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Federal troops helping suppress protests in Portland OR



Strange that they made theater of burning what was probably a past service life police car.


He's making a good case that those three were working as a team to burn the car. That doesn't mean they aren't related to the protest or that they aren't other agitators. It's not like the police station "fire" that was a road flare in a trashcan, that was clearly staged.
 
Opinion | Trump’s Occupation of American Cities Has Begun - The New York Times - "Protesters are being snatched from the streets without warrants. Can we call it fascism yet?"
The month after Donald Trump’s inauguration, the Yale historian Timothy Snyder published the best-selling book “On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons From the Twentieth Century.” It was part of a small flood of titles meant to help Americans find their bearings as the new president laid siege to liberal democracy.

One of Snyder’s lessons was, “Be wary of paramilitaries.” He wrote, “When the pro-leader paramilitary and the official police and military intermingle, the end has come.” In 2017, the idea of unidentified agents in camouflage snatching leftists off the streets without warrants might have seemed like a febrile Resistance fantasy. Now it’s happening.

...
“It doesn’t surprise me that Donald Trump picked C.B.P. to be the ones to go over to Portland and do this,” Representative Joaquin Castro, Democrat of Texas, told me. “It has been a very problematic agency in terms of respecting human rights and in terms of respecting the law.”

...
“This is a classic way that violence happens in authoritarian regimes, whether it’s Franco’s Spain or whether it’s the Russian Empire,” said Snyder. “The people who are getting used to committing violence on the border are then brought in to commit violence against people in the interior.”

Castro worries that since the agents are unidentified, far-right groups could easily masquerade as them to go after their enemies on the left. “It becomes more likely the more that this tactic is used,” he said. “I think it’s unconstitutional and dangerous and heading towards fascism.”
 
The Police Detentions in Portland Are Only a Dress Rehearsal - "A major American city is being softly Pinochet’ed in broad daylight."
Why in the hell is this not a bigger story? A major American city is being softly Pinochet’ed in broad daylight. And, if we know one thing, if this president* and his administration* get away with this, it will only get worse. You’d have to be out of your mind—or comatose since the Fall of 2016—not to suspect that this could be a dry run for the kind of general urban mobilization at which the president* has been hinting since this summer's protests began.

Trump's Cynical and Deeply Dangerous Reelection Ploy: Sow Chaos in US Cities | Common Dreams Views
Part of Trump’s reelection strategy is to scare the white suburbs, which polls show have soured on him, with “urban” (read: minority) violence. This is clear from his current campaign ads, which try to paint the gentlemanly Joe Biden as a bomb thrower.

It now appears clear that part of that strategy is to send Federal agents dressed like Iraq War troops to Democratic-run cities, on the pretext of protecting Federal property, and then for them to attack and provoke Black Lives Matter and Defund the Police protesters, causing violence to escalate and using it … to scare the suburbs. The exercise also has the advantage for Trump of entrenching a new form of secret police and of turning Federal agents into instruments of his authoritarianism. White House chief of staff Mark Meadows has confirmed the plan to send the Feds into those cities.

...
The youth have in recent days mostly clashed with Federal agents sent by Trump on the pretext of protecting the Federal courthouse, and who have used provocative teargas and physical attacks on the protesters. Video posted on YouTube suggests that the Feds, with anonymized name tags and unmarked vehicles, attacked people simply for being in the street and made arrests without warrants or any probable cause. This behavior is unprecedented for Federal agents, who seldom make arrests and have in the past proceeded only with a court warrant. In other words, they are behaving like the Egyptian secret police.

James "Wear a Mask and Stay Away From Me" Morrison on Twitter: "Jeh Johnson confirmed on MSNBC that DHS 'cops' are 'contractors.' They are mercenaries supplied by Erik Prince, brother of DeVos.
AKA Tiki Torch Boys" / Twitter

Unconfirmed, however.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal on Twitter: "Nine members of our Washington Congressional delegation are demanding that DHS Acting Secretary Wolf immediately withdraw the deployment of federal agents to our state. https://t.co/ccWC5dN8wH" / Twitter
 
Opinion | Trump’s Occupation of American Cities Has Begun - The New York Times - "Protesters are being snatched from the streets without warrants. Can we call it fascism yet?"
The month after Donald Trump’s inauguration, the Yale historian Timothy Snyder published the best-selling book “On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons From the Twentieth Century.” It was part of a small flood of titles meant to help Americans find their bearings as the new president laid siege to liberal democracy.

