Daily Archives: February 8, 2021

WASHINGTON, D.C. President Donald Trump tweeted Sunday afternoon that the United States will designate antifa as a terrorist organization, although some say the U.S. government doesn't have the legal authority to do so.

The State Department can designate foreign organizations as terrorist groups, but the United States has no domestic terrorism statute, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.

"Let's be clear: There is no legal authority for designating a domestic group," the ACLU tweeted Sunday. "Any such designation would raise significant due process and First Amendment concerns."

On Tuesday, Twitter announced that a white nationalist group had been posing as antifa, presumably to cause dissension.

For those who might be a little unsure as to what and who antifa is, here are five things to know about the movement of militant activists.

1. What does Antifa stand for and what are their general beliefs?

Antifa, short for anti-facists, is an umbrella description for a broad group of people whose political beliefs often fall to the far left but do not conform with the Democratic Party.

Antifa members stand against what they view as authoritarian, homophobic and racist systems, according to The New York Times.

2. How long has antifa existed?

The original antifa groups date back to fights against European fascists in the 1940s. The modern antifa movement in America began in the 1980s with a group called Anti-Racist Action, according to the "Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook."

3. Who is in antifa?

Part of the issue with Trump's claim that he will designate antifa as a terrorist organization is that it's difficult to label antifa as an organization at all.

The movement has no official leaders or headquarters. Over the past decade, antifa has worked with other local activist networks that are rallying around shared beliefs, such as Black Lives Matter, but it's impossible to know how many members there are, according to The New York Times.

4. What does antifa protest, and what are its tactics?

Antifa members take part in protests and rallies aimed at disrupting authoritative speakers and actions. Many antifa organizers participate in peaceful forms of community organizing, but what sets the group is apart is its willingness to use violence.

Antifa members say they use violence as a means of self-defense and that property destruction does not equate to violence, according to CNN.

"There is a place for violence," Scott Crow, a former Antifa organizer, told CNN. "Is that the world that we want to live in? No. Is it the world we want to inhabit? No. Is it the world we want to create? No. But will we push back? Yes."

5. Why do antifa members dress in all black?

Antifa members will often dress in all black, sometimes also covering their faces with masks, so they can't be identified by opposing groups or the police.

The all-black uniform is also an intimidation tactic, which allows members to move through a protest as one uniformed group.

Read more:

What Is Antifa: 5 Things To Know About The Movement ...

When Antifa radicals gathered in Tacoma, Wash. on January 24, fights erupted, storefronts were destroyed, flags burned and cops were threatened. I had a front-row seat, embedded within the throngs of roughly 150 black bloc thugs ready to leave their mark. But I also became a would-be target.

I thought I would escape attention so that I could avoid a potentially violent confrontation. I was wrong. Antifa knew I was amongst them.

Democratic lawmakers have demanded social media crackdown on online, right-wing violence. Overstated claims that Parler was used to coordinate the January 6th riot at the Capitol led to its demise.

The problem was never Parler. Its Twitter.

JASON RANTZ: I WAS INSIDE ANTIFA RIOTS IN TACOMA -- THIS IS WHAT I SAW

Antifa uses Twitter to threaten or harass media members. If youre deemed unfriendly, for either openly criticizing Antifa tactics or filming their violence and vandalism, activists will distribute your picture and location with a warning to fellow comrades to be on the lookout. They do not hide their tactics.

I am proudly unfriendly to Antifa. Consequently, Ive been a victim of their tactics.

Antifas black bloc uniforms, meant to obscure the identities of criminals, and the pandemic, has made reporting from the mob much easier. Being able to cover most identifying features lets you blend in. But its not always enough to avoid detection.

Inside the Antifa mob, scouts look for perceived enemies filming faces. And they get help online.

Activists monitor Twitter to see if anyone is in or around the Antifa marches, then relay intel to the mob via hashtags. The communication is not sophisticated. Nevertheless, it puts media members in danger and Twitter does virtually nothing to intervene.

About an hour into the march in Tacoma, Antifa knew I was present because I tweeted from the scene.

SEATTLE ANTIFA RIOTER CLAIMS DESTRUCTION OF PROPERTY ISN'T VIOLENCE

March with the mob and youre bound to see someone recording Antifa destroying businesses or tagging property. They are immediately swarmed by two or three Antifa who threaten and demand the footage be deleted. If you talk back, you risk being pushed and punched or having your equipment stolen or destroyed.

I rarely post my footage in real-time, instead of waiting upwards of 30 minutes to give the impression that Im not actively within the group, but just working the periphery. Thats generally considered safe. But this time, it got attention.

