The State Of The Police State, Con't

Once again the goal is for the Trump regime to terrorize Democratic-led cities with troops to prevent anyone there from voting in November, and most likely we're going to see a trigger event soon that will lead to hundreds, maybe thousands of deaths.

Federal law enforcement agencies are gearing up to expand their footprint nationwide in the coming weeks, despite concerns about the recent scenes of violence and chaos in Oregon.

Department of Homeland Security officials have considered deploying mobile field forces to protect federal property in cities around the country that experience unrest, two people familiar with the discussions told POLITICO. And the Department of Justice is planning to expand “Operation Legend,” a law enforcement initiative launched by Attorney General Bill Barr earlier this month to fight “the sudden surge of violent crime” in Kansas City, Mo.
DOJ plans to announce this week that the operation, which involves agents from the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration, will expand into more cities, a DOJ official told POLITICO. “We are seeing success in our Kansas City operation and have already arrested some wanted fugitives,” the DOJ official said.

The discussions have followed weeks of clashes between federal agents and protesters in Portland, which Trump on Monday called “worse than Afghanistan.” The president has vowed to use the power of the federal government to crush what his officials deem “violent anarchists,” wielding his authority to bolster the law-and-order theme he’s woven increasingly into his campaign messages.
The threat of force against cities whose residents overwhelmingly oppose the president has outraged Democratic lawmakers and mayors, several of whom told POLITICO they have yet to receive a formal heads-up about any forthcoming deployments.

Democrats say the federal units are unwelcome and unnecessary — if not unlawful. But the Trump administration insists they are needed to protect American cities from the more unruly elements of a movement protesting police brutality and systemic racism.

“Portland was totally out of control,” the president said on Monday, blaming “liberal Democrats” for incidents of vandalism and clashes between protesters and law enforcement. “They were ripping down — for 51 days, ripping down that city, destroying the city, looting it.”

Senior DHS officials said they expect the unrest to escalate at least through the November election, and noted that the protection of federal buildings falls squarely within their remit. DHS can temporarily authorize officers and agents from its other components — including Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) — to protect federal buildings.
The Federal Protective Service (FPS), the DHS component that’s specifically responsible for securing federal buildings around the country, has been training officers and agents from other DHS components on its legal powers. And an FPS document reviewed by POLITICO shows more trainings are scheduled for this month. Those trainings are not routine, one person familiar with the situation told POLITICO, and the plans indicate the department is preparing to deploy more officers around the country.

“As DHS cross-designated components to Portland, they received additional training from FPS specifically so they can fulfil their mission,” a DHS spokesperson told POLITICO in response to a request for comment on this story. The spokesperson declined to discuss any other details of this reporting.

We're now in a critical phase. More than anything, Trump wants an excuse to use overwhelming, deadly force to kill his own citizens in order to maintain his power in November.  He wants a deadly event he can replay on campaign ads and at rallies and press conferences and wants his followers to take up arms and fight for him if he is willing to go that far.

If this was happening in another country, we would call it what it is, a military crackdown by a despotic tyrant.

This is happening now, in America, today, right now.

I have been warning about the slide into authoritarianism for years here.

We're finally on the edge of the cliff, in the storm, and the ground is starting to crumble beneath us.

FEDS TO CHICAGO: President Trump says: The Department of Justice will immediately "surge" federal law enforcement -- DEA and other federal law enforcement officials-- to Chicago.

He adds officials will "vigorously charge federal crimes."

— Yamiche Alcindor (@Yamiche) July 22, 2020

If it goes, there's no easy way of turning back.  Not without catastrophic bloodshed in the middle of a pandemic.  What I fear most is national martial law and suspended elections, and a military willing to follow Trump's evil orders.

Be careful, folks.

This is where history has its eyes on us, as the song goes.

Why Don't You Golf-Huck Yourself

Donald Trump is the most corrupt human being on earth, it's not even close at this point, he has suborned the most powerful political office in the most powerful nation on Earth into making him sweet sweet kickback dollars from the rest of the planet, and it's embarrassing at this point.

The American ambassador to Britain, Robert Wood Johnson IV, told multiple colleagues in February 2018 that President Trump had asked him to see if the British government could help steer the world-famous and lucrative British Open golf tournament to the Trump Turnberry resort in Scotland, according to three people with knowledge of the episode.
The ambassador’s deputy, Lewis A. Lukens, advised him not to do it, warning that it would be an unethical use of the presidency for private gain, these people said. But Mr. Johnson apparently felt pressured to try. A few weeks later, he raised the idea of Turnberry playing host to the Open with the secretary of state for Scotland, David Mundell.

In a brief interview last week, Mr. Mundell said it was “inappropriate” for him to discuss his dealings with Mr. Johnson and referred to a British government statement that said Mr. Johnson “made no request of Mr. Mundell regarding the British Open or any other sporting event.” The statement did not address whether the ambassador had broached the issue of Turnberry, which Mr. Trump bought in 2014, but none of the next four Opens are scheduled to be played there.

Still, the episode left Mr. Lukens and other diplomats deeply unsettled. Mr. Lukens, who served as the acting ambassador before Mr. Johnson arrived in November 2017, emailed officials at the State Department to tell them what had happened, colleagues said. A few months later, Mr. Johnson forced out Mr. Lukens, a career diplomat who had earlier served as ambassador to Senegal, shortly before his term was to end.

The White House declined to comment on Mr. Trump’s instructions to Mr. Johnson, as did the ambassador and the State Department.

Although Mr. Trump, as president, is exempt from a federal conflict of interest law that makes it a criminal offense to take part in “government matters that will affect your own personal financial interest,” the Constitution prohibits federal officials from accepting gifts, or “emoluments,” from foreign governments.

Experts on government ethics pointed to one potential violation of the emoluments clause that still may have been triggered by the president’s actions: The British or Scottish governments would most likely have to pay for security at the tournament, an event that would profit Mr. Trump.
It was not the first time the president tried to steer business to one of his properties. Last year, the White House chose the Trump National Doral resort in Miami as the site of a Group of 7 meeting. Mr. Trump backed off after it ignited a political storm, moving the meeting to Camp David before canceling it because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Mr. Trump also urged Vice President Mike Pence to stay at his family’s golf resort in Doonbeg, Ireland, last year during a visit, even though the vice president’s official business was on the other side of the country. That trip generated headlines for the golf club, but also controversy. And Mr. Trump has visited his family-owned golf courses more than 275 times since he took office, bringing reporters with him each time, ensuring that the resorts get ample news coverage.

