Democrat-Sanctioned Anarchy in Portland
. . . Marxist rioters are set on destroying Rule of Law. Democrats are standing with them.
by Arnold Ahlert: Of all the chaos abetted by an American Left that apparently sees violence, looting, and arson as its pathway to permanent power, no city in America can top Portland in terms of longevity. It has been held under siege for more than 50 straight days by a mob of violent anarchists — with no end in sight.
Like many other Democrat-controlled cities in America, protests began shortly after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25. Four days later in Portland, rioters broke a front window and painted graffiti on the Mark O. Hatfield U.S. Courthouse, causing $5,000 worth of damage in what was just the opening salvo. Over the next several days, two other federal government buildings and several local government building were also defaced.
On June 6, the mob destroyed fencing surrounding federal property. Over the next month, the fence around the Courthouse was breached, more windows were broken, and other buildings were defaced. During this series of melees, rioters used commercial-grade lasers to try to cause eye damage to police officers (they were later successful in doing so) and launched fireworks and threw objects at them. One individual tried to strike a Portland police officer with his car.
Those attacks escalated. During what rioters called a “Night of Rage” on July 7, individuals in a mob of about 500 assaulted cops with rocks and bottles, according to DHS. A day later, approximately 200 rioters attacked DHS law enforcement officers, injuring three. One arrest was reported.
On July 12, a mob of about 200 gathered in Chapman Park across from the Hatfield Courthouse. Some were armed with sledgehammers, tasers, and stun guns. Fecal matter and large objects were thrown at cops and lasers were again pointed at federal law enforcement officers. The next night, slingshots and flaming debris were added to the mob’s weaponry.
On July 16, protesters targeted the police station in the East Burnside precinct, and growing crowds targeted the federal courthouse and county jail that have been at the center of nightly protests. That elicited the first response by federal officers who used gas, smoke, and impact munitions to move protesters away from two federal buildings at one late-night “demonstration.”
Last Saturday, two groups of antifa and Black Lives Matter rioters squared of against police and federal troops, with one group attacking the Portland Police Bureau’s North Precinct and the Portland Police Association (PPA) buildings, while the other targeted the federal courthouse and Justice Center. The PPA was broken into and set ablaze. After the mobs were dispersed, one regrouped and attacked police with rocks and paint-filled balloons and shot toxic gases designed to kill gophers and ground squirrels at them as well.
Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler’s response? He asserted that the presence of federal troops was “actually leading to more violence.” He added, “They are not wanted here. We have not asked them here and, in fact, we want them to leave.”
Perhaps it serves him right that, after he joined the protesters Wednesday night, he was tear-gassed along with them. It also serves him right that the protesters turned on him, jeering him, demanding he resign, and presenting him with a list of demands.
In any case, Wheeler’s accommodation of anarchy isn’t sitting well with PPA head and black American Daryl Turner. “The elected officials have condoned the destruction and chaos,” he said. “They have placed their political agenda ahead of safety and welfare of the community. This must stop.”
That’s not going to happen. Oregonlive.com reports, “Local and state leaders have vocally opposed the presence of federal officers in Portland, Oregon’s attorney general plans to sue several federal law enforcement agencies over their actions, and the state’s U.S. attorney has requested investigation into reported arrests of Portland protesters picked up in unmarked vehicles.”
The ACLU has also filed suit, one of many it plans to file for “unconstitutional attacks” on protesters. “Under the direction of the Trump administration, federal agents are terrorizing the community, risking lives, and brutally attacking protesters demonstrating against police brutality,” said Kelly Simon, interim legal director with the ACLU of Oregon, in a statement.
The suit was precipitated by reports that federal agents wearing unmarked military fatigues and driving unmarked vehicles were arresting protesters. Oregon Democrat Senator Ron Wyden characterized federal law enforcement as President Donald Trump’s “secret police” and an “occupying army” who “provoke violence on the streets of my hometown.” Democrat Governor Kate Brown accused Trump of using federal officers to bolster his reelection chances and told acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf to remove officers from Portland streets, insisting he is also “on a mission to provoke confrontation for political purposes.”
On Tuesday, Wolf made it clear the administration wasn’t backing away from its duty to protect federal property. “We will not retreat,” he stated. “We will continue to protect our facilities and our law enforcement officers.”
What about the use of unmarked vehicles and officers working without clear ID? As attorney Andrew McCarthy explains, “There is no constitutional right to have police identify themselves by name, or even identify themselves as police,” especially when “police are being targeted for assault and harassment.”
