"Residents who dare leave their homes stumble across bodies that have been left where they fell."

"Port-au-Prince reached a high of 92 degrees on Friday. The smell of decaying corpses, human rights activists say, has driven some people from their homes.... One morgue director said he has received 20 calls in the past week from residents asking him to pick up bodies. Four calls came in on Friday, Lyonel Milfort said. He has refused all of them. With gangs barricading the streets, Milfort said, venturing out has been impossible.... 'What I’m witnessing today is unprecedented. It’s been too long,' he said. 'It’s heartbreaking to go around and see bodies being eaten by dogs and see the corpses covered with sheets.'..."

From "Haitians shot dead in street and there’s no one to take the corpses away" (WaPo).

"Almost all of the estimated 4,000 inmates escaped, leaving the normally overcrowded prison eerily empty on Sunday with no guards in sight and plastic sandals, clothing and furniture strewn across the concrete patio...."

"It was unclear how many inmates were on the run but Arnel Remy, a human rights lawyer whose non-profit organisation works inside the national penitentiary, said on X that fewer than 100 of the nearly 4,000 inmates remained behind bars. 'I’m the only one left in my cell,' one unidentified inmate told Reuters...."

 
From "Haiti declares state of emergency after double jailbreak allows thousands of inmates to escape/Attack on two prisons comes amid outbreak of violence as PM in Kenya trying to salvage UN-backed security force" (The Guardian).

"Peter Lamborn Wilson, a counterculture intellectual, anarchist, poet, musicologist and utopian who coined the term 'temporary autonomous zone'... died on May 23...."

"["T.A.Z.: The Temporary Autonomous Zone, Ontological Anarchy, Poetic Terrorism" argued] that one could create one’s own stateless society — the goal of anarchy — with simple and poetic acts like creating public art and communal exercises like dinner parties.... When, in the fall of 2011, a crowd of protesters decrying the country’s financial system built an encampment inside Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan and declared a movement they called Occupy Wall Street, 'T.A.Z.' was in many of the organizers’ backpacks.... Temporary autonomous zones have continued to flourish....

"The women come up to me, the women who they say don’t like me, they actually do like me a lot. Suburban women, please vote for me."

"I’m saving your house. I’m saving your community. I’m keeping your crime way down. I keep hearing, you know, it’s all fake stuff. Remember they said last time about women. Women will never vote.... Then the end of the evening, they’re all crying. Oh my God, what happened?...  They want to... destroy your suburbs. I say that to the women because I keep hearing. They said, 'The women from the suburbs.' No, I think the women from the suburbs are looking for a couple of things. One of them is safety. One of them is good, strong security. And one of them is they don’t want to have low-income housing built next to their house. And you know, who makes up 30% of your suburbs? Minorities. African Americans. Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans, minorities. Okay? People think, 'Is it racist?' It’s not racist. It’s the opposite. I’ve had people come to me and say, 'Thank you so much.' But they keep talking about the women from the suburbs. I say, 'I think we’re going to have a big resounding, "What the hell happened with women to the suburbs? They really like Trump a lot."' Only vote for me if you’re a woman from the suburbs....But it’s interesting because I really think that women from the suburbs are going to like Trump, because it is about safety. It is about safety. And when you see what happens in our cities, where they run and ransack. They’re anarchists. And you know what? They actually say the suburbs are next. And just so you know, it’s so important. These are Democrat-run states and cities.... Biden supports cutting police funding, abolishing cash bail. You’ve got a murder. Oh, let’s let them out. Oh, let’s let them walk the street. You see what’s happening in New York? What they’re doing to New York, our governor, what he’s doing to New York is horrible. And he called law enforcement, Sleepy Joey called law enforcement, recently, 'the enemy.' No, no. Law enforcement has done an incredible job."

Said Donald Trump in Carson City, Nevada yesterday. Transcript.

"May we riot now?"

 

That's a photo I took in the Wisconsin State Capitol building in September 2011. I ran across it by chance as I was looking through old photographs. I thought it deserved another look here in 2020.

