"law and order" b s

===

// tough on crime strict fr

merri

see progressive DA Bragg

violent crime = urban = AA = BLM rioters

===

i think this was originally code word dog whistle for racism?

in trump admin ~ BLM in democrat run cities?

has been a spike in crime during covid but mostly red states that have crappier union and safety net strict fr?

lawfare for prosecution of djt gop // weaponization of doj

===

CONTEXT?

SEE PROJECTION, DJT CHAOS AND INCOMP, BUT PRESENTS AS BULWARK TO COMMIE DEM ANARCHY?

AN 10 26

On Wednesday, it was revealed that under the leadership of President Donald Trump, the FBI has embraced a novel solution to making it appear as if its violent crime arrests are up: “juice the stats.” This is according to a new report by MS NOW, which found that the crime numbers touted by FBI Director Kash Patel are padded with arrests made by state and local law enforcement rather than the bureau.

“With fewer agents and a strained budget, the FBI under its director, Kash Patel, has brought thousands fewer criminal cases than previous administrations,” reports MS NOW, citing a review of Justice Department data. “The findings rebut Patel’s repeated claims that he has led a crackdown on violent crime. Patel has boasted that the FBI has arrested 54,000 violent criminals, which he describes as a 90 percent increase in arrests from the same period in the Biden administration. What he doesn’t mention is that his count is inflated by including arrests that state and local police forces and other federal agencies have made when an FBI employee is present.” And as the FBI itself acknowledged, many were not FBI cases.

In fact, data shows that the FBI has referred 15 percent fewer criminal cases for federal prosecution during Trump’s second term than during the same period in the Biden administration. And, while the FBI does not break down its criminal referrals into types of cases, the data also shows that the DOJ prosecuted 15 percent fewer cases of violent crimes during the first 16 months of the Trump administration than during the same period of the Biden administration.

According to MS NOW, “There were nearly 3,800 fewer people charged federally with violent crimes during the first part of the second Trump administration than during the comparable Biden period — the opposite of what Patel says. That figure includes cases referred from all federal agencies, not just the FBI.” The report is based on public DOJ data obtained and shared by Justice Connection, a group of former DOJ and FBI employees who have accused the administration of weaponizing the department to pursue Trump’s political ends.

The drop in criminal cases has corresponded with a “huge” increase in focus on immigration crimes per Patel’s demand. According to MS NOW, “Since the 9/11 attacks, the FBI’s priority mission has been stopping terrorism. The bureau is also devoted to hunting foreign spies, ferreting out political corruption and white collar fraud, and disrupting complex criminal schemes and organized crime.” The shift to emphasizing immigration enforcement along with the juiced stats represents a major change in the FBI’s function and transparency.

“Kash Patel is actively dismantling decades of statistical integrity just to feed a political narrative,” said Christopher O’Leary, a former senior FBI official and MS NOW contributor. “We are seeing a historic institution reduced to a metrics game, where the FBI is poaching credit for arrests made by other law enforcement agencies and departments. This artificial inflation of the stats is a deliberate smoke screen designed to mask internal chaos and the mass exodus of experienced talent by manufacturing an illusion of productivity that simply does not exist on the ground.”

In a statement to MS NOW, the FBI did not dispute the data showing a reduction in criminal referrals, but it pointed to the declining rate of violent crime. But as MS NOW explains, “That decline has been a nationwide trend for several years after crime briefly spiked during the Covid-19 pandemic from 2020 to 2022. It’s been steadily declining ever since.” And while Patel has claimed a 90 percent increase in “violent crime arrests” by the FBI, this ignores crucial context: “that Patel is taking credit for the work of other agencies.”

“By Patel newly including state and local arrests, as well as arrests by other federal agencies, his FBI progress report radically changes the way the FBI counts its cases to include work the FBI did not do,” MS NOW elaborates. “The FBI has not previously counted other agency arrests as part of its caseload, according to internal DOJ data and the accounts of current and former officials. There is no way to say how many of the local police arrests — which Patel now claims credit for — would have been made regardless of the FBI’s presence.” The FBI asserts that the numbers have always been tallied that way, but that is false, multiple former FBI officials told MS NOW. Former FBI agent Daniel Brunner said the FBI previously always resisted counting state and local arrests as FBI achievements. “It’s never been done,” he said. “And when agents attempted to do it, it was always pushed back on at the local division. Headquarters did not want false numbers, they wanted the truth from the field.”

-=-=

---

AN 6 25

KPFA? TRUMP BLEW CRED ON J6 COP BEATERS, TRYING TO RECLAIM TRAD GOP

President Donald Trump is vigorously defending his use of U.S. Marines and federalized California National Guard troops in response to tense protests in Downtown Los Angeles. And he is doing so despite the objections of California Gov. Gavin Newsom and L.A. Mayor Karen Bass, both of whom believe he is making a tense situation worse. Many Trump critics are saying that while Newsom has every right to deploy California National Guard troops if he decides it is necessary, the president is crossing a dangerous line by deploying them at the federal level.

On Sunday, June 8, Trump told reporters, "If we see danger to our country and to our citizens, we’ll be very, very strong in terms of law and order. It's about law and order."

But journalist Will Saletan, in an article published by the conservative website The Bulwark on June 11, lays out some reasons why Trump is far from a symbol of "law and order."

"Don't believe it," Saletan warns. "Trump is using the Guard and the military to enforce his will, not the law. The evidence of his insincerity is what he did four years ago: When rioters were on his side, he didn’t call in the Guard. He embraced the criminals, pardoned them, and purged the law enforcement officials who prosecuted them."

IFrame Content

Saletan continues, "He's a despot and a scofflaw. In the Los Angeles uprising, Trump — like every authoritarian before him — claims to be saving his country from chaos. 'Violent, insurrectionist mobs are swarming and attacking our Federal Agents,' he declared on Sunday afternoon. 'These lawless riots only strengthen our resolve.'"

In 2024, Trump was facing four criminal indictments, one of which — Manhattan District Attorney Alvil Bragg Jr.'s hush money/falsified business records case — found him being convicted on 34 felony counts. The three other cases, however, never went to trial.

"Insurrectionist mobs, lawless riots, videos of violence — we've heard such alarming descriptions before," Saletan argues. "And on January 6, 2021, we saw how little Trump cared about them…. In short, everything Trump decries in Los Angeles happened on January 6th, and more. A violent, insurrectionist mob swarmed and attacked police. And instead of bringing in the Guard 'RIGHT NOW,' Trump watched the assault, encouraged the mob, and waited to see whether it would keep him in power."

Saletan adds, "In fact, when he returned to office this year, Trump pardoned nearly everyone who had pleaded guilty to or had been convicted of assaulting police on January 6th."

*Will Saletan's full article for The Bulwark is available at this link.

---

an 7 24 rnc

On Tuesday night, one Republican National Convention (RNC) speaker gave a speech about how her family was unfairly targeted by prosecutors in Georgia, as a nod to former President Donald Trump's argument that the cases against him are politically motivated. But one columnist wrote that the narrative falls apart when looking just beneath the surface.

In a Wednesday analysis for the Washington Post, columnist Philip Bump delved into a speech by Savannah Chrisley on night two of the RNC, which was themed: "Making America safe again." Chrisley's parents — made famous from the reality show "Chrisley knows best" — are currently serving federal prison sentences for conspiracy, bank fraud, wire fraud and tax evasion. From the RNC lectern, Savannah Chrisley noted that her parents were prosecuted in Fulton County, Georgia. Naming the Peach State's most populous county, where the ex-president is also being prosecuted on multiple felony charges, drew boos from the crowd.

