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solarbirdOnce again, the hits keep coming as I try to get this thing ready to post. NEW YORK BE AWARE: COPS CAN NOW HOLD PEOPLE FOR MORE THAN 24 HOURS. EXPECT SEVERE ABUSES.
Also, key point: Fox News is now all-in, pushing the protests as an insurrection and "war on police," and leaning hard into "they're coming to YOUR SUBURB to BURN YOUR HOUSE and KILL YOU" propaganda. Maybe they're all Boogaloo Boys now.
----- 1 -----
Trump Confronted Defense Chief Esper Over Comments on Protests
By Jennifer Jacobs
June 3, 2020, 6:42 PM PDT
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-04/trump-confronted-defense-chief-esper-over-comments-on-protests
* Trump asks advisers if Pentagon boss can still be effective
* White House vexed after Esper distances himself from boss
President Donald Trump confronted his Defense secretary, Mark Esper, after the Pentagon chief publicly opposed the idea of deploying the military to contain protests, according to people familiar with the matter.
Separately, the president later asked top advisers if they thought Esper could still be effective in his position, two people familiar with the discussions said on Wednesday night.
At a news conference in the afternoon, the president’s press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, tiptoed around whether Esper’s job was safe, saying only that he remained in his post.
Neither the White House nor the Pentagon immediately responded to requests for comment on Wednesday night.
Esper met with Trump in the Oval Office after telling reporters at the Pentagon that active-duty military forces to perform law enforcement within the U.S. is “a matter of last resort” and that the National Guard was better-suited to the task.
----- 2 -----
Andrew McCabe blisters Rod Rosenstein as ‘willing accessory’ to Trump’s efforts to ‘rewrite history’ of Russia probe
June 3, 2020
By Travis Gettys
https://www.rawstory.com/2020/06/andrew-mccabe-blisters-rod-rosenstein-as-willing-accessory-to-trumps-efforts-to-rewrite-history-of-russia-probe/
Former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe strongly denied that he misled Rod Rosenstein, the former deputy director of the Department of Justice.
Rosenstein told the Senate Judiciary Committee that McCabe had not been forthcoming about memos that former FBI director James Comey had compiled regarding his conversations with President Donald Trump.
“Mr. McCabe was not fully candid with me, certainly wasn’t forthcoming,” Rosenstein told senators. “In particular, senator, with regard to Comey’s memorandum of his interviews with the president and with regard to the FBI’s suspicions about the president.”
McCabe pushed back hard a short time later.
“Mr. Rosenstein’s claims to have been misled by me, or anyone from the FBI, regarding our concerns about President Trump and the Trump campaign’s interactions with Russia are completely false,” McCabe tweeted.
----- 3 -----
Alexandra Erin
twitter.com/AlexandraErin
3 June 2020
https://twitter.com/AlexandraErin/status/1268378173986738177
[THREAD on the New York Times running Senator Tom Cotton's "opinion" piece calling for military suppression of protests]
Taking anything twitter.com/JBennet says here at face value may be naive, but taking it at face value exposes the moral myopia of the NYT.
His argument proceeds from the assumption that the Times has a voice and brand to which the Cotton piece is obviously a counter-point.
He is wrong.
[THREAD CONTINUES AT LINK]
----- 4 -----
Virginia Heffernan
twitter.com/page88
June 3, 2020
https://twitter.com/page88/status/1268339854577975297
[THREAD]
When a paper publishes an editorial, it lends its authority & above all RESOURCES to the author. Not only does Tom Cotton get the IQ boost of Times typeface, he gets editors, copy eds, & fact-checkers who are charged with burnishing his argument to give it the best possible shot.
[NEXT]
The NYT is very much the opposite of a “platform.” As someone who once had to rewrite...N*wt Gingrich...to make his argument even track, I can testify that it takes a lot of work to make a Gingrich or Cotton sound even just normal. Sound...fit to print.
[THREAD CONTINUES AT LINK]
----- 5 -----
The Christians Who Loved Trump’s Stunt
The president’s photo op outside St. John’s Church was emblematic of his appeal to the religious right.
McKay Coppins
June 2, 2020
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/06/trumps-biblical-spectacle-outside-st-johns-church/612529/
He wielded the Bible like a foreign object, awkwardly adjusting his grip as though trying to get comfortable. He examined its cover. He held it up over his right shoulder like a crossing guard presenting a stop sign. He did not open it.
“Is that your Bible?” a reporter asked.
“It’s a Bible,” the president replied.
Even by the standards of Donald Trump’s religious photo ops, the dissonance was striking. Moments earlier, he had stood in the Rose Garden and threatened to unleash the military on unruly protesters. He used terms such as anarchy and domestic terror, and vowed to “dominate the streets.” To clear the way for his planned post-speech trip to St. John’s Church, police fired tear gas and rubber bullets into a crowd of peaceful demonstrators.
A few hours after the dystopian spectacle, I spoke on the phone with Robert Jeffress, a Dallas megachurch pastor and indefatigable Trump ally. He sounded almost gleeful.
“I thought it was completely appropriate for the president to stand in front of that church,” Jeffress told me. “And by holding up the Bible, he was showing us that it teaches that, yes, God hates racism, it’s despicable—but God also hates lawlessness.”
“So,” he added, “I’m happy.”
In many ways, the president’s stunt last night—with its mix of shallow credal signaling and brutish force—was emblematic of his appeal to the religious right. As I’ve written before, most white conservative Christians don’t want piety from this president; they want power. In Trump, they see a champion who will restore them to their rightful place at the center of American life, while using his terrible swift sword to punish their enemies.
----- 6 -----
White House deletes tweet that falsely identified synagogue anti-terrorism barrier as tool of terrorists
By Daniel Dale, CNN
Updated 8:01 PM ET, Wed June 3, 2020
https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/03/politics/fact-check-white-house-rocks-bricks-antifa-synagogue-chabad/index.html
Washington (CNN)The White House posted and then deleted a tweet on Wednesday that falsely suggested a synagogue's rock-filled anti-terrorism barrier had been placed on the street by domestic terrorists.