The Trump International Hotel in Washington has done a brisk trade in guests, foreign and domestic, who are in town to lobby the federal government. Turnberry itself drew attention when the Pentagon acknowledged it had been sending troops to the resort while they were on overnight layovers at the nearby Glasgow Prestwick Airport.

It's just sad at this point, the sheer amount of Trump corruption, Republican corruption, billions and even trillions of dollars at this point, while the other 99% of us suffer.

Not only are they not hiding it, they're doing it in the open because they know everyone's so tired of it that they'll simply stop caring.

StupidiNews!

• House Democrats have passed a defense bill that would remove Confederate names from several military bases, the Trump regime says it will veto the bill entirely.
• At his press conference asking Americans to wear masks, Donald Trump refused to wear a mask.
• Joe Biden is proposing universal pre-school as part of a major caretaker benefit platform, Biden wants to spend $775 billion over ten years on programs for day care, the elderly, and disabled.
• The Trump regime says it will order the US Census not to count undocumented immigrants, an unconstitutional move that could cost blue states dozens of House seats.
• The US has uncovered a major Chinese government sponsored business hacking ring in operation since September 2009, two Chinese nationals were charged with 11 counts.

Last Call For Householder Of Cards

Things just got very interesting in Ohio politics this morning as GOP state House Speaker Larry Householder was busted by the FBI as part of a $60 million bribery case involving the $1.5 billion bailout of Ohio's two nuclear power plants that Householder made possible last year.

Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder’s political operation accepted more than $60 million in bribe money from FirstEnergy Corp. to secure the company a $1.3 billion public bailout, according to a federal complaint filed Thursday. 

Householder, chief political aide Jeff Longstreth, and lobbyists Matt Borges, Neil Clark, and Juan Cespedes used the bribe money to expand the speaker’s political power and enrich themselves by millions of dollars through a “web” of dark-money groups and bank accounts, including the 501(c)(4) Generation Now, according to the complaint.

Householder and the four others were charged with conspiracy to commit racketeering. Each could face up to 20 years in prison and a maximum $250,000 fine, court officials said Tuesday.

“(It) is likely the largest bribery, money-laundering scheme ever perpetrated against the people in the state of Ohio,” said David DeVillers, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Ohio, during a news conference Tuesday.

In all, Householder received more than $500,000 for his personal benefit, according to DeVillers.

More than $100,000 of the bribe money from FirstEnergy Corp. was used to pay costs associated with Householder’s Florida home, and at least $97,000 was used to pay expenses for Householder’s 2018 House campaign, the complaint stated.

The complaint does not mention FirstEnergy Corp. by name. Nor does it name FirstEnergy Solutions -- FirstEnergy Corp.‘s then-subsidiary which operated the Perry and Davis-Besse nuclear power plants (and continues to operate them under the name Energy Harbor after splitting from FirstEnergy earlier this year.

Instead, the complaint refers to them both under the collective name “Company A.” There are numerous giveaways that FirstEnergy is “Company A,” including that the complaint quotes public comments from former FirstEnergy Corp. President/CEO Charles Jones, labeling him “Company A Corp. president and CEO.”

DeVillers said there’s a “strong inference” in the complaint that Householder and his allies approached FirstEnergy, rather than the other way around.

“This enterprise went looking for someone to bribe them,” DeVillers said.

Borges, a former Ohio Republican Party chair, had $1.62 million transferred to his lobbying firm’s account, and he paid himself about $350,000, the complaint stated. Borges also allegedly offered someone on the pro-referendum side $15,000 to become a mole within the pro-referendum campaign and hired a private investigator, which the complaint states is consistent with efforts to investigate petition collectors.

Longstreth, Householder’s chief political strategist, transferred more than $10.5 million in bribe payments to his firm, JPL & Associates, as well as another $4.4 million through indirect means, according to the complaint. Longstreth also allegedly benefitted personally, receiving more than $5 million in bribe money, including at least $1 million transferred to his brokerage account in January 2020.

Cespedes, FirstEnergy’s main lobbyist for HB6, served as a “key middleman” for the operation, according to the complaint. He allegedly received about $600,000 from Team Householder and $227,000 from FirstEnergy.

Clark, a prominent Capitol Square lobbyist who described himself as Householder’s “hit man,” got $290,000, according to the complaint.

The bottom line is that FirstEnergy created a dark money PAC, Generation Now, for the specific purpose of hiding their transfer of $61 million to Householder and Republicans who would support him as Ohio's House Speaker.  Householder pocketed some of this money directly, and most of the rest was given out as bribes to Ohio Republicans to support House Bill 6 creating the bailout, to create ads supporting House Bill 6 to give the Republicans political cover, and to defeat the planned ballot initiative overturning House Bill 6 (which died because there weren't enough signatures by the October 2019 limit).

They spent $61 million to get twenty times that in taxpayer cash.

And it was so obvious, even the FBI was able to build a two-year case and nail Householder.  His squad of utterly corrupt officials took home millions, they were bought and paid for, and the FBI promises more arrests are coming.

Complete, cartoonish corruption, breathtaking in scope, and they believed they had gotten away with it from the start, money they would use to remain in power for years.

This is what happens when you put Republicans in charge.  They're all corrupt.  I guarantee you that Republicans in every state are running some version of this same 401(c)(4) dark money PAC scam.  They were specifically designed for it.

Vote them all out in November.

Another #MeToo Moment, Con't

The #MeToo movement finally comes for Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and FOX News.

Fox News has been hit with a kitchen sink suit, replete with trigger warning, as a complaint was filed on Monday in New York federal court alleging sexual misconduct by some of its top hosts including Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson. 

Jennifer Eckhart, a former associate producer on Fox Business Network, is a co-plaintiff in the suit. The most serious claim pertains to Eckhart's allegation that she was raped by former White House chief correspondent Ed Henry, who earlier this month was fired by Fox News as a result of the charge. 

"On July 1, 2020, Fox News disclosed to the public that it had terminated Mr. Henry based on the findings of an internal investigation, and purported to take credit for acting appropriately," states the complaint. "However, nothing could be further from the truth. In reality, Fox News knew that Mr. Henry had engaged in sexual misconduct as far back as early 2017. At that time, when Fox News was conducting a company-wide investigation into issues of sexual harassment, multiple women came forward to complain that Mr. Henry had engaged in sexually inappropriate conduct towards them." 

