Monthly Archives: May 2021

The New York Times

WASHINGTON As she arrived at the Capitol on Wednesday morning to meet her fate, the soon-to-be deposed No. 3 Republican in the House hinted that she was already eyeing her next role. The party is going to come back stronger, and Im going to lead the effort to do it, Rep. Liz Cheney said as she stepped into an elevator and down to her demise. Sign up for The Morning newsletter from the New York Times Less than an hour later, accompanied by the acclaimed photographer David Hume Kennerly, a family friend, Cheney returned to her office for an interview with NBCs Savannah Guthrie. A sit-down with Bret Baier of Fox News was to follow. The message was unmistakable: Her colleagues may have stripped Cheney of her post as chair of the House Republican Conference, but they have effectively handed her a new platform and a new role as the leader of the small band of anti-Trump Republicans. Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the Republican minority leader, was trying to address a short-term challenge, and in a narrow sense he was successful. He will no longer have to contend with a member of his leadership team who, much to the consternation of him and his colleagues, continues to condemn former President Donald Trumps attempt to overturn the election. By excommunicating Cheney from her position, however, Republican lawmakers have created a host of new problems for their party. They have underscored the grip that the increasingly unpopular Trump retains on their ranks; demoralized Republicans and independents who want to move on from his tenure; and, perhaps most significantly, emboldened a household-name conservative to take her case against Trumpism far beyond a Capitol conference room. House Republicans knew what they had done as soon as they emerged from their meeting. Thats what it looks like when somebody is running for president, Rep. Mike Rogers of Alabama muttered to colleagues as they quickly walked past Cheney during her remarks in front of the cameras. Other long-serving members, though, were more sobered by the divisions Trump is still sowing among Republicans and by the megaphone they had just handed Cheney. I dont think its a healthy moment for the party, said Rep. Patrick McHenry of North Carolina, himself a former member of Republican leadership. I do think it enhanced Lizs stature and position in a way that furthers her message but to the disadvantage of the broader party. Later Wednesday, McCarthy complicated matters, and confounded Republicans, by walking out of his first White House meeting with President Joe Biden and pronouncing, I dont think anybody is questioning the legitimacy of the presidential election a statement starkly at odds with remarks made by numerous GOP House lawmakers. The best Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma could say about the day was that the election isnt today and if something like this has to happen, youd rather have it in an off-year. These are strange times for Republicans. The traditional indicators suggest they have good reason to be optimistic about the midterm elections next year. The party that doesnt control the White House usually picks up seats in a presidents first midterm elections, redistricting appears to favor Republicans, and a number of House Democrats are voting with their feet by retiring or running for statewide office. And in both chambers, the bar is low: Republicans need only six seats to win the House and a single seat to take back the Senate. The split screen can be agonizing for party stalwarts. Well win the House, but I worry no good lessons are being learned about Jan. 6 and Trumps ongoing effort to delegitimize the November elections, said David Kochel, a veteran GOP strategist. Last week, when the question of whether House Republicans should oust Cheney was crescendoing, McHenry and a leading redistricting strategist held a private Zoom call for donors and delivered some much-coveted good news. Unveiling an online map with each states expected changes in partisan composition, McHenry and the strategist, Adam Kincaid, predicted that Republicans could reclaim the House majority in 2022 on their gains from the reapportionment process alone. The difficulty is to get members to see the long-term advantages we have rather than the short-term struggles and nastiness, McHenry said. Most of his colleagues concluded that as long as Cheney was highlighting Trumps conspiracy-mongering, and their own timidity, it would prove difficult to fully capitalize on those long-term advantages. Yet its Trump who, well past Bidens first-100-day mark, continues to present Republicans with their most vexing problem. At issue: how to accommodate a former president whos beloved by their core voters, more detested than ever among the broader electorate and consumed with his defeat and campaign of retribution. Trump is the one who keeps raising it, said Rep. Fred Upton of Michigan, one of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump in January. An NBC News poll last month found that Trumps favorability rating was down to 32% among all voters and 14% among independents. Democrats can barely contain their delight over the disarray across the aisle. Right now should be the easiest time for the party out of power to unify in opposition, Rep. Brendan Boyle, D-Pa., said. As Cheney discovered, Republican leaders will continue to bow to Trump as long as theyre worried that their rank-and-file voters will punish them for disloyalty. This could prove ominous for Republicans in the most competitive districts and states: They may not be able to survive a primary without him, but they may prove unelectable if theyre linked too closely to him. Theres not a lot of good options, said Brendan Buck, a former House Republican leadership aide. Democrats offered a preview of whats to come, particularly in more blue-leaning terrain, this week in Virginia. Republicans nominated Glenn Youngkin, a former private equity executive who has promoted election integrity measures and refused to say Biden won the 2020 election fairly, as their standard-bearer for governor. In his statement responding to Youngkins nomination, former Gov. Terry McAuliffe, the likely Democratic nominee, mentioned Trumps name three times in the first three sentences. Given Democrats slim control of the House and the newly drawn seats they will have to defend, the long shadow of Trumpism still may not be enough for the party to hold the House in 2022, as even the most hardened Democratic partisans acknowledge. They have a strong likelihood of taking the House, Paul Begala, a Democratic strategist, said of Republicans. Yet Begala argued that the vise Trump has Republicans in by which most of them must align with him to win a primary could brighten Democrats chances in the Senate. Republicans did not cling to Hooverism, he said. This is a huge mistake. In two of the races for the most competitive Democratic-held Senate seats, Arizona and Georgia, as well as a contest for the seat Republicans may have the most difficulty holding, Pennsylvania, Republicans are worried about Trumps potential to rally support behind a candidate who cant win the general election. The fear for some in the party is that 2022 echoes 2010, when Republicans took back the House but fell short in the Senate because they had elevated candidates who could not prevail in November. For many Republicans, though, whats more alarming about the Cheney-Trump feud are the implications for the partys long-term health. Whether Cheney seeks to fight back electorally perhaps in a symbolic long-shot White House bid in 2024 shes plainly comfortable with political martyrdom. In fact, after largely voting with Trump over the last four years and trying to stay out of his line of fire, she seems to welcome his hatred and the opportunity it offers to change, or at least shame, the party. If you want leaders who will enable and spread his destructive lies, Im not your person; you have plenty of others to choose from, she told her colleagues during the caucus meeting, according to a Republican in the room. But I promise you this: After today, I will be leading the fight to restore our party and our nation to conservative principles, to defeating socialism, to defending our republic, to making the GOP worthy again of being the party of Lincoln. Trumps most prominent defenders were not exactly worried. She can run against the president, anyone can try to run against the president, but theres no way hes losing, Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio said after the meeting. Hes going to win the Republican primary and hes going to be president if he decides to run. Thats exactly what worries some longtime Republicans, including a few in the House leadership that Cheneys new mission will only prod Trump to run again in 2024 to prove his hold on the party. For now, however, most rank-and-file congressional Republicans are planning to do what theyve done since Trump emerged as a candidate nearly six years ago very little. His policy legacy is popular, but his personality obviously continues to be controversial, said Rep. Andy Barr of Kentucky, urging his party to focus on policy over persona before betraying a touch of self-awareness: Im not saying its easy. This article originally appeared in The New York Times. 2021 The New York Times Company

