TRUMP'S POLICE STATE - WE STILL KNOW WHERE HE LIVES!

The millions of workers and youth taking part in mass protests against police violence must begin to raise political demands against the gangster methods of the Trump administration, calling for the removal of Trump, Pence and their conspirators from office.

Kelly: ‘I Agree’ with Mattis on Trump — We Need to Look Harder at ‘Character’ of Who We Elect

PAM KEY

5 Jun 2020288

1:11

Friday on CNN, host John King played a clip of a new interview between former Trump administration communications director Anthony Scaramucci and former chief of staff John Kelly.

Kelly was commenting on former Defense Secretary James Mattis denouncing the Trump administration for using Washington, DC police and National Guard troops to clear out protesters from Lafayette Square for Trump’s visit to St. John’s Episcopal Church.

Kelly said, “He’s quite a man, General Jim Mattis, and for him to do that tells you where he is relative to the concern he has for our country.”

Scaramucci asked, “Do you agree with him, John?”

Kelly said, “I agree with him. I think we need to step back from the politics.”

He added, “I think we need to look harder at who we elect. I think we should start, all of us, regardless of what our views are in politics, I think we should look at people that are running for office and put them through the filter. What is their character like? What are their ethics?”

Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN

James Mattis Calls Trump Threat to Constitution, Compares to Nazi, Based on Lafayette Park

Mark Wilson / Getty

JOEL B. POLLAK

3 Jun 202019,050

3:20

Former Secretary of Defense James Mattis published an attack on President Donald Trump on Wednesday, accusing the president of violating the Constitution in clearing Lafayette Park on Monday and using the military to quell riots.

In an extraordinary statement, published in The Atlantic, Mattis calls the rioters and looters a “small number of lawbreakers” among “tens of thousands of people of conscience who are insisting that we live up to our values.”

He also compares President Trump to a Nazi, saying Trump’s policies resemble “[t]he Nazi slogan for destroying us.”

He does not call for any specific action, but suggests the president should be “reject[ed].”

Mattis declares:

When I joined the military, some 50 years ago, I swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution. Never did I dream that troops taking that same oath would be ordered under any circumstance to violate the Constitutional rights of their fellow citizens—much less to provide a bizarre photo op for the elected commander-in-chief, with military leadership standing alongside.

…

At home, we should use our military only when requested to do so, on very rare occasions, by state governors. Militarizing our response, as we witnessed in Washington, D.C., sets up a conflict—a false conflict—between the military and civilian society.

…

Instructions given by the military departments to our troops before the Normandy invasion reminded soldiers that “The Nazi slogan for destroying us…was ‘Divide and Conquer.’ Our American answer is ‘In Union there is Strength.’” We must summon that unity to surmount this crisis—confident that we are better than our politics.

…

We know that we are better than the abuse of executive authority that we witnessed in Lafayette Square. We must reject and hold accountable those in office who would make a mockery of our Constitution. At the same time, we must remember Lincoln’s “better angels,” and listen to them, as we work to unite.

Read Mattis’s full statement here.

Lafayette Park was cleared by the U.S. Park Police, which was falsely accused of using tear gas to disperse protesters. The Park Police said Tuesday that they cleared the police because some of the protesters “began throwing projectiles including bricks, frozen water bottles and caustic liquids.”

The president brought the military in to help calm Washington, DC, and the National Guard was deployed at the request of governors in 29 states.

The result, as of Wednesday morning, was that the nation’s streets were the “calmest in days,” the Associated Press reported.

Mattis, whom Trump appointed at the start of his administration, resigned in December 2018 over diplomatic disagreements with the president. He implied that Trump was not doing enough to support multilateral institutions.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). His new book, RED NOVEMBER, is available for pre-order. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.

Trump intensifies campaign to brand domestic opposition as terrorism

5 June 2020

The Trump administration is continuing its campaign for military intervention against the mass protests over police brutality that have swept the United States since the police killing of 46-year-old African American George Floyd on May 25. Attorney General William Barr and FBI Director Christopher Wray held a press conference Thursday afternoon to voice lying claims that left-wing groups bent on violence had “hijacked” the protests, in an effort to manufacture a pretext for repression.

