The people behind the violence in the American protests of George Floyd.

The hundreds of far-left and anarchist demonstrators who gathered in protest mere hours after President Biden swore the oath of office Wednesday signal a fracturing on the left that could become a scourge for the new administration, political leaders and experts say.

Some activists are carrying their destructive tactics into a new administration to voice rejection of centrist ideologies they believe will do little to address existential worries over climate change, economic inequality, foreign wars and racism. The vandalizing of the Oregon Democratic Party headquarters by extreme-left demonstrators on Inauguration Day has split Portland liberals, and federal agents’ launching of tear gas at crowds that descended on the city’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement headquarters produced scenes reminiscent of similar summer standoffs ordered by President Donald Trump.

In Seattle, a march organized by anarchists and the city’s Youth Liberation Front branch roved through neighborhoods, chanting expletives at both Trump and Biden, some breaking windows at the original Starbucks. In Denver, dozens of demonstrators burned an American flag and yelled epithets at police.

James Ofsink, president of Portland Forward, a local advocacy group for liberal causes, said the growing tension in Portland’s progressive circles — and the elation with which right-wing pundits and politicians have watched far-left demonstrators destroy Democratic structures, sometimes literally — is emblematic of a larger tug of war happening in the nation.

(not video that Washington post has on story)

“Portland is going to continue to be a microcosm of the political divides, especially among the left, that we’re seeing across the country,” Ofsink said. “The idea that middle-of-the-road Democrats can say with a straight face that we need to take things slowly or do things in a very deliberate way rubs a lot of people the very wrong way.”

Violent and destructive activity among far-left groups has been increasing nationwide, according to a recent study by the Transnational Threats Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a nonprofit policy research group. Though nearly 70 percent of terrorist attacks and plots in the U.S. last year were committed by white supremacists and far-right militia groups, according to the study, the portion led by anarchist and anti-fascist groups rose to 20 percent from 8 percent in 2019.



Mark Bray, author of “Antifa: The Anti-Fascist’s Handbook,” said the graffiti that the Portland protesters left behind and the flags some carried included anarchist symbols. There is a “fair amount of overlap” between the ideologies of anarchists and antifascists. Both tend to be anti-government, opposed to both the Democratic and Republican parties, and frequently protest on Inauguration Day and at the parties’ annual conventions.


“Broadly speaking they want directly democratic, self-managed communities at the regional and macro-regional levels,” said Bray, a historian and lecturer at Rutgers University who helped organize Occupy Wall Street. “They want decision-making from the bottom up versus the top down. They reject capitalism.”

Portland’s protests undercut claims by Republicans that far-left groups have embraced Biden and have committed destructive acts in support of his policies, said Oren Segal, vice president of the Center on Extremism at the Anti-Defamation League.

“There have been so many efforts to link Biden to the radical elements of the left, including antifa,” he said.
“This demonstrates a disconnect between that messaging from the Trump administration and elected officials, who tended to lump together the left more broadly with these radical elements.”


Kai-Ave Douvia, 22, is accused of using a “pry-bar kind of tool” to break windows at the DPO building, according to court documents. He was charged with first-degree criminal mischief and participating in a riot.

Nicole Rose, 25, is accused of helping to break windows at the DPO by handing a “metal baton” to another demonstrator who then used the baton to break the glass, according to court documents. Rose later took the baton back and used it to “break the rest of the window,” prosecutors wrote. She was identified using live-streamed video of the event and charged with second-degree criminal mischief and participating in a riot.

Those arrested have been released on their own recognizance, according to Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office records. The Washington Post’s efforts to reach them Friday were unsuccessful.

Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler (D) has not publicly spoken about the protests and did not respond to a request for comment.

Several others were arrested for the vandalism at the ICE federal building. Trevor Colter, 26, allegedly threw a “projectile” at officers outside the building while officers attempted to disperse the crowd, according to the District Attorney’s office. Colter, who was charged with rioting, resisting arrest and second-degree disorderly conduct, was later found to be carrying a large knife, bear spray, a collapsible baton and three fireworks, according to court documents.

Protesters who participated in Wednesday’s demonstrations in Portland said the people who perpetrated destruction and committed acts of vandalism at the Democratic Party’s building were a small number of more than 100 protesters who had gathered for a march meant as a left-wing rebuke of the Biden presidency.

