It appears no liberal Christmas is complete without the ultimate stocking stuffer: an actual stocking to wear over your face while rioting. While not yet selling face coverings for anonymous violence, Crooked Media, co-founded by former Obama staffers Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett, and Tommy Vietor, is selling a line of Antifa items for liberals wanting to make a statement against any “Peace on Earth.” (As of this posting, Antifa items were still being sold on the “Crooked Store” site). You can now proudly wear your “Antifa Dad” hat to signal your support for political violence and deplatforming. It is the ultimate naughty gift list for putting the slay back into your Sleigh Bells.
These liberal hosts and their “POD SAVE AMERICA” show have been featured on various shows and courted by figures like Hillary Clinton.
There is no apparent backlash for their support of one of the most violent groups in the world, which routinely attacks journalists and anyone who holds opposing views. Imagine the media response if a conservative site started selling “Proud Boy” items.
Yet, Crooked Media is now offering liberals the chance to buy “ANTIFA” onesies for babies, a T-shirt for toddlers reading “ANTIFA” and other items.
Just to make sure that everyone understands the support for the violent group, a spokesperson for Crooked Media told Fox News Digital that the clothes it has listed on its website “are not a joke.” The spokesman added that “all toddlers are antifa until their souls are broken by capitalism.”
As discussed in my new book, “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage,” I explore the history of Antifa as a movement that began in Germany:
“Antifa originated with European anarchist and Marxist groups from the 1920s, particularly Antifaschistische Aktion, a Communist group from the Weimar Republic before World War II. Its name resulted from the shortening of the German word antifaschistisch. In the United States, the modern movement emerged through the Anti- Racist Action (ARA) groups, which were dominated by anarchists and Marxists. It has an association with the anarchist organization Love and Rage, which was founded by former Trotsky and Marxist followers as well as offshoots like Mexico’s Amor Y Rabia. The oldest U.S. group is likely the Rose City Antifa (RCA) in Portland, Oregon, which would become the center of violent riots during the Trump years. The anarchist roots of the group give it the same organizational profile as such groups in the early twentieth century with uncertain leadership and undefined structures.”
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 previously 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.”
We have continued to follow the attacks and arrests of Antifa followers across the country, including attacks on journalists.
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.
Ellison’s 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.”
Now, liberal families can bring a small part of that political violence into their homes for the holiday to pledge that there will be no peace or silent nights so long as opposing views are heard. Antifa has gone retail, and there is no better way to celebrate political violence and rage than your Antifa onesie.
With tensions rising after the election, the embrace of organizations like Antifa will only fuel calls for violent action. Liberal figures like ex-Washington Post reporter Taylor Lorenz have even conveyed support for the assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Manhattan.
It is not the time to go full naughty list to celebrate a group that regularly beats reporters and others with opposing viewpoints. While this may appeal to your own special smash-mouth Santa, tis the season for political violence.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Washington University and the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”
this crap better not be made in China…
When Biden claimed antifa was just an idea, we realize the people advising him were giving him misinformation.
Joe never did any independent search to learn more – not his style. Here we are years later, Joe’s mind has turned to jelly, and thank goodness he won’t be POTUS any longer – in his ‘mind’ he still commutes from Delaware to D.C. each day to do the people’s work —
As for Jerry Nadler and his denials regarding Antifa, he is an embarrassment with not tangible excuse — he should have left politics years ago —
Jonathan’s choice of column themes is getting tiresome. Who cares about what a few Antifa jerks are doing for Xmas gifts? This is what commands the attentions of conservative legal minds?
Instead, we could be discussing things of gravitas and import, such as the Supreme Court case about protecting children from harmful porn content (challenge to Constitutionality of Texas’s H.B 1181), which requires proof of age.
This case is quite central to the issues we need to wrestle with regarding the how far the reach of the 1st Amendment extends in tolerating debasement of culture. Its outcome will affect future citizenry and their character. The fight of parents against easy porn access for children has been ongoing, and has reached the current case law because less burdensome means such as content filtering are so easily evaded by children.
Let’s start with the principle….do parents have a right to control the influences their children are exposed to? This is a populist cause, facing down an industry that puts money-making ahead of youth development. Where does the good professor stand….as a Constitutional lawyer and as a dad?
