Hardball: Trump Makes Moves to Defund NY and Other ‘Anarchist’ Cities
It’s officially on.
In a memo that’s apparently been in
the works for weeks, Donald Trump Wednesday directed federal agencies
to begin the process of finding ways to redirect funds away from
“anarchist” cities — specifically New York, Seattle, Washington DC, and
Portland — in a move that could effectively cut them off from federal
funding.
President
Trump is ordering the federal government to begin the process of
defunding New York City and three other cities where officials allowed
“lawless” protests and cut police budgets amid rising violent crime, The
Post can exclusively reveal.
Trump on Wednesday signed a
five-page memo ordering all federal agencies to send reports to the
White House Office of Management and Budget that detail funds that can
be redirected.
New York City, Washington, DC, Seattle and Portland
are initial targets as Trump makes “law and order” a centerpiece of his
reelection campaign after months of unrest and violence following the
May killing of George Floyd by Minnesota police.
“My
Administration will not allow Federal tax dollars to fund cities that
allow themselves to deteriorate into lawless zones,” Trump says in the
memo, which twice mentions New York Mayor Bill de Blasio by name.
The
memo, citing a violation of the “Government’s promise to protect life,
liberty, and property” instructs federal agencies to detail all federal
funds allocated to those cities while concurrently directing Attorney
General Bill Barr to create a list of “anarchist jurisdictions” that
“‘permitted violence and the destruction of property to persist and have
refused to undertake reasonable measures’ to restore order.”
Russ
Vought, White House budget director, has been directed to issue
guidance regarding funding 30 days from Wednesday that will be sent to
heads of agencies to guide them in “restricting eligibility of or
otherwise disfavoring, to the maximum extent permitted by law, anarchist
jurisdictions in the receipt of Federal grants.”
The memo details
the lawlessness in each city, from Seattle’s “autonomous zone” to DC’s
“violence and destruction in late May and early June” and Portland’s
nightly clashes culminating in the mayor’s decision to ultimately move
from his residence following attacks on his apartment building.
But the President saves his most strident criticisms for New York City and her leaders, de Blasio and Governor Andrew Cuomo.
The memo says that “in New York City, city officials have allowed violence to spike.”
“In
light of this unconscionable rise in violence, I have offered to
provide Federal law enforcement assistance, but both Mayor de Blasio and
Governor Andrew Cuomo have rejected my offer,” Trump says in the memo.
“While
violence has surged, arrests have plummeted. In a 28-day period during
the months of June and July, [New York City] arrests were down 62
percent from the same period in 2019. Amidst the rising violence, Mayor
Bill de Blasio and the New York City Council agreed to cut one billion
dollars from the New York Police Department (NYPD) budget, including by
cancelling the hiring of 1,163 officers.”
The memo also cites NYPD
Commissioner Dermot Shea’s June disbandment of plainclothes units.
“Police officials have cited this decision as a factor contributing to
the rise in violence,” the memo says.
New York, according to the Post report, receives roughly $7 billion a year from federal coffers.
Mayor Bill de Blasio’s spokesman also released a statement on Twitter saying this will never stand: “As
much as Donald Trump wants New York City to drop dead, we will never
let this stand. This has nothing to do with “law and order”. This is a
racist campaign stunt out of the Oval Office to attack millions of
people of color.”
The memo also indicates it will be updated to add cities and states as the Justice Department sees fit.
Will the Antifa Riots Come to Your Community? Voters Are Rightly Concerned
After the police abuse of George Floyd, destructive and deadly riots
have plagued cities across America, some seeming to emerge out of the
blue. Antifa mobs have terrorized Portland for nearly 100 nights, but
even false reports of police shootings
have inspired bouts of looting and destruction in Chicago and
Minneapolis. Kenosha, Wisc., a city of roughly 100,000 on Lake Michigan,
erupted into destructive and ultimately deadly violence after police
shot a black man who resisted arrest after reportedly causing a domestic
incident and was reportedly reaching for his knife when they opened
fire.
A new poll
from Just the News and veteran pollster Scott Rasmussen found that
nearly half of U.S. voters are worried that the violence will spread to
their communities. This fear extends across the lines of ethnicity, sex,
political affiliation, and ideology, making the riots a potential wedge
issue in the 2020 election. Americans are rightly concerned about the
violence, and this concern will likely help President Donald Trump.
Voters are concerned
Nearly half of Americans (48 percent) said they are “very worried” or
“somewhat worried” when asked, “How worried are you that violent
protests and riots will come to your community? Nearly one in five (18
percent) said they are “very worried” while almost one in three (30
percent) described themselves as “somewhat worried.”
“Half the country being worried about violence in their own community is a startling fact,” Rasmussen told Just the News. “Not something we would normally see in 21st century America.”
