JASON: I tweeted something this week that you would think would have some folks a bit more circumspect about it. Not “some folks,” everybody a bit more circumspect about it.

Media lies about death of Cap Hill policeman, DOJ going after Rudy G. & Biden opponents while boy Hunter gets pass, $27 mil. settlement during Chauvin trial, no jury sequester as public officials intimidate & now this? Due process hanging by a thread… https://t.co/vn4ejvXx43

— Jason Lewis (@LewisForMN) May 4, 2021

The whole purpose of equality under the law is due process. Everything that we believe in America is about process. If we had a benevolent dictator, if the Supreme Court were omniscient, if we had a committee of men as they do in the former Soviet Union, the commissars and everybody else — who were all-knowing, all-seeing, and altruistic — why, we wouldn’t need a constitution, we wouldn’t need due process, we wouldn’t need anything.

We would just have bestowed upon us liberty, and we could trust the dictator to keep our liberty. We don’t have that. Men are fallible. They love power. We get our rights from the Lord Almighty. We bequeath to the government enumerated powers. That’s a constitutional doctrine that’s out of fashion. We have all the rights! We give the government certain powers. We don’t have to say, “Gee, where’s my right in the Constitution? We have the right.”

Government, in order to act, must point to where their power is in the Constitution. That’s how it’s limited. That is the basis of our republic. But it’s all based on process, on checks and balances. A federalism, a vertical check and balance. The horizontal checks and balances between the judiciary, between the legislative and executive branches. Why is that? Because we don’t have a benevolent dictator.

We don’t have one person that will make certain we are free. That one person assumes power, and all of a sudden, your liberties are gone. Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro, Joseph Stalin, Mao, doesn’t matter who it is. And I would say a few more names in America who would do the same if they have power, and some are. So what do we do? We have a process. The framers said, “Well, you know what?

“In order to charge somebody and take away their liberty, their life, their property, you’ve got to have a process of that. There’s a burden of proof: Probable cause, reasonable suspicion, clear and convincing evidence, beyond a reasonable doubt. These are all burdens of proof that the government must meet in order to take away your liberty, because in order to pass a law in your state capital or… Well, up until covid, and governors started passing executive orders.

But we used to have a process. The legislature would have to pass the law and the governor would have to sign off on it. We used to have a process for voting regularity. The state legislature would have to change voting law. But along comes covid and all of a sudden, the secretary of Steve Simon here in Minnesota can willy-nilly act as that dictator. But he’s not so benevolent. He changes the law to benefit his party, which he did.

The reason I bring this up is we’re now in the midst of an appeal in the Derek Chauvin trial here in Minneapolis/St. Paul. I tweeted out, “Due process hanging by a thread.” Why is that? It’s not a mart of guilt or innocence. It’s not a matter of guilt or innocence. I don’t care what you believe about Chauvin. It’s a matter of everybody, from OJ Simpson to Derek Chauvin having the right all of fair and impartial jury and trial before their life, liberty, and property is taken away.

That is the process that keeps us free. It’s all about process. That’s why the due process clause is in the 5th and 14th Amendment. “No state shall deny anyone their life, liberty, or property without the due process of law,” and that has been incorporated to all state tribunals. Well, I got news for you. I tweeted that this trial, which has now been appealed by the Chauvin defense team, as it should, have not been fair from the get-go, from the get-go.

Now, let’s be blunt about this. The trial should have been moved. It should have been a change of venue right from the get-go. But beyond that, the jury should have been sequestered so they couldn’t hear Auntie Maxine Waters threaten the jury, threaten the people of Minneapolis and St. Paul, “If you don’t get a guilty verdict, confrontation comes.”

Clearly jury intimidation. The jury should have been sequestered so they didn’t see the city of Minneapolis settle with the Floyd family for $27 million in front of the jury! And now we come to find out one jury member, number 52, was asked, “Have you been involved in any BLM protests? Have you been involved in any activism, social activism on the police ish?”

“No, no! Me? No, no, no. I’m an impartial juror.” Oops! The picture shows up. (laughs) He’s in the middle of a protest against police, “Take your knee off my back” T-shirt and all the rest. Now, I tweet out, “Due process hanging by a thread” here, folks.” You can’t conduct a fair tribunal, a jury of your peers in that sort of an atmosphere. It’s gotta be appealed. It’s not a matter of guilt or innocence. It’s a matter of process, due process.

