Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

A last alliance of elves and men. also pet photos.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

T R E 4 5 O N

The revolution will be supervised.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

Americans barely caring about Afghanistan is so last month.

Everybody saw this coming.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

After roe, women are no longer free.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

This fight is for everything.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

You are here: Home / Past Elections / 2020 Elections / Late Night Bad Indicators Open Thread: Portland

Late Night Bad Indicators Open Thread: Portland

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  3. 3.

    Carlo

    I’m actually looking forward to Trump trying this shit in Chicago. I think Mayor Lightfoot would impound their vans, seal and search their offices, and have the Agent in charge arrested and chucked into a Cook County Jail and lose the paperwork.

  4. 4.

    HumboldtBlue

    Let’s try this comment thing again.

    AL, you’re really coming at it with the Malamud takes, I like it!

  5. 5.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    “They knocked the hell out of him. That was the end of him” — Trump gloats about feds tear-gassing mayor of Portland

    Oh my god. This man is a fucking monster. He’s talking about a mayor of a major American city getting tear gassed by his goons. This could be any of us.

    My general impression is that people see Trump’s feds as making the situation worse. Is there any polling to that effect?

  6. 6.

    Wag

    I am numb with anger, and despair about the future of our country. Trump is as close to the Anti-Christ as I can imagine.

  8. 8.

    opiejeanne

    Good post, AL. The business in Portland is very distressing and now Seattle has joined them on the hot-seat, in solidarity. Everything these goons are doing is bullshit, just pure bullshit, and people are going to die.

  9. 9.

    opiejeanne

    @Wag: I have thought that for more than a year, and the Anti-Christ really isn’t part of my belief system, but he (Trump) fits the Biblical idea of him in so many ways I’m surprised that even the Christianists don’t notice it.

  11. 11.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): that would be interesting to see. Obviously they are making it worse (anybody interested in protecting the building would just put up a bigger fence) but at a certain point too many people on both sides are just showing up to brawl. ETA The AP had a kind of harrowing story today by a journo “embedded” in the courthouse. Read it with a grain of salt but even then, pretty crazy stuff.

    here it is: there was a journo with the protestors and one with the feds https://apnews.com/1dd1bb39093a3691f4e78093787ab877

  13. 13.

    opiejeanne

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I’m pretty sure the”They knocked the hell out of him” comment referred to the Portland mayor getting beat on by the protesters. I don’t think he was the primary target of the tear gas, just got lucky.

  14. 14.

    burnspbesq

    I wonder how Peter Baum (the first Oregonian to make a big splash in lacrosse and hero to all Oregon kids that play the Creator’s Game) felt after seeing that protestor use a stick to snag a tear gas canister and return it to sender.

  15. 15.

    sdhays

    @Major Major Major Major: Putting up more walls around a building is definitely something Dump knows about.

    I live about 25 miles from DC, but I haven’t been there in months – basically since the Dump plague descended. I was shocked the other day to see the walls they’ve put up since March. I used to live about 5 miles from the White House and would walk there in an afternoon. Even through a few embarrassing security breaches, Obama kept his cool and you could walk down Pennsylvania Ave. right up to the fence. Now there are these ugly walls that push regular people far, far away.

    He’s such a fucking coward.

  16. 16.

    Major Major Major Major

    @sdhays: the WH walls are crazy!! I saw a picture the other day, had no idea either.

    Put those up in Portland, send the “troops” home, problem solved. If they were interested in solving the stated problem of course.

  17. 17.

    Carlo

    @sdhays: I believe they would. People often fail to appreciate the power of the Mayor of Chicago has. Also, CPD as a body may not like her much, but they really don’t like the Feds at all. And in the end, orders are orders.

  19. 19.

    sdhays

    @Major Major Major Major: What’s “funny” about the walls is how he denied cowering in the White House bunker when the BLM protests got slightly heated – he just went for a routine inspection, of course! And now we see that he’s built the ugliest and cheapest of external bunkers in which to cower in comparative comfort.

