July 29, 2020

"I’ve been on the front lines of the protests here, searching for the 'radical-left anarchists' who President Trump says are on Portland streets each evening."

"I thought I’d found one: a man who for weeks leapt into the fray and has been shot four times with impact munitions yet keeps coming back. I figured he must be a crazed anarchist. But no, he turned out to be Dr. Bryan Wolf, a radiologist who wears his white doctor’s jacket and carries a sign with a red cross and the words 'humanitarian aid.' He pleads with federal forces not to shoot or gas protesters.... Maybe the rioting anarchists were in front of the crowd, where there are discussions about Black Lives Matter? I found musicians and activists and technicians, who were projecting a huge sign on the wall of a nearby building — 'Fed Goons Out of PDX' — that seemed a bit geeky for anarchists.... Sure there are anarchists and antifa activists in the Portland protests, just as there are radiologists and electricians, lawyers and mechanics. Report on the ground here and any single narrative feels too simplistic. The protesters aren’t all peaceful, nor are they primarily violent. They’re a complicated weave, differing by time of day....  [W]hile there’s violence from both sides, what I’ve seen firsthand is that the most violent behavior overwhelmingly comes from the federal agents, and indeed the most serious injuries have been suffered by protesters."

Writes Nicholas Kristof in "Help Me Find Trump’s ‘Anarchists’ in Portland/The president has his politically driven narrative. And then there’s reality" (NYT).

176 comments:

PB said...

Police have been giving that doctor a lawful order to leave that area. Why has he disobeyed a lawful order and in doing so broken the law?

rehajm said...

Worth a repost:

Constructively, traditional journalism has been replaced by agitprop and the violent protesters- if not in coordination with leftie media and local politicians and DAs- they at least have parallel interests. Antifa members are smart enough not to expose themselves or their allies. Loose lips sink ships, and all. There's video of an Antifa flag at the Seattle site. It's existence is confirmation it wasn't rejected by any of the protesters, violent or otherwise...

As with all big protests there are loose coalitions of many groups, large and small, all with similar interests...

Go hunt down the arrest books and you'll KNOW who's committing the violence but journalism in the form you're looking for is all but dead.

Do your own homework...

n.n said...

NYT has been hunting witches, judging warlocks, and fomenting diversity for 16 trimesters. Their story is only as credible as its independent confirmation.

Big Mike said...

@Althouse, if you're going to believe in Nicholas Kristof as an example of the "high quality investigative journalist" you have been calling out for, then don't be upset when I keep calling you "gullible."

Mr. O. Possum said...

"Sure there are anarchists and antifa activists in the Portland protests, just as there are radiologists and electricians, lawyers and mechanics," writes Kristof.

Ok, that makes it okay to burn, loot, pillage, and attack people week after week, just so long as you are doing it with mild-mannered lawyers and mousy radiologists.

And nice use of the word "activists."

"Engineering student and activist Mohammed Atta today drove a borrowed aircraft into..."

tim d said...

Sometimes, her trolling is too obvious. Kristof--really?

L Day said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
L Day said...

So musicians, technicians, radiologists, electricians, lawyers and mechanics can't be radical-left anarchists? Why not?

Stephen Taylor said...

With the fedgov cops being pulled out, I suspect that courthouse will burn, either tonight or tomorrow night. I further suspect that Trump wants this to happen, and the idiot protesters are going to hand him the election on a silver platter.

rehajm said...

""I’ve been on the front lines of the protests here, searching for the 'radical-left anarchists' who President Trump says are on Portland streets each evening.""

Clintonparse that statement: the 'radical-left anarchists' can just not identify with that handle, with 'each evening' you can define the time of day not to coincide with you're on the street, you took an evening off, whatever. Voila! Plausible deniability...

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

There are violent people on both sides, maybe even electricians on both sides.

Tom Grey said...

Government is the organization which has a MONOPOLY on legitimate use of force. All the force used by the violent protester (minorities, among a majority of non-violent rioters) is ILLEGAL. It's the JOB of the gov't police / enforcement agents to use violence to stop violence.

Overwhelming force.

ML King was was to be non-violent, so as to cause no illegal destruction of property.

The (possibly?-) peaceful protesters are acting illegally as accomplices of illegal looting rioters - it's the gov't job to ENFORCE, with force, even violence, the LAW. That's what "rule of law" means. Gov't violence is OK to be used to enforce gov't made laws.

It's needed for civilization. And violence against property devalues and destroys the results of human life work - that's a good, civil reason it's illegal.

Joe Smith said...

It's all kumbaya...watch the rioting on TV but don't believe your lying eyes.

I'd rather all fed troops leave Portland and let them burn everything to the ground, the town along with the courthouse. Elections have consequences.

MadisonMan said...

"Help Me Find Trump’s ‘Anarchists’ in Portland/The president has his politically driven narrative. And then there’s The New York Times' politically-driven narrative"

FIFY.

MadisonMan said...

(that was too easy)

Josephbleau said...

This reporter seems to be very selective about what xhe sees firsthand. Xhe did not see the police with laser eye damage I guess. This is not playing to the core NYT readership, they support violence. The private polls must be really bad hence the need to start broadcasting that there was no violence. There sure was in Madison, I guess in Portland all the stores were burned and looted by the fairy fing godmother.

Jake said...

I bet he was looking real hard.

Michael K said...

Kristof has come a long way down from the days he was expelled from the Soviet Union.

I assume the arrest reports would help him find a few anarchists.

Leora said...

A candidate for the Walter Duranty Award.

Owen said...

"...a complicated weave." What a lovely turn of phrase. It's almost enough to distract me from the fact that he is admitting that these people are NOT all peaceful all the time. And because this pathology has been going on for weeks, I think it is reasonable to impute to all of these people the motive that it is desirable, or at least not wrong, to be not peaceful. That it is OK if the crowd to which you return, day after day (and especially night after night) regularly gets, shall we say, a little frisky with matches and Molotov cocktails, with lasers and lighters, with slingshots firing ball bearings, with bags of excrement, with hammers and tasers.

The imputation of motive IMHO would be reasonable even under less dire circumstances. But to watch a city burn down? To watch it dissolve its legal structures? To watch the mob prance and preen at having paralyzed and discredited the work of its government? And not be held accountable? There is not one person in those crowds who is not culpable to a serious degree in the evil done by any of them.

gilbar said...

hmmmm...
Sure there are anarchists and antifa activists in the Portland protests, just as there are radiologists and electricians, lawyers and mechanics.

how about this?
Sure there are riflemen and tank crews in the 4th infantry division, just as there are radiologists and electricians, lawyers and mechanics.

see what i did there? Not all soldiers are combat troops; many (MOST) are support echelons
Sounds like the same is true in Portland

Oh wait! this is an even better match!
Sure there are U.S. Marshals and federal agents in the Portland courthous, just as there are court reporters and electricians, lawyers and mechanics.
AND THEY ARE ALL UNDER ATTACK

how's that?

h said...

