyes—with police agencies defying local governments in order to tap into the power of federal militarized troops in order to put down domestic unrest—could very quickly snowball into an act of aggression against the states, a coup by armed, militarized agents of the federal government.
At a minimum, this is an attack on the Tenth Amendment, which affirms the sovereignty of the states and the citizenry, and the right of the states to stand as a bulwark against overreach and power grabs by the federal government.
If you’re still deluding yourself into believing that this thinly-veiled exercise in martial law is anything other than an attempt to bulldoze what remains of the Constitution and reinforce the iron-fisted rule of the police state, you need to stop drinking the Kool-Aid.
This is no longer about partisan politics or civil unrest or even authoritarian impulses.
This is a turning point.
Unless we take back the reins—and soon—looking back on this time years from now, historians may well point to the events of 2020 as the death blow to America’s short-lived experiment in self-government.
The government’s recent actions in Portland, Oregon—when unidentified federal agents (believed to be border police, ICE and DHS agents), wearing military fatigues with patches that just say “Police” and sporting all kinds of weapons, descended uninvited on the city in unmarked vehicles, snatching protesters off the streets and detaining them without formally arresting them or offering any explanation of why they’re being held—is just a foretaste of what’s to come.
One of those detainees was a 53-year-old disabled Navy veteran who was in downtown Portland during the protests but not a participant. Concerned about the tactics being used by government agents who had taken an oath of office to protect and defend the Constitution, Christopher David tried to speak the “secret” police. Almost immediately, he was assaulted by federal agents, beaten with batons and pepper sprayed
Another peaceful protester was reportedly shot in the head with an impact weapon by this federal goon squad.
The Trump Administration has already announced its plans to deploy these border patrol agents to other cities across the country (Chicago is supposedly next) in an apparent bid to put down civil unrest. Yet the overriding concerns by state and local government officials to Trump’s plans suggest that weaponizing the DHS as an occupying army will only provoke more violence and unrest.
We’ve been set up.
Under the guise of protecting federal properties against civil unrest, the Trump Administration has formed a task force of secret agents who look, dress and act like military stormtroopers on a raid and have been empowered to roam cities in unmarked vehicles, snatching citizens off the streets, whether or not they’ve been engaged in illegal activities.
As the Guardian reports, “The incidents being described sound eerily reminiscent of the CIA’s post-9/11 rendition program under George W Bush, where intelligence agents would roll up in unmarked vans in foreign countries, blindfold terrorism suspects (many of whom turned to be innocent) and kidnap them without explanation. Only instead of occurring on the streets of Italy or the Middle East, it’s happening in downtown Portland.”
The so-called racial justice activists who have made looting, violence, vandalism and intimidation tactics the hallmarks of their protests have played right into the government’s hands
They have delivered all of us into the police state’s hands.
There’s a reason Trump has tapped the Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Customs and Border Protection for this dirty business: these agencies are notorious for their lawlessness, routinely sidestepping the Constitution and trampling on the rights of anyone who gets in their way, including legal citizens.
Indeed, it was only a matter of time before these roving bands of border patrol agents began flexing their muscles far beyond the nation’s borders and exercising their right to disregard the Constitution at every turn.
Except these border patrol cops aren’t just disregarding the Constitution.
They’re trampling all over the Constitution, especially the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits the government from carrying out egregious warrantless searches and seizures without probable cause.
As part of the government’s so-called crackdown on illegal immigration, drugs and trafficking, its border patrol cops have been expanding their reach, roaming further afield and subjecting greater numbers of Americans to warrantless searches, ID checkpoints, transportation checks, and even surveillance on private property far beyond the boundaries of the borderlands.
That so-called border, once a thin borderline, has become an ever-thickening band spreading deeper and deeper inside the country.
Now, with this latest salvo by the Trump administration in its so-called crackdown on rioting and civil unrest, America itself is about to become a Constitution-free zone where freedom is off-limits and government agents have all the power and “we the people” have none.
The Customs and Border Protection (CBP), with its more than 60,000 employees, supplemented by the National Guard and the U.S. military, is an arm of the Department of Homeland Security, a national police force imbued with all the brutality, ineptitude and corruption such a role implies.
As journalist Todd Miller explains:
In these vast domains, Homeland Security authorities can institute roving patrols with broad, extra-constitutional powers backed by national security, immigration enforcement and drug interdiction mandates. There, the Border Patrol can set up traffic checkpoints and fly surveillance drones overhead with high-powered cameras and radar that can track your movements. Within twenty-five miles of the international boundary, CBP agents can enter a person’s private property without a warrant.
Just about every nefarious deed, tactic or thuggish policy advanced by the government today can be traced back to the DHS, its police state mindset, and the billions of dollars it distributes to local police agencies in the form of grants to transform them into extensions of the military.
As Miller points out, the government has turned the nation’s expanding border regions into “a ripe place to experiment with tearing apart the Constitution, a place where not just undocumented border-crossers, but millions of borderland residents have become the targets of continual surveillance.”
In much the same way that police across the country have been schooled in the art of sidestepping the Constitution, border cops have also been drilled in the art of “anything goes” in the name of national security.
