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patriot prayer

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">see joey gibson</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">adl</font></div><div><p paraeid="{e259ce1f-bf47-4830-8e08-22abb2d4f770}{201}" paraid="1154428463" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.875rem; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">WASHINGTON STATE:</font></strong></p><p paraeid="{e259ce1f-bf47-4830-8e08-22abb2d4f770}{201}" paraid="1154428463" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.875rem; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;">Joe Kent will be the Republican nominee for the U.S. House seat representing Washington State's 3rd District. One day after his win was announced, Kent appeared on&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.adl.org/resources/backgrounder/steve-bannon-five-things-know" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large; box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: underline solid var(--secondary-lighten) 0.0625rem; text-underline-offset: 0.3125rem; word-break: break-word;">Steve Bannon's</a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;">&nbsp;podcast, where he said, "We are at war [with the left]," adding,&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/we-are-at-war-so-much-for-the-gop-general-election-pivot-to-the-middle/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large; box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: underline solid var(--secondary-lighten) 0.0625rem; text-underline-offset: 0.3125rem; word-break: break-word;">"We have to go after these people."</a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;">&nbsp;&nbsp;<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Kent has ties to&nbsp;</span></span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><a href="https://twitter.com/joekent16jan19/status/1409886319120113685?s=20&t=EdMREq7BlxIiTPwZG3K5wg" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large; box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: underline solid var(--secondary-lighten) 0.0625rem; text-underline-offset: 0.3125rem; word-break: break-word;">and has praised</a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;">&nbsp;the putatively religious far-right group Patriot Prayer and its leader, Joey Gibson, who spoke at a Kent fundraising event in June 2021. &nbsp;Gibson and Patriot Prayer often appear alongside other right-wing extremist groups in the Pacific Northwest, including the&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.adl.org/resources/backgrounder/proud-boys-0" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large; box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: underline solid var(--secondary-lighten) 0.0625rem; text-underline-offset: 0.3125rem; word-break: break-word;">Proud Boys</a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;">&nbsp;and Washington State&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.adl.org/resources/backgrounders/three-percenters" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large; box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: underline solid var(--secondary-lighten) 0.0625rem; text-underline-offset: 0.3125rem; word-break: break-word;">Three Percenters</a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">. </span>Kent attended and spoke at the March 5, 2022 “GRIT” (Government Resistance Impedes Tyranny) event at the Washington State Capitol and&nbsp;</span><a href="https://twitter.com/joekent16jan19/status/1500518519028387842?s=20&t=EdMREq7BlxIiTPwZG3K5wg" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large; box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: underline solid var(--secondary-lighten) 0.0625rem; text-underline-offset: 0.3125rem; word-break: break-word;">posted about his participation on Twitter</a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;">. &nbsp;The rally was hosted by anti-government extremist group Washington State Three Percenters.&nbsp;</span></p></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">an 621 ah</font></div><div><div id="sPost_0_0_7_0_20_3_1_0_0_0_1_0" class="post-partial articlesplash-custom" style="margin-bottom: 40px; position: relative; overflow: hidden !important;"><div class="post-splash-custom clearfix" data-attr-layout_copylink="inactive" data-attr-show_around_the_web="true" data-attr-all_element_order="headline,photo_caption,photo_credit,author,date,post_shares,body,primary_tag,subheadline,section,tags,page_views,badges,badges_sponsored,snark_line,like_button,source_link,collection_button,community_comments,follow_button,main_author,community_name,all_sections,date_modified,custom_field_covid_guidelines,custom_field_covid_ann_location_name,custom_field_covid_ann_location_url,custom_field_covid_ann_location_address_more,custom_field_covid_tested_info_url,custom_field_covid_ann_location_address,custom_field_covid_prevention_info_url,custom_field_covid_government_benefits_url,custom_field_covid_expires,custom_field_hide_iterable_takeover,custom_field_covid_government_benefits_service_type_url,custom_field_covid_government_benefits_name,custom_field_covid_government_benefits_audience_name,custom_field_covid_travel_bans,custom_field_covid_government_benefits_provider_name,custom_field_covid_desease_statistics_url,custom_field_covid_covid_updates_guidelines,custom_field_covid_transport_closures,product_prices,product_vendor,product_buy_link,custom_field_is_survey_post,custom_field_survey_text_italic,custom_field_smart_news_headline,custom_field_wevegotissues,custom_field_survey_text_red" data-attr-layout_all_date_format="%B %d, %Y" data-attr-layout_whatsapp="active" data-attr-layout_separator="inactive" data-attr-layout_slack="inactive" data-attr-layout_flipboard="active" data-attr-show_more_button_text="Read More" data-attr-layout_photo_credit="over" data-attr-layout_linkedin="inactive" data-attr-layout_post_shares="bottom" data-attr-layout_pinterest="inactive" data-attr-layout_date="bottom" data-attr-layout_author="bottom" data-attr-show_full_post_body="true" data-attr-layout_photo_caption="over" data-attr-layout_reddit="inactive" data-attr-layout_body="bottom" data-attr-id="sPost_0_0_7_0_20_3_1_0_0_0_1_0" data-attr-all_share_buttons="Flipboard,Facebook,Twitter,Email,Linkedin,SMS,Separator,Slack,GooglePlus,Pinterest,Whatsapp,Reddit,CopyLink,Tumblr" data-attr-layout_headline="top" data-attr-format="splash-custom" data-attr-layout_tumblr="inactive" data-attr-layout_sms="active" data-attr-layout_all_image_crop="16x9" data-attr-layout_googleplus="inactive" data-attr-layout_quality="7" data-attr-header_template="jinja/post/custom-css.html" style="position: relative;"><article elid="2653221078" data-is-frozen="false" class="clearfix page-article sm-mb-1 quality-MD post-2653221078"><div class="row px10" style="margin-bottom: -40px; margin-left: -10px; margin-right: -10px; overflow: hidden;"><div id="col-center" class="col sm-mb-1" style="line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 40px; float: left; box-sizing: border-box; padding-left: 10px; padding-right: 10px; width: 838.693px;"><div class="widgetbody clearfix sm-mt-1" style="margin-bottom: 10px;"><div class="body js-expandable clearfix js-listicle-body css-listicle-body-2653221078" style="margin: auto; width: 654.943px; line-height: 31px;"><div class="body-description"><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On December 21, 2020, far-right extremists — including members of the group Patriot Prayer — breached security when they entered the Oregon State Capitol Building in Salem in order to voice their opposition to COVID-19 restrictions in the Pacific Northwest state. And according to an investigative report released on Wednesday, June 2,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.opb.org/article/2021/06/02/oregon-rep-mike-nearman-intended-to-allow-demonstrators-to-breach-capitol-new-report-suggests/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Oregon&nbsp;<b>State Sen. Mike Nearman</b></a><b>&nbsp;"more likely than not" helped them get into the building, which was closed to the public and locked.</b></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The seven-page report was authored by Melissa Healy, a private attorney, and it came about as a result of complaints against Nearman — a far-right Republican from Polk County. The report reads, "The evidence supports a conclusion that it is more likely than not that Rep. Nearman intentionally aided demonstrators in breaching Capitol security and entering the building on December 21, 2020, when it was closed to the public."</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Although Oregon is a deep blue state — the last Republican to carry Oregon in a presidential election was Ronald Reagan in 1984 — it isn't without its far-right wingnuts and extremists. And the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.opb.org/news/article/patriot-prayer-proud-boys-political-violence-law-enforcement/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">militant Patriot Prayer</a>, which&nbsp;<a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/9/8/21417403/patriot-prayer-explained-portland" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">violently clashed with antifa supporters</a>&nbsp;during the George Floyd protests in Portland in 2020, has been bitterly opposed to COVID-19 restrictions and social distancing measures enacted in Oregon in response to the pandemic. Patriot Prayer are allies of the Proud Boys — another group with a history of violence — and were strong supporters of former President Donald Trump during the 2020 election.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Democrats in the Oregon State Legislature believe that Nearman endangered their safety by helping members of Patriot Prayer and other groups get into the Oregon Capitol Building on December 21, 2020. Some of the demonstrators, according to the report Healy authored, were armed.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Dirk VanderHart, a reporter for Oregon Public Broadcasting, explains, "As lawmakers met in a special legislative session to take up COVID-19 relief that day,&nbsp;<a href="file:///C:/Users/breas/OneDrive/Documents/Windows%20Files%20(PC)/AlterNet%20Folder%202021%20(PC)/One%20man%20is%20accused%20of%20spraying%20officers%20with%20bear%20mace,%20allowing%20the%20crowd%20to%20make%20its%20way%20further%20into%20the%20building.%20Several%20people%20were%20arrested%20before%20the%20Capitol%20was%20cleared,%20and%20members%20of%20the%20crowd%20went%20on%20to%20shatter%20glass%20doors%20and%20assault%20journalists%20outside%20the%20building.%20Nearman,%20meanwhile,%20promptly%20walked%20around%20the%20building%20and%20entered%20on%20the%20opposite%20side%20less%20than%20six%20minutes%20after%20he%20exited,%20the%20report%20says." rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">surveillance footage</a>&nbsp;showed Nearman exiting the locked Capitol Building into a throng of protesters who were trying to get inside the statehouse. In doing so, he appeared to purposely grant entrance to far-right groups demanding an end to ongoing restrictions related to COVID-19."</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to VanderHart, "Shortly after that breach, demonstrators scuffled with state troopers and Salem police. One man is accused of spraying officers with bear mace, allowing the crowd to make its way further into the building. Several people were arrested before the Capitol was cleared, and members of the crowd went on to shatter glass doors and assault journalists outside the building.&nbsp;<b>Nearman, meanwhile, promptly walked around the building and entered on the opposite side less than six minutes after he exited, the report says."</b></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The assault on the U.S. Capitol Building on January 6 made Democratic state lawmakers in Oregon even more troubled by the events of December 21, 2020.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">"More than two-dozen Democratic state representatives filed a workplace complaint against Nearman on January 12," VanderHart notes. "The investigation says that David Hartsfeld, the facility services manager at the Capitol, filed a complaint against Nearman on February 23.</span>"</font></p><div class="around-the-web"><div class="from-your-siteheadline" style="font-weight: 700; text-transform: uppercase;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES</font></div><ul class="around-the-weblist" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; display: inline-block; width: 589.446px; list-style: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><li class="from-your-siteitem"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2021/05/proud-boys-video/" class="from-your-sitelink" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; font-weight: lighter; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px;">The Proud Boys mark their threatening return in Oregon - Alternet.org ›</a></font></font></font></font></li><li class="from-your-siteitem"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2021/05/rep-mike-nearman/" class="from-your-sitelink" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; font-weight: lighter; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px;">Republican lawmaker charged for role in Oregon Capitol riot ... ›</a></li></ul><div class="around-the-webheadline" style="font-weight: 700; text-transform: uppercase; margin-top: 10px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB</font></div><ul class="around-the-weblist" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; display: inline-block; width: 589.446px; list-style: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><li class="around-the-webitem"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/01/us/mike-nearman-oregon-charged-protesters.html" class="around-the-weblink" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; font-weight: lighter; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px;">Representative Mike Nearman of Oregon, Who Let in Protesters, Is ... ›</a></font></font></font></font></li><li class="around-the-webitem"><a href="https://katu.com/news/local/groups-call-for-lawmakers-to-oust-state-rep-mike-nearman" class="around-the-weblink" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; font-weight: lighter; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px;">Groups call for lawmakers to oust state Rep. Mike Nearman | KATU ›</a></li><li class="around-the-webitem"><a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/05/01/992713857/oregon-lawmaker-who-opened-state-capitol-to-far-right-protesters-faces-charges" class="around-the-weblink" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; font-weight: lighter; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px;">Oregon Lawmaker</a></li></ul></div></div></div></div></div></div></article></div></div></div></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ref</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://theintercept.com/2020/09/28/portland-proud-boys-rally-journalists/">https://theintercept.com<b>/2020/09/28/</b>portland-proud-boys-rally-journalists/</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">the&nbsp;<span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: 0.1em; box-shadow: white 0px 1px 0px, rgb(17, 17, 17) 0px 4px 0px; text-transform: uppercase;">&nbsp;PROUD BOYS</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.01em;">&nbsp;</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.01em;">claimed that they would bring legions of dedicated patriots to the city of Portland, Oregon, in a powerful show of strength against their anti-fascist foes, but when the moment of truth came on Saturday, the right-wing gang failed to deliver.</span></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.01em;">
