The deep intellectuals on the NPR 1A radio program had conniption fits yesterday over President Trump's plans for a Fourth of July celebration of the U.S. Armed Forces in Washington.  The two most risible lies propagated during the show:

1. The U.S. Constitution prohibits the use of the American military within the United States.

2. Heavy tanks will destroy the ground and roads they are run over.

The U.S. Constitution is mute on the deployment and use of American armed forces within the United States.  It is actually the Posse Comitatus Act (18 USC §1385) that prohibits deployment and use of the U.S. Army and U.S. Air Force for the purpose of executing the laws of the United States.  The Posse Comitatus Act does not even prohibit domestic deployment of the U.S. Navy and Marines.

The giggle here is that the Posse Comitatus Act was the closing chapter of the American Civil War.  It spiked Reconstruction, the postwar program devised to extinguish the last vestiges of the Confederacy.  The Posse Comitatus Act settled the Tilden-Hayes presidential election of 1876, allowing Republican Rutherford B. Hayes to become president over Democrat Samuel Tilden after a deadlock in the Electoral College.  The Republicans, who won the American Civil War, gave up on Reconstruction to wrest the presidency from the actual 1876 winner, Democrat Tilden, who was supported by ex-Confederates.

The Posse Comitatus Act lay dormant for years but was revived in the public consciousness after Ruby Ridge and Waco by militia activists deeply scorned by the typical NPR lefty.  Now the NPR lefties unwittingly claim the Posse Comitatus Act to attack President Trump.  They have become neo-Confederates!  Trump really does live rent-free in their heads.

Tracked armored vehicles are heavy but actually light on the ground.  A fully kitted out M1A2 Abrams may weigh over 80 tons, but its ground pressure is actually half that of a conventional passenger car.  An Abrams exerts only 15 psi in ground force, while a passenger car will exert 30 psi or more.  The miracle of contact surface area.  Don't believe this?  Try driving your SUV over the boggy terrain that tanks traverse comfortably.  Have your AAA towing insurance paid up; you will need it after your SUV sinks to its axles.  Or maybe a kindly tanker in an M1A2 will tow you out.

The SUVs favored by NPR lefties exert even higher ground pressures, up to 50 psi.  Tracked armored vehicles do create peculiar stresses when they turn, but sacrificial rubber grouser pads affixed to the steel track assemblies protect pavement.  The tank transporters hauling the tracked vehicles to the Mall will do more pavement damage than the armored vehicles themselves — and far less damage than a convoy of Trump protesters in SUVs.

The truth is that the Left will oppose President Trump regardless of what he does.  No lie or comical distortion of reality is beyond the pale to achieve leftists' ultimate goal.