Special Ops: Reports out of  Portland, Oregon, say that men in camouflage uniforms who refuse to identify themselves have been detaining protesters. 

 A man named Mark Pettibone, 29, has told reporters he was grabbed about 2 am Wednesday while walking alone after a protest. “One of the officers said, ‘It’s OK, it’s OK,’ and just grabbed me and threw me into the van,” he said. “Another officer pulled my beanie down, so I couldn’t see,” Pettibone told reporters.

  Pettibone says he was detained, questioned at the federal courthouse, then just as inexplicably let go when he refused to answer questions.

  Protests have continued for weeks since the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis cops. Oregon Public Broadcasting  reports that what may be US marshals and Homeland Security officers have been seen in unmarked vehicles, occasionally detaining people. The Department of Homeland Security says they are Customs and Border Patrol agents. 

  Whoever these anonymous troopers are, they need to suspect the commission of a federal crime in order to take action. Otherwise, they have no jurisdiction. 

  Participating in a protest then walking home is not a federal crime.

  President Trump has said that if local authorities can’t handle protests, the federal government will. Oregon Gov. Kate Brown has called the presence of federal officers “a blatant abuse of power.” Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler demanded of President Trump that you “Keep your troops in your own buildings, or have them leave our city.”

Viral News: Eighteen states, more than a third of the country, are in what the federal government calls the “red zone” for new coronavirus cases. That means having more than 100 new cases per 100,000 people per week. 

  Those states are, Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nevada, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Utah.

  Some of those state governors, prominently Brian Kemp of Georgia, have refused to issue statewide mask mandates. California’s Gavin Newsom on the other hand, says public schools will have to teach remotely this fall.

  Around the world, observers have noted that some of the countries doing the best are run by women and conversely, those doing the worst are run by men.

Germany’s Angela Merkel put the lid on the virus. Also doing well are Thailand, Norway, Finland and Denmark, all with women at the top of government. 

 Why this might be is cause for study, but the early answer is simple: the women took the threat seriously and did something about it.

  Here in the United States, which has a man for President, we lead the world with the most cases and the most deaths, as of this morning, 139,266.

Notorious RBG: Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, a pillar of the four-justice liberal minority, says she is being treated for liver cancer. It’s her fifth bout with the disease.

  Ginsberg says she’s alert and able to work. Her retirement or death would give President Trump a third appointment to the court and an influence that would last for decades.

Second Amendment News: In an effort to win over gun totin’ Americans, the Trump campaign last night in a virtual campaign event featured the paranoid St. Louis couple who pointed guns at protesters passing their mansion.

  Mark and Patricia McCloskey appeared on a program with campaign staffer Kimberley Guilfoyle, Don Jr.’s squeeze. The McCloskeys, who are known to be litigious, said they feared the demonstrators would ransack their house and burn it.

  The local prosecutor is investigating. Kimberley Gardner, the circuit attorney for St. Louis County, said, “We will not tolerate the use of force against those exercising their First Amendment rights, and will use the full power of Missouri law to hold people accountable.”

Briefing Book: White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany has distinguished herself for carrying a briefing book with ready answers for any question. She frequently turns pages of the book and reads an answer.

 A photographer got a shot of the divider tabs and here are some of the roughly 60 subjects: Wins, Obama, Flynn, BLM, Ballots, Lies, Statues, and Absurd. There’s a tab for the controversy over Goya foods and the owner’s friendship with Trump. ABC’s Jonathan Karl, until today the President of the White House Correspondents’ Association, has a tab. So does former Special Counsel Robert Mueller, although Mac’s book spells it “Meuller.”

The Bulletin Board: The defense department has quietly banned flying the Confederate flag on military bases simply by leaving it off the list of approved banners. President Trump has said flying the Stars and Bars is a matter of free speech. — The federal government executed its first prisoner in 17 years on Tuesday and since then has executed two more in a rush to bring back the death penalty. — In a bow to the pandemic, The Democratic Party’s national convention, an event that might have brought 50,000 people to Milwaukee, has been pared down to just 300. 

The Obit Page: Georgia Rep. John Lewis, whose fight for civil rights began in the Jim Crow south and lasted 30 years in Congress, died last night at age 80. He had pancreatic cancer. 

  Lewis was the son of Alabama sharecroppers, who became an associate of Martin Luther King Jr. fighting segregation and racial discrimination in the Deep South. He was an organizer of the 1963 march on Washington, an event that fed passage of the Voting Rights Act.

  Awarding Lewis the Medal of Freedom in 2011, President Barack Obama said, “Generations from now, when parents teach their children what is meant by courage, the story of John Lewis will come to mind – an American who knew that change could not wait for some other person or some other time; whose life is a lesson in the fierce urgency of now.”

Speechless: Love him or hate him, Donald Trump’s slogan “make America Great Again” is one of the best in American political history.

  Democrat Joe Biden is going with “Build Back Better,” a slogan he picked up asking a 4-year-old for a suggestion.

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