"After ordering the occupation of DC, Trump threatened to send federal troops to NYC, Baltimore and Oakland"

 

…The real criminals in DC today, who are dangers to the Republic worthy of sending SEAL Team Six to suppress, are the lobbyists for the tobacco, financial, oil, insurance, coal, nuclear, Pharma, and weapons industries (not to mention AIPAC) who have corrupted our political system and profited from using the federal government to inflict death and misery around the globe. Trump is using racial stereotypes to scare his 70+ demographic on Fox News and manufacture a crisis that doesn’t exist so that he can use his Praetorian Guard to shield and distract attention from those who are looting the public estate for private gain.

+ Meet the people in charge of the feds seizing control of DC…

+ The one thing the founders of the Republic feared even more than slave rebellions and tribal uprisings was the kind of standing army Trump has now sent into DC:

“A standing army is one of the greatest mischiefs that can possibly happen.” – James Madison

“The Army is a dangerous instrument to play with.” – George Washington

“Standing Armies are dangerous to liberty.” – Alexander Hamilton

+ Cities whose violent crime rate is higher than DC’s…

Memphis, Tennessee
Kansas City, Missouri
Springfield, Missouri
Alexandria, Louisiana
New Orleans, Louisiana
Monroe, Louisiana
Pueblo, Colorado
Anniston, Alabama
Little Rock, Arkansas
Myrtle Beach, South Carolina
Birmingham, Alabama
Atlantic City, New Jersey
Camden, New Jersey
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Louisville, Kentucky
Indianapolis, Indiana
Tulsa, Oklahoma
Cincinnati, Ohio

+ After ordering the occupation of DC, Trump threatened to send federal troops to NYC, Baltimore and Oakland: “They’re so far gone. This will go further. We’re starting very strongly with DC.” By the way, crime in DC is at historic lows…

+ DC Mayor Muriel Bowser:  “I think I speak for all Americans — we don’t believe it’s legal to use the American military against American citizens on American soil.”

+ Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott’s response to Trump’s threat to impose a military occupation of DC, NYC, Oakland and Baltimore: “I think it’s very notable that each and every one of the cities called out by the President has a black mayor, and most of those cities are seeing historic lows in violent crime. In Baltimore, we have the fewest number of homicides through this date on record. That’s 50 years, a 50-year low. Maybe we are too far gone. Too far gone from the broken right-wing policies of zero tolerance policing and all the things that did not make our city safer for all those many years. The president could learn a lot from us. Instead of throwing things at us…”

+ How badly did Reconstruction fail DC? A city with one of the country’s largest and most vibrant black populations, whose residents have never enjoyed the full rights and protections of people living in states, is now under occupation by a military led by a man who is renaming Army bases after Confederate generals.

+ Rep. Troy Downing, the Republican from Montana, on Trump’s takeover of DC: “Hopefully this is a harbinger of what we see in these liberally run cities across the country … We need to send in the troops, which is exactly what we’re doing.”

+ Memo to Troy Downing: Since Illinois adopted bail reform, violent and property crimes have dropped below pre-COVID levels and failure-to-appear rates have also declined–the exact opposite of what the lock-em-up critics predicted.

+ The GOP wants to ethnically cleanse Southeast DC, the way the Israelis have Gaza…Bennie Johnson: “Entire neighborhoods, probably, need to be emptied, need to be bulldozed.”

+ Of course, the ethnic cleansing of DC has been taking place for decades, with the real estate industry as the driving force. When Jerome picked me up from the sidewalk along H Street in 1981, the black population of DC was 445,154 (70% of the District’s population). Now it’s less than 280,000 (41%). Blacks are being forced out of one of America’s greatest Black cities by economic predation and political policy. 

+ Since military personnel commit crimes at a rate higher than the civilian population (one recent study showed one-third of vets with an arrest record compared to one-fifth of the general population), Trump’s flooding DC with National Guard troops seems likely to actually end up increasing the crime rate.

+ In all of the video footage of Trump’s military occupation of DC, I haven’t seen one foot patrol or armored personnel carrier traverse K Street, which probably has more criminals, swindlers & mass killers per linear foot than any other street in the US, perhaps the entire planet…

+ During a White House press briefing, Benny Johnson asked: “Will the president consider giving the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Big Balls?” Karoline Leavitt: “I haven’t spoken to him about that, but perhaps it’s something that he would consider.”

+ Trump during his press conference on sending the National Guard to patrol DC: “It’s embarrassing for me to be up here. I’m going to see Putin. I’m going to Russia on Friday. I don’t want to be up here talking about how dirty and disgusting this once beautiful capital was.” (He’s actually going to Alaska, but maybe if he visits Sarah Palin, he’ll be able to see Russia from her house.)…

-Jeffrey St. Clair, CounterPunch