Different components of the coup are as different components of an army. Like engineers follow infantry, the media wing follows behind BLM/antifa riots and builds to hold the ground. Antifa's hopeless zombie assaults--grunts are always screwed over--aren't meant to succeed but draw out the feds and make them vulnerable to charges of brutality.
State and local leaders here are all in with the coup, demanding the withdrawal of all federal troops, as an "occupying" army suppressing peaceful protests and establishing right-wing tyranny.
Oregon's Attorney General is suing the federal government over recent arrests quelling riots in Portland. Bloomberg:
Oregon sued the U.S. over the detention of residents during anti-racism protests in Portland, shortly after a judge ruled that journalists alleging local police had assaulted them could add federal agents to their own lawsuit.As a symbol of American power and thus white oppression the US District Courthouse has been covered in obscene graffiti for these last two months. Last night rioters took the temporary chain-link fencing from around the closed and now reclaimed park blocks and piled it up as a barricade in front of the courthouse door, launching fireworks at it.
In her suit against the Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Marshals Service, Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum alleges they have overstepped their powers in threatening, injuring or arresting protesters. The journalists made similar claims, saying police had assaulted them at Black Lives Matter demonstrations, coordinating their response with federal authorities.
Oregon cited two incidents it says took place in the past week. On July 12 a peaceful protester was struck in the head with an “impact weapon” and sustained severe injuries, according to the AG’s office.
On Thursday, it says, “an unmarked minivan with undercover federal agents wearing generic green military fatigues” forcibly detained a second protester, who was later released. The Oregon Department of Justice has opened a criminal investigation into the July 12 incident, according to the AG.
But it's a kind of kabuki; they have more allies in the building than enemies. The attacks are entirely about drawing out and provoking federal police, who are essentially defending an institution that won't defend them any more than the city defends the cops under siege next door.
From the New York Times
Billy J. Williams, the U.S. attorney for the District of Oregon, said in a statement on Friday that he was asking the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general to investigate reports of officers detaining protesters.The governor's sychological projection aside, the introduction of federal law enforcement has escalated the violence--only because it's enlivened antifa, increasing their number and aggression.
Governor Brown said in an interview that she asked the acting homeland security secretary, Chad F. Wolf, to remove federal officials from the streets and that he refused. She said the Trump administration appeared to instead be using the situation for photo-ops to rally his supporters. “They are provoking confrontation for political purposes,” Ms. Brown said.
Leave it to the progressive Nation magazine to debunk, somewhat, the "kidnapping" theme, though don't expect it to go away any time soon:
For days, federal agents in unmarked cars have reportedly been snatching Portland protesters off the streets. On Thursday, video emerged of federal agents clad in camouflage fatigues and unspecified “police” patches apprehending one such demonstrator and placing him in an unmarked vehicle.
Social media lit up with speculation about the intentions—and the identity—of these agents. A memo consisting of internal talking points for the federal agency responsible for the arrest, Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and obtained exclusively by The Nation provides some answers—and raises even more questions.
Dated July 1, the memo is titled “Public Affairs Guidance: CBP Support to Protect Federal Facilities and Property” and marked “For Official Use Only.” It describes a special task force created by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in response to President Trump’s Executive Order on Protecting American Monuments, Memorials, and Statues and Combating Recent Criminal Violence. That task force, the Protecting American Communities Task Force (PACT), has been tasked not only to assess civil unrest but also to “surge” resources to protect against it.
The Portland arrest of Mark Pettibone, first reported by Oregon Public Broadcasting, followed several similar arrests involving officers from a Border Patrol Tactical Unit (BORTAC)—CBP’s equivalent of a SWAT team—as well as the US Marshals Special Operations Group. A CBP spokesman confirmed to The Nation that CBP agents were responsible for the arrest, pointing to authorities under the Protecting American Communities Task Force...
While many people have criticized the alleged lawlessness of the arrests, some even engaging in conspiracy theories about them, these arrests are likely legal, according to current and former federal law enforcement officials interviewed by The Nation. And that’s exactly what makes them so troubling, explains Jenn Budd, a former senior Border Patrol agent.The arrests did in fact play out as abductions, with feds pulling up in unmarked cars, singling out and arresting someone not engaged in criminal activity. Presumably they're identifying people on video they think are leaders or provocateurs and rousting them. Arrestees report being asked to waive their Miranda rights to answer questions and being quickly released after refusing.
Simplest explanation is mild harassment by the feds of suspected ringleaders to dissuade. But it might also serve the feds by sowing further mistrust in antifa ranks--after last week's revelation of undercover cops at riots--while fishing for snitches or voluble crazies who won't be able to contain themselves.
The Coup remains invested in the "kidnappings" theme.
The increasingly childish Washington Post:
In Pettibone’s account, when several men in fatigues approached him, his first instinct was to run.
He did not know whether the men were police or far-right extremists, who frequently don militarylike outfits and harass left-leaning protesters in Portland. The 29-year-old resident said he made it about a half-block before he realized there would be no escape.
Then, he sank to his knees, hands in the air.
“I was terrified,” Pettibone said. “It seemed like it was out of a horror/sci-fi, like a Philip K. Dick novel. It was like being preyed upon.”Because antifa sympathizers are being relieved by complicit media and leaders of the normal risk associated with violent insurrection, America is being overthrown by LARPers.
It is like dystopian fiction. Not even its perpetrators can believe the depths to which political leaders have allowed this to go. But I suspect he doth protest too much. This is all very thrilling to participants, and local friendly media are excited to be published in the New York Times and Post. It's fun because it's so much like something we've been experiencing second-hand all our dull modern lives.
He was detained and searched. One man asked him if he had any weapons; he did not. They drove him to the federal courthouse and placed him in a holding cell, he said. Two officers eventually returned to read his Miranda rights and ask if he would waive those rights to answer a few questions; he did not.
And almost as suddenly as they had grabbed him off the street, the men let him go. The federal officers who snatched him off the street as he was walking home from a peaceful protest did not tell him why he had been detained or provide him any record of an arrest, he told The Post. As far as he knows, he has not been charged with any crimes.Democrats nationwide pounced on the story, of course.
Authoritarian governments, not democratic republics, send unmarked authorities after protesters. These Trump/Barr tactics designed to eliminate any accountability are absolutely unacceptable in America, and must end. pic.twitter.com/PE4YfZ9Vqd— Senator Jeff Merkley (@SenJeffMerkley) July 16, 2020
Anti-cop city councilmember Jo Ann Hardesty called for a vigil in front of what she's long called the "(in)Justice Center" at 7 PM yesterday. Later that night of course we'd have riots, with protesters trying to barricade the building and drawing out federal cops.I thought we’d already covered this after the attacks in Lafayette Square: the US government should not be using unidentified federal officers as a secret police force to terrorize US citizens & violate their constitutional rights. This is outrageous. https://t.co/EIXbZmHXak— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) July 17, 2020
The vigil was awkward and ugly at times as one group came with its own speaker and tried to talk over her. Earnest dull white "faith leaders" shared the stage with angry black women.
Hardesty got off the street before nightfall as the mood went dark along with the day--as it has been every day for going on two months.
Here she is actually tripping over herself hustling away as the crowd gets uglier:
Footage from livestreamer Anna Noelle Green, via "AustinZone" YouTube channel
And as contrived and phony it all is, there's no way this coup's plotters have real control over their troops.
No comments:
Post a Comment