Fox News now faces a sex trafficking claim as a result of Eckhart's allegation. The rape allegedly happened in 2017 in a hotel room after the two had met for drinks. Two years earlier, according to the complaint, Henry had romantically pursued her, forced a kiss on her, convince her to have sex by holding her career over her head, and months later assaulted her in Fox News' New York offices. 

Catherine Foti, Henry's lawyer, responds by saying, "The evidence in this case will demonstrate that Ms. Eckhart initiated and completely encouraged a consensual relationship." 

Cathy Areu is the other co-plaintiff in this case, which also asserts Fox News subjected women to a hostile workplace.

Once an on-air regular on Fox News, Areu says she was victimized by Henry through a "slew of wildly inappropriate sexual images and messages." The complaint details the contents of these messages. 

Additionally, Areu targets several of Fox News' other stars. She alleges that Hannity once threw $100 on the desk of his set and called for the men around to take her on a date for drinks. She says that Carlson once probed to see whether she'd be interested in a sexual relationship. She accuses Howard Kurtz of inviting her to a hotel room. After allegedly spurning advances or enduring comments, Areu says she stopped being invited to appear on each of their respective programs. The three Fox News hosts are co-defendants in the suit and face claims of retaliation. 

Here's the full complaint.

It's utterly brutal, inexcusable, inhumane stuff.

Of course, FOX News is full of brutal, inexcusable, and inhumane bastards like Henry, Hannity, and Carlson.

I frankly hope this costs the three of them their careers and a healthy stint in prison, but we all know that won't happen.  Carlson will come back from his "vacation" just like Hannity has, and the two of them will continue to be hosts of America's most-watched cable TV news shows.  Carlson's White Power Hour is the most-watched cable TV show in American history right now, averaging almost 4.5 million viewers a night, and Hannity is right behind him.

Henry may have been fired, but Hannity and Carlson have so far been untouchable.

I expect a quick settlement, and soon.  FOX News has too many resources and too much invested in these two in order to give them up.

I don't think #MeToo can bring them down.  They are too powerful.

But we'll see if that's the case.

Our Little White Supremacist Domestic Terrorism Problem, Con't

In a move right out of the "America: 2020" series writers' room, an white supremacist incel terrorist went to the home of New Jersey's first Latina judge and shot her husband and shot and killed her son.

The man suspected of ambushing the family of the first Latina federal judge in New Jersey posted thousands of pages of writing to the internet in recent years decrying feminism and ranting against her, according to websites registered in his name and address.

Roy Den Hollander, an anti-feminist activist and lawyer, who law enforcement officials say shot and killed the son of Judge Esther Salas in an ambush at her home in North Brunswick on Sunday, wrote about his hatred of her in a self-published book this year.

Hollander pushed books of his writing on several websites, according to domain registration records examined by NBC News that match his known address and phone number. In the recently published memoir Hollander left online, he called Salas “a lazy and incompetent Latina judge appointed by Obama.” Referring to a 2015 case Salas presided over, Hollander said he “wanted to ask the Judge out, but thought she might hold me in contempt.”

Hollander is accused of approaching Salas’ home dressed as a FedEx driver, fatally shooting her son, Daniel Anderl, 20, and critically injuring her husband, Mark Anderl.

Salas, who presided over a civil case five years ago in which Hollander provided representation, was in the basement during the attack and was not injured, according to NBC New York.

Hollander was pronounced dead by a self-inflicted gunshot wound, officials said Monday.

Hollander's writings are littered with language common among the most extreme anti-feminist communities on the web, some of which he was a member. He was active in anti-feminist and misogynist groups on Facebook, including groups titled Humanity Vs. Feminism and Men Going Their Own Way, according to an analysis of accounts linked to him.

The suspect wrote an entire book on how he hated this woman, and went to her home with the intent to kill her. He allegedly did kill her son and badly injured her husband. But it will be dismissed as a "lone-wolf" killing and we'll shrug our shoulders and wonder why white men are so violent.

It's a mystery.  Perhaps we should throw more Black and Latino men in jail.

StupidiNews!

• Senate Republicans say any possible Supreme Court vacancies during the election will be filled "quickly" in an absolute reversal of 2016's denial of Merrick Garland's appointment by Obama.
• The GOP is considering redirecting Trump campaign funds to help embattled Senate Republicans who are now expected to lose control of the chamber in November.
• Congressional Democrats are expected to begin negotiations with the White House over a new COVID-19 package as extended unemployment benefits for tens of millions expire.
• FOX News and former anchor Ed Henry are now facing a major sexual harassment lawsuit after Henry was fired by the network earlier this year.
• ATM maker Diebold says thieves have acquired software that could leave cash machines open to "jackpot" attacks that could cost banks billions.

Last Call For Missouri Goes Viral, Con't

Add Missouri to the list of Republican states where COVID-19 will kill tens of thousands.

A series of controversial remarks by Missouri Gov. Mike Parson on a St. Louis radio show are getting widespread attention — and some pushback.

In an interview on Friday with talk-radio host Marc Cox on KFTK (97.1 FM), Parson indicated both certainty and acceptance that the coronavirus will spread among children when they return to school this fall. The virus has killed 1,130 people in the state despite a weekslong stay-at-home order in the spring that helped slow the virus’ spread — and the state set a record on Saturday with 958 new cases.

In the same 10-minute interview, Parson said that if it came to it, he would probably pardon the Central West End couple who pointed guns at protesters marching past their home on a private street on June 28.

Parson’s comment on the coronavirus signaled that the decision to send all children back to school would be justified even in a scenario in which all of them became infected with the coronavirus.

St. Louis-area schools are expected to release their reopening plans on Monday.

“These kids have got to get back to school,” Parson told Cox. “They’re at the lowest risk possible. And if they do get COVID-19, which they will — and they will when they go to school — they’re not going to the hospitals. They’re not going to have to sit in doctor’s offices. They’re going to go home and they’re going to get over it.”

He emphasized that people who are at high risk of becoming seriously ill should be protected but said most people in the state were smart enough to figure out how to stay safe without government interventions such as mask mandates.

“We gotta move on,” he said. “We can’t just let this thing stop us in our tracks.”

The kids are going to go to school, they're going to get sick, and they are going to infect parents, family members, neighbors, friends, on down the line.

But we gotta move on, you see.  Tens of thousands of Missourians will have to die, but that's a price Mike Parson is willing to pay, I guess.

Good luck, Show Me State.