Only 20 percent of registered voters described themselves as “not at
all worried,” while another 30 percent said they were “not very worried”
about the riots coming to their communities.
“What’s especially interesting about this is that it’s not really a
partisan issue. It’s not that Republicans say they are worried while
Democrats disagree,” Rasmussen added. “Instead, roughly half the voters
in each party is concerned. That means it could be a significant issue
for the fall campaign. It’s why President Trump is in Kenosha today and
why Joe Biden made his comments about violence yesterday.”
Indeed, Americans of every stripe are worried about the riots. Men
(46 percent) and women (49 percent) are afraid the riots will target
their communities. Whites (45 percent) and blacks (45 percent) and
Hispanics (66 percent) agree, as do Republicans (54 percent) and
Democrats (45 percent). College-educated (44 percent) and
non-college-educated (51 percent) voters are concerned.
This fear extends across the ideological spectrum, as well. Very
conservative voters (57 percent) and somewhat conservative voters (56
percent) share these fears with moderates (48 percent), somewhat liberal
voters (37 percent), and very liberal voters (40 percent). Americans of
all ages are concerned as well.
Just the News and Scott Rasmussen conducted the poll between August
27 and 29 using a sample of 1,200 registered voters, with a margin of
error of +/- 2.8 percent.
They are right to be concerned
Voters are right to worry that the riots could spread to their communities. Just last week, a mob started looting and ransacking businesses in Minneapolis
after hearing a rumor that the police had shot and killed a black man.
In reality, a black man had shot someone and then fled from the police.
Rather than submitting himself to arrest, the man decided to commit
suicide, shooting himself in the head. This death is tragic but hardly a
case that the Black Lives Matter movement should champion. Nonetheless,
rioters took their baseless anger to the streets, stealing from their
neighbors and destroying their own communities.
I had never heard of the city of Kenosha before the shooting of Jacob
Blake, the black man who reportedly resisted arrest when the police
came to check out a call about a “domestic incident.” Blake had a
warrant for his arrest from July, based on charges of third-degree
sexual assault, trespassing, and disorderly conduct in connection with
domestic abuse. Blake attempted to reach into his car before the
officers opened fire. Police later said they discovered a knife in the
driver’s side front floorboard of the car.
Shootings like this involve many factors, most of which are not
apparent in the hours — or sometimes even the days — after a shooting.
Americans are right to protest instances of police abuse like the nearly
ten-minute kneeling on the neck of George Floyd and the plainclothes
no-knock raid (such practices make an arrest seem like a home invasion)
that ended in the death of Breonna Taylor. Yet the overall narrative
that these instances prove widespread racism is not warranted and does
more harm than good.
Oftentimes, it seems that people are looking for an excuse to engage
in lawless behavior and are primed to leap to the conclusion that any
police shooting of a black man is unjustified and proof of racism.
Tragically, ideological currents on the Left help prop up this toxic
atmosphere.
The New York Times‘s “1619 Project” may be the most
influential example of Marxist critical theory urging a revolution in
the name of “racial justice.” Marxist critical theory encourages people
to deconstruct various aspects of society — such as capitalism, science
the nuclear family, the Judeo-Christian tradition, even expectations of
politeness (as the Smithsonian briefly taught) — as examples of white oppression. This inspires an aimless and destructive revolution.
When vandals toppled a statue of George Washington in Portland, they
spray-painted “1619” on the statue. When Claremont’s Charles Kesler
wrote in The New York Post “Call them the 1619 riots,” 1619 Project Founder Nikole Hannah-Jones responded (in a since-deleted tweet) that “it would be an honor” to claim responsibility for the destructive riots and the defamation of American Founding Fathers like George Washington.
In a November 9, 1995 op-ed,
Hannah-Jones condemned Christopher Columbus as “no different” from
Adolf Hitler and demonized the “white race” as the true “savages” and
“bloodsuckers.” She went on to describe “white America’s dream” as
“colored America’s nightmare.” Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) expressed a similar sentiment when
she called for the “dismantling” of America’s “economy and political
system,” in order to root out supposed racist oppression.
Portland activist Lilith Sinclair demonstrated
how this ideology feeds directly into the antifa riots saying, “There’s
still a lot of work to undo the harm of colonized thought that has been
pushed onto Black and indigenous communities.” As examples of
“colonized thought,” she mentioned Christianity and the “gender binary.”
She said she organizes for “the abolition of … the “United States as we
know it.”
Yet the “1619 riots” have arguably oppressed black people far more than the U.S. supposedly does. The riots have destroyed black lives, black livelihoods, and black monuments. At least 22 Americans have died in the riots, most of them black.
This widespread ideology might bring destructive riots to any number
of communities. The fact that many young people have been cooped up
under coronavirus lockdowns only adds fuel to this fire.
