First Lady Melania Trump Announces Plans to Restore and Enhance the White House Rose Garden
The White House: Issued on: July 27, 2020
First Lady Melania Trump is pleased to announce a significant renewal of the White House Rose Garden this summer.
The restoration of this historic garden is a much-anticipated project meant to improve one of the most iconic locations on the White House grounds. The final design plan is the result of a collaboration by two premier landscape architecture firms, Perry Guillot, Inc and Oehme, van Sweden & Associates/OvS.
The plan will provide a renewal of the design first implemented by Rachel Lambert “Bunny” Mellon during the Kennedy Administration, which has been the guiding blueprint for the Rose Garden since that installation in 1962. Decades of use and necessary changes made to support the modern presidency have taken a toll on the garden and have made it more difficult to appreciate the elegant symmetry of the Mellon plan.
The refreshment of the Rose Garden will return it to its original ‘62 footprint and help ensure it will thrive with improved infrastructure, better drainage, and a healthier environment for plantings that reduce the risk of leaf blight. In addition, the plans include improved Americans with Disabilities Act accessibility, utilities, and support for audiovisual and broadcasting needs that will allow for the continued enjoyment of the garden’s natural beauty and storied history.
“The very act of planting a garden involves hard work and hope in the possibility of a bright future,” said First Lady Melania Trump. “Preserving the history and beauty of the White House and its grounds is a testament to our nation’s commitment to the care of this landscape and our dedication to American ideals, safeguarding them for our children and their children for generations to come.”
The plan for renewal went through the approval process of the Committee for the Preservation of the White House (CPWH) and aligned with the recommendations of their sub-committee, Committee for the Preservation of the White House Garden (CPWHG). As the honorary chairwoman of CPWH, the First Lady established CPWHG to ensure the standards of the Rose Garden are maintained and ensure scholarship and research went into its renewal. The project is supported by the National Park Service, who has cared for the White House and its grounds since 1933, and funded with private donations.
If you haven’t seen this story yet by Paul Sperry at it is worth your time.
I’m going to return to the subject of Igor Danchenko a few times in the days ahead, but here I want to address just some of the issues that jumped out at me from Sperry’s story, and the story in the New York Times on Saturday claiming that Danchenko was promised confidentiality by the FBI when he agreed to be interviewed about his work for Steele in the weeks following the publication of the Steele Dossier by Buzzfeed in early January 2017.
Let’s begin with the fact that Danchenko did not just walk into an FBI building, show his driver’s license and say “I’m Igor Danchenko. I was Christopher Steele’s primary source on his Steele Dossier memos about President Trump. I’d like to talk with someone about what I said to Mr. Steele.”
The ” documenting the 3-day interview is unclear, and the press reporting has been inconsistent on whether the FBI made a possible ID on Steele’s “Primary Subsource” (PSS) identity and sought out Danchenko, or Danchenko contacted the FBI when the Dossier was made public by Buzzfeed and Danchenko realized exactly how much Steele had used from the information Danchenko had given him.
It says that the FBI had tentatively identified the PSS as “Person 1” — who is not named in the IG Report — as early as October 2016, and that Person 1 was known to the FBI and that the FBI had an open investigation on Person 1.
Later in the IG Report, it covers the FBI’s January interview with the PSS, which is reflected in the 57-page EC, but the IG Report never confirms that the PSS interviewed was “Person 1” as previously suspected by the FBI. The Report does state that Steele never gave the FBI the identity of his PSS. I have not re-read every word of the IG Report in search of whether the IG confirmed “Person 1” was, in fact, the PSS. If that is true, then the FBI waited a long time — from October to January — to put some pressure on the PSS to submit to an interview. But that assumes that it was the FBI who went to Danchenko, and not the other way around.
What we do know from the IG Report — Footnote 336 — is that David Laufman, Chief of the Export Control Section of the National Security Division of DOJ, told the IG that he negotiated the terms of the Danchenko interview with Danchenko’s attorney.
