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Minneapolis Police Killed George Floyd, Then Failed To Protect Property Owners From Riots


Muda69

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4 hours ago, swordfish said:

Well in fairness - he didn't "experience" the knot......In the new Covid age - Drivers don't even get to the garages before or after the races.......unlike before.....so he didn't even "see" the "noose" in the garage to begin with.......

Secondarily and totally IMHO (not related to Bubba) - who would install an operating slip knot on a garage pull?  It makes no sense.  A loop, yes, but a knot that would  or could close shut on one's hand while grabbing hold of it and pulling doesn't seem to be a smart way for a garage door at a professional race track to be operating......no matter the "intent".....So I don't really buy into the "noose" rhetoric surrounding this since I can't visualize a crew putting an operating slipknot on a garage pull......

So in conclusion (again - IMHO) a mid-level NASCAR driver who hasn't won a race at this level and was mostly an unknown is on the verge of becoming (in his mind) the Colin Kaepernick of NASCAR.......when (IMHO) he is actually more suited to become the Danika Patrick of the sport.......except that she actually won an Indy Car race.......

Nobody has disputed what you said in the first couple of lines. 
As far as the knot being used, I made those same comments. Regardless of when it was put there, why use a noose? It is a difficult knot to put together. I am not sure why any type of slip knot would be used. Pull on it to pull the door closed, and the loop tightens, and would squeeze the hand. 3 half hitches or some other knot that locks when pulled on makes far more sense. I do think some confuse the name of the knot with the purpose. Looking at the knot in the NASCAR picture, it is a noose knot. Just because there was no intent to use it as an actual noose does not equate to it not being a noose. 
I hope you are wrong about his driving ability. The fact is that there actually are a lot of average no name drivers on the circuit. The series is struggling to find the big names it has had in previous years. One could make the claim that even some of the well known drivers were not great drivers. I love Dale Junior, but no one can say he had a spectacular career. Solid, sure, but is he one of the greats of all time? As a team, Petty racing has not been relevant for decades now. King Richard was my favorite growing up, and it puzzles meto see how much his team has struggled for so long. 
I hope he does not become a Kaepernick. NASCAR cannot afford to let that happen. If it does, and it appears many of his critics will not let up on him, he very well may leave the sport. Good luck getting another black driver into the series, much less NASCAR. 

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Another Confederate Soldier Falls

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/07/another-confederate-soldier-falls/

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I was born in 1952, during the presidency of Harry Truman. Nine years later, this country began its centennial commemoration of the Civil War. I was completely swept up in it, writing letters to chambers of commerce all around the battle-affected states to solicit information on nearby battlefields, both decisive and inconsequential. A year later, my parents surprised me with a trip to Gettysburg in the family station wagon. The evening of August 29, 1963, I spent the night in the house used by Robert E. Lee as headquarters during that titanic battle. Upon returning home, I wrote a letter to Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Bruce Catton (A Stillness at Appomattox), gushing over the vistas I’d seen and the knowledge I’d gained. He was kind enough to respond, encouraging me to continue my historical studies.

Not surprisingly, I became a historian and teacher. I have visited battlefields all my life, captivated by the dramatic confrontations that bloodied those sites, as well as by the even-handed presentation provided by the national military parks. This, I have long assumed, owed its nature to the premium that had been placed on reconciliation after the war which might allow a deeply wounded nation to heal, however imperfectly. I have taken my kids to Gettysburg, Antietam, and Petersburg, as well as the Confederate White House in Richmond.

Now, unhappily, I find myself consigned by the media to the ranks of would-be Nazis, mysteriously and involuntarily coupled to the most detestable ideology imaginable (fascism/Nazism), simply because I’ve always enjoyed such venues, along with the commemorative Civil War art that abounds among them. For the son of World War II vets, this is an uncomfortable fate to accept. So, over the last few days, I’ve been forced to ask myself the uncomfortable query: “What’s going on here?” Why are so many young people, abetted by the feckless opportunism of politicians, turning to the likes of the Taliban for their example in ravaging parks and civic squares across the South, attempting to discredit Civil War heritage and to efface historical memory? 

