Kyle Benjamin Douglas Calvert, 26, has become the latest Antifa member arrested for alleged political violence. Calvert is accused in the explosion of an IED device outside of Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall’s office in downtown Montgomery at around 3:42 a.m. on February 24. For years, Democratic politicians and the media have downplayed the violence of Antifa, even questioning its very existence. These photos may help them come to grips with the reality of Antifa.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that Calvert has been charged with the malicious use of an explosive and possession of an unregistered destructive device.
If convicted, Calvert faces a mandatory minimum of five years and a maximum of 20 years in prison, according to the DOJ.
Before the explosion, Calvert put up stickers, including those promoting Antifa, including stickers reading “Support your local antifa.”
Calvert, who reportedly identifies as transgender and nonbinary, expressed his “belief that violence should be directed against the government, and he has described his inability to control his own violent, aggressive impulses,” according to the DOJ. It supplied pictures of the nails and other evidence used in the construction of the bomb.
Despite the denial of its existence by figures like Rep. Jerry Nadler (D., N.Y.), I have long written and spoken about the threat of Antifa to free speech on our campuses and in our communities. This includes testimony before Congress on Antifa’s central role in the anti-free speech movement nationally.
As I have written, 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. Yet, FBI Director Chris Wray has repeatedly pushed back on the denials of Antifa’s work or violence. In one hearing, Wray stated “And we have quite a number — and “Antifa is a real thing. It’s not a fiction.”
Some Democrats have played a dangerous game in supporting or excusing the work of Antifa. 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 a 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.”
It is at its base a movement at war with free speech, defining the right itself as a tool of oppression. That purpose is evident in what is called the “bible” of the Antifa movement: Rutgers Professor Mark Bray’s Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook.
Bray emphasizes the struggle of the movement against free speech: “At the heart of the anti-fascist outlook is a rejection of the classical liberal phrase that says, ‘I disapprove of what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it.’”
Bray admits that “most Americans in Antifa have been anarchists or antiauthoritarian communists… From that standpoint, ‘free speech’ as such is merely a bourgeois fantasy unworthy of consideration.” It is an illusion designed to promote what Antifa is resisting “white supremacy, hetero-patriarchy, ultra-nationalism, authoritarianism, and genocide.” Thus, all of these opposing figures are deemed fascistic and thus unworthy of being heard.
Bray quotes one Antifa member as summing up their approach to free speech as a “nonargument . . . you have the right to speak but you also have the right to be shut up.”
Hopefully, if found guilty, Calvert will actually face punishment. We previously discussed the case involving another Antifa member who was convicted after taking an ax to the door of Sen. John Hoeven’s office in Fargo. He was given no jail time, and the FBI even returned his ax. He later mocked the government by posting on social media “Look what the FBI were kind enough to give back to me!”
This case will no doubt be different . . . there is no bomb to give back to Calvert.
Professor Turley,
Calvert’s actions should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. However, by cherrypicking cases, you have grossly misrepresented how federal courts are treating right-wing extremists in comparison to Antifa.
Take, for example, US District Judge Cormac J. Carney, who freed violent, white supremacist Tyler Laube, who confessed to beating a journalist at a 2017 Southern California rally and pleaded guilty to violating riot laws as part of a white supremacist gang. The JUDGE said that Laube deserved a light sentence (time served) because prosecutors have “ignored” violence committed by Antifa. From the
“Sentencing Mr. Laube to additional incarceration would only increase the disparity between his punishment and the lack of punishment (and prosecution) members of far-left groups who have committed the same violent conduct received,” Carney wrote. The sentence: time served, 35 days, rather than the six months prosecutors had sought.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/saying-prosecutors-focus-antifa-judge-103049060.html
This statement by the Judge was made without any evidence. And, ironically, it was made on the same day that a courthouse 89 miles away was hearing a trial of the last two defendants of the “San Diego 11” – members of Antifa charged with committing violence against Trump supporters. The nine other co-defendants had already been sentenced, many to years in prison.