Barr advocated the use of anti-terrorism units to apprehend “agitators” whom he accused of “hijacking” demonstrations. The branding of domestic political opposition as terrorism is aimed at delegitimizing and criminalizing all opposition to police violence and the policies of the oligarchy.

The level of lying in the Barr press conference would be admired by Nazi spokesman Josef Goebbels, the propaganda chief for Hitler’s “big lie.” Barr conjured up an invented world in which demonstrations involving millions of people in hundreds of cities, large, medium and small, are being manipulated by Antifa, an “organization” that has not a single identified member. He also claimed that “foreign actors” were intervening in the protests, adding the specter of a Russian, Chinese, Iranian or Al Qaeda role.

Utah National Guard soldiers stand on a police line as demonstrators gather to protest the death of George Floyd, Thursday, June 4, 2020, near the White House in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Antifa is little more than a label adopted by youth who protest against ultra-right and white supremacist provocations. As an organized group, it exists mainly in the fevered imaginations of FBI informers and agents—who likely comprise most of its “membership.” If Antifa did not exist (and it may not), Trump, Barr & Co. would be compelled to invent it, as a pretext for the mass repression that they are carrying out against the American working class.

Barr advocated the use of existing Joint Terrorist Task Forces against the supposed Antifa threat. The JTTF unite federal and state police agents in a common effort, initially directed against the Islamic fundamentalists who carried out the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York City and Washington, but now to be turned against all left-wing opposition to the policies of the Trump administration and its collaborators at the state level.

FBI agents working through the JTTF will go out to question people about their political views, in gross violation of the First Amendment, and seek to criminalize their participation in protests. A Department of Homeland Security memorandum, obtained by Politico, cited the need for intelligence agents to be “vigilant in looking for any kind of emerging threat to the homeland,” while making the revealing admission that “some of the observed suspicious behaviors include constitutionally protected activities…”

Barr has emerged as one of the principal agents of Trump in preparing a presidential dictatorship. The “chief law enforcement officer,” as the attorney general is described, is actually a full-fledged co-conspirator in the assault of the US Constitution and democratic rights.

Trump has threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act, but unlike 1992 in California, no state governor has requested federal military assistance. So, the White House aims to use the District of Columbia, which is federal territory and not part of any state, as a demonstration of the use of overwhelming military force to crush protests and intimidate the largely African American population.

As press reports have begun to show, it was Barr who played the main role in the police-military attack on peaceful protesters in Lafayette Park, across the street from the White House, on Monday night. The anti-riot force of the federal Bureau of Prisons, under Barr’s direct authority since it is part of the Department of Justice, was the spearhead of the effort to clear the park, using tear gas, pepper balls, and other riot gear, so that Trump could take his massively publicized walk across the park and pose, holding a Bible, in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church, which had suffered minor fire damage over the weekend.

At the press conference, Barr hailed the role of myriad federal agencies in the DC repression, declaring, “We have deployed all the major law-enforcement components of the department in this mission, including the FBI, ATF, DEA, Bureau of Prisons, and U.S. Marshals Service.”

He recalled his own role in 1992, during his previous term as attorney general in the administration of George H. W. Bush, the last time that a president invoked the Insurrection Act, during the upheaval in Los Angeles that followed the acquittal of the police thugs who beat Rodney King—an earlier racist atrocity by police that, like the killing of George Floyd, became a national scandal because it was filmed by bystanders and the whole country was able to witness the true nature of American “law and order.”

Vice President Pence, who was absent during the Lafayette Square provocation, has resurfaced as a fervent advocate of the Insurrection Act and the use of federal troops. In an interview with a Pittsburgh television station, Pence condemned the Democratic governor of Pennsylvania for only calling out 500-600 National Guard troops and threatened to send in the US Army instead.

“The president and I will continue to urge the governors, like Governor Wolf, to call up the National Guard, deploy them to the streets and in a strong and decisive manner to restore order. The American people expect nothing less,” said Pence.

