Now 7 dead, 6 arrested. Allegedly one American citizen among those arrested.
Reports are a large number of other suspects are trapped in a building surrounded by police right now.

Isn't there a fable about when someone tells you not to do something it's a ploy to make you do it anyway?

It's a trap!

Those are decent points, but have absolutely zero to do with the mass abandoning of their positions. It was 100% due to one of their own being charged after beating nonviolent protesters. They originally admitted exactly that, and now that they aren't being supported in their walkout, they are coming up with excuses that didn't matter to them the day before the officer was charged.

I think they should have to pay for the training and equipment they now refuse to use.

What are you talking about? You think budget cuts caused time off to be cancelled?! It costs double to not rotate in other officers, because you pay those on duty overtime, it doesn't make it cheaper. Budget cuts were not the issue when these cops were doing crowd control, only now that they're suddenly called to account for their own actions. No time off temporarily, because of extreme circumstances, was not an issue until one of their own was charged. It's certainly not abnormal, and absolutely not because of budget cuts, it costs more.

No prosecutions is the norm, if I recall, over 98% of charges levied at protesters have been dismissed nation wide, mostly because police had no evidence to back the charges they brought. You might note, as described in the article, "Mr. Schmidt immediately announced that he would focus on prosecuting cases of violence or vandalism; protesters who simply resisted arrest or refused to disperse after a police order would not necessarily be charged." They are taking a stand against anarchic violent protesters, but not the peaceful protesters with a legitimate gripe about violent, racist, deadly police acting as an anarchist gang that believes rules only apply to you, not them.

There are few prosecutions in large part because police declare riots when all participants are peaceful and not causing damage, and police are almost always the one's giving the orders to remove the people they declared "rioters", and in most cases they have zero evidence to back up their declarations, and are as violent as possible, beating peaceful videographers and reporters who were trapped and could not disperse, then charging them with refusal to disperse and resisting arrest, even violence against police for attacking police batons with their faces.
(Edit: remember the freeway shutdown when they marched on the freeway, and police blocked them from exiting or continuing while a second group of police came from behind, forcing them into a small fenced in area with no exit, then charged them all with refusal to disperse and the few that tried to disperse were charged with attacking police officers who blocked every escape route, violently attacking anyone trying to leave...all on live tv?)
Many peaceful protests became riots only after police moved in to violently disperse protests, fully 1/2 were riots because counter protesters and bad right wing actors like proud and boogaloo boys were planting bombs, shooting crowds, starting fires, driving through crowds, and murdering police in an effort to paint protesters as violent anarchists. That is verified fact directly from the DOJ investigation.

It's not a Portland only thing, police abandoning their communities because, as they indicated to the DA, "“It was like, ‘There’s our team and there’s their team, and you are on their team and you’re not on our team. And we’ve never had a D.A. not be on our team before,’” Police assume they are on a team against citizens, and won't do their jobs if, by doing them wrong with bias and malice, they might be prosecuted. They are used to immunity, and don't know how to do their jobs without it because they are abusers of power.

One day after charges were levied they quit in solidarity with the criminal abusive cop, and came up with fake excuses later.

You seem to have missed "the Justice Department said that the city’s Police Bureau was violating its own use-of-force policies during crowd-control operations, and that supervisors were not properly investigating complaints." part.

Legal Eagle covered this in some depth on one of his videos, but the short answer is NO YOU CANNOT FUCKING DO THIS YOU UTTER FUCKING CHOWDERHEAD WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?!!? (not you, of course, but whoever sets said trap). Nor can you "lie in wait" or "look for trouble" (which is why Baby Rambo is in a world of shit, but will probably get pardoned by some GOP cunt in the future. This is also how I ended up involved in a triple murder case).

https://theprepared.com/blog/booby-trap-laws/

Presumably in at least parts of the US it would be ok to just shoot the thief, but setting a trap is grounds for a suit.