The Great Kentucky Jobless Job

Gov. Andy Beshear and Lt. Gov. Jackie Coleman are infinitely preferable to another Matt Bevin term, and thousands of lives have been saved already over what COVID-19 would look like in Bevinstan. But Beshear and Coleman have royally screwed up regarding Kentucky's unemployment system, which broke immediately in March and hasn't recovered with people still waiting on benefits from four months ago.

Like thousands of other Kentuckians over the last few months, Travis Powell just wanted a simple answer from the state Office of Unemployment Insurance. 

Powell is not an unemployed worker; he’s vice president of the Council on Postsecondary Education, and he wanted to know what to tell state universities about how to handle unemployment claims from work-study students. On April 20, he was put in touch with Muncie McNamara, the executive director of the Office of Unemployment Insurance. 

According to emails obtained through an open records request, McNamara said he’d look into it. After a week went by with no answer, Powell followed up again. McNamara never responded, and after another week, Powell learned why: McNamara was no longer working for the state. 

The head of the Office of Unemployment Insurance was quietly fired on May 5, amid an unprecedented number of jobless claims, a race to overhaul an archaic computer system and a belatedly-reported data breach. 

McNamara had been on the job only four months. The 38-year-old lawyer from Nelson County had no experience with unemployment systems or state government before taking the job. 

But what he did have was connections. 

He volunteered for and donated to Gov. Andy Beshear’s campaign last year. His wife, a recent chair of the Nelson County Democratic Party, considers Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman “a good friend,” according to an interview she gave to the Kentucky Standard. Coleman called McNamara to offer him the job personally, he said. 

He was paid $15,000 more than his predecessor, a career unemployment official who the cabinet kept on staff as a special assistant. 

But by early May, he was gone, fired “without cause,” according to his personnel file.
McNamara alleges he was fired for raising serious concerns about corners the office was cutting amid the rush to fulfill record-high unemployment claims. 

In an emailed statement, the Cabinet for Education and Workforce Development disputed that claim, saying the concerns he raised were not a factor in his firing. 

Travis Powell is still waiting for an answer to the question he asked McNamara on behalf of the state’s universities back in April. He said he’s happy to be patient. But for the over 68,000 Kentuckians whose claims have gone unresolved since the pandemic began — including over 5,000 who filed claims back in March — patience doesn’t pay the bills.

Everything that could have gone wrong with Kentucky's unemployment system did go wrong, and while a lot of it is inherited from Matt Bevin (and yes, from Andy Beshear's father Steve) it's pretty clear that treating the system as a plum to be given to a donor was just about the worst possible response from both Beshear and Coleman.

Beshear is trying to fix it, but at great expense, hiring Ernst & Young to provide the necessary experts to run the system. Don't get me wrong, a second Bevin term would have been just as bad on unemployment and lethal everywhere else, but Beshear and Coleman really screwed this up and so far they have not met this challenge.

Get this fixed, guys.

The State Of The Police State, Con't

Portland is already under daily assault by Trump's brownshirts.  Chicago may very well be next.

Chicago Fraternal Order of Police President John Catanzara Jr. issued a letter to President Donald Trump on Saturday, asking for help from the federal government to fight “chaos” in Chicago and calling Mayor Lori Lightfoot a “complete failure.” 

The letter was posted on the FOP Lodge 7 Facebook page on Saturday, with a note that it would “get to President Trump’s desk one way or another.” 

In the letter, Catanzara wrote: “I am certain you are aware of the chaos currently affecting our city on a regular basis now. I am writing to formally ask you for help from the federal government. Mayor Lightfoot has proved to be a complete failure who is either unwilling or unable to maintain law and order here.” 

Catanzara wrote that he would be willing to sit down anytime with President Trump and “discuss ideas about how we can bring civility back to the streets of Chicago.”
“These politicians are failing the good men and women of this city and this police department,” he wrote. 

Catanzara also noted that for a few years, he has “proudly and repeatedly” spoken in the City Council chambers wearing “Trump 45” gear, and wrote that whether the mayor was Rahm Emanuel or Lori Lightfoot, he has “pushed back on their failing liberal policies.” 

He wrote that he believes President Trump’s help and cooperation “could make a big difference and rally the silent majority to say enough is enough.” 

In response to the letter, Mayor Lightfoot’s office said: “We will not dignify this or any other political stunt. We will, however, continue to support the true, hard working men and women of the police department.”

It's a stunt.

Trump loves stunts. 

But if the next target isn't Chicago, it will almost certainly be Atlanta.

Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms believes "personal retaliation" is behind Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp's lawsuit challenging her decision to require masks in her city in response to the coronavirus pandemic. 

"I do believe it's personal retaliation and he sued us personally," Bottoms told CNN's Alisyn Camerota on "New Day" Friday morning. "He did not sue the city of Atlanta. He filed suit against myself and our city council personally." 

The ongoing feud between Bottoms, a Democrat, and Kemp, a Republican, reached new heights Thursday when Kemp challenged her mask requirement, saying it violates his emergency order prohibiting local action from being more prohibitive than the state's requirements. 

The controversy has attracted national attention not only due to the swirling debate about whether authorities should require masks but because Bottoms is viewed as a potential running mate for presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden. 

On Wednesday, Kemp issued a statewide executive order that voids mask mandates imposed by local governments, despite a rising number Covid-19 cases in the state. So far, more than 3,000 Georgians have died as a result of the virus, and under Bottoms' order, not wearing a mask within Atlanta's city limits was punishable by a fine and even up to six months in jail. 

The governor defended his move at a Friday morning press conference, saying he's "confident that Georgians don't need a mandate to do the right thing." 

"Mayor Bottoms' mask mandate cannot be enforced," he added. "But her decision to shutter businesses and undermine economic growth is devastating. ... I refuse to sit back and watch as disastrous policies threaten the lives and livelihoods of our citizens." 

In response, Bottoms -- who, along with her husband and one of her children, has tested positive for Covid-19 -- called his remarks "propaganda" and that her city was offering voluntary guidance for businesses as it relates to reopening. 

"For him to say that we are closing businesses in the city of Atlanta and costing people money is a blatant lie," she said. 

She noted to Camerota that Kemp's lawsuit was filed the day after President Donald Trump visited Atlanta. Upon his arrival, the President did not wear a mask. 

"I don't think it was happenstance that this lawsuit was filed the day after Donald Trump visited Atlanta," Bottoms said, because Kemp "does the bidding of President Trump."

Keep in mind Kemp's lawsuit would also impose a gag order on Atlanta's government and Mayor Bottoms specifically to forbid them for even talking about masks.

