(1) New York Times praises ‘cancel culture’ but skips over its own racist history(2) The family that owns the NYT were Slaveholders & Confederates(3) Jamaal Bowman (Black) ousts Eliot Engel (Jewish Zionist), chairman of House Foreign Affairs Committee(4) Portland anarchists set fires in Curthouse precinct; Homeland Security officers restore order(5) Democrat Mayor, Governor and Reps side with Anarchists, oppose DHC action in Portland(1) New York Times praises ‘cancel culture’ but skips over its own racist historyhttps://nypost.com/2020/07/11/ny-times-praises-cancel-culture-but-skips-its-own-racist-history-goodwin/Why New York Times praises ‘cancel culture’ but skips over its own racist history: GoodwinBy Michael GoodwinJuly 11, 2020 | 10:06pm	| UpdatedIn a recent article about Mount Rushmore, The New York Times said of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt that "each of these titans of American history has a complicated legacy."Reporters Bryan Pietsch and Jacey Fortin casually summarized the woke herd’s litany of grievances: Washington and Jefferson owned slaves, Lincoln was "reluctant and late" to issue the Emancipation Proclamation and Roosevelt "actively sought to Christianize and uproot Native Americans."Rushmore’s sculptor, Gutzon Borglum, didn’t escape unscathed. "Borglum had been involved with another project: an enormous bas-relief at Stone Mountain in Georgia that memorialized Confederate leaders," the reporters wrote.There was little in the story that was remarkable, and that was the point. The Times, as the chief media cheerleader for the chaos unfolding across the nation, routinely eviscerates America’s heroes, its culture and, through the paper’s 1619 Project, its founding.Four years after it abandoned its traditional standards of fairness to try to defeat Donald Trump, the paper is now fixated on rewriting the story of America. The drive-by attack on the Rushmore presidents was part of its cancel-culture agenda.Yet the Times has never applied to its own history the standards it uses to demonize others. If it did, reporters there would learn that the Ochs-Sulzberger family that has owned and run the paper for 125 years has a "complicated legacy" of its own.That legacy includes Confederates in the closet — men and at least one woman who supported the South and slavery during the Civil War. In fact, Times patriarch Adolph S. Ochs contributed money to the very Stone Mountain project and other Confederate memorials the Times now finds so objectionable.To be clear, I detest the Times’ determination to judge and revise history using criteria conceived 20 minutes ago. The paper’s Marxist-inspired activism and race-based fetish have taken it so far off course that it no longer functions as an actual newspaper.Having spent my formative journalistic years at the Gray Lady, I came away with immense respect for the editors’ commitment to fair and impartial news coverage. That commitment started with Ochs, who, from the day he took control of the Times in 1896, insisted on a strict separation of news and opinion, a tradition that lasted more than a century. It was those traditions — fairness and safeguards against reporters’ bias — that gave the paper its credibility and made it the flagship of American journalism.But those days are gone, with the standards eroded slowly at first and then abolished under current Executive Editor Dean Baquet. Every story these days is an editorial as the paper demands that every institution and individual conform to the Times’ views, or be denounced as racist, homophobic, Islamophobic and misogynistic. Because of the Times’ exceptional influence, its demagoguery is playing a major role in shredding the fabric of our country.At the very least, the paper ought to be honorable enough to apply its freshly minted standards to its own past. If it did, I believe the owners, editors, reporters and stockholders would be shocked by what they discover.Perhaps then they would understand that their company was built and run by people who, while great in some respects, shared many of the views and flaws they now self-righteously condemn in others.The legacy complications begin with Ochs, a Tennessee businessman who took control of the struggling New York Times when he was just 38 years old. He already owned the Chattanooga Times, which he called a conservative Democratic newspaper — at a time when nearly all black citizens in the South were Republicans. As Ochs put it when he took control in 1879, the Chattanooga paper would "move in line with the conservative democracy of the South."He and his descendants continued to own the paper until 1999, including during the enforced segregation of the Jim Crow era. An example of the Chattanooga Times’ tenor involves the infamous Scottsboro Nine case of 1931, which involved false allegations of rape against nine black teens by two white women.An editorial was headlined "Death Penalty Properly Demanded in Fiendish Crime of Nine Burly Negroes," and the paper’s trial reporter called the defendants "beasts unfit to be called human," according to "Racial Spectacles," a 2011 book on race, justice and the media.When Ochs came to New York, he brought his Southern sympathies with him. Ten years after he took over The New York Times, it ran a glowing profile of Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy during the Civil War. The 1906 article was billed as a "Celebration of the Davis Centenary" and was published on "the anniversary