While lies on the scale of those advanced by Barr may seem demented and unbelievable, there is a definite logic at work. It is part of a game plan to justify a military coup d’état that would place unchallenged power in the hands of the president. The gangster language of Trump and his accomplices, including aides like Stephen Miller and advisers like Steven Bannon, demonstrates that they are not playing by any sort of constitutional-democratic rulebook. They will do and say anything to carry out their plans to establish an authoritarian regime based on the military and the police.

The greatest danger for working people and youth would be to underestimate the dangers and believe—as the corporate media and the Democratic Party would suggest—that Trump has given up his plans for military rule because of opposition from within the political and national-security establishment. Spreading this poisonous complacency was the main function of the sermon delivered by Democratic Party operative Al Sharpton to the memorial service held for George Floyd Thursday in Minneapolis.

Sharpton was compelled to admit that the massive turnout at nationwide protests, with large numbers of young whites comprising a clear majority of those outraged and angry over the murder of George Floyd, marked something new in American political and social life. But he quickly turned to his real purpose: portraying the attack on Floyd as purely racial, thus concealing its class character as an attack on the working class, and the role of the police, whether white or black, as the repressive arm of the capitalist state.

Making light of Trump’s threat to use military force against the protesters, Sharpton called the president “all bark and no bite.” This under conditions where at least a dozen people have already been killed by police and National Guard since the protests began, and where Trump and his co-conspirators are actively preparing an intervention by the military on the streets of America that would mean a terrible bloodbath.

Not one prominent Democrat has denounced Trump for threatening a military takeover or demanded that he be removed from office. Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has been virtually invisible. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the top Democratic in Washington, merely sent a letter to the White House Thursday, requesting it to supply Congress with a list of the military and police agencies involved at Lafayette Park, as though there were not an ongoing effort to overthrow the constitutional structure of the United States.

The Socialist Equality Party has issued a call for workers and youth to oppose the White House plans to suppress democratic rights and impose a police-military regime. We said:

The working class must intervene in this unprecedented crisis as an independent social and political force. It must oppose the conspiracy in the White House through the methods of class struggle and socialist revolution.

The millions of workers and youth taking part in mass protests against police violence must begin to raise political demands against the gangster methods of the Trump administration, calling for the removal of Trump, Pence and their conspirators from office.

Trump administration deploys unmarked paramilitary units in Washington, D.C.

5 June 2020

On Wednesday, June 3, protesters gathered near the White House in Washington, D.C., were confronted by mysterious personnel equipped in tactical riot gear, including shields and “non-lethal” weaponry. These paramilitary units, which appeared alongside National Guard troops, were virtually absent of any identifying badge or insignia.

In a fascistic rant on Monday, June 1, delivered only minutes after a violent attack by police against protesters exercising their democratic right to peaceful assembly, Trump made clear that his administration is preparing to trample on the Constitution and establish a presidential dictatorship. The appearance of these unmarked paramilitary units must be seen as a significant step in that direction.

When asked by protesters and reporters to identify themselves, the personnel either remained silent, or simply stated, “Department of Justice [DOJ].”

Unmarked troops at the White House perimeter (Twitter/@GarrettHaake)

For the few who wore badges or insignias, these were mostly inconspicuous. Those whose markings have so far been identified belong to the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) and the BOP Special Operations Response Team (SORT), heavily militarized tactical units within the BOP, similar to the Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) units in law enforcement. According to Wikipedia, BOP SORTs are typically employed for “riots, assault on staff or inmates, escape or attempted escapes, hostage situations, any terrorist or military strike on the United States.”

Citing a “senior Justice Department official,” an NPR report on June 1 indicated that US Attorney General William Barr “has directed the Federal Bureau of Prisons to dispatch riot teams to the nation’s capital and to Miami to assist local authorities in responding to protests there.”

In a press conference with Barr, the BOP director, Michael Carvajal, responded to a question from a reporter about the presence of these unidentified units, saying, “First of all, I’m not aware of any specific Bureau Prisons [sic] personnel being told not to identify themselves.”

“What I attribute that to is probably the fact that we normally operate within the confines of our institution, and we don’t need to identify ourselves. Most of our identification is institution-specific and probably wouldn’t mean a whole lot to people in D.C.”