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Greene tries to confront AOC, asks why she supports terrorists and antifa: report - Yahoo News

Despite his participation in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, Gary Wickersham, of West Chester, strongly believed several false and contradictory things about it to be true.

It was antifa, not supporters of Donald Trump, that smashed through police barricades, assaulted officers and sacked the building, he told FBI agents. And Democrats had purposefully ensured lax security that day hoping Trump fans would invade so they could prosecute them, he claimed.

As for how he squared any of that with his own admitted presence in the building, Wickersham offered only one explanation: Hes a taxpaying American and is authorized to enter the Capitol whenever he wants.

That FBI account of a Jan. 15 interview with Wickersham, an 80-year-old retired U.S. Army vet, was contained in documents unsealed late Tuesday, revealing him to be the 40th Pennsylvanian publicly charged with taking part in the deadly riot.

Agents said they identified him three days after the riot when an acquaintance shared texts Wickersham sent to others detailing the 10 to 15 minutes he spent in the chaotic scene at the Capitol.

Security footage and social media photos tracked him through the Capitols hallways where the footage allegedly shows him confronting two different officers.

READ MORE: His wifes efforts to defend him on Facebook led to the arrest of a Bucks County man charged in Capitol riot

When agents showed up at his home in Chester County a week later, he didnt hesitate to admit he was there, according to court filings in his case.

He said hed traveled by bus to attend Trumps rally, then marched toward the Capitol, where he saw a mob cursing, screaming, knocking cops away, breaking down windows and doors.

He followed them inside, he said, according to an arrest affidavit filed in his case, where he witnessed what he described as a rugby scrum between the crowd and police in the Capitol crypt. He guided agents through the ambling walk he took through the hallways, noting that he passed the office of House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer.

READ MORE: The N.J. men accused of assaulting Capitol Officer Brian Sicknick will remain in custody until trial

It remains unclear why despite that admission investigators did not charge Wickersham until earlier this month and he was not arrested until Tuesday. A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorneys Office in Washington did not immediately return requests for comment.

His attorney, Michael G. Noone, said his client self-surrendered to agents on Tuesday but declined to discuss the case except to say that hes talking these charges very seriously, he said.

In a court hearing Tuesday in federal court in Philadelphia, he was released pending trial after agreeing to have his case heard like those of the more than 400 Capitol riot defendants in Washington.

He faces charges of disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds and unauthorized entry into a restricted area, charges punishable by up to a year in prison.

Read more:

Chester County man told FBI agents he stormed the Capitol but claimed antifa was behind the attack - The Philadelphia Inquirer

Written by Robert Mackey. Video by Robert Mackey and Travis Mannon.

The sound of glass breaking, on Inauguration Day in Portland, Oregon, was music to the ears of Julio Rosas, a young video journalist.

Thats because Rosas, who works for the right-wing website Townhall, specializes in shooting viral video of mayhem at left-wing protests. On this day, black-clad, anti-capitalist protesterswere attacking a Democratic Party office, and Rosas managed to record them from close range without being spotted.

Within minutes of the vandalism, by a handful of activists who broke off from a small #J20 march, Rosas posted his video on Twitter, where it racked up over1 million views.

With his tweet, Rosas had also beaten his friend and rival, Jorge Ventura of the conservative Daily Caller, by six minutes.

Ventura, who went undercover to infiltrate the protest movement in Portland last summer, got less dramatic footage of this incident, but his 15-second clip, which showed that there were more people photographing the destruction in Portland than taking part in it, was still seen by more than 100,000 people.

When Rosas joined Laura Ingraham on Fox News that night, giving national attention to what would have been, before the era of viral video, just a local news story, Ventura held the camera for the live shot.

We know that because a third member of the conservative protest paparazzi that descended on Portland that day, Newsmax contributor James Klg, gave viewers of his video blog a behind-the-scenes look at how the viral video-to-Fox News pipeline works.