of the great Southern leader’s death."Ochs’ parents, Julius and Bertha Levy, were German Jewish immigrants who met in the American South, yet had very different views on slavery.While living with an uncle in Natchez, Miss., Bertha developed a fondness for it, a fact noted in family histories.In "The Trust," a 1999 authorized biography of the Ochs-Sulzberger families, authors Susan Tifft and Alex Jones write that Julius had witnessed slave auctions and described them as a "villainous relic of barbarism," but Bertha "embraced a contemptuous antebellum view of blacks, and for the rest of her life was dogmatically conservative, even reactionary." She was, they said, determined to preserve "the South’s peculiar institution."One of her descendants referred to her as "that Confederate lady."I am aware of no evidence or claims that any members of Bertha’s family owned slaves or participated in the slave trade.During the Civil War, Bertha had at least one brother who joined the rebel army, and she herself was suspected of being a spy. On one occasion, she was caught smuggling medical supplies from Ohio into rebel-held Kentucky.At the time, the family was living in Cincinnati, where Adolph was born in 1858, and a river separated the border states. Gay Talese, in his 1969 book on the Times, "The Kingdom and the Power," recounts that Bertha had been threatened with arrest after she was caught taking quinine and other supplies over a bridge into Kentucky.According to Talese and others, Bertha hid the contraband in a baby carriage.In later years, Adolph Ochs and his younger brother, George Washington Ochs, each claimed to be the baby in whose carriage their mother hid the contraband. In 1928, The Confederate Veteran magazine admired Bertha’s boldness, writing that "for a Mother of Israel to defy her husband and an entire army was no mean assertion of militant feminism in those days."Her husband, however, was rattled by the smuggling, and Julius, who had served in the Union army, moved the family to Tennessee in 1864, an unusual migration to a Confederate state while the war still raged.After Adolph took over the Chattanooga Times, brother George became active in local and national Democratic politics. He was appointed police commissioner, was twice elected mayor, then ran the library and school system. During all those years, Chattanooga was strictly segregated and was the scene of several notorious lynchings of black men.In the last several years before his 1931 death, George, who had changed his name to Ochs-Oakes, simultaneously served as an officer of both The New York Times Company and the New York Chapter of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.Meanwhile, Julius Ochs had died in 1888, and Union army vets who attended the funeral draped an American flag over his coffin.But as Robert Rosen noted in his 2000 book, "The Jewish Confederates," Bertha’s 1908 funeral was different. "She was a charter member of the A.P. Stewart Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy and members of her chapter attended the funeral," Rosen wrote, adding: "Her coffin was, at her request, draped with the Confederate flag."Adolph, the family star and breadwinner, is said to have been especially close to his mother. In 1924, 16 years after her death, he donated $1,000 so her name would be engraved on the founders’ roll of the Stone Mountain Confederate Memorial in Georgia, which features enormous carvings of Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson on horseback.According to Civil War Times magazine, Ochs enclosed a letter with his donation in which he said of his mother: "Robert E. Lee was her idol."The magazine says Ochs helped to fund Confederate cemeteries in Tennessee, Confederate Veterans’ reunions and the Chickamauga & Chattanooga National Military Park. It also says his newspapers published numerous editorials "and commemorative editions dedicated to Confederate veterans’ activities."Ochs was a generous philanthropist in Chattanooga and in 1928 donated land and a reported $100,000 to build a new temple there. The building still stands and the Julius and Bertha Ochs Memorial Temple serves about 200 Jewish families.Seven years later, Ochs died suddenly on a visit to Chattanooga. For his funeral, the United Daughters of the Confederacy "sent a pillow embroidered with the Confederate flag to be placed in his coffin," Civil War Times reported in 2012.The same article, by Dr. David J. Jackowe, sparked an uproar when it claimed that certain ceramic tile patterns in the Times Square subway station were meant to echo the Confederate flag and were put there to honor Adolph Ochs and his Southern sympathies. The station was built in the basement of the Times’ first Midtown tower, which led the city, at Ochs’ request, to rename what had been Long Acre to Times Square. The station was reportedly remodeled in 1998, but numerous examples of the pattern — a blue "X" against a red and white background — remained.After The Post reported on the controversy in 2015, the MTA denied any Confederate connection, with a spokesman saying, "It is a geometric pattern, not a flag design."Yet in 2017, after violence broke out in Charlottesville, Va., over the planned removal of a Robert E. Lee statue, the MTA switched signals. Now it promised to change the subway tile design so that it is "absolutely crystal clear" that it has nothing to do with the rebel flag.New Yorkers can make up their own minds because the MTA, per