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March 5, 2023 23 people, including alegal observer with the National Lawyers Guild, were charged with domestic terrorism mud on shoes?

Tortugita killed in tent? cop audio suggest execution?

this is really BLM 3?

see SPLC

andy ngo antifa BS

BTB ichh 1/23

FBI Director cites NSPM-7 as enabling crackdown on left-leaning activists.

THE White House wanted investigations into those it describes as left-wing activists and the groups that fund them. And now, FBI Director Kash Patel says, the FBI is delivering.

The FBI is investigating funding associated with left-wing activism, Patel confirmed to longtime podcaster and brief FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino on his recently revived streaming show.

“This FBI, thanks to what we stood up over the last year, has made significant headway under the NSPM-7 process in looking at those who funded these streams,” Patel told Bongino, adding that the bureau is “starting to arrest people who used their funds to incite violence in the guise of political peaceful protest.”

The White House issued NSPM-7 in September, a presidential memo that directed federal law enforcement to investigate ideologies — naming those who espouse “anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity” — as potential sources of political violence. That memo has been operationalized in part through several terrorism prosecutions, TPM reported this month. Patel’s remarks suggest that the FBI is implementing the memo to investigate funding sources for left-leaning activist groups.

At the same time, it’s Kash Patel. He’s more a streamer than a law enforcer. Bongino’s brief tenure at the FBI — during which he memorably complained about the workload before the administration took the unprecedented step of appointing a “co-deputy director” to assist him — testifies to some of this. Beyond that, Patel is operating in Trumpworld, a universe where senior officials can curry favor with the president by demonstrating how tough they are in carrying out his fantasies. Even in that credibility-killing environment, Patel has distinguished himself by using his megaphone as FBI director to misstate details in sensitive, ongoing investigations.

One ongoing case that Patel mentioned in Wednesday’s discussion with Bongino is the Prairieland prosecution. The case is the Trump administration’s first terrorism prosecution against a group of people that it has deemed members of “Antifa.” In the case, prosecutors accuse an “Antifa cell” in North Texas of having staged a demonstration outside an ICE detention facility that left one police officer shot and wounded.

After Bongino brought up the case, Patel claimed that there have been more than two dozen federal arrests. Per TPM’s count, sixteen people have been charged in federal court over the incident.

The trial was set to start on Tuesday. But District Judge Mark Pittman for the Northern District of Texas declared a mistrial during jury selection, reportedly after a defense attorney wore a jacket with a T-shirt underneath that featured a picture of Jesse Jackson and other civil rights leaders.

Patel likened the case to the Cop City prosecution in Georgia. There, state prosecutors filed a sprawling RICO indictment against a group of activists that had been protesting the construction of a police training center. Critics accused prosecutors of using the case to silence activists that had no tie to any act of alleged wrongdoing; a judge dismissed the RICO charges in December.

The FBI director said that his agency had to “rearrest everybody” in order to compensate for errors in the state investigation. It’s unclear what he was referring to. No federal charges have been filed in the Cop City case.

He did suggest that his leadership had seen a change in the FBI’s focus to “Antifa,” the chimerical group of beliefs that Trump II leadership has held up as a national, internal enemy.

Federal law enforcement is not only pursuing foreign threats, he said, “but those who cause violence here in America and use the guise of politics to delete that violence.”

Threats from the administration to investigate ideologically opposed charities spread fear in the nonprofit community last year. Some, per TPM’s reporting, sought to move money overseas; others considered whether to incorporate subsidiary fiscal sponsors as separate organizations.

He reminded Bongino that the two of them had “launched a serious investigation” when the podcaster was in government last year.

“We had said these organizations don’t operate alone, don’t operate in silence. They operate with a heavy heavy stream of funding,” Patel said. “And we started looking into it. And guess what, Dan? We found them.”

Josh Kovenskyis an investigative reporter for Talking Points Memo, based in New York. He previously worked for the Kyiv Post in Ukraine, covering politics, business, and corruption there.

