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Today's News (2020/6/3): Fascism Rampant Edition
First post today - the Fascism Rampant edition - keeps getting delayed because I keep having to put more things in it. I'm cutting it off here for now. This is mostly but not exclusively Trump fascism, but a couple of lower-level actions are also included.
That memo from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff that David Martin posted wasn't really to the armed forces. It was really to Donald Trump.
- White House Officials Asked If They Could Take Over D.C.’s Local Police
- Trump Press Secretary lies, says peaceful crowd was assaulting police
- Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva Says Curfew Will Continue “Until The Organized Protests Are Gone”
- This man started an account where he tweets exactly what the president tweets. He just got suspended.
- The FBI Finds ‘No Intel Indicating Antifa Involvement’ in Sunday’s Violence
- Federal law enforcement of some kind, but they won’t identify themselves, and all insignias and name plates have been removed.
- Police shove, make AP journalists stop covering protest
- NY Times publishes opinion piece by Senator Tom Cotton calling for the military to crush protest. [EDITOR: Our cancellation of our subscription has never been more validated. We will never return.]
- Use of medical helicopter to target protesters is under investigation, National Guard says
- ‘Uncomfortable Mission’: Pentagon Tries to Retreat From Trump’s Call to ‘Dominate’ Protests
- Trump use of Justice Department to investigate political opponents
- Police assaults on journalists, a thread
- Tucker Carlson and Fox News: "violent young men with guns" are coming for you
- CBS News: Trump wants to use military against protesters
- CBS's David Martin obtained this memo from General Mark Milley to the armed forces
- Defence Secretary Mark Esper opposes invocation of the Insurrection Act.
- Damien Patton, CEO of tech surveillance company Banjo, once helped KKK shoot up a synagogue: Report
- Army: Esper reverses plan to send active-duty troops home
- The law enforcement presence in DC right now is unlike anything I’ve ever seen.
- CIA veterans who monitored crackdowns abroad see troubling parallels in Trump handling of protests
- James Mattis Denounces President Trump, Describes Him as a Threat to the Constitution
- Gun-toting members of the Boogaloo movement are showing up at protests
----- 1 -----
White House Officials Asked If They Could Take Over D.C.’s Local Police
Lisette Voytko
Updated Jun 2, 2020, 01:35pm EDT
https://www.forbes.com/sites/lisettevoytko/2020/06/02/white-house-officials-asked-if-they-could-take-over-dcs-local-police/
The Washington Post reported Tuesday that federal officials, including at the White House, raised the idea with District of Columbia officials of taking over the local police department, according to Mayor Muriel Bowser’s chief of staff.
Bowser’s chief of staff, John Falcicchio told the Post that D.C. officials objected, and said they would mount a legal challenge if federal officials made an attempt to do so.
The District of Columbia is governed by its own mayor and city council, but federal law gives the president the ability to take over local police in emergency situations.
Falcicchio told reporters Tuesday that “we are firm in our understanding” that allowing such a takeover “would not be a prudent move.”
----- 2 -----
Garrett Haake
twitter.com/GarrettHaake
3 June 2020
https://twitter.com/GarrettHaake/status/1268257351871627265
It’s hard to prove a negative, but I didn’t see anything being thrown at officers on Monday, and I’m not aware of any other reporters seeing that either.
[QUOTED TWEET]
Steve Herman
twitter.com/W7VOA
"The appropriate action was taken" because demonstrators were unruly, throwing bricks and water bottles at officers, according to twitter.com/PressSec.
[EMBEDDED IMAGE AT LINK]
----- 3 -----
Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva Says Curfew Will Continue “Until The Organized Protests Are Gone”
By Tom Tapp
2 June 2020
https://deadline.com/2020/06/los-angeles-county-sheriff-alex-villanueva-curfew-will-continue-until-protests-end-1202949847/
At midday on Tuesday, L.A. County announced another night of curfew. The City of Angels soon followed by extending its own lockdown order in response to unrest following widespread protests over the killing of George Floyd.
