Mysterious Brick Piles Appear Throughout Major Protest Cities

[The Cub]

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[The Cub]

Trump is being impelled into delay....as no sooner than he acts, the Communists and their PR arm, the Media, will cry "Dictator".


The President Has the Constitutional Power to Restore Order. He Must Act.

By Andrew C. McCarthy


May 31, 2020 3:27 PM

A burned out LAPD police car is seen as people protest in Los Angeles against the death of George Floyd, May 30, 2020. (Patrick T. Fallon/Reuters) What has happened over the last few nights in major cities of the United States is unacceptable. It has gotten worse because of federal and state passivity.

Law enforcement is a vital response to any riotous uprising. Indeed, I believe the failure to enforce the laws without apology from the start of the upheaval last week has fueled its ferocity. It would be naïve to claim that much of the violence, which is being incited and coordinated by radical groups, might not have happened anyway — these groups are always on a hair-trigger, pouncing on any opportunity to make mayhem. But how badly things get out of control has a lot to do with the resolve of state and federal law enforcement. The laws do not enforce themselves.

Progressive dogma notwithstanding, rioting spearheaded by radicals and anarchists does not exhaust itself if governments just give them time and space to get their yah-yahs out. Passivity, conveying the message that the laws will not be enforced, is provocative. It increases the appetite for rioting, which is only sated once the sociopaths have run out of things to burn and loot.

That said, law enforcement on its own is inadequate to restore order once order has been lost. Police and prosecutorial offices simply do not have the resources to quell widespread seditionist violence. Consequently, other provisions of law must be considered.

Under Article IV of the Constitution, the United States guarantees every state a republican form of government, protection against invasion, and — on request of the state government — protection from domestic violence.In furtherance of this provision, Congress enacted legislation, most notably, the Insurrection Act of 1807, which empowers the president “to suppress, in any State, any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy.” Obviously, suppressing such attacks requires deploying the United States armed forces as needed.

Following Hurricane Katrina, the Insurrection Act was beefed up to enable presidents to respond to natural disasters, public-health emergencies, terrorist attacks, and other catastrophic conditions. As one might expect, state governors worried that this amendment was a federal power grab that would erode the authority of state and local governments over their internal affairs, and thrust the military into domestic policing. The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 had long barred the deployment of the armed forces for domestic law-enforcement purposes. Posse comitatus, however, has always been subject to express constitutional and statutory exceptions, and the Insurrection Act is such an exception.

One effect of the Insurrection Act and its amendments has thus been to bolster the power of the federal government to respond to domestic terrorism.Although the Constitution calls for a state to request federal assistance to combat domestic violence before the president acts, that condition is more apparent than real.

As already noted, Article IV endows the president with unilateral authority to put down insurrection and invasion. “Insurrection,” of course, is a violent uprising against the authority of the state. Therefore, it encompasses the concept of broad-scale domestic violence. The Insurrection Act codifies this reality by expressly empowering the president to suppress domestic violence and conspiracies to carry it out.

It is a fair concern that modern Insurrection Act expansions of federal power to react to natural disasters overrun federalist principles — although, as a practical matter, when states actually confront a natural disaster or pandemic, governors are quick to plead for federal assistance, rather than fret over what doing so portends for their power over their own affairs. When it comes to violent uprisings, though, federalism concerns are beside the point. Washington has an express constitutional obligation to protect the people of the states, and the republican form of government, from attack.

Federal power in this regard is also reflected by the president’s authority over the National Guard. The Guard is composed of state units, an arrangement with its roots in the colonial militias that were called into the service of the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War.

While they serve their states, National Guard units, which are reserve components of the U.S. armed forces, have over time come under increasing control of the commander in chief. They may now be deployed at the president’s direction, even overseas, regardless of whether state governors object. Clearly, if the deployment is domestic, and ordered in response to violent attacks, it is imperative that federal and state governments cooperate in the name of state and national security.

What has happened over the last few nights in major cities of the United States is unacceptable. It has gotten worse because the federal and state governments have failed to convey the signal that order will be maintained and the rule of law enforced.

That must end. The president and governors must work together to restore order, including by deployment of the military where that is necessary. The Justice Department and state law enforcement, particularly the FBI and its Joint Terrorism Task Forces, must make it clear that lawbreakers will be arrested and serious crimes will be vigorously prosecuted. Anti-America must be made to understand that America has had enough.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/...r-he-must-act/

[The Cub]

Trump Will ‘Designate’ Antifa a Terrorist Organization

By Andrew C. McCarthy

June 1, 2020 6:30 AM

The action would permit the surveillance of Americans in the absence of probable cause.