The context is explained in this old post (which has video of the scene). It was some time after the peak anti-Scott Walker protests, but singing and dancing continued in the rotunda. At the time, I determined that WNPJ was the Wisconsin Network for Peace and Justice. But what were "The Raanistas"? I'm seeing Red & Anarchist Action Network. Here's an item from 3 months ago at the r/Anarchism subreddit, "Any RAANistas still around?" There's only one answer: 

I was (kind of) a RAANista back around 2009-2010, just before it all kinda folded. I was still relatively new to anarchism around that time and isolated from other anarchists, so the extent of my involvement was pretty much posting on the forums lol. [There's] a thread here ... a few years back talking about RAAN....

I'm giving this my "solitude" tag — because of the idea of an anarchist feeling "isolated from other anarchists." Everybody's looking for love. Notice the hearts on the banner... And then "it all kinda folded." 

"In a YouTube video from May, Caserta claimed in a 30-minute diatribe that 'the enemy is government.' Caserta recorded the video in front of an anarchist's flag..."

"... and a map of Michigan. He did not post on YouTube again until three weeks ago. In that video, Caserta does not speak and simply loads and poses with a long gun while wearing a shirt that says 'F--- The Government.'... On TikTok, Caserta posted selfie videos railing against the state, along with antigovernment hashtags.... 'The price of freedom is eternal vigilance,' he said in a video posted Wednesday. In one video, Caserta is wearing a Hawaiian shirt, which is typically associated with the boogaloo movement. On Facebook, he posted about guns and Covid-19 conspiracies and espoused conflicting political ideologies, including anarchism. Caserta's Twitter timeline appears to show his rapid descent into radicalization. In 2018 and early 2019, Caserta largely liked and posted about comedy shows, podcasts like 'The Joe Rogan Experience,' motivational quotations and selfies. Caserta's only likes after the onset of the pandemic mention conspiracy theories about Bill Gates and a meme about hogtying police officers." 

From "Whitmer conspiracy allegations tied to 'boogaloo' movement/Several of the men charged with a conspiracy to kidnap Michigan's governor have histories of anti-government organizing, according to their online profiles" (NBC News).

I'm seeing people on the right trying to associate Caserta with the left because of that anarchy flag. I see this at Townhall: "Anarchist Who Plotted Against Whitmer Also Said This About President Trump."

Go there if you need video of Caserta saying, "Trump is not your friend, dude. And it amazes me that people actually believe that when he's shown over and over and over again that he's a tyrant. Every single person that works for government is your enemy, dude." 

Does that line indicate that Caserta is an extremist of the right or an extremist of the left? I say right, because he's addressing righties, saying they need to be more extreme. Why would a lefty extremist address someone who believes Trump is his friend? And call him "dude"? "Dude" is a somewhat nice thing to call somebody. A lefty extremist would, I think, say something closer to "you fucking asshole."

"I’ve been on the front lines of the protests here, searching for the 'radical-left anarchists' who President Trump says are on Portland streets each evening."

"I thought I’d found one: a man who for weeks leapt into the fray and has been shot four times with impact munitions yet keeps coming back. I figured he must be a crazed anarchist. But no, he turned out to be Dr. Bryan Wolf, a radiologist who wears his white doctor’s jacket and carries a sign with a red cross and the words 'humanitarian aid.' He pleads with federal forces not to shoot or gas protesters.... Maybe the rioting anarchists were in front of the crowd, where there are discussions about Black Lives Matter? I found musicians and activists and technicians, who were projecting a huge sign on the wall of a nearby building — 'Fed Goons Out of PDX' — that seemed a bit geeky for anarchists.... Sure there are anarchists and antifa activists in the Portland protests, just as there are radiologists and electricians, lawyers and mechanics. Report on the ground here and any single narrative feels too simplistic. The protesters aren’t all peaceful, nor are they primarily violent. They’re a complicated weave, differing by time of day....  [W]hile there’s violence from both sides, what I’ve seen firsthand is that the most violent behavior overwhelmingly comes from the federal agents, and indeed the most serious injuries have been suffered by protesters."