..’pbinca..’ and ‘who cares what a few Antifa (leaning) jerks’ write here in this Forum showing a complete misunderstanding of the seriousness of threat of ANY ANTIFA presence….. Nice Try.
“The Daniel Penny trial shows that liberals need to be removed from power at every single level of society. They corrupt every process they are part of.” @LokiJulianus
Jonathan
If you ever wonder where Dennis gets 95% of his supermarket tabloid material, look no farther than The Guardian.
He lives to plagiarize from them, often word for word.
Media-ite is his other favorite.
Apropos of yesterday, allowing biological males to join a girls or women’s team in competitive sports, or be in their locker rooms or bathrooms, is probably the most sick, twisted, mentally ill, nasty, wicked, terrible, evil, no good thing a society can do. That there are actually people who are not in jail and who are on school boards that endorse such a manifestly disgusting evil wicked deranged practice, and then silence anyone who disagrees, is totally unacceptable and disgusting and reprehensible and repugnant and repulsive and dastardly and shameful and wicked.
https://www.foxnews.com/sports/high-school-facing-student-uprising-ban-shirts-protesting-trans-athletes-girls-beg-safety
Next up, NAMBLA.
You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
When you do see nothin’, it will come in the form of bestiality: “You can’t eat ’em, but you can —- ’em,” will be their PETAesque motto.
These people are sick, but, just as in the Civil War, the American people are sick enough to allow it to happen, oh, and to participate.
For those who wonder what the problem is, aside from girls vehemently objecting to having to get undressed and shower next to a biological male, one should consider that if gender is a state of mind, then conceivably there could be a team comprised entirely of biological males, competing in women’s sports. If someone accepts one biological male on a women’s sports team, then one would also have to accept a team where all players are biological males. If that hypothetical team won a championship, then not a single biological female would receive the honor in a women’s sports division. One has to follow all scenarios to their logical conclusion when determining the rules of athletics. This is not what Title IX was supposed to be.
In reply to Karen S:
That is so imaginatively brilliant and true that it will likely shatter some AI systems.
As for actual human brains, I see vascular troubles ahead.
Egad, Karen S.–you are really in MAGAland deep.
Oldman, I agree with your comment and I am envious of your deep level in the world of adjectives.
Naperville (Illinois) school district 203 is being sued for allowing trannies in girl’s sports and private spaces.
There is ANTIFA and then there is the other extreme
The first rioter tried on Jan. 6 charges gets reduced prison sentence after Supreme Court decision
Reffitt stormed the Captiol with a holstered handgun on his waist. He also was carrying zip-tie handcuffs and wearing body armor and a helmet equipped with a video camera when he advanced on police officers outside the building. He retreated after an officer pepper sprayed him in the face, but he waved on other rioters who ultimately breached the building.
https://wtop.com/government/2024/12/the-first-rioter-tried-on-jan-6-charges-gets-reduced-prison-sentence-after-supreme-court-decision/
Besides being emotionally stunted, that people made time to storm the US Capitol (or any government building) reflects the content of their character. We are a society that has become unmoored.
The behavior was normalized during the summer of love.
What a ridiculous comparison. Antifa is a fully sanctioned are of the political leftist establishment operating under the support of Mayors and DAs in $hithole communities like Charlottesville, Portland, Philly, etc.
Unlike a bunch of protestors infiltrated by a significant number of entrapping Federal agents who were actually protesting a legitimate crime.
Deal with it.
We are faced with so many convoluted enigmas these days that it will take much more of our valuable time to figure them out.
But I’m beginning to see some light re why DOJ/FBI did absolutely nothing to BLM/Antifa rioters while they
ravaged cities, destroyed public and private property, and assaulted innocent bystanders during the “peaceful protests” of 2020,
right on the heels of COVID, and just months away from a presidential election. Great planning guys! I can tell your upper
management are not DEI freaks. That’s for sure.
But back to the point (which I admit is hanging in the air) but now, with your indulgence, adding J6 to the mix for context, given the obvious participation of fed elements
in that event that were clearly the tip of the spear to the violent aspect of the breach of the Capitol, I VENTURE TO SAY THAT DOJ/FBI HAD ALWAYS
PLANNED TO USE COMPROMAT AS LEVERAGE against Antifa figures, i.e., exposure to long sentences for 2020 destruction, and, in doing so, coercing their participation in an undercover capacity on J6 in order to allow them to atone for previous violations of law.
