The president has shown a lifelong penchant for inflaming racist hatreds and fears – expect much more of this before November
Six months into the coronavirus pandemic, Donald Trump tweeted a rare statement of condolences, as the confirmed death toll in the US climbed past 183,000.
Related: Biden to accuse Trump of stoking violence in US after Portland clashes
Continue reading...The mayor of Portland, Ted Wheeler, launched a searing attack against Donald Trump on Sunday, saying the US president is inciting violence in his city. 'It's you [Trump] who have created the hate and division,' Wheeler said. Trump responded to the comments with a series of counterattacks on Twitter
• Fatal shooting in Portland as Trump supporters confront BLM protesters
Footage shows men in pickup trucks taking part in a pro-Trump procession driving into a crowd of protesters in Portland, Oregon. They fire paintballs and pepper spray as demonstrators throw objects at the convoy. The caravan of Trump supporters drove as a group into the centre of Portland, prompting protesters to block streets and bridges in an attempt to stop them. It was the third Saturday in a row that Trump supporters have rallied in the city.
Continue reading...Police say it was not clear if shooting was linked to fights between protesters and caravan of Trump supporters
One person was shot and killed late Saturday in Portland, Oregon, as a large caravan of Donald Trump supporters came into town and were seen on video firing paintballs and pepper spray at Black Lives Matter protesters before clashes erupted in the streets.
Related: The Department of Homeland Security is a rogue agency. Democrats must take action | Trevor Timm
Continue reading...Police say it was not clear if shooting was linked to fights between protesters and caravan of Trump supporters
Portland mayor Ted Wheeler on Sunday slammed Donald Trump, accusing the president of encouraging the kind of violence that erupted in the city overnight when a reported member of a rightwing group was shot dead after a group of Trump supporters confronted Black Lives Matter protesters.
“What America needs is for you to be stopped,” Wheeler said of Trump, after the president tore into Wheeler on Twitter in the hours after the death and retweeted video footage of his supporters in trucks firing paintballs and pepper spray at protesters downtown.
Continue reading...Federal agents clashed with protesters, accusing them of damaging vehicles and throwing projectiles
Smoke filled the air outside a police precinct in Portland, Oregon early on Saturday, as authorities worked to clear a crowd accused of damaging patrol vehicles, throwing projectiles and pointing lasers at officers.
Related: The Department of Homeland Security is a rogue agency. Democrats must take action | Trevor Timm
Continue reading...Overnight protest matches Thursday’s, with no major confrontations, as US government draws down forces
More than a thousand people showed up in downtown Portland early on Saturday to peacefully protest, about three days after the announcement that the presence of US agents there would be reduced – a deal that Oregon officials hope will continue to ease tensions as the city tries to move on from months of chaotic nightly protests.
Friday’s overnight protest mimicked Thursday’s, which was the first time in weeks that demonstrations ended without any major confrontations, violence or arrests.
Continue reading...Federal agents accused of behaving like an 'occupying army' are said to be pulling out of Portland, Oregon, in an embarrassing climbdown by the White House, but many protesters are sceptical over whether the agents will actually withdraw from the city.
The force, which have been dubbed by some as 'Donald Trump’s troops', were sent in by the president a month ago to end what he called 'anarchy' during Black Lives Matter protests sparked after the police killing of George Floyd.
The Guardian's Chris McGreal looks at what Trump was hoping to gain by sending paramilitaries into the city, if and how they will leave, and how their presence has fuelled anger among most residents
Continue reading...Donald Trump has called protesters in Portland, Oregon, ‘terrorists’ and threatened to send in the national guard if local authorities cannot disperse them. Speaking at a White House press conference, Trump called the city a ‘beehive of terrorists’ and accused its mayor of incompetence.
Despite Oregon's governor, Kate Brown, saying this week that she had secured an agreement with the White House to withdraw federal forces from the city, protesters have continued to gather in demonstrations that have lasted for more than 60 consecutive days
Protesters say they’re demonstrating for multiple reasons as concern grows that the nightly battles play into Trump’s hands
Some come early and leave before the atmosphere turns and the trouble begins. Others sit out the peaceful demonstration and arrive in time for the nightly showdown to the beat of drummers rallying Portland’s ad hoc force of protesters against “Trump’s troops”.
But each evening follows the same broad ritual in downtown Portland in support of Black Lives Matter and against Donald Trump’s deployment of federal paramilitaries even as the protests have swelled to draw in organized groups of mothers, military veterans and first time demonstrators pushed too far by the president.
