Opinion| Mark Sidney| Just a few hours ago we ran a story that described the battle of words, and bullets, taking place in one of America’s biggest, and most notoriously corrupt cities: Chicago. Chicago has been in the middle of a gun violence epidemic for years now and President Trump has been a vocal critic of the city’s Democrat leadership … if you can call it that. Now Trump is taking matters into his own hands.
Earlier this month President Trump said the: ‘… federal government was “ready, willing and able” to intervene over the surge of shootings in New York City and Chicago.
The president, in a tweet, noted the gun violence that erupted over 4th of July weekend in both cities, with nearly 40 people wounded in the Big Apple and 72 in the Windy City, including 13 who died.
“Chicago and New York City crime numbers are way up,” he wrote. “Federal Government ready, willing and able to help, if asked!”
…
In Chicago, between 11:09 p.m Saturday and 2:15 a.m. Sunday, 13 people were killed and 59 injured in shootings, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
At least two children, a 7-year-old girl and a 14-year-old boy, were among those killed. Nine of the wounded were minors, the paper said.’ according to The New York Post.
Of course the Mayor of Chicago, Ms. Lightfoot, wants nothing to do with President Trump, unless he plans on further restricting gun ownership at the federal level, or paying her bills with our tax money.
The Chicago Tribune reported:
… Monday morning, Mayor Lori Lightfoot said she has great concerns about the general possibility of President Donald Trump sending feds to Chicago based on what has happened in Portland.
If Trump wants to help, she said, he could boost federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives resources and fully fund prosecutors.
Trump signaled his willingness to law down the law in ‘The Chi’:
“I’m going to do something that I can tell you, because we’re not going to leave New York and Chicago and Philadelphia, Detroit and Baltimore, and all of these — Oakland is a mess. We’re not going to let this happen in our country, all run by liberal Democrats,” POTUS declared.
“We’re going to have more federal law enforcement, that I can tell you,” Trump stated. “In Portland, they’ve done a fantastic job. They’ve been there three days and they really have done a fantastic job in a very short period of time, no problem.”
We are now learning that the President Trump was not just talking ****. The Trump Administration’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is planning on deploying agents to the Windy City, supposedly in an effort to quell the city’s shootings and unrest.
The Chicago Tribune went on to report:
‘The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is crafting plans to deploy about 150 federal agents to Chicago this week, the Chicago Tribune has learned, a move that would come amid growing controversy nationally about federal force being used in American cities.
The Homeland Security Investigations, or HSI, agents are set to assist other federal law enforcement and Chicago police in crime-fighting efforts, according to sources familiar with the matter, though a specific plan on what the agents will be doing had not been made public.
One city official said the city was aware of the plan but not any specifics. The Chicago Police Department had no immediate comment.
One Immigration and Customs Enforcement official in Chicago, who asked not to be named because they were not authorized to speak on the matter, confirmed the deployment was expected to take place. The official noted that the HSI agents, who are part of ICE, would not be involved in immigration or deportation matters.’
That sounds to me like the DHS agents are going to be focusing on the issue of civil unrest and gun violence, but that is still just an assumption at this point.
I share the concerns surrounding the deployment of a federal troops in US cities, however, I also understand the box that the Democrats are trying to put Trump in, and to their credit, politically it is a clever move. If Trump does nothing and lets the local ‘leaders’ of these cities watch their towns be burnt to the ground, Trump will look like he is losing control and hamper his reelection chances.
On the other hand, if he deploys federal agents to restore order, the Dems can paint Trump as an authoritarian and then once when they regain control of the Executive Branch, they would have the ground work already laid for a federalized police force (which I think is a major goal of the DS.)
Trump needs to walk a tightrope here, lets hope that he is up for it as I think his future employment by the American people depends on it …