What else could possibly explain how such uncharacteristically looking and acting ruffians, so absurdly bedecked in Trump garb, infiltrated a family event, and then turned so ruthless and violent while obviously goading on the participation of others in an attempt to smear Trump followers as violent, and to legally implicate the entirety of other spectators who were merely following a large crowd filing into the Capitol for what I’m sure they believed was going to be a public proceeding open to the public.
That behavior could only have occurred due to coercion. In other words, their handlers may have told them that previous
violations could cost them 10-20 yrs. of their lives, as opposed to a year or two.
YES, THIS IS ABSOLUTELY WHAT I BELIEVE.
It used to be an enigma, but it is no more!
* I have no idea who or what antifa is except it started in Europe in the 1920s. I’m equally certain they don’t know either. Hate white people, Christians and Judaism, capitalism and USA MOST of all is most likely their platform. The same is returned to them by the USA itself.
Best wishes to States and governors of good will.
Well, I for one, always support truth in advertising. If these people are so set on violence and mayhem, I do want to know about it and they are helpfully labeling themselves. Also, inquiring minds want to know why these individuals are still here in the good ol’ U.S. of A. when they could be in Gaza or the Ukraine participating in as much disruption as they want.
Antifa, being a JEWISH COMMUNIST organization.
The details you leave out, lol.
Pic, why the need to lie about Jews? Go to Portland and check out ANTIFA, they are rich white kids and not with a high % of Jews.
Now go to any college campus to talk to the Hamas supporters and see that sure there are a few self loathing Jewish people there, but the VAST majority of the agitators are ANTIFA/BLM/Climate weirdos and NOT majority Jew.
But hey, don’t let me stop you with your bigotry, Anti-Semitism and all around hatred.
OT: In the Daniel Penny case the Judge just permitted the dismisssl of the hung manslaughter charge in order to allow the jury to consider the remaining negligence charge. Some are saying this is unprecedented — that the lesser charge can only be considered if there is an acquittal on the greater charge. Does anyone here know?
With my 2-minute GTS, it seems that yes, in NY, a hung jury on the primary charge does not mean outright dismissal of the whole case. They can still deliberate the negligence. However, if the jury can’t come to a decision on any charges, then the judge will declare a mistrial (meaning Penny could be retried). The defense, rightfully, is pushing for dismissal, but it is up to the rest of the court to actually approve it.
My contribution of an OT bizarre event for this day.
Romanian Court Annuls Vote, Declares Presidential Election Do-Over, After ‘Far Right, Pro Russian’ Candidate On Top
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/romanian-court-annuls-vote-declares-presidential-election-do-over-after-far-right-pro
“The court decided “to annul the entire electoral process for the election of the President of Romania… to ensure the correctness and legality of the electoral process” – in a controversial ruling which has simply never happened.”
In a nutshell, someone the Romanian Supreme Court didn’t care for (because of his opposition to supporting Ukraine against Russia in their war) was in the process of being elected president by a large majority, so the court stepped in and voided the election. Romania is a NATO member and a formidable military power. Gee, I wonder if some clandestine agency of a world power with great NATO influence might not have used some sort of persuasion on that court? I also wonder how close we would have been to such a blatant authoritarian event here if Harris had won election, and whether Trump’s next 4 years will suffice to pull US back from a comparable brink for the foreseeable future, or whether it will be nothing but a temporary respite; merely a small bump in the road to Hell? We need to do our damnedest to determine that the answer to that question is positive.
* Harris didn’t win because there was nothing to offer except high prices and total collapse. She hadn’t enough people to cheat for her and Obama didn’t really support her so no ballot rigging was ordered.
They successfully laundered all campaign money. That’s a win. That would be an interesting audit. Like Hunter’s paintings…
Harris didn’t win because Trump, a convicted felon, sexual assaulter, womanizer, thief, fraudster and pathological liar, aided and abetted by MAGA media owned by billionaires who invested in MAGA media to get gullible people to vote for Republicans because they want tax cuts and rolling back of regulations, lied about the economy being on the verge of collapse, lied about the country being headed in the wrong direction, and that if Trump won, housing and grocery prices would drop precipitously and personal wealth would soar. Enough people, voting on the basis of what they believed was in their best financial interests, believed the lies.