  21. 21.

    Brachiator

    For four years, Trump has tried to make the military & FBI his palace guard; both have resisted. DHS lacks the leadership at the top – and the institutional history built on integrity – to resist Trump’s despotic tendencies.

    Americans don’t really have much actual experience with authoritarian regimes. Trump is stupid, and largely incompetence, but he has been stumbling in the direction of attempting to establish himself as a populist authoritarian.

    He is using the DHS to establish a Praetorian Guard loyal only to him.

    He has always hinted at wanting to be able to establish law and order, to suppress rebellion. And now he gets to brag about slapping an elected mayor around on his authority.

    This will not end well if Trump is re-elected.

    ETA. Funny how all those beefy Second Amendment Patriots have faded away. They bray about liberty and a government that they claim wants to take away their rights. But it turns out that they just want to secure the blessings of white supremacy.

  23. 23.

    Alison Rose

    Some of the replies to the Vote Vets tweet make it even clearer than it already was that the SUPPORT THE TROOPS AND VETERANS!!!!!! screeching the right has always done is a bunch of bullshit.

    And I swear, Trump manages to get even more disgusting every damn day. Someone needs to invent time travel so we can go back and stop his parents from ever meeting. Or interrupt their first date and be like “Listen, if you two bang, you’re gonna ruin this entire country in about 70 years, please for God’s sake, go find other people so your two gene pools don’t become a fucking swamp that gives rise to The Creature From the Orange Lagoon.”

  24. 24.

    sdhays

    DC National Guard Whistleblower Details Tear Gas Op For Trump Photo Shoot:

    DeMarco told lawmakers in the written testimony that he was deployed as a National Guard liaison with the U.S. Park Police on June 1.

    “Having served in a combat zone, and understanding how to assess threat environments, at no time did I feel threatened by the protestors or assess them to be violent,” DeMarco wrote. “In addition, considering the principles of proportionality of force and the fundamental strategy of graduated responses specific to civil disturbance operations, it was my observation that the use of force against demonstrators in the clearing operation was an unnecessary escalation of the use of force.”

    An Iraq War veteran, DeMarco will testify before Congress on Tuesday.

  25. 25.

    noncarborundum

    @opiejeanne:

    I remember when there was speculation that Reagan was the antichrist because there were 6 letters in each of his names.  Trump would seem to fail by this metric because it would make him 645.  But maybe if we amend his name according to his paternal ancestry and add up the letters of “Donald Johann Drumpf”?

  26. 26.

    HumboldtBlue

    @Major Major Major Major:

    That was excellent reporting from the other side and the reporters deserve kudos for a solid informative and engaging story but it does reinforce the narrative the Feds are the real victims here, the ones most inconvenienced and in danger when they could be at home.

  30. 30.

    H.E.Wolf

    @Wag: I am numb with anger, and despair about the future of our country.

    You may feel better if you remember what huge numbers of people of color and a great many white women and some white men have been doing for the past 4 years (2017 Women’s March, 2018 midterms, state legislatures and governorships flipped to blue, hundreds of US House bills passed by the Democratic majority).

    You will definitely feel better if you pitch in and help in your own way. (I’ve been doing Tasks For Introverts, from home.) Think of it as honoring John Lewis. Get in some good trouble. :-)

  31. 31.

    Citizen Alan

    @opiejeanne: I’ve said for many years now that most Evangelicals would voluntarily tattoo the Mark of the Beast on their foreheads if the Antichrist did a good enough job of appealing to their tribal bigotries.

  32. 32.

    sdhays

    This has probably been covered in an earlier thread, but isn’t it bizarre that Dump’s National Security Advisor has COVID-19 and the White House is like “It’s no big deal, Dump and Dense never meet with this guy anyway.” I mean, it’s not surprising considering the current occupant, but shouldn’t that warrant some minor pearls clutching from the punditocracy?

  34. 34.

