Last week, Baghdad Barbie (aka “White House Press Secretary Karolina Leavitt”) uttered the following:

“President Trump will end the radical left’s reign of terror in Portland once and for all. The president has directed Secretary Hegseth to provide all necessary troops to protect war-ravaged Portland.”

This is utterly insane. Gaza, South Sudan, parts of Ukraine are “war ravaged.” Portland, OR is obviously not “war ravaged.” There are no blocks burnt to the ground. There haven’t been mass civilian casualities due to violence.

What I find perplexing is that neither the White House press corps or the larger political press corps challenges this. It’s easy to do so! If she had called Portland ‘crime ridden’, it’s possible to find some crime-related statistic that could ‘justify’ such a statement. But “war ravaged?” Who is involved in this war? Paramilitaries? Foreign governments? What has our military been doing the whole time?

(Those are tongue-in-the-cheek questions for the slow sarcasm group).

The reason this matters is that, like creationism, it is obviously and clearly nonsensical, even though it is being used to justify a potential military occupation. Someone needs to ask Leavitt and the Trump administration what their evidence is for being “war ravaged.” Yes, it’s absurd, but it does need to be asked.

Update after ‘going to press’: A Trump-appointed judge calls Trump’s attempt to take over Oregon’s National Guard as “simply untethered to facts.”