usual, never finished the job, as a Post photographer proved last week.In a long, flowery tribute after his death, the congressional record of the House said, "The story of Mr. Adolph S. Ochs . . . was the story of The New York Times. They are inseparably woven."Indeed they are, largely because Ochs was determined to keep the paper in his family well beyond his life. He and his wife, Effie Miriam Wise, the daughter of a prominent Cincinnati rabbi regarded as the founder of Reform Judaism, had one child, daughter Iphigene. But Ochs rarely hired female reporters, and there was little chance Iphigene would become the next publisher. The job went to her husband, Arthur Hays Sulzberger, and then to their son-in-law, Orvil Dryfoos.Upon his death, Iphigene’s son, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, became publisher. The men-only pattern continues to this day, with Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr. following his father. His son, Arthur Gregg Sulzberger, now holds the job. That makes five generations of white male heirs running the Times, all chosen under the protection of an unusual trust that allows family members to retain majority control of the board of directors.It’s hard to think of any other important American company — a public one at that — with such a long line of family succession, but it’s easy to imagine how the Times’ social-justice warriors would treat any other firm that even tried.Moreover, with the exception of the last two top editors, all others were white men. Before Baquet, who is black, there was Jill Abramson, who was fired after three years. The paper’s last public editor, Liz Spayd, said she was struck by the "blinding whiteness" of the staff when she first entered the newsroom. The Times, like many other corporations of all kinds, has been sued by black employees charging racial discrimination.In any other company, and with so much wealth accumulated by one family, that record would be fair game for the paper’s journalists, especially given the Confederate connections. In that spirit, it’s time for the Times to clean out its closet and live by the standards of purity it demands of others. For a thorough, honest examination of its checkered past, the paper should assign a team of its top investigative reporters to the project.They would get total access to corporate leaders and documents and be free to interview their colleagues. Their marching orders would be to examine the Times in the same way they would examine any other institution, which means they are free to use anonymous quotes. In effect, the paper would be taking a big dose of its own medicine.Whatever the results, they should be published on the front page, under the motto that Adolph Ochs put there in 1897: "All the news that’s fit to print."Then, hopefully humbled and cured of its supremacy delusion, the Times could get back to being a real newspaper and report the news instead of fomenting chaos and division.(2) The family that owns the NYT were Slaveholders & Confederateshttps://nypost.com/2020/07/18/the-family-that-owns-the-new-york-times-were-slaveholders-goodwin/The family that owns the New York Times were slaveholders: GoodwinBy Michael Goodwin July 18, 2020 | 10:39pm	| UpdatedMichael GoodwinIt’s far worse than I thought. In addition to the many links between the family that owns the New York Times and the Civil War’s Confederacy, new evidence shows that members of the extended family were slaveholders.Last Sunday, I recounted that Bertha Levy Ochs, the mother of Times patriarch Adolph S. Ochs, supported the South and slavery. She was caught smuggling medicine to Confederates in a baby carriage and her brother Oscar joined the rebel army.I have since learned that, according to a family history, Oscar Levy fought alongside two Mississippi cousins, meaning at least three members of Bertha’s family fought for secession.Adolph Ochs’ own "Southern sympathies" were reflected in the content of the Chattanooga Times, the first newspaper he owned, and then the New York Times. The latter published an editorial in 1900 saying the Democratic Party, which Ochs supported, "may justly insist that the evils of negro suffrage were wantonly inflicted on them."Six years later, the Times published a glowing profile of Confederate President Jefferson Davis on the 100th anniversary of his birth, calling him "the great Southern leader."Ochs reportedly made contributions to rebel memorials, including $1,000 to the enormous Stone Mountain Memorial in Georgia that celebrates Davis, Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson. He made the donation in 1924 so his mother, who died 16 years earlier, could be on the founders’ roll, adding in a letter that "Robert E. Lee was her idol."In the years before his death in 1931, Ochs’ brother George was simultaneously an officer of the New York Times Company and a leader of the New York Chapter of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.All that would be bad enough given that the same family still owns the Times and allows it to become a leader in the movement to demonize America’s founding and rewrite history to put slavery at its core. As part of that revisionism, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln are suddenly beyond redemption, their great deeds canceled by their flaws.But shouldn’t such breathtaking self-righteousness include the responsibility to lead by example? Shouldn’t the Times first clean out the Confederates