Later, outside the ICE headquarters, protesters chanted “not my president” and lit a Biden campaign flag on fire. Some spray-painted a message onto the federal building in a condemnation of Trump’s immigration policies that separated migrant children from their parents: “Reunite families now.”

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MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was prepared to plead guilty to third-degree murder in George Floyd’s death before then-Attorney General William Barr personally blocked the plea deal last year, officials said.

The deal would have averted any potential federal charges, including a civil rights offense, as part of an effort to quickly resolve the case to avoid more protests after riots and arson damaged a swath of south Minneapolis, according to two law enforcement officials with direct knowledge of the talks. The officials spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the talks.

Barr rejected the deal in part because he felt it was too soon as the investigation into Floyd’s death was still in its relative infancy, the officials said.

That Chauvin had been in plea talks has been previously reported, and those talks appear to have delayed a May 28 news conference called by the U.S. attorney in Minneapolis for nearly two hours as they were ongoing. But the detail on Chauvin agreeing to plead guilty to a specific charge are new and was first reported late Wednesday by The New York Times.

Floyd, a Black man who was in handcuffs at the time, died May 25 after the white officer kneeled on his neck for a number of minutes even as Floyd cried out that he couldn’t breathe. Widely seen bystander video sparked protests in the city, including some violent riots and arson, and quickly spread around the country.

Chauvin was fired soon after Floyd’s death. He is scheduled for trial March 8 on charges including second-degree murder and manslaughter. Three other officers at the scene, also since fired, are scheduled for trial later this year.

Tom Kelly, Chauvin’s attorney at the time of the plea talks, said Thursday he could not discuss the case. Chauvin is now represented by Eric Nelson, who declined comment. A spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s office didn’t immediately respond to a message.

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Donald Trump’s impeachment attorneys have begun mounting their defense, and from their comments to reporters and the messages being sent by other Republicans, a clear picture is forming, one that echoes one of the former president’s foundational beliefs: Everybody does it.

Or as one of Trump’s lawyers put it to reporters on Thursday, by the time their presentation is over, “Everyone in that room and the House will look bad.” They will argue that Democrats have used inflammatory language before too — so Trump can’t be blamed for his, no matter the context.


And they’ll note that at some of the thousands of protests against police brutality that occurred last year, there were outbreaks of violence.

Any reasonable person would ask: What on earth is that supposed to prove?

Perhaps it’s fitting that this is where his defense landed, since we’ve seen it so many times before. Faced with questions, criticisms or even legal jeopardy, Trump often defaulted to claim that his words and actions were defensible not because they adhered to any standard that could be generally applied, but because everyone else is just as debased as he is.

He didn’t tell us that he wasn’t corrupt, he told us that everyone is corrupt. Everyone is on the take, everyone sexually abuses women, everyone hands out favors to their family, everyone cheats on their taxes, everyone uses their office for personal gain — and so he can’t be blamed for doing what everyone else does.

Whataboutism is Trump’s final defense and that of his allies. “You have a summer where people all over the country were doing similar kinds of things,” Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) said, predicting that Trump’s lawyers will show violent scenes from places such as Seattle, and “you’re going to see similar kinds of tragedies there as well.”

If crazy violent stuff is happening all over the place, why are we getting upset about what happened at the Capitol? Or as House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said, “We all have some responsibility here.” So you can’t blame Trump.

But it was left to Fox News host Tucker Carlson to take the argument one step further, to wrap it all up in a vague conspiracy theory in which some anarchist punk throwing a rock through a window in Portland, Ore., proves that Trump shouldn’t be blamed for the Capitol attack and that it’s all part of a nefarious plan concocted by Democrats.

Much of the attention Carlson is getting this week is centered on his bizarre assertion that George Floyd didn’t die because a police officer knelt on his neck — as that horrific video and the medical examiner confirmed. Instead, Carlson said: “The autopsy showed that George Floyd almost certainly died of a drug overdose.” That is most assuredly not what the autopsy showed.

But the other part of Carlson’s monologue is particularly relevant here. It shows how, in the forum that is still the central axis of the conservative media universe, history is being rewritten in a particularly Trumpian way:

In many places, the known facts [about the insurrection] bear no resemblance to the story [Democrats] are telling. They’re just flat-out lying. There’s no question about that. The question is, why would they lie about this? For an answer, think back to last spring.
Beginning on Memorial Day, B.L.M. and their sponsors in corporate America completely changed this country. They changed this country more in five months than it had changed in the previous 50 years. [...]
Cities had been destroyed, along with the fabric of this country itself. Scores of people had been killed. Democratic partisans used a carefully concocted myth, a lie, to bum-rush America into overturning the old order and handing them much more power.