Here Nick:

The Pacific Northwest Youth Liberation Front was launched on Twitter in 2018 by several teenagers, including at least one high school student. The account describes itself to its 21,000 followers as a “decentralized network of autonomous youth collectives dedicated to direct action toward liberation.” The group wants to achieve a political revolution and has attempted it by destroying monuments and storefronts in the city, starting fires in the streets, and spraying graffiti on government buildings as it continues nightly riots.

“We are a bunch of teenagers armed with ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) and yerba mate — we can take a 5 a.m. raid and be back on our feet a few hours later,” the group wrote on June 18. “We’ll be back again and again until every prison is reduced to ashes and every wall to rubble.”

MadTownGuy said...

No, Mr. Kristof - this is reality:

It’s scary. You open those doors out, when the crowd is shaking the fence, and ... on the other side of that fence are people that want to kill you because of the job we chose to do and what we represent,” said a Deputy U.S. Marshal who has been protecting the courthouse for weeks. He requested anonymity because protesters have identified him and posted his personal information online.

“I can’t walk outside without being in fear for my life,” he said. “I am worried for my life, every time I walk outside of the building.”

[...]

Monica Arce gyrated to the music and waved her cell phone flashlight in the air with hundreds of others. The professional midwife had left her 14-year-old son at home and joined her sister-in-law, a teacher, to protest the presence of the federal agents and to support Black Lives Matter.

“We are not here being violent or being destructive. We have a positive message — there is nothing to quell here,” she said, referencing Trump’s statement that the agents were there to quell unrest. “The people of Portland are saying, ‘We don’t want this presence here and we don’t think we need them at all.’”

As she spoke, small pods of three to four protesters dressed in black circulated in the crowd, stopping every few minutes to point green laser beams in the eyes of agents posted as lookouts on porticoes on the courthouse’s upper stories. The agents above were silhouetted against the dark sky as dozens of green laser dots and a large spotlight played on the courthouse walls, projected from the back of the crowd.

Thirty minutes later, someone fired a commercial-grade firework inside the fence. Next came a flare and then protesters began using an angle grinder to eat away at the fence. A barrage of items came whizzing into the courthouse: rocks, cans of beans, water bottles, potatoes and rubber bouncy balls that cause the agents to slip and fall.

[...]

“You see a lot of commentary on social media about, ‘Well, they’re wearing protective gear so that it’s not going to hurt them.’ Okay, I’ll put the same protective gear on you and I’ll throw a brick at your head and you tell me if you feel comfortable with that,” said a senior U.S. Marshals Service official who’s overseeing the response in Portland.

[...]

One of the people at the very front of the fence was Travis Rogers. The former U.S. Air Force veteran recently quit his job as a Medicaid case manager, in part because he would have been fired anyway if he got arrested.

On this night, Rogers wore a helmet and carried a blue shield made out of the side of a plastic barrel. Like most days, he spent most of the protest trying to take down the fence and screaming at the federal agents guarding it, asking them to explore their conscience.

After six years working for the military, Rogers said he felt better equipped than many to find talking points that might make the agents think about their mission more critically.

“I think it is a good idea to try to plant some seeds in their heads for ... them to go home and sleep on. These are people’s kids and mothers and wives and daughters that they’re gassing and they’re going to have to go home to THEIR mothers and wives and daughters,” said Rogers, as explosive booms echoed around him. “I try to encourage them to think about the fact that they’re on the wrong side of history and that they will not be treated so kindly.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

It is getting increasingly difficult to distinguish Kanye's and Trump's campaigns. Only one has embraced the demon sex doctor, but give it time.

Rick said...

just as there are radiologists and electricians, lawyers and mechanics.

Apparently our high quality investigative reporting rests on the belief employment precludes anarchism.

We can all rest easy now.

Mark said...

So the author is claiming that the lasers, fireworks and Molitov cocktails are being wielded by mainstream Democrats. Got it.

robother said...

Ask State Senator Carpenter what happens to you if you find an actual radical anarchist. Sort of like being a Moscow correspondent for the NYTimes and looking for evidence that Stalin is starving his population. You could get hurt! (Mr. Jones was killed by "bandits" in the USSR after his expose.)

Kristof has predictably followed in Walter Duranty's footsteps: no anarchists to see here in Portland, move on.

Big Mike said...

W]hile there’s violence from both sides, what I’ve seen firsthand is that the most violent behavior overwhelmingly comes from the federal agents, and indeed the most serious injuries have been suffered by protesters.

As bad as permanently losing all or part of your eyesight?

Rabel said...

Searching for an honest man who is also a reporter Althouse finds Nicholas Kristof.

You're just fucking with your readers now.

deepelemblues said...

They blatantly lie and dare you to disagree now.

Lewis Wetzel said...

The protesters aren’t all peaceful, nor are they primarily violent.
All this means is that Kristof agrees with goals of the protesters. This is not an argument, it is a bad assertion.
If you take a gallon of ice cream and mix in one teaspoon of shit, it is not primarily shit, but it is still inedible.
The peaceful protesters are enabling and giving cover to the violent protesters. The peaceful protesters are at the mercy of the violent protesters.

Oso Negro said...

Jesus Fucking Christ. I would love to bring THE OTHER SIDE to Portland and show the misfit soy boys, lesbigals, and addle-brained socialists how I REALLY FEEL. I think there is a lack of understanding of what THE OTHER SIDE is really about.

Ken B said...

So, is this your example of good journalism? Or an example of bad journalism?

I suggest it can only be latter, in light of the first bit you quoted. “I went to a Germany expecting to find crazed nazis. Instead I interviewed Dr Martin Niemoller ...” is the technique. Except that Niemoller didn’t camp out with and make excuses for the minority — and it was always a minority— who actually ran the apparatus. And it’s a minority who throw balloons full of shit and point lasers.

As for the “victims”. They are trying to burn buildings. If the rioters stopped trying to burn the courthouses...

Mark said...

Hey NYT --

Will you PLEASE put the rotting corpse of Walter Duranty back in the ground? Please??

The stench is overpowering even over and through the wireless Internet.

Paco Wové said...

Counterpoint.

tim maguire said...

