This story starts in 2018. In what feels like forever ago, but was only two years, Leftists in Portland engaged in a 5-weeks-long “Occupy ICE” protest.
Hundreds of occupiers set up camp at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement headquarters in Southwest Portland, intending to stay there until the facility is shut down.
The demonstration begins amid nationwide outrage over President Donald Trump’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy. As part of this strategy, the administration refers asylum seekers for criminal prosecution and separates children from their parents.
Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler says the city will not be involved in breaking up the protests.
That last part is critical, the Mayor of Portland prohibited city law enforcement from providing support to federal law enforcement.
This prompted the National ICE Council to sue the city.
Jump ahead to 2020.
The same people (probably literally, not just from the same ideological gene pool) have declared their own autonomous zone in Portland, the Chinook Land Autonomous Territory. These people with Occupy Portland have damaged federal property, going so far as to try and burn down the Portland federal courthouse.
Let’s be clear on this. You cannot attack federal property.
The federal government dispatched federal law enforcement to protect their property, as is their right and duty.
Mayor Ted Wheeler got all pissy about that.
Today the Acting Secretary of Homeland Security asked to speak with me about demonstration activity in Portland. He expressed his concern about ongoing violence and asked how his agency can help.
— Mayor Ted Wheeler (@tedwheeler) July 14, 2020
I told the Acting Secretary that my biggest immediate concern is the violence federal officers brought to our streets in recent days, and the life-threatening tactics his agents use. We do not need or want their help.
— Mayor Ted Wheeler (@tedwheeler) July 14, 2020
The best thing they can do is stay inside their building, or leave Portland altogether. Our goal is to end these violent demonstrations quickly and safely. And in the meantime, I asked him to clean up the graffiti on local federal facilities.
— Mayor Ted Wheeler (@tedwheeler) July 14, 2020
The concern about violence is real. A federal agent was hit in the head with a hammer during a protest. Before that, protesters tried to smash their way in through the door of the courthouse with a hammer.
The guy who bodyslammed a protester that opened his door was federal law enforcement.
Sorry, but it’s not within the authority of the Mayor of Portland to order federal law enforcement to abandon federal property.
Federal LEOs have been arresting some agitators and others that have engaged in property destruction.
Militarized Federal Agents from a patchwork of outside agencies have begun policing Portland (in rented minivans vans) without the explicit approval of the mayor, the state, or local municipalities. This is what that looks like in practice: pic.twitter.com/losap4SsgI
— The Sparrow Project (@sparrowmedia) July 15, 2020
These assholes are now engaged in shrieking hysterics that these arrests are kidnapping and spreading the conspiracy that the federal agents are really Trump vigilantes in surplus camo.
So random dudes in surplus camo can now snatch people off the streets. This isn’t how a free society is supposed to work.
— Mask Wearing & Handwashing Tom (@endofbellcurve) July 15, 2020
Now combine these tactics with cities/regions known for Trump-emboldened vigilantes wearing similar gear and you have a very dangerous and unpredictable cocktail.
Clear identification is key to de-escalation.
— The Sparrow Project (@sparrowmedia) July 15, 2020
How do you even know that they are from federal agencies. There is no way to proof that or if they are that they are acting with a legal justification. They could be rouge officers taking “law” into their own hands, they could be right wing extremists, there is no way to tell.
— Jenny ?️⚧️ | @hackyscientress@chaos.social (@HackyScientress) July 15, 2020
Report a kidnapping to 911. That’s what it is.
— I am Anti-Fascist (@rkoreis) July 15, 2020
Total police state. Dictatorship.
— Nadya Kasyanova (@nadya_kasyanova) July 15, 2020
This one is my favorite because it’s so revealing:
Under Trump we have become a police state filled to overflowing with nothing but Storm Troopers. How these monsters are treating peaceful protesters reminds me of how Israeli police treat the Palestinians.
— Gayle Montgomery (@OUTWITHTRUMP) July 15, 2020
Where there is Leftism there is anti-Semitism. When the Israelis do arrest Palestinians, it’s because the Palestinians have engaged in terrorism, but according to the Left, Palestinian terrorism is justifiable but Israel cracking down on the terrorists is brutality.
They want the same there here. They want to be able to declare an autonomous zone, smash and burn federal property, attack federal law enforcement, but when they get arrested it’s a brutal police state.
We saw the same thing earlier in the car door opening post. They wanted to be able to open another person’s car door and put hands inside his vehicle but when they are attacked in response they piss and moan that it’s not fair.
When they terrorize a couple in St. Louis, that’s fine, but when the couple points guns back, that’s a problem.
It doesn’t work like that and they are finding that out the hard way.
We all know the reasons and justification for federal troops, but let’s play devil’s advocate for a sec.
If we take the leftists account that these are thugs, then things are devolving into postwar Germany to a T. Communists riot and cause trouble in the streets, inviting a more heavy handed approach from an increasingly militant group.
In other words, leftists are creating the very conditions they claim to be trying to stop. Take the lesson from Germany, and things will only escalate from here.
We already know this. I just wonder how long it will take for the lesson to sink into the rest.
There is one small shred of validity to what they say and that is I also believe any public official acting in an official capacity should be readily identifiable and identify themselves.
But the lack of perspective to see they are now laying in the bed they themselves made would be remarkable if it were any other time.
