[Thanos]

Faith in anything is wildly misplaced these days, especially for anyone putting it into a thoroughly corrupted electoral system.

That's not a slam on the US either. Historically almost all elections have been a joke since some caveman first invented them. The arrogant mistake was to believe the civics-class bullshit that any electoral system was ever honest. Just more elementary school propaganda pounded into the brains of the kids to delude them into believing that real life is what they've been brainwashed into thinking it is.

[BeaverFever]

Zipperfish Zipperfish:

I think the whole "secret police disappearing people" is a bit of hyperbole. The technical justification is that these are federal law enforcement agencies enforcing federal laws and protecting federal property. Nothing illegal about that to my knowledge. And I don't think anybody has been disappeared.

In reality the threat to federal property is minuscule and this muscular response with paramilitary forces is completely out whack with the actual risk. But that's because this is Trump pushing his law and order agenda, taking back "shithole"cities from Do-Nothing Democrats.

I expect a lot more Trump-rage chaos the closer we get to November.

The “technical justification “ is nonsense and AFAIK none of the people snatched up in recent days have been heard from despite Vandalism being a minor crime. If it’s anything like how the US feds treat Europeans visiting Canada who accidentally stray across the Canada-US border, then these people have been put on planes and flown off to Federal detention facilities in Tennessee, Pennsylvania Carolinas and elsewhere....for alleged vandalism.

Also unheard of is that the feds are forcing their unwanted help on the city and state. Portland and Oregon are both suing the feds to get them to stop


And as we so often find in these type of situations I bet a lot of the people they’re snatching up are innocent and just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

$1:

“The idea that there’s a threat to a federal courthouse and the federal authorities are going to swoop in and do whatever they want to do without any cooperation and coordination with state and local authorities is extraordinary outside the context of a civil war,” said Michael Dorf, a professor of constitutional law at Cornell University.

“It is a standard move of authoritarians to use the pretext of quelling violence to bring in force, thereby prompting a violent response and then bootstrapping the initial use of force in the first place,” Dorf said.

President Donald Trump says he plans to send federal agents to other cities as well. The Chicago Tribune, citing anonymous sources, reported Monday that Trump planned to deploy 150 federal agents to Chicago. The ACLU of Oregon has sued in federal court over the agents’ presence in Portland, and the organization’s Chicago branch said it would similarly oppose a federal presence.

“We’re going to have more federal law enforcement, that I can tell you,” Trump said Monday. “In Portland, they’ve done a fantastic job. They’ve been there three days and they really have done a fantastic job in a very short period of time.”

Top leaders in the U.S. House said Sunday they were “alarmed” by the Trump administration’s tactics in Portland and other cities. They’ve called on federal inspectors general to investigate.

Trump, who called the protesters “anarchists and agitators” in a Sunday tweet, said the agents, with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Justice Department, are on hand to help Portland and restore order at the Mark O. Hatfield Federal Courthouse.

The actions run counter to the usual philosophies of American conservatives, who typically treat state and local rights with great sanctity and have long been deeply wary of the federal government — particularly its armed agents — interceding in most situations.

But Trump, a Republican, has shown during his time in office that his actions do not always reflect traditional conservatism — particularly when politics, and in this case an impending election, are in play.

One prominent Republican, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, who is from the libertarian-leaning flank of the party, came out publicly against the federal agents. “We cannot give up liberty for security. Local law enforcement can and should be handling these situations in our cities but there is no place for federal troops or unidentified federal agents rounding people up at will,” Paul said in a tweet Monday.

The protests now gaining nationwide attention have roiled Portland for 52 nights, ever since George Floyd died after being pinned by the neck for nearly eight minutes by a white Minneapolis police officer.

Many rallies have attracted thousands and been largely peaceful. But smaller groups of up to several hundred people have focused on federal property and local law enforcement buildings, at times setting fires to police precincts, smashing windows and clashing violently with local police.

The Portland Police Bureau used tear gas on multiple occasions until a federal court order banned its officers from doing so without declaring a riot. Now, concern is growing that the tear gas is being used against demonstrators by federal officers instead.