“I know! Fulton County!” Chrisley said. “They know how to do it, don’t they?”

Though as Bump wrote, Todd and Julie Chrisley were prosecuted by the Department of Justice, not by local prosecutors (Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis was not yet in office at the time of their indictment). And the U.S. attorney who indicted the Chrisleys was appointed by Trump himself in 2017. He later resigned in January of 2021 as Trump was attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

Bump observed that Savannah Chrisley's speech was necessary to provide cover for a political party that was preparing to officially nominate a 34-time convicted felon to be its standard bearer in November. He also opined that the GOP's modus operandi of undermining certain prosecutors helps it continue its claim to support law enforcement. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) told the convention earlier this week that "we in the Republican Party are the law and order team,” and that Republicans "always have been and we always will be the advocates for the rule of law.”

"The entire point of dedication to the rule of law, though, is that you have respect for and confidence in the process even as you recognize that it is imperfect," Bump wrote. "The concept is predicated on the idea that the dispensation of justice is mechanical and objective. If you eagerly champion the baseless idea that the system is targeting your allies, you are not an advocate for the rule of law. You are an advocate for the selective application of power, which the rule of law is designed to counteract."

Bump went on to argue that according to Chrisley, the Republican Party's interpretation of law and order can be more simply defined as putting "legal boundaries... around people they don’t like."

"For all of the somber invocation of the Republican Party’s loyalty to law enforcement and respect for traditional American institutions, Chrisley’s presence on the stage laid bare the self-serving nature of the GOP’s rhetoric about prosecutions," he wrote.

"Republicans believe deeply in the rule of law as it applies to protesters on college campuses, Hunter Biden’s gun charges and Sen. Bob Menendez (D-New Jersey). But when the criminality is for things like fraud or tax evasion or spiriting classified material off to your home, the system is rigged against conservatives. Defund the IRS! Defund the FBI!"

"Chrisley’s speech was aimed at reinforcing the idea that prosecutors were targeting the right unfairly," he added. "The sleight of hand about timing and venue was merely a mechanism for making that case."

Click here to read Bump's full column in the Washington Post (subscription required).

READ MORE:['Flat-out nuts': Conservative blasts Trump's 'bananas' rant on 'law and order'

===

mma 4 23

JOHN RATCLIFFE (FORMER DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE): Well, Maria, I mean, the point is this is election interference. We don't know how – no one really knows how this is going to play out. We just know that it is going to be a factor. We have crossed the Rubicon from people saying, you know, on the left, President Trump should be indicted to the discussion is going to be President Trump was indicted. And however long this case takes, and very clearly, it's not going to play out throughout the court system in less than the year that it's going to take to, you know, to, you know, reach a Republican nominee.

And so this action, this political persecution is going to influence our politics every single day for the next year until a Republican nominee is chosen, and that is, by definition, election interference. This is wholly inappropriate, you know, a complete perversion of our political system, and I think people need to, hopefully, understand and see what's going on here through these imposter D.A.s like Alvin Bragg. But this is coast to coast, you know? This is Kim Foxx in Chicago, this is George Gascon in California, this isGeorge Soros funding all of these people where we've put socialists in charge of the American judicial system. We've put people who don't understand or appreciate orstand up for American values in charge of our legal system to distort it intentionally and deliberately and, unfortunately, Donald Trump is the first but won't be the last person to be persecuted under that system.

MARIA BARTIROMO (FOX NEWS HOST): Well, this is a really good point that you're making because George Soros makes no apology for it. In fact, he wrote an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal just a couple of weeks ago. You're talking about the $40 million that he has donated to get these D.A.s in place. He says I've done it transparently. I've no intention of stopping. The funds I provide enable sensible, reform-minded candidates to receive a hearing from the public. Judging by the results, the public likes what it's hearing. I'm not sure which public he's talking to becausethese D.A.s are using bail reform to put criminals back on the streetexcept if it's Donald Trump.

RATCLIFFE: Maria, they're not D.A.s, they're imposter D.A.s. These are political plants. These are people who are only being supported with, you know, $40 million – in the case of Alvin Bragg a million dollars from George Soros [NOPE]– only because of a promise that you're in this position, you will pursue political prosecution of our opponents, those on the right. And that is, again, happening coast to coast, and that's really what's at stake. This should be a clarion call to Americans who otherwise don't tune in to politics ordon't think that it affects them. It absolutely has, and the bedrock principles of our justice system are clearly under assault where, again, we have socialists who are anathema to, you know, American values in charge largely of our judicial system, you know, through these state D.A.s and prosecutors.

===

https://www.alternet.org/2022/03/marjorie-taylor-greene-russian-propaganda

**U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene**, continuing to move closer and closer to **Russian President Vladimir Putin**, says “real Americans” only care about “open borders,” gas prices, and inflation but not Ukraine. She also declared that “COVID doesn’t exist.”

“What real Americans care about is gas prices they can’t afford, inflation that goes up enough to where grocery bills are unaffordable, and they’re very concerned about our out of control open border,” Greene said on the floor of the House Thursday. “Crime is out of control,” she added, ignoring that major crimes like murder are “out of control” mostly in just red states.

“But yet Washington has completely disconnected and seems to care more about sending our sons and daughters to a potential war where they do not belong,” she claimed, saying “we need to focus on our country first.”

“America first” is a Trump-era “policy” that essentially says America first and only, period.

The extremist Republican Congresswoman from Georgia just yesterday,in what she claimed was an “address to the nation”that was carried only on Facebook Live, inaccurately announced “both sides” – Russia and Ukraine – have violated their treaties.

The Washington Post called her Facebook Live speech a “10-minute riff,” noting she repeatedly called Ukraine defending itself from the harmful and dangerous Russian attacks and slaughter “a war they cannot win.”

“False claims, debunked nonsense, echoes of Russian propaganda,” is how the Post describes her remarks from Wednesday, in its piece titled “A layer cake of misinformation, dishonesty and pro-Russia apologism.”

Watch Greene on the House floor today:

---

ref

https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2022/03/new-report-destroys-gop-talking-points-blaming-dems-for-crime-trump-states-have-8-out-of-the-10-highest-murder-rates/

===

New Report Destroys GOP Talking Points Blaming Dems for Crime: Trump States Have 8 Out of the 10 Highest Murder RatesPublished on March 16, 2022 at 09:19 AM ETBy David Badash

Consider these explosive headlines from Fox News over the past several months: “Democrat-run cities overwhelmed by crime surge,” “Murder and crime rates spike in Democrat-run cities – is it a control play?” or, “Democrat-run cities experience record breaking homicide rates.”

Ten days before Christmas last year House Republican Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy falsely blamed Speaker Nancy Pelosi for a “crime wave” that’s “spreading across the country.”

“Speaker Pelosi should look in the mirror to see what caused the ‘attitude of lawlessness’ spreading across the country,” he wrote. “Democrat politicians defunded police, raised money for rioters, and pushed policies that are soft on crime. They own this crime wave.”

And here’s McCarthy just days ago, again lying, claiming crime is “created by Democrats.”

A new report from Third Way destroys all these GOP talking points – and points out that “murder rates are far higher in Trump-voting red states than Biden-voting blue states. And sometimes, murder rates are highest in cities with Republican mayors.”

About that claim Leader McCarthy made? He should look in the mirror – and at his own district before pointing fingers.

The report notes that “the homicide rate in Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco was half that of House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy’s Bakersfield, a city with a Republican mayor that overwhelmingly voted for Trump.”

