I think I figured at least some of the first one.

The anti-maks sentiment isn't really about a loss of rights. They feel masks are unnecessary, an attack on Trump, and a political stunt. They think masks are mandated by liberals who want to build up the pandemic so it will hurt Trump and the Republicans in November. That the mask policies are scare-tactics to create that appearance of instability that brings about change they don't want. I think a lot of them get worked up over the media and society being "unfair to Trump", and the masks, to them, are a symbol of that. So requiring them to wear a mask is requiring them to take part in that attack on Trump. (And, a lot of other people just don't like to be told what to do and lose their shit when someone tells them to wear a mask. But that's separate from the political resistance).

I don't think it makes much difference to them how protesters are dealt with. Though I think I understand part of the federal government perspective on it. Large scale clashes between poorly-trained and inexperienced local officers and protesters really is a bad thing. The only thing it creates is viral memes. I think there's be fewer and more peaceful protests if there was less police response, and that part of the goal of some of the protests is getting the police there and creating that chaotic scene that's very existence supports the message of the protests. In my town the police response is restrained, and those that do arrive just stand around, and there's very little property damage or violence because there isn't that outlet for the anger to become something more destructive. The worst we've had is some shouting and shoving between groups of protesters, but even though there were calls for arrests and charges for minor batteries and things like that, police have largely sat back and I think that's been a very smart move.

Going in quietly and whisking suspects away for questioning off-site is a lot cleaner and less destructive than what some of these local agencies were doing. Of course, that's creating those viral memes and playing into the protesters' goals too, and marked vehicles and identifiable officers would be better. But they don't really have those to a great degree because federal police aren't really a thing in regular American cities, usually. So I wonder if that's just an issue of rushed implementation. They're sending agents in on planes and it's not like there's this parking lot of federal police vehicles waiting for them. But, I definitely think there's a place for this kind of enforcement, (if done a little less subtly), particularly when federal buildings are in danger. It's better than than confronting protesters with masses of untrained humanity in the middle of the protests themselves. I'm pretty sure I've read calls for police to do kind of what these federal police are doing, though without the secrecy.

I also kind of wonder if the local governments are complaining about this practice publicly and requesting the assistance privately. Life is easier for local governments when they have someone else to blame. They want to distance themselves from their own law enforcement agencies to appease the public, but they also want some degree of law and order and protection of property. So it makes a lot of sense for the them to hope or request the feds to do some of their dirty work so they don't have to be held accountable for it. Maybe the endgame of that is defunded local agencies and more prominent federal law enforcement like a lot of countries have. The feds don't have the same jurisdiction that they would in a lot of countries, but, it's easy to see that evolving.

No no its not our country they hate its you they hate.

OK, so amazing sound bites aside. Anarchists do suck. They are against the common order of society and my short time that I've spent in Portland, the general prevailing notion is to just stay out of their way so you don't get hurt. Frankly, that's bullshit. Put it off, say what you want, but separating out their behavior from those of protestors should be a major platform on both sides. This idiots problem however, is that he's called Wolf on a litany of things, and frankly, people just don't care to listen to him any more.

I haven't run across Anarchists in any other city as a major problem, just Portland, where they have been entrenched for years and years, from what I understand. The city has typically let them do their thing and tolerated them, but my opinion is that yes, they are a threat to people and the order of society. Governments shouldn't have to allow a group whose entire purpose is the downfall and destruction of 'said' government. That's a bit too far in terms of 'freedom' that I am comfortable with. You can't have freedom, if the freedom means abandoning all structure and form of government and society. That's just barbarism, and we have plenty of examples from hundreds of years that it is the enemy of an orderly, civic minded society.

Cities in Chaos!!!! Is that the caravan story of 2020, or do they have something else for later in the race?

I'm still amazed at the "don't vote for Biden or this is what you're going to get" ads with footage of Trump's America.

And now they're saying the killer committed suicide.

Tin Foil hats on!

EDIT: The guy has been identified on social media as Roy Den Hollander, an anti-feminist attorney (with ties to Russia for the tin foil hatters!) who has made a number of appearance on Fox News. Seemed like a swell guy from some of the video clips I saw...

That's one hell of a plot twist.

