Democrats have fully pivoted on the nightly Portland riots. They've gone all-in on blaming the riots on President Trump thus allying themselves with the antifa and Black Lives Matter anarchist and communist mobs. Instead of black bloc balaclavas or masks, the politicians have donned the cloak of civil libertarianism. In doing so, they make a mockery of it.
Democrats, so far as I can find, have never denounced the violent mobs, though New York Governor Andrew Cuomo once wagged a finger at George Floyd rioters while simultaneously explaining that it wasn't really their fault because "income inequality" led to violence. Indeed, the only remonstrance issued was over people burning down black-owned businesses - their "own house" as he put it, because burning your own stuff "never makes sense." As denunciations go, it was a rambling nothing-burger. Atlanta's mayor voiced similar disgust with the arsonists and looters.
In fact, mayors, governors, and prosecutors have fallen all over themselves to support the violent mobs in Seattle, New York, St. Louis, Washington, D.C., and, of course, Portland, often conflating the "mostly peaceful" protesters upset with the killing of George Floyd - remember him? - with the ones looting Louis Vuitton, tearing down statues of George Washington, and trying to burn down federal buildings.
Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan ceded a section of the fancy Capitol Hill neighborhood to the mob. She handed over a police precinct to the mob. Two murders, gunshot wounds, assaults, and rapes took place at her pet mob's little "summer of love" squat. She's never apologized.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey gave over a police precinct to the mob. Police officers inside thought they'd die that night and if they'd stayed they would have. When rioters weren't boosting free stuff from the Target, looters and rioters were spectating the conflagration they'd started at the precinct with a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment. The mayor later asked President Trump for money to help rebuild it. Trump said hell no.
But this is an election year and time is short. The mobs are deployed to cause chaos and misdirection, as they were in Portland and elsewhere in the months leading up and after the 2016 presidential election. They are cracking heads and cold-cocking Trump rally-goers who dare bring a contra-narrative to one of their riots.
Far from denouncing the violent and destructive nightly arsons and assaults, Democrats embrace the riots to denounce President Trump. They point to the mobs of concerned citizens who have been impelled, catapulted from their spot at the tattoo parlor to join the mob in the streets because how-dare-Trump-send-police-to-defend-a-federal-building that the left is obsessed with bringing down.
It's a real-time exercise in psy-ops. It's gaslighting writ large. But they believe you're dumb enough to believe it.
Instead, follow along on these ten big lies the Left wants you to believe about the Portland riots and learn something.
Lie 1: The Riots Are Committed by Mostly Peaceful Protesters
Everyone knows the riots are a disgraceful dumpster fire of venom and vinegar with green lasers and IEDs thrown at cops to give them that special something. Those of us covering the Portland Professional Protester™ scene for years have seen most of this behavior before.
Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler allowed the riots to go on in a section of downtown for six weeks before the Trump administration came in to protect its own buildings and roll up the bad guys attacking them.
Acting deputy secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Ken Cuccinelli, says bringing weapons, gas masks and shields are "preparations for violence. Peaceful protester? I don't think so."
Wheeler's strategy, if you can call it that, of letting the rioters riot and ruin part of downtown, leaves Oregonians feeling unsafe, police outraged, and the rule of law in tatters. Now Wheeler says Trump's defense of the federal buildings is somehow breaking the law. The entire Leftist monoculture has coalesced around this absurd assertion.
So certain is Wheeler that the rioters should be viewed as misunderstood arsonists and predators that the mayor/police commissioner took an armed five-person plainclothes police detail with him on his "listening session" photo op to show everyone how safe it was during a Portland antifa and Black Lives Matter street riot.
Over the weekend, there were multiple shootings and stabbings at these "mostly peaceful" protests, or, as the news media likes to dub them, "rowdy rioters."
Wheeler may be a lot of things, but heroic isn't one. He took a team of men with guns to protect him from the rowdy rioters.
Lie 2: Tear-Gassed Mayor Says It Was a Total Surprise
On his "listening" session at the riots last Wednesday night, Mayor Ted Wheeler stood at the fence line protecting the federal courthouse, which he's now trying to remove because it's in the way of a bike lane (side note: there's only one group of people more beloved than antifa in Portland and that's bicyclists).
As he stood there staring intently at the IED-pocked, scorched, and graffitied building, there was an "unprovoked" gassing of the protesters. Wheeler was overcome by the fumes, his COVID-19 mask not being enough to keep out the smell. He later pronounced that the feds had no provocation for gassing the crowds — that he had seen nothing which could possibly, remotely, ever, ever cause cops to shoot tear gas canisters.
As protest-watcher Andy Ngo pointed out, "the building had been set on fire and rioters were throwing explosives."