</span></font></div><div data-reactid="217" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Despite weeks of hype and deep concerns over the possibility of severe and deadly violence, the organization, which the Southern Poverty Law Center lists as a hate group, drew a modest crowd of angry men and women,&nbsp;<b>whose brief gathering mostly consisted of swilling cheap beer and hard seltzers and assaulting journalists in a park on the edge of town</b>. The absence of large-scale violence, which has so&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jul/14/proud-boys-far-right-portland-oregon" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">often defined</a>&nbsp;the group’s forays into Portland over the past few years, came as a relief to a city that has been blanketed in wildfire smoke in recent weeks and targeted by the Trump administration as an “<a href="https://theintercept.com/2020/09/22/anarchist-jurisdictions-portland-new-york-seattle/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">anarchist jurisdiction</a>” for its nightly protests against police brutality.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In the run-up to the rally, Gov. Kate Brown declared a state of emergency and established a law enforcement task force led by the Oregon State Police, which reportedly deployed approximately 500 officers to police the event. At most, several hundred people turned out for the demonstration, a far cry from the 20,000 participants and observers the Proud Boys had estimated in their request for a permit — the city&nbsp;<a href="https://www.opb.org/article/2020/09/23/portland-refuses-permit-for-right-wing-groups-sept-26-rally/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">denied</a>&nbsp;the request, citing coronavirus restrictions that cap group gatherings at 50 people.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The events over the weekend show that law enforcement knew how to keep the far-right groups from unleashing violence in Portland all along, they simply chose not to in previous instances,” Michael German, a former FBI agent, now at the Brennan Center, said in an email to The Intercept.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">What the event lacked in numbers, it made up for in paranoia and talk of persecution. Billed as demonstration against “domestic terrorism,” the day’s speakers focused their rage against the left broadly and against the anti-fascist movement known as antifa in particular. Kyle Rittenhouse, the 17-year-old who was charged with two counts of murder after&nbsp;<a href="https://theintercept.com/2020/08/27/tucker-carlson-defends-kenosha-shooter/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">killing two Black Lives Matter protesters</a>&nbsp;and wounding a third in Kenosha, Wisconsin, came up often, as did Aaron Jay Danielson, a supporter of the far-right group Patriot Prayer, who was shot and killed by a self-described anti-fascist in Portland last month.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><span times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" em="em">''This is a war, folks, and we have got to fight back,” Carol Leek, the founder of Oregon Women for Trump, told the crowd. Connecting the day’s events to President Donald Trump’s reelection efforts,<b>&nbsp;Leek railed against the threat of encroaching Marxism and the dangers of “Black supremacy,”</b>&nbsp;<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">while self-styled Proud Boy security guards roamed through the crowd questioning journalists about their affiliations and attempting to intimidate those whose answers they found unsatisfactory.</span></span></p></div><div data-reactid="228" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Police in tactical gear were mustered near overpasses outside Delta Park on the northern edge of the city, but with the exception of occasional visits from a handful of liaison officers, the Proud Boys were largely permitted to police themselves.&nbsp;<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Attendees were well-armed: carrying rifles, sidearms, knives, bats, bear spray, and at least one electrified Taser shield. Nearly all of the demonstrators wore some type of tactical gear. The letters “RWDS,” an abbreviation for “right-wing death squads,” were commonly seen on patches, and there was an abundance of&nbsp;<a href="https://theintercept.com/2020/08/28/kyle-rittenhouse-violent-pro-trump-militias-police/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">pro-police “Thin Blue Line” flags</a>&nbsp;fixed to pickup trucks, body armor, and the merchandise table.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>A handful of gunmen ran a checkpoint near an entrance to the park, and an RV in a Walmart parking lot appeared to serve as a&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/sun_everything/status/1309948066594607104" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">weapons and body armor</a>&nbsp;depot for some of the protesters.</b>&nbsp;Neither attracted attention from the police. Demonstrators also received a load of branded shields from a man driving a box truck who said he was with a group called American Wolf. One of the shields was scooped up by a man who looked to be a middle-aged skinhead, dressed in heavy black boots with white laces. Another shield ended up in the back of a truck that was later pulled over by police. Law enforcement seized several guns from the vehicle and a third shield spray painted with the words “FUCK BLM.”&nbsp;<b>Two of the men in the truck were given criminal citations for possession of loaded firearms in public.</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Authorities also said they were&nbsp;<a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/police-investigate-assault-on-livestreamer-after-far-right-proud-boys-descend-on-portland?source=twitter&via=desktop" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">investigating an incident</a>&nbsp;in which a man was filmed kicking a livestreamer in the face — one of at least three instances in which demonstrators were recorded putting their hands on members of the media. The victim said he was also punched in the head and received a concussion. The assailant, who was also photographed chatting with state police, gave a&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/GMA/status/1310235157669056514" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">casual TV interview</a>&nbsp;after the attack.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">German, who has closely tracked law enforcement response to far-right violence in Portland under the Trump administration said the means for protecting the public have been long clear. “It’s not as if it required aggressive police action, just proper planning, a presence, and a few token citations and weapons seizures made a huge difference,” he said. “Yet, law enforcement still left room for criticism. Allowing the militants to man armed checkpoints and harass and beat journalists and others without interference reinforces the idea that the police condone these armed out-of-state groups coming into Portland and intimidating, threatening, and assaulting residents.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Days before the Proud Boys rally took place,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/23/oregon-portland-pro-trump-protests-violence-texts" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">The Guardian</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2020/09/23/patriot-coalition-far-right-chat-logs-violence/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">Bellingcat</a>, an investigative journalism organization, reported on a trove of leaked chats obtained by anti-fascists in Eugene, Oregon, which showed a network of Pacific Northwest-based pro-Trump and pro-law enforcement activists planning to engage in acts of targeted political violence, including the assassination of elected officials. “People will get shot, stabbed and beat,” one of the members of the so-called Patriot Coalition said in a leaked message</span>. On Saturday, one of the participants in the chat group, a man named David Willis, who had identified legal advocates and the press as “targets,” threatened a reporter while holding a paintball gun. Shane Burley, the experienced Portland-based journalist and author whom Willis targeted, later&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/sep/26/proud-boys-rally-portland-oregon-kate-brown-ted-wheeler-trump" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">described</a>&nbsp;the demonstration as “the most paranoid far right-rally I have ever been to.”</font></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" /></div><a class="InstreamPromo InstreamPromo--promo" href="https://theintercept.com/collections/protests-for-black-lives/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); border-top: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); display: block; margin: 40px 0px 40px -20px; padding: 20px 0px; width: auto !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">
</font><span class="InstreamPromo-text" style="box-sizing: border-box; width: 420px; float: left; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; max-width: 420px;"><span class="InstreamPromo-text-callout" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: normal; display: block; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 5px; text-transform: capitalize;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Read Our Complete Coverage</font></span><span class="InstreamPromo-text-title" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: block; line-height: 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Protests for Black Lives</font></span></span></a><div data-reactid="230" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Despite the low turnout, the Proud Boys sought to paint a picture of a mission accomplished. Standing on the stage with a sunburned face and wide grin, Proud Boy leader Joe Biggs said the rally gave him a “boner,” while National Chair Enrique Tarrio opted for a more measured tone, praising the governor’s decision to declare a state of emergency in interviews with reporters. Both men were involved in ordering the physical removal of an independent journalist. According to a detailed, firsthand account published by Courthouse News Service, the two men and their organization engaged in extensive collaboration with law enforcement throughout the day, including meeting with the FBI Saturday morning to discuss the violent chats that had leaked online. Biggs&nbsp;<a href="https://www.courthousenews.com/proud-boys-rally-in-portland/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">told</a>&nbsp;the news service “They’re not with us,” referring&nbsp;to participants in the chat, and&nbsp;said the meeting with the bureau was part of an ongoing dialogue with the feds.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“We’ve talked to state and federal law enforcement for every event we do,” he said. “The feds say, ‘you’re the only group out there that’s willing to sit down and tell us stuff.’ They know every move we do before we do it because we tell them.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The demonstration wrapped up ahead of schedule and many of the Proud Boys drove across state lines to celebrate their demonstration in Washington state. Two separate anti-facist and anti-racist demonstrations a short drive from the scene drew considerably larger crowds.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Last month, a caravan of amped-up Trump supporters drove into downtown Portland and opened fire on counterprotesters with bear spray, paintballs, and live rounds.</span>&nbsp;As day turned to night, speculation swirled as to whether the Proud Boys would return to the city in similar fashion — they did not.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /></font></p></div><div class="img-wrap align-bleed large-bleed width-auto" data-reactid="231" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 2em 0px; line-height: 1; position: relative; transition: opacity 300ms linear 200ms; opacity: 1; width: auto;"><div data-reactid="232" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><p class="caption overlayed" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1; margin: 0px; letter-spacing: 0.01em; word-spacing: -0.25em; display: inline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[Portland police disperse a crowd of protesters on September 26, 2020 in Portland, Oregon.</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font>