Portland-based Griffin Malone identifies as an independent journalist who says the AP and PBS has used his work. Online, he alerted the mob that I was amongst them.

JASON RANTZ: IN WASHINGTON STATE, RADICALS ARE USING HOMELESS AS PAWNS IN HOTEL TAKEOVERS

Malone tweeted my photo and noted, "Jason Rantz is also in Tacoma tonight recording crowds." He denied that he meant me harm, he was just highlighting my coverage. Thats how he escapes Twitter consequences. But a screenshot of my photo, without a link to my Twitter feed, makes his intentions clear. He alerted the mob that I was "recording crowds". That posed a risk to the criminals that surrounded me.

Moments later, I heard someone from the mob say my name, clearly looking for me. A colleague I was with asked if we should leave. But we were in the middle of a neighborhood I had never visited, with police nowhere in sight. Leaving could bring attention. For 15 tense minutes, I kept my head down and my phone out of sight until we got closer to Tacoma Police.

I wasnt the only one they targeted.

Freelancer Talia Jane, who has written for Teen Vogue and describes herself on Twitter as an "independent conflict reporter," tweeted that streamer James Klug was filming the crowd. He was spotted, harassed, and forced to retreat. Jane gleefully tweeted the news.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE OPINION NEWSLETTER

Antifa-supporter Alissa Azar from Portland was on-site. She photographed streamers, telling her radical Twitter followers they "just thanked the cops for their service and for being out."

While national media outlets decried President Donald Trumps war on the media for merely criticizing coverage he didnt like, a small army of Antifa went to literal war with media members. Reporters are routinely assaulted or harassed for merely covering the mobs lawlessness. It happened frequently at the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ) in Seattle last year. The liberal national media was almost completely silent to the threat.

When I discreetly walked past armed Antifa guards into the autonomous zone, head down with a mask covering my face, I thought I was in the clear. But about 20 minutes into my adventure at CHAZ, an activist outed me, tweeting a photo of me listening to a speech. Next, a scout stalked me, standing in front of me or bumping me as I tried to document what was happening on the ground.

While Twitter has recently taken some action against Antifa accounts, many users still get away with media threats and harassment.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Democrats who claim concern over domestic terrorism and political violence lean on social media to singularly target the right. Its politically expedient. Democrats dont even acknowledge Antifa exists, let alone lobby Twitter to take action.

Consequently, media members are at risk when we bring you images of Antifa anarchy.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM JASON RANTZ

Read the original:

Jason Rantz: Here's how Antifa uses Twitter to threaten me and the media - Fox News

Its appealing to hope Colorado is insulated from the worst of conspiracy theology. We are, after all, better educated, more practical, better grounded, borderline pantheist and, lets just say it, for the most part smarter than denizens of our crumbling industrial centers as well as scattered apostles of grievance infuriated by those who enjoy lives less precarious than their own. Until 2020, Colorado hadnt elected a politician who might claim laser firing Jewish satellites were igniting wildfires to clear rights-of-way for high-speed rail projects. Thats crazy, crazy!

When we take a closer look, however, there are symptoms of insanity appearing across the Centennial state. At least two communities, including ex-urban Elizabeth, and likely others that went unreported have reacted to internet rumors of impending Antifa invasions. Burly residents wearing camouflage gear and toting powerful rifles have rushed to Main Street to defend against leftist guerrillas they were warned would arrive by bus. You dont have to be Sherlock Holmes to detect how utterly preposterous these alarms were.

Set aside the fact that Antifa has no hierarchy, no treasury and no offices nor a discernible strategy other than spontaneous anarchy. What possible reason would there be for vandalizing the commercial strip in a community of a few hundred souls where their depredations would go unseen, unfilmed and unreported? Even Proud Boys are better organized and media savvy than that. Yet we are urged to believe Antifa is so clever, so psychologically adept and tactically malevolent that they can readily infiltrate patriotic rallies, rousing peaceful conservatives into a violent mob.

These claims feel like an embarrassing confession that right wing protesters are puzzlingly clueless and readily duped. False flag insurrection makes some sense in the chaos that characterizes a failed state where multiple militias are competing for political control. Under such conditions misdirection and confusion can serve a purpose. While American may soon splinter into multiple factions, were not there yet. Hundreds of rioters have been arrested since the Jan. 6 invasion of Congress and not one has proven an infiltrator.

Closer to home, El Paso County Republican Chair Vickie Tonkins suggested her party should recruit the 3% United Patriots militia to safeguard its delegate assembly in Colorado Springs this past Saturday against a threatened Antifa invasion. Disregarding the fact that heavily armed security forces wearing full battle gear provide a bad look for democracy, what is the real chance leftist agitators might actually bother to disturb the deliberations of El Paso County Republicans? Tonkins narrowly won re-election while her challenger is alleging voting fraud. It sounds like intra-mural strife will do greater damage than anything Antifa could do.

