Battle in the Streets:  The sometimes violent protests in Portland, Oregon continued over the weekend with protesters hurling objects, attacking barriers, and in return getting teargassed, clubbed, and pepper-balled by vaguely identified federal officers in full combat gear carrying assault rifles.

  Last night federal officers deployed waves of teargas after protesters set off fireworks. The protests that began 60 nights ago in support of black lives have turned into a battle with federal authority.

  The demonstrators have cleverly used umbrellas to ward off pepper balls and leaf blowers to push the gas back at the federal officers.

  The protests have inspired a “Wall of Veterans” and a “Wall of Moms” formed to protect the young rioters. The mothers have chanted “leave our kids alone” and been teargassed for their efforts. The moms aren’t angry, they’re just disappointed.

  What is clear from watching the videos is that the protesters are not all non-violent, and the anonymous “officers” protecting the Portland federal building have either not been trained in crowd control, or they have abandoned what they know and their commanders have lost control.

 Last week Portland’s own mayor was teargassed. A 53-year-old demonstrator and Navy veteran, Christopher David, walked up to the line of feds to talk to them but was beaten and pepper-sprayed as he stood peaceably with his hands at his sides. The officer beating him swung the baton like a baseball bat on a man who posed no threat.

  The officers fail to keep regular ranks and use their batons as weapons rather than barriers. They swing their sticks, sometimes at the head. They have shot protesters in the head with rubber bullets. They randomly toss teargas cannisters and fire pepper balls.

  Occasionally they break ranks and chase protesters, shoving and beating them to the ground. Although they wear tags that say “police,” they behave like the KGB. These are the authorities President Trump wants to send to cities all over the country to keep the peace.

Viral News: Just over 54,000 people were diagnosed with the coronavirus yesterday and 440 Americans were reported to have died.

  The first large-scale test of a vaccine is set to begin today by the drug company Moderna. Fifteen thousand people will be given a vaccine and 15,000 a placebo.

  Florida yesterday surpassed New York’s total number of confirmed cases. During a trip to Kentucky, White House coronavirus task force coordinator Deborah Birx encouraged states with rising infection rates — including Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio, Indiana and Virginia — to close down bars and reduce the maximum size for social gatherings.

  Larry Kudlow, President Trump’s economic adviser, said the federal government plans to extend the eviction moratorium that ended Friday. 

The Bulletin Board: John Lewis finally got to the other end of the Edmund Pettus Bridge. The body of the late civil rights leader and congressman was carried on a horse-drawn wagon over the bridge where he was nearly beaten to death by state troopers during a civil rights march in — Over 90 field organizers for the Florida Democratic Party signed letter Friday to the party’s leadership, claiming that the campaign is “suppressing the Hispanic vote” in Central Florida. The letter claims, among other things: mistreatment of field organizers, relocating trained staff members without explanation, lack of organizing resources and taking on volunteers left with no clear direction. —  Arkansas state Sen. Jason Rapert, a gay-hating Christian who has referred to coronavirus as a “hoax” and called mask mandates “draconian,” is in the hospital with COVID-19.

The Obit Page: Regis Philbin, the cheerfully curmudgeonly talk and game show host who was once a fixture on American television with his show “Live! with Regis,” has died at age 88. Philbin hosted the show first with Kathie Lee Gifford, then its current co-host, Kelly Ripa. In his time he had been a studio stagehand, a news writer, and television actor. Philbin also brought to the American airwaves the US version of “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?”, a huge hit. After 60 years in television and entertainment, Philbin said when he retired in 2007, “There is a time that everything must come to an end for certain people on camera – especially certain old people.” — Actress Olivia de Havilland, one of the stars of the 1939 Civil war epic “Gone with the Wind,” and one of the last survivors of the old studio contract system, has died at age 104. She had a long association in the 1930s, not romantic, with the dashing Errol Flynn in “Captain Blood”,  “The Charge of the Light Brigade”, and “The Adventures of Robin Hood” in which she played Maid Marian. — Peter Green, a co-founder of the band Fleetwood Mac and an influential blues rock guitarist in his own right, has died at 73. Listen to his album, “In the Skies.”
Rosy Outlook: Just three months from an election that might turn her husband out of office, Melania Trump is expected to announce plans today to revamp the famous White House rose garden. The project is an “act of expressing hope and optimism for the future,” according to a set of prepared remarks Mrs. Trump is expected to deliver. No doubt Jill Biden will invite her to see the result. 

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