In 1957, President Dwight D. Eisenhower federalized the Arkansas National Guard to aid in the protection of nine black children attending a previously all white High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. Bill Clinton’s hometown became a flashpoint for desegregation in the South. The governor had called up the Arkansas National Guard to stop the desegregation. President Eisenhower nationalized them to protect those nine black kids, which was deemed lawful and constitutional.
Eisenhower even sent in the 101st Airborne to ensure that in Little Rock, the US Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education stuck the landing. Segregation was illegal. He meant to ensure that it ended.
Entering the country without asking for permission is illegal. Congress passed laws. Past presidents of both parties have enforced them. Being here illegally and committing crimes simply aggravates the matter, such that we have allowed law breakers the opportunity to break more of them.
States do not have the right to allow lawbreakers to continue to break the law. Illegals do not have a protected right to protest or seek redress. Rioting is an act of insurgency that disrupts public order and peace.
10 U.S.C. 12406, which allows the president to call the National Guard—which ordinarily falls under the purview of state governors—into federal service in three circumstances: invasion or threat of invasion, rebellion or threat of rebellion, and if the president cannot execute U.S. law with regular forces.
Mr. Newsom and his fellow travelers are arguing that the president lacks the authority to command the National Guard to ensure public safety, restore order, or ensure the safety of federal agents performing their sworn duties. Are they suggesting then that President Eisenhower acted unconstitutionally and illegally when he did the same thing to ensure nine black children could attend a previously all-white High School in Bill Clinton’s hometown in Arkansas? That Democrat Arkansas governor Orval Faubus had a right to prevent it, or worse, allow the mob threatening to lynch those kids to have its way?
The matter, of course, is proof of the two-tiered system of justice under Democratic Party rule. The law matters when it serves the goals and agenda of the party, and is ignored when it does not.
“Protesters” committing arson or assault are victims, not perpetrators, unless the act infringes on or inhibits the progressive political agenda. That was what Gov. Nuisence sued Trump over his nationalization of the California National Guard and got what he wanted for about a minute.
U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer, an appointee of President Bill Clinton and brother to former Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, issued an order Thursday demanding that Trump turn control of the National Guard back to Newsom by Friday afternoon. The president appealed, however, and later that afternoon, a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit granted his request to stay the order.
Later that afternoon. I guess the Ninth Circuit didn’t need to look for 10 U.S.C. 12406 to make a decision. It seems they – unlike Charles Breyer – knew it already or were acting based on the law, not some personal political preference.
Governor Faubus closed that high School for two years, willing to deny every kid in it a public education to keep a few black kids out of it. A 1957 version of COVID lockouts, if you will – the agenda being the priority.
Mr. Newsom is not unintelligent. He likely knows the law, and he knows he’s going to lose (the 9th Circuit stays the lower court order while the case is pending), and yet he puts on a performance, not much different from Orval Faubus. He dresses to impress a fringe of supporters he requires to stay in power. And not without some hope that the system is corrupt enough or corruptible enough that he might have his way. That nothing, not the law, not public safety, none of it shall surpass his political goals or his desires of the moment.
The sort of thing we historically attributed to tyrants and kings.
