Submitted for your approval:
After my discussions with VP Pence and others, the federal government has agreed to withdraw federal officers from Portland. They have acted as an occupying force & brought violence. Starting tomorrow, all Customs and Border Protection & ICE officers will leave downtown Portland.
— Governor Kate Brown (@OregonGovBrown) July 29, 2020
Open thread!
UPDATE: The NYT has more details: Federal Agents Agree to Withdraw From Portland, With Conditions
Under an agreement between Ms. Brown and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the governor’s office said the Oregon State Police will provide security for the exterior of the city’s federal courthouse, while the usual team of federal officers that protects the courthouse year-round will continue to provide security for the interior of the building.
Ms. Brown said the federal tactical teams that had deployed to the city would begin a phased withdrawal on Thursday. But Chad Wolf, the acting secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, said in a statement that though the department has agreed with the Oregon governor on a plan, the department will proceed with the withdrawal of security personnel in Portland only if federal officials are confident that federal properties will no longer be under attack.
“State and local law enforcement will begin securing properties and streets, especially those surrounding federal properties, that have been under nightly attack for the past two months,” Mr. Wolf said. “We anticipate the ability to change our force posture,” he added, once circumstances on the ground “significantly improve” with the deployment of additional state and local law enforcement.
JR
Great news, if it holds.
Villago Delenda Est
Good. Now start kicking the ass of judges who slap “no protest attendance” conditions on people picked up for looking the wrong way at some fascist pig.
burnspbesq
Woo-hoo!
Amir Khalid
Does this mean the Trump Stormtroopers won’t be going nationwide after all?
different-church-lady
Shouldn’t there be headlines about Pence deposing Trump by now?
trollhattan
@Amir Khalid:
I assume it merely frees them to go elsewhere.
patroclus
The ceasefire is great news! I have to say that I am very impressed with Portlanders and the way they responded to this situation. The Wall of Moms, the Dads with Leaf Blowers, the Navy Vet, the naked Woman were all creative and convincing that the protesters were mostly peaceful and representative of regular citizens. Yeah, I know that there are still a few anarchists who are provocateurs but the overwhelming majority of the coverage on non Fox/NewsMax/OAN media was all about the creative non-violent protests and Trump decidedly did NOT get what he wanted here; either in campaign footage or in suppressing the protests in his fascist-like authoritarian fashion.
Kudos to the Oregonians! Portland isn’t often the lead story on the national news, but they really stepped up bigly when they were this time.
WhatsMyNym
What do you want to bet that one of the goon squad came down with the virus and the rest suddenly wanted to go home.
Frankensteinbeck
@trollhattan:
But where? They need a big city having ongoing protests, where the police will happily look the other way, and where the city and state governments don’t have the power to immediately turf them out on their ear. Other major cities have been watching Portland, and whatever got Trump’s Tiny Penis Brigade out of Portland, those cities will be ready to repeat it.
Poe Larity
This just means the drone squadrons have been fully stood up in the PNW.
Kay
I’m pleased they’re leaving but I still want to cut their budget. They’re gigantic and bloated and unaccountable. We need the money to rebuild the country – it can be put to practical use on investments that actually return some long term value to the public- something that appreciates, an investment in people.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
This is fantastic news. I want to thank Gov. Brown, Sens Merkley and Wyden, AG Rosenbaum, and so many other Oregon elected officials who forcefully pushed back against the Trump admin’s unlawful police state.
Next year: Let’s reorganize the DHS and disband ICE and CBP.
opiejeanne
They left Washington yesterday. There was no “phased withdrawal” BS.
Kay
@opiejeanne:
It’s just face-saving. They went in without thinking about when or how they get out, because it was purely political and not designed for any practical or real purpose other than taxpayer funding of Donald Trump’s campaign ads.
patroclus
@Kay: I’m not necessarily in favor of cutting budgets, but I do think that the DHS should be eliminated and the agencies should be returned back to their original administrative locations so that there isn’t a massive pool of non-military “troops” that a President can call upon to suppress peaceable assembly. We only have a DHS because of Bush and Lieberman et. al. – the CBP and the Federal Martials and ICE etc.. all have separate missions and should not all be lumped together under one administrative house.
Major Major Major Major
@Frankensteinbeck: they could probably have a go at it in Brooklyn. NYPD happy to play along, and that’s where our most Portlandesque protestors live.
Matt McIrvin
@Amir Khalid: It means it’s possible to push back with effect, and everyone else needs to take notice.
Amir Khalid
Off topic, but Malaysian satellite TV news channel Astro Awani is reporting that a primary school kid has tested positive for coronavirus. I guess we’ll find out tomorrow whether the Min of Edu closes that one school or all of them nationwide.
Kay
@patroclus:
Agreed on the break up but I would reduce funding. We have a huge police apparatus and no investment in people. It doesn’t appreciate. We should get more long term value out of what we pay for. It’s out of balance.
Yutsano
@trollhattan: They were pushed out of Seattle too. Someone gave that order. But I think this is temporary at best.
@Villago Delenda Est: Ugh. The order affected the SPD for Seattle at least. No word yet if it changed but I get the feeling “extremely temporary” won’t be.
grumbles
Oh good, back to the border where they can kill people without the cameras rolling.
(I’m glad Portland is deporting the jackboots; I’m less glad they still have jobs.)
Charluckles
Surprised (naivety?) at the number of comments to that tweet who seem to be suggesting that Portland is going to burn. Among other things Trump has really exposed the cowardice at the heart of the Republican Party.
Thaddeu
This is a tactical retreat. The underlying ideology — ruthless use of power to retain power — has not changed. Gerrymandering, dismantling voting rights, voters ID, none of that is going away even if Biden wins
This will come back with a vengeance in Trump 2.0,
The Republican party needs to be burned to the ground. Racist-in-Chief John Roberts needs to be sidelined as head of the petty faction.
Thirteen on the Court, or this country is toast.
opiejeanne
@Kay: Watching Portland gave Washington state time to get ready for the Federal goons. They were involved in some BS here on Saturday, and the Seattle cops were part of the problem, but the Feds are gone and now we just have to deal with our local goons.
Calouste
@Major Major Major Major: It’s not like they had lack of cooperation from the Portland Proud Boys, oops, the Portland Police Bureau, or from the SSPD in Seattle. They still left. I was wondering how long they could keep these guys around with no entertainment except a hotel tv and maybe a minibar.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Amir Khalid: The word is there is only 150 of them, some unit in the Border Patrol, and basically they lost in Portland. The protestors were to well organized and wore them down.
Kay
@patroclus:
African Americans want order and safety too, and they’re paying for it like everyone else. They don’t have to choose between chaos and unresponsive law enforcement and racist law enforcement. No one should or would accept that choice. That’s too low a standard.
If they had enough funding laying around to devote millions to Donald Trump’s re-elect they have too much funding.
Barbara
Here is my totally cynical take. If you want to scare suburban whites into voting for you based on law and order messages you aren’t going to do it by showing pictures of basically unmarked law enforcement agents beating up and arresting other white people. Everyone with a brain knows that campaigns constructed around “law and order” were intended to stoke racial fear and allow whites to justify racism in the voting booth (I don’t hate Black people I just hate lawlessness!). So my view is that Trump is looking for a place where he can put Black people in his law and order campaign visuals. I dearly hope white people continue to show up to defeat that effort.