Anger at the federal presence escalated on July 11, when a protester who was hospitalized with critical injuries after a U.S. Marshals Service officer struck him in the head with a non-lethal round. Video of the incident shows the man, identified as Donavan LaBella, standing across the street from the officers holding a speaker over his head with both hands when he was struck.


.... Mayor Ted Wheeler, who himself has been under fire locally for his handling of the protests, said Sunday on national TV talk shows that the demonstrations that dominated Portland headlines for more than seven weeks were dwindling before federal officers engaged.

“They are sharply escalating the situation. Their presence here is actually leading to more violence and more vandalism. And it’s not helping the situation at all,” Wheeler said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

“They’re not wanted here. We haven’t asked them here,” Wheeler said. “In fact, we want them to leave.”

Indeed, crowds of demonstrators had begun to dwindle a week ago, and some people in notoriously liberal Portland — including Black community leaders — had begun to call for the nightly demonstrations to end.

But by the weekend, the presence of federal troops and Trump’s repeated references to Portland as a hotbed of “anarchists” seemed to give a new life and renewed focus to the nightly demonstrations — and to attract a broader base.

On Sunday night, a crowd estimated at more than 500 people gathered outside the courthouse and included dozens of self-described “moms” who linked arms in a line in front of a chain link fence in front of the courthouse. The demonstration continued into Monday morning.

“It seems clear that there were at least some federal crimes committed here,” said Steve Vladeck, a constitutional law professor at the University of Texas. “But the notion that a handful of federal crimes justifies a substantial deployment of federal law enforcement officers … to show force on the streets is, to my mind, unprecedented.”

“Federal law enforcement,” Vladeck said, “is not a political prop.”

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/c ... a-red-flag

[Scape]

Philip does an expose on it

Interesting point brought up are if the agents fail to identify and the protester resists can the are well within their rights to do so and claim they were being kidnapped.

[PluggyRug]

[DrCaleb]

And that brings up the question, what authority does BCP have to quell protests? What authority do they have to arrest citizens exercising their first amendment rights?

[herbie]

And suddenly the Second Amenders and State Militia's 'necessary' to protect citizens from Federal abuse are amazingly quiet........

[raydan]

They should be "disappearing" people who don't wear masks.

[Tricks]

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

And that brings up the question, what authority does BCP have to quell protests? What authority do they have to arrest citizens exercising their first amendment rights?

The claim is that the Border Partrol has authority to assist anywhere within 100 miles of a "border", including the ocean, Which would include Portland.

Apparently they also want to include airports in that, which would make it effectively anywhere in the U.S.

[DrCaleb]

Tricks Tricks:

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

And that brings up the question, what authority does BCP have to quell protests? What authority do they have to arrest citizens exercising their first amendment rights?

The claim is that the Border Partrol has authority to assist anywhere within 100 miles of a "border", including the ocean, Which would include Portland.

Apparently they also want to include airports in that, which would make it effectively anywhere in the U.S.

I think they call that 'mission creep'.

No where in their mission statements does it say they will protect Trump from people he is scared of.

https://www.cbp.gov/about

[BartSimpson]

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

And that brings up the question, what authority does BCP have to quell protests? What authority do they have to arrest citizens exercising their first amendment rights?

The border patrol since 1953 has had the authority of Congress to act as law enforcement in any area up to 100 air miles from a US border. That authority has been renewed by every President including Obama.

[Zipperfish]

Scape Scape:

Philip does an expose on it

Interesting point brought up are if the agents fail to identify and the protester resists can the are well within their rights to do so and claim they were being kidnapped.

They'd be dead right, I suppose.

[Zipperfish]

The legality of it is of zero interest to Trump. Stopping violence is of zero interest to Trump. Staying in power is 100% interest to Trump. The courts will take their time and rule eventually, I suppose. This is about the election. His narrative is that Portland is coming unglued due to violence by antifa terrorists, so he needs Portland to come unglued. The Moms of Portland are screwing it up for him.

[raydan]

[BeaverFever]

$1:

America Gets an Interior Ministry

President Trump is cobbling together something the United States has never had before—a national police force, used to quell protests.

David A. Graham6:45 AM ET
Staff writer at The Atlantic


Noah Berger / AP

For decades, conservative activists and leaders have warned that “jackbooted thugs” from the federal government were going to come to take away Americans’ civil rights with no due process and no recourse. Now they’re here—but they’re deployed by a staunchly right-wing president with strong conservative support.

