I am worried about what Trump said,
NPR NewsBy Stephen Groves, Associated PressOctober 13, 2024During his first term as president, Donald Trump tested the limits of how he could use the military to achieve policy goals. If given a second term, the Republican and his allies are preparing to go much further, reimagining the military as an all-powerful tool to deploy on U.S. soil.He has pledged to recall thousands of American troops from overseas and station them at the U.S. border with Mexico. He has explored using troops for domestic policy priorities such as deportations and confronting civil unrest. He has talked of weeding out military officers who are ideologically opposed to him.Trump’s vision amounts to a potentially dramatic shift in the role of the military in U.S. society, carrying grave implications for both the country’s place in the world and the restraints that have traditionally been placed on domestic use of the military.[…]“I think the bigger problem is the enemy from within,” Trump said. He added: “We have some very bad people. We have some sick people, radical left lunatics. And I think they’re the big — and it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military, because they can’t let that happen.”Trump has repeatedly invoked the phrase “enemy from within” in recent speeches. On Saturday, he used it to refer to Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., a prominent Trump critic who oversaw the congressional investigation that led to Trump’s first impeachment. Schiff is now running for the Senate.
First and this is scary… “weeding out military officers who are ideologically opposed” what does he plan to do with a military that is loyal to him and not the Constitution?
He has already started! He fired an admiral!
LA TimesBy Josh FunkJan. 22, 2025President Trump has fired the heads of the Transportation Security Administration and Coast Guard before their terms are up and eliminated all the members of a key aviation security advisory group.Trump’s immigration policy changes drew the most attention at the Department of Homeland Security, but he is also making changes at the rest of the massive agency.Members of the Aviation Security Advisory Committee received a memo Tuesday saying that the department is eliminating the membership of all advisory committees as part of a “commitment to eliminating the misuse of resources and ensuring that DHS activities prioritize our national security.”
You are not alarmed yet? How about what retired admiral had to say...
Homeland Security TodayBy Megan NorrisJanuary 23, 2025With the start of a new administration, it’s not unusual to see resignations and firings. The firing of United States Coast Guard (USCG) Commandant Admiral Linda Fagan – the Armed Forces’ first female service chief – has raised eyebrows across the Coast Guard community and beyond. Former senior leaders of the USCG reached out to Homeland Security Today (HSToday) to share some of their thoughts and concerns.Among those expressing concern are Charles “Skip” Bowen, who spent over 32 years with the USCG and retired as Master Chief Petty Officer in 2010; HSToday Board member and 30-year USCG veteran, retired Master Chief Vincent Patton, EdD; and former USCG Commandant Admiral Thad Allen, who devoted 39 years to the USCG. All three worked with Admiral Fagan during her 40-year tenure, and agree with the statement put forth by Admiral Allen: “Her dismissal is not a matter of her performance. It is political performance. One that should cause great concern for current and future military leaders.”
He is making the military his own private army! That is loyal to him and not the Constitution, kind of like a South America dictators.
Master Chief Bowen and Master Chief Patton provided the following statement to HSToday: “The reasons cited do not add up. This termination is wrong.We personally know Admiral Fagan to be a strong leader who has been incredibly positive for the Coast Guard. Various news articles reference failure to address border security, insufficient leadership in recruitment and retention, mismanagement in acquiring key acquisitions such as icebreakers and helicopters, excessive focus on DEI initiatives and an erosion of trust over the mishandling of Operation Fouled Anchor.
So what does he want to do with his private little army?
AP NewsBy GARY FIELDSNovember 27, 2023Campaigning in Iowa this year, Donald Trump said he was prevented during his presidency from using the military to quell violence in primarily Democratic cities and states.Calling New York City and Chicago “crime dens,” the front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination told his audience, “The next time, I’m not waiting. One of the things I did was let them run it and we’re going to show how bad a job they do,” he said. “Well, we did that. We don’t have to wait any longer.”Trump has not spelled out precisely how he might use the military during a second term, although he and his advisers have suggested they would have wide latitude to call up units. While deploying the military regularly within the country’s borders would be a departure from tradition, the former president already has signaled an aggressive agenda if he wins, from mass deportations to travel bans imposed on certain Muslim-majority countries.A law first crafted in the nation’s infancy would give Trump as commander in chief almost unfettered power to do so, military and legal experts said in a series of interviews.The Insurrection Act allows presidents to call on reserve or active-duty military units to respond to unrest in the states, an authority that is not reviewable by the courts. One of its few guardrails merely requires the president to request that the participants disperse.“The principal constraint on the president’s use of the Insurrection Act is basically political, that presidents don’t want to be the guy who sent tanks rolling down Main Street,” said Joseph Nunn, a national security expert with the Brennan Center for Justice. “There’s not much really in the law to stay the president’s hand.”
