The feds cracking down on Portland, Trump aims to skirt laws, and a heavy interview.
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Good morning, friends and family and whoever the heck else stumbles upon this! Some basic housekeeping to get out of the way: we’re going to hunker down on getting this out three times a week instead of five and we’re also gonna drop the audio component for a bit because it’s just a lot of darn work.
Hey, the country is descending into weird fascist vibes all while COVID-19 becomes increasingly more of a threat. It can be somewhat exhausting, drumming up the details on the myriad of ways this country sucks big ass, but we’re going to do our best. Let’s get to it.
The Feds are really messin’ shit up in incredibly scary ways in Portland, Oregon: the DHS, and specifically the Border Patrol, were made U.S. Marshals back when they were cracking down on protests in D.C. Now, they’ve been given new powers—and orders—by Trump. It’s pretty grim.
Trump is seeking to find new ways to skirt the laws: and perhaps unsurprisingly, he’s doing so under the influence of John Yoo—the lawyer who helped the Bush administration justify their use of waterboarding.
Chris Wallace interviewed Trump and it was surprisingly combative: while many may not have expected the Fox News host to lay into the president, he did a surprisingly good job of not letting Trump avoid answering important questions.
Someone get me off this thing, I’m tired!
UNREST
Federal Officers Have Been Arresting Protestors in Portland
In Portland, Oregon, we’re seeing what many feared would be an eventual result of the Black Lives Matter protests: federal officers arresting folks against the wishes of local governments.
In Portland...
Portland protestors have been hitting the streets every night for nearly two months now. Trump has constantly played the line between encouraging governors and mayors around the country to more aggressively deal with protestors while also threatening to step in and do so himself. Trump’s executive order at the end of June to protect “monuments, memorials and statues” opened the floodgates for the federal government being able to act more directly on these matters.
This past week, that became a reality. DHS agents, specifically Customers and Border Protection officers, starting whisking protestors up off the streets. They did so in camouflage uniforms with obscured insignias, driving unmarked vehicles, and while wearing masks.
CBP’s “justification” is that protestors are violent, though everything we’ve seen from them—including Acting Secretary of the DHS Chad Wolf (lmao, yeah, that’s his name)—only seems to indicate property damage and graffiti.
Looking Beyond
Politicians that Oregon chose to represent them aren’t on board with any of this. Portland’s mayor, Oregon’s governor, and Senator Jeff Merkley have all spoken out and made it clear that they believe Trump should call off the troops.
If the President repurposing an agency whose existence is to deal with border-enforcement to instead throw anti-racist protestors into unmarked vehicles sounds scary to you, it should. This is one of the most flagrant displays of authoritarianism that Trump has engaged in thus far.
What’s worse? He’s better on that working, too. What’s going on in Portland is going to drive a media campaign where down the line where Trump is banking on winning over enough people by engaging with that kind of fascist bullshit. Unfortunately, a lot of Americans are real into that kind of thing right now.
This could continue for an indefinite amount of time. It’s unclear just how bad this is going to get and if more cities will be the target of this.
Bottom line: dunno about you, but we’ve mostly heard crickets from the anti-big government crowd. States rights only matter when it’s a racist dogwhistle, apparently, and paramilitary groups kicking the shit outta protestors is totally fine? We live in terrifying times.
TRUMPOCALYPSE
Trump Aims to Find New Ways to Avoid the Law
Trump loves flirting with breaking the law. To be fair, it does feel pretty good sometimes—at least we get a rush when we torrent new episodes of 90 Day Fiancé. He’s now eyeing a new strategy where his administration can enact new federal policies without the same kind of oversight we’d typically expect.
New Marching Orders
The White House has been influenced by John Yoo, who was responsible for helping the Bush administration justify waterboarding after 9/11. Yoo also penned an article about how the Supreme Court’s DACA decision could make it “easy for presidents to violate the law.”
That article was spotted on Trump’s desk and reportedly, he’s also brought it up with his key advisers, according to a scoop from Axios.
We may see that sooner rather than later, with Trump planning on unveiling what he calls a “very major” immigration policy via executive order.
Bottom line: all those “checks and balances” we remember hearing about in civics classes seem to be doing very little right about now, huh!
TRUMPOCALYPSE
Trump Sat Down With Chris Wallace For a Combative Interview
Chris Wallace is no ally of ours. The Fox News host has contributed to plenty of awfulness over the years, but that doesn’t mean that he’s going to earn much respect from Trump either. An interview was released Friday where the two ended up getting quite combative with one another.
The Key Takeaways
In it, Trump claims the U.S. has the lowest mortality rate in the world for the coronavirus and Wallace fact-checks him in real time. Trump eventually calls press secretary Kayleigh McEnany over for a stats check, though even their chart didn’t indicate what Trump said it did (and it also omitted a lot of info).
Trump also claims that Biden wants to defund the police. While we wish that were really the case, we all know it just isn’t. Wallace challenged Trump but Trump didn’t back down from his false assertion that the Biden and Bernie charter mentions “abolishing” and “defunding” the police. He asks for someone to get him the charter but that ultimately led nowhere.
Once again, Trump is saying that he refuses to commit to accepting the results of November’s election. This was the case in 2016 too, but with Trump already being in power and his tendency toward authoritarianism, it’s scary to think of what Trump may do if he ends up losing.
Bottom line: this doesn’t confirm much that’s news to us, but it’s nice watching him squirm under some actual questioning by someone from Fox News. It’s a fun watch and worth your time if you want to be mad for 40 minutes.
END OF THE LINE...
That’s it for today.
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The Bread Line
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