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hnn 11 25

Stop Cop City’s Deep Roots

Jonathon Booth

For 150 years, Atlanta has endured racist policing that has served the interest of the city’s economic elite. The fight to resist this goes back just as far. (Inquest)

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MTA 5 25

Cop City Prosecution Raises Concerns Over Protest Rights

Nearly two years after Georgia's largest-ever RICO prosecution against a protest movement began, the case involving 61 activists opposing the Atlanta police training facility known as "Cop City" remains entangled in legal delays and controversy. Defense attorneys argue the prosecution is politically driven, creating a chilling effect on protest rights. The state has missed multiple discovery deadlines and introduced new evidence, further delaying proceedings. Critics fear the trial could set a dangerous precedent for criminalizing association with protest movements. The Guardian

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It Could Happen Here Weekly 102 – Behind the Bastards – Podcast – Podtail (https://podtail.com/podcast/behind-the-bastards/it-could-happen-here-weekly-102/) 6th amend bond bail fund phone # on arm evidence of rico; buying glue means guilty of all the crimes, mud on shoe 48 min in; margaret? 90M$ ; 3 pt series in june; mo cohen sp atty ~ repression; 61 ppl; raid om bail fund; network for strong communities swat raid in may? totugita guilt based on crowdsource noblogs scenes

website 3rd party anonymous;

afs i sent $

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8 23 intercept

atlanta Officials Unveil Onerous Verification Requirements for Cop City Referendum

Prem Thakker

The city outlined its plans for signature verification after organizers collected 100,000 signatures for a vote on the police training facility.

READ MORE →

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https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/right-wing-media-figures-attack-fox-news-over-dominion-lawsuit-revelations}:

mma 3 23

March 5, 23 people, including alegal observer with the National Lawyers Guild, were charged with domestic terrorismafter an intense demonstration against a planned police training facility in Atlanta. Tom Jurgens, an employee of the Southern Poverty Law Center who was there as a legal observer with the National Lawyers Guild, has been the target of a right-wing media smear campaign claiming that the SPLC condones violence and has colluded with antifa.

Far-right activist Andy Ngo posted about the SPLC connection to one of those arrested on Twitter on March 6, and prominent right-wing media figures including Tucker Carlson and Jack Posobiec picked it up.

The confrontation with police occurred during a music festival held as part of a week of action in opposition to “Cop City,” a $90 million facility that many say was approved largely absent community input. Atlanta is already a highly policed area, and the facility will uproot parts of a culturally significant forest that is one of Atlanta’s largest remaining green spaces in a predominantly low-income, Black area.

According to police, hundreds of activists broke away from the concert and breached the site of the project. Footage from the construction site appears to show construction equipment on fire while protesters threw rocks and fireworks at police. Music festival attendees and community organizers alleged that arrests were made “indiscriminately” at the festival, which was about a mile away from the training facility and occurred an hour after the action took place. According to an attorney for some of the defendants, there has yet to be a charge for arson or interference with government property and arrest warrants cited evidence such as activists simply having mud on their shoes.

Police initially arrested 35 people. In response to Jurgens' arrest, SPLC President and CEO Margaret Huang said in a statement:

“Tom was performing a public service, documenting potential violations of protesters’ rights. We are outraged that police officers present at the protest refused to acknowledge Tom’s role as a legal observer and instead chose to arrest him.”

Right-wing media are trying to delegitimize SPLC by suggesting it condones hate and violence and falsely claiming the group helped coordinate the event:

Andy Ngo, who has covered the protest extensively on social media and accused legal observers of “helping antifa in the violent conspiracies,” has also acknowledged his disdain for SPLC based on the center’s criticism of him. The center has called out Ngo for trafficking “in politically charged disinformation,” accepting money from a Polish cultural center for giving an anti-antifa speech in Warsaw, and being friendly with the far-right Hungarian government.

Ngo’s fixation on antifa and SPLC has helped spur responses from lawmakers. In 2021, his coverage of clashes between the Proud Boys and left-wing activists in Portland, where he was allegedly attacked by demonstrators, was an impetus for Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-TX) bill to designate antifa as a terrorist organization. On March 8, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) introduced similar legislation to declare antifa a terrorist organization, and Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) said he wanted to open an investigation into the FBI’s reliance on SPLC to identify extremist threats.

This is not the first time right-wing media have come after SPLC

SPLC is a legal advocacy organization that focuses on civil rights and is widely considered to be an authoritative voice on extremism. The center identifies and tracks hate groups and has helped law enforcement and the FBI respond to them.

The center has drawn the ire of right-wing media for calling out hate speech from conservative groups in the past. In 2017, FoxNews.com promoted the false accusation that SPLC added a conservative writer to a “hate list,” when it simply noted that she has been a guest on a radio show produced by the anti-LGBTQ hate group Family Research Council. FRC and other hate groups have united to smear SPLC for accurately labeling them as such. FRC’s official position is that “homosexual conduct is harmful to the persons who engage in it and to society at large” and “is by definition unnatural.”

