National Guard Arrives In Chicago Despite Local Resistance

Protesters rally in Chicago against ICE, military presence — Source: Anadolu / Getty

Hundreds of National Guard troops from Texas have arrived at an army training center outside of Chicago against the wishes of city and state leaders, and President Donald Trump is threatening to invoke the Insurrection Act for an insurrection that doesn’t exist; he’s suggesting that local leaders “should be in jail” for not capitulating to him, and he’s still lying about crime in order to justify it all.

OK, let’s talk about it.

As you likely know by now — because Trump has been screaming it from every rooftop he can waddle his Jabba-the-Hitler hind parts up to — the president has declared that Chicago is a “war zone,” just as he has the city of Portland, despite local leaders, local residents, local police and local crime statistics in both cities saying it simply isn’t true. According to ABC 7, Trump couldn’t even get through a meetup with the Canadian prime minister on Tuesday without arbitrarily bashing Chicago as some lawless land, again, just plain ignoring the glaring fact that CPD data shows violent crime has consistently been on a downward slope, including the murder rate, which ABC noted is “down nearly 30% from the yearly average of the prior three years.”

“If you look at Chicago, Chicago’s a great city where there’s a lot of crime,” Trump claimed. “And if the governor can’t do the job, we’ll do the job. It’s all very simple.”

Oh, and just in case Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson was feeling left out of Trump’s Chica-Gestapo fantasy camp rants, on Wednesday, the president posted to social media, “Chicago Mayor should be in jail for failing to protect ICE Officers! Governor Pritzker also!”

Trump has been trying desperately to paint a picture in Chicago — again, just as he tried to in Portland — of ICE facilities being under siege simply because the people of Chicago have made it abundantly clear they do not want ICE or his weaponized military personnel in their city. But reality doesn’t support the idea that ICE is under attack outside of a few anecdotal, alleged instances in which people have been charged with crimes by local law enforcement.

According to BBC News, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, who, as we previously reported, joined other state and city leaders in filing a lawsuit to block Trump’s deployment of Guard troops, accused the Trump administration of an “authoritarian march” and said his state would “use every lever at our disposal to stop this power grab.” And that’s exactly what this is — a power grab. If “Operation Midway Blitz” has taught us anything, it’s that Trump is turning the U.S. military and other federal agencies on the American people, not just undocumented migrants, and certainly not just undocumented migrants who are hardened criminals, like he and his administration have claimed.

Still, they insist it’s all being blown out of proportion.

Rep. Pat Harrigan (R-N.C.), a former Green Beret, told CNN that any allegations that the Trump administration is engaging in government overreach are “overblown.”

“Authorities under which these troops are being deployed are limited to protecting ICE facilities and other federal facilities within these cities,” he said.

While it is true that National Guard troops have no authority to enforce the law or make arrests, we are still talking about hundreds of soldiers who are not trained to patrol U.S. cities and keep U.S. citizens in line. Yet, they are still essentially being used by Trump as federalized law enforcement, and federalized law enforcement has already proven to be a detriment to Chicago citizens, not to mention the fact that ICE has been detaining, attacking, and in some instances, deporting Black and brown people who are in the country legally since the start of Trump’s mass deportation agenda.

And, look, if the Trump administration intends to gaslight us into believing nothing he his doing is drastic, the president isn’t doing himself any favors by constantly bringing up the Insurrection Act.

From Washington Post:

The centuries-old law enables a president to deploy the military on U.S. soil in extraordinary circumstances: to quell an insurrection, civil disorder or armed rebellion. However, it has not been invoked since 1992 and has not been used without the consent of a state’s governor for 60 years.

On Monday, Trump said he would invoke the act “if it was necessary” and if courts “or governors and mayors were holding us up.” His White House is battling lawsuits from Oregon and Illinois over his attempts to deploy National Guard troops to Portland and Chicago.

The Insurrection Act allows a president to direct the military to perform law enforcement activities on U.S. soil. These activities could include making arrests and performing searches, functions that the military is generally otherwise prohibited from performing in the United States by another law, the Posse Comitatus Act.

The Insurrection Act, signed by Thomas Jefferson, states that the president can send in military troops “whenever there is an insurrection in any State against its government … upon the request of its legislature or of its governor.”

So, Trump is threatening to invoke a rarely invoked act if the courts and local leaders don’t give him what he wants, not because there is an actual insurrection or attack on the government happening, such as, say, the attack on the U.S. Capitol he inspired on Jan. 6, 2021. Also, remember what I said earlier about troops not having the authority to enforce the law or make arrests? Well, if Trump does make good on his threat to use the Insurrection Act, that thin, little safety net flies right out of the authoritarian window.

Also, if Trump isn’t currently seeking absolute power over America, somebody should probably tell White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller that, because he just humiliated himself on CNN by freezing up after claiming Trump has “has plenary authority” to, among other things, use the National Guard as he chooses, which was clearly him saying the quiet part out loud.

“Under Title 10 of the U.S. Code, the president has plenary authority, has…” Miller said before completely freezing up and going silent, which is either the result of him realizing mid-sentence that he messed up, someone in his earpiece telling him to STFU, or him deciding that this CNN interview was the perfect time for him to try out his best Mitch McConnell impersonation.

CNN’s Boris Sanchez tried to help Miller play it off, saying, “It seems like we’re having a technical issue,” as if Miller’s screen simply froze up. Like, bro — we can see that fool blinking. Stop playing around in your viewers’ faces.

For the record, Cornell University’s Legal Information Institute defines “plenary authority” as “power that is wide-ranging, broadly construed, and often limitless for all practical purposes.”

But, no, no — the president isn’t a dictator, and his supporters and handlers aren’t in a cult.

Definitely not.

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National Guard Arrives In Chicago, Trump Threatens Insurrection Act, Stephen Miller Glitches…It’s Wild Out Here, Y’all was originally published on newsone.com