The tweet featured a compilation of video clips from around the country in which people expressed suspicion of the presence of bricks or other objects on the streets. The tweet claimed that "Antifa and professional anarchists are invading our communities, staging bricks and weapons to instigate violence. These are acts of domestic terror."
One of the video clips showed enclosures filled with rocks on a street in Los Angeles. An unidentified man said the situation didn't "look right" to him.
But the rock enclosures were there for a good reason. They had been erected outside the Chabad of Sherman Oaks to protect the Jewish facility from potential attacks.
----- 7 -----
Ali Breland
twitter.com/alibreland
3 June 2020
https://twitter.com/alibreland/status/1268229835861774337
looks like michelle malkin, a far-righter is buds with all-right holocaust deniers, was locked out of her twitter account a little earlier today for advocating that people kill looters, per her telegram. she says appealing the lock out to twitter
[EMBEDDED IMAGES]
----- 8 -----
Prosecutors: 3 men plotted to terrorize Vegas protests
By MICHELLE L. PRICE and SCOTT SONNER
3 June 2020
https://apnews.com/6223153093f08fa910c4ab445771b773
LAS VEGAS (AP) — Three Nevada men with ties to a loose movement of right-wing extremists advocating the overthrow of the U.S. government have been arrested on terrorism-related charges in what authorities say was a conspiracy to spark violence during recent protests in Las Vegas.
Federal prosecutors say the three white men with U.S. military experience are accused of conspiring to carry out a plan that began in April in conjunction with protests to reopen businesses closed because of the coronavirus and later sought to capitalize on protests over the death of George Floyd, a black man who died in Minneapolis after a white officer pressed his knee into his neck for several minutes even after he stopped moving and pleading for air.
The three men were arrested Saturday on the way to a protest in downtown Las Vegas after filling gas cans at a parking lot and making Molotov cocktails in glass bottles, according to a copy of the criminal complaint obtained by The Associated Press.
“People have a right to peacefully protest. These men are agitators and instigators. Their point was to hijack the protests into violence,” Nicholas Trutanich, U.S. attorney in Nevada, told AP. He referred to what he called “real and legitimate outrage” over Floyd’s death.
----- 9 -----
Alexander Marquardt
twitter.com/MarquardtA
3 June 2020
https://twitter.com/MarquardtA/status/1268349405733761025
Law enforcement deployed in/to DC we’ve seen/reported:
US Secret Service
US Park Police
Arlington PD (gone)
DC Nat’l Guard + other states
Bureau of Prisons
FBI
DEA
DHS
ICE
CBP
TSA
US Marshals
Pentagon Force Protection
Ft Bragg/Fort Drum active duty troops
MPD
Miss anyone?
----- 10 -----
Minneapolis & Outside Agitators
Posted on June 3, 2020
[EDITOR: I DO NOT KNOW THIS SOURCE. But it reached me via reasonably trustworthy paths. Take accordingly.]
https://naomikritzer.com/2020/06/03/minneapolis-outside-agitators/
Something I honestly did not know before this past week is how deeply confusing living through a crisis like this is. Speculation gets turned into rumor gets turned into “I know this for a fact!” more quickly than I would have thought possible.
But there are hundreds of eyewitness reports from around Minneapolis that arsons were being committed by small groups of white men, apparently outsiders, moving rapidly around the city mostly in vehicles without license plates; watching that get endlessly dismissed on Twitter as “what the authorities always say” from people outside the state has been enraging.
...
I’m going to start by talking about what the early protests/looting looked like, because that, in fact, was local, and looked very different.
If I recall correctly, there was a Tuesday night protest where protesters were really angry and the police were really confrontational and injured a bunch of protesters by firing rubber bullets and tear gas indiscriminately. Then the police escalated from there on Wednesday, and that’s when the Target got looted and the Autozone burned down and also the police forced protesters east along Lake Street and there was some additional looting along East Lake; there was also a bunch of looting in Uptown that night. And then on Thursday night, the police precinct was taken over and burned and a lot more stuff on that corner burned.
So: I think the Target looting was overwhelmingly local. ...
...
It was Friday night that things changed.
Friday night, there were suddenly fires everywhere.
And this is what I started seeing from people all over Minneapolis: that they were seeing vehicles full of small groups of white men starting these fires. They were masked, organized, working quickly. Their vehicles had no plates, or covered plates, or out-of-state plates. They had tools, and they were smashing their way in, starting fires, and moving to the next location. They were spreading the fires out, using a deliberate strategy to make it impossible for the fire department to have any chance of keeping up. And far from avoiding Black-owned businesses, they were targeting them. Along with Black neighborhoods and diverse multiracial neighborhoods generally.
----- 11 -----
Angelo Carusone
twitter.com/GoAngelo
3 June 2020
https://twitter.com/GoAngelo/status/1268353174357803008
What the fuck?
Hannity: “We will show you a breaking report that shows how the group Black Lives Matter is planning to train armed militia for war on police”
[IMAGE: Sean Hannity on Fox News with "WAR ON POLICE" image]
----- 12 -----
Tom Cotton’s ugly screed hints at the terrible backlash to come
By Paul Waldman
Opinion writer
June 4, 2020 at 10:19 a.m. PDT
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/06/04/tom-cottons-ugly-screed-hints-terrible-backlash-come/
What will come from the extraordinary protests taking place in cities and towns all over America? Police reform, a deeper understanding of the way racism persists in American life, an opportunity for progress and healing?
We can hope. But we should know that there will also be a fierce backlash, one already taking shape.
The New York Times decided to publish an op-ed by Sen. Tom Cotton in which he proposes to send the U.S. military into American cities to set upon the protests and crush them to dust. Citing “nihilist criminals” and “left-wing radicals,” Cotton writes: "One thing above all else will restore order to our streets: an overwhelming show of force to disperse, detain and ultimately deter lawbreakers.”