Why do you make up lies about money laundering and cheating when you know that Trump is the one who cheated in 2016 and tried to cheat again in 2020?
Wrong. He won this time, like he did in 2016, because the pro-imperialist establishment media that gelled after the 2016 Trump election was no longer the only voice in media, like it had become in 2020 (an election Trump also won, but don’t dwell on that).
Face it, you are a warmonger-loving POS and you and your ilk should be very very scared for your political futures. Tic-toc Tic-toc.
Cope harder…want some whine with that cheese…
Aside from the corruption of the left, Harris didn’t win because she is a dolt. The arrogance of the left that they could run a vapid establishment cockholster and win is evidence that A. the left is completely out of touch with reality and B. the leftist syncophants must be driven from the US political sphere.
There is no use of the establishment in the US, other than feeding death and corruption. It is ROT. It is why the US has millions of homeless and our cities and infrastructure pale in comparison to other parts of the world that have no business being as prosperous as they are because of their human rights and environmental failures.
Seriously, people like you are dinosaurs.
Wrong again. Trump won in 2016 and again in 2024. Why? Voters are tired of the elite telling them not to believe their own eyes and ears. Voters rejected the establishment that is represented by the DNC and MSM. Voters rejected what lies they and you tell them when their own pocket books speak the truth that you try to cover up.
Hunter Biden owes some $300,000 in back rent. He tried to pay it off with some of his crap art. Now that Joe has pardoned Hunter, Hunter is off the hook for that money. Just like all the other crimes.
Nothing you wrote addresses either the subject of my post, or my analogy to the political situation in the US in the slightest, and your claims attributing Harris’ loss are completely unsupported by any evidence I have seen. I suggest that you crawl back into your lair and resume contemplating your own anus.
You, Number 6, are free to wonder and speculate but it is impossible to rebut imagined points for which no evidence is provided.
dear Anonymous… your short-sidedness is showing… ‘no ballot rigging was ordered..’ ??? WHAT do you call the last 2 House seats flipping just now to the Dems Thanks to CA 30 days vote counting… flipping Districts with GOP incumbents and Carried By Trump no less…………..
Pres. Biden has jusst announced that he is issuing a blanket pardon to all registered Democrats, exteding from 1/1/1950 to 12/31/2028, covering any deed that someone might want to prosecute them for. He is also forgiving all their debts.
“Pres. Biden has jusst announced that he is issuing a blanket pardon to all registered Democrats, exteding from 1/1/1950 to 12/31/2028, covering any deed that someone might want to prosecute them for.”
You forgot the part where he urges them to go out and kill as many Republicans as possible before 2029… Hmmm, on second thought, that’s actually not all that funny.
* There are 50 States. Some States can become sanctuaries for children. If a State is safe for a child it will be safe for adults, too.
These people selling merchandise to promote an organization that regularly riots, assaults people, and cause property damage, are usually the same people who claim the one, single riot of Republicans, during which most of them took selfies and milled around and only one small group descended into chaos, was a treasonous act of insurrection.
The double standard is appalling. The Antifa baby onesie is the new low.
Karen S,
Well said. Then also tend to forget the 100+ days of violence antifa and their likes committed against Portland OR police and even federal agents. Then there was that CHAZE zone thing where lawless ruled.
@Upstate
Oh, this can all still go before the courts, so can the preemptive ‘pardons’; all they have done is preemptively show culpability, and that the dems have used the DOJ as a goon squad for years. And ALL of us see it. If the hammer of justice isn’t swift, let the hammer of marginalization be. The modern left is DISGUSTING. All caps. Never voting PURPLE again after their behavior between November and January. DISGUSTING. I hope the three million people that still support them are happy. 🤷🏽♂️🤷🏽♂️
I think Mr RICO needs to show up and introduce himself to these people.
No, pardons are not reviewable by any court. If Biden does preemptively pardon some or all of these people, there will be nothing anyone can do about it.
But a federal pardon can’t cover state offenses, it can’t forgive debts or protect from civil suits, and of course it can’t cover future offenses.
It is the first week of Advent, a Christian season that prepares one for Christ-mas.