Photo: Nathan Howard/Getty Images]</p></div></div><div data-reactid="233" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>In the end, it was the local police who were responsible for violence in the streets, as dozens of riot cops chased protesters and the press from Multnomah County Justice Center downtown and pummeled them with fists and clubs following an order to disperse.</b>&nbsp;<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Ahead of Saturday’s rally, roughly 50 police officers assigned to the Portland Police Bureau’s Rapid Response were&nbsp;<a href="https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/2020/09/some-portland-police-officers-to-be-deputized-as-federal-officers-for-saturdays-proud-boy-rally-counter-protests.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">deputized</a>&nbsp;as federal marshals, allowing members the local police to bring federal&nbsp;charges against individuals accused of assaulting an officer.&nbsp;</span><b>The move is seen&nbsp;as an end-run around District Attorney Mike Schmidt, who&nbsp;in August established&nbsp;<a href="https://www.mcda.us/index.php/news/district-attorney-mike-schmidt-announces-policy-regarding-protest-related-cases/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">a policy</a>&nbsp;in which his office would decline to prosecute certain protest related offenses.</b></font><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" /><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The perception that the police favor the far-right agitators was further informed by the sharp contrast with how the police treated those protesting police violence and racism later that day,” German, the former FBI agent, said. “That they would modify the law enforcement command structure specifically to avoid restraints on police violence ordered by courts and local political leaders demonstrates complete disregard for the law, democratic restraints on police power, and the security of Portland residents from unaccountable law enforcement actions.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Among the members of the media who received the worst of the authorities’ treatment on Saturday night was 73-year-old John Rudoff, a&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/GregoryMcKelvey/status/1310334248461545472" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">beloved local photojournalist</a>, who was&nbsp;<a href="https://www.oregonlive.com/news/2020/09/cops-criticized-for-shoving-press-photographer-to-the-ground-other-rough-treatment-as-they-try-to-push-rock-throwing-crowd-from-downtown.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">tossed onto the concrete</a>&nbsp;on video. In a statement&nbsp;<a href="https://www.facebook.com/john.rudoff/posts/10220611291007112" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">posted</a>&nbsp;on Facebook Sunday,&nbsp;the veteran&nbsp;journalist said the helmet he was wearing may have saved his life.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The cops need to understand that an action like this — shoving a guy down on the cement with no warning — can fracture a hip or an arm or a skull, and can be a life-ending or career-mobility ending move,” Rudoff&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/johnrudoff/status/1310391886343884800" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">wrote</a>. “Actions have consequences; and they should gauge some of their less-warranted actions accordingly.”</font></p></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></div></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
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=</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer</a></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">p<b style="">atriot Prayer</b>&nbsp;is a&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Far-right" class="mw-redirect" title="Far-right" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">far-right</a>&nbsp;group based in&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vancouver,Washington" title="Vancouver, Washington" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Vancouver, Washington</a>, a suburban city in the&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portland_metropolitan_area" title="Portland metropolitan area" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Portland metropolitan area</a>.<sup id="cite_ref-1" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-1" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">[1]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-2" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-2" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">[2]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-may_3-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-may-3" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">[3]</a></sup>&nbsp;The group has organized rallies in support of&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump" title="Donald Trump" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Donald Trump</a><sup id="cite_ref-4" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-4" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">[4]</a></sup>&nbsp;and far-right protests in predominantly&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_liberalism_in_the_United_States" title="Modern liberalism in the United States" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">liberal</a>&nbsp;areas, which have been met with large numbers of&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counter-protest" title="Counter-protest" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">counter-protesters</a>.<sup id="cite_ref-5" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-5" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">[5]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-6" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-6" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">[6]</a></sup>&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_nationalism" title="White nationalism" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">White nationalists</a>&nbsp;as well as far-right groups, such as&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proud_Boys" title="Proud Boys" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Proud Boys</a><sup id="cite_ref-Wilson2018_7-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-Wilson2018-7" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">[7]</a></sup>&nbsp;have attended the rallies organized by Patriot Prayer, sparking controversy and violence</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.</span><sup id="cite_ref-8" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-8" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">[8]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-Matarrese_9-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-Matarrese-9" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">[9]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-Shepherd_10-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-Shepherd-10" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">[10]</a></sup></font></div><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Patriot Prayer describes itself as advocating in favor of&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_speech" class="mw-redirect" title="Free speech" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">free speech</a>,<sup id="cite_ref-kelly1_11-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-kelly1-11" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[11]</a></sup>&nbsp;and opposing&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_government" title="Big government" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">big government</a></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.</span><sup id="cite_ref-12" class="reference" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-12" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[12]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-13" class="reference" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-13" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[13]</a></sup><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">An infiltrator into Patriot Prayer said that the group had only around 15 core members in 2019</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.</span><sup id="cite_ref-undercover_14-0" class="reference" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-undercover-14" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[14]</a></sup></font></p><div id="toc" class="toc" role="navigation" aria-labelledby="mw-toc-heading" style="border: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); background-color: rgb(248, 249, 250); padding: 7px; display: table;"><ul style="list-style-image: none; margin: 0.3em 0px; padding: 0px; list-style-type: none;"><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-1" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#Overview" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;"><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Overview</span></span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-2" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#Activities" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">2</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Activities</span></font></a><ul style="list-style-image: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 2em; padding: 0px; list-style-type: none;"><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-3" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#Portland" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">2.1</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Portland</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-4" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#Seattle_area" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">2.2</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Seattle area</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-5" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#San_Francisco_Bay_area" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">2.3</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">San Francisco Bay area</span></font></a></li></ul></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-6" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#Relationship_with_the_Portland_police" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">3</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Relationship with the Portland police</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-7" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#References" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">4</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">References</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-8" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#External_links" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">5</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">External links</span></font></a></li></ul></div><h2 style="margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px; overflow: hidden; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.3; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span class="mw-headline" id="Overview"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Overview</font></span></h2><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Patriot Prayer was founded in 2016<sup id="cite_ref-may_3-1" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-may-3" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[3]</a></sup>&nbsp;by&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joey_Gibson(political_activist)" title="Joey Gibson (political activist)" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Joey Gibson</a>.<sup id="cite_ref-15" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-15" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[15]</a></sup>&nbsp;Gibson says he became an activist after seeing a brawl start between supporters of the Trump presidency and counter protesters.<sup id="cite_ref-Matarrese_and_Dake_16-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-Matarrese_and_Dake-16" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[16]</a></sup>&nbsp;Patriot Prayer is a&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Far-right" class="mw-redirect" title="Far-right" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">far-right</a>&nbsp;group,<sup id="cite_ref-17" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-17" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[17]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-18" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-18" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[18]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-19" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-19" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[19]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-20" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-20" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[20]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-21" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-21" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[21]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-22" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-22" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[22]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-23" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-23" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[23]</a></sup>&nbsp;part of the&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_right(United_States)" title="Radical right (United States)" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">right-wing</a>&nbsp;of American politics.<sup id="cite_ref-24" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-24" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[24]</a></sup>&nbsp;It has held rallies in areas known for their liberal politics.<sup id="cite_ref-BBC_25-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-BBC-25" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[25]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-26" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-26" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[26]</a></sup>&nbsp;It has also been described as anti-government.