A wedge issue for Trump
Americans must oppose these riots and champion law and order, which
enables everyone to live in a peaceful society. Tragically, many
left-leaning commentators and Democratic politicians have covered for
the rioters, calling the lawlessness a form of “mostly peaceful
protest.” President Donald Trump, by contrast, has vocally condemned the
riots from the beginning, offering to send federal law enforcement and
the National Guard to help restore law and order.
For months, Trump vocally condemned the rioters and offered support
to Democratic mayors in cities overrun by the violence. Yet Mayor Ted
Wheeler (D-Portland) refused Trump’s support, even going so far as to
blame the president for the riots. Gov. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.) and Mayor
Jenny Durkan (D-Seattle) praised the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ)
that declared itself independent of the United States and deprived U.S.
citizens of their property and mobility. Durkan waited until two deadly
shootings had taken place before finally acting — and even then, it seems Trump forced her hand.
Similarly, only after Gov. Tony Evers (D-Wisc.) allowed Trump to send
in the National Guard did the destructive and deadly riots in Kenosha
finally end.
This week, Joe Biden attempted to blame Trump
for the riots, claiming that the president’s divisive rhetoric was
ultimately to blame. Biden thrice condemned “militias,” associating them
with the Right and with Trump, but he never condemned antifa or the
official Marxist Black Lives Matter movement.
The president powerfully shot back,
noting that “for months, Joe Biden has given moral aid and comfort to
the vandals repeating the monstrous lie that these were peaceful
protests. They’re not peaceful protests. That’s anarchy. That’s — you
look at the agitators, you look at the looters, you look at the rioters —
that’s not a peaceful protest.”
While some concerned citizens armed themselves and planned to protect
private property in cities ravaged by the riots, those instigating the
riots are associated with the far-Left, with antifa and Black Lives
Matter. If Trump owns the “militias,” Biden owns antifa, a much more
dangerous group.
Whatever their political persuasion, Americans should note the
far-left ideology behind the violent riots and the president’s tireless
efforts to stand up for law and order. For all his rhetoric attacking
Trump, Biden appears unwilling to denounce antifa and Black Lives
Matter.
Opposing anarchy and violent rioters should not be a partisan issue.
It is utterly horrifying that one major political party and its
presidential candidate have proven unwilling to condemn the anarchists
behind the riots.
Biden has talked about “restoring the soul of America,” but if he is
unwilling to stand up for law and order against antifa, many American
cities won’t have a soul to restore. Americans may not like Donald Trump
— I couldn’t bring myself to vote for him in 2016 — but the country
needs law and order. Voters are right to be concerned for the safety of
their communities, and only one candidate is standing up to the
anarchists endangering that safety.
Seventy-five years after the formal surrender of Japan on the USS Missouri,
it is a little difficult to get one's arms around how much has changed
since then. In the 75 years from V-J Day to today, America has changed,
from united as we have ever been to disunited as we have ever been.
In
1945, enemy cities were firebombed; in 2020, American cities are
firebombed. In 1945, food was strictly rationed; in 2020, food is
plentiful, but local authorities mandate conditions under which
restaurants can operate. In 1945, the nation mourned when President
Roosevelt died; in 2020, a large chunk of the American nation wants to
see President Trump dead.
In
1945, the mindset of Americans was essentially stoic: our troops made
two major amphibious assaults (at Iwo Jima and Okinawa), and likely a
third, on the Japanese mainland before 1946. They and American
civilians stoically performed their respective duties, the latter almost
100 per cent unified behind the war effort and its sacrifices in blood
and treasure. They understood the existential threat to the American
way of life.
After
75 years of increasing material plenty and comfort, many Americans have
become risk-averse to the extreme. Students the age of those who
landed on Okinawa need safe spaces on campus. The COVID-19 epidemic
recedes, but many local authorities are guided by risk aversion, and
many constituents accept their mandates out of fear. School systems
face labor unrest because teachers fear possible health dangers. As one
has said: "I didn't sign up to be a martyr!"
Other
Americans, after six months of government-enforced lockdown and three
months of government-tolerated burning and looting of business
districts, have had enough.
The
stoicism of the wartime years has not completely disappeared; it exists
yet in "Flyover Country," far from national media centers. Otherwise,
the mindset is essentially hedonism: everybody has "stuff" and wants
more.
Today's
American people are badly divided to the extent that many believe that a
civil war is near, if not here already: a second civil war (a third, if
one counts the war between Whigs and Tories in 1775–1783) due to
conflicting ideologies and value systems.
How has this breaking apart occurred? As a lifelong observer of the process, I'll attempt an explanation.