It turns out that the mayor missed a few things — such as the bags of burning garbage, IEDs, assorted other fireworks, and green lasers being shot into the eyes of law enforcement. In fact, this Christian Broadcast Network reporter, who was standing near the mayor, says rioters were given several warnings to get out or they'd be pushed back with crowd-control devices - tear gas. The mayor knew this. The reporter from CBN called the mayor a "liar" for alleging that the federal police response was unprovoked. He thinks Wheeler did it for a photo op.
Lie 3: 'Moms' Bravely Leave Children's Sides to Attend Riots
After Democrats issued the new talking points that federal cops were "Trump's secret police," women, some of them known antifa members, took off their black balaclavas to refashion themselves into "moms." Somehow these individually acting, concerned mothers all knew to get a yellow shirt, riot helmet, and "hey, hey, ho, ho" chant to drive away those bad federal officers.
Ngo writes of these "moms," "I recognize a lot of the so-called 'moms' as the same antifa women who dressed in black as recent as a couple days ago. They just put on a yellow shirt now for optics. Most of these people aren't mothers & many don't even identify as female. #PortlandRiots"
If you hadn't figured it out yet, it's Portland's version of Pallywood. These are merely actors playing a role.
Lie 4: These Dads With Leaf Blowers Showed Up Out of Thin Air!
Then the "dads" showed up at the riots. Of course, to get "dads" to show up with leaf blowers, which you'll come to learn are dead-useful at a riot, you must put out a casting call - and bring your gas masks and bring your leaf blower.
The casting calls for Portland's Professional Protesters™ have been going on forever. This one's from Occupy Portland that occurred in 2011-12.
A quick look at these grassroots "dads" on Twitter reveals they've been around - hold on a second - since July of 2020. Just in time for the riots!
The "Dads," who look oddly like the rioters from the night before, came with the leaf blowers to blow back at federal officers all the CS or tear gas they've deployed, while their "comrades" - yes, they call them "comrades," lobbed IEDs. Another set of dads were armed with umbrellas to keep the gas out of the faces of the rioters so they could continue to ready their munitions to throw at the federal building.
As you may have wondered, yes, Portland has a leaf blower ordinance ( Leaf Blower Regulations - 18.10.035) banning the use of them in the city after 7 p.m. But, Governor Kate Brown has COVID restrictions on large gatherings too. The duplicitous politicians have agreed that the law doesn't apply to the Democrats' pet protesters. Look for more shutdowns after Oregon experiences another spike in COVID cases in the next few weeks from the riots. They'll cancel church, but not the riots.
Lie 5: Rioters Are Patriotic, Flag-Waving American Veterans!
You've heard the saying that dissent is patriotic and it is. Riots, however, are not protected speech. They necessarily conflict with other people's rights to be left the hell alone and in peace to go about their lives.
People watching Portland's antifa/Black Lives Matter riots have been appalled by the violence, lawbreaking and head-cracking. The stated goal of both antifa and Black Lives Matter is the destruction of the country of which the flag is a symbol. But now, the same people who spit on, poop on, stomp on, beat up people with, and set fire to American flags are recasting themselves as patriots.
These are people who want to burn down America. Because so many people know they want to burn down the country's institutions, the Left has formulated another sub-group culled from Central Casting just for these riots.
You thought the Great White Way was closed for COVID? Welcome to Portland, with its white protesters cast for their newly announced production, the "Wall of Vets," a collection of protesters who now call themselves military veterans. Some of them may be military vets. The idea is to show that rioting to bring down the country and serving to protect this country are totally the same thing. Totally.
"Team Joe" member, Jon Cooper, the "Draft Joe Biden for President 2016" finance chair and former chair of The Democratic Coalition, points to the veteran street theater as a moving event in a cheap attempt to whitewash antifa and BLM's anti-Americanism.
If you see a media outlet or politico selling this Broadway production-pap, they've been had and you need to re-think your news sources.
Lie 6: Portland Antifa Says, Hey, It Ain't Us Doing These Riots!
Of all the whoppers, Portland's antifa is stating explicitly that they have nothing to do with the riots in their own city and, in fact, it must be the right-wing doing this.
"We've said this before, but to re-iterate: we are not organizing, leading, or otherwise behind the local protests. We are FULLY supportive, but defer to the leadership of the Black organizers who have dedicated themselves to fighting for Black liberation & against state violence."
Antifa welcomes new rioters coming to town like a host city for a convention. You could argue that this is the Democratic Party's in-person convention. As my Facebook Friend Kathleen Worman wrote in response to a contest of sorts I'm having to come up with clever names for the riots and rioters, the Oregon woman pronounced them "Demtifa." Another friend dubs the riots as "Commie-Con." True that.