Those curfews will last from 6 pm on Tuesday until 6 am on Wednesday. This is the fourth night in a row that the streets of America’s second largest city will go quiet, at least in theory.
County supervisors, in concert with the sheriff, have amended the curfew order each day for the past two days extending the lockdown another 24 hours each time.
Asked on Tuesday if he would extend the curfew for a week, as some other cities have, L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti said, “No, for me it’s day to day. My hope in my heart is that every day we won’t need it.”
At midday on Tuesday, L.A. County announced another night of curfew. The City of Angels soon followed by extending its own lockdown order in response to unrest following widespread protests over the killing of George Floyd.
Those curfews will last from 6 pm on Tuesday until 6 am on Wednesday. This is the fourth night in a row that the streets of America’s second largest city will go quiet, at least in theory.
County supervisors, in concert with the sheriff, have amended the curfew order each day for the past two days extending the lockdown another 24 hours each time.
Asked on Tuesday if he would extend the curfew for a week, as some other cities have, L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti said, “No, for me it’s day to day. My hope in my heart is that every day we won’t need it.”
L.A. County’s top law enforcement official didn’t see it that way, however.
In a live interview on KTLA5 on Tuesday afternoon, Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva said, “The curfew will continue on a daily basis until the organized protests are gone. Because, unfortunately, the looters and the organized criminal element that’s embedded within the looting, they’re taking advantage of that situation. So as long as that cover still exists, we have to continue the curfew. But it’s two different groups: We have the protesters, who are legitimately doing a good job, and then we have the looter crowd. So we’re definitely trying to separate the two.”
----- 4 -----
Dylan Marron
twitter.com/dylanmarron
3 June 2020
https://twitter.com/dylanmarron/status/1268207757968076800
This man started an account where he tweets exactly what the president tweets. He just got suspended.
[QUOTED TWEET]
Bizarre Lazar
twitter.com/BizarreLazar
1 June 2020
Experiment Update - Well it finally happened. Took longer than expected. 12 hour suspension and had to delete the offending tweet. Here’s the screenshots twitter.com/suspendthepres. Will post to the account when suspension is lifted.
----- 5 -----
The FBI Finds ‘No Intel Indicating Antifa Involvement’ in Sunday’s Violence
By Ken Klippenstein
2 June 2020
https://www.thenation.com/article/activism/antifa-trump-fbi/
The FBI’s Washington Field Office “has no intelligence indicating Antifa involvement/presence” in the violence that occurred on May 31 during the D.C.-area protests over the murder of George Floyd, according to an internal FBI situation report obtained exclusively by The Nation. That same day, President Donald Trump announced on Twitter that he would designate “Antifa” a terrorist organization, even though the government has no existing authority to declare a domestic group a terrorist organization, and antifa is not an organized group. Following the president’s tweet, Attorney General William Barr said in a statement, “The violence instigated and carried out by Antifa and other similar groups in connection with the rioting is domestic terrorism and will be treated accordingly.”
The FBI report, however, states that “based on CHS [Confidential Human Source] canvassing, open source/social media partner engagement, and liaison, FBI WFO has no intelligence indicating Antifa involvement/presence.” The statement followed a list of violent acts like throwing bricks at police and the discovery of a backpack containing explosive materials, which were flagged by the FBI under a “Key Updates” section of the report. The FBI has been issuing such reports daily since the weekend, according to a Bureau source, who added that none of these documents contained any evidence of antifa violence.
Antifa, short for “anti-fascist,” is a type of militant anti-racist, anti-nationalist organizing that does not rely on the justice system to confront the far right. Groups associated with antifa have destroyed property and committed violence in the past, but the fact that the FBI’s situation reports cannot find any evidence of such involvement now suggests that fears about such groups may be exaggerated.