Laufman told us that he negotiated with the Primary Sub-source’s counsel to facilitate the FBI’s interview and sought to “build a cooperative relationship that could … result in the Bureau’s being in a position to assess the validity of information in the [Steele election reporting] resulting from [the Primary Sub-source’s] activities or the collection of [his/her] sub-subsources. So I saw my role as a broker to get that relationship consolidated .” Laufman said that the portion of the interview he attended established the line of communication with the Primary Sub-source and, as he recalled, generally covered the facts in a “superficial” way. He said that after the completion of the interview, he never saw the FBI’s written summary of the interview.
The IG Report says that Laufman attended only the first day of the 3-day interview and that one of his deputies attended days 2 and 3. Note that Laufman told the IG he never saw the 57 page EC that documented the interview. In my experience that would not be unusual. EC’s are normally internal FBI documents and do not get circulated outside the Bureau. Both Laufman and his deputy were present and able to take notes for themselves. I would be most curious to know — one hasn’t surfaced yet — if either of them prepared a “memo to file” or something similar reflecting what Danchenko said. I would not have done so had I been there — that would be creating another document possibly subject to discovery — though it would likely be covered by a privilege. I would have probably kept handwritten notes, and held onto those for later use if needed.
What is also curious about Laufman’s presence is “Why him?” The reliability of PSS and verification of his information was a key issue in the ongoing Carter Page FISA that was supervised and approved by the Officer of Intelligence of the National Security Division. Why wasn’t it the OI Chief who attended the meeting? Was it to contain the information? Laufman is a partisan Democrat loyalist — he’s made that clear since he left government. That is a question Mary McCord should answer since she was the Acting Assistant Attorney General for the National Security Division at the time, and it would have been her decision — assuming she made it — to have Laufman interact with Danchenko’s attorney, and then attend the FBI interview.
So Laufman’s presence for the first day of the interview was not a coincidence, and it wasn’t because the FBI called him and said “Steele’s PSS is going to be interviewed. Do you want to be present?”
Further, a “use immunity” agreement doesn’t just lay around on a desk somewhere waiting for someone to fill in the blanks, date, and sign it. These documents have various titles, and take various forms and have varying content — “proffer letter” is another common phrase used in describing them. The EC references that a “proffer letter” is attached.
When I first started with DOJ in 1992, each AUSA had their own version of what was then called a “Queen for a Day” letter. I had the “good fortune” — if you want to call it that — to make use of one in my very first case on my very first day, when a subject of an investigation contacted DEA and said he wanted to be interviewed on a matter I was assigned to assist a more senior prosecutor with as part of my training. The senior AUSA told me to draft a “Queen for a Day” letter to be signed at the start of the interview. I didn’t let on that I had no idea what he was talking about, went back to my office and started looking at the DOJ policy manual trying to find out what a “Queen for a Day” letter was. After a couple of hours with no luck, and with the time for the interview fast approaching, the senior AUSA asked if I had the letter ready and I had to confess I had no idea what he was talking about. He had a good laugh and said “It’s a “use immunity” agreement that promises we won’t use anything he says during the interview against him in a trial if we end up in one.” He pulled out a sample from another case file, told me to retype it on my own computer and save it as a form since I’d be needing it regularly in the years ahead. He was right.
Only DOJ attorneys can grant “use immunity.” Law enforcement agents like FBI Special Agents are not allowed to do so. The reason is simply to centralize knowledge of that kind of arrangement with the prosecutor, and not make the granting of such immunity a part of normal “investigative” tactics employed by agents to gather information which prosecutors might not be aware of when building a case. If the case agent thinks it would be useful in a particular situation with a particular person to be interviewed, then he/she brings it to the prosecutor’s attention and they make the decision. The current format used by DOJ has become more standardized. It is almost always in the form of a letter. The content provides that the person has agreed to answer questions from federal law enforcement, with or without the presence of an attorney. The person understands he can be prosecuted for making false statements during the interview if he is not truthful in his responses. However, the answers given during the interview will not be used as “direct evidence” against the person in any future prosecution that might arise. Information learned by the government as a result of the answers given during the interview may be used in any later prosecution. Answering questions under the format does not make the person being interviewed an “informant” or “cooperating witness.” The person acknowledges they have consulted with an attorney on the terms and conditions of the agreement, and the attorney has explained to them all their rights. They are not under arrest, and they can end the interview and depart at any time. By remaining and answering questions, the person is acknowledging that they are doing so voluntarily.