In fact, in all of 2020, “per capita murder rates were 40% higher in states won by Donald Trump than those won by Joe Biden.”

It gets worse for the GOP.

“8 of the 10 states with the highest murder rates in 2020 voted for the Republican presidential nominee in every election this century,” the report reveals.

The actual facts blow away what an average Fox News watching die-hard Republican voter would think.

“We found that murder rates are, on average, 40% higher in the 25 states Donald Trump won in the last presidential election compared to those that voted for Joe Biden. In addition, murder rates in many of these red states dwarf those in blue states like New York, California, and Massachusetts.”

“Mississippi had the highest homicide rate at 20.50 murders per 100,000 residents,” Third Way reports, “followed by Louisiana at 15.79, Kentucky at 14.32, Alabama at 14.2, and Missouri at 14. The national average was 6.5 per 100,000 residents, but the top five states had rates more than twice that high.”

These red states are not generating “murder is out of control” national headlines. They seem to generate no headlines at all. The rest of the top ten were filled out by South Carolina, New Mexico, Georgia, Arkansas, and Tennessee—all states rarely talked about in breathless media reports about rampant crime in Democratic strongholds.

The report does not even mention guns, which are a massive part of the problem, exacerbated by red state gun free-for-all policies.

And for those Fox News watching die-hard Republican voters who may say Third Way is a left-wing think tank, it’s actually been criticized by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders. And former bank regulator William K. Black has accused Third Way of being a “group that pretends sometimes to be center-left but is actually completely a creation of Wall Street.”

Read the full report here. https://www.thirdway.org/report/the-red-state-murder-problem

===

theconv 920

Trump’s :{law-and:(style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;outline:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-attachment:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;white-space:nowrap"):}:-order campaign relies on a historic American tradition of racist and :{anti-immigrant}: politics

Austin Sarat, Amherst College

President Trump's law-and-order campaign rhetoric has been compared to Richard Nixon's and George Wallace's similar themes in 1968. But such appeals go much further back, to the US in the early 1800s

c de v

https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/expert-on-the-radical-right-warns-that-vigilantes-are-preparing-to-launch-a-coup

in the Age of Trump, Portland, Oregon, is no longer just another city. Now it is a symbol and almost a Rorschach test for the country’s deep and explosive political divides.

For Trumpists, Republicans and members of the far right, Portland is all that is wrong with “the Left” and “Liberals,” a chaotic nightmare zone where Black Lives Matter, antifa and other“enemies”are running amok while they attack “patriotism” and “real American values.”

To TrumpWorld, Portland and other Democratic-led big cities (which of course is virtually all of them) are hives of scum and villainy, overrun by criminals and “rioters,” which must be conquered by Trump’s enforcers and armed vigilante supporters.

Trump’s “law and order” politics, and its inherent racism and violence, are believed by many to be his path back to the White House. In this view, Portland and other “Democrat cities” and communities are targets of opportunity for the Trump regime.

writing at Washington Monthly, David Atkins explains Trump’s mindset:

He sees the violence as politically beneficial, a useful cudgel against Democratic nominee Joe Biden — even though the violence is happening while Trump himself is president, not Biden.

Trump’s election theme is that Americans won’t be safe in a Biden presidency. The opposite is true. Americans won’t be safe as long as a white supremacist president is leading a movement of bigots to incite a civil war, and attempting to ensure that the majority of Americans with cosmopolitan, egalitarian values remain politically disenfranchised and under the thumb of those who fear and despise them.

Trump’s campaign of racial authoritarianism and stochastic terrorism, as well as overt threats of “law and order,” resulted in a group of his supporters driving into Portland last weekend, armed with mace and paintball guns, to seek out confrontations with Black Lives Matter and anti-fascist protesters. During one such encounter, a member of the right-wing militia group Patriot Prayer, Aaron Danielson,was shot and killed. On Thursday night, the apparent shooter,Michael Reinoehl, was himself shot and killed by U.S. marshals in Olympia, Washington.

Despite this lamentable violence — for which Trump and the right must bear ultimate responsibility — for progressives and other people of conscience Portland is a symbol of resistance and hope. As part of the nationwide people’s uprising sparked by the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, protesters have been outside the Portland federal courthouse for more than 100 days.

The protests were largely peaceful until Trump and acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf deployed federal police forces to the city in July. Their presence, as designed, escalated the tension and led to increasing levels of property damage and incidents of violence.

Previewing Trump’s plan for other parts of the nation, these federal shock troops made journalists and reporters a special focus of their violence. They also kidnapped protesters and other “enemies” of Donald Trump’s regime off the street as though they were operating in a banana republic.

Much of the mainstream American news media’s coverage of the recent events in Portland lacks meaningful context. Writing at Medium, a Portland press collective describes one such example of this “parachute journalism”:

One night last week, during one of the smaller demonstrations, a tall white man in a clean ballistic helmet and brand-new plate carrier emblazoned with “PRESS” strolled through the crowd in front of the Hatfield Federal Courthouse in Portland, Oregon. He stopped by a gaggle of other journalists, most out-of-towners. “I’ve only been around for the last week,” he said, “but the protests in Portland feel a lot more performative than the ones I’ve seen in other cities. Less genuine.” A local journalist mentioned having been present for over 50 nights of the protests, starting in early June. “Yeah, I can only speak for what I’ve seen this week,” said Clean Helmet. “I’m flying back to DC tomorrow.” … Clean Helmet was on the ground in Portland, by his own description, for less than a week. This means that he was present for approximately 1/10th of Portland’s BLM protests, thus far. I’m sure he got some great footage.

The Parachutes (as we have come to know them) come with money, and zero community connections. Their goal is the clip that can make the nightly news. They want a story that will dominate the news cycle. They do not know what is happening in Portland, and they do not care. They are coming to a city with a vibrant, scrappy community of street-level journalists. By and large, they do not want the context that those journalists can provide. And soon they will come to a city near you. When the Feds and the Parachutes come to your town, you’ll want everyone to understand the context there, too. And they are coming. Clean Helmet is already back in DC, and on to the next assignment.

The important context which “the Parachutes” usually omit includes the way Portland is depicted as a liberal oasis in America’s popular imagination. In reality, Portland is a very race and class-segregated city. As historian and activist Walidah Imarisha and others have richly documented, the Oregon territory passed laws in 1844 explicitly excluding Black people from the region under punishment of whippings and other violence. The state of Oregon formally included white supremacy in its constitution, explicitly banning nonwhites.

To this day, Oregon remains a redoubt of white supremacy, where white supremacists and other right-wing extremists have a large presence in the state and surrounding region. Portland itself has a long and ongoing history of right-wing violence.

Alexander Reid Ross is a doctoral fellow at the Center for Analysis of the Radical Right. His most recent book is “Against the Fascist Creep.” Ross has also completed new research which documents more than 500 incidents in which white vigilantes and other right-wing extremists have confronted Black Lives Matter protests. This includes hundreds of acts of intimidation and other threats as well as dozens of examples in which right-wing extremists have assaulted or attacked Black Lives Matter protesters.

In this conversation Ross shares his firsthand experiences with the recent George Floyd protests in Portland. He also provides some context for those events and the police and federal response. Ross also details the long history of right-wing paramilitaries and political street gangs in Portland and their relationship with local police and other law enforcement.