As
a kid in postwar America, I participated in the migration from cities
to suburbia. I saw it undertaken primarily by young families, people
who had lived through fifteen years of privation, 1930–1945: first the
Great Depression, then another Great War.
The
demand for suburban housing was stimulated by the desire to start new
families in new places and by easy V.A. home mortgages. On the supply
side, an army of home-builders was recruited from veterans of military
construction units. Our neighborhood showed the result: row upon row of
housing, all built rapidly and from the same design. Also, the defense
industrial base that had made jeeps, tanks, and planes was converted to
passenger car production. People had the opportunity to move to the
suburbs; they took it.
These
postwar neighborhoods were peopled, mostly, by two-parent
families. The dads were war veterans: our little league coach had a bad
limp, the scars on his leg from wounds suffered in Italy. One
neighbor, recently deceased, had been a submariner. Another, still
alive at over 100, was a medic with the First Army from D-Day to V-E
Day. The mothers were all homemakers; everyone was working hard to turn
his home into a dream house.
We
kids played Americans and Nazis rather than cowboys and Indians. We
hadn't the foggiest idea what a Nazi was; we only knew that that they
were bad guys. Even one of the Jewish kids was tagged as a Nazi. No
offense was taken because, again, none of us knew what it meant. We
gave no thought to ethnicity, except that two families, refugees from
the Third Reich, were called "the Germans."
We
had "stuff," but not much of it. Air-conditioning was
unknown. "Eating out" meant putting dogs and burgers on the charcoal
grill in the backyard. The family had one car and one TV. Our small
black-and-white RCA set took forever to come on, and it needed repair
every week. Always the cyclotron or some such broke down and needed a
replacement. The hordes of TV repairmen were themselves among the
hordes of people who had manufactured, operated, or maintained vast
numbers of radios, radars, and sonar systems; their widespread
availability after 1945 was a beneficial, unintended consequence of the
need to teach theoretical and practical electronics to wartime military
personnel.
Kids,
when not playing Americans and Nazis, or pickup baseball, worked around
the house and yard. When old enough, we got jobs for pocket money to
pay for our own "stuff": bats and gloves; transistor radios (when they
came in); and, eventually, cars. We knew that if you wanted something,
you worked for it. Many of us worked after school in the local
supermarket; we stocked the shelves and cleaned up after closing at
six.
That
world existed until maybe twenty years after the War. But something
had been happening to change it. I think I saw it in one neighborhood
mother who, remembering 1930–1945, said, "I don't want my kids to do
without." Another mom struggled to find ways to keep her kids
"entertained" during summer vacations. Obligation was giving way to
entitlement.
As
kids grew older, mothers entered or re-entered the job market. We
became a nation of two-car families. Before long, everybody accumulated
a lot of the aforementioned "stuff." Gradually, hedonism replaced
wartime and postwar stoicism.
As
the kids went to college, quiet postwar America gave way to two social
movements: one for Civil Rights, the other against the Vietnam War. I
witnessed neither firsthand but followed both through The New York
Times, then a credible news source.
I
was at the far side of the Pacific Ocean when "peaceful demonstrators"
attacked armed men, the personnel of the Ohio Army National Guard, at
Kent State University. A few months later, I came home and began
graduate school. The place was a hotbed of leftism, but the inclination
to violence had disappeared.
Looking
back on what has happened in the 50 years after that, it seems that
after Kent State, the fomenters of the "antiwar" violence made a
tactical retreat — replacing confrontation with infiltration (of
institutions) — while keeping to their strategic goal of imposing on
America their own ideas of a radical paradise.
Meanwhile,
consumer goods — many imported from Communist China — have provided
Americans with all the "stuff" they could ever want, many of it goods
and services that had not even been imagined in 1945. School kids have
their cars, but few have worked after school for them; also, they don't
work their off posteriors in school, once the parental criterion for
permission to buy the car in the first place.
All
of that unearned plenty contributes to complacency. And boredom. It
results in a life without principle, but that can no more be sustained
than a vacuum in nature.
Having
been conditioned to reject religion and patriotism, the grandkids of
the kids who called each other "Nazis" (national socialists), whose
fathers had fought the real Nazis, are now calling themselves
socialists, even communists. They don't seem to know what socialism is,
or they simply don't care to learn about it. But they're willing to
fight in the streets to bring it about.
When rioters in Kenosha, Wisconsin last week burned down and looted businesses, the police did not stop them. We have seen this in cities across the country. No storeowner in Democratic-run areas that are subject to a leftist protest, which can “intensify” into riots, can have the slightest hope that the police will keep it from happening.
That being the case, they really have no choice but to defend their property themselves or let it go up in flames. President Trump will not denounce the constitutional right for them to do so, nor should he.