You only go down the road of giving “use immunity” if two conditions are met. First, the person you are giving “use immunity” to has substantial information that will advance the investigation in a meaningful way. Second, the information the person has might also tend to implicate that person himself in criminal conduct of others he is going to provide information about.L
Laufman would have answered those questions before agreeing to give Danchenko “use immunity” by having the attorney make a “proffer” about what it is Danchenko would say on certain subjects if asked. The Steele memos had been public for nearly 3 weeks at the time of the FBI interview with Danchenko. He said in the interview that he had never seen the Steele memos prior to their publication, so it was only at that point that he knew what Steele had attributed to him and his sources.
Before going into the interview, Danchenko’s attorney would have gone over each memo with him, line by line, and found out from Danchenko what was accurately attributed to Danchenko, what was inaccurately attributed, and what was a mix of the two. Regarding inaccuracies, Danchenko’s attorney would have gotten accurate information from him — or a statement from him that he didn’t know anything about the subject.
With that information in hand, Danchencko’s attorney would have been in a position to negotiate a “use immunity” agreement with Laufman. He would have “proffered” to Laufman what Danchenko would say about a variety of matters set forth by Steele in his memos, which would have established why interviewing Danchenko could advance the investigation. Laufman would then have conferred with the FBI CH team about the value of Danchenko’s information as described by his attorney and reached a decision on how to proceed with the interview.
By the end of January 2017, the CH investigation had been ongoing for 6 months. The Carter Page FISA had just been reauthorized, and for more than 3 months the FBI had been receiving information on Page’s history with the Trump campaign and his contacts with Russians. At this point in time, the Bureau’s POV should have been one of deep suspicion about what Steele attributed to his PSS in the memos because we know now that the investigation had not turned up anything substantial or consistent with the suspicions that led to the opening of Crossfire Hurricane or justified the Page FISA warrant.
But the IG Report and the EC of the interview both show that wasn’t the case. Instead, the interview of Danchenko was still looked upon first and foremost as an opportunity to validate all the allegations made about Trump and Trump campaign officials as they were detailed in the Steele memos.
Laufman said it himself – his role was to develop a “cooperative relationship” with the PSS. What Laufman and the CH team members who participated really imagined was that the PSS would become a “Cooperating Human Source” — cutting out Steele — and he would bring to them directly evidence about Pres. Trump from inside Russia through his network of sources.
As the IG Report notes — and has been largely ignored in the reporting on the 53-page EC — Danchenko was interviewed in March and June 2017, long after his initial interview revealed the vacuous and specious nature of the information he had given to Steele. Establishing that continuing relationship is what led to those later interviews.
Now that everyone is familiar with how the Mueller Special Counsel Team took over Main Justice (DOJ and DOJ-NSD) in May 2017, let’s take a look at a critical ten days.
On July 12, 2018, at the apex of the Mueller probe, the DOJ-NSD dispatched a demonstrably manipulative letter to the FISA court informing the FISC that the predicate for the FISA application was still valid. {Go Deep} Nine days later, July 21, 2018, the special counsel released the Carter Page FISA application to fill FOIA requests.
The background context is important. House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte was asking Presiding Judge Rosemary Collyer for a copy of the FISA application on file in the FISC. Collyer responded saying both Goodlatte and Nunes (Legislative Branch) needed to exhaust all efforts to retrieve from the DOJ (Executive Branch). Congress was questioning the details of the FISA. Unprompted, and needing to keep prop-up the FISA application the special counsel (DOJ-NSD) responded to the FISC saying the predicate was still valid.
Obviously the background of how the FISA application was attained was critical to the special counsel maintaining the validity of their purpose. Hence, despite 18 months of direct FBI evidence that contradicted the primary underpinning document, the Steele Dossier, the special counsel lied to the FISC saying the originating predicate was valid.
The July 12, 2018, letter only surfaced in April 2020 after the FISC reviewed the December 9, 2019, IG report which completely contradicted the July 12, 2018, claims. The FISC responded to the Bill Barr DOJ in 2020 by demanding the 2018 letter be given to congressional oversight via Senator Lindsey Graham. The DOJ submitted the 2018 document and Senator Graham released the letter to the public.
