Mike Lee Leaves the Constitutionally Illiterate Left Screaming 'Third Amendment' and Looking Pretty Stupid

(AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
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Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, questions President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, during the third day of Kavanaugh’s Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing, Thursday, Sept. 6, 2018, on Capitol Hill in Washington, to replace retired Justice Anthony Kennedy. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
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District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser is unhappy that troops under federal authority and federal law enforcement are being moved into DC to deal with street violence that the District government seems unable or unwilling to control. She wants them out of DC. This is from CNN, so it may be as fictitious as their Russia Hoax reporting:

On Monday, the DC National Guard was activated to assist the city’s Metropolitan Police Department with the protests and rolled onto the White House complex with military trucks. As of Thursday, more than 4,500 National Guard Members had been deployed to DC — with several states, including Florida, Indiana, Maryland, Missouri, Mississippi, New Jersey, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee and Utah, sending their Guard troops at the request of Defense Secretary Mark Esper.

The only US military personnel operating in the city are National Guard, and no active duty forces have entered the city yet to respond to civil unrest. Unlike state governors, Bowser doesn’t have authority over the DC National Guard. The guard operates in Washington under the authority of the Secretary of the Army.
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan said Wednesday said that Maryland National Guard troops he sent to DC were tasked with helping guard national monuments, including the Lincoln Memorial.

On Thursday, Bowser said she had not spoken to Hogan and “can’t approve” of the mission.

“If I wanted troops from Maryland to come into the district, we are a member of a compact, which allows me to make that request specifically to any state National Guard to do that. I have not done that for any state,” the mayor said.

As the protests continue, DC residents have seen an uptick in law enforcement personnel on the streets, with difficulty discerning their affiliation.
Bowser said Thursday that there are other “federal military assets that we did not request that we understand are under direction of Attorney General (William) Barr.”

The Democratic mayor said she was “very concerned” how federal law enforcement expanded farther out from the White House complex on Wednesday night, and said she requested the DC police chief talk to federal leaders to push the perimeter line back to Lafayette Park, which is in front of the White House.
“When they pushed out onto a DC street, that is too far and that is what we push back on,” Bowser said, confirming that the city was successful in moving the federal forces back toward Lafayette Park.

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This is the kind of genius you are dealing with

“We are examining every legal question about the president’s authority to send troops, even National Guard, to the District of Columbia,” Bowser said during a Wednesday news conference. “Another way to put it is, does the president have the legal authority to request [National] Guard from other states? I have the authority to request guards from other states.”

Short answer — the District of Columbia is actually a federal area; it’s National Guard are under the Secretary of the Army. The Constitution makes the President the Commander in Chief of the ‘militia’ and by calling them into federal service can order them about.

The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States.

Sure, she can request Guardsmen from other states. But the governors would have to agree and she would have to pay for them and the one thing that all DC governments have proven since Home Rule was granted is that they incapable of paying for much of anything unless Congress writes them a big, fat check.

With that as a backdrop, a story has started circulating that Bowser is going to evict out-of-state Guardsmen from the hotels they are currently occupying (under contract) in DC. Utah Senator Mike Lee commented on it last night

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I don’t doubt that Bowser would try something like this…by the way, I can’t even hear her name without having a Sha-Na-Na soundtrack kick off in the deep recesses of my brain

I do doubt that she has the legal authority (the troops are being billeted under contract) or the clout to make such a directive stick.

None of that stopped the stupider voices on the left from weighing in:

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(By the way, when you have profoundly stupid and uneducated people like the person above working as political reporters, a lot of the idiocy you encounter daily in the media becomes easily explainable.)

What are they talking about? They THINK they are talking about this, the Third Amendment to the US Constitution:

No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

Quartering soldiers was the practice widely used in the 18th century and earlier of billeting troops in private homes regardless of the willingness of the homeowner to go along. The homeowner had to provide food as well as living space. The food might or might not be provided by the army or the homeowner paid to provide it. In areas that were unfriendly, it was not uncommon to force the homeowner to provide food to the troops billeted in their home gratis.

Staying in a hotel for which the federal government foots the bill is not quartering. And Bowser…damn, there’s that voice again…has zero legal authority to abrogate federal contracts or order private businesses to do so.

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The Guardsmen in DC from anywhere, and that includes local Guardsmen, will be staying someplace. If they are in hotels, the rooms are paid for under contract. They are not staying in private homes. And the owners, as owners of public accommodations, have been unable for decades to refuse to rent rooms to people with the ability to pay.

The cute thing about the left arguing the Constitution is that it is just like them arguing the Bible. It is obvious that they are aware that the document exists and have a very cursory idea of what is in it. It is glaringly obvious they have never read it or its history or are even familiar with how it has been interpreted by courts and Congress. Most of their knowledge is leftist tropes which are bogus from the start. Such is the case here.

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