By Robert Romano

“What unfolds nightly around the courthouse cannot reasonably be called a protest; it is, by any objective measure, an assault on the Government of the United States.”

That was Attorney General William Barr, pulling no punches on the two-months-long riot directed at the Mark O. Hatfield Federal Courthouse in Portland, Oreg. in testimony to the House Judiciary Committee on July 28. The riot, like so many others across the country, began following the tragic death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody in May, and is in part being directed by Antifa.

Barr went on to describe the nightly mayhem, stating, “Every night for the past two months, a mob of hundreds of rioters has laid siege to the federal courthouse and other nearby federal property. The rioters arrive equipped for a fight, armed with powerful slingshots, tasers, sledgehammers, saws, knives, rifles, and explosive devices. Inside the courthouse are a relatively small number of federal law enforcement personnel charged with a defensive mission: to protect the courthouse, home to Article III federal judges, from being overrun and destroyed.”

And it’s getting worse. From Barr, again, “In recent nights, rioters have barricaded the front door of the courthouse, pried plywood off the windows with crowbars, and thrown commercial-grade fireworks into the building in an apparent attempt to burn it down with federal personnel inside. The rioters have started fires outside the building, and then systematically attacked federal law enforcement officers who attempt to put them out—for example, by pelting the officers with rocks, frozen water bottles, cans of food, and balloons filled with fecal matter. A recent video showed a mob enthusiastically beating a Deputy U.S. Marshal who was trying to protect the courthouse – a property of the United States government funded by this Congress – from further destruction. A number of federal officers have been injured, including one severely burned by a mortar-style firework and three who have suffered serious eye injuries and may be permanently blind.”

Barr is right. These are not peaceful protests, by wanton acts of political violence and an attempt to overthrow the federal government.

Barr added, “we should all be able to agree that there is no place in this country for armed mobs that seek to establish autonomous zones beyond government control, or tear down statues and monuments that law-abiding communities chose to erect, or to destroy the property and livelihoods of innocent business owners. The most basic responsibility of government is to ensure the rule of law, so that people can live their lives safely and without fear.”

For now, Barr is promising the Justice Department will do what it can to ensure the rule of law in Portland and across the country. So far, the U.S. Marshals Service have deployed about 100 deputy marshals to secure the perimeter around the building, but the size of the riot has grown to about 4,000 large on some nights according to some estimates, and it may be time to call in the National Guard.

“It's scary. You open those doors out, when the crowd is shaking the fence, and... on the other side of that fence are people that want to kill you because of the job we chose to do and what we represent,” said one Deputy U.S. Marshal who has been protecting the courthouse for weeks.

President Trump blasted the violence on Twitter, stating, “The Fake News Media is trying to portray the Portland and Seattle ‘protesters’ as wonderful, sweet and innocent people just out for a little stroll. Actually, they are sick and deranged Anarchists & Agitators who our great men & women of Law Enforcement easily control, but who.......would destroy our American cities, and worse, if Sleepy Joe Biden, the puppet of the Left, ever won. Markets would crash and cities would burn. Our Country would suffer like never before. We will beat the Virus, soon, and go on to the Golden Age - better than ever before!”

But at some point, if the City of Portland cannot restore order — Oregon Governor Kate Brown refuses to activate the National Guard and city has demanded the protective fence surrounding the building come down despite multiple arson attempts — a military attack like this should be met with a military response.

Which, the President would be well within his power to do so. Under 10 U.S. Code § 252, “Whenever the President considers that unlawful obstructions, combinations, or assemblages, or rebellion against the authority of the United States, make it impracticable to enforce the laws of the United States in any State by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings, he may call into Federal service such of the militia of any State, and use such of the armed forces, as he considers necessary to enforce those laws or to suppress the rebellion.”

Enacted in 1792 in response to the Whiskey Rebellion and updated in 1795, 1807 (when the Insurrection Act replaced it), 1861 and 1956, this provision of law was used by George Washington to put down the Whiskey Rebellion, by Abraham Lincoln to wage the Civil War and by Dwight Eisenhower in 1957 when Arkansas attempted to use the Arkansas National Guard to block Brown v. Board of Education and Eisenhower federalized the Guard to enforce it. In Lincoln and Eisenhower’s cases, neither intervention was at the request of state governors.

This column had called for similar action against the autonomous zone established in Seattle before the city finally relented and had it disbanded. The federal government absolutely cannot afford to back down in this instance — or else risk the rebellion spreading even further. Barr and Trump are right. It’s time to get tough.

Robert Romano is the Vice President Public Policy at Americans for Limited Government.