Trump could not have been more clear in his press conference on Monday that he wants police to handle all of law enforcement. Every sane person does. But it is just as clear that many Democratic mayors and governors are refusing to allow police to do so.
In some cases, this is because local law enforcement is overwhelmed, but in too many such cases Democratic mayors playing politics refuse the help of federal law enforcement. Thankfully, in Kenosha, the National Guard went in and quelled the violence, but in Portland help has not only been rejected, but derided, and the violence persists.
Demands for Trump to condemn such actions follow the alleged killing of two protesters by a 17-year-old in Kenosha last week. He had traveled from a nearby town to assist other armed men in defending local businesses.
Now let’s be clear: that teenager should not have had to be there. In normal times, he should have been at a movie with his friends, not in a violent riot zone. But that doesn’t change the basic fact that Americans have the right to use guns to protect their property and property in their communities, especially if the police are not allowed or otherwise unable to do so.
This is a tale as old as America, whether it was homesteaders in the old West, or Korean storeowners during the Los Angeles riots. Americans are not going to see their life’s work destroyed because feckless Democratic mayors refuse to enforce the law. Pretending that armed citizens reacting to widespread destruction by trying to stop felonious behavior and riots are responsible for the riots is as absurd as blaming Trump for them. They are the fault of the leftist rioters themselves, and nobody else.
The corporate media think they have Trump in some kind of trap — as if he has to denounce this or else his criticisms of Biden staffers and Kamala Harris helping bail out rioters are hypocritical. But they aren’t. Telling Americans they have the right to defend their property is still a popular message — maybe not in the Hamptons or among celebrities and Democratic politicians with private security, but it sure is with many, many Americans.
Trump is absolutely correct that defending citizens’ property is a job best done by well-trained professional police. In fact, it is one of the central reasons police, and the government itself, exist at all: to protect private property.
This is why communists who don’t believe in private property want to defund or abolish the police. This is what happens when you defund or abolish the police. People who don’t want to be communists, who want to earn a wage and own property they can call their own, fight for it. That isn’t going to change.
People need to understand that if they try to burn or loot other people’s property, they are in danger of those people using violence to stop them. No matter how many glowing interviews NPR does with authors who find absurd justifications for stealing, people have a right to defend themselves, and they are going to do so.
President Trump is not going to tell them not to. Democrats might. They might say, “Just give the criminals what they want” — in fact, Democrats in Minneapolis literally did that — but no sensible people would even suggest it.
Trump knows he has a winning issue in law and order. It’s been a winning issue longer than the TV show named after it ran, which is a long time. Joe Biden knows it too. It’s why every day he has inched closer to condemning the actions of Black Lives Matter and Antifa without actually doing it.
Something has changed in this election. The media wants to stop that change by making Trump say people aren’t allowed to defend themselves. It’s an absurd notion on its face and shows just how desperate the president’s detractors are becoming.
Reid: “When leaders, lets say in the Muslim world, talk a lot of violent talk, and encourage their supporters to be willing to commit violence… in order to win against whoever they decide is the enemy, we in the US media describe that as they are radicalizing those people, particularly when they are radicalizing young people, that’s how we talk about the way Muslims act.”
Radicalized Muslims are violent?
Huh? I thought Pres. Obama banned such thinking on the left?
I thought Islam was a “Religion of Peace”?
Is Joy Reid secretly a member of Mossad?
How is it that MSNBC can fire a guy like Chris Matthews who — given all his faults as a lefty-liberal commentator — nevertheless had legitimate political insights and opinions from his four decades of involvement and observations of DC politics, and give the imbecilic simpleton — and homophobe — Joy Reid his show slot?
From Vox — which should have been a sympathetic voice:
The posts, for example, suggested — without much, if any, evidence — that Tom Cruise, Karl Rove, and Chief Justice John Robert’s son are gay. Other posts made derogatory remarks about gay people, claiming that “most straight people cringe at the sight of two men kissing” and that “adult gay men tend to be attracted to very young, post-pubescent types.” One post acknowledged, “Does that make me homophobic? Probably.”
These are different from previous blog posts that Reid apologized for in December 2017. In those past posts, Reid wrote that then-Florida Gov. Charlie Crist was gay, nicknamed him “Miss Charlie,” and claimed that he only married a woman for political purposes. Reid said her comments were “insensitive, tone-deaf and dumb….
Instead of apologizing for the more recently resurfaced blog posts, though, Reid at first denied that she posted them altogether. In a statement to Mediate on Monday, Reid said that the blog posts were the work of hackers and “part of an effort to taint my character with false information by distorting a blog that ended a decade ago.”
There was always reason to be skeptical of the claim. For one, the blog posts were archived by internet crawlers and, in those archives, really dated to the mid-to-late 2000s — a time when Reid wasn’t an MSNBC host or even a widely known national figure, raising questions about why someone would bother hacking her. This helped elevate the controversy further, as even some of Reid’s supporters questioned why she didn’t apologize instead of making assertions that have no evidence behind them and that many find literally unbelievable.