In Portland, Oregon, federal agents in military fatigues have for several days been patrolling the streets amid ongoing protests about police brutality. These forces, employed by the Department of Homeland Security, have snatched people off the streets of the city, refused to identify themselves, and detained people without charges. Ostensibly, they are present to protect federal buildings from protesters. In practice, they seem to be acting on a much wider mandate, either to suppress protests or (more cynically) to provoke confrontation on behalf of a flailing White House that sees it as electorally beneficial.

Federal officials have insisted these forces are necessary to stop “anarchy” (President Trump’s word). But local officials, including the mayor of Portland and Governor Kate Brown, have criticized their presence and asked, in vain, for them to leave, saying they are causing more trouble than they prevent. (As the local press notes, the idea that the city is consumed by chaos is ridiculous, though there has been some vandalism.)

The DHS deployment to Portland follows the militarized crackdown on peaceful protesters in Washington’s Lafayette Square in June, and it’s apparently a pilot for a broader deployment. Speaking with reporters in the Oval Office on Monday, Trump said that Portland was only the first step in a planned operation.

“New York and Chicago and Philadelphia, Detroit, and Baltimore and all of these—Oakland is a mess—we are not going to let this happen in the country, all run by liberal Democrats,” he said. “We’re going to have more federal law enforcement, that I can tell you.”

While law enforcement violating civil rights is sadly not new, Trump appears to be trying to do something novel in this country: establishing a force like interior ministries in other countries. The United States has a Department of the Interior, but it is unlike most agencies with that name around the world. Here, it oversees units such as the National Park Service, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and the U.S. Geological Survey. But in many countries, the ministry’s role is much broader and more powerful: Its role is to oversee the interior of the country.

One common tool for an interior ministry is a national police force. That can be a dangerous tool because an armed national police force at the disposal of the central government has a tendency to be misused. A repressive regime that is in danger, or simply faced with protests it finds troublesome, can use the national police to crack down, turning the force into an agency that protects the rulers, rather than one that defends the rule of law. Even in more democratic countries, a national police force can be a threat. In early post-Franco Spain, the Guardia Civil was a hotbed of fascist irredentism.

The United States has never had a national police force like this, for reasons that emanate from the country’s founding. While the federal government has grown ever stronger since independence, the federalism embedded in the American system militated against a national police force. (Even state police were slow to emerge.) The Founders were wary of establishing any permanent, armed force under the control of the federal government, even warning against a standing army.

“A standing military force with an overgrown executive will not long be safe companions to liberty,” James Madison told the Constitutional Convention. “The means of defense against foreign danger have been always the instruments of tyranny at home.”

David A. Graham: Trump corrupts everyone around him

To be sure, the federal government has, at times, used its force against the people. Under the 1807 Insurrection Act and its subsequent amendments, the president can, under certain circumstances, deploy the Army inside the United States. In 1932, U.S. troops under the command of General Douglas MacArthur dispersed the Bonus Army, a contingent of thousands of destitute World War I veterans who had camped out on the grounds of the Capitol. In 1957, after Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus refused to integrate Little Rock’s Central High School and mobilized the state’s National Guard to surround the school, President Dwight Eisenhower sent the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne to clear the way for Black students. Faubus and the Guard blinked.

Given deep-seated American concerns about tyranny, sending in the Army is politically risky, and so it’s seldom done—and then usually either at the request of local authorities (as following the 1992 Los Angeles riots) or to defend civil rights (as in Little Rock). Firm opposition by governors is one reason Trump backed down from a June threat to invoke the Insurrection Act in response to anti-police protests. The presence of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley and Defense Secretary Mark Esper at the Lafayette Square debacle brought a flurry of condemnation from retired military officials, including former Defense Secretary James Mattis and former Chairman Mike Mullen. Milley ultimately said he had erred: “My presence in that moment and in that environment created a perception of the military involved in domestic politics.”