<sup id="cite_ref-27" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-27" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[27]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-28" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-28" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[28]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-29" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-29" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[29]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-30" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-30" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[30]</a></sup>&nbsp;The&nbsp;<i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Jose_Mercury_News" class="mw-redirect" title="San Jose Mercury News" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">San Jose Mercury News</a></i>&nbsp;describes Patriot Prayer as a "right-wing group ... [whose] events ... <b>have attracted white supremacists and ended up in violent confrontations among demonstrators on both sides".<sup id="cite_ref-may_3-2" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-may-3" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[3]</a></sup>&nbsp;In 2017, Gibson described himself as Conservative libertarian</b>.<sup id="cite_ref-31" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-31" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[31]</a></sup></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">According to&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_News" title="BBC News" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">BBC News</a>, Patriot Prayer have been connected to the&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alt-right" title="Alt-right" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">alt-right</a>&nbsp;as well as other far-right groups.<sup id="cite_ref-BBC_25-1" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-BBC-25" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">[25]</a></sup>&nbsp;Gibson denies this, saying the group is neither white nationalist nor alt-right and that they support "freedom, love and peace".<sup id="cite_ref-32" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-32" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">[32]</a></sup>&nbsp;The group's stated aim is support of the&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution" title="First Amendment to the United States Constitution" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">First Amendment</a>, free speech and to <b>"liberate the conservatives on the West Coast</b>".</span><sup id="cite_ref-Matarrese_and_Dake_16-1" class="reference" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-Matarrese_and_Dake-16" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[16]</a></sup></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seattle_Times" title="The Seattle Times" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">The Seattle Times</a></i>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Washington_Post" title="The Washington Post" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">The Washington Post</a></i>&nbsp;have described Patriot Prayer as a "pro-Trump group"</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.</span><sup id="cite_ref-33" class="reference" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-33" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[33]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-34" class="reference" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-34" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[34]</a></sup><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">According to&nbsp;<i style=""><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Weekly_Standard" title="The Weekly Standard" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">The Weekly Standard</a></i>, "[i]n the early days, his [Gibson's] rallies had overtly pro-Trump themes. These days, mentions of Trump have mostly been scrubbed from his own rhetoric, as he knows even invoking the name can be alienating.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">"</span><sup id="cite_ref-35" class="reference" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-35" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[35]</a></sup></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Patriot Prayer has made allegations against the&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_on_American%E2%80%93Islamic_Relations" title="Council on American–Islamic Relations" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Council on American–Islamic Relations</a>&nbsp;(CAIR) calling the group a "Muslim extremist organization"</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. Its supporters have made threats online against CAIR, prompting an investigation by authorities.</span><sup id="cite_ref-36" class="reference" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-36" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[36]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-37" class="reference" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-37" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[37]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-38" class="reference" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-38" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[38]</a></sup><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Patriot Prayer has a history of harassing and assaulting&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abolish_ICE" title="Abolish ICE" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Abolish ICE</a>&nbsp;and other&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Left" title="American Left" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">leftist</a>&nbsp;activists</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.</span><sup id="cite_ref-39" class="reference" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-39" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[39]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-40" class="reference" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-40" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[40]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-41" class="reference" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-41" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[41]</a></sup></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Neiwert" title="David Neiwert" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">David Neiwert</a>, writing for the&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Poverty_Law_Center" title="Southern Poverty Law Center" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Southern Poverty Law Center</a>&nbsp;blog&nbsp;<i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatewatch" class="mw-redirect" title="Hatewatch" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Hatewatch</a></i>, described Patriot Prayer as "trolling" the&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Northwest" title="Pacific Northwest" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Pacific Northwest</a>&nbsp;with the intention of provoking a response from&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Far-left" class="mw-redirect" title="Far-left" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">far-left</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-fascists" class="mw-redirect" title="Anti-fascists" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">anti-fascists</a>.</b><sup id="cite_ref-:0_42-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-:0-42" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[42]</a></sup>&nbsp;Neiwert noted that Gibson denounced white supremacists and neo-Nazis during an August 13, 2017 rally in Seattle the day after the&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unite_the_Right_Rally" class="mw-redirect" title="Unite the Right Rally" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Unite the Right Rally</a>&nbsp;in&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlottesville" class="mw-redirect" title="Charlottesville" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Charlottesville</a>, and described that Gibson explained in subsequent interviews that he aims to "actively exclude" white supremacist groups.<sup id="cite_ref-:0_42-1" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-:0-42" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[42]</a></sup>&nbsp;During the August 13 rally in Seattle such groups had no obvious presence; however, a week earlier at another rally in Portland, Oregon, which was led by Gibson, <b>members of&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity_Evropa" title="Identity Evropa" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Identity Evropa</a>&nbsp;were in attendance.</b><sup id="cite_ref-43" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-43" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[43]</a></sup>&nbsp;The SPLC describes them as "violent extremists" on their website.<sup id="cite_ref-44" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-44" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[44]</a></sup></font></p><h2 style="margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px; overflow: hidden; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.3; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span class="mw-headline" id="Activities"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Activities</font></span></h2><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Prior to the violence at the&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unite_the_Right_Rally" class="mw-redirect" title="Unite the Right Rally" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Unite the Right Rally</a>&nbsp;in Charlotteville, Patriot Prayer's rallies featured "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-wing_nationalists" class="mw-redirect" title="Right-wing nationalists" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">right-wing nationalists</a>".<sup id="cite_ref-Komo1_45-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-Komo1-45" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">[45]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-46" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-46" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">[46]</a></sup>&nbsp;Since Charlottesville, the group has tried to distance themselves from the&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alt-right" title="Alt-right" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">alt-right</a></span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.</span><sup id="cite_ref-47" class="reference" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-47" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[47]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-48" class="reference" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-48" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[48]</a></sup></font></p><h3 style="margin: 0.3em 0px 0px; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 1.6; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span class="mw-headline" id="Portland"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Portland</font></span></h3><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On April 2, 2017, approximately 300 people of both, supporters and opposition of President&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump" title="Donald Trump" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Donald Trump</a>&nbsp;exchanged words during a pro-Trump rally at Vancouver's Esther Short Park on Sunday afternoon, near Portland, but the exchange was relatively peaceful.<sup id="cite_ref-49" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-49" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[49]</a></sup>&nbsp;<b>Security for the Patriot Prayer rally, "Rally for Trump and Freedom" was provided by the&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3_Percenters" class="mw-redirect" title="3 Percenters" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">3 Percenters</a>&nbsp;(often spelled III%</b>).<sup id="cite_ref-50" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-50" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[50]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-51" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-51" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[51]</a></sup></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Following the cancellation of a&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portland_Rose_Festival" title="Portland Rose Festival" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Rose Festival event</a>&nbsp;due to threats of violence against the Multnomah County Republican Party who were to take part in the rally, allegedly from anti-fascist groups,<sup id="cite_ref-52" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-52" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">[52]</a></sup>&nbsp;Gibson organized a "March for Free Speech" to occur on April 29, 2017</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.</span><sup id="cite_ref-pein_53-0" class="reference" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-pein-53" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[53]</a></sup><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;Gibson told&nbsp;</span><i style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Guardian" title="The Guardian" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">The Guardian</a></i><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">: "We are going to continue with our rally. There is no way that we will stop.<b> It is even more important that we come out with a strong message of love.</b>"</span><sup id="cite_ref-Wilson_54-0" class="reference" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-Wilson-54" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[54]</a></sup><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;There were an estimated 60 counter protesters and police said there had been three arrests.</span><sup id="cite_ref-55" class="reference" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-55" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[55]</a></sup><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Jeremy Joseph Christian, who was later arrested for the&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Portland_train_attack" title="2017 Portland train attack" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">fatal stabbing of two men in an apparently racially-motivated attack</a>, was seen at the march yelling racial slurs.<sup id="cite_ref-control_56-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-control-56" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">[56]</a></sup>&nbsp;Gibson denounced Christian's actions and said he ejected Christian from the April 2, 2017, event due to his "bizarre behavior"</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.</span><sup id="cite_ref-Wilson_54-1" class="reference" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-Wilson-54" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[54]</a></sup></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">On May 11 and 13, 2017, Patriot Prayer organized the attendance of a dozen "antifa watchers"</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> at a protest at a south-east Portland grocery liquidator. Interviewed by&nbsp;</span><i style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The Oregonian</i><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, Gibson said the </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">group were there to watch the protest and report any property damage, and that he attended "to start conversations</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">".</span><sup id="cite_ref-57" class="reference" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-57" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[57]</a></sup></font></p><div class="thumb tright" style="margin: 0.5em 0px 1.3em 1.4em; width: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); clear: right; float: right;"><div class="thumbinner" style="min-width: 100px; border: 1px solid rgb(200, 204, 209); padding: 3px; background-color: rgb(248, 249, 250); text-align: center; overflow: hidden; width: 222px;">