And what I’ve come up with is this: It’s all about safe spaces. For the last few years, bemused citizens of my vintage (67) have been treated to the spectacle of ideological self-segregation on some of America’s most elite college campuses, based largely on the proposition that, contrary to the reassuring rhyme we’d learned as children, words can indeed hurt you. Moreover, in the name of preempting “hate speech,” sticks and stones may well come in handy.

From the outset, this logic seemed preposterous to me. Words have objective meaning, after all, or at least they once did. And since the English language has more words than any other, our options in their use are virtually infinite. We write wills with words, enforce contracts through them, use them to power political, theological, and philosophic debates. Our civilization would be impossible without them. Therefore, in and of themselves, words possess not only concrete meaning, but the potential for absolute functional precision.

Yet, notwithstanding this treasured medium of language, we are now asked to believe that words have no inherent meaning at all that is independent of a recipient’s translation of them, and that there is no intrinsic truth in language that lies in the words alone. Whether a person has been offended, circa 2020, seems no longer to be a product just of the words themselves, but is instead a measure of the culture, race, or sensitivity of the person on the receiving end. 

Likewise, with statues. Historical art reflects, and provides guideposts to, the culture that constructed it. There is value in that, in and of itself, irrespective of the monument in question. It provides tangible signposts on the road of our social and political evolution as a nation and a culture, a civilization.

Yet recent controversies seem to have handed the adjudication of our public taste, along with the preservation of our historical past, over to the mob: latter-day sans-culottes. Almost overnight, it seems, works of historically commemorative art, which have presided over squares and parks for a century or more, have been declared utterly and immediately intolerable, notwithstanding their provenance or antiquity.

All this would seem to suggest something other than an extemporaneous response to something real. Then again, mobs tend to specialize in faux spontaneity. So, at this point, perhaps it would be well to remember that the French Directory would have demolished Notre Dame Cathedral in 1799, but for Napoleon’s improbable rise to power. Indeed, its composite stones had already been auctioned off! Now billions are being raised for its reconstruction from last year’s fire. 


It is hardly necessary then, to catalogue the number of offensive monuments that may also have long-ago reached that point of intolerability across the world. Shall we deconstruct Aztec pyramids, where so many Tlaxcalan hearts were yanked out? Shall the San Diego State football team stop calling itself Aztecs? Shall the FDR monument be removed to appease the descendants of interned Nisei Japanese or the victims of the Tokyo fire raids of 1945? Shall the Japanese imperial palace be dismantled in deference to the 17 million Chinese who perished in World War II? Whither the Colosseum? The Pyramids? Monticello? Mount Vernon? The White House? While time used to provide some (excuse the expression) “monumental” immunity, ISIS has given all of us pause with its destruction of Palmyra in Syria, as with the Taliban’s earlier obliteration (with artillery) of the colossal Buddhas carved into the cliffs at Bamyan in Afghanistan. “Who controls the past, controls the future, who controls the present controls the past,” as Orwell reminds us.  

....

And while the erection of commemorative statues unfortunately coincided with the emergence of the “Jim Crow” South, there are more understandable motivations that, I would argue, took precedence. These were martial creations, after all, intended to commemorate battlefield feats. Historians have long observed that veterans typically (and understandably) avoid public remembrance and consecration of battlefield combat until decades after the event. The erection of these statues coincides with the dedication of most of the larger American battlefield parks and cemeteries. So, they were aimed less at betrayed freedmen then at kindling popular remembrance of the slain, along with the suffering wounded Confederate veterans had endured.

Was it so unnatural, then, for a society composed largely of traumatized ex-Confederates (which the southern population incontestably was after the Civil War) to commemorate those virtues which had not been completely obliterated by the misbegotten cause for which they fought: heroism, sacrifice, comradery, triumph (however ephemeral), as well as tragedy? These are universal impulses, which have been lauded by many other peoples, in many other places, in many other times. The sin of slavery is ineradicable in the public mind. So too must be our memorial ties to the past. That is how a civilization disavows its mistakes, reaffirms its achievements, and matures over time. It is that strand of cultural continuity connecting the past to the present and, ultimately, to posterity which, as Edmund Burke pointed out in responding to the horror of the French Revolution, allows a civilization to endure.  