To do that, he suggests that President Trump — who can of course be trusted to use extraordinary powers with wisdom and forbearance — invoke the Insurrection Act and send in the troops. This was after Cotton called for “No quarter for insurrectionists, anarchists, rioters, and looters.” If you’re unfamiliar, the term “no quarter” refers to enemies not being taken prisoner but instead being killed en masse.
...
Cotton believes the American government should be able to torture prisoners. He advocated jailing journalists who expose things the government would keep secret. He claimed that the Islamic State was working with Mexican drug cartels and would soon attack his home state of Arkansas.
Cotton once proposed punishing the family members of those who violated sanctions on Iran with up to 20 years in prison, saying that punishment should apply to “parents, children, aunts, uncles, nephews, nieces, grandparents, great grandparents, grandkids, great grandkids.” He wanted to deal with Iran’s nuclear program with a vigorous bombing campaign.
In other words, while Trump is an impulsive, erratic man-baby with authoritarian impulses, Cotton is a perfectly sane adult with appalling authoritarian beliefs. Which might make him even more terrifying.
----- 13 -----
Andy Ngo sues Rose City Antifa, others for $900,000
Zane Sparling
Thursday, June 04, 2020
Lawsuit centers on alleged attack by Portland anti-fascists during a milkshake protest in June, 2019.
[EDITOR: I'm including this here because Andy Ngo is a fascist.]
https://pamplinmedia.com/pt/9-news/469210-379781-andy-ngo-sues-rose-city-antifa-others-for-900000
A Portland man has filed a new lawsuit against the black-clad anti-fascists called antifa who allegedly attacked him for documenting a milkshake-themed protest in Portland last year.
In the eleven months since the events of June 29, 2019, Andy Ngo has arguably become antifa's Public Enemy No. 1 and a cause celebre in conservative circles for his articles and online posts of videos showing street brawling here and across the country.
Now, in a lawsuit filed Thursday, June 4, in Multnomah County court, Ngo seeks at least $900,000 in damages for assault, battery, emotional distress and racketeering by those who acted to "suppress Ngo's journalism through intimidation and violence," and for "ongoing neurological and health issues."
Antifa is an openly extremist movement with the training and intent of destabilizing this country and overthrowing our constitution," Ngo said during a live-streamed press conference. "The protection of foolish politicians and the media have emboldened this movement to carry out unprecedented terrorist attacks."
Listed as defendants in the lawsuit are Rose City Antifa, an "unincorporated association," Corbyn Belyea, alleged Rose City Anitfa member Benjamin Bolen, local activist John Hacker, Madison Lee Allen and Joseph Christian Evans, who the lawsuit says lives under the Burnside Bridge, as well as 50 unnamed parties.
----- 14 -----
Newsroom Breaks Into Open Revolt After New York Times Publishes Call for Military Crackdown
According to one employee, Sen. Tom Cotton’s column has netted the Times its highest-ever number of cancellations in a single hour.
By Ashley Feinberg
June 04, 2020
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/06/new-york-times-tom-cotton-staff-reaction.html
New York Times editorial page editor James Bennet certainly isn’t afraid of controversy. His first marquee hire, Bret Stephens, debuted with a stunning display of climate denialism in which he was forced to correct the only line containing any actual science. Bennet has published the ravings of established conspiracy theorist Louise Mensch and allowed Blackwater founder Erik Prince to run what was essentially an advertisement for private war. However, Bennet’s latest misadventure seems to have finally pushed his frustrated colleagues to the breaking point. What else he could have expected when he decided to showcase Sen. Tom Cotton writing a column demanding a military crackdown on protesters, though, is unclear.
In the column, Cotton wrote: “One thing above all else will restore order to our streets: an overwhelming show of force to disperse, detain and ultimately deter lawbreakers. But local law enforcement in some cities desperately needs backup, while delusional politicians in other cities refuse to do what’s necessary to uphold the rule of law.” With protesters (lawbreaking and otherwise) already getting beaten senselessly by police daily, it’s hard to read Cotton’s reference to doing “what’s necessary” as anything other than an incitement to mass murder or, at the very least, incitement to government violence against its own people, especially considering his tweet from several days ago essentially calling for just that:
----- 15 -----
Edward Luce
twitter.com/EdwardGLuce
3 June 2020
https://twitter.com/EdwardGLuce/status/1268213442156036097
Hundreds, if not thousands, of armed soldiers and paramilitaries are establishing an ever widening perimeter around the White House. None of this is necessary. Their presence is meant to create the impression that the White House is under siege from domestic terrorists.
----- 16 -----
Brad Heath
twitter.com/bradheath
June 4, 2020
https://twitter.com/bradheath/status/1268594863282552834
[EDITOR: Wow. There are lies, and then there are _lies_. Goddamn.]
Barr says there was "no correlation" between his decision to clear Lafayette Square and the president's walk through the park a few minutes later.
----- 17 -----
Jennifer Rubin
twitter.com/JRubinBlogger
June 4, 2020
https://twitter.com/JRubinBlogger/status/1268587864285229063
Republican authoritarian boot-lickers, such as Sen. Tom Cotton (Ark.), will try to outdo one another in calls for violence — and foolish media outlets in the name of “fairness” will give them a platform to call for violence against civilians.
[LINKS TO]
We can make this the tipping point
By Jennifer Rubin
Opinion writer
June 4 2020
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/06/04/we-can-make-this-tipping-point/
Something feels different this week. Thomas Jefferson’s words seem more vivid than ever, and not merely the “We hold these truths to be self-evident” part. More pertinent than at any time in our lives, this rings true: “Whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”
----- 18 -----
Alexandra Erin
twitter.com/AlexandraErin
4 June 2020
https://twitter.com/AlexandraErin/status/1268588160143044609
[EDITOR: This is more promotion that this is an insurrection and "war against police" from Fox News.]
