Early on in my time in the military I had a senior NCO tell me never to bring him a problem unless I had an idea for a solution. As you might guess, that kept a lot of people out of his office crabbing about everything from warm egg salad to having to change the oil in the motor pool. But, it’s a useful approach to life, and more importantly, when you analyze a problem often times you see patterns and eventually, novel but simple solutions. Think of it as Occam’s Chainsaw.

Will Rogers is credited with saying that some people learn from the mistakes of others but that “other folks have to pee on the electric fence.” Shocking, I know. But the fact is if you look at the coverage of Portland on Twitter (because other than Fox and OAN, there is no coverage in the mainstream media), here’s what you learn. Every day thousands of actual protesters show up carrying signs, being peaceful. Every day a bunch of communists shows up behind them, carrying everything from explosives to loaded magazines. When the actual protesters get tired and go home, mayhem unfolds until the early morning hours when the feds break up the party with tear gas, rubber bullets, and the occasional thwack upside the head with a baton. As a parenthetical note, I would like to see more thwacks and less tolerance, but I’m just that kind of guy. The “wall of moms,” “wall of costumed vets,” and “wall of dads” (most of whom are not) act as buffers to give the real rabble the chance to engage the federal officers with violence and then whine about the arrests. The women put on an unconvincing act. Last night I saw a woman kick and hit a federal officer and then act shocked when she was arrested for assault, claiming she was a “nice girl for Wisconsin,” although the expletives that followed seemed to negate that narrative.