Prickly City by Scott Stantis for August 04, 2020

Republic. I like the sound of the word. It means people can live free, talk free, go or come, buy or sell, be drunk or sober, however they choose. Some words give you a feeling. Republic is one of those words that makes me tight in the throat; the same tightness a man gets when his baby takes his first step or his first baby shaves and makes his first sound like a man. Some words can give you a feeling that make your heart warm. Republic is one of those words.

John Wayne as Davy Crockett

First the came for the eagle and I said nothing. Then they came for the beagle…

The cartoon is not quite accurate. The faces of Trump’s goons were all covered.

.

The Trump Disciples all rejoice when American citizens are yanked off the streets by Trump goons.

Because freedom. Sure. But not for Those People.

I’m still registered Republican despite my utter disdain for how they’ve mostly knelt to kiss Trump’s smelly . . . let’s say feet. But I felt a glimmer of hope for the G.O.P. when I saw how many Republicans condemned the tactic of unidentifiable federal officers sweeping people up off the street as if this were Putin-slavia or Xi-Land. And after even Fox News turned against it, now the Doofus-in-Chief is backing down himself.

If Biden doesn’t blow it with a pure Lefty for V.P., I expect to vote Democrat for the first time in my long life, assuming Trump allows me a mail-in ballot. (Too many times the two parties have given me no choice but not to vote.)

Soooo…

“We were only following orders”?

‘GIGO’?

or

‘New recruits for DHS’?

~

Police detained and handcuffed a Black mother and four children after mistaking their SUV for a stolen motorcycle from another state.

The car the family was driving was not stolen.

Police used a license plate scanner to gather information on vehicles in the area.

They should have been looking for a motorcycle with the same plate from another state.

Interim Chief Wilson blamed the license plate reader but could not explain why the dozens of officers who responded did not confirm the vehicle description.

“I totally understand that anger, and don’t want to diminish that anger, but I will say it wasn’t a profiling incident.

It was a hit that came through the system, and they have a picture of the vehicle the officers saw,” Wilson said, defending her officers actions.

After officers realized the mistake, the family was uncuffed but more officers continued to arrive. Video shows over a dozen officers standing around the traumatized family.

~

https://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/local-news/aurora-police-detain-black-family-after-mistaking-their-vehicle-as-stolen

It’s only a part of the many reasons people should have seen it coming, based on the POtuS’ life, and should not have voted for this idiot. To put it succinctly, if you are still are supporting Donald Trump, you are an unmitigated DA.

Donald Trump’s plan for exciting his base during the 2018 midterm elections was to crank up the threat of a migrant caravan.

Fox News ran caravan footage on endless loop, and Trump smashed democratic norms by using the military as a campaign prop, deploying it to the border to “defend” against the supposed threat of violence (which, of course, magically dissipated immediately after the election.)

Trump’s party obviously fared terribly in the midterms, as one would expect from a deeply unpopular president.

But he did crank up historically high levels of Republican turnout, and was hardly mistaken in seeing the tactic as a success.

✁

Conservatives do have a germ of a point: Some of the protesters, especially in Portland, have destroyed or defaced property and provoked police, rather than merely demonstrating against racism and police violence.

The Portland NAACP complained that “mostly white anarchists” have incited violence and diverted attention from the purpose of the protests.

But the reason Trump’s tactic fails is that, by deploying troops to fight the anarchists, he broadens the issue into a fight about Trump himself.

This inevitably draws more, largely nonviolent protesters into the streets.

“The numbers of protesters had dwindled substantially in recent weeks,” one reporter in Portland observed last week, “but reports of heavily armed, unidentified, camouflaged federal officers abducting people off the street into unmarked vehicles and meting out violence on the people of Portland have thoroughly re-energized the populace.”

✁

And so the scenes that Trump craves, pitting soldiers against black-clad radicals, have transformed quickly into troops against veterans, moms, and other antagonists who cut a more sympathetic profile.

~

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/07/trump-protesters-portland-troops-police-protests.html

“Pluralities of Trump voters and Republicans think the U.S. is handling coronavirus better than most other countries are… No, really.” https://twitter.com/ThePlumLineGS/status/1290385247041970176

Democracy and freedom are such fragile things which should never be taken for granted.

“Invading Portland.”

“Invading Poland.”

Mark Twain was right: History does rhyme.

Niemöller:

“First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me."

If people are looking for examples of “law and order,” look no farther than Germany in the 1930s.

Give it a break!