In fact, according to FOIA documents shared with The Intercept, border cops even have a checklist of “possible behaviors” that warrant overriding the Constitution and subjecting individuals—including American citizens—to stops, searches, seizures, interrogations and even arrests.
For instance, if you’re driving a vehicle that to a border cop looks unusual in some way, you can be stopped. If your passengers look dirty or unusual, you can be stopped. If you or your passengers avoid looking at a cop, you can be stopped. If you or your passengers look too long at a cop, you can be stopped.
If you’re anywhere near a border (near being within 100 miles of a border, or in a city, or on a bus, or at an airport), you can be stopped and asked to prove you’re legally allowed to be in the country. If you’re traveling on a public road that smugglers and other criminals may have traveled, you can be stopped.
If you’re not driving in the same direction as other cars, you can be stopped. If you appear to be avoiding a police checkpoint, you can be stopped. If your car appears to be weighed down, you can be stopped. If your vehicle is from out of town, wherever that might be, you can be stopped. If you’re driving a make of car that criminal-types have also driven, you can be stopped.
If your car appears to have been altered or modified, you can be stopped. If the cargo area in your vehicle is covered, you can be stopped.
If you’re driving during a time of day or night that border cops find suspicious, you can be stopped. If you’re driving when border cops are changing shifts, you can be stopped. If you’re driving in a motorcade or with another vehicle, you can be stopped. If your car appears dusty, you can be stopped.
If people with you are trying to avoid being seen, or exhibiting “unusual” behavior, you can be stopped. If you slow down after seeing a cop, you can be stopped.
In Portland, which is 400 miles from the border, protesters didn’t even have to be near federal buildings to be targeted. Some claimed to be targeted for simply wearing black clothing in the area of the demonstration.
Are you starting to get the picture yet?
This was never about illegal aliens and border crossings at all. It’s been a test to see how far “we the people” will allow the government to push the limits of the Constitution.
We’ve been failing this particular test for a long time now.
It was 1798 when Americans, their fears stoked by rumblings of a Quasi-War with France, failed to protest the Alien and Sedition Acts, which criminalized anti-government speech, empowered the government to deport “dangerous” non-citizens and made it harder for immigrants to vote.
During the Civil War, Americans went along when Abraham Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus (the right to a speedy trial) and authorized government officials to spy on Americans’ mail.
During World War I, Americans took it in stride when President Woodrow Wilson and Congress adopted the Espionage and Sedition Acts, which made it a crime to interfere with the war effort and criminalized any speech critical of war.
By World War II, Americans were marching in lockstep with the government’s expanding war powers to imprison Japanese-American citizens in detainment camps, censor mail, and lay the groundwork for the future surveillance state.
Fast-forward to the Cold War’s Red Scares, the McCarthy era’s hearings on un-American activities, and the government’s surveillance of Civil Rights activists such as Martin Luther King Jr.—all done in the name of national security.
By the time 9/11 rolled around, all George W. Bush had to do was claim the country was being invaded by terrorists, and the government was given greater powers to spy, search, detain and arrest American citizens in order to keep America safe.
The terrorist invasion never really happened, but the government kept its newly acquired police powers made possible by the nefarious USA Patriot Act.
Barack Obama continued Bush’s trend of undermining the Constitution, going so far as to give the military the power to strip Americans of their constitutional rights, label them extremists, and detain them indefinitely without trial, all in the name of keeping America safe.
Despite the fact that the breadth of the military’s power to detain American citizens violates not only U.S. law and the Constitution but also international laws, the government has refused to relinquish its detention powers made possible by the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).
Then Donald Trump took office, claiming the country was being invaded by dangerous immigrants and insisting that the only way to keep America safe was to build an expensive border wall, expand the reach of border patrol, and empower the military to “assist” with border control.
That so-called immigration crisis has now morphed into multiple crises (domestic extremism, the COVID-19 pandemic, race wars, civil unrest, etc.) that the government is eager to use in order to expand its powers.
Yet as we’ve learned the hard way, once the government acquires—and uses—additional powers (to spy on its citizens, to carry out surveillance, to transform its police forces into extensions of the police, to seize taxpayer funds, to wage endless wars, to censor and silence dissidents, to identify potential troublemakers, to detain citizens without due process), it does not voluntarily relinquish them
This is the slippery slope on which we’ve been traveling for far too long.
As Yale historian Timothy Snyder explains, “This is a classic way that violence happens in authoritarian regimes, whether it’s Franco’s Spain or whether it’s the Russian Empire. The people who are getting used to committing violence on the border are then brought in to commit violence against people in the interior.”
Sure, it’s the Trump Administration calling the shots right now, but it’s government agents armed with totalitarian powers and beholden to the bureaucratic Deep State who are carrying out these orders in defiance of the U.S. Constitution and all it represents.
Whether it’s Trump or Biden or someone else altogether, this year or a dozen years from now, the damage has been done: as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, we have allowed the president to acquire dictatorial powers that can be unleashed at any moment.
There’s a reason the Trump Administration is consulting with John Yoo, the Bush-era attorney notorious for justifying waterboarding torture tactics against detainees. They’re not looking to understand how to follow the law and abide by the Constitution. Rather, they’re desperately seeking ways to thwart the Constitution.
