‘It was like being preyed upon’: Portland protesters say federal officers in unmarked vans are detaining them

[wdefromtx 3,159]

4 minutes ago, homersapien said:

First - as the polls indicate - Biden is more than good enough to beat Trump.

So what's your problem with Biden, specifically?

He’s no different than any other politician that’s been self serving in Washington for the last 50 years. That’s my problem with Biden. Left or Right, I’m tired of politics as usual in Washington. While I’m glad the Trump experiment is coming to a close, I’m not excited about Biden. 

 

Are you happy with “good enough” to beat Trump? We should aim way higher than that. 

[McLoofus 35,182]

8 minutes ago, johnnyAU said:

They are unwilling to see the obvious.  Political blinders. Biden is a puppet.  He was Obama's version of Dan Quayle, yet older and dumber. The usual suspects who believe any means justify the ends of removing Trump.  

We'll revisit the issues if Biden is ever allowed to debate. His gaffes were so frequent at one point, they kept him out of the media spotlight for months. 

Folks are excited who Biden (or more importantly the DNC) chooses for his VP because they realize he's a dud of a candidate...or as one poster said it a little more eloquently...a real "turd sandwich". 

And yet none of this- not a single word of it- speaks to whether or not he's a superior candidate to trump. 

You've really got to quite using the word blinders unless you can take off your own. 

[johnnyAU 3,630]

Just now, wdefromtx said:

He’s no different than any other politician that’s been self serving in Washington for the last 50 years. That’s my problem with Biden. Left or Right, I’m tired of politics as usual in Washington. While I’m glad the Trump experiment is coming to a close, I’m not excited about Biden. 

 

Are you happy with “good enough” to beat Trump? We should aim way higher than that. 

They'd justify anything with a pulse at this point. 

[johnnyAU 3,630]

1 minute ago, McLoofus said:

And yet none of this- not a single word of it- speaks to whether or not he's a superior candidate to trump.

He isn't really a superior choice. In many ways, he is just more of the same. We have gotten ourselves into this mess and have no one else to blame. 

[McLoofus 35,182]

Just now, johnnyAU said:

He isn't really a superior choice. In many ways, he is just more of the same. We have gotten ourselves into this mess and have no one else to blame. 

In which ways? 

And yeah, I think I'm pretty comfortable blaming trump voters for the worst of the mess. 

[johnnyAU 3,630]

35 minutes ago, McLoofus said:

In which ways? 

And yeah, I think I'm pretty comfortable blaming trump voters for the worst of the mess. 

Well Biden isn't a raging narcissist, and Trump isn't a self-serving career politician. Other than those, there isn't a lot of difference.

I think I'm pretty comfortable blaming the DNC for selecting the ONLY candidate that Trump would have defeated.

They followed that up with an absolute dud.

[homersapien 11,367]

2 minutes ago, johnnyAU said:

Well Biden isn't a raging narcissist, and Trump isn't a self-serving career politician. Other than those, there isn't a lot of difference.

I think I'm pretty comfortable blaming the DNC for selecting the ONLY candidate that Trump would have defeated.

They followed that up with an absolute dud.

Trump is a self-serving career conman.

Still waiting on those specifics.....

[johnnyAU 3,630]

1 minute ago, homersapien said:

Trump is a self-serving career conman.

Yes he is, and he has morphed into whichever political side best benefits his own interests.

[AUFAN78 3,894]

On 7/17/2020 at 10:26 AM, homersapien said:

(Emphasis mine)

 

Katie Shepherd

July 17, 2020 at 6:58 a.m. EDT

When several men in green military fatigues and generic “police” patches sprang out of an unmarked gray minivan in front of Mark Pettibone in the early hours of Wednesday morning, 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, Ore. 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 told The Washington Post. “It seemed like it was out of a horror/sci-fi, like a Philip K. Dick novel. It was like being preyed upon.”

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. 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.

Pettibone said he still does not know who arrested him or whether what happened to him legally qualifies as an arrest. 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.

His detention, which was first reported by Oregon Public Broadcasting, and videos of similar actions by federal officials driving around Portland in unmarked cars have raised alarm bells for many. Legal scholars questioned whether the detentions pass constitutional muster.