The biggest problem here is that judges like Judge Carney are infusing their political ideology into sentencing memo for crimes. This is unconscionable. That should be the story here.
it seems pretty clear that Judge Carney has a point . . . . why not make a legal argument against it?
What is Judge Carney’s point? Can you point to anything in the federal sentencing guidelines that allows for leniency because of political both sideism? Remember, this isn’t a politician. This is a JUDGE.
If your point is that there isn’t two levels of justice I will point out the two classified documents cases of Biden and Trump, one a Senator and VP that had docs (some taken from a sciff) in many unsecured places for decades, including a place that is funded by the CCP, and the other a PRESIDENT that had documents in a place that is secured by the SECRET SERVICE.
That is inapplicable. This is a sentencing memo. Neither Trump nor Biden has been…. sentenced. Try again?
The Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that Calvert has been charged with the malicious use of an explosive and possession of an unregistered destructive device.
The bigger question is why Biden’s DOJ is suddenly interested in justice, defending peoples lives and upholding democracy. Obama’s Deep State has proven to be the enemy of Americans. Meanwhile, Biden’s DOJ has been caught once again in being an adversary to justice, in seeking the ruin of Biden’s opponents and devouring democracy.
Incredulously the Left says believing in the resurrection of Jesus Christ is a myth!!! At least no one was beaten nor cancelled when our Lord rose from the dead, other than that of the liar of liars, Lucifer.
“Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour”
– 1 Peter 5:8
Sophia!
DNC covered Biden’s legal bills in classified docs probe as his campaign slammed RNC for covering Trump’s tab. Over $1.5 million in legal bills was covered by the DNC for Biden’s legal bills.
The Democratic National Committee (DNC) paid $1.5 million for President Joe Biden’s legal payments in Special Counsel Robert Hur’s investigation into the president. The revelation comes at a time when the Biden campaign has repeatedly attacked 2024 presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump for using campaign funds to cover being hamstrung by several court cases. According to a report from Axios which looked over the payment records of the DNC, the organization shelled out $1.5 million to lawyers and firms representing Biden during the probe.
https://thepostmillennial.com/revealed-dnc-covered-bidens-legal-bills-in-classified-docs-probe-as-his-campaign-slammed-rnc-for-covering-trumps-tab
@Estovir
You aren’t wrong. Electing the Obama/Soros regime was probably the worst thing we did for our country in at least a century. If they had been in charge in the 1800s or the 1960s, we’d still have slavery, there would have been no civil rights movement, and they would try to convince us it was ‘equitable’.
Must be that white rage they are promoting. It would be funny of it were not so dangerous.
Jonathan: Since your address to Congress on 8/4/20 you have been beating the drum that Antifa is the biggest threat of violence and to “free speech” in American history. Of course, that was before Jan. 6 when a violent mob attacked the Capitol and the police, causing injuries and death–led by well organized right-wing vigilante groups like the Proud Boys and the Oathkeepers. They are the real threat to “free speech”. They are the real threat of violence–not isolated acts by individuals who self-identify and aspire to the goals in the Antifa “Handbook”!
And what were the goals of those that attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6? To stop the certification of the electoral vote–the “free speech” right of voters to select the candidate of their choice. Instead of Antifa you should be discussing the REAL threats to our Democracy–the mob that attacked the Capitol, all the mass shootings at schools and synagogues and the continuing death threats directed at judges, prosecutors and their family members. None of these come from Antifa. But Antifa it is a convenient distraction because it permits you to ignore the real existential threats we face!
