Friday on Fox News Channel’s “Hannity,” Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) spoke of an effort she was promoting to end autonomous zones like the one in Seattle known as the CHOP zone.
Ernst said local governments that allowed for those zones could lose federal funding if her bill were successful.
“The bill would prevent federal taxpayer dollars from going to those autonomous zones, and the mayors and the governors that enable the lawlessness to continue. For those mayors that prevent law enforcement from actually going into these areas and policing as they should be doing, we would strip away the federal funding that goes to those cities. So, we think it is a right thing to do. We certainly don’t want to enable those areas. If they truly want to be autonomous, then they can exist on their own.”
Ernst pointed to what appeared to be the contradiction of protesting against the acts that led to the death of George Floyd and the lawlessness within so-called autonomous zones.
“I think it is actually quite ironic because we saw with the death of George Floyd, a law enforcement officer that had lost morality, was corrupt, lost all empathy for a fellow human beings, and that’s exactly what we see these different groups embracing, is lawlessness, corruption, and anarchy,” Ernst continued. “You know, everything that they said that they were against, they are actually practicing in these autonomous zones.”
“So, I think it is rather ironic that they are going down that path, and I think it’s actually very sad,” she added. “We truly are a great nation, and we should celebrate our diversity, have peaceful discussions. Anarchy is not part of that conversation.”
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