While Chicago's police union president might not be able to call in federal Trump jackboots, Brian Kemp, as Governor of Georgia, certainly can.

Keep an eye on this one.  It could get ugly fast.

And thatr's the point.

StupidiNews!

• House Democrats are calling on Homeland Security's Inspector General to investigate the use of unmarked federal troops in Portland to protect federal property.
• A Kentucky couple is under house arrest after refusing to sign a self-quarantine agreement after testing positive for COVID-19, the couple was heading for Michigan to see family.
• Kanye West's on-again, off-again presidential run is back on again after a campaign rally in South Carolina, West will not be able to get on the ballot in most states however.
• The UK plans to end its extradition treaty with Hong Kong as tensions between Britain and China continue to rise over Hong Kong's crackdown.
• Smithsonian researchers believe they have cracked the case on how certain deep-sea fish are able to absorb up to 99.5% of all light that hits their skin, with "ultrablack" applications in optics.

Last Call For Orange Meltdown, Con't

Yet another poll, this time from ABC News and the Washington Post, finds Joe Biden up 15 points among registered voters, and ten points among the poll's likely voter model.

President Donald Trump’s bad poll numbers are getting worse.

The latest data point: A new ABC News/Washington Post poll released Sunday shows Trump 15 points behind former Vice President Joe Biden among registered voters, 55 percent to 40 percent.

The margin is closer among likely voters, 54 percent for Biden and 44 percent for Trump, but whichever margin you look at, the survey is the fifth consecutive high-quality national poll — those conducted by live phone interviewers — to show Biden ahead of Trump by 10 points or more. Of the nine such polls conducted since the second half of June, Biden has led Trump by double digits in seven of them.

The surveys conducted over the past month put Biden in an enviable, even historic position. He has a greater advantage over the incumbent going into the final few months of the campaign than any challenger since Bill Clinton, who seized the lead in the summer of 1992 after third-party candidate Ross Perot dropped out.

Trump’s poll numbers — so stagnant for the first three years of his presidency — have taken a significant hit as a result of his handling of the coronavirus pandemic. Meanwhile, Biden’s long career has left him fairly defined already, as the Trump campaign has begun a barrage of attacks ads on TV nationally and in swing states. And while Trump voters are more enthusiastic about their candidate, Biden voters are also highly interested in voting — if only to oust Trump from the Oval Office.

Trump's starting to be in real trouble now, and his most recent actions show it.

Prior to the release of the ABC News/Washington Post poll Sunday morning, Biden held a 9-point lead in the RealClearPolitics average — a little lower than the live-caller polls suggest, mostly because of the inclusion of a GOP-friendler result from the automated firm Rasmussen Reports.

Still, that 9-point lead puts Biden in unusually commanding territory for a challenger. Only two challengers at this stage of the campaign — John Kerry in 2004 and Michael Dukakis in 1988, who was running against an incumbent vice president — ended up losing, and each held a smaller lead than Biden’s. (Dukakis would even pad his lead before losing it completely, thanks to a convention bump that receded quickly in August.)

For a more recent comparison, Biden’s advantage well outstrips the lead Hillary Clinton had at this point in the 2016 race, when she led Trump by 3 points in the RealClearPolitics average. Clinton’s lead would briefly top out at an 8-point lead in early August, and then again crest to 7 points in the immediate aftermath of the “Access Hollywood” video in October.

Biden is also much closer to earning majority support than Clinton at this point before the last presidential election. As of July 19, 2016, Clinton was only at 44 percent in the RealClearPolitics average, well short of Biden's 49 percent — and that Biden number is before the ABC News/Washington Post poll with him at 54 percent was added to the average.

Trump's response is fourfold: he's already taking hostages on the expected COVID-19 relief bill this week, he's sending out federal troops to terrorize urban and suburban voters, he's gaslighting Americans on voting-by-mail (this ABC/WaPo poll finds 49% of Americans now believe mail-in voting is vulnerable to fraud) and he's trying to demoralize Black and Latino voters like he did successfully in 2016 against Hillary Clinton.

President Donald Trump’s campaign is pouring millions of dollars into a plan to weaken Joe Biden among swing state voters of color — and it’s creating a sense of déjà vu among Democratic operatives.

Trump’s team is airing TV advertisements aimed at Black and Latino voters that attack the presumptive Democratic nominee over his past support of the 1994 crime bill, which led to increased incarceration, particularly among people of color, as well as his mental fitness in Spanish-language spots. It’s a sign that Trump aides, while struggling to find a consistent and effective line of attack against Biden, have settled on at least one strategy: dilute Biden’s strength among minority voters.

“It’s very clear the Trump campaign is trying to use much of the same playbook from 2016,” said Karen Finney, Hillary Clinton’s spokesperson during that campaign. “This should be a blaring call to all Democrats running for office this year, specifically Biden, that you cannot take anything for granted with Black voters, period. Because we made that mistake in 2016, and ended up with, just as an example, Hillary underperforming in Milwaukee, which has a high African American population.”

In the past three weeks alone, the Trump team has spent more than $2 million on the advertisements in six swing states and nationally, according to Advertising Analytics. The blueprint is similar to the one they successfully executed against Clinton in 2016, when the campaign helped drive down turnout among African American voters in key battleground states by focusing on her past comments about “superpredators" and advocacy for the crime bill. In 2016, Black voter turnout dropped in a presidential race for the first time in two decades, plummeting from nearly 67 percent to just under 60 percent, per Pew.

Biden campaign officials contend that there are key differences between now and 2016: Trump was widely expected to lose, they point out, making it easier at the time to persuade people to stay at home. Now, voters have seen 3½ years of his job performance, including, they say, his mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic that has disproportionately harmed Black and Latino Americans as well as his fanning the flames of racism amid nationwide protests against police brutality.

At the same time, “We're taking nothing for granted — the Vice President has a long history with the African-American community and we are reinforcing that," wrote Patrick Bonsignore, Biden’s director of paid media, in a June memo obtained by POLITICO.

I'm glad the Biden camp is taking this seriously, because they are going to need every vote.  Trump has shown his hand and he's playing some of his most powerful cards, and we still have 15 weeks to go.

But all of that leads up to this.

President Trump declined to say whether he will accept the results of the November election, claiming without evidence that mail-in voting due to the coronavirus pandemic could “rig” the outcome.
In a wide-ranging interview with “Fox News Sunday” host Chris Wallace, the president also continued to play down the severity of the coronavirus crisis in the country, declined to say whether he is offended by the Confederate flag and dismissed polls showing him trailing former vice president Joe Biden by a significant margin.