On the air, Ingraham attributed the destruction to antifa thugs, using the right-wing shorthand that lumps everyone with left-of-center politics into one undifferentiated mass. Rosas, who was standing in front of a Circle-A a symbol for anarchism, not anti-fascism that had been spray-painted beside the ruined front door of the Democratic Party office, made no effort to correct her.

The antifa groups here, they do not like Biden just as much they dont like Trump, he said. They just hate America in general. (In fact, Rose City Antifa, the Portland group that helped revive the Nazi-era concept of anti-fascism in the United States, released a statement making clear that this attack on the Democratic office was not the work of anti-fascists but rather of anarchists and anti-capitalists. While many of the people involved may consider themselves antifascists in ideology, the activists said, we narrowly define antifascism as actions taken to oppose the insurgent right-wing.)

As a reporter focused on protest movements, Ive been studying video of chaotic events at demonstrations for more than a decade, since I live-blogged Irans disputed election and then covered the Arab Spring and Occupy protests, from the United States to Brazil. And one thing Ive learned is that, whether a clip was posted online by a witness in Cairo or Kenosha, it always helps to know who shot the video, and why.

Over the past year, as I researched viral clips of contested incidents at protests against racist policing and far-right movements, I found that I was coming across the names of the same handful of videographers again and again. At protests in Minneapolis, Dallas, Seattle, Portland, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Washington, Louisville, Philadelphia, and Kenosha, Wisconsin, I discovered that many of the most viral clips were shot by a handful of field reporters for right-wing sites or freelancers with conservative politics.

Rosas and Ventura are not household names, but its important to understand their reporting, because they are members of an informal club of right-wing video journalists who roam from city to city, feeding the conservative medias hunger for images of destruction and violence on the margins of left-wing protests.

In the year since George Floyds murder by Derek Chauvin was documented in horrifying detail on the cellphone of a 17-year-old witness, Darnella Frazier, right-wing news outlets and politicians have been desperate to draw attention away from those unbearable images by focusing instead on viral videos of unrest at racial justice protests. Thats been a boon for the careers of conservative video journalists like Rosas, Ventura, and a half-dozen of their friends, who jokingly call themselves the #RiotSquad in Instagram selfies and podcast banter.

The impact of their work is hard to overstate. Even as they remain relatively unknown, this tight-knit group has produced many of the most viral videos of Black Lives Matter protests over the past year. And those images have helped create the false impression, relentlessly driven home by Fox News and Republican politicians, that the nationwide wave of protests that erupted after George Floyd was killed was nothing but an excuse for mindless rioting.

Last July, Kayleigh McEnany, the White House press secretary, screened video of violence at protests in Portland, Ore., to justify federal intervention in the city.

Photo: Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Thats not to say that rioting never happens; it clearly does. And even if you believe that a riot is the language of the unheard, it is undeniable that looting and arson did scar some communities where anger over racist policing spiraled out of control.

But the broader picture is that Black Lives Matter protests have been overwhelmingly peaceful.

Conservatives like to mock anyone who says that, usually by pointing to isolated images of chaos, like those recorded by the Riot Squad, or by cherry-picking misleading data. Sen. Ron Johnson, a Wisconsin Republican, recently cited data showing that more than 500 racial justice protests turned violent in the United States last year. But Johnson failed to let readers of his Wall Street Journal opinion piece know that the same researchers from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Projectcounted nearly 10,000 more Black Lives Matter protests that were entirely peaceful. According to the researchers, there was no looting, arson, or violence of any kind at 94 percent of the protests associated with Black Lives Matter. And in many casesin which there was violence, it was inflicted on protesters, either by the police or right-wing vigilantes.

A screenshot of data on 2020 protests in the United States from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project.

Thats the wide-angle view of reality missed by conservatives obsessively viewing close-up images of violence, like those shot by the Riot Squad and played on a loop on Fox News and other outlets even further to the right.

Since the George Floyd protests, conservative media outlets including Fox News (particularly Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity), One America News, Glenn Becks BlazeTV, and right-wing YouTubers have been covering Black Lives Matter and other left-wing protests daily, specifically highlighting instances of violence, fighting, and property damage, media scholar Joan Donovan observed in the MIT Technology Review last summer. This coverage has come to dominate the right-wing narrative in a new way, flipping the script to suggest that Black protesters demonstrating because they fear police violence are themselves a threat to white people.

By using riot porn to incite fear in white people, Donovan added, the right-wing media ecosystem converts the real pain experienced by Black Americans into fodder for deranged, paranoid fantasies that white vigilantes must take up the functions of the police.

To understand how this works and how a group of just eight young journalists have had such an outsize impact on what millions of Americans know about the protests against police violence and systemic racism its useful to take acloser look at some of the most-watched clips posted online in the past year.

The first and most obvious way that some of the Riot Squad journalists distort reality is through selective, misleading edits of the footage they shoot.

At a protest in Dallas five days after George Floyd was killed, a core member of the Riot Squad, Elijah Schaffer of Becks BlazeTV, posted a brief clip that showed the brutal beating of a white man by a group of mainly Black protesters.

The graphic, disturbing footage was viewed more than 35 million times on Twitter.

What Schaffer knew, but concealed from viewers of his edited clip, was that the man he described as an innocent victim of the mob had, moments earlier, threatened protesters with a machete.

Video recorded by another witness showed that the protesters responded by hurling stones at the man, who then shrieked and charged at them, swinging the blade wildly and cutting one of them, before the others disarmed him and took bloody revenge.

Yoel Measho, a filmmaker who took part in the protest, posted that video of the mans wild charge on Snapchat, along with a second clipof a protester displaying the machete as protest medics gave the man first aid. (Measho later shared both clips with The Intercept.)

