Yup, just check https://www.blm.gov/
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And naturally, QAnon is involved.
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Some clarification on Antifa - what it is or is not.
Short for “anti-fascist,” the label “antifa” gained notoriety in 2017 over the course of several high-profile conflicts between left-wing protesters and the far right in Berkeley, Calif.; Portland, Ore.; Charlottesville; and elsewhere. But antifa has been a staple of radical politics across Europe, Latin America and beyond for decades. Even in the United States, this tradition of militant antifascism has a long history under the banner of the Anti-Racist Action network. Despite this history, and a litany of journalistic “explainers” over the past three years, antifa remains largely misunderstood. Here are some of the most popular myths.
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Myth No. 1Antifa is a single organization.
On May 31, President Trump tweeted, “The United States of America will be designating ANTIFA as a Terrorist Organization.” Attorney General William P. Barr echoed his sentiments by arguing that antifa is “a revolutionary group that is interested in some form of socialism.” Right-wing figure Chuck Callesto even claimed that Sen. Rand Paul intended to “SUBPOENA ANTIFA plane records, hotel records, all travel records & all funding.”
But Trump cannot designate “ANTIFA” as a terrorist organization because antifa is not an organization. Rather, it is a politics of revolutionary opposition to the far right. There are antifa groups, such as Rose City Antifa in Portland and NYC Antifa, just as there are feminist groups, such as Code Pink. But neither antifa nor feminism is itself an organization. You cannot subpoena an idea or a movement. That’s not to say that antifa doesn’t exist, of course. Antifa is “very real,” as Rep. Jim Jordan has argued, but not in the monolithic, hierarchical way in which he and many other Americans are accustomed to thinking of political associations.
Myth No. 2
Antifa masterminds violence at Black Lives Matter protests.
Police stations were burned, squad cars were destroyed, and property was damaged across the country after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May. Days later, Trump was quick to blame the violence on “ANTIFA and the Radical Left.” The president also promoted a far-right conspiracy theory that a 75-year-old racial justice protester in Buffalo who was shoved to the ground by police, fracturing his skull, “could be an ANTIFA provocateur.” Rudolph W. Giuliani concurred, claiming that “antifa sprang into action and in a flash hijacked the protests into vicious, brutal riots.”
But neither the Justice Department, the FBI nor the press have found evidence to corroborate the grandiose allegation that the most widespread and significant political upheaval this country has seen in half a century was masterminded by one shadowy organization. Not even in Portland. Antifa groups are simply not numerous enough, nor their memberships large enough, nor their politics influential enough to have achieved such massive destruction. Militant anti-fascist groups heavily vet potential members to prevent infiltration from law enforcement or the far right. Some don’t open their ranks to new members at all. Significant investments of time and energy are expected. Such high barriers to entry necessarily keep numbers low.
Myth No. 3
Antifa is affiliated with the Democratic Party.
In August, a fake antifa website began to redirect users to Joe Biden’s campaign site. Though it was clearly a ploy to associate the Democratic Party with antifa, right wingers seized upon the apparent conspiracy. Speaking about the Democrats that same day, Trump claimed that “in my book, it’s virtually part of their campaign, antifa.” According to Ann Coulter, the Democrats are “the Antifa Party.” And columnists have argued that “antifa riots may be part of [a] Democrat power grab” or even that “antifa is the militant wing of the Democratic Party.”
Not only is there no evidence to support such allegations — which are more of an effort to associate liberalism with lawlessness than anything else — but Democratic leaders have routinely condemned antifa and political violence more broadly. For example, in 2017 Nancy Pelosi denounced “the violent actions of people calling themselves antifa” after destructive protests against right-wing commentator Milo Yiannopoulos in Berkeley. When a reporter recently asked Joe Biden, “Do you condemn antifa?,” he responded, “Yes, I do.”
Nor is there any antifa love affair with the Democrats. The vast majority of antifa militants are radical anti-capitalists who oppose the Democratic Party. Some may hold their noses and vote for Biden in November, but many are anarchists who don’t vote at all.
Myth No. 4
Antifa is funded by liberal financiers like George Soros.