For 2000 years Western Civilization observed that man was nothing, a speck of dust in the grand scheme of things. Today, not so much. The Left and the Right have raised their eyes to themselves, their self-referential “truths”, their whims as if a toddler with a tantrum.
St Anselm of Canterbury, 11th Century philosopher in the Neo-Platonic, Aristotelian logic mold, scholastic theologian, Benedictine monk and sage writer, has words that apply to our current world. Anselm’s Proslogion is one of his most famous and insightful ontological arguments for the existence of God.
From the Proslogion by Saint Anselm, bishop
(Cap.1: Opera Omnia, Edit. Schmitt, Secovii, 1938, 1, 97-100)
“Desire for the vision of God”
Insignificant man, escape from your everyday business for a short while, hide for a moment from your restless thoughts. Break off from your cares and troubles and be less concerned about your tasks and labors. Make a little time for God and rest a while in him. Enter into your mind’s inner chamber.
http://www.liturgies.net/Liturgies/Catholic/loh/advent/week1fridayor.htm
Feed the soul, not the appetites. Our appetites (physical and emotional) has brought us to where we are today, as seen in the emotional incontinence on this forum.
🎶 Fall on your knees
O hear the angel voices 🎶
* the tabernacle choir with the Kings singers is the best version.
One of my favorite Christmas Hymns!
“Insignificant man . . .”
That “insignificant man” wrote symphonies and grand-scale novels, discovered the causes of diseases and the rotations of planets, produced technology for the mass production of food and instantaneous communication, erected a system of government to protect liberty, penned philosophical treatises and new sciences, created skyscrapers, electricity, air conditioning, vaccines.
I understand, though, that you are only speaking for yourself.
You left out splitting the atom (predicated by the solution to the massenergy relationship), putting humans in orbit and sending them to the Moon, exploring other planets in our solar system, and possibly the most important, the printing press. I am regularly amused by what appears to me to be a recurring contradiction: if man is so insignificant, how could he develop systems of such complexity and scope as to allow communication of the concept of his insignificance to the entire world over many generations? Gutenberg may have initially used his improved movable type printing press to print the Bible, but it was his human ingenuity that allowed that to happen.
“. . . how could he develop . . .”
There’s that contradiction. And this one:
Anselm is a significant writer on man’s insignificance.
Absurd? Obviously. But mystics believe it *because* it is absurd.
Pronouncements about man’s insignificance are always psychological projection: I feel worthless. So man must be, too.
It is telling that even Wikipedia acknowledges St Anselm as the founder of scholasticism
Anselm has been called “the most luminous and penetrating intellect between St Augustine and St Thomas Aquinas”[111] and “the father of scholasticism”…
– Wiki
OTOH, none of your comments on this forum have ever been labeled as scholastic, academic or dispassionate so that explains your lack of insight
Anselm is a significant writer on man’s insignificance.
Sam, if you were to drop dead tonight, no one on this forum, and possibly in your extended circle would notice. Unlike most of the regular commenters on here, you have never mentioned any of your loves. Thus your insignificance is not disputed except perhaps by non-scholastics
“Sam, if you were to drop dead tonight . . .”
That holiday wish brought to you by the ideology of “brotherly love.”
“It is telling that even Wikipedia acknowledges St Anselm as the founder of scholasticism”
Are you that obtuse? You just repeated your contradiction.
Another dirty trick of the Dems, which they have developed and deployed in the last 20 years, is debanking ideological opponents.
Dr. Joseph Mercola, a critic of the COVID vaccine, found his business accounts shut down by JP Morgan Chase, a move his chief financial officer claimed was at the same time Mercola spoke out against the Food and Drug Administration.
Read the whole story here. It illustrates how a great nation becomes a banana republic thanks to the Dems’ weaponization of ever aspect of the regulatory state.
https://nypost.com/2024/12/06/opinion/how-democrats-debanked-political-opponents-in-shocking-attack-on-american-freedoms/
* It’s a swindlers game. Set as many fires as possible to deflect from me stuffing my pockets. Pretty bad…
I just heard an interview about debanking yesterday. I had no idea it was so widespread and organized. January 20 can’t come too early.
https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/politics/415478-operation-choke-point-reveals-true-injustices-of-obamas-justice/
I found this article, as well.
It’s shocking that Melania Trump had her bank accounts closed after January 6, and that Baron was unable to open a bank account.