It appears some nutty men's rights activist.

Yes I sure these are the same things German citizens were saying back in 1935

If you're not identifying yourself as law enforcement in any way then why should I comply with any orders given? Yet, if I don't comply then I'm charged with resisting. If I'm approached by people like this how do I know they're federal police and not random vigilantes taking advantage of the situation? What happens if I exercise my 2nd amendment rights and injure or kill one of these people that are effectively trying to kidnap me?

How do we know they're only taking deadbeats? Who has oversight over these "police" and where are the reports? Does the public get to see them?

And yes, according to those interviewed they are being blindfolded and hauled off to a location that isn't disclosed until afterwards. They're held without legal representation, asked questions, and then eventually released.


And I want to specifically highlight this comment because I strongly believe it's a bullshit cop out. Federal judges, district attorneys, and other people involved in the federal government don't get this anonymity despite their family being far bigger targets.


EDIT: The right seems to always be whining about loss of rights, but they're also the people that gladly gave over their rights with the Patriot Act, TSA in airports, and now secret police roaming the streets. It does nothing but drive home the stereotype that it's really only about making sure their hobby (guns) isn't touched. I guess you can put not wearing a mask up there with guns now, though.

Simply voicing their intent and affiliation doesn't necessitate disclosing personal information. Shit like this is exactly why people are calling for law enforcement reform.

This is pretty excellent (blends COVID and baseball):

https://twitter.com/dougherty_jesse/...08430408916992

I'm going to assume that some in the WH aren't going to be too happy about this.

For some reason I thought this was about the announcement of a new sport.

Not to mention, if these people are coming from out of state there is a lot less fear of being "outed" and people targeting family as opposed to local cops who live in the community they are policing.

The below link says there are many things left unresolved. But the bottom line is (I think) no requirement.

Can we not assume this issue has come up many, many, many times already, been challenged in court, and its still not a requirement? If so, this means there are good reasons for where we are.

Page not found - Lawfare


Is this illegal? Is there a timeframe where they have to be given legal counsel if requested? Are there laws that can hold an individual for a period of time? I honestly don't know but if it's within the law, then okay. If we don't like the law, then let's change it (or let the lawsuits happen).

Yes, I can see this.

EDIT: I'm not sure I agree with "their family being far bigger targets" but assuming they are equally likely targets, I get the point. I tried a long-shot of doing a search for violence committed against LEO's outside while not on-the-job and not able to find anything.

Disruption isn't a crime. If you want to arrest someone for graffiti, have at it. I believe it's a misdemeanor in just about every jurisdiction. But protesting for 30-40 days is not a crime.


They do it because they don't want to be held accountable for actions they are caught doing on camera. There is no threat to them or their families outside of having the world see how they act in their job.


How very fascist of you.

'I never thought leopards would eat MY face,' sobs woman who voted for the Leopards Eating People's Faces Party.

— Adrian Bott (@Cavalorn) October 16, 2015

I'll be glad to start name calling too but know Ben wouldn't appreciate an escalation. Why don't you just ignore me and save us all a lot of grief.

The violence of the protests petered out more quickly than he expected. This is a notoriously cheap guy who still paid to take out a full page ad in the New York Times calling to kill five black guys. He does not have many actual beliefs. But one of his actual beliefs is that black people are animals.

So, when he saw that Democrats were protesting police violence against black people, he assumed that they would be ongoing violent protests.

But black people aren't animals. And Democrats are not anarchists. So a lot of the violence stopped.

So he's bringing in a bunch of pseudo-soldiers to try to get things going again.

Anything to distract from COVID.

Anything to distract from the fact that Russia puts bounties on our soldiers while he does nothing in response.

He's running an old school racist campaign. Already starting on the "if Biden wins, "they" will invade your suburbs and your property values will drop" bit to his speeches. And now that the protests have petered out, he needs to get them going again to make it seem like there is anarchy in the streets.

As you've seen, it plays to an audience of bootlickers who love authoritarianism. Whether it plays to others, who knows? Being the "Law and Order" President is tough when you have pardoned a war criminal, commuted the sentences of buddies, and set up the DoJ to stop looking into your criminal enterprise.