After the other videos began to circulate, Schaffer made the rest of his footage available to broadcasters, which showed that he had recorded but edited out the mans aggressive behavior.

A Dallas police spokesperson told me the day after the incident that the man had indeed confronted protesters with the machete before being assaulted. The owners of the nearby bar the man reportedly set out to defend confirmed in a phone interview that the business was not looted by the protesters or anyone else. (On a conservative podcast the following month, a man who said he was the victim of the beating confirmed that he did initiate the conflict by confronting the protesters with a carbon steel machete shaped like an old Roman gladius, which he had mentioned on Twitter before the incident.)

Among those misled by Schaffers edit was then-President Donald Trump, who boosted it on Twitter and then echoed false claims that the man had died, as federal agents were unleashed on peaceful protesters outside the White House.

Innocent people have been savagely beaten, Trump told reporters, like the young man in Dallas, Texas, who was left dying in the street. (On the night of the attack, Schaffer had passed on the false rumor that the man had died.)

In the months that followed, Schaffers misleading clip was used again and again to smear Black Lives Matter. Johnson showed the video at a meeting of the Senate Homeland Security Committee he chaired last summer, presenting it as evidence of what he called the reality that protests against racist policing unleash anarchy. The clip was also included in a video prepared by Kyle Rittenhouses legal team, and then screened by Trumps lawyers at his impeachment trial, as part of a misleading montage of protest violence, much of it recorded by Riot Squad videographers, which they falsely accused Democratic officials of having encouraged.

But footage of the same clash recorded by Ventura showed that DAlmeida had edited his clip to hide the fact that the Trump supporter had started the fight, by first violently shoving one anti-Trump protester to the ground and then pushing and threatening to punch several others.

When DAlmeida later posted more of his own footage of the incident, it became clear that he had also recorded the start of the confrontation but chose to edit that out to make the white man look like an innocent victim of the Black protester.

Like the beating in Dallas that Elijah Schaffer witnessed, the punch that felled the Trump supporter in front of DAlmeida was obviously a vicious blow. But through selective, misleading editing, DAlmeida contributed in the same way to the sense of innocent victimhood and white resentment nurtured day and night by conservative media outlets and right-wing politicians like Trump.

Three months earlier, DAlmeida had posted a meme on Instagram mocking the mainstream media for supposedly distorting protest coverage. The meme, which uses two panels from a comic strip by the right-wing Colombian cartoonist Jhon Alexander Guerra, shows a TV news reporter telling a cameraperson not to film while a protester is throwing a rock at a police officer. When the police officer then chases the protester with his nightstick raised, the reporter tells the cameraperson to start shooting, because now its news.

A screenshot of a meme adopted from panels by the right-wing, anti-feminist Colombian cartoonist Jhon Alexander Guerra, which was shared by Kalen DAlmeida on Instagram last August.

It was no accident that Rosas and Ventura chose to spend Inauguration Day this year in Portland. The liberal citys strong anti-fascist protest culture, in a metro area surrounded by ultraconservative exurbs, hasfor yearsprovided right-wing video journalists with a steady stream of skirmishes to record and exaggerate.

In July, for instance, Ventura and the Riot Squads Drew Hernandez, a right-wing YouTuber, both recorded an angry confrontation between Portland police officers and a Black, female protester who objected to being shoved forcefully by three officers.

God damn it! Im disabled, I cant walk any faster! the woman could be heard saying in the viral clip Hernandez recorded.

Go! one officer replied.

I hope someone kills your whole fucking family, the enraged woman responded. I hope they kill you too. I hope someone burns down your whole precinct with all yall inside. Cant wait to see it.

Hernandezs clip was immediately boosted on Twitter by Ngo and even screened for the White House press corps by press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, in a montage of Portland unrest intended to justify federal intervention in the city. (The montage also included video shot by Ventura and his boss, Richie McGinniss.)

The White House, however, edited the Hernandez clip for McEnanys presentation, removing the start of the confrontation to conceal from reporters that the protesters comments were in reaction to having been roughly treated.

The following month, DAlmeida recorded a shocking act of violence on a Portland street, five blocks from the main protest site.

Typically dressed in black to blend in, DAlmeida describes himself on Instagram as an Undercover Expos Artist, making no secret that his aim in filming protests against police brutality is to capture footage that can be used to discredit anti-fascists or Black Lives Matter activists.

While he began that effort in Seattle, DAlmeida finally hit the jackpot in August, when he recorded, on both his cellphone and body camera,graphic video of a white man being kicked in the face and knocked out by a Black man who provided security at Portland protests.

Hernandez and Ventura were also on hand to capture gruesome video of the aftermath, as the injured man, who was accused by his attacker of trying to run people down with his truck, lay unconscious and bleeding.

The video of the victim shared by Hernandez, with a caption attributing the violence to BLM militants, went even more viral.

The incident got so much attention on Fox News that the culprit, Marquise Love, who was later jailed for the assault, became a symbol ofBlack Lives Matterfor many of the networks viewers.

That this brutal attack had not taken place during a protest, but after one, and at another location, where a long series of confusing, overlapping arguments among people drinking and smoking outside a nearby 7-Eleven escalated to violence was not something DAlmeida tried to explain to viewers of his video.

Hernandez later tried to connect the attack to the protests by claiming that the victim, Adam Haner, had been assaulted for coming to the defense of a trans woman who was assaulted by Black Lives Matter protesters. In fact, a careful review of raw footage posted online later by Hernandez shows that the incident started after Love, the self-appointed security guard, left the site of a protest and encountered Haner drinking beer outside the 7-Eleven. The two men eventually took opposite sides in a nasty personal dispute there that had nothing to do with politics or the demonstrations.