As Harvard constitutional law professor Laurence Tribe recognizes, “The dictatorial hunger for power is insatiable.
This is how it begins.
This is how it always begins.
Don’t be fooled into thinking any of this will change when the next election rolls around.
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I can’t figure out whose side this guy is on. In defense of Trump, the first half sounded more like hyperbole. Trump finally does something to protect a federal building from commies and he’s suddenly worse than the last five Presidents combined. Illegal stopping on highways is new? When I was a kid a cop merely had to wave you over and you better stop. How can I take a writer serious who carries on like Whitehead.
Forgive me, but this article is horse shit.
Just how much anarchy do you want to permit? How many people should be beaten or killed, how many buildings burned, how many national monuments defiled, how many cops injured trying to do their jobs? And you take issue with Homeland Security enforcing black letter law? And this is some sort of an illegal coup?
There were 50 Chicago cops injured in just last weekend’s rioting, and you whine about one rioter in the mob accidentally hit with a rubber bullet, like he’s a martyr? Bullshit.
I like TBP, but your take on all this organized chaos is simply wrong as hell.
We saw what you did there bob!
I have to agree. The Constitution is dead and I am sick of stupid fuckers refusing to acknowledge it. I would have sent the Marines marching in a longass time ago and summarily dismissed the assholes destroying our heritage. Give them a quick trial and send ’em out back to the wall.
The whole reason we have no rule of law? Lawyers like this who sat around and charged $300/hour to twist the Constitution into something it was never intended to be.
The 10th Amendment to the U S Constitution died in 1861 when the federal government would not let the southern states leave the union they voluntarily joined.
This poor, poor pitiful soul is just now figuring out the import of the Patriot Act? Did he also just notice the AUMF? Sad. Wonder how the War on Terror has sunk into his consciousness? Kinda late to be all upset about this. Should have paid better attention back in 2001. Everything that’s happening with the DHS is part and parcel of what’s allowed under the Patriot Act. Wonder if he’s aware of how the Patriot Act allows for detention without counsel or charges?
As to the whiney tone he’s adopted about Constitutional Rights? What a pathetic little soy boy. Wonder how aggrieved he’d be if it were any president other than Trump pursuing these actions? Guess he’s ok with riots and arson and looting, with destruction of property and attacking any and sundry who have the misfortune to get in the way of the mob? Amusing how he ignores the terror that the mob has inflicted on the city for almost two months now and even more amusing at how he defends those dickless wonders calling themselves mayor and governor.
My Girl says:
“This poor, poor pitiful soul is just now figuring out the import of the Patriot Act…”
I distinctly remember reading “Battlefield America” by this same author in 2015, not sure what books he may have written prior to that, but he is certainly not “just now figuring out…”
Saami, lil’ fella, here’s my response to your feeble attempt at defending this author’s histrionic and hysterical diatribe masquerading as a coherent article:
Whitehead is acting (writing) like he’s just figuring it out how the Patriot Act can be used. Spare me his sanctimonious bullshit here, he’s crying over murderous mobs and rioters who have destroyed millions if not billions worth of dollars in property, who have maimed and killed people, destroyed lives and businesses all the while conveniently ignoring the victims of the terrorists. Fact. The ‘protesters’ aren’t protesting jack, they are terrorizing innocent people while endeavoring to overthrow and subvert whatever stands in the way of a communist takeover. If you haven’t figured that out yet, well….
Why do the leftist politicians protect the rioting terrorist? Because it is part and parcel of how to destroy a country and a people. How to foment strife, rebellion and destroy a country? Do exactly what the leftist mayors and governors are doing, giving the terrorists free rein and push for endless strife and turmoil. Would you like to see what a country overrun with ‘peaceful protestors’ looks like?
.
This was Minneapolis. See any differences?
“…we have allowed the president to acquire dictatorial powers that can be unleashed at any moment.”
Utter Horseshit. There is no collective “We” that allows anything.
“We” is a false construct in a nation of broken families, marriages, and friendships that are further shredded every day by government overreach into every aspect of our lives justified by stupidity and outright lies.
There is no we. At all. Nor will there be.
Federal agents are well within their legal domain to shoot ‘peaceful’ protestors who, with intent to injure, start throwing bricks, bottles and firebombs at them while they protect a Federal building or statue. And if their mothers act as their shields for their adult children’s mindless mayhem…
… we should grant Federal agents the dictatorial power of flamethrowers!
They can borrow my flame thrower …for free .
The nut job cities just had to stop the riots with cops or the national guard and none of this would have been needed.
If the feds corral hundreds/thousands of violent protesters and terrorists and ship them off to work camps in Alaska then maybe there’s a little over reach. Sending civilian law enforcement to protect federal assets in cities where the mayors refuse to appropriately act is dereliction of their sworn oath of office and invites higher authority to step in.
Liberal heads will explode if the Japanese practice of marking lawbreakers with blue ink starts being used here. So much easier to make the arrest after the fact. Who ever said war is played with nice guy rules?