“Arrests require probable cause that a federal crime had been committed, that is, specific information indicating that the person likely committed a federal offense, or a fair probability that the person committed a federal offense,” Orin Kerr, a professor at University of California at Berkeley Law School, told The Post. “If the agents are grabbing people because they may have been involved in protests, that’s not probable cause.”

Federal officers from the U.S. Marshals Service and Department of Homeland Security have stormed Portland’s streets as part of President Trump’s promised strong response to ongoing protests. Local leaders expressed alarm at news of Pettibone’s detention and echoed calls for the feds to leave that have grown stronger since Marshals Service officers severely wounded a peaceful protester on Saturday.

“A peaceful protester in Portland was shot in the head by one of Donald Trump’s secret police,” Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) wrote in a Thursday tweet that also called out acting DHS secretary Chad Wolf. “Now Trump and Chad Wolf are weaponizing the DHS as their own occupying army to provoke violence on the streets of my hometown because they think it plays well with right-wing media.”

Civil rights advocates suggested the Trump administration is testing the limits of its executive power.

“I think Portland is a test case,” Zakir Khan, a spokesman for the Oregon chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, told The Post. “They want to see what they can get away with before launching into other parts of the country.”

Jann Carson, interim executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon, called the recent arrests “flat-out unconstitutional” in a statement shared with The Post.

“Usually when we see people in unmarked cars forcibly grab someone off the street, we call it kidnapping,” Carson said. “Protesters in Portland have been shot in the head, swept away in unmarked cars, and repeatedly tear-gassed by uninvited and unwelcome federal agents. We won’t rest until they are gone.”

Nightly protests have seized Portland’s downtown streets since George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis in late May. For more than six weeks, Portland police have clashed with left-leaning protesters speaking out against racism and police brutality. Tear gas has choked hundreds in the city, both protesters and other residents caught in the crossfire. Protesters have spray-painted anti-police messages on the Mark O. Hatfield Federal Courthouse and Multnomah County Justice Center, which serves as the local jail and a police headquarters.

After Trump sent federal officers to the city, allegedly to quell violence, tensions escalated. The feds have repeatedly deployed tear gas to scuttle protests, despite a newly passed state law that bans local police from using the chemical irritant except to quash riots. On Saturday, federal agents shot a man in the face with a less-than-lethal munition, fracturing his skull. Local officials, from the mayor to the governor, have asked the president to pull the federal officers out of the city.

“I am proud to be among the loud chorus of elected officials calling for the federal troops in Portland’s streets to go home,” Portland City Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty said in a statement shared with The Post on Sunday. “Their presence here has escalated tensions and put countless Portlanders exercising their First Amendment rights in greater danger.”

Pettibone says he was simply exercising his free speech rights on Wednesday when he was detained. He and a friend were walking to a car to drive home after a relatively calm demonstration in a nearby park. He said he did not do anything to instigate police that night, or at any of the other protests he had attended over the past six weeks.

“I have a pretty strong philosophical conviction that I will not engage in any violent activity,” he told The Post. “I keep it mellow and try to document police brutality and try to show up for solidarity.”

DHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday night, and likewise did not answer questions from Oregon Public Broadcasting. The Marshals Service told the radio station its officers had not arrested Pettibone and said the agency always keeps records of its arrests.

Trump has cheered harsh tactics by officers in Portland, and the acting Homeland Security secretary has vowed to keep federal forces in Portland until local leaders “publicly condemn what the violent anarchists are doing.”

“We’ve done a great job in Portland,” Trump said at a news conference on Monday. “Portland was totally out of control, and they went in, and I guess we have many people right now in jail. We very much quelled it, and if it starts again, we’ll quell it again very easily. It’s not hard to do, if you know what you’re doing.”

Yet the scene on Portland’s streets late Thursday reflected a different reality.

Protesters once again filled the streets in downtown, defiantly moving fencing meant to keep the crowd away from the Multnomah County Justice Center. And once again, federal officers launched tear gas into the protest.

As police, both local and federal, have responded to demonstrators with increasing force, the protests have grown more unwieldy and determined. Neither side appears ready to surrender.

“Once you’re out on the street and you’ve been tear-gassed and you see that there’s no reason — the police will claim that there’s a riot just so they can use tear gas — it makes you want to go out there even more to see if there can be any kind of justice,” Pettibone told The Post.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/07/17/portland-protests-federal-arrests/?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-high_mm-portland-810am%3Ahomepage%2Fstory-ans

 

Isn't this pretty much the sort of thing the second amendment folks use for justification of arming ourselves with assault rifles?