But what else can he run on? The economy is shit. Foreign policy is a disaster. We're ground zero for the pandemic with no signs of it slowing down. And there are no policy plans for the next term outside of bringing up infrastructure a couple times a year and then forgetting by the next morning.

"me, your favorite president!" actually made me snort out loud.

Better than the alternative, kudos to whoever talked him into that, regardless of their motivation. That has to make some difference to at least some of his followers.

He has a point. He is your favorite president out of all the people that are President right now. We have no choice in the matter.

Can I ask what federal law that these protestors are breaking to be arrested by federal officers?

Emmanuel Macron's title is "President."

I don't think they're even being arrested, at least the majority of them. From what I'm reading, they are releasing them almost immediately.

About a month ago, Tucker Carlson gave a "they'll come for you next" speech.

I hope Biden's team has him go hard at this in the debates since he has always been clear that defunding was not his answer.

Staying positive, relaying a concise plan of action and letting Lincoln Project and others take the low road against Trump should be a winning formula.

I still worry about Biden getting pulled into the Trump vortex during the debates and dampening the enthusiasm so many have to get Trump out of office, to where they may stay home, along with any vote suppression shenanigans Trump and friends may try.

I'm guessing the new campaign manager?

If you think 2020 is the worst, I get the feeling 2021 is warming up to say "Hold my beer."

Hopefully there's a COIVD vaccine. That's something, right!

If Biden wins, it's "just" the US economy from 1930 and probably a right-wing belief the election was stolen. If Trump wins, the parallels to 1930s Germany write themselves. I'm not saying that it ends the way that did, but we're echoing a lot of those historical notes.

SI

What they say is highlighted below. Some half-truths mixed in I'm sure.

https://www.opb.org/news/article/fed...nd-protesters/

Yeah, it has nothing to do with law enforcement. The point is to stir up shit in cities and scare people.

and to try and make it look like he is the law and order president who won't take any shit from socialist commie leftists.

People who wear their masks under the nose must be awesome at using condoms.

Saw something in my FB memories that was interesting to read with hindsight.

This was my post 5 years ago today -- one month after Trump announced his candidacy and right around the time he first ascended to the top of the primary polls.


Not a bad analysis if I do say so myself.

The missed calculation by the establishment is that there wasn't a cliff steep enough for him to step off that would push away a certain segment of people who love to hear him say in public the things they've said in private. It's been pretty disgusting to watch it all unfold.

Those people are just below the ones who sit it under the chin, or the people who wear it properly - until they need to speak. Then they pull it down. Why didn't I think of that?

Respect.

And--even now--there are still people who think the whole thing was simply a tactical blunder by the GOP Establishment. Kasich getting back in the news got Dan McLaughlin on Twitter to go on a bit about how Kasich could have done X, Y, and Z during the 2016 GOP Primary to keep Trump from getting elected.

All of this (pardon the pun) inside baseball tactical analysis seem to miss that Republican voters just really like Trump. The Establishment candidates didn't lose to Trump because of tactics. They lost to a guy who excited (and still excites) a ton of GOP voters.

He has trouble with moderates, which is why he's currently an underdog to Biden. But base motivation and mobilization is a pretty good strategy, and at this point, he is right to try and double and triple down on it. It is still his best chance of winning a close EC victory.

Thanks. I mean, I take my lumps (from myself) when I get one wrong so I'm gonna enjoy it when I'm reminded that I got one right


If he gets just a little more aggressive on a few issues, he'll beat Biden going away in the EC. The biggest danger I see him facing is failing to motivate that same group that got him there in the first place. If he forgets the dance steps that got him elected Prom King the first time, he'll lose.

If he fails to curb the pandemic paranoia, if he fails to step hard on Antifa/BLM, he can lose enough voters to get himself beat... I'm just praying he figures that out in time.

I think he needs to find enough Americans beyond his base who would characterize these things in this way. That's his real problem.

I get the people who held their nose and voted him anyway in 2016, especially given the choices. I would have probably considered him had I not been from NJ and had pretty good knowledge of his past and who he was.

After seeing 4 years of this, and his lack of performance in real crisis, anyone that votes for him now does it because they want the hate and suffering he brings other people and he will give it to them. His second term goal, and by his I mean Miller, McConnell, et al., will be to obliterate the left and our system of government. He will just be their puppet.

