As most know by now, Trump ordered the breakup of an entirely peaceful group that had gathered outside the White House last night. To move the protesters, police and military forces used flash-bangs and tear gas to chase protesters out of the area. The action was taken to do nothing more than allow Trump to have a photo-op in front of the church across the street, holding up a Bible.

Now the ACLU says that Trump might have broken international law in breaking up the protest.

“This appears to be grossly unjustified use of a chemical weapon on protesters and raises serious human rights concerns under international law,” the ACLU posted to Twitter.

“Elected officials, including Congress, must investigate this politically-motivated, life-threatening use of indiscriminate weapons,” the ACLU demanded.

Sometimes we are numbed to the outrages because this time they’re occurring in our own country. If we had seen pictures like this originating in Afghanistan, or even Guatemala, the United States would generally be the first to note that the actions violate international law or at least international norms. When we see it here, we’re so conditioned to believing that our government “doesn’t do that,” that when it happens we are often the last to realize the importance and the outrageousness.

Phillip Rucker of the Washington Post reported that military helicopters flew low over Washington DC streets last night until midnight. The actions constitute a military takeover. We don’t use the military to do law-enforcement in this country, and we don’t break-up peaceful protests. At least, we didn’t, until Trump appeared on the scene.

Trump is consumed with appearing “strong,” but even Republican leaders were silent yesterday (with the exception of Tom Cotton and Matt Gaetz). Many Republicans asked for Trump to address the public and show some empathy, Collins, Cornyn, Hawley, Ernst, Romney, all went on record with some sort of statement wanting “calm” and for Trump to address things with more empathy.

Meanwhile, Trump is on his own, perhaps committing some of the biggest crimes of all, and doing anything but calming the situation.

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Peace, y’all
Jason
[email protected] and on Twitter @MiciakZoom