Category: Enemies Foreign and Domestic

Opinion: The Steps Towards Revolution or Hostile Takeover From Within (Part I, Introduction)

There is an interesting graphic going around on Twitter. It appears to portray the levels and activities of civil uncoupling before open guerrilla warfare breaks out and we have a full-blown revolution happening. Here is the Tweet and the diagram.

Image

You can see the pyramid has multiple levels showing activities that take place before there is an open, armed revolt against the constituted government. The yellow arrow points towards where (with some justification) the author of the Tweet believes we are right now.

Opinion: The Steps Towards Revolution or Hostile Takeover From Within (Part I, Introduction)

There is no doubt that in more than a few metropolitan precincts, the morale of police forces is in sharp decline. Just look at the spiking request for retirement numbers.

If you’ll note, the diagram in the tweet differs from the one on the masthead of this article. That one I took directly from the January 2013 edition of a U.S. Army Special Operations Command (USASOC) publication entitled: Human Factors Considerations Of Undergrounds In Insurgencies. The 2013 version is actually more up to date. Except as specifically noted, I’ll be using the USASOC version.

The Twitter version has an arrow pointing at just one level. On the USASOC version, I’ve circled a range of levels. On both, the designated areas are just short of the open and armed revolt or general uprising levels. It’s important to understand that these things don’t necessarily occur in a rigid sequence and, at the end, most of them will be occurring simultaneously.

Back in the day, I used to teach this at the JFK Special Warfare Center at Fort Bragg. One thing that has stuck with me since that brief time in my life is a very hard truth and its even harder analog. The hard truth is that before the first guerrilla picks up a gun and kills a police officer or Soldier, the revolution or precursors to it, have been going for at least 10 years prior. Of course, the analog to that says that once you’ve defeated the insurgency, killed, captured, or jailed the leaders, there is still a decade or more of work to do to get back to a condition of popularly supported stability.

Over the next few days, we’ll explore the USASOC graphic. Continue reading “”

The new anti-Semitism

Ocasio-Cortez withdraws from Rabin memorial event after backlash
Democratic congresswoman pulls participation from Americans For Peace Now commemoration for assassinated Israeli premier, after pro-Palestinian activists call move ‘disgusting’

Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Friday withdrew her participation from an event commemorating former prime minster Yitzhak Rabin on the 25th anniversary of his assassination.

The decision, which came after backlash from pro-Palestinian activists, was confirmed to The Times of Israel by a spokeswoman for the congresswoman, a rising star in the progressive wing of the Democratic party. Continue reading “”

Lefties at The Nation discover that (non-FBI) feds have been tracing the puppet masters behind Antifa and BLM

Is an unexpected October Surprise on the way?

They think it’s a bad thing, but I give The Nation credit for reportorial digging.  The hard-left magazine has discovered that federal law enforcement agencies (though not the FBI) have been tracing whom the mobs in Portland have been communicating with.  The apparent lead role in utilizing hi tech and classified electronic means is being played by the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis (I&A), while the U.S. Marshals Service is dispatching street-level personnel.  This bypasses the FBI, whose director, Christopher Wray, is on the record in sworn testimony, dismissing any such superstructure:

“It’s not a group or an organization. It’s a movement or an ideology,” he said, explaining that “folks who subscribe or identify” with antifa do not operate at a national level, but instead organize “regionally into small groups or nodes.”

The Nation reports: Continue reading “”

Kamala Harris to Appear Alongside Hanoi Jane.
The event comes one week after Biden hosted a veterans outreach roundtable.

The Biden campaign, which has bombarded President Donald Trump with attacks about his respect for U.S. soldiers, will be campaigning this weekend with Jane Fonda, a celebrity best known for fraternizing with enemy troops during the Vietnam War.

Democratic vice-presidential candidate Kamala Harris is set to join Fonda at a Saturday virtual event held by progressive advocacy group Supermajority. The event—titled “Supercharge: Women All In”—will “bring together thousands of women to laugh, sing, dance, and celebrate women’s political power,” according to the group’s website.

Fonda traveled to North Vietnam in 1972 as part of an anti-war protest that saw her pose for photos with enemy troops on an anti-aircraft gun. The photo sparked outrage among Vietnam veterans, earning her the nickname “Hanoi Jane.” Fonda’s public appearances remain subject to controversy—a group of Ohio veterans called on the actress to donate her $83,000 speaking fee to the families of fallen soldiers ahead of a May appearance at Kent State University. Continue reading “”

In breaking news, New York City real estate prices unexpectedly drop

AOC urges city, state tax hikes to fund NYC schools

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is calling for tax hikes to help fund New York City’s cash-strapped schools and child care programs.

