No surprise, Trump says things that are untrue. What is something of an eye-opener, STRIB, owned by former Republican state legislator Glen Taylor, publishes online this AP feed: AP FACT CHECK: Trump's election agitations and distortions," By CALVIN WOODWARD Associated Press August 1, 2020 — 7:10am

He agitates and distorts because he is unstable, and trailing badly in polling. Hand in hand cause and effect.

If you fail to believe that opening sentence, read this. It is the AP authored item referred to in the headline, carried by Strib.

If you are already aware of the two-sentence opening paragraph being wholly true, will that influence how you vote Nov. 3? It should. If you are an angry elderly white rural or suburban male, it might not. That seems the population bloc - besides White Power white supremacists - most willing to vote Trump. Why? Ask one you know, and expect a tirade of untruth.

The gun bunnies are another bloc most enamored with Trump's style. Mask haters next, along with choice haters. Tax cheats? They know their own kind.

We need the next President to keep Homeland Security on a shorter leash. Or to show more respect toward public protest rights. Or both. Congress cutting parts of the DHS budget could be step one.

It is a difficult task to argue one offered Fascist candidate is a lesser evil than an incumbent Fascist President, but things are shaking out that way.

DHS in Portland escalated a protest into a riot when Trump/Barr sent in a squad of Darth Vaders. That level of abuse of the public needs to be halted, the sooner the better.

More can be written, and has been, on the topic of Homeland Security.

Leave it at the Wikipedia image of DHS headquarters in DC. With roof line shooting breaks designed in, for what, shooting at protesting citizens? All that's missing from that ediface is a portcullus. Likely that was dropped when the ediface was - like the agency - behind schedule and over budget.

Too fat and sassy, for public servants financed out of public taxpayer money.

Digby wrote, and if not defunded, the agency should clearly be downfunded and repurposed to be less a thugish private army for a mad and mean White House crew. Trump and Barr, in tandem proved that point in Portland. Likely there are some on the DHS payroll who would be happy to see less taking it to the streets against citizen Constitutional rights, and more cyber science and other protective aims in disbursements.

_____________UPDATE____________

Among Trump and Barr, add Chad Wolf. Trump likely found him working a copy room Xerox machine at some white power think tank. Dressed him in a tailored suit, put on a Trump tie, and he still looks dorkish. Again, this link.

FURTHER: Regarding this Chad Wolf person, readers who care can go to Wikipedia, while here is a sampling of recent MSM thought: Oregon Live, Breitbart,  Mediate, ZeroHedge, TheHill, posting mid-item:

His [Wolf's] remarks mirrored those of acting Deputy Homeland Security Secretary Ken Cuccinelli, [you can look that nasty fucker up]  who told CNN's "New Day" on Monday that other cities experiencing protests over the death of George Floyd could see DHS deployments should agents learn of "planned attacks" against federal officers or facilities, as he alleged was the case in Portland.

“If we get the same kind of intelligence in other places about threats to other federal facilities or officers, we would respond the same way," Cuccinelli said.

The two have argued that the Trump administration retains authority to conduct law enforcement activities in cities where they are not welcomed by local officials, including in Oregon, where Gov. Kate Brown (D) insisted that DHS withdraw. Portland's mayor has made similar calls.

[link in original]

Last link, Guardian, effectively calling a snake a snake (or alternatively, calling at weasel a weasel while linking to the Oregon Live item):

Since becoming acting DHS secretary in November 2019, Wolf has denied there is a problem with systemic racism in US law enforcement and downplayed the threat of Covid-19. He has also overseen the implementation of extreme immigration restrictions the White House claimed would stem the spread of coronavirus.

Wolf is the fifth person to serve in the role under Trump in an acting or confirmed capacity, while George W Bush and Barack Obama each had three people in the job over the course of their two presidential terms. Wolf was named to the post only after two of the president’s preferred candidates were ruled ineligible to take up the job.

The Plano, Texas, native moved to Washington DC after graduating from Southern Methodist University. He was an architect of the Transportation Security Agency (TSA) and left DHS in 2005 to become a lobbyist.

After more than a decade lobbying, Wolf returned to the department to work for the Trump administration, where he has held multiple roles. The most glaring item on his resume, until Portland, was his central role in the Trump administration’s family separation policy while working as the chief of staff for then DHS secretary Kirstjen Nielsen.

At a June 2019 hearing, Wolf testified that he learned about family separation in April 2018, just before it was publicly announced.

“My job was not to determine whether it was the right or wrong policy,” Wolf testified. “My job at the time was to ensure that the secretary had all the information that [Nielsen] needed.”