Saddest of all, perhaps, is the failure of so many people to reflect on the fact that many of these monuments were erected simply to honor the dead. Lots of dead. Among Confederate soldiers, only 6 percent owned any slaves. Most were dirt-poor farmers answering the call, however wrongheadedly we may construe it now, to defend their homes from outsiders.

As for all those boys in blue, without whom the institution of slavery would have lived on? Strange isn’t it, how few in the hysterical mob seem to recall them at all. A pity, that.

 

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So am I the only one that noticed the last two "protesters or vandals" in the video were actually black people that were attempting to "deface" the "BLM" statement?  Or is the media trying to portray itself as "colorblind" ?

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The Black Lives Matter mural has been defaced four times in under a week. Sixty percent of the people defacing the mural are black. I’m confident New York City does not have 60% black residents.

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On 7/17/2020 at 12:48 PM, DanteEstonia said:

Boo hoo, cry me a river.

https://www.cbs19.tv/article/news/local/louie-gohmert-democrats-must-change-name-or-be-barred-from-house-due-to-racist-past/501-9fe67711-47e1-4ade-ada3-286fa20b443f

WASHINGTON D.C., DC — U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert, of Tyler, is calling on the U.S. House of Representatives to ban Democrats and any "organization or political party that ever publicly supported slavery or the Confederate States of America.

"Many on the left and their willing accomplices in the media would tell you otherwise, yet a cursory examination of our nation’s factual history and records proves the riots and chaos that have swept across our country in recent months stand as a devastating reminder of the racist policies and values held by the Democratic Party throughout much of its history.

Because of this, I introduced a privileged resolution in the House calling upon Congress to acknowledge the indecorous history of the Democratic Party. I asked that the Speaker of the House be instructed to ban any political organization or political party that ever publicly supported slavery or the Confederate States of America.

Since George Floyd’s tragic killing on May 25, the left which includes their “mainstream” Democrats, have resurrected their push to rid our nation of any entities, symbols, or reminders of the repugnant aspects of America’s past. Statues of American leaders have been torn down, defaced, and destroyed regardless of whether they were a party to improprieties or fought against them. The liberal mob is out in full force demanding that schools, sports teams, music artists, military installations, and even food products change their names if they have the slightest reference to any persons or events deemed unacceptable and offensive to the groupthink of the Marxist left.

Democrats argue that they are compelled to take these extreme actions because of “systemic racism” in America, all while conveniently pinning blame on Republicans and conservatives. This revisionist history tells a story that simply has no basis in historical fact. Their efforts are a veiled attempt to erase the Democratic Party’s own culpability, which for decades, if not centuries, was the ardent political advocate for discrimination and racism in our nation.

 

For instance, when Republicans overwhelmingly supported the 14th and 15th Amendments, which recognized former slaves as citizens and granted them, as citizens, the right to vote, every single Democrat in Congress voted against their passage and, at times, blocked passage to the shame of the good done in our country’s history.

Further, as Bruce Bartlett points out in his book, Wrong on Race: The Democratic Party’s Buried Past, for a century after Reconstruction, “The Jim Crow laws were enacted by Democrat legislatures and signed into law by Democrat governors. It could not have been otherwise, since there were virtually no Republicans in positions of authority in state governments in the South after the end of Reconstruction in 1877.”

However, Democrats’ support for slavery and its subsequent support for institutionalized racism did not end in the 1800s. Elected in 1912, Democratic President Woodrow Wilson enacted policies to segregate the federal government. In a letter to editor Howard Bridgman who criticized President Wilson in his publication for his support of segregation, Democrat Wilson voiced support for his administration’s enactment of segregationist policies, stating, “I do approve of the segregation that is being attempted in several of the departments.” He went on to argue that segregation was “distinctly to the advantage” of blacks, which is, of course, an absurd claim steeped in blatant racism. When his administration began requiring that photographs be submitted with each employment application, which was used to discriminate against minority applicants, President Wilson, to whom many current Democrats either point with pride or say nothing, did nothing.