What Hernandez left out of the narrative he shared with Fox News is that his footage shows that the dispute between Love and the trans woman at the 7-Eleven only escalated afterthat person took out a baton and threatened the security guard with it.

Last August, all eight Riot Squad videographers converged on Kenosha, Wisconsin, to cover protests that gave way to arson and destruction following the police shooting of Jacob Blake.

The unrest also prompted members of a libertarian militia to take to the streets.

Almost everything we know about how one member of that militia, Kyle Rittenhouse, ended up killing two men in Kenosha that week comes from the Riot Squad reporters, who were there to document violence by anti-police protesters but instead recorded video of a pro-police vigilante shooting demonstrators.

On the second night of protests in Kenosha, Ventura and Schaffer, who was disguised in a Black Lives Matter shirt, came across protesters arguing with a libertarian militia guarding a gas station.

Both recorded a tense political debate between a young, Black protester and a heavily armed militia leader wearing a tactical vest with an embroidered patch showing a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle and the slogan Cowabunga It Is, a reference to a Reddit meme.

That attempted murder of that citizen was wrong, the white militiamember said of the shooting of Blake. And Im all for protests, but you cant be destroying your neighbors houses and businesses, he added.

This shit, the fucking value of property, has nothing to do with the value of life, theprotester shouted at him. If you value this shit more than you value people, youre not with us! Fuck you! Youre not with us!

In his Periscope livestream from the same location, Schaffer gushed over the vigilantes.

What do you think about vigilantism where the police are not able to protect businesses, so citizens are coming in, and theyre protecting businesses themselves? Schaffer asked a bystander.

I feel a hundred percent, the man replied.

Im with it too. Im jiving with it, Schaffer agreed. I like that shit. That shits tight. Hell, yeah. These people are like God, right here. Theyre protectors.

Two blocks away, Ventura and Schaffer joined Rosas in front of a burning office furniture store, which provided the perfect backdrop for all three to record dispatches from the scene.

In his stand-up report, Rosas credited the armed citizens for stopping the ransacking of a car dealership and threw in a dig at the MSNBC anchor Ali Velshi, who had been accused by conservatives of downplaying arson while reporting from Minneapolis on the first George Floyd protests.

Whats up everybody, so right now were still here in Kenosha, Rosas said. Riots are still going on right now where the curfew is still technically in effect, but as you can see, a lot of the people are still out and about. Obviously a burning building behind me, or, as Ali Velshi would say, not an unruly protest.

When it was Schaffers turn to use the same burning building as a backdrop, he let viewers in on the secret that he was just pretending to sympathize with the protesters in order to expose them.

My names Elijah Schaffer, reporting for BlazeTV, undercover, here in Kenosha, he signed off. Thank you again so much for watching. Have a great rest of the night and may God bless the United States of America.

Within days, that stand-up was featured in a BlazeTV commercial for Schaffers show. Americas streets have become a war zone, a narrator intoned in the ad, and Elijah Schaffer is right in the middle of it. The ad copy promised that Schaffer would bring subscribers what the mainstream media wont show you: endless images of fire and property damage, along with the young conservatives thought-provoking perspective.

As he reported on racial justice protests last summer, Schaffers commentary on the movement against police brutality became increasingly unhinged. Ultimately, Schaffer tweeted in September, I believe BLM, if left unchecked, would eventually produce genocidal outcomes.

The next night, Schaffer and the Daily Callers head of video, Richie McGinniss, both interviewed a 17-year-old who had joined the militia: Rittenhouse.

As that night wore on, protesters eventually tired of being policed by vigilantes and let the militia know. As tensions between the two groups escalated, video shot by Rosas and the Daily Callers Shelby Talcott showed the three men Rittenhouse would shoot that night Gaige Grosskreutz, Joseph Rosenbaum, and Anthony Huber in the middle of the heated dispute.

After Schaffer interviewed Rittenhouse, he went to a nearby car dealershipthat was being vandalized. Moments later, Rittenhouse ran into that car lot, pursued by Rosenbaum, a protester enraged by the teenage vigilantes presence.

Video recorded by a protest livestreamer showed that McGinniss, who was following Rittenhouse when the chase began, was running just behind Rosenbaum with his iPhone pointed at the two men when Rittenhouse turned and fired four shots, striking the protester from point-blank range.

Because McGinniss was just a few feet behind Rosenbaum when Rittenhouse opened fire and appeared to be filming, the fact that he released no video of the shooting that night led some observers to wonder if he, or the Daily Caller, might have decided to suppress or delete footage that could be used to convict the young right-wing vigilante.

Hernandez captured the shooting from across the lot and then continued filming as he moved in closer.

While McGinniss ripped off his Black Lives Matter T-shirt and tried to stop Rosenbaums bleeding with it, Rittenhouse ran past Hernandez, calling a friend instead of 911.

Close-up images of the scramble to save Rosenbaum, recorded by Hernandez and Schaffer, showed that McGinnisss cellphone, which was in his left hand as he administered first aid with his right, was in record mode at the time.

The phones engaged red record button, the presence of a white shutter button on the screens lower right, and the red block around the time code at the top are three signs that an iPhone is recording, andall are visible on McGinnisss phone in the video recorded by Schaffer and Hernandez.

A screenshot from Drew Hernandezs video of Richie McGinniss holding his cellphone in his left hand while trying to give first aid to Joseph Rosenbaum, less than a minute after he was shot by Kyle Rittenhouse.

A screenshot of Drew Hernandezs video appears to show the red time code numbers at the top of Richie McGinnisss cellphone as he gives first aid to Joseph Rosenbaum.

