Cotton appeared on Fox News where he offered, “[I]f necessary, the president should use the Insurrection Act to deploy active-duty military forces to these cities to support our local law enforcement and ensure that this violence ends tonight . . .not one more night.”

In cartoonish fashion, the president announced the unleashing of thousands of heavily armed soldiers, military personnel, and law enforcement officers on the community of Washington, D. C. to, as he proclaimed, “Stop the violence. . .”

In other words, the military was being deployed in Washington, D.C. where a large Black community exists with no real political leverage because succeeding Congresses—during both Democratic and Republican administrations—have failed to work for its statehood in any meaningful way.

Instead, governors are relying on local law enforcement and National Guard resources on active duty within their respective states to support local police; unfortunately, because Washington, D. C. is not a state and does not have a governor, it is at the mercy of the president in this regard.

Readers may recall the antics of former Republican President George W. Bush during the Katrina disaster when he allegedly tried again and again to convince former Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco to agree to a similar action and surrender command of her state’s National Guard troops to the federal government.

However, there are statutory exceptions—like the Insurrection Act—which allow the president to use military force to suppress insurrection or to enforce federal authority, as well as exceptions that permit the Department of Defense to provide federal, state, and local police with information equipment, and personnel.

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