In 2012, FRC tried to blame SPLC for a shooting that took place at its office because the shooter was allegedly motivated by FRC’s anti-LGBTQ hate group label. At the time, FRC President Tony Perkins doubled down on hateful rhetoric saying SPLC needs “to be held accountable, and they need to be stopped before people are killed because of their reckless labeling and advocacy for homosexuality and their anti-Christian stance.” Perkins also used the Atlanta incident to denounce SPLC for Jurgens’ presence at the protest. [twt fitton]

there’s a good reason why legal observers are necessary at protests

Opposition to Cop City has already proved fatal. In January, Manuel Terán, a young activist who opposed the project, was killed by Atlanta police under suspicious circumstances. Police maintain that Teran was to blame for the confrontation and shot an officer first.

It’s not uncommon to have legal observers at protests, particularly when tensions between law enforcement and demonstrators are high. According to the New York City Bar Association, the “work includes documenting arrests, use of force, intimidating display of force, denial of access to public spaces like parks and sidewalks, and any other behavior on the part of law enforcement that appears to restrict demonstrators’ ability to express their political views.”

Legal observers have helped protect the rights of protesters in the past. For example, according to The Intercept:

Collecting the names of people arrested at protests is the first step toward ensuring that they have legal representation. During the mass arrests at the 2004 Republican National Convention, those names allowed lawyers to secure a habeas corpus writ for hundreds of protesters who were unlawfully detained by the NYPD, sometimes for days, without access to lawyers.

Legal observers have also been punished for their work in the past. In 2021, 12 legal observers from the National Lawyers Guild sued the New York Police Department, alleging the department violated their constitutional rights at a 2020 protest in the Bronx. Even though the NYPD patrol guide says legal observers are entitled to be present, the observers allege they were prohibited from carrying out their function and even met with violence. In fact, New York City just agreed to pay more than $20,000 each to hundreds of individuals who were trapped by police and attacked with batons and pepper spray during that same protest.

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https://www.huffpost.com/entry/bc-us-police-training-site-protest_n_640666e3e4b079d3eb5d9360

march 6

aTLANTA (AP) — More than 20 people from around the country faced domestic terrorism charges Monday after dozens in black masks attacked the site of a police training center under construction in a wooded area outside Atlanta where one protester was killed in January.

The area has become the flashpoint of ongoing conflict between authorities and left-leaning protesters.

Flaming bottles and rocks were thrown at officers during a protest Sunday at “Cop City,” where 26-year-old environmental activist Manuel Esteban Paez Terán, or “Tortuguita,” was shot to death by officers during a raid at a protest camp in January. Police have said that Tortuguita attacked them, a version that other activists have questioned.

Almost all of the 23 people arrested are from states across the U.S., while one is from Canada and another from France, police said Monday.

Like many protesters, Tortuguita was dedicated to preserving the environment, friends and family said, ideals that clashed with Atlanta’s hopes of building a $90 million Atlanta Public Safety Training Center meant to boost preparedness and morale after George Floyd’s death in 2020.

Now, authorities and young people are embroiled in a clash that appears to have little to do with other high-profile conflicts.

Protesters who oppose what detractors call “Cop City” run the gamut from more traditional environmental environmentalists to young, self-styled anarchists seeking clashes with what they see as an unjust society.

Defend the Atlanta Forest, a social media site used by members of the movement, said Monday on Twitter that those arrested were not violent agitators “but peaceful concert-goers who were nowhere near the demonstration.” A representative of a public-relations firm involved in the group’s events said that it could not immediately comment.

After “Tortuguita” was killed, demonstrations spread to downtown Atlanta. A police cruiser was set ablaze, rocks were thrown and fireworks were launched at a skyscraper that houses the Atlanta Police Foundation. Windows were shattered. The governor declared a state of emergency.

On Sunday, Atlanta Police Chief Darin Schierbaum said at a midnight news conference, pieces of construction equipment were set on fire in what he called “a coordinated attack” at the site for the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center in DeKalb County.

Surveillance video released by police shows a piece of heavy equipment in flames. It was among several destroyed pieces of construction gear, police said.

Protesters also threw rocks, bricks, Molotov cocktails, and fireworks at police, officials said. In addition, demonstrators tried to blind officers by shining green lasers into their eyes, and used tires and debris to block a road, the Georgia Department of Public Safety said Monday.

Officers used nonlethal enforcement methods to disperse the crowd and make arrests, Schierbaum said, causing “some minor discomfort.”

Along with classrooms and administrative buildings, the training center would include a shooting range, a driving course to practice chases and a “burn building” for firefighters to work on putting out fires. A “mock village” featuring a fake home, convenience store and nightclub would also be built for rehearsing raids.