Leave it to the New York Times to be unable to find any rioters in the midst of a riot.

tim maguire said...

the most serious injuries have been suffered by protesters."

I defy Nick Kristoff to find an insurgency for which that is not true.

Rick said...

Remember Hamer and O'Reilly? They beat up people who take video which might identify those committing violence. But they're not anarchists - they have jobs.

Skeptical Voter said...

Ah we are going to find reality in the NYT. And Nicbolas Kristof is going to bring it to us. It's just as likely as finding a baby unicorn down at the local Goodwill Thrift Shop in Portland. But Nicholas will rummage through the clothes and find it for us.

He at least admits that there are some sorts of people other than "innocent protesters" in the crowd. But doesn't go much further than that.

chuck said...

I saw "Nicholas Kristof" and started laughing. And... it is very much a Kristof article, nuanced if you will, concentrated on a couple of selected saplings growing on the forest fringe. He could raise his game by talking to more taxi drivers.

Ann Althouse said...

Shows the problem of trying to prove a negative.

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

Althouse doesn't just double down, she triples down.

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

I'm sure, of course, that Nicholas Kristof is searching earnestly for the truth no matter where it might lead, like all the other crack investigative NYT reporters are.

Gospace said...

Sure there are anarchists and antifa activists in the Portland protests, and as Lenin described them, a lot useful idiots, exemplified by Dr. Bryan Wolf, a radiologist, living proof that education doesn't equal intelligence.

Darcy said...

I can't believe that it has become necessary to defend law enforcement from violent and destructive "protesters". But here we are. And here I am, saying this should be a no-brainer. Not too long ago, it was exactly that. They are breaking the law by endangering persons and property. There are and should be consequences to that. Especially if they are attacking law enforcement. No bueno.

stever said...

You are who you hang around with.

Rick said...

“We are not here being violent or being destructive. We have a positive message — there is nothing to quell here,” she said,

Was this before or after the IED explosion? Was it between fires?

As she spoke, small pods of three to four protesters dressed in black circulated in the crowd, stopping every few minutes to point green laser beams in the eyes of agents posted as lookouts on porticoes on the courthouse’s upper stories.

Oh I get it, permanently blinding someone is not violence. Telling a leftist she's wrong is violence.

phantommut said...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Duranty

Narr said...

So, if one was to take a laser to a protest and use it to blind a few arsonists, would the NYT
cover it?

Narr
Asking for a friend

Robert Cook said...

"Police have been giving that doctor a lawful order to leave that area. Why has he disobeyed a lawful order and in doing so broken the law?"

Who says it's lawful? And if it's lawful, who says it's constitutional? We do have the right to peaceably assemble, after all. All you "Live Free or Die" types are awfully quick to condemn people who actually exercise their constitutional right to protest, to the point of wishing for them to be beaten up and stomped down by government agents.

Rory said...

"ML King was was to be non-violent, so as to cause no illegal destruction of property."

When Gandhi's peaceful efforts were coopted by the violent, Gandhi stopped and fasted until the violence stopped.

Phil 314 said...

So he saying that AG Barr is a liar.

dubbyhesspdx said...

My wife went to Lownsdale and Chapman squares last night. She asked me to come. I didn't because I refuse to give cover to people who want to burn down the Hatfield Federal Courthouse.

She asked if I would be concerned for her safety. I wasn't because the mayhem does not start until after midnight. She was home by 10 pm.

She showed me photos of sidewalk chalk and the performance artists and the wall of moms. She took a photo of a Fed LEO in riot gear. She said he glared at her and the glare frightened her. I told her most LEO are reluctant to have photos taken because of the threat of doxing. S

Anyhow, my wife wasn't there late and she missed the violence. Kristof, likey my wife, was probably back in bed dealing with jetlag before the late night action started.

The violence is real, but people choose what they want to see and Will disregard the rest. Oh well.

MadTownGuy said...

Ann Althouse said...
"Shows the problem of trying to prove a negative."

I'm not sure I know what you mean, but I'll make a guess - Kristof was trying to prove there were no radical left anarchists, and by golly, he found none. Absence of evidence...well, you know the rest.

Robert Cook said...

"Constructively, traditional journalism has been replaced by agitprop...."

What is "traditional journalism?" Purely objective, you think? Nope! That is a recent development,invented in the 1920s by publishers who wanted to sell more papers to bigger audiences, instead of to only those who shared their papers' traditionally partisan viewpoint(s).

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

There's tons of footage. As soon as the radical left took over, the MSM became dis-interested.

Wa St Blogger said...

So, as a counter point to the last Portland post we have Kristof "looking for an anarchist." He thinks he finds one and proceeds to explain how his supposed anarchist is not really an anarchist after all. Are we to believe he really searched for one? Did he take time to talk to the guys throwing bricks, or the ones launching pyrotechnics? Or did he go to the mild mannered guy waiving a sign in the back? So juxtaposed to our previous writer who wrote about nebulous groups of people, we have Kristof with his anecdotal evidence of one guy who was not what Kristof initially "thought" he was.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

No enemies on the left.

the MSM showcased some looting right after George Floyd was murdered... but now that the white left have taken over, the MSM(D) are not interested.

Does not fit the narrative.

This is all stating the obvious of course.

ga6 said...

Don't trust Kristof, Kristof is asshole...

Robert Cook said...

"Constructively, traditional journalism has been replaced by agitprop...."

What is "traditional journalism?" Purely objective, you think? Nope! That is a recent development,invented in the 1920s by publishers who wanted to sell more papers to bigger audiences, instead of to only those who shared their papers' traditionally partisan viewpoint(s).

Michael K said...

If being a doctor is the criterion, many of the worst Palestinian terrorists are doctors, going back to George Habash. Two Muslim doctors in UK two years ago crashed a van into Glasgow airport trying to blow the place up.

Lay down with the NY Times, get up with fleas.

chuck said...

The one thing you can take away from this is that you can't hang out for a couple of days, talk to a handful of people, and have any idea what is going on. It is a problem common to celebrity journalists, who never spend much time in any one place, hence never understand what they are seeing. I would wager that even most participants don't know what is going on. Which begs the question, what does it mean to know what is going on? You need someone local who has been tracking and researching things for weeks or months and is familiar with all the statistics and social media to even make a start.

Given that ignorance is endemic, knowing in depth what is going on is neither achievable nor useful. When you need to act, the first thing needed is a goal: safe streets, freedom from fear of assault, and freedom of movement seems reasonable to me. We all know what civil society looks like, and the center of Portland isn't that.

Unknown said...

We've been hearing about Antifa in Portland for years, haven't we?