Reid warns that Portland, the right-wing vigilante killings in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and the hundreds of other attacks by right-wing extremists on Black Lives Matter protesters is just a preview of the massive violence that Donald Trump and his movement may unleash before and after Election Day — perhaps including the arrest or imprisonment of prominent Democrats, journalists, and others deemed to be enemies of the state.

Q: After almost four years of Trump and his regime’s authoritarian, neofascist behavior, some voices in the mainstream American news media now use that correct and appropriate language to describe the reality of the situation. Why was there so much fear and denial about the obvious? Even when they use the correct terminology, the coverage is largely superficial and avoids serious discussion of the dire implications.

You must also take into account that many so-called left-leaning voices have also been interfering with bringing that truth to light. There were writers at the Guardian, for example, who were trying to sound the alarm about the dangers of right-wing extremism and fascism in America, but they were derided by their peers across the political spectrum.

I also believe that publications such as the Washington Post and the New York Times saw themselves as being aloof from questions of the mob and political violence in America. There is a tendency among elite voices to want to say that, “We’re above political violence here in America and we resolve our differences through conversation. Therefore, let’s give everyone a hearing and let’s debate these issues, regardless of how extreme they may be. That is what a democratic country should act like.”

In a sense, they put their faith completely in some abstract idea of “democracy” instead of taking the temperature of what is really happening on the ground.

You live in Portland. How is your experience different from the narrative being offered by the mainstream American news media and other outside observers?

We in Portland have been dealing with right-wing extremists and police abuse for a long time. Portland has experience with the likes of right-wing extremist groups such as Patriot Prayer and the Proud Boys. This is not new to us.

I would go out to protests and see how the political violence is not a result of the breakdown in the monopoly of violence held by the police. The political violence was a result of the Proud Boys and the police effectively acting as two different elements of the same side. It wasn’t that the police had lost the monopoly of violence. It was the police were shooting us in order to allow the Proud Boys to march through the city without proper permits.

Most mainstream news media coverage of the protests which have taken place here in Portland, recently and before, totally fail to acknowledge or even fathom the police involvement in the rise of the far right in this community. That failure has cascaded to the point that we are now at a point where the press is painting the current crisis as some type of grudge match between the feds and the anarchists. In fact, the protest movement is a very diverse group of people — especially by Portland standards — who are coming out night after night and making extraordinarily clear demands and being absolutely brutalized in the streets every night.

What too many reporters in many cases are trying to do is figure out how to resolve the situation, rather than understanding it and properly explaining to the public what is really happening and the context for it. By doing so, too many reporters are creating false equivalencies regarding the various forces at play here in Portland.

What does Portland exemplify, in terms of the protests and the Trump’s regime’s reaction?

It is an example of Donald Trump attempting to rise to the level of a right-wing political strongman. Donald Trump is using classic authoritarian tactics that one does not often see in a healthy democracy. Donald Trump is deliberately undermining the Constitution by using federal law to circumvent local governments’ control over their police forces.

Trump and William Barr’s de facto secret police are literally disappearing people off the streets of Portland and in other parts of the country where the Democratic Party is in power. How do you explain what is happening to people who do not live in those communities? Who are not being targeted by Trump and his henchmen?

The specific federal forces involved are BORTAC — the Border Patrol Tactical Unit — and the U.S. Marshals Special Operations Group and others, under the coordination of the Department of Homeland Security. BORTAC have been in Portland shooting at people and launching tear gas. BORTAC is not trained for crowd or riot control. They are trained to engage in raids against migrants and to separate children from their mothers. That is what BORTAC does. They pride themselves on being the most militarized branch and group of the U.S. law enforcement community. BORTAC members are extreme Trump supporters. What is happening in Portland and other parts of the country is the border closing in on the citizens of the United States.

BORTAC is loyal to Donald Trump and that’s why he is using them.He’s not using them because they’re the most skilled and adept at riot and crowd control management. That also explains why there are so many incidents of people being shot in the face and otherwise abused here in Portland and other places where BORTAC and other such forces are being deployed by the Trump administration.They don’t know what they’re doing at all.

BORTAC is being used because Trump feels that they are his most loyal forces. That is fully in keeping with the tactics of authoritarian leaders who cultivate secret police whose main function is to serve as the government leader’s private force, one that operates outside of any restraints such as internal review.

The [former] Chilean dictatorship is explicitly supported by Trump’s own supporters, who wear T-shirts that say, “Right-wing death squad” and “Pinochet did nothing wrong.”The American mainstream news media is far too charitable with its narrative that “Trump is playing to his base.”

During the recent protests in Portland, were there moments where you feared that the federal forces were going to start shooting the crowd with lethal rounds?

The fear is very real and it’s constant. The federal forces have assault rifles. They are loaded with live rounds. There are protesters who were throwing fireworks and things of that sort at the courthouse. What if one of the feds has an itchy trigger finger? What if a firework explodes and they then open fire on an entire group of unarmed people?

Trump and their defenders and other apologists will just say, “Well, these poor agents have been overworked for 60 days and look at all the things that have been thrown at them” and so on and so forth. We know what the narrative will be. All a person can do when protesting is to act accordingly and stay focused.

You have been documenting what are now almost 500 attacks, acts of intimidation, vehicular assaults, shootings and other threats by Trump supporters and other members of the right against Black Lives Matter protests. What do we know?

I have never seen this amount of anti-left vigilantism from the right. During the first year of Barack Obama’s administration, the Tea Party was huge, and they mobilized with events all over the country. There were also armed protests in opposition to Obamacare. But those right-wing protesters were not coming out to confront and intimidate a much smaller group of anti-racists. Of course, those anti-Obama Tea Party and anti-health-care type protesters were extremely racist and a breath away from being fascists, but there was not that same energy and menace that we are seeing today.

The idea of these right-wing protesters and militia types being “anti-government” — again, a narrative circulated by the mainstream American news media — is very uncritical, a total misnomer. They are really pro-government. They are entirely in favor of the United States government as controlled by Donald Trump. Their claim to be “libertarians” is a joke.

Those right-wing militias and others sympathetic to them are arming in opposition to Democrats, liberals and progressives.

Right-wing extremists and other terrorists, including white supremacists and neo-Nazis, are also coordinating at times with the police.

They actually say that they are at the protests to “protect the police.” Think about that claim: They are “anti-government” vigilantes who promise that they are trying to protect the police. In essence, these right-wing militias and the like are American citizens who believe it is their role not to become police, but to guard the police. Such a claim is ludicrous. It is a paramilitary force. These right-wing forces are coordinating and positioning themselves to be able to launch a coup against American democracy and the Democratic Party, if the latter gains control of the presidency and government.

The closest parallel with what we are seeing with Trump’s movement would be the “massive resistance” by white people against racial integration in the South during the civil rights movement. I am of the opinion that the United States has not seen such a mobilization of violent, far-right forces to this extent since the 1960s.

Recently, a Trumpist and right-wing militia supporter traveled to Kenosha, Wisconsin and involved himself in the protests there. He apparently shot three people, killing two of them. He crossed state lines illegally with a weapon he was not allowed to own. He was only a teenager, and was radicalized online into right-wing extremism. He is now being valorized by the right-wing media machine. Trump has defended this young man as a hero who was fighting against “criminals” and “looters.” This apparent killer now has hundreds of thousands of dollars pledged to his defense.

Trump has defended Kyle Rittenhouse with the claim he was firing in “self-defense.” In essence, Donald Trump supports the right-wing vigilante movement, which represents the disintegration of the rule of law.