in its own closet?That was the question last week. It is now more urgent because of the new information.A week ago, I was "aware of no evidence or claims that any members of Bertha’s family owned slaves or participated in the slave trade."That statement is no longer accurate. I have found compelling evidence that the uncle Bertha Levy Ochs lived with for several years in Natchez, Miss., before the Civil War owned at least five slaves.He was her father’s brother and his name was John Mayer because he dropped the surname Levy, according to a family tree compiled by the Ochs-Sulzberger clan some 70 years ago.Mayer was a store owner and prominent leader of the small Jewish community in Natchez and, during the war, organized a home guard unit, according to family letters and historians.Neither the 1860 census nor its separate "slave schedule" lists the names of Mayer’s slaves. They are identified as two males, ages 70 and 26, and three females, ages 65, 45 and 23.That makes it likely that Mayer had slaves when niece Bertha lived with him for several years before she married Julius Ochs in 1853. Mayer and his wife had 14 children and were affluent enough that it would have been unusual if they didn’t own slaves, according to Robert Rosen, author of "The Jewish Confederates."Bertha, who came from Germany as a teenager, might have been horrified by the experience of witnessing and being served by human chattel. Instead, she fully embraced the barbaric practice and became devoted to the "peculiar institution." She was a charter member of a Daughters of the Confederacy chapter and requested that a Confederate flag be draped across her coffin, which it was.Separately, there is also compelling evidence that the brother of a Revolutionary War-era ancestor of the Sulzberger branch of the family was involved in the slave trade.His name was Abraham Mendes Seixas, and he was born in New York City in 1750. He was an officer in the Continental Army during the war, then stayed in South Carolina, where accounts describe him as a slave merchant and/or auctioneer."The Final Victims," a 2004 book about the slave trade by James McMillin, reprints a poem published in a Charleston newspaper in 1784 advertising an upcoming sale.It reads in part:"Abraham Seixas . . . He has for sale, Some Negroes, male"Will suit full well grooms,"He has likewise Some of their wives"Can make clean, dirty rooms."For planting, too, He has a few"To sell, all for cash, . . . or bring them to the lash."A few lines later, Seixas adds, "The young ones, true, if that will do."The discovery of these lurid histories gives me no pleasure. The Ochs-Sulzberger family is a great American family that has served our nation in war and peace since its founding. Ochs himself turned the struggling New York Times into the gold standard of journalism and the paper under his heirs often took great risks to defend the First Amendment.I will forever be grateful to the lessons I learned during my 16 years there. But it was a different paper then, one where standards of fairness were enforced and reporters’ biases were left on the cutting-room floor.Now the standards are on the cutting-room floor, with every story dominated by reporters’ opinions. The result is a daily train wreck that bears little resemblance to the traditions of what used to be a great newspaper, trusted because it was impartial.Even worse, the Times has moved beyond overt partisanship to declare itself the decider of all things relating to race. Its 1619 Project insists that slavery was the key to the nation’s founding, and that the war for independence was primarily about perpetuating white supremacy.This narrative is deeply misguided, according to a long list of top historians. Yet the paper is not deterred, and has ramped up its demonization of any who disagree with that or its reckless support for the Marxist-inspired Black Lives Matter agenda.Handcuff the cops, tear down the statues, rewrite the textbooks, make America the world’s bad guy — that’s what today’s Times is selling.Anyone with such an activist agenda had better be purer than Caesar’s wife. The Times clearly fails that test and owes its staff, stockholders and readers a full account of the slave holders and Confederates in its past.My hope is that after taking a dose of their own medicine, the owner and editors will focus their efforts where they belong: on making the New York Times a great newspaper again.(3) Jamaal Bowman (Black) ousts Eliot Engel (Jewish Zionist), chairman of House Foreign Affairs Committee. And Bowman says US should condition aid to Israel on its behaviorhttps://www.jta.org/quick-reads/jamaal-bowman-declared-victor-against-eliot-engelJamaal Bowman declared victor against Eliot EngelJULY 17, 2020 1:21 PMWASHINGTON (JTA) — More than three weeks after the New York congressional primaries, a key Democratic race was called for Jamaal Bowman, who ran against longtime incumbent and leading pro-Israel lawmaker Eliot Engel.In the final count released Friday, Bowman bested Engel by a solid 15 points, 55-40.A progressive educator, Bowman was backed by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, the two-time presidential candidate, and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, another progressive who unseated a longtime centrist Democrat in a neighboring district in 2018.Israel did not feature prominently in the campaign but helped draw national donors to both campaigns, which spent hundreds of thousands of