That fueled speculation that McGinniss might have withheld incriminating visual evidence to shield Rittenhouse, who quickly became a hero to many of the Daily Callers far-right readers and was defended by the sites founder, Tucker Carlson.

McGinniss, however, told The Intercept that while he thought he had recorded video of the shooting, he discovered later that he had accidentally hit the wrong button on his iPhone and it did not start recording until after the shots were fired.

As Rittenhouse ran from the lot, Talcott filmed protesters shouting that he had shot someone. Moments later,Rittenhousetripped and fell in front of Rosas, who recorded the teen vigilante shooting at the men who tried to disarm him.

Rosas, who is in the Marine Reserves, quickly took cover, but another young video journalist, Brendan Gutenschwager, ran past him and got the clearest images of Rittenhouse shooting Huber, who died of his wounds, and Grosskreutz, who was badly injured but survived.

As Rittenhouse rose to his feet, with Huber sprawled on the street in front of him and Grosskreutz retreating, Gutenschwager could be seen just behind the gunman, filming from the sidewalk.

After shooting Anthony Huber, foreground, and Gaige Grosskreutz, left, Kyle Rittenhouse kneeled in the street in Kenosha, Wis., on Aug. 25, 2020, as Brendan Gutenschwager, right, recorded the scene on video from the sidewalk behind him.

Photo: Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Within 10 minutes of the first shooting, Hernandez and Schaffer both posted their video of the fatally wounded Rosenbaum on Twitter, along with captions that maligned the victim. Hernandez described Rosenbaum as a rioter, while Schaffer made the false claim that the man had been shot while looting a car shop.

On his BlazeTV show later that week, Schaffer continued to attack the victims, falselyaccusing them of committing crimes and praising the right-wing vigilante for killing them.

I really dont have sympathy for them. I just do not. They were rioters, they were vandalizing the place. And, do crimes, get rekt, thats what I have to say, Schaffer told his viewers. I think them attacking Kyle Rittenhouse, with a skateboard, a pistol, and trying to jump him is what makes them deserve to be shot. I think Kyles been memed into history.

Kyle is a hero in my eyes, Schaffer added. Next time commies come up on a patriot like that, watch out.

Gutenschwager is the only Riot Squad videographer who is not either employed by a conservative news site or openly right-wing. But before he started filming protests, Gutenschwager traveled the country as something of a Donald Trump groupie, attending at least 24 Trump rallies before the 2018 midterms and describing them as exhilarating on his video blog.

Gutenschwagers footage of left-wing protesters behaving badly has earned him invitations from Ingraham to appear on Fox News, but he promises fans of his Twitter feed who provide financial support that they can rely on him to report the unbiased truth from the ground. He also sells his footage through the news agency Storyful, which is owned by Rupert Murdochs News Corp., but licenses video from social media video to broadcasters across the political spectrum.

Even so, Gutenschwagers video of mayhem at left-wing protests is frequently used by right-wing outlets and meme creators to smear demonstrators.

Continue reading here:

Riot Squad: Right-Wing Video Journalists Help Smear BLM - The Intercept

In 2017, historian Mark Bray set out to do something never tried before: he tried to define antifa, a movement deeply rooted in the early 1900s as an opposition to the rise of dictatorial leaders like Mussolini and Hitler. In his book, Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook, Bray wrote, The job of the anti-fascist is to make [fascists] too afraid to act publicly and to act as volunteer targets for their hate and attacks, which might keep them from thinking about burning down the mosque in their neighborhood.

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Picking up from the where discourse ends and lived experiences begin, director Julia von Heinz embarks on a different journey. In a world haunted by the omnipresence of far-right, fascist political and social organisations, And Tomorrow the Entire World invites revolutionaries to navigate the eternal conflicts of a young activist. The film is her inquiry into a deceptively simple question: what does it mean to be an anti-fascist?

Read more: What is Antifa, the movement Donald Trump blames for violence across the U.S.?

Set in the small West German town of Mannheim, the film follows protagonist Luisa (Mala Emde), a freshman law student, as she leaves her bourgeoisie household to join her best friend Batte (Luisa-Cline Gaffron) in an antifa commune. After befriending charismatic Alfa (Noah Saavedra) and timid Lenor (Tonio Schneider) among others, she becomes increasingly involved in on-ground anti-fascist action.

Originally intended as a period film set in the 90s, Von Heinz creates an authentic account of contemporary antifa groups by attempting to represent a sizable spectrum of antifascist operations.The film does justice to its subject in portraying the non-violent aspects of resistance. While most characters in the film reiterate their pledge of using violence for self-defence only, Luisa and Alfa, in particular, become the only antithesis of this principle, which makes for an interesting viewing as their isolation grows.

And Tomorrow the Entire World

Mala Emdes performance as Luisa is arguably one of the strongest pillars that the film constantly relies on. There are but a handful of shots in the film where Luisa is not present a conscious choice, according to the director. It does pay off in the end. We look at the world through the eyes of a privileged individual, trying to strip out of her upbringing and become one with the cause. It speaks back to the larger movie-streaming audience that belong to a certain class. The camera work by cinematographer Daniela Knapp, which utilises closeups and medium shots, also goes a long way towards establishing empathy with the characters. The wide shots, only used on two occasions, is done so to reinforce the opposition of ideology between Luisa and the neo-Nazi villians of the film.

However, for a film which sets sail to explore the complexities of being a part of a social movement, it still plays into the tropes of the optimistic, young protagonist, the charming but flawed lover, the level-headed friend and the guiding, older revolutionary.

