Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D.

To the editor:

Federal agents in tactical riot gear, with no identification on their uniforms other than “police,” are using “night and fog” techniques in Portland that are indistinguishable from Hitler’s Gestapo.

Nonviolent demonstrators are being picked up off the street and whisked away in unmarked vans in an unwarranted, brutal show of force to appease President Trump’s desperate need to show his toughness as a reelection campaign strategy.

What are agents from the ill-named U.S. Department of Homeland Security doing in Portland when neither the city’s mayor nor the state of Oregon’s governor have asked for them?

With Trump, the cruelty is the point. This sample of what a second Trump term would offer must end with the immediate removal of these uninvited, militarized violators of what’s left of our democracy.

Ken Levy, Los Angeles

Note from KBJ: If Ken Levy's house or business were being destroyed by the rioters, or if he or his family were being threatened with harm, he'd be the first to call for police protection. The first duty of government is to protect persons and property from aggressors. If state and local officials can't or won't do their duty, then the president must. Thank God for President Trump!

A scene from today's ride. Click to enlarge.

This man, Ron, takes care of the bobcats on the trail. He isn't paid for it and it takes up a lot his time and money (because he feeds them and provides them with medicine when they need it). It's a labor of love.

Ron knows all of the bobcats by name and visits them every other day (on average). A few months ago, he thought that the Alpha male had been killed by a car. He said he had never cried so much. Eventually, the Alpha male turned up, which was a joyous occasion for us.

I help Ron while I am riding my bike by telling him which bobcats I saw that day, and where. He appreciates my help, which makes it all the more worthwhile. What are you doing to make the world a better place?

Mail-In Voting, unless changed by the courts, will lead to the most CORRUPT ELECTION in our Nation’s History! #RIGGEDELECTION

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 21, 2020

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Here.

Here.

I want to go on record well before the November presidential election in predicting that Donald Trump will be re-elected in an electoral-college landslide. I was one of the few people who predicted that Trump would win in 2016, so don't take this prediction lightly.

Here is Kurt Schlichter's latest column.

Re “Trump commutes Stone’s sentence” (Page A1, July 11): The framers of the Constitution created a broad executive power to grant pardons and commutations. As men of unparalleled public honor and integrity, they could not have imagined a president so personally dishonorable and corrupt as to use that power as an expedient in furtherance of self-interested criminality.

The Trump administration has used that power to render beyond legal accountability such criminals as Joe Arpaio, Lewis “Scooter” Libby, and now Roger Stone. These and other actions of the Trump administration make plain that partisans and cronies exist above and outside of the law and will not be subject to penalties consequent to criminal misdeeds.

The discretion granted in the Constitution has proved to be overly broad, and there is a clear need to curtail its abuse. An amendment to the Constitution should be proposed and adopted that defines the power to grant pardons or commutations as extending only to people convicted of a crime prior to a president’s tenure in office, and in no case where personal or financial benefit accrues to the granting president or his interests.

Keith Backman, Bedford

Note from KBJ: Now do Clinton and Obama.

The Radical Left Democrats, who totally control Biden, will destroy our Country as we know it. Unimaginably bad things would happen to America. Look at Portland, where the pols are just fine with 50 days of anarchy. We sent in help. Look at New York, Chicago, Philadelphia. NO!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 19, 2020

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