Tuesday, July 21, 2020

Other Voices Weigh In On The Portland Protests & Trump's 'Paramilitary' Invaders

by David Atkins | July 20, 2020 - 7:19am | permalink

Excerpt:

Last night I wrote about Trump’s use of ICE and Border Patrol stormtroopers under the auspices of the Department of Homeland Security to detain and intimidate peaceful protesters. In that piece I speculated that Trump was not only testing the waters of creating his own personal paramilitary domestic security force and attempting to please the most sadistic elements of his base, but also that he was taking the natural actions an executive might take if he actually believed the dystopian propaganda about America’s cities being promulgated every day on Fox News.

But there is another deeply alarming possibility to consider. This November will be the first since the expiration of a 1982 consent decree in which the Republican National Committee will be freed to conduct voter suppression and intimidation en masse. As Andy Kroll recently explained at Rolling Stone:
The result of the suit was a 1982 consent decree between the Democratic and Republican parties. Even though the RNC refused to admit wrong-doing in New Jersey, the group agreed to stop harassing and intimidating voters of color, including by deputizing off-duty law-enforcement officers and equipping those officers with guns or badges. Over the next three decades, Democrats marshaled enough evidence of ongoing Republican voter suppression to maintain the consent decree until 2018, when a federal judge lifted the order.  The 2020 presidential election will be the first in nearly 40 years when the RNC isn’t bound by the terms of the 1982 decree

by Dave Lindorff | July 21, 2020 - 4:52am | permalink

Excerpt:

At least Vladimir Putin is gaining his dictatorial powers democratically. He got elected by a solid majority of Russians, and then he went to the Russian Duma and asked for a constitutional change to allow him to continue to be elected through 2030. Here in the US, we have created a presidential dictatorship through sleight of hand, Congressional cowardice and public lethargy.

It happened back in September 2001, after the 9-11 attack -- you know, the one that we're supposed to believe was conducted by a bunch of barely competent fliers from Saudi Arabia and that somehow the entire US intelligence apparatus couldn't uncover plotting their destructive attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, and that the US military couldn't stop.

Following that attack, Bush, Cheney and a shell-shocked and completely irresponsible Congress passed two catastrophic measures, creating a huge new raft of laws and court rulings that are still with us. One, passed on September 18, 2001, while the wreckage of the WTC was still smoking, was the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), a resolution that launched the so-called "war" on terror -- a war that was defined as occurring everywhere in the world including inside the US and that, although just against Al Qaeda, later was interpreted by President Bush and Cheney, then president Obama, and now President Trump, to mean against all those, foreign and domestic who can be called terrorists. (Since then crime gets called terrorism, including the Occupy Wall Street movement and peaceful protests against police violence.)

The second law, the so-called United and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act or USA PATRIOT ACT (really, they did name it that to get Patriot in the title!), passed on October 26 It created a vast police state network of spying on US citizens -- all citizens -- and also created a Homeland Security Department, a vast new police state agency awash in new paramilitary police forces -- ICE, the Border patrol, the Federal Protective Service (formerly security guards at federal buildings), as well as 99 obscure and totally untransparent interagency operations in virtually every major city called Fusion Centers where the intelligence personnel from every agency from the Defense Department and CIA to the FBI, DEA, ICE and Secret Service to State police and local police as well as corporate security units all work and share information.



by Michael Winship | July 21, 2020 - 6:38am | permalink

Excerpt:

A couple of days before the Fourth of July, I was walking home after a proper, socially distanced outdoor breakfast with a good friend, and noticed on my lower Manhattan block two white sedans marked in red and blue, “US Department of Homeland Security.”

I thought it was odd. I’d never seen them in my neighborhood before, and what especially struck me was that the cars each had those heavily reinforced partitions separating the driver’s seat from the back—like in a police car for holding someone arrested or being taken in for questioning.

What gives? I never could find out, but their very presence was disturbing and now we know, thanks to the news from Portland, Oregon, that DHS has been auditioning in that city for its role as Donald Trump’s personal paramilitary, perhaps on a nationwide scale.


by Heather Cox Richardson | July 21, 2020 - 7:39am | permalink

Excerpt:

Trump is shifting his reelection pitch, and it has frightening implications for the country.
Over the weekend, the federal crackdown in Portland, Oregon continued, with people in unmarked camouflage uniforms arresting peaceful protesters and taking them away in unmarked vehicles. And then, they appeared—for now—to let them go. The administration appears to be constructing a scene of violence and disorder for the news media to show to viewers.

It seems clear that the Trump campaign — which got a new director last Wednesday — is going to make its case for reelection on the idea that there is violence in America’s cities that must be addressed with federal force, and that only Trump is willing to do so.

This is an apparent attempt to overshadow the increasingly alarming news about the coronavirus, which is now burning across the country with renewed vigor. Even as Republican governors are backtracking and asking people to wear masks, Trump continues to insist—falsely– that our spiking numbers are because of increased testing and that the virus will eventually disappear.

In an interview tonight with Chris Wallace on the Fox News Channel (remember, Wallace is an actual reporter, not an entertainment personality like Tucker Carlson or Sean Hannity), Trump claimed—again, falsely—that some of the states are rolling back their reopening not because of the ravages of new coronavirus infections, but because they are trying to hurt his chances of reelection.


by David Atkins | July 19, 2020 - 7:51am | permalink

Excerpt:

In one of the most alarming developments of Trump’s presidency, dozens of federal agents in full camouflage seized protesters and threw them into unmarked cars, taking them to locations unknown without specifying a reason for arrest. It appears that at least some of the agents involved belonged to the US Customs and Border Protection (colloquially known as Border Patrol), an organization that obviously has no business whatsoever conducted counterinsurgency tactics against peaceful American protesters in Portland, Oregon. Neither the mayor of Portland nor the governor of Oregon wanted them there; in fact, they specifically requested that they leave. And now a U.S. Attorney for the State of Oregon is calling for an investigation into the arrests, even as the Acting head of Homeland Security, Chad Wolf, is vowing to ramp up these actions both in Portland and reportedly elsewhere.


by Thom Hartmann | July 22, 2020 - 8:00am | permalink

Excerpt:

The Republican Trump administration has gone full authoritarian. Portland is a test, but only a test.

Donald Trump signaled his election strategy a few days ago when he talked about ending legislation passed back in the 1960s to support fair housing that he said had sent "people" out into "the suburbs."

Essentially, what he was saying was, "White people in the suburbs, I'm doing what I can to keep your neighborhood white. You have to be very afraid of those Black and Hispanic people that Democrats say should be able to live anywhere in the country."

Portland is overwhelmingly a majority white city, so he figured he could test out his Secret Police/Storm Trooper strategy here without anybody much noticing, as the action would not be so racialized.

But now he's taking it to Chicago, a city with a more diverse population, and if he's successful he'll provoke a made-for-television appearance with white storm troopers battling Black residents.

That would be exactly the visual the Trump campaign is hoping for.



by Jaime O'Neill | July 22, 2020 - 7:34am | permalink


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