06-01-2020, 09:56 PM
CNN has the Pentagon worried that the President seems to want the military to dominate the US battle space. Rachel Maddow seemed to be quite confused about that the President tried to order, did order, or what he can clearly order regarding the use of the military to do police work with the US. She had several military lawyers as guests, and it seems a great muddle and not a great idea.
There are two very old laws that apply. One is Posse Comitatus act of 1878, passed at the end of the Reconstruction period, which forbids federal troops from acting as law enforcement without the governor in question requesting it. The under text of that one was that Jim Crow got to prey upon blacks in the south and the federals would be in no position to do anything about it. Since then the FBI has given the federals another enforcement arm.
The other is the Insurrection Act of 1807. It allows the president to suppress civil disorder, insurrection and rebellion. It requires an invitation by the state governor, or that it becomes impracticable to enforce the federal laws, or if the states are unable to safeguard its inhabitant’s civil rights.
The mayor of St. Paul reports talking to his governor, who said that he has explicitly not invited the military in. I don't know of any governor who has.
Right now Trump seems to have done something. He brought the military into DC. He removed peaceful protestors from a park near the White House. He ticked of a bishop by holding a photo op by his church. But it is not clear under what authority he did any of the above.
A new act in the saga of Trump.
There are two very old laws that apply. One is Posse Comitatus act of 1878, passed at the end of the Reconstruction period, which forbids federal troops from acting as law enforcement without the governor in question requesting it. The under text of that one was that Jim Crow got to prey upon blacks in the south and the federals would be in no position to do anything about it. Since then the FBI has given the federals another enforcement arm.
The other is the Insurrection Act of 1807. It allows the president to suppress civil disorder, insurrection and rebellion. It requires an invitation by the state governor, or that it becomes impracticable to enforce the federal laws, or if the states are unable to safeguard its inhabitant’s civil rights.
The mayor of St. Paul reports talking to his governor, who said that he has explicitly not invited the military in. I don't know of any governor who has.
Right now Trump seems to have done something. He brought the military into DC. He removed peaceful protestors from a park near the White House. He ticked of a bishop by holding a photo op by his church. But it is not clear under what authority he did any of the above.
A new act in the saga of Trump.
That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.