Nearly fifty years later, when Republicans steadfastly supported the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Democrats filibustered the bill for 75 calendar days. Republicans in Congress expended great effort to protect the basic rights promised to minorities in America by our nation’s founders. During his 14-hour speech filibustering the Civil Rights Act, Democratic Senator Robert Byrd (a known KKK recruiter) proclaimed, “Men are not created equal today, and they were not created equal in 1776. Men and races of men differ in appearance, ways, physical power, mental capacity, creativity, and vision.” This morally bankrupt view is what Democrats held for a majority of the Party’s history. That historically Democrat view is a total corruption of the Biblical view the Republican Party held, that although we may look different, we are absolutely equal in the view of our “Creator,” or “the Almighty” as Republican President Lincoln liked to say.

 

On June 18th of this year, Speaker Nancy Pelosi ordered the removal of portraits from the Capitol building honoring four previous Speakers of the House—all of whom were Democrats. That was a good start on the job that she should now finish if she is going to avoid blatant hypocrisy.

Throughout America’s history, Republicans have fought to repeal Jim Crow laws, desegregate schools, and promote racial equality in America. In recent years, Republicans, including President Trump, have continued this fight by working valiantly to lift Americans of all races out of poverty through pro-growth economic policies that have done more to help the plight of the impoverished than any administration. Prior to the economic downturn caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, unemployment rates for minorities were at record lows with employment at record highs.

Efforts by Democrats to destroy all public traces of their own history of supporting slavery, the Confederacy, and segregation in an attempt to shift blame onto Republicans must no longer go unchallenged. It is time for Democrats to play by their own rules, and accept the standards they have forced onto everyone else. They must divest themselves of their name that has denied so many the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Their recent actions demand nothing less. Instead of canceling our culture and history, it’s time to #CancelDemocrats."

Rep. Louie Gohmert represents Texas’ 1st congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives and is a senior member on the House Judiciary Committee. He is a former criminal court judge and former appellate court Chief Justice for the state of Texas.

Finally a bill in the house I could support.......What's good for the goose......

 

 

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The Feds Are Still the Jackbooted Thugs We Were Warned About

https://reason.com/2020/07/27/the-feds-are-still-the-jackbooted-thugs-we-were-warned-about/

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Federal law-enforcement agents brutally enforcing the government's will against a segment of the population on the outs with the current administration are "jack-booted government thugs," the National Rifle Association (NRA) charged in communications with its membership. Questioned by the press, the gun-rights group's Wayne LaPierre defended the heated words, saying "they are a pretty close description of what's happening in the real world."

But that was in 1995, and the federal agents in question were (very much still) out-of-control agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). Now booted-and-helmeted Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agents battle protesters in Portland over the protests of local officials, adding fuel to the fire of violent demonstrations there and in a growing number of other cities. Yet the NRA and other past critics of federal overreach are silent.

The NRA's tough 1995 language came at a time of increasing government restrictions on self-defense rights, including the 1994 "assault weapons" ban. Gun opponents pushed hard at the state and federal level to limit the types of firearms that Americans could own.

Enforcement of restrictive laws brought complaints about the government's methods. As early as 1982, even before federal misconduct at Ruby Ridge and Waco, a report by the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution concluded that "enforcement tactics made possible by current federal firearms laws are constitutionally, legally, and practically reprehensible."

That was the climate in which the NRA wrote in a fund-raising letter that "not too long ago, it was unthinkable for federal agents wearing Nazi bucket helmets and black storm trooper uniforms to attack law-abiding citizens."

Twenty-five years later, "heavily armed men in camouflage fatigues advanc[ed] in a skirmish line along downtown Portland's Main Street at 2 a.m., firing tear gas at fleeing crowds," The Oregonian reports. "Federal officers clearing out nearby Lownsdale Square, yanking shields from some people and striking others with batons. Uniformed government agents pulling at least two people into unmarked vans off city streets for questioning."

Federal agents still target Americans, but now it's Homeland Security instead of ATF, and they're after protesters supporting Black Lives Matter and police reform instead of gun owners and antigovernment activists. And that makes all the difference, unfortunately.

"Where is the NRA?" critics ask. It's a valid question—one I posed to the organization. I received no reply.

More responsive was a representative of the Arizona Citizens Defense League (AZCDL), a grassroots gun-rights organization in the Copper State (full disclosure: I'm a member).

