The current resident of the Oval Office has been honest with us in one way, at least. He has forthrightly revealed his dreams of planet-wide dominance. From posting a fake Time Magazine Man of the Year cover featuring himself, crowned as King, to his recent insulting, fantasy dress-up in Papal robes,Trump has clearly advertised his desire for total and individual world power.
This broadening fantasy is causing more and more people to speculate that, in order to seize complete and unfettered power, he may try to overturn two hundred and forty-seven years of American law and order the deployment of federal military troops in order to control us, here at home. That nightmare moved one step closer to reality last month when Trump transferred jurisdiction over certain federal lands in Arizona from one federal department to another, in his desperate quest to undermine the settled law of the Posse Comitatus Act.
The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 gave local law enforcement the ability to gather a “posse” of civilians to help enforce local laws. In addition, it expressly prohibited the use of federal military personnel to enforce laws inside the boundaries of our country except under very specific circumstances. The language of the law is as follows: “Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army, or the Air Force as a Posse Comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined under this Title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.” It was extended later to include the Navy, the Marines and the Space Force. Lately, Trump has been testing the extent of this ban in a way that may reveal his future plans. It is also good to recall that he made an initial foray into breaking the ban almost five years ago, during his first term.
In the summer of 2020, under his command, you may remember, he ordered mostly unidentified officers from the Department of Homeland Security to Portland, Oregon, to stop people from protesting against the murder of George Floyd. He also asked several Governors to send thousands of National Guard troops to Washington DC, over the objections of DC’s Mayor, to mobilize against Americans also protesting the murder of George Floyd.
Since the National Guard are legally under the control of the Governor of each individual state, their use by the Governors does not violate the Posse Comitatus ban, as they are not federal troops. However, in this case, the Governors turned over their command authority to Trump, making it clear that these military troops were obeying the president’s wishes. This use of federalized troops, therefore, required the president to obey the Insurrection Act of 1807, which gives the him authority to use federal troops solely for the purpose of putting down insurrections against the federal government or protecting civil rights.
Though Trump has been inventing non-existent insurrections and “invasions” in order to send men, without any court hearing, to prison in El Salvador, he seeks even more power against American citizens. In that summer of 2020, he tested a way to use the military against us by claiming that it was state Governors, and not the president, who commanded the National Guard units. Trump claimed he was, therefore, not in violation of the Insurrection Act and deployed military law enforcement without credibly identifying an insurrection. Since this was so blatantly false, he recently decided to try another, more complicated, way to undermine Posse Comitatus, in order to use federal troops against us on American soil.
In a recent presidential memorandum, he directed the Department of Defense to assume jurisdiction over a wide swath of Arizona land along the southern border. The land had been under the authority of the Department of the Interior (which oversees National Parks, natural resources, federal forests, public lands and federal waters, along with trust responsibilities to our tribes and native Alaskans) and the Department of Homeland Security. This transfer was accomplished by adding these 170 square miles to land controlled by Fort Huachuca in Arizona, which also allowed the use of federal troops to oversee it. The land is a good 15 miles away from the Fort, but this made no difference to the president. It also meant that any federal forces enforcing the law on that land would be governed by rules applicable to the defense of military installations, a clear way of avoiding Posse Comitatus restrictions and using the military to control civilians, inside the borders of the United States.
I think it’s becoming more clear every day that our freedoms are not taken away in one fell swoop, though the speed with which this administration has been restricting our freedoms and rights has been breathtaking. Freedoms are cut away, a little at a time. This ploy to turn federal land governed by agencies not controlled by the military into land belonging to military forts is yet another step in shredding the Constitution, weakening Congressional control, and subjecting the civilian population to military rule.
Fortunately, the Constitution and our statutory laws were not written in disappearing ink, to be stolen away one sentence, one law, at a time. The courts, bless their robes, are doing their best to keep up with the endless affronts to our democracy. In the case of Posse Comitatus, however, Congress needs to act in order to restrain the president from sending federal troops into other jurisdictions simply by transferring ownership to the Department of Defense. As of now, no solution has been suggested, but perhaps a simple Act of Congress disallowing transfer of land from a department providing appropriate uses of that particular tract of land to one that does not might be a good start.
Special Envoy Steve Witless
Although it is becoming more and more difficult to choose just one person in this administration to brand as “witless”, (the choices grow each day), the many gaffes made by the incompetent and naive envoys it sends to other nations give us a plethora of easy choices.
The prize for Bumpkin of the Week goes, not to Rubio the Rube, who now has four big hats to juggle as he has, apparently, become Trump’s Utility Player, assigned to head the State Department, the US Agency for International Development, and the National Archives and Records Administration, as well as being tapped to serve as the brand-new interim national security advisor. Lots of hats, not one shred of talent to fill them.
No, the prize goes to Trump’s Very Special Envoy to Everything, Steve Witless (excuse me, Steve Witkoff) who traveled to France with Rubio, for a “high-level” talk on bringing peace to Ukraine. The meeting took place in the Salon des Ambassadeurs, a room in the Élysée Palace, which is the historic seat of the French presidency. Rubbernecking in the elegant, gilt room, like a first time visitor to New York City, Witless said, “You know what this looks like? This actually looks like president trump’s club at Mar A Lago.” Fortunately, the French had swallowed their wine and avoided doing a spit take.
He had a bit of a point, though. Over the last few months, the oval office has become garishly bedecked by an ever-increasing collection of gold tchotchkes, gilded trophies, gold-plated coasters, gold ceiling trim, gold fabrics, Pharoah-gold, and I-Want-To-Look-Like-An-Emperor-gold. Trump’s new decorating theme, Bring On The Bling, has turned the office into a faux-golden jungle resembling a garage sale by Louis XIV. Perhaps Mr. Witless got his job, in part, because he thought the new look was elegant.
In addition to the many substantive harms done to our relations with every country excepting Russia, the clowns now representing us in delicate international transactions are exhibiting an embarrassment of ineptitude. It’s become difficult to decide whether they have made us the laughing-stock of the world or, to the horror of those who used to be our allies, the paradigm of the dangerous child with matches. What’s next, a picture of trump as Pope? Oops, too late.
No doubt he is replacing the multiplicity of photos removed from the walls of the White House with (gold-framed) AI-shopped images of himself wearing a crown, a papal mitre, and wielding a Sith lightsaber. What’s next? A halo and giant wings? Ah, but, as we know, Lucifer (referred to, later, as Satan) was a fallen angel, so that one might actually fit.
