Regime Planning to Attack Portland Oregon???

Regime Plans to Attack Portland Oregon???

On Friday the Minnesota Star Tribune reported a conversation on the messaging app Signal between one of Stephen Miller’s top deputies, Anthony Salisbury, and a senior advisor to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Patrick Weaver. Stephen Miller is the deputy White House chief of staff and is widely identified as the figure directing the administration’s attacks on immigrants and diversity initiatives.

Salisbury was in Minnesota to attend a funeral. His Signal chat was clearly visible to bystanders, one of whom provided images of it to the Minnesota Star Tribune. The two men were discussing a plan to deploy the 82nd Airborne Division of the U.S. Army to Portland, Oregon. Since World War I, the elite 82nd Airborne has specialized in parachute assaults into hostile areas.

As Dan Froomkin spelled out last week in Press Watch, Trump has been focused on the misguided idea that Portland, Oregon, is a war zone ever since he apparently watched a September 4 Fox News Channel special report that passed off footage from the violence of 2020 as happening now. About twenty people protest every night outside an ICE facility, but while the protesters are insulting (they have been “ICE fishing” with donuts on fishing poles), the protests have been peaceful, with very few arrests.

Troy Brynelson and Alex Zielinsky of Oregon Public Broadcasting reported that after Immergut’s ruling, federal officers showed force. They pushed protesters “hundreds of yards down city streets and fired tear gas, flash-bang grenades and pepper balls without any clear signs of provocation.” Brynelson and Zielinsky noted that the troops “were flanked by videographers, toting professional equipment and wearing high-visibility vests. They filmed from behind the lines of officers, capturing the show of force. At least two drones swept over the scenes.”

Blocked from deploying Oregon National Guard troops in Portland, the administration on Sunday deployed 300 California National Guard troops to Portland instead. California governor Gavin Newsom broke the news, adding: “This is a breathtaking abuse of the law and power. The Trump Administration is unapologetically attacking the rule of law itself and putting into action their dangerous words—ignoring court orders and treating judges, even those appointed by the President himself, as political opponents.”