To view online: http://dailytorch.com/2020/07/attorney-general-barr-portland-insurrection-by-antifa-on-federal-courthouse-an-assault-on-the-government-of-the-united-states/

Video: President Trump cancels the Republican National Convention and the Redskins become the football team

 

To view online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IHQPNIMg3A

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Silicon Valley goes anti-science, stifles public inquiry into COVID treatments

Seeks to silence white lab coats that don't agree with them

July 28, 2020, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement blasting Facebook, Twitter and Google for removing a press conference video by frontline doctors featuring U.S. Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) and organized by Tea Party Patriots:

“Facebook, Twitter and Google (through YouTube) have all colluded to suppress a discussion by doctors about studies and their clinical experiences which show that the medicine Hydroxychloroquine when used with zinc and arithromycin may be helpful when it is used either prophylactically or in the early stages of the Chinese-originated COVID-19 virus.  The efficacy of HCQ is not a surprise to those who have been paying attention as more doctors around the world who treat the virus have ranked it as the most effective treatment than any other medicine, and very recent, honest study from Henry Ford Health Systems showed that the use of the drug cut the death rate among COVID patient users 'significantly.'

“So the question is simple. Why would the three social media giants collude to ban doctors from discussing scientific studies as well as their own clinical experiences from the public?  And the only conclusion is that they have decided that they don’t want alternative experiences to be discussed on their platforms even when it comes to scientific debate and public inquiry over treatments for the COVID virus.  There can no longer be any doubt that these three platforms are effectively joined at the hip, apparently acting in concert in actions counter to our nation’s antitrust laws. It is time to break up big tech, before it breaks America.”

To view online: https://getliberty.org/2020/07/silicon-valley-goes-anti-science-stifles-public-inquiry-into-covid-treatments/

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ALG Editor’s Note: In the following featured report from Breitbart.com’s Robert Kraychik, Ken Blackwell confronts the “real systemic and deadly reality is that black men and women are being slaughtered in cities and communities of color across the country in numbers that can only be compared to war zones in Iraq and Syria”:

Ken Blackwell: Slaughter of blacks is reality in Democrat-run cities

By Robert Kraychik

Democrats blame the “boogeyman of systemic racism” to avoid responsibility for the volume of violent crime in black communities in cities they run, said Ken Blackwell, former mayor of Cincinnati, Ohio, who offered his remarks on the Wednesday edition of SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Daily with host Alex Marlow.

“The real systemic and deadly reality is that black men and women are being slaughtered in cities and communities of color across the country in numbers that can only be compared to war zones in Iraq and Syria,” said Blackwell, reflecting on a column he wrote with former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik regarding crime in Democrat-run cities, “Every single one of those cities have been run by Democrats, and in some cases, [for] as long as 40 years. [Kerik and I] just took exception to the fact that these mayors were passing the buck. These local officials were passing a buck.”

Blackwell and Kerik wrote:

To be clear, whether they were armed, or unarmed, or in possession of a toy that looked like a real weapon, in every single category, blacks were not killed more often than whites. Given the numbers — 14 unarmed blacks killed out of 10 million arrests, which equates to a rate of 0.00014 percent — this is NOT evidence of systemic racism.

Blackwell remarked, “You can’t paint safety forces with a broad brush saying that they are riddled with systemic racism when the facts don’t bear that out, but what is [borne] out by the facts is that these local leaders have found some comfort in the status quo. They have embraced a narrative that pushes the blame from their incompetence [to] this boogeyman of systemic racism where it doesn’t exist.”

Black and minority communities are being “marginalized and destroyed” by Democrat policies, Blackwell determined.

“Democrats have betrayed the public trust and made our major American cities less safe! Listen to my interview here with my friend @alexmarlow on Breitbart Radio: https://t.co/LDyjt49w30 @BreitbartNews @realDonaldTrump @GOPChairwoman @TimMurtaugh @BernardKerik @larryelder” — Ken Blackwell (@kenblackwell) June 22, 2020

Blackwell recalled the weeks of unrest following the death of George Floyd.

“Fifteen innocent civilians and two police officers were shot and killed,” Blackwell stated. “Hundreds of civilians brutally beaten, and more than 700 police officers were injured nationwide. Hundreds of millions of dollars of property have been destroyed as businesses and places for people to make money and raise their families in 42 states.”

Left-wing and Democrat characterizations of America as a “racist nation” amount to a “false narrative,” said Blackwell.

To view online: https://www.breitbart.com/radio/2020/06/22/ken-blackwell-systemic-deadly-reality-slaughter-blacks-democrat-run-cities/

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