Think about the implications of that.

 

In a statement Friday, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection confirmed that it detained a protester but disputed accounts that it did so without reason. The agency, which did not name Pettibone, said agents had information about a person suspected of assaulting federal agents or destroying federal property.

"Once CBP agents approached the suspect, a large and violent mob moved towards their location. For everyone's safety, CBP agents quickly moved the suspect to a safer location for further questioning," the department said, adding that agents identified themselves and were wearing the agency's insignia. 

"While the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) respects every American’s right to protest peacefully, violence and civil unrest will not be tolerated.  Violent anarchists have organized events in Portland over the last several weeks with willful intent to damage and destroy federal property, as well as injure federal officers and agents. These criminal actions will not be tolerated," the agency said. 

In tweets over the past weeks, Acting CBP Commissioner Mark Morgan said Border Patrol agents were assaulted by protesters who threw rocks and used baseball bats to break down the doors of the federal courthouse in Portland. Morgan said the agents “deployed less than lethal force.”

“Criminals, armed with weapons, continue to organize attacks on Federal property in Portland.” 

[AUFAN78 3,894]

Portland Police Association President Daryl Turner, who is Black, joined other community members outside the damaged building on Sunday to call for a moratorium in the nightly violence and a conversation about proposals for change. He was joined by longtime local civil rights activists, who said the nightly violence was distracting from the larger message of racial equality.

"Picking up a brick and hurling it at a building is not a conversation. Throwing feces is not a conversation. It's time to talk," Aitchison said. "Much has been accomplished in the past six weeks if you stop and think about it. We need to sit down together and talk."

"We are more than willing, ready and able to sit down and make the reforms," Turner said. "But we can't do that if we're out here every night putting fires out … We need to change that and need our community to do that because our elected officials won't."

https://pamplinmedia.com/pt/9-news/474100-383313-police-supporters-call-for-moratorium-on-violence-talks-about-change

[homersapien 11,367]

15 hours ago, AUFAN78 said:

Portland Police Association President Daryl Turner, who is Black, joined other community members outside the damaged building on Sunday to call for a moratorium in the nightly violence and a conversation about proposals for change. He was joined by longtime local civil rights activists, who said the nightly violence was distracting from the larger message of racial equality.

"Picking up a brick and hurling it at a building is not a conversation. Throwing feces is not a conversation. It's time to talk," Aitchison said. "Much has been accomplished in the past six weeks if you stop and think about it. We need to sit down together and talk."

"We are more than willing, ready and able to sit down and make the reforms," Turner said. "But we can't do that if we're out here every night putting fires out … We need to change that and need our community to do that because our elected officials won't."

https://pamplinmedia.com/pt/9-news/474100-383313-police-supporters-call-for-moratorium-on-violence-talks-about-change

Sounds like this guy is pretty sensible.  The point is anonymous, para-military Federal police - who are exceeding their jurisdiction are exacerbating the violence problem.

 

'Like Adding Gasoline': Oregon Officials Blast Trump Response To Portland Protests

Oregon officials are lashing out at President Trump for sending federal agents into Portland amid the ongoing protests against police brutality and racism. Both the governor and Portland's mayor told NPR the administration's actions are nothing more than political theater meant to appeal to Trump's political base in an effort to win reelection.

"As best as I can tell, this is an effort — a last gasp effort — by a failed president with sagging polling data, who's trying to look strong for his base," Mayor Ted Wheeler told NPR's Lulu Garcia-Navarro on Sunday. "He's actually using the federal police function in support of his candidacy."

For more than 50 nights, hundreds have gathered in the city's downtown to protest racism and police brutality, following the killing of George Floyd. Last week Oregon Public Broadcasting reported that federal agents wearing camouflage and tactical gear had been pulling some protesters into unmarked vans.

In response, the state of Oregon said it would sue the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and other federal law enforcement agencies. And multiple Democratic members of Congress demanded internal government watchdogs investigate the Trump administration's "use of violent tactics" against peaceful protesters.