Is the idea supposed to be like there's roving gangs of protesters just going around beating up white people for being white? If the streets of NYC aren't safe right now, it's because the cops are beating and gassing people for non-violent or non-existent offenses.
----- 19 -----
Barr seeks to subdue D.C. protests by ‘flooding the zone’ with federal firepower
By Devlin Barrett
June 3, 2020 at 6:08 p.m. PDT
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/william-barr-george-floyd-protests-fbi-atf-us-marshals/2020/06/02/6d093d0a-a515-11ea-b473-04905b1af82b_story.html
From an FBI command center in Washington’s Chinatown neighborhood, Attorney General William P. Barr has orchestrated a stunning show of force on the streets of the nation’s capital — a battalion of federal agents, troops and police designed to restore order, but one that critics say carries grim parallels to heavy-handed foreign regimes.
Barr was tapped by President Trump to direct the national response to protests and riots over police misconduct since the police-custody death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
The attorney general has focused much of his attention on the District, where unrest and arrests swelled over the weekend before a jarring clash Monday to clear peaceful protesters from outside the White House — an order Barr issued personally. By Tuesday night, as he sat in the FBI command center until nearly midnight, the city’s mood seemed to have calmed.
One Justice Department official said Barr’s strategy is to “flood the zone” by putting “the maximum amount of law enforcement out on the street. . . . The peacefulness is in large part due to the large law enforcement presence.” Like others, this official spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal deliberations.
----- 20 -----
Frederick Joseph
twitter.com/FredTJoseph
3 June 2020
https://twitter.com/FredTJoseph/status/1268278764569595905
[EDITOR'S NOTE: The provenance of one of the billboard images has been called into question by a reader noting that the 8pm curfew was set by the mayor, not by the governor. The governor had set an 11pm curfew. Also, the twitter account is one letter off. This could be a mocked up image, or could have been an error by whoever was typing things in for the billboard, or something else. We have no way of knowing, so I am noting the issue here.]
[THREAD]
NYC Has Become A Dystopian Novel: What Happened After 8pm Curfew
I’ve been to many protests and marches during my life, but I’ve never seen anything like what we experienced last night.
I think everyone around the country and world needs to understand what’s happening here.
[MANY LATER]
...
Ultimately, the NYPD never wanted anyone to be able to make it home. They set us up to mentally and physically torture us.
Protesting after curfew, whether it’s a few minutes or a few hours, doesn’t warrant this type of insidious behavior.
It is no exaggeration to say that NYC is currently treating peaceful protests as the Handmaids Tale or Hunger Games.
I fear for the lives of everyone here with the courage to fight for justice. I hope this helps our movement understand what we are up against.
[GO READ ENTIRE THREAD AT LINK]
----- 21 -----
Elizabeth Warren
twitter.com/ewarren
3 June 2020
https://twitter.com/ewarren/status/1268340598941024260
Let's be clear about what happened this week at the White House. The photo-op Trump wanted was not just of himself holding a Bible—he wanted footage of Americans who disagree with him being scattered, of violence pushed upon them. That's the photo-op he wanted.
----- 22 -----
Daniel Dale
twitter.com/ddale8
4 June 2020
https://twitter.com/ddale8/status/1268532397445910530
Here are some of the things Trump has said as president about policing.
[IMAGES AT LINK]
----- 23 -----
White House fortifies security perimeter ahead of continued protests
By Betsy Klein, CNN
Updated 6:37 PM ET, Thu June 4, 2020
https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/04/politics/white-house-fence-barricade/index.html
(CNN)The People's House continued to be fortified from the public Thursday, as workers erected a perimeter of tall metal fencing around the White House complex.
After law enforcement forcefully dispersed peaceful protesters so President Donald Trump could participate in a photo opportunity with a Bible outside St. John's Episcopal Church, workers were seen constructing fencing around Lafayette Park and at the intersection of 17th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue beside the Eisenhower Executive Office Building late Monday evening.
And on Thursday, construction of additional fencing along the White House complex began before dawn -- perhaps a sign of security concerns ahead of expected continuing protests this weekend.
By Thursday afternoon, the fencing extended down 17th Street from Pennsylvania Avenue to Constitution Avenue.
----- 24 -----
Bryan Llenas
twitter.com/BryanLlenas
4 June 2020
https://twitter.com/BryanLlenas/status/1268637787881975809
Breaking: NYS Judge James Burke rules NYPD can now keep anyone (peaceful protestors arrested for curfew and criminal looters) detained for over 24 hours given these are extraordinary times. “It’s a crisis within a crisis", he said. "All writs are denied, BK, BX and manhattan"
[NEXT]
NYPD argued for need of “extreme measures to maintain order,” “majority were for burglary and looting"... "these are unprecedented times", there is "rage against the police department". These people have been "throwing bricks at police officers", "slashing officers".
[NEXT]
NYPD attorney admitted that because of the volume of arrests, social distancing has not always been possible, but that they have been given soap and masks.
"I won't call them protesters, I'll call them rioters".
[NEXT]
Legal aid argued that per NY law people cannot be detained without seeing a judge for over 24 hours and that these people are "mainly protesters" for being "against police brutality."
Also, key point: Fox News is now all-in, pushing the protests as an insurrection and "war on police," and leaning hard into "they're coming to YOUR SUBURB to BURN YOUR HOUSE and KILL YOU" propaganda. Maybe they're all Boogaloo Boys now.
- Trump Confronted Defense Chief Esper Over Comments on Protests
- Andrew McCabe blisters Rod Rosenstein as ‘willing accessory’ to Trump’s efforts to ‘rewrite history’ of Russia probe
- The moral myopia of the New York Times
- The New York Times is not a platform, and they put real resources into making Tom Cotton fit to print.
