Mattis is a disgruntled employee who was terminated. He is using his status as a decorated Marine to promote an agenda. He of all people should know that the situation in Lafayette Park was not as he represented, and that in these situations the Secret Service detail is in charge. The protesters were ordered to disperse repeatedly and it was almost time for the curfew. They showed no signs of dispersal, the president was about to make a public appearance, and DC had already had "peaceful protests" turn violent.

Tiptop789: BOWING OUT THIS TIME. This is way too time consuming when I could be watching St. Floyd's
funeral with the "angel wings" on his picture. Perhaps I can learn how this man gets more funerals than
a President has in his death. May his soul be with his Savior and his life be much easier in heaven or hell
wherever his soul is now while many states pay tribute to this fantastic man who became a legend with
his death. I ask for forgiveness for the many states that are paying such fantastic tributes to this man
with the wrecking of businesses that have taken years to build and in a day or so were destroyed. I thank
God for this man who has many many people walking to this different man and thus far all we have heard
he did was pass bad counterfeit money and so many have done so many worse things. We must admire
this man who now in the course of events...entire police departments are being closed and when we
all 911...we will get NO ONE. Police Departments are going to be gone and BLACK LIVES MATTER WILL NOW
TAKE OVER AND POSSIBLY OMAR IN ST. FLOYD'S CITY WHERE HE WAS KILLED BY A POLICE MAN MAY
RUN FOR PRESIDENT AND TAKE OVER THE NATION IN LIGHT OF THIS HORRIBLE KILLING THAT HAS
CAUSED MILLIONS AND MILLIONS OF DOLLARS WORTH OF DESTRUCTION AND MAY NEVER OPEN AGAIN
BUT WE MUST PAY TRIBUTE TO THIS HORRIBLE INJUSTICE DONE TO THIS MAN. IN ANOTHER STATE, A
POLICE MAN WAS KILLED DELIVERING AN EVICTION NOTICE WITH TWO YOUNG CHILDEN AND HARDLY
A MENTION IN THE NEWS OF THE UNITED STATES. HE MUST NOT HAVE RECEIVED HIS ANGEL WINGS
AS PICTURED ON ST. FLOYDS PICTURES IN MINNEAPOLIS, HIS HOME. THE POLICE MAN WITH THE
EVICTION NOTICE ONLY GOT A PARADE OF POLICE CARS...HE MUST NOT HAVE KNOWN AL SHARPTON
OR JESSE JACKSON. SUCH A PITY. MAY WE ALL HAVE REAL REVERENCE FOR THIS FANTASTIC MAN WHO
HAS DISRUPTED THE WHOLE WORLD WITH HIS UNTIMELY DEATH AND WILL BE REMEMBERED FOREVER
AS THESE KINDS OF DEATHS TAKE ON A LIFE O

Tiptop789: I think of the many that get shot in Chicago and their PROBABLY FORMER POLICE DEPT. AS
NO DOUBT THEY HAVE PUT THEM DOWN NOW AND ALSO DEFUNDING THEM AS OMAR WANTS THAT TO
HAPPEN AND THAT LITTLE __?___ IS CALLING THE SHOTS FOR THE IDIOTS IN MINNESOTA. MINNESOTA
WENT TO THE DOGS WHEN THEY GOT ALL THEIR MUSLIMS IN. IN CHICAGO...THEY ALWAYS KEEP SOME
CLOWN AS NOW THE WOMAN WHO (WONDER HOW THOSE VOTES WERE COUNTED) AS IT IS MANY BLACK
PEOPLE SHOT AND THE POLICE CAN'T HANDLE IT WITH THEIR CLOWN OF A MAYOR....
NO ONE REALLY CARES..BUT NOW WE "CELEBRATE" THIS DEATH...SAD FOR IGNORANT PEOPLE THAT
THEY DON'T "GET T!" I HAVE WISHED SOMEONE CARED FOR THE LAST YEARS WHEN NOBODY CARED...
JUST WATCHED THE NUMBERS IN THE HEAT OF THE SUMMER AND THE NUMBERS BEING SHOT. THIS
IS NOTHING NEW...JUST BLOWN UP FOR THE BLACK LIVES MATTER ...NOW...TO MAKE THEIR SPLASH AND
HOPEFULLY THAT A CURFEW WILL GET THE ONES THAT LEAVE (YOU KNOW THE DECENT ONES) AND THEN THE REAL POLICE CAN ARREST THE REAL TROUBLE MAKERS....THINK SO? NAH! NEVER HAPPEN...NOT WHEN THE TV CAMERAS ARE ROLLING...NEED THAT HATE TO BE SPREAD FAR AND WIDE AND IT IS A CELEBRATION
OF THIS DEATH...IF YOU DON'T GET IT, I FEEL REAL SORRY FOR YOU.?

Here is the text:


In Union There Is Strength

I have watched this week’s unfolding events, angry and appalled. The words “Equal Justice Under Law” are carved in the pediment of the United States Supreme Court. This is precisely what protesters are rightly demanding. It is a wholesome and unifying demand—one that all of us should be able to get behind. We must not be distracted by a small number of lawbreakers. The protests are defined by tens of thousands of people of conscience who are insisting that we live up to our values—our values as people and our values as a nation.

When I joined the military, some 50 years ago, I swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution. Never did I dream that troops taking that same oath would be ordered under any circumstance to violate the Constitutional rights of their fellow citizens—much less to provide a bizarre photo op for the elected commander-in-chief, with military leadership standing alongside.

We must reject any thinking of our cities as a “battlespace” that our uniformed military is called upon to “dominate.” At home, we should use our military only when requested to do so, on very rare occasions, by state governors. Militarizing our response, as we witnessed in Washington, D.C., sets up a conflict—a false conflict—between the military and civilian society. It erodes the moral ground that ensures a trusted bond between men and women in uniform and the society they are sworn to protect, and of which they themselves are a part. Keeping public order rests with civilian state and local leaders who best understand their communities and are answerable to them.

James Madison wrote in Federalist 14 that “America united with a handful of troops, or without a single soldier, exhibits a more forbidding posture to foreign ambition than America disunited, with a hundred thousand veterans ready for combat.” We do not need to militarize our response to protests. We need to unite around a common purpose. And it starts by guaranteeing that all of us are equal before the law.

Instructions given by the military departments to our troops before the Normandy invasion reminded soldiers that “The Nazi slogan for destroying us…was ‘Divide and Conquer.’ Our American answer is ‘In Union there is Strength.’” We must summon that unity to surmount this crisis—confident that we are better than our politics.

Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people—does not even pretend to try. Instead he tries to divide us. We are witnessing the consequences of three years of this deliberate effort. We are witnessing the consequences of three years without mature leadership. We can unite without him, drawing on the strengths inherent in our civil society. This will not be easy, as the past few days have shown, but we owe it to our fellow citizens; to past generations that bled to defend our promise; and to our children.

We can come through this trying time stronger, and with a renewed sense of purpose and respect for one another. The pandemic has shown us that it is not only our troops who are willing to offer the ultimate sacrifice for the safety of the community. Americans in hospitals, grocery stores, post offices, and elsewhere have put their lives on the line in order to serve their fellow citizens and their country. We know that we are better than the abuse of executive authority that we witnessed in Lafayette Square. We must reject and hold accountable those in office who would make a mockery of our Constitution. At the same time, we must remember Lincoln’s “better angels,” and listen to them, as we work to unite.

Only by adopting a new path—which means, in truth, returning to the original path of our founding ideals—will we again be a country admired and respected at home and abroad.

Mattis speaks truth!