"While the AZCDL does not endorse the federal government parachuting into local jurisdictions, that said, if the local jurisdiction is malfeasant in protecting federal property, the federal government has a duty to act," media coordinator Charles Heller told me.

Fair enough so far as it goes—the federal government does have the responsibility to protect its property. But while much of the increasingly violent street theater in Portland is now focused around federal buildings, that wasn't the case when the feds arrived.

"Weeks of raucous demonstrations had nearly wound down in Portland at the beginning of July. Then President Donald Trump sent in federal forces," notes The Oregonian. "The protests against police violence and systemic racism quickly grew bigger and louder."

Since then, federal agents have often acted "with no city police in view and at least a block away from the federal courthouse that President Donald Trump and Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad F. Wolf said they sent 114 federal officers to protect," The Oregonian adds.

Reason's Nancy Rommelman—who got tear-gassed so you don't have to—has documented the action on the ground in Portland. While she points out that the "vast majority of the protesters are peaceful," she makes clear that a subset of them are not.

Now, violent protests—riots—are spreading beyond Portland to other cities. The federal government's minions have successfully provoked a nasty reaction in Seattle, Austin, and elsewhere.

That was true in 1995, too. The NRA got its biggest pushback on criticism of federal agents after the Oklahoma City bombing, which was planned and carried out by extremists outraged over lethal federal abuses at Ruby Ridge and during the Waco siege. Then, as now, brutal federal tactics provoked a violent reaction with which defenders of the federal government tried to associate critics of official misconduct.

That's a shame; if the critics had been taken seriously, we might have avoided more violence and loss of life. That is, correctly calling out "jackbooted thugs" no matter who their targets are could be a good way of trying to head-off a cycle of reactive violence, if the warnings are heeded.

But we live in a time when too many people are concerned about the treatment of their tribe rather than equal protection and decent treatment for everybody. An unfortunate number of gun rights supporters and people on the right who, quite rightly, raged against abusive ATF agents in the past are quiet about or even supportive of federal agents busting the heads of protesters. Maybe they see that as payback for the folks on the left who dismissed criticism of federal agents in the past but are now suffering their own jackbooted-thug moment.

But you can't preserve a free society if support for limited government and civil liberties are situational, depending on who is on the receiving end. If you think it's fine to set enforcers to rousting people if you dislike their causes, you're just weaponizing the law and hoping that your side will, somehow, stay in power indefinitely. That's a no-win tactic.

The NRA and its allies were right 25 years ago when they called out federal "jackbooted thugs." But they need to learn to recognize the same thuggery when it's directed against people they don't like.

By the same token, the folks suffering from the current deployment of jackbooted thuggery should concede that they were wrong in the past when they defended such conduct on behalf of laws that they favored.

And all of us need to recognize that brutal government responses seem very effective at provoking more of the violence they're supposedly intended to subdue. There's a lesson to be learned when, again and again, enforcers sent in to suppress opposition produce more work for themselves and their colleagues.

In the past, now, and in the years to come, jackbooted thugs are in the wrong, whether or not we sympathize with those on the receiving end.

 

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What We Know, and Don’t Know, About Portland and the DHS: https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/what-we-know-dont-know-about-portland-dhs

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In recent days the Department of Homeland Security has dispatched federal law enforcement officers to Portland, scene of more than 50 consecutive nights of protests, which have regularly included damage to the federal courthouse and other major buildings. Oregon Public Broadcasting has reported one protester’s account of being pulled off the street by a group of federal officers in camouflage, carried off in a van, asked questions which he eventually refused to answer without an attorney, and later released without charges. 

 

On Friday acting Homeland Security Deputy Secretary Ken Cuccinelli appeared on NPR’s All Things Considered in an interview with Sarah McCammon, and his answers help narrow down the still disputed allegations on events in Portland. Cuccinelli’s comments confirm that what has been happening is disturbing, and badly needs oversight and investigation.

Were federal agents operating incognito? Photos show agents clad in camouflage, with at least some of them wearing a generic “POLICE” label and in at least some cases a patch from the Department of Homeland Security’s Customs and Border Patrol. DHS, which houses multiple law enforcement agencies (as does the separate Department of Justice), seems to have organized the federal law enforcement response.

