On Saturday, September 27, 2025 I posted a brief article about Trump’s plan to send federal troops to Portland. In this post I expand on earlier thoughts and more details. Earlier this month the convicted felon who lives in the White House said that Portland has been ruined by protesters, who “burn the place down”. He vowed to send National Guard troops to our city. “When we go there — if we go to Portland, we’re going to wipe them out. He continued, “They’ve ruined that city. I have people that used to live in Portland. They’ve left. Most of them have left, but what they’ve done to that place is just, it’s like, it’s like living in hell”.
That does not sound like the Portland we know. Yes, we have a rich tradition of exercising our right of free speech by frequent, large demonstrations in our streets. Such as the estimated 50,000 that turned out on June 16th for the No Kings protest and the April 5th Hands Off march of 10 to 20,000 people (photos below). And while it is true that a very small number of people have engaged in graffiti, vandalism, and have antagonized the cops, those people get a disproportionate amount of press coverage in comparison to the tens of thousands who protest peacefully. This is a serious problem because a few acts of violence distort the impression of mass peaceful political resistance and give the authorities the excuse to attack innocent protesters. There have been nearly continuous peaceful protests at the Portland U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for years. And by the way, WE WILL NOT BE WIPED OUT!
To set the record straight, the file photos I posted on Saturday were from a demonstration that took place in 2017. The day after that post, Sunday, September 28th, PussyGrabber released the hounds. That is also the date of the photos below, which were shot around 2:00 PM. It does not appear to be a “war zone”, “out of control”, nor a crowd of “professional agitators and anarchists” as Trump has said. But then, we know he is a pathological liar. By the Washington Post’s careful count, he made 30,573 false or misleading claims during his first presidential term, an average of 21 per day!
Sunday evening, the PussyGrabber in Chief made good on his threat to send in the National Guard and the protest grew much larger. So, here is what the “war zone” looked like just before he sent out the troops…
Does that look like it is “under siege from attack by Antifa, and other domestic terrorists”? Of course not. Trump is a liar and a puppet of the Heritage Foundation, fanatical Christian fundamentalists, greedy capitalists, and Vladimir Putin. PussyGrabber does not seem to mind them pulling the strings so long as he has power and fame. As his retired federal judge sister famously said, “Donald has no principals — NONE! He only cares about Donald”. The military invasion of Portland and other American cities provides a convenient distraction from Epstein files, the GOP led assault on public health care funding, and the dismantling of the federal government.
Legal events and local officials’ reactions:
Five days before PussyGrabber ordered Guard troops to Portland, the city attorney joined a court brief supporting California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s legal battle to oust troops that are still in California. The attorneys from 32 cities, including Beaverton, Oregon, multiple counties and the U.S. Conference of Mayors argue that the federal military operation in Los Angeles violates the law and “inflames tensions with the public.”
Oregon senator Jeff Merkley said, “He wants to induce a violent exchange. Let us not grant him that wish. Let us be the force of orderly, peaceful protest.”
Portland Police Bureau Assistant Chief Craig Dobson said in court that federal police were causing some of the confrontations between cops and protesters outside the ICE building. He testified that federal officers are “actually instigating and causing some of the ruckus that’s occurring down there.”
Senator Ron Wyden told reporters on Friday, “It’s important to recognize that the president’s argument is a fable – it does not resemble the truth.” Wyden added, “If he watches a TV show in the morning and he see Portland mentioned, he says it’s a terrible place”.
Oregon Democratic Representative Suzanne Bonamici said, “This proclaimed ‘war on Antifa’ is completely a fallacy. Antifa is an ideology, it is not a group, and so we’re extremely concerned with what he’s going to try to do with that pronouncement”.
Oregon governor Tina Kotek: “In my conversations directly with president Trump and secretary Noem, I have been abundantly clear that Portland and the State of Oregon believe in the rule of law and can manage our own local public safety needs”. Kotek also said, “There is no insurrection. There is no threat to national security and there is no need for military troops in our major city.”
Governor Kotek said Trump is abusing his authority by ordering troops. “We can manage our own local public safety needs. There is no insurrection. There is no threat to national security.”
The state of Oregon and city of Portland filed a lawsuit on Sunday against Trump, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem over the deployment of the National Guard.
The City of Portland said earlier this month that it would issue a land use violation notice to its ICE building. The ICE facility was used to detain people for more than 12 hours, which is a violation of its land use approval.
A federal judge in California that found Trump and Pete Hegseth’s deployment of National Guard troops and Marines to Los Angeles in June violated the Posse Comitatus Act, a federal law that prohibits the use of the U.S. military to execute domestic law.
An injunction was issued by U.S. District Judge Charles R. Breyer (San Francisco) prohibiting the feds use of the National Guard in California to make arrests, engage in searches, crowd control, evidence collection, interrogations or work as informants. The Trump administration then urged the 9th Circuit to put a hold on Breyer’s order, pending a full appeal. A three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit put a temporary hold on Breyer’s order on Sept. 4 as the appellate court considers the merit of the matter.
The National Guard deployment is estimated to cost 4 to 10 million dollars.
Multnomah County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson said Trump is “wasting your tax dollars to attack cities who value diversity and stand up for our immigrant and refugee neighbors.” She added, “If the President truly wanted to help Portland and Multnomah County, he would reverse his callous cuts to public health and safety net services like Medicaid — decisions that harm people in red and blue states alike”.
Portland Police Bureau Commander James Crooker said that during one protest of about 450 people earlier this summer federal agents “acted independently during the event, occasionally leaving the building and firing pepper balls into the crowd”.
Oregon’s attorney general filed a motion on Monday to block Trump’s deployment of state National Guard troops.
Trump’s lies and hyperbole regarding Portland:
- war ravaged
- out of control
- crazy
- it’s like living in hell
- professional agitators and anarchists
- Antifa-led hellfire
- I am also authorizing Full Force, if necessary
- Portland is a NEVER-ENDING DISASTER
- It looks like a war zone
- These are professional agitators, these are bad people and they’re paid a lot of money by rich people
- the [protesters] burn the place down
- under siege from attack by Antifa, and other domestic terrorists
- The National Guard is now in place, and has been dedicated to restoring LAW AND ORDER, and ending the Chaos, Death, and Destruction!
What White House staff and others in his circle have said:
- Attorney General Pam Bondi : “The Department of Justice will arrest and prosecute to the fullest extent of the law every person who aids, abets, or conspires to commit these crimes, whether through funding, coordination, planning, or other means.” (Except for January 6th rioters, evidently.)
- Steve Bannon: “declare antifa a domestic terrorist organization”, “arrest a thousand of them”, “First step he should do today is declare antifa a domestic terrorist organization, and immediately go shut down Portland or what they’re doing in Portland. We know where they are, kick down the doors, and let’s arrest a thousand of them over the weekend.”, “Antifa’s burning down Portland every night.” Bannon has also said that Trump should declare martial law.
- Fox News: Aired a report about the Labor Day protest with footage of 2025 protests outside ICE. They cut in misleading clips from 2020 protests. One shows a federal officer pepper spraying a person in downtown Portland [not near ICE] and showed protesters burning the base of the Thompson Elk Fountain [also not close to the Portland ICE facility].
- Other conservative “news” outlets continuously promote similar bullshit.
Local residents have been complaining about military helicopters continuously circling the area above the local ICE building. This shit’s going to get wild. Stay tuned.