Reid herself acknowledged the skepticism on her show on Saturday: “When a friend found [the posts] in December and sent them to me, I was stunned. Frankly, I couldn’t imagine where they’d come from or whose voice that was. In the months since, I’ve spent a lot of time trying to make sense of these posts. I hired cybersecurity experts to see if somebody had manipulated my words or my former blog. And the reality is they have not been able to prove it.”
That’s just doubling-down on stupid.
I hope she has those “experts” on speed-dial so they can get right on finding out who hacked into her show and “manipulated” her lips and voice to have her say “Radicals Muslims are violent.”
Some on the left and in media (forgive the redundancy) are fond of denying the involvement of Antifa folks being behind the BLM riot violence.
There are, of course, a lot of things to refute this. But if you see anyone pushing that nonsense, send them this story.
According to WBay, the police in Green Bay, Wisconsin were called because of a report of “a whole bunch of white people with sticks, baseball bats and helmets headed… towards the police.” They were headed to a BLM demonstration. Naturally the police chief, Andrew Smith, viewed having bats a little askance. “I don’t know who comes to a protest with a baseball bat for anything other than criminal or illegal activity,” he said.
Police saw the people including a man wearing a metal helmet with goggles and military-style gear with multiple pouches, carrying an Antifa flag.
When the police pulled up, they all ran, but the police caught 23 year old Matthew Banta who was carrying the flag. They said when they caught him, he “dropped into the fetal position and began crying.”
😂😂 "Why no, ossifer, I wasn't going to riot" said the man with a metal helmet, baseball bat, fireworks and flamethrower. He then curled up in a fetal position and said the cop sat on him.
How on target is that? Antifa, tough guys until caught, then little babies.
Banta allegedly also had a flamethrower, smoke grenades and fireworks, according to police and prosecutors.
He was charged with obstructing an officer and two counts of felony bail jumping.
According to the complaint, Banta “is known to be a violent Antifa member who incites violence in otherwise relatively peaceful protests.” Police say he’s known as “Commander Red.”
Banta denied that he was going to cause trouble but he actually had a prior arrest earlier in the month.
Banta is accused in Waupaca County of pointing a loaded gun at a police officer and biting and kicking an officer during a protest earlier this month. He’s charged there with second-degree recklessly endangering safety and four other charges (see related story). He posted a $10,000 cash bond. A condition of his bond was that he can’t have a dangerous weapon, according to the Brown County district attorney’s office.
“It’s worrisome when people associated with Antifa come here to Green Bay from out of town for the purpose of protesting here or for the purposes of committing violent acts,” said Chief Smith.
He allegedly had a loaded rifle in the prior incident and allegedly started to raise it toward the officer before he was taken down. Police also said he had a knife. He was bailed out from that which gave him the opportunity to be out for this new incident.
Given this and the prior charges, looks like “Commander Red” the Crying Antifa may be looking at some time, if convicted.
When asked about people inciting violence, the local Black Lives United group said that they saw rioting as “reinforcing the state of emergency we are in.”
“BLU is not discouraged by the way folks are grieving…we are in this together. We don’t see rioting as taking away from our message because it actually reinforces the state of emergency that we are in. Folks out in the streets screaming #BlackLivesMatter and their names – we see you and the risk you are taking on behalf of all of us. We honor the lives of Black people taken from us by law enforcement. We say their names and continue to hold our government, elected officials, allies and adversaries accountable to these murders and attempted murders until there are policies passed that uplift Black folks and invest in our communities. We will eradicate white supremacy. We will build local power to intervene in violence inflicted on Black communities by state and vigilantes. It is our duty,” reads a statement from the group.
Airline pilots have reported seeing a "guy in a jet pack" flying 3,000ft in the air above Los Angeles.
The
FBI is investigating following the sighting from two pilots on separate
flights near Los Angeles International Airport on Sunday.
Several US media outlets obtained a recording of communications
between the pilots and air traffic control, which revealed details of
the incident.
In the recording, one pilot says: "Tower, American 1997. We just passed a guy in a jet pack."
The controller responds: "America 1997, okay - were they off to your left side or right side?"
The pilot says: "Off the left side, maybe 300 yards or so, about our altitude."
A few seconds later, another pilot tells the tower: "We just saw the guy pass by us in a jet pack."
The controller then urges the pilot of a JetBlue flight to "use
caution", adding: "Person in a jet pack reported 300 yards south of the
LA final at about 3,000ft."
An unidentified person then says: "Only in LA."
America's aviation regulator, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), confirmed the sighting.