The report did warn that individuals from a far-right social media group had “called for far-right provocateurs to attack federal agents, use automatic weapons against protesters.” (The Nation is withholding the name of the group in order to not disrupt any potential law enforcement investigations.)
Last year, FBI documents obtained by this reporter showed that the Bureau has listed “Racially Motivated Violent Extremists” among its top counterterrorism priorities. While those priorities did include white supremacist groups, they also included what the FBI called “Black Identity Extremists.” The documents reveal that the Bureau linked “retaliatory lethal violence against law enforcement” to the “shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri,” from which the Black Lives Matter movement originated.
The report, marked “For official use only” (FOUO), was provided to The Nation by an FBI official on condition of anonymity. The report is titled, “Civil Unrest in Washington AOR [Area of Responsibility] Following Death of George Floyd.” The report’s reference to “CHS” suggests that the Bureau possesses secret informants participating in the protests.
Asked about the report and why they’ve been unable to substantiate antifa involvement in the violence, the FBI’s Washington Field Office declined to comment.
----- 6 -----
Garrett Haake
twitter.com/GarrettHaake
3 June 2020
https://twitter.com/GarrettHaake/status/1268233764070731778
[THREAD]
Back outside the White House. Today the perimeter has been pushed back another half block. Federal law enforcement of some kind, but they won’t identify themselves, and all insignias and name plates have been removed.
[NEXT]
The Twitter hive mind has run pictures of the various insignias and flags and folks seem to think these are probably a Bureau of Prisons SORT (special operations) team, maybe from Texas.
[NEXT]
Whoever those guys were, they’ve now been replaced by DC National Guardsmen (with DC flags on their chests)
----- 7 -----
Police shove, make AP journalists stop covering protest
By The Associated Press
3 June 2020
https://apnews.com/1d2d9e4afdd822b27bfcce570e0cbdb5
NEW YORK (AP) — New York City police officers surrounded, shoved and yelled expletives at two Associated Press journalists covering protests Tuesday in the latest aggression against members of the media during a week of unrest around the country.
Portions of the incident were captured on video by videojournalist Robert Bumsted, who was working with photographer Maye-E Wong to document the protests in lower Manhattan over the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
The video shows more than a half-dozen officers confronting the journalists as they filmed and took photographs of police ordering protesters to leave the area near Fulton and Broadway shortly after an 8 p.m. curfew took effect.
An officer, using an expletive, orders them to go home. Bumsted is heard on video explaining the press are considered “essential workers” and are allowed to be on the streets. An officer responds “I don’t give a s—-.” Another tells Bumsted “get the f—- out of here you piece of s—-.”
Bumsted and Wong said officers shoved them, separating them from each other and pushing them toward Bumsted’s car, which was parked nearby. At one point Bumsted said he was pinned against his car. He is heard on video telling the officer that Wong has his keys and he needs them to leave the area. Officers then allowed Wong to approach and the two got in the vehicle and left.
----- 8 -----
Abraham Riesman אברהם ריסמאַן
twitter.com/abrahamjoseph
3 June 2020
https://twitter.com/abrahamjoseph/status/1268263716774195200
[THREAD]
Am I having a stroke or did the paper of record just publish a call to crush a popular uprising by turning the American military against the country’s citizens
[IMAGE FROM OPINION PIECE BY SENATOR TOM COTTON CALLING FOR MILITARY FORCE AGAINST PROTESTS]
[TRANSCRIPT BY EDITOR
Opinion
Send In the Troops
The nation must restore order. The military stands ready.
By Tom Cotton
Mr. Cotton, a Republican, is a United States senator from Arkansas.
June 3, 2020, 2:52 p.m. ET
[PHOTOGRAPH OF TOM COTTON]
]
----- 9 -----
Use of medical helicopter to target protesters is under investigation, National Guard says
By Alex Horton
June 2, 2020 at 7:00 p.m. PDT
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2020/06/02/helicopter-protest-dc/
On the battlefield, the roar of helicopter blades paired with a Red Cross is salvation for wounded troops and civilians.