In principle I agree. The problem is that the Leftists have started doxing officers and threatening their families.
How can an officer be expected to arrest an agitator if doing so puts his whole family at risk of the mob?
The Left made this necessary.
What’s that saying, if we don’t have our principles, we don’t have anything?
I understand what you are saying and agree to some extent with the need for increased security, but at a certain point we cross the line into becoming the exact thing we are trying to avoid or are being accused of. Will protecting officer’s identities do that? Probably not, but it certainly increases the defcon rating.
Doxing and identity in general are going to be serious problems in the probably not so far future. I’m not saying we should just give up, but everyone’s identity is basically available publicly now and that is only going to get worse and there is no solution I can see to that. Unfortunately, I think it is an everyone needs to prepare accordingly thing.
A solution compatible with our principles is to make doxxing dangerous to its perpetrators, or those who would act on it. Promote effective self defense by LEOs and their families, and support them when they use deadly force as needed to protect their families. Also make this policy well known and widely publicized. Doxxing quickly loses its charm to the leftist mob when it’s either an empty gesture or a deadly hazard to the bad guys.
I’m right there with ya on that and say a step further, help the average Joe who gets doxxed because the mob turned on them for… well, it could be really anything these days.
Assuming, of course, that the whole thing wasn’t faked. The “protester” more or less alone on the streets, the guys in generic camo gear, the generic SUV, at least one other person there with a camera who was not interacted with at all by the people in camo …
This is something that could be put together pretty easily with a very low budget.
I don’t often lean towards conspiracy-type theories, but this video just seemed “off” in several respects.
What a bunch of whiny hypocrite pansies. Don’t want don’t start none, dbags! 😉
“Report a kidnapping to 911. That’s what it is.”
— I am Anti-Fascist (@rkoreis) July 15, 2020
Ha! You pantifa assholes don’t want police so good luck with that. LOL!
I seem to recall, from my admittedly white privileged education, that over a hundred years ago some “protesters” had declared an “independent” zone in South Carolina, and demanded that federal property in Charleston harbor be abandoned by the Federal government and turned over to the state. Some 650,000 deaths later, that didn’t work out so well for the either the nation, or the state. History may not repeat itself, but it does rhyme.
I would have said that after watching Seattle and the CHAZ/CHOP maybe they’ve learned enough to not let it get started. But it’s the Peoples’ Republic of Portlandia so it’s not like they have sense.
Besides, “Chinook Land Autonomous Territory” ?? Missed it by one letter. They should have called it the Autonomous Province. Then it would have been the CLAP.
Are the people being charged? Appearing in court? Represented by counsel?
Then it’s an arrest, not a kidnapping.
But, then, this is the same movement that claimed the Chicago police were operating a “black site” and holding people without access to their lawyers. The delay between arrest and seeing a lawyer was like 4 hours, and the “black site” is the building that holds the recovered property office, so the public has access to it and it’s clearly marked as a CPD building.
Ted Wheeler is up for election in Portland this November.
Does that mean someone semi-sane could win?
This is Portland, so of course not.
They had an election with 19 candidates, where Ted got 49%.
His run off candidate opposition is even loonier than he is.
https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2020/05/ted-wheeler-sarah-iannarone-will-square-off-again-to-be-portland-mayor-in-november.html
This story doesn’t do her justice.
Wonderfully comic reading. “… Wheeler has pledged to bring another four years of stable leadership to Portland…”
Ted Wheeler: I told the Acting Secretary that my biggest immediate concern is the violence federal officers brought to our streets in recent days, and the life-threatening tactics his agents use. We do not need or want their help.
Because it’s not like the “protesters” haven’t been setting fires, assaulting reporters, assaulting police, smashing and looting businesses, “disappearing” people, and shooting, for months.
No, the real concern is federal officers acting to protect federal property in the past few days.
Ted again: The best thing they can do is stay inside their building, or leave Portland altogether. Our goal is to end these violent demonstrations quickly and safely. And in the meantime, I asked him to clean up the graffiti on local federal facilities.
Because it’s not like the federal employees don’t have homes and families, and “stay[ing] inside their building” just turns it into a siege situation. Nor do they have the option of abandoning federal property to the looters. (And it’s not the mayor’s call to make them do that.) If the mayor wants to “end these violent demonstrations quickly and safely” by giving them everything they want, that’s his business. His and the city taxpayers’.
But he can’t give away what’s not his. Federal property is … well … federal property. Not city property, and not state property. Relinquishing federal property likely requires an Act of Congress signed by the President, not a Twitter statement by the mayor of Portlandistan.
As for cleaning up the graffiti, I have two thoughts:
– First, arrest the “artists” and make them either clean it up as part of their community service, or make them pay to have it cleaned up. (I hear the process of removing spray paints from marble and concrete without damaging the underlying material is intensive, and the cost considerable.)
– Second, if the mayor doesn’t like seeing graffiti in his city, the best thing for him to do is stay inside his building, or leave Portland altogether.
Just saying. 😉
In other places, removal of graffiti has been called a “hate crime” because it was removing rioters’ slogans like “black lives matter” or “abolish the police”.
BTW, one of the slogans seen at this new Zone is “Black trans lives matter”. Apparently the privileged group, the only group whose lives matter, is getting smaller by the day. What’s this one, a few hundred thousand people at the most?
And most of the deaths are suicide, from what I recall.