JML said...


"It is getting increasingly difficult to distinguish Kanye's and Trump's campaigns."

Trump's music is ALWAYS better.

Matthew Heintz said...

What everOwen was trying to say, I think he meant that every rioters in Portland deserves to be machine gunned down in the most fierce display of Gov.power ever recorded.

effinayright said...

Big Mike said...
@Althouse, if you're going to believe in Nicholas Kristof as an example of the "high quality investigative journalist" you have been calling out for, then don't be upset when I keep calling you "gullible."
*************

The other day I called her being mesmerized by the intellectually-debased NYT as an example of her own intellectual debasement.

The criticism stands.

Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...

so many rioters and anti-govt people in the way

...it's hard to spot the anarchists.

Nihilist's Lives Matter!


anarchy:
a state of disorder due to absence or nonrecognition of authority.

bagoh20 said...

I've been on the streets of America for 60 years, and I never saw a racist cop who wanted to murder a black man, so there you go.


It's the small things we do, not the national news things we do.

https://www.theblaze.com/news/cops-birthday-parade-bike

Jupiter said...

Nick Kristof is originally from this part of the country, but he has apparently forgotten the lay of the land. I think that if he were to stand for a few minutes with his back against that chain-link fence they have been hacking on with grinders, while they are firing mortars and laser beams, he might be able to locate one or more of the elusive "radical-left anarchists" he is seeking. Or at least encounter some of their droppings.

5M - Eckstine said...

He should just attach himself to Andy Ngo and we would get a realistic view of the violence. You can't find snipe in the daytime.

By the NYT standards Charlottesville was a peaceful protest.

Birkel said...

Remember the mild mannered lawyers in New York City who firebombed an occupied cop car?

What difference does the riotous criminal's day job have to do with fuck all?

Aussie Pundit said...

"The protesters aren’t all peaceful, nor are they primarily violent."

The protesters aren't all peaceful. Case closed.

effinayright said...

Apparently the real violence starts late at night, when the "mostly peaceful protesters" leave , and the mainly-white Antifa goons take over.

Did Kristof stay for that?

bagoh20 said...

I don't really care who they call themselves. They can be Santa's little helpers for all I care. They are destroying lives, property, institutions and values we will badly miss, and they offer nothing but stupidity and naivete to replace it. Lock Santa's little thugs up if they can't respect their fellow citizens. Being a doctor and being part of that just diminishes doctors, but why should they be any different. These people don't care who or what they destroy, so I don't care about them or their demands.

I'm Not Sure said...

"The former U.S. Air Force veteran..."

A "former veteran"?

rcocean said...

Duranty couldn't find millions of Ukrainians starving to death. "There was no famine in the Ukraine" he reported and won a Pulitzer for it. I'm sure Kristof really, really, tried hard to find some violent lefties at Portland, but couldn't find them. Just "concerned citizens" like you and me.

Is there anything more ridiculous than dishonest reporter claiming he can't find what's under his nose? Maybe the NYT should revisit its coverage of Charlottsville. Y'know the neo-nazis at Charlottsvillle were "mostly peaceful" only 1 killed someone, the other 300 were "concerned citizens" like you and me. haha.

Clark said...

Did I ever tell you about my fruitless search for a true Scotsman?

Kevin said...

Shorter Kristoff: No true radical-left anarchists.

rcocean said...

The Liberal/left MSM talking points:

1st deny there's any violence
2nd Admit there's violence but Blame the Police
3rd Talk about Guys in Hawaiian shirts and sunglasses with umbrellas
4th Deny Antifa exists
5th Admit antifa exists but say its non-violent
6th Finally admit a little left-wing violence but say its only a few kooks
7th Reiterate that almost all Left-wing protesters are peaceful
8th Blame Trump

Repeat the next day, like its a whole new subject.

5M - Eckstine said...

The "peaceful" protesters and the "violent" protesters in these cities have a symbiotic shell game they like to play with the media and authorities. The peaceful protesters get better media coverage when their nighttime partners are violent. The violent protesters get safety in numbers from their daytime allies.

Organized mob violence. What is its goal?

Seattle has plenty of peaceful protests. Often every day They get a permit. They assemble. The police close down 3rd or 4th avenue and they march. Nothing is destroyed. People are respected.

In a pandemic situation a protest over a police killing is counter to human welfare. People should be working to defeat the virus together.

Owen said...

it is remarkable how gullible Christof happily shows himself to be.

Unknown said...

If it was Tea Partiers

burning down the Federal Courthouse

They'd already be in the GAS CHAMBER

My God Democrats SUCK

boatbuilder said...

"He pleads with federal forces not to shoot or gas protesters..."

Oh fer chrissake. If any "federal force" were to shoot any of these vandals it would be the only news anyone would hear from now until election day. What bullshit.

Amadeus 48 said...

Let’s review what is going on. Large groups of people, who should be at work or school, have two months of nightly disorder which has come to focus on a federal building that in normal circumstances stands for the protection of the rule of law. These people spend weeks trashing the place. The state government of Oregon has gone doggo. Two weeks ago, federal marshals were beefed up with additional federal forces, and now there are nightly escapades at the courthouse involving fireworks, lasers, injuries, occasional looting, and pushback from the defenders of the courthouse.

What the heck is going on? It makes no sense. What would success look like for the protesters? The governor and the mayor wearing dunce caps in a re-education camp? All federal officers leaving Oregon? Many of the marshals are black. Do their lives matter? This is a push against authority with anarchy as a way station to power.

A backlash is coming.

Sebastian said...

"Help Me Find"

Progs don't need to have have green lasers aimed at them.

5M - Eckstine said...

Seattle has had decades of police reform. Norm Stamper posts about it. As did Kerlikowski. John Urqhardt. Those are the policing leaders. What the protesters are saying is that none of the reform matters. That is CHOP is the preferred outcome for all cities in the US. There is a level of willful ignorance accompanying the support behind these protests. In America that type of change is done at the ballot box. Not firebombing a Starbucks.

Swede said...

Well, we can believe this guy or our lying eyes.

Next.

TheDopeFromHope said...

Kristof is a little bitch shill for the North Korean dictatorship.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/nicholas-kristof-in-north-korea-shares-photos-of-fun-and-pizza/article/2636071

So how would you expect anything different?

Unknown said...

> Shows the problem of trying to prove a negative.

PROVE's got nothing to do with it

Ask Nadler

We are in a "climate crisis" because we are told "90% of scientists say we are".

Look at the money being spent on man-made global warming.

BLM is a good org - look at the sports and media and megacorps sponsoring them.

cubanbob said...