Something much more interesting, DNC covered Biden legal bills in special counsel probe,
https://www.axios.com/2024/04/12/dnc-covered-biden-legal-bills-special-counsel-probe
Biden Officials Pressured ‘Fact-Checker’ To Change Rating On Gas Stoves Ban
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/white-house/2962351/biden-officials-successfully-pressured-fact-checker-to-alter-gas-stoves-ban-rating-watchdog/
54 Convicted Sex Offenders Arrested After Illegally Crossing Into US In Last 6 Months, Officials Confirm
https://dailycaller.com/2024/04/11/convicted-sex-offenders-illegal-immigrants-last-six-months/?utm_source=referral&utm_medium=offthepress&utm_campaign=home
Justice Department Uncovers ‘Inconsistencies’ in Fani Willis’s Use of Federal Grant Funds
https://freebeacon.com/biden-administration/justice-department-uncovers-inconsistencies-in-fani-williss-use-of-federal-grant-funds/
“54 Convicted Sex Offenders Arrested After Illegally Crossing”
Really? You want to bring up 54 Sex offenders that crossed illegally? How many right wing pastors are sex offenders? How many rightwing politicians are sex offenders? Quite a few if you will just do a simple search. Oh, by the way, trump has been convicted sex abuse.
Look, even 1 person committing a sex crime is bad. But if you are going to bring migrants, who commit crimes at a much lower rate than native born, without mentioning the rot in your own family, you have problems.
So, now whataboutism has become Howmanyism.
All illegal migrants are criminals. That is why we call them illegal.
I am not religious. I do not attend any church of any kind. None of my immediate family members or friends are sex offenders. No rot in my circle of friends and family. No problems here.
According to Joe Biden’s own daughter’s diary, he took inappropriate showers with her.
Upstate, this jerk wants to say it is fine that Biden is letting SEX OFFENDERS into our country because there may be other sex offenders here already. That is quite a defense isn’t it?
Only a liberal would argue against stopping sex offenders from coming into our country illegally if it will help a Democrat. They are never able to say, “you are right, this is bad”.
Watch Bret Baier on Fox with the end of show panel discussion and people like Leslie Marshall and Juan Williams will NEVER say, “yup, Biden is wrong on this or that”. Then you have the people I call stenographers like Jeff Mason from Reuters who will say when asked about the border or inflation, two things that Biden is hated for, “well the administration says that they are doing x or y or z etc etc”, instead of saying yes, the border being wide open is killing cities and our country.
“Upstate, this jerk wants to say it is fine that Biden is letting SEX OFFENDERS into our country because there may be other sex offenders here already. That is quite a defense isn’t it?”
That is not what I said at all. If you hate sex offenders so much, why does trump have so much support on this site? He is convicted of sex abuse.
No, Trump has not been found guilty of sex abuse. He has been found (by an NY judge who’d probably find him guilty of the Hamas October 7 terrorist attack, if asked) civilly liable. A MUCH lower standard of proof than needed for conviction, which would refer to a criminal offense, with which he has not been charged,
Ahh yes, it was only a civil charge. So no big deal right?
NOTHING Trump is ever accused of or convicted for will hold a single nanogram of weight in any sane person’s mind.
Hang it up sucky.
Ellen Evans,
Well said.
And the star witness could not even recall what year the supposed sex crime occurred and the dress that she publicly claimed she wore when the supposed sex crime took place, was not made till several years later than the claim. Even the NYTs fact checked her claim as false.
Joe Biden’s own daughter wrote in her diary Joe took inappropriate showers with her.
migrants, who commit crimes at a much lower rate than native born,
That’s lie. Still a lie, after the last time you got corrected.
Dennis what about the Antifa root at the White House where they had to Put Trump in a safe space. Per the CPC more police were injured there And the damages were greater then J6.
Or the summer of love a few years back that caused billions of $ of damages and caused the most damages in the minority areas that you were supposedly trying to help. Do u know what happened to the Brown shirts in Germany.
No surprise Dennis also runs cover here for domestic terrorists
(as long as they lean Democrat, he’ll supply the whataboutism).
As Joe Biden himself said, “God save the Queen, man.”
-Cat
Dennis – anyone who says the J6 protesters “caused injury and death” cannot be taken seriously. No one “caused” Officer Byrd to kill Ashli Babbit except Officer Byrd.