Kent
I’ll believe it when I see it. This feels to me like Lucy and the football. Trump will come up with some reason to blame Brown and the Dems for failing to do the job and the find that he is sorrowfully “forced” to renege on the deal.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
That’s actually my concern; some who comes along who is competent, follows Trump’s example but not a true believer so isn’t stupid like Trump and his circle are.
Bostondreams
So are they leaving or not? https://twitter.com/JoshNBCNews/status/1288499846471614466
Choose your news: Oregon Gov Brown: “The federal government has agreed to withdraw federal officers from Portland.”
Acting DHS Secretary Wolf: “The Department will continue to maintain our current, augmented federal law enforcement personnel in Portland”
MJS
Note that it was Pence, not Trump who agreed to it, which will allow Trump to maintain his tough guy facade with his followers, or countermand Pence if the decision gets too much blow back in the wingnutosphere. Plus, Trump got all the footage he needs for the ads he believes (wrongly) are going to help his reelection.
Yutsano
@opiejeanne: Durkin needs to go all Camden here. Decertify their union, disband the department, and only allow hirebacks after a thorough screening. Then model the police academy after Washington State Patrol training. Because I have notice there are almost no incidents (that I have heard of) of WSP using brutal tactics on drivers or arrestees. Not to say it hasn’t happened, but it’s rare.
LeftCoastYankee
@patroclus:
Please please stop repeating this nonsense:
There are protestors who are actively tagging walls with graffiti and an ongoing effort by a small group to dis-assemble the fences/walls. This is not violence.
There has been confirmation in the last week in numerous locations (see Richmond and umbrella man in Minn) that the provocateurs are right wing actors.
Sorry, but the prevalence of this talking point being repeated by folks on the left as a given, makes me nuts. There is no left-wing violence happening in Portland.
Kent
So, picking the whitest major city in the country was probably a strategic error on their part. Is that what you are saying?
Next time they will pick Philly or Baltimore or someplace like that?
Kelly
Moving up from below:
Oregon State Police will guard the federal building not Portland PD. Interesting development which may help defuse the situation. Yes, OSP jerks went into a Corvallis restaurant and refused to wear masks.
Major Major Major Major
@Bostondreams: 🤷🏻♂️
Calouste
@Kay: And a lot of that police is just hanging around doing nothing really. Remember the video from a few weeks back of a Black lawyer getting harassed by six (6!) cops loitering in a parking garage?
Jeffery
Donald/Billy cave. Unpopular. Sad.
opiejeanne
@Kent: He said this morning that if Portland doesn’t get the rioters under control he will go in there and clean it out.
Obviously Trump isn’t going to go to Portland, he’s just threatening to what? To bomb the three blocks where the activity was? Send troops with tanks? I figure it’s the drugs talking.
Major Major Major Major
@LeftCoastYankee: it’s hardly authoritarian propaganda to note that some people are throwing paint balloons, shining lasers in eyes, etc. patroclus said nothing about violence.
Lacuna Synechdoche
Fifteen.
After 15, it just gets unwieldly. Less than 15, and the GOP will just add more when they’re in charge again.
BruceFromOhio
No plan, no benefit, no ‘mission accomplished,’ just slinking away with tail tucked. What a fucking waste from start to finish.
Keith P.
Aren’t they just being redeployed to Detroit, Milwaukee, and Cleveland?
JohnMCinNc
The Hill is reporting Goon Squads are being sent to Milwaukee, Detroit and Cleveland. All of them are urban areas of battleground states, but I’m sure that’s just a coincidence.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-administration-to-send-federal-agents-to-cleveland-detroit-and-milwaukee/ar-BB17kxWb?ocid=msedgntp
oatler.
I read a local Oregon news site whose comment section included a person who openly advocated assassinating Brown. There’s Portland, and then there’s the rest of the state. Let those goobers secede or merge with Idaho. They can kiss their welfare payments goodbye.
Kay
@Calouste:
I did see that but in their defense frankly 90% of the job is downtime. I think that’s the nature of the thing.
The black lawyer gets two things- he gets to not be harassed by police because he’s black and he ALSO gets to call the police if his car is stolen and they will respond and be respectful and attentive. He doesn’t have to choose. No one else has to choose. Black people don’t either. This petty storming off and refusing to do the job isn’t acceptable, even if their feelings are hurt.
Major Major Major Major
@Bostondreams: it looks like he’s saying they will keep the humans in/near Portland, in case things don’t work out after they withdraw. So he’s pulling back, but probably expecting destructive behavior to continue, so he can say “I told you so, we aren’t the provocateurs”
Barbara
@Kent: Chicago, I believe, is where they are likely headed, assuming that they really are leaving Portland. I mean, Portland was a pretty stupid choice.
Lacuna Synechdoche
Seconded!
Montanareddog
LeftCoastYankee
@Major Major Major Major:
Those activities are what is happening, and have been labeled as “violence” by administration officials including the Chad.
“Anarchist provocateurs” vs. “violent extremists”. Different phrases, same message.
patroclus
@LeftCoastYankee: It’s not a “talking point.” It’s reality. Here in Chicago, our protests were overwhelmingly non-violent, but in the first 2-3 days/nights, there were still looters and provocateurs who were not exclusively non-violent. MLK and John Lewis both routinely had to fight against a few allies back in the 50’s and 60’s who were not always non-violent. As did Gandhi. As did/do Nathan Law and the Hong Kong protesters. Denying reality is something the Trump people do – we should acknowledge that our side is not perfect and we must combat those who would hinder our cause by behaving badly sometimes.
My view on Portland is based on Portlanders themselves on this very blog reporting the fact that there are some anarchists in Portland that routinely try to take over otherwise non-violent protests.
Kelly
Crime has been dropping for thirty years but I rarely find anyone aware of the actual stats so police budgets increase. Money is spent one declining or trivial flashy problems. Sadly similar to increasing military budgets focused on the wrong problems.
BruceFromOhio
@Keith P. @JohnMCinNc: From that article:
This doesn’t sound like the same thing as Portland. A casual contact in the local FBI office has mentioned ruefully that “COVID hasn’t affected the drug trade AT ALL,” and that undercover fentanyl busts continue apace. Yet another example of big bucks for more cops, no mention of economic relief for small business, the unemployed, families, human beings. Fuckers.
Kay
@Montanareddog:
I think we have a lot of trouble accepting that they’re blundering idiots, even when the blunder is obvious. Portland is a quagmire for them. They aren’t going to “win” because setting it up as a battle was stupid. They had to find a way to get out and this is the way.
Kent
@Lacuna Synechdoche: Some of them obviously are right-wing agitators. But a whole lot of them are not. I was living in Seattle during the whole WTO protests what? 2-decades ago now? And I’ve been living in the Portland area long enough to know that there are plenty of young lefty anarchist types who like breaking glass and setting things on fire as well. And they love to show up for any protest and do their thing. It’s a sport.
Ruckus
@Kay:
The bloat, and the contempt, is obvious, the control is lacking, intended or not, it feels like they consider themselves a part of a dictatorship rather than a democracy.
patrick II
@Kay:
I would certainly cut the budget for camo outfits without identifying tags. Also, tear gas, Darth Vader Masks, and car rental.