"Sure there are anarchists and antifa activists in the Portland protests, just as there are radiologists and electricians, lawyers and mechanics," writes Kristof."

A loyal NYT reader should ask Kristof how small does a turd in the milk tank have to be before he would drink the milk? Any volunteers?

D.D. Driver said...

Do they really think gas lighting will work? Antonio Mays Jr. was gunned down by violent left wing militants. We have left-wing thugs that assaulted a state senator in Madison. Are we pretending that we don't have a left-wing violence problem? Or is the claim that we have a left wing violence problem--just not in PORTLAND.

D.D. Driver said...

"The protesters aren’t all peaceful, nor are they primarily violent."

Isn't this a good description of the Manson Family, too? Most of them were not murderers.

Clyde said...

The New York Times is now a turd floating in the punchbowl of journalism.

Unknown said...

No enemies on the left, a well-worn slogan for solidarity. But it does require the Manet principle of not noticing.

Here's a excerpt from a story on oregonlive.com regarding the PNW Youth Liberation Front:


No one from the PNW Youth Liberation Front responded to multiple emails regarding this story.

The group describes itself on Twitter as a “decentralized network of autonomous youth collectives dedicated to direct action towards total liberation.” The description includes a black flag emoji, which often symbolizes anarchism.

But no public leaders linked to the group have stepped forward, by design.

Whether or not the PNW Youth Liberation Front has set membership remains unclear. It has regularly published responses to police and officials on Twitter, as well as operating as an organizing platform telling people where and when to meet.

sunsong said...

I'm inspired by John Lewis

get in 'good trouble'

where you see injustice speak up speak out

but don't hate, don't do harm

traditionalguy said...

NB: Fusion GPS is a multi million dollar Fake News shop set up by former NYT professional writers-columnists solely to write totally fake stories against political enemies in a plausible NYT writing style. Hillary paid them 6 million for their work. And she wants her money back. These writers work all over the world to tip elections to the side that hires them.

Have Fake News, will travel.

They got you. The videos must not be believed. This writer is what you always fall for.

rhhardin said...

Kristof is selling an essay to his fans.

He doesn't explain why the police don't just take a bunch of lefty women hostage and shoot them one by one, and save themselves the trouble of riding around shooting randomly into the crowd. What account of police motivation would he have to change, after all.

iowan2 said...

Shows the problem of trying to prove a negative.

Kristoff is not trying to find facts. He's not interested in proving anything. Doesn't need to find anything to prove, mostly peaceful.

The only thing he (NYT) is wanting to do is sway the low information voters enough to not hold democrat leaders responsible for the carnage. Provide a thin reed for voters to grasp as they fill out their unsolicited ballot that showed up in their mailbox. Just enough hidden facts to sway enough low information voters to doubt what they know to be true. Kristoff is not writing to inform readers that are trying to form an opinion based of facts.

Rush, today was looking at a poll that found the average American thinks 10% of the US population has died of covid. Part of that is innumeracy, part of that is media's intentional deception. Always talking about cases. And intentionally burying deaths. They don't have to lie, just massage the narrative.

Michael K said...

All you "Live Free or Die" types are awfully quick to condemn people who actually exercise their constitutional right to protest, to the point of wishing for them to be beaten up and stomped down by government agents.

Yes, but the only ones I condemn are those who riot and try to burn down police and federal buildings. Your constitutional rights end at my nose. Blinding federal LEOs is your idea of "protest?"

OldManRick said...

Apologies in advance to Rod Stewart and the Small Faces


If I listened long enough to Kristof
I'd find a way to believe that it's all true
Knowing that he lied straight-faced while I read

Still I look to find a reason to believe
Someone like NYT makes it hard to see Antifa
in the streets
Someone like NYT makes it easy to follow
Never think for myself

If I gave NYT time to change my mind
I'd find a way just to leave the truth behind
Knowing that they lied straight-faced while I cried
Still I look to find a story to believe

If I read long enough in the Times
I'd find a way to believe that it's all true
Knowing that they lied straight-faced while I read
Still I look to find support for my bubble

Someone like NYT makes it hard to live without
Daily talking points
Someone like NYT makes it easy to give up
Never think for myself

bagoh20 said...

To be fair to Kristof, he's never actually seen a radical leftist. He see lots of things that are, and are not, actually there, but they are never both radical and leftist.

Amadeus 48 said...

Another take from Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying. They are critical and skeptical of the narrative being peddled by the media and the protesters--anarchy, baby.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-U95sRfCKU

bagoh20 said...

"Rush, today was looking at a poll that found the average American thinks 10% of the US population has died of covid."

It's a fact that roughly half the nation have an IQ in double digits, and they vote. The Democrats use the media to reach them.

Michael K said...

Sunsong thinks burning down churches is "doing no harm."

YoungHegelian said...

Well, Mr. Kristof, if the rioters didn't self-identify as anarchists, what did they self-identify as? Ah, therein lies the rub, doesn't it? If they said they were Democrats, then the Giant Evil Cheeto could paint them as rioting Democrats. Or, more likely, and I have posted on this before, they're actually some form of Commie (I suspect most are Maoists) who are pretending to be anarchists because who wants to be outed as a commie? I mean, that'll really float the Cheeto's boat: "Mob of Commies Attempt to Burn Down Federal Courthouse in Portland".

So, Mr. Kristof, your investigative reporting stopped at "Not Anarchist" --- a political category which extends to basically every wayport along the entire political spectrum. That'll clear things up.

Birkel said...

I agree with sunsong in that it was/is good to fight the Democratics who were/are trying to oppress people.
True in 1861.
True in 1963.
True in 2020z

Gk1 said...

What is too funny is liberals keep pretending we don't click on youtube or tweet feeds to see all of the violence going on. Its from numerous angles and every which way since the rioters are so proud of their work they are uploading it in real time.

Do they think it's still the 1960's and we have to rely on the newspapers, Big 3 networks and the evening news to find out what's going on? What is sadder than a 'Gatekeeper' being ignored as people walk through fences that have long since fallen?

I know liberals appalled and alarmed by the mob. They aren't fooling anyone, not even an old fool like Kristof, head pizza taster, for the North Korean regime.

I Callahan said...

We do have the right to peaceably assemble, after all. All you "Live Free or Die" types are awfully quick to condemn people who actually exercise their constitutional right to protest, to the point of wishing for them to be beaten up and stomped down by government agents.

Now do Covid lockdowns.

rhhardin said...

The Trump yard sign count so far, 5 Trump 0 Biden.
Latest pic

The important thing to note is that the Trump supporters run their vegetable business on the honor system.

