It’s a good thing Fidel Castro is dead. I don’t say that just because of his political oppression and casual use of executions. I mean we're going to need the space.
[Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke] called for rounding up Americans who sympathize with terrorists and shipping them to an offshore prison. During a December 2015 segment of his show, The People's Sheriff, on Glenn Beck's TheBlaze radio network, Clarke suggested that any person who posts pro-terrorist sentiments on social media be arrested, deprived of the constitutional protection against unlawful imprisonment (known as habeas corpus), and sent to Guantanamo Bay indefinitely. He estimated the number of people who could be imprisoned under his proposal could reach 1 million.
Why should we worry about a Milwaukee County sheriff if we’re fortunate enough not to be driving through his county? Well, this one stands a good chance of making trouble for everyone.
… David Clarke a Trump supporter and surrogate during the campaign is now reportedly being considered to head the Department of Homeland Security. Clarke is known for his extreme views on policing—including his conviction that there is a war on cops but no police brutality—and for his attacks on Black Lives Matter.
Where many of Trump’s appointments are exactly the kind of Wall Street billionaires and lobbyists he railed against during the campaign, Clarke represents something genuine. Genuine insanity.
He advocates treating American citizens suspected of terrorism as "enemy combatants," questioning them without an attorney, and holding them indefinitely, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.
The press has found it possible to normalize white supremacists and a genuine neo-Nazi in the White House, but pretending that Clarke is anything less than a lunatic fascist will take a very special effort in looking the other way.
"I suggest that our commander in chief ought to utilize Article I, Section 9 and take all of these individuals that are suspected, these ones on the internet spewing jihadi rhetoric … to scoop them up, charge them with treason and, under habeas corpus, detain them indefinitely at Gitmo," Clarke said.
The cited bit of the Constitution applies only in cases of “rebellion and invasion.” The last time it was aired out was 1871, when the Ku Klux Klan led a mini-rebellion in South Carolina. But then, Clarke thinks America is already in open (but invisible) revolt.
"We have no idea how many people out there have pledged allegiance or are supporting ISIS, giving aid and comfort, but I would suggest hundreds of thousands, I would suggest maybe a million," Clarke said. "It's just a guess. And then you take the known terrorists that are here, and you think we're going to arrest all these people and put them in jails and then sentence them to prison? It's idiotic. [Take them to] Gitmo and hold them indefinitely under a suspension of habeas corpus. We're at war. This is a time of war. Bold and aggressive action is needed."
The man Donald Trump is interviewing for the slot at Homeland Security believes that a million Americans are “giving aid and comfort” to ISIS, and that these million—and even more on top of that—get shipped indefinitely to Gitmo.
The maximum capacity of Gitmo? Four hundred ninety. In fact, a million people would add about 10 percent of the total population of Cuba. So forget closing it. We just need to buy the rest of the island.
Donald Trump can probably make a great deal.