By Jim Jones
JJ Commontater
As a person who volunteered to fight in the Vietnam War, I’m astounded by the silence of Idaho’s top leaders as the country travels the road toward a Trump dictatorship. Our Governor, Attorney General and Congressional delegation are apparently on board with his un-American actions, or they are just too frightened to voice objection.
I found it hard to believe when a fellow vet texted that Donald Trump was giving full military funeral honors to Ashli Babbitt, a January 6 insurrectionist. Babbitt was shot and killed by a Capitol police officer when she tried to breach a door in the US House of Representatives during the Capitol riot. The shooting was ruled to be justified. Babbitt did previously serve in the military, but should never receive honors of any sort for supporting a coup against a legally elected president.
Those who die in service to their country deserve our profound gratitude and thanks. I grieve every time I think about the 58,220 brave souls who died in Vietnam, as well as the 7,053 who perished while giving their all in the country’s post 9-11 wars. Giving honors to Babbitt, who died in service to a wannabe dictator, is an insult to those who died serving in America’s wars. What could be next for her–a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom? It is regrettable that Babbitt lost her life, but she should have known she might suffer deadly consequences for rising up against her country.
To add insult to injury, Trump’s Justice Department caved to a frivolous lawsuit brought by Babbitt’s family, paying them $5 million dollars of taxpayers’ money for her death. Shouldn’t each family of those who honorably died serving in the nation’s wars get at least that much? You can bet that our Congressional delegation, Governor and Attorney General, none of whom served in the country’s military, will remain silent about this travesty, fearing the wrath of their dear leader.
And, speaking of January 6, those same Idaho leaders have had nothing to say about the destruction the seditionists caused to the Capitol, even though Senator Risch’s office was trashed. They had nothing to say about Trump’s pardon of the nearly 1,600 insurrectionists, including Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, who beat the hell out of police officers that day. They have nothing to say about the fact that Trump’s Justice Department wants to return about $400,000 in restitution payments that judges imposed on the insurgents for dishonoring and desecrating the Capitol. A judge just reluctantly returned $2,000 to one of those criminals.
On another front, those same leaders have all pledged strong support for Trump’s ill-advised efforts to round up and deport millions of law-abiding, tax-paying workers who farm our fields, milk our cows, tend our elderly, watch our kids, construct our buildings and fight our fires. Trump vowed to target the “worst of the worst” but his results have fallen far short. The great majority of those rounded up are people just trying to make an honest living by performing work that most citizens refuse to do.
And it isn’t just arresting people without documentation. It is terrorizing and dehumanizing people, many of whom have lived and worked in the US for decades. It is one thing to arrest people who are not here legally. It is another thing to treat them like animals and send them to shameful gulags with names like Alligator Alcatraz.
The latest outrage occurred when border agents took two crews off of the lines of the Bear Gulch Fire in Olympic National Park in Washington to check the credentials of the firefighters. They arrested two firefighters at the site of the raging fire. One of them came to America 19 years ago at four years of age. The young firefighter had filed paperwork seven years ago, during Trump’s first term, to get legal status. The MAGA forces seem to believe that “we will lose our country” unless they deport every brown-skinned, four-year-old lawbreaker who fights our fires.
A veteran firefighter said, “When the rumble from this goes around, we’re going to have contractors unable to put out as many crews as they were … even if you’re a citizen and you look the wrong way, you could still get picked up.”
The great majority of Americans are better than this. The terror campaign being conducted by masked, nameless ICE agents is wearing thin with a wide swath of the public. However, Idaho’s top leaders–the Governor, Attorney General and Congressional delegation—seem to be fine with these tactics. We don’t hear a hint of discontent from them.
Idahoans should let their elected representatives know that they are tired of Trump’s glorification of his lawless supporters and the shock-troop tactics being employed by his immigration agents. If our leaders won’t speak out for decency, they must step aside.