https://techcrunch.com/2025/10/03/hacking-group-claims-theft...
I wonder if the point is distraction. That's a fairly big hack, but now the news cycle re: salesforce is probably discussing this political story.
As an example, A group has set up a website to give the "ground truth" of Portland [0].
San Francisco has always had its problems, but under the control of local authorities with domain knowledge. And the same, no doubt, for every liberal city being occupied under the false pretense that it is in ruins. People go to work, schools and even zoos normally and peacefully.
You see, in this case, rampant crime, raging fires and anarchy are to be found in the mind of the beholder.
San Fran has major problems. It's under much better control now, than it was a decade ago. Admitting and realising that truth, doesn't mean that there's anything wrong in Portland.
This whole "All (red|blue) cities are (bad|good) is insane. Yet I see both sides playing it. Playing it, because one (bad|good) somehow means all are?!
Madness.
Any nuanced statement, meaning out of lockstep with The Information Ministry, is attacked, and with the usual ad-hominem.
Seriously, if you disagreed on some point, say, "Portland is reduced to smoldering rubble" and came under attack via media and death threats, how would you nuance that?
We in the U.S. have not experienced what other countries have experienced, at least since the Civil War, and any outside view, presumably nuanced, comes down hard on outright lies and personal and group threats.
And other countries have fought fascism on their homelands and see the big picture.
Perhaps the single greatest sentence on Hacker News, for quite some time. Thank you.
San Francisco has ranked choice voting, but it's available to only about 14 million voters, about 6% of the eligible voter population. It tends to be mostly on progressive districts, conservatives are implacably opposed to it in my experience. The federal requirements for single member districts are also part of the problem in my view. Some states have multi-member districts but the practice seems to be in decline over the last century.
I also think the strictly scheduled elections in the US are a problem. It's made electioneering into an industry and led politicians to engage in all sorts of abusive behaviors, knowing they can run out the clock. You can see the sam mindset in US-centric sports like American Football and basketball, where coaches and teams habitually exploit the clock period by retaining possession if they ahead or forcing fouls to to create turnover opportunities if not. Fouling has become part of the game and this is a Bad Thing. The same is true of politics. The US would, in my view, be far better off with parliamentary government and a little less institutional stability, so as to limit the overwhelming advantages of incumbency, and the abuses that accompany it.
Obviously the right is super exaggerating the state of "blue" cities to justify political grandstanding, shows of power, and increased authoritarian control.
But it's also true that a lot of these cities have major, major problems in specific areas and are a sad representation of America in 2025 (the richest country in the history of the world). And these problems are not getting effectively addressed at scale, despite many efforts and resources spent by many different groups. This is why these attacks work - you can say "PORTLAND IS NOT BURNING" (it's not!) but you can't argue with the average tourist that they visit the core tourist parts of these cities, they see horrible things that they've never seen before in their suburban lives. Many areas don't feel safe. That's why these attacks are so effective.
The saddest part is we can't talk about this seriously in the current media. You have to be on a "side". Any attempt to have a real discussion is either ignored or lambasted from one side or the other. Both sides have elements of truth which they can use to push their view.
Cities are dynamic and constantly changing. Different people have different experiences living in different neighborhoods. My experiences might not match yours. But I can say some of the most visibly terrible places for human misery in the Western world that I have seen in the last 10 years have been:
- The obvious places in San Francisco, but also anywhere at any time in the financial district
- Downtown Seattle in various areas (between 4th and Pikes Place, around various 7-11s). You want walk from the water front back to your hotel, take the public elevator, it shows up and opens, and a couple is just fully living in it. What do you do with that?
- Many parts of downtown Los Angeles
- The eastern side of downtown San Diego, around the new library and baseball stadium
- Any MacDonalds in the southern part of downtown Chicago
- The area in and around the Taco Bell on the main tourist strip in Denver
- Many parts of Manhattan
- Almost any form of public transit in any city in the US that has one, from a bus in St. Loius to the BART in SF
You probably don't live in these neighborhoods. You'll think "yeah, don't live in the bad parts - my neighborhood is delighful". But I don't think any rational person can pretend like the policies in any of these cities are working effectively, at scale.
Many areas don't feel safe.