We are witnessing an erosion of democratic norms in this country by Republicans. They accept breaking the law as being viable if it supports “traditional values” — meaning racism. As a practical matter, Donald Trump is spearheading the movement of the Republican Party into a full-on violent racist organization that encourages vigilantism.

In terms of engaging in the worst type of “both-sides-ism” and false equivalencies that helped Trump win and now keep power, the American mainstream news media is now advancing a “mutual combat” narrative in its coverage of Trump’s supporters and the violence in Portland last weekend. How does that narrative contradict what really happened in Portland?

The “mutual combat” framing is inane, legally a non-starter, and obviously supportive of the aggressive party, which is typically the Trump supporters. Their strategy is to provoke fights and then call for “law and order” intervention from a corrupt president.

Patriot Prayer leader Joey Gibsonhas not been leading protests in Portland for a long time. He is a marginal figure, but the American news media has suddenly selected him and lifted him up for no apparent reason other than that he participated in an aggressive and bellicose Trump “caravan” last week during which right-wing vigilantes tried to run people over with their trucks, shot protesters and bystanders with paintball guns, and used pepper spray to attack people.

Should Black Lives Matter, antifascist and other human rights and social justice supporters stop protesting in order to deny Trump’s supporters and other right-wing hooligans a narrative that could hurt Joe Biden nd the the Democrats? In essence, should they make a tactical withdrawal to deny Trump a strategic victory, because of how events will likely be distorted by the media to his advantage?

I will not say what protesters should or shouldn’t do. I do not think what they choose to do or not do will matter much. What is significant is that the far right will deepen its insurgency against the left the more that Donald Trump falters and as he continues demanding “law and order.”

The left would be remiss to engage them on this level. The left is not in the streets to spark a civil war or escalate violent encounters to the point of breaking civil society into protracted sectarian warfare. The left is in the streets to make life better for ordinary people, and to present a version of the future that would be better and more prosperous for everyone. The more the left maintains its sanity against overwhelming odds, the more the right’s paranoia and hysteria will marginalize it in American society. This will create new spaces for progressive causes and movements.

What do you want to warn the American people about? What do you think happens next?

I am worried about crackdowns by Donald Trump and his forces against their direct enemies. This would involve dragging Democrats in front of kangaroo courts and starting to criminalize dissent such that the average American who has a bumper sticker or other affiliation with the Democratic Party or liberal or progressive causes becomes a target for Trump’s zealots. I worry that Trump will find some way to round up the leaders of the Democratic Party and put them in jail or execute them.

That is the future that right-wing conspiracists such as the QAnon people want. They are the crowd that Donald Trump is signaling to. I do not believe that there is much stopping Donald Trump from following through on his extreme impulses. At this point Donald Trump is desperate. If Trump wins again it will just be more fuel on the fire for his followers. The right wing will follow through on his cues and start attacking regular people, not just protesters, who they believe are Democrats.

===

920

...When I published my book two years ago, people accused me of hysteria, of exaggeration, and they listed reasons why we shouldn’t be afraid of fascism in America, despite its deep roots in this country. And the reasons they’ve given, I’m afraid, have fallen to the wayside. They’ve given reasons like, you know, the institutions remain independent, the Justice Department remains independent. They’ve given reasons like there are no right-wing militias tacitly endorsed by the administration. So, Arendt calls our attention to the fact that the Nazi government refused to condemn the violence of right-wing — right-wing, far-right violent people on the streets attacking Jews. They refused to condemn them. They didn’t endorse them; they just refused to condemn them. And Arendt said that was giving them permission.

So, you know, we’ve seen four years of chaos here, and yet we’re being told that this is law and order. So, we’re seeing militias on the street endorsed by the president. We’re seeing the administration echo a conspiracy theory that looks, really, a great deal like The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which is the early 20th century conspiracy that Judeo-Bolsheviks were behind liberalism and controlled the media, controlled the cultural institutions, where bankers were in cahoots with media and the art world to bring about world communism. We saw that at the RNC. Senator Tim Scott talked about Manhattan elites and Hollywood moguls supposedly trying to bring socialism to the United States. This mixture of a wealthy elite and communists is reminiscent of some of the worst conspiracy theories of the 20th century. So I’m very concerned here.

We’re seeing — people said, “It’s not fascism, because they’re not attacking democracy.” Well, what are the attacks on the elections about, if not attacks on democracy? So, while I don’t think Trump himself has a vision, has some kind of grand vision, as the fascists of yore has, as Timothy Snyder has called it, this is “not-even fascism.” I think we’re seeing a structure emerge, with figures like Stephen Miller, with all the sort of white supremacist ideologues in this administration, that could bring about, definitely, a turn to authoritarianism. It’s definitely an attack on democracy that the RNC represented.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to go to — back to the Republican convention, to President Trump formally accepting the nomination before a crowd of about 1,500 people crowded onto the South Lawn of the White House. During his acceptance speech, Trump made no reference to the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin, or the killing of the two protesters that had just happened in Kenosha by a 17-year-old white Trump-supporting vigilante.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: When there is police misconduct, the justice system must hold wrongdoers fully and completely accountable. And it will. But when we can never have a situation where things are going on, as they are today, we must never allow mob rule. We can never allow mob rule. In the strongest possible terms, the Republican Party condemns the rioting, looting, arson and violence we have seen in Democrat-run cities all, like Kenosha, Minneapolis, Portland, Chicago and New York and many others. Democrat-run. There is violence and danger in the streets of many Democrat-run cities throughout America.

AMY GOODMAN: So, Professor Stanley, as you have a white officer shooting at point-blank range seven times in the back Jacob Blake just days before, and then two Black Lives Matter activists shot dead in the streets of Kenosha by a Trump-supporting gunman, no mention of them, but talking about mob rule in the streets somewhere of cities that are run by Democrats.

JASON STANLEY: OK. So, there’s two chapters in my book — my book is a 10-part characterization of fascist tactics. There’s two parts in my — two chapters in my book that are deeply relevant for what is happening now: obviously, chapter seven, “Law and Order,” and chapter nine, “Sodom and Gomorrah.”

What is meant by “Sodom and Gomorrah”? Chapter two of Hitler’s book Mein Kampf is called “My Study and Struggles in Vienna,” and he talks about his time in Vienna, a city, the capital of Austria, filled with foreigners, dirty, diseased, all sorts of different languages, filled with immigrants, and then the hated minority group, which for him were Jews. So, what we see is a repetition of this tactic: an attack on cities. Hypocritical, of course — Trump is from Queens. But what Trump is doing is trying to represent cities as filled with foreigners, minorities and disease. Earlier, he described New York City as filled with — as disease-ridden. And I think yesterday or, I think, in the last 24 hours, he said he blamed the COVID deaths on New York City. So, the idea is an attack on — you know,cities are dens of iniquity and foreignness. Real Americans live in rural areas outside the cities. And the cities are where you have mobs out of control, immigrants. There’s sanctuary cities. This is a classic tactic of this kind of far-right fascist politics.

And then law and order. What’s meant by “law and order” here? Not when — you know, Kyle Rittenhouse is not a violation of law and order. Kyle Rittenhouse, who murdered two people, who killed two people, is — he’s a radicalized 17-year-old. He’s not a violation of law and order, because white Trump supporters are law-abiding by their nature. The Trump rally we saw in Portland, shooting paintballs, aggressive against the counterprotesters, that was law-abiding. They were peaceful protesters, because on this notion of law and order, young Black men are, in and of themselves, violators of law and order. Leftist protesters against Trump can be doing nothing but rioting and looting.