In
a statement to NBC News, it said: "Two airline flight crews reported
seeing what appeared to be someone in a jet pack as they were on their
final approaches to LAX around 6.35pm (local time) [on] Sunday.
"The FAA alerted local law enforcement to the reports, and is looking into these reports."
The FBI's Los Angeles Field Office also confirmed it was aware of the sighting and is investigating, NBC News reported.
DOJ Spokesperson Kerri Kupek appears with Martha MacCallum to discuss the ongoing DOJ and FBI efforts to track, trace and identify the groups and individuals carrying out domestic political violence.
Ms. Kupek focuses discussion on FBI investigative efforts to follow the funding mechanism and money trail behind violent groups like Antifa and Black Lives Matter.
Personal Note – Ms. Kerri Kupek is a committed, solid and professional person representing the institution of the DOJ and her immediate boss, Attorney General Bill Barr. As such Kupec is not obtuse, intellectually disingenuous or prone to subject avoidance; however, she is also representing a flawed and fractured institution that still contains considerable elements of corruption.
Universities and colleges have long been indoctrinating that whiteness
is an evil that must be shamed into the corner and apologized for. At
first a subtle approach was used to propagate this message. In that way
this radical concept was able to fly under the radar of the
general public and thereby invoke little resistance. But as time went
on, its promoters in the seats of higher learning became bolder and
bolder. What was once implied or presented only in between the lines was
made explicit. Before you knew it, "White is Evil" was formalized into a
doctrine of politically correct belief that was not to be questioned on
campus.
Following
the lead of the universities, many corporations and government agencies
fell in line. They started putting their employees through training
programs to insure that even the most unrepentant of whites learned of
their 1) privilege and 2) culpability in the sins of Western
Civilization. This
brainwashing has now even seeped down to the lowest levels of the K-12 public school system.
Many
people now feel ashamed of being Caucasian and go through life carrying
the burden of white guilt on their shoulders. The late Susan Sontag
claimed the white race is "the cancer of human history." That's an
insane thought, but through their positions in the universities and
media, leftists have been propagating this very idea. Unfortunately, it
has take root with far too many. This is especially true of the young
who have been subjected to more intense brainwashing than older
generations. But self-hatred goes against human nature, so why are many
susceptible to believing such a counter-intuitive idea? It's because of
two other human traits.
It begins with envy. In his book Envy: A Theory of Social Behavior, sociologist
Helmut Schoeck writes: "Envy is a drive which lies at the core of man's
life as a social being." He also repeats the obvious that envy is a
destructive force. This is why the Church lists it as one of the Seven Deadly Sins.
Envy
can occur when there is a gap between individuals or between one group
and another. The gap can be in various things -- beauty, personality,
income, achievement, etc. The greater the gap, the greater the potential
for envy. Take Europe as one example. Europeans believe they are the
pinnacle of civilization and should be recognized as such. Yet they
stand in the shadow of America's power, wealth, and dominance of the
popular culture. As a result Western Europe deeply envy America which
explains much of its knee-jerk animus towards this country.
But
it's the flip-side of the envy coin that explains why so many people
are susceptible to the white guilt propaganda. It is the fear of being
envied by others. This has been well articulated by Jack Wheeler http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/612852/posts who writes at ToThePointNews. He notes that the fear of envy is "very deep-seated in the human psyche."
Fear
is a powerful motivator. Wheeler says an inordinate fear of being
envied is what drives liberals and those infected by the liberal
mentality to go into an envy-appeasement mode. And the more pampered and
well off they are, the more they grovel. They apologize for their sex
if they are males, for their race if they're white, for their religion
if they're Christian, for their country if they're Americans, and even
for Western Civilization. Fear of being envied by others is the fertile
soil from which the weeds of white guilt take root and grow.
One
final point worth mentioning. Schoeck makes an insightful comparison
between jealousy and envy. This is pertinent to what is going on in the
country today. He says the jealous man wants to take the achievements or
possessions of another. The envious man, however, is different.
...
the envier has little interest in the transfer of anything of value
from the other's possession to his own. He would like to see the other
person robbed, dispossessed, stripped, humiliated or hurt, but he
practically never conjures up a detailed mental picture of how a
transfer of the other's possession to himself might occur.
Accordingly,
the rioters and anarchists are tormented by two inner demons. One is
the envy of normal, middle-class society. This explains much of the
vandalism of historic monuments and statutes and the disorders in many
cities. Antifa is not trying to possess anything although some
opportunists do take advantage of the chaos to steal. Rather they are
acting out an nihilistic urge is to destroy for the sake of destroying.
Their attitude is basically "if I can't have a peaceful middle class
life-style, it, you can't have it, either."