One of Snyder’s lessons was, “Be wary of paramilitaries.” He wrote, “When the pro-leader paramilitary and the official police and military intermingle, the end has come.” In 2017, the idea of unidentified agents in camouflage snatching leftists off the streets without warrants might have seemed like a febrile Resistance fantasy. Now it’s happening.

...
“It doesn’t surprise me that Donald Trump picked C.B.P. to be the ones to go over to Portland and do this,” Representative Joaquin Castro, Democrat of Texas, told me. “It has been a very problematic agency in terms of respecting human rights and in terms of respecting the law.”

...
“This is a classic way that violence happens in authoritarian regimes, whether it’s Franco’s Spain or whether it’s the Russian Empire,” said Snyder. “The people who are getting used to committing violence on the border are then brought in to commit violence against people in the interior.”

Castro worries that since the agents are unidentified, far-right groups could easily masquerade as them to go after their enemies on the left. “It becomes more likely the more that this tactic is used,” he said. “I think it’s unconstitutional and dangerous and heading towards fascism.”

The federal district court in Oregon just tossed out the state’s request for an injunction because there was no evidence of this.
 
No, it was rejected because of standing.

Nevermind, it was for both standing and evidence.

So, one of the alleged victims should go to court.
 
'That’s an illegal order': veterans challenge Trump's officers in Portland | US news | The Guardian
David said the officers’ response Saturday night to a largely peaceful crowd was completely disproportionate. But he said, it was also clear that they were not trained for this type of situation.

“They have no tactical cohesion to what they’re doing,” he said. “Duston and I are vets. We can tell what’s going on with these guys. There was no sort of command. They were running around and they were scared.”

As he watches the protests continue to balloon, Obermeyer believes the federal officers are actually “creating the situation that they are saying they have to be there for”.

“There are more protesters as we move forward,” he said. “Things should be kind of winding down at this point and they’re not because federal officers are there antagonizing and creating the situation not dealing with it.”
 
'That’s an illegal order': veterans challenge Trump's officers in Portland | US news | The Guardian
David said the officers’ response Saturday night to a largely peaceful crowd was completely disproportionate. But he said, it was also clear that they were not trained for this type of situation.

“They have no tactical cohesion to what they’re doing,” he said. “Duston and I are vets. We can tell what’s going on with these guys. There was no sort of command. They were running around and they were scared.”

As he watches the protests continue to balloon, Obermeyer believes the federal officers are actually “creating the situation that they are saying they have to be there for”.

“There are more protesters as we move forward,” he said. “Things should be kind of winding down at this point and they’re not because federal officers are there antagonizing and creating the situation not dealing with it.”

You can antagonize people into tearing down a fence?

Just do anything you want and then say you were antagonized...

Are you the type to vandalize yourself?
 
Federal building in city centers are generally there to serve citizens. Why would an entity for serving citizens put blocades up against citizen entry. Why not just announce you are closed until further notice? Seems to me a fence around such a building is a bit over the top.

As to antagonizing. Yes you can antagonize citizens by putting up a fence after you've brought in Federal agents to go out into the streets and attack citizens protesting. That building is there as a federal service to citizens in Portland.
 
It's almost completely impossible to get an idea of what's really going on here from news reports. There are plenty of independent journalists live streaming the events.

But if you really believe that the protesters are the aggressors, ask yourself if you are willing to believe that the vast majority of a 10k person crowd is really an anarchist group. If you are, you are both wrong and stupid.

The idea that the walls of: moms aren't moms, vets aren't vets, Healthcare workers aren't healthcare workers (that's a lot of scrubs for antifa to procure), chefs aren't chefs, and so on requires a level of ideological blindness that invalidates any analysis.
 
