Claiming the city is "not a war zone" and that they are "fully capable of managing our own community," mayors from around the Portland metro area banded together on Monday afternoon to demand that President Donald Trump not send National Guard troops to back up Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents near downtown Portland. The presser telegraphed an obvious truth: They love Antifa and unrest more than they love peace-loving, law-abiding citizens. So if you're not Antifa, you know whose side they're on… not yours.
Underlying the entire premise of the news conference was the libel that somehow sending the feds into Portland in 2020 to stop their pet protesters from burning up the federal courthouse and other buildings caused the riots that were already underway. These people have a real problem with pattern recognition.
Now that Antifa is openly recruiting for more rioters to come to town to fight ICE and the National Guard, as Andy Ngo reports, those mayors have thrown their support firmly behind Antifa rioters and against their own citizens. It's appalling—and insane.
Mayors, ask Ted Wheeler how capitulating to Antifa worked out for him.
The mayors signed an agreement in which they duplicitously argued that without local buy-in, community relationships would be frayed by the mere sight of the National Guard — as if having screaming protesters exploding ordnance at the ICE facility in a neighborhood at 3 a.m. without local consent is somehow better for citizens. The agreement affirms that cities will help get legal aid for protesters and promises to interfere — legally and otherwise — as much as possible with ICE.
The letter endorsed by the mayors was based on a version by wildly leftist Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson.
We will use all legal tools at our disposal to deny our jurisdiction's personnel, equipment, facilities, and resources from any participation or support of militarized federal actions that target the civil rights of our community, including freedom of assembly, free expression, or protest unless directly unless directly required by local, state, or federal law.
The Oregon mayors said nothing of their abilities under the First Amendment to stop the riots by invoking time, place, and manner requirements—like, say, at 3 a.m. across from the ICE headquarters. Also, the last time I checked, rioting and throwing rocks and explosives at ICE agents wasn't protected speech.
The Portland-area mayors called the planned deployment of the National Guard a "political" act and therefore gratuitous and unnecessary.
Indeed, as I reported in "Violence? What Violence? Governor Goes Full Baghdad Bob After Trump Orders National Guard to Portland," Governor Tina Kotek has been pretending that the fire bombings, assaults, and other riotous behavior are no big deal and can be solved by local authorities. The local authorities have done next to nothing to squelch the violence.
This Antifa favoritism has been going on for quite some time. Recently, in court, the city and police department refused to support angry neighbors' demands that Portland enforce its noise ordinances to stop Antifa's chanting in the middle of the night. The police chief testified in favor of Antifa.
On Sunday, Kotek actually mocked the scene playing out at the ICE headquarters in Southwest Portland by visiting another protest in another part of town and waving a sign. On her X account, she wrote that she "was in Portland walking peacefully with Oregonians to say that we don’t need military intervention here." She concluded, "We are peaceful. We are united. We are Oregon." She should have said, "We are dysfunctional." Or: "We are playing with fire." Or maybe "Larper."
Oregon is now suing the Trump Administration, using taxpayer dollars to fight a battle California has already lost in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. After freezing a district court judge, the 9th Circuit Court said that the Trump Administration is likely to win the case on the merits it it goes to the Supreme Court. That doesn't matter to these folks; they're playing with house money. It's all about ginning up even more animosity against the ICE officers while depicting them as the reason for the violence.
Oddly, the mayors, including Portland's Keith Wilson, pleaded for Portlanders to treat the National Guard members with respect because they are "our friends and neighbors" but have stood by while their "friends and neighbors" who work for ICE get firebombed while standing down the Portland Police Department.
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