‘No, no, hell no!’ Swift response to unconfirmed reports that DOJ seeks emergency powers during corona crisis

Keeping in mind that there has been no official announcement, a Politico report that the Department of Justice is requesting new emergency powers during the COVID-19 outbreak went over online like a lead balloon.

The Justice Department, under the leadership of Attorney General Bill Barr, “has quietly asked Congress for the ability to ask chief judges to detain people indefinitely without trial during emergencies — part of a push for new powers that comes as the coronavirus spreads through the United States,” Politico reported.

In an article published Saturday, the news source said it had reviewed documents that detailed requests to lawmakers which reportedly included topics such as the statute of limitations, asylum and the way court hearings are conducted.

Ironically, there’s concern that President Donald Trump may try to take a page out of Barack Obama’s playbook and not allow a serious crisis to go to waste.

“The move has tapped into a broader fear among civil liberties advocates and Donald Trump’s critics — that the president will use a moment of crisis to push for controversial policy changes,” Politico’s Betsy Woodruff Swan wrote. “Already, he has cited the pandemic as a reason for heightening border restrictions and restricting asylum claims.”

The Justice Department has declined to comment on the documents that are said to support the claim.

The president did liken himself to a “wartime president” in battling the pandemic, and on that note, Abraham Lincoln did suspend the writ of habeas corpus during the Civil War.

Of all the many online responses to the story, this one may be the most prescient.

At the same time, the liberal media wasted no time disseminating the story and the reaction to what would effectively amount to suspending the Constitution was quick and came from all sides.

The ferocity of the response was captured best by Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah. In all caps, Lee tweeted late Saturday: “OVER MY DEAD BODY.”

In a follow-up, he called on Trump to “please refute and disavow this immediately.”

Lee would also add: “If it’s not a joke, we’ve got much bigger problems. If this is a joke, it’s not funny.”

From across the aisle, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., was quick to jump on the opportunity to elevate himself by feigning concern over what may prove to be a non-story — if a request was made to Congress, wouldn’t the top Democrat in the Senate be aware?

The one certainly with Trump and his critics is that if you stick around long enough, everything goes full circle.

The president has been called a fascist dictator almost from day one, and when he did not declare martial law and lock down the nation in the face of the Chinese virus, there were complaints that he was not being a fascist dictator.

And now, with the Politico report, Trump is once again being called a fascist dictator.

Here’s a sampling of responses that pretty much covers the entire political spectrum, from Trump-hating liberals to Never Trumpers, and also those genuinely concerned about protecting civil liberties.

Hell, the opportunity to reject the idea was such low hanging fruit that even hard-left socialists who would be the first to eschew the Constitution were quick to jump in:

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Tom Tillison

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