“I’m calling on Mayor [Bill] de Blasio and Governor [Andrew] Cuomo to raise revenue to fund universal child-care programs, significantly increase staffing at schools, and fund the infrastructure improvements, including ventilation, that our school buildings need to be safe,” Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) said in a statement Wednesday. Continue reading “”

It is an idea

The Morning Briefing: Let’s Give the Lefty Soy Boy Rioters the War in the Streets They Think They Want

A grand jury gave its decision in the Breonna Taylor shooting and — SHOCKER — the lefties weren’t satisfied and responded with mostly peaceful protests riots………

There is a lot of talk of civil war and revolution coming from these criminals.

Because they’ve been allowed to riot with very little pushback from police for several months, the rage mob has a greatly inflated sense of its badassery. It’s easy to be a tough guy when you’re protected by numbers and you’re beating up a Best Buy window………..

Social media and pro-riot Dems have spawned thousands of thugs who probably wouldn’t last long in an encounter with anyone who wasn’t outnumbered and who actually fought back. These are emo wusses who are driven by hurt feelings, after all. In reality, if you got any one of them isolated and said “BOO!” loudly they’d probably soil themselves and begin sobbing.

They think they want anarchy and revolution but they only want it in safe spaces that are little more than riot gated communities.

Step up, antifa, bring your masked soy boy brigades away from places where you know you’re operating largely consequence-free. Mike Tyson once said something to the effect of, “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face.” Safe money says that your plans wouldn’t amount to much after the first punch in the face.

If Joe Biden wins the election we may see the riots move more and more away from city centers. These rabid animals aren’t going to stop even if President Trump is out of office. Should that happen, they won’t fare as well unless the Harris-Biden administration decides to aid and abet them. Don’t rule that possibility out.

 

 

Transition Integrity Project Founder Calls For EXECUTION Of Former Trump Official

NILS GILMAN, THE FOUNDER OF THE SO-CALLED “BIPARTISAN” TRANSITION INTEGRITY PROJECT, CALLED FOR THE EXECUTION OF FORMER TRUMP ADMINISTRATION NATIONAL SECURITY OFFICIAL MICHAEL ANTON IN LIGHT OF ANTON WRITING CRITICALLY ABOUT THE GROUP’S EFFORTS TO STEAL THE 2020 ELECTION AND SECURE A VICTORY FOR DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE JOE BIDEN.

Gilman, who serves as Vice President of Programs at the Chinese Communist Party-linked Berggruen Institute, took to Twitter to express his desire that Anton be executed in the same fashion as Robert Brasillach.

Specifically, he insisted “Michael Anton is the Robert Brasillach of our times and deserves the same fate.”

Brasillach was a French author and journalist who was executed in 1944 by firing squad for using his various platforms to advance Nazi collaborationism and anti-Semitism during World War II. The execution, rather than lifetime imprisonment, was highly controversial related to intellectual crimes as opposed to military or political actions.

With his comments, not only is Gilman falsely insinuating that Anton is a Nazi, but also that he deserves to be executed for his opinions.

 

The tweet also included a link to a Forward article: “A former Trump official dreamed up a George Soros-funded ‘coup’ conspiracy that is spreading online,” which chronicles how Anton helped expose the nefarious and democracy-undermining activities of the Transition Integrity Project. Continue reading “”

Department Of Justice Identifies New York City, Portland And Seattle As Jurisdictions Permitting Violence And Destruction Of Property
Identification is Response to Presidential Memorandum Reviewing Federal Funding to State and Local Governments that are Permitting Anarchy, Violence, and Destruction in American Cities

The U.S. Department of Justice today identified the following three jurisdictions that have permitted violence and destruction of property to persist and have refused to undertake reasonable measures to counteract criminal activities: New York City; Portland, Oregon; and Seattle, Washington. The Department of Justice is continuing to work to identify jurisdictions that meet the criteria set out in the President’s Memorandum and will periodically update the list of selected jurisdictions as required therein.

The list was published on DOJ’s website today in response to President Trump’s memorandum of September 2, 2020, entitled “Memorandum on Reviewing Funding to State and Local Government Recipients That Are Permitting Anarchy, Violence, and Destruction in American Cities.”

