Opinion: It is a bad sign that a judge had to rule that Trump’s thugs cannot punish journalists

It is beyond refute that Trump will kill American citizens to further his chance at being re-elected. And when he can’t kill Americans, like his hero Adolf Hitler he dispatches Brownshirts to commit extrajudicial punishments like all of the tyrannical despots he emulates.

If any American needed to understand how horribly Trump is decimating Americans’ liberty, and the Constitution they believe guarantees certain freedoms, a judge’s decision issued on Thursday past should clarify just how perverse America is under a tyrant.

A District Court Judge issued a restraining order on Thursday “to protect journalists from being forced out, arrested, or threatened when attempting to film” the extrajudicial atrocities perpetrated by Trump’s storm troopers in Portland, Oregon. Curiously, the Judge’s order did not protect peaceful protestors exercising their First Amendment rights from Trump’s thugs.

Evidence presented by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of a dozen incidents involving journalists being beaten, fired on  with “impact munitions” and subjected to chemical weapons convinced the District Judge to restrain Trump’s fascist hit men; but only for 14 days and only from abusing journalists.  It is irrelevant that Trump’s “Stasi” were untrained in crowd control, lacked identification, and were armed for war because they were there to inflict pain – not protect federal property. The 14-day restraining order is clear that besides not allowing Trump’s gestapo agents to beat, gas, and fire on journalists, the Brownshirts cannot seize their cameras, recording equipment, or steal their press credentials; Trump’s goons cannot even order journalists to stop filming.

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Now, it is an abomination that in a once free nation a judge has to officially “restrain” Trump’s secret police from denying American citizens their constitutional rights, but that is the situation in Trump’s America. And according to Trump’s right-hand man, Attorney General William Barr, the judge’s ruling is just a toothless threat. According to Barr speaking for Trump: Of course protestors and reporters were beaten, kidnapped, gassed, shot at and abused, and they will likely be beaten, gassed and shot again, and there is nothing anyone can do prevent it. This is Trump’s regime and no judge, no governor, or constitutional guarantee of freedoms will stop the tyrant or his secret police.

It is not that the federal government is restrained from using federal law enforcement officers to protect federal property, they certainly are not. However, Trump’s paramilitary forces are pursuing innocent Americans, and journalists, far beyond the periphery of federal property they were allegedly tasked to protect. It is almost certain that Trump’s camouflage-wearing thugs were given the all clear to beat, shoot at, and use chemical weapons against American citizens exercising their rights guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution.

The First Amendment to the Constitution is very clear that in America freedom of the press and the right of Americans to “peaceably assemble … for a redress of grievances” shall not be abridged. Of course both a free press and the peoples’ right to assemble are part and parcel of the Constitution’s free speech guarantee – something Trump despises nearly as much as he hates the Constitution.

There is a reason Trump praises tyrants and despots like Vladimir Putin, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, Kim Jong un, and Saudi Arabia’s brutality towards protestors; he loves the idea of abusing any American who opposes his tyranny. And after abusing American citizens’ constitutional rights in Portland with veritable impunity, he is about to unleash his Brownshirts on other Americans living in states governed by Democrats. All the while, Republicans have remained silent, making them complicit in Trump’s tyranny.

A portent of how quickly these atrocities will escalate and spread across the nation is how the Judge’s ruling only “restrained” Trump’s goons for 14 days; it did not include a restraint on Trump’s camo-clad thugs using chemical weapons, impact weapons, kidnapping, and beatings on peaceable demonstrators. It is worth repeating, ad nauseam if necessary, that neither the journalists provided with a 14-day reprieve nor the protestors were breaking any laws and in fact, they were simply exercising their constitutionally-guaranteed civil rights enshrined in the U.S. Constitution.

The events in Portland were not a big surprise in Trump’s America. Particularly after he and William Barr authorized using chemical weapons on peaceable protestors in Washington D.C. to allow Trump to signal to his vile evangelical base that their demands for control over other Americans would be fulfilled. If America had an attorney general the least bit concerned about protecting all Americans’ constitutional rights, whoever gave the order to gas peaceful protestors would be facing justice. However, in Trump’s America justice is reserved for convicted criminals serving the special interests of Donald J. Trump.

The simple fact that the leader of the Executive branch and his henchman running the Department of Justice are abridging any American’s constitutional rights is a sign that America is a failed democracy. However, that failed democracy is precisely what Trump began working towards since shortly after his poorly-attended inauguration when he condemned the U.S. Constitution as bad for Americans. Since he cannot declare the Constitution null and void, which is fundamentally what he is doing, he just pretends it doesn’t exist. If that mindset does not constitute a constitutional crisis, then the Sun does not rise in the East.

America is in the clutches of a tyrannical dictator and it is noteworthy that Republicans have willingly enabled Trump’s unconstitutional tyranny since the day he so-help-me-god swore on two Christian bibles to preserve, support and defend the Constitution; the document he considers worthless because he cannot possibly profit from it.


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