KEN MIDKIFF: A visit from the goon squad, coming to a city near you – Columbia Missourian

While Portland, Oregon, may be far away from Columbia, what has been happening there bodes ill for our entire country. Rather than law and order, we seem to be observing lawlessness and chaos.

When federal officers arrived in Portland for the purpose of defending federal property, they started to beat up peaceable protesters well beyond the federal courthouse. There was some speculation early on that these were not federal troops at all. Were they right-wing goons?

That conjecture was put to rest when the president boasted that these unidentified agents with no uniform insignia, no name badges were there at his behest. He went even further, saying he would send federal deployments into major cities with Democratic mayors.

The mayor of Kansas City, one of those major cities with a Democrat as mayor, said on TV that as far as he knew, neither he nor anyone else in authority had been contacted about federal agents arriving in his city.

He said he found out about the president's move on Twitter. He went on to say that if the troops were there to combat crime, they were welcome. But he also urged that they coordinate with local police.

He was fearful, however, that the federal agents would not be in to Kansas City to combat crime but to quell Black Lives Matter demonstrators.

Given what has happened in Portland, he was right to be fearful. In Portland, the federal agents beat up a Navy veteran, who was doing nothing other than asking whether their actions violated the Constitution.

He ended up with a broken wrist and several bruises on his legs where he had been hit multiple times with a club wielded by one of those unidentified agents.

A wall of moms then arrived to get between protesters and the unidentified fellows beating and abducting them. Not deterred, the gang then attacked the wall of moms with tear gas.

Reportedly, the troops were there to protect federal property against the protesters, ignoring the First Amendment of the Constitution, which declares, among other provisions, that the right to peaceably assemble shall not be abridged.

But instead of tamping down peaceable protests, the presence of the storm troopers had the opposite effect. After the attacks, the number of peaceful protesters increased dramatically. Even the mayor of Portland turned up, and he was subjected to tear gas.

To be sure, a few violent protesters and anarchists were out to damage the federal courthouse. The federal agents rightfully defended the courthouse but then went well beyond that. They seemed more than ready to quell legal protests.

Now the president has declared that he will send federal agents, presumably from the Department of Homeland Security, to Chicago, Albuquerque and, yes, Kansas City.

Allegedly, the purpose is to assist local police in combating crime, but it is troubling that no one is contacting local leaders.

In Portland, it seems it is now necessary to stand in line to sue the federal government for these actions. Already suing are the mayor of Portland, the American Civil Liberties Union, a Portland church and a legal defense organization, among others. All claim that the federal agents have violated the constitutional rights of peaceful protesters.

This entire episode is reminiscent of the police riot in Chicago during the 1986 Democrat National Convention, which I watched on TV after being honorably discharged from the Army.

Never in my two years of service was I directed or asked to violate the constitutional rights of citizens. Not so the federal troops in Portland.

Call them agents or officers or whatever you like. They are goons apparently acting in violation of the First Amendment at the orders of a president who has acted in violation of the U.S. Constitution.

When that is considered, our country is at risk of becoming a dictatorship. If Chicago, Kansas City and Albuquerque go the way of Portland, we should all be very concerned.

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KEN MIDKIFF: A visit from the goon squad, coming to a city near you - Columbia Missourian