Nine days later, July 21st 2018, the special counsel then released the FISA application to the public under the guise of a FOIA fulfillment. However, what almost everyone missed was that the actual FISA application itself was a very specific version released.
The special counsel released a very specific version of the FISA application. The first two components of the FISA release were from a copy dated March 17, 2017, that was used in an FBI leak investigation. {Go Deep} The special counsel used this version and then added the April 2017 and June 2017 renewals to complete the set.
Take a look at the last page of the first FISA application that was released and there is a much bigger story visible. This page tells us a great deal:
The FISC stamp of 3/17/17 tells us that Robert Mueller’s team released a document that was proprietary to the Washington Field Office FBI, Supervisory Special Agent, Brian Dugan. {Go Deep} FBI Agent Dugan calls this “an FBI equity” in his December 14, 2018, statement under penalty of perjury. The special counsel is releasing Dugan’s evidence.
This release tells us that SSA Brian Dugan turned over his investigative file to the special counsel at the conclusion of his leak investigation; likely because the Mueller probe held primary investigative authority over anything related to Trump-Russia, and the FISA application was a central component to the Mueller probe.
Quite simply: if agent Dugan had not turned over his investigative file; and if the special counsel did not take ownership of his investigative file; then the special counsel would not have this specific copy to release. The DOJ would have, instead, been releasing their own copy of the FISA application from the DOJ-National Security Division.
The simple fact that Mueller released this March 17th stamped version for a FOIA fulfillment meant the special counsel had received Dugan’s investigative file. Hopefully everyone can see that.
When the special counsel released the Dugan copy on July 21st 2018 they redacted the dates. Despite everyone knowing what the dates were from both Senator Ron Johnson and Senator Chuck Grassley releases, the special counsel redacted the dates.
The special counsel redacted the dates because Brian Dugan had changed them in order to track leaks to the media. The unredacted Dugan copy would show origination dates in conflict with actual. The special counsel released the Dugan copy and removed the risk by redacting the dates.
This is one example of how the Special Counsel team controlled, removed and released information that was damaging to their own corrupt intentions. There are many more.
The special counsel needed to remove the evidence that SSCI Security Director James Wolfe leaked the unredacted FISA application to journalist Ali Watkins on March 17, 2017.
By the time Brian Dugan’s investigative file was scrubbed by the Mueller team, it was returned to USAO Jessie Liu with the evidence of the Wolfe FISA leak removed.
This is why the Wolfe grand jury never heard the evidence of “WHAT” James Wolfe released; and this explains why he was only indicted on lying three times to FBI investigators.
On the last sentences (paragraph four); on the last page; on the last court document that SSA Dugan would write; FBI Agent Brian Dugan swore under penalty of perjury that James Wolfe leaked the FISA application….
France's government has announced new environmental measures, including a ban on heated terraces for cafes and bars.
Ecology Minister Barbara Pompili said outside heating or air conditioning was an "ecological aberration".
The ban will not come into force until after the winter as restaurants have been hard hit by Covid-19, she added.
All heated or air-conditioned buildings open to the public will also have to keep their doors closed to avoid wasting energy.
Ms Pompili told reporters it was wrong for shops to "air-condition
the streets" in summer by keeping their doors open just to spare
customers from having to open them.
"Neither should terraces be heated in winter so people can feel warm as they drink coffee," she said.
Trade groups say more than 75% of restaurants and cafes in the Paris area have a heated terrace.
Ms Pompili said officials would talks to owners about ways of implementing measure after the winter.
She
was appointed by new Prime Minister Jean Castex, who has pledged €20m
($23m; £18.2m) for climate-related investment, as part of a €100m
stimulus plan aimed at helping the economy recover from the coronavirus
pandemic.
The measures announced by Ms Pompili also include the creation of two natural parks and a national nature reserve.
Many media outlets have steadfastly described the violent riots that have gripped cities across the country in recent months as “mostly peaceful protests.” What’s left out of this absurd description is the arson, assault, vandalism, and wanton destruction that people can view through social media or with their own eyes.
