Name: Here's why federal cops in Portland are just Trump's warmup for election day
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Here's why federal cops in Portland are just Trump's warmup for election day

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RED BARBLUE BARA couple of days before the Fourth of July, I was walking home after a proper, socially distanced outdoor breakfast with a good friend, and noticed on my lower Manhattan block two white sedans marked in red and blue, “US Department of Homeland Security.”I thought it was odd. I’d never seen them in my neighborhood before, and what especially struck me was that the cars each had those heavily reinforced partitions separating the driver’s seat from the back—like in a police car for holding someone arrested or being taken in for questioning.ADVERTISEMENTWhat gives? I never could find out, but their very presence was disturbing and now we know, thanks to the news from Portland, Oregon, that DHS has been auditioning in that city for its role as Donald Trump’s personal paramilitary, perhaps on a nationwide scale.Under the guise of protecting federal property during recent protests—specifically, a courthouse and an office building in a small wedge of Portland—a job normally handled by the Federal Protective Service has now been taken over by elements of Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the United States Marshal Service. Perhaps others are involved as well—it’s difficult to know because Homeland Security is being tight-lipped and the mysterious officers involved are driving unmarked rental minivans and often dress in military-style camo gear with little or no identification other than a generic “POLICE” printed on their uniforms.Those cars I saw on my street? As per a former senior DHS intelligence official&nbsp;, unlike other government law enforcement agencies, “The fact is, they don’t have to do anything in marked vehicles. Such operations happen all the time and at the discretion of supervisors.”, “Federal officers on the ground in Portland have deployed a range of forceful tactics: They appeared to fire less-lethal munitions from slits in the facade of the federal courthouse, one officer walked the street while swinging a burning ball emitting tear gas, and camouflaged personnel drove in unmarked vans.” (The&nbsp;Times&nbsp;also quotes&nbsp;&nbsp;expressing concern that those deployed lack proper training for riot control or mass demonstrations.)But that’s not all. Yes, there are some on the streets who have vandalized buildings (mostly with spray paint), set fires, thrown objects and damaged property, but many, many more peaceful protesters—as well as&nbsp;—some not near the federal properties at all, have been beaten, gassed, fired upon with rubber bullets and flash bangs, and hauled off for little or no reason. One of them, Mark Pettibone,&nbsp;&nbsp;(OPB) he was terrified: “I am basically tossed into the van… I couldn’t see and they held my hands over my head.” &nbsp;After being driven around and then placed in a detention cell, Pettibone was released a couple of hours later, after demanding a lawyer.&nbsp;OPB&nbsp;reports, “He said he did not receive any paperwork, citation or record of his&nbsp;arrest.”ADVERTISEMENTAttorney Juan Chavez, director of the civil rights project at the Oregon Justice Resource&nbsp;Center, told&nbsp;OPB&nbsp;reporter Jonathan Levinson, “It’s like stop and frisk meets Guantanamo Bay. You have laws regarding probable cause that can lead to arrests. It sounds more like abduction. It sounds like they’re kidnapping people off the&nbsp;streets.”On July 11, another peaceful and unarmed demonstrator, 26-year-old Donavan La Bella, was&nbsp;&nbsp;by federal officers using those so-called “less-lethal” munitions, causing severe skull and facial fractures requiring reconstructive surgery.In response, Trump decries “anarchists and agitators.” On Thursday, his Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf declared, “Portland has been under siege for 47 straight days by a violent mob while local political leaders refuse to restore order to protect their&nbsp;city.”&nbsp; A spokesperson for CBP said, “Violent anarchists have organized events in Portland over the last several weeks with willful intent to damage and destroy federal property, as well as injure federal officers and agents. These criminal actions will not be tolerated.”ADVERTISEMENTYet local newspaper&nbsp;&nbsp;that such statements and crazed headlines from right-wing media about a city “under siege” are “hardly representative of daily life, including peaceful anti-racism demonstrations that have drawn tens of thousands of protesters, in a city of 650,000 people that encompasses 145 square miles.” (Most violent confrontations have taken place later at night between small groups and police within a 12-block area.)Indeed, no one in Portland city or Oregon state government requested the DHS’ militarized presence in the first place. Instead, local officials have demanded that the federal “rapid deployment teams” leave, believing their aggressive presence has made an already difficult situation much worse.ADVERTISEMENTActing DHS Secretary Wolf has so far refused to do so. “I don’t need invitations by the state, state mayors or state governors to do our job,”&nbsp;. “We’re going to do that whether they like us there or not.”Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler has denounced DHS actions as “an attack upon our democracy.” Oregon Governor Kate Brown, a Democrat, described their presence as “a blatant abuse of power.” She said these police from the outside are provoking confrontation as a political ploy on the part of Donald Trump and his minions who aim to distract from the coronavirus and economic crises and bolster his chances for re-election, which grow fainter by the day.Spencer Ackerman and Winston Ross of&nbsp;The&nbsp;Daily Beast&nbsp;. “It’s no surprise that the agency that detained innocent children at the border was deployed to Portland for more political theater at Trump’s behest,” Ron Wyden said. “Trump and his occupying army are escalating violence and trampling on the constitutional rights of Oregonians.” Jeff Merkley added, “The president may think that this authoritarian made-for-TV stunt will help his reelection, but real people’s lives and rights are at stake.”ADVERTISEMENTYale philosopher Jason Stanley warns, “Lawlessness in the name of law and order is the hallmark of fascism.” That this all should come just as we lose&nbsp;&nbsp;and&nbsp;, two giants of the civil rights movement who faced down police bent on violently opposing justice, has a fearful symmetry.Lawsuits and restraining orders are being filed, criminal investigations into DHS behavior have begun, legislation is being proposed. But as concerned officials try to get to the bottom of this, there may be something worse at play, something potentially more sinister than even the billy clubs, water hoses and police dogs hurled against civil rights activists.&nbsp;Christopher David, the disabled, 53-year-old Navy veteran whose&nbsp;&nbsp;went viral Saturday night, said it well: Trump “is trying to see how far he can push it in Portland and create some kind of model for other cities so he can stir up enough chaos and discontent to try and win the election again. All of this is just doubling down on his strategy of division and chaos.”Even worse, it conceivably could be connected to a greater scheme designed to steal the November election. David Atkins at&nbsp;Washington Monthly, as well as I and many others have taken note of a terrific new piece by&nbsp;&nbsp;headlined, “The Plot Against America: The GOP’s Plan to Suppress the Vote and Sabotage the Election.”In it, Kroll reports that in 2018 a 1982 consent decree was lifted that forbade the Republican Party from using various voter suppression ruses, including fake “ballot security” groups of off-duty law enforcement officers stationed outside polling places to harass and intimidate voters of color.ADVERTISEMENTAccording to Kroll, Justin Clark, a Trump senior campaign lawyer,&nbsp; told a private meeting of Republicans last November “that the end of the consent decree was ‘a huge, huge, huge, huge deal,’ freeing the RNC to directly coordinate with campaigns and political committees on so-called Election Day operations. The RNC is sending millions of dollars to state Republican parties to vastly expand these measures, which include recruiting 50,000 poll observers to deploy in key precincts.”You can bet that Republicans will pull out all the stops to get Trump and their other candidates reelected, their methods possibly including those phony “ballot security” gangs. Having read Kroll’s piece, David Atkins goes some scary steps further, fearing “a terrifying abuse of power.“We could end up seeing armed private contractors hired by the RNC and affiliated conservative organizations to intimidate Democratic-leaning voters, bolstered by camouflage-wearing taxpayer-funded rifle-toting border patrol agents aggressively checking papers of every voter in line in the guise of ‘securing against voter fraud’ on the president’s orders. This would be happening during the most tense presidential election in our lifetimes during a raging pandemic, often in lines in which voters must wait 8 to 10 hours to vote due to restricted polling places in minority communities—also a blatant suppression attempt enabled by the Supreme Court’s&nbsp;&nbsp;of many of the protections of the Voting Rights Act.”Hard to believe? Remember there’s a right-wing culture infecting the ranks of ICE and CBP and that a Democratic victory would see restraints on their freewheeling, pistol-packing ways. If they can help Trump win, their power will be even further unbridled. What’s more, the plutocrats bankrolling the GOP get-out-the-vote effort fear losing their conservative judges, their tax breaks and their get-out-of-jail-free cards. They’ll stop at nothing.ADVERTISEMENTWe need to wise up and prepare for the onslaught. Trump just&nbsp;&nbsp;of&nbsp;Fox News&nbsp;whether or not he’ll accept the election results. Donald Trump is a menace who if he sees he’s losing bigtime—and he does—won’t hesitate to repress the vote count so that he can declare a second term and because, in his words, “I’ve been very unfairly treated.”He puts the petty in petty tyrant but he’s a tyrant, nonetheless. Be very afraid.