So, Andy Ngo is probably most famous for trying to claim that a milkshake someone threw at him while he was allegedly reporting on a Patriot Prayer rally actually contained quick-drying cement, and that led to him being hospitalized with (depending on which day he talked about it later while begging people to donate to his various crowdsource funds), a brain hemorrhage, a brain bleed, or traumatic brain injury. We’ll come back to the medical bit, but the quick-drying cement is not only a lie, but it is a lie that defies the laws of physics.

In the video, a person is clearly seen flicking a milkshake container and the liquid flies out of it behaving exactly like a milkshake. If it were quick drying cement that had been mixed to a consistency where a flick of a wrist could send it flying like that, then the density and mass of the liquid would cause absolutely no more damage than an ordinary milkshake. Even if it magically hardened midair somehow, physics tells us force is equal to mass times accelleration and it doesn’t matter whether the mass is liquid or solid. Besides, some of Ngo’s own footage from moments before showed the folks in the crowd who had the drink containers drinking from them. If they had been drinking quick drying cement, they were the ones who would have ended up in the hospital.

But let’s get back to the medical report. Despite a number of legitimate news organizations trying to confirm that Andy was hospitalized overnight, no one was able to confirm it. Also, while a layman might think that the three diagnostic terms (brain hemorrhage, brain bleed, or traumatic brain injury) are interchangeable, they are not. The term brain hemorrhage is usually used to describe a specific kind of stroke. Brain bleed would be the term usually used for intercranial bleeding caused by a blow to the head. Ngo was punched in the face on video before the milkshake was thrown at him, so he might well have had a brain bleed and/or a concussion. Traumatic brain injury is a much more complicated medical condition, and would require considerably more tests than those a typical ER would run for a head injury. And if they did diagnose it as a traumatic brain injury, they probably would have kept him for more than one night.

And remember, no one has been able to verify the overnight stay.

I agree that it appears that the punch in the face was assault. If the punch in the face was unprovoked (and we can’t always tell from these videos), then yes, it was uncalled for. Technically the milkshake is assault, too, but I’m sorry: I remain firmly in the camp that whoever throws a milkshake on a Nazi apologist is a hero.

Because that’s what Andy Ngo is. He’s not a journalist. He’s a propagandist, a liar, and a shill for fascist white nationalist organizations. And, as we now know, he’s more than just a propagandist: Andy Ngo Captured On Video With Patriot Prayer As They Reportedly Plan Attack On Antifa.

That word “reportedly” is overly cautious. The video includes clear audio and they are discussing an attack they are about to make, Andy participates in the discussion, and laughs. A lot.

And there have been some consequences: Andy Ngo, Who Became a Right-Wing Star, Leaves Quillette After Incriminating Video Appears. Even the far-right so-called news site Quillette couldn’t justify keeping him on as an editor. Note, though, that they aren’t firing him because he’s an active participate in alt-right violence, they are firing him because they can no longer deny it.

The knowledge that he doesn’t just report from a particular bias but he actually lies in his reporting isn’t new. Last year at what was essentially a Black Lives Matter March in Portland, an older man in the car appeared to intentionally drive into the crowd, striking one protestor and send him rolling down the street. The crowd closed in on the car and yelled at the driver. Which was understandable. Video of the incident was edited to cut out the first part of the incident, to make it appear that an innocent man was being harassed by the crowd. And it was that lie which got Ngo a guest spot on Tucker Carson’s show (where for whatever reason he spoke with a fake British accent. Ngo (who is a Vietnamese-American) was born in Portland, Oregon. He grew up in Portland and attended a private evangelical high school in Portland. He’s not British.

You can read a lot more about his previous lies and grifting attempts here: Portland’s Andy Ngo Is the Most Dangerous Grifter in America: Though he poses as a journalist, the purpose of his platform is to sow harassment and violence against his targets on the Left — and the mainstream media have fallen for it.

The thing that really gets me about this series of event is why someone like Ngo — Vietnamese-American, out gay man, self-described as rejecting all religions — is defending, propagandizing for, and collaborating with white nationalist who subscribe to a radical form of christianist authoritarianism. I have the same question about the notorious Milo Yiannopoulos. Have neither of these guys heard of the Night of Long Knives in early Nazi Germany?

The Night of Long Knives was an operation ordered by Hitler in 1934 to murder members of his own government, certain military leaders, and political enemies. Some of the murders were to settle old scores, some were to eliminate possible rivals, but a whole lot of the killing was aimed at the all the openly and semi-openly gay members of the SA (“Storm Battalion”) including the openly homosexual leader of the SA, Ernst Röhm. Part of what convinced Hitler to go ahead with the operation was when, on a state visit to Italy, Mussolini told him that tolerating all those homosexuals was making his government look bad to their allies. After Röhm and many, many others were killed, Hitler appointed a new head to the SA and gave him a specific mission to root out “homosexuality, debauchery, drunkenness, and high living.”

Let’s not forget that in the first years of the Nazi concentration camps, most of the prisoners were originally arrested on charges of sodomy and the like (whether trumped up or true).

Folks like Ngo are allowed to hang out with white nationalist groups like Patriot Prayer because they are considered useful pets. It’s a variant of the tired old argument, “I can’t be a bigot! Some of my best friends are gay/asian/black/etc!”

If groups like Patriot Prayer get their way, eventually it’s not just going to be people who come to the border locked up in overcrowded camps with inadequate food and medical treatment. And people like Ngo and Milo and the like are going to find themselves rounded up with the rest of us. They think they are immune because they have been such loyal pets. But like the fable of the scorpion and the frog—which tells us it is in the nature of scorpions to sting anyone, even those who help them—it is in the nature of neo-nazis to attack queers, people of color, and so forth.