The corporate press is desperately trying to gaslight hardworking Americans into believing Portland is just fine and the chaos that spilled onto its streets is a myth. They point to staged daytime footage and cheerful coffee-shop photos while ignoring the late-night attacks on federal property and the intimidation of federal employees. This is what happens when infotainment replaces journalism: the story is rewritten to suit a political narrative rather than the truth.
President Trump moved to federalize 200 members of the Oregon National Guard and ordered them to Portland after repeated threats to federal facilities, a move memorialized in a Defense Department memo authorizing federal functions for those troops. The deployment was framed as a straightforward act of protecting federal property and personnel, not political theater, and it was the responsibility of the executive to act when local authorities appear unwilling or unable to secure critical federal sites.
In response, Oregon’s attorney general and the City of Portland filed suit, arguing the federalization was unlawful and an overreach that trampled the state’s rightful control of its Guard. Local leaders who have spent years prioritizing permissive protest policies quickly embraced the courtroom as their weapon to block a plain task of government: maintaining order and safety. The lawsuit exposes how legal maneuvers have become the preferred tool of left-wing officials to avoid accountability and to score political points.
A federal judge, Karin Immergut, temporarily halted the federal activation, buying time for the courts to sort out legal boundaries — a move that many conservatives view as judicial restraint in the face of dubious arguments about necessity. The ruling hinged on whether the president’s action met the narrow legal thresholds for federalizing state troops, and the court found the evidence presented did not justify immediate military involvement. The administration has already signaled it will appeal, which is exactly what should happen when the rule of law and public safety collide.
Meanwhile, don’t let the media’s soft-focus feed fool you: the protests around the ICE facility were not just wholesome neighborhood disruptions. Local filings and police statements made clear that while numbers had dwindled at times, there were repeated violent incidents over months that prompted federal concerns and forced the temporary closure of parts of the facility. Claiming everything was merely a quaint local disagreement ignores sworn declarations and the real fear experienced by federal employees under siege.
If the left’s playbook is to litigate and lecture while denying reality, conservatives must do what patriots always do: hold the line. The White House has appealed the order and must continue to press the case that protecting federal property and personnel is not optional, especially when local governments refuse to act. Americans who believe in law and order should see through the media’s comforting spin and demand that elected officials do their jobs before federal intervention becomes the only option left.
Make no mistake: this is about more than Portland. It’s about whether the rule of law will be enforced evenly across this country or whether partisan sanctuaries will be allowed to create pockets where federal interests and ordinary citizens are left unprotected. The media’s reluctance to report the full picture is a betrayal of their duty and a dangerous erosion of civic trust; voters should remember who stood for safety and who stood with lawlessness when they cast their ballots.