“When state and local leaders impede their own law enforcement officers and agencies from doing their jobs, it endangers innocent citizens who deserve to be protected, including those who are trying to peacefully assemble and protest,” said Attorney General William P. Barr.  “We cannot allow federal tax dollars to be wasted when the safety of the citizenry hangs in the balance. It is my hope that the cities identified by the Department of Justice today will reverse course and become serious about performing the basic function of government and start protecting their own citizens.”

Criteria for evaluating each city is below:

  • Whether a jurisdiction forbids the police force from intervening to restore order amid widespread or sustained violence or destruction.
  • Whether a jurisdiction has withdrawn law enforcement protection from a geographical area or structure that law enforcement officers are lawfully entitled to access but have been officially prevented from accessing or permitted to access only in exceptional circumstances, except when law enforcement officers are briefly withheld as a tactical decision intended to resolve safely and expeditiously a specific and ongoing unlawful incident posing an imminent threat to the safety of individuals or law enforcement officers.
  • Whether a jurisdiction disempowers or defunds police departments.
  • Whether a jurisdiction unreasonably refuses to accept offers of law enforcement assistance from the Federal Government.
  • Any other related factors the Attorney General deems appropriate.

New York City

  • Shootings in New York City have been on the rise since looting and protests began on or about May 28, 2020.  For July 2020, shootings increased from 88 to 244, an increase of 177% over July 2019.  In August 2020, shootings increased from 91 to 242, a 166% increase over August 2019.
  • While the city faced increased unrest, gun violence, and property damage, the New York City Council cut $1 billion from NYPD’s FY21 budget.
  • The budget resulted in the cancellation of the new police recruiting class, cuts to overtime spending, and the transfer of certain police functions, including school safety, out of the NYPD.
  • Meanwhile, the Manhattan and Brooklyn District Attorneys have declined to prosecute charges of disorderly conduct and unlawful assembly arising from the protests, and the District Attorneys in Queens and the Bronx have declined to prosecute other protest-related charges.
  • Both Mayor de Blasio and Governor Cuomo have forcefully rejected federal law enforcement support.

Portland, Oregon

  • This month, Portland marked 100 consecutive nights of protests marred by vandalism, chaos, and even killing.
  • Those bent on violence regularly started fires, threw projectiles at law enforcement officers, and destroyed property. Numerous law enforcement officers, among others, suffered injury.
  • Shootings increased by more than 140% in June and July 2020 compared to the same period last year.
  • In the midst of this violence, the Portland City Council cut $15 million from the police bureau, eliminating 84 positions. Crucially, the cuts included the Gun Violence Reduction Team, which investigates shootings, and several positions from the police team that responds to emergency incidents.
  • In August, Portland Mayor Wheeler sent a letter to President Trump expressly rejecting the Administration’s offer of federal law enforcement to stop the violent protests.

Seattle, Washington

  • For nearly a month, starting in June, the City of Seattle permitted anarchists and activists to seize six square blocks of the city’s Capitol Hill neighborhood, naming their new enclave the “Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone” (CHAZ) and then the “Capitol Hill Occupied Protest” (CHOP).
  • Law enforcement and fire fighters were precluded from entering the territory.  The Seattle Police Department was ordered to abandon their precinct within the CHOP.
  • Person-related crime in the CHOP increased 525% from the same period of time in the same area the year before, including by Mayor Durkan’s own count “two additional homicides, 6 additional robberies, and 16 additional aggravated assaults (to include 2 additional non-fatal shootings).”
  • The CHOP was allowed to stand for nearly a month, during which time two teenagers were shot and killed in the zone.
  • The Seattle City Council, Mayor Durkan, and Washington Governor Jay Inslee publicly rejected federal involvement in law enforcement activities within the city of Seattle.

BLUF:
Even — let’s just pretend for a moment — if they were sincere and didn’t intend to come after all firearms, when has the federal government ever shown restraint in matters like this? Give the bureaucratic behemoth an inch and it will immediately seek ways to take every mile on Earth.

The obvious takeaway from all of this is that we were right all along about the Democrats’ intentions, which provides a perfect example for future debates when they’re pretending to be anything other than what they truly are:
Soviet-esque control-freak statists.

Democrats Finally Fly Their Gun-Control Fascist Freak Flag in the Open

In all of the decades that the modern version of the contentious debate in America over guns, freedom, and the Second Amendment has been going on, the gun-control advocates have repeatedly assured gun owners of one thing: they don’t want to take our guns away from us.

My, what a difference one presidential primary full of unabashed Democratic statists makes.