In fact, dozens of federal law enforcement officers in Portland have had their personal info posted online by those encouraging protesters to show up at their homes.
Moreover, as the New York Post editorial board maintains, “The basic legal authority for the feds to act is beyond clear: Nightly attacks on the area have proceeded for weeks now, and the efforts to set the Justice Center aflame have clearly endangered the lives and safety of civilians, including detainees in the 700-bed jail.”
As for Brown’s accusations regarding political purposes, who’s kidding whom? The governor and Mayor Wheeler have countenanced seven straight weeks of violent demonstrations, an attempt to set up another autonomous zone outside the Multnomah County Justice Center, and destruction that has cost local businesses an estimated $23 million.
This is about a city being held under siege by rioters. Yet Democrats like House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-SC) accuse federal officers of “Gestapo activities in local communities.” And Nancy Pelosi, who vilely slandered cops as “stormtroopers,” insists the Trump administration is “kidnapping” protesters “with the goal of inflaming tensions for their own gain.” She warned, “While Portland is the President’s current target, any city could be next.”
Not any city, Ms. Pelosi. Cities controlled by Democrats who view the mobs as the paramilitary wing of a party that has sold its collective soul — and its current platform — to the Marxist forces who despise America.
While Portland’s insurrectionism may be the most long-lived, there is little question that equally feckless Democrat politicians in cities like Seattle, New York, Chicago, DC, Atlanta, Los Angeles, and others have wholly abandoned the fundamental reason for the existence of government itself — as in protecting the electorate from all enemies, foreign and domestic. Instead, they embrace the orchestrated chaos they believe will lead them to victory in November. That attacks on police are becoming more common and more brazen? That businesses, many minority owned, are being destroyed, along with history itself? That the corpses, overwhelmingly minority, are piling up with increasing regularity?
Democrats are a party that would rather rule over a violent, mob-controlled nation of looting, arson, murder, and oppression than serve in an exceptional one where Rule of Law and the Constitution remain supreme.
“I’m an Afro-Indigenous non-binary local organizer here in Portland,” declared activist Lilith Sinclair, “organizing for the abolition of not just the militarized police state but also the United States as we know it.”
Pathetically, the Democrat Party is with her — every step of the way.
------------------------
Arnold Ahlert is a political analyst who writes for the Patriot Post.
Tags: Arnold Ahlert, Patriot Post, Democrat-Sanctioned Anarchy, in Portland To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
Like many other Democrat-controlled cities in America, protests began shortly after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25. Four days later in Portland, rioters broke a front window and painted graffiti on the Mark O. Hatfield U.S. Courthouse, causing $5,000 worth of damage in what was just the opening salvo. Over the next several days, two other federal government buildings and several local government building were also defaced.
On June 6, the mob destroyed fencing surrounding federal property. Over the next month, the fence around the Courthouse was breached, more windows were broken, and other buildings were defaced. During this series of melees, rioters used commercial-grade lasers to try to cause eye damage to police officers (they were later successful in doing so) and launched fireworks and threw objects at them. One individual tried to strike a Portland police officer with his car.
Those attacks escalated. During what rioters called a “Night of Rage” on July 7, individuals in a mob of about 500 assaulted cops with rocks and bottles, according to DHS. A day later, approximately 200 rioters attacked DHS law enforcement officers, injuring three. One arrest was reported.
On July 12, a mob of about 200 gathered in Chapman Park across from the Hatfield Courthouse. Some were armed with sledgehammers, tasers, and stun guns. Fecal matter and large objects were thrown at cops and lasers were again pointed at federal law enforcement officers. The next night, slingshots and flaming debris were added to the mob’s weaponry.
On July 16, protesters targeted the police station in the East Burnside precinct, and growing crowds targeted the federal courthouse and county jail that have been at the center of nightly protests. That elicited the first response by federal officers who used gas, smoke, and impact munitions to move protesters away from two federal buildings at one late-night “demonstration.”
Last Saturday, two groups of antifa and Black Lives Matter rioters squared of against police and federal troops, with one group attacking the Portland Police Bureau’s North Precinct and the Portland Police Association (PPA) buildings, while the other targeted the federal courthouse and Justice Center. The PPA was broken into and set ablaze. After the mobs were dispersed, one regrouped and attacked police with rocks and paint-filled balloons and shot toxic gases designed to kill gophers and ground squirrels at them as well.
Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler’s response? He asserted that the presence of federal troops was “actually leading to more violence.” He added, “They are not wanted here. We have not asked them here and, in fact, we want them to leave.”
Perhaps it serves him right that, after he joined the protesters Wednesday night, he was tear-gassed along with them. It also serves him right that the protesters turned on him, jeering him, demanding he resign, and presenting him with a list of demands.
In any case, Wheeler’s accommodation of anarchy isn’t sitting well with PPA head and black American Daryl Turner. “The elected officials have condoned the destruction and chaos,” he said. “They have placed their political agenda ahead of safety and welfare of the community. This must stop.”
That’s not going to happen. Oregonlive.com reports, “Local and state leaders have vocally opposed the presence of federal officers in Portland, Oregon’s attorney general plans to sue several federal law enforcement agencies over their actions, and the state’s U.S. attorney has requested investigation into reported arrests of Portland protesters picked up in unmarked vehicles.”
The ACLU has also filed suit, one of many it plans to file for “unconstitutional attacks” on protesters. “Under the direction of the Trump administration, federal agents are terrorizing the community, risking lives, and brutally attacking protesters demonstrating against police brutality,” said Kelly Simon, interim legal director with the ACLU of Oregon, in a statement.
The suit was precipitated by reports that federal agents wearing unmarked military fatigues and driving unmarked vehicles were arresting protesters. Oregon Democrat Senator Ron Wyden characterized federal law enforcement as President Donald Trump’s “secret police” and an “occupying army” who “provoke violence on the streets of my hometown.” Democrat Governor Kate Brown accused Trump of using federal officers to bolster his reelection chances and told acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf to remove officers from Portland streets, insisting he is also “on a mission to provoke confrontation for political purposes.”
On Tuesday, Wolf made it clear the administration wasn’t backing away from its duty to protect federal property. “We will not retreat,” he stated. “We will continue to protect our facilities and our law enforcement officers.”
What about the use of unmarked vehicles and officers working without clear ID? As attorney Andrew McCarthy explains, “There is no constitutional right to have police identify themselves by name, or even identify themselves as police,” especially when “police are being targeted for assault and harassment.”
In fact, dozens of federal law enforcement officers in Portland have had their personal info posted online by those encouraging protesters to show up at their homes.
Moreover, as the New York Post editorial board maintains, “The basic legal authority for the feds to act is beyond clear: Nightly attacks on the area have proceeded for weeks now, and the efforts to set the Justice Center aflame have clearly endangered the lives and safety of civilians, including detainees in the 700-bed jail.”
As for Brown’s accusations regarding political purposes, who’s kidding whom? The governor and Mayor Wheeler have countenanced seven straight weeks of violent demonstrations, an attempt to set up another autonomous zone outside the Multnomah County Justice Center, and destruction that has cost local businesses an estimated $23 million.
This is about a city being held under siege by rioters. Yet Democrats like House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-SC) accuse federal officers of “Gestapo activities in local communities.” And Nancy Pelosi, who vilely slandered cops as “stormtroopers,” insists the Trump administration is “kidnapping” protesters “with the goal of inflaming tensions for their own gain.” She warned, “While Portland is the President’s current target, any city could be next.”
Not any city, Ms. Pelosi. Cities controlled by Democrats who view the mobs as the paramilitary wing of a party that has sold its collective soul — and its current platform — to the Marxist forces who despise America.
While Portland’s insurrectionism may be the most long-lived, there is little question that equally feckless Democrat politicians in cities like Seattle, New York, Chicago, DC, Atlanta, Los Angeles, and others have wholly abandoned the fundamental reason for the existence of government itself — as in protecting the electorate from all enemies, foreign and domestic. Instead, they embrace the orchestrated chaos they believe will lead them to victory in November. That attacks on police are becoming more common and more brazen? That businesses, many minority owned, are being destroyed, along with history itself? That the corpses, overwhelmingly minority, are piling up with increasing regularity?
Democrats are a party that would rather rule over a violent, mob-controlled nation of looting, arson, murder, and oppression than serve in an exceptional one where Rule of Law and the Constitution remain supreme.
“I’m an Afro-Indigenous non-binary local organizer here in Portland,” declared activist Lilith Sinclair, “organizing for the abolition of not just the militarized police state but also the United States as we know it.”
Pathetically, the Democrat Party is with her — every step of the way.
------------------------
Arnold Ahlert is a political analyst who writes for the Patriot Post.
Tags: Arnold Ahlert, Patriot Post, Democrat-Sanctioned Anarchy, in Portland To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
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