In October before the elections The Military Times writes that,
"I think that would be seriously considered, particularly if Trump was elected and continued this very, very harsh rhetoric," Reed [Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee] told reporters on a call in response to a question from Military.com about reforming the Insurrection Act. "Because I would hope many of my colleagues on the other side would consider they have to put in checks and balances that are lacking."[...]"The Insurrection Act could be improved significantly," he continued. "It's not as clear as it was, and it was drafted a very long time ago. And also the Posse Comitatus Act could be looked at."The Insurrection Act is law first passed in 1792 that allows the president to deploy the military domestically under certain circumstances, namely to quell violent rebellion. The Posse Comitatus Act from 1878 generally prohibits the military from being used as a domestic police force.
In August of last year The Nation writes about the student protests over Israel a couple of years ago where they were mostly peaceful. However, there were some violent protests the local and state police stopped. The Nation asks…
This question deserves our close attention, because it is almost certain that the policies he would implement on day one in the White House will provoke protests of one sort or another in cities and at campuses across the United States. Many observers have noted that members of his entourage, in close association with right-wing think tanks like the Heritage Foundation and the Center for Renewing America, have prepared detailed plans for immediate action on such issues as immigration, education, abortion, climate change, and trans people’s rights—all bound to provoke strong and immediate opposition from various sectors of civil society.[...]In particular, Trump has become an ardent student of the Insurrection Act of 1807, which allows the president to suspend the Posse Comitatus Act (which prohibits the use of federal forces in domestic law enforcement) and to employ the National Guard or active-duty troops in suppressing a domestic rebellion if requested by state officials or, in some cases, without state authorization. The act has been invoked rarely, given the nation’s historic aversion to excessive executive. power—methodically embedded in the Constitution—but Trump has expressed a strong inclination to use it against mass public protests.
During the protests over George Floyd’s murder while Trump was in power the first time there were protests around the country including in Washington DC, they were peaceful except for a few renegade violent protesters.
On the morning of June 1, Donald Trump summoned his two top military leaders—Secretary of Defense Mark T. Esper and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark A. Milley—to the Oval Office to discuss his desired response to the DC protests. As recounted by Esper in his memoir, A Sacred Oath, Trump told them that he wanted to invoke the Insurrection Act and order “ten thousand troops in Washington to get control of the streets.” When Esper and Milley demurred, saying the unrest was best handled by civil law enforcement and the DC National Guard, Trump threw a tantrum, calling them “losers” and repeating his desire to send active-duty troops into the city. “Can’t you just shoot them?” he asked Milley, the nation’s highest-ranked uniformed officer. “Just shoot them in the legs or something?”According to Esper, Trump finally calmed down after he was promised that Washington would be flooded with 10,000 civilian law enforcement personnel (FBI, Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms personnel, etc.) and National Guard troops to protect federal property and assist in riot control, thereby satisfying Trump’s obsession with that number of personnel. Esper indicates, however, that it was only in this manner that he and Milley dissuaded Trump from invoking the Insurrection Act and ordering thousands of active-duty troops into Washington—a step that both officials feared would incite further violence and ensnare the regular military in domestic clashes they were wholly unprepared for.
Now with Trump packing the military with his crony loyalists what will happen now during a peaceful protest to petition the Government for a redress of grievances? Will he throw in some trouble makers to justify using the Insurrection Act of 1807? Keep in mind when Trump says "the enemy from within" he means the liberal Democrats. He doesn't mean someone like the guy in Texas earlier in month who was radicalized middle east terrorists... no he means the peaceful protesters who are against him. He means the ones that the Constitution says has a right to assemble to people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. Knowing Trump I wouldn't put it past him to insert outside trouble makers in the peaceful protests to justify using the Insurrection act to override the limits of Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 that limits using the military against us?
Will become like some third world banana republic with a military junta and Trump leading a coup again? Was the first insurrection just a dress rehearsal?
I am making a prediction that within the next four years Trump will invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807 and use troops against the citizens of the United States of America. To paraphrase Maya Angelou - "When someone tells you what they are going to do, believe them the first time."
Oh, by the way... this is all right out of Project 2025!
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