After years of being told that we are paranoid for saying that the anti-gun Left wants to confiscate our weapons, the anti-gun Left is letting us know in no uncertain terms that they want to confiscate our weapons.

Loudest among them is Robert Francis “Horse Mouth” O’Rourke who, seeing his relevance as a candidate dwindling by the hour, has decided to go all-in on making a pitch for being America’s gun-grabber-in-chief:

 

This Soviet turn marks a departure for Beto in a couple of ways.

Last year, when the only constituency he was trying to woo consisted of residents of the great state of Texas, O’Rourke was still paying lip service to being a supporter of legal gun owners.

So much for that. Continue reading “”

They should be careful if they really want to ‘go there’. They just may walk into something that does more than bite back.

Democrats Promise to Be Sore (and Violent) Losers
They know that the media, corporations, schools, and even churches will cheer them on.

Writing in The Atlantic recently, the sober-minded commentator Shadi Hamid says, “I struggle to imagine how, beyond utter shock, millions of Democrats will process a Trump victory.” For Democrats, having failed to cope with the 2016 election, and believing the polls that show a solid Joe Biden lead, another shock Trump win would “provoke mass disillusion with electoral politics as a means of change — at a time when disillusion is already dangerously high.” And it would lead decent folks astray. They would seek remedies “outside the political process, including through nonpeaceful means,” though, “not necessarily out of hope but out of despair.”

Don’t notice the gleam in the arsonist’s eye, he’s really just heartbroken over the fate of the Biden-Harris ticket!

Given Hamid’s premises, why bother even having the election? Why not find a peaceful but extralegal procedure to make Joe Biden president right this second? We could relieve the whole nation of the suspense of what Democrats will do if once again they’ve nominated someone who can’t beat one of the most broadly unpopular political figures of modern times.

For what it’s worth, like Hamid, I’m worried about post-election violence. But my view of the causes is slightly different. Hamid says, “Losers of elections need to believe that they can win the next time around. Otherwise their incentives to play the spoiler increase.” Okay, true enough.

He also says that “the anxiety gripping the two parties is asymmetric.” Joe Biden is a moderate Democrat, he says, and therefore theoretically more acceptable to Republicans, whereas Donald Trump “represents the nativist wing of an already nativist Republican Party.” His conclusion: Biden should win for reasons of civic peace.

Now leave aside the claims of leftists, including Obama, that Joe Biden has become much more progressive in his current campaign. And let’s leave aside the question of whether Donald Trump is actually a moderate or liberal Republican on issues such as federal welfare spending. Hamid fails in his analysis because he is unwilling or unable to see things from the other side. Maybe it’s time to practice empathy.

What if the anxiety gripping the parties was asymmetric in the other direction? Conservatives don’t see politics as just a matter of elective office, but of power generally. And they notice that the major corporations, Hollywood and pop culture, academia, what’s left of mainstream media, most local institutions, the leadership class of their own movements through the years, and even their own churches are substantially to their left politically. They also notice that progressives notch major political and cultural wins even from conservative elites, and even following conservative victories.

Hamid might have noticed that conservative activism was born over “despair” of the sort he describes. It was born of the observation that even winning elections wasn’t enough to secure political victories. Instead of the Electoral College or the Senate, conservatives had to face the more inscrutable Supreme Court, which for years overturned conservative legislation and enacted progressive victories that had no chance of receiving a democratic mandate. Conservatives’ response was to double down on electoral strategies, making an explicit case that they needed to win elections to reform the judiciary. Why didn’t conservatives simply pout and threaten to abandon the democratic process altogether, as Hamid admits liberals are wont to do?

Perhaps because conservatives then, as now, knew on which side of the divide the institutional and oligarchic power landed. Progressives feel secure in making all but open threats of violence and revolution because they know that the heads of domestic security agencies are on their side, they know that the most powerful voices in media and academia are at the ready to craft apologies for their violence. And they know that their reputations will be restored or even burnished after committing violence on behalf of their causes.

The modern American conservative movement was a populist and democratic movement because it had to be. The modern Left knows where its power lies as well — with the already powerful.

Five Years After Disappearance, St. Louis Park Man Charged With Joining ISIS

A St. Louis Park Minneapolis man, who abandoned his family while vacationing in Morocco, has been charged by federal authorities five years later with joining an ISIS battalion trained to carry out suicide attacks in Europe.

Abdelhamid Al-Madioum, 23, was indicted in U.S. District Court with providing material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization.