The opposite of Black Lives Matter.

Jersey Fled said...

Kristoff couldn't find his ass with both hands

bagoh20 said...

You know when they stopped being radical left wing and anarchist? As soon as the Right (especially Trump) started calling them such. You could watch the transition into new camouflage in real time if you followed sources actually on the ground. I saw them in early riots proudly proclaiming who they were. Maybe they were lying then, or maybe they are now, but it's amazing to me how some people are so quick to fall for the slowest of head fakes from people who wore masks for months and years before there was a Covid now pretending not to be who they are. Imagine that. Our host, bless her heart, is not faring so well under the pressure of new challenges. Political tactics may be too cutthroat for her, some of them organic and some carefully planned.

Clayton Hennesey said...

Argumentum ad futurum:

Q: What is best in life?

A: To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women.

Dude1394 said...

And we are going to get reality from the NYTimes? Not bloody likely.

Dude1394 said...

All found in broad daylight I am sure. What a joke of a “newspaper”.

Paul said...

Hey Kristof.. Feds just arrested some of those 'Anarchist'... look under the title of 'arsonist' and 'thief'. They were the so-called 'peaceful' protesters who burned down buildings and stole stuff.

mikee said...

Now, Althouse, find out what Maureen Dowd and David French think of what Kristof wrote!
Let the circle be unbroken, by and by, Lord, by and by!

Ken B said...

“Hi, I am from the New York Times. Are you committing a violent felony?”

eric said...

He would prefer the most serious injuries happened to the police.

Iman said...

These NYT s-heels don’t embarrass easy.

bagoh20 said...

As soon as the court issued protection for media, some of them became reporters overnight too. Amazing trickery, beyond what anyone could imagine.

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

This dispute is purely semantic.

Rioters is the best word for those who are rioting. Some may call themselves Anarchists, or Marxists, communists, Anarcho-socialists, Lacto-Ovo Defenestrationists... They may belong to BLM, The Socialist Party, The Campfire Girls — who gives a fuck? We’ll never get any grasp on the political leanings or affiliations of the majority of this group of mostly anonymous, masked criminals, or a straight answer from any of them.

Trump called them anarchists because he associates unrest and rioting with anarchy, and many of the rioters are anarchists, but most will never say so, at least not anymore. It’s just a game of Orange Man Wrong.

MayBee said...

I wonder how he knows what injuries the feds are suffering as he does the comparing.

I also love the idea that a radiologist can't be an anarchist or part of Antifa. Not saying he is, but I'm assuming. you can be both.

Big Mike said...

That doctor, and Kristof, might want to look at this cartoon

MayBee said...

At least he does say, ok sure anarchists and Antifa are part of the 'weave'.

Big Mike said...

We do have the right to peaceably assemble, after all. All you "Live Free or Die" types are awfully quick to condemn people who actually exercise their constitutional right to protest

@Cookie, the right is "peaceably to assemble" because the founders did not want to split their infinitives. But there is nothing peaceable about the riots in Portland.

Jason said...

Cookie: We do have the right to peaceably assemble, after all.

That word "peaceably." WHY DO YOU THINK THEY PUT IT THERE, YOU F***ING IMBICILE?

PubliusFlavius said...

Indeed Clayton

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oo9buo9Mtos

Yancey Ward said...

Kristof couldn't find his ass with a map, a GPS tracker, and both hands.

PJ said...

Shows the problem of trying to prove a negative.

Actually, our man Kristof handily disproved the negative in question, with his first person “Sure there are anarchists and Antifa activists.” That’s just not what he and his editors want readers to be thinking about.

DeepRunner said...

NYT Opinionist Nicholas Kristof said:
"[W]hile there’s violence from both sides, what I’ve seen firsthand is that the most violent behavior overwhelmingly comes from the federal agents, and indeed the most serious injuries have been suffered by protesters."

Uh-huh. I suppose TDS Nick was fine with The Drone Wars. In journalism, especially on TV, there is something called "source credibility." Used most often to lend increased believability to a story, such as when a reporter is "on the scene." Problem is, in this case, you have to consider the source to determine what credibility you give his story. It is, after all, the first draft of his story, not history.

Not Sure said...

'Fed Goons Out of PDX' — that seemed a bit geeky for anarchists

If crack investigative reporter Nick Kristof had tried using an internet search engine he'd have discovered that the URL for Portland State University's homepage is www.pdx.edu. But perhaps no true Portland-encamped anarchist would have any reason to know that.

Or perhaps Nicky K. is taking care not to get cancelled.

Chris N said...

For me, in editorial meetings, sitting around a lot of people, some of whom are essentially morons, couldn't be worth it. Same with seeing many bad ideas and narrow groupthink up close,

Is it the Prestige? Clinging to a dream? The perception of prestige\duty? The paycheck?

Bubbles are powerful.

Am I a moron?

Chris N said...

Also, I used to play music with Charlie Manson. Crunchy, wholesome music.

Prophetic, powerful music.

Mostly peaceful music.

You, sir, are no Charlie Manson.

doctrev said...

I actually showed up really early just to see if the first comment made fun of Professor Althouse. It took until the second comment. The volume and intensity of the ridicule is so intense that I am forced towards the opposite approach, and commend the proprietors for not permanently abolishing their comment section, much less locking this post. At this point, Ann Althouse is far more qualified to govern than just about anyone to the left of Mike Pence, including Fox News and the lugenpresse generally. Bravo.

wendybar said...

Just close your eyes and go back to sleep Kristof ....

wendybar said...

bagoh20 said...
I've been on the streets of America for 60 years, and I never saw a racist cop who wanted to murder a black man, so there you go.

Me neither....So I guess all this "Black Lives Matter" is a lie too??

Kevin said...

Shows the problem of trying to prove a negative.

Journalists aren’t supposed to be trying to prove anything.

wendybar said...

"https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/07/are_democrats_beginning_to_worry_that_the_riots_are_hurting_them.html"

wendybar said...

From the article I posted above.... read it and weep Ann....
"By the time the left is done with reframing the riots, the only people who will have acted over the past few weeks will have been black-hating whites. Or perhaps Dave Chappelle’s black white supremacist will have been behind it all."

tim in vermont said...

and indeed the most serious injuries have been suffered by protesters."

I wonder if he considers being permanently blinded a “serious injury”? I held out hope for a long time that the NYT remained a serious newspaper, even if it was a bit biased, but Russia and then the Russia coverup, AKA impeachment, and their reporting on it convinced me that it was morally wrong to keep sending them money every month. Democracy doesn’t work without an informed electorate, so the billionaires simply bought the means of information for their own ends.