<div class="thumbcaption" style="border: 0px; line-height: 1.4em; padding: 3px; text-align: left;"><div class="magnify" style="float: right; margin-left: 3px; margin-right: 0px;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Defending_Portland
(35103817475).jpg" class="internal" title="Enlarge" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent), url(" w="w" resources="resources" src="src" mediawiki.skinning="mediawiki.skinning" images="images" magnify-clip-ltr.svg="magnify-clip-ltr.svg" e="e" display="display" block="block" text-indent="text-indent" px="px" white-space="white-space" nowrap="nowrap" overflow="overflow" hidden="hidden" width="width" height="height" user-select="user-select" none="none" /></div><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Defending_Portland(35103817475).jpg" class="internal" title="Enlarge" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent), url(" w="w" resources="resources" src="src" mediawiki.skinning="mediawiki.skinning" images="images" magnify-clip-ltr.svg="magnify-clip-ltr.svg" e="e" display="display" block="block" text-indent="text-indent" px="px" white-space="white-space" nowrap="nowrap" overflow="overflow" hidden="hidden" width="width" height="height" user-select="user-select" none="none"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Demonstrators at Patriot Prayer's "</font></a><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_Free_Speech_Rally" title="Trump Free Speech Rally" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Trump Free Speech Rally</a>" on June 4, 2017</font></div></div></div><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">A June 4, 2017 "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_Free_Speech_Rally" title="Trump Free Speech Rally" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Trump Free Speech Rally</a>" in downtown Portland<sup id="cite_ref-control_56-1" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-control-56" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[56]</a></sup>&nbsp;attracted a large counter-protest and 14 people were arrested, after Portland's mayor&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Wheeler" title="Ted Wheeler" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Ted Wheeler</a>&nbsp;unsuccessfully sought to have the event's permit revoked.</b><sup id="cite_ref-sottile_58-0" class="reference" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-sottile-58" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><b>[</b>58]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-hansen2_59-0" class="reference" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-hansen2-59" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[59]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-kelly1_11-1" class="reference" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-kelly1-11" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[11]</a></sup><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;According to&nbsp;</span><i style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The Washington Post</i><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, this rally provided "a vivid illustration of the city's divisions".</span><sup id="cite_ref-sottile_58-1" class="reference" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-sottile-58" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[58]</a></sup><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;The rally caused controversy as it was scheduled one week after the stabbings by Jeremy Christian. The mayor of Portland,&nbsp;</span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Wheeler" title="Ted Wheeler" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Ted Wheeler</a>&nbsp;had requested that federal authorities revoke the permit saying he was concerned over increasing tensions in the city due to the stabbings.</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> The&nbsp;</span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Services_Administration" title="General Services Administration" style="background: none; text-decoration-line: none;">General Services Administration</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;denied the request, stating that the permit had been lawfully obtained weeks beforehand.</span><sup id="cite_ref-60" class="reference" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-60" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[60]</a></sup><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;</span></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The Oregon chapter of the&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_Liberties_Union" title="American Civil Liberties Union" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">American Civil Liberties Union</a>'s legal director, Mat Dos Santos, said it was unconstitutional of Wheeler to attempt to prevent the demonstration based on the political and personal viewpoints of those who organized the event.<sup id="cite_ref-61" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-61" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">[61]</a></sup>&nbsp;Gibson cancelled the event citing safety concerns.</span><sup id="cite_ref-62" class="reference" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-62" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[62]</a></sup></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By the end of the month, Patriot Prayer gathered for their "Freedom March" on June 30, 2017, at the Portland Waterfront near the annual Blues Festival, and were met by counter-protesters. The often heated exchanges of the dueling rallies ended with minimal violence and no reports of arrests.<sup id="cite_ref-63" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-63" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[63]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-64" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-64" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[64]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-65" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-65" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[65]</a></sup>&nbsp;The rally occurred in the midst of a national debate on the First Amendment, one which has seen violent clashes between right-wing and left-wing groups over appearances by contentious public figures, often in liberal cities such as Portland.<sup id="cite_ref-hansen2_59-1" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-hansen2-59" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[59]</a></sup>&nbsp;The atmosphere in Portland had also become tense after Christian's recent arrest for the train attack.<sup id="cite_ref-hawkins_66-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-hawkins-66" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[66]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-67" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-67" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[67]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-68" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-68" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[68]</a></sup></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On August 6, 2017, it was much smaller crowds for their "Freedom March" at&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salmon_Street_Springs" title="Salmon Street Springs" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Salmon Street Springs</a>, Portland, but it followed the well-established pattern with a few arrests of counter protesters and a lot of shouting and chants from both the Patriot Prayer group and counter protesters.<sup id="cite_ref-69" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-69" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[69]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-70" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-70" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[70]</a></sup></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Patriot Prayer planned an event for San Francisco in late August 2017</b>; CBS reported the city called in its entire police force for the date in anticipation of unrest similar to previous Patriot Prayer rallies in Seattle and Portland.<sup id="cite_ref-71" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-71" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[71]</a></sup>&nbsp;Mayor&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Lee" title="Ed Lee" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Ed Lee</a>&nbsp;condemned the event, saying, "The shameful, anti-American trend of hate-filled extremist rallies will unfortunately be allowed to continue this weekend in our city." and "“San Francisco does not welcome outside agitators whose messages of hate have the sole purpose of inciting violence."&nbsp;<sup id="cite_ref-72" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-72" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[72]</a></sup>&nbsp;The original rally was set to take place at&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crissy_Field" title="Crissy Field" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Crissy Field</a>, which is not under the jurisdiction of the San Francisco city government, instead administered by the&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Park_Service" title="National Park Service" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">National Park Service</a>, who granted Patriot Prayer the permit to march.<sup id="cite_ref-73" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-73" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[73]</a></sup>&nbsp;</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Patriot Prayer ended up cancelling their event when they saw that they had attracted thousands of counter-protesters, opting instead to hold a press conference at&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alamo_Square,San_Francisco" title="Alamo Square, San Francisco" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Alamo Square</a>. In response to the last minute move to a location deep within San Francisco, the city ended up fencing off the entire park, closing it to the public to prevent violence, which led to Gibson cancelling that event as well..<sup id="cite_ref-74" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-74" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[74]</a></sup><b>&nbsp;Gibson then said that Patriot Prayer members would instead be attending an anti-Marxist rally in nearby&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley,California" title="Berkeley, California" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Berkeley</a>, but also called that event off as well</b>.<sup id="cite_ref-75" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-75" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[75]</a></sup>&nbsp;The counter-protest was entirely peaceful, with protesters opting to hold a large dance party instead of a violent confrontation, and there was only one arrest for public intoxication.<sup id="cite_ref-76" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-76" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[76]</a></sup>&nbsp;<sup id="cite_ref-77" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-77" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[77]</a></sup></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">For the September 10, 2017, Portland, "Peaceful Portland Freedom March", Joey Gibson asked followers take a new non-violent approach though not all appeared willing to go along<sup id="cite_ref-78" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-78" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">[78]</a></sup>&nbsp;and the counter-protests also appeared to be settling on a number of different measures depending on the organization</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.