"Like adding gasoline to a fire"

Portland's mayor, Oregon's governor and both of the state's U.S. senators have said federal agents aren't needed to deal with the civil unrest. Gov. Kate Brown has asked the Trump administration and the head of DHS to take their federal officers off the streets of Portland. "The Trump administration needs to stop playing politics with people's lives," Brown told NPR's Michel Martin. "We don't have a secret police in this country. This is not a dictatorship. And Trump needs to get his officers off the streets."

In a tweet, Trump blamed Portland's officials for failing to control the situation. "We are trying to help Portland, not hurt it," Trump said. "Their leadership has, for months, lost control of the anarchists and agitators. They are missing in action. We must protect Federal property, AND OUR PEOPLE. These were not merely protesters, these are the real deal!"

State and local officials say that the situation in Portland had been improving over several weeks. Speaking to Weekend Edition, Wheeler called the federal government's actions an "attack on democracy" that inflamed an already tense situation. Among the protesters, a "small handful" were engaging in criminal activity, Wheeler said, but "it was dissipating. It was calming down."

Sending in federal forces merely exacerbated the situation, they said.

"It's simply like adding gasoline to a fire," Gov. Brown said. "What's needed is de-escalation and dialogue. That's how we solve problems here in the state of Oregon."

52 days and counting

Protests continued Saturday night, with federal officers deploying tear gas and using batons to try to disperse the crowd gathered at the federal courthouse in downtown Portland. In North Portland, another group of demonstrators gathered and chanted outside the Portland Police Association Building. Some broke into the building and set a fire at the police union headquarters. Portland police called the gathering a riot.

Portland Police Deputy Chief Chris Davis has blamed the violent incidents on a small group of protesters with "criminal" tendencies, who are "motivated by an anarchistic ideology."

Despite the animus shown by state and local officials toward the federal response, Portland's police joined forces with them Saturday night, working together to make arrests and clear the streets. Portland City Council member Jo Ann Hardesty criticized local police, saying they had "joined in the aggressive clampdown of peaceful protest." Hardesty also criticized Wheeler for not sufficiently controlling the city's law enforcement.

It's not the first time local police have been accused of teaming up with federal agents. The Portland Mercury reported that the president of Portland's police union met with the acting DHS chief and federal officials on Thursday.

Speaking to NPR, Wheeler said Portland residents can't always tell the difference between local police officers, county deputies, state patrol or federal law enforcement. On Friday night after federal police started tear gassing people, "about 300 people came to my house and wanted to know why I allowed our police officers to gas people." Wheeler hadn't authorized it; it was federal law enforcement. "But it's a distinction without a difference in the eyes of the public."

In nearly seven weeks of nightly demonstrations, Portland police "have done many things right and they've done some things wrong as well," Wheeler said. But local law enforcement has clear policies and directives, complaint processes, independent accountability and a review system, he added.

"With the federal government, they won't even identify who they are," Wheeler said. "We don't know why they're here, we don't know the circumstances under which they're making the arrests, we don't know what their policies are or what accountability mechanisms there are."

Oregon's U.S. attorney has called for an investigation into the tactics of some of the federal agents.

Congress responds

In a joint statement Saturday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Democratic Oregon Rep. Earl Blumenauer criticized the Trump administration for showing a "lack of respect" for Americans' dignity and First Amendment right to peaceful protest.

"Last month, the Administration tear-gassed peaceful protestors in Washington, D.C.," Pelosi and Blumenauer said. "Now, videos show them kidnapping protestors in unmarked cars in Portland – all with the goal of inflaming tensions for their own gain. While Portland is the President's current target, any city could be next.

"We live in a democracy, not a banana republic," they added. "We will not tolerate the use of Oregonians, Washingtonians – or any other Americans – as props in President Trump's political games. The House is committed to moving swiftly to curb these egregious abuses of power immediately."

Separately, leaders of the House Judiciary Committee, Homeland Security Committee and Oversight and Reform Committee asked the inspectors general at the Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security to investigate the administration's use of federal agents against what they described as peaceful protests.

"The Attorney General of the United States does not have unfettered authority to direct thousands of federal law enforcement personnel to arrest and detain American citizens exercising their First Amendment rights," they wrote. "The Acting Secretary [of Homeland Security] appears to be relying on an ill-conceived executive order meant to protect historic statues and monuments as justification for arresting American citizens in the dead of night."