The Associated Press and ABC News manipulated the language even more this weekend when they described setting a federal courthouse on fire, vandalizing a police station, and assaulting of police officers as what happened when a “peaceful demonstration intensified.” Here is the Associated Press write-up:
OAKLAND, Ca. — Protesters in California set fire to a courthouse, damaged a police station and assaulted officers after a peaceful demonstration intensified late Saturday, Oakland police said.
Demonstrators broke windows, spray painted graffiti, shot fireworks and pointed lasers at officers, the Oakland department said on Twitter. Several tweets called for peace and asked organizers to “help us provide safe spaces and safe places for demonstrators.”
ABC News picked up this report and tweeted it out:
Dictionary.com defines “peaceful” as “free from war, strife, commotion, violence, or disorder; not argumentative, quarrelsome, or hostile.” Dictionary.com defines “intensify” as “to make more acute; strengthen or sharpen.”
For a “peaceful” protest to “intensify,” then, would mean that it somehow became even more peaceful. Few people would say that assaulting people, setting buildings on fire, pointing lasers at police officers, vandalizing a police station, or destroying property, suggest the intensification of peace.
The media have not explained why they have worked so hard to downplay or obscure the left-wing violence laying siege to cities across the country. However, it is the same approach being taken by Democrat leaders such as Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y. Asked about the left-wing violence in Portland, Nadler denied it was happening:
In the video above, Nadler says the evidence of wanton violence in Portland is a “myth” being spread only in “Washington, D.C.” As he says that, another video of that widespread violence is played.
The media and other Democratic activists seem to believe that if the truth of the violent sieges of cities is told, it will benefit Republican candidates in November. While their gamble with the truth may pay off electorally, it is at great cost to the republic, the citizens of those cities, and the public benefits that were once provided to the journalism industry.
Exactly Correct – Devin Nunes: “Robert Mueller Was An Avatar”
Representative Devin Nunes appears on Fox News with Maria Bartiromo to discuss the latest declassified releases in the corrupt DOJ operation against President Trump.
About midway through the interview the topic shifts to Robert Mueller. Nunes notes that Mueller was “an avatar”, a fraud brought in to give the public face of a special counsel. This is exactly correct. Mueller was present in name only, the resistance unit of 17 lawyers, 50 FBI agents & 40 staff members were running the entire DOJ for almost two years.
Democrats have fully pivoted on the nightly Portland riots. They’ve gone all-in on blaming the riots on President Trump thus allying themselves with the antifa and Black Lives Matter anarchist and communist mobs. Instead of black bloc balaclavas or masks, the politicians have donned the cloak of civil libertarianism. In doing so, they make a mockery of it.
Democrats, so far as I can find, have never denounced the violent mobs, though New York Governor Andrew Cuomo once wagged a finger at George Floyd rioters while simultaneously explaining that it wasn’t really their fault because “income inequality” led to violence. Indeed, the only remonstrance issued was over people burning down black-owned businesses – their “own house” as he put it, because burning your own stuff “never makes sense.” As denunciations go, it was a rambling nothing-burger. Atlanta’s mayor voiced similar disgust with the arsonists and looters.
In fact, mayors, governors, and prosecutors have fallen all over themselves to support the violent mobs in Seattle, New York, St. Louis, Washington, D.C., and, of course, Portland, often conflating the “mostly peaceful” protesters upset with the killing of George Floyd – remember him? – with the ones looting Louis Vuitton, tearing down statues of George Washington, and trying to burn down federal buildings.
Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan ceded a section of the fancy Capitol Hill neighborhood to the mob. She handed over a police precinct to the mob. Two murders, gunshot wounds, assaults, and rapes took place at her pet mob’s little “summer of love” squat. She’s never apologized.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey gave over a police precinct to the mob. Police officers inside thought they’d die that night and if they’d stayed they would have. When rioters weren’t boosting free stuff from the Target, looters and rioters were spectating the conflagration they’d started at the precinct with a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment. The mayor later asked President Trump for money to help rebuild it. Trump said hell no.