- The Christians Who Loved Trump’s Stunt
- White House deletes tweet that falsely identified synagogue anti-terrorism barrier as tool of terrorists
- Michelle Malkin suspended from Twitter for demanding "looters" be shot
- Prosecutors: 3 men plotted to terrorize Vegas protests
- Law enforcement deployed in/to DC we’ve seen/reported:
- Minneapolis & Outside Agitators
- Fox News: "Black Lives Matter is planning to train armed militia for war on police"
- Tom Cotton’s ugly screed hints at the terrible backlash to come
- Andy Ngo sues Rose City Antifa, others for $900,000
- Newsroom Breaks Into Open Revolt After New York Times Publishes Call for Military Crackdown
- Troop presence in DC "meant to create the impression that the White House is under siege from domestic terrorists."
- Barr says there was "no correlation" between his decision to clear Lafayette Square and the president's walk through the park a few minutes later.
- We can make this the tipping point
- More promotion that this is an insurrection and "war against police" from Fox News.
- Barr seeks to subdue D.C. protests by ‘flooding the zone’ with federal firepower
- NYC Has Become A Dystopian Novel: What Happened After 8pm Curfew [EDITOR: IMPORTANT REPORT. Insight into NYPD strategy.]
- Trump wanted footage of Americans who disagree with him being scattered, of violence pushed upon them. That's the photo-op he wanted.
- Trump statements on policing
- White House fortifies security perimeter ahead of continued protests
- Breaking: NYS Judge James Burke rules NYPD can now keep anyone (peaceful protestors arrested for curfew and criminal looters) detained for over 24 hours
----- 1 -----
Trump Confronted Defense Chief Esper Over Comments on Protests
By Jennifer Jacobs
June 3, 2020, 6:42 PM PDT
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-04/trump-confronted-defense-chief-esper-over-comments-on-protests
* Trump asks advisers if Pentagon boss can still be effective
* White House vexed after Esper distances himself from boss
President Donald Trump confronted his Defense secretary, Mark Esper, after the Pentagon chief publicly opposed the idea of deploying the military to contain protests, according to people familiar with the matter.
Separately, the president later asked top advisers if they thought Esper could still be effective in his position, two people familiar with the discussions said on Wednesday night.
At a news conference in the afternoon, the president’s press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, tiptoed around whether Esper’s job was safe, saying only that he remained in his post.
Neither the White House nor the Pentagon immediately responded to requests for comment on Wednesday night.
Esper met with Trump in the Oval Office after telling reporters at the Pentagon that active-duty military forces to perform law enforcement within the U.S. is “a matter of last resort” and that the National Guard was better-suited to the task.
----- 2 -----
Andrew McCabe blisters Rod Rosenstein as ‘willing accessory’ to Trump’s efforts to ‘rewrite history’ of Russia probe
June 3, 2020
By Travis Gettys
https://www.rawstory.com/2020/06/andrew-mccabe-blisters-rod-rosenstein-as-willing-accessory-to-trumps-efforts-to-rewrite-history-of-russia-probe/
Former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe strongly denied that he misled Rod Rosenstein, the former deputy director of the Department of Justice.
Rosenstein told the Senate Judiciary Committee that McCabe had not been forthcoming about memos that former FBI director James Comey had compiled regarding his conversations with President Donald Trump.
“Mr. McCabe was not fully candid with me, certainly wasn’t forthcoming,” Rosenstein told senators. “In particular, senator, with regard to Comey’s memorandum of his interviews with the president and with regard to the FBI’s suspicions about the president.”
McCabe pushed back hard a short time later.
“Mr. Rosenstein’s claims to have been misled by me, or anyone from the FBI, regarding our concerns about President Trump and the Trump campaign’s interactions with Russia are completely false,” McCabe tweeted.
----- 3 -----
Alexandra Erin
twitter.com/AlexandraErin
3 June 2020
https://twitter.com/AlexandraErin/status/1268378173986738177
[THREAD on the New York Times running Senator Tom Cotton's "opinion" piece calling for military suppression of protests]
Taking anything twitter.com/JBennet says here at face value may be naive, but taking it at face value exposes the moral myopia of the NYT.
His argument proceeds from the assumption that the Times has a voice and brand to which the Cotton piece is obviously a counter-point.
He is wrong.
[THREAD CONTINUES AT LINK]
----- 4 -----
Virginia Heffernan
twitter.com/page88
June 3, 2020
https://twitter.com/page88/status/1268339854577975297
[THREAD]
When a paper publishes an editorial, it lends its authority & above all RESOURCES to the author. Not only does Tom Cotton get the IQ boost of Times typeface, he gets editors, copy eds, & fact-checkers who are charged with burnishing his argument to give it the best possible shot.
[NEXT]
The NYT is very much the opposite of a “platform.” As someone who once had to rewrite...N*wt Gingrich...to make his argument even track, I can testify that it takes a lot of work to make a Gingrich or Cotton sound even just normal. Sound...fit to print.
[THREAD CONTINUES AT LINK]
----- 5 -----
The Christians Who Loved Trump’s Stunt
The president’s photo op outside St. John’s Church was emblematic of his appeal to the religious right.
McKay Coppins
June 2, 2020
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/06/trumps-biblical-spectacle-outside-st-johns-church/612529/
He wielded the Bible like a foreign object, awkwardly adjusting his grip as though trying to get comfortable. He examined its cover. He held it up over his right shoulder like a crossing guard presenting a stop sign. He did not open it.
“Is that your Bible?” a reporter asked.
“It’s a Bible,” the president replied.
Even by the standards of Donald Trump’s religious photo ops, the dissonance was striking. Moments earlier, he had stood in the Rose Garden and threatened to unleash the military on unruly protesters. He used terms such as anarchy and domestic terror, and vowed to “dominate the streets.” To clear the way for his planned post-speech trip to St. John’s Church, police fired tear gas and rubber bullets into a crowd of peaceful demonstrators.
A few hours after the dystopian spectacle, I spoke on the phone with Robert Jeffress, a Dallas megachurch pastor and indefatigable Trump ally. He sounded almost gleeful.
“I thought it was completely appropriate for the president to stand in front of that church,” Jeffress told me. “And by holding up the Bible, he was showing us that it teaches that, yes, God hates racism, it’s despicable—but God also hates lawlessness.”