To Gov. Brown, the deployment of federal officers is "a mere distraction from the president's failure to lead this nation through a global pandemic," she said on Weekend All Things Considered. "It is a blatant abuse of power by the federal government. They are inappropriately trained. Their presence is not needed. And frankly they're exacerbating an already challenging situation. It is absolutely counterproductive to the work we're trying to do here."

https://www.npr.org/2020/07/19/892826853/like-adding-gasoline-oregon-officials-blast-trump-response-to-portland-protests

 

[homersapien 11,367]

Once again, Trump says the corrupt part out loud

 

Greg Sargent

Columnist

July 21, 2020 at 10:45 a.m. EDT

It is a paradox of the Trump era: Precisely because the president often unabashedly displays corrupt or sordid motives in broad daylight — and even on national television — we sometimes fail to give the admissions themselves the attention they deserve.

So it is with Trump’s new vow to send federal law enforcement into numerous cities — against the will of Democratic officials in them — which comes after federal agents already invaded Portland in defiance of the city’s mayor and the governor of Oregon.

In the course of announcing that “more” federal law enforcement will be descending on cities like Chicago, while hailing enforcement efforts to “grab” people in Portland, Trump quickly segued into a claim about the presidential race.

If Joe Biden gets elected, Trump said, “the whole country would go to hell. And we’re not going to let it go to hell.”

Trump just said it straight from the Oval Office: This is all about Biden.

At around that time, Trump’s eldest son tweeted out a new Trump campaign ad that depicts a terrified elderly woman calling 911 about an intruder, while falsely claiming Biden would defund the police. The political messaging is seamlessly connected to President Trump’s claims about Biden in the White House while announcing the new law enforcement actions.

If this sounds familiar, recall this: Even as Trump was being impeached for manipulating national security policy to strong-arm a foreign leader into validating his smear of Biden, Trump launched a $10 million ad campaign that enshrined that very same false narrative.

Trump’s deployment of federal law enforcement into Democratic-led cities is every bit as devoted to manufacturing and sustaining a campaign attack on Biden as his manipulation of national security policy in the Ukraine scandal was. The new ad on Biden — approved by Trump himself — says the corrupt part out loud, just as he did in the White House.

In both these cases, the ads were and are the message, the story that Trump is employing federal national security and law enforcement resources to manufacture into being.

Former official: No operational justification

One way to underscore this point is to ask: What is the operational justification for what Trump is doing right now? Is there one?

Juliette Kayyem, a former senior homeland security official, told me there’s a big tell here: In cases like this, federal officials would ordinarily be trying to coordinate with local officials, precisely because that would make it more likely such efforts would succeed at their stated objective.

In this case, though, they are pursuing the policy in defiance of local officials. We’ve already seen this in Portland, Ore. Now it’s happening again: Homeland security officials are reportedly making plans to send federal law enforcement to Chicago, even though Chicago’s mayor stated unequivocally that she doesn’t want this.

Meanwhile, Trump also named Detroit as a potential future target, even though the city’s mayor and the governor of Michigan both oppose such action. The Department of Homeland Security reportedly has 2,000 law enforcement officials, many drawn from immigration enforcement, on standby for such deployment.

Kayyem noted that it’s “clearly not true” as an empirical matter that civil unrest in these cities necessitates federal law enforcement. This is underscored, she added, by the fact that local officials aren’t even seeking “the deployment of federal assets.”

But, crucially, Kayyem pointed out that doing this without local assent will make it less likely that such operations accomplish their stated goal.

“Even with consent, local, state and federal integration is often very complicated and is sometimes unsuccessful,” Kayyem told me. “Without consent, the federal impact is either going to be insignificant or dangerous.”

The stated justification for going into Chicago is not protests. The plans are reportedly for federal law enforcement to assist against drug trafficking and gangs. But if anything, this further underscores the ad hoc justification here. Why now, particularly since this is in defiance of local officials?

“The administration can’t even get its story straight, showing there is no federal plan,” Kayyem told me. “In Portland, it’s courts and statues. In Chicago, it’s apparently drugs. In other cities, in the words of our president, it’s ‘who knows.’”

The broader point here, as Ryan Goodman and Danielle Schulkin explain, is that the administration is working to develop a “playbook for using federal forces without state consent.” As they note, this may be legally dubious and it certainly strains historical precedent.