</span><sup id="cite_ref-79" class="reference" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-79" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[79]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-80" class="reference" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-80" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[80]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-81" class="reference" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-81" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[81]</a></sup><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;Patriot Prayer announced additional changes, including the collection of charitable relief for the victims of the Eagle Creek fire in the Columbia River Gorge, and a name change for a rally to "Peaceful Vancouver Freedom March".</span><sup id="cite_ref-82" class="reference" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-82" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[82]</a></sup><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;The small rallies drew large counter-protest crowds in both Portland and Vancouver with several arrests and the detention of the driver of a pickup that sped through a crowd of counter-protesters, no injuries were reported.</span><sup id="cite_ref-Shepherd_10-1" class="reference" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-Shepherd-10" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[10]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-83" class="reference" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-83" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[83]</a></sup><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;Among those drawn to the rallies were the militia-style Three Percenters, and the Proud Boys, a white nationalist group.</span><sup id="cite_ref-84" class="reference" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-84" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[84]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-Matarrese_9-1" class="reference" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-Matarrese-9" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[9]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-Shepherd_10-2" class="reference" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-Shepherd-10" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[10]</a></sup></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On June 3, 2018, Patriot Prayer and anti-fascists again fought in parks in downtown Portland. Police arrested four people for disorderly conduct.<sup id="cite_ref-85" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-85" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[85]</a></sup>&nbsp;Participants threw rocks, bottles, ball bearings, and fireworks at each other.<sup id="cite_ref-86" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-86" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[86]</a></sup>&nbsp;<i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Portland_Mercury" class="mw-redirect" title="The Portland Mercury" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">The Portland Mercury</a></i>&nbsp;reported that Patriot Prayer organized the rally as a counter-protest to another leftist rally led by the Empower Portland Alliance and the Direct Action Alliance. This earlier rally was intended to protest police violence and to commemorate the anniversary of an incident a year earlier when Portland police detained 200 people for several hours. In response to Patriot Prayer's plans to counter-protest this earlier rally, local antifa groups organized a counter-protest of Patriot Prayer, calling this third rally "Call to Resist Patriot Prayer Bringing Nazis to Portland."<sup id="cite_ref-87" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-87" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[87]</a></sup>&nbsp;Pepper spray was used by a&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multnomah_County,Oregon" title="Multnomah County, Oregon" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Multnomah County</a>&nbsp;sheriff's deputy and by demonstrators. Police report that although there were several people who were evaluated medically at the parks, no one was transported to the hospital.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On June 30, 2018, a Patriot Prayer rally that consisted of 150 supporters clashed with anti-fascists protesters who had been waiting for them at a barricaded street. Police observed “assaults, criminal behavior, and projectiles being thrown". Reports suggest that the counter-protesters initiated the violence when they began assaulting the Patriot Prayer supporters with thrown projectiles.<sup id="cite_ref-88" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-88" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[88]</a></sup>&nbsp;Subsequently, the permit to march through downtown Portland was revoked, and the police declared the Patriot Prayer rally a riot. The police fired non-lethal ammunition towards the counter-protestors and 9 people in all were arrested.<sup id="cite_ref-89" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-89" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[89]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-90" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-90" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[90]</a></sup></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="anchor" id="Gibson_for_Senate_Freedom_March"><b>A rally called the "Gibson for Senate Freedom March", i</b>ncluding members of both <b>Patriot Prayer and the&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proud_Boys" title="Proud Boys" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Proud Boys</a></b>, was held in Portland on August 4, 2018, along&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_McCall_Waterfront_Park" title="Tom McCall Waterfront Park" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Tom McCall Waterfront Park</a>.<sup id="cite_ref-91" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-91" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[91]</a></sup>&nbsp;It attracted counter-protestors, both from a coalition of labor unions, immigrant rights advocates, and other groups, and from organized&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antifa(United_States)" title="Antifa (United States)" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">antifa</a>&nbsp;("anti-fascist") activists. Hundreds of riot-geared policeman, from both the&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portland_Police_Bureau" title="Portland Police Bureau" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Portland Police</a>&nbsp;and the&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_State_Police" title="Oregon State Police" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Oregon State Police</a>&nbsp;attempted to keep the two groups apart, using rubber bullets and&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stun_grenade" title="Stun grenade" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">flashbangs</a>&nbsp;when protestors refused to move.&nbsp;</span></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span class="anchor" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">At one point, the police forces came under attack from rocks and bottles. Police reported that they confiscated weapons including fireworks, long sticks, baseball bats, pepper spray and home-made shields. There were injuries, and arrests were made, but the police characterized the event as a "civil disturbance" and not a "riot". The event also featured </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">people wearing T-shirts saying "Pinochet Did Nothing Wrong" with an image of people dropped from a helicopter and "RWDS" (Right-Wing Death Squad) both of which were also spotted in Charlottesville</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.</span><sup id="cite_ref-92" class="reference" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-92" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[92]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-93" class="reference" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-93" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[93]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-94" class="reference" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-94" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[94]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-95" class="reference" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-95" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[95]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-Stanglin_96-0" class="reference" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-Stanglin-96" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[96]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-Sottile_97-0" class="reference" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-Sottile-97" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[97]</a></sup></span></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In October 2018, the Portland police announced that it had found members of the organization carrying loaded firearms on the roof of a parking garage overlooking the site of the August protest; the people carrying them had concealed carry permits. The police confiscated the weapons and made the people leave the roof.<sup id="cite_ref-98" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-98" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[98]</a></sup></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On November 17, 2018, an offshoot of Patriot Prayer scheduled a&nbsp;<b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Him_Too" class="mw-redirect" title="Him Too" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Him Too</a>&nbsp;rally </b>at&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Schrunk_Plaza" title="Terry Schrunk Plaza" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Terry Schrunk Plaza</a>&nbsp;in downtown Portland, and was met with counter protestors.<sup id="cite_ref-99" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-99" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[99]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-100" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-100" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[100]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-101" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-101" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[101]</a></sup></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rose_City_Antifa" title="Rose City Antifa" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Rose City Antifa</a>&nbsp;has organized opposition to Patriot Prayer rallies in Portland.<sup id="cite_ref-Wilson_54-2" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-Wilson-54" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[54]</a></sup></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In January 2019, Patriot Prayer leader Joey Gibson, Proud Boy Tusitala "Tiny" Toese and former Proud Boy Russell Schultz intitiated a campaign to tear off the bandanas of anti-fascist (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antifa(United_States)" title="Antifa (United States)" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">antifa</a>) demonstrators and taking pictures of their faces</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. The announcement of the campaign came shortly after an altercation that took place when Patriot Prayer and Proud Boys members attempted and failed to invade a chapter meeting of the&nbsp;</span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Socialists_of_America" title="Democratic Socialists of America" style="background: none; text-decoration-line: none;">Democratic Socialists of America</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. The groups clashed with anti-fascist activists nearby after being denied entry to the meeting, and claimed to be attacked.</span><sup id="cite_ref-102" class="reference" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-102" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[102]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-103" class="reference" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-103" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[103]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-104" class="reference" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-104" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[104]</a></sup></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">In August 2019, Gibson, along with five other Patriot Prayer affiliates<sup id="cite_ref-105" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-105" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">[105]</a></sup>&nbsp;were arrested for his actions in connection with a riot that took place in Portland on May 1. During the riot, which took place outside&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cider_Riot" title="Cider Riot" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Cider Riot</a>, Patriot Prayer member Ian Kramer beat Cider Riot patron Heather Clark unconscious and broke her vertebrae.<sup id="cite_ref-106" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-106" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">[106]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-107" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-107" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">[107]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-108" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-108" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">[108]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-109" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-109" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">[109]</a></sup>&nbsp;A Navy veteran referred to as "Ben", who had infiltrated Patriot Prayer and took videos of the violence at their rallies, was expected to testify at Gibson's trial</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.</span><sup id="cite_ref-undercover_14-1" class="reference" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-undercover-14" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[14]</a></sup></font></p><h3 style="margin: 0.3em 0px 0px; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 1.6; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span class="mw-headline" id="Seattle_area"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Seattle area</font></span></h3><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On May 1, 2017, Patriot Prayer counter-protested at Seattle's&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_Day" title="May Day" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">May Day</a>&nbsp;parade with their "Stand Against Communism" rally. The events were mostly peaceful with arrests of counter protesters.