All the "lawmakers" in question, with the exception of Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), being Democrats, of course, solely in the context of the St. Louis Purge:
U.S. lawmakers alarmed by the aggressive police response to protests in Ferguson, Missouri, are pushing for Congress to limit the Pentagon's ability to provide civilian police departments with military equipment such as armored vehicles designed for the battlefield.
Georgia-4 Democrat Hank Johnson wrote colleagues in the House of Representatives this week seeking support for legislation to curtail a program that passes surplus equipment from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to municipal U.S. police forces, free of charge.
Because of the program "our local police are quickly beginning to resemble paramilitary forces," Johnson said.
Three other Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee wrote to Chairman Bob Goodlatte, a Republican, to ask for a committee hearing on "recent incidents of local law enforcement using excessive force." They pointed to events in Ferguson, where demonstrators have protested the shooting death of an unarmed black teenager by police, and elsewhere.
The "brutal force" used against the Ferguson demonstrators, including the use of riot gear, armored vehicles, and tear gas and rubber bullets, raised concerns that "local law enforcement is out of control," the lawmakers said. The letter was written by Representatives John Conyers, Steve Cohen and Bobby Scott.
Did the local town clowns in Ferguson go overboard against the (mostly) peaceful protestors this week? It's certainly debatable, though I would argue that, though the considerably more than "para"-military optics were, er, "most unfortunate," the flash-bombs and oceans of tear gas weren't quite the egregious overkill Donk racists are claiming.
But then they're drilling down specifically to this one incident for the usual two reasons - (1) their reflexive fetish to perpetually re-live the "civil rights" glory days of half a century or more ago, and (2) another frantic, grasping attempt at a distraction that can deflect midterm election voters from cashiering the Democrat Senate majority wholesale. The, um, "unfortunate optics" simply greatly aid them in that regard.
That is, however, a classic example of "missing the forest because the trees are in the way." To wit: for what purpose is the Commissariat of Homeland Security arranging for the massive arming of local police departments and law enforcement agencies with all this military equipment? Why has DHS purchased well over a billion rounds of ammunition, which dwarfs the total used in the entirety of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan combined? Or, in other words, the very questions that animals like Hank "Guam will capsize" Johnson, John Conyers, Steve Cohen and Bobby Scott would be asking if President Bush's DHS had been covertly undermining the Posse Comitatus Act.
And then we harken back to this gorilla in the room - or, since it's The One in this vid and not Moochelle, how about the elephant in the bird cage?
"A civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well funded." Now we can quibble over whether local police arsenals have been muscled up to that level, but don't forget that while that's been going on, the actual military has been systematically decimated by this president, any and all weapons programs canceled (everything from the F-22 Raptor, F-35 Lightning, the scrapping of multiple carrier battle groups to the termination of the Hellfire and Tomahawk missile programs) plus the shrinkage of the Army to pre-World War II levels and the mass pink-slipping of experienced mid-level officers of major and captain rank. The actual military has been steadily weakened while O's "civilian national security force" - incorporating existing municipal law enforcement in lieu of reinstating a "civilian draft," at least for now - has been steadily strengthened.
This isn't paranoia; this is what has actually happened over the past near-six years.
And that's why House Republicans (and next year, Senate Republicans) should consider Democrats' concerns about the militarizing of local law enforcement. They're asking the right questions, if for the hilariously wrong reasons: Why has this been done? Why do we need a "civilian national security force"? And who or what is its anticipated enemy?
I think we know.....
....but I'd like to hear the Regime's BS answer directly from Dear Leader's mealy mouth.
-Hard Starboard Radio
-American Daily Review
-Constitution Radio
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