I agree with the Author that current police tactics are unConstitutional and building a Backlash; but the bigger problem is that every time the Leftist get a loophole to satisfy a demand, they drive a Communist Battleship through it. The Communist Revolution needs to be stopped cold. If Trump would go for the heads of the snake, the Communist Revolution would die out for lack of funds and leadership. By Nov2020, the Deplorables will have had enough and Conservatives will end the Revolution for a hundred years to come.
Unconstitutional how? Ignorance of the Code of Federal Regulations doesn’t make them unconstitutional. The protesters were trying to set fire to an occupied Federal building, aping the anarchists who torched the Minneapolis Police Precinct and the terrorized a large portion of Seattle.
How would you stop that, in a constitutionally compliant manner, if you were POTUS and local governments were content sucking their thumbs and NGOs were handing Million-Dollar pacifiers to mobs who looted, burned and murdered.
You probably think Red Bull’s CEO acted unconstitutionally for firing HR directors who insisted the company pander to BLM and Antifa.
Your ‘head of the snake’ theory would require decapitating every whiny malcontent moldering in momma’s basement, not just Slick Willy-pardoned firebombing communists.
I invite you to tell the mobs how fed up you are and ‘drive’ your own battleship through their ‘holes’.
Right. You’re part of the illusory “We”, yes, who allow Trump to barge into Portland’s sanctioned 60 days of terrorist block parties?
CFR § 1047.7 Use of deadly force.
(a) Deadly force means that force which a reasonable person would consider likely to cause death or serious bodily harm. Its use may be justified only under conditions of extreme necessity, when all lesser means have failed or cannot reasonably be employed. A protective force officer is authorized to use deadly force only when one or more of the following circumstances exists:
(1) Self-Defense. When deadly force reasonably appears to be necessary to protect a protective force officer who reasonably believes himself or herself to be in imminent danger of death or serious bodily harm.
(2) Serious offenses against persons. When deadly force reasonably appears to be necessary to prevent the commission of a serious offense against a person(s) in circumstances presenting an imminent danger of death or serious bodily harm (e.g. sabotage of an occupied facility by explosives).
(3) Nuclear weapons or nuclear explosive devices. When deadly force reasonably appears to be necessary to prevent the theft, sabotage, or unauthorized control of a nuclear weapon or nuclear explosive device.
(4) Special nuclear material. When deadly force reasonably appears to be necessary to prevent the theft, sabotage, or unauthorized control of special nuclear material from an area of a fixed site or from a shipment where Category II or greater quantities are known or reasonably believed to be present.
(5) Apprehension. When deadly force reasonably appears to be necessary to apprehend or prevent the escape of a person reasonably believed to: (i) have committed an offense of the nature specified in paragraphs (a)(1) through (a)(4) 1 of this section; or (ii) be escaping by use of a weapon or explosive or who otherwise indicates that he or she poses a significant threat of death or serious bodily harm to the protective force officer or others unless apprehended without delay.
1 These offenses are considered by the Department of Energy to pose a significant threat of death or serious bodily harm.
(b) Additional Considerations Involving Firearms. If it becomes necessary to use a firearm, the following precautions shall be observed:
(1) A warning, e.g. an order to halt, shall be given, if feasible, before a shot is fired.
(2) Warning shots shall not be fired.
(3) Flamethrowers shall be used to defrock enabling mothers.*
* If I were a dictatorial POTUS
Dude you will never have a revolution. You will have an American massacre of patriots. Americans are just like a teenager working th night shift at a 7-11 store, seated at the register, staring into their phones as the place is being robbed. Unless you cut off the fucking internet, television, cellphones, and NFL and sports and force these lazy Americans to pay attention as their entire fucking store is being looted while they play checkers on their phone.
The outcome is that cellphone will be snatched from their slumbering play, by a jackbooted communist screaming at them and they will look around in bewilderment wondering what happened to their store. Not understanding who or why this jackboot is screaming at them. They will comply while verbally complaining their rights are being violated but do not realized their rights have been gone for decades. They were in a time warp of fucking games on their phones while their rights were being “Clintonized”.
Exactly. Why weren’t the self confessed Marxists who lead Antifa picked up the time the first building got burned down?
Personally,seems like I will not be left alone,times will get more interesting.
The only thing I like about getting older tis the “Older you get /the more you have left to lose feeling”,hmmmm……
Whitehead should squeeze his skull to drain the pus in his head
Something for the front page:
Get it before it’s gone.
A call for action has entered the chat:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0biMXee_Uqo
Revel in its glory.
Courtesy John ward (world champion)
Well, it seems to me that local government has vacated their responsibilities to the law abiding citizens. They also allow people to infringe on others rights to seek a peaceful life. The true threat are the local government who refuse to prosecute law breakers. If the federal government want to defend their property within a star they can. This is just where the democrats want.
John,
It could be that there is a civil war going on. The last one already destroyed some very important rules of the Republic.
Would it matter if these people are being arrested for federal crimes? Would it matter if this is a way to combat the mail in vote even?
>The Federal Coup to Overthrow the States and Nix the 10th Amendment Is Underway<
What a clown! Try having a different standard for acceptable abortion in your state then the Feds "standard"?