One of the main themes of the film is that of privileged individuals in social movements. The story quietly dwells on the idea of Salonkommunists (champagne socialists) having an economic-backing that encourages them to take risks. We find that the characters are not averse to quitting the movement; for them, there is always an alternative. The script also leans heavily on the audience to understand the characters motivations which are not always clear. Their actions, therefore, sometimes feel to be motivated by an empty, spur-of-the-moment naivete. Perhaps this is Von Heinzs intention all along, as Lusias father recollects the old saying, Those under 30 and not on the left have no heart; those over 30 and still on the left have no brain.

The film also explores relationships among women of resistance and the sense of solidarity within the commune. Acceptance and forgiveness are strengths deeply entrenched in the characters as they spearhead the antifa operations.

Von Heinz layers the film with songs by Marie Curry-led hip-hop group NeonSchwarZ, known for their antifascist pieces. The films feature soundtrack Wenn die Nacht am tiefsten ist, ist der Tag am nchsten is a rendition of a 1975 song of the same name by the famous Punk rock band Ton Steine Scherben. The band was known for being a musical mouthpiece of new left movements, such as the squatting movement, during that time in Germany and their hometown of West Berlin, in particular. Matthias Petsches background score and Bettina Bertoks sound design juxtaposing opera music with scenes of violent clashes also prove to be a bone-chilling combination.

The films achievement of becoming Germanys official submission to the Best International Feature Film category at the 93rd Academy Awards in 2021, underscores the importance of political dramas in highlighting the concerns of the times. And Tomorrow the Entire World locates antifascist action within the unifying constitutional value, All Germans shall have the right to resist any person seeking to abolish this constitutional order, if no other remedy is available.

The film is worth its runtime for those who see it as a beginning; a piece that questions its own values, as we all must.

And Tomorrow the Entire World is currently streaming on Netflix

Link:

And Tomorrow the Entire World movie review: A riveting insight into the antifa movement - The Hindu

The Daily Shows Jordan Klepper was in the minority when he visited Phoenix and the scene of the current Arizona recount, a.k.a. the third Arizona recount. For one thing, he seemed to be one of the few individuals not carrying a gun, which made him stand out in a sea of MAGAs. Nor did Klepper seem convinced of the competency of the Cyber Ninjas, the company running the recount, which has zero experience with recounts.

Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs chatted with Klepper and conceded that while its comical to watch what is happening here in Arizona I think that its also important to note that this is really dangerous to our democracy.

Hobbs said that a number of Arizona voters are concerned about their ballots being in the hands of the Cyber Ninjas, a company run by a man who has regularly amplified conspiracy theories about 2020 voter fraud. Among the most prevalent of these theories? That a group of Chinese insurrectionists attempted to change the results of the election by submitting their own ballots on bamboo paper. Which has led to a group of totally sane people having to use a UV light to look for bamboo in order to disprove this bizarre rumor.

You can have some pretty far-fetched ideas on both sides, and what were doing is simply proving or disproving as many of those as we can, Senate Audit Liaison Ken Bennett told Klepper.

While discussing the importance of a fair election with a man proudly brandishing a Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum on his hip, he told Klepper that There has been word that Antifa and BLM may be coming in, so theyre trying to be careful and secure the premises. As for whether said Man With Gun had seen any signs of Antifa, he had notbut noted that there were whispers that they were infiltrating the carnival that was taking place next door to the recount. As in: an actual carnival. Antifa carnies? Yep! As Klepper noted, they were even mentioned in Cyber Ninjass official documents outlining potential security threats.

All of which begs the question: Which one is the real carnival?

Read more here:

The Daily Show's Jordan Klepper Is On The Scene Of The Arizona Recount - UPROXX

A disabled veteran was driving home from work when he came across a group of armed, ANTIFA and BLM supporters in North Portland. The man, Joe Hall had the keys from his vehicle stolen while he was trying to get away from the crowd, which lead him to exit his truck. When the man had a rifle aimed at him, and attempted to defend himself, he was tackled, and beaten into critical condition by these peaceful protestors. This is the description according to the Portland Police:

On May 5, 2021, at about 12:12 p.m., Portland Police were dispatched the report of a pedestrian struck by a car near North Interstate Avenue and North Killingsworth Street. This was related to a large group walking in the street there. As officers arrived they did not find any pedestrians who claimed to have been struck. The large group had moved away, still walking in nearby streets, some openly carrying firearms. Officers remained in the area searching for anyone who may have been injured and to collect evidence and information. Additional calls came in from people who had been driving vehicles in the area and who were blocked by the crowd in the street. One person said people in the crowd broke out their vehicle windows, damaged tires, and sprayed them with some kind of irritant near North Interstate Avenue and North Killingsworth Street. A person in another vehicle blocked by the crowd near North Alberta Street and North Michigan Avenue got into a dispute with people who surrounded him and took a firearm from him, as well as tools and keys. Portland Police attempted to collect as many statements as possible from those involved.

Lars spoke with Joe to get the full story, Listen Below:

The post The Man Beaten By ANTIFA For Daring To Drive Near Them Now Fears Hes A Marked Man appeared first on The Lars Larson Show.

Originally posted here:

The Man Beaten By ANTIFA For Daring To Drive Near Them Now Fears He's A Marked Man - 550 KTSA

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) says that anyone who would harm a person, their property, or police officers needs to stay out of the state or face "swift" and "severe" consequences.

DeSantis warned that if rioters begin demonstrating in Florida as they do in various places in Oregon they will be met with severe consequences.

During last week's press conference revealing that the state would apportion $1,000 bonuses to first responders, the Republican governor vowed to protect police officers and residents from rioting, vandalism, and violence.