Opponents have said that the site would be to practice “urban warfare,” and the 85-acre (34-hectare) training center would require cutting so many trees that it would be environmentally damaging.

Many activists also oppose spending millions on a police facility that would be surrounded by poor neighborhoods in a city with one of the nation’s highest degrees of inequality.

Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens has said that the site was cleared decades ago for a former state prison farm. He has said that it is filled with rubble and overgrown with invasive species, not hardwood trees. The mayor also has said that while the facility would be built on 85 acres, about 300 others would be preserved as public green space.

Many of those already accused of violence in connection with the training site protests are being charged with domestic terrorism, a felony that carries up to 35 years in prison.Those charges have prompted criticism from some that the state is being heavy-handed.

Lawmakers are considering classifying domestic terrorism as a serious violent felony. That means anyone convicted must serve their entire sentence, can’t be sentenced to probation as a first offender and can’t be paroled unless they have served at least 30 years in prison.

Meanwhile, more protests are planned in coming days, police said Monday.

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https://truthout.org/articles/mayor-attempts-to-reframe-cop-city-as-environmentally-beneficial/

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https://truthout.org/video/atlantas-cop-city-moves-forward-as-19-people-face-domestic-terrorism-charges/

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Right-wing media are vilifying a group of environmental activists known as Defend the Atlanta Forest, particularly Manuel Terán, a member who was shot and killed by Atlanta police on January 18, falsely portraying the group as having a strictly anti-police objective.

The commentary is no surprise coming from media figures who have repeatedly derided young climate activists both in Europe and in the United States who were engaging in nonviolent protest.  

Twenty-six-year-old Terán, whose pronouns were they/them and was known as “Tortuguita” by family and friends, was killed while occupying an urban forest south-east of Atlanta. The area occupied by activists is set to be destroyed to make way for a movie studio and a $90 million police training facility known by many as “Cop City.” The Georgia Bureau of Investigation said that Tortuguita shot a Georgia State Patrol officer before being killed; Defend the Atlanta Forest disputes this claim, and no body camera footage has been released. Following Tortuguita’s death, opponents of Cop City took to the streets and damaged property, including an empty police car, in protest.

Right-wing media deliberately mischaracterized the goals of Defend the Forest

Defend the Atlanta Forest describes itself as an “autonomous movement” aiming to preserve land with ties to the Muscogee Nation — land which represents a long history of injustice. Right-wing media insisted that those occupying the forest were motivated by anti-police sentiment, trying to justify the killing.

On January 24, John Roberts, co-anchor of Fox News’ America Reports, asked whether protesters were “more … about being anti-police than being pro-environment” and parroted far-right commentator Andy Ngo, who called them “spoiled children of privilege trying to burn Atlanta down” in the New York Post. On Newsmax, on January 23, journalist Carolyn Ryan also echoed the idea that the activists only “claim” to want to protect the old-growth forest. Speaking with Roberts on January 24, Juan Williams, who for years served as a “liberal” co-host on Fox News’ The Five, said that “no question these people are from out of city, out of state” and that he hopes the protesters are “put down.”  

The brutal murder of Tyre Nichols at the hands of police in neighboring Tennessee showed us, once again, that police use excessive and deadly force under questionable circumstances. Yet without footage, right-wing media have unquestioningly accepted the Atlanta police’s narrative.

On January 23, OAN host Dan Ball called the protesters “environmental whackos” and “defund-the-police Nazis” and insisted, despite conflicting information from Defend the Forest, on characterizing police’s behavior toward the group as peaceful. He also claimed that “police and witnesses” saw Tortuguita shoot first, not mentioning that the only witnesses were the police. 

“They had no right to be in that forest,” said Fox News host Jenine Pirro, referring to the protesters on the January 24 segment of Hannity. “Someone from there shoots a cop and that’s what started the whole thing. … They turned it into police violence.”

Attacks fit a pattern of vitriol toward climate activists around the world

Right-wing media have similarly smeared grassroots groups that are loudly demanding climate justice. Just Stop Oil, Last Generation, and Extinction Rebellion, which participated in protests throughout 2022 and in 2023, where theyblocked roads and threw food on well-known works of art, have drawn outrage from the right, with some influencers suggesting they should be physically punished for their radical, yet peaceful, tactics.