Or marriage.
This Civil War is starting with some plot twists I never anticipated. Sons of bitches might kill me but I hope I last long enough to see it play out. Get more ammo. Do you all have a short list of those who need to be educated?
OC…glad you joined the buy more ammo train .
What a load of horseshit. Some of these lefty states are allowing anarchy, and the freedoms of ordinary citizens are being squashed in those states.
And so if the Feds come in to try to stop the anarchy, they are the evil doers.
That is an entire load of shit.
I would maybe board the a Trump Train if he would unleash hell on all those shitholes, using every damn weapon at his disposal to bring law and order back to the citizens of the US.
This fuckwit can kiss my ass.
Concur 100%!
“The means of defence against foreign danger have been always the instruments of tyranny at home. Among the Romans it was a standing maxim to excite a war, whenever a revolt was apprehended. Throughout all Europe, the armies kept up under the pretext of defending, have enslaved the people.”
(James Madison)
Trump is coming for them today; tomorrow he will be coming for you!
https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/debates_629.asp
Bullshit. Trump is taking action against what obutthole obama started. That little prick Started this and is still running BLM that is why he stayed in Washington. Again, they think they will win…….
Funny how quiet the Magic Negro and the rest of the “Resistance” has been while the cities get thrashed. After 50-some days of ignorance the DHS brownshirts finally come out and still not a peep.
The Democrats won’t be happy until every US city looks like 8 Mile and stinks like Detroit.
Sorry Whitehead, but I could not get past the first few paragraphs after you started in on soft martial law because Trump took action. So, Whitehead, where you been? Have you been complaining about the democrats, sanctuary cities allowing the American citizenry to become hostages to violent thugs while their history and culture is being torn down?
(This deserves its own paragraph) Have you been writing about how democrat communist have turned their cities into sanctuary cities for illegal immigrants. Some cities of 35,000 only have 9,000 American citizens yet when voting happens over 25,000 votes are cast. In addition, and most egregiously these communist use these illegal immigrant numbers to influence the House seats. Trump just stopped this by executive order. So, should every foreigner on vacation get to vote in our elections? How about every foreign college exchange student? What about someone on, say, a 6 month work visa? What about criminals that sneak into this country and steal money and jobs and do not pay taxes but get their babies delivered for free at top hospitals, get doctor and medical care free, get housing, WIC, food stamps, gas cards, and an obutthole phone all for free because the democrats refuse to ask if they are deserving tax paying citizens just down on their luck and need govt assistance. Nope. They get all this free shit and make tins of tax free money and send it back home supporting their country’s tax base and family. All while stealing from this countrys tax base. And we are ro allow them to vote in our elections! What if a vote came up to eliminate such programs and said programs are only for American citizens? How do you think these illegals will vote! Here lies the problem. These democrats remain in power because they support such programs, name their cities sanctuary’s for these people and more show up. If they were voted out and benefits were based on id of citizenship, and these people were cut off from free shit they would leave. We would not be discussing illegals voting in our elections. Furthermore, and lastly, if we continue this then I propose we allow all foreigners around the world to get a mail in ballot and vote in our election…to apply for all our free shit. Whats the difference? Oh, you say only allow those brazen enough to commit federal and state crimes ro come here illegally and steal benefits get that opportunity to vote and be protected, as criminals, and continue to get free shit. Makes a lot of sense if you are a communist fucktard.
So, when the feds go into a sanctuary city to protect American citizens, whitehead, it is now some kind of martial law? Have you complained the current local politicians and police are derelict in their duties and should be impeached? Have you started a grass roots movement to begin impeachment signature process? Naw, you just bitch about trump taking action to protect Americans, federal property, rule of law. Too bad you don’t send your writing out by mail it sure would come in handy to wipe my ass in todays toilet paper shortage.
For nearly a decade, almost since this site has been around I have been reading the primary longterm comments that supposedly have respect. However, There is one issue I have had a very long time to consider and contemplate and that is, voting. Some of these long termers at every chance spout their opinion and bully in their comments their stance against voting.
So, I ask you here who are trying to get, (obviously most if not all here are American citizens) to get us to stop voting. You are a communist pigs. None of you have provided an alternative, started a movement, nor taken any decisive action to replace our vote with combined action. You sit on your asses, like little keyboard warriors, and snipe shots that do no good. You are full of opinions and zero fucking action. Not one of you have done a damn thing (not mentioned any actions at least) to fix these problems. But, somehow your brilliant idea of promoting citizens to give up their non violent means of change and right to vote?!! You offer not a goddamned thing in its place. Just a simple bullying point of “you are stupid if you vote”.
You do not propose the outcome of citizens withholding their votes. You do not offer a thesis of why it would help our cause. You are too fucking fat and lazy and small brained and prefer to use a keyboard and mouse. Well, fuck you. The only non violent thing we have left is our voice of voting power. For after this is lost then our enemies will kill us all. You keyboard fucktards are part of the enemy, because you allowed us to lose by promoting not voting. Not using our only non violent method of voices heard. Of change. We will die. Some of us will die standing on our feet and some on our knees. But theAmerican patriots will all die.