But this is an election year and time is short. The mobs are deployed to cause chaos and misdirection, as they were in Portland and elsewhere in the months leading up and after the 2016 presidential election. They are cracking heads and cold-cocking Trump rally-goers who dare bring a contra-narrative to one of their riots.
Far from denouncing the violent and destructive nightly arsons and assaults, Democrats embrace the riots to denounce President Trump. They point to the mobs of concerned citizens who have been impelled, catapulted from their spot at the tattoo parlor to join the mob in the streets because how-dare-Trump-send-police-to-defend-a-federal-building that the left is obsessed with bringing down.
It’s a real-time exercise in psy-ops. It’s gaslighting writ large. But they believe you’re dumb enough to believe it.
Instead, follow along on these ten big lies the Left wants you to believe about the Portland riots and learn something.
Lie 1: The Riots Are Committed by Mostly Peaceful Protesters
Everyone knows the riots are a disgraceful dumpster fire of venom and vinegar with green lasers and IEDs thrown at cops to give them that special something. Those of us covering the Portland Professional Protester™ scene for years have seen most of this behavior before.
Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler allowed the riots to go on in a section of downtown for six weeks before the Trump administration came in to protect its own buildings and roll up the bad guys attacking them.
Acting deputy secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Ken Cuccinelli, says bringing weapons, gas masks and shields are “preparations for violence. Peaceful protester? I don’t think so.”
Wheeler’s strategy, if you can call it that, of letting the rioters riot and ruin part of downtown, leaves Oregonians feeling unsafe, police outraged, and the rule of law in tatters. Now Wheeler says Trump’s defense of the federal buildings is somehow breaking the law. The entire Leftist monoculture has coalesced around this absurd assertion.
So certain is Wheeler that the rioters should be viewed as misunderstood arsonists and predators that the mayor/police commissioner took an armed five-person plainclothes police detail with him on his “listening session” photo op to show everyone how safe it was during a Portland antifa and Black Lives Matter street riot.
Wheeler may be a lot of things, but heroic isn’t one. He took a team of men with guns to protect him from the rowdy rioters.
Lie 2: Tear-Gassed Mayor Says It Was a Total Surprise
On his “listening” session at the riots last Wednesday night, Mayor Ted Wheeler stood at the fence line protecting the federal courthouse, which he’s now trying to remove because it’s in the way of a bike lane (side note: there’s only one group of people more beloved than antifa in Portland and that’s bicyclists).
As he stood there staring intently at the IED-pocked, scorched, and graffitied building, there was an “unprovoked” gassing of the protesters. Wheeler was overcome by the fumes, his COVID-19 mask not being enough to keep out the smell. He later pronounced that the feds had no provocation for gassing the crowds—that he had seen nothing which could possibly, remotely, ever, ever cause cops to shoot tear gas canisters.
As protest-watcher Andy Ngo pointed out, “the building had been set on fire and rioters were throwing explosives.”
It turns out that the mayor missed a few things—such as the bags of burning garbage, IEDs, assorted other fireworks, and green lasers being shot into the eyes of law enforcement. In fact, this Christian Broadcast Network reporter, who was standing near the mayor, says rioters were given several warnings to get out or they’d be pushed back with crowd-control devices – tear gas. The mayor knew this. The reporter from CBN called the mayor a “liar” for alleging that the federal police response was unprovoked. He thinks Wheeler did it for a photo op.
Lie 3: ‘Moms’ Bravely Leave Children’s Sides to Attend Riots
After Democrats issued the new talking points that federal cops were “Trump’s secret police,” women, some of them known antifa members, took off their black balaclavas to refashion themselves into “moms.” Somehow these individually acting, concerned mothers all knew to get a yellow shirt, riot helmet, and “hey, hey, ho, ho” chant to drive away those bad federal officers.
Ngo writes of these “moms,” “I recognize a lot of the so-called ‘moms’ as the same antifa women who dressed in black as recent as a couple days ago. They just put on a yellow shirt now for optics. Most of these people aren’t mothers & many don’t even identify as female. #PortlandRiots”
If you hadn’t figured it out yet, it’s Portland’s version of Pallywood. These are merely actors playing a role.
