Horowitz: The need for states to thwart federal persecution of political opponents

If COVID was the pretext to criminalize our bodies, then January 6 was the ploy to criminalize our social and political views. The regime is now arresting people for merely protesting regime policies without committing an actionable crime simply because they are political opponents. Meanwhile, regime supporters can directly call for violence, have their supporters follow up and attempt to assassinate a Supreme Court justice, and the regime will continue to praise the protesters and even insinuate the coming of a “mini-revolution.” The past week’s events have made it clear we need a national divorce and cannot live harmoniously with these people. As such, it’s time for red-state governors to protect the civil rights of political dissidents with as much vigor as the regime has for violating them.

On Thursday, a team of FBI stormtroopers raided the Michigan home of Ryan Kelley, one of the leading GOP candidates for governor. His crime? Being at the protest outside the Capitol. The Feds accused him of “gesturing” to protesters to storm the Capitol and used some comments he made during the heat of the protest to incriminate him; however, the proof being in the pudding, Kelly never entered the Capitol at all. Using this as the threshold for arrest, millions of BLM protesters should be sitting in jail, when in fact even those who burned, beat, looted, and vandalized were never cited, much less punished. Oh, and he was arrested by the same Michigan FBI office that was engaged in entrapment and basically concocted the kidnapping plot against Governor Whitmer. As Julie Kelly reported, “More than a dozen FBI undercover agents and informants were involved in the kidnapping caper; Dan Chappel, the lead informant, was compensated at least $60,000 by the FBI for six months’ work, paid in cash for services rendered, and reimbursement for expenses.”

Obviously, the arrest of Ryan Kelley coincides with the Hollywood documentary-style January 6 committee hearings and is a day after Biden promised Jimmy Kimmel he would send his political opponents to jail for not playing by the rules. In a sadistic twist of irony, in that same interview, he “predicted’ a “mini-revolution” if Roe is overturned, even though the day before, a young man was arrested for an attempted assassination of Justice Kavanaugh for potentially overturning Roe.

So here are the rules of the game. Democrats can directly call for violence, have their supporters take up the call, and they are not held politically accountable and even double down on their comments. Yet for any individual involved in a protest or – in the case of Peter Navarro and law professor John Eastman – merely giving a legal opinion on something that was associated with violent acts of a selected few individuals (encouraged by FBI agents like Ray Epps) – their legal and political opinions or forms of protest are now deemed criminal acts.

Remember Chuck Schumer’s comments about releasing a “whirlwind” against Gorsuch and Kavanaugh?

"I want to tell you, Gorsuch, I want to tell you, Kavanaugh, you have released the whirlwind and you will pay the price," Schumer, who was then minority leader, said at the time. "You won't know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions."

Keep in mind, there are no elections for Supreme Court, so there is no way he could have meant these words figuratively, about an election, in the heat of political debate. There is only one thing he could have meant, and now we have ubiquitous protests outside their homes and one individual as an alleged assassin. I’m not suggesting we head down the slippery slope of criminalizing Schumer’s words, but the government is criminalizing any opinion even if there is no violence inherent in the words.

We constantly hear the left wax poetic about the degree of violence on January 6, the damage, and the threat to slaughter thousands of people, even though, interestingly enough, all of the videos only seem to show violence outside, but those in the Capitol either did nothing or goofed off. Some even exchanged friendly words with officers in the Senate chamber.

Yet these same people seem to forget that dozens of Secret Service agents were injured in a BLM riot at the White House in May 2020. What about the broader scope of the BLM riots?

According to a report by the Major Cities Chiefs Association (MCCA):

• There were 574 riots in the U.S. and Canada between May 25 and July 31, 2020, stemming from about 8,700 protest events.
• More than 2,000 officers were injured in those riots.
• 72% of major city law enforcement agencies had officers harmed during the protests.
• More than half of major city law enforcement agencies (56%) experienced arson incidents.

In Minneapolis alone, rioters burned down more than 1,500 businesses, as well as police stations and schools, and caused over $500 million in damages. Nationwide, there was between $1 and $2 billion in insurance claims for damages from the riots. Yet not only did no Democrat condemn the violence, as every conservative condemned the violence on January 6, Democrats praised it, encouraged it, joined it, declared it a new civil rights movement, and dedicated memorials and ostensibly a new national holiday to it. Across the nation, even those who committed the worst forms of arson got off with a slap on the wrist, and most of the extremely violent rioters in Portland had their charges dropped. Oh, and unlike January 6, they didn’t need FBI agent provocateurs to get violent, they did it on their own.

According to the Oregonian, out of 974 criminal cases stemming from the Portland riots over the past several months, 666 were dropped by Multnomah District Attorney Mike Schmidt. Moreover, only seven out of the 39 arrests for assaulting police officers resulted in charges being filed. The outlet even found 18 individuals who were arrested three or more times throughout the rioting since May. Nearly all the charges have been dropped.

The Oregonian further found that even some of the cases that were initially listed as having criminal charges lodged against the defendant were later dropped. "But court records show prosecutors have subsequently decided to drop all charges in at least 22 of these cases, some that have included allegations of riot, burglary and unlawful use of a weapon."

This is not a mere double standard; this is a systematic persecution in the most grotesque form of anarcho-tyranny. It’s quite evident that Democrats will work assiduously to protect their political supporters, even those who commit the most heinous acts. Isn’t it time for Republican governors to protect our political supporters, especially those who never committed a violent act or any criminal act?

Many red states are contemplating a “Second Amendment sanctuary,” but there is an even more urgent need to establish a First Amendment sanctuary. All GOP governors, backed by their respective legislatures, should announce in press conferences that state troopers will prohibit the entry of federal agents to arrest any political opponent where there is no evidence the target has committed an act of violence. They should also refuse to work with the FBI on any other issue until this crisis is resolved.

One such bill has been introduced in Oklahoma by state Senator Nathan Dahm. SB 1166, the “Prohibition on Political Prisoners in Oklahoma Act,” would prohibit the federal government from transporting any January 6 prisoner through the state if they are not being charged with a felony.