On the contrary, protesters in D.C. would no doubt like to know who is beating them with batons, dousing them in pepper spray, and shooting them with rubber bullets and tear gas. The presence of unidentified federal and police personnel creates a cover for other groups, including fascistic far-right militias, to freely take part in the violence against protesters. After all, there are a number of websites offering riot gear to civilians which is similar to that worn by the police and military, including riot shields emblazoned with the word “police.”

In addition to BOP personnel, the Justice Department has also deployed agents with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), and the US Marshals Service. Other agencies outside the Justice Department have also been activated. These include the Federal Protective Service (FPS), Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Secret Service, and the US Park Police.

While it is unclear to what extent the various agencies are involved, an article in BuzzFeed reported that the DEA has been granted jurisdiction to “conduct covert surveillance” and collect intelligence on protesters. The Park Police have helped assault protesters with smoke canisters and pepper balls.

The involvement of CBP is particularly noteworthy. On May 29, the agency flew a Predator drone (also known as the Reaper) over Minneapolis, Minnesota, in the wake of protests there. 

Ten thousand people have been arrested across the US as protests against police violence continue to expand

5 June 2020

More than 10,000 people have been arrested in the US during the protests against police violence as of Thursday, the tenth day of demonstrations in a row since George Floyd was murdered by Minneapolis police on Memorial Day.

In a tally taken of recorded arrests across the country, the Associated Press reported that the number of protesters arrested has grown by the hundreds each day. The news agency reported that one quarter of the arrests have been made in Los Angeles followed by New York City, which has 2,000 arrests, Dallas, and Philadelphia.

The AP analysis also showed that the majority of the arrests are for “low-level offenses such as curfew violations and failure to disperse.” Exposing as false the claims by President Donald Trump and Democratic politicians such as Minnesota Governor Tim Walz that the majority of the protesters are outside agitators, AP reported that, during a 24-hour period over the weekend in Minneapolis, “41 of the 52 people cited with protest-related arrests had Minnesota driver’s licenses.”

Additionally, in the US capital, AP reported, “86 percent of the more than 400 people arrested as of Wednesday afternoon were from Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia.”

The actual number of those detained by law enforcement is unknown. “The protesters are often placed in zip-ties and hauled away from the scene in buses,” the report said, “at a time when many of the nation’s jails are dealing with coronavirus outbreaks.”

A protester is arrested for violating curfew near the Plaza Hotel on Wednesday, June 3, 2020, in the Manhattan borough of New York. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

New York County Supreme Court Justice James Burke ruled on Thursday against a writ filed by New York’s Legal Aid Society and refused to release anyone held longer than 24 hours between arrest and arraignment. While New York courts stipulate that those in custody over 24 hours are entitled to release, Judge Burke ruled that the pandemic and mass protests were a “crisis within a crisis” and the New York City Police Department had thereby provided justification for the delays.

The historically unprecedented protests—in the face of arrests and ongoing police assaults with tear gas, rubber bullets, flash grenades and other “non-lethal crowd control munitions”—continued to expand across the country on Thursday. According to a summary published by USA Today, protests have been reported by local news media in 584 cities and towns across all 50 states, and as well as the territories of Puerto Rico and Guam.

In New York City, thousands of protesters marched from a memorial service for George Floyd in Brooklyn—which featured the first public appearance of George’s brother Terrance Floyd—across the Brooklyn Bridge into Manhattan. The assembled crowed expressed hostility by turning their back on Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasio, drowning him out and forcing him to cut his remarks to 90 seconds at the memorial, as they chanted, “I can’t breathe,” “resign” and “defund the police.”

Protesters were particularly angry about the baton assault by police on Wednesday night against those who remained on the street past the 8:00 p.m. curfew. On Thursday morning, both de Blasio and Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo defended the violent actions of the police, which had been captured on video and seen widely across social media. Amid the melee, two police officers were shot and one was stabbed in the neck in Brooklyn.

Unlike the night before at the Manhattan Bridge, New York City police did not attempt to block demonstrators from entering the bridge, as the crowd swarmed both the northern land side and the pedestrian walkway. According to a report in the New York Times, “Drivers in the opposite lane honked horns and raised fists in shows of support.”