But the thwomping blades of military helicopters, including one with Red Cross markings, were part of a low-flying show of force over Washington’s streets Monday night — an incident now under investigation.
Numerous videos on social media showed an unarmed Lakota medevac helicopter hovering over demonstrators. Its Red Cross markings, visible on the aircraft’s belly and side, was flown by the Washington D.C. Army National Guard. At least two helicopters roared overhead, sending people and debris flying.
The use of a helicopter with Red Cross markings was an abuse of global norms that could help erode its neutral symbolism, military justice experts said.
“This was a foolish move,” said Geoffrey Corn, a former Army lawyer and professor at the South Texas College of Law in Houston. “The symbolic significance of the Red Cross is pervasive: It denotes a ‘noncombatant’ function of the armed forces.”
...
The use of a helicopter’s rotor wash, the downward rush of air from its rotors, is a common military tactic to incite fear, disperse crowds and warn of other capabilities, like rockets and guns, said Kyleanne Hunter, a former Marine Corps pilot who flew Cobra attack helicopters in Iraq and Afghanistan.
----- 10 -----
‘Uncomfortable Mission’: Pentagon Tries to Retreat From Trump’s Call to ‘Dominate’ Protests
Pentagon officials say it was the White House, not the Defense Department, pushing for military might in the streets—with Trump seeking details on “tanks” that could be used.
Erin Banco
Spencer Ackerman
Asawin Suebsaeng
Updated Jun. 03, 2020
https://www.thedailybeast.com/pentagon-tries-to-retreat-from-trumps-call-to-dominate-protests
Less than 24 hours after President Trump said he was prepared to send troops into cities across America, senior officials in the Pentagon began to try to distance themselves from those words and from the idea itself, underscoring that not one governor had requested additional military assistance from Defense Secretary Mark Esper.
Trump has for days pushed state leaders to take a tougher stance against “antifa” protesters, saying on a call with governors Monday that if they did not mass arrest protesters they would end up looking like “a bunch of jerks.” Then, Monday evening, the president took it a step further.
...
These Pentagon officials added that it was the White House, not the Defense Department, that was pushing for active military might in the streets. A senior DOD official said it was the White House that requested military helicopters fly low over protesters in D.C. and that it was part of a broader request from the Trump team that the national guard ramp up its presence in the city. The Associated Press was the first to report about the military flyover being connected to a request from President Trump.
Additionally, the president has pressed aides and Pentagon officials for graphic details on the kind of armored vehicles, military units, aircraft, and even “tanks” that they could potentially send to maintain order in U.S. areas rocked by protests and rioting, according to two people familiar with recent discussions.
One of the sources, a senior administration official, insisted that the president wasn’t ordering tanks to roll down the streets, but was inquiring about “the kind of hardware” that could be used in military shows of force, and at one point Trump threw out the word “tanks.”
“I think that is just one of the military words he knows,” this official said.
----- 11 -----
Weijia Jiang
twitter.com/weijia
3 June 2020
https://twitter.com/weijia/status/1268174365612544000
Compare this with ONE Trump DOJ investigation into police department patterns and practices. (So far the civil rights division has not opened a review of Minneapolis PD.)
[QUOTED TWEET]
Paula Reid
twitter.com/PaulaReidCBS
3 June 2020
https://twitter.com/PaulaReidCBS/status/1268161832801443846
THREAD: Huber is one of SIX US Attorneys tapped by the Trump DOJ to review matters related to the President's political adversaries - Huber was looking at Clinton & FBI. During same time Trump DOJ has launched ONE pattern or practice investigation into constitutional policing.
----- 12 -----
Jeremy Diamond
twitter.com/JDiamond1
3 June 2020
https://twitter.com/JDiamond1/status/1268159230537850881
Woke up this morning to more instances of police unacceptably targeting and using force against journalists in the US over the last week. The list is far too long & this is unacceptable -- especially in the United States of America.