Writes Nicholas Kristof in "Help Me Find Trump’s ‘Anarchists’ in Portland/The president has his politically driven narrative. And then there’s reality" (NYT).

"The iconoclasm is good for us. It’s a great political issue for the president."

Said an anonymous "senior [Trump] campaign official," quoted in "Trump’s Twitter feed reads like a local crime blotter as he stokes a culture war" by Josh Dawsey (WaPo). The "crime blotter" material in question is the vandalism aimed at public statues and monuments. And, yes, it makes sense for the Trump campaign to see this as a good issue for them, but they didn't start the unrest and destruction. It strikes me as unfair to say that he's "stoking" any kind of "war," when the protests and attendant violence arose out of police actions in particular cities (cities run by Democrats).

What did Trump have to do with that? Is he supposed to stand back and say nothing? His antagonists take whatever they can get, every single day, and spin it against him. Are they "stoking" a "war"? No, they're just doing their normal thing, plying their trade, writing columns like "Trump’s Twitter feed reads like a local crime blotter as he stokes a culture war" by Josh Dawsey in The Washington Post. Josh Dawsey is writing that and Trump is doing his tweets, taking the material of the day, and spinning it into an argument for his side.

Of course, he's going to improve his political standing by crying out against "the two Anarchists who threw paint on the magnificent George Washington Statue in Manhattan" and the rest of the violence toward inanimate objects. He sees and takes the advantage of embracing and extolling the icons in this time of iconoclasm.

Dawsey quotes the presidential historian Douglas Brinkley:

"His argument is Main Street values against a crazy wave of anarchy. A lot will depend on how inflamed the monument issue gets. Trump has a vested issue in this. He’s actually cheering the anarchists on, daring them to take more down."

He’s actually cheering the anarchists on... You see how that works (in the mind of the eminent historian)? Because Trump speaks out against the destruction and some people hate Trump, they're inspired to do more destruction. It's a way to get Trump. And you see the rank perversity of the implicit argument: Don't speak out against the destructiveness you oppose, because it will only inflame the destroyers, and they will do more destruction.

But look more closely: This dynamic of Trump taking advantage of the iconoclasm and the iconoclasts ramping up their destruction might hurt the moderate Democrats who are trying to win the 2020 elections. It's not a good issue for them, and hanging back and waiting for it to die down and go away on its own isn't working.

ADDED: I'm reading the Wikipedia page for Douglas Brinkley:

[D]uring the 2013 inauguration coverage, CNN referred to him as "a man who knows more about the presidency than just about any human being alive." In contrast, in 2006, historian Wilfred McClay in the New York Sun appraised Brinkley's scholarship as one that has failed to "put forward a single memorable idea, a single original analysis, or a single lapidary phrase." Similarly, author Bill Bryson characterized Brinkley as "a minor American academic and sometime critic whose powers of observation and generosity of spirit would fit comfortably into a proton and still leave room for an echo."

Let's analyze the comedy stylings of Woody Harrelson.

This Woody Harrelson character is saying that if we #defundthepolice he and his friends would just start murdering people, which is a weird way to show support of the police but fandom is wild sometimes pic.twitter.com/8gITCs1TFw

— Paul F. Tompkins (@PFTompkins) June 9, 2020

This made me look up Woody Harrelson to see what exactly are his politics. I found "Woody Harrelson: I'm an anarchist" (Politico, 2013):

So you dislike Democrats as much as you dislike the GOP?

It's all synchronized swimming to me. They all kneel and kiss the ring. Who's going to take on the oil industry or the medical industry? People compare Obama to Lyndon Johnson, but I think a better comparison is between Obama and Nixon. Because Nixon came into office saying he was going to pull out of Vietnam, and then he escalated the war. A lot of us were led to believe that Obama was the peace president, but there are still, I think, 70,000 troops in Afghanistan....

Do you want to get more involved in politics?

No. I don't believe in politics. I'm an anarchist, I guess you could say. I think people could be just fine looking after themselves.