“So,” he added, “I’m happy.”
In many ways, the president’s stunt last night—with its mix of shallow credal signaling and brutish force—was emblematic of his appeal to the religious right. As I’ve written before, most white conservative Christians don’t want piety from this president; they want power. In Trump, they see a champion who will restore them to their rightful place at the center of American life, while using his terrible swift sword to punish their enemies.
----- 6 -----
White House deletes tweet that falsely identified synagogue anti-terrorism barrier as tool of terrorists
By Daniel Dale, CNN
Updated 8:01 PM ET, Wed June 3, 2020
https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/03/politics/fact-check-white-house-rocks-bricks-antifa-synagogue-chabad/index.html
Washington (CNN)The White House posted and then deleted a tweet on Wednesday that falsely suggested a synagogue's rock-filled anti-terrorism barrier had been placed on the street by domestic terrorists.
The tweet featured a compilation of video clips from around the country in which people expressed suspicion of the presence of bricks or other objects on the streets. The tweet claimed that "Antifa and professional anarchists are invading our communities, staging bricks and weapons to instigate violence. These are acts of domestic terror."
One of the video clips showed enclosures filled with rocks on a street in Los Angeles. An unidentified man said the situation didn't "look right" to him.
But the rock enclosures were there for a good reason. They had been erected outside the Chabad of Sherman Oaks to protect the Jewish facility from potential attacks.
----- 7 -----
Ali Breland
twitter.com/alibreland
3 June 2020
https://twitter.com/alibreland/status/1268229835861774337
looks like michelle malkin, a far-righter is buds with all-right holocaust deniers, was locked out of her twitter account a little earlier today for advocating that people kill looters, per her telegram. she says appealing the lock out to twitter
[EMBEDDED IMAGES]
----- 8 -----
Prosecutors: 3 men plotted to terrorize Vegas protests
By MICHELLE L. PRICE and SCOTT SONNER
3 June 2020
https://apnews.com/6223153093f08fa910c4ab445771b773
LAS VEGAS (AP) — Three Nevada men with ties to a loose movement of right-wing extremists advocating the overthrow of the U.S. government have been arrested on terrorism-related charges in what authorities say was a conspiracy to spark violence during recent protests in Las Vegas.
Federal prosecutors say the three white men with U.S. military experience are accused of conspiring to carry out a plan that began in April in conjunction with protests to reopen businesses closed because of the coronavirus and later sought to capitalize on protests over the death of George Floyd, a black man who died in Minneapolis after a white officer pressed his knee into his neck for several minutes even after he stopped moving and pleading for air.
The three men were arrested Saturday on the way to a protest in downtown Las Vegas after filling gas cans at a parking lot and making Molotov cocktails in glass bottles, according to a copy of the criminal complaint obtained by The Associated Press.
“People have a right to peacefully protest. These men are agitators and instigators. Their point was to hijack the protests into violence,” Nicholas Trutanich, U.S. attorney in Nevada, told AP. He referred to what he called “real and legitimate outrage” over Floyd’s death.
----- 9 -----
Alexander Marquardt
twitter.com/MarquardtA
3 June 2020
https://twitter.com/MarquardtA/status/1268349405733761025
Law enforcement deployed in/to DC we’ve seen/reported:
US Secret Service
US Park Police
Arlington PD (gone)
DC Nat’l Guard + other states
Bureau of Prisons
FBI
DEA
DHS
ICE
CBP
TSA
US Marshals
Pentagon Force Protection
Ft Bragg/Fort Drum active duty troops
MPD
Miss anyone?
----- 10 -----
Minneapolis & Outside Agitators
Posted on June 3, 2020
[EDITOR: I DO NOT KNOW THIS SOURCE. But it reached me via reasonably trustworthy paths. Take accordingly.]
https://naomikritzer.com/2020/06/03/minneapolis-outside-agitators/
Something I honestly did not know before this past week is how deeply confusing living through a crisis like this is. Speculation gets turned into rumor gets turned into “I know this for a fact!” more quickly than I would have thought possible.
But there are hundreds of eyewitness reports from around Minneapolis that arsons were being committed by small groups of white men, apparently outsiders, moving rapidly around the city mostly in vehicles without license plates; watching that get endlessly dismissed on Twitter as “what the authorities always say” from people outside the state has been enraging.
...
I’m going to start by talking about what the early protests/looting looked like, because that, in fact, was local, and looked very different.
If I recall correctly, there was a Tuesday night protest where protesters were really angry and the police were really confrontational and injured a bunch of protesters by firing rubber bullets and tear gas indiscriminately. Then the police escalated from there on Wednesday, and that’s when the Target got looted and the Autozone burned down and also the police forced protesters east along Lake Street and there was some additional looting along East Lake; there was also a bunch of looting in Uptown that night. And then on Thursday night, the police precinct was taken over and burned and a lot more stuff on that corner burned.
So: I think the Target looting was overwhelmingly local. ...
...
It was Friday night that things changed.
Friday night, there were suddenly fires everywhere.
And this is what I started seeing from people all over Minneapolis: that they were seeing vehicles full of small groups of white men starting these fires. They were masked, organized, working quickly. Their vehicles had no plates, or covered plates, or out-of-state plates. They had tools, and they were smashing their way in, starting fires, and moving to the next location. They were spreading the fires out, using a deliberate strategy to make it impossible for the fire department to have any chance of keeping up. And far from avoiding Black-owned businesses, they were targeting them. Along with Black neighborhoods and diverse multiracial neighborhoods generally.
----- 11 -----
Angelo Carusone
twitter.com/GoAngelo
3 June 2020
https://twitter.com/GoAngelo/status/1268353174357803008
What the fuck?