Those folks ARE his base. And without them, he has no chance.

Biden couldn't lead starving dogs to fresh meat, he's not the threat. Stay at home voters will beat Trump more surely than anything else under the sun.

He won because he inspired his voters. If he fails to do so down the stretch -- and those cracks are there (firing Fauci may not be enough to cover the sins in that quarter) -- he's a dead duck.

I can think of no more noble goal, nor greater achievement, than that.

If he managed that, mfer could be king for life afaic.

edit to add: If he pulled that off, hell, I want him cryo'ed when he dies so he can be rejuvenated & restored to office when they cure whatever killed him.

Correct. Just the base won't do it. There were enough people in 2016 who were like "I don't want Hillary, let's give this craziness a try". We did.

Perhaps this extreme voter suppression stuff will do it. Perhaps controlling the postal service and "losing ballots" will do it. Perhaps a combination of all of these things will be enough. Who knows.

I think his biggest issue isn't the excitement of his base, it's that the base that elected him in 16 is simply smaller and more dense now. He's lost a considerable amount of support within his own party. The writing is literally in the news and social media every day. These aren't people who would be against the party if they had someone else. They were in his corner 4 years ago, but not now. That's the real story of the voting base. He's done nothing to expand them.

Yes, and that's a relatively small number in a 2-person race. Not small enough for my liking, but perhaps small enough to cost him the election, perhaps by a comfortable margin (outside of any hijinks).

I hope his focus stays on BLM and coronavirus paranoia. His polling on those two issues is absolutely terrible. His base may love it, but that's 35-40% at most, and it drives away the educated, suburban voters that used to see themselves in the GOP. Those people don't want to be a part of a white nationalist party that ignores and silences top scientists.

The argument that Trump won because he inspired his base in '16 just does not fit with the polling evidence. He won because he got some of the rust belt states narrowly, allowing him to overcome the largest popular vote deficit by a loser in modern US history. He won because undecideds broke his way late in the campaign, esp. evangelicals. He won because of people who held their nose and decided Hillary was worse, not because of his own fantastic attributes.

There is no conceivable scenario under which he 'beats Biden going away'. I'm not sure he'd beat Biden if Biden died between now and the election. What vanishingly small chance he has will require him to get votes from unexpected places again, and everything is trending in the direction of that not happening and Trump getting thumped.

stolen from somewhere else regarding the protests in Portland:


Watching the Moms show up is like watching the arrival of the Elves in LOTR

Take CA out of the equation and he won the popular vote.

Yes, he won a number of rust belt states narrowly, but he did win them. He did that by appealing to and getting the rural areas excited.

PA outside of Philly and Pittsburgh is Northern Alabama, and the same could be said of backwoods MI and MN. So. Illinois fits the category as well, but there are not enough people in the state to outweigh Cook County and the Chicago suburbs.

Banking on the rural areas to bail you out when they are shrinking is a losing game long term.

and when you've made an ass of yourself for 3.5 years. There are plenty of people in those areas who won't support him again, simply because he's too much of an ass.

If we look at the three states that basically won it for Trump (Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin), Trump didn’t significantly outperform Romney in Michigan or Wisconsin. I don’t believe he energized the rural vote so much as people didn’t show up for Hillary.

What's the point of taking CA out of the equation? How much would he have lost by if you take Texas, Tennessee, and Kentucky out of the equation - which have the combined population almost exactly as California?


No, actually. The main problem Clinton had wasn't the rural areas, it was that she badly underperformed expectations in working-class suburbs, narrowly winning in areas that are traditionally strongly Democratic and decidedly not rural. For example in PA, if she had equaled Obama's performance in Scranton and Wilkes-Barre alone she would have easily won the state.

On the late-deciders point, among people who decided their vote the week before the election Trump was +17 in Pennsylvania, +11 in Michigan, and +27!! in Wisconsin. Without that, he doesn't win any of those states. When you're excited and enthusiastic about a candidate, you don't wait until the final days of a campaign to make up your mind.

The excitement level for either Trump or Clinton should have been non-existent in this country.

I feel the same way about the Twilight movies.

