That’s the headline of the daily Washington Post article that was delivered to my inbox on Monday.
What the article doesn’t tell you, which was known at the time:
- The Trump supporter was killed by a man who describes himself “100% Antifa, all the way”.
- He was killed at point-blank range, after the Antifa guy had shouted “we got Trumpie here!”. It was an execution. (It’s all in video).
- Portland has been experiencing nightly rioting, looting and arson for 97 days, without break.
- Many other cities in the US -- eg. Seattle, LA, Chicago, Washington DC -- have suffered the same, also for long periods, all are Democrat-run by leaders who have enabled the lawlessness. In all of these crime rates have gone up at double to triple digit rates.
- Portland (and others) have refused federal offers of assistance to stop the rioting, looting and arson.
- The nightly “mayhem” (as WaPo and NYT call it), is promoted, defended, and glorified by Antifa and the BLM movement, and carried out by their supporters. The Patriot Prayer counter demo people only came to Portland that day.
- Patriot Prayer describe themselves as supporters of “freedom, love and peace”. The description of them as “far-right” is based on Wikipedia, in turn based on SPLC, which is now discredited, as even WaPo acknowledges. (I don’t doubt PP are conservative, religious, Trump supporters. But the claim that they are “alt-right” or “far right" is based on a series of ipse-dixit mutually supporting statements).
- Jacob Blake, shot in Kenosha, was wanted for domestic violence. His estranged partner had rung 911 saying he had raped her (violating a domestic restraining order). When police arrived, he resisted arrest, they tasered him, he continued to resist arrest and was reaching for a knife in the front floor of the car when he was shot. (Whatever we non-Americans think about crazy US gun laws, lawyers in the US say this is a “good” shooting: ie, justified, and the police will not be charged).
- Rittenhouse was not part of a militia group. He was medically trained and helping injured rioters. He was openly carrying a semi-automatic weapon, legal in the state of Wisconsin (yes, amazing!). He was “outed” as non-Antifa, he ran, was chased by several men, who shot at him. Rittenhouse returned fire and killed two of his pursuers, Young white men. (There’s video of this).
All of these are known facts, to the extent that we can know facts in these heated times. WaPo chose to ignore them. Does any of it make a difference? Perhaps that depends on one’s own perception. I rather think it ought be part of the story, for context, at the very least. Biden has since come out to condemn violence, but without mentioning the main instigators, Antifa and BLM.