    Wag

    @H.E.Wolf:   I’ve been shuttling my 14 year old  son, at his insistence, to BLM protests, and marching with him. It has been immensely rewarding.

  36. 36.

    Alison Rose

    @Major Major Major Major: ““In the graphic design process handled by an outside vendor, the photo was resized and a filter was applied, which appears to have caused an unintentional error that distorted the image,” a campaign spokesperson said in a statement.”

    A filter. Yeah sure. A filter that does nothing but make someone’s nose bigger. Cool story, bro.

  37. 37.

    Danielx

    @Wag:

    Yup. God seems to have on an extended vacation since 1914 or thereabouts, but the devil? Oh yeah, he’s real and he’s one busy motherfucker.

  39. 39.

    dnfree

    Here’s my question. I saw a video from the weekend of the Portland NAACP trying to refocus the protests on Black Lives Matter rather than on confrontations between mostly white people and the federal forces. Some articles say the early protests are peaceful, with the moms and dads and vets and all, but then when most of the peaceful protesters leave, the more confrontational group takes over. My impression from this video was that the local NAACP doesn’t think this is helping advance the cause. Does anyone have more information or insight into this?

  40. 40.

    different-church-lady

    They’ve been saying we’re on the edge of Civil War for years now, but I never imagined it would be the President and the DHS on one side, and everybody else on the other.

  46. 46.

    H.E.Wolf

    @Brachiator: Americans don’t really have much actual experience with authoritarian regimes.

    What you’re saying has some real truth in it. If I may, I’m going to point to some counterbalancing (and encouraging) truth.

    The often-narrow focus of the mass media can lead us to forget momentarily that “American” is a very, very broad category. Many American citizens, naturalized and native-born, have indeed had experience with life in authoritarian regimes.

    My father, who fled Germany in the 1930s with his family when he was a child; my aunt, who was interned as a teenager in a “relocation camp” in Arizona, along with her family; my co-worker, who when she was a young women escaped from Vietnam as one of the “boat people”; John Lewis in his teens and 20s, who was beaten and arrested many times in the segregated South.

    All Americans. All contributing their experiences, their stories, to the reasons why we – collectively as Americans – will withstand the current would-be authoritarian regime.

    /soapbox :-)

  47. 47.

    Honus

    @sdhays: I mean which is more shocking? That the National Security Advisor, a cabinet level official and probably one of the 100 most protected people in the world, was exposed to the virus, Or that Trump has never met with him during a pandemic that is the greatest threat to national security in decades?

  48. 48.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Ruckus: when Mary Trump was asked if she was surprised to learn her grandfather had attended a Klan rally, she said only because she didn’t see how he could have turned a buck out of it.

  50. 50.

    oatler.

    From K-Thug:
    The point, instead, is that they’ve sacralized selfishness, hurting their own political prospects by insisting on the right to act selfishly even when it hurts others.

    What the coronavirus has revealed is the power of America’s cult of selfishness. And this cult is killing us.

  52. 52.

    JAFD

    @H.E.Wolf: “Tasks for Introverts”, you mention. Might I ask you to post the URL, or other contact info, whenever convenient for you ?
    Thanks, very much.

  54. 54.

    gwangung

    @H.E.Wolf: Indeed. I had relatives die under Mao. My co-producer’s parents fled from Vietnam. One of my close friends escaped the killing fields.

     

    So, yeah, a lot of us have close experience with authoritarian regimes. And with communism and Marxists. Way more than so-called conservatives.

  55. 55.

    Kattails

    @opiejeanne: Agreed. I double-checked what the seven deadly sins are, because Trump treats them like a to-do list. The commentary noted that Pride was considered the worst, because “it severs the soul from grace”. No apologies for anything, no backing down, no self-questioning or correction. Apparently  not an ounce of humility or empathy or compassion.

    I’m working on this angle because I really need to have a serious chat with my mother about voting & she’s conservative and a Lutheran.  Living in Florida and  making excuses for Deathsantis. I need her to grasp that a vote for this monster is going to sever her soul from those of her two daughters who will have to live with the consequences of her vote for the remainder of their old age. My expectations aren’t too high, but I’ve got to try.