Oh, my gosh. The Twitter trolls went nuts. You would have thought… Why, you would have thought I was undoing election law. You would have thought I was spying on the Trump campaign from a FISA warrant. You would have thought I was doing all the things Democrats have been doing to destroy the very fabric of this nation, to shred that Constitution in so many damn pieces you will not recognize it.

The “existential crisis,” to use that horribly overused phrase, is the assault — the assault — on everything that is America by this new, Democrat, out-of-control mob. That is what’s going on here. If it can happen to Derek Chauvin today, it’ll happen to you tomorrow. Guarantee it. You know, banana republic countries rig elections, and then once they win, they put their former political opponents in jail.

Oh, did I tell you Rudy Giuliani had a raid on his home, even though a subpoena would have worked under normal circumstances, even if you believe he should have been subpoenaed? Oh, and they didn’t take his hard drive info on Hunter Biden, either. Just Rudy. Are you starting to see where this is going, folks? We’re gonna have to deal with these people sooner or later, and I remember Rush talking about this not that long ago and about what happened in Minneapolis. Roll audio number 1.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Lives were destroyed. While the leadership of the Democrat Party cheered their dreams burned to the ground. This is the difference between us and Joe Biden, Mayor Jacob Frey —

CROWD: (boos)

PRESIDENT TRUMP: — and Governor Tim Walz.

CROWD: (boos)

PRESIDENT TRUMP: My message to Minnesota is clear. I’m here to help you. We will bring back law and order to your community.

RUSH: This is really a good point, folks. Trump is saying here that the leadership of the Democrat Party in Minneapolis — this is after the George Floyd — they stood down. They stood aside while the city was torched, while the city featured looting and riots, businesses and homes were burned to the ground, and Democrat leaders cheered. Democrat leaders cheered the dreams of their own voters being destroyed, being burned to the ground.

And they did. They aligned themselves with the criminal element, not the innocent. And then they started defunding police talks. And so Trump is saying, if that’s what you want, go ahead and vote for it, but I’m here to help you. And we are not gonna ever applaud your life being destroyed. We’re gonna deal with the people who are trying to destroy your lives.

JASON: Amen to that. In fact, I was with the president as I was running for the United States Senate last year when he was in Minnesota uttering those words, before Governor Walz canceled his rally in Rochester. (laughing) I’m telling you, this is turning into a place that Stalin would blush over. This is getting out of control, people. Now you’ve got this autonomous zone — George Floyd Square or the Free State of George Floyd or whatever it is — where police in Minneapolis, after almost a year, still can’t get in there.

There was a woman who apparently was pushed out of a window. Police dispatch audio, said, “Well, we’ll try to get in there. Could you ask her to move a block away,” according to National File, and the police dispatch audio that they got. I mean, multiple people have died, unable to get police protection in our own version of CHAZ here in Minnesota.

This is out of control, and this is why the single biggest argument you get as a Minnesotan these days is with your neighbor over who is going to be the last person out to turn the lights off. Real estate is cratering in downtown Minneapolis. St. Paul can’t be far behind because they’ve got a mayor that doesn’t seem to care about law and order, either.

This is a state that has been fundamentally and deliberately transformed by a welfare system that has been overly generous for decades and a refugee program out of control and a failure to assimilate. And what we’ve got now… My mother grew up in north Minneapolis. Would not recognize the area. And the tragedy of it all, the people who are suffering are not just the people who live there. The whole metro area in the state is suffering under Jacob Frey and Melvin Carter and Tim Walz especially.

But I will tell you, it’s the people in north and south Minneapolis suffering the most.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

JASON: It is a great pleasure to be here. But right now, since we’re coming from the great state of Minnesota… It used to be the Land of 10,000 Lakes, like I say, but we changed that to 10,000 riots. Just stick around. If this appeal goes through and there’s a mistrial or an appellate court overturns the Chauvin verdict, it’s time to get the plywood out. You think there’s a lumber shortage in the real estate industry these days for new construction of homes?

You ain’t seen nothing yet ’til you seen downtown Minneapolis. That’s where all the lumber’s gone. It’s called plywood on the windows. It’s really been a tragedy in so many ways and a tragedy encouraged by the new Democrat Party and their allies in the media. It is hard to overestimate the coordination that’s gone on between the press (local and national, I would argue) and the Democrat Party. And, of course, Big Tech.

