Daily Archives: November 23, 2022

Petition calls on White House to label this far-left group terrorists

"Antifa" is commonly considered to be part of the far-left, a group Trump said was partially responsible for violence in Charlottesville, Virginia.Video provided by Newsy

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Since the killing of George Floyd sparked protests acrossthe U.S., the term "antifa" has been thrust back into the national conversation after multiple officials, including President Donald Trump, have blamed the groups for rioting and looting.

Antifa shortfor"anti-fascist" is the name for loosely affiliated, left-leaning, anti-racist groups that monitor and track the activities of local neo-Nazis. The movement has no unified structureor national leadershipbut has emerged in the form of local bodiesnationwide, particularly on theWest Coast.

Some of the groups, such as the 13-year-old Rose City Antifa in Portland, Oregon, the oldest in the U.S.,are particularly well-organized andactive online and onFacebook,while its members are individually anonymous.

On Sunday, Trump posted a message on Twitter, saying: "The United States of America will be designating ANTIFA as a Terrorist Organization." That came one day after he said "theviolence and vandalism is being led by antifa and other radical left-wing groups."

Attorney General William Barr on Sunday also blamed antifa and other similar groups over violent protests which eruptedafter Floyd, 46,died on Memorial Day when a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for several minutes calling the acts "domestic terrorism."

The American Civil Liberties Union, however,saysTrump did not have the power to label domestic terror groups.

"Terrorism is an inherently political label, easily abused and misused," the organization said in a tweet. "Lets be clear: There is no legal authority for designating a domestic group. Any such designation would raise significant due process and First Amendment concerns."

Twitter suspended the account @ANTIFA_US after it said the accountviolated the company's platform manipulation and spam policy for a tweet posted Sunday that tried to incite violence, according to NBC.Twitter later said the account hadbeen linked to the white nationalist group Identity Evropa.

Donald Trump Jr. posted a screenshot of the tweet to his verified Instagram page to share it with his 2.9 million followers. Trump Jr. has since deleted the post after Twitter suspended the account.

This isn't the first time Trump has set his focus on antifa. In August2017, after violence blew upat protests in Charlottesville, Virginia,the president singled out the groups as part of what he calledthe alt-left in his initial claim that "many sides" were to blame for the violence, not justneo-Nazis, KKK and white nationalists.

"AN-tifa" with the emphasis on the first syllable, which sounds more like "on" in English than "an."

Anti-fascist groups, particularly in Europe, have been around for many decades, notably in Italy, against Mussolini, and in Germany, against Hitler. In the postwar period, antifa groups resurgedto fightneo-Nazi groups, particularly in Germany. In the U.S., the anti-fascist movements grew out ofleftist politics of the late '80s,primarily under theumbrellaof Anti-Racist Action.

Theprimary goal is to stopneo-Nazis and white supremacists fromgaining a platform rather than to promotea specific antifa agenda. The antifa groups aredecidedly anti-racist, anti-sexistand anti-homophobia, but also by and large socially leftistand anti-capitalist.

Mark Bray, a lecturer atDartmouth andauthor of the new book "Antifa: The Antifascist Handbook,"says the groups "organize educational campaigns, build community coalitions, monitor fascists, pressure venues to cancel their events, organize self-defense trainingsand physically confront the far right when necessary."

A main goal is to try to deny fascists a public forum, which is why they turn out in numbers to physically confrontneo-Nazis, the KKKand white supremacists atpublic demonstrations. They also step in to protect counterprotesters at such events.

In addition, antifa is particularly active in"doxxing," oridentifying neo-Nazis and like-minded individuals and disseminatingthat private information to the public and employers to discourage people from joining their ranks.

Memberspointedly do not eschew violencebut rather see themselves as engaging in "self-defense," protecting other protesters and primarily confronting neo-Nazis and white supremacists to deny them a platform to publicly spread their views.

"We are unapologetic about the reality that fighting fascism at points requires physical militancy, Rose City Antifas Facebook page reads. Anti-fascism is, by nature, a form of self-defense: the goal of fascism is to exterminate the vast majority of human beings.

Political activist and author Cornel West, speaking to Amy Goodman on the program "Democracy Now"about the clashes in Charlottesville, saidantifa intervened when the "neofascists" move against his group of protesters."We would havebeen crushed like cockroaches if it were not for the anarchistsand the anti-fascists," he said.

Bray says the riseof fascism in the 1930s demonstrates that it wasa mistake to allow such groups to air their views in hopes that public opinion would blunt their growth."We should be wary of those who are more distressed about alleged violations of the speech of fascists than the actual violence they perpetrate," he says.

Antifa forces, whose members often dress inblack and wearmasks, have confronted or clashed with far-right groups in such places as the University of California at Berkeley. Protests by West Coast antifa forces, some of whomsmashedwindows and setfires,forced the cancellation of aspeech by alt-right activistMilo Yiannopoulos and another by conservative commentator Ann Coulter in 2017.

In June of that year, antifa forces turned out to protest a pro-Trump free-speech in Portland. Some antifa counterprotestersbegan throwing objects at police, who responded with flash grenades and pepper balls, according toThe Oregonian.

Read more from the original source:

Antifa: What is it and what does the movement want? - USA TODAY

On the same day Newsweek ran a fake fact check of a study by MRC Free Speech America about Googles censorship of Republican campaigns, the outlet also ran a fact check Wednesday smearing Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), claiming he falsely claimed Antifa carried out a year of fiery, destructive protests across the U.S.

