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Why the Federal Cops in Portland Are All About Election Day
Strongarm tactics in Oregon may be just the warmup for a stolen vote.
now we know, thanks to the news from Portland, Oregon, that DHS has been auditioning in that city for its role as
Donald Trump’s personal paramilitary, perhaps on a nationwide scale.
“Federal officers on the ground in Portland have deployed a range of forceful tactics:
They appeared to fire less-lethal munitions from slits in the facade of the federal courthouse,
one officer walked the street while swinging a burning ball emitting tear gas, and
camouflaged personnel drove in unmarked vans.”
those deployed lack proper training for riot control or mass demonstrations
many, many more peaceful protesters—
as well as journalists and legal observers—
some not near the federal properties at all, have been beaten, gassed, fired upon with rubber bullets and flash bangs, and hauled off for little or no reason.
“It’s like stop and frisk meets Guantanamo Bay.
You have laws regarding probable cause that can lead to arrests.
It sounds more like abduction.
It sounds like they’re kidnapping people off the streets.”
ActingDHS Secretary Wolf has so far refused to do so.
"I don't need invitations by the state, state mayors or state governors to do our job,” he announced.
“We're going to do that whether they like us there or not."
“It’s no surprise that the agency that detained innocent children at the border was
deployed to Portland for more political theater at Trump's behest,”
“The president may think that this authoritarian made-for-TV stunt will help his reelection, but real people’s lives and rights are at stake.”
“Lawlessness in the name of law and order is the hallmark of fascism.”
conceivably could be connected to a greater scheme designed to steal the November election.
in 2018 a 1982 consent decree was lifted that
forbade the Republican Party from using various voter suppression ruses,
including fake “ballot security” groups of off-duty law enforcement officers stationed outside polling places to harass and intimidate voters of color.
“that the end of the consent decree was ‘a huge, huge, huge, huge deal,’
freeing the RNC to directly coordinate with campaigns and political committees on so-called Election Day operations.
The RNC is sending millions of dollars to state Republican parties to vastly expand these measures, which include
recruiting 50,000 poll observers to deploy in key precincts.”
phony “ballot security” gangs.
“a terrifying abuse of power.”
We could end up seeing armed private contractors hired by the RNC and affiliated conservative organizations to intimidate Democratic-leaning voters,Donald Trump is a menace who if he sees he’s losing bigtime—and he does—
bolstered by camouflage-wearing taxpayer-funded rifle-toting border patrol agents aggressively checking papers of every voter in line in the guise of “securing against voter fraud” on the president’s orders.
This would be happening during the most tense presidential election in our lifetimes during a raging pandemic,
often in lines in which voters must wait 8 to 10 hours to vote due to restricted polling places in minority communities—
also a blatant suppression attempt enabled by the
Supreme Court’s voiding
of many of the protections of the Voting Rights Act.
won’t hesitate to repress the vote count so that
he can declare a second term and because, in his words, “I’ve been very unfairly treated.”
Donald Trump puts the petty in petty tyrant but he’s a tyrant, nonetheless.
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