dollars. Engel, who chairs the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, earned centrist pro-Israel support. Bowman, who has said the United States should condition aid to Israel on its behavior, drew support from Israel critics.At first seen as a long shot, Bowman got a boost from a report that Engel had spent much of his time recently outside the district, which covers parts of the Bronx and Westchester county. Engel then stumbled during a hot mic moment at a protest against police treatment of minorities, giving the impression that he was attending only because he was in a tight primary race. That misstep, amid national fury over police killings, prompted national figures to endorse Bowman.Bowman declared victory soon after polls closed on June 23, but the official count took weeks to emerge because of mail-in voting necessitated by the coronavirus pandemic.Ilhan Omar endorsed by Nancy Pelosi while a primary challenger attracts support from pro-Israel givers(4) Portland anarchists set fires in Curthouse precinct; Homeland Security officers restore orderhttps://www.reuters.com/article/us-global-race-protests-portland/u-s-officials-defend-portland-crackdown-were-not-going-to-apologize-idUSKCN24L1I1JULY 20, 2020 / 10:53 PM / UPDATED 32 MINUTES AGOU.S. officials defend Portland crackdown: 'We're not going to apologize' Doina Chiacu, Deborah BloomWASHINGTON/PORTLAND (Reuters) - U.S. Homeland Security officials said on Monday they had no intention of pulling back in Portland, Oregon, after a federal crackdown on anti-racism protests that included the use of unmarked cars and unidentified officers in camouflage.Weeks of protests in Portland over police brutality and systemic racism intensified as federal officers began cracking down on crowds last week, using tear gas to disperse protesters and taking some into custody without explanation.The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) sent law enforcement units to Portland to help guard U.S. government facilities after receiving intelligence about planned attacks around July 4, the DHS officials said."DHS is not going to back down from our responsibilities. We are not escalating, we are protecting," Chad Wolf, acting secretary of Homeland Security, told Fox News.About 1,500 demonstrators gathered Sunday night outside the federal courthouse, which has been the center of protests since the May 25 killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police. A group of 50 or so mothers dressed in yellow shirts showed up, at one point line-dancing together to a drum beat.There were more people than the week before, with some in the crowd reinvigorated by the news of federal law enforcement officers potentially acting unlawfully in their city. Chants included "Feds go home!" and "No justice, no peace!"After protesters began knocking down sections of a large steel fence put up around the courthouse building, federal officers lobbed flash bangs from the front of the courthouse building. Tear gas canisters followed, filling the square outside the courthouse and forcing much of the crowd away. The tear gas continued intermittently past midnight.Portland Police early on Monday said federal agents used tear gas to disperse the crowd and moved to extinguish a fire that was lit within a portico of courthouse. Police did not engage with protesters and did not use tear gas, the department said.Wolf said federal law enforcement was doing its job."We’re not going to apologize for it," he said. "We’re going to do it professionally and do it correctly."President Donald Trump condemned protests in Portland and violence in other "Democrat-run" cities on Sunday as his Republican administration moves to intervene in urban centers he says have lost control of demonstrations. Protests began across the country after the death of Floyd, one in a long line of Black Americans killed by police.The clampdown in the liberal city has drawn widespread criticism and legal challenges as videos surfaced of officers without clear identification badges using force and unmarked vehicles to arrest protesters without explanation.Ken Cuccinelli, the acting Department of Homeland Security (DHS) deputy secretary, said on Monday the federal officers wore the same uniforms every day and the crowds knew who they were. He also defended the use of unmarked cars as routine."Unmarked police vehicles are so common it’s barely worth discussion," he told CNN.Cuccinelli said if federal authorities receive the same kind of intelligence threat in other places, they would respond the same way. "It’s really as simple as that," he said.On Sunday, Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives demanded internal investigations into whether the Justice and Homeland Security departments "abused emergency authorities" in handling the Portland protests.Portland’s mayor called the intervention an abuse of federal power and said it was escalating the violence. Oregon’s attorney general filed a lawsuit against the federal agencies, saying they had seized and detained people without probable cause.Cuccinelli dismissed local leaders’ calls to leave the city."We will maintain our presence," he said.Reporting by Doina Chiacu and Lisa Lambert in Washington, Deborah Bloom in Portland and Maria Caspani in New York; Writing by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Jonathan Oatis(5) Democrat Mayor, Governor and Reps side with Anarchists, oppose DHC action in