    In the meantime I’d better go restore my soul by giving the kitties their evening treats.

  59. 59.

    frosty

    @H.E.Wolf: All Americans. All contributing their experiences, their stories, to the reasons why we – collectively as Americans – will withstand the current would-be authoritarian regime.

    Brilliant. And inspiring, thanks.

  61. 61.

    sanjeevs

    Mitt and Susan Collins have said they will oppose the nomination of Judy Shelton to the Fed Board.

    Shelton is another Trump whackjob who has said the U.S. should return to the gold standard.

  63. 63.

    David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch

    They’re sending more goons cuz they love the big black Cock’N’Balls donuts at Portland’s famed Voo Doo Bakery (link)

  65. 65.

    sanjeevs

    @Yutsano: Manchin and Sinema will have no pressure to vote for her. She’s another Peter Navarro type – a lone oddball.

    Murkowski might – would be a good way to distance from Trump

  68. 68.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    I would be careful of overthinking Trump.

    “They knocked the hell out of him. That was the end of him” — Trump gloats about feds tear-gassing mayor of Portland

    I think this is some kind of show put on by Trump’s staff to stop Dumb Ass Donny from screaming at them about the scary pictures on the TV. Notice that the “surge” at the other cities is more about normal Federal police work, ie it’s so when Trump watches Fox these cities are on the list.

    I think the most worrisome thing about Trump isn’t what he is going to do it’s what others who come in the future might be inspired to from Trump’s antics.

  69. 69.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Citizen Alan:  Remember in the Evangelical narrative on the End Times the Antichrist is really sent by God to punish the bad people while the good people will magically fly off into the sky and safety.

  70. 70.

    lowtechcyclist

    “They knocked the hell out of him. That was the end of him” — Trump gloats about feds tear-gassing mayor of Portland

    Now supposedly the Federal goons are there to protect the Federal buildings and arrest people who have committed Federal crimes.

    Has any reporter asked Trump what crime Mayor Wheeler is supposed to have committed?

  72. 72.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Citizen Alan:

    @opiejeanne: I’ve said for many years now that most Evangelicals would voluntarily tattoo the Mark of the Beast on their foreheads if the Antichrist did a good enough job of appealing to their tribal bigotries.

    Even though I’m an old Jesus freak, I think the whole End Times business is bullshit.  But I’ve been saying for years that Trump is like your perfect dry run/proof of concept for the Antichrist.  And wasn’t part of the deal that most of those who considered themselves Christians were supposed to be won over by the Antichrist and become his followers?

    Evangelicals, of course, have always expected that it would be the devotees of mainstream denominations who would have that happen to them.  Instead, it’s the evangelicals who’ve fallen for our proto-Antichrist.

  73. 73.

    Geeno

    @opiejeanne: One of the anti-christ’s powers is to deceive and corrupt the faithful. And they willingly put the mark of the beast (MAGA!) on their own foreheads.

  74. 74.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    And according to this, the Feds admit privatetly they are losing in Portand.

    https://www.yahoo.com/news/feds-wont-leave-portland-until-071500399.html

    The harsh crackdown and vilification of protesters in Portland my end up helping Trump politically, “but as a policing tactic, it has failed to suppress the protests,” The Washington Post notes. “The escalation has been followed by larger, better-equipped, and more-aggressive crowds, and — as the new reinforcements showed — it exhausted federal resources before it exhausted the protesters.”

  75. 75.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @burnspbesq: Repeat from a post below, just FTR:

    Using lacrosse sticks to send tear-gas canisters flying back at the cops who threw them is a tactic invented over 50 years ago, by striking Johns Hopkins University students when in spring 1970 the Baltimore cops invaded the Homewood campus (at the request or at least connivance of the fucking JHU administration) & gassed a crowd in front of the dorms.

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