Its worth noting that El Paso county delivered Republican margins of more than 200,000 votes only a decade ago, often matching Democratic majorities in Denver. Last year they won by just 40,000 votes. A president who spent four years trashing our troops and their commanders as complicit in the deep state didnt help in a military town. Polling finds Democrats expressing greater confidence in the military and intelligence communities today than Republicans.

Q-Anons fear-peddling nonsense is also percolating in Colorados political ecosystem. It flares up periodically, forcing adherents to disavow the "Democrats are Satan worshipping pedophiles who cannibalize children they kidnap" charges. The FBI was able to successfully identify the Russian hackers who meddled in the 2016 election and indict them by name. Its hard to believe they dont know precisely who the Q-Anon mythologists are. (Wired magazine reports their emails originate from a pig farm in the Philippines.) Since first appearing in 2017 Trump had little reason to unmask them. It is well past time to identify Q.

Following the Munich Conference in the 1930s, British historian John Gwyer observed that, One is reluctant to think the average intelligence of mankind is really so low that it cannot distinguish between plain truth and fantastic falsehood. Sad to say, a century later weve failed to make significant progress in this regard. I suspect its less a question of IQ than it is of willful ignorance.

Renegade Illinois Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger, who voted for Trumps impeachment and has formed a Country First PAC, explains, Republicans must say enough is enough. Its time to unplug the outrage machine, reject the politics of personality and cast aside the conspiracy theories and the rage.

Following the insurrection on Jan. 6, I was not cheered by presidential historian Michael Beschloss observation that for democracies the best predictor of a successful coup is a recently failed coup. The deep state doesnt scare me half as much as shallow thinking. Why is it that those who bleat the loudest about their constitutional right to carry firearms wherever they please object so vociferously to my right to disagree with them? That sounds a lot like cancel culture, just nastier.

Miller Hudson is a public affairs consultant and a former Colorado legislator.

Read more:

HUDSON | Conspiracy theories abound even in Colorado | Opinion | coloradopolitics.com - coloradopolitics.com

Black Lives Matter and Antifa protesters marched in the streets of Washington, D.C., where demonstrators scuffled with police officers and the crowd shouted threats to "burn down" the nation's capital.

On Saturday night, members of BLM and Antifa protested in D.C., where they regularly chanted, "If we don't get it, burn it down!"

Independent photojournalist Brendan Gutenschwager shared videos from the protest in D.C., where Antifa members waived an "Antifascist Action" flag as they marched.

The crowd yelled the popular Black Lives Matter phrase, "Whose streets? Our streets! Whose streets? Our streets!"

During the "FTP March" (an acronym for "F*** The Police"), the mob shouted the anti-police battle cry, "A.C.A.B. All cops are bastards!"

The demonstrators stopped near a row of restaurants, where protest leaders delivered lectures about "race, Black and Indigenous lives" to nearby diners.

At one point, things escalated after a black bloc protester shined a light into the face of a police officer, who then slapped away the flashlight. The black bloc member retaliated and smacked the police officer. The officer then pushed the crowd back by using his bicycle. The black bloc protester then slaps another cop. The officer thrusts his bike even more aggressively into the crowd dressed in all black. During the tense situation, a female in the crowd tells the officer to put his face mask on.

The BLM march ended with a speech honoring Eric Garner, according to Gutenschwager.

"We are here tonight because black lives matter," the BLM crowd repeated after the main speaker. "Despite black lives mattering, black people are still dying at the hands of the police paid for by our tax dollars."

The group recited the story of Eric Garner, a New York man who died while in police custody in 2014. During the story, the crowd called police officers the derogatory name of "pigs" on multiple occasions.

There were then several chants of "I can't breathe!"

Washington, D.C., has been heavily guarded since the Capitol riots on Jan. 6. There were more than 26,000 National Guard troops in D.C. before President Joe Biden's inauguration.

"There are currently about 7,000 National Guard members in the city providing security," ABC News reported. "That number is expected to slowly go down to 5,000, and they are set to stay until about mid-March. The total cost for the deployment is expected to be close to $500 million."

The U.S. Capitol building has been fortified with barricades and fencing, which many are calling for the structures to be removed.

View post:

BLM and Antifa march in DC, threaten to 'burn down' Washington - TheBlaze

Andy Ngo, journalist and author of the recent statement Unmasked: Inside Antifas Radical Plan to Destroy Democracy, told NTD that Antifa is not going away simply because former President Donald Trump has left office.