Time for a thread. This is just a sampling:
[THREAD CONTINUES AT LINK. CW: BLOOD, VIOLENCE]
----- 13 -----
Andrew Lawrence
twitter.com/ndrew_lawrence
2 June 2020
https://twitter.com/ndrew_lawrence/status/1267970947711197189
Tucker Carlson tells his viewers that "violent young men with guns" are coming to their neighborhoods
----- 14 -----
CBS This Morning
twitter.com/CBSThisMorning
3 June 2020
https://twitter.com/CBSThisMorning/status/1268146429522063360
Mainly peaceful protests continued in Washington D.C. last night, but President Trump is still pushing for more widespread use of the military to put down protests around the country.
twitter.com/weijia reports.
[EMBEDDED VIDEO]
----- 15 -----
Weijia Jiang
twitter.com/weijia
3 June 2020
https://twitter.com/weijia/status/1268203694170025990
New: twitter.com/CBSDavidMartin obtained this memo from General Mark Milley to the armed forces, which includes a hand written note that reads:
“We all committed our lives to the idea that is America—We will stay true to that oath and the American people.”
[EMBEDDED IMAGES OF MEMO]
----- 16 -----
ALT-immigration
twitter.com/ALT_uscis
3 June 2020
https://twitter.com/ALT_uscis/status/1268220236647596032
this will be known as the secretary of defense' last speech
[EMBEDDED VIDEO: Defence Secretary Mark Esper opposes invocation of the Insurrection Act. "I say this not only as Secretary of Defence, but also as a former soldier, and a former member of the National Guard. The option to use active duty force in a law enforcement role should only be used as a last resort, and only in the most urgent and dire of situations. We are _not_ in one of those situations now. I do _not_ support invoking the Insurrection Act."]
[SEE ALSO:
https://twitter.com/Acosta/status/1268213320940752901
Jim Acosta
twitter.com/Acosta
3 June 2020
https://twitter.com/Acosta/status/1268213320940752901
Senior WH official says Esper's remarks this morning were received "very poorly" at WH.
]
----- 17 -----
Damien Patton, CEO of tech surveillance company Banjo, once helped KKK shoot up a synagogue: Report
“We believe that the Blacks and the Jews are taking over America, and it’s our job to take America back for the White race,” Patton testified at trial, describing his beliefs while carrying out the crime — beliefs he said he no longer held.
28 April 2020
https://boingboing.net/2020/04/28/damien-patton-ceo-of-tech-sur.html
Banjo CEO Damien Patton has admitted to being a Neo-Nazi skinhead in his youth. But until today, the extent of his activity had not yet been reported, in part because of multiple spellings of his name used over the years.
At Medium.com's One Zero, a report claims that Patton, CEO of a Softbank-backed surveillance technology firm, has in the past identified as a Nazi, and was involved in a drive-by synagogue shooting with a KKK leader.
“Patton’s association with racist groups extended into adulthood; in testimony he provided against Brown, Patton admitted to fraternizing with skinheads while serving in the U.S. Navy.”
----- 18 -----
Army: Esper reverses plan to send active-duty troops home
By LOLITA C. BALDOR
3 June 2020
https://apnews.com/e0e783dcbb316887f4fac5a4dbe92563
WASHINGTON (AP) — In an abrupt reversal, Defense Secretary Mark Esper on Wednesday overturned an earlier Pentagon decision to send a couple hundred active-duty soldiers home from the Washington, D.C., region, amid growing tensions with the White House over the military response to the protests.
Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy told The Associated Press that the reversal came after Esper attended a meeting at the White House, and after other internal Pentagon discussions. It is unclear if Esper met with President Donald Trump. McCarthy said he believes the change was based on ensuring there is enough military support in the region to respond to any protest problems if needed.