<sup id="cite_ref-110" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-110" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[110]</a></sup></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On June 15, 2017, Patriot Prayer members held a rally at&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evergreen_State_College" title="Evergreen State College" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Evergreen State College</a>, timed to coincide with one by the Evergreen Anti-Fascist Community Defense Network.<sup id="cite_ref-111" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-111" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[111]</a></sup>&nbsp;The former promoted solidarity with&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bret_Weinstein" title="Bret Weinstein" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Bret Weinstein</a>, whose critical comments about an event for racial awareness had ignited campus protests.<sup id="cite_ref-112" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-112" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[112]</a></sup></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On August 13, 2017, the group held the "Freedom Rally Seattle" at Westlake Park with a large police presence to keep thousands of counter-protesters away. The concurrent events came one day after the death and injuries in the&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unite_the_Right_rally" title="Unite the Right rally" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Unite the Right rally</a>&nbsp;in Charlottesville and tensions were high with arrests of counter protesters made by police.<sup id="cite_ref-113" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-113" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[113]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-114" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-114" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[114]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-115" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-115" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[115]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-116" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-116" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[116]</a></sup></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">On February 10, 2018, Patriot Prayer was invited by the&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Washington" title="University of Washington" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">University of Washington</a>&nbsp;College Republicans to speak at their "Freedom Rally" in&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Square(University_of_Washington)" title="Red Square (University of Washington)" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Red Square</a>. Several groups organized counter-protests, leading to skirmishes. Five people were arrested.</span><sup id="cite_ref-117" class="reference" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-117" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[117]</a></sup></font></p><h3 style="margin: 0.3em 0px 0px; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 1.6; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span class="mw-headline" id="San_Francisco_Bay_area"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">San Francisco Bay area</font></span></h3><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">A rally which was to be held at&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crissy_Field" title="Crissy Field" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Crissy Field</a>&nbsp;in&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco" title="San Francisco" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">San Francisco</a>&nbsp;on August 26, 2017 was cancelled by Gibson.<sup id="cite_ref-118" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-118" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">[118]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-guardian_119-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-guardian-119" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">[119]</a></sup>&nbsp;In response to allegations by&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy_Pelosi" title="Nancy Pelosi" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Nancy Pelosi</a>&nbsp;that the event was intended to be a "white supremacist rally",<sup id="cite_ref-Wallace_120-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-Wallace-120" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">[120]</a></sup>&nbsp;Gibson said: "For those of you who believe we are seriously going to throw a white nationalist supremacist rally in San Francisco, it's time for logic."</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> In a video posted to his Facebook page. Gibson said: "We have a black speaker, two Hispanic speakers, we've got an Asian, a brown speaker right here (referring to himself) – we got a transsexual, and we aren't talking about race." Mayor&nbsp;</span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Lee" title="Ed Lee" style="background: none; text-decoration-line: none;">Ed Lee</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;had also condemned the event, saying: "The shameful, anti-American trend of hate-filled extremist rallies will unfortunately be allowed to continue this weekend in our city. [...] San Francisco does not welcome outside agitators whose messages of hate have the sole purpose of inciting violence." Police Chief Bill Scott and Board of Supervisors President&nbsp;</span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Breed" title="London Breed" style="background: none; text-decoration-line: none;">London Breed</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;had written a letter expressing outrage over the&nbsp;</span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Park_Service" title="National Park Service" style="background: none; text-decoration-line: none;">National Park Service</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">'s decision to allow the rally.</span><sup id="cite_ref-121" class="reference" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-121" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[121]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-122" class="reference" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-122" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[122]</a></sup><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;Security for the event was to be handled by the&nbsp;</span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oath_Keepers" title="Oath Keepers" style="background: none; text-decoration-line: none;">Oath Keepers</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.</span><sup id="cite_ref-Fitzgerald_Rodriguez_123-0" class="reference" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-Fitzgerald_Rodriguez-123" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[123]</a></sup></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On August 26, 2017, news of a planned Patriot Prayer press conference in San Francisco's&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alamo_Square_Park" class="mw-redirect" title="Alamo Square Park" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Alamo Square Park</a>&nbsp;drew over 1000 counter-protesters to the neighborhood. The group, which had already canceled a planned rally at Crissy Field due to alleged safety concerns, held the press conference in&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacifica,California" title="Pacifica, California" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Pacifica</a>&nbsp;instead.<sup id="cite_ref-guardian_119-1" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-guardian-119" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[119]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-guardian-25aug2017_124-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-guardian-25aug2017-124" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[124]</a></sup>&nbsp;The hastily organized press conference had not gotten a permit for the event, leading to the city fencing off Alamo Square, barring entry to the public.<sup id="cite_ref-125" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-125" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[125]</a></sup>&nbsp;Prior to the event, the group's leader, Joey Gibson, denounced white supremacists before an August 2017 rally, saying "Don't show up, you're not welcome."<sup id="cite_ref-126" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-126" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[126]</a></sup>&nbsp;Group organizers arrived at Crissy Field later that afternoon to talk with counter-protesters.<sup id="cite_ref-latimes-26aug2017_127-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-latimes-26aug2017-127" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[127]</a></sup>&nbsp;Counter-protests across the city that weekend were peaceful, with most counter-protesters opting to hold a large dance party instead of a violent confrontation, and there was only one arrest for public intoxication.&nbsp;<sup id="cite_ref-128" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-128" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[128]</a></sup></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">After cancelling the August 26 event at Alamo Square, Gibson then said that Patriot Prayer members would instead be attending an anti-Marxist rally in nearby&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley,California" title="Berkeley, California" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Berkeley</a>, but also called that event off as well.&nbsp;<sup id="cite_ref-129" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-129" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[129]</a></sup></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">A September 26, 2017 Patriot Prayer demonstration near&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sproul_Plaza" title="Sproul Plaza" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Sproul Plaza</a>&nbsp;resulted in violence between the group and left-wing activists, including By Any Means Necessary (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BAMN" title="BAMN" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">BAMN</a>). The demonstration continued in a march to&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Park(Berkeley)" title="People's Park (Berkeley)" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">People's Park</a>, where<b> Kyle "Stickman" Chapman,</b> a self-described&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_nationalist" class="mw-redirect" title="American nationalist" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">American nationalist</a><sup id="cite_ref-KRON_4_News_130-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-KRON_4_News-130" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">[130]</a></sup>&nbsp;claimed there was "a war on whites" and a "battle for Berkeley".</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> Police made three arrests, including&nbsp;</span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yvette_Felarca" class="mw-redirect" title="Yvette Felarca" style="background: none; text-decoration-line: none;">Yvette Felarca</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.</span><sup id="cite_ref-sfgate-26sep2017_131-0" class="reference" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-sfgate-26sep2017-131" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[131]</a></sup></font></p><h2 style="margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px; overflow: hidden; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); line-height: 1.3; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span class="mw-headline" id="Relationship_with_the_Portland_police" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="">Relationship with the Portland police</font></span></h2><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Patriot_Prayer_vs_Antifa_protests.Photo_8_of_14(38966256171).jpg" class="internal" title="Enlarge" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent), url(" w="w" resources="resources" src="src" mediawiki.skinning="mediawiki.skinning" images="images" magnify-clip-ltr.svg="magnify-clip-ltr.svg" e="e" display="display" block="block" text-indent="text-indent" px="px" white-space="white-space" nowrap="nowrap" overflow="overflow" hidden="hidden" width="width" height="height" user-select="user-select" none="none"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /></a><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Guardian" title="The Guardian" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">The Guardian</a>&nbsp;reported that Lt. Niiya told Gibson in December 2017 that the police would not execute a warrant for the arrest of Toese. In a text, Niiya wrote "Just make sure he doesn’t do anything which may draw our attention. ... If he still has the warrant in the system (I don’t run you guys so I don’t personally know) the officers could arrest him. I don’t see a need to arrest on the warrant unless there is a reason." He also indicated that police officers had ignored previous arrest warrants for Toese.<sup id="cite_ref-guardianniiya_132-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-guardianniiya-132" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[132]</a></sup></font></font></font></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In February 2019,&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willamette_Week" title="Willamette Week" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Willamette Week</a>&nbsp;reported that Portland police lieutenant Jeff Niiya kept in close touch with Gibson, passing on to him intelligence about the anti-fascist movement in the city. He also advised Gibson on how a Patriot Prayer member could avoid being arrested.