What the federal agents are not wearing are badges that identify agents’ names. While local police practice may require the use of such identifiers, it may come as an unpleasant surprise for people to learn that federal law does not as a rule require federal law enforcers to wear them.

In a Friday tweet, Customs and Border Patrol official Mark Morgan acknowledged that the agents were not wearing name badges. He said this was in order to protect them from retaliation. But he claimed that the officers did wear unique identifiers. In one photograph, “ZT1” is visible above an officer’s agency patch.

The practice in Portland echoed the events of June when the U.S. Department of Justice hastily organized employees from multiple agencies, including the Bureau of Prisons, to counter protests in Washington, D.C. Many of these officers lacked not only badges but any insignia indicating which agency they belonged to. It took days of press questions to get even some of the basics on the record.

Whose van is that? Unmarked police vehicles are not new. In this case, however, it is alleged that the camo‐clad teams are picking persons off the street, bundling them into unmarked vehicles, and driving them away from the scene. In the NPR interview, Cuccinelli basically conceded the essentials of this allegation and defended the use of unmarked vans as a way “to keep both the officers safe and also, when crowds gathered, to move people to a safe location for questioning.”

What are people being arrested for? In the absence of a warrant, an arrest can be made only for probable cause. On Cuccinelli’s telling, the individuals are being arrested on probable cause of having committed crimes involving the federal courthouse in Portland.

In the episode related by OPB and most widely cited in the new reports, a protester named Mark Pettibone alleges that he was picked up at some distance from the courthouse, bundled into a van, and taken to a location for questioning—which turned out to be the U.S. courthouse itself. Then, after Pettibone refused to answer further questions without a lawyer, he claims he was released after 90 minutes, without charges or paperwork of any kind documenting his detention.

Cuccinelli did not address the Pettibone case directly in his NPR interview. But he did acknowledge a case in which agents “believed they had identified someone” who had broken the law at the courthouse, drove the person to a separate location, determined that “they did not have the right person,” and then released the individual.

Even if Cuccinelli’s account is accurate and complete, further investigation is badly needed to pin down exactly what probable cause the DHS officers had, what sort of record‐keeping is being done concerning these detentions, and whether this kind of thing has happened other times.

How far from federal property are federal agents operating? Cuccinelli said only “We will pick them up in front of the courthouse. If we spot them elsewhere, we will pick them up elsewhere.”

That is unacceptably vague.

What are the individuals being told about the reasons for their detainment? Pettibone alleges that he wasn’t informed why he was being detained, and on being released without charges, was given no paperwork documenting that the episode had even happened.

These are among the most disturbing of his claims. To check the validity of probable cause for an arrest, you’d ordinarily look to things like what the arresting officer told the suspect was the reason for it, as well as the paperwork generated during later stages of detention and release. Instead, major elements of the Pettibone story are hard—and perhaps even impossible—to check.

You can read this either way: as a reason to be cautious about taking the Pettibone story at face value, or as evidence of the agents’ having set up their tactics in such a way as to evade accountability.

But either way, we need more explanation from DHS.

Who invited the feds into Portland in the first place? It is possible to be alarmed at the allegations of DHS behavior and also understand that there are some legitimate grounds (together with extensive, though not limitless, legal authority) for federal law enforcement to intervene in the Portland disorders.

Despite loose talk about “graffiti” as the main offense, the nightly outbreaks at the Mark O. Hatfield federal courthouse have included repeated arson attempts. The federal government is not required by law to wait until one of these attempts succeeds in burning down the courthouse before dispatching law enforcement to protect it. Nor is DHS required to accommodate the wishes of either the local or state elected officials that it stay away.

Throughout American history there have been instances in which state and local authorities have proved incapable or indulgent in the face of political violence and street disorder. Much of the Civil Rights Era involved agents of the federal government wading into cities and states where the locals did not want them in order to enforce the law.

So while it’s part of Washington’s political and prudential calculus that Portland and Oregon elected officials want the feds to stay out, it’s not dispositive.