I'm sure there's logic there. Somewhere.

You should have heard by now, the fake bamboo audit has now completely destroyed Maricopa county's election system because, since the pro Trump "cyber ninjas" (who's name itself indicates they intended to surreptitiously set traps and viruses in the machines and who had no supervision) tampered with vote machines, tabulators, and databases (and have asked for every piece of government held data in the county from addresses and social security numbers to expunged criminal records), so now every single machine in the county they touched must be discarded by court order.

It's impossible to know how many tens to hundreds of millions they wasted, finding nothing, and now they intend to travel the country doing it in every state. They seem intent on destroying our election apparatus, just like Trump's presidency was intent on destroying our government. It wasn't about finding problems and fixing them, it was about destroying the system and wasting billions of tax dollars, then lowering taxes to destroy America with massive debt over stupidity.

Because they played so fast and loose, with no chain of custody, no supervision, and no honesty, their "audit" is completely invalid on it's face. They destroyed the data, destroyed the machines (400 $5000 tabulators and around 10-20 vote machines per tabulator at another $5000+ each at a bare minimum in this one county)....so in the $20- >$40 million range for fraud #1, and they plan on at least 50 more. Good job handing Dominion tens of millions to replace them.....now pay up.

Every single Republican should have to pay for every cent they wasted, with non republicans exempt from the new election fraud fraud recovery tax. Children of Republicans too. I'm writing my congressman.

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I went there a few years back, (the original Hotel California, not the Satanic church in SF that the song is really about) in Todos Santos, they had a sculpture in front that was two bent pieces of metal that, when viewed from the right spot across the street, made a giant red cock and balls!

Beyond that, it's just a tourist trap with few tourists.

Bob, as much as this'll surprise you, I totally agree with what you're saying. The distribution of the stimulus money to couples making up to $150,000 is friggen ridiculous -- and I'm in that category. I will do what I did with the last two checks: give to local charities helping the homeless and communities of color (as much as I hate that term).

The worst part of this is that it sets up a liquidity trap. The Fed can't reduce buying crap debt (that BBB dogshit is at 4% should terrify anyone who understands how debt and the rating agencies work), nor can they allow rates to rise (thus totally screwing responsible savers). This is the cusp of a financial disaster that blew past 1929 on 9/17/19 and is now approaching the cataclysm of the South Seas Company collapsing. As far as I can see, this is a total melt-up in the markets because there's no stable returns and everyone is now in speculation mode.

Were it my call, I would scale the money along income (or non-income) lines: $10k for the lowest incomes, sliding scale from there. I'd also set up government-backed savings accounts that pay 10% for those people and only those people. I'd also pay off/down student debt along the same income scales.

I do not begrudge the wealthy for their wealth. But capitalism can't be a winner-take-all system. We live in a society, and society will always have winners and losers. The least we can do is ease the burden for those at the bottom by taking some from the top. I'm tired of the homeless camps and mentally-ill people wandering the streets of Seattle. They are the least of us and thus should be the ones who get the most help.

The Spanish news has been almost nothing but snow for days... trucks stuck because of the snow, cars and busses trapped on the motorways, but also snowmen and snow angels.

By that assessment, every drug dealer, thief, and Nigerian prince should have the same right to “protest” by physically trapping police in their place and blocking traffic without repercussions.
He could not legally be open, so he was being a criminal to get the money to pay these people and bills, just like a heroin dealer.
He was being stopped from breaking the law and causing a deadly public health hazard. His reaction, break more laws and fight police. My question is, why didn’t they throw him to the ground when he refused to comply and argued and then taze or shoot him when he resisted? Sadly, I only see one reason, he’s a white guy. I think if he were black 1. Bob would no longer see this as a hero standing up for his rights but a thug flaunting the law and “fighting” police and 2. The police would react quite differently.

It's like they've been trapped in a coal mine for 8 months and are desperately trying not to eat each other.

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