Now Facebook, in a shocker… Boy, didn’t see this one coming! Their oversight board, which is an oxymoron, is going to take a look at the Trump ban and just see if they ought to continue with that. We’ll get to that and Rush’s take on that as we go forward through the hours today. It’s 1-800-282-2882, the contact line is always on the Rush Limbaugh program. That’s 1-800-282-2882.

I want to talk about “systemic racism” that Joe Biden — the author of the 1994 crime bill that imprisoned so many black Americans — now talks about ad nauseam. If you take a look at the number of… Well, let’s just say June of 2020 in Chicago where during one weekend 24 people, most of them in the minority community, 24 people killed, 61 injured in one weekend. The massive levels of black-on-black crime.

Young women can’t send their kids out to play. Twenty-four in one weekend! According to the Washington Post’s own database, in 2019, police apparently killed anywhere from nine to 13 unarmed African-American men. Nine to 13 throughout the whole year, under millions of encounters. But Chicago, 24 dead in one weekend, and you think that’s gonna get a story on CNN? Well, you gotta give CNN a break.

They’ve been kind of busy with lawsuits, you know, libel and things like that. These people lie with impunity. They lie with impunity, and the result has been the lack of freedom and due process in the republic. We are shredding what it means to live in a free country right now, and if we don’t start to face this stuff — if we don’t start to push back and “get in the face… Dare we say, “get in the face”? I sound like Maxine.

But, you know, this is a great debate amongst Republicans right now. What do we do? Let’s just rise above it. Let’s just ignore it. Let’s just stop it all. If we rise above it and turn the other cheek, it will go away. It won’t go away. It won’t go away. If somebody comes up to you and lectures you because you’re not wearing your mask jogging outdoor alone, lecture them back. Otherwise, folks, you’re watching your liberties just sail away.

But, anyway, I want to get to this systemic racism, and Rush has got something to say about this because the crime is gonna be most acute in the poorer areas. And if we don’t get a handle on that, we’re gonna have a real issue. So when we handicap the police, when we stereotype all police as bad, they quit policing — and when that happens, you have what is called the Ferguson Effect. Here’s what Rush had to say about that. Hit audio number 2.

RUSH: The cops have adopted the Obama stance, and that is restraint. And in Baltimore that means you can’t see ’em. And that’s supposed to make it no crime. See, in the Obama world and the Democrat Party world, the presence of cops equals violence, because the cops are intimidating, and the cops are provocative, and the cops are the cops. They cause unrest and they cause people to engage in violence because they’re so biased and extremist and racist. So the Obama theory is the cops’ presence causes violence. Pulling the cops back to the point where you can’t see them, that will give you a peaceful community.

Of course, it’s just the exact opposite, and anybody with a scintilla of common sense knows it. But the Department of Justice has taken over the town, the Department of Justice has taken over the police department, they’re on the way to, and it is the truth. They believe the cops are the problem and so the cops are. The cops are now practicing Obama DOJ restraint. Look, I’m not making this up. Folks, I know it sounds like satire. (interruption) Who’s lives matter? Black lives matter. Black lives matter.

I’m just telling you, the cops have always been seen as the provocative agents. If you listen to the left, it is the cops and how they act and even just their presence which causes unrest in American cities, and so the cops have heard the complaints and they’ve withdrawn. The cops are not there. They show up after the fact, but they’re not anywhere around before any of this stuff happens. They do not have a presence. I mean, they go to work, don’t misunderstand. They’re in there, doughnuts and all that, but they’re not on the street being seen, this kind of stuff. By design.

Folks, I’m not making it up. Barack Obama, every Democrat in this country thinks that it’s the cops that are responsible for violence just by wearing the uniform and showing up. So the cops, in response, okay, okay, we hear you, they’re backing off.

JASON: As usual, Rush is right. There was a study done by the BJS (the Bureau of Justice Statistics) a while ago that relied upon data from the National Crime Victimization Survey. And that’s when victims of crimes report the incidents. So the BJS report took the victims’ responses. “I was assaulted.” I think it was nonfatal violent crimes, according to Jeffrey Anderson of the Journal.

And they found that of nonfatal violent crime victims that were reported to the police, whites account for 48% of offenders and 46% of those arrested. Of the crimes reported, blacks accounted for 35% of the offenders and 33% of those then arrested. It’s almost perfectly proportional. The point being, we’ve got to start pushing back on this notion of systemic racism in policing and in society. No country — no country — has done more to right the wrongs of its past than the United States of America.