The FBI considers violent crime to include murder, manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assault.

In their Uniform Crime Report, the FBI maintains an annual violent crime tally by state, city and population. The UCR for 2019 seemed to be the most recent, fully available report online.

The city of Marquette, with a population of 20,599, was listed with 26 violent crimes for 2019.

Comparably, Bristol, CT, with a population of 59,977 people, listed 53 violent crimes for that same year.

In an effort to compare apples to apples, I came up with an average of 1.2 violent crimes per 1,000 people in Marquette, and 0.8 violent crimes per 1,000 in Bristol, CT. Both wonderful and safe cities to reside and raise children.

Looking at Oklahoma City, with a 2019 population of 657,890, we find 7.2 violent crimes per 1,000.

Del City, OK, about the same size as Marquette, listed 8.6 violent crimes per 1,000.

Dallas, TX listed 8.6, Tulsa, OK listed 9.8, Houston, TX listed 10.7, Little Rock, AR listed 15.1, and West Memphis, AR listed an average of 19.8 violent crimes per 1,000 people.

The District of Columbia, which Trump recently deemed so violent that it required an armed National Guard incursion, had an average of 10.4 violent crimes per 1,000 people in 2019.

Using Trump’s draconian logic, why aren’t armed military troops being sent into cities like Dallas, Houston and Little Rock which have crime rates as high as or higher than D.C.?

After removing or replacing all of the top generals, agency directors, associate directors, and anyone with the least bit of authority and oversight, the oval office authoritarian and his administrative misfits are now testing constitutional limits, and the limits of the American people. 

Sending troops into DC and other cities (with Democrat mayors) is not only a dry-run to see how far the military will go under their new chain-of-command, it’s a softening of the public’s stomach for this kind of overreach.  It’s preparation, as with the $62 billion being pumped into ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs and Enforcement).

MAGA Republican politicians have removed thousands of polling places and drop boxes, brazenly gerrymandered, inserted highly partisan state polling directors, and worked to end mail-in balloting. They no longer continue feigning adherence to the norms and mores of a democratic society. How long before they blatantly ignore judicial rulings and election results?

The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 was passed in order to keep the Federal Government from using the military against its own citizens, and from interfering with local and state self-governance. The statutory exceptions are rebellion and the enforcement of civil rights law.

There is no economic emergency or crime wave emergency. It is only Trump grossly exceeding his presidential powers.

Republican legislators have abdicated their power to King Trump. We must remove them from office, and it begins with our own Republican, Jack Bergman.