Lie 4: These Dads With Leaf Blowers Showed Up Out of Thin Air!
Then the “dads” showed up at the riots. Of course, to get “dads” to show up with leaf blowers, which you’ll come to learn are dead-useful at a riot, you must put out a casting call – and bring your gas masks and bring your leaf blower.
The casting calls for Portland’s Professional Protesters™ have been going on forever. This one’s from Occupy Portland that occurred in 2011-12.
A quick look at these grassroots “dads” on Twitter reveals they’ve been around – hold on a second – since July of 2020. Just in time for the riots!
The “Dads,” who look oddly like the rioters from the night before, came with the leaf blowers to blow back at federal officers all the CS or tear gas they’ve deployed, while their “comrades” – yes, they call them “comrades,” lobbed IEDs. Another set of dads were armed with umbrellas to keep the gas out of the faces of the rioters so they could continue to ready their munitions to throw at the federal building.
As you may have wondered, yes, Portland has a leaf blower ordinance ( Leaf Blower Regulations – 18.10.035) banning the use of them in the city after 7 p.m. But, Governor Kate Brown has COVID restrictions on large gatherings too. The duplicitous politicians have agreed that the law doesn’t apply to the Democrats’ pet protesters. Look for more shutdowns after Oregon experiences another spike in COVID cases in the next few weeks from the riots. They’ll cancel church, but not the riots.
Lie 5: Rioters Are Patriotic, Flag-Waving American Veterans!
You’ve heard the saying that dissent is patriotic and it is. Riots, however, are not protected speech. They necessarily conflict with other people’s rights to be left the hell alone and in peace to go about their lives.
People watching Portland’s antifa/Black Lives Matter riots have been appalled by the violence, lawbreaking and head-cracking. The stated goal of both antifa and Black Lives Matter is the destruction of the country of which the flag is a symbol. But now, the same people who spit on, poop on, stomp on, beat up people with, and set fire to American flags are recasting themselves as patriots.
That’s why all of a sudden you’ve seen rioters holding American flags.
These are people who want to burn down America. Because so many people know they want to burn down the country’s institutions, the Left has formulated another sub-group culled from Central Casting just for these riots.
You thought the Great White Way was closed for COVID? Welcome to Portland, with its white protesters cast for their newly announced production, the “Wall of Vets,” a collection of protesters who now call themselves military veterans. Some of them may be military vets. The idea is to show that rioting to bring down the country and serving to protect this country are totally the same thing. Totally.
“Team Joe” member, Jon Cooper, the “Draft Joe Biden for President 2016” finance chair and former chair of The Democratic Coalition, points to the veteran street theater as a moving event in a cheap attempt to whitewash antifa and BLM’s anti-Americanism.
If you see a media outlet or politico selling this Broadway production-pap, they’ve been had and you need to re-think your news sources.
Lie 6: Portland Antifa Says, Hey, It Ain’t Us Doing These Riots!
Of all the whoppers, Portland’s antifa is stating explicitly that they have nothing to do with the riots in their own city and, in fact, it must be the right-wing doing this.
“We’ve said this before, but to re-iterate: we are not organizing, leading, or otherwise behind the local protests. We are FULLY supportive, but defer to the leadership of the Black organizers who have dedicated themselves to fighting for Black liberation & against state violence.”
Antifa welcomes new rioters coming to town like a host city for a convention. You could argue that this is the Democratic Party’s in-person convention. As my Facebook Friend Kathleen Worman wrote in response to a contest of sortsI’m having to come up with clever names for the riots and rioters, the Oregon woman pronounced them “Demtifa.” Another friend dubs the riots as “Commie-Con.” True that.
Rose City Antifa writes in a tweet: “since we see a lot of new folks coming out to the local protests (welcome!), we’d like to remind everyone of the importance of good cybersecurity…”
A later Rose City Antifa tweet vowed: “we’ve never been more prepared to fight for what we believe in and what is right.”
Rose City Antifa is being sued by Andy Ngo for death threats and attacks and he’s asking for damages. They’ve recently been outed by James O’Keefe and Project Veritas and are most certainly under scrutiny by the feds. Consider their statement their official legal disclaimer, even as they help put together IEDs and source green lasers for rioters.
