Chris Rifer

Today’s dispatch from the front lines. Stay safe out there, Comrades.

I’m confused. Hasn’t he been pretty good against lefties for a good long while now—basically since his bad start?

“Class, remember we talked about Pizzagate last week? This was similar except instead of a deranged incel with an AR-15, the Governor of Texas sent the National Guard to invade Oregon.”

Future historians are going to have a hell of a time explaining that time Texas tried to invade Oregon because Texas believed an internet hoax.

Trump is either lying repeatedly and shamelessly to justify an attempt to militarily occupy an American city or he’s completely lost touch with reality. It seems like a worthwhile journalistic endeavor to figure out which and inform the American people.

Just cooked to perfection. 👩‍🍳💋 #BAONPDX

They Liv’d, it turns out.

This Thorns team isn’t great. They’re plugging holes with duct tape and bubble gum. But they’ve got two bona fide match winners in Moultrie and Coffey, and they’re bought in from top to bottom.

A legit accomplishment to be in the playoff hunt. #BAONPDX

A red card challenge from a Sounder and ten sets of shrugged shoulders from Fernandez’s teammates. Absolutely brutal. #RCTID

Man. Nobody on the Timbers reacting to that really bad tackle from Rusnak is not good. They’ve quit. #RCTID

It’s Liv or die for the Thorns attack right now. Genuinely impressive that they’ve made it this far given the plague of injuries, but I think the camel’s back is officially broken. #BAONPDX

Yeah honestly I wasn’t going to say anything because of the omen, but it’s basically the same outfit.

Extreme Sonny Corleone vibes from Rob Gale tonight. #BAONPDX

Model journalism that exposes the lies the Trump Administration is using as pretext to occupy PDX.

I’ve been so impressed by Portlanders’ response to date. Firm, unequivocal, and characteristically whimsical without giving in to Trump’s desire to manufacture violence. Keep it up and we’ll win this.

Let me see if I have this right.

During a government shutdown, the administration can find the money to fly multiple helicopters and airplanes over the locus of Trump’s lies about Portland but not to hit “Send” on the already prepared monthly jobs report?

The overwhelming majority of people don’t have direct personal knowledge about most things he talks about—including his lies about Portland. And the experience of having that personal knowledge about this particular lie but seeing it nonetheless cast into the world has been eye-opening.

Trump’s lies about Portland have really driven home that the information environment is even worse that I thought. Trump’s lies are just that—pure fantasy. They’re not misleading or exaggerated or anything like that. Yet his tweets are still just neutrally reported like “This is a thing he said.”

#FrontLineDispatches

Surely somebody out there can make a Portland pun based on E.B. Sledge.

If you’re an aspiring filmmaker in Portland it’s your civic duty to make a Ken Burns-style documentary about the heroism and sacrifice of Trump’s invasion.

Yorktown
Gettysburg
Normandy
Guadalcanal
Elephant’s Delicatessen

Get a beautiful latte? Send a dispatch from the front lines.

Riding bikes with your kids to the park? Dispatch from the front lines.

Find a cozy place to read a book? Dispatch from the front lines.

Mocking them exposes the abuses while depriving them the pretext they want to attack our city.

Fortunately social media gives us a perfect platform to craft a third way: Using mockery as protest.

Every Portlander should flood their chosen social media platform with “Dispatches from the Front Lines”—photos and videos of them going about their lives in this beautiful city.

I agree with the sentiment here.

Trump’s invasion of Portland creates a paradox: Justifiably protest these nakedly authoritarian abuses and give the administration the pretext they want for state violence or stay silent and lend a patina of normalcy to Trump’s fouling of our democracy?

Things Portland is currently ravaged by:

Pizza
Temperate, sunny weather
Coffee
Middling soccer
Sunsets
Farmer’s markets
Apples
Hiking trails
Thai food
Fresh hops
Harvest-ready vineyards

Things Portland is not ravaged by:

War

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

We need to be honest about what this is. It’s a transparent attempt to use the military to incite protests that the administration will then use state violence against.

Portland is not “war ravaged” or anything remotely close to it. And those who repeat this lie without correcting it are complicit.

Injuries happen and they’re most often just bad luck. But this swarm of them has been so extreme that I think the Thorns need to at least consider if there’s some causal factor within their control there. #BAONPDX

I could rant about how they should move on from Neville and throw money at Jim Curtin. Or about how they need to invest more to maximize their DPs.

But they’re not going to do those things because the club has become comfortable with mediocrity. They’re as stuck in the mud as any club in MLS #RCTID

It’s pretty sunmarizable in a tweet.

The Timbers have a coach who’s never finished higher than sixth. They’ve decided not to swim in the deep end of the transfer market. And their development pipeline is weak.

Their PPG is almost identical to 2024 because the output matches the input. #RCTID

Twice this year the Timbers have spent $5-6M on an attacking midfield DP only to be frustrated that they don’t seem to be consistent game-changers.

The output is matching the input. The hope is certainly that they’ll punch above their weight, but that often takes time—if it happens at all. #RCTID

The thing about the Oregon-Oregon State rivalry entering a less consistent period now is that there’s nothing inherent to the game or college athletics that caused this.

People—primarily media executives—decided that their interests were more important than maintaining this.

What’s obvious about this situation is that they’re not going after Kimmel because he said anything egregiously bad.

They’re going after him precisely because he didn’t say anything egregiously bad so as to send a message to everybody in media and entertainment that they can get you, too.