Journalists From The United States

"Thousands around the United States support antifa and the far left. They are willing to donate to their fundraisers. Politicians and celebrities promote their causes, and local media provide favorable coverage. Riot Ribs was one of the most successful Portland antifa mutual aid groups during the summer. It raised more than $330,000 but suddenly dissolved overnight in July 2020 and disappeared, along with the money."

"[T]he Youth Liberation Front (YLF), the antifa group in Portland that took the lead in organizing riots, used ‘cyberswarming’ to coordinate real-world direct action. Cyberswarming is the act of calling online followers to a real-life location or event. Antifa traditionally use it to immediately mobilize a crowd against people they perceive to be ideological threats. But in 2020, they were using it to direct people to locations to riot."

"The Portland General Defense Committee publishes a financial accountability page on its website… Bail bonds ranging from several hundred dollars up to $50,000 were paid for more than a hundred people. In effect, the group is using a GoFundMe campaign to channel money to causes that are otherwise not allowed on the platform."

"Meanwhile, the daily violent antifa protests were becoming more organized and sophisticated. Media pundits inaccurately described what was happening as spontaneous and organic, but what I saw on antifa social media accounts was a deliberate, strategic, and organized plan to grow and entrench the riots. Through advertising on Reddit, Instagram, Snapshot, and Twitter, they were widely successful in getting support not just from antifa fans but also from the wider left."

"As much as CHAZ was an experiment in anarchy and chaos, it was also a successful experiment in propaganda making. What journalists were allowed to record was heavily controlled by the residents there. For example, in one instance a black man carried an American flag through the zone. He was immediately accosted the followed by a large mob, including masked black bloc antifa, who shouted racist invectives at him. ‘Race traitor! Race traitor’ one man yelled repeatedly on a bullhorn. ‘ Fox News will use this,’ another person yelled after rioters tried to steal his flag. This became a relatively common refrain in CHAZ anytime fights broke out. CHAZ supporters were not interested in reality. They wanted the media to broadcast to the world a fabricated utopia."

"Faizel Khan, the owner of Café Argento, told the New York Times: ‘They barricaded us all in here.’ He didn’t dare speak out to media until weeks after CHAZ’s demise. ‘[T]hey were sitting in lawn chairs with guns.’ His testimony to the paper comports with what I witnessed myself. Though there thousands in CHAZ during the day, actual business was incredibly slow. Customer traffic was severely impacted from the street blockades. People could only travel in and out by foot."

"One glaring blind spot in the mainstream media coverage of CHAZ was how the space gave platform to violent extremist ideologies. Reports about CHAZ’s political agenda focused shallowly on ‘racial justice’ and ‘defunding the police’ rather than its explicit calls to kill cops and overthrow the government. Hundreds of graffiti messages and images lined the zone showing dead pigs wearing police hats."

"While CHAZ was ostensibly created to be an explicitly ‘anti-racist’ zone, it ended up segregating along racial lines. Most of CHAZ’s black residents and black visitors did not follow antifa’s anarchist-communist ideology. Some actively took issue with antifa’s destruction and vandalism of the space. The white anarchist, socialist, and communist radicals mostly stayed together in their spaces."

"When the SPD [Seattle Police Department] evacuated from the station on June 8, 2020, masked protesters stole city property—barricades, fencing, and more—to create makeshift barriers. These barriers became the official walls around CHAZ. A movement that has border abolishment at the core of its ideology immediately set up its own border to keep out outsiders. To fortify their barricades, armed volunteer allies moved in. They operated as a private militia complete with their own uniforms."

"In Portland, I made the decision to go to CHAZ. There’s a lot of reporting one can do from a distance away, but at some point, it requires being on the ground. But I was scared. Terrified, actually. Ever since I was beat by antifa in June 2019, one of the deliberating psychological consequences is anxiety in crowds. I had never suffered from enochlophobia, a fear of crowds, but everything changed after the attack… I hated giving antifa what they wanted—fear—but they’ve made it very clear they want to beat me again and this time finish the job."

"As I left Seattle, I mourned for the law-abiding people who had been terrorized into silence. They were completely failed by their elected leaders. And despite the organized violence playing out in the open, the media headlines still denied the existence of antifa. ‘How much more violence and chaos by antifa are politicians willing to accept?’ I asked myself while on the train out of the city. Unfortunately, a whole lot more."