In the absence of internal military deployments or a true national police force, other bodies have sprung up that fulfill some of the same functions. The Federal Bureau of Investigation conducts criminal investigations, polices terrorism, and conducts counterintelligence, among other roles. The Secret Service investigates financial crimes. The U.S. Marshals system serves the courts. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms polices the misuse of, well, alcohol, tobacco, and firearms, as well as explosives and arson. Customs and Border Protection guards the border; Immigration and Customs Enforcement polices immigration inside the country.

While some of these agencies, especially the FBI, have often abused their power, none has as broad a mandate as a national police force. They are also splintered across Cabinet departments, diffusing their power. FBI, the Marshals, and ATF are all part of the Justice Department, while CBP and ICE are part of the Department of Homeland Security. So is the Secret Service, but it used to be part of the Treasury. Garrett Graff notes that there are some 80 federal law-enforcement agencies in total, ranging across the executive branch.

The agents out on the streets of Portland are detailed from Customs and Border Protection, the Transportation Security Administration, the Coast Guard, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Among the forces deployed in Washington last month, when Trump briefly barricaded himself within the White House, were officers from the Federal Bureau of Prisons. When the president ramped up security around statues, in response to vandalism and destruction of monuments, DHS agents were assigned that duty.

None of these tasks has much to do with the stated mandates of these agencies or departments—Coast Guard officers aren’t generally trained for riot control—and this is “homeland security” in only the most general sense. The reason these agents are the ones being deployed is simply that they’re the ones who are available. In the absence of a federal police force, the administration is simply pulling in any federal law-enforcement officer that it has the power to reassign.

Read: Two decades of paranoid pronouncements by the NRA’s Wayne LaPierre

This is an amateurish way to cobble together a national police force, characteristic of the improvisational authoritarianism of the Trump administration. But it is a strange historical irony that a Republican president would be the one to create a de facto interior ministry.

While Republicans have often portrayed themselves as devoted to law and order and defending the police, there’s also a strong libertarian current in the conservative movement that bristles at the growth of federal law enforcement. This became especially strong following the deadly federal sieges at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, in 1992, and Waco, Texas, in 1993. The ATF in particular became a bête noire. In an infamous 1995 fundraising letter, National Rifle Association Executive Director Wayne LaPierre warned of “jackbooted thugs” from the federal government seizing guns under the Assault Weapons Ban:

Not too long ago, it was unthinkable for federal agents wearing Nazi bucket helmets and black storm trooper uniforms to attack law-abiding citizens … In [Bill] Clinton’s administration, if you have a badge, you have the government’s go-ahead to harass, intimidate, even murder law-abiding citizens.

Yet on Thursday, as reports emerged from Portland of heavily armored federal agents attacking law-abiding citizens, the NRA announced it was endorsing Trump for a second term, praising him for “stand[ing] tall for the constitutional freedoms in which our members believe.”

The silence of many high-profile conservatives (with some exceptions) in the face of Trump’s attempt to create a national police force to crush dissent has much to do with the specifics. The subjects of the government’s repression are not white, rural gun owners, as at Ruby Ridge, but a multiracial coalition of urban residents, who tend to lean liberal, and who are protesting police violence against people of color. (The NRA has been conspicuously quiet when police violate Black people’s right to bear arms.)

Read: The Second Amendment’s second-class citizens

The Trump administration’s moves in Portland are different from previous domestic policing efforts in important ways that underscore the dangerous project being attempted. The federal government is not defending civil rights, as in the Little Rock case; in fact, it’s cracking down on protesters who are demanding better civil-rights protections. Nor is it acting at the request of local authorities; as we’ve seen, the state and local governments have called for the federal government to withdraw. Chad Wolf, the man leading DHS amid the crackdown, is also accountable only to the president: Trump, who loves circumventing the Constitution’s requirement of Senate confirmation for some positions, has often chosen to leave acting heads in charge of agencies so that they are more pliable and dependent on him.

As traditional politics, Trump’s promise of broad federal law enforcement is puzzling. The violent clearance of Lafayette Square was one of the worst blunders of his presidency, drawing widespread condemnation, creating splits within his leadership team, and precipitating a huge drop in public approval of his handling of riots and race. Even within the context of Trump’s peculiar base strategy, there’s little chance that sending federal agents into American cities to make dubious arrests is likely to halt his own tumble in the polls.