The interview comes as the 2020 campaign has been upended by the pandemic, which has claimed more than 137,000 lives in the United States. Most in-person events have been canceled, and both political parties are planning to hold smaller-scale conventions to limit the spread of the virus.

Several states switched to primarily vote-by-mail primaries earlier this year, and the U.S. Postal Service is bracing for an onslaught of mail-in ballots this fall as states and cities seek alternatives to in-person voting.

In the “Fox News Sunday” interview, Wallace asked Trump whether he considers himself a “gracious” loser.

Trump replied that he doesn’t like to lose, then added: “It depends. I think mail-in voting is going to rig the election. I really do.” Trump’s comment echoed unfounded claims he has made in recent weeks that mail-in voting is susceptible to widespread fraud.

“Are you suggesting that you might not accept the results of the election?” Wallace asked.

Trump responded, “No. I have to see.”

Later in the interview, pressed on whether he will accept the results of the November election, Trump again declined to say.

Trump does bluster a lot, but he's also made good on a lot of his threats.

The odds of a peaceful transition to the Biden administration is very, very low.

We need to be ready.

The Regime Goes Viral, Con't

At this point the Trump regime is now attempting to openly coerce loyalty from GOP senators and governors by holding COVID-19 funds hostage.

The Trump administration is trying to block billions of dollars for states to conduct testing and contact tracing in the upcoming coronavirus relief bill, people involved in the talks said Saturday.

The administration is also trying to block billions of dollars that GOP senators want to allocate for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and billions more for the Pentagon and State Department to address the pandemic at home and abroad, the people said.

The administration’s posture has angered some GOP senators, the officials said, and some lawmakers are trying to push back and ensure that the money stays in the bill. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to reveal confidential deliberations, cautioned that the talks were fluid and the numbers were in flux.

The negotiations center around a bill Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is preparing to unveil this coming week as part of negotiations with Democrats on what will likely be the last major coronavirus relief bill before the November election.

The regime is prepared to run out to clock at this point in order to burn is all down before November.

The two political parties are far apart on a number of contentious issues, such as unemployment insurance, but the conflict between Trump administration officials and Senate Republicans on money for testing and other priorities is creating a major complication even before bipartisan negotiations get under way. Some lawmakers are trying to reach a deal quickly, as enhanced unemployment benefits for millions of Americans are set to expire in less than two weeks.

One person involved in the talks said Senate Republicans were seeking to allocate $25 billion for states to conduct testing and contact tracing, but that certain administration officials want to zero out the testing and tracing money entirely. Some White House officials believe they have already approved billions of dollars in assistance for testing and that some of that money remains unspent.

Roughly 3.7 million Americans have already tested positive for coronavirus in the United States, according to a Washington Post analysis. Wait times for test results can vary by state, but in some places people have to wait more than a week to find out if they have tested positive.

Trump and other White House officials have been pushing for states to own more of the responsibility for testing and have objected to creating national standards, at times seeking to minimize the federal government’s role.

The last major coronavirus spending bill Congress approved, in April, included $25 billion to increase testing and also required the Health and Human Services Department to release a strategic testing plan. The agency did so in May, but the plan mainly reasserted the administration’s insistence that states -- not the federal government -- should take the lead on testing.

Several Senate Republicans including Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) are exploring pushing a testing and tracing provision in the next stimulus package but are expected to meet resistance from the White House.

“Cases and deaths are now both rising again, including in many red states,” said Sam Hammond, a policy expert at the right-leaning think tank the Niskanen Center, which has been working with Senate Republicans on testing legislation. “Senate Republicans have asked for funding to help states purchase test kits in bulk. As it currently stands, the main bottleneck to a big ramp-up in testing is less technical than the White House’s own intransigence.”

That may be true, but the White House is going to make sure Senate Republicans go down with him. Either agree with the ridiculous regime theory that cutting testing will cut cases, and that state governors are fully responsible, not Trump, or there's no bill and the misery factor will ensure scorched earth awaits politicians in relatively safe races (and may take out some Democrats with the sheer amount of collateral damage.)

But the real threat is to the tens of millions of Americans who are in true need of help right now, and Trump is signaling his intention to turn his back on them and let the chips fall where they may.

In other words, if Trump loses, America loses.

As horrific is that is, it's what we now face: a leader who will take as many of us as possible with him should he not be publicly absolved for his sins. He sees COVID-19 efforts as "efforts to blame me for this" and he will fight both until the bitter, bitter end.

Nothing about COVID-19 will improve in the US as long as Trump remains in power.  Period. And we know this because we know he gave up on fixing COVID-19 months ago.

Each morning at 8 as the coronavirus crisis was raging in April, Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, convened a small group of aides to steer the administration through what had become a public health, economic and political disaster.

Seated around Mr. Meadows’s conference table and on a couch in his office down the hall from the Oval Office, they saw their immediate role as practical problem solvers. Produce more ventilators. Find more personal protective equipment. Provide more testing.

But their ultimate goal was to shift responsibility for leading the fight against the pandemic from the White House to the states. They referred to this as “state authority handoff,” and it was at the heart of what would become at once a catastrophic policy blunder and an attempt to escape blame for a crisis that had engulfed the country — perhaps one of the greatest failures of presidential leadership in generations.

Over a critical period beginning in mid-April, President Trump and his team convinced themselves that the outbreak was fading, that they had given state governments all the resources they needed to contain its remaining “embers” and that it was time to ease up on the lockdown.

In doing so, he was ignoring warnings that the numbers would continue to drop only if social distancing was kept in place, rushing instead to restart the economy and tend to his battered re-election hopes.

Casting the decision in ideological terms, Mr. Meadows would tell people: “Only in Washington, D.C., do they think that they have the answer for all of America.”

For scientific affirmation, they turned to Dr. Deborah L. Birx, the sole public health professional in the Meadows group. A highly regarded infectious diseases expert, she was a constant source of upbeat news for the president and his aides, walking the halls with charts emphasizing that outbreaks were gradually easing. The country, she insisted, was likely to resemble Italy, where virus cases declined steadily from frightening heights.

On April 11, she told the coronavirus task force in the Situation Room that the nation was in good shape. Boston and Chicago are two weeks away from the peak, she cautioned, but the numbers in Detroit and other hard-hit cities are heading down.

A sharp pivot soon followed, with consequences that continue to plague the country today as the virus surges anew.

