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      Trump threatens to deploy more federal agents to protests despite reports of violence

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      Federal agents sent to confront protesters in Portland have “done a fantastic job” and could be deployed to other cities, Donald Trump said on Monday.The mayor of Portland has called for Trump to withdraw the federal agents, and the Oregon attorney general has filed a lawsuit seeking the same end. The governor and the state’s two senators, all Democrats, have also complained.Speaking in the Oval Office, the president brushed aside claims the officers are depriving people of their constitutional rights, and concerns such deployments could herald an attempt by Trump to rule without Congress.The largest city in Oregon has seen more than 50 nights of protest over police brutality and systemic racism, arising from the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis on 25 May.Confrontations between law enforcement and protesters in Portland have led to fires and the use of teargas. Speaking to the Guardian and other outlets, protesters have reported violence by police and instances of people being seized by unidentified officers and held without due process.Democrats in the US House of Representatives have demanded investigations, decrying “the use of federal law enforcement agencies by the attorney general and the acting secretary of homeland security to suppress first amendment-protected activities in Washington DC, Portland and other communities across the United States”.In June, the Trump administration used federal officers against protesters in the capital, some of whom were forcibly dispersed so Trump could stage a photo op at a church. National guard troops were also used, and active duty army units moved closer to the city.In Portland, local media has stressed that the protests are not paralysing the city and are confined to a small area, and that much of life continues as normally as possible under the coronavirus pandemic.Nonetheless, at the White House Trump was asked if he would consider sending troops. It depended on the definition of troops, he said, adding: “We are sending law enforcement.”Trump seemed to refer to such plans in a controversial Fox News Sunday interview. Talking about healthcare, the president said he would soon issue a plan “that the supreme court decision on Daca [regarding immigration enforcement and which went against the administration] gave me the right to do”.It has been widely reported that the White House has been influenced by John Yoo, a former government lawyer who justified the use of torture by the George W Bush administration. Yoo argues the Daca ruling, which upheld Barack Obama’s executive order, shows Trump how to bypass Congress.Many fear Trump, seeking to foreground law and order in an election in which he trails Joe Biden in most polls, will attempt to use federal agents against protesters and in cities in which gun violence has spiked.On Monday, it was reported that agents were set to be sent to cities including Chicago. In the Oval Office, the president complained about cities including Chicago and his native New York.“The police are afraid to do anything,” he said, though Portland police have reported some federal agents acting “under their own supervision and direction”, many while dressed in camouflage fatigues that make them look like regular troops.Trump continued: “We’re not going to let New York and Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit, Baltimore and all of these, Oakland in California is a mess, we’re not going to let this happen in our country. All run by liberal Democrats.“Nobody will have done what I’m doing in the next four weeks,” Trump told Fox News Sunday.“We can’t let this happen in the cities. I’m going to do something, that I can tell you. We’re going to have more federal law enforcement … In Portland they’ve done a fantastic job, they’ve been there three days [and] have done a fantastic job.”Describing actions against protesters which observers and officials have described as blatantly unconstitutional, Trump said: “No problem. They grab them, a lot of people in jail.“These are leaders. These people are anarchists, they’re not protesters … These are people that hate our country and we’re not going to let it go forward.”Claiming lawmakers in Oregon were “maybe even physically afraid” of the protesters, he added: “It’s worse than Afghanistan.”Trump has sought to withdraw US forces from Afghanistan and other actual war zones. More

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      Trump equates support for Confederate flag with Black Lives Matter

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      Donald Trump has equated the Black Lives Matter movement with displays of the Confederate flag, saying: “I’m not offended either by Black Lives Matter, that’s freedom of speech. You know the whole thing with cancel culture – we can’t cancel our whole history. We can’t forget that the north and the south fought.”Repeating his threat to veto moves to rename US military bases named for Confederate generals, he added: “When people proudly have their Confederate flags, they’re not talking about racism. They love their flag, it represents the south.”Trump made the potentially inflammatory comments in an interview with Fox News Sunday, broadcast a day after a Black Lives Matter mural on the street in front of Trump Tower in New York was defaced for the third time in less than a week.Asked about moves to rename US bases under the National Defense Authorization Act which are supported by senior military leaders, Trump said: “I don’t care what the military says. I’m supposed to make the decision. Fort Bragg is a big deal … Go to the community, say, ‘How do you like the idea of renaming Fort Bragg,’ and then what are we going to name it? We going to name it after the Reverend Al Sharpton?”Sharpton is a New York-based civil rights leader who was among national figures paying tribute this weekend to John Lewis, the civil rights campaigner and Democratic congressman who died on Friday, aged 80.Fort Bragg in North Carolina is named for Braxton Bragg, a Confederate general during the civil war. Numerous other bases are named for leaders on the losing side who fought to maintain slavery.Calls to rename bases and bring down statues to Confederate leaders have surged, amid protests demanding justice and reform after the police killings of George Floyd and other black people. Many statues and monuments have been removed.This week, the Department of Defense followed in the footsteps of Nascar by effectively banning the Confederate flag from display at its properties. Seeking to avoid angering Trump, who has made support for Confederate symbols a central plank of his re-election campaign, defense secretary Mark Esper simply left the flag off a list of flags which can be displayed at bases.On Sunday Colin Powell, an African American retired general, former chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and secretary of state under George W Bush, told CBS’s Face the Nation bases should be renamed and flags banned.“It was the Confederate States of America,” said Powell, who has endorsed Joe Biden for president. “They were not part of us and this is not the time to keep demonstrating who they were and what they were back then. This is time to move on. Let’s get going. We have one flag and only one flag only.”Across the US, the words “Black Lives Matter” have been painted on prominent streets, including in Washington on the road leading to the White House. New York mayor Bill de Blasio helped paint the mural on Fifth Avenue, in front of Trump’s Manhattan residence. Trump said in a tweet that the project would denigrate “this luxury avenue”.In similar fashion to Confederate and other monuments defaced with paint and graffiti, the Trump Tower mural has been attacked repeatedly. In the latest incident, two women were arrested around 3pm on Saturday after police said they poured black paint on the block-long mural.Bystander video showed officers surrounding one woman as she rubbed paint on the bright yellow letters, shouting “They don’t care about black lives” and “Refund the police”. More

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      John Lewis timeline: from poverty to civil rights leader

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      Born in rural Alabama during the dark days of Jim Crow segregation, representative John Lewis rose from poverty to become a leader of the civil rights movement and later was elected to congress. Here is a timeline of some major events in Lewis life.21 February, 1940Born the son of black sharecroppers near Troy, Alabama.1959Long interested in civil rights and inspired by the work of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr, Lewis participates in a series of workshops on nonviolent confrontation while attending college in Nashville, Tennessee. He goes on to participate in sit-ins, mass meetings and the landmark Freedom Rides of 1961 that tested racial segregation in the South.January 1963Serving as chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, Lewis arrives in Selma, Alabama, to help register black people to vote. Eight months later and just days after helping Martin Luther King Jr. organize the March on Washington, Lewis is arrested for the first of more than 40 times, for civil rights activities in Selma.7 March, 1965Lewis is beaten by an Alabama state trooper while attempting to lead an estimated 600 voting rights marchers out of Selma on the way to Montgomery in an violent confrontation now known as Bloody Sunday. He spends two days in a hospital. More