Right-wing conspiracy theorists have alleged that egalitarian protest movements, such as Occupy Wall Street or the women’s marches, have been secretly funded for many years by liberal financiers like George Soros. Trump is among those who have accused Soros of funding antifa, while other conservatives, such as Rep. Ken Buck, have dog-whistled this anti-Semitic trope by asking in more general terms “who is funding these violent riots.” Similarly, Rand Paul asked, after being confronted by protesters in D.C.: “Who paid for their hotel rooms? Who flew them in?”
There is no evidence that Soros or any other 1 percenter is bankrolling antifa groups. Receiving financial support from a billionaire would be anathema to their anti-capitalist politics. Like most anarchist, anti-authoritarian or radical groups, antifa organizations don’t have much money at their disposal. What they do have generally comes from members or occasional solidarity fundraisers. Unlike political parties, unions or nongovernmental organizations, they don’t require significant funds. The International Anti-Fascist Defense Fund collects small donations primarily for legal and medical support, but that hardly constitutes the moneyed boogeyman that Republicans have conjured.
Myth No. 5
Antifascists are the ‘real fascists.’
Recently Barr described antifa as deploying “fascistic” tactics, and Donald Trump Jr. characterized the movement as having moved “to the book burning phase.” The Internet is awash with articles about how “antifa are the real fascists,” as the Spectator’s Toby Young put it, or the “brownshirts” of the Democratic Party, in radio host Michael Savage’s words. After Charlottesville, Trump called antifascists the “alt-left,” a term that did not stick. These portrayals are often supported by references to antifascists’ disruption of the events of their (far-right) political opponents — a strategy famously deployed by fascists.
Indeed, antifascists and fascists have one thing in common: an illiberal disdain for the confines of mainstream politics. In every other way they are worlds apart. As opposed to their far-right adversaries, antifascists are feminist, anti-racist, anti-capitalists who seek to abolish prisons and police. Comparing antifascists to fascists only makes a bit of sense if one divorces the tactics from the underlying views that animate them. Such comparisons stem from the misguided horseshoe theory: that ultimately political extremes meet. But fascists are the real fascists because they pursue a fascist political agenda.
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Jane’s on the factchecks!
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^ this is a good thread.
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FFS.
‘It’s a hoax. There’s no pandemic’: Trump’s base stays loyal as president fights Covid
News that the president has contracted coronavirus prompted alarm and confusion among Trump supporters in Missouri
Sean Patterson is not worried that Donald Trump has been hospitalized with coronavirus because he believes what the president tells him.
“It’s a hoax. There’s no pandemic. As Trump said, how many millions die of flu?” said the 56-year-old truck driver outside the early voting station in St Joseph, Missouri – a stronghold for the president.
But then Patterson pauses and contemplates the possibility that Trump really does have Covid-19.
“If he’s sick, then they planted it when they tested him. It’s what they did to me when I went to hospital for my heart beating too fast. Two weeks later I got a cold,” he said. “It’s political. I don’t trust the US government at all. Who are they to mandate personal safety? I listen to Trump.”
At the end of a tumultuous week even by the standards of one of the most turbulent presidencies of modern times, the disturbing if not entirely unpredictable news that the president has contracted coronavirus prompted alarm, confusion and schadenfreude in the heart of Trumpland.
St Joseph, a former frontier city where the outlaw Jesse James met his bloody end, voted overwhelmingly for the president four years ago. The polls say Missouri will go his way again next month. But with Trump struggling in key swing states, the news he has fallen sick to Covid-19 jolted an election already battered days earlier by the most undignified presidential election debate in history.
Trump’s persistent interruptions and disruptions, including mocking Biden for wearing a mask in other situations, tested the faith of more than a few of his supporters. Now his contraction of coronavirus has raised further doubts after Trump repeatedly undermined medical advice as the Covid-19 death toll surged past 200,000.
His family openly defied regulations requiring masks at the debate. The president attended an election rally in Wisconsin the next day and failed to wear a mask. Several of his officials, including adviser Hope Hicks and former top aide Kellyanne Conway, have also tested positive.
Even some Trump supporters despaired at his cavalier attitude to the pandemic and his ability to turn a medical emergency into a political fight and loyalty test.