[TWEET]<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Another huge crowd tonight in Portland, including a new "wall" on the front lines: a Wall of Vets.<br><br>Here's a look at the line of military veterans getting set up here in front of the federal courthouse. Behind them, the Wall of Moms and the Wall of Dads are arriving. <a href="https://t.co/gGnXHjI3k2">pic.twitter.com/gGnXHjI3k2</a></p>— Mike Baker (@ByMikeBaker) <a href="https://twitter.com/ByMikeBaker/status/1286884473934503936?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 25, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>[/TWEET]
 
It's almost completely impossible to get an idea of what's really going on here from news reports. There are plenty of independent journalists live streaming the events.

But if you really believe that the protesters are the aggressors, ask yourself if you are willing to believe that the vast majority of a 10k person crowd is really an anarchist group. If you are, you are both wrong and stupid.

The idea that the walls of: moms aren't moms, vets aren't vets, Healthcare workers aren't healthcare workers (that's a lot of scrubs for antifa to procure), chefs aren't chefs, and so on requires a level of ideological blindness that invalidates any analysis.

Or if there really are 10,000 committed anarachists on the streets of Portland... the federal government has already lost the country, for all intents and purposes.
 
It's almost completely impossible to get an idea of what's really going on here from news reports. There are plenty of independent journalists live streaming the events.

But if you really believe that the protesters are the aggressors, ask yourself if you are willing to believe that the vast majority of a 10k person crowd is really an anarchist group. If you are, you are both wrong and stupid.

The idea that the walls of: moms aren't moms, vets aren't vets, Healthcare workers aren't healthcare workers (that's a lot of scrubs for antifa to procure), chefs aren't chefs, and so on requires a level of ideological blindness that invalidates any analysis.

Or if there really are 10,000 committed anarachists on the streets of Portland... the federal government has already lost the country, for all intents and purposes.


That too.
 
Here's another article about the veterans joining the protests as well as mentioning some other groups that have recently joined. Anyone who doesn't realize that this is an assault on the American people's rights doesn't understand the potential consequences of what Trump and his fascists loving enablers are doing.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/25/us/a-wall-of-vets-joins-the-front-lines-of-portland-protests.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage


Duston Obermeyer, a Marine Corps veteran, said he and other veterans were there to make sure federal officers did not infringe on the free speech of protesters, who numbered in the thousands.

“Our veterans are here specifically to support the rights of the protesters to protest,” said Mr. Obermeyer, who said he had deployed three times during a decade in the Marines.

While President Trump and the Department of Homeland Security have repeatedly labeled the protesters in Portland as “violent anarchists,” demonstrators have banded together in groups. A “Wall of Moms” has grown to include hundreds of women in yellow shirts linking arms. A “Wall of Dads” in orange shirts has included some with leaf blowers used to push tear gas away from the crowds. Many nurses on Saturday showed up in blue scrubs.

Moms, dads, nurses and veterans! That sure doesn't sounds like scary anarchists to me!
 
Made-for-TV fascism: how Trump’s ‘crime explosion’ ploy could backfire | US news | The Guardian
Seizing on television images of a procession of refugees out of Honduras, the president announced an imminent “invasion” of the United States by a “migrant caravan” and said he would deploy 15,000 military personnel to stop it. For weeks, Fox News blared “coverage” of the emergency.

That was in October 2018, and as a political strategy ahead of the midterm elections, the gambit utterly failed.
The Democrats got 40 seats in the House, with a big voter turnout, and the Trump Admin stopped talking about the caravan emergency.
Now two years later, Trump is facing an even bigger election, with an even bigger need for a political masterstroke if he is to win a second term in November.

Instead of deploying troops to the border to confront a made-up threat, Trump has announced “a surge of federal law enforcement into American communities” to fight a supposed cataclysm of violence born of a Democratic plot to undermine local police.

“To look at it from any standpoint, the effort to shut down policing in their own communities has led to a shocking explosion of shootings, killings, murders and heinous crimes of violence,” Trump said at the White House on Wednesday. “This bloodshed must end. This bloodshed will end.”

...
In any case, phalanxes of heavily armed officers descending on largely peaceful protesters risks sparking violence and unraveling months of work to establish community dialogue about police violence and racial injustice, the mayors have warned.