That isn't to say things aren't bad in some cities, homelessness in particular, to a degree which should be considered extremely shameful for those living in "the richest country in the history of the world".
However, the fact that the focus of reporting crime and specifically violence is nearly exclusively limited to cities is strong evidence that the goal isn't to solve the problem: it's merely to continue stoking red vs. blue division.
The underlying cause of most of the crime and violence in this country is ultimately poverty, which is why no one with political power is interested in taking steps to fix it.
I also think you're overestimating the effort put in to help historically disinvested neighborhoods. There are policies in Chicago that are working, but they're not being done at scale, and nobody here is pretending they are.
If you replace “dangerous” with “frequented by the homeless”) you get more candidates. The now closed McDonald’s on state. The one at wells and Adam’s and (not in the south loop) the one at lake and lasalle.
Though I’d bet money that the most dangerous in terms of being involved in or witnessing violence is the “rock and roll” McDonald’s in river north because of its hours and proximity to drunks. Most people would _not_ assume it was dangerous though.
If the goal is to show how the government is exaggerating or lying why not set up webcams around federal facilities in Portland?
Seems to me that this is just the other side of the same coin. If the government is going to be dishonest and just point to where the “fires” are and pretend like there is no place that isn’t under siege…it’s just as dishonest to pretend like there are not places in Portland that are problematic.
You certainly do not see those places on that website, nor any mention of them.
Everybody has a story to tell and a perspective that they want to tell it from.
MSNBC, CNN, local Portland TV stations? All have stories detailing the ICE protests, acknowledge that there has been violence and arrests in Portland, and are easily accessible to you via a google search. But…I know y’all know this already and it doesn’t matter to you who is reporting it, you will just obfuscate, spin, or provide some stupid reason why those specific sources or story cannot be trusted.
No thanks, I don’t need to play…but y’allhave fun storming the castle!
I genuinely know nothing about Portland, but i know that the way Chicago is described is entirely unmoored from reality, and that none of the protestors in Chicago have been violent, so you can back up your claim or continue to look like you're making things up
It is annoying the residents of Broadview though, since ICE/DHS is erecting barricades and disrupting traffic flows.
Protests are not war zones, nor are they "burning the city to the ground" nor are they even starting fires (and you did use the word fires).
My point is that the administration is lying about what's happening in Portland, and you don't seem to care. The things you're describing are not the same things the administration is describing.
And again, I don't know much about the protests in Portland, but Trump keeps saying the ones in Chicago are violent when they are not, so unless you can show me that Portland is different, it'll continue to assume you, like the president, are making things up
You also attribute to me an attitude that I did not express on here. My point all along was that the propaganda goes both ways. The government exaggerates their claims and the protesters try to minimize their violence and destructive impact. I stand by that, especially now that you have mischaracterized me several times over the course of this thread. You also describe the Chicago protests as non-violent (and you claim you know about those), but that is simply not true. Just yesterday the Broadview Illinois mayor Katrina Thompson decried the violence of the protesters in her city from Saturday night, So you are contributing to that other side of the propaganda coin by minimizing in the same way the government exaggerates.
“There are too many protesters are raising their fists rather than their voices, creating chaos at the expense of the people who call Broadview home,” Thompson said in a statement. “Broadview residents lack the protestors’ privilege to return to calm, quiet neighborhoods for undisturbed rest.”
https://news.wttw.com/2025/10/13/broadview-mayor-shrinks-des...
Whether you meant to or not, you basically made up the notion that there was violence from the protesters, which is not OK. Please be more careful.
From the Broadview Statement:
“There are too many protesters abusing their right to protest. Too many are raising their fists rather than their voices, creating chaos at the expense of the people who call Broadview home.”
https://broadview-il.gov/reference/press-releases/press-rele...
Feel free to dispute this all you want, feel free to diminish what it says, but know that you are doing exactly what I said…propagandizing from the other side of the coin.
I don't expect you to concede this point --- this is a message board, after all. But I have firsthand knowledge of what you're talking about as well as familiarity with your sources and am continuing to comment to make a record of the inaccuracy of your claim.
> The "abuse of the right to protest" has nothing to do with violence from protesters, which is a detail that you've conjured up yourself.
