Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/10/22/armed-men-guarding-st-petersburg-polling-place-said-trump-campaign-hired-them.html
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Look for more. Probably not “hired” so much as “inspired” by Trump.
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It doesn’t matter whether they are paid or not, whether they are official volunteers or not. It’s the rhetoric from the top that has led to this.
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None of the reports say if the tent is still up, or whose property it’s on.
I think if it had been an Occupy protest, the police would have quickly had overwhelming force there telling them to pack it up and move on.
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If they’re breaking the law - they should have their Florida armed security guard license revoked pronto.
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If they have one. Did they mention the security company?
Thanks to Scientology, I have that link handy:
eta: They keep shuffling the site.
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Oh, goody!!
I’m going to the polls first thing in the morning in a VERY Trumpie county. I’ll watch for such folk and report back here in the morning.
Yes I’ll try to snag pics or whatnot, if I should see something.
My husband and I are going together specifically so he can keep an eye out for “Trump-inspired tomfoolery”. I think he’s also worried that I might shoot off my mouth to the wrong person, but then he hasn’t witnessed me skillfully navigating amongst fascists before. They never suspect my innocent little face 
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This is evidence of the success of the project to degrade language itself - a key component of gaslighting - which the current iteration of the Republican Party runs on now. If words don’t really have any meaning, then why not call themselves official, or ‘hired by,’ or whatever they want?
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Like that teenage killer was ‘hired’ perhaps
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This is the latest on our local tv station. BTW, sheriff and county election supervisor are both Republicans.
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I’m not a lawyer but I think these peoples’ actions satisfy the definition in the US Code satisfy the definition of domestic terrorism. Lock these terrorists up!
One could argue that “guarding” the polling place isn’t dangerous to human life, but the fact that they were armed during their voter intimidation attempt says otherwise in my opinion.
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ABC Action news posted a video report, but no footage of the men.
I wonder why these two morons are being treated so differently by the MSM and cops from the two morons in this 2008 case.
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Don’t be intimidated.
If they physically restrain you then you can press charges.
And if you see them physically restraining someone, get video-- armed Trumpers beating up an old woman is not something that will help conservatives in the long run. This is what the GOP signed up for, whether they knew it or not in 2016.
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I SEAL what you did there.
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There’s a pretty good chance they are. Pretty uncharacteristic of FL, but it’s illegal to have guns at voting sites here.
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This seems pertinent.
Says states most at risk: Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Oregon
Moderate risk: North Carolina, Texas, Virginia, California, and New Mexico
And finally the election protection hotline: https://866ourvote.org/
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Huh, they have pictures up now, and it’s a man and a woman, who are… Black. So now I’m really confused. Obviously the Trump campaign didn’t hire them - the Trump campaign is broke as hell.
The question is if some Trumper hired them, representing themselves as the Trump campaign, and didn’t expect to get two armed Black people outside a polling station (hilarious if true). Or if they weren’t hired but are Trump supporters themselves (unlikely but possible). Or if they were neither hired nor are Trump supporters but are worried about Trump-inspired polling place violence and are simply representing themselves as Trump-affiliated to the cops because they know that claim would stop the cops from arresting/abusing them.
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Shhhhhhh don’t blow my cover!!!
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