I previously testified in the Senate on Antifa and the growing anti-free speech movement in the United States. I specifically disagreed with the statement of House Judiciary Committee Chair Jerry Nadler that Antifa (and its involvement in violent protests) is a “myth.” My greatest concern remains the growing use of violence to shutdown free speech events around the country — a practice that has been going on for years on our campuses. That danger was evident in San Francisco yesterday when a conservative group gathered for a free speech rally to protest the recent actions of big tech companies like Twitter. They were violently attacked and the organizer had two teeth knocked out before the event was canceled.
A conservative group named Team Save America organized the event and were met by a violent crowd intent on preventing them from speaking. Media reported that the counter protesters carried BLM and Antifa signs. In a now familiar pattern, the counter protesters stopped those with opposing views from being heard. Philip Anderson, an organizer of the event, had his teeth knocked out by someone he identified as Antifa.
As I have written, Antifa is indeed more of a movement than a specific organization, but it has members and associated groups. Indeed, it has long been the “Keyser Söze” of the anti-free speech movement, a loosely aligned group that employs measures to avoid easy detection or association. FBI Director Wray told Congress “And we have quite a number — and I’ve said this quite consistently since my first time appearing before this committee — we have any number of properly predicated investigations into what we would describe as violent anarchist extremists and some of those individuals self-identify with Antifa.”
My greatest concern is that we need to take Antifa seriously as a virulent anti-free speech organization. There is a fair criticism of politicians who have refused to denounce the group or even support it. Former Democratic National Committee deputy chair Keith Ellison, now the Minnesota attorney general, once said Antifa would “strike fear in the heart” of Trump. This was after Antifa had been involved in numerous acts of violence and its website was banned in Germany. His own son, Minneapolis City Council member Jeremiah Ellison, declared his allegiance to Antifa in the heat of the protests this summer. During the prior hearing, Democratic senators refused to clearly denounce Antifa and falsely suggested that the far right was the primary cause of recent violence. Likewise, Joe Biden has dismissed objections to Antifa as just “an idea.”
What is striking is how Antifa rhetoric has become so prevalent as people claim that the act of silencing others is not only commendable or even itself a form of free speech. NBC quotes counter protester Shagoofa Khan as proudly declaring “We actually kicked them out.”
A local resident named said Carole Selignan is quoted as saying “We don’t need those types of people in San Francisco” while Kristina Lee said that this was “working class solidarity against that rhetoric that’s divisive and pits the working class against one another.” It was in fact an effort to prevent opposing views and voices from being heard. It is an example how free speech is now treated as itself a threat. That is right out of the Antifa Handbook.
Rutgers Professor Mark Bray’s Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook discusses what Antifa calls “self-defense,” including violence against police or anyone deemed a fascist. In a Washington Post opinion editorial criticizing President Trump’s attacks on Antifa as “delegitimizing militant protest,” Bray stated:
“I believe it’s true that most, if not all, members do wholeheartedly support militant self-defense against the police and the targeted destruction of police and capitalist property that has accompanied it this week. I’m also confident that some members of antifa groups have participated in a variety of forms of resistance during this dramatic rebellion.”
Antifa rejects the very foundation for free speech. Indeed, Antifa Handbook starts with the following quote from Buenaventura Durruti: “fascism is not to be debated, it is to be destroyed.”
America is in a condition of hysteria, incoherence, chaos, anarchy and rebellion.
President Trump must suspend Habeas Corpus, injunct all mainstream and social media platforms, “fix” the totally corrupted, illegal and unconstitutional vote-by-mail 2020 election as Abraham Lincoln “fixed” 1864 with brute military force, and impose law and order.
President Abraham Lincoln seized power, neutralized the legislative and judicial branches and ruled by executive order and proclamation to “Save the Union.”
President Donald Trump must now seize power, neutralize the legislative and judicial branches and rule by executive order and proclamation to “Save the Republic.”
Does free speech extend as far as socialist communist mobocracy wanted for terrorism?
Jonathan: Your continued attacks on Antifa have become a little tiresome–especially since the foiled plot to kidnap Michigan governor Whitmer and start an uprising has shown the real threat is from right-wing extremists. But what is interesting is not the incident in San Francisco but your opinion piece in The Hill “Censoring the Biden Story: How Social Media Becomes State Media” (10/17/20) that deals with the NY Post article that claims it has a “smoking gun” of emails from Hunter Biden’s laptop that show Hunter set up meetings between his father and executives at Burisma–an allegation the Bidens have long denied. In providing an echo chamber for the debunked Post article you say it is “explosive” and “…if the emails and images are genuine then the Bidens appear to have lied for years as a raw influence peddling scheme worth millions…” In your piece your also complain that Twitter and Facebook have imposed a “virtual blackout” of the Post story.