And I hope you fucktard keyboard warriors, outlive your children.
Ok glownigger.
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=glownigger
Fedup.
Thanks for the new term. I like it.
Anonass
Your last sentance tells me everything I need to know about you.
Pot, meet Mr Anonymous kettle.
Why? Ol’ anonymous just wrote and voiced the same concerns that I’ve been asking of the ‘don’t vote, Trump’s a bum’ clique for quite awhile now. Not one person in that clique has offered a viable alternative to not voting, instead we get the usual blather about how it’s all going to hell anyways and why bother, Trump’s a liar and so on. If a suggestion comes as to some form of revolution, like get out there and get your ass shot off, White boy, there’s no real and viable plan of action offered besides ‘you first and you ought to….’
Anon got a bit agitated and nasty there but his/her original question was sound.
Not one person? Typical of your misinformation tactics. I have indeed offered solutions and attempted to get discussion going on methods of revolting “PEACEFULLY” or otherwise. Not a peep out of any of you Trumpeter Swanssongers.
You on the other hand have not replied to questions by at least 6 of our members like TC, Panzer, And CCR to name some.
Questions? What questions? All your ‘member’ clique does is Bash Trump. I said VIABLE alternative, not some fanciful fairy tale notion of how things should be in a perfect world.
The state can’t do it, the feds can’t do it, so who is going to shut down these communists and protect those who want freedom as opposed to uncontrolled rioting and violence. OK , TELL ME WHO IS GOING TO TAKE CARE OF BUSINESS?
Now if this were the Federal Reserve, I might be all for it. That said, if the city or state authorities won’t protect a Federal building, does not the Federal government have the right to do it themselves?
Kansas City is to set to see nearly 300 Federal agents arrive shortly. There has been no riots since the first couple weeks after the Floyd incident. No Federal buildings have been threatened, to my knowledge. The reason they are being sent is to “help with the ongoing mostly black on black shootings”. Whitehead makes a good point here:
“Sure, it’s the Trump Administration calling the shots right now, but it’s government agents armed with totalitarian powers and beholden to the bureaucratic Deep State who are carrying out these orders in defiance of the U.S. Constitution and all it represents.”
That’s exactly the case. These agents are about as trustworthy as the people shooting each other on the streets. All it will do is escalate the violence and make KC a target for out of state BLM communists.
Andy Ngo has kept track of the ones who have been arrested in Portland. None have disappeared. They are released and he posts their mugshots on twitter. All of them are white. In fact, it seems that a lot of the BLM rioters are white.
Tsk, the time to complain was almost twenty years ago when the Patriot Act was passed almost unanimously in Congress. Each subsequent president has kept it and embellished it.
As to the ‘protesters’ being caught and released? You can be certain that they will be monitored and watched. They just got a message and time will tell if they take that message to heart and that message is ‘we know who you are’ and you won’t be able to hide.
BLM is a communist front, the ‘creators’ of the movement are black communist females and their ‘mentor’ is a communist black female cop killer hiding in Cuba. The fact that white assholes are involved should tell you all you need to know about ‘black lives matter.’ It has nothing to do with black lives except as a front to hide behind, calling anyone who goes against their mantra evil and killing them.
BLM, Occupy, the DNC, “Act Blue”, and “Thousand Currents” are all financially linked in some way or another. All are fronts in various forms for “fellow travelers” and have been for years.
It’s not a coincidence that one “Thousand Currents” member is/was a “Weather Underground” terrorist named Susan Rosenberg and Patrisse Cullors is a “trained Marxist”.
This little Frankenstein the Progs and leftists have humored will come back to bite them. Hard.
Slippery Slope or is it a slip & slide set up for President Trump to slide out of the Oval Office in 2020 ? The Democrat Mayors and Governors failed miserably to stop the violent protests that digressed into rioting and looting ! In times of civil unrest looters are shot !
Their failure to protect the businesses and the tax paying citizens from this onslaught of lawlessness as they sucked one thumb and rotated the other up their collective asses then in unison switched and ordered their law enforcement to stand down !
This is the reason the president has risked severe criticism by stepping in to protect federal properties . Unconstitutional probably on many levels like Lincoln , stand down and watch the nation unravel or step up and do something unpopular .
I’m no super fan of President Trump for many reasons but he is in my opinion the best we could get at the time and place in history .
I just think he needs a better budget advisor like my mother in-law ! She put three kids thru catholic school , 2 family trips to Disney world and bought a comfy trailer in a beach community for her family to enjoy all on a GM assembly workers salary and clipping coupons !
OK. Enough. I know this is, at least in theory, something of a libertarian site. I share many libertarian ideas, up to a point. John W. Whitehead reached and vastly exceeded that point with this wretched, muddle-headed nonsense. Is this guy for real? Does he live in a cave? Float on a cloud? Is he stuck in a 1957 time warp?
Whitehead’s article is so dangerous, so foolish, so, so, so bad, that I have to answer it point by point.
“The Federal Coup to Overthrow the States and Nix the Tenth Amendment is Underway!”, screeches Chicken Little.