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If you and your family have not yet been kidnapped and sent to a labor camp in northern Minnesota, you may have missed the wholesale transformation of American society. And the logic is a little hard to follow: Democrats are lying about the Capitol insurrection, and you know that because BLM protests “changed this country” in profound ways.

But it doesn’t have to make sense. The point is to just to toss the two ideas into the same stew, so protests against police brutality and the attack on the Capitol are parts of a whole.

It’s not just that arguments such as Carlson’s feed the mania for conspiracy theories that now grips the right and shows no sign of abating. It also provides absolution for conservatives. When you see those rioters smashing windows and beating police officers as they chant the name of the same candidate you voted for, you need not feel a sense of betrayal, let alone guilt or shame.

You’re not implicated, nor is Trump himself. Even if you don’t go quite so far as to believe the Capitol insurrection was staged by BLM agents provocateurs (though many conservatives do believe that), it’s more like the actions of an overenthusiastic unit in a time of war — worthy of a brief scolding perhaps, but ultimately the result of a situation our enemies created.

In that picture, there are no universal moral standards and no behavior that can be judged by what it was and not by who did it. There is only your side and the other side.

There are few ideas Trump so relentlessly promoted in his time as president. Even from beyond the office, he will continue to make that case, and his allies will join right in.

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hanimmal said:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/02/12/how-trumps-lawyers-tucker-carlson-are-using-blm-exonerate-trump/View attachment 4824272

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DIY-HP-LED said:

continued
In St, Louis, the Proud Boys chapter leader Michael Lasater said his group wants to get back what he said were the founding principles of the Proud Boys: "brotherhood and beer."

The St. Louis Proud Boys are still figuring out where they stand vis-à-vis Tarrio and central leadership, Lasater said, but they want to get away from the "political stuff" — rallies and street brawls with Black Lives Matter and anti-fascist activists.

Jenkins, who has watched extremist groups fragment and reform many times over the years, said he expects more radicalized groups to emerge from the breakup of the Proud Boys. While some people will leave the movement, he predicted the core members will keep reinventing themselves into ever-more-nuanced versions of the same fundamental concept.

"The critical mass will stay the same," Jenkins said. "It’s still the same people with the same motivations and same agenda, and that’s why we will continue to follow them."

Whitewashing their past
The schism within the Proud Boys likely doesn't just represent a lack of faith in Tarrio or a desire to change the group's direction, said Amarnath Amarasingam, associate fellow at the Global Network on Extremism and Technology. He believes it also revealsa sense of fear within the organization.

"Jan. 6 was a major turning point," Amarasingam said. "Seeing their friends getting arrested will have been a major shock to the system for people who just wanted to go out and get drunk and brawl."

In the wake of the clampdown on the Proud Boys, its members have a vested interest in whitewashing their past, Jenkins said.

The last few months have revealed the Proud Boys for what they really are, Jenkins said: a dangerous, largely racist domestic hate group masquerading as a bunch of guys who just want to get drunk, say edgy things and have fun. The concept of "Western chauvinism" is really just code — a dog whistle to other white supremacists, he said.

"They weren’t really ever fooling anyone, but now everybody sees what we’ve been talking about," Jenkins said.

So, when members of the Proud Boys post messages denouncing Tarrio or the direction the gang has taken, that likely also represents an effort to distance themselves from an organization that is now squarely in the sights of law enforcement and anti-fascist activists.

Chapter presidents can argue they want to break away to return to their original mission as a drinking club, but experts on extremism aren't buying it.

Hughes said there's only one true exit strategy for Proud Boys who find themselves in an organization whose values they don't endorse: Leave the movement entirely, just as thousands of neo-Nazis, skinheads and assorted extremists have done for decades before them.

"These groups are chock-a-block full of power struggles, petty tyrants and snitches," Hughes said. "That said, there's always hope for people. When you look around yourself and you see that you're surrounded by these would-be führers, who don't actually have any principles beyond their own aggrandizement, well maybe that's an opportunity for people to start checking themselves."