Now, any protest — almost any protest is going to have elements with bad apples that become violent. Look at the Hong Kong protests. The Hong Kong became much more violent than anything we’ve seen here. Nevertheless, the Republicans did not denounce the Hong Kong protests as riots. Do you know who denounced the Hong Kong protests as riots? The Chinese government. What we’re seeing here is our government behave like the Chinese government, representing largely peaceful protests, with some bad elements that grow violent and should be condemned, as riots. And that’s a counterinsurgency, authoritarian tactic.

“Law and order” here does not mean law and order. Does this feel like law and order? Do the last four years feel like law and order? That very speech that we witnessed at the RNC was a violation of law and order, because it was given from White House grounds in violation of the Hatch Act, so, you know — and proudly so, because this administration revels in its violation of law and order, because, in fascism, “law and order” means whatever the leader says, and “law-abiding” means whoever the leader is, and “lawless” means the men of the minority group and leftists and radicals, supposed leftist radicals.

AMY GOODMAN: President Trump has said New Jersey’s first African American U.S. senator, Cory Booker, will help Joe Biden destroy peaceful suburbs by bringing low-income housing and crime. This is Trump speaking to Fox News Monday night.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: You have this beautiful community in the suburbs, including women, right? Women. They want security. I ended where they build low-income housing project right in the middle of your neighborhood. I ended it. If Biden gets in, he already said it’s going to go at a much higher rate than ever before. And you know who’s going to be in charge of it? Cory Booker. That’s going to be nice. OK?

AMY GOODMAN: Cory Booker, the president says. Professor Stanley?

JASON STANLEY: So, there’s no evidence at all that Cory Booker, a senator, an African American senator from New Jersey, is going to be running any such program. He throws his name in.

He mentions women. Why does he mention women? Well, this harkens back to what Langston Hughes called “our native fascisms.” This harkens back to the worst moments in American history, the history of lynching. Ida B. Wells, in Southern Horrors, the great Ida B. Wells, the great anti-lynching activist and intellectual and journalist, said, “Look, racism and sexism go together.” They’re treating white women as victims who need to be protected from marauding Black men by a strong leader, by — you know, by white militias, the KKK.

Trump is directly harkening back to that horrific time in American history, which is this sort of lynching in the late 19th, early 20th century to mid-20th century. This is something that Du Bois, in Black Reconstruction, calls fascism, so American fascism. This is the aspect of America that influences Hitler, that influences the Jim Crow laws, the racial subordination.

Here, so I have a chapter in my book called “Sexual Anxiety.” You know, in Germany, the idea behind both Nazi Germany — Nazi German ideology and the Ku Klux Klan, often called the first fascist organization, was that Jews, Marxist Jews, were trying to promote a race war to get Black Americans to — to get Blacks and immigrants to overthrow the white Christianity. And the idea, you know, Hitler fomented this, as I document in my book. It’s also the case that you had this propaganda, that overlaps between here and QAnon, that we need to protect our women and children from these predators, pedophile rings.

But this echoes the classic American, supposed and completely fictional Black male rapist fiction, fictional narrative, that underlay lynching. And the random evocation of Cory Booker is a case in point. Ida B. Wells is, sadly, more relevant than ever.

AMY GOODMAN: During the Republican convention, speakers used apocalyptic language to describe the dangers of a Biden presidency. This is Charlie Kirk, the founder of the right-wing student group Turning Point.

CHARLIE KIRK: We may not have realized it at the time, but Trump is the bodyguard of Western civilization. Trump was elected to protect our families from the vengeful mob that seeks to destroy our way of life, our neighborhoods, schools, churches and values. President Trump was elected to defend the American way of life.

AMY GOODMAN: Charlie Kirk, the founder of the right-wing student group Turning Point. Professor Stanley, respond to this and also people raising their eyebrows and saying, “Oh, come on, Nazi Germany, you’re comparing this to?”

JASON STANLEY: That speech is highly evocative of a speech that Goebbels, Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi propaganda minister, gave in 1935 called “Communism with Its Mask Off.” In Goebbels’ speeches, including that speech, which I encourage people to look up, he regularly represents the threat as being a threat to Western civilization. He says the Nazi Party is going to protect social conservatives, Christians from the Armageddon of communism, which seeks to destroy civilization as such. Goebbels says the communists are in cahoots with the international underworld. So, that’s that link between communism and crime and supposed lawless crime.

So you have the same idea here. There’s Trump, on the one hand, protecting Christianity, protecting Western civilization, and anyone opposed to Trump is a lawless mob in cahoots with communists seeking to destroy civilization itself. And this is the friend-enemy distinction that is so antithetical to democracy.

===

https://www.alternet.org/2020/08/experts-explain-the-**4-main-psychological-factors-that-drive-trumps-rabid-fan-base/**

no lnx

a looming question in today’s political climate is: Why do Donald Trump’s devotees continue to support him despite the carnage of his well-documented failures? Although we are in the middle of a deadly pandemic that is surging and not contained, Trump seems to maintain a base support of 35% to 40%. What are the psychological factors that influence or underpin his supporters’ attraction to him? And might this provide some perspective on how to change these supporters’ minds?

Multiple psychological factors seem to influence and explain his supporters. We have divided these factors into four major categories: Rebelliousness and Chaos; Shared Irrationality; Fear; and Safety and Order.

Rebelliousness and Chaos [DISRUPTOR? BROWNSHIRTS HOODLUMS?]

Some Trump supporters have a strong desire for rebelliousness and chaos, and view Trump as the perfect vehicle for achieving their personal goals. These supporters tend to become “anti-establishment and anti-government,” even when it is against their best interest. Many are unhappy with their station in life and believe chaos in the political system will bring them important gains. They seek immediate and sweeping changes and believe a rebellious attitude and rebellious behavior are what is necessary. They would rather have chaos, even dangerously or regressively so, than the status quo.

These supporters believe in Trump’s professed anger and rebelliousness, while often ignoring the content of the issues at hand. Trump’s talk of“draining the swamp” [SHORTHAND FOR DESTROY DC POWER PPL? NEWT CALLED DISEASE?] and of eschewing “political correctness” is attractive to them. They react emotionally and irrationally in embracing Trump’s decisions to create chaos, such as by sending federal troops into American cities to provoke hostile conflict with protestors. They enjoy and thrive upon Trump disavowing norms, rules, and laws. Rebelliousness and chaos can be a major psychological influence, but it can have serious negative consequences such as undermining the chance for real change.

Shared Irrationality

The Dunning-Kruger effect. Some people are under-informed and misinformed and are completely unaware of their lack of information. They tend to overestimate their level of knowledge and hold onto that position. They develop “illusory superiority” from their inability to recognize their true lack of knowledge. In other words, some people think they know more than they do and hold firmly to their opinions. These people are resistant to change their political thinking because they believe they are the knowledgeable ones. Trump and some of his supporters have this psychological phenomenon in common; they are unable to remedy their own limitations of knowledge and their inaccurate thinking.[QANON?]

Magical thinking.This is the belief that one’s thoughts, feelings, ideas, or words can bring about effects in the world. Or, similarly, that one’s thoughts, feelings, ideas, or words can cause something to happen. Magical thinking presumes a causal link between one’s internal, personal experience and the external physical world. This often emerges from an inability to distinguish fully between emotions and logical thoughts. Relying totally on emotion or “gut reactions” results in magical thinking. Trump engages in magical thinking almost constantly. This is especially dangerous regarding the pandemic: “It will disappear very quickly,” “We have it under control,” “We may have some embers or some ashes…” Many supporters engage in magical thinking and are encouraged and validated by Trump, leading them to align strongly with him.