Jonathan: Since your address to Congress on 8/4/20 you have been beating the drum that Antifa is the biggest threat of violence and to “free speech” in American history.
Brilliant.
Since Turley never made such a statement.
I wouldn’t trust you to tell be the day of the week
Antifa: the organization that opposes itself.
It was a mostly peaceful explosion.
Why is it always “transgender and nonbinary,” with these people?
I doubt if anyone could have a cogent discussion with Kyle Benjamin Douglas Calvert. Most anti-cultural morons like him lack a sense of history and purpose and manifest their own self-hatred by doing evil things to others. Calvert no doubt fits this mold. Born a gender he now questions, no doubt there remains deep-seated hatred for the person to whom his mother gave birth. To placate the demons in his mind, he perpetrates violence against others, focusing on the government that he sees, delusionally, as his metaphorical mother whom he hates for begetting him so miserably misfortuned. Antifa is like a magnet attracting the Calverts of the world. It gives purpose to an otherwise purposeless life.
@Anonymous
I think so too, 100%. This is what happens when nothing whatsoever is instilled in children. It was inevitable that as adults, kids like this would be causing destruction given the accurate portrait you’ve presented.
“It gives purpose to an otherwise purposeless life.”
That right there.
Like most radical woke leftists, they think they are fighting for something that is either already covered by most laws, or something that is actually non-existent.
These nut jobs just take it to the extreme with real violence.
..
This kid has basically admitted he’s a psychopath (not believing in fairness for others, can’t control violent impulses) and they’ll have him home in time for dinner. Always remember that Kamala was bailing these people out in 2020, and that Biden dismissed them as a phantom all while touting an *actual* phantom of ‘right wing extremism’.
Seems to me, given the photos we always see, the white supremacists all reside squarely on the left, and there are no consequences. Tell me again how the parties ‘switched’, exactly? Nothing has changed at all in 150 years.
“I disapprove of what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
This hyperbolic slogan was hatched by Evelyn Beecher Hall, a friend of Voltaire. Back in those times, there was such a thing as honor and reputation. At present, those qualities are in short supply, denuded by the ability to post anonymously on the internet (cowardice), and rage-blinded militancy of the “I’m good, you’re evil” type.
Let’s say someone posts personal information about your children and their daily whereabouts — with vague urging that they be harmed — as a means of intimidating you into silence. How many Americans believe this act is protected free speech? How many would “disapprove” yet “defend to the death” the right of some unknown creep to dox your own precious children — as a tactic to strip you of your civility-respecting free speech?
With all freedoms come responsibilities. The generational problem we are obliged to solve is how to define and exact those responsibilities that parallel the freedom to publish anonymously. Should we be able to strip away the veil of anonymity when that freedom is abused and exact accountability? Suggest how without involving government as the enforcer. I believe fast Civil Torts is the way to go.
Same argument proposed for burning the flag and taking the knee by troll “don’t troll me bro” followed with personal attacks and insults. They got Nothing.
I think Alabama can still be trusted.
Far more (potentially lethal) damage to this nation is being done, hourly, by so much that the progs have initiated or ignored in their blatant attempt to “fundamentally transform” this nation. Yet they persist in hounding the protestors of Jan 6 and Trump himself rather than the thugs, illegals, contemptable, obfuscating and incompetent government functionaries that continue to plague this nation daily. Historians will not blame these America-haters as much as they will hold the lethargic and apathetic middle that turns its eyes from this and ignores the current mess hoping that “somehow it will all be fine”. These are like the Germans who didn’t notice the concentration camps just down the road or the smell of burning flesh because their overlords (whom they elected out of paranoia and intimidation) would ensure troubles on them if they resisted. My friends, we are perilously close to that moment as our society fragments around us and we are more and more ruled by miscreants and thieves.
“Calvert, who reportedly identifies as transgender and nonbinary, expressed his “belief that violence should be directed against the government, and he has described his inability to control his own violent, aggressive impulses,” according to the DOJ.”
