video tweeted  7 hrs. ago by NYTimes' reporter covering the northwest

can't vouch for this independent but I notice her twitter account is followed by a competitor, Justin Yau, who I have learned over time is a very trustworthy protest journo

Protesters march through downtown Seattle, arrests made for property damage

By Heidi Groover @ Seattletimes.com,  Updated Jan. 20, 2021 at 10:00 pm

Caption: In Seattle, a group of about 100 protesters burned an American flag outside ICE offices on 2nd Ave, and smashed a window at Amazon Go. (Heidi Groover / The Seattle Times)

President Joe Biden’s inauguration was met Wednesday evening in downtown Seattle with protest and scattered property damage from anti-fascist marchers who have demonstrated for months.

A group, which numbered about 100 protesters early in the evening and later dropped in size, marched through downtown and called for the abolition of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. In chants, they decried both former president Donald Trump and Biden.

Police made at least three arrests as of 9 p.m., for property damage, burglary and an assault, according to Seattle police.

Outside ICE offices on Second Avenue and Spring Street, several in the crowd lit fire to an American flag. Some spray-painted and smashed three windows at a building that houses an AmazonGo store. “Amazon uses $ 2 fund tech for ICE,” read one tag [....]

Windows were also shattered at the federal William Kenzo Nakamura Courthouse on 5th Avenue, police said.

Inside the Henry M. Jackson Federal Building on Second Avenue, about 10 officers stood guard in tactical gear with ICE and Department of Homeland Security badges. Some wore gas masks [....]

more detail in her twitter feed; a sampling:

more from Mike Baker--the "fuck Joe Biden" chant this evening:

Meanwhile, ironically, Sergio Olmos and Justin Yau, who have mainly covered the Portland area protests night after day after night for months, traveled to D.C. for the inauguration, probably expecting some action shots of right wing anarchists for a little variety after spending so much time with left-wing ones, but all they seem to see are the occupying forces, marching National Guard:

Here Ford Fischer calls the Portland crew who attacked the Dem office "antifa activisits" and correctly, I think. Quite a few of this kind of protester uses that label themselves. It just means anti-fascist, after all. I think liberals got to let go of not using the term just because right-wing media started using it broadly inaccurately over the summer. If you want to really understand what certain radical groups are really about. They are proud to be "antifa":and they think the U.S. is "fa"

$25,000 bail for a pro Trump anti-masker just for making violent threats against a government building in a restaurant in Weaverville, CA; no weapons found in his home or vehicle:

Portland lefties didn't get treated as roughly all summer actually throwing firey projectiles at a federal courthouse, and attempting to commit arson against more than a few government buildings--though the fires were all put out in time, ripping down fencing, injuring Fed. officers, etc.

Why wouldn't he think just boasting about attacking was no big deal? Attacking government buildings was not treated as a big deal in Portland except by Barr and Trump--walls of moms come out to support doing so...

Trump and Barr eventually gave up and the federal "goons" left at the request of the governor. She sent in the Oregon State Police, they got fed up that nobody they arrested was being prosecuted

Here you go, I posted this on Dag when it happened. Crickets, no outrage.from liberals, they didn't care that a Federal courthouse was being attacked continually and no one was being prosecuted for it. 

the only other thing on that thread

Hannah Ray Lambert tweeted a ton of video reporting on the Aug. 13 protests in downtown Portland, on threads here

https://twitter.com/TheHannahRay

It all seems fairly objective. They are still attacking the Federal Courthouse among other things, she has shot of fire in front of it.

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by artappraiser on Fri, 08/14/2020 - 1:58am

why wouldn't right-wing extremists think it was okay to attack federal buildings? Lots of liberals support lefties doing so! Or at least they don't speak out about no prosecution. All summer: fuck cops and feds, we hate em, who needs enforcement of the laws, we'll just work it out ourselves with social workers

dupe of what I just posted elsewhere, on purpose:

NYTimes reports from Portland (with comments from around the country) on finding a complicated mix of  "just dedicated lefties", less on anarchist agitators but addressing the potential in the "not my president" types, includes some comparisons with the Capitol rally crowd: My highlighting of the last sentence:

They’re Breaking Glass and Criticizing Biden. From the Left.

As President Biden calls for unity and calmer rhetoric, his presidency began with burned flags and federal agents deployed once again into the streets

By Mike Baker & John Eligon @ NYTimes.com, July 21 (FULL COPY FOR FAIR USE RESEARCH PURPOSES, except left one photo out)

Federal agents used tear gas in Portland, Ore., against protesters gathered on Wednesday outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement building near downtown.CreditCredit...Alisha Jucevic for The New York Times

PORTLAND, Ore. — In the hours after President Biden’s inauguration on Wednesday, hundreds of people gathered for a series of events across the liberal city of Portland, Ore. — not to celebrate, but to mobilize for the struggles to come.

At one demonstration, speakers denounced Mr. Biden as a “feckless puppet of the centrist Democratic establishment.” At another, crowds of antifascist and racial justice protesters made their doubts about the new president even more explicit, burning a Biden flag in the street. At a third event, several people smashed the windows of the local Democratic Party headquarters. “We are ungovernable,” the group’s banner declared.

While Mr. Biden has vowed to try to unify the nation and urged Americans to “stop the shouting” after a bitter election campaign, a Capitol riot and a year of unrest over racial injustices and pandemic restrictions, the first day of his presidency concluded with a scene reminiscent of many under his predecessor: Federal agents in camouflage and riot gear moved into the streets of Portland, unleashing thick clouds of tear gas.

If people were wondering whether Mr. Biden’s presidency would ease the conflict, the opening hours of his tenure illustrated the daunting challenge he faces to bridge the lingering gulfs on both sides of the political spectrum — divisions stoked by Donald J. Trump during his presidency and, to the left, exacerbated by years of inaction over climate change, economic disparity and systemic racism.

