President Donald Trump has received the backing of the Louisiana Sheriffs’ Association in what the organization said was its first ever pr...
President Donald Trump has received the backing of the Louisiana Sheriffs’ Association in what the organization said was its first ever presidential endorsement.
LSA president Jason Ard, sheriff of Livingston Parish, released a statement Thursday on behalf of the organization.
“President Trump has repeatedly sided with law and order,” the statement said, according to KLFY-TV. “The men and women who choose to serve and protect across our great country know we have a proven leader in Donald J. Trump. We endorse a leader who supports our mission of working with citizens to maintain safer communities.”
Bossier Parish Sheriff Julian Whittington expanded on those sentiments.
“The Louisiana Sheriffs’ Association has endorsed President Trump, and I was honored to be able to make the motion for that to happen,” he said on the Bossier Parish Sheriff’s Office Facebook page.
“We chose to stand with the one who stands with us. President Trump has continued to stand up for law enforcement, which needs to be maintained and respected for our nation to have law and order,” Whittington wrote.
“People need food, shelter, and clothing to live…and they need safety and security. That’s what law enforcement does, and that’s why I’m proud LSA has taken a stand to endorse President Trump,” he added.
On Wednesday, Trump took his law-and-order efforts up a notch with a memorandum that would limit what the memo called “anarchist jurisdictions” from getting federal grants.
“Unfortunately, anarchy has recently beset some of our States and cities,” the memo said. “For the past few months, several State and local governments have contributed to the violence and destruction in their jurisdictions by failing to enforce the law, disempowering and significantly defunding their police departments, and refusing to accept offers of Federal law enforcement assistance.
“As a result of these State and local government policies, persistent and outrageous acts of violence and destruction have continued unabated in many of America’s cities, such as Portland, Seattle, and New York.”
Trump said Americans whose tax dollars are funneled to these and other cities do not want their money used to support places where lawlessness runs rampant.
“My Administration will not allow Federal tax dollars to fund cities that allow themselves to deteriorate into lawless zones,” the memo said. “To ensure that Federal funds are neither unduly wasted nor spent in a manner that directly violates our Government’s promise to protect life, liberty, and property, it is imperative that the Federal Government review the use of Federal funds by jurisdictions that permit anarchy, violence, and destruction in America’s cities.
“It is also critical to ensure that Federal grants are used effectively, to safeguard taxpayer dollars entrusted to the Federal Government for the benefit of the American people.”
All federal agencies must submit reports of what federal funding supports those three cities, as well as Washington, D.C., the memo said.
But Trump did not stop there.
The memo said that “the Attorney General, in consultation with the Secretary of Homeland Security and the Director of OMB, shall publish on the Department of Justice website a list identifying State and local jurisdictions that have permitted violence and the destruction of property to persist and have refused to undertake reasonable measures to counteract these criminal activities (anarchist jurisdictions).”
Factors that go into determining if a place is an “anarchist jurisdiction” include whether it has curbed police responses, carved out parts of the jurisdiction that police are prevented from accessing or defunded the police.
Grant-making agencies will then be instructed to limit grants — “to the maximum extent permitted by law” — to those communities labeled “anarchist jurisdictions,” according to the memo.
Earlier this week, during a visit to Kenosha, Wisconsin, Trump said rioting and the ideology that fuels it must be defeated.
He said the Kenosha riots were “not acts of peaceful protest, but really domestic terror.”
“To stop the political violence, we must also confront the radical ideology that includes this violence. Reckless, far-left politicians continue to push the destructive message that our nation and our law enforcement are oppressive or racist. They’ll throw out any word that comes to them,” Trump added.
“Actually, we must give far greater support to our law enforcement. It’s all about giving them additional support. These are great people. These are great, great people. These are brave people. They’re fighting to save people that they never met before, in many cases. And they’re incredible,” he said.
“We must really be thankful that we have them, and we have to help them do their jobs. We can’t be threatening them with their pensions are going to be taken away, their job is going to be taken away, everything is going to be taken away, they’re going to be living a bad life if they utter an incorrect word.
“You can’t do it. We have to have our law enforcement.”
No comments