"In many ways, being at CHAZ was like being among jihadists. To each other, they showed a lot of care and camaraderie in the form of mutual aid, and compassion but opponents to their political agenda needed to be destroyed."

"The CrimethInc manual on breaking windows goes on to explain that taxpaying businesses are fair game to target because that ends up hurting police, who rely on public funding. The intellectualizing of their arguments tries to mask the ruthlessness of their worldview. They don’t care whom they harm, what livelihoods they destroy, as long as it furthers their political agenda."

"Antifa is a phantom movement by design. It is leaderless and structured to be functional through small, independent organizations, known as affinity groups, and individuals. Only the ideology needs to be propagated for lone wolves or groups to be inspired. Part of that ideology involves extensive training on ‘digital security,’ that is, using encrypted tools, apps, and web browsers to completely evade detection by authorities and others. It is no surprise that scant evidence materialized in the early days of the investigation into accused rioters. Antifa are trained to hide their political affiliations."

"As demonstrated with window breaking, it only takes a small group of people—even just one person—to set off a chain reaction. It makes sense that the overwhelming majority of those arrested at random are not aligned with antifa ideology. They don’t need to be in order to play a role in the riots. The smashing of businesses’ windows serves as an open invitation to opportunist looters and rioters to wreak havoc. That’s the genius of antifa’s riot strategy: they only have to light the match."

"The word ‘violence’ is being systematically remade to conform to their worldview. Looting and arson aren’t violence, they argue. And yet physical violence directed at their opponents is also not violence but rather ‘self-defense.’"

"For the first time in my life, I witnessed major American metropolises struggle and fail with protecting the most basic right of citizens: the right to life and property. For days on end, those victimized by rioters never received help even as they repeatedly called 911. Further events in Seattle, Portland, and elsewhere demonstrate the balkanization of geographical areas into ‘no-go zones’ for police and outsiders."

"[George] Floyd, a 46-year-old black man with an extensive criminal history, died while being arrested by police in Minneapolis after allegedly using counterfeit money. Shocking video recorded at the scene showed Officer Derek Chauvin pressing his knee on Floyd’s neck while he repeatedly stated that he couldn’t breathe… Floyd became unresponsive and died. The Hennepin County medical examiner found that he died as a result of the ‘combined effects of… being restrained by the police, his underlying health conditions and any potential intoxicants in his system.’ There was no evidence found of traumatic asphyxia or strangulation in the county’s autopsy. It was later revealed that Floyd’s blood contained a fatal level of fentanyl."

"All that occurred on just the first night of rioting in Portland. It continued the next day, and the day after that, and the day after that. For weeks, rioters descended on the Justice Center every night as if it were a ritual. They’d surround the building, confront the police standing guard, and attack them with projectiles and mortar explosives. Many of them used powerful lasers against the police that could burn eyes and cause permanent damage to vision. By the middle of the summer, these lasers became so numerous that the rioters who carried them organized into their own ‘unit, and the protests began to look like laser shows."

"[I[n 2020 numerous mainstream left-wing commentators began criticizing the very notion of property rights. ‘Destroying property, which can be replaced, is not violence,’ said New York Timesreporter Nikole Hannah-Jones in a CBS News interview in June of 2020."

"In contrast to the narrative Americans had been sold that antifa are merely ‘anti-fascists,’ the video showed a mob of mask-clad extremists beating a journalist in the middle of a major American city with impunity. It confirmed what some had been warning for years: antifa is a violent extremist movement that attacks all kinds of targets under the guise of ‘anti-fascism.’"

"Since 2015, untold numbers of victims, including other journalists, have been doxed, beaten, robbed, or killed by antifa militants. Few of them receive media attention—or justice."

"After months of coronavirus lockdowns in early 2020, race riots erupted in May in response to the death of George Floyd during an arrest by Minneapolis police. In the name of Black Lives Matter (BLM) and with the help of antifa, rioters and looters torched buildings, raided stores, and attacked law enforcement in dozens of cities. This resulted in over two dozen deaths."

"Outside of the Multnomah County Justice Center, the building that houses the Central Police Precinct, the Sheriff’s Office, and courtrooms, I was nearly killed by a violent mob. At no point did police intervene to help."