According to President Trump and his most ardent supporters, he is a “disruptor” here to shake up established Washington ways. Nevertheless, in announcing that he will “designate” Antifa, the far-left radical movement, as a terrorist organization, he is pulling a page from the Swamp’s playbook. It is political rhetoric portrayed as legally significant action to bring to heel an array of sociopaths that, to be sure, are playing their now familiar instigator’s role in the rioting that roils American cities.

The purported designation would be pointless, in that the means of taking aggressive enforcement action against Antifa, and against domestic terrorism generally, are plentiful and ready to hand.The president’s move would also be legally invalid because, under federal law and for very sound reasons, designation is available only for foreign terrorist organizations.

Antifa is a domestic enterprise. The name “Antifa” has a European pedigree, going back to the self-described anti-fascist movements of the radical Left, beginning in the 1920s. And there are some overseas groups that also use the name. To the extent, however, that Antifa has a relevant identifiable existence as an entity promoting seditionist violence in the United States, it is as a loosely knit, interstate American group (as much as Antifa itself would be repulsed at the thought of being part of AmeriKKKa and fancies itself as an agent of global anarchism).

As the New York Times has reported, Antifa is organized in local autonomous cells around the country. Though it is said to lack “official” leaders, it does have operatives who move across the country making mayhem. More significantly for present purposes, on Sunday (the same day the president’s imminent designation of Antifa was announced), the Trump Justice Department branded Antifa a domestic terrorist group. As Attorney General Bill Barr’s press statement put it, “the violence instigated and carried out by Antifa and other similar groups in connection with the rioting is domestic terrorism and will be treated accordingly.”

Federal counterterrorism law provides for the designation only of foreign terrorist organizations. It criminalizes material support to designated foreign terrorist organizations. The distinction between foreign and domestic terrorism has an important history.

There is no need to designate a domestic insurrectionist group as a terrorist organization, because there is an extensive panoply of laws, at the state and federal level, by which such groups can be investigated, prosecuted, and otherwise thwarted.

To take an easy example, in 1993, I led the prosecution of the U.S.-based jihadist cell run by the so-called Blind Sheikh (the late Omar Abdel Rahman), which carried out the World Trade Center bombing and was plotting other ambitious attacks in the New York metropolitan area. Concededly, though these terrorists operated domestically, they had ties to foreign terrorist organizations. This was of no moment, though, because the law that enabled the process of designating foreign terrorist organizations was not enacted until 1996.

The lack of a designation process did not matter a whit. Because the jihadists’ plotting and attacks took place on U.S. soil, the full scope of U.S. law applied to all their activities. We indicted them as terrorists (under the seditious-conspiracy statute that criminalizes conspiracies to levy war against the United States). They were convicted and sentenced as terrorists.

By contrast, foreign terrorist organizations operate, for the most part, outside the jurisdiction of American law-enforcement agencies and beyond the writ of the federal courts. The designation process was essentially an effort by Congress to impose some American jurisdiction and legal consequences on foreign actors. The designation, for example, makes alien members of a foreign terrorist organization inadmissible to enter the U.S., and it facilitates their removal. It enables the Treasury Department to freeze assets of foreign groups and block their financial transactions. It signals to the governments of the countries in which these foreign terrorist organizations operate that the United States regards the group they are hosting as hostile; the foreign government knows it must either deal with the problem or resign itself to the possibility that we will take forcible action.

None of this is necessary when a terrorist organization is domestic.

But what about the federal law barring material support to terrorist organizations? Wouldn’t it be useful to apply that to domestic terrorists? Yes . . . that’s why it already does apply. Our criminal law has two material-support provisions. One (Section 2339B), as already noted, makes it a crime to contribute resources to a designated foreign terrorist organization. But the other (Section 2339A) makes it a crime to give material support to terrorists — foreign or domestic. It does this by barring contributions of resources to various specified activities (e.g., bombing, attacking government officials) that are commonly associated with terrorism. A third law (Section 2339C) criminalizes the financing of terrorism.Again, there is no need for a formal terrorist designation; it is the terrorist conduct that matters.

Finally, the foreign–domestic distinction has a salient history — one that should resonate today, as we continue learning about investigative abuses in the Trump–Russia probe.

There were major spying scandals in the United States, beginning in the late 1960s, that involved the use against American citizens of national-security surveillance powers that are supposed to target agents of foreign powers. Unavoidably, politically motivated violence is bound up with constitutionally protected political dissent. Alien terrorists, especially those operating principally outside the U.S., have no constitutionally protected interests in seeking to overthrow or radically alter our constitutional system. Consequently, applying intelligence-gathering authorities to foreign persons and entities generally does not pose constitutional problems. By contrast, applying them to Americans inevitably results in the monitoring of constitutionally protected activity — including the activity of Americans who, though they may bitterly oppose our government or our society, protest peacefully and lawfully.