Demonstrators in Portland continued challenging immigration policies after President Biden took office.Credit...Alisha Jucevic for The New York Times

Eric Schickler, co-director of the Institute of Governmental Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, said Mr. Biden was stepping into the White House at a time of such vitriol that opposing sides view each other as the enemy.

“He’s fighting against some pretty strong forces,” Dr. Schickler said.

Many conservatives, such as those who stormed the U.S. Capitol in the final days of Mr. Trump’s presidency, remain under the false belief that Mr. Biden won a rigged election and that his presidency is illegitimate. “Not my president” has become a common refrain on online message boards. Federal authorities have warned about the threats of far-right extremist groups.

But the demonstrators who mounted protests against Mr. Biden in Portland on Wednesday hailed from the left — and their skepticism about what lies ahead reflects the degree to which the new administration will have to build bridges in many directions.

In Charlottesville, Va., where a white supremacist rally offered a look at rising right-wing violence early in Mr. Trump’s presidency, those who have fought for racial justice said Mr. Biden’s unity effort also requires accountability for the perpetrators of racial violence, not just calls to come together in peace.

In Minneapolis, the community organizer Marcia Howard said Mr. Biden’s elevation to the presidency meant that those who have hoped to create a world without the police need to double down on their efforts.

The president and his allies have paid “lip service” to issues of racial equity, police brutality and mass incarceration, she said. “And now they must be pressed to put action where their mouths are.”

In Seattle on Wednesday, a crowd of about 150 people marched through the streets chanting both anti-Trump and anti-Biden slogans. One member of the group handed out fliers that said: “Biden won! And so did corporate elites!” The fliers argued that a “Democratic administration is not a victory for oppressed people” and “Biden will not save us.”

“I came out here because no matter what happens, Biden and Kamala aren’t enough,” said one of the protesters, Alejandro Quezada Brom, 28, referring to Vice President Kamala Harris. He said the new president needed to know that “the pressure’s not off” for progress on immigration and policing reforms.

Patrisse Cullors, a co-founder of the Black Lives Matter Global Network, said she had met with members of Mr. Biden’s transition team and held initial conversations with Merrick Garland, the attorney general nominee, and Pete Buttigieg, the transportation secretary nominee. They agreed to sit with Black Lives Matter organizers for more formal meetings once the administration was in office, she said.

She said she believed that Mr. Biden was off to a good start with the executive order he signed on racial equity, which included things her group had discussed with the transition team around eradicating white supremacy and discrimination in communities and government agencies.

Protesters in Portland smashed windows and vandalized the local Democratic Party headquarters.Credit...Alisha Jucevic for The New York Times

But that was hardly enough, Ms. Cullors said. She said Black Lives Matter would be pushing the administration hard in areas where some of Mr. Biden’s past positions have not always aligned with the movement’s goals.

“We’re going to really push this administration to look at ending police terror and mass incarceration,” she said. “And that can’t happen through body cameras. It can’t happen through more training. We actually have to look at the budgets of police departments at the national level to the local level. And we have to look at the budgets of everything else, every other social aid program and social service program.”

At one of the lower-key events on Wednesday in Portland, about 200 people gathered under the lights at Irving Park, sharing pizza and visions for the coming four years.

Ray Austin, 25, was the one who described Mr. Biden to the crowd as a “feckless puppet,” declaring that he “is only president because of his ties to corporate interests” — a proclamation that brought clapping and cheers. “My friends, the fight has just begun,” he said.

A series of speakers laid out urgent goals ahead where they said Mr. Biden seemed unlikely to lead the way: a Green New Deal to fight climate change, a “Medicare for All”-style health insurance system, overhauls of police departments to address racial disparities.

Law enforcement made arrests outside an ICE building in Portland.Credit...Alisha Jucevic for The New York Times

Reese Monson, one of the leaders in Portland’s Black Lives Matter movement, said he welcomed the inauguration and Mr. Biden’s early promises. He also expressed hope about Ms. Harris, the first Black vice president. But he said activists would need to keep up the pressure to ensure that the changes enacted go far enough.

“No matter who is in political power, we’re not going to stop until we get justice,” Mr. Monson said. “And even then we want to make sure it’s real justice.”

In the aftermath of George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis last May, protesters in Portland mobilized on the streets nightly, much of their ire targeted at the mayor and the police force that repeatedly used tear gas to subdue them. The crowds swelled during the summer after Mr. Trump issued an executive order to protect federal property and agents wearing camouflage brought a crackdown to the city.

On Wednesday night, one rowdy group of protesters gathered at a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in the city, targeting the harsh deportation and detention tactics that the agency had used against immigrants. Mr. Biden began his presidency with executive orders on immigration that made it clear he would chart a much different course than Mr. Trump, but the crowd wanted more, calling for abolition of the immigration-enforcement agency. Some protesters spray-painted graffiti on the building: “Reunite families now.”

Minutes later, a line of federal agents in camouflage and tactical gear emerged from the building and began firing tear gas and pepper balls into the crowd — a scene that had unfolded similarly on dozens of nights in Portland over the past year.

The parallels were not lost on the crowd.

As one person held a lighter below a Biden-for-president flag, another chanted a phrase often seen on conservative message boards: “Not my president.”

Mike Baker reported from Portland, and John Eligon from Kansas City, Mo. Hallie Golden contributed reporting from Seattle.

Mike Baker is the Seattle bureau chief, reporting primarily from the Northwest and Alaska. @ByMikeBaker

John Eligon is a Kansas City-based national correspondent covering race. He previously worked as a reporter in Sports and Metro, and his work has taken him to Nelson Mandela's funeral in South Africa and the Winter Olympics in Turin. @jeligon