There a number of reasons why the Post article is a disinformation campaign designed to discredit Biden in the last days before the election. It’s the “October surprise” Trump hoped AG Barr would come up but failed and why Trump has been so critical of him. First, the NY Post is a right-wing tabloid that trades in sensational stories that when fact checked prove false. Second, the Post is owned by Rupert Murdock, a close confident of Trump and the Post is Trump’s preferred newspaper. Third ,the article itself was written by a former producer for the Fox News show “Hannity”. These facts should alone raise red flags. But there is lot much more troubling about the article. It is well known Rudy Giuliani has been trying to dig up dirt on the Bidens to help Trump’s election campaign. He got Trump to try to extort the president of Ukraine to investigate the Bidens. That effort failed and Trump got impeached. But Giuliani has continued his efforts and was given a copy of Hunter Biden’s alleged laptop hard drive by the owner of the computer store, Joh MacIssac, who is legally blind but claims it was Hunter who brought in the computer. This again should be a red flag. Giuliani then took the contents of the hard drive and peddled them to the Post. Sound suspicious? It should. But it gets worse for the creditability of the Post article. The article claims the emails show Biden had a meeting with one Vadym Pozharskyi, an advisor to the Board of Burisma. But Biden’s campaign say no such meeting took place. Michael Carpenter, Biden’s foreign policy advisor in 2015, says he never heard of Pozharskyi. No wonder Twitter and Facebook didn’t want to touch the story. But of course, like you, Trump has jumped on the Post article touting the “explosive documents published by a very fine newspaper”.
I guess desperate times call for desperate disinformation efforts– especially as Trump’s prospects for re-election grow dimmer by the day and Republican donors and politicians are jumping ship. But one would expect that serious academics and lawyers, like you, who espouse the principle that the law be “used to ascertain truth” would not want to also peddle the Post debunked story. I guess I was wrong.
Dennis, you’re extreme verbosity doesn’t hide your incredibly transparent and sophomoric attempts at deflection.
The images of Hunter Biden’s hard drive is in the possession of the FBI and Rudy Giuliani, not the NYPost, and nothing has been “debunked”.
As to your constant and feeble attempts at defending Antifa and its actions. That tells me all I need to know about you, and none of it is good.
Professor Turley is either measuring his words, or even he does not see what Antifa really is; they are radical Marxists, they are the Nazi Brown Shirts, the fascist Italian Black Shirts, they are Al Qaeda and ISIS. They want to destroy freedom, to destroy the western way of life, to destroy freedom and liberty, to destroy capitalism. They do so through fear and intimidation. They are part of a Marxist insurrection, and until we acknowledge that, and we decide we, as a nation, will not tolerate a Marxist uprising, this will continue. Talking about it, will not solve it. Discussing it, will not stop it. These anti-American thugs must be put down. Everything they do identifies them as an “enemy of the state”, in their case domestic but perhaps with foreign help. Someone is providing money and assistance and support. We need to wake up, and wake up fast, before we no longer have a United States of America.
There’s one more thing these people are. They are the foot soldiers that will be deputized to replace the dismantled police forces around the country.
Calm down Matthew. Antifa is a weak movement that manages to stir up trouble but not much else. We agree they are radical and probably Marxists, but primarily they are anarchists with no significant following or supporting base. Unlike the “militia” types who plotted to kidnap and murder Gov Whitmer, they are not typically armed or targetting individuals. It’s in Trump’s interest to make us think they are a threat, but that threat is limited to relatively minor destruction of property and bloody noses from their regulat encounters on the streets with Proud Boys and other like minded street fighters.
Antifa is protected by FBI and many local govts run by Democrats. They seem to be able to get away with anything short of murder. BTW, there are Antfa-affiliated militia groups like the Socialist Rifle Association, John Brown Rifle Association and Redneck Revolt. The group in Michigan may be of that character.
BLM: Bad Little Maddogs.
Joe and Kamal’s people in action. Do you really want this crew in charge of this country?