So... presumably the real Woody would like to dismantle the police, and he adopts a redneck character to taunt the abolitionists. He has the character speak as though he would wildly kill people if left to his own judgment of how to behave in a police-free America. I'm going to guess that what Woody is trying to do is make fun of the people who want to scare us out of getting rid of the police. What do you think?

IMPORTANT UPDATE: Commenters question whether that's really Woody Harrelson, but couldn't get to a definite answer whether it is or not! I did a search and found "George Floyd protests: Is Woody Harrelson defending police brutality? Video of lookalike man baffles internet" (at meaww):

In the video, a man who resembles Harrelson, (perhaps it is Harrelson himself, we wouldn’t know) is supporting the police saying the public needs to deal with him before attacking the cops.... While the video has garnered a lot of attention...

Garnered!

... internet users are rather concerned if it’s actually Harrelson who has featured in it. While one wrote, “I'm scared to even look up what's going on with Woody Harrelson”. Another tweet read, “@WoodyHarrelson stop with your hillbilly mean guy videos. I'm skeert.” However, a few have established that it isn’t Harrelson but a random man who holds a striking resemblance to the actor....

Meanwhile, a few were convinced that the viral video was in fact a parody by Harrelson. “I ain’t gon’ lie, I thought this was Woody Harrelson doing a parody of a redneck,” wrote one follower.

I'm going to say that if it isn't Harrelson in the video, then Harrelson ought to have done something by now to disavow the video or try to get it taken down.

The NYT bows: "In an embarrassing about-face, The New York Times said Thursday that an opinion piece it ran by U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton... did not meet its standards."

"Cotton’s op-ed, titled 'Send in the Troops' and first posted online late Wednesday, caused a revolt among Times journalists, with some saying it endangered black employees. Some staff members called in sick Thursday in protest. The Times said in a statement that a 'rushed editorial process' led to publication of a piece that did not meet its standards.... Earlier Thursday, Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger and editorial page editor James Bennet defended its publication, saying they believed it was important to discuss controversial ideas in a public forum rather than keep them quiet. But, the Times reported that later, Bennet revealed that he had not read Cotton’s piece prior to its publication. 'As a result, we’re planning to examine both short term and long term changes' to its opinion pages including expanding its fact-checking operation and reducing the number of op-eds, which are opinion pieces written by outside contributors that it publishes, the Times said [in] its statement.... Also Thursday, the Philadelphia Inquirer apologized for a 'horribly wrong' decision to use the headline 'Buildings Matter, Too' on an article. Some 30 members of its 210-member editorial staff had called in sick Thursday following the mistake, which black staff members angrily condemned...."

AP reports.

Cotton reacted, saying the NYT is "surrendering to the mindless woke mob."

A particular problem with Cotton's piece was that it spoke of "left-wing radicals like antifa infiltrating protest marches to exploit Floyd’s death for their own anarchic purposes," but the NYT has not yet reported that the violent element was antifa. Its news story on June 1 had said "conservative commentators are asserting with little evidence that antifa, the far-left anti-fascism activist movement coordinates the riots and looting."

Whether Cotton was right or wrong about the facts, there is a problem with factual assertions in op-eds. I've written op-eds for the NYT, and it was with a very short deadline and I was trusted to get the facts in order. I don't know how much the Times intends to change its process, but I assume it wants and needs to have some distance between itself and the writers it brings in from the outside to give a hot take on a breaking controversial story.

ADDED: Why isn't there more reporting in the NYT about who's responsible for the violence and disorder accompanying the protests? A rational inference is that they are not pursuing it or they are suppressing what they have because it impugns the left. Please rebut that presumption if it's wrong, NYT.

Things that feel more substantively meaningful than they are...

INSANE Video from our @wusa9 SkyCam WOOOOOW #lightning #WashingtonMonument pic.twitter.com/iYmwDwDUMO

— Ryan Sprouse (@RSprouseNews) June 5, 2020

Things people are saying on Twitter, which I'm not bothering to do links for: "Even GOD is speaking out against Trump"/"If only the lighting hit Trump while he was photo oping in front of a Church with bible in his hand"/"Dear God, aim more north. White building, surrounded by fences. 38° 53' 52.6452'' N and 77° 2' 11.6160'' W."

