Trump Uses Border Patrol To Attack Protesters in Portland


As federal agents brutalize protesters in Portland, Trump threatens to unleash the same tactics across the country.
By Sasha Abramsky

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/portland-protests-federal-trump/

Excerpts:

"In Portland, Ore., heavily armed federal agents in full military camo are now roaming the streets. Some, wearing no identification, picked up protesters and bundled them off in unmarked vans. These federal officers are, apparently, from a range of agencies, including Customs and Border Protection and the US Marshals Service. Their mandate is officially limited to protecting federal property, and they’ve used Trump’s executive order about protecting monuments as justification—but in practice, they seem to be treating Portland’s streets as legitimate stomping grounds.

On Saturday evening, a 53-year-old Navy vet had the temerity to ask these federal agents why they were violating their constitutional oath. They responded by savagely beating him with batons—breaking his right hand—and spraying him in the face with pepper spray. The video, which had been viewed over 11 million times by Monday, is as clear a demonstration of the fascist tilt of this administration as anything I have so far seen.

These actions have produced huge pushback, as surely the Trump administration knew they would. Oregon’s attorney general sued to block the snatch squads from operating this way. A naked protester stood defiantly between the officers and other protesters. And scores of local mothers linked arms to form a human shield in front of protesters near the federal courthouse.

In the days after the images of federal agents targeting protesters surfaced, the demonstrations have intensified. Meanwhile, the acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Chad Wolf, has painted a picture of Portland besieged by violent anarchists and local political leaders who refuse to enforce the law—and Trump has essentially promised to implement in D.C., Chicago, and other so-called “Democrat” cities the repressive tactics now being unleashed in Portland. At the same time, Trump has ramped up his rhetoric about Biden being a tool of a far-left cabal that Trump claims is intent on undermining the American way of life.

[Rest at link]

By IconoclastTwo

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