Even as a chorus of state officials and health experts warned that the pandemic was far from under control, Mr. Trump went, in a matter of days, from proclaiming that he alone had the authority to decide when the economy would reopen to pushing that responsibility onto the states. The government issued detailed reopening guidelines, but almost immediately, Mr. Trump began criticizing Democratic governors who did not “liberate” their states.

Mr. Trump’s bet that the crisis would fade away proved wrong. But an examination of the shift in April and its aftermath shows that the approach he embraced was not just a misjudgment. Instead, it was a deliberate strategy that he would stick doggedly to as evidence mounted that, in the absence of strong leadership from the White House, the virus would continue to infect and kill large numbers of Americans.

Trump was trying to blame governors for everything from day one.  Now he's ready to bring down America in order to coerce people into saving his relection prospects.  It's not just the biggest modern failure in decades, it's outright criminal dereliction of his oath of office.

If we survive the next six months and emerge with President Biden, the reckoning has to be both swift and brutal. If we still have Trump in charge in January, then America, and millions of us, are dead.

It really is that simple.

Sunday Long Read: Virus, Inc.

There actually have been plenty who have been helped by Donald Trump during the pandemic, it's just all of them are either Trump himself, or the corporations of the tycoons who donate to the GOP.

On June 22nd, in the baking heat of a parking lot a few miles inland from Delaware’s beaches, several dozen poultry workers, many of them Black or Latino, gathered to decry the conditions at a local poultry plant owned by one of President Donald Trump’s biggest campaign contributors. “We’re here for a reason that is atrocious,” Nelson Hill, an official with the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, told the small but boisterous crowd, which included top Democratic officials from the state, among them Senator Chris Coons. The union, part of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., represents some 1.3 million laborers in poultry-processing and meatpacking plants, as well as workers in grocery stores and retail establishments. Its members, many defined as “essential” workers—without the option of staying home—have been hit extraordinarily hard by the coronavirus. The union estimates that nearly thirty thousand of its workers in the food and health-care sectors have contracted covid-19, and that two hundred and thirty-eight of those have died.

For the previous forty-two years, a thousand or so laborers at the local processing plant, in Selbyville, had been represented by Local 27. Just two years earlier, the workers there had ratified a new five-year contract. But, Hill told the crowd, in the middle of the pandemic, as the number of infected workers soared, the plant’s owner, Mountaire Corporation—one of the country’s largest purveyors of chicken—conspired, along with Donald Trump, to “kick us out.”

Hill, who is Black and from a working-class family on the Delmarva Peninsula—a scrubby stretch of farmland that includes parts of Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia—was used to the area’s heat and humidity. But, as he spoke to the crowd, behind dark glasses, his face glistened with anger. “It’s greed, that’s what it is,” he said. “It’s a damn shame.”

The jobs at Mountaire rank as among the most dangerous and worst paid in America. Government statistics indicate that poultry and meat-processing companies report more severe injuries than other industries commonly assumed to be more hazardous, including coal mining and sawmilling. Between 2015 and 2018, on average, a slaughterhouse worker lost a body part, or went to the hospital for in-patient treatment, about every other day. Unlike meatpackers, two-thirds of whom belong to unions, only about a third of poultry workers are represented by organized labor—and those who are unionized face mounting pressure. The industry, which is dominated by large multinational corporations such as Mountaire, has grown increasingly concentrated, expanding its political influence while replacing unionized employees with contract hires, often immigrants or refugees. These vulnerable workers are technically hired by temp agencies, relieving poultry plants of accountability if documentation is lacking. Trump has weakened federal oversight of the industry while accepting millions of dollars in political donations from some of its most powerful figures, including Ronald Cameron, Mountaire’s reclusive owner. In 2016, Cameron gave nearly three million dollars to organizations supporting Trump’s candidacy.

Founded in Little Rock, Arkansas, but incorporated in Delaware, Mountaire has operations in five states. It reportedly generated more than $2.3 billion in revenue last year. Because it is owned almost entirely by Cameron—and because it supplies poultry to other companies that put their own labels on the meat—the company’s public profile is virtually nonexistent. Cameron himself has received almost no media attention. “I’ve tried mightily over the years to bump into him, but he lays low,” Max Brantley, a longtime editor at the Arkansas Times, told me. According to trade journals, however, Mountaire has been spectacularly successful. Arkansas Business reported that the company’s sales in 2019 were a billion dollars higher than they were in 2010, nearly doubling the size of the business. Information on profits isn’t available, but as Mountaire’s revenues have risen wages for poultry workers have fallen even further behind. In 2002, workers were paid twenty-four per cent less than the national average for manufacturing jobs; today, they are paid forty-four per cent less. On average, poultry workers now earn less than fourteen dollars an hour.

By long-standing custom, labor contracts are binding for at least three years, giving a union time to prove its value to members. But in April a laborer at the Selbyville plant, Oscar Cruz Sosa, raised a legal objection to the contract, arguing that he’d been forced to join the union and pay dues against his will. He wanted a vote on whether to decertify the union. Mountaire maintains that it played no role in Cruz Sosa’s actions, and that the move to decertify the union was “entirely employee-driven.” But Cruz Sosa has had some outside help. His case was supported by lawyers from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, the foremost anti-union advocacy group, which is funded by undisclosed tax-deductible donations. Meanwhile, a mysterious group calling itself the Oscar Cruz Committee for Employee Rights sent out mailings, in English, supporting Cruz Sosa’s complaint. (Cruz Sosa speaks only Spanish.) The return address was the Rehoboth Beach branch of MailBiz, which rents post-office boxes.

Jonathan Williams, a spokesperson for the union, suspects that Cruz Sosa was a stalking horse. “It’s not hard to find one individual, who may get special privileges from management, and who maybe is offered a future position,” he told me. “It’s very, very rare, though, when an employee does the research, contacts the Department of Labor, and goes through all this effort. Usually, someone is being coached.” (Cruz Sosa didn’t respond to interview requests.)

When the union reached out to Cruz Sosa, his lawyers filed a grievance with the National Labor Relations Board, claiming harassment. The specific legal dispute is abstruse. Mark Mix, the president of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, has called the contract’s language “illegal,” claiming that it didn’t make sufficiently clear that—as stipulated by law—new employees had thirty days to decide whether to join the union. The union argues that applications presented to new employees are unambiguous about the time frame, and says that the current contract has virtually the same boilerplate used in every contract with Mountaire since 1982.

