Raindrop Works

choice but to escalate his rhetoric because that's how clout chasing works. You have to always outdo your rivals, and when everyone's racing to the bottom, you start having to make more and more outlandish claims

I feel like the 'end goal' is that people like Andy Ngo are losing their minds trying to reconcile animal costumes with claims of Molotov cocktails being thrown around, as though something as crazy as a giant inflatable frog throwing something like that wouldn't noted and filmed.

And yet he has no

I would say he sounds like he's becoming unhinged, but I really think he's just having to escalate his rhetoric just to maintain relevance, especially with the ear of people he's gotten recently.

I've seen similar behavior in other corners of the internet before.

isportlandburning.com

Listening to the appeals court asking questions about the Portland National Guard deployment dispute, and I'm struck that the 504 sit ins would have been infinitely stronger of a 'rebellion' than what's happening at ICE.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/504_Sit...

hey, wasn't Andy Ngo's prior lawyer elevated to a position in the DoJ specifically to defend the rights of Christians that have been persecuted for their beliefs?

Think I found a worthy case for her to investigate. What's that? The department she works for is -defending- the attacks?

Huh, funny.

Wait, partner of convicted kitty corn procuring individual Jeff Church?

They're not sending their best, not their brightest ...

Oregon National Guard troops can remain under Trump’s control but cannot deploy to Portland: appeals court The administrative hold, or stay, issued by the 9th Circuit is temporary and imposed while the court considers a more permanent response.

www.oregonlive.com/crime/2025/1...

Buried later in this is what I expected California to do: They are now asking the courts to intervene in their case where the courts sided with Trump on the need for the Guard in California, claiming they can't be that needed if Trump is moving them out of state'

on the roof with at least a half dozen mask civilian law enforcement personnel and a freaking lawn chair. If the 18th person in line for succession to the presidency can calmly walk around that roof, in broad daylight, Portland is absolutely not burning down, and the Guard is not needed

So let me get this straight, Portland is a war zone that requires hundreds of federalized soldiers to patrol, entirely focused around one city block where the ICE detention facility is. The same block that was able to successfully host a public protest while Homeland Secretary Kristi Noem relaxed

Not unlike his erstwhile boss, Andy

getting harangued by the judge for violating the judges orders and filming people in the gallery. Back then his email was linked to far right think tank Discovery Institute, and I was just sitting there like 'I didn't go through the formal training you did and even I know better than this.'

Oh, damn, I never knew about this side of Choe. He blocked me years ago on the old site (I think before he got fired from KOMO) for criticizing his work, and then I was covering a court case in Portland (where he was there as a journalist on behalf of Andy Ngo) where I have courtroom video of him

Daddy Don having a hell of a temper tantrum.

Not yet. This has been stupidly fast.
- The first TRO was -just- put in on Saturday and was appealed
- 24 hours later the second TRO was needed
- The 9th circuit hasn't weighed in at all yet, and I suspect it won't be until later today or Tuesday at earliest.

Now another sneaky little thing that I'm sure someone has seen but hasn't acted on yet, is that some CA Guard were de-federalized to be used for state wildfire activities. Pulling another 200 from who were left suggests that Trump doesn't actually need them. Expect CA to fight for their men back.

from a state that's -offering- their Guard members to deploy nationally (Texas)
- Someone spilled the beans a little early and Oregon found out about the second gamesmanship attempt (yes, they said 'this smacks of gamesmanship' in the second TRO) 25 minutes before hearing was scheduled.

- Judge says no to Oregon Guard members
- Hegseth says 'fine, I'll pull the CA ones we already activated to get my 200'
- CA and OR both say 'No you don't'
- Before they get in front of the judge, Hegseth realizes he's cooked, expects Immergut to refuse CA deployment because CA objected, so pull

state, and if they strike the first TRO, then there's still no logical need that I can see to still have CA/TX troops here. Trump/Hegseth claimed they needed 200. They'd have their 200. If they really needed 600, why not federalize 600 from ORNG?

Here's the timeline as I saw it:

I believe the expectation is they get to go back home. We can pretty well assume that this 2nd TRO will be appealed as well as the first one already was, but I can't think of any logical reason for the 9th circuit to uphold the 1st TRO but not the 2nd. So if they uphold both, they can't work in

When the TRO request was made, 100 had landed in PDX, with another 99 scheduled to come later in the day. If I'm reading the nonredacted portions right, all 199 mentioned were already in state (General Gronewold is the Adjutant General in charge of all ORNG)
storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

the judge to tell them no to Cali, hope they didn't find out about Texas and then claim 'well, you didn't tell us we couldn't ...'

But Oregon's a little smarter than that.

oh, it got better. Troops from Cali touched down, with word of more coming, Oregon and Cali filed for the TRO, then literally a half hour before the hearing was scheduled Oregon got a memo that was sent to Texas planning to deploy 200 from there to here.

It was crystal clear that Hegseth expected

And then it became a different business not long after. No major remodel, no demolition, cleanup, nothing that was ever newsworthy.

and 90% of the right wing media grifter ecosystem out here is just Andy Ngo.

Literally the biggest names out here claiming Portland is a war zone either work directly for him or contract with him.

I was there. It was the judicial equivalent of 'did I fucking stutter?' and it was a hell of a dopamine hit.

And immediately after the protest was attacked by ICE

yeah, but apparently we're safe from finding out. The written TRO is focused no on where they're from, but saying they're not allowed in Oregon

bsky.app/profile/anna...

Oh, good, the judge caught the loophole and already made sure it's closed. Focused not on where they're from, but just that they're not allowed in Oregon at all