To observe that the federal government has vast authority to deploy personnel to ordinarily local law enforcement situations does not mean either that it should do so in this case or even that it should have so much such power.

On this, Steve Vladeck’s new piece in Lawfare (which is worth reading throughout on the legal background) makes a particularly startling observation:

It also appears that the federal government is using Customs and Border Protection officers in Portland—which, like so much of the United States, lies less than 100 miles from an international border (yes, the Pacific Ocean counts). Although federal immigration authorities are generally nationwide, there are a few specific authorities (and some important constitutional exceptions) that come into play “along the border.” Simply put, there are a ton of statutory authorities that allow the federal government to use a wide array of federal law enforcement officers to enforce federal law (including destruction or vandalism of federal property). Those authorities don’t usually require officers to stay in their regulatory lanes (for instance, immigration officers can arrest for any federal offense committed in their presence). There’s a good bet that that’s at least part of what’s going on here.

As genuine as the problem of violence and disorder in Portland may be, some of the practices being alleged are simply not acceptable ways for the American government to act and, if proven, should not be allowed to stand. That’s why it was welcome on Friday when the U.S. Attorney for Oregon, Billy Williams, said he wants an investigation into the actions of the federal agents.

Congress should also investigate and, as appropriate, draw up new legislation to clarify and limit federal police powers and tactics.

Here’s my opening bid. We should normally expect police to wear both badges with their names and easy‐to‐spot agency insignia, not the kind of generic “POLICE” rectangle that random bad guys could readily grind out at home. An average citizen seeing a bundle of poorly‐identified men with firearms jumping out of an unmarked van would not be crazy to wonder if they were agents of law enforcement or the kind of cos‐play militia‐performers we have seen so much of recently.

We should also expect law enforcement officers—whatever the agency—to follow probable‐cause standards for arrest and announce and document the grounds for and circumstances of the arrest, label vans used to transport arrestees, and so on down the line with all of the other protections we expect of local law enforcement.

If there are special circumstances where one of these measures isn’t feasible, let’s hear what they are. Protecting officers from retaliation by concealing their identities may sound plausible, but it’s been a rationale offered at many times and places for secret police.

Americans won’t, and shouldn’t, put up with anonymous, arbitrary, and unaccountable police behavior.

 

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  • 4 weeks later...

What is wrong with the media in the US?  You can't find anywhere the real story about this shooting.  Mr. Blake wasn't "breaking up a fight between women", he was the reason for the cops getting called there in the first place by the lady he had previously abused.  AND THERE WAS A WARRANT OUT FOR HIS ARREST.  Additionally, he had already been tazed, wasn't listening to simple commands given by officers (who already had a history with this guy - see below)

https://racinecountyeye.com/police-k9-dozer-helps-subdue-man-who-pulled-gun-at-bar/

Racine police say K9 Dozer had to help officers take a man into custody when the man refused to go quietly into custody after he pulled a gun at a local bar. Jacob Blake, 24, of Racine, was charged Monday in Racine County Circuit Court with one felony count of resisting arrest causing a soft tissue injury to a police officer and one misdemeanor count each of carrying a concealed weapon, carrying a firearm while intoxicated, endangering safety-use of a dangerous weapon, and disorderly conduct. If convicted, he will face up to 8-1/2 years in prison and/or up to $50,000 in fines.

According to the criminal complaint, Blake and two women were at the Brass Monkey tavern, 1436 Junction Avenue, Saturday when Blake got into an argument with another patron and pulled a black handgun. Blake pointed the gun at the other man, and the magazine fell to the floor. The bartender told Blake to leave, and he did but then pointed the gun through the window at patrons inside the bar before walking south on Junction Avenue.

Police say they encountered a woman walking on Junction who was in the bar with Blake, but she said she didn’t know what happened and that her friends left without her in a silver SUV. A few moments later, officers were advised that a silver SUV was traveling north on Junction with a male subject driving who matched the description of Blake, and they initiated a traffic stop in the 1200 block of Racine Avenue.

Believing the driver was armed, police conducted a high risk traffic stop, the complaint reads, and ordered Blake to put his hands out the window of the vehicle. Instead, Blake exited the SUV and started walking toward officers and ignored commands to get down on the ground. Officers forced Blake to the ground and ordered him to put his hands behind his back. When Blake refused to comply, K9 Dozer was deployed to force the defendant into compliance.