Al-Madioum, who lost much of one arm from an apparent air assault in Iraq, was in court in Minneapolis on Wednesday after his overseas capture by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the major fighting force against ISIS, who then handed him over to the FBI. Continue reading “”

Authorities arrest 4 in connection to possible arson, fires along West Coast
Two of the suspects remain unidentified, and authorities dismissed potential political affiliations
(Yeah right, ‘no political affiliations‘)

Four have been arrested on suspicion of arson in West Coast areas already under seige from major destructive and deadly blazes, according to reports.

As wildfires continue to rage across three states, police investigated separate incidents near existing wildfires. Two men in Washington state, one man in Oregon and one woman in California are facing charges,
according to the Daily Wire.

The latest reports suggest that at least 20 people have died in California, eight in Oregon and one in Washington state as firefighters struggle to contain already deadly fires.

Ashland, Ore., Police Chief Tighe O’Meara announced Thursday that a criminal investigation was opened into the cause of the Almeda fire calling the circumstances around the fire ‘suspicious’. Continue reading “”

BLUF:
Even now the cities that have gotten behind police defunding are suffering massive violence.

Not all that long ago, the Democrats ran on vowing to stop mass shootings. Now they don’t want to talk about them. And who can blame them? Few murderers want to confess their crimes.

Democrats lied about crime and the cops, and thousands of people were wounded or died.

Black Lives Matter Led to Record Number of Mass Shootings
Three Democrat cities will account for 5,000 shootings.

Even as gun violence breaks records in New York City, Chicago, and Philly, the Democrats don’t have much to say about the epidemic of shootings or their pet cause, gun control. While activist Democrat prosecutors like Attorney General Letitia James have neglected to deal with the violence and are instead targeting the NRA, they aren’t really talking about gun control.

Mass shootings are rarely mentioned anymore even though there are more of them than ever.

A Washington D.C. mass shooting at a cookout last month that wounded 20 people was treated as another local crime story. And there are a lot of these local crime stories as shootings rise.

New York City has blown past 1,000 shootings, of all kinds, individual and mass, Philly hit 1,300, and Chicago is approaching 3,000 shootings.

3 Democrat cities alone will soon account for some 5,000 shootings.

These are the kinds of numbers we used to see out of Iraq. Now we see them in America. Continue reading “”

This is how ‘twisted’ the purported logic is of those who 1,  don’t like the idea of personal self-defense and 2, when guns are involved, their mind goes blank in a spasm of ‘Guns are BAAAAD!‘.  And being a former law clerk of a noted proggie, leftist anti-gun Supreme Court Justice seals the deal, his head full of mush being better used as a hat rack when it comes to propounding on anything to do with individual rights, especially RKBA.

I’m not going to waste my time, or yours, trying to fisk this crap-for-brains piece of opinionated garbage. Any of the readers I know are more than intelligent enough to detect the fallacies and mistakes (purposeful or otherwise) on their own that this thoroughly indoctrinated ‘Harvard professor’ made in this propaganda piece.

The purpose of this post being to – again – display the generations of people who are  teaching indoctrinating our children in the colleges and universities these days.

How Guns Twist the Logic of Self-Defense Laws

You’d think it would be easy to determine whether Kyle Rittenhouse can successfully plead self-defense after killing two people and injuring a third during protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Turns out that it’s actually pretty complex. Here’s why: When gun rights get involved, the law tends to depart radically from common sense. Continue reading “”

What’s a ‘consensus’ got to do with an election? Nothing in my book.

ZUCKERBERG: Election May Take ‘Weeks’ And Cause ‘Civil Unrest’ Until Media Creates ‘Consensus’ On Next President
The Facebook CEO warns of civil unrest after an election that may take weeks to determine a winner

In a recent appearance on Axios on HBO, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg suggested that his company and “and other media” should work to convince the American public there is nothing illegitimate, strange, or suspect about the results upcoming presidential election taking days or weeks to be tabulated due to mail in voting.

Zuckerberg stressed that Facebook is preparing Americans to accept that election results may take weeks after November 3 to be tabulated, and explained that Facebook will add “informational context” to posts by any candidate who attempts to declare victory in an election before a media “consensus result” has been established.

“One of the things that I think we and other media need to start doing is preparing the American people,” said Zuckerberg, is “That there’s nothing illegitimate about this election taking additional days or even weeks to make sure that all the votes are counted, in fact, that may be important to be sure that this is a legitimate and fair election.”

Zuckerberg explained that Facebook will use “a bunch of of different messaging around that, just so people know that that’s normal.”