Obsession with celebrity. Some people are obsessed with celebrities and reality television. Trump entertains them and amuses them. Some supporters are always waiting to see what outrageous thing he says or does next. These supporters are happy as long as they are being entertained by him. They act as if life is a “game” or a “show” that is somehow disconnected from the difficult realities of everyday life, but it is not.

Shared omnipotence. This is a fantasy based in childhood experiences during our earliest years–due to our complete dependency upon parenting persons–that if one can find the “right” leader, then everyone can live harmoniously together forever. While this dynamic is often seen in romantic relationships, especially during the early infatuation period, this exact same dynamic can be seen in political relationships as well. In this case, some people believe that Trump is the “right” leader who can take them to a place of harmony and never-ending happiness and success. This is an infantile fantasy that is unrealistic and unachievable because it is not rooted in the real world of adult life. Even so, a childhood fantasy can be intense and not easily given up.

Fear

Brain reactivity to threats. Research shows that some people have an exaggerated fear response to threats. When presented with specific perceived threats–immigrants, democrats, protestors, socialism–conservatives’ brains light up in activity and experience a need to seek safety. Trump actively encourages his supporters to experience exaggerated fear responses, such that their brains remain energized.

Fear mongering. Terror management theory explains why fear mongering works. When people are reminded of their mortality, which happens with fear mongering, they reflexively defend those who share their world view and their natural and ethnic identity. Tribal identification is an outgrowth of fear mongering. Racism and bigotry are related to fear. Trump appeals to racist and bigoted supporters when he calls Muslims “dangerous” and Mexican immigrants “rapists and murderers.” This fear mongering by Trump is aimed at supporters who are vulnerable to racist and bigoted thinking because it fits with their world view. Another major fear among Trump supporters is falling behind financially and losing the economic capacity to control their lives and protect themselves. A third major fear among Trump supporters is of socialism and believing that capitalism is being threatened and even destroyed. Trump is very adept at focusing on these specific fears among his supporters, using key words and names to trigger and stoke their emotional concerns NEWT]. Trump supporters believe that he is capable of protecting them from their fears. And when they feel protected, they overlook his offensive and outlandish behavior.

Conspiracy theories. Certain people are attracted to conspiracy theories because of their vulnerable personalities and even by mental illness. Life is complex and perplexing and at times dangerous. It is not simple or safe. Research shows that feelings of anxiety make people think more conspiratorially. A conspiracy theory can provide comfort by identifying a convenient scapegoat and thereby making the world seem much more straightforward and controllable. Fantasies that remove fear and doubt can be especially attractive, even if they are unrealistic and irrational. People who believe in conspiracy theories are more likely to overestimate the likelihood of co-occurring events, to attribute intentionality where it is unlikely to exist, and to have lower levels of critical thinking. Trump has voiced many conspiracy theories: Spygate, Obamagate, Deep state, Trump Tower wiretapping, and others.

Security and Order

Social dominance orientation. People who score high on social dominance orientation prefer an established societal hierarchy. They are attracted to Trump because he promotes and normalizes the belief that high-status people and groups should be dominant over low-status people and groups. Trump’s clear distinction between groups on top of society (Whites) and those “losers” on the bottom (immigrants, Blacks, and Latinos) is a classic social dominance view. Individuals who are high on social dominance orientation are typically domineering, tough-minded, disagreeable, and relatively uncaring seekers of power. As such, these individuals have an attraction to authoritarianism.

Authoritarianism. Several traits characterize authoritarianism: deference to authority,aggression toward outgroups, a hierarchical view of the world, and the belief that the world is dangerous and threatening. Some people believe in having an authoritarian leader because they feel protected and safe by a strong, powerful presence. Trump’s authoritarian leanings are highly attractive to these supporters.Interestingly, research studies have shown the joint power of authoritarianism and social dominance orientation to predict far-right-wing voting in the United States and Europe.

How To Change Supporters’ Minds

===

https://www.alternet.org/2020/07/bill-barr-has-done-this-before/

no lnx

Barr has done this before

Written by ProPublica July 31, 2020

As violent crime continued to climb in Chicago and other cities across the country, Attorney General William P. Barr announced that the U.S. Department of Justice was mobilizing to help: Dozens of federal agents would be sent to work with local police to combat gangs and illegal guns.

“Our message to gangs, gang leaders and gang members is this: When we throw the federal book at you, it will be a knockout blow,” Barr said.

That was in 1992, during Barr’s first stint leading the Justice Department, under former President George H.W. Bush.

If it sounds too recent or familiar to have happened nearly three decades ago, that’s because Barr, now attorney general under President Donald Trump, made a strikingly similar announcement on July 22.

Some of the details were different, of course. In 1992, Barr said the FBI was shifting about 300 agents from monitoring spies from the recently collapsed Soviet Union to taking on gangs and violent crime in American cities. Eighteen of the agents would be redeployed to Chicago.

This month, Barr stood next to Trump as he announced a Chicago “surge” of more than 100 agents from the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and other agencies, along with staffing increases in other cities where gun casualties were making headlines.

Residents of Chicago could be forgiven for concluding that they’ve heard this before, since, of course, they essentially have. Barr even acknowledged that federal law enforcement agencies have carried out such operations “for decades.” Every presidential administration in the last 30 years has announced it was sending more federal agents to Chicago to try to stem violent crime.

But this time the circumstances are different — the politics are shifting. After 3 ½ years of Trump’s inflammatory comments and tweets, some thinly coded and others overtly racist, his administration’s announcement is widely seen in Chicago as a political move to use the troubles of a majority-nonwhite city to fire up his supporters.

And it’s happening as a growing number of people are demanding that their governments send something into their communities other than more guys with guns.

Chicago has a long, ugly history of violence. As in other cities, violent crime surged in Chicago in the 1960s and ’70s, dropped and leveled off, then spiked again during the 1990s. But since then, as murder and shooting totals plummeted in New York, Los Angeles and elsewhere, Chicago’s numbers didn’t fall as far or as fast, and they’ve climbed again during several devastating stretches in the last 10 years.

The reasons have long been debated and are probably more complex than most would acknowledge. But politicians, law enforcement leaders and many residents have repeatedly blamed Chicago’s gang culture and open-air drug markets, then called for policing strategies to attack them.

The fact that most of the hardest-hit neighborhoods have also been shelled out by segregation, business closures and job losses — including thousands of layoffs from government agencies and shuttered schools — is well known. Yet the need for immediate responses to the bloodshed, rather than those that tackle the deeper problems, always seems to consume political and financial capital in Chicago.

In 1992, the city banned loitering by people deemed to be gang members until the measure was ruled unconstitutional. Former Mayor Richard M. Daley led an effort to sue gun manufacturers for creating a public nuisance in Chicago and other cities; the case was tossed out of court. Speed bumps and cul-de-sacs were built on dozens of side streets to thwart drive-by shootings, though as police and paramedics discovered, such obstacles also made it harder for them to respond to emergencies.

Far more common have been announcements that more police will be deployed in high-crime areas, often under the banner of a new task force, program or initiative. That’s where the feds often come in — literally.

Soon after Trump took office in 2017, he called Chicago a“war zone”and blamed local leaders for being “politically correct.” He also threatened, via Twitter, “I will send in the Feds!”

Rahm Emanuel, then Chicago’s mayor and a frequent Trump sparring partner, rejected the idea of troops in the city. “I’m against it, straight up,” he told reporters. But Emanuel added that he welcomed additional resources to fight gun crimes. Within two weeks, CNN reported that 20 more ATF agents were being sent to Chicago.

