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Shannon: Cold Civil War may be heating up (column)

Michael Shannon
Cagle Column

Recent developments on the restaurant front are going to put a dent into date night plans for Kellyanne Conway and her husband. If Sarah Huckabee Sanders can’t eat in peace with her Never Trump parents in some central Virginia one-horse town, there’s no way Conway can have a sit-down dinner anywhere in D.C. or Northern Virginia and the drive-through may be out of the question, too.

Huckabee could have solved her problem by going around the corner to the Robert E. Lee Hotel for Italian. There is no way even the most self-righteous Social Justice Warrior would follow her into an establishment named after ‘Marse Robert.’

Low-level Trump administration employees in Oregon should be so lucky.



For over a week in Portland, the domestic terrorist group Antifa has been blockading the entrance of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement building. Oregon Live reports the fascists claim they are staging their “round-the-clock occupation in opposition to the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, including its policy of separating migrant children from their parents at the U.S. border.”

Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler agrees, saying “The policy being enacted by the federal government around the separation of very small children from their parents is an abomination. I want to be very clear I do not want the @PortlandPolice to be engaged or sucked into a conflict, particularly from a federal agency that I believe is on the wrong track, that has not fully lived American values of inclusion and is also an agency where the former head suggested that people who lead cities that are sanctuary cities like this one should be arrested.”



Since Wheeler and other sanctuary politicians are conspiring to obstruct the enforcement of federal immigration law, they should be arrested. If President Trump can be investigated for obstructing an imaginary Russia collusion crime, then Wheeler should expect equal treatment for proven obstruction.

Wheeler proves its short journey from sanctimonious “sanctuary city” politicians deciding what laws they will enforce, to deciding who qualifies for protection under the law. In Portland’s Wheeler regime, illegal aliens are immune to federal immigration law, while federal employees don’t qualify for protection by the police.

I’m reasonably sure Wheeler isn’t a religious man, but what he’s done is equivalent to being excommunicated by the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages. The protection of government is removed from the excommunicated and they are on their own.

Wheeler’s denying federal employees protection under the law covers all the bases of lawlessness. It’s a direct violation of his oath of office where he pledged to “support the Constitutions of the United States and the State of Oregon; Charter of the City of Portland and its laws.” And selective enforcement of the law violates the “equal protection” clause of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution.

Police Chief Danielle Outlaw is following the mayor’s orders to let lawlessness reign. This really is no different from Nazi Germany, where the police were ordered by party officials to ignore “Brown Shirt” attacks on Communists.

It’s only a short rotation on the color wheel from “Brown Shirt” fascists to black-clad Antifa fascists.

This is also where society begins to unravel. If federal employees doing their job for a legitimately elected president can’t expect protection from local police their taxes support, then it won’t be long before the employees decide to take their safety into their own hands.

Wheeler’s us-against-them politics has aroused the interest of Uncle Sam. Usually local officials and police don’t like it when the feds start big-footing around their jurisdiction. Here Wheeler invites it and the invitation has been accepted by the Federal Protective Service.

The Service distributed a flyer ordering occupiers to leave: “It is unlawful under federal law to obstruct the entrances, foyers, lobbies, corridors, offices and/or parking lots of federal facilities.”

Those arrested will be sent to a federal facility and tried in a federal court.

The ICE building takes up the entire block where it’s located. Assuming Antifa clears federal land without a street battle, the feds are powerless to evict them from private property surrounding the block. The occupiers could well emulate the border jumpers they profess to love and trespass on adjacent private land, where Portland cops will continue to ignore them.

Sanders was no doubt irritated by her treatment, but she had meal options. That’s not the case with law enforcement. When the police violate their oath and duty by refusing to protect law-abiding citizens from a fascist mob, there is no other option for the average citizen except direct action.

Wheeler and the other leftists in his Amen corner need to ask themselves if that’s really a road down which they want to travel.

Copyright 2018 Michael Shannon, distributed by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate. Michael Shannon is a commentator and public relations consultant, and is the author of “A Conservative Christian’s Guidebook for Living in Secular Times.” He can be reached at mandate.mmpr@gmail.com.


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