Then, Zuckerberg explained that “If one of the candidates, in any of the races, claims victory before there’s a consensus result, then we’re going to add some informational context to that post directly, saying that there’s no consensus result yet.” Continue reading “”

“Walls for me, but not for thee!”
It’s just Der Gretchenführer­™ showing off her hypocrisy again.

Anti-Border Fence Mich. Gov. Whitmer Building 8-Foot High, Electrified Fence Around Governor’s Residence

Despite her vocal opposition to building border walls to keep Americans safe from illegal immigration, Democrat Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer is having an eight-foot high, electrified fence built around her official residence to keep out unwanted visitors.

The fence is just one part of a $1.1 million, taxpayer-funded security upgrade to the governor’s residence, The Detroit Free Press reports:

In recent weeks, crews have been working to build what appears to be an eight-foot-tall fence around the governor’s residence property. Last week, a sign on the site where crews were on the job warned, “Danger. High voltage. Unauthorized persons keep out.”

“It’s unclear how much is being spent on the perimeter fencing that’s being installed,” the paper reports.

As The Washington Free Beacon notes, Gov. Whitmer has called the construction of barriers on the U.S. borders too costly and ineffective:

Whitmer, a Biden surrogate, has attacked the idea of using barriers to prevent illegal immigration. She called President Donald Trump’s border wall “costly and ineffective” in February 2017, nearly a week after suggesting that money for the wall would be better spent elsewhere.

“$40 BILLION for the wall,” Whitmer tweeted. “Think how many kids that would educate, how many roads, bridges and pipes it would fix.”

Whitmer also campaigned against Trump’s wall in 2018, saying, “it is time we get back to building bridges, not walls.”

Professor on Antifa Execution of Trump Supporter in Portland: “He Killed a Fascist. I See Nothing Wrong With it”

University of Rhode Island Professor Erik Loomis reacted to the execution of Trump supporter Aaron “Jay” Danielson on the streets of Portland by an Antifa extremist by commenting, “He killed a fascist. I see nothing wrong with it.”

In an article entitled ‘Why was Michael Reinoehl killed?’ Loomis laments the fact that Danielson’s murderer died at the hands of police officers after brandishing a weapon.

“I am extremely anti-conspiracy theory,” wrote Loomis. “But it’s not a conspiracy theory at this point in time to wonder if the cops simply murdered him. The police is [sic] shot through with fascists from stem to stern. They were openly working with the fascists in Portland, as they were in Kenosha which led to dead protestors.”

Loomis was challenged in the comment section of the blog post, with one respondent telling the professor, “Erik, he shot and killed a guy.”

“He killed a fascist. I see nothing wrong with it, at least from a moral perspective,” Loomis responded.

The professor went on to further justify Danielson’s execution by saying it was morally right for slaves to assassinate their slaveowners hundreds of years ago.

Notice how Loomis justifies cold blooded murder by dehumanizing Danielson as a “fascist,” ironically just as fascists justified the killing of Jews during World War II by dehumanizing them as “rats” and “less than human.”

Reminder; These are the people teaching your children.

…..it’s important to understand how the coverage you are getting is being shaped, and by whom.

‘You’re Not Allowed To Film’: The Fight To Control Who Reports From Portland.

“YOU’RE NOT ALLOWED TO FILM!” is a cry you hear incessantly at protests in Portland, Oregon, always shouted at close range to your face by after-dark demonstrators. You can assert that, yes, you can film; you can point out that they themselves are filming incessantly; you can push their hands away from covering your phone; you can have your phone record them stealing your phone—all of these things have happened to me—and none will have any impact on their contention that “YOU’RE NOT ALLOWED TO FILM” and its occasional variation, “PHOTOGRAPHY EQUALS DEATH!”

I cannot say who came up with these anti-camera battle cries. But it’s easy to understand why protesters use them: to shape the narrative the country sees about the protests. And that narrative, in my estimation after many weeks covering street clashes in a city where I lived for 15 years, is 90 percent bs.

I wondered, the first time I attended the protests at the federal building back in July, who all these young people with PRESS emblazoned on their jackets or helmets were. I asked one such guy who he worked for.

“Independent Press Corps,” he told me. As it turned out, dozens of other young PRESS people happened to work for the same outfit, which I at first assumed was a fancy way of saying “I want to report stuff and stream it on my Instagram.”

This turned out to be naive. The IPC is an organized group in league with the activists, and it is usually their footage you see streamed online and recycled on the news: mostly innocent protestors being harassed and beaten by police. Continue reading “”