It's not all anti-Trump. Even as lightning makes many/most people think it's God!, the thought that God is speaking out is closely followed — like thunder after lightning — with the interpretation He is expressing an opinion similar to my own.

Thus, there's also this: "It’s God’s way of saying ‘go home’ to these anarchists, and saying 'this is mine!'"

By the way, to give God directions — replete with longitude and latitude — is to say outright that you don't think He is omniscient. Might want to fine-tune your prayers. And as you note, He is already angry. He is wrathful. Don't tell Him what to do.

"On Sunday, both Republican and Democratic lawmakers singled out umbrella groups including 'Antifa' and 'Boogaloo' as playing a role in the violence nationwide...."

"According to the Anti-Defamation League, 'a variety of extremist and fringe movements and subcultures have adopted the word "Boogaloo" as shorthand for a future civil war,' and that 'white supremacists are particularly apt to use' the term because 'they seek the violent collapse of modern society in order to bring about a new, white-dominated world.' Antifa, short for anti-fascists, is a 'loose collection of local/regional groups and individuals,' including anti-police anarchists, whose 'presence at a protest is intended to intimidate and dissuade racists' and white supremacists, according to the ADL. Antifa tactics 'can create a vicious, self-defeating cycle of attacks, counterattacks and blame,' the ADL says. President Donald Trump singled out Antifa on Sunday, tweeting that he was designating it a terrorist organization. 'This is being driven by Antifa,' national security adviser Robert O’Brien said... 'This is a destructive force of radical — I don’t even know if we want to call them leftists. Whatever they are, they’re — they’re militants who are coming in and burning our cities, and we’re going to get to the bottom of it. And as far as our foreign adversaries, look, we always have foreign adversaries who are on Twitter and Facebook and other places trying to sow discord among Americans...."

The Chicago Sun-Times reports.

I'm eager to get the real facts on who's doing what. There's a tendency of people on the left to say that the right-wing extremists are behind this and the people on the right to say it's Antifa. That's unfortunate, but it's the way we live now. It's not helpful to select and spread rumors and theories based on who you want the enemy to be.

ADDED: In my town: "Madison lefties blame Trump supporters for Madison riots" (David Blaska).

Trump calls on "Democrat Mayors and Governors" to "Get tough" against the "ANARCHISTS."

Get tough Democrat Mayors and Governors. These people are ANARCHISTS. Call in our National Guard NOW. The World is watching and laughing at you and Sleepy Joe. Is this what America wants? NO!!!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 31, 2020

Law & Order in Philadelphia, NOW! They are looting stores. Call in our great National Guard like they FINALLY did (thank you President Trump) last night in Minneapolis. Is this what voters want with Sleepy Joe? All Dems!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 31, 2020

AND: More Trump tweets today:

The Lamestream Media is doing everything within their power to foment hatred and anarchy. As long as everybody understands what they are doing, that they are FAKE NEWS and truly bad people with a sick agenda, we can easily work through them to GREATNESS!

The United States of America will be designating ANTIFA as a Terrorist Organization.

Other Democrat run Cities and States should look at the total shutdown of Radical Left Anarchists in Minneapolis last night. The National Guard did a great job, and should be used in other States before it is too late!

Congratulations to our National Guard for the great job they did immediately upon arriving in Minneapolis, Minnesota, last night. The ANTIFA led anarchists, among others, were shut down quickly. Should have been done by Mayor on first night and there would have been no trouble!

The National Guard has been released in Minneapolis to do the job that the Democrat Mayor couldn’t do. Should have been used 2 days ago & there would not have been damage & Police Headquarters would not have been taken over & ruined. Great job by the National Guard. No games!

Mayor Jaime Rolando Urbina Torres of Tantará, Peru got into a coffin and played dead as the police came to arrest him for violating the law of curfew and social distancing.