This is a pretty strong argument that the Comey announcement won it for Trump.

There's also going to be very few late deciders in this election and while the enthusiasm to vote for Biden isn't exactly stellar the enthusiasm to vote against Trump is off the charts.

I haven't seen anyone not wearing a mask in this area, but I do see way too many the pull their mask down to have a conversation.

The OH Speaker of the House was arrested today by the Feds on a 60 million! dollar bribe scheme.

Please continue to believe this. The Sanders folks did and Biden ate Bernie's lunch and blew him out of the water.

One bad sign for Trump is the primary numbers show Biden more popular in areas where Trump beat Clinton. I looked at Wisconsin data. The three biggest counties Trump won in 2016 are Racine, Outagamie, and Winnebago.

Racine

2016 General: Trump +4
2012 General: Obama +3.5
2020 Primary: Biden +38
2016 Primary: Sanders +2

Outagamie

2016 General: Trump +12.5
2012 General: Romney +2
2020 Primary: Biden +31
2016 Primary: Sanders +20

Winnebago

2016 General: Trump +7
2012 General: Obama +3.5
2020 Primary: Biden +30
2016 Primary: Sanders +23

As you can see, all three counties had 7.5+ swings towards Trump. All were won by Bernie in 2016. And all were won by Biden in a landslide in 2020.

This is why Bernie overestimated his support and didn't think he needed to expand his base. Many of his primary wins were due to dislike of Clinton rather than huge support for Bernie. Biden doesn't have that same problem.

And I'd argue Trump is doing the exact same thing Sanders did in the primaries. Mixing up dislike for Clinton for support for himself.

So Rep Ted Yoho (R-FL) accosted Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on the steps of the Capitol yesterday calling her disgusting and a "F*&*ing B&*^h. She says she's never even spoken to him before.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/con...pitol-n1234465

This isn't exactly a high bar.

In fairness to him, she is a Hispanic woman who contradicts his negative stereotypes of both Hispanics and women. Her existence kind of undermines everything he believes in. You can see why he might be a tad upset.

The fact that it was such a blowout, and that Sanders gracefully bowed out when he was cooked, has really muted the Bernie Bros this time around. I guess they're occupied with other things. But I remember when it was a pretty commonly held belief that the Democrats rigged the whole process for Biden. Remember the app in Iowa? It was a Democratic party conspiracy. Those people sure shut up as the results of the other states rolled in.

The the idea Bernie Bros had in 2016 that there's no real different between Trump and a non-Bernie candidate also proved to be spectacularly wrong.

AOC being more vocally supportive of Biden than Bernie was for Clinton helps too. If she and others like her are going to replace Bernie as the face of younger, far-left part of the Dem party, they'll be in much better shape.

If the Dems can't win a blowout election this time around, or at lest a comfortable one, it will be the greatest of their many failures.

This is....staggeringly ignorant and criminal.

Missouri governor on kids getting coronavirus at school: 'They're going to get over it' | TheHill

You still have the true believers on places like Twitter ("red rose Twitter" - who have, btw, even turned on Bernie), though yeah, I think some are chastened. I think AOC and Bernie going full on pro-Biden has helped (Bernie and Biden are pretty good friends as well IRL so Bernie's support is genuine)

The whole, they are going to go home and get over it.. um, does the Governor know that there tend to be older people at home?

Part of what's weird is that the messaging isn't "COVID is super serious and dangerous, but so is shutting down society and school, and in a world of bad choices, we think this is the least bad."

The messaging is that people who are worried about COVID are wrong.

I think that the former message would turn off less people.

In addition to the domestic issues we face, there is also serious trouble brewing on the international front. Russia and China are becoming increasingly bold and aggressive. I just can't shake the feeling that there's a war coming. It'll start in Asia, then spread rapidly.

Yet my right leaning facebook friends constantly go on about civility and treating Trump and other with more respect.

I can't fathom why the message "your kids will 100% get Covid in school" would, ya know, make people question if kids should go back to school.

It's just blows my mind that people are so focused on how Covid can hurt them and not on the spread to others (both who it is spread to and if the spread becomes so pervasive that it overwhelms the system).