Rose City Antifa writes in a tweet: "since we see a lot of new folks coming out to the local protests (welcome!), we'd like to remind everyone of the importance of good cybersecurity..."
A later Rose City Antifa tweet vowed: "we've never been more prepared to fight for what we believe in and what is right."
Rose City Antifa is being sued by Andy Ngo for death threats and attacks and he's asking for damages. They've recently been outed by James O'Keefe and Project Veritas and are most certainly under scrutiny by the feds. Consider their statement their official legal disclaimer, even as they help put together IEDs and source green lasers for rioters.
If they're not outright organizing it with their Lisa Fithian-like trainers around the country, they're in it.
Lie 7: Riot Groups Are Not Organized
The media and Leftists, but I repeat myself, often point to the fact that federal charging documents against rioters do not include the word "antifa." They say it's proof the group doesn't exist as an organization.
As my points about the riotous "wall of ____" (insert moms, dads, vets) groups should point out, there is organization. On cue, protests to "support Portland" from Trump's "secret police" are popping up in cities across America.
Lights! Camera! Action! Quick! "Get down to the Justice Center" for more mayhem.
Stories abound about how "you can help" the organized riots are ubiquitous. Besides bringing your leaf blower and wearing your yellow shirt, you can bring food and water.
Antifa even has its own food cart in downtown Portland. Now that the antifa hard cider hang out "Cider Riot!" is out of business, you can help out the organized "Riot Ribs" food cart to make food for hungry rioters. Oh, and they'd like your money to buy a mobile food truck to be called "Riot Kitchen" in a Seattle expansion.
Gee, I'm sensing a theme here.
Not organized? Getouttahere.
Lie 8: The City Isn't Under 'Siege'
Local and national press argue that only downtown Portlanders are inconvenienced by the riots - as if that's somehow OK - and that the riots don't affect anyone else.
Here's another from the local Oregonian newspaper, whose reporters should know better, that said the rest of downtown is just fine. Until it's not.
Portlanders know that mobs historically migrate from downtown to the northwest, southeast, northeast, and north sections of town. They know they're not safe from the rabble.
They "direct traffic," block freeways, block bridges, block ingress to the airport, barricade doors of police precincts, and set the building on fire and burn police union halls. People who talk about violence are prosecuted and those who commit acts of violence are not.
This is not downtown Portland.
Whose streets? Their streets. Whose freeways? Their freeways. That's because the political class of like-minded "public servants" agree with them and let them do it.
Lie 9: What Lasers?
A few days ago federal authorities acknowledged that three police officers defending the federal courthouse may have sustained permanent damage to their eyesight because rioters shone lasers in their eyes. This is the stuff of terrorists and it's real, as Acting Department of Homeland Security Deputy Ken Cuccinelli says.
This was widely scoffed at. But here's video of the "dads" at the riot providing cover for the laser operators.
Lie 10: They Want 'Liberty'
Antifa and their BLM brethren seek to destroy American institutions because they claim those institutions are somehow racist and oppressive.
They want to riot, burn, loot, and command and control with impunity and they want to use their "comrades" to do it for the good of the "collective."
Like this: "Every city, every town, burn those precincts to the ground."
Black Lives Matter was formed after Trayvon Martin was killed by a neighborhood watch guy who fought back with a gun.
BLM demanded that the institutional racism they alleged occurred at the local Ferguson cop shop was why Michael Brown, he of the phony "hands up, don't shoot" big lie, was killed. Three investigations, including one by Obama Attorney General Eric Holder, showed that wasn't true. At all.
But BLM has soldiered on, recasting the group as being in support of "black lives," when it's only blacks killed in connection with a law-enforcement action that they care about.
And, as PJMedia colleague Stacey Lennox reported, BLM has intentionally adopted a more decentralized antifa model, muted their own well-known founders, and are now a much more political organization.
The group and antifa are connected at the hip.
They both want to tear down law enforcement and "defund" police because of high-profile cop killings that bring in big money from Democrats' online fundraising tool "Act Blue."
The only freedom they want is freedom from the laws that make a civil society work. That means they can't take over streets that other people use, commit violent acts against others, and tear down, burn and loot other people's property.
Democrats, like this "democratic strategist," cheer them on.
They claim to practice "empathy," but they're not about black people whose lives have been snuffed out by abortion, black-on-black crime, or during riots.
They believe there's no normal, no family, and this is "liberation." If you don't agree, you don't matter and will be canceled By Any Means Necessary (BAMN). See Lies #1 and #8.
After their enemies are vanquished and they get a few more socialists and communists like AOC in place, they'll be in charge. That's why these riots are taking place right before the November election.
It's about power — the power of the collective against the rights of the individual, which is the fundamental precept upon which this country was built.
