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Originally posted by Nina:

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Originally posted by wtg:

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Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, on Thursday said she endorsed scathing criticism of President Trump’s leadership by James Mattis, the former secretary of defense, and was grappling with whether to support the president in the coming election.

Ms. Murkowski said the critique by General Mattis, in which he said that Mr. Trump had divided the nation and failed to lead amid growing protests across the country, was “necessary and overdue,” and might prod other Republicans to go public with their private concerns about the president.

“I was really thankful,” Ms. Murkowski said in comments to reporters on Capitol Hill. “I thought General Mattis’s words were true and honest and necessary and overdue.”

The comments by Ms. Murkowski, one of the few Republicans in Congress who has been willing to break with him, suggested that Mr. Trump’s response to nationwide unrest over police brutality and racial discrimination has prompted at least some members of his party to reconsider their support for him. It comes after a rare bipartisan rebuke of the president’s actions earlier this week, when he threatened to unleash the military to crack down on protests, just as police were using chemical agents and flash-bangs against demonstrators outside the White House to clear a path for him to pose outside a church.

When she saw General Mattis’s comments, Ms. Murkowski said, “I felt like perhaps we’re getting to the point where we can be more honest with the concerns that we might hold internally, and have the courage of our own convictions to speak up.”

She said she was “working as one individual to form the right words.”

Asked whether she could still support Mr. Trump in the coming election, Ms. Murkowski said: “I am struggling with it. I have struggled with it for a long time.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/0...ki-mattis-trump.html

Struggle harder, Murkowski. Try to go beyond a furrowed brow and "concern."

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Hours before federal police officers cleared a crowded park near the White House with smoke and tear gas on June 1, the lead military police officer in the Department of Defense for the D.C. region asked if the D.C. National Guard had a kind of military heat ray that might be deployed against demonstrators in the nation's capital, according to one of the most senior National Guard officers on the scene.

In written responses to the House Committee on Natural Resources obtained by NPR, Major Adam DeMarco of the D.C. National Guard said he was copied on an email from the Provost Marshal of Joint Force Headquarters National Capital Region. He was looking for two things: a long range acoustic device, a kind of sound cannon known as an LRAD, and a device called the Active Denial System, or ADS.

The ADS was developed by the military some twenty years ago as a way to disperse crowds. There have been questions about whether it worked, or should be deployed in the first place. It uses millimeter wave technology to essentially heat the skin of people targeted by its invisible ray.

In his written response, DeMarco, who has sought whistleblower protection, quoted from an email he said was forwarded to him that originated from the Provost Marshal which read, the "ADS can provide our troops a capability they currently do not have, the ability to reach out and engage potential adversaries at distances well beyond small arms range, and in a safe, effective, and non-lethal manner."

The email went on to say that the ADS can direct a beam toward a group and that "provides a sensation of intense heat on the surface of the skin. The effect is overwhelming, causing an immediate repel response by the targeted individual."

Last month, the New York Times reported that U.S. border officials weighed deploying the so-called "heat ray" against migrants a few weeks before the 2018 elections. The Times reported that Kirstjen Nielsen, who was the secretary of homeland security at the time, told an aide after the meeting, according to the Times story, "that she would not authorize the use of such a device, and that it should never be brought up again in her presence."

Yet, according to DeMarco, it was something considered by DOD's lead military police officer the morning of June 1 after days of fiery protests and looting in Washington. DeMarco said in his written comments that he responded about a half hour later that "the D.C. National Guard was not in possession of either an LRAD or an ADS."

NPR made multiple calls and sent multiple emails to the Joint Force Headquarters National Capital Region for comment, but has not heard back.