Not To Worry:
Nanny Peeloosi will immediately remove Joke under the 25th and ensconce Kama-lie, “fake,” ineligible, inexperienced, bizarre, barren woman and Willy’s ghetto ho.
Certainly comments like yours here, George, do not help the conservative cause? I am an independent concerned about an authoritarian socialist makeover of the US, especially one engineered by authoritarian socialist hardliners in China (working with an alliance of authoritarian socialists in other world regions) to humiliate Americans. But my sympathy for Speaker Pelosi, Vice President Biden and Senator Harris increases by leaps and bounds when I think that comments like yours here might represent the real base of sentiment in the Republican Party.
Jonathan, you’re still fairly new here. George is an extremist. He wants Black Americans to leave the US, he argues that women shouldn’t have been granted the right to vote, he complains that American women aren’t bearing enough children, he claims that Kamala Harris cannot legally become VP because her parents weren’t born here, and these are just a few examples of how extreme he is. Don’t expect a reasoned reply from him.
Thanks, Anonymous.
Extremists you say? You do know which country you’re in, am I correct?
I’ll step aside and allow the American Founders to provide some “American” perspective and say a few words.
Thomas.
OK, Thomas, go ahead.
Ahem!
______
Generally, the criteria to vote in 1788 were: Male, European, 21, 50 lbs. Sterling/50 acres.
Turnout in 1788 was 11.6% by design.
“the people are nothing but a great beast…
I have learned to hold popular opinion of no value.”
– Alexander Hamilton
“The true reason (says Blackstone) of requiring any qualification, with regard to property in voters, is to exclude such persons, as are in so mean a situation, that they are esteemed to have no will of their own.”
“If it were probable that every man would give his vote freely, and without influence of any kind, then, upon the true theory and genuine principles of liberty, every member of the community, however poor, should have a vote… But since that can hardly be expected, in persons of indigent fortunes, or such as are under the immediate dominion of others, all popular states have been obliged to establish certain qualifications, whereby, some who are suspected to have no will of their own, are excluded from voting; in order to set other individuals, whose wills may be supposed independent, more thoroughly upon a level with each other.”
– Alexander Hamilton, The Farmer Refuted, 1775
_______________________________________
This legislation was passed four times by the American Founders:
“…free white person…”
Naturalization Acts of 1790, 1795, 1798 and 1802
United States Congress, “An act to establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization,” March 26, 1790
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, That any Alien being a free white person, who shall have resided within the limits and under the jurisdiction of the United States for the term of two years, may be admitted to become a citizen thereof
Immigration was intended to be “harmonious” not discordant.
“The influx of foreigners must, therefore, tend to produce a heterogeneous compound; to change and corrupt the national spirit; to complicate and confound public opinion; to introduce foreign propensities. In the composition of society, the harmony of the ingredients is all-important, and whatever tends to a discordant intermixture must have an injurious tendency.”
– Alexander Hamilton
_________________
America’s population was intended to be homogeneous:
“Earlier Resettlement Plans”
“The view that America’s apparently intractable racial problem should be solved by removing Blacks from this country and resettling them elsewhere — “colonization” or “repatriation” — was not a new one. As early as 1714 a New Jersey man proposed sending Blacks to Africa. In 1777 a Virginia legislature committee, headed by future President Thomas Jefferson (himself a major slave owner), proposed a plan of gradual emancipation and resettlement of the state’s slaves. In 1815, an enterprising free Black from Massachusetts named Paul Cuffe transported, at his own expense, 38 free blacks to West Africa. His undertaking showed that at least some free Blacks were eager to resettle in a country of their own, and suggested what might be possible with public and even government support.7
“In December 1816, a group of distinguished Americans met in Washington, DC, to establish an organization to promote the cause of Black resettlement. The “American Colonization Society” soon won backing from some of the young nation’s most prominent citizens. Henry Clay, Francis Scott Key, John Randolph, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, Bushrod Washington, Charles Carroll, Millard Fillmore, John Marshall, Roger B. Taney, Andrew Jackson, Daniel Webster, Stephen A. Douglas, and Abraham Lincoln were members. Clay presided at the group’s first meeting.8
“Measures to resettle Blacks in Africa were soon undertaken. Society member Charles Fenton Mercer played an important role in getting Congress to pass the Anti-Slave Trading Act of March 1819, which appropriated $100,000 to transport Blacks to Africa. In enforcing the Act, Mercer suggested to President James Monroe that if Blacks were simply returned to the coast of Africa and released, they would probably be re-enslaved, and possibly some returned to the United States. Accordingly, and in cooperation with the Society, Monroe sent agents to acquire territory on Africa’s West coast — a step that led to the founding of the country now known as Liberia. Its capital city was named Monrovia in honor of the American President.9
“With crucial Society backing, Black settlers began arriving from the United States in 1822. While only free Blacks were at first brought over, after 1827, slaves were freed expressly for the purpose of transporting them to Liberia. In 1847, Black settlers declared Liberia an independent republic, with an American-style flag and constitution.10
“By 1832 the legislatures of more than a dozen states (at that time there were only 24), had given official approval to the Society, including at least three slave-holding states.11 Indiana’s legislature, for example, passed the following joint resolution on January 16, 1850:12
‘Be it resolved by the General Assembly of the State of Indiana: That our Senators and Representatives in Congress be, and they are hereby requested, in the name of the State of Indiana, to call for a change of national policy on the subject of the African Slave Trade, and that they require a settlement of the coast of Africa with colored men from the United States, and procure such changes in our relations with England as will permit us to transport colored men from this country to Africa, with whom to effect said settlement.’