:{:{The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh and former Daily Caller writer Greg Price have suggested that these activists be dismembered, “beaten with a bullwhip, or forced into “labor camps where they spend all day drilling for oil.}:” :{Frequent Fox News guest and climate change denier Steve Milloy called climate activists “enemies of humanity.}:”

The Washington Free Beacon put forth the absurd notion that Democrats would soon storm the Capitol over climate change policy. And in an October 14 segment of Tucker Carlson Tonight, Carlson suggested that they should be monitored by the FBI. }:

Fox News Digital writer Thomas Catenaccioften writes about activists embracing extreme tactics. In July, Catenacci falsely claimed that climate activists had embraced “violence” as the “deadline to 'save the planet' draws near.” It’s not uncommon for Fox News journalists to vilify activists who support causes they oppose while defending or downplaying extreme and violent actions of activists whose causes they support.

Antifa, the right’s favorite scapegoat, has become part of the conversation as well, with media figures referring to the movement and forest defenders interchangeably to fearmonger about the protests. 

Neo-nazi collaborator Jack Posobiec portrayed Defend the Atlanta Forest as antifa, which right-wing figures have blamed for the January 6 insurrection, as well as other violent incidents.

Fox host Jesse Watters alleged on December 16, without evidence and before the shooting even took place, that Defend the Atlanta Forest was “plotting to kill cops” and that the protesters were “all card-carrying members of antifa.”

Over the past few years, antifa has been used to detract attention from the climate crisis and its impacts. In September 2020, podcaster Joe Rogan and other misinformers blamed antifa for wildfires on the West Coast,and climate activists were similarly blamed for wildfires during Europe’s extreme heat wave this past summer. The right wants people to think climate activists are dangerous, and it seems they’re willing to say anything to support that.

Some right-wing figures have targeted climate activists with vile personal attacks

Tortuguita’s gender identity has been a subject of scrutiny for right-wing media since their death, seemingly for no reason other than to further antagonize networks’ prejudiced audiences. On the January 25 episode of Newsmax’s Tipping Point, guest and right-wing journalist Pedro Gonzalez was upset that some media outlets called Totuguita by their nickname and used their preferred pronouns: “It’s kind of ridiculous, but PBS did all their coverage by referring to him using his they/it pronouns and his preferred nickname.” 

On January 23, Newsmax host Jenn Pellegrino acknowledged Tortuguita’s pronouns but continued to misgender them, seemingly on purpose, as did most of the right-wing shows covering the story. Newsmax host Rob Schmitt on January 23 said that “cutting down trees to train more cops is almost as offensive as intentionally misgendering somebody,” adding that antifa “descended on Atlanta to defend trees from fascism.”

Right-wing media have also found other ways to insult young protesters and connect climate change to culture war issues like gender, beauty standards, and mental illness. In a nauseating November 22 segment of Gutfeld!, host Greg Gutfeld compared activists to Charles Manson and lamented that “it’s not just gender that’s no longer binary; it’s sanity. … In the old days, they’d be carted off, placed in comfy cells with padded walls.” 

The foulness continued as conservative “comedian” Jamie Lissow said of the group Last Generation, “No one is banging these girls.” “You know what kills me about them? They could be attractive,” said Gutfeld. “But they hate all, like, patriarchal standards of beauty,” he concluded.

Almost no one is a better example of this than 19-year-old Greta Thunberg, whom right-wing media influencers have mocked for her autism diagnosis, calling her psychotic and mentally ill, and even advocating violence against her.

The right is coming for your right to assemble

By framing protesters as violent, aggressive, and mentally ill, right-wing media figures are making excuses for state efforts to criminalize civil disobedience in response to climate change protests and public outrage over violent and racist policing. 

Cop City is funded by the Atlanta Police Foundation, which has a slew of corporate donors and has helped make Atlanta the most surveilled city in the U.S. In 2020, a report found that fossil fuel companies including Chevron and Shell and the banks that fund them are donors for police foundations across the country. 

As journalist Dharna Noor noted in Atmos, “Police exist primarily to protect existing structures and institutions. They are deployed to defend the exploitation of the land’s resources—like what is happening in Atlanta.” 

And Republican state lawmakers are actively trying to hinder lawful opposition. Since 2020, eight states have enacted laws that increase penalties and charges for either interfering with oil and gas activity or disturbing meetings of government officials. Iowa, Oklahoma, and Florida have all passed laws protecting motorists who hit protesters. 

Nineteen forest defenders have been charged with domestic terrorism. But according to Grist, nine are “alleged to have committed no specific crime beyond misdemeanor trespassing,” or tree-sitting.They’re facing five to 35 years in prison.

Right-wing media and politicians are sending a clear message: If they had their way, exercising your right to protest could be a death sentence, if the thing you’re protesting doesn’t kill you first.

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