Speaking about his investigation into the internal mechanics and goals of Antifa, Ngo said that Antifa capitalized on claims in 2016 that Trumps term was a fascist regime to claim his group was trying to oppose American fascism.

But according to Ngo, That was always just a pretext for them to cause misery and carry out killings and attacks, Ngo said. Now, they say they are simply opposing the United States, because the United States defends systems of fascism that are interconnected with white supremacy and racism.

Andy Ngo. (NTD)

Ngo said the perception that Antifa was fading with the announcement of a Biden election victory was incorrect.

They rioted in Portland, for example, on November 4. There have been about a dozen riots in Portland and Seattle since then, he said. The day Biden took office, more importantly, they destroyed the headquarters of the Oregon Democratic Party. And in Seattle, there were also some riots.

Andy believes that the Democratic Party is not as closely related to Antifa as some people believe. Rather, they only had one common enemy (Trump) who temporarily allied them.

Antifa has existed on the fringes of the far left in the United States, actually, since the 1980s, Ngo said. But in the wake of recent events, Democrats have helped Antifa gain space on the majority left.

They were both using irresponsible language and talking about how this [the Trump administration] It was ascendant American fascism, that we were on the cusp of another Holocaust, Ngo said.

Ngo said the idea of opposing white supremacy and neo-Nazis gave Antifa a chance to get in, but according to his observations, the groups violent attacks have been indiscriminate.

What I was witnessing on the ground in my hometown, Portland, the epicenter of American Antifa, was that they were carrying out indiscriminate acts of violence, not just against property but against people. And they kept increasing and escalating, he told NTD.

Members of Antifa prepare to clash with Patriot Prayer protesters during a rally in Portland, Oregon, on August 4, 2018 (John Rudoff / AP Photo)

It was embedding itself in Portland. It was becoming routine for us to have political violence in the streets, fights for several years. And then in 2020, they exploited George Floyds death to carry out acts of carnage, not just in Portland but in dozens of other American cities where they literally burned down neighborhoods, destroyed numerous lives, destroyed livelihoods, Ngo said. .

The mainstream media have not done a good job of explaining exactly what Antifa is, Ngo said, leading many to perhaps sympathize with the group that described itself as anti-fascist protesters who oppose racists and the far right. and white supremacists.

It sounds very noble and it makes people want to join in, because it sounds completely reasonable, Ngo said. But then as I write in my book, you immerse yourself in the Antifa ideology. And you look at the literature, you look at the thinkers they admire, the texts that form the basis of the tenants of their ideology. You see very clearly that these are anarchists, communists .

read more

Nazism, fascism and socialism are rooted in communism

Andy said his students go through extensive ideological indoctrination, lasting for months at a time, and are also taught in his curriculum how to make homemade guns, how to use guns and how to shoot.

Andy Ngo, a Portland journalist, is seen covered in an unknown substance after Antifa extremists attacked him in Portland, Oregon, on June 29, 2019 (Moriah Ratner / .).

Ngo continued: When they talk about wanting to burn down the system, they mean it literally. They want to destroy the United States, and not just destroy the nation-state, but all of its founding ideals. They consider, for example, property rights and freedom of speech, and other important foundational ideas that make up American philosophy, as actors of fascism.

Ngo said that from records of detainees after many months of unrest in Portland, he found that the people who joined Antifa were primarily from two groups: white-collar professionals; Like academia, journalism, some were lawyers, and those who are extremely vulnerable, such as the homeless who may have been attracted to the food and shelter camps set up by the group.

These vulnerable people are then given riot gear and told and instructed to engage in violence.

These are generally the people who are first victimized and arrested and all that and are injured or charged, Ngo said. And the people who are pulling the strings in the background, like those who are making homemade weapons and homemade improvised explosive devices, and handing them out and handing them over to people, those people are not apprehended. So I have a certain sympathy for people who are victims, because they are pushed into this extremist ideology and used as fodder for a broader political agenda.

A man later assaulted by Antifa, second from left, confronts members of Rose City Antifa at Pioneer Courthouse Square in Portland, Oregon, on June 29, 2019 (Moriah Ratner / .).An unidentified protester injured by Antifa extremists in Pioneer Courthouse Square on June 29, 2019 (Moriah Ratner / .).

Americans have to understand that Antifa has a fairly broad appeal among the educated, Ngo said, because the ideological theoretical frameworks that form the basis of ideologies are based on historical thinkers, anarchists and communist thinkers. And thats why it attracts those who are educated.

So it should come as no surprise that some of the people who have been convicted or accused of being part of the Antifa violence have been academics, he added.

The rest is here:

'They want to destroy the United States,' explains Andy Ngo about Antifa - Explica