***********************************
Amazing correlation between sexual dysfunction and social dysfunction. Freud only had about half of it right. Thanatos explains the rest.
“Above all, Freud was an extremely gifted observer of human behavior who shows us that in many cases, sexual dysfunctions are no isolated phenomena, but have their roots in biographically based intrapsychic or interpersonal conflicts.”
~Hartmann U. Sigmund freud and his impact on our understanding of male sexual dysfunction. J Sex Med 2009;6:2332–2339.
Dennis Prager on X earlier this week:
Dennis Prager
@DennisPrager
Unhappy people gravitate to the Left.
4:31 PM · Apr 9, 2024
The left is not anchored by any moral code or cultural parameters, it is open to interpretation by the individual (this has been referred to as a anarchic state by many) so the unhappy people are free to create a universe in which to live that contains all that they need to feel happy. It is just a delusion of one, but other progressives just live within their own bubble and do not contemplate the problems of a fake reality guiding so many.
edwardmahl,
Yes.
There was a Finnish study that found people who identify as woke, tend to be unhappy, depressed or have a degree of anxiety.
We even see it to a degree here on the good professor’s blog.
Why is that?
And we let these gender confused to have intimate contact with our children simply because we are afraid to stand up and stop it for fear of lethal reactions from this 1% of deranged people who need mental health treatments rather than presidential medals of freedom.
This is the fault of the people on the right not taking sufficient and righteous action to end this. History will not treat the political right with much charity for endangering their children because of cowardice.
My guess is that Kyle Benjamin Douglas Calvert is an Episcopalian.
He might have been. A close associate of mine was the organist for a local Episcopal Church and he was so dismayed as to the woke, prog/left direction it has taken. How can these church leaders continue to read the bible yet continue to ignore its teachings? I think the churches have become the ill-prepared counseling services for the increasing generational dysfunction of each succeeding generation. They want to offer assistance but are afraid to take a true Christian stance against those who pay no heed to the teachings in the bible. For once I am glad that this Pope has finally taken some stance against the growing anarchy of current Western culture.
The American Episcopal Church actually ordained as Bishop a practicing lesbian living with her significant other BEFORE they agreed to solemnization of same-sex marriages. So they made a Bishop of a person unabashedly living in a state of sin.
Some African Episcopalian leaders actually started a rival Anglican Catholic Church, which has a number of congregations in this country – all disaffected by the hard-left turn.
Which tenets of either the Episcopalian or Anglo-Catholic churches does he represent, in your opinion? I am a baptized Episcopalian, and since I was baptized as an adult, I had to do a lot of reading and attend spiritual counseling sessions for months. I did not hear anything, nor read anything, tending toward bombings.
The college students in so many universities are the SA of the progressive Democratic Party. Antifa is the SS . The SA specialized in assaults and threats and beating on the streets of Germany and the SS, of course, did the finer work and killings Merrick Garland is the Martin Boorman of the progressive party. I’m not sure if Director Wray has quite developed into Reinherd Hydrich yet or is just a figurehead to give the iron boots a pretty face.
Suzanne Rice is the Hermann Goering of the progressive party except Hermann’s costumes were more flamboyant.
Progressive philosophy has moved over into a malignant mental illness. It needs to be excised, not defeated.
Wow! Finally a picture of an actual, Extremist White Christian Nationalist, violent terrorist, The FBI has been spending so much time investigating. I guess putting paid informants inside The Catholic Church is paying off.
Keep it simple: Antifa is nothing more than a psychological projection of fascism and serves as a tool and plaything for the Democratic Party.
Another mentally ill, sex freak. One day, one of these in the military is going to launch a nuke or something.
And will not enjoy it nearly as much as Major “King” Kong. Nor will it be as entertaining as a film can make it.
DOJ will punish Trump for this crime! DOJ is 100% corrupt for Democrats