Hannity: “We will show you a breaking report that shows how the group Black Lives Matter is planning to train armed militia for war on police”
[IMAGE: Sean Hannity on Fox News with "WAR ON POLICE" image]
----- 12 -----
Tom Cotton’s ugly screed hints at the terrible backlash to come
By Paul Waldman
Opinion writer
June 4, 2020 at 10:19 a.m. PDT
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/06/04/tom-cottons-ugly-screed-hints-terrible-backlash-come/
What will come from the extraordinary protests taking place in cities and towns all over America? Police reform, a deeper understanding of the way racism persists in American life, an opportunity for progress and healing?
We can hope. But we should know that there will also be a fierce backlash, one already taking shape.
The New York Times decided to publish an op-ed by Sen. Tom Cotton in which he proposes to send the U.S. military into American cities to set upon the protests and crush them to dust. Citing “nihilist criminals” and “left-wing radicals,” Cotton writes: "One thing above all else will restore order to our streets: an overwhelming show of force to disperse, detain and ultimately deter lawbreakers.”
To do that, he suggests that President Trump — who can of course be trusted to use extraordinary powers with wisdom and forbearance — invoke the Insurrection Act and send in the troops. This was after Cotton called for “No quarter for insurrectionists, anarchists, rioters, and looters.” If you’re unfamiliar, the term “no quarter” refers to enemies not being taken prisoner but instead being killed en masse.
...
Cotton believes the American government should be able to torture prisoners. He advocated jailing journalists who expose things the government would keep secret. He claimed that the Islamic State was working with Mexican drug cartels and would soon attack his home state of Arkansas.
Cotton once proposed punishing the family members of those who violated sanctions on Iran with up to 20 years in prison, saying that punishment should apply to “parents, children, aunts, uncles, nephews, nieces, grandparents, great grandparents, grandkids, great grandkids.” He wanted to deal with Iran’s nuclear program with a vigorous bombing campaign.
In other words, while Trump is an impulsive, erratic man-baby with authoritarian impulses, Cotton is a perfectly sane adult with appalling authoritarian beliefs. Which might make him even more terrifying.
----- 13 -----
Andy Ngo sues Rose City Antifa, others for $900,000
Zane Sparling
Thursday, June 04, 2020
Lawsuit centers on alleged attack by Portland anti-fascists during a milkshake protest in June, 2019.
[EDITOR: I'm including this here because Andy Ngo is a fascist.]
https://pamplinmedia.com/pt/9-news/469210-379781-andy-ngo-sues-rose-city-antifa-others-for-900000
A Portland man has filed a new lawsuit against the black-clad anti-fascists called antifa who allegedly attacked him for documenting a milkshake-themed protest in Portland last year.
In the eleven months since the events of June 29, 2019, Andy Ngo has arguably become antifa's Public Enemy No. 1 and a cause celebre in conservative circles for his articles and online posts of videos showing street brawling here and across the country.
Now, in a lawsuit filed Thursday, June 4, in Multnomah County court, Ngo seeks at least $900,000 in damages for assault, battery, emotional distress and racketeering by those who acted to "suppress Ngo's journalism through intimidation and violence," and for "ongoing neurological and health issues."
Antifa is an openly extremist movement with the training and intent of destabilizing this country and overthrowing our constitution," Ngo said during a live-streamed press conference. "The protection of foolish politicians and the media have emboldened this movement to carry out unprecedented terrorist attacks."
Listed as defendants in the lawsuit are Rose City Antifa, an "unincorporated association," Corbyn Belyea, alleged Rose City Anitfa member Benjamin Bolen, local activist John Hacker, Madison Lee Allen and Joseph Christian Evans, who the lawsuit says lives under the Burnside Bridge, as well as 50 unnamed parties.
----- 14 -----
Newsroom Breaks Into Open Revolt After New York Times Publishes Call for Military Crackdown
According to one employee, Sen. Tom Cotton’s column has netted the Times its highest-ever number of cancellations in a single hour.
By Ashley Feinberg
June 04, 2020
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/06/new-york-times-tom-cotton-staff-reaction.html
New York Times editorial page editor James Bennet certainly isn’t afraid of controversy. His first marquee hire, Bret Stephens, debuted with a stunning display of climate denialism in which he was forced to correct the only line containing any actual science. Bennet has published the ravings of established conspiracy theorist Louise Mensch and allowed Blackwater founder Erik Prince to run what was essentially an advertisement for private war. However, Bennet’s latest misadventure seems to have finally pushed his frustrated colleagues to the breaking point. What else he could have expected when he decided to showcase Sen. Tom Cotton writing a column demanding a military crackdown on protesters, though, is unclear.
In the column, Cotton wrote: “One thing above all else will restore order to our streets: an overwhelming show of force to disperse, detain and ultimately deter lawbreakers. But local law enforcement in some cities desperately needs backup, while delusional politicians in other cities refuse to do what’s necessary to uphold the rule of law.” With protesters (lawbreaking and otherwise) already getting beaten senselessly by police daily, it’s hard to read Cotton’s reference to doing “what’s necessary” as anything other than an incitement to mass murder or, at the very least, incitement to government violence against its own people, especially considering his tweet from several days ago essentially calling for just that:
----- 15 -----
Edward Luce
twitter.com/EdwardGLuce
3 June 2020
https://twitter.com/EdwardGLuce/status/1268213442156036097
Hundreds, if not thousands, of armed soldiers and paramilitaries are establishing an ever widening perimeter around the White House. None of this is necessary. Their presence is meant to create the impression that the White House is under siege from domestic terrorists.
----- 16 -----
Brad Heath
twitter.com/bradheath
June 4, 2020
https://twitter.com/bradheath/status/1268594863282552834
[EDITOR: Wow. There are lies, and then there are _lies_. Goddamn.]
Barr says there was "no correlation" between his decision to clear Lafayette Square and the president's walk through the park a few minutes later.
----- 17 -----
Jennifer Rubin
twitter.com/JRubinBlogger
June 4, 2020
https://twitter.com/JRubinBlogger/status/1268587864285229063
Republican authoritarian boot-lickers, such as Sen. Tom Cotton (Ark.), will try to outdo one another in calls for violence — and foolish media outlets in the name of “fairness” will give them a platform to call for violence against civilians.
