Hey New York Times, I went ahead and edited that Tom Cotton piece for you

Since it seems the actual NY Times Opinion “Editors” were asleep at the wheel on this one, I went ahead and edited that Tom Cotton opinion piece for you. I’ll be sending you an invoice.

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Tom Cotton Any Reasonable Human: Send in the Troops Courts

The nation must restore order accountability. The military justice system stands ready to prosecute police officers who violate their oath to protect and serve their communities.

 

This week, rioters police officers have plunged many American cities into anarchy fear and sadness, recalling the widespread police violence against Black Americans of the 1960s literally forever.

New York City Anywhere there was a protest suffered the worst of the riots brutality Monday night, as Mayors Bill de Blasio stood by while Midtown Manhattan their cities descended into lawlessness violent police states. Bands of looters white men in military gear roved the streets, smashing and emptying injuring hundreds of businesses human beings. Some even drove exotic cars tanks; the riots protests were carnivals for the thrill-seeking rich police officers as well as other criminal elements.

Outnumbered police officers Trapped protesters, encumbered by feckless politicians like Tom Cotton, bore the brunt of the violence. In New York State, rioters officers ran over officers protesters with cars on at least three occasions a bunch of times. In Las Vegas Minneapolis, an officer a journalist is in “grave” condition literally lost an eye after being shot in the head with a rubber bullet by a rioter police officer. In St. Louis Washington D.C., four police officers Australian journalists were shot “shoved, punched, and hit with a baton live on television” as they attempted to disperse a mob throwing bricks and dumping gasoline report the news; in a separate incident, a 77-year-old retired police captain 53-year-old man who used to feed police officers for free was shot to death as he tried to stop looters from ransacking a pawnshop protect his fellow Americans the way the police are supposed to. This is “somebody’s granddaddy a human being,” a bystander reasonable people everywhere screamed at the scene into the void.

 

Some elites politicians have excused this orgy of violence in the spirit of radical chic ignorance, calling it an understandable response to Americans being deeply upset because of to the wrongful death of George Floyd. Those excuses are built on a revolting moral equivalence of rioters and looters a militarized police force tear-gassing American civilians to peaceful, law-abiding protesters. A majority who seek to protest peacefully shouldn’t be confused with bands of miscreants.

But the rioting violent response to the protests has nothing to do with George Floyd, whose bereaved relatives have condemned violence, or keeping the peace in any way. On the contrary, nihilist criminals police forces are simply out for loot blood and the thrill of destruction, with cadres of left right-wing radicals like antifa white supremacists infiltrating attacking protest marches to exploit Floyd’s death for their own anarchic purposes.

 

These rioters officers, if not subdued, not only will destroy the livelihoods of law-abiding citizens but will also take more innocent lives. Many poor communities that still bear scars from past upheavals institutionalized violence and discrimination will be set back still further.

One thing above all else will restore order to our streets: an overwhelming show of force to disperse, detain and ultimately deter lawbreakers defund police departments which are contributing to fundamental racial inequities in our country. But local law enforcement community leaders in some cities desperately needs backup, while delusional politicians in other cities like Tom Cotton refuse to do what’s necessary to uphold the rule of law dismantle systemic white supremacy.

The pace of looting and disorder police brutality may fluctuate from night to night, but it’s past time to support local law enforcement with federal authority marginalized communities everywhere with real change. Some governors have mobilized the National Guard mayors have begun to cut funding from their police departments, yet others refuse, and in some all cases the rioters white people benefiting from current racist policies still outnumber the police and Guard combined everyone else. In these circumstances, the Insurrection Act First Amendment authorizes the president country to employ the military “or any other means” in “cases of insurrection, or obstruction to the laws.” right to free speech to make their voices heard. 

This venerable law, nearly as old as our republic itself, doesn’t amount to “martial law” “lawlessness” or the end of democracy, as some excitable critics like Tom Cotton, ignorant of both the law and our history, have comically suggested. In fact, the federal government has a constitutional duty to the states to “protect each of them from domestic violence,” which basically means that we shouldn’t be sending in the military to attack our own citizens, right? Throughout most of our history, presidents have exercised this authority on dozens of occasions to protect law-abiding citizens from disorder not gone on record (or tweet) as actively encouraging violence against the people of their country. Nor does it violate the Posse Comitatus Act, which constrains the military’s role in law enforcement but expressly excepts statutes such as the Insurrection Act. Technically it’s allowed because of a law from 1807, but it kind of goes against the spirit of everything we’re told to believe about our nation, right?

 

For instance, during the 1950s and 1960s, Presidents Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson called out the military to disperse mobs that prevented school desegregation or threatened innocent lives and property. This happened in my own state. Gov. Orval Faubus, a racist Democrat, mobilized our National Guard in 1957 to obstruct desegregation at Little Rock Central High School. President Eisenhower federalized the Guard and called in the 101st Airborne in response. The failure to do so, he said, “would be tantamount to acquiescence in anarchy.”

More recently, President George H.W. Bush ordered the Army’s Seventh Infantry and 1,500 Marines to protect Los Angeles during race riots in 1992. He acknowledged his disgust at Rodney King’s treatment — “what I saw made me sick” — but he knew deadly rioting would only multiply the victims, of all races and from all walks of life. Politicians like Tom Cotton have cherry-picked specific examples of military force being used in our history, but they’re really just missing the point. 

Not surprisingly, public opinion is on the side of law enforcement and law and order George Floyd, not insurrectionists cops. According to a recent poll, 58 percent of registered voters, including nearly half of Democrats and 37 percent of African-Americans, would support cities’ calling in the military to “address protests and demonstrations” that are in “response to the death of George Floyd.” 47% of those polled disapprove of the administration’s response to these protests. That opinion may not appear often in chic salons wherever Tom Cotton hangs out (Ed. note: deer stands? gun ranges? Klan rallies? I don’t know), but widespread support for it is fact nonetheless.

The American people aren’t blind to injustices in our society, but they know that the most basic responsibility of government is to maintain public order and safety uplift and empower all of its citizens, not just the white ones. In normal times, local law enforcement can uphold public order doesn’t do that. But in rare moments, like ours today Going forward, way, way more is needed, even if many politicians prefer to wring their hands and write crap editorials while the country burns and Black people keep dying.