If they’re not outright organizing it with their Lisa Fithian-like trainers around the country, they’re in it.
Lie 7: Riot Groups Are Not Organized
The media and Leftists, but I repeat myself, often point to the fact that federal charging documents against rioters do not include the word “antifa.” They say it’s proof the group doesn’t exist as an organization.
As my points about the riotous “wall of ____” (insert moms, dads, vets) groups should point out, there is organization. On cue, protests to “support Portland” from Trump’s “secret police” are popping up in cities across America.
Lights! Camera! Action! Quick! “Get down to the Justice Center” for more mayhem.
Stories abound about how “you can help” the organized riots are ubiquitous. Besides bringing your leaf blower and wearing your yellow shirt, you can bring food and water.
Antifa even has its own food cart in downtown Portland. Now that the antifa hard cider hang out “Cider Riot!” is out of business, you can help out the organized “Riot Ribs” food cart to make food for hungry rioters. Oh, and they’d like your money to buy a mobile food truck to be called “Riot Kitchen” in a Seattle expansion.
Gee, I’m sensing a theme here.
Not organized? Getouttahere.
Lie 8: The City Isn’t Under ‘Siege’
Local and national press argue that only downtown Portlanders are inconvenienced by the riots – as if that’s somehow OK – and that the riots don’t affect anyone else.
The local Oregonian newspaper, whose reporters should know better, say the rest of downtown is just fine. Until it’s not.
Portlanders know that mobs historically migrate from downtown to the northwest, southeast, northeast, and north sections of town. They know they’re not safe from the rabble.
Whose streets? Their streets. Whose freeways? Their freeways. That’s because the political class of like-minded “public servants” agree with them and let them do it.
Lie 9: What Lasers?
A few days ago federal authorities acknowledged that three police officers defending the federal courthouse may have sustained permanent damage to their eyesight because rioters shone lasers in their eyes. This is the stuff of terrorists and it’s real, as Acting Department of Homeland Security Deputy Ken Cuccinelli says.
These can, and are intended to, cause serious eye damage to law enforcement officers. https://t.co/RGBj2ElQmG
— Acting Deputy Secretary Ken Cuccinelli (@HomelandKen) July 26, 2020
This was widely scoffed at. But here’s video of the “dads” at the riot providing cover for the laser operators.
Black Lives Matter was formed after Trayvon Martin was killed by a neighborhood watch guy who fought back with a gun.
BLM demanded that the institutional racism they alleged occurred at the local Ferguson cop shop was why Michael Brown, he of the phony “hands up, don’t shoot” big lie, was killed. Three investigations, including one by Obama Attorney General Eric Holder, showed that wasn’t true. At all.
But BLM has soldiered on, recasting the group as being in support of “black lives,” when it’s only blacks killed in connection with a law-enforcement action that they care about.
And, as PJMedia colleague Stacey Lennox reported, BLM has intentionally adopted a more decentralized antifa model, muted their own well-known founders, and are now a much more political organization.
The group and antifa are connected at the hip.
They both want to tear down law enforcement and “defund” police because of high-profile cop killings that bring in big money from Democrats’ online fundraising tool “Act Blue.”
The only freedom they want is freedom from the laws that make a civil society work. That means they can’t take over streets that other people use, commit violent acts against others, and tear down, burn and loot other people’s property.
Democrats, like this “democratic strategist,” cheer them on.
They claim to practice “empathy,” but they’re not about black people whose lives have been snuffed out by abortion, black-on-black crime, or during riots.
Respected Milwaukee community figure, Bernell Trammell, Trump and Black Lives Matter supporter, fatally shot in front of own store. pic.twitter.com/XNLdPWRJUr
They believe there’s no normal, no family, and this is “liberation.” If you don’t agree, you don’t matter and will be canceled By Any Means Necessary (BAMN). See Lies #1 and #8.
After their enemies are vanquished and they get a few more socialists and communists like AOC in place, they’ll be in charge. That’s why these riots are taking place right before the November election.
It’s about power—the power of the collective against the rights of the individual, which is the fundamental precept upon which this country was built.