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Fogdog said:

Whitewashing their past
The schism within the Proud Boys likely doesn't just represent a lack of faith in Tarrio or a desire to change the group's direction, said Amarnath Amarasingam, associate fellow at the Global Network on Extremism and Technology. He believes it also revealsa sense of fear within the organization.

"Jan. 6 was a major turning point," Amarasingam said. "Seeing their friends getting arrested will have been a major shock to the system for people who just wanted to go out and get drunk and brawl."

^This. Yeah, sure they just want to get back to the drinking and hanging out. They behaved as if they didn't think the law would come looking for them. For now, they are going to try to reform their image but it won't last. By this summer, they will be back to their old violent racist, white power ways.

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DIY-HP-LED said:

They are their own worst enemy, though they have lot's more that themselves! They are on Uncle Sam's radar now, whatever new name they pop up under, they screwed themselves. It's kinda like the dog who finally catches the car and it's the dogcatcher.

Brian Hughes, associate director of the Polarization and Extremism Research and Innovation Lab at American University. "Those splits are inevitable because exploitation, abuse and informing to law enforcement just go with the territory."

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KENOSHA, Wis. (AP) — An activist who participated in protests following the August police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha was charged Friday with a felony for allegedly kicking in a door at the Kenosha Public Safety Building and saying he wanted to break an officer’s fingers.

Clyde McLemore, 62, of Zion, Illinois, was charged Friday with a felony count of attempted battery to a law enforcement officer and a misdemeanor count of disorderly conduct. A warrant was issued for his arrest.

McLemore founded the Black Lives Matter chapter in Lake County, Illinois, and was active in many protests after Blake’s shooting. He told the Kenosha News on Friday that he had just learned of the charges.

“Kenosha County is refusing to charge the officer that shot Jacob Blake, but now they want to charge Clyde McLemore,” he said.

Officers were trying to arrest Blake on an outstanding warrant on Aug. 23 when a pocketknife fell from his pocket. Blake picked it up and was going to a vehicle with two of his children inside when Kenosha Officer Rusten Sheskey shot him seven times. Blake has said he was prepared to surrender after putting the knife in the vehicle, but Sheskey said he feared Blake was going to stab him. Sheskey was not charged.

Letetra Wideman, Blake’s sister and chair of the Black Lives Matter chapter McLemore founded, said she was “disgusted” and called the charge absurd.

“If they don’t want to tell us in plain words that their actions are motivated by racism and systemic racism, then their actions have proven it without saying a word,” she said. “They don’t have to say it verbally, we are constantly being shown that our lives do not matter.”

The charges stem from an Aug. 24 incident after local officials moved a news conference inside the Public Safety Building due to a crowd of people outdoors. According to the complaint, people in the crowd outside were trying to force their way inside. The complaint says McLemore can be seen on video kicking the door. He allegedly posted that video on Facebook along with a comment about trying to break an officer’s fingers. The officer was not hurt.

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MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Barbed wire and concrete barriers surround the courthouse where the former Minneapolis police officer charged with killing George Floyd will soon go on trial, a sign of the deep uneasiness hanging over a city literally set ablaze almost a year ago in the anger over his death.

Mayor Jacob Frey and Gov. Tim Walz, both Democrats, were sharply criticized for failing to move faster to stop last summer’s looting and destruction, which included the torching of a police station. Anything less than a murder conviction for Derek Chauvin is likely to test them — and the city — once again.

Jury selection begins March 8 with opening statements March 29. Floyd, who was Black, died May 25 after Chauvin, who was white, pressed his knee on Floyd’s neck while he was handcuffed and pleading that he couldn’t breathe. Chauvin faces second-degree murder and manslaughter charges; three other fired officers go on trial in August.

Thousands of people took to the streets of Minneapolis after Floyd’s death. Many demonstrated peacefully. But for several nights, the unrest spiraled into violence, with stores looted and set ablaze along the Lake Street commercial artery that included the 3rd Precinct police station, which was home to the officers who arrested Floyd. The station itself was eventually abandoned by police and burned by rioters. Some nervous neighborhoods formed watch groups, setting up checkpoints and sometimes armed patrols. The violence finally subsided after National Guard troops arrived in sufficient numbers.

As the city moves to make the courthouse virtually impenetrable, some people worry about what might happen elsewhere if Chauvin is acquitted.