“In January 1858, Missouri Congressman Francis P. Blair, Jr., introduced a resolution in the House of Representatives to set up a committee
‘to inquire into the expediency of providing for the acquisition of territory either in the Central or South American states, to be colonized with colored persons from the United States who are now free, or who may hereafter become free, and who may be willing to settle in such territory as a dependency of the United States, with ample guarantees of their personal and political rights.’
“Blair, quoting Thomas Jefferson, stated that Blacks could never be accepted as the equals of Whites, and, consequently, urged support for a dual policy of emancipation and deportation, similar to Spain’s expulsion of the Moors. Blair went on to argue that the territory acquired for the purpose would also serve as a bulwark against any further encroachment by England in the Central and South American regions.13”
– Robert Morgan
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America was established to stand in perpetuity. The Constitution has not only been injured, it has been exterminated.
“…amendments desired, of such a nature as will not injure the constitution,…”
” And if there are amendments desired, of such a nature as will not injure the constitution, and they can be ingrafted so as to give satisfaction to the doubting part of our fellow citizens; the friends of the federal government will evince that spirit of deference and concession for which they have hitherto been distinguished.”
– James Madison, Proposed Amendments to the Constitution, June 8, 1789
___________________________________________________________
Ben Franklin’s was a restricted-vote republic, by design.
Ben Franklin’s republic was stolen from Americans.
“[We gave you] a republic, if you can keep it.”
– Ben Franklin
Quite the contrast, George!
So were either of Kamala’s parents naturalized US citizens at the time of her birth, and how much does that matter?
https://www.newsweek.com/some-questions-kamala-harris-about-eligibility-opinion-1524483
“Indeed, the Supreme Court has never held that anyone born on U.S. soil, no matter the circumstances of the parents, is automatically a U.S. citizen.”
“Granted, our government’s view of the Constitution’s citizenship mandate has morphed over the decades to what is now an absolute “birth on the soil no matter the circumstances” view—but that morphing does not appear to have begun until the late 1960s, after Kamala Harris’ birth in 1964.”
“So before we so cavalierly accept Senator Harris’ eligibility for the office of vice president, we should ask her a few questions about the status of her parents at the time of her birth.”
https://www.newsweek.com/yes-kamala-harris-eligible-vice-president-opinion-1524969
“It was Wong Kim Ark, in 1898, that considered the question directly, and expressly concluded that the children of foreign citizens (there, citizens of China) were American citizens. And though the parents there were permanent residents—albeit ones who returned to China when Wong Kim Ark was 17—rather than students, the logic of the case would apply to people living here on student visas, as well.”
If I am a US citizen studying in Mexico, and I have child with a fellow student from Jamaica, I have difficulty understanding why my child would have Mexican citizenship, rather than dual US-Jamaican citizenship, prior to the Mexican naturalization of at least one parent.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamaican_nationality_law
“Under chapter 2 of the Constitution of Jamaica, a person born in Jamaica after 5 August 1962, or born outside Jamaica after that date to a father who is a Jamaican citizen, is automatically considered a Jamaican citizen at birth.”
If the father of Kamala Harris had wanted to return to Jamaica with Kamala after her birth, and the mother had disagreed, prior to either parent’s naturalization in the US, what court(s) would have had jurisdiction in this case at that time?
