There was no anarchy!

On occasion when I don’t get to a story on the day it comes out I can sometimes tell a more complete story later. This is part of the story of the federal thugs in Portland, OR. Last week CNN reported that a Customs and Border Protection email said the agency plans to rotate in fresh troops and stay in Portland through at least mid-October. Hunter of Daily Kos wrote that one should reinterpret “mid-October” to be at least until election day. Hunter concluded:

It's not likely to have the electoral impact Trump and Barr imagine it will have, though. The number of Americans who derive pleasure from seeing military-garbed hoodlums shoot mothers and fathers in the head with nonlethal rounds are not as great as the autocrats believe. For Trump, it is a miscalculation. For Barr and other longtime Republican operatives, however, autocracy in service to ideology seems to be premised on personal convictions.

Miscalculation? Depends if the nasty guy uses the thugs to intimidate voters. That would be the reason to stay until election day.

Walter Einenkel of Kos reported that just a few hours after Hunter’s story Oregon Governor Kay Brown announced she had reached a deal with the vice nasty guy to withdraw the federal thugs. The deal was that the Oregon State Police would protect the courthouse that the federal thugs had been protecting. Which was the situation before the thugs arrived.

Mark Sumner of Kos reported that, by golly, the protest after the federal thugs left was … peaceful. Imagine that! Portland didn’t burn! Buildings were not looted! A few fires were started, but quickly put out! There was no anarchy!

Though the thugs were not actively protecting the courthouse, Sumner reported they camped a few blocks away, waiting to see what would happen.

However, the protesters are wary of white nationalists wanting to engage in violence simply to sow discord and racial unrest. And give the thugs a reason to return.

Photojournalist Mark Graves of the Oregonian tweeted a few pictures of the peaceful protests. The biggest change now that the thugs were gone: no gas.

One of the demands from protesters in Portland and elsewhere is to defund the police. Hunter of Kos discussed a report from the Marshall Project looking at Olympia, Washington and the way it does things:

Rather than sending police officers out on calls that do not involve crimes, "crisis response" teams are sent out instead to solve the actual problems that need solving. For complaints about the homeless, a response might be to find room at a nearby shelter. Those with medical or mental illnesses or suicidal thoughts could be provided a ride to the hospital.

It's cheaper. It's less likely to escalate into violence, both because experts trained to handle those noncriminal problems are more likely to respond appropriately and because many people immediately respond with wariness or aggression when suddenly confronted by armed and uniformed officers. And it frees law enforcement officers to do what they are trained to do, rather than spend the majority of each day responding to petty complaints, family squabbles, and mediations.
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What is wrong with us, that this is even controversial?
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To conservatives, law-and-order policing is thought of as Manly, and Tough, and No-Nonsense; unarmed solutions are actively decried as not those things.

We're killing people—including police officers—because politicians like looking "tough" far more than they like looking "smart." And heaven knows it's only been getting worse.

Manly and Tough. I see it more as oppressive, as keeping the social hierarchy in place. Which is what conservatism is all about.



Hunter discussed a story from the New York Times about the Harris County, Texas (which includes Houston) commissioners creating new flood control priorities after Hurricane Harvey in 2017. These county commissioners now have a Democratic majority.

Because a region doesn’t have enough money to protect everyone from flooding it allocates money using the principle “worst first.” That is usually defined to mean what projects will protect areas that, if not protected, a flood would cause the most monetary damage.

That means the richest homes. The whitest areas. Those who can afford to grease the gears of local government. Those who pay lots of property tax.

However, these Democratic commissioners are defining “worst first” as the areas that would be worst able to recover from flooding. That would be where the poor live.

The rich call it “unfair” and “social engineering.” They’re outraged.

Another aspect of the story is that because of global climate change flooding events are becoming more numerous. Because of suburban development and more pavement floods are happening that hadn’t been considered a flood risk.



Gabe Ortiz of Kos reports that the Census Bureau is going to stop its door-knocking efforts on September 30. It had originally said it would continue efforts to October 31.

From what I gather neither date was based on whether they would actually reach every house in America to make sure everyone is counted. However, the earlier date would significantly undercount communities of color.

Whatever the Census comes up with becomes what is used to compute a state’s share of congressional seats, its Electoral College votes, and about $1.5 trillion in federal tax dollars for Medicare, Medicaid, and public services.

Add this to the other four census related lawsuits.



Dartagnan of the Kos community reports on a couple studies that researched the coronavirus and children. They contradict what the nasty guy and Cruella DeVos have said. The studies say that children, especially those five and under, are really good, better than adults, at spreading the virus, even if they are less likely to show symptoms.

And DeVos wants to cluster children in classrooms? Want do know what to do? Do the opposite of what DeVos says.



Laurie Garrett tweeted a US map from Covid Exit Strategy. The map shows 30 (I think someone miscounted because Garrett says 32) states where there is “Uncontrolled Spread” of the virus. Another 11 are labeled “Trending Poorly” with six, including Michigan, labeled “Caution Warranted” and only New York, Vermont, and Maine labeled, “Trending better.”

I took another look at Michigan’s count of cases and deaths a couple days ago. I get the data from here. A second surge in the number of cases began in mid June. After a low of 300 cases a day Michigan reached to more than 800. That surge is now dropping and has been around 300-450 new cases a day. I’m amazed that through this surge the number of deaths has remained low. One could expect the number of deaths to have reached 80 a day in early July. But since mid June the number of deaths attributed to the virus has remained below 15 a day.



Composer Max Richter is known for scoring television shows and movies, such as Ad Astra. He has also written works that responded to political issues, such as the conflict in Kosovo. Gemma Watters of NPR spoke to Richter about his latest release, Voices.

The music accompanies recordings of people speaking the words of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The first voice is Eleanor Roosevelt, reading the preamble. She was fundamental to writing the Declaration. The first article is read by KiKi Layne of the movie If Beale Street Could Talk. Richter had put out a call on social media asking people to record themselves reading a part of the Declaration. He got hundreds of responses in a wide variety of languages. These are combined into a sonic landscape that’s part of the music.

Voices was 10 years in the making, so wasn’t written with the current mess in mind. However, a piece about human rights is unfortunately always relevant.

The NPR page includes two videos of the music. The second one includes Roosevelt and Layne.