Months later, NBC News revealed that Wolf included family separation on a list of 16 policy recommendations he drafted for senior department figures in December 2017.

Wolf’s name is on the list, and Trump approved the policy, but it was Nielsen who was the face of family separation. Her dismissal last year was emblematic of the Trump administration’s chaotic rule over the agency.

[italics added, extensive authentication linking omitted] As with the disastrously offensive storm trooper mischief of the Trump/Barr/Wolf order-giving to DHS and Marshal's Service, (and willing hirlings' "just following orders") there likely are those other, sensible and dedicated non-cowboy DHS personnel who'd enjoy seeing the doorknob get Wolf on the way out the door. Sooner being better than later.

Finally, regarding Cuccinelli, you know he's bad when Clinton trickster and Bernie backstabber DWS finds fault; although she has her local constituents to jolly along in calling Cuccinelli a white supremicist during hearings and by later reaffirming the characterization. The item about the DWS criticism ended noting, "Cuccinelli is reportedly being considered by the White House to serve as the next acting Homeland Security secretary." Vomit over that possibility.

Jesus did not vote for Pilate. Pilate was imposed upon the region, by Roman power and will. After a failed Insurrection against Rome.

Trump taking it to the mob. Frenzying them, because they are gullible to Trump/Pence. Doing it via facilitating fellow travelers. Authoritarians unanimous.

The story is Pilate got political, putting his decision to mob decision. The Barabbas story. To free a man of peace or a troublesome provocateur?

That  last link, somebody took the time to find eleven biblical Barabbas quotes, with the outcome not entirely worthless, a pair of favorites here at Crabgrass:

Matthew 27:20    --- But the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowds to ask for Barabbas and to put Jesus to death.

Mark 15:11--- But the chief priests stirred up the crowd to ask him to release Barabbas for them instead.

Pilate had the Pharisees and the Sadducees to deal with, like two Houses of Congress, and the biblical story had him pliant with them via the mob more than with them directly. Adaptable, a go along to get along mongering step from the representative of the powers in Rome, with its own imperial belief set and conduct.

Neither Pilate nor Barabbas drove any money-changer from anybody's Temple.

Pilate was sort of like Bloomberg, representing Rome. But with Bloomberg the Roman move was to reject the insurrectionist, and the crowd was induced that way.

It is hard to keep a biblical analogy intact, as a template for current events. However, in surfing the web for trying to find a template, one interesting item was found, stating at its start:

 "One of the most common statements from the "Religious Right" is that they want this country to "return to the 'Christian principles' on which it was founded".  However, a little research into American history will show that this statement is at the very least misleading. The men responsible for building the foundation of the United States had little use for Christianity, and many were strongly opposed to it. They were men of The Enlightenment, not men of Christianity. They were Deists who did not believe the bible was historically true or scientifically accurate.

"When the Founders wrote the nation's Constitution, they specified that "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States." (Article 6, section 3)   This provision was radical in its day-- giving equal citizenship to believers and non-believers alike.  They wanted to ensure that no single religion could make the claim of being the official, national religion, such as England had.  Nowhere in the Constitution does it mention religion, except in exclusionary terms.  The words "Jesus Christ, Christianity, Bible, and God" are never mentioned in the Constitution-- not once.

"The Declaration of Independence gives us important insight into the opinions of the Founding Fathers. Thomas Jefferson wrote that the power of the government is derived from the governed. Up until that time, it was claimed that kings ruled nations by the authority of God. The Declaration was a radical departure from the idea of divine authority.

"The 1796 treaty with Tripoli states that the United States was "in no sense founded on the Christian religion" (see below). This was not an idle statement, meant to satisfy Muslims-- they believed it and meant it. This treaty was written under the presidency of George Washington and signed under the presidency of John Adams.

[... treaty text in accord]

"Most of the Founders were Deists, which is to say they thought the universe had a creator, but that he does not concern himself with the daily lives of humans, and does not directly communicate with humans, either by revelation or by sacred books. They spoke often of God, (Nature's God or the God of Nature), but this was not the God of the bible. They did not deny that there was a person called Jesus, and praised him for his benevolent teachings, but they flatly denied his divinity. Some people speculate that if Charles Darwin had lived a century earlier, the Founding Fathers would have had a basis for accepting naturalistic origins of life, and they would have been atheists.  Most of them were stoutly opposed to the bible, and the teachings of Christianity in particular.

This is not the first "founders were Deists" reference found here, via the Internet, and readers are invited to do a websearch = founders constitution deists deism

That said, Nov 3 cannot come soon enough. The resounding 30 sec bullshit barrage will only become worse for TV mavens. Among readers, there is this,  a critique beginning with the accompanying image:

Brand Commander in Chief

Danger-prone outside agitators provoke intended unrest in Portland, leading multiple metropolitan mayors to implore Congress for relief.