Kay
@BruceFromOhio:
It isn’t the same thing but there’s a lot of confusion, including from the media. I listened to a public radio report about the Cleveland action and the DOJ lawyer they interviewed went out of his way to distinguish it from Portland. My sense was he really didn’t want it tied to the Portland situation, legitimately, because it’s different. The two things have two different names, although I don’t remember either of them.
BruceFromOhio
@patrick II: But GSA rate for per diems, that’s gonna stay.
Major Major Major Major
@LeftCoastYankee: idk, depending on the laser they can do real damage, and IANAL but it reads like assault.
Now, Barr is defining refusing a lawful order to disperse as violence, which troubles me a lot more.
Kent
Yes. This is by no means over.
And yes, Portland was a very stupid choice because (1) it is very white, (2) it has a deep and well-organized protest culture, and (3) it is unfriendly turf. No way OR flips red and this wasn’t impressing any left coast wing voters. From a tactical standpoint it would have made more sense to pull this shit in a state like WI that is racially divided and has large numbers of rural white swing voters who are going to cheer seeing some skulls cracked in Milwaukee.
We will see how Chicago works out for them. They risk another George Floyd type incident but this time some 60 year old black grandmother/school teacher/Sunday school teacher type getting beat to death. That’s a hell of a risk.
Frank Wilhoit
Governor Brown does not know how to negotiate.
“…all Customs and Border Protection & ICE officers will leave…” Inasmuch as we do not know anything about the organizational affiliation of the paras, this does not imply that any of them will actually leave. They can continue breaking heads while Pence (and Trump, and Barr, and Wolf, and whoever) shrug and say, we don’t know who these guys are, they’re not ours, while ocntinuing to give them their orders. This is straight out of Putin’s Ukraine playbook; Ukraine has been completely occupied and controlled by insignia-less Russian troops for years now.
Major Major Major Major
@Kent: Not trying to both-sides it, but there are definitely people on both sides who are just showing up to brawl. I know a couple.
ET
I guess someone finally convinced the cheeto that this wasn’t helping him. It is easier to convince people that all this was ANTIFA when they were brown and young but not so easy to convince them when its white moms.
Wapiti
@Kay: How about we cut their budget 10% a year, ramping up to 20% a year over the next 10 years, then holding it there until the money Trump shifted from the rest of the government for his wall is paid off?
Yutsano
OT: to the surprise of no one here Kavanaugh is a fucking coward.
Kay
@Kent:
The Chicago and Cleveland (and Kansas City) plans are different. They’re DOJ led. They won’t be visible and they won’t be ICE and Border Patrol and they won’t be under the command of Chad the Lobbyist.
They may still be bad! But they’re not the same thing.
patroclus
@Kent: Yeah, but Chicago is WAY different than Portland. First, we already have a substantial federal presence that is here on a permanent basis. There isn’t a single federal courthouse, there is a Federal Plaza, with any number of federal agencies housed in a multi-block complex. Second, the geography is different – the Loop can be effectively closed off by raising the bridges on the Chicago River thus vastly limiting access on any given night. The police got a LOT of training and experience with the NATO protests a few years back and, if they want to, they can limit protests each and every night in and around federal buildings. Third, the locals, the state and the Feds usually work together in concert with one another – there wouldn’t likely be an identifiable Federal Goon presence that was/is distinguishable from the regular police presence. Fourth, there are real problems here with gun violence, gang violence etc.. that are a LOT more important than suppressing peaceful protests and virtually everyone knows this. It would be hard for Federal Goons to suddenly convince everyone to ignore all of that and target protests instead.
robmassing
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Perhaps the leaf-blowers were the last nail in the coffin. When it’s the locals vs. an occupying force, home field advantage is a BFD.
Dorothy A. Winsor
I’m bummed because I missed the chance to be gleeful about Gohmert having COVID while huddling with other Rs, including Barr. So I’m being gleeful here.
Also good for Portland. Two reasons to be gleeful!
Kent
Here in the Pacific Northwest it is very much a white privilege thing, just like the white privilege of the armed militia nazi types who protested at the MI capital. There are lots of young white mostly male protesters on both the right and left who like to brawl and break shit. They would probably get their asses shot if they were black men brawling in the streets.
Barbara
@Major Major Major Major: This is a very well-documented phenomenon that attends every kind of well-publicized unrest, whether it’s football hooliganism or the 1992 LA riots. Around 1990, in DC, a non-Hispanic female police officer shot and killed a Hispanic immigrant who was threatening her with a knife. This was a tipping point for certain tensions that had been escalating with the large and growing Spanish speaking community in DC. Three days of looting followed, except most of the arrests that were made were of young males of all races, mostly English speaking, and a large contingent living in the suburbs. That is, people mostly disconnected from the underlying discontent of living as a Spanish speaking immigrant in a city with law enforcement that resisted hiring any Spanish resources to better communicate with you. The guy who was shot spoke Spanish. The officer did not. Being able to bust up some stuff without consequence apparently appeals to many people who see protests as a chance to release some of their excess energy.
Barbara
@Kent: And African American protesters are no doubt very well aware of that fact.
LeftCoastYankee
@patroclus:
I don’t deny what’s happening, and the protesters here have policed the idiots pretty actively.
There is also a history of (white) protest kids in the NW breaking stuff.
However, most of the comments I’ve seen here conceding that point are based on historical precedent. From what I’ve seen and heard locally, this protest is different, with disciplined leadership being very focused on BLM.
I didn’t mean to pick on you, but I too have seen this talking point passed on by locals here, and I don’t think in this instance it is correct.
To me that phrasing hints at there being valid reasons for the ridiculously disproportionate response of the police to the protestors. And that’s not what you (or others here) are saying, so it sticks out for me when I hear it.
I’ll get off my “messaging police” soapbox now.
randal m sexton
So maybe the Fed Goons will be running like rabbits, leaving only the local Goons. You know what they say “Hare today, Goon Tomorrow” (I am so pleased with this comment I will be posting it everywhere ).
piratedan
guessing what this means is that the GOP has lost the media narrative on this issue. If they had the sympathy of the MSM on this and had their framing adopted (and hadn’t established themselves as bad faith actors) , they would still be doing this because of the red meat factor in how this plays with their base.
Without that blessing of having their media narrative adopted, then this is a loser for them. They couldn’t manufacture their own Reichstag Fire moment… THIS TIME. I fully expect them to cast about and try something else. I’m sure that their friends in the GRU will offer additional opportunities.
For all I know, this could have been a massive distraction for them to use to mask their true aim, which was to seize the narrative on the pandemic numbers because that reporting has been brutal in illustrating the lack of the GOP response (and their complete indifference to individuals) so the idea is if there are no numbers to be reporting, then it fades from the daily discourse and offers additional opportunities for them to obfuscate what is going on.
Marcopolo
@Frankensteinbeck: Haven’t read past here in the comments but DHS just said they will be sending
folksshadow paramilitary forces to Cleveland, Milwaukee, and Detroit over the next few days. Maybe they think the optics will be better in places with larger melanin enhanced populations.Gravenstone
@Kay: Here’s a nice write up I read earlier over at TPM. Sounds like the things going on in Cleveland (and other cities) is a renaming/rebranding of an expanded enforcement effort started last year.
Jay
Roger Moore
@patroclus:
I can agree for most of the groups within DHS. For ICE and CBP, I think we need to eliminate them completely and start over from scratch. I’m not sure about USCIS. But our whole immigration system needs to be completely rethought.