Trump’s performative authoritarianism

Beyond this, Trump himself is confirming the truly corrupt nature of what his administration is doing — he himself is demonstrating that there’s no genuine rationale for it other than his reelection needs.

Here again Trump said the damning part out loud. The same president who sent troops to the border as a campaign prop in 2018 has now explicitly said the cities being targeted by law enforcement are “all run by Democrats.” That edges right up to saying this is one of his own stated criteria for making this decision.

Anne Applebaum calls this “performative authoritarianism.” And indeed, the imagery it is creating is already being pushed very hard by his propagandists:

Really just can't be clearer that federal law enforcement are being deployed as part of the president's reelection campaign. pic.twitter.com/D5ReKDdZzm

— Matthew Gertz (@MattGertz) July 21, 2020

All this is being acknowledged in some media reports with euphemisms such as “the policy closely mirrored the politics.” But that badly undersells what’s really happening here.

Until we hear a serious justification to the contrary, it is clear the policy is entirely about manufacturing imagery that is supposed to sustain Trump’s presidential run. Which is what Trump got impeached for.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/07/21/once-again-trump-says-corrupt-part-out-loud/?hpid=hp_save-opinions-float-right-4-0_opinion-card-d-right%3Ahomepage%2Fstory-ans

 

 

 

[alexava 6,973]

https://bluelivesmatter.blue/video-coordinated-attack-by-antifa-leaves-49-chicago-officers-injured/?fbclid=IwAR0Cp7Zb7Nk9TjM1HJumfzZpHjmwYMUbVzeEs4c6kIKM8FLBszgRaBkhfAA
 

watch the video and tell me how you deal with this!

[savorytiger 182]

1 hour ago, alexava said:

https://bluelivesmatter.blue/video-coordinated-attack-by-antifa-leaves-49-chicago-officers-injured/?fbclid=IwAR0Cp7Zb7Nk9TjM1HJumfzZpHjmwYMUbVzeEs4c6kIKM8FLBszgRaBkhfAA
 

watch the video and tell me how you deal with this!

Watched it. I wish the video wasn't cut the way it did (sections are blurred, there's no sound, we don't have a clear idea of what led to them throwing stuff, etc), but from what you can see, it seems like the ones who instigated the attack should be held responsible. Some protestors seem to be attempting to stop the attack, though most were just taking videos (which hopefully can be used to identify some of the ones throwing stuff).

Also I would be very deliberate about stuff coming from Blue Lives Matter since they have a very clear agenda. Just clicking on their sources show only 18 officers were injured, which is still bad, but why put out the higher number without anything to back it up? They also claim it's Antifa without any justification.

[alexava 6,973]

6 minutes ago, savorytiger said:

Watched it. I wish the video wasn't cut the way it did (sections are blurred, there's no sound, we don't have a clear idea of what led to them throwing stuff, etc), but from what you can see, it seems like the ones who instigated the attack should be held responsible. Some protestors seem to be attempting to stop the attack, though most were just taking videos (which hopefully can be used to identify some of the ones throwing stuff).

Also I would be very deliberate about stuff coming from Blue Lives Matter since they have a very clear agenda. Just clicking on their sources show only 18 officers were injured, which is still bad, but why put out the higher number without anything to back it up? They also claim it's Antifa without any justification.

I take blue lives matter with a grain of salt. Video is video and they post several videos regularly, like year around of police shootings that are interesting. Their actual journalism is not exactly credible. 

[alexava 6,973]

The video shows a very planned and coordinated attack. So I don’t think its going to be necessary to find out what started the throwing stuff.

[savorytiger 182]

1 minute ago, alexava said:

I take blue lives matter with a grain of salt. Video is video and they post several videos regularly, like year around of police shootings that are interesting. Their actual journalism is not exactly credible. 

Video can also be manipulated though. It does make it more legit that it's directly from the local news though.

6 minutes ago, alexava said:

The video shows a very planned and coordinated attack. So I don’t think its going to be necessary to find out what started the throwing stuff.

Good point. I just generally want a broader view of what happens.

[alexava 6,973]

5 minutes ago, savorytiger said:

Video can also be manipulated though. It does make it more legit that it's directly from the local news though.

Good point. I just generally want a broader view of what happens.

It’s possible to manipulate videos but not logical to think they are pushing any agenda that hard. 