"John Earle Sullivan, who was inside the Capitol building during the siege on Wednesday, previously gave a speech in BLM Plaza in DC in August 2020 where he identifies as being part of an insurgency group & calls for a violent left-wing revolution."

"One of the men who was part of the siege of the Capitol building is John Earle Sullivan, an extreme BLM activist from Utah. He was arrested & charged in July 2020 over a BLM-antifa riot where drivers in Provo were threatened & one was shot."

"‘No hate! No fear!’ They began shouting. Before I made it much further, someone—or something—hit me hard in the back of the head. I was nearly knocked to the ground from the impact. Never having been in a fight, I naively asked myself in the moment: ‘Did someone just trip and fall into me?’ Before I could turn around to look, a sea of bodies dressed in black surrounded me. In the background, I could still hear the crowd chant, ‘No hate!’ Ironically, all I saw next—and felt—was the pure embodiment of hatred."

"Despite what was happening before our eyes, left-wing politicians and media denied antifa played a role. House Judiciary Committee chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) called the movement ‘imagery’ during a congressional debate. And even though the public could plainly see masked militants openly planning and carrying out riot operations, we were still told there is ‘no evidence’ of organized antifa. ‘Who caused the violence at protests? It wasn’t antifa,’ declared one gaslighting Washington Post ‘fact-checker’ analysis, for example."

"As any good journalist should know, you don’t want to become part of the story. However, whether I wanted to or not, antifa decided to make me part of their story. After my 2019 beating, I became antifa’s public enemy number one. They sent me death threats, stalked me, and even showed up at my family’s home on several occasions. They have threatened to shoot me and to set me on fire. They’ve released my exact whereabouts in real time on social media. They’ve threatened my friends. The criminal threats are reported to the local police, but no one is ever held accountable."

"At every step of the way, the Portland City Council demonized its police force, accusing them of racism and brutality… They pushed for the Portland Police’s Gun Violence Reduction Team to be dissolved after Floyd’s death, claiming it targeted blacks. The mayor gave his support, and the unit was dismantled. In the following months, shootings and homicides in Portland spiked to the highest level in decades. Compared to the year prior, shootings in July and August 2020 in Portland increased by almost 200 percent."

"The Senate... suffers from a rapidly aging body of legislators. With an average age of 63 and five octogenarian... it’s no secret that the Senate is in need of younger blood. And on Tuesday evening, Jon Ossoff, at a spiffy 33 (he’s got six more years to make Fortune’s 40 under 40), provided just that. The former congressional staffer and investigative journalist will break through the wall of senior citizens to become the youngest member of the legislative body... Throughout his campaign, Ossoff touted his youth as one of his “greatest strengths.” Young people, he said, could easily make up the largest voting bloc and swing elections consistently if they were inspired to come out to the polls. Currently, the Senate has no millennial representation, despite being America’s largest generation."

"Democrat Jon Ossoff claimed victory over Republican incumbent David Perdue in his Senate race. He would become the second Jewish candidate to win a statewide race in modern Georgia -- and the youngest since Joe Biden was elected to the Senate in 1972."

"Ossoff said he’s feeling especially encouraged by Democrats’ turnout operation, which included making more than 1.5. million phone calls per day and knocking on tens, and in some cases, more than 100,000 doors every day in the last week. Ossoff has also hired thousands of young mobilizers to knock on doors and turn out voters. And he called the large crowds he’s gotten in small towns all across the state proof that if Democrats compete in rural Georgia, their ideas can win the day."

"Democrat Jon Ossoff has a slim lead in his runoff against Republican Senator David Perdue. If Ossoff wins his race, the Senate will be split 50-50, with Vice President-elect Kamala Harris serving as the tie-breaking vote, giving Democrats more power to pass President-elect Joe Biden’s legislative agenda."

"I will work in the U.S. Senate to support a robust public health response so that we can defeat this virus, putting Georgia’s own Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the lead, trusting medical expertise, doctors, and scientists to bring the tools to bear, the technology to bear, the ingenuity to bear, and the resources to bear necessary to stop the spread of this virus to defeat it and to get our daily lives back — and to rush direct economic relief to people who need help right now."

"In 2017 I remember whispering to myself... “He’s Jewish, accomplished, and single!?” Well, to all the Jewish mothers across the nation desperately searching for an eligible bachelor for their daughters, he tied the knot with his (Jewish) girlfriend of 12 years later that year. There were claims by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell that he was “shamed” into marrying his girlfriend for an electoral boost. Members of the tribe… we know this is not true. Sometimes it just takes time for a nice Jewish man and a nice Jewish woman to take the plunge..."