Frankensteinbeck
@Marcopolo:
Completely different thing. The agents in that article are actual FBI/ATF, other real law enforcement guys who will be doing real law enforcement stuff. Nothing to do with the ICE goon squad that drags in protestors on fake arrests and then releases them. Trump wishes he had a private army of jack-booted thugs he could send to brutally enforce Law and Order and show how tough he is, so he announces everything as if that’s what was happening.
Gravenstone
@Marcopolo: See my post directly below yours. This “Operation Legend” is a functional renaming of an ongoing enforcement operation started last year. This is not an expansion of the Little Green Men seen in Portland.
polyorchnid octopunch
Open thread, so…
I’m out of the hospital and recovering from my triple bypass. Apparently I’ve become a bit of a rockstar on the cardiac ward; I had my surgery on Thursday morning and I went directly from ICU to the street on Monday morning, with a lot of the nurses there telling me they’d never seen anyone bounce back as quickly as I have. I guess I’m a good healer.
Still feeling a lot of pain, though; my ribs are really letting me know that they’re very very unhappy with the abuse they took during my operation.
Anyway, I know some folks asked me to post back in when I was through on the other side, and apparently that’s basically now, so… here I am, still vertical. It’s a good thing.
All my best, folks!
trollhattan
@LeftCoastYankee:
We’re still having protests in Sacramento and vandalism intermittently occurs concurrently, but with the hallmarks of being opportunistic piggybacking. From some of the targets I infer out-of-towners rather than locals.
Kay
@Gravenstone:
That was my sense too- rebranded. I was annoyed Barr and Trump have rebranded it but I don’t blame DOJ for that since the DOJ lawyer on the radio repeated over and over that they have done this for years.
It was amusing how insistent he was that his work is not that of Border Patrol and ICE :)
Never a good sign for your reputation when people are “we are NOT them!”
trollhattan
@polyorchnid octopunch:
Welcome back! Hope we didn’t screw up the joint too badly while you were out. It’ll buff right out.
patrick II
@BruceFromOhio:
If they are staying at one of Trump’s places, certainly.
LeftCoastYankee
I got up too early this morning, and can’t remember where I read it, but it seems that Chad has also said DHS won’t comply with the Supreme Court ruling on DACA, and is just going to ignore it.
I get the feeling when that blows back at Trump, we may see a Chad under the bus.
Bill Arnold
@Thaddeu:
D.J. Trump is(/has been) laying the political groundwork for “revisiting” Marbury v. Madison..
Trump Is Now Openly Defying the Supreme Court (MARK JOSEPH STERN, JULY 28, 2020)
The Republicans are playing with matches and naphtha with these sorts of moves, and with other moves torturing the US Constitution.
[Narrator: The fire wins, and it burns everyone, including Republicans.]
Adam L Silverman
It’s not up to Pence or others. She negotiated with a guy with no power to negotiate. This is what that person who actually has that power and authority said while she was negotiating with Pence:
And here’s what he said after Governor Brown made her announcement:
Major Major Major Major
@Barbara: yep. Especially right now when people are bereft of other options for blowing off steam.
Major Major Major Major
@Adam L Silverman: this squares with what Wolf said, which also squares with a loose interpretation of the Governor’s comments: the feds are standing down, but sticking around town and ready to re-engage if the situation does not improve.
ETA:
Federal Agents Agree to Withdraw From Portland, With Conditions
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/29/us/protests-portland-federal-withdrawal.html#click=https://t.co/knGsABLp4d
mrmoshpotato
Awwww…..Dump and the rest of the fascist shitstains didn’t get the riotous footage they wanted.
Well, other than footage of the fascist shitstains they sent in beating up and tear gassing/pepper spraying peaceful protesters.
More fascist trash to be brought up on charges by President Biden’s AG.
Roger Moore
@opiejeanne:
He isn’t making a specific threat so he can’t be held accountable when he fails to follow through. What he’s really hoping is that once his people stop drawing attention to the situation, Portland will drop out of the news (even if the protests continue) and he can avoid revisiting his threat to go back.
Jay
LeftCoastYankee
@trollhattan:
It does seem like alot of the out of town agitators that are getting identified are right wingers, and they’re a bit more focused on escalating vandalism than the more recent “hey let’s go fight with antifa” approach of the last few years.
Sister Golden Bear
@Kent:
Same here in the Bay Area as well. They’ve been doing so for decades, and they really piss off the organizers of non-violent protests.
Which is one reason why right-wing agent provocateurs are able to fake “leftist violence.”
ETA: And yes, they’re pretty all young white dudes. The ones I knew way back when came from pretty privileged backgrounds.
RedDirtGirl
@Major Major Major Major: Why, thank you, although I might not count, living as I do in Park Slope and not Bushwick…
Yutsano
@polyorchnid octopunch: Yay! I’m glad you’re starting to recover well. When do you start cardiac lab?
Hoodie
@Kay: Nancy needs to dramatically cut ICE and CBP funding seeing as they obviously are using forces in Portland that are not needed at the border or for immigration and customs enforcement. Not sure why ICE needs a riot squad in the first place, since what they do tends to be limited to harassing individuals. If the border was under attack of a scale that necessitated a militarized response, we do have the National Guard. They’ve got tanks and helicopters, too.
Roger Moore
@Kent:
My gut feeling is that the lefty anarchists and the Proud Boys are more or less interchangeable. They’re both a bunch of young white men who want to engage in street brawls. They’ve chosen political ideologies as their excuse for brawling, but they might as well have chosen sports teams for all the difference it makes in their behavior.
Bill Arnold
@LeftCoastYankee:
Force against physical property, and even threats of force against physical property, are violence in the US Code. This is why the DHS and Barr and all are so freely using the words “violent” and “violence”. It is also being used in full knowledge that most Americans do not know this, i.e. with intent to mislead 10s of millions of Americans.
18 U.S. Code § 16. Crime of violence defined
Also: The Federal “Crime of Violence” Definition: Overview and Judicial Developments (Hillel R. Smith, June 8, 2018)
(IANAL, so you can’t shoot me. :-)
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Major Major Major Major:
Totally. That bothers me too. If refusing to disperse is “violence”, then you can justify literally anything against protesters or anybody else who’s unfortunate enough to be present and in the way
mrmoshpotato
Well then!
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Bill Arnold:
But why are Barr et all doing this? Wouldn’t it be more advantageous for them to let the public know that these activities are defined as violent in the US Code?
If most of the public don’t know that, then they would be more likely to sympathize with the view that the Feds are overreacting over mere graffiti
Frankensteinbeck
@Adam L Silverman:
Everything Trump says is a lie until proven otherwise. He doesn’t run his government. Yes, he can and does override people, but that’s a showy 1% of circumstances where 99% of the time he’s yelling something on Twitter or in a press conference which then turns out to exist solely in his imagination. Whatever is actually happening on the ground in Portland, Trump’s tweets will claim that his mighty fist is all that stands between America and the Brown Hordes. Because of that, his tweets cannot be taken as evidence.
Jay
Because the protests happen inthe afternoon/evening/night, the MSM ignored Portland, ( not ready for prime time) for over a month. By the time that the Bunker Baby seized on Portland and “Lawn Orerz! !!!!!” and the MSM started paying attention, coverage of the protests had already been shaped by local Journalists/Activists who are much more Portland Friendly and uninvested in “bothsiderism”.