"It is not clear exactly where he and his friends were drinking, or why there were open caskets close at hand," The Daily Mail reports.

In happier days:



I don't know what's going on in that picture. Is he giving us the finger? "Siempre contigo" means "always with you." But what is "CLODO"? Wikipedia has an entry for that sequence of letters, but it's got nothing to do with Peru... or corn. It's quite French, but we see that "clodo" is slang for "homeless":

Committee for Liquidation or Subversion of Computers (CLODO) (in French: Comité Liquidant ou Détournant les Ordinateurs; 'clodo' being a slang word for the homeless) was a neo-Luddite French anarchist organization, active during the 1980s, that targeted computer companies. In 1980, after a series of attacks in the Toulouse area, they released a statement to the French media in which they explained their motivations. It read, "We are workers in the field of data processing and consequently well placed to know the current and future dangers of data processing and telecommunications. The computer is the favorite tool of the dominant. It is used to exploit, to put on file, to control, and to repress."...

"Weeks ahead of the midterm elections, Republicans have cast the Trump resistance movement as “an angry mob'... a modern incarnation of the law-and-order thrusts Republicans have used before in tough campaigns..."

"... most notably 50 years ago, when Richard Nixon used the specter of rioting at the Democratic National Convention to cast the opposing party as the tool of antiwar protesters and violent malcontents.... Earlier this year, when White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was denied service at a Virginia restaurant and when Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen was heckled by protesters at a Mexican restaurant, Republicans cast Democrats as overreacting and unable to withhold their animus toward Trump.... 'They have encouraged mob rule,' Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) said on the Senate floor Friday... Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) wondered on Twitter: 'Imagine the coverage on cable news if an angry mob of conservatives stormed the steps of the Supreme Court building.'... At his Saturday night rally in Topeka, Kan., Trump joined in, asserting that 'the radical Democrats have turned into an angry mob.'"

I'm reading "‘An angry mob’: Republicans work to recast Democratic protests as out-of-control anarchy" by Matt Viser and Robert Costa in The Washington Post.

There are 3 things that strike me that Viser and Costa don't talk about (and that others who are promoting women's rage are not talking talking about):

1. Law and order may be an old conservative theme — and I certainly remember how Nixon used it back in the days of angry anti-Vietnam War protests — but rape and sexual assault are violent crimes, and the #MeToo movement demands a more vigorous crack down on crime. Do you want more severe anti-crime enforcement or not? If you do, you're a law-and-order person. Own it!

2. Kavanaugh expressed anger at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, and he was condemned — by Democrats — for lacking the right "temperament." His opponents acted so shocked and disturbed by the display of emotion. Is showing righteous anger a good tactic or not? If it's bad only when the other side does it, you're engaged in the kind of hypocrisy that I collect under the tag "civility bullshit."

3. It's sexist to minimize the threat of violence coming from women. Some people use the term "cat fight" to suggest it's cute or sexy or laughable when women are violent, and women may sometimes take advantage of that low opinion of our capacity to do real damage. Female privilege. I'm seeing that in the current protests, with women expressing open, screaming rage. If these women think they don't deserve a law-and-order reaction, they are trusting that the rest of us hold the sexist opinion that they are ineffectual. Let them explain why that's pro-woman.

"The 33-year-old self-proclaimed anarchist from Janesville smiled as he closed one eye, cocked his head and made a clicking sound to mimic gunfire coming from an assault rifle..."

"... one of more than a dozen guns he admits he stole a few days earlier from a Janesville gun shop. 'Those were the best days of my life,' said [Joseph] Jakubowski, then the subject of one of the largest manhunts in Wisconsin history after he mailed an anti-government manifesto to President Donald Trump, stole the weapons, burned his truck and disappeared on April 4. 'For once in my life I was free. Nobody told me what I had to do. All I had to do was wake up and live.'.... But the hike took a toll. The two heavy backpacks he carried as well as a duffel bag in which he said he kept the stolen guns eventually wore him down. He also had to forage for food because the apples, oranges and noodles he brought with him lasted just a couple of days. 'I was exhausted at the end, mainly because I was so hungry,' he said."