[LINKS TO]
We can make this the tipping point
By Jennifer Rubin
Opinion writer
June 4 2020
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/06/04/we-can-make-this-tipping-point/
Something feels different this week. Thomas Jefferson’s words seem more vivid than ever, and not merely the “We hold these truths to be self-evident” part. More pertinent than at any time in our lives, this rings true: “Whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”
----- 18 -----
Alexandra Erin
twitter.com/AlexandraErin
4 June 2020
https://twitter.com/AlexandraErin/status/1268588160143044609
[EDITOR: This is more promotion that this is an insurrection and "war against police" from Fox News.]
Is the idea supposed to be like there's roving gangs of protesters just going around beating up white people for being white? If the streets of NYC aren't safe right now, it's because the cops are beating and gassing people for non-violent or non-existent offenses.
----- 19 -----
Barr seeks to subdue D.C. protests by ‘flooding the zone’ with federal firepower
By Devlin Barrett
June 3, 2020 at 6:08 p.m. PDT
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/william-barr-george-floyd-protests-fbi-atf-us-marshals/2020/06/02/6d093d0a-a515-11ea-b473-04905b1af82b_story.html
From an FBI command center in Washington’s Chinatown neighborhood, Attorney General William P. Barr has orchestrated a stunning show of force on the streets of the nation’s capital — a battalion of federal agents, troops and police designed to restore order, but one that critics say carries grim parallels to heavy-handed foreign regimes.
Barr was tapped by President Trump to direct the national response to protests and riots over police misconduct since the police-custody death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
The attorney general has focused much of his attention on the District, where unrest and arrests swelled over the weekend before a jarring clash Monday to clear peaceful protesters from outside the White House — an order Barr issued personally. By Tuesday night, as he sat in the FBI command center until nearly midnight, the city’s mood seemed to have calmed.
One Justice Department official said Barr’s strategy is to “flood the zone” by putting “the maximum amount of law enforcement out on the street. . . . The peacefulness is in large part due to the large law enforcement presence.” Like others, this official spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal deliberations.
----- 20 -----
Frederick Joseph
twitter.com/FredTJoseph
3 June 2020
https://twitter.com/FredTJoseph/status/1268278764569595905
[EDITOR'S NOTE: The provenance of one of the billboard images has been called into question by a reader noting that the 8pm curfew was set by the mayor, not by the governor. The governor had set an 11pm curfew. Also, the twitter account is one letter off. This could be a mocked up image, or could have been an error by whoever was typing things in for the billboard, or something else. We have no way of knowing, so I am noting the issue here.]
[THREAD]
NYC Has Become A Dystopian Novel: What Happened After 8pm Curfew
I’ve been to many protests and marches during my life, but I’ve never seen anything like what we experienced last night.
I think everyone around the country and world needs to understand what’s happening here.
[MANY LATER]
...
Ultimately, the NYPD never wanted anyone to be able to make it home. They set us up to mentally and physically torture us.
Protesting after curfew, whether it’s a few minutes or a few hours, doesn’t warrant this type of insidious behavior.
It is no exaggeration to say that NYC is currently treating peaceful protests as the Handmaids Tale or Hunger Games.
I fear for the lives of everyone here with the courage to fight for justice. I hope this helps our movement understand what we are up against.
[GO READ ENTIRE THREAD AT LINK]
----- 21 -----
Elizabeth Warren
twitter.com/ewarren
3 June 2020
https://twitter.com/ewarren/status/1268340598941024260
Let's be clear about what happened this week at the White House. The photo-op Trump wanted was not just of himself holding a Bible—he wanted footage of Americans who disagree with him being scattered, of violence pushed upon them. That's the photo-op he wanted.
----- 22 -----
Daniel Dale
twitter.com/ddale8
4 June 2020
https://twitter.com/ddale8/status/1268532397445910530
Here are some of the things Trump has said as president about policing.
[IMAGES AT LINK]
----- 23 -----
White House fortifies security perimeter ahead of continued protests
By Betsy Klein, CNN
Updated 6:37 PM ET, Thu June 4, 2020
https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/04/politics/white-house-fence-barricade/index.html
(CNN)The People's House continued to be fortified from the public Thursday, as workers erected a perimeter of tall metal fencing around the White House complex.
After law enforcement forcefully dispersed peaceful protesters so President Donald Trump could participate in a photo opportunity with a Bible outside St. John's Episcopal Church, workers were seen constructing fencing around Lafayette Park and at the intersection of 17th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue beside the Eisenhower Executive Office Building late Monday evening.
And on Thursday, construction of additional fencing along the White House complex began before dawn -- perhaps a sign of security concerns ahead of expected continuing protests this weekend.
By Thursday afternoon, the fencing extended down 17th Street from Pennsylvania Avenue to Constitution Avenue.
----- 24 -----
Bryan Llenas
twitter.com/BryanLlenas
4 June 2020
https://twitter.com/BryanLlenas/status/1268637787881975809
Breaking: NYS Judge James Burke rules NYPD can now keep anyone (peaceful protestors arrested for curfew and criminal looters) detained for over 24 hours given these are extraordinary times. “It’s a crisis within a crisis", he said. "All writs are denied, BK, BX and manhattan"
[NEXT]
NYPD argued for need of “extreme measures to maintain order,” “majority were for burglary and looting"... "these are unprecedented times", there is "rage against the police department". These people have been "throwing bricks at police officers", "slashing officers".
[NEXT]
NYPD attorney admitted that because of the volume of arrests, social distancing has not always been possible, but that they have been given soap and masks.
"I won't call them protesters, I'll call them rioters".
[NEXT]
Legal aid argued that per NY law people cannot be detained without seeing a judge for over 24 hours and that these people are "mainly protesters" for being "against police brutality."
no subject
Date: 2020-06-05 12:35 am (UTC)detainedkidnapped or disappeared for over 24 hours"Fixed that for them.