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‘Imminent Danger’: Experts Sound Alarm Over Trump’s Insurrection Act Threat

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Military, legal, and political experts are warning after President Donald Trump vowed to invoke the Insurrection Act if he deems it necessary — a move some see as the culmination of an authoritarian trajectory he has been telegraphing since taking office. No president has used the law in more than three decades, and then only in limited, localized crises.

In the Oval Office late Monday afternoon, asked if he would invoke the Insurrection Act, the president replied, “Well, I’d do it if it was necessary.”

“So far, it hasn’t been necessary, but we have an Insurrection Act for a reason,” he continued. “If I had to enact it, I’d do that.”

“If people were being killed, and courts were holding us up, or governors or mayors were holding us up? Sure, I do that. I mean, I want to make sure that people aren’t killed. We have to make sure that our cities are safe.”

READ MORE: ‘The Ground Has Shifted’: Experts Warn After Trump’s ‘Gnat’ Speech to U.S. Navy

Former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance, a well-known MSNBC and NBC News legal analyst, on Substack wrote, “It’s hard to mistake what’s happening here. This is a president in the process of looking for excuses and seeing how far he can go until someone—right now it’s the courts—reins him in.”

“The Insurrection Act is the primary vehicle for circumventing Posse Comitatus, which prohibits the use of the military on American soil to enforce laws against American citizens,” she explained. “That is not the role the military plays in American democracy. The Insurrection Act is reserved for extreme situations like rebellions or invasions. Trump is fully capable of spinning a narrative that would claim one of those preconditions, even while having no resemblance to the truth.”

Indeed, on Monday night, President Trump was asked on Newsmax about his remarks.

“It is a way to get around” opposition to his efforts, Trump said. “If we don’t have to use it I wouldn’t use it.”

“If you take a look at what’s been going on in Portland, it’s been going on for a long time, that’s insurrection, that’s pure insurrection” he added.

The Lincoln Project’s Gregory Minchak commented, “The Insurrection Act is NOT a way to ‘get around’ anything. It’s a break glass law in case of extreme and dire emergency. NOTHING in this country even remotely qualifies.”

Barely hours after Trump made his first set of remarks, Illinois Democratic Governor JB Pritzker had told reporters:

“The Trump administration is following a playbook: Cause chaos, create fear and confusion, make it seem like peaceful protesters are a mob by firing gas pellets and tear gas canisters at them. Why? To create the pretext for invoking the Insurrection Act.”

READ MORE: ‘Pre-Crime’: Hundreds of National Security Experts Warn Trump Order Threatens Democracy

Other experts also responded to the president’s remarks.

“This has always been the plan,” declared political and national security analyst, and well-known veterans advocate Paul Rieckhoff. “Most Americans won’t realize it until he does it.”

Rieckhoff was not alone in that observation.

Former U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, a Berkeley professor of public policy, wrote: “Everything Trump is doing now is a preamble for his regime’s real goal: to invoke the Insurrection Act. I don’t want to unduly alarm you, but you need to be aware of this imminent danger. It’s unfolding very rapidly.”

On Wednesday on Substack Professor Reich wrote: “The direction we’re going is either martial law or civil war.”

He also laid out what he believes the “plan” is to invoke the Insurrection Act, noting that “Trump and his enablers have worked this out in advance.”

U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) wrote: “We have the Insurrection Act for a reason—But it’s not so a President with 34 felonies can ignore court orders and punish cities he doesn’t like with military intimidation. Especially not when the courts are telling him his claims of insurrection are ‘untethered to the facts.'”

U.S. Rep. Primala Jayapal (D-WA) commented, “Trump is threatening to invoke the Insurrection Act and send the National Guard to our cities — completely ignoring federal judges’ orders. This is authoritarianism — and from someone who actually incited an insurrection on Jan 6th.”

READ MORE: ‘Literally What’s Happening’: White House Blasted for Raging at Military Takeover Talk

 

Image via Reuters 

 

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Democrats’ Dissatisfaction With Democrats in Congress Has ‘Never Been Higher’: CNN Analyst

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The Democratic base is split on where they want the party to go — left, center, or stay put — but the majority can agree on their dissatisfaction with the party’s direction, says CNN analyst Harry Enten.

Fewer Democrats are currently satisfied with their party than they were after President Joe Biden’s debate performance that led to him dropping his reelection bid, Enten noted.

Democratic voters’ “pissedoffness” Enten added on social media, “has never been higher with their own party in Congress.”

“Okay, how upset are they in Congress?” he asked.

Noting that 46 percent currently are satisfied with the Democratic Party, Enten reiterated that the majority are dissatisfied.

Looking specifically at Democrats’ net approval of congressional Democrats, Enten explained that after the shutdown in October of last year, congressional Democrats had a net approval rating of plus 22 percent.

“Today, though, look at that,” he said, pointing to a net approval rating of minus 9 points.

“That is an over 30 point drop, at the climb, right into the ocean, right there,” he said.