McCarthy said he received notice of the Pentagon order to send about 200 soldiers with the 82nd Airborne’s immediate response force home just after 10 a.m. Wednesday. Hours later, the Pentagon notified him that Esper had reversed the decision.
The move to keep the troops in the region, however, comes as Pentagon leaders continue to insist they do not want to use active-duty forces to help quell the protests. Earlier in the day, Esper had tamped down threats from Trump about sending troops to “dominate” the streets, telling reporters at a Pentagon news conference that he opposes using military forces for law enforcement in containing the current street protests.
Active-duty troops should be used in the U.S. “only in the most urgent and dire of situations,” He said, adding, “We are not in one of those situations now.”
----- 19 -----
Angry Staffer
twitter.com/AngrierWHStaff
3 June 2020
https://twitter.com/AngrierWHStaff/status/1268299231057641472
The law enforcement presence in DC right now is unlike anything I’ve ever seen.
Thousands of troops on the streets, and almost none of them will identify themselves.
[QUOTED TWEET]
Mike Valerio
twitter.com/MikevWUSA
2 June 2020
5PM WHITE HOUSE — These are the unidentified DOJ officers holding the perimeter at 15th and H Streets.
They won’t tell the public to whom they report exactly...
It’s generating HUGE frustration here #GeorgeFloyd twitter.com/WUSA9
[EMBEDDED VIDEO: Mass numbers of 'law enforcement' in riot gear]
----- 20 -----
CIA veterans who monitored crackdowns abroad see troubling parallels in Trump handling of protests
By Greg Miller
June 3, 2020
https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/cia-veterans-who-monitored-crackdowns-abroad-see-troubling-parallels-in-trump-handling-of-protests/
WASHINGTON — The scenes have been disturbingly familiar to CIA analysts accustomed to monitoring scenes of societal unraveling abroad: the massing of protesters, the ensuing crackdowns and the awkwardly staged displays of strength by a leader determined to project authority.
In interviews and posts on social media in recent days, current and former U.S. intelligence officials have expressed dismay at the similarity between events at home and the signs of decline or democratic regression they were trained to detect in other countries.
“I’ve seen this kind of violence,” said Gail Helt, a former CIA analyst responsible for tracking developments in China and Southeast Asia. “This is what autocrats do. This is what happens in countries before a collapse. It really does unnerve me.”
Helt, now a professor at King University in Tennessee, said the images of unrest in U.S. cities, combined with President Donald Trump’s incendiary statements, echo clashes she covered over a dozen years at the CIA tracking developments in China, Malaysia and elsewhere.
Other former CIA analysts and national security officials rendered similarly troubled verdicts.
Marc Polymeropoulos, who formerly ran CIA operations in Europe and Asia, was among several former agency officials who recoiled at images of Trump hoisting a Bible in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church after authorities fired rubber bullets and tear gas to clear the president’s path of protesters.
“It reminded me of what I reported on for years in the Third World,” Polymeropoulos said on Twitter. Referring to the despotic leaders of Iraq, Syria and Libya, he said: “Saddam. Bashar. Qaddafi. They all did this.”
----- 21 -----
James Mattis Denounces President Trump, Describes Him as a Threat to the Constitution
In an extraordinary condemnation, the former defense secretary backs protesters and says the president is trying to turn Americans against one another.
Jeffrey Goldberg
3 June 2020
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/06/james-mattis-denounces-trump-protests-militarization/612640/
James Mattis, the esteemed Marine general who resigned as secretary of defense in December 2018 to protest Donald Trump’s Syria policy, has, ever since, kept studiously silent about Trump’s performance as president. But he has now broken his silence, writing an extraordinary broadside in which he denounces the president for dividing the nation, and accuses him of ordering the U.S. military to violate the constitutional rights of American citizens.