After Cruz Sosa got thirty per cent of his co-workers to sign a petition, the National Labor Relations Board ordered an election at the Selbyville plant. When the union protested that this would violate the customary bar on overturning contracts before three years, the N.L.R.B. decided to broaden the case, reëxamining the entire concept of barring challenges to settled union contracts. The move has shocked labor-law experts. By statute, the N.L.R.B. has five members and is bipartisan, but the Trump Administration has filled only three seats, all with Republicans.

Given the pandemic, the union argued that there was no way an in-person election could be safely and fairly held in Sussex County, where Selbyville is situated. Delaware’s governor had declared a state of emergency on March 23rd, because of the surge in covid-19 cases, almost half of them in Sussex County, which has many poultry plants. The union asked for a stay, but on June 24th the N.L.R.B. moved to proceed with the election, by mail. The ballots that were sent out must be received by July 14th. Meanwhile, the board will weigh the larger question of whether such elections are legal, potentially overturning a precedent that dates back to the New Deal.

“We’re really being let down by the federal agencies,” Williams, the union spokesperson, said. He also lamented a shift at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the division of the Labor Department that enforces workplace safety. Since osha’s inception, in 1970, the agency has enforced federal law that makes it illegal to subject employees to “recognized hazards.” But during the pandemic the Times editorial board has been prompted to ask, “Why is osha awol?” Democrats pushed for the agency to issue an emergency rule forcing businesses to comply with the Centers for Disease Control’s health guidelines for covid-19, but the Labor Department refused.

Instead, on April 28th, forty-eight hours after Tyson Foods, the world’s second-largest meat company, ran a full-page ad in several newspapers warning that “the food supply chain is breaking,” Trump issued an executive order defining slaughterhouse workers as essential. The White House had appointed Cameron to an advisory board on the pandemic’s economic impact. The executive order commanded meat-processing facilities to “continue operations uninterrupted to the extent possible.” The Labor Department released an accompanying statement that all but indemnified companies for exposing workers to covid-19. It assured employers in essential industries that the agency wouldn’t hold them responsible if they failed to follow the C.D.C.’s health guidelines, as long as they made a “good faith” effort.

Meat and poultry workers had to keep working and risk infection—or lose their jobs. By July 7th, osha had received more than six thousand coronavirus-related workplace complaints but had issued only one citation, to a nursing home in Georgia. David Michaels, a professor of public health at George Washington University, who headed osha during the Obama Administration, told me that the agency was “saying that the Labor Department would side with the employers if workers sued,” and added, “That would be unthinkable in any other Administration. osha’s job isn’t to protect corporations—it’s to protect workers!”

The prospect of food shortages understandably caused concern in the White House. Yet reports show that in April, as Tyson and other producers were warning that “millions of pounds of meat will disappear” from American stores if they had to shut down, exports of pork to China broke records—and Mountaire’s chicken exports were 3.4 per cent higher than they were a year earlier. The next month, the company’s exports were 10.9 per cent lower than in 2019, but its exports to China and Hong Kong grew by 23.1 per cent in April and by fourteen per cent in May, according to statistics provided by Christopher Rogers, an analyst with Panjiva, which tracks the food-supply chain. Tony Corbo, a lobbyist for Food and Water Watch, a progressive nonprofit advocacy group, said, “They were crying about shortages, and yet we’re still exporting meat. The shortage was phony.”

The damage to the nation's workers from the Trump regime is incalculable, but it's somewhere in the trillions overall, plus the misery, the pain, the physical damage, and now, death by COVID-19.


So many are being sacrificed for Trump's Mammon Machine right now.

Last Call For State Of The Police State

As I warned weeks ago about the prospect of Donald Trump and Bill Barr turning to federal troops to invade cities and conduct illegal operations, mass detainment, and assaulting American citizens, we've now reached the point where the brownshirt police force is reality.

U.S. Attorney Billy Williams said Friday he wants an investigation into actions of federal officers who have pulled Portland protesters off the street and into unmarked vehicles.

Federal officers with U.S. Customs and Border Protection have come under significant scrutiny after OPB first reported Thursday that they may have been involved in constitutionally questionable arrests in Portland.

The officers, along with employees of the U.S. Marshals Service and the Federal Protective Service, have had an increased presence in the city as protests over police brutality have continued for more than six weeks.

“Based on news accounts circulating that allege federal law enforcement detained two protesters without probable cause, I have requested the Department of Homeland Security Office of the Inspector General to open a separate investigation directed specifically at the actions of DHS personnel,” Williams said in his statement.

At least one officer with the Marshals Service is under investigation for severely injuring a Portland protester July 11 by shooting him in the face with an impact munition round.
In his statement, Williams said federal officers have spent the past 50 nights in Portland defending the Mark O. Hatfield federal courthouse and other federal property. That building has seen significant graffiti, and been a frequent gathering place for protesters opposing police violence.

“(Federal officers) have rebuffed efforts to enter the building by force and have been met with an onslaught of commercial fireworks, laser strikes, glass, mortars, paint and anything else near at hand,” Williams said. “They have endeavored to find the individuals within the crowd who are committing these violent acts and arrest them in a manner that is safe for both the officers and nearby non-violent protesters.”
However, Williams said in “limited instances” federal officers may have engaged in questionable conduct, such as the unmarked vehicle arrests, and that he believes investigations by the Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General are appropriate.

Civil rights advocates and Oregon lawmakers — both federal and local — have strongly condemned the actions of federal officers.

Oregon Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley took to Twitter to criticize President Donald Trump and the Department of Homeland Security’s focus on protests in Portland.

“Get your DHS lackey and uninvited paramilitary actions out of my state. Our communities are not a stage for your twisted reelection campaign,” Merkley said.

Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Oregon, also said the Oregon Congressional Delegation has asked for an immediate inspector investigation into the “violent actions of unrequested federal law enforcement officials here in Portland.”

Straight up paramilitary goon squad nonsense right here, troops pulled from Customs and Border Patrol to invade a city and start rounding up "suspected Antifa members" where everyone who isn't a Trump voter in Portland counts as such.

I'd laugh at the predictability of it all, where I've been warning of Trump's increasing slide towards full military dictatorship for four years now, and with months t go before his doomed reelection, Trump's all but signaling that he'll have his Praetorian Guard in the streets leading up to Election Day and after, that he will violently put down anything that looks like resistance, and with overwhelming lethal force.

The next step down this particular road is a massacre and martial law, where Trump simply takes over a city or three to "restore order under emergency powers".

After that, we get into death squads and worse.