Sign seen at a recent gathering. (Author photo)
To my mind, there are two things going on in the regime's attempt to take over Washington, D.C.
One involves the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department. The other involves the D.C. National Guard, ICE, Border Patrol, and various federal agencies loyal to the regime. Parenthetically, remember when after Black Lives Matter, the First Regime brought in prison guards from Texas because they couldn't get anyone else?
Things are different now.
First, the matter of the D.C. Metropolitan Police. The Second Regime says that it acted under Section 740 of the Washington, D.C. Home Rule Act. To say again as I have pointed out before, this is D.C. Official Code § 1-207.40. It says that when special conditions make an emergency, then the president can "require the use of the Metropolitan Police for Federal purposes." D.C. Official Code § 1-207.40(a) (emphasis added again to highlight the question addressed in this article but not yet addressed in the press I think).
The Metropolitan Police have to be used under this section of the D.C. Home Rule Act for special purposes. They have to be used "for Federal purposes." So, what are the Metropolitan Police being used for? If we can answer that question, we may get some insight into what the regime's purposes.
The Metropolitan Police are being used (1) to do something unspecified regarding crime and (2) to round up homeless people. In the first use, presumably stopping crime, the Police -- along with ICE, the FBI, and the other loyalists -- are stopping traffic. Literally. They are stopping traffic. If a car has a broken tail light, for example, the Police have handed out citations. That is how they are stopping crime on the streets, in reality, on the ground, however you want to put it. That is how they are being used by this regime.
Oh, yes, the traffic checkpoints are also on the lookout for undocumented immigrants, but they have only found a handful so far.
As for rounding up the homeless, no further explanation is necessary. That is what the Police -- and the other powerhouses -- are doing for the regime; they are being used to roust unhoused people because, well, they do not make a good look in the regime's eyes.
But back to the larger point in the regime's interpretation of what it means to make "use of the Metropolitan Police for Federal purposes." By invoking this law, the regime is telling us (1) that preventing and prosecuting crime is a Federal purpose and (2) that sending people off to somewhere else is a Federal purpose. I have questions about this interpretation.
(1) I always thought that crime was a concern of all levels of government, not just a concern of the Feds who, if they are so concerned, would appropriate more funding for law enforcement agencies like the D.C. Metropolitan Police which the Feds have instead drastically 'defunded' before they super-funded ICE.
(2) If grabbing people off the streets is now a Federal purpose, how does the regime decide that the people they are grabbing are, in fact, homeless?
Does anyone who looks like you or me meet their homeless metrics?
And why disappear the homeless instead of disappearing the conditions that cause homelessness in the first place? It's harder, I guess.
Well, now we know the Federal purposes for which the regime is using the D.C. Metropolitan Police: Stopping Crime With Traffic Stops and Disappearing Homeless People.
How, then, are some but not all federal agencies suddenly descending on the District of Columbia along with the D.C. National Guard? (And now, I undertand from news reports, also along with at least the West Virginia National Guard.)
For that, we must turn to the next article this week in this space. I am having computer problems at the moment so I will have to stop here for now.
To be continued ....