Hate to be the one to tell him he is a bit late with this amazing news. 155 years late. Since 1865 the Federal government has treated the state governments with utter disdain, allowing them to continue to perform such functions as garbage collection, arresting shoplifters, and allowing legislators to shuffle around state capitol buildings stuffing their pockets with taxpayer money. The states lick the ample buttocks of the Federal government so they will be tossed a bone now and then to help them balance their budgets.
As a Southerner, I am as much a states rights man as Whitehead. The difference is that I have no illusions. That battle – and the Constitution – was lost in 1865. Let’s move on.
Whitehead is aghast at the site of Federal law enforcement officers enforcing Federal law. By God, they are defying local officials with their mere presence! Whitehead the Goofball apparently does not understand, one, that these agents are acting entirely with in the law and Constitution in protecting Federal property from violent rioters (Lincoln sparked the Civil War when he protected Federal property – Fort Sumter – from the Confederates). Two, the opinions and bleating of so-called “local governments” mean precisely nothing. The president has all the legal authority he needs to enforce the law anywhere inside the United States. This is especially true when said “local governments” have openly and defiantly refused to enforce the law, state and Federal, protect personal and government property, and protect the lives and well-being of the citizens.
Whitehead moans about the tactics used by Federal agents to confront violent rioters in Portland, Oregon (incidentally, one of the nastiest hotbeds of Leftist hate in America), who Whitehead, with a straight face refers to as “protesters”. He says the Feds arrived “uninvited”. Is he nuts? The president does not need an invitation from a Leftist kook mayor to prevent the Federal courthouse from being burned down. As for the “protesters”, they are anything but. They are rioters and terrorist, pure and simple, as is brutally obvious from television news coverage. “Protesters” tearing down barricades and whacking cops over the head with skateboards or pelting them with frozen jars of water?
The fact is, Trump waited too long to confront these BLM and Antifa scum, and he has yet to use the kind of force needed to end these riots once and for all.
Whitehead drags out the usual “patriot” who sympathizes with the rioters and anarchists, a “53 year-old disabled Navy veteran” who was in downtown Portland during the protests, “but was not a participant”. Right. This genius goes up to embattled cops in the middle of a street fight and apparently starts quoting the Constitution. He claims they beat the shit out of him and pepper-sprayed him. I doubt it, but hope they did. He deserved no less. There are clueless leftist “Navy veterans” and Communist ex-Marines. They deserve no special consideration.
And of course another “peaceful protester” was shot in the head with an “impact weapon” by the “Federal goon squads”. Translation: Some loud-mouthed leftist punk throwing rocks at the cops got a rubber bullet in the coconut for his troubles. Boo-hoo.
Trump is planning to extend this diabolical plan to other cities. Oh, the humanity! Oh, the horror! Did you see the riot at the Columbus statue in Chicago the other day? Looks like the Chicago cops could use some help. Don’t expect the “local government”, Mayor Popeye Lesbian Lightfoot, to ask for it.
Whitehead then has the almighty gall to quote The Guardian, an extreme left British newspaper, in describing Trumps’ action as resembling the post 9/11 rendition program for terrorists. Full disclosure. Although I never participated directly in any renditions, I set up one of the first ones. The piece of dung had helped murder more than 50 European tourists and was hiding out. Both the government of the country he was in and his home country were more than happy to work with us to grab this killer, slap an adult diaper on him, shove a suppository with sedative up his ass, and send him off to pay for his sins.
The fact is, the Federal agents are grabbing riot ringleaders off of the streets, which is exactly the tactic they should be using.
Whitehead then goes after the Border Patrol and U.S. Customs. Unrestricted immigration is one of this fool’s hobby horses. Open borders, Come one. Come all. All seven billion of you! He is too stupid to realize that until the usual suspects changed the laws in 1965, we had no illegal immigration problem. The Feds quickly and efficiently identified people who had no right to be here AND KICKED THEM OUT! A gasbag like Whitehead complains that Border Patrol is now searching for illegals all over the country. Well, no kidding. Thanks to dunderheads like Whitehead, we have illegals all over the country. Now it isn’t just a few Mexicans wading the river to pick tomatoes. I assume he also wants them to vote, sit on juries, and be elected to the highest offices in the land.
This guy goes on and on about the poor Border Patrol agents. He is apparently a fanatic on the subject of flooding this country with diseased paupers, Hindu “computer experts” trained to take away jobs from our kids, and Nigerian entrepreneurs.
He is really upset about the the Department of Homeland Security. Well, I understand that. First, that word “Homeland”. Before 9/11 no American ever born referred to our country as the “Homeland”. None. Ever. This to me is proof positive that a foreign (cough, cough) hand wrote the so-called Patriot Act, which I opposed then and oppose now. That law was clearly written long before 9/11, ready for implementation by a panicked Congress. It is, as Whitehead says, a sinister document that is so clearly unconstitutional that only a willfully blind person could deny it. Whitehead does have a point here. I believe a commission should be formed to completely revise all national security laws, leaving intact only those portions needed to confront genuine foreign and internal threats. Not that this will ever happen……
The author goes on to criticize Lincoln for suspending the right of habeas corpus and opening people’s mail. I had to laugh out loud. Here Whitehead does not have the guts to say what the Lincoln government really did. He went far beyond peeking at people’s letters or throwing a few rude newspaper owners in jail. As a Southerner, I can say that Lincoln was absolutely right to crush all dissent in the North. If he had not, he might well have lost the war. Well, folks, I lost the war, the Confederacy is a fact, but at least I followed the Constitution to the letter! Ha!