Turley writes: “I do not believe that there is a credible question of Harris’ eligibility. However, I am concerned with the attacks on Newsweek and the author from a free speech standpoint. This issue has been raised for decades and the Supreme Court cases are few and are not dispositive on all aspects of the question.”
https://jonathanturley.org/2020/08/14/yes-kamala-harris-is-eligible-for-vice-president/
Sturmabteilung
The Constitution and The US Code are NOT just a bunch of suggestions.
Yet the fbi, the cia and everyone over at the doj and in the entire deep state government treat them like an old joke book someone found in grandaddys attic that they sit around reading to each other while laughing their asses off at how frikken funny it is that a bunch of stupid gullible trusting Citizens still believe that archaic bunch of sh!t and that it still exists in The United States today when their truth is….only raw, unfettered, absolute, power, against and total control of The People and death to the dissenters are the real way to rule a country.
Every day the more and more People of America are deciding that since the ones whose job it is to protect the public have abandoned their posts and abdicated their offices, if they want to still be alive a year from now, they is better learn to shoot to kill and be ready to do it first.
I like the way you think. To extrapolate:
Congress has the power to tax ONLY for “…general Welfare…” not individual welfare, specific welfare, charity or redistribution of wealth and the 5th Amendment right to private property is not qualified by the Constitution and is, therefore, absolute – Congress cannot “…claim or exercise dominion over private property.”
The entire American welfare state is unconstitutional including, but not limited to, affirmative action, quotas, welfare, food stamps, rent control, social services, forced busing, minimum wage, utility subsidies, WIC, TANF, HAMP, HARP, TARP, Agriculture, Commerce, Education, Labor, Energy, Obamacare, Social Security, Social Security Disability, Social Security Supplemental Income, Medicare,
Medicaid, “Fair Housing” laws, “Non-Discrimination” laws, etc.
________________________________________________
Article 1, Section 8
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States;…
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
“[Private property is] that dominion which one man claims and exercises over the external things of the world, in exclusion of every other individual.”
– James Madison
“Come on man, it’s just an idea”!
Antifa is Democratic Party muscle, and they will be permitted by Democrats in control of the courts to do what they feel like. Note also, there isn’t much distinction between the different elements of the Democratic-nexus. Antifa physically attack the opposition, the police stand down because the Democratic mayor insists, the staff prosecutors working for the Democratic DA won’t bring charges, and the Democratic judges turn ’em loose if you do bring charges. Oh, and anyone defending themselves gets hit with bogus criminal charges from those same Democratic DAs. The maraschino on top is when local media hire Antifa for ‘security’. The Democratic Party is just asking for it.
The one thing Antifa, BLM, and other Leftist groups cannot handle is violence being perpetrating against them….as they enjoy attacking defenseless people and groups such as Free Speech supporters and far too many Police Officers due to the Officer’s Department Management and Political bosses lack of support.
I have said it many times before and shall continue to do so…..unless the Government restores peace and tranquility….and Law and Order….at some point it shall fall to the People to do so.
I pray it doesn’t come to that as once that kicks off….it shall be very ugly and deadly.
However….I also know for a fact….when it does become a necessity….there are hundreds of thousands if not millions of us that shall step up, shoulder arms, and take back our streets, neighborhoods, towns and cities.
I see this as being not much different than during other periods of our National History.
When those that seek to destroy our system of government and legal system go too far….they shall bear the cost of their refusal to work within the existing system.
I also firmly believe they should pay that price when the bill is presented to them.
Prediction: Trump is going to let them have it after victory is declared for him on Election Night, and they consequently go nuts. Judge Jeanne Pirro said that he told her that he would invoke the Insurrection Act in that event.
Art– “Antifa is Democratic Party muscle, and they will be permitted by Democrats in control of the courts to do what they feel like.”
***
That’s what they look like. Tolerance for their lawless, fascist conduct in Democrat jurisdictions surprised me. Nobody who has read of the Brown Shirts in the Thirties will fail to notice the similarities. More frightening than Antifa is the realization that one of the two major parties in this country has gone over the edge.
The Democratic party has been exposed over and over as the Opposite party. Take everything they say they are for or against; reverse it’s meaning; follow where the power, money and illegal activity flows and you will invariably end up squarely in on their side of the political spectrum. This organization functions as the largest criminal enterprise on the planet.
I saw the video, they sucker punched him. Antifa is too gutless to go one-on-one.