#####is the Schumann Senior Writing Fellow for&nbsp;. Previously, he was the Emmy Award-winning senior writer for&nbsp;Moyers &amp; Company&nbsp;and BillMoyers.com, a past senior writing fellow at the policy and advocacy group Demos, and former president of the Writers Guild of America East. Follow him on Twitter:&nbsp;… then let us make a small request. The COVID crisis has cut advertising rates in half, and we need your help. Like you, we here at Raw Story believe in the power of progressive journalism. Raw Story readers power David Cay Johnston’s DCReport, which we've expanded to keep watch in Washington. We’ve exposed billionaire and uncovered White House efforts to . We’ve revealed , and legal efforts to harm workers exploited by . And unlike other news outlets, we’ve decided to make our original content free. But we need your support to do what we do.Raw Story is independent. Unhinged from corporate overlords, we fight to ensure no one is forgotten.We need your support in this difficult time. Every reader contribution, whatever the amount, makes a tremendous difference. Invest with us. , or… then let us make a small request. The COVID crisis has cut advertising rates in half, and we need your help. Like you, we believe in the power of progressive journalism — and we’re investing in investigative reporting as other publications give it the ax. Raw Story readers power David Cay Johnston’s DCReport, which we've expanded to keep watch in Washington. We’ve exposed billionaire and uncovered White House efforts to . We’ve revealed , and efforts to harm workers exploited by . We need your support to do what we do.Raw Story is independent. You won’t find mainstream media bias here. Every reader contribution, whatever the amount, makes a tremendous difference. Invest with us in the future. , orReport typos and corrections to: .US rapper Kanye West's chaotic launch of his unlikely campaign to oust Donald Trump in November's presidential election has sparked anger, concern for his mental health and questions about whether he is seriously running.Wearing a bullet-proof jacket marked "security," West broke down in tears during a rambling speech in Charleston, South Carolina on Sunday that was supposed to kickstart his White House bid.Instead, controversial comments about renowned American abolitionist Harriet Tubman enraged attendees, provoked scorn online and left political analysts scratching their heads about the mercurial musician's true intentions.President Donald Trump tweeted a photo of him wearing a COVID-19 facial covering on Monday, the first time he had done so, which fell on the sixth month anniversary of the first case of coronavirus being discovered in the United States."We are United in our effort to defeat the Invisible China Virus, and many people say that it is Patriotic to wear a face mask when you can’t socially distance," Trump tweeted, without actually urging people to wear masks."There is nobody more Patriotic than me, your favorite President!" he added, which fact-checkers will point out is contrary to all public polling on the current commander-in-chief.&nbsp; According to the former spokesperson for the Republican National Committee, is watching the coronavirus pandemic derail his bid to stay in office and can only hope for a miracle in the next hundred days to stave off certain defeat.Writing for the conservative Bulwark, Tim Miller explained that Trump has finally found an opponent he can't punch back at (like Hillary Clinton) or slur (like minorities) in a virus that has killed over 140,000 Americans on his watch.Despite the president's attempts to make the election about presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, or protests in the streets, polls show that the overwhelming concern of voters is how the government is going to stem the COVID-19 health crisis -- with Americans the president is up to the job.&nbsp;&nbsp;Comments:

RED BARBLUE BARA couple of days before the Fourth of July, I was walking home after a proper, socially distanced outdoor breakfast with a good friend, and noticed on my lower Manhattan block two white sedans marked in red and blue, “US Department of Homeland Security.”I thought it was odd. I’d never seen them in my neighborhood before, and what especially struck me was that the cars each had those heavily reinforced partitions separating the driver’s seat from the back—like in a police car for holding someone arrested or being taken in for questioning.ADVERTISEMENTWhat gives? I never could...

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Michael Winship

Common Dreams

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Here's why federal cops in Portland are just Trump's warmup for election day

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