Breitbart’s summaries of NYT articles are sufficient, in my opinion. I used to say I was buying it for the book reviews, but they are just political examinations of books and writers anymore.

tim in vermont said...

Robert Cook, I have been looking for an answer to this question: “How does throwing firebombs and IEDs into a Federal Courthouse differ from firing on Fort Sumpter?"

tim in vermont said...

" instead of to only those who shared their papers' traditionally partisan viewpoint(s).”

Cook has no problem with an oligarchy he supports owning all of the newspapers and maintaining a unified narrative that supports the interests of billionaires, unfettered free trade, large scale import of indentured servants... err, I mean H1-B visa holders and other labor to suppress wages increasing income inequality. Even Kruggers had to admit that was how it worked out. But Cook blindly marches in lockstep with them because they feed his hate for Americans who are not like him as a kind of opiate to blind him to what they are really doing. Divide and conquer is as old as probably the first war because people who fancy themselves intelligent are really ruled by their base emotions.

Nichevo said...

Our host, bless her heart, is not faring so well under the pressure of new challenges. Political tactics may be too cutthroat for her, some of them organic and some carefully planned.


Bagoh20, sounds like Garbage Howie leering at ordinary people here and gloating that they are no match for and will be swiftly overtaken, devoured by, the feral masses of urban youths, To Whom Tomorrow Belongs.

I don't think the feral youths are doing so hot, what with shooting themselves and each other, and getting popped by the drivers they start drawing on and shooting at first, but it gave Hateful Howie a venue for spitting his misanthropic venom.

I just wonder whether the self-proclaimed ex-marine thinks that he is frightening the Althouses of America into submission, or contributing to their die-off because they are in the way of his Radiant Future.

rhhardin said...

trying to prove a negative

Prove the contrapositive.

tim in vermont said...

You cops do your fucking jobs, do your jobs.... - BLM agitator being driven out of Springfield, OR by protestors who wanted their demonstrations to remain peaceful.

https://twitter.com/stillgray/status/1288703574420021249

Marcus Bressler said...

doctrev said...
I actually showed up really early just to see if the first comment made fun of Professor Althouse. It took until the second comment. The volume and intensity of the ridicule is so intense that I am forced towards the opposite approach, and commend the proprietors for not permanently abolishing their comment section, much less locking this post. At this point, Ann Althouse is far more qualified to govern than just about anyone to the left of Mike Pence, including Fox News and the lugenpresse generally. Bravo.

It is amazing what someone will say to get an approving nod from pussy.

THEOLDMAN

mikee said...

Next, report what Maureen Dowd and David French think of this Kristof column!
Let the circle be unbroken, by and by Lord, by and by!

tim in vermont said...

I guess my final judgement on the NYT is that disinformation should be free.

I suppose that cult leaders have taught us that if you want somebody to really buy into your claptrap, you have to make them pay for it, as it sort of makes the mark think of themselves as kind of a co-conspirator and so more likely to defend it, (your claptrap.)

Amadeus 48 said...

Weinstein and Heying on their podcast have an interesting preliminary discussion of verificationism and falsificationism with respect to the perceptions and reporting on of the Portland protests. They say, based on observation, that much of the reporting in publications that one subscribes to is not true (Harper's, NYT, etc.). It runs both ways--Portland is not in flames, and the confusion and violence is mostly limited to about two blocks around the federal courthouse, but there is a predictable daily progression from protest to arson and violence.

Their podcast suggests that Althouse's quest for in depth investigative reports on the sources of violence is futile. The media are deeply dug into an exercise in verificationism that the Trump administration is over-reacting to peaceful protests. They examine the evidence.

It is well worth your time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-U95sRfCKU

Ron Winkleheimer said...

Not all soldiers are combat troops; many (MOST) are support echelons
Sounds like the same is true in Portland


Rule of thumb is 10 support people for each combat troop.

Temujin said...

I'd prefer to deal with the substance of an article and not dive straight into ad hominem attacks, but this is too embarrassing. Even for the Walter Duranty-bred New York Times reporters. Nicholas Kristof has managed to continually show himself to be either a very naive and stupid man, or simply a propagandist- for years. This is not new. But it is a new level of embarrassingly bad agitprop.

I'm glad the East Coast paper of record sent one of their finest to do some digging to see if the Yeti exists. But he could have flown into Portland on any weekend over the past 3 years and watched as Antifa thugs pulled people out of their cars, commandeered downtown street corners, and beat up anybody who was taking photos of them. (I wonder if Nicholas or anyone at the Duranty Times has interviewed Andy Ngo?).

This is riduculous premise for an article from a ridiculous paper that has been obfuscating the truth since 1933. It's what they do best.

tim in vermont said...

“If there is violence, it is caused by Antifa”

Contrapositive: “If there is no Antifa, there is no violence”

Sort of misses the point, since it doesn’t prove that Antifa isn’t causing violence, and perhaps 90% of it or more.

There are only two ways to prove a negative, by a logical proof, which in this case is impossible for anybody short of God Himself who could work it out from initial conditions at the Big Bang. Or by exhaustion, which our disinformationist didn’t even attempt. All we need to disprove it is a counterexample, and given that there is a video of one of the rioters throwing an IED into the courthouse building, Kristoff is wrong.

https://twitter.com/stillgray/status/1288259478031175680

But if a tree falls in the forest, and the New York Times didn’t cover it, did it really happen?

Remember when they were telling us that Jihad was a misunderstood and only referred to a spiritual struggle? For that matter, remember how the NYT covered Stalin? “If you want to make an omelette, you have to break some eggs.” But then again, everybody has to die of something, I am often reminded of here. So maybe that’s not the most convincing example to use in these pages.

Johnathan Birks said...

Insert Leslie Nielsen "please disperse" meme here

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

There are always Feds in a federal court house. They were there before the riots. They’ll be there after. Cry bullies who think they can order the Feds out of “their” city are delusional and dangerous and should be treated like any rambling idiot blocking a street. Asking for impossibilities is another prog “gotcha” they think is clever when it actually shows how useless negotiating with leftists is.

Jalanl said...

There is a scene in Schlindler's list set in Auschwitz. One woman is relating a story she heard of what is going on at the other side of the camp. "They cut your hair off... take your clothes and give you soap and you go into a shower... then they use gas to kill you..." The other women tell her to stop telling stories - "I don't believe it" etc. etc. One Woman says "Why would they kill their workforce? It doesn't make sense, we are very important to them."