This is just a variation on the mask thing - "I don't need a mask because I'm not sick." "Kids will get it and recover because they are young and less susceptible." No concern or acknowledgement that people don't just get Covid in a vaccuum.

I wouldn't be surprised if this was trumpian effort by Trump's campaign to draw attention to AOC, so later they'll tie Joe Biden to her far left ideology (ie a vote for Biden is a vote for socialism).

Or he's just an asshole.

It’s how the world has become: an increasing proportion of people just don’t give a shit about anyone but themselves

I don't think people are getting worse; it's just not as hidden as it has been at some points in the past. There's still a lot of altruism and kindness around but it's always easier to focus in on the negative - i.e., we talk here about how bad it is that some people don't wear masks or don't care about kids getting COVID. Those who do care about those things pass unnoticed.

I will say that in my day-to-day life out now, people are all pretty much wearing masks when I go out. But that kind of kindness does not go viral on twitter like the people screaming at store clerks.

Nor should it. It's like rewarding people for wearing seatbelts or washing their hands after taking a shit. We shouldn't reward things you should be doing anyway, and it certainly isn't altruistic, that requires some level of sacrifice.

I went to the grocery store yesterday for the first time since March. Everyone but one person had on a mask, the one person looked to be a third party vendor of sorts. There were a handful of nose people and I wanted to scream in their faces. The more frustrating ones were the people who completely ignored the one way signs on the aisles.

I was a kid in the 80s so maybe take that decade out. But in the 90s, 00s, and 10s - I never felt a World War was even a possibility. I mean, was there some rando chance of someone accidentally launching missiles and triggering War Games? Sure. But not like a deliberately planned WW3. It feels like the pieces are falling into place now. Russia is emboldened and has already taken land in a way that seemed unfathomable for a while. China's fine with just playing the long game to do stuff in the South China Sea or places like Hong Kong. Even they've been tangling with India. Nationalism is on the rise across the globe in places as disparate as Brazil and Poland. It's not even that we're standing by and doing nothing about it, we're actively joining in. And that's a scary proposition.

I have no idea what the time scale looks like. But I'm certain I don't want to see a World War in my lifetime.

SI

I honestly don't think there will be a nuke Armageddon. The next "war" will be more of a technological (e.g. hacking) or economic war or lower intensity conflicts (e.g. war by proxy). All 3 are happening now albeit on different levels/scale.

China worries me more than Russia. Compared to China, Russia is declining and we always have NATO, EU (what's left of them) to help as it's in their vested interest.

With China, they are emerging and no one wants to confront them (much) because of the economic impact.

Well this seems to wrap up the Den Hollander/Salas attack pretty neatly:

I've always assumed the idea that world powers have more to lose than to gain from a world war. I think that's still true. I'm not sure it will be true in the next couple of decades.

SI

I'm with SI, except I think it will still be true for a while yet. There may come a point, particularly if we don't act more quickly with regards to climate change, that the incentives change.

There were very few late deciders in the last one either (if by "late" you mean within 90 days of November). Assertions to the contrary fly completely opposite of any data I've seen on the subject since the election and smacks of revisionist history frankly.

This election is already decided, same as the last one, all that matters is turnout.

Data showed 13% of voters were still undecided on election day and 18.5% were undecided 100 days out. Both numbers were the highest since the '96 presidential election.

Yep. The primary reason that fivethirtyeight was not as confident in the outcome as other pundits was the historically high number of undecideds, and they were talking about regularly through the runup to the vote. For example, here from October 25th .

Glad to hear that on July 21st the Trump administration is "developing a strategy" to combat Covid-19.

Yeah I'm sure it won't have any questionable advice/miraculous cures in it

It didn’t need one before because until yesterday it was a hoax.

Now it’s not a hoax, beginning to develop a strategy within 24 hours is pretty damned impressive IMHO

I guess Chuck Woolery was the wake up call he needed.

I wish her well.

Trump on Ghislaine Maxwell.

.

The Orange Shit gibbon was in rare form today.

There's probably a little dirt there. Timing for a pardon doesn't work ... unless he wins a second term.

She is the link to a lot of people being thrown under the bus, I imagine. I dont doubt she "commits suicide" as well.

A lot of people are dirty in this Epstein case. And stuff tends to leak these days.