AP item carried by SeattlePI: "US attorney: Feds will stay in Portland until attacks end." And the Homeland Security deployed outside agitator thugs show no sign of lessening their attacks, so it will last until election day, and more. The money quote:

Local and state officials said the federal officers are unwelcome.

Meanwhile, the mayors of Portland and five other major U.S. cities appealed Monday to Congress to make it illegal for the federal government to deploy militarized agents to cities that don't want them.

Yes. Extend the Posse Comitatus restraint against use of the the federal military forces within our borders to include paramilitary undisciplined and hostile Homeland Security forces [aka Trump's private army of deployed thugs]. This request to Congress being necessitated by the derailed intentional actions of a super-divisive and inflammatory  DC administration.

Barr-Trump policy at its worse. Pissing all around and on sane norms of justice and treasured federal power limitations we enjoy per Constitutional Bill of Rights rule of law.

Key mid-item paragraphs:

“This administration's egregious use of federal force on cities over the objections of local authorities should never happen,” the mayors of Portland, Seattle, Chicago, Kansas City, Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Washington wrote to leaders of the U.S. House and Senate.

Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler and City Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty late called for a meeting with Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf to discuss a cease-fire and removal of heightened federal forces from Portland.

The city has had nightly protests for two months since the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May. President Donald Trump said he sent federal agents to Portland to halt the unrest, but state and local officials said they are making the situation worse.

Trump’s deployment of the federal officers over the July 4 weekend stoked the Black Lives Matter movement. The number of nightly protesters had dwindled to perhaps less than 100 right before the deployment, and now has swelled to the thousands.

[italics added] That's right. A situation being aptly handled locally was intentionally inflamed ten-fold by hoodlums from Homeland Security doing exactly what the Trump-Barr pair wanted, raising hell and distressing people. Especially distressed are local officials who want the hoodlums out, yesterday not being soon enough.

Vote the BASTARD out. He is a clear and present danger. Multiplying protests ten-fold is likely more than the reelection-challenged schmuck wanted, and he must be proud of his yet again failure. The man of a special talent - the unequaled ability to bankrupt a casino. That together with Trump's henchman Barr, the sick dissembling power-inventing private prep school's headmaster's son, with an authoritarian anti-protest ax to grind.

When a host of city mayors are compelled to have no option but to petition Congress to curb executive branch excessive use of force against citizens, things have reached a point where there is no sane option to voting Biden in, despite his historic level of conservative baggage and all. 

BOTTOM LINE: Gestapo tactics in the streets of Portland are anti-American. There is no other, better truth beyond that.

 

 

Digby writes. Salon publishes.

The link is here, and readers are strongly urged to simply go there and take the time to read it all AND follow the well-thought-out links. For those in a hurry, wanting only a taste, click this screen capture and read.

Having visited Portland only once for a half-day, getting a sense of the city's mood, things could not have been this bad or worse before Trump pulled another shallow stunt by delibrertely inserting federal disruption and havoc agents, thinking it might marginally aid his reelection.

It won't. This is what Trump's Portland stunt did.

It surpasses the Trump-Barr clearing of Lafayette Park for the Trump bible-waving stunt, which was obscene enough (as well as totally unnecessary), but his bible-waving BS was neither as destructive to citizens nor as costly in federal taxpayer dollars as the Rape of Portland, brought there by Trump's invading federal army. By an invading army never once wanted nor requested by local government officials familiar with the pre-invasion situation and how to handle it. It was the Trump equivalent of taking a blow torch to his iPhone because he thought it was too slow. Moreover, it was a conscious decision to be far more brutal than the way the Ammon Bundy grazing standoff was handled.

Courthouse News.

Tolerance and far less brutality was used against the Bundy insurrectionist crowd.

Different times. Different head of state. Sober and sane minds in 2014. Put differently, a reality TV mentality stoked with meanness really sucks. Especially a sick and perverted one. UPDATE: Make that sick and perverted pair, Bill Barr is the AG Trump wanted Sessions to be, but Sessions had too much honor to be a Bill Barr. Barr is as happy as a bear in a honey tree. As he was with the Bush family.

The packaging and sale of Val Demings. Done with suitable propagandistic panache, by your favorite Biden-Comcast crony network.

Making her look like other than a career cop, with brutality claims against the department she led. MSNBC is its own worse enemy. (Without justification nor with any Rupert Murdoch history to explain it's awfulness.)