Portlandhttps://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53466718Portland protests: Mayor demands federal troops leave cityPortland's mayor said the presence of federal troops was leading to more violenceThe mayor of Portland in Oregon has renewed his call for federal troops to leave the US city, accusing them of abusive tactics against protesters."They are sharply escalating the situation," Mayor Ted Wheeler told CNN on Sunday.There have been nightly protests against police brutality in the city since the killing of African American George Floyd in Minneapolis in May.The federal government has said it is trying to restore order in Portland.Speaking to CNN on Sunday, Mayor Wheeler said there were "dozens if not hundreds of federal troops" in the city, adding: "Their presence here is actually leading to more violence and more vandalism."They're not wanted here. We haven't asked them here. In fact, we want them to leave," he said.His comments echoed those of Oregon Governor Kate Brown, who described the presence of federal troops in the city as "purely political theatre" from the Donald Trump administration.Ms Brown told MSNBC that she had asked the federal government on Tuesday to remove the troops, saying: "You are escalating an already challenging situation."Their comments came after Oregon's attorney general filed a lawsuit against the federal government, accusing it of unlawfully detaining protesters.In the lawsuit, Ellen Rosenblum requested a restraining order to stop agents from the Department of Homeland Security, US Marshals Service, US Customs and Border Protection and the Federal Protection Service from making any more arrests in the city."These tactics must stop," Ms Rosenblum said in a statement.The lawsuit said the actions of federal officers violated protesters' ability to exercise their constitutional First Amendment right to assembly and, by seizing and detaining people without a warrant, also breached the Fourth and Fifth Amendment right to due process.The troops, a new Department of Homeland Security unit made up of people from the US Marshals Service and Customs and Border Protection, have been deployed under an executive order protecting statues, signed by Mr Trump last month.The executive order, which says anyone who damages a public statue must be prosecuted to the "fullest extent of the law", allows troops to be deployed without the permission of the state.Meanwhile on Sunday, Democrats in the House of Representatives called for watchdogs belonging to the departments of justice and homeland security to investigate whether the two bodies had "abused emergency authorities to justify the use of force" against protesters.The letter, which was signed by the heads of three house committees, specifically mentioned the reports from Portland as well as the dispersal of Lafayette Square in Washington DC during protests in June."This is a matter of utmost urgency," they wrote. "Citizens are concerned that the Administration has deployed a secret police force, not to investigate crimes, but to intimidate individuals it views as political adversaries, and that the use of these tactics will proliferate throughout the country."What's happening in Portland?Federal agents, deployed by President Trump, have fired tear gas into crowds of demonstrators. Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf previously called the protesters a "violent mob".Late on Saturday, protesters were seen dismantling a fence around the federal courthouse, hours after it was put up.The US Attorney's office in Oregon said on Twitter that the fence aimed to "de-escalate tensions" between protesters and law enforcement officials and asked people to leave it alone.Officers declared a riot outside the Portland Police Association building. It was set on fire.The last week has seen a violent escalation between protesters and federal agents, deployed two weeks ago by Mr Trump to quell civil unrest.A report from Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB) this week contained detailed accounts of witnesses who had seen federal law enforcement officers dressed in camouflage emerge from unmarked vehicles, grab protesters without explanation, and drive off.Video checked by the broadcaster shows a protester, Mark Pettibone, describe how on 15 July he was "basically tossed" into a van containing people in body armour.Mr Pettibone said he was taken to a holding cell in a federal courthouse, where he was read his arrest rights. After he declined to answer questions, he was released without any citation or arrest record.This police-free protest zone was dismantled - but was it the end? Why US protests are so powerful this time According to OPB, federal officers have charged at least 13 people with crimes.What has the Trump administration said? In a tweet on Sunday, President Donald Trump defended the actions of the federal government."We are trying to help Portland, not hurt it. Their leadership has, for months, lost control of the anarchists and agitators," he said.Earlier in the week, the president said officers in the city had done a "great job"."Portland was totally out of control, and they went in, and I guess we have many people right now in jail," he said on Monday. "We very much quelled it."Chad Wolf arrived in the city on Thursday and defended the agents against the assembled "anarchists".He blamed state and city authorities for failing to "restore order", saying the "city of Portland has been under siege for 47 straight days".