“I have watched this week’s unfolding events, angry and appalled,” Mattis writes. “The words ‘Equal Justice Under Law’ are carved in the pediment of the United States Supreme Court. This is precisely what protesters are rightly demanding. It is a wholesome and unifying demand—one that all of us should be able to get behind. We must not be distracted by a small number of lawbreakers. The protests are defined by tens of thousands of people of conscience who are insisting that we live up to our values—our values as people and our values as a nation.” He goes on, “We must reject and hold accountable those in office who would make a mockery of our Constitution.”
In his j’accuse, Mattis excoriates the president for setting Americans against one another.
“Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people—does not even pretend to try. Instead, he tries to divide us,” Mattis writes. “We are witnessing the consequences of three years of this deliberate effort. We are witnessing the consequences of three years without mature leadership. We can unite without him, drawing on the strengths inherent in our civil society. This will not be easy, as the past few days have shown, but we owe it to our fellow citizens; to past generations that bled to defend our promise; and to our children.”
He goes on to contrast the American ethos of unity with Nazi ideology. “Instructions given by the military departments to our troops before the Normandy invasion reminded soldiers that ‘The Nazi slogan for destroying us … was “Divide and Conquer.” Our American answer is “In Union there is Strength.”’ We must summon that unity to surmount this crisis—confident that we are better than our politics.”
Mattis’s dissatisfaction with Trump was no secret inside the Pentagon. But after his resignation, he argued publicly—and to great criticism—that it would be inappropriate and counterproductive for a former general, and a former Cabinet official, to criticize a sitting president. Doing so, he said, would threaten the apolitical nature of the military. When I interviewed him last year on this subject, he said, “When you leave an administration over clear policy differences, you need to give the people who are still there as much opportunity as possible to defend the country. They still have the responsibility of protecting this great big experiment of ours.” He did add, however: “There is a period in which I owe my silence. It’s not eternal. It’s not going to be forever.”
That period is now definitively over. Mattis reached the conclusion this past weekend that the American experiment is directly threatened by the actions of the president he once served. In his statement, Mattis makes it clear that the president’s response to the police killing of George Floyd, and the ensuing protests, triggered this public condemnation.
“When I joined the military, some 50 years ago,” he writes, “I swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution. Never did I dream that troops taking that same oath would be ordered under any circumstance to violate the Constitutional rights of their fellow citizens—much less to provide a bizarre photo op for the elected commander-in-chief, with military leadership standing alongside.”
----- 22 -----
Gun-toting members of the Boogaloo movement are showing up at protests
By Robert Kuznia, Drew Griffin and Curt Devine, CNN
Updated 5:50 PM ET, Wed June 3, 2020
https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/03/us/boogaloo-extremist-protests-invs/index.html
(CNN) Benjamin Ryan Teeter was at his home in Hampstead, N.C., when the call to action came. It was an alert from the heart of the raging protests in Minneapolis, posted on an online forum by a fellow member of the Boogaloo movement, a loosely knit group of heavily armed, anti-government extremists.
The "alert" was from a man who had a run-in with the Minneapolis police while on the frontline of the police-brutality protests set off by the death of George Floyd.
"He caught mace to the face," said Teeter, and "put out a national notice to our network."
After Teeter -- who goes by Ryan -- said he saw the online posting, he and a handful of other Boogaloo friends in the area mobilized.
They grabbed their guns -- mostly assault rifles -- hopped into their vehicles, and made the 18-hour trek to Minneapolis.
The Boogaloos are an emerging incarnation of extremism that seems to defy easy categorization. They are yet another confounding factor in the ongoing effort among local, state and federal officials to puzzle out the political sympathies of the agitators showing up to the mostly peaceful George Floyd rallies who have destroyed property, looted businesses, or -- in the case of the Boogaloos who descended on Minneapolis -- walked around the streets with assault rifles.
Boogaloo members appear to hold conflicting ideological views with some identifying as anarchists and others rejecting formal titles. Some pockets of the group have espoused white supremacy while others reject it. But they have at least two things in common: an affinity for toting around guns in public and a "boogaloo" rallying cry, which is commonly viewed as code for another US civil war.