[savorytiger 182]

2 minutes ago, alexava said:

It’s possible to manipulate videos but not logical to think they are pushing any agenda that hard. 

I feel like it's really easy to cut a video to support your side. There's plenty of videos on the police going after protestors in this incident, and if you don't have the one you linked before showing a group getting ready to attack the police, you may be convinced it's just another case of police overstepping.

[AUFAN78 3,894]

3 hours ago, alexava said:

https://bluelivesmatter.blue/video-coordinated-attack-by-antifa-leaves-49-chicago-officers-injured/?fbclid=IwAR0Cp7Zb7Nk9TjM1HJumfzZpHjmwYMUbVzeEs4c6kIKM8FLBszgRaBkhfAA
 

watch the video and tell me how you deal with this!

Just another peaceful protest. Ask Homey. 

[AUFAN78 3,894]

Biden specifics as requested:

Biden has an abominable public policy record on a wide range of issues. He has a penchant for lying — about his role in the civil rights movement and about being arrested in apartheid South Africa. He continues to lie and mislead about his support for the war in Iraq, the most consequential foreign policy decision of the post-Vietnam era. He has been accused by eight women of misconduct, including one allegation of very serious sexual assault by his former Senate staffer Tara Reade. Biden’s cognitive health and mental acuity is, to say the least, questionable, particularly when you compare his current performance with videos from just a few years ago. He frequently rambles without a clear point, forgets what office he is running for, and has to rely on teleprompters and notes to make it through interviews and speeches without saying something embarrassing. 

[McLoofus 35,182]

12 hours ago, alexava said:

The video shows a very planned and coordinated attack. So I don’t think its going to be necessary to find out what started the throwing stuff.

My question is, how do they know these people are "antifa" and not more alt right/boogaloo/white supremacists posing as "antifa"? 

It's kind of weird they're still using that descriptor at all. 

[alexava 6,973]

1 hour ago, McLoofus said:

My question is, how do they know these people are "antifa" and not more alt right/boogaloo/white supremacists posing as "antifa"? 

It's kind of weird they're still using that descriptor at all. 

You don’t find out until you get them in chains  and investigate. I don’t see how allowing this type of aggression is making our country a better place? I don’t know who is behind it. If you are not doing anything to stop it it doesn’t matter what group of chaotic misfits is behind it. 

[McLoofus 35,182]

13 minutes ago, alexava said:

You don’t find out until you get them in chains  and investigate. I don’t see how allowing this type of aggression is making our country a better place? I don’t know who is behind it. If you are not doing anything to stop it it doesn’t matter what group of chaotic misfits is behind it. 

I didn't advocate for allowing it. At all. ?

And by all means, arrest them and investigate. But why is it okay to publicly state what group they belong to without actually knowing? I know that you've been keeping up with all this and that "antifa" has commonly and erroneously been applied to bad actors belonging to groups with very different and even opposite aims than the protesters with whom that term is most commonly associated. 

What if these crimes were just immediately and publicly blamed on "alexava's family" and then they "got them in chains and investigated"? You good with that? 

[aubiefifty 16,766]

12 hours ago, AUFAN78 said:

Biden specifics as requested:

Biden has an abominable public policy record on a wide range of issues. He has a penchant for lying — about his role in the civil rights movement and about being arrested in apartheid South Africa. He continues to lie and mislead about his support for the war in Iraq, the most consequential foreign policy decision of the post-Vietnam era. He has been accused by eight women of misconduct, including one allegation of very serious sexual assault by his former Senate staffer Tara Reade. Biden’s cognitive health and mental acuity is, to say the least, questionable, particularly when you compare his current performance with videos from just a few years ago. He frequently rambles without a clear point, forgets what office he is running for, and has to rely on teleprompters and notes to make it through interviews and speeches without saying something embarrassing. 

and he still comes off looking like a saint compared to trump.how many sexual assault claims has trump got? 48? they shut down his college. they shut down his charity. he is a lying pig and we see it every day. babies still locked up. gassed a peaceful protest for a photo op because he was made fun of hiding in a bunker. i can go on and on and you want to compare biden and trump? not hardly. saying this kind of thing when you give trump a pass makes you look like an idiot. i am trying to help you here. i bet biden was not on any of the epstein flights with underage girls.............