I think the FBI should follow the money. It's coming from somewhere. These people don't work.
About 60% of the arrests in Kenosha were from counties other than Kenosha. Lots of Illinois too.
Y'all got some links?
As an off-hand comment, we know that both far-right and far-left groups are sending people to these protests/counter protests. Most of the population of Wisconsin doesn't live all that far from Kenosha. Milwaukee and Dane Counties are the biggest population centers (or at least among them) and are both within easy driving distance. People coming from those places don't surprise me at all, nor from northern Illinois, including Chicago.
Now, if those people are making up larger portions of the arrest numbers, then yes, that indicates a problem. And what are the arrests for? If it's for not vacating an area, I'm not especially concerned. That's non-violent protest. The *right* kind of protest often involves non-violent disobedience, so I won't lose sleep over that.
If its for property damage, inciting violence, or murder (from northern Illinois, at least), that's a real problem.
Living in San Francisco proper for a few years, I've seen enough protests to know that there is a group of people who won't miss a good opportunity to protest, regardless of the cause (I've only ever participated in a handful of protests). For the causes I've agreed with, those people piss me off. But their existence isn't reason to say all protests they attend are in poor taste.
Unfortunately, those groups seem to be growing, and on both sides of the aisle. I think a lot of what we're seeing in Portland is the result of that--and it's not confined to Portland. And yes, the attacks on property and--even more so--on other people are not acceptable.
And to CD's point, there are people whose goal is to incite rioting, and then there are masses of people, among whom some people lose their minds and start rioting. To Badge's point earlier in this [very long] thread: intentional agitators are a real problem and should be prosecuted as such. That's not to excuse the unintentional rioting (opportunists, rather than instigators)--that's bad, too, and rioters should be held accountable, but it's a qualitatively different thing.