The
other demon driving them is white guilt based on the fear of being
envied by the underclass. By lashing out at the system that shelters,
nourishes, and yes, even babies them, individuals in Antifa are trying
to appease the envy of those less fortunate born than they. They use
the police shooting of blacks as a pretext for this posturing. The
message they're trying to convey is: "See. See. I hate 'the man' as much
as you do. Please don't envy me.
The man who never passes up a chance to denounce his fellow Republicans over what he deems “appalling” behavior has yet to say a single word to denounce the harassment Rand Paul and his wife faced from BLM/Antifa.
It has been five days since Senator Rand Paul and his wife were harassed and threatened outside of the White House after President Trump’s acceptance speech. And while most of the attention has been on Senator Kamala Harris’ appalling silence in response to her colleague’s attack, some are wondering why Mitt Romney isn’t out there in the spotlight every day denouncing it as “appalling.”
I mean, Lord knows Mitt sees himself as our moral better. You’d think a violent attack on a man with whom he works every day would prompt some kind of self-righteous indignation. After all, Mitt loves to run to the nearest camera to denounce appalling behavior while telling us all how appalled he is.
So his appalling silence is a real head-scratcher.
Or is it?
Fact is, Mitt tends to reserve his sanctimonious pearl-clutching for his fellow Republicans – most notably, President Trump.
He gets appalled so often by this President, I began referring to him as Appalling Mitt Romney.
Since BLM/Antifa are not Republican, nor are they supported or defended by Trump, it stands to reason that all we’d get from Appalling Mitt is appalling silence.
Remember, Mitt was one of the gullible saps who tripped all over himself to join the Black Lives Matter Marxists in DC back in June – for which he received slobbering praise from his fellow appallingly silent Senator, Kamala Harris.
Did you really expect Mitt to utter a single negative word about those same Black Lives Matter and Antifa rioters harassing his Senate colleague?
Not on the likely.
Now, I have absolutely no doubt that if the reverse were to happen – namely a MAGA-hat-wearing crowd swarming and harassing say Senator Mazie Hirono — Mitt would be elbowing his Senate colleagues out of the way to be the first one to denounce it on cable news.
There’s a reason I called Mitt “John McCain: The Next Generation” when he first announced his run for the Senate. Romney, like McCain, believes he embodies “the conscience of the Republican Party.” And by that I mean, “Attack Republicans relentlessly in order to get the slobbering praise of Democrats and their media handmaids.”
Denouncing BLM/Antifa thugs who went after his colleague will not get him an ounce of praise.
So instead all we hear from Mitt Romney is appalling silence.
Honestly, I do not understand why Utahans sent this carpet-bagging media whore to Washington. But I sure wish they hadn’t.
*Always take polling numbers with a grain of salt but please remember what Donald Trump was able to do with an even smaller Black voter outreach last time !
President Trump’s
approval rating among Black voters jumped by 60% during the Republican
National Convention even as Democrats and progressives sought to brand
the Republican president as racist.
A HarrisX-Hill poll released Friday showed Mr. Trump’s
net approval with Black voters from Aug. 22-25, which included the
first two days of the RNC, rose to 24%, up from 15% in the pollster’s
Aug. 8-11 survey.
The poll also found his approval rating among
Hispanic voters during the same period increased slightly from 30% to
32%, while his support among White voters decreased by the same margin,
ticking down from 54% to 52%.
The president’s overall approval rating remained underwater at 44%, but the surge of support from Black voters may reflect Mr. Trump’s outreach to minority communities as well as the convention’s showcasing of conservative Black lawmakers and luminaries.
Sen. Tim Scott, South Carolina Republican, was
featured prominently Monday, the first night of the RNC, while Kentucky
Attorney General Daniel Cameron gave a speech Tuesday challenging some
of former Vice President Joseph R. Biden’s pronouncements on race.
“Mr. Vice President, look at me,” the
Republican Cameron said. “I am Black. We are not all the same, sir. I am
not in chains. My mind is my own. And you can’t tell me how to vote
because of the color of my skin.”
Other Black speakers included Housing and Urban
Development Secretary Ben Carson; former NFL players Jack Brewer,
Burgess Owens and Herschel Walker; Democratic Georgia state Rep. Vernon
Jones, and Kim Klacik, a Republican congressional candidate to fill the
seat formerly held by the late Rep. Elijah Cummings, Maryland Democrat.
Some of them spoke after the poll concluded on Tuesday.
MSNBC host Joy Reid tweeted during the
convention that Republicans had “trotted out” Black speakers “to make
white Americans feel good about white nationalism.”
Mr. Trump has sought to increase his minority outreach after winning 8% of the Black vote and 29% of the Hispanic vote in 2016.
The HarrisX-Hill online weighted poll of 2,861 voters had a sampling margin of error of 1.83%.