“And I will note it had never been negative. Democrats had always had a positive net approval rating of their own party in Congress in every Congress before this one.”

“Congressional Democrats are underwater with their own party, and that’s why I think these primaries are going to be so interesting, because they’re going to tell us, okay, which way do Democrats want their party to go?”

He said the “big problem” is “Democrats aren’t sure what direction they want their party to go.”

Nearly three in ten (28 percent) want the party to move to the left, he said. Less than one in five (18 percent) want the party to not move at all. And nearly half — 47 percent — want the party to move to the center.

“This is a party divided, where they’re not actually giving a clear message of where they want their party to go,” he noted.

Offering a note of caution to lawmakers in primary races, Enten said that “if all of a sudden, Democrats are actually going to move to the left — which is not what their party wants — that will actually upset the rest of the electorate.”

Enten said the “only thing” that unites the Democratic base right now is “they are very upset with Donald Trump, and I think the candidates who are able to actually capture that, that’s the candidates who are going to advance to the general election.”

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‘Lingering Concerns’: Prominent Physician Wants Trump’s Doctor to Hold Press Conference

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A prominent physician is calling for President Donald Trump’s doctor to hold a press conference to answer questions over what he says are “lingering concerns” about the president’s health.

Dr. Jonathan Reiner, a professor of medicine and surgery at The George Washington University, and a CNN medical analyst, says that Trump’s recent seven-day absence from public view only served to heighten concerns.

Last week, Trump — who is quickly approaching his 80th birthday — had his third annual checkup in 13 months, the fourth of his second term in office. He appeared in a televised Cabinet meeting last Wednesday, and then was not seen again until appearing in a podcast that was published Wednesday morning.

“I do physicals, because I just want, I think I have an obligation to do it, but I just came out with very, very good results, and I took a test, a cognitive test, and I got 100% on it. I got, as the expression goes, I aced it,” Trump said in the podcast.

“With lingering concerns following the president’s recent physical exam, and the president’s prolonged absence from the public eye, the White House should make available the president’s physician to answer questions from the press,” Dr. Reiner wrote.

Trump exacerbated those concerns when he appeared in the New York Post’s Pod Force One podcast with what appeared to be a swollen right eye and his recurring swollen hand.

The White House Physician to the President, Captain Sean Barbabella, released notes from the president’s checkup that left many questions, critics say, including why the White House waited three days to release the memo.

Speaking about the delayed results, Dr. Reiner told CNN, “the only reason not to release a rosy report right away is that maybe it’s not so rosy, or this is some information you don’t want the public to hear.”

“I’ve read this report multiple times, and every time I read it, it actually seems to be thinner and thinner,” Reiner noted. “And I’m actually not sure what testing the president underwent last week.”

Reiner added that there were very few tests disclosed in Dr. Barbabella’s memo, “and what was confusing, to, you know, many of the physicians who reviewed these reports, is that it appeared that the president had underwent repeat testing, and I’m not sure that’s true.”

“But the president was at Walter Reed for three hours, so what actually was conducted there?” he asked.

He also noted that Barbabella’s report indicated the list of medications the president is taking “was shortened or abbreviated for readability and relevance.”

“I’m not sure what readability means,” Reiner added, “but every medication the president is taking is relevant, and they only released two cholesterol medicines and aspirin.”

 

Image via Reuters 

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Trump Resurfaces With a New Medical Malady He Can’t Hide

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President Donald Trump, who had not been seen in public for a week, appeared on a podcast with a new malady: an apparently swollen right eye — along with a recurring swollen hand.

“Trump’s right eye clearly showed puffiness and looked oddly misshapen compared to his left eye, while his right hand looked much bigger than his left,” The New Republic reported, noting the president “continues to dodge questions about his health.”

The interview with Pod Force One was taped on Tuesday, a week after Trump’s third medical checkup in 13 months, and the fourth of his second term. He told Miranda Devine, “I do physicals, because I just want, I think I have an obligation to do it, but I just came out with very, very good results, and I took a test, a cognitive test, and I got 100% on it. I got, as the expression goes, I aced it.”

He went on to say he has a “great memory.”

Trump, who’s quickly approaching his 80th birthday, is facing heightened scrutiny over the state of his health. The White House took several days to release doctor’s notes from his physical last week, adding to questions about his overall health.

The New Republic noted that “it’s very difficult to dispute what people can see with their own eyes, and the president’s outward physical appearance coupled with his tendency to fall asleep on camera don’t inspire confidence in his health.”

On Sunday, Axios reported that the White House physician’s health readout left “key blanks unfilled.”

The “memo from White House physician Sean Barbabella didn’t put to rest persistent questions about apparent bruising on Trump’s hands, swollen ankles and his alertness during some public events.” It “again attributed the bruising of his hands to frequent handshaking and aspirin therapy and noted ‘slight lower leg swelling’ it characterized as improved from last year.”

Bob Wachter, chair of the Department of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, told Axios, “I think it’s quite unusual for someone … who doesn’t have chronic problems that require more frequent monitoring to come in more often than every year.”

 

 

 

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