You Will Anyway: What's his angle?

Wednesday, July 22, 2020

What's his angle?

Does he think this will win him votes, or is he simply trying to escalate violence for maybe a national emergency martial law move?

President Trump said Wednesday his administration is sending federal law enforcement officers into Chicago and Albuquerque, expanding his controversial crackdown on what he claims is an unchecked surge of violence in Democratic-run cities.

"Today I am announcing a surge of federal law enforcement into American communities plagued by violent crime,” Trump said in remarks from the East Room of the White House.

He added he had “no choice but to get involved."

Trump said the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF), U.S. Marshals Service and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) would all send agents to Chicago.

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot (D) has urged Trump not to send federal agents into the city, imploring the White House to instead focus on initiatives to curb gun violence that has long plagued the city.

“In the end, we very much want to partner with an executive branch that respects our city, inclusive of all our residents,” Lightfoot wrote in a letter to Trump earlier this week. “Partnership includes respect that you have not shown our residents as of late in mocking the level of violence that challenges Chicagoans.”

[...]

The announcement Wednesday marked an expansion of a Justice Department program launched earlier this month by Attorney General William Barr. The program, known as “Operation Legend,” is meant to address violent crime in Kansas City, Mo. Protesters have taken to the streets in Kansas City to demand an end to the operation and call for police reforms.

[...]

Officials announced their first arrest in connection with the effort earlier this week, a 20-year-old man named Monty Ray who was charged in court with illegally possessing firearms.

The Hill

And we needed the feds for that?

Oregon Gov. Kate Brown (D) has also called for federal officers to be removed from [Portland], and Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum (D) sued federal agencies Friday over the detention of protesters.

[...]

Trump signaled earlier this week that he was considering sending federal agents to cities, specifically naming New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit, Baltimore and Oakland. Reports circulated that the federal government was drawing up plans to send agents to Chicago, but nothing had been formally announced until Wednesday.

[...]

Trump said Wednesday the federal government would “immediately surge” officers to Chicago and would “soon” send federal law enforcement to Albuquerque and other cities under the program.

[...]

“While others want to defund, defame and abolish the police, I want to support and honor our great police,” Trump said.

Is that what we're calling it? Federal officers in major U.S. cities. I think there's another name for that.

Susan Collins, are you listening?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

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Life, as Explained in "Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead"

GUILDENSTERN: What a fine persecution---to be kept intrigued without ever quite being enlightened.

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ROSENCRANTZ : The only thing that makes it bearable is the irrational belief that somebody interesting will come on in a minute.

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GUILDENSTERN: But for God's sake what are we supposed to do?!

PLAYER: Relax. Respond. That's what people do. You can't go through life questioning your situation at every turn.

GUILDENSTERN: But we don't know what's going on, or what to do with ourselves. We don't know how to act.

PLAYER: Act natural. You know why you're here at least.

GUILDENSTERN: We only know what we're told, and that's little enough. And for all we know it isn't even true.

PLAYER: For all anyone knows, nothing is. Everything has to be taken on trust; truth is only that which is taken to be true. It's the currency of living. There may be nothing behind it, but it doesn't make any difference so long as it is honoured. One acts on assumptions.

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GUILDENSTERN : We act on scraps of information... sifting half-remembered directions that we can hardly separate from instinct.

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PLAYER: Life is a gamble, at terrible odds-if it was a bet you wouldn't take it.