🐾BillinGlendaleCA
@Lacuna Synechdoche: 15 also allows the Court to set up panels like the appeal courts do to decide cases. It would allow the Supremes to handle a larger caseload.
mrmoshpotato
@polyorchnid octopunch:
Woo hoo! Good to hear.
Kelly
This. My view into young white men brawling is from my brother. He’s not a brawler but he worked construction all his life and always had some young guys that as he put it “like to mix it up”. When his crew was working far from home the brawlers on his crew would always find the local small town brawlers. As long as they took it out to the parking lot the bar owners and local police left them to it.
mrmoshpotato
@🐾BillinGlendaleCA:
And Ms. Ross could take some well-deserved time off.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Adam L Silverman:
So then why did she negotiate with Pence in the first place? She must’ve known he had no real authority over it. Seriously, she has the Oregon State National Guard under her control. She should’ve just arrested the DHS goons and dropped them off over the Oregon state line
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: I follow a bunch of police abolitionists, and they’ve basically decided that choice is inevitable: the nature of law enforcement is such that it’s worse-than-useless law enforcement or nothing, and since that’s the deal, they choose nothing.
Jay
JPL
@polyorchnid octopunch: Wow! That is good news indeed.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@polyorchnid octopunch:
Glad to hear it!
LeftCoastYankee
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
IIRC the injunction put on the Portland Police says they can’t use tear gas unless threatened with violence, and every night they declare an unlawful gathering, read “failure to disperse” messages over a bullhorn, and then gas the crowd. They turned over the gassing activities to the Feds while they were here.
I wonder how much of Barr’s comments is to provide cover for this approach by the police (here and elsewhere) to continue without DHS present.
Croaker
@WhatsMyNym: <<<<<<<<<<< 100% this covid
Jay
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
does the State Line extend 14 nm out to sea?
Ken
Wasn’t that one of the wartime cartoons, where Bugs and Daffy team up to tweak Mussolini’s nose?
satby
@polyorchnid octopunch: So glad to see you back and know you’re recovering well! Happy news in an already good news thread!
Jay
@polyorchnid octopunch:
Great News!!!!!!!!!!
Jay
scav
Are they really going to try to Mission Accomplished this after their Surge-ing in the US tour? Jesus, it’s a thinly disguised rerun this administration is putting on for summer fare.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
Other developed countries don’t seem to have the same problems. It can’t be the “nature of law enforcement” that’s the issue.
Matt McIrvin
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
No, it’s “motte and bailey”, to use a recently overused phrase. The point is to create the impression that the demonstrators are attacking people or planning to do so, without actually saying this. The statements are designed to be technically true while connoting something false, and explaining why they’re technically true would give away the game prematurely.
PJ
@Roger Moore: Like the Blues and Greens in Constantinople of yore.
RedDirtGirl
@polyorchnid octopunch: That is such good news! Thanks for letting us know!
Dorothy A. Winsor
@polyorchnid octopunch: Great. Take it easy. Are you able to lever yourself up from lying to sitting?
Bill Arnold
@Frank Wilhoit:
Yeah, this is still a negotiation in progress.
True Believer Chad Wolf (may we all be able to watch him squirm under oath at his trial) is disagreeing. Probably worth tracking his feed for a few days ( https://twitter.com/DHS_Wolf ):
Kent
Ummm. No. The Oregon National Guard is not Brown’s private army and they are probably majority Trump supporters. It is mostly populated with rural folks from red parts of the state. And they have no more authority to arrest Federal officers than DHS officers have to arrest protesters.
Ksmiami
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: that’s why we need trials, hangings etc. we must make an example of these people so no one dare try it in the future. burn the GOP to the ground- they’ve earned it
Jay
JAFD
Defunding police, explained (quite well, IMHO) in cartoon
http://mudcompany.thecomicseries.com/comics/148/
Matt McIrvin
@Marcopolo: Okay, here we go. Detroit, Cleveland, Milwaukee: all blue cities in swing states that went for Trump last time and have some chance of going blue this time. If what they want to do is swing the November election by force, those cities are on the list.
Subsole
@Kay: I am reminded of something Steinbeck once wrote:
“Americans are always fighting our way in, then trying to buy our way out.”
Jay
@Baud:
it’s the combination of “Cop Culture”, and the “nature of law enforcement”. Some other Western Democracies have similar issues, mostly where the TV’s are filled with Copaganda and the protection of property is prioritized as high or higher, than persons.
Spanky
@polyorchnid octopunch: Awesome news! Now nurse those ribs, ‘kay?
Leto
@Villago Delenda Est: What VDE is referencing:
Portland protesters released from jail on condition they no longer attend protests
Bill Arnold
@piratedan:
Media people, both video and those in print with a byline, do observe feedback. E.g. many of them get very few responses to their tweets, many of them with close to no semantic content, and probably read many of them; media people are high-leverage if one is looking to influence narratives. Also management listens to comments, e.g. boycott threats.
Jay
mrmoshpotato
For you Angelenos.
Subsole
@Thaddeu:
15, not 13.
Otherwise, I agree.
Baud
Somewhat OT. This LGM post on military recruitment is an interesting take on the CW.
Roger Moore
@Barbara:
I think you’re wrong about the Rodney King riots. There were obviously some really bad incidents that were random people taking advantage of the disorder to brawl in the streets- the attacks at Florence and Normandie were the most famous example- but that was not the biggest event. The single biggest part of the riot was an anti-Korean pogrom that devastated Koreatown. It wasn’t obviously related to the King verdict, but it was an obvious and coordinated attack, not random violence by people who just wanted an excuse to fight.
Subsole
@Roger Moore:
We could just call them Blues and Greens and send them to the races.
trollhattan
@Leto:
So, in summary:
Do I have that right? My government mid-term is coming up.
japa21
Question, actually a couple.
Are the Federal buildings in Portland owned by the US Government or rented?
Have the “protestors”, “anarchists” etc gone into the buildings and damaged anything?
If they buildings are rented, then the buildings themselves are not federal property. If the “rioters” have not gone into the buildings, then federal property is not being damaged or destrpyed.
Not that it really matters, but I am curious.
Kelly
A yes the belief that Army recruits the poor and stupid. My cousin, retired Command Sergeant Major has a Masters degree. All of his college education was paid for by the Army while he served.
Baud
@japa21:
Rented space is still federal property during the period of tenancy.
Major Major Major Major
@RedDirtGirl: Class traitor! //
@polyorchnid octopunch: Welcome back! Sounds like you’re doing great, all things considered!
Jay
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Leto:
Federal judges fucking signed these orders. They should know better than anybody else how this violates the right to peacefully assemble
SFBayAreaGal
@mrmoshpotato: I loved the tweet that said how to fail your business in one tweet.
Leto
@Baud: I have some issues with this but overall in agreement. I’ve said this for years, but if you want a better military you have to have better recruits. It’s not enough to have better civilian leadership, but you have to have better people in the organization. Not sure how to square that with most liberals/progressives.
