Yesterday the Washington Post published a story about the nightly attacks on an ICE facility in Portland. Their angle wasn’t to focus on the masked activists harassing federal law enforcement for weeks on end. Instead, the article focuses on a handful of conservative journalists who’ve been documenting what the left is doing.
Floodlit by DHS spotlights, the square outside the ICE facility where Sortor was arrested is more stage than battleground, which in recent months has become a real-life, live-action set for an increasingly fevered standoff over the nation’s future. Sortor’s experience — and the White House’s use of it — shows how those events can be shaped and polished in a fractured media ecosystem that selectively spins 10-second video clips into furor, and ultimately policy, in an administration that has harnessed the power of social media to inspire and enrage.
Much of the footage from Portland doesn’t originate from traditional TV networks but from a phalanx of activist-journalists, on both the right and the left, filming on their phones. Despite the protests largely being confined to one city block, it has resulted in a cascade of videos that has bolstered the conservative depiction of Portland as a city under siege by left-wing terrorists — video the White House has cited to justify and build support for deploying the National Guard to cities across the country.
Eight paragraphs in, the Post does acknowledge that the scene often turns violent at night and also that Portland police have largely done nothing about it.
…at night, the scene often turns violent, with leftist demonstrators exchanging blows with counterprotesters, at times shoving or spitting on federal law enforcement officers, lobbing fireworks and attacking conservative influencers and journalists. Portland police have largely held back, stepping in sporadically to make targeted arrests rather than clearing the block, to the frustration of federal authorities.
The story admits Sortor was assaulted prior to his arrest.
Payne’s fellow anti-fascists and leftist activists encircled Sortor. Sortor took a swing — and missed, he said — at a masked protester who kept blocking his path. In the scuffle, someone shoved him into a flower bed with the tip of an umbrella.
It later mentions Katie Daviscourt, another conservative who was assaulted. But the framing seems more favorable to Antifa who mock Daviscourt as “Nazi Barbie.”
After Katie Daviscourt, a reporter for the conservative online outlet Post Millennial, was assaulted by a masked demonstrator, she filmed the action from ICE’s roof the next evening. Protesters gazing up at her chanted “Nazi Barbie!”
The only actual news in this story comes halfway through when a Portland police sergeant says a big part of the problem outside the ICE facility is the sense that local elected officials support the Antifa activists.
Aaron Schmautz, a Portland police sergeant who is president of the city’s police union, called the situation outside the ICE facility ugly — and avoidable. The city’s riot playbook calls for officers not to break up demonstrations but to keep them contained and to arrest people for observed violent behavior. But, Schmautz said, if officers are ordered to decisively break up the demonstrations, they may be hesitant because of a sympathetic posture from local elected officials toward the protests.
“When you have city officials encouraging people to break the law,” Schmautz said, “the politics betray the outcome.”
The final part of the story focuses on Andy Ngo who, once again, is a victim of assaults and death threats. I’m starting to see a pattern here.
One of the conservative chroniclers of that time was Andy Ngo. He began covering the far left as a student at Portland State University in 2018 and was assaulted twice by leftists in 2019 and 2021.
Ngo said he’s received death threats from antifa members for years and moved to London in 2021 for his safety. He said the party atmosphere among leftist protesters in Portland betrays the toxicity of antifa’s online presence.
But once again, the Post gives leftists the last word. This guy suggests Ngo is responsible for his own assault and death threats against him.
“You saw folks like Andy Ngo start a cottage industry of antagonizing antifa and then filming what happens next,” said [Justin] Allen, 40, who served in the Navy from 2005-2009. “And all you have to do is clip out the antagonism and then boom, you get your money and attention.”
I’ve watched videos by Andy Ngo for years. He’s a relatively small person who wouldn’t intimidate anyone. All he did to antagonize these people was show up and film and occasionally try to talk to people. Antifa become violent when you film because it puts them at risk of consequences. He quickly became a target to the point that, when Antifa recognized him, they would chase him through the streets threatening to beat him up.
So the message here is that, yes, every right wing videographer who shows up gets assaulted by Antifa, but really it’s only because they provoked them. And that’s exactly how the story ends.
Last Sunday, Sortor embarked on a new mission to provoke the liberal protesters: Take the slightly charred American flag and walk through the leftist encampment.
A woman in a black hoodie and a gas mask stepped up to block Sortor’s path. He tried to push past her, but several men and women joined in shoving back.
“You’re no longer allowed to walk down the sidewalk in Portland,” Sortor said to his viewers as he was being jostled, “or else you’re going to get jumped and pushed and shoved and assaulted here.”
It’s not the leftist goons threatening to beat and assault people who are the problem, according to this crap article by the Post by Robert Klemko and Joshua Partlow, it’s the guy who is walking through the area with an American flag Antifa failed to burn at the last riot.
Editor’s Note: The Schumer Shutdown is here. Rather than put the American people first, Chuck Schumer and the radical Democrats forced a government shutdown for healthcare for illegals. They own this.
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