There are fools, and then there are pedantic fools who will march into the shower and still not believe even as the Zyklon B washes over them.

Josephbleau said...

“If there is violence, it is caused by Antifa”

Contrapositive: “If there is no Antifa, there is no violence”

Actually the contrapositive would be,
If it is not caused by antifa, there is no violence. A different thing.

The Tangerine Tornado said...

“leapt into the fray”

That “fray” is the chaos and anarchy the mob is causing. Do you think the inanimate object they are attacking provoked them? I don’t need someone to “admit” they are anarchists to know there are anarchists. My eyes can see the anarchy and know it’s caused by anarchists in the same way I can see a painting and know it was caused by a painter.

This whole exercise of “finding the anarchists” by looking for someone wearing a t-shirt that’s says “embrace the anarchy” is a tired joke and not informative in the slightest. Par for the course with Kristof.

daskol said...

It's all well and good to hear from respected columnist Nick Kristoff, but the burning question is what does Somaly Mam say about the protests.

Gospace said...

tim in vermont said...
Robert Cook, I have been looking for an answer to this question: “How does throwing firebombs and IEDs into a Federal Courthouse differ from firing on Fort Sumpter?"


The attacks on the federal buildings today so far do not carry an official seal of state approval and no state has declared themselves independent of the union.

South Carolina seceded 20 December 1860. The attack on Fort Sumter was on 12 April 1861. It was carried out by official state militia. The first artillery shots of the war were carried out by cadets from The Citadel, the state military college of South Carolina.

The violence is similar, the difference is who is carrying it out. Sort of guerrilla warfare versus open warfare. Under generally accepted rules of war, from Civil War times to today embodied in treaties, the attack on Fort Sumter was a legitimate act of war carried out by legitimate forces. The attacks on federal buildings are currently being treated under civil law. If there is a declaration that rebellion is occurring, the status of attackers will change to unlawful combatants and they can be summarily executed after a short but fair court martial.

hombre said...

Nicholas Kristof channels Walter Duranty and Baghdad Bob simultaneously. This is not difficult for an NYT opinion columnist.

Anybody who seeks information, not propaganda, has seen dozens of videos of the riots. We prefer to believe our lying eyes, not Kristof or his fish wrapper. Otherwise, we would be Progressive Democrats.

BTW, anyone who believes a physician cannot be a seditionist isn’t following the hydroxychloroquine “controversy.”

PM said...

Blacks in Oakland see what's going on. Eyewitness reporting from SF Chron Columnist Justin Phillips. You're welcome, Nicky.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/living/article/Who-s-actually-causing-damage-at-anti-police-15443277.php

tim in vermont said...

I don’t know what it will take for it to click with you that the New York Times is in on whatever is going on in Portland. It sounds too crazy to be true, but come up with a better explanation for the facts we have. Occam’s Razor points to active disinformation from that source.

hombre said...

The correct term is “seditionists.” Trump needs to use it and to apply it to Democrat politicians, their mediaswine and the rioters.

Bilwick said...

In the Cold War they were the Communists' Useful Idiots. Then they became the Islamofascists' Useful Idiots. Now, with the rioting, looting and arson . . . guess what?

tim in vermont said...

Not to mention that I am always getting emails from the NYT, even after canceling my subscription, that they are telling me “everything I need to know.” Meaning whatever disinformation they saw fit to print today.

RigelDog said...

NYT Opinionist Nicholas Kristof said:
"[W]hile there’s violence from both sides, what I’ve seen firsthand is that the most violent behavior overwhelmingly comes from the federal agents, and indeed the most serious injuries have been suffered by protesters."

Don't start none, won't be none.

Clyde said...

A Wolf in Wolf’s clothing.

hstad said...

WOW - just WOW! What an insulting report from another shill and excuse of a reporter-Kristof.
As I mentioned earlier, the entire NY Times appartus is in full bore push to get Trump out of office. Consequently, we will not receive news of consequence from this 'fraud newspaper'.

Jim at said...

I'd rather all fed troops leave Portland and let them burn everything to the ground, the town along with the courthouse.

Exactly. Seattle, too. And every other entity whose government either supports or ignores the leftwing domestic terrorists destroying their cities.

Let it burn.

MartyB said...

So he seems to be saying that since it's not the "anarchists and antifa activists" attacking the Federal courthouse, it must be the "radiologists and electricians, lawyers and mechanics."

Congratulations on the junior high level analysis from the NYT!

Big Mike said...

Meanwhile, up in Seattle ...

“Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan and Police Chief Carmen Best held a press conference Wednesday to announce an investigation was being launched into the riots which took place in the city over the weekend. One aspect of the weekend’s events the Police Chief discussed was a van which was seen following a small group of violent rioters. Witnesses saw people taking weapons out of the van and police later seized it and found it was full of homemade weapons and armor.”

ccscientist said...

Robert Cook maintains that people have the right to peacefully assemble and protest. Of course they do. As soon as they start throwing bricks it is no longer peaceful protest.

The white young men and women rioting believe they are revolutionaries against oppression--what oppression? Have they ever been oppressed personally? Please give examples. It is a delusion.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

Kristol seems to be saying there are some fine people on both sides.

What horseshit. They're not all peaceful, but *most* of them aren't violent.

Try to imagine anything remotely like this being said about a non-Left protest. Fuck, the entirely peaceful Tea Party rallies were smeared as violent and racist, despite literally no evidence for either.

Remember when the recently sainted John Lewis said Tea Party people spit on him and shouted racial slurs at him in a crowd, and then no one could find any evidence that what he claimed happened? I can't recall a sensitive, nuanced portrayal of the protesters back then.

But nice centrist people (kind, empathetic people like Professor Althouse) were certain those Tea Party people were UGLY.

tim in vermont said...

"what I’ve seen firsthand”

What a weasel phrase. You could throw an IED through that loophole, or even blind a Federal agent.

Bunkypotatohead said...

There's little point to arguing about this. Like Scott Adams' 2 movies on 1 screen, the mob supporters see peaceful protest while the rest of us see rioting anarchists.
So get the federal marshalls out of there. Fire the courthouse employees, and let the mob burn it down. Deduct the cost of the damage from any federal aid that Portland receives, and let the mob move on to mayor Wheelers house.

Mea Sententia said...

I've seen plenty of video of the federal officers on guard around the Portland courthouse, and I've been impressed with how restrained they are. They seem to endure far more abuse than they dish out themselves. If it is true, as Kristof claims, that the rioters/protesters are getting the worst of it, then why haven't I seen the video evidence? Everyone is holding up a phone and taking video of what is going on.