While police were at the hospital with Blake so he could be treated for the wound he obtained from K9 Dozer, officers say he refused to answer questions, but he did submit to a legal blood draw to determine his level of intoxication. At the time he was taken into custody, Blake was searched and police say he had a holster on his hip but no gun. A subsequent search of the SUV turned up a black handgun on the floor behind the drivers seat. A box of ammunition was also found, and two loaded magazines were discovered in Blake’s coat.

The defendant’s blood alcohol level came back at .144, according to the criminal complaint.

Blake remains in the Racine County Jail on a $5,000 cash bond. He will next be in court Oct. 1 for his preliminary hearing.

Nor do they draw any attention to the WARRANT Mr. Blake had out for his arrest.......(this was found at the bottom of a story I linked)

https://abc7ny.com/2nd-day-of-unrest-after-jacob-blake-shooting-in-wisconsin/6387592/

Online court records indicate Kenosha County prosecutors charged Blake on July 6 with sexual assault, trespassing and disorderly conduct in connection with domestic abuse. An arrest warrant was issued the following day. The records contain no further details and do not list an attorney for Blake.
 

So let's conclude - A guy who has a warrant out for his arrest for sexual assault, who the police have already had previous hazardous encounters with, has already been tazed, brawled with the officers gets shot.  Instead - US MSM deems this as another innocent black man shot because of all cops are racist cops.......

LET's burn the city down......"Say his Name"....."Black Lives Matter!!!"

Side point - any officer that fires 7 shots into a perp at nearly point blank range and doesn't kill the perp was trying NOT to kill him......Just think - if this officer was racist - one shot at that range would have done the trick......

 

 

 

 

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  • 4 weeks later...

Military Police Leaders Weighed Deploying 'Heat Ray' Against D.C. Protesters: https://www.npr.org/2020/09/16/913748800/military-police-leaders-weighed-deploying-heat-ray-against-d-c-protesters

Quote

Hours before federal police officers cleared a crowded park near the White House with smoke and tear gas on June 1, the lead military police officer in the Department of Defense for the D.C. region asked if the D.C. National Guard had a kind of military "heat ray" that might be deployed against demonstrators in the nation's capital, according to one of the most senior National Guard officers on the scene.

In written responses to the House Committee on Natural Resources obtained by NPR, Maj. Adam DeMarco of the D.C. National Guard said he was copied on an email from the provost marshal of Joint Force Headquarters National Capital Region. He was looking for two things: a Long Range Acoustic Device, a kind of sound cannon known as an LRAD, and a device called the Active Denial System, or ADS.

The military developed the ADS some 20 years ago as a way to disperse crowds. There have been questions about whether it worked, or should be deployed in the first place. It uses millimeter wave technology essentially to heat the skin of people targeted by its invisible ray.

In his written response, DeMarco, who has sought whistleblower protection, quoted from an email he said was forwarded to him that originated from the provost marshal that read the "ADS can provide our troops a capability they currently do not have, the ability to reach out and engage potential adversaries at distances well beyond small arms range, and in a safe, effective, and non-lethal manner."

The email went on to say that the ADS can direct a beam toward a group and that "provides a sensation of intense heat on the surface of the skin. The effect is overwhelming, causing an immediate repel response by the targeted individual."

Last month, The New York Times reported that U.S. border officials weighed deploying the so-called heat ray against migrants a few weeks before the 2018 elections. The Times reported that Kirstjen Nielsen, then secretary of homeland security, told an aide after the meeting "that she would not authorize the use of such a device, and that it should never be brought up again in her presence."

Yet, according to DeMarco, it was something considered by the Defense Department's lead military police officer the morning of June 1 after days of fiery protests and looting in Washington. DeMarco said in his written comments that he responded about a half hour later that "the D.C. National Guard was not in possession of either an LRAD or an ADS."

NPR made multiple calls and sent multiple emails to the Joint Force Headquarters National Capital Region for comment but has not heard back.

....

You bet if the National Guard would have had an ADS it would have been used against citizens.

 

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