"I think if you look around the country, what happens is, like in Portland, these people riot every night," he said. "They go, they get their mug shot, and then they get put right back on the street to do it again. That's what we don't want."

He added, "The minute you harm somebody else or you harm somebody's property, you do those types of things, the only way we're going to put a stop to it is to have very swift penalties for it."

Pointing to areas such as Portland, Oregon, DeSantis added that crime is spiking in areas across America due to a lack of support for police.

"There's a lot of places around this country that have not stood by law enforcement, and the tragedy of it is, you're seeing crime spike in certain parts of our country like we haven't seen in decades," he explained. "The people that are going to be most affected by that are the most vulnerable members of our society."

He also added that he is issuing the statewide bonuses because it is imperative for law enforcement and first responders to function and serve the country as they always have.

"One of the reasons we are here today with the bonuses is because we know just how important that is. It tells people, 'Hey, if you are in Portland and you think you can come down to Florida and do this, stay out of our state!' We don't want you coming down here and causing problems," DeSantis insisted. "If anyone does cause these problems, if you try to burn something down, try harm anybody, but particularly a police officer during one these violent assemblies, there will be consequences. They will be swift and they will be severe. They will be such that people who see that happening will know that's not something that we want to do going forward."

"Stay out of our state!" Gov. DeSantis warns protesters NOT to come to FL or face consequences http://www.youtube.com

Continued here:

Gov. Ron DeSantis warns Antifa to stay out of Florida: Consequences will be swift and they will be severe - TheBlaze

(TNS) If you need another example of how disinformation can actually hurt people and turn an emergency into a crisis, go back to the wildfires that consumed portions of California, Oregon and Washington last September.

The fires, historic in scale, burned some 5 million acres and thousands of homes and structures. Drought-like conditions throughout the Northwest allowed them to rage, and the resulting smoke cast a pall over the entire region. Officials and emergency responders had enough on their hands without having to convince people the threat was real.

But in Oregon, the situation was made worse by a stream of disinformation rumors, really on social media. As the fires spread, so did false claims that they had been deliberately set by antifa, a loosely organized group of far-left activists that clashes with right-wing organizations and has been labeled by conservatives as the source of all violence and disruption.

Soon, police departments and 9-1-1 dispatchers were being bombarded by calls from Oregon homeowners who had heard that roving gangs of antifa members were setting fires. Some neighborhoods set up armed checkpoints, as they mobilized to guard their homes.

The phone calls, rumors and checkpoints all interfered with fire, police and rescue personnel trying to compile accurate information about the numerous fires and effectively dispatch resources to fight them, save lives and property, and evacuate as many residents as possible.

It took two to three days of media saturation by state and local officials to finally quell the antifa conspiracy. That is the power of social media to propel a set of lies.

Last month, Glenn S. Gerstell, a former general counsel for the National Security Agency, cited the Oregon saga in testimony before the House Armed Services subcommittee on cybersecurity, innovative technologies and information systems during a hearing on disinformation and what to do about it.

It reached a point because of what Russia was doing that civilians actually set up roadblocks in Oregon in an effort to stop these perceived but erroneous protesters who, of course, werent there, Gerstell continued. It actually hurt people who were trying to flee the fire so much so that the Douglas County sheriff and the FBI pleaded with the public to stop circulating these falsehoods.

Disinformation campaigns are sophisticated, but amazingly cheap. And all of the Pentagons bombs and bullets, fighter jets, Navy destroyers and nuclear weapons cant do much about them.

So, what would work?

For a long time, experts have talked about a whole of government approach to the problem a phrase reporters tend to dismiss when we hear it in Washington, which is often. But this time, they might be right. Gerstell and his fellow witnesses had numerous suggestions for lawmakers.

First, regulate social media by changing Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, or somehow convince them to regulate themselves with an aim, as Gerstell testified, to limit the virality of falsehoods, to check them before they get spread too widely.

Second, establish a bipartisan, agreed-upon campaign of civic education and digital literacy to teach people young and old the differences between falsehood and truth and how to recognize the differences online. Nina Jankowicz, the disinformation fellow at the Wilson Center, suggested such a campaign be based in our public library system, one of the most trusted institutions in America.

Next, the Pentagon must elevate the fight against disinformation, with high-level civilians and officers making it a key part of their strategy portfolios. After all, undermining confidence in our democracy and institutions is a strategy, not just tactics, used by our enemies to weaken, divide and conquer.

The Pentagon should also examine and strengthen its psychological operations and perhaps marry them to its cybersecurity teams and reconsider how spies, the National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command carry out their intelligence missions to protect the United States without interfering in free and unfettered domestic debate.

Finally and this is the hardest Rubicon to cross there must be a consideration of the extent to which the U.S. should fight fire with fire: Do we engage in falsehoods abroad to weaken our enemies, as they do to us? Agencies like the CIA have done so in the past, but most of the witnesses before Armed Services were reluctant to offer support for such activities.

One of them, Herbert Lin, the senior research scholar at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University, put it this way: Do we want to adopt the tactics of the Russians in this? Im very uncomfortable about that as an American citizen.

On the other hand, Lin continued, its pretty clear that speaking the truth, just the truth, doesnt work very well.

And we, the Americans, believe in speaking the truth that the truth will eventually win, he said. Maybe eventually. But theres good evidence that it doesnt always win in the short term. And how far are we willing to go down that path? Thats a very tough policy question.

But thats why we elect members of Congress and presidents. To answer the tough questions. With disinformation spreading like wildfire, its time they do.

(c)2021 CQ Roll Call. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC

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Disinformation Isnt Just a National Problem; Its Local, Too - Governing