Roger Moore
@Matt McIrvin:
I think they’re wrong, though I totally understand where they’re coming from. The underlying problem is that we have unjust laws designed to enforce an unjust social system. When you demand police enforce laws designed to keep minorities down, you will wind up with corrupt, racist police forces no matter how clean they start out. We can’t fix the problem with our police until we reform our laws.
Leto
@trollhattan: You’ve just passed your Trumpov-istan citizenship test!
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Dollars to donuts it’s Trumpov/Republican judge. They’re more than happy to strip people’s rights.
Baud
@Leto:
I’m get uncomfortable with the idea that there are some jobs that liberals don’t do. Cop, prosecutor, soldier, business, etc. Any job that needs to be done should be done by our people.
FelonyGovt
Trump’s latest racist dogwhistle is getting into human hearing range
FelonyGovt
@polyorchnid octopunch: Great news! Thanks for posting.
Kent
They are owned by the GSA like most Federal buildings. And no, it doesn’t matter when it comes to Federal jurisdiction.
LeftCoastYankee
@Bill Arnold:
Mmmm, good point, and SHOCKING that Barr would be playing word games.
I think people get that property “violence” is a crime, but as you point out don’t see it the same as personal violence. And there’s less sympathy from the public for treating it as violence after the DHS and police responses.
Jay
The
Amir Khalid
@FelonyGovt:
That’s not a working link.
Roger Moore
@JAFD:
The problem is that there’s a complete disconnect between what’s shown in that cartoon and what an ordinary person would understand from the slogan “defund the police”. That doesn’t mean the idea is bad, but it needs better marketing.
japa21
@Baud:
@Kent: Thank you both.
randal m sexton
@Ken: I know it was some kind of joke I heard once, I was just happy to apply it to this case. I went to the Oakland demonstration on Saturday, and am pretty gratified to think that that maybe the push back worked this time. I’m maybe a high risk individual, so going to these things seems kinda dodgy.
Leto
@Baud: Agreed. It’s the same thing leveled at Kamala: she can’t be trusted because she was an AG/DA/in “the system”. You have to have a confluence of both internal/external pressure on the system to make effective change. Yes the military is highly resistant to change and for the most part It can ward off that pressure to change because most of that impetus is from the outside. The internal structures will hold for a long time. You have to have pressure from both sides.
mrmoshpotato
Hahaha – take a couple minutes
Jay
Subsole
@Kent: It sounds a lot like the way some folks around here treat church, or protesting PP clinics. It is a socializing/networking thing first and foremost.
FelonyGovt
@Amir Khalid: Sorry, I guess I don’t get how to embed tweets. Here’s what it said:
I am happy to inform all of the people living their Suburban Lifestyle Dream that you will no longer be bothered or financially hurt by having low income housing built in your neighborhood…
Baud
@Leto:
People understandably hated “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” but by lifting the complete ban on gays in the military, it helped open up “inside” pressure for change that complemented the outside pressure.
It’s also why our side has pushed diversity and inclusion in so many areas. To change the make-up of the people on the inside.
Yutsano
@Ksmiami: Stop with the hangings. No one is getting hanged. If any are guilty of treason by the Constitution they can be executed, imprisoned, or fined. We’re having enough death in this country. Let’s limit the death here.
mrmoshpotato
@Roger Moore:
It would help if the slogan wasn’t shit.
What’s wrong with “Demilitarize the police”? It’s understandable and doesn’t make it sound like a bunch of morons want to abolish police departments.
mrmoshpotato
@Yutsano: What’s your preferred method for executing people sentenced to death for treason?
Jay
Major Major Major Major
@Roger Moore: @mrmoshpotato:
Defund/abolish the police is a garbage slogan, always has been, if you have to explain that every single person who hears it doesn’t understand it, if you need a cartoon to make sense of it… the problem is not everybody else.
Preaching to the choir, I know. Letting people who literally want to get rid of the police make up the slogan was perhaps an error.
Subsole
@Kent:
Is it possible they BADLY misinterpreted the Malheur standoff or something? Like, they thought the wingnut militia would show up and they’d have a war in the streets? I have heard east Oregon is basically just the rougher parts of Appalachia with more rain. (Those folks were from Washington, fwiw)
Which would still be a bumbling misread of the sitch, but I am trying to figure the thought process.
Major Major Major Major
@mrmoshpotato: …life in prison
CaseyL
@polyorchnid octopunch: Go, you! Very happy to hear the surgery went well – and, yes, being out of the hospital and on your feet that fast is pretty darn amazing.
Kelly
I’m of the opinion that our military is better than our police. My cop/military sample size is small and they are all relatives so not statistically impressive.
Subsole
@robmassing:
Remember when everybody mailed dildos to the wingnuts up in Malheur?
These are the same fucking people that got themselves penned up in an arboretum, just on our payroll.
Kelly
High desert so Appalachia with less rain.
Jay
Roger Moore
@mrmoshpotato:
If you want to sell it suburban whites, you need to focus on how it’s going to make policing better by saying something like, “Let the police focus on real crime”. It gets the idea that the police are being asked to do all kinds of stuff that would be handled better by social workers or mental health professionals. By sneaking in the “real” in front of crime, it also opens the door to redefining petty stuff as civil rather than criminal offenses.
Subsole
@patrick II: Are there any Trump/Kushner properties in those towns?
Richard Guhl
@Bill Arnold: I suspect that polling of suburban women got worse for Trump after the news coverage of what’s happened in Portland.
Omnes Omnibus
@mrmoshpotato: Speaking strictly for myself, I would favor prison terms. We don’t have be who we think they would be.
If you want executions, they will always be over my objections.
mrmoshpotato
@Roger Moore: Agreed. And yeah, police have to deal with a ridiculous amount of things that aren’t crime from mental health issues to well…..people have called the Chicago police over their kids not doing their homework – seriously.
Leto
@Baud: and apparently the dipshits really are going forward with moving a ton of military assets out of Germany. Trumpov didn’t discuss bounties with Putin, but I guess he was making sure he got all of the things Putin wanted moved. Lacking words for this atm.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Frankensteinbeck:
NYPD to BORTAC goons, as they’re locking up and beating everybody in Federal desert camo:
mrmoshpotato
@Major Major Major Major:
@Omnes Omnibus: Read again what Yutsano wrote.
Get why I asked my question?
lofgren
@Kelly: I’ve known people like this most of my life. The thing to remember is that they really are passionate about their views, it’s just that their desire to brawl informs the style of their expression.
Like, because you are just as happy brawling over sports teams, you had better be ready to brawl over politics, and if you’re not out there trying to find a brawl in order to constantly prove your manliness then you are a pussy who is not committed enough to the cause/sports team.
lofgren
@Roger Moore: I dunno man. I’m pretty sure that a lot of conservatives would hear that slogan and take away “Let law enforcement deal with the real
crimeBlacks.”Ken
@randal m sexton: Actually I was kidding, “Hare Today Goon Tomorrow” is not a Bugs Bunny cartoon. But it should be.
LeftCoastYankee
@Subsole:
There are parts of Eastern Oregon where the entire population could have shown up in Portland and no one would notice.
I think it was the place getting the most attention on Fox News that week. Seriously….
Yutsano
@mrmoshpotato: There is no method of execution that does not involve pain for the recipient. Since execution is not mandatory and there is no upper limit on the fine, life imprisonment without parole and seizure of all assets works just fine for me.
mrmoshpotato
@Leto: This might help.
hotshoe
Oh thank god!
