[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 121 (Wednesday, July 1, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4083-S4084]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                PROTESTS

  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, I had planned to speak first today 
about the NDAA. I had planned to discuss our work to ensure American 
servicemembers can protect our Nation and secure peace for the United 
States.
  Unfortunately, the inexplicable passivity and weakness of local 
leaders in our own country has denied some citizens peace and security 
right here at home.
  Here we are in Congress, equipping our Armed Forces to protect the 
homeland. Yet some local leaders have apparently felt it would be too 
politically incorrect to do their jobs and keep the peace.
  It has now been 22 days since radical demonstrators seized control of 
several blocks of downtown Seattle, drove the police out of a precinct, 
and declared an autonomous zone, which the mob itself would rule.
  It is worth pausing to consider how the mainstream media and leading 
Democrats might have reacted if tea party protesters in 2009 had 
forcibly created a breakaway zone within a major city and barred the 
actual authorities from entering. Somehow I am skeptical the press 
would have bent over backward to find a sympathetic light. Somehow I 
doubt these same politicians would have felt compelled to curry favor 
with the occupiers or flirt with their demands.
  But we are talking about the American left in 2020. So, instead, what 
we get is a major newspaper lavishing praise--praise--on the 
``liberated streets'' and a mayor and local government that have 
expressly declined to restore order and the equal protection of the 
law.
  The mob has gotten its way.

[[Page S4084]]

  There have been numerous shootings in this lawless place. About a 
week ago, a 19-year-old was shot and killed. Last weekend, after yet 
another shooting, a 16-year-old is dead and a 14-year-old was injured. 
Some reports suggest these two boys were shot by a self-appointed 
security squad. These are miscellaneous citizens who roam the area with 
guns drawn after the occupiers drove the real police out.
  We are talking about Seattle, WA, in the United States of America?
  The rule of law cannot fade in and out with the fashions of the 
radical left. No leaders should have sacrificed small businesses to 
riots and mobs a few weeks back, and no leader should let threats or 
leftwing jargon persuade them to tolerate occupations for weeks on end.
  I understand that, just this morning, Seattle's mayor finally--
finally--released a new order that at last empowered police to bring an 
end to this. So let's hope the rule of law finally--finally--prevails.

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