All the President's goons

Pictured: Goons.

I'm not like a constitutional scholar or anything, but this is some dystopic nonsense. President Trump is evidently sending some more anonymous and legally murky Federal...uh...goons? Goon fits I think. He's sending some to Chicago. Remember them? From Portland? Those unmarked, yet heavily armed, government forces who where shoving protesters into equally unmarked rental vans so they could avoid such annoying inconveniences as due process and civil liberties.

Which is weird for a number of reasons. First, because I'm not sure that's even a thing he's allowed to do. And second, because he's ostensibly a right-winger and right-wingers spent the entire Obama administration trying to convince dumbs that power-drunk Democrats were going to take their guns away and force affordable heath insurance on everybody. Why then the GOP is suddenly cool with police state tactics is a bit of a head scratcher.

"It's only a gross overreach when Democrats do it. When I do it, it's
because I'm the winningest President in the history of the world."

-That insane person half the country pretends isn't 

having a mental breakdown right before our very eyes.

Speaking of messes...

I mean, according to the President:

"We're not going to let New York and Chicago and Philadelphia, Detroit and Baltimore and all of these, Oakland is a mess. We're not going to let this happen in our country. All run by liberal Democrats."

-The former host 

of The Apprentice

"Yeah, but if we identified ourselves, we
might be held accountable for our actions."

-I dunno, some guy with a gun

I think, and this is admittedly some guess work on my part because those sentences don't actually make sense, but I think he's citing the recent unrest in these cities as justification for him unilaterally sending in Federal agents over the objection of elected officials. But is it legal? According to my exhaustive wikipedia research, there is something called the Insurrection Act which allows a President to deploy the military in the event of civil disorder, but he hasn't actually invoked it. Also, these aren't military personnel. At least, we don't think they are. 

Who can say? The ones supposedly coming to Chicago are ICE, but aren't going there to enforce immigration, they're going to fight crime. Ironically, I suppose. Past Presidents have invoked the Insurrection Act but usually at the request of a Mayor or Governor. The notable exceptions being when the Federal Government had to force some states to accept that Black people are entitled to civil rights. This is arguably the opposite of that.

Pictured: That time Eisenhower sent Federal Troops to escort Black students to class.
Which is different from using unmarked police to round people up for protesting.

Above: Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot,
who won her office by popular vote.
Which must burn Trump up inside.

Oh, and I said they're going without having been requested by Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot and that's true, but they're not completely uninvited. John Catanzara, the president of the Fraternal Order of Police apparently made a formal request for Trump's help via Facebook. Yes, Facebook. The F.O.P. is a union and doesn't have any, you know, legal authority to go over the Mayor's head and request intervention nor is Facebook a proper channel. But then Trump is a President who claims that the office gives him a literal license to kill. 

So here we are. For those keeping score, COVID is just the sniffles and will go away any minute now and the President can deploy goons to round up protestors if he doesn't like your city's mayor. Cool. Here's hoping we get to vote in November.

Pictured: The President shilling for Goya in direct violation of ethics laws.
Not pictured: consequences for anything he does. Ever.