Julia Azari, a professor of political science at Marquette University, noted that crime is not currently a top issue of concern for a majority of US voters and said that the Trump campaign was working on a tenuous strategy of a narrow win through the electoral college.
Seems much like the Reichstag fire in Germany in early 1933. The Nazis had gotten a lot of the seats in that parliament, but not a majority, and they had formed a coalition with a conservative party, the German National People's Party or Nationalists. After that fire, Hitler and his fellow Nazis demanded -- and got -- lots of emergency measures, and after the middle of that year, they outlawed all political parties but theirs. Their Nationalist coalition partners meekly went along with that.
“There has been a long buildup before Trump,” Stanley said. “A core to authoritarianism – whether fascism or communism – is the one-party state. And Republicans for years before Trump, all the way back to [former House speaker] Newt Gingrich, who I blame all of this on, have been acting like their political opponents are traitors and not legitimate opponents.”
NG once put together a list of nice words for Republican candidates and a list of nasty words for Democratic ones.
 
America 'staring down the barrel of martial law', Oregon senator warns | US news | The Guardian
In interviews with the Guardian, Democrat Ron Wyden said the federal government’s authoritarian tactics in Portland and other cities posed an “enormous” threat to democracy, while his fellow senator Jeff Merkley described it as “an all-out assault in military-style fashion”.

...
Wyden said in a statement: “The violent tactics deployed by Donald Trump and his paramilitary forces against peaceful protesters are those of a fascist regime, not a democratic nation.”

Speaking by phone, he said: “Unless America draws a line in the sand right now, I think we could be staring down the barrel of martial law in the middle of a presidential election.”

...
The senator recalled a conversation with a legal adviser for the head of national intelligence.

“I asked him again and again what was the constitutional justification for what the Trump administration is doing in my home town and he completely ducked the questions and several times said, ‘Well, I just want to extend my best wishes to your constituents.’

“After I heard him say it several times, I said my constituents don’t want your best wishes. They want to know when you’re going to stop trashing their constitutional rights.”

...
“I wish the president would fight the coronavirus half as hard as he attacks my home town,” Wyden said. “I think he’s setting up an us-against-them kind of strategy. He’s trying to create his narrative that my constituents, who are peaceful protesters, are basically anarchists, sympathisers of anarchists and, as he does so often, just fabricate it.

“Trump knows that his [coronavirus] strategy has been an unmitigated disaster. The coronavirus is spiking in various places and he’s trying to play to rightwing media and play to his base and see if he can kind of create a narrative that gives him some traction.”

...
“I would say that you probably don’t believe that these federal forces will attack protesters if the protesters are peaceful and you will be wrong because that’s exactly what they’re doing in Portland,” he told the Guardian.

“This is an all-out assault in military-style fashion on a peaceful-style protest. The way to handle graffiti is put up a fence or come out and ask people to stop doing it, not to attack a peaceful protest but that’s exactly what happened. It’s very clear what the president is trying to do is incite violence and then display that violence in campaign ads. And I say this because that’s exactly what he’s doing right now. This is not some theory.”

The senator added: “This is just an absolute assault on people’s civil rights to speak and to assemble.”
Senator Merkley thinks that previous villains like Islamists and undocumented immigrants do not seem like such great villains nowadays, so he needs new ones, like inner-city blacks.
“I think it’s also important to note the president we’ve always known has this intense authoritarian streak,” he said. “He loved and had so much affection for the leader of North Korea, Putin in Russia. Just admiration for some of the tactics in the Philippines with Duterte and Erdoğan in Turkey, by the crown prince in Saudi Arabia.”
 
The United Nations weighed in: Human rights office decries disproportionate use of force in US protests | | UN News
Spokesperson Elizabeth Throssell was answering a reporter’s question about the US authorities deploying federal security officers to various cities to quell demonstrations against racial injustice, sparked by the death of George Floyd, an unarmed African American man, while in police custody in Minneapolis on 25 May.

“Peaceful demonstrations that have been taking place in cities in the US, such as Portland, really must be able to continue without those participating in them - and also, the people reporting on them, the journalists - risking arbitrary arrest or detention, being subject to unnecessary, disproportionate or discriminatory use of force, or suffering other violations of their rights”, said Ms. Throssell.
 
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