It’s kind of telling how you chose this phrase to suggest that I have “conjured” up apparent violence. Context counts. Prior to that “abuse” sentence, she said this:
“There were 15 arrests, and 10 of those were around the age of my own daughter. As a mother and a mayor, I am mad.”
Then it’s the next one after the abuse statement makes the difference and alludes to violence:
“Too many are raising their fists rather than their voices, creating chaos at the expense of the people who call Broadview home”. (The emphasis is mine)
That provides further context. From my perspective on the outside looking in, she appears to be suggesting that things are escalating and she appears to be placing some of that blame on the protesters.
Maybe her statement was inarticulate. Maybe it was total BS. Maybe she is playing to both sides. Maybe it reflects reality. Whatever the case may be its what is out in the news now and on its face, it doesn’t feel like things are as peaceful as the mayor would prefer them to be. Good for her trying to de-escalate.
Frankly, I am just happy it’s not happening in my community.
Meanwhile ICE teargassed my block yesterday while my neighbors were doing nothing but standing on the corner filming.
I know who's being violent and it isn't protestors. Beyond that, even the ICE behavior at Broadview isn't especially extreme. The protestors are almost all senior citizens. Nobody is rioting, starting fires, assaulting officers. Do you have evidence of such in Portland? Because if you do you should show me.
Look, i asked you a simple question. "Is there evidence that parts of Portland are being burned to the ground, as the administration claims." The answer is very obviously no.
So between "the sitting president outright lying about the state of reality as an excuse to federalize the national guard and violate civil liberties" and "people who are peacefully going about their lives insisting they're simply going about their lives," I'm glad you've decided both are equally dishonest and similarly motivated.
This is “spin” to minimize impact, just like I said. You are providing propaganda here.
> Look, i asked you a simple question. "Is there evidence that parts of Portland are being burned to the ground, as the administration claims." The answer is very obviously no.
I never made that claim, not sure why you want to keep going back to that. As I stated clearly above, I regarded those claims as an exaggeration, and even sarcastically referred to it in my comment. You choosing to apply this to me is just another example of trying to obfuscate the point of my original comment.
> I'm glad you've decided both are equally dishonest and similarly motivated.
I definitely stand by that. Yes, I think the government is being dishonest and think that has been quite obvious in here with two commenters I have interacted with—You just provided spin like I said you would (but at least you acknowledged what the Mayor actually said, points for that). You have tried to obfuscated my point, attributed opinions to me, and suggested I have said things I haven’t said. That’s dishonest. Another commenter outright lied and claimed the mayor never said what she said, despite the quote. I literally had to post the Mayor’s freaking statement on the city’s website to counter that BS they were spewing.
You're doing what the president is doing: making statements entirely detached from reality without evidence.
I look forward to seeing those streams. Good luck!
Throwing rocks isn’t violent? Since when?
The propaganda around this topic is definitely a two sided coin. Thanks for demonstrating it for all to see.
Neither of you are going to convince each other of anything, so I'm not sure what's gained by handwavy argument and generalizations at this point. Facts have some utility, but the analysis is just tedious.
BTW a few comments above this one the other commenter mentioned that the mayor was “wrong”. So even they aren’t buying your spin of her comments, and they are apparently aligned with you in every other way.
To summarize: I never dunked on that mayor. I literally quoted the mayor’s exact statement. I linked directly to that statement on her government website. Obviously if you and the other commenter have exact opposite interpretations of what she said, the most accurate thing I could say is that the statement was inarticulate because it illicit opposite meanings based on the reader.
Just because people don’t agree with you doesn’t mean they are lying. Just because someone is critical of a mayor that you believe is beyond criticism doesn’t mean that the mayor can’t be criticized.
That's backwards: The burden of proof is on the government to show that the prerequisites have been met for invoking the Insurrection Act of 1807 [0] or the Alien Enemy Act of 1798 [1] or the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 [2]. To be sure, the president gets some deference, but s/he doesn't have absolute discretion.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insurrection_Act_of_1807
It's become a bit of a strategy for Trump supporters to pull 'oh I've never heard about that, let's move on' when confronted with damning evidence of Trump's corruption or incompetence.
onetokeoverthe•3mo ago
https://techcrunch.com/2025/10/03/hacking-group-claims-theft...