Appeals Court Discovers Trump's Portland Guardsmen Weren't Just a Fever Dream
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that then-President Trump had the authority to send National Guard troops to Portland. This despite Oregon's governor, Kate Brown, explicitly rejecting federal military presence in July 2020, stating, "We don’t need the President to send troops into Portland. He is only trying to score political points during an election year." (As reported by The New York
Times, July 17, 2020). The ruling conveniently sanitizes a period where unidentified federal agents – not even National Guard – snatched protestors off streets into unmarked vans, a tactic more commonly seen in authoritarian regimes. So, a court says it's fine. One wonders if similar legal finesse would apply if a future progressive president tried to nationalize, say, privatized healthcare
facilities against a state's wishes. Or is 'order' only preserved when it shuts down dissent?