That’s led critics toward bleaker interpretations, suggesting that Trump is trying to stifle resistance ahead of the election, suppress the vote, or prepare to contest the election if he loses. Whatever his motives, the precedents he’s creating are likely to endure: His successors will have a blueprint for the creation of a national police force that answers to the president.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archi ... NzA1NjkyS0

[xerxes]

Trump administration weighs a show of force in more cities
DHS and DOJ officials are making plans to deploy units to protect federal facilities.

$1:

Portland may just be the beginning.

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.

In an FPS training session held earlier this month, lawyers for the agency briefed DHS officers from other components on what they could do when temporarily teaming up with FPS, according to an audio recording of the session reviewed by POLITICO. The focus was a legal process called cross-designation; it lets officers from one federal agency temporarily use the legal authorities of a different agency, thanks to a federal law referred to as Section 1315. Officers clad in military fatigues who descended on Portland over the weekend were cross-designated under 1315 in partnership with FPS.

One lawyer doing the training told listeners that FPS was “trying to stay away from citations that relate to First Amendment protected activity.” The lawyers also cautioned trainees that they couldn’t arrest protesters just for making video recordings of them on their cell phones, even if those recordings made them “uncomfortable”––and that they couldn’t retaliate against those protesters by recording them with their own phones.

They also discussed a federal regulation that lets FPS officers arrest people for taking photos or videos of federal facilities under certain circumstances––cautioning that while the regulation exists, officers should be cautious about using it because of the First Amendment. And they discussed a tactic called “cite and release” to quickly remove people from protests without going so far as making a custodial arrest. One lawyer called it an “invaluable tool” to de-escalate protests.

In practice, however, DHS has struggled to lower the temperatures of protests. Oregon officials, including the mayor of Portland, have said the influx of cross-designated DHS officers has heightened tensions. Despite that, Trump said on Monday that the feds plan to send officers to a number of cities run by “liberal Democrats,” including Baltimore, Chicago, and Philadelphia.

But spokespersons for those cities’ mayors told POLITICO that nobody from DHS had formally contacted them about the potential deployment of federal officers.

And the mayor of Philadelphia said in a statement that he would resist any imposition of federal agents on the city.

“The president’s threat is wrong on many levels,” said Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney, warning that any such move would represent “a politicization of federal resources” that would impede the work of local governments and exacerbate tensions further. Philadelphia would “use all available means to resist such a wrong-headed effort and abuse of power,” Kenney said.

A spokesperson for Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot similarly said that while the city had “not received any definitive information about additional federal resources coming to Chicago to augment existing federal resources. … Mayor Lightfoot has made clear to all that we will not tolerate any secret, federal agents being deployed in Chicago's neighborhoods.”

“Should the Trump administration foolishly try to usurp our local authority, will not hesitate to take decisive action to stop this unwanted and dangerous intrusion,” the spokesperson, Megan Vidis, added. Lightfoot told reporters on Tuesday that as of right now, she expects additional federal resources to help suppress violent crime in the city but not a "Portland-style" federal deployment.

The Oakland Police Department said in a statement that neither it nor the city of Oakland, which Trump also named as a potential target for a surge in federal forces, has asked for federal assistance.

Meanwhile, a federal judge in Portland set a hearing for Wednesday on Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum’s request for a judge to temporarily block unidentified federal law enforcement agents from detaining individuals in the state. Rosenblum has asked the court to order that federal agents only detain people based on warrants or probable cause, identify themselves to people being detained, and explain why the suspect is being held.

In a separate suit, the ACLU is seeking similar relief on behalf of a group of journalists and legal observers who contend federal agents are intimidating them. A hearing in that case is set for Thursday before a second judge.

David Lapan, the top DHS spokesperson in the early days of the Trump administration, told POLITICO that he worries the president’s threatened deployments could seriously harm the department’s reputation.

“It’s overly militaristic, it’s being seen in partisan political terms, and it’s usurping the authorities of the local law enforcement and elected officials,” he said.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/21/trump-federal-force-cities-377273

The telling part is in bold above. They "expect the unrest to escalate through the November election". How convenient....I can only imagine that on Election Day, the "violence" will so be so bad that the elections will have to be cancelled.