I was trying to figure out, this morning, how I could make the loooong two-day drive to Portland to stand with the Moms for the next week. Now I’m relieved that I don’t feel morally obliged.
And if the fed troops had planned to invade another west coast city (Dumpster’s threat: Oakland) then this Portland withdrawal might derail such a plan.
Buys us all some breathing room, at least.
Subsole
@Kelly:
Gotcha. Thanks for the correction.
I thought there was a lot of logging up there, though? Or am I mixing up my regions?
J R in WV
@polyorchnid octopunch:
Thanks for checking in. I’ve never had cardiac problems (so far!) but friends and co-workers who have had cardiac surgeries tell me that the pain of the surgery fades faster than you would think, and that the benefits of improved oxygen blood levels come on even faster than that.
One guy who worked in Philadelphia for the Region III office of EPA said he felt 20 years younger 4 days after his cardiac work, but Joe’s didn’t involve ribs being forcefully separated. I’m sure that’s terribly painful. Wife broke 2 ribs last fall, was kinda miserable for several weeks.
Best of luck Polyorchnid, sounds like the work is all downhill now!! Keep us posted, please.
I have it on good authority that browsing Balloon Juice is good for your whole body AND your spirit, so keep up the good work!
Omnes Omnibus
@hotshoe: Let’s not refer to these thugs as troops.
geg6
@Baud:
As a campus VA School Certifying Official, I work with young veterans every day, helping them get their VA educational benefits and making sure they are flowing as they should. I can tell you that very few of them are Trumpsters. These kids (I’m 61, everyone under that is a kid) are diverse, both racially and by gender, and I have yet to see one, other than one who was an MP in the military and is a cop now, who supports Trump. They are very, very, very, very different from the Vietnam vets around here who are all, to a man, Trumpsters of the first degree. First, like I said, there are a lot of women, Hispanics and Black vets. Second, their very generous GI Bill benefits allow them to seek higher education with no debt. Every single VV vet I know is a man and none of them have more than a high school diploma, if that.
Kelly
Eastern Oregon and Washington is mostly high desert sagebrush steppe in the rain shadow of the Cascades. Here and there small mountain ranges stick up high enough to catch enough rain for pine forests which support some logging. Not as much logging anymore since the trees grow slower than we cut them.
a thousand flouncing lurkers was fidelio
@LeftCoastYankee: At least one of the people setting fires in Nashville during the protests here—the man arrested for throwing the Molotov cocktails into the Old Courthouse* here—was identified as a RWNJ white supremacist, complete with III% tattoos. So I’m inclined to suspect this of most examples of significant damage.
*Office buildings nearly always have sprinkler systems. If these aren’t required by law, they’re required by insurance. Which is why I’m so dubious about that burned police precinct building in Minneapolis. What happened to the sprinklers?
Leto
@mrmoshpotato: I’d gladly wear that. If they want to wear “Fuck your feelings” t-shirts, well here’s the counter.
Subsole
@Leto:
I…wut?
We’re evacuating fucking GERMANY?
Like, “Here’s the keys to Ramstein AFB, have fun?”
Assuming this isn’t one of tjose idiotic decrees that the military slow walks until it is no longer operative, that is catastrophically stupid on ALL sides.
I mean, Russia wouldn’t actually be THAT fucking stupid, would they? If they roll on Central Europe, that is war. Period. With or without us.
Subsole
@Kelly:
Yeah. One guy had family in the logging business and he said climate change was wrecking their shit. Lots of blight, lots of bugs killing off the trees.
And, as you said, rampant clearcutting.
Subsole
Dead thread??
“Gooooooons – out
for
summer!
Gooooooooons – out
for
ever!”
Ken
Wait, are we talking about eastern Oregon, or Easter Island?
LeftCoastYankee
@a thousand flouncing lurkers was fidelio:
I don’t doubt it with the reports of the boogaloo chuckleheads trying to get involved pretty openly.
I think the “funniest” vandalism here was a window broken caused by a policeman slapping the phone out of a protestor’s (maybe a journo?) hand and it smashing a window nearby.
The broken window of course precipitated the need for ample tear gas.
At any rate, I’m highly skeptical that teargassing protestors is the best way to stop vandalism.
Wapiti
@Subsole: I have heard east Oregon is basically just the rougher parts of Appalachia with more rain.
Eastern Oregon is very arid; practically high desert. Eastern Washington, too, maybe to a lesser degree. The Cascades Mountains drop most of the moisture coming off the ocean.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@trollhattan:
That’s your vaunted Federal judiciary after a few decades of Federalist society picks.
There are many Federal courthouses that need to burn with their Federal judges inside. I’d happily stand there with spears of marshmallows, graham crackers and decent chocolate (not Hershey, that shit is gross).
polyorchnid octopunch
@Yutsano: Not sure what you mean by cardiac lab?
Sebastian
@Yutsano:
Law Enforcement, by nature of their responsibilities must be policed outside a legal system in which their future cooperation is a vantage point, see reluctance of DAs to prosecute lest they face passive resistance in future cases.
Like we have in the military the military police, we need a police force for LE. In parallel a court system akin the court martial system, which could be initially staffed by retired (high ranking) military, JAG, and police officers.
This court has to be able to do what the armed forced court martial can: stripping rank/demotion, incarceration, expulsion with loss of pension, and such.
These guys want to play soldiers with none of the responsibilities. Unless we get every municipality to follow the Camden model this problem will not go away, LE has zero accountability right now and that has to change.
The obvious challenge is accountability of this force and institution, constitutional legality, and how to prevent it being undermined by rightwingers. The only way I see this working (and the whole thing might be a colossally moronic idea) would be a healthy exchange and cross-accountability with the current military judicial system. We need a healthy institution to supervise and guide a newer one so we do not have a repeat of DHS.
J R in WV
deleted
LeftCoastYankee
@Subsole:
The logging is on the Western side of the Cascades (there are some forests in Northeast Oregon and Northeast Washington (around Spokane), but the logging there wasn’t as intensive as in the West.
The logging was mostly in the small towns in Western WA and OR. Those towns got clobbered economically when the industry collapsed. They would probably fit the Rainy Appalachia quip your friend had.
The Malheur occupation worked because more people showed up with guns than were involved in LE for probably 100 miles. Eastern Oregon is probably more comparable to Wyoming or Montana.
But yeah, they probably hate Portland too.
J R in WV
@polyorchnid octopunch:
I think he meant cardiac rehab, which a spell checker could transform into cardiac lab pretty easily.
Hoppie
@patroclus: I was disappointed that Obama did not at least rename the “Department of Fascist Nomenclature”. I would guess he decided it wasn’t worth the political capital.
polyorchnid octopunch
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I was on my feet on Friday, about 30 hours after the operation. Did it myself (I know about the whole clench and roll because of other people I’ve known who’ve had this surgery); when I appeared out of my bay the nurses were all like “whoa whoa whoa what do you think you’re doing?”
I dunno about the US, but as I understand it they do want people up out of bed pretty quick after cardiac surgery because it helps with the recovery around lungs and breathing. By Saturday I was going for little walks to go sit outside the main entrance to the hospital after I managed to convince them that my balance was good. That took a while, but I got there. Part of it involved me going “look check this out” while dancing a little jig.