Continue reading...Bortac, a quasi-militarised outfit equivalent to the Navy Seals, has been deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan
In January 2011, James Tomsheck, then a top internal affairs investigator inside US Customs and Border Protection, attended a meeting of about 100 senior CBP leaders in a hotel in Irvington, Virginia.
Amid the sanitized splendor of the hotel ballroom, he vividly recalls hearing the nation’s then highest-ranking border patrol agent, David Aguilar, laying out his vision for the future. Border patrol, the former CBP deputy commissioner said, was to become the “marine corps of the US federal law enforcement community”.
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Shortly before he departed on Air Force One from Morristown Municipal Airport en route to Washington, Donald Trump announced that he will not be throwing out the ceremonial first pitch before a Red Sox-Yankees game at Yankee Stadium next month due to scheduling conflicts.
“Because of my strong focus on the China Virus, including scheduled meetings on Vaccines, our economy and much else, I won’t be able to be in New York to throw out the opening pitch for the @Yankees on August 15th,” he wrote on Twitter. “We will make it later in the season!”
Because of my strong focus on the China Virus, including scheduled meetings on Vaccines, our economy and much else, I won’t be able to be in New York to throw out the opening pitch for the @Yankees on August 15th. We will make it later in the season!
The news website ProPublica has published a database containing complaint information for thousands of New York City police officers days after a federal judge paused the public release of such records.
The Associated Press reports:
ProPublica posted the database Sunday, explaining in a note to readers that it isn’t obligated to comply with judge Katherine Polk Failla’s temporary restraining order because it is not a party to a union lawsuit challenging the release of such records.
Deputy managing editor Eric Umansky said ProPublica requested the information from the city’s police watchdog agency, the Civilian Complaint Review Board, soon after last month’s repeal of state law that for decades had prevented the disclosure of disciplinary records.
Continue reading...The confrontation between protesters and federal paramilitaries in Portland escalated early on Sunday morning, when demonstrators finally broke down a steel fence around the courthouse after days of trying.
Related: What is happening in Portland and what does Trump hope to gain?
Continue reading...On another night of confrontation with federal agents, activists said their message was in danger of being forgotten
Teal Lindseth surveyed the sea of mothers she was about to lead into the firing line.
“I look at this crowd and I don’t see many black people,” lamented the 21-year-old African American activist. “Oregon is white as hell. Whitewashed.”
Continue reading...Black Lives Matter protesters used leaf blowers to blow back teargas in clashes with federal troops in Portland, Oregon. On the 57th day of protests in the city, thousands of demonstrators marched on a federal courthouse where they have clashed with officers throughout the week. The troops, deployed by Donald Trump against the wishes of Portland's mayor, fired teargas and pepper rounds into the crowd, and some responded by throwing fireworks back
Among real storms blowing around the US today, hurricanes are approaching Texas and Hawaii while a tropical storm heads for the Caribbean. The Associated Press is keeping watch here.
Among other kinds of storm, the kinds that blow themselves out on Twitter, the billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk and his partner, the musician Grimes, appear to have had a public argument about pronouns.
Related: Explain it to me quickly: did Elon Musk and Grimes really name their baby X Æ A-12?
Miami Dade county has now recorded more than 100,000 cases of Covid-19 since the start of the pandemic. According to the Miami Herald, there were 3,424 new cases reported on Saturday. The county’s population is around 2.7 million.
Continue reading...America is “staring down the barrel of martial law” as it approaches the presidential election, a US senator from Oregon has warned as Donald Trump cracks down on protests in Portland, the state’s biggest city.
Related: This is what happens when the War on Terror is turned inward, on America | Hamilton Nolan
Continue reading...John Sandweg says the deployment of homeland security officials is a ‘manufactured crisis’ stemming from ‘a failure of leadership’
The former acting director of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, which works under the Department of Homeland Security, has condemned the Trump administration’s handling of protests in Portland by deploying federal agents into the city.
Related: Portland clampdown: why are federal agents there and what are they doing?
Continue reading...Trump’s fifth homeland security secretary has denied there’s a systemic problem in US law enforcement and overseen extreme immigration restrictions
Chad Wolf wasn’t Donald Trump’s first pick for homeland security secretary – he wasn’t even his fifth or sixth.
But now he is the figurehead for the federal government’s intervention in Portland, where his department’s militarized agents have been recorded pushing protesters into unmarked vehicles.
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From me and Joan E Greve:
For coronavirus updates from around the world, follow the Guardian’s global blog:
Related: Coronavirus live news: US cases top 4m as WHO chief chides Pompeo for 'untrue' claims
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