Cruzs comments came Monday on ABCs The View, when he countered co-host Whoopi Goldbergs attack on the right as violent: Did I miss an entire year of Antifa riots where cities across this country were burning and police cars were being firebombed?

Writer Tim Norton correctly noted Cruz was likely referring to the protests that followed the death of George Floyd in 2020, and the subsequent destruction of property in cities such as Minneapolis and then Washington D.C., St Louis, Kansas City, Oregon, Atlanta, Seattle and New York City.

He also correctly pointed out that protests (read: Antifa) continued for 100 days in Portland, Oregon, but things fell apart as he dismissed the demonstrations as not typified by fires or arson and therefore [t]he majority of the Floyd protests nationwide took place between late May and early June 2020.

Norton inadvertently undermined that claim by explaining other violent, fiery clashes at other protests against police violence and racial injustice between 2020 and 2021 such as September 2020 rioting in Louisville, Kentucky and Brooklyn Center, Minnesota in April 2021.

The whiplash continued as he insisted Cruz was significantly stretching the truth, even if taken figuratively even though many businesses were damaged or destroyed as a result of arson because Antifa is not a formalized group or association and Black Lives Matter inspired global calls to action for racial justice. Really.

In other words, Antifa isnt real and BLM protests made people feel special, so Cruz was...lying?

That seemed to have been what Norton was arguing as he said Cruz grossly mischaracterized both the nature, scope and length of time these protests took and that, while the shenanigans in Portland went on for 100 days, it is inaccurate to describe or imply that these happened across the country with each beset by arson.

In giving him a false rating, Norton explained (click expand):

The "Antifa riots" Cruz refers to are almost certainly the protests, which followed George Floyd's death. Most of these occurred between late May to early June 2020. Although many buildings were damaged or destroyed by fire during protests, this did not carry on throughout the year.

While protests did continue in Portland, Oregon for nearly a year, according to media reports, these were not all characterized by arson. Most other cities quietened down after June 2020.

Labeling the protests as "Antifa riots" is misleading too as there is no organization or group known as such.

Lets unpack this schizophrenic gobbledygook. First, it was interesting Norton said Antifa wasnt real seeing as how Newsweek tweeted this on November 2, 2020: Antifa plans wave of demonstrations on streets as U.S. election polls close.

And on April 24, 2021, Newsweek itself posted an article with the title: Antifa Activists Vow to Keep FightingEven as Terrorists.

And it wasnt just them. ABC News wrote in May 2021 about the constant barrage of left-wing violence in Portland, saying that residents have waning patience for antifa with [m]uch of the blame for the chaos, property damage and violence over the last year have landed on the self-described anti-racist, anti-facist far left organizers.

Californias Bay Area CW affiliate said on April 15, 2021 that there was a lot of cleanup underway in Walnut Creek after a band of protestors tagged 25 buildings with graffiti, including City Hall with police under the belief that Antifa was here.

Staying in the Golden State, the San Diego Union-Tribune covered December 2021 arrests of Antifa members who allegedly assaulted participants in a Patriot March in January of that year.

If Wikipedia floats your boat, they compiled a list of over 60 incidents having resulted from Floyds June 2020 murder.

If Norton wants to debate the facts, its best he do some research first.

More here:

FAKE NEWS: Newsweek Claims Ted Cruz Lied About Antifa Burning Down ...

(CNN) -- A Minnesota man who claimed Antifa set fire to his camper during the political unrest of 2020 because he had displayed a Trump campaign flag admitted to staging the event and committing insurance fraud, the Justice Department announced Tuesday.

Denis Molla, age 30, of Minneapolis suburb Brooklyn Center was indicted by a federal grand jury in July and pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud after being accused of defrauding and attempting to defraud an insurance agency and GoFundMe donors of more than $300,000 following the alleged incident, according to court records.

RELATED: Man pleads guilty to fraud after lighting his camper on fire, defacing own garage to appear targeted due to Trump flag

In September 2020, Molla had "falsely reported to law enforcement that someone had lit his camper on fire and that three unknown males were near his home when he heard an explosion," according to a DOJ news release. The Justice Department said Molla claimed his property was vandalized with graffiti referencing "Biden 2020," Black Lives Matter, and Antifa.

Molla falsely told CNN affiliate WCCO shortly after the fire that he believed someone set the blaze in response to Trump 2020 flags he had put in his yard. "These kind of stuff should not happen, especially over beliefs of some sort," he told WCCO.

"Mr. Molla was obviously remorseful during his federal plea hearing today," Ryan Garry, Molla's attorney, told CNN via email Tuesday. "It's easy for the general public to look down on him, without knowing what was going on in his life, and cast immediate judgement. Mr. Molla is a wonderful husband and father who made a mistake that he sincerely regrets. Unlike many others, he has accepted full responsibility for his actions and is sorry for what happened."

Federal guidelines call for Molla to receive a sentence of up to 51 months, plus a fine and restitution, but prosecutors did not immediately make a sentencing recommendation.

Judge David Doty released Molla on his own recognizance pending a sentencing hearing to be scheduled at a later date.

The rest is here:

DOJ: Minnesota man who claimed Antifa burned down his camper admits to ...