I credit some of it to the fact that as a musician I play a gig to a gig and a half a week, so I’m actually in decent shape despite its roundness because three sets of blues, funk, or rock is a pretty high energy output activity. I think I credit the rest of it to my attitude of “meh it’s only pain”.
But yeah, I got told that I blew quite a few people away with how fast I was on the move.
polyorchnid octopunch
@Spanky: Tell me about it. They are really letting me know that they’re unhappy with how things have gone today ;)
Jinchi
If the feds denied these guys, then they’d be treated the same as a right wing militia. They’d have no authority to fire weapons within the city, no right to seize protesters off the streets and even dressing in generically marked “POLICE” gear would subject them to charges of impersonating law enforcement.
They’d lose all legal protection and would not be able to continue with the same playbook. The only reason they get away with it now is under color of law.
Jay
lowtechcyclist
@Kay:
This. Clearly there had to be A LOT of superfluous CBP and ICE agents who didn’t need to be doing real work somewhere else. (ICE as a whole is superfluous as far as I’m concerned. CBP has actual work to do, but apparently they’ve got a lot more agents than necessary work.)
Pelosi could and should hold up the Homeland Security appropriations bill for FY21 unless/until the Dems get everything they want out of the COVID bill – aid to unemployed continued at the current level, aid to cash-strapped states, USPS rescue. The whole nine yards.
Mary Ellen Sandahl
Just started reading post, and I’m sure someone’s already screeched this in at least one of the 225-plus posts above, but I can’t contain myself:
That’s Governor Brown to you, New York Times, you sexist entitled rag!!!
The Pale Scot
@Kent:
IMHO those asses should have been beat up, zipped tied and left on the street for cops to pick up. The videos of privileged suburban white dickheads smashing windows and ignoring AA folks entreating to stop fucking up BLM protests enraged me. I have no sympathy for them. Club them all down like baby seals. During the WTO protests the trade union guys who protesting should have surrounded the place the anarchists were using as a base, gone in and tuned them up. Privileged twits need to learn somethun’ about reality
The Pale Scot
@randal m sexton:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HN1fdZdJCS4
Omnes Omnibus
@Mary Ellen Sandahl: Actually, that is something not to get worked up about. The Times, I believe, only uses a person’s title the first time it refers to someone in an article. After that, it is Mr or Ms.
J R in WV
@Jinchi:
So… that would be a good thing, right? Go directly to Jail, Do Not pass GO, do not Collect $200. Hire a very expensive lawyer, go broke, plead guilty, go to jail… Sounds good to me!
The Pale Scot
@polyorchnid octopunch:
Good job mate
J R in WV
@Mary Ellen Sandahl:
Nope, you are the first commenter to post a comment. But I did think it loudly to myself. Bet they wouldn’t do that to a male Republican office holder!!!
Maybe they would, style may be use a title first use, Mr. Mrs. or Ms after first use.
As in “Mr. Trump continues to act like a deranged loon!” deep in the article, after first specifying that Mr Trump is President of the United States in the lede.
evodevo
@mrmoshpotato: Yes. In the small town 15 miles from me, the newspaper prints ALL the news, including details of police calls. At least once a week there’s someone calling the cops because Jr. bad-mouthed dad, or wouldn’t put down the I-phone and listen to mom or whatever, or ran off to friend’s house and wouldn’t come back. it’s amazing how much poor parenting there is that could use a good, free counseling service lol
Jay
The roots of American “Law Enforcement” are in Slave Catchers and the roots of Criminal Laws protecting “property” are in slavery.
Jay
polyorchnid octopunch
@J R in WV: Yeah, the ribs are feeling might tender today. I’m working it. It makes breathing hard; the docs told me that a lot of the pain should have faded by the beginning of September (and yes this is a consequence of the open-heart part of the surgery) and that I should really be firing on all cylinders by winter solstice.
planetjanet
@polyorchnid octopunch: Welcome back! Such good news.
Omnes Omnibus
@J R in WV: The first three words of the article are “Gov. Kate Brown.”
Chyron HR
@Jay:
Do you know that “neoliberalism” is a red flag that you’re a fucking moron?
Mary Ellen Sandahl
@Omnes Omnibus: I draw in my horns; I did not know that was the NYT official style.
In my sort-of defense, I don’t subscribe to the Times (too expensive), and only saw the exerpt in the post, which is some way down-column from the beginning of the actual article.
Also, it does happen that proper expressions of respect to the titles of female leaders – elected and otherwise – often does not drop naturally from the lips of some people. Even the lips of the president of these United States. So one’s nerves get a little raw after a while. Anyway, thanks for the heads-up, Omnes.
a thousand flouncing lurkers was fidelio
@polyorchnid octopunch: Awesome news, especially now!
🍾🥂🎉🎈👍🏻
a thousand flouncing lurkers was fidelio
@mrmoshpotato:
@Yutsano:
How about Edward Everett Hale’s approach? (https://www.gutenberg.org/files/15868/15868-h/15868-h.htm )
a thousand flouncing lurkers was fidelio
@Jay: Oooooooooo.
Chris Johnson
@Omnes Omnibus: This. This, all day. Prison, not vengeance, not hangings, not the whole Mussolini deal. We don’t have to have our civilization so wrecked that we visit an eye for an eye on these people who are no better than serial killers.
Chris Johnson
@a thousand flouncing lurkers was fidelio: Reichstags ain’t gonna burn themselves.
More relevantly, Trump and Putin ain’t necessarily as competent as the Nazis. There’s a whole lot of ‘getting the entire populace on board’ that they deem unnecessary and that is a bad, bad mistake on their part.
In fairness it’s an impossible task. This is America.
Aziz, light!
I know it’s pointless to pursue this here with those of you who are all dewy eyed about the battle for Portland. The reason there’s a fence in front of the Mark Hatfield Federal Courthouse, and federal law enforcement behind it, is to prevent the anarchists from trashing or burning the building’s interior. Do you all not want a federal courthouse protected? I’m not happy that trump sent in his hot to trot ICE and CBP guys, but the core group of LEO’s are Federal Protective Service with a thankless task to perform, and they aren’t going anywhere. I know four of them personally because they’re stationed in my building two doors down (the Portland federal building) and I’ve worked with them for 7 years as a member of the building emergency team (evac drills, active shooter training, etc.). The FPS people I know are highly trained, responsible, by the book professionals. They are not goons. If trump had any brains, he would take the fence down and withdraw all LEO protection so that the radicals in the street could destroy both buildings. This would make great law and order TV.
Seriously, do you want to see these federal properties wrecked? And what the fuck do these buildings (and many other vandalized structures in downtown Portland) have to do with Black Lives Matter?
Yutsano
@polyorchnid octopunch: I meant cardiac rehab. I had something else in my brain at the time for some weird reason.
WaterGirl
@polyorchnid octopunch: I am way late to this thread, but I am so very happy to read that you are doing so well!!!
Thank you for letting us know. And don’t get cocky :-) and try to do much too soon or you might end up slowing your amazing recovery. Take care.
The Pale Scot
@Yutsano:
How about a little flogging? Just a bit? A smidgen?
hotshoe
@Omnes Omnibus:
Sorry, you’re right, have a screw loose in my head today.
Yeah, the goons are not military, and calling them “troops” casts aspersions on the actual troops who, so far, have managed to avoid shooting at US citizens on US civil soil.