Let me add, in fairness to Lincoln, that the Confederate authorities usually dealt with similar disaffected people in a rather different way. They hanged them.
Whitehead has a point about WWI and Woodrow Wilson. As far as WWII and the Japanese-Americans are concerned, the past is a different country. Yeah, it was unjust and unconstitutional, but America was a 90 percent white country back then and non-whites with origins in an enemy nation were suspect. Not right but understandable.
A truth teller as to Whitehead’s basic ignorance is his use of the hoary old lies about Senator Joseph McCarthy, “Red Scares”, etc. McCarthy was a hero and patriot who exposed the real rot in the heart of our government and institutions. The truth is that Communist infiltration was far, far worse than even McCarthy imagined. We are seeing the fruits of 60 years of Communist infiltration of our universities and government right now on the streets of our cities. As for St. Martin and the civil rights movement, most Americans accept it as a given that it was a good and necessary thing. Maybe. When the Chinese Communist leader Chou En Lai was asked his opinion of the French Revolution, he blandly replied that it was too early to tell. Think about that the next time somebody burbles about the wonderful multi-cultural, diverse society we have created.
The article goes on and on in his fashion, with Whitehead, again, having the bloody nerve to quote Laurence Tribe (like Comrade Obama, a Harvard “constitutional law professor”), a Communist subversive if there ever was one. He then doubles back down on the hapless Border Patrol, comparing them to the hard men of Franco and Stalin. I wish!
His point seems to be that these powers in the hands of Trump may seem reasonable or necessary. But think of Biden using them? This is a sly way of saying a pox on both your houses.
Whitehead’s real problem is that he simply does not get it. Like many well-intentioned, patriotic Americans, he waves the Constitution, as if our problems would be solved by returning to his personal interpretation of it.
Mr. Whitehead, that bridge over the Rubicon was crossed long ago. The Constitution was written for a country in which white men, and only white men, ruled. They shared a general common heritage and view of the world. That America began to die on the battlefields of the Civil War and now has two feet in the grave. It is never coming back, at least in any way that conforms to the image you seem to have in your head.
The Civil Rights Act joined with the immigration law changes of 1965 put the final nail in the coffin of that America we were taught to love. It is now a diseased, decrepit parody of the proud and confident nation I was born in.
Not once in his article does he acknowledge the reality of race and ethnicity nor does he even seem aware of the extreme Leftist subversion that has seized control of the Democratic Party. This is, for me, incredible.
Trump is no Franco and much less a Stalin or Hitler. He is a New York real estate developer with something of the con man, used car salesman, and ego maniac thrown in. He is no fool and is far more intelligent than almost all of his enemies. He loves the country, wants to do well by ordinary Americans (and the millionaires, too), and has a better grasp of the true state of the world than almost anybody in the so-called Deep State. He is a mortal threat to the gang that has looted the world for 60 years and to the Leftist plans to install a Marxist-based regime in America. Those are facts.
As far as his thus far modest attempts to restore order in America’s cities, he has in fact bent over backwards to avoid the direct use of Federal law enforcement, to say nothing of the military. I was around in 1968, folks, and the army was on the streets of our cities. Trump is playing his cards wisely. Let the Communist mob burn down Democrat-controlled cities – at least some of the morons who put the Democrats in office will get the message. Trump knows perfectly well that none of this is going to happen in cities and states run by Republicans.
Let me end with a plea for Whitehead to get his head out of his behind. Stop babbling about the Constitution. That horse has left the barn. We are in a fight for national survival with ruthless Leftist criminals condoned by the likes of Pelosi, Biden, Schumer, Lightfoot, and DeBlasio, and egged on by Don Lemon, Anderson Cooper, Jake Tapper and all the rest. If they gain control, you can forget complaining about the Constitution. They will stuff it right down your throat.
Again, SS, you mostly state how I feel but with that much more eloquence. The stupid, glorified English majors chap my ass more than native Thai curry. There is no Constitution. No rule of law. The Marxists have to be crushed by whatever means necessary so that we can even get to the point of re-implementing a rule of law.
Mr W quotes a Yale prof: “This is a classic way that violence happens in authoritarian regimes, whether it’s Franco’s Spain or whether it’s the Russian Empire.” Wrong, prof. The violence took place before Franco came to power following a civil war instigated by the violence left to run amok by the so-called democratic Republic . The Russian Empire? As in the tsarist regime violently overthrown by folks like Lenin shipped into Russia by train, Trotsky…
Eli, Eli, Bullshit Yale! Yale’s bulldog mascot must be canceled, as it makes people think of pit bulls and dog fights and instigates violence! Where are the PETA activists on that one?
WAAAAAh CRY CRY lets defund the police, lets pay the rioters and burners of our businesses, lets praise those that want BLM reparations and stop all white people from living. My answer is FUCK YOU !