Well, let me give you my view from the sidelines. It seems there are three main issues that are worthy to discuss. 1. FEDs intervening in Portland - legitimate

Well, let me give you my view from the sidelines. It seems there are three main issues that are worthy to discuss. 1. FEDs intervening in Portland - legitimate + legal or not? Honestly, don't know. It seems a bit shady to me with regard to extending actions beyond federal buildings for which there is a mandate but I leave that decision to people who actually know about it. 2. FEDs without identification - necessary precaution or authoritarian overreach? Police accountability is key for peaceful coexistence in a democratic society. There are options between "no identification" and "full transparency". If you want it as a government, you can do it. 3. FEDs approach to the protests - necessary use of force or escalating violence? It seems like an overreach to me. From what I've known to be the standard, there are protocols officers are obliged to follow, established practices on how to deal with protests and most importantly, the deployed forces are trained and equipped properly as well - of course I'm assimng the best of all situations here. It's gross neglient deploying officers that lack experience with these kind of situations and assume everything will be just getting fine. Not excusing anything or anyone but protests are particularly stressful for the police as well and even under the best circumstances the use of force does not always meet the standards. That said, I agree with you that the NYT video does not cover the whole story if the story is sending federal forces to Portland. If the story is the lack of transparency and the way federal forces deal with the protests then it's fine. Public officials have to be held to a higher standard than violent and/or rioting civilians - in particular, if violent protesters are not the majority of the people participating what seems to be the case here.