From "Joseph Jakubowski's one regret: that he survived his failed quest to 'get off the grid'" (Wisconsin State Journal).

The shooting he's reminiscing about in the quote in the post title was of a wild turkey that he seems to have been able to kill and eat.

"He became a leader of the squatter movement in the 1970s, directing homeless Londoners to available space through his agency Ruff Tuff Cream Puff."

"He also helped create the Free and Independent Republic of Frestonia, an anarchist country within a country, named after a nearby street, Freston Road. Located in the Notting Hill neighborhood, it issued its own passports and stamps and applied to the United Nations for full membership.... To celebrate the queen’s diamond jubilee in 2012, he came up with a special poem of appreciation, 'Royal Babylon: The Criminal Record of the British Monarchy.' In a trans-Atlantic gesture, he later took note of recent developments in the United States with 'American Porn,' a collection of poems published on the day of President Trump’s inauguration. 'Donald Trump is really Donald Drumpf/To give him his ancestral, and risible name,”' a stanza in the poem 'President Donald J. Trump, World Emperor' began. 'It suggests dumbness, even the passing of wind/As well as the merciful transience of fame.'"

From the obituary — speaking of "passing" — of  Heathcote Williams. (NYT)

"Portland mayor asks feds to bar free-speech and anti-sharia rallies after stabbings."

That's the hard-to-believe headline at The Washington Post.

Quite aside from the mind-crushingly unAmerican idea of banning free speech about free speech, why is the federal government involved?

The federal government controls permitting for the plaza where both rallies are set to take place. The city of Portland will not issue any of its own permits allowing organizers to hold the events elsewhere, [Mayor Ted] Wheeler said.

The organizer of what is called the “Trump Free Speech Rally,” Joey Gibson, said: “There’s going to be more intensity, there’s going to be more threats. They’re using the deaths of these two people and Jeremy Christian — they’re using it to get Portland all rowdy about our June 4 rally and it’s absolutely disgusting.”

The ACLU — it's still true! — supports free speech:

“It may be tempting to shut down speech we disagree with, but once we allow the government to decide what we can say, see, or hear, or who we can gather with, history shows us that the most marginalized will be disproportionately censored and punished for unpopular speech. If we allow the government to shut down speech for some, we all will pay the price down the line.” 

WaPo found a Portland State University professor, a "longtime activist" named Tom Hastings to reject the ACLU position: “I know these lines are perceived as pretty fuzzy when we’re dealing with constitutional First Amendment rights. But there’s no long fuse anymore. Everybody’s fuse seems to be quite short.” What?! Things are "fuzzy" and "fuses" are deemed short, and that's enough to throw out the free-speech tradition?!

WaPo tells us that Portland has a problem with "anarchists" getting violent at "peaceful anti-Trump demonstrations."

In April, Portland’s typically family-friendly rose parade was canceled after antifa activists threatened to shut down roads if a Republican group wasn’t barred from the event. And earlier this month, dozens of “black bloc” anarchists destroyed property at May Day protests.

So violence gets its way? What a twisted response to the horrible murders!

"The FBI has issued an alert to law enforcement about a possible 'Halloween Revolt' by a dangerous anarchist group..."

"[A] group known as the National Liberation Militia may be planning to dress in costume, cause a disturbance, and then ambush police who come to help."

"[W]ere it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter."

"But I should mean that every man should receive those papers and be capable of reading them. I am convinced that those societies (as the Indians) which live without government enjoy in their general mass an infinitely greater degree of happiness than those who live under European governments. Among the former, public opinion is in the place of law, and restrains morals as powerfully as laws ever did any where. Among the latter, under pretence of governing they have divided their nations into two classes, wolves and sheep. I do not exaggerate. This is a true picture of Europe. Cherish therefore the spirit of our people, and keep alive their attention. Do not be too severe upon their errors, but reclaim them by enlightening them. If once they become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress, and Assemblies, judges and governors shall all become wolves."

Thomas Jefferson, January 16, 1787.