“I agreed with the president that it was wrong to shut down the country because of coronavirus,” said Karen White, an office manager who voted for him in 2016. “The damage to our economy was just too great. But he was wrong to question masks. I wish he hadn’t done it. He made things worse and now I have to wonder if he would even have it if he had just listened to what his own advisers were saying.”Others were more sanguine. “It doesn’t worry me that he’s infected because I’m not surprised,” said Martin Rucker, a 63-year-old African American public servant on his way to vote early at the county courthouse in central St Joseph. “He didn’t take precautions to stop getting it and now he has it. It was predictable.”
Some of the more conspiratorially minded were, like Patterson, suspicious of whether the president actually has coronavirus but for different reasons.
“When I first heard, I did wonder if he made it up to get out of the next debate or win sympathy,” said Amy Grant, a 26 year-old shopworker. “Before it would have been impossible to think a president would make up getting ill but now anything seems possible. He probably didn’t but I’m not completely sure.”
Some Democrats were fearful at the prospect of Trump dying or being forced out of the race because they view the president as Biden’s best hope of election. Without Trump, a more measured and reasoned Republican candidate might prove a stronger challenge to Biden, a lacklustre campaigner who would probably not be so far ahead in the polls if not for the pandemic.
Other critics of the president privately wished Trump ill, saying he has a lot of blood on his hands for playing politics with the pandemic and encouraging Republican governors, with the power to impose social distancing and mask orders, to do the same even as the virus ravaged the midwest.
Trump set the tone for Missouri’s governor, Mike Parson, who consistently resisted making masks obligatory in public spaces on the grounds that the government shouldn’t tell people what to do. Parson refused to wear one in shops because he said “there was a lot of information on both sides” about whether they are effective.
Parson tested positive for coronavirus last month and has been in quarantine.
Coronavirus may well cost Trump the election as his support wobbled over the past few months, but some of those who have stuck with him this far are not ready to abandon him now he is sick.
“I will vote for him again,” said White. “I still think he’s better for the country. If Biden becomes president he will be under the control of the socialists.”
Patterson too will remain loyal even though, while he defends Trump on coronavirus, he was horrified by Tuesday’s debate.
“It’s a crying shame what we’ve reduced ourselves to. Gone are the days when two men could have a civilised debate about their policies,” he said.
The Democratic candidate’s campaign said it will suspend attack adverts against Trump after he was taken to the Walter Reed Medical Center.
Jan, a bookkeeper who declined to give her last name, would like to think that Trump’s handling of the pandemic, and what she called his childish behaviour at the debate, will cost him power.
“Trump thinks he’s better than everyone else. It was a matter of time before he got coronavirus because he doesn’t believe in masks and he doesn’t understand the function of masks,” she said. “But I think he could win again. There’s a lot of stupid people in this country. Maybe they want a despot to rule them.”
Rucker, the public servant, said Trump’s behaviour at the debate will have shocked a lot of Americans, but he doubts it will have any real impact on the election.
“It was very unprofessional but again I’m not surprised,” he said.Rucker is not worried though. He thinks Trump’s handling of coronavirus, if it doesn’t cost him his life, will lose him the election and that even if he then refuses to accept defeat and tries to stir up violence, it won’t go anywhere.
“I don’t think he’ll win again. He’s so divisive. I believe in the US to endure,” he said.
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From the debate, when Trump was yelling about ballots dumped in ditches. Not true, shocker.
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Cross posting! (I thought for a sec this was the same as what Pet posted in Milwaukee lol. Nope! Just more fuckery in a different state.)
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Cross-posting about Trump’s crazy claims of influenza lethality:
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I’d like to hear all of it fact checked please.
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Eric Trump has a case of his father’s ‘projection.’ and is accusing someone of living above their means. Apple does not fall too far from the tree.
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Jane and Craig doin’ their thing!
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Here is the misinformation that Dr. Scott Atlas presents to the nation. Yes why isn’t he showing the 1K deaths per day.
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MSNBC follows Ric Grennell (former DNI) and asks him to present information on where these invalid ballots are.
video Soberoff to Ric Grenell
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Seriously?
Somebody did a not-very-deep fake of a Pornhub banner “appearing” during a live CNN broadcast.
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Cross posting this awesome resource!
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