Elias Usso’s pharmacy on Lake Street had been open less than a year when it was destroyed by fire and water. He blames Chauvin personally for what he considers “the murder of an innocent man” as well as the destruction that followed — estimated at more than $350 million in Minneapolis alone.

“One police officer did that,” Usso said. “Something has to change.”

His Seward Pharmacy has reopened with help from donors. In between vaccinating customers against COVID-19, Usso — an Ethiopian immigrant and a Black man — talked of still feeling the emotional turmoil over Floyd’s death and the unrest, and his concerns about the trial.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen to my business. We’re waiting to see,” Usso said. “But I will continue to give service to our neighbors and delivering prescriptions to grandma and grandpa. If something happens, we’re going to continue.”

Frey said more than 3,000 law enforcement officers from across the state and Minnesota National Guard soldiers will be at the ready when the case goes to the jury, expected in late April or early May.

Frey last week declared that Minneapolis remains “open for business,” and said people should go about their lives as usual.

But the security going up around the Hennepin County courthouse, City Hall and the jail — all in the heart of downtown — is extraordinary. It includes three rings of concrete barriers, two topped by chain-link fencing with a trough in between filled with coils of razor wire. The innermost fence is topped with barbed wire, and ground-floor windows at all three buildings are boarded up.

Protest leaders are on edge, too. They accuse authorities of creating a police state downtown that could trample their freedoms of speech and assembly.

“It’s not going to dissuade us from protesting. We’re determined to let our voices be heard,” said Linden Gawboy, an activist with the Twin Cities Coalition 4 Justice 4 Jamar, which formed after the police killing of Jamar Clark in Minneapolis in 2015.

It’s not just the courthouse that’s barricaded. The state Capitol in St. Paul has been ringed with temporary fencing ever since last summer’s unrest. Inside, lawmakers have squabbled for weeks over providing extra state money for security during the trials, though Walz and other officials say they’ll manage one way or another.

“There’s going to be very high emotion on all sides of this, and we’ll be prepared,” Walz said.

Julie Ingebretsen, owner of a Scandinavian food and gift market on Lake Street that was founded by her Norwegian grandfather, said she’s not boarding up, though she expects some will in the miles-long commercial corridor that includes many immigrant- and minority-run businesses. Some have never taken down the plywood that they put up last summer.

While Ingebretsen’s Nordic Marketplace was looted and vandalized, she said she was fortunate that her store wasn’t burned. She said she feels “cautiously optimistic” now because of personal outreach efforts by Police Chief Medaria Arradondo and other city officials, and their assurances that plenty of police and Guard members will be standing by.

“We’re celebrating our 100th anniversary this year, so we have every intention of celebrating another 100, and not going anywhere,” Ingebretsen said. “We are totally committed to keeping moving forward.”

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WASHINGTON (AP) — FBI Director Chris Wray is set to testify for the first time since the deadly Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, with lawmakers likely to press him on whether the bureau adequately communicated with other law enforcement agencies about the potential for violence that day.

Questions about the FBI’s preparations for the riot, and investigations into it, are expected to dominate Wray’s appearance Tuesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee. He’s also likely to be pressed on how the FBI is confronting the national security threat from white nationalists and domestic violent extremists and whether the bureau has adequate resources to address the problem.

The violence at the Capitol made clear that a law enforcement agency that revolutionized itself after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to deal with international terrorism is now scrambling to address homegrown violence from white Americans. President Joe Biden’s administration has tasked his national intelligence director to work with the FBI and Department of Homeland Security to assess the threat.

Wray has kept a notably low profile since a violent mob of insurrectionists stormed the Capitol two months ago. Though he has briefed lawmakers privately and shared information with local law enforcement hearings, Tuesday’s oversight hearing will mark Wray’s first public appearance before Congress since before November’s presidential election.

The FBI is facing questions over how it handled intelligence in the days ahead of the riot and whether warnings it had of potential violence reached the correct officials.

Last week, for instance, the acting chief of the Capitol Police said a Jan. 5 report from the FBI made its way to investigators within the police force and to the department’s intelligence unit but was never sent up the chain of command. The report warned about concerning online posts foreshadowing a “war” in Washington the following day. The FBI has said the report, which it says was based on uncorroborated information, was shared through its joint terrorism task force.

Wray may also face questions about the FBI’s investigation into the massive Russian hack of corporations and U.S. government agencies, which happened when elite hackers injected malicious code into a software update.

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