Well, Twitter is different. They’re the modern-day letters of transit mentioned in Casablanca, a magical silver bullet that Chump can use to negate any pesky law he may hit against.
(Bold and formatting in original. Underlining is mine.)
And it’s always, ever, and only about the election. Not about compassion, rationality, “doing the right thing,” “being the right leader,” bringing people together, preventing more violence… None of that. Pissing off voters. Keeping voters happy. Making sure that even voters who are disgusted with him personally will vote for him. Pardon me while I throw up.
Tom Cotton is suggesting that strikes on American cities from the U.S. Air Force are needed to end the protests. Yeah, that’s not fascist at all. These Trump sycophants are getting scarier every day.
Technically, the 101st Airborne wouldn’t be airstrikes – they’d be paratroopers dropped on US cities.
Trump has also said that he’s putting the]Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff “in charge” but as usual, nobody knows exactly what he’s talking about.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t there a law against using the US military as domestic law enforcement? Posse Comitatus, or something like that?
He can apparently do it anyway under the Insurrection Act if he wants to despite posse comitatus.
Apparently he told governors on a conference call that they’re all a bunch of pansies and they’d better get tuff and start arresting people and the states are on their own.
He wants the power to control everything but not actually have to do anything haaaa-aard.
[Here is a good summary](Here is a good summary) of when the military can be deployed domestically. The author, Steve Vladeck, is a professor at UT Austin and does a lot of work in national security law.
Let me explain what the President can do: Anything he damn well wants to do until he is physically stopped and/or an order is refused, and the latter only holds up until the person who refused to follow the order is replaced by someone who will.
That’s the thing - he wants to look like an alpha male stereotype but doesn’t want to take responsibility.
He’s hoping a governor or three will take the hint and publicly ask him to deploy ground units (and not just MPs) on their behalf.
That puts the responsibility on the governors and he gets to play Mr Tough Guy on TV. There’s very little chance he’ll call up those military units on his own without some kind of request so there is somebody to blame if it all goes pear-shaped.
Why he thinks a governor would ask for something like that is beyond me, but so is a lot of Trump’s 19th level strategery.
This is why he has turned over the management of COVID opening-closing-assembly-etc. rules to the governors. So if it all goes pear-shaped, it will be their fault, not his. Nothing is ever his fault. Of course, if all goes well, then he will take all the credit.