Since Lori Lightfoot was elected mayor last year, she has repeatedly blasted Trump for racism and disrespect for civil rights — even as she’s been attacked in Chicago for not yet delivering on promises to reform the Police Department and drive up investment in underserved neighborhoods.

On July 20, after another weekend of appalling violence in Chicago — dozens of people were reportedly wounded in shootings and at least 12 people killed — Trump suggested at a press conference that he was again ready to send in federal agents. Lightfoot responded with a letter that criticized his administration’s “incendiary rhetoric” as well as the tactics of Department of Homeland Security agents who had seized people off the street in Portland, Oregon.

Yet Lightfoot also said the city could use other kinds of federal help, including “more federal prosecution or investigatory resources” to pursue violent crime and gun cases. She added that the government could help Chicago invest in underserved neighborhoods. “The violence our city is confronting is symptomatic of a larger public health and economic crisis.”

Trump and Barr announced the latest “surge” of federal agents to Chicago that week,describing it as part of a national crime-reduction initiative called Operation Legend. The FBI, ATF, DEA, U.S. Marshals Service and Homeland Security would together send dozens of investigators and agents to the city, with the U.S. attorney in Chicago, John Lausch Jr., overseeing the operation.

Underneath the politics and symbolism, the announcement signaled that federal and local officials were returning to their old strategy: send in more cops.

Shifting federal agents to cities under fire is “commonly done, and as a matter of fact, when I was the special agent-in-charge there, I asked for it,” said Jack Riley, who formerly served as the top agent in the DEA’s Chicago office. “It’s been called 20 different things in the past. [Operation Legend] is just the newest version of it.”

This federal surge may involve more agents than previous efforts, and Riley believes it could help tamp down violence in Chicago if it is carefully coordinated and sustained. Operations on the street should be carried out by agents who know the city, with those from out of town used in support roles. And as agents are conducting investigations and making arrests, the U.S. attorney’s office needs enough staff to prosecute the increased caseload, said Riley, who went on to serve as the No. 2 official in the DEA, overseeing global operations, before retiring.

“Are there going to be additional prosecutors?” he said. “That’s been an issue before.”

The U.S. attorney’s office in Chicago received a staffing boost in 2018, but no additional prosecutors are included in the latest operation. A spokesman for the office declined to comment.

Plus, the agent surge is only likely to last until fall, when the city’s usual spike in violence typically recedes along with the warm weather. So, like previous efforts, the surge is temporary.

If those earlier short-term operations worked to reduce gun violence, it’s hard for city residents to see as shootings spike again.

Over the last three years, the U.S. attorney’s office here has prosecuted more than 500 defendants on weapons charges, records show. Some of the defendants are traffickers or leaders of other criminal enterprises. But many tend to be lower-level players caught with illegal guns that have traded hands multiple times. Law enforcement officials argue that prosecutions for illegal possession help deter others. Still, the approach hasn’t shut down the gun marketplace, as firearms continue to flow into the city from suburbs and neighboring states.

So far Operation Legend appears to be following the playbook of those earlier initiatives. The first three arrests made as part of the Chicago surge were all for illegal gun possession, according to court filings.

On July 23, the day after the latest federal deployments were announced, Black Lives Matter Chicago and 10 other organizations sued Barr and other administration officials. The groups, seeing no reason to trust the Trump administration, asked for a federal court order to protect their right to protest in the event of any Portland-style tactics. In addition, they made what amounted to a defund-the-federal-police argument, claiming federal resources would be better spent on investing in their communities than flooding them with more law enforcement officers.

“We should take their money and use it to help people facing eviction, use those resources for people who need access to food,” Amika Tendaji, an organizer with Black Lives Matter, said in an interview. “The police haven’t been able to do anything [about the violence]. We need to actually address the root causes.”

More and more leaders are signing on to this approach. Over the last week, advocacy groups, churches and more than 30 state and local elected officials added their names to a letter urging Lightfoot and Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart not to cooperate with the federal operation.

“Donald Trump has repeatedly demonstrated both his callous disregard for Black, indigenous, and immigrant lives, and his increasing inclination towards fascism and authoritarianism,” the letter said. “We grieve deeply the lives lost to gun violence in Chicago. … At the same time, we are clear that we cannot police ourselves out of this terrible situation.”

Chicago is now on a pace to record one of its highest annual murder totals in two decades. It’s hard to argue that the old strategies have worked.

===

omfg

https://twitter.com/LouDobbs/status/1283531243548741635

portland secret police

ms 13 barbarian jul 15 dobbs miller interview, finally declared terrorists

===

Stephen miller lou dobbs

https://video.foxbusiness.com/v/6171909446001/#sp=show-clips

Op Vulcan

sr pol advisor

good strong begin to see good strong pos results on that focus, continue? congrats

congrats on ms 13 op, one of the largest jul 15 largest soulless barbarians hacked to death 2 girls in NY, now facing death penalty, 1st time ever int'l terrorism, a contrast taking out criminal gangs and terrorists w/ rec speed force and focus record focus liberal mayor, crazy mayor lawless mayhem un radical left, unleash violence and mayhem,public safety that's the choice;

Dobbs: it is a stark choice no more emblematic than portland wheeler pristine city being savaged antifa, BLM and other activists and street criminals 6 straight weeks nowhere else cits do not want to ruffle feather and get that major out of town, nowhere else, at least take night off

i suspect strong and growing silent majority in this cty ready to clear house of leftist mayors

am: silent tortuous violence electoral wave crash over of defund police, abolish law enforcement, force sanctuary cities down the throats, appoint social just prosecutorswho won't even enforce the law; choice never more clear, even tho lib mayors refuse request, refuse our generous hands, we will make major announcement next week prez use authority of fed gov't to come to rescue of long-suffering cits ; to rescue,

lou: if citizens do not req, accept violence at the level they are you and i know how it will be painted, fed, crush city despite disavowal

mom and dad and cits of all walks of life manhattan, chicago, atlanta ...they support police, they feds to fullest extent ,want gang members behind bars, killers, murderer, support for robust federal support, keep city, family community safe; right to walk w/o stray bullet, put kids to sleep at night w/o worry homes broken into or windows smashed; social justice prosecutors will make much more diff, but thisprez will never waver in his duty to protect the am ppl;

dobbs: isn't role for DOJ NYc mayor De Blasio cognitive diss/ [sm: "very unwell" ] , trash city every day, strips police of billion $, throw citizens to wolves; anti-crime unit disbanded by socialist mayor,

SM: I assure you DOJ ...safety, peace and order in our city. Every day thousands ICE ...every day go to work, put dangerous criminals behind bars reduced crime for the 1st time for lowest level decades, did by fed law,[guns offenders, felons carrying weapons behind bars] put X in jail

Sanctuary cities releasing violent criminals get them off street and we will get them back home = jail

Let’s never forget Obama /Biden for 8 straight years unimpeded, let MS 13 in,unleashed on our communities, never apologized to families..schools, senseless violence , not Pol/part issue, ___normal good ppl], ppl have to live in fear of violence

Dobbs: why not DOJ investigate BLM not nonprofit get $ directly from Dems party gets tax deductible $ ]= tax $, drivers it back to BLM} he dodges question no time to make speech

we will not allow radical marxist orgs deprive Ams bl white, liberal be they POC of rights to be safe

Dobbs: Marxist lives matter , you’d think they’d make motto

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