Here's your daily roundup of all the latest local and national news. (Like our coverage? Please consider donating to the Mercury to keep it comin'!)
• This afternoon, Gov. Kate Brown gave a press conference announcing that she'll be deploying 50 National Guard troops and 100 State Troopers to Portland to assist local police in "managing" tonight's protest—even though I'm pretty sure that an even bigger force of militarized police will only succeed in downtown seeing twice as many protesters. However, according to Brown, the National Guard will only be there to process arrests, and will not be armed.
Every Dem mayor right now is like "we thank you for your peaceful protests, we've heard you, we are doing nothing to fix any of these problems, your curfew is 2 minutes from now and I've given the cops brand new aerodynamic beating sticks"
— E-Town Concrete Milkshake (@lightfantastic) June 1, 2020
• This weekend, Portland saw three nights of varied protests, including a peaceful vigil in North Portland, a frenzy of broken windows, theft, burning banks, tear gas downtown, and a large march of chanting demonstrators winding through Portland's Eastside. Here's the Mercury's live, on-the-ground coverage from Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Last night 12 people were arrested, and you can surely expect more tonight. In fact, it has already started.
• Meanwhile, a Gresham police officer shot and killed a man in Southeast Portland yesterday evening. The exact details of the shooting have yet to come out — but we're paying attention.
• Also during this crazy weekend, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown fired the head of the Oregon Employment Department for the agency's shockingly slow ability to deliver unemployment benefits—even months after jobless Oregonians have filed claims.
IN NATIONAL NEWS:
• Our idiot president, who spent at least some of his weekend hidden in a bunker under a darkened White House, started his Monday by calling Russian president Vladimir Putin before getting on a conference call with state governors to berate them for being "weak," suggesting they ask for the "wonderful military" to assist in subjugating American citizens. The specific word he (repeatedly) used was "dominate," in fact. This afternoon, he threatened the same governors of these states, saying if they don't send out the National Guard to quell protesters (who he calls "domestic terrorists"), he would send in the military to do their job for them.
• Related: This is where we'd link to any news outlet's running tally of the Governors, Senators, and Representatives officially asking the president to tender his resignation in response to this behavior, but that link doesn't exist because there are currently no Governors, Senators, or Representatives doing so.
• It's been just under a week since Minneapolis police officers left George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, dying on the streets of his city. In the days since, every major city (and a bunch of minor ones) has shown their outrage over another Black man's death with massive protests, some leading to property destruction, looting, and arson. In many instances, armed police officers in riot gear have responded with violence, in the form of tear gas, explosive munitions, and seemingly unprovoked aggression.
• Many of the police targets have been journalists. Over the weekend, a Minneapolis photojournalist lost her eye after police shot her in the face with a rubber bullet and dozens of others were directly tear gassed after identifying themselves as the media. That includes Eugene Weekly reporter Henry Houston.
My favorite part was watching the police officers inside their tank laugh as I screamed I’m a journalist.
— Henry Houston (@hwhouston1) June 1, 2020
• An independent autopsy of George Floyd, commissioned by the Floyd family, concluded his cause of death was "Homicide by Asphyxia," due to Officer Derek Chauvin pressing a knee into his neck for almost 10 straight minutes. This conclusion contradicts the Hennepin County Medical Examiner's Office autopsy, which claimed he died from "underlying health conditions and any potential intoxicants in his system."
• Chauvin's first court appearance, to face his third-degree murder and manslaughter charges, is scheduled for June 8.
• You love to see it:
Confederate monuments across the South were vandalized during George Floyd demonstrations https://t.co/pf4rXsJMvj
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) May 31, 2020
• Emboldened by our idiot president's Twitter-declared intent to classify Antifa as a terrorist organization (despite the fact Antifa isn't an organization, and even if it were, making protests against fascism a criminal act is blatantly unconstitutional), Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton took to his Twitter and advocated deploying the 101st Airborne, the 10th Mountain, the 82nd Airborne, the 1st Cav, and the 3rd Infantry to attack protesters.
• Meanwhile, at Facebook: Dozens of employees have "walked out" of their jobs for the day in response to CEO Mark Zuckerberg's public statements criticizing Twitter for doing the barest of bare minimums to fact-check our idiot president last week. The walkout has prompted Zuckerberg to move his regular Thursday employee meeting to Tuesday, according to Facebook spokeswoman Liz Bourgeois. (Yes. Seriously.)
• And finally... this.
if ur white and ur at a pr0test please us ur privilege like this. pic.twitter.com/EAK3sJ0Drl
— ً𝐦𝐚𝐝𝐝𝐲 (@finelinecth) May 31, 2020