"Doorknock for Warnock vote your Ossoff"

"While pandemic relief was at the top of Ossoff’s list, he rattled off an array of other issues Democrats would be able to tackle as well with control of the Senate: raising the minimum wage, building new health clinics, re-opening hospitals that have closed, Civil Rights legislation to reform the justice system and policing, improving public schools, and expanding Pell Grants to make college more affordable."

"In an 2020 op-ed entitled, “We Need Hot Jews Like Jon Ossoff in the Senate,” Jewish feminist publication Alma noted that while Ossoff is married to Alisha Kramer, MD, a resident at Emory School of Medicine, “if you are elected to the Senate, you can be all of Jewish America’s husband.”... Like most internet-boyfriend-style crushes, the Ossoff admiration transcends mere good hair, encompassing his young-professor aura. Ossoff cites the late civil rights icon Representative John Lewis, for whom he interned, as a mentor."

"We need to have perspectives in candidates that reflect the perspectives of a younger generation... Young people have demands and unmet needs. One thing I want to do is say that we can make change and enact legislation that will help. Investment in clean energy, environmental action, real criminal justice reform, and college debt reform are issues that matter to millennials but get little attention in a Senate dominated by boomers and members of the Greatest Generation."

"People are sick of fake politicians who have no core and say one thing in private and another in public, or are just obviously doing anything right before an election. My sense is that voters of all ideological persuasions prefer candidates who are just real about what they believe and what they want to do, even if it’s not necessarily the precise policy platform that you agree with. You want someone who’s wearing their values on their sleeve and not B.S.’ing*. (Ossoff used more colorful language, but this is a family newspaper.)"

"The last year has really brought home that it is truly a matter of life and death. The tangible, human stakes, the real-life consequences when we are led by fools, and when we are led by people who are more concerned with their own enrichment than they are with the financial well-being of the families that pay their salary. We can get direct financial relief to people fast, and I know that this incoming administration wants to do it. But if we don’t win these Senate races, they’re gonna block help for the people because they’re not going to want to relieve suffering. If the Republicans hold the Senate, they’re gonna block it... Every vote will count, every vote will matter, and we saw in November how every vote mattered. And the second is, there will be a big difference in your daily life depending on the outcome here."

"Like every novice, I fancied myself a discoverer."

"I feel my capacity to experience a terror greater than anything yet conceived by the human mind—something combining in fearful and unnatural amalgamation hitherto supposed incompatible elements."

"O'Brien's early death undoubtedly deprived us of some masterful tales of strangeness and terror."

"Please do not let Judas drive you away from Jesus. Your pain is real, your hurt is tangible and it demands justice — which it will be granted. But don't be overcome by the waves."

"To all the rest of my fellow Catholics, stand up and fight for the truth. You want to know the will of God for your lives, you want to know how to get to Heaven in these monstrously evil times, this is how. You fight against this evil with every ounce of strength in your mind heart and soul. You stand in the breach and defend the glory of our Holy Mother, the Church. And you protect and shield the innocent, the weak. And whatever happens to you in the process doesn't matter. You were created for greatness. Live up to your calling. You were made for combat."

"Anyone who dies without enemies led a purposeless life, totally selfish, concentrating all their effort at never committing to anything sufficiently to earn them enemies — gliding through life concerned about nothing more than human respect. But all of this goes much further than that. It's not just getting enemies that matter, but that you acquire the correct enemies. And we recall, Our Blessed Lord had an extensive list of correct enemies — they crucified Him. If you don't have enemies owing to your faith and zeal and love of Our Lord, then you don’t have enough faith, zeal or love. In our go-along, never-give-offense-type culture, the most detestable thing in the judgment of men is to give offense — wrong. The most detestable, un-manly thing you can do is to never give offense."

"Reports of human rights atrocities in Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Turkey are growing, with victims speaking out on forced disappearances and murder. [...] The gutting of and the ongoing jailing of critical journalists — there were more than 80 behind bars at the last count — means that with the exception of a handful of oppositional online news sites, the abuses go unreported."

"Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power 18 years ago pledging "" for torture. For a while, it seemed sincere. [...] Such hopes now lie in tatters."