Thus, the line we draw in the investigation of Americans is at violence and lawbreaking. In fact, even though FISA (the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) permits the court to issue surveillance warrants if the FBI shows probable cause to believe a person inside the United States is acting as an agent of a foreign power, the standard is different depending on whether the target is an American or an alien. If the government wants to monitor Americans, it must show not only that they are being directed by a foreign power but also that their activity appears to involve violations of federal criminal statutes.

Interestingly, President Trump and his supporters, who rightly complain about the abusive surveillance of the 2016 Trump presidential campaign, have recently argued that FISA must be reformed to make it more difficult, if not illegal, to subject Americans to national-security surveillance. They insist that, unless the FBI can show probable cause that Americans are guilty of crimes, the government should leave Americans alone.

Yet now, many of the very same Trump supporters want to designate a domestic group as a terrorist organization. Since we already have a slew of criminal laws for investigating terrorists, the only point of such a designation would be to permit the surveillance of Americans in the absence of probable cause that they have committed crimes. But that’s the very abuse these Trump supporters claim to find objectionable about FISA. Pardon me, but I’m confused.

We should absolutely treat Antifa as a terrorist organization. Some (mainly) anti-Trump commentators claim that Antifa is too amorphous to be regarded as an “organization.” That is specious. Our law does not require conspiracies and racketeering enterprises to be regimentally organized and hierarchical. Loosely knit groups that scheme to carry out violent criminal objectives qualify for enforcement action.

We can investigate Antifa as terrorists, prosecute them as terrorists, sentence them as terrorists, and give them harsh prison sentences befitting terrorists. But there is neither a need nor a legal basis to “designate” them as terrorists.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/...not-necessary/

[Miradus]

I think, politically, he should wait until individual states ask for him to intervene.

Just like the lockdowns, if the Democrat strongholds order their cops to stand down and don't call in their guard, it's just going to look bad on them when their cities burn to the ground.

But for any individuals caught out there, make sure you are masked and firing from cover if attacked. Don't be like some of those stupid idiots who decided to go down to counter-protest, relatively alone, and wave flags or MAGA hats. And don't be like those idiots who thought to let their wive stand alone and unarmed in front of the mob, trying to reason with thugs as to why their shop shouldn't be looted and burned.

A mob is not an individual. A mob has no color, no race, no reasoning. It's a howling, merciless creature out for blood and blood it will have.

If your neighborhood is safe (for now) then go out and take a nice, healthy walk in the sunshine. While you're out there, pick out at least three defilade spots upon which to fire upon a large group moving down your street, and map out in your head methods for getting there and back to your house unseen, unobserved, and unrecorded.

When a howling mob of 50 people are in your driveway it's too late.

[jmthomas]

Also have a plan to leave your AO if the need arises.

I don't like the idea, but would rather roll out and fight a rear guard action to fight another day than martyr in place when my kids and grandkids need me later on.

[The Cub]

This can't stand....these worthless Democrat mayors and governors are doing everything they can to lure Trump into military action.....only to attempt to label him a Dictator:

Multiple Dead/Injured As Rioters Target Cops After Trump's Threat Of Military Force Fails To Deter 7th Night Of Violence



by Tyler Durden
Tue, 06/02/2020 - 07:45



Summary:

• President Trump threatens to deploy military
• At least nine dead, +4,000 arrested, riots rage in 140 cities as riots rage for the seventh day
• National Guard deployed in 23 states
• 40 cities to impose strict curfews

* * *
Update (0830ET): Last night saw the worst of the violence aimed at police officers with one dead, at least five shot, and at least four more run over by "protesters."
At least five U.S. police were hit by gunfire during violent protests over the death of a black man in police custody, police and media said, hours after President Donald Trump said he would deploy the military if unrest does not stop.

• -One US Marshall killed in Las Vegas
• -Four officers shot in St. Louis
• -At least two officers run over in Buffalo, NY
• -One NYPD officer run over in the Bronx
• -Another run over in Greenwich Village

An emotional St Louis police commissioner, John Hayden, said about 200 protesters were “jumping up and down like crazy people”, looting and throwing fireworks and rocks at officers.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/...nst-protesters

[The Cub]

Tucker on fire:

Great line....refers to the Insurgents as the largest Biden for President rallies to date.


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[doat]

Organized and financed by? Seems like this thing is a massive cover up. Find out who is behind this, and stop standing around and take action.

[The Cub]

Organized and financed by? Seems like this thing is a massive cover up. Find out who is behind this, and stop standing around and take action.

Don't forget to include "promoted by".....as in CNN and MSNBC, WaPost, NY Times, et al.

[The Cub]

Random piles of bricks reported at George Floyd protests

https://www.foxnews.com/us/random-pi...floyd-protests