Protests in Washington, DC continued on Thursday near Lafayette Square and the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial, while many rallied near the DC/Maryland border. Earlier in the day, Washington, DC’s Democratic Mayor Muriel Bowser lifted the 11:00 p.m. curfew, citing the fact that there had been no arrests the previous day. Bowser has adapted herself to the stationing of federal troops in the city, merely demanding that non-DC troops leave.

Meanwhile, military vehicles and police expanded the perimeter around the White House on Thursday, erecting tall metal fencing and putting in concrete barricades in preparation for what is expected to be a mass protest on Saturday.

According to a statement by the US Secret Service, “The areas, including the entire Ellipse and its side panels, roadways and sidewalks, E Street and its sidewalks between 15th and 17th streets, First Division Monument and State Place, Sherman Park and Hamilton Place, Pennsylvania Avenue between 15th and 17th streets, and all of Lafayette Park, will remain closed until June 10.”

Demonstrations took place in multiple locations in the Chicago area on Thursday, including several hundred protesters who marched from Lincoln Park High School to Whitney Young High School three miles away on the north side of the city. Other protests took place in the northern suburbs of Evanston, Grayslake and Zurich Lake.

Chicago Democratic Mayor Lori Lightfoot declined to answer questions at a press conference regarding a high-speed police chase on Wednesday evening that resulted in the death of a female motorist as well as two other incidents of police violence. One was at Brickyard Mall parking lot, where officers were caught on video pulling two women out of their vehicle and brutalizing them, with an officer kneeling on the neck of one of the two while she was on the ground. In another video, an officer is seen chasing down and punching a protester in Uptown on Monday night.

Tensions were high in New Orleans on Thursday evening, following the events of the previous night in which the New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) used tear gas to disperse a large group of protesters who marched onto the interstate from downtown New Orleans and headed for the Crescent City Connection bridge to cross over into the West Bank, Jefferson Parish. The Jefferson Parish police are notorious for their brutality and cruelty, known to be openly racist and blatantly abusive.

NOPD Superintendent Shaun Ferguson defended the repressive actions at a press conference on Thursday morning, showing social media videos of the confrontation and claiming that rubber bullets were not used on the crowd, although this was disputed by protesters. When asked about plans for Thursday evening, Ferguson said, “We don’t know what they’re planning to do tonight.”

Despite rain, protesters gathered in Orlando, Florida for a fifth night in a row on Thursday. They assembled downtown near City Hall and prepared to march to the headquarters of the Orlando Police Department, where a dozen officers wearing helmets and carrying shields were reportedly waiting. On Wednesday night, tear gas was used after a crowd at City Hall of approximately 2,000 people began moving through downtown and violated a previously announced 8:00pm curfew.

Protests continue to grow in size and scope throughout the San Diego area, with many held Thursday in smaller cities and suburbs in addition to the downtown protests, which included over 2,000 people. Cities such as Chula Vista, Oceanside, Julian, North Park, Carlsbad, Encinitas, La Mesa and Santee held protests in the hundreds.

In the growing downtown protests, police and national guardsmen kettled in protesters and shot rubber bullets and tear gas indiscriminately into crowds. Just the day before, at least 200 armed National Guardsmen arrived in San Diego following a request from San Diego Sheriff Gore. After Wednesday’s protests, the San Diego police chief announced a ban on chokeholds.

San Diego County is home to the largest military and naval base in the US. Stoked up by Trump and the brutality of the state’s response, some right-wing and white nationalist groups have been organizing in cities such as Santee and Carlsbad to join police and engage in violence against protesters. These small groups, however, represent a tiny fraction compared to the thousands who continue to take to the streets throughout the county.

In an example of the spread of protests across the US, hundreds of people demonstrated at the downtown parking garage in Grand Forks, North Dakota, 80 miles north of Fargo, and marched through the downtown area, as organizer Kollin King shouted over a bullhorn, “What’s his name?” and the crowd yelling back, “George Floyd.” The demonstration stopped briefly near the Red River and then continued on past its previously agreed-on route.