<sup id="cite_ref-133" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-133" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[133]</a></sup>&nbsp;On February 21, a public "listening session" convened by the&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portland_Police_Bureau" title="Portland Police Bureau" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Portland Police Bureau</a>&nbsp;consisted in large part of strong criticism of the bureau.<sup id="cite_ref-guardianniiya_132-1" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-guardianniiya-132" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[132]</a></sup></font></font></font></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">On March 1, 2019,&nbsp;The Guardian&nbsp;reported that it had obtained video which showed Portland police officers approaching Patriot Prayer leader Joey Gibson at a June 3, 2018 rally, and telling him that even though Niiya had probable cause to arrest several members of the group, they could avoid being arrested by leaving.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> The officers informed Gibson of who would be arrested (Tusitala "Tiny" Toese and another man), and told him that they had already arrested members of "the other side". Five days after the rally, Toese and Donovan Flippo – a member of&nbsp;</span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proud_Boys" title="Proud Boys" style="background: none; text-decoration-line: none;">Proud Boys</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;– allegedly attacked a man in Portland. They were later indicted for the incident by a grand jury. The Portland Police Bureau did not comment on the video because their investigation on the relationship between Niiya and Patriot Prayer is ongoing.</span><sup id="cite_ref-guardianniiya_132-2" class="reference" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-guardianniiya-132" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[132]</a></sup></font></font></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Portland's&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_affairs(law_enforcement)" title="Internal affairs (law enforcement)" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Independent Police Review</a>&nbsp;investigated Niiya and cleared him in September 2019; determining that he was gathering information on the groups and trying to defuse potential clashes with his advice.<sup id="cite_ref-134" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer#cite_note-134" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[134]</a></sup></font></font></font></p><h2 style="margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px; overflow: hidden; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.3; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-headline" id="References"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">References...</font></span></font></font></h2><div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/10/dhs-officials-told-to-maintain-a-sympathetic-stance-regarding-kyle-rittenhouse-report">https://www.alternet.org/2020/10/dhs-officials-told-to-maintain-a-sympathetic-stance-regarding-kyle-rittenhouse-report</a></font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">no lnx twt</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>Internal documents reportedly suggest federal law enforcement officials with the Department of Homeland Security were directed to maintain a publicly sympathetic stance regarding Kyle Rittenhouse — the 17-year-old facing murder charges for the fatal shootings of protesters in Kenosha, Wisc.</b></font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">In preparation for questions from the media regarding the highly publicized shootings, DHS officials were advised to focus on focus on Rittenhouse's initial efforts, according to NBC News.&nbsp;<b>The document, which included multiple talking points regarding the case, advised officials to suggest Rittenhouse "took his rifle to the scene of the rioting to help defend small business owners."</b></font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">A different set of talking points distributed to officials also discussed the media's depiction of the group, <b>Patriot Prayer</b>.</font><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> While the media is said to have labeled the group as <b>"racist" following their clash with protesters amid civil unrest in Portland, Ore., DHS officials were reportedly told to dismiss the claims.</b></font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>It remains unclear whether or not the directives came from the White House but President Donald Trump has shown support for Rittenhouse and law enforcement.</b></font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Now, multiple former Homeland Security officials have expressed concern about the handling of internal affairs at the government agency. Peter Boogaard, who served as a spokesperson for Homeland Security under the Obama administration, condemned the reports.</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">"It is as unprecedented as it is wrong," Boogaard said.</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Elizabeth Neumann, who served as DHS's assistant secretary for threat prevention and security policy in the Trump administration, also pointed out one important suggestion that did not appear to be highlighted in the internal talking points.</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">"What strikes me about the talking points is that they didn't call for calm among the public," Neumann said. "Even in the early hours after the incident, it was known private militias had self-deployed. …They seemed more interested in Rittenhouse's reputation than calling for calm and actual law and order."</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>The latest regarding Kyle Rittenhouse follows multiple reports about the staggering number of donations he has received through fundraising efforts sphere headed by a Christian crowdfunding website. According to Rittenhouse's lawyer, the Christian has received more than $1 million in donations from more than 11,000 donors.</b></font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">As of Monday night, a total of $605,550 had been donated to the FightBack Foundation for Rittenhouse's legal fund. Another $534,000 had also been donated to Rittenhouse through the&nbsp;<b>Christian fundraising platform GiveSendGo</b>. However, all funds will ultimately be transferred to the FightBack Foundation.</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></p><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></font></font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">in&nbsp;<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">the Age of Trump, Portland, Oregon,&nbsp;is no longer just another city. Now it is a symbol and almost a&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.salon.com/2020/08/18/democratic-insider-simon-rosenberg-trump-is-being-coached-by-putin-to-seize-power/" target="
blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Rorschach test for the country’s deep and explosive political divides</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.</span></font></div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">For Trumpists,&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Republicans&nbsp;and members of the far right,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.salon.com/2020/08/31/biden-blames-trump-encouraging-violence-after-man-linked-to-right-wing-group-killed-in-portland/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Portland is all that is wrong</a>&nbsp;with “the Left” and “Liberals,”&nbsp;a chaotic nightmare zone&nbsp;where Black Lives Matter, antifa&nbsp;and other<b>&nbsp;“enemies”&nbsp;</b>are running amok while they attack “patriotism” and “real American values.”</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">To TrumpWorld, Portland and other Democratic-led big cities (which of course is virtually all of them) are hives of scum and villainy, overrun by criminals&nbsp;and “rioters,”&nbsp;which must be&nbsp;<a href="https://www.salon.com/2020/08/20/vladimir-putins-prize-pupil-is-almost-ready-trumps-final-exam-in-authoritarian-rule/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">conquered by Trump’s&nbsp;enforcers</a><a href="https://www.salon.com/2020/08/28/what-the-kenosha-shooter-tells-us-about-donald-trumps-america/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">&nbsp;and&nbsp;armed vigilante supporters</a>.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump’s “law and order” politics,&nbsp;and its inherent racism and violence,&nbsp;are believed by many to be his path back to the White House. In this view,&nbsp;Portland and other “Democrat&nbsp;cities” and communities are&nbsp;<a href="https://www.salon.com/2020/08/03/trump-wanted-a-portland-style-war-in-chicago--in-a-second-term-hell-do-it/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">targets of opportunity for the Trump regime</a>.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">writing at Washington Monthly,&nbsp;</span><a href="https://washingtonmonthly.com/2020/08/30/white-supremacists-are-invading-american-cities-to-incite-a-civil-war/" target="blank" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" box-sizing="box-sizing" border-box="border-box" outline="outline" none="none" margin="margin" px="px" padding="padding" text-decoration-line="text-decoration-line" transition="transition" color="color" s="s" ease="ease" cursor="cursor" pointer="pointer">David Atkins explains</a><span times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">&nbsp;Trump’s mindset:</span></font></p><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 10px 20px 10px 24px; position: relative; line-height: 1.7; overflow: hidden; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: none !important;"><p style="background-color: rgb(245, 245, 245); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.7;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>He sees the violence as politically beneficial, a useful cudgel against Democratic nominee Joe Biden — even though the violence is happening while Trump himself is president, not Biden.</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.7;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Trump’s election theme is that Americans won’t be safe in a Biden presidency. The opposite is true. Americans won’t be safe as long as a white supremacist president is leading a movement of bigots to incite a civil war, and attempting to ensure that the majority of Americans with cosmopolitan, egalitarian values remain politically disenfranchised and under the thumb of those who fear and despise them.</font></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Trump’s campaign of racial authoritarianism and&nbsp;stochastic terrorism, as well as overt threats of&nbsp;<b>“law and order,</b></span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">”</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;resulted in a group of his&nbsp;supporters driving into Portland last weekend, armed with mace and paintball guns, to seek out confrontations with Black Lives Matter and&nbsp;anti-fascist protesters. During one such encounter, a member of the&nbsp;</span><b style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">right-wing militia group </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Patriot Prayer, Aaron Danielson,&nbsp;</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">was shot and killed</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">. On Thursday night, the apparent shooter,</span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;Michael Reinoehl,</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;was himself shot and killed by U.S. marshals in Olympia, Washington.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Despite this lamentable violence — for which Trump and the right must bear ultimate responsibility —&nbsp;for progressives and other people of conscience Portland is a symbol of resistance and hope. As part of the nationwide people’s uprising sparked by the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, protesters have been outside&nbsp;the Portland federal courthouse&nbsp;for more than 100&nbsp;days.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The protests&nbsp;were largely peaceful until&nbsp;<a href="https://www.salon.com/2020/07/24/trumps-stormtroopers-crush-liberty-on-the-streets-of-portland_partner/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Trump and acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf deployed federal police forces to the city&nbsp;in July</a>. Their presence, as designed, escalated the tension and led to increasing levels of property damage and incidents of violence.</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Previewing Trump’s plan for other parts of the nation, these&nbsp;federal shock troops made journalists and reporters a special focus of their violence. They also kidnapped protesters and other “enemies” of Donald Trump’s regime off the street as though they were operating in a banana republic</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Much of the mainstream American news media’s coverage of the recent events in Portland lacks meaningful context</b>.&nbsp;<a href="https://medium.com/@45thabsurdist/the-feds-are-coming-to-your-city-the-parachutes-will-follow-dc6d42fdbccd" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Writing at Medium, a Portland press collective describes one such example of this “parachute journalism”</a>:</font></p><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 10px 20px 10px 24px; position: relative; line-height: 1.7; overflow: hidden; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: none !important;"><p style="background-color: rgb(245, 245, 245); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.7;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">One night last week, during one of the smaller demonstrations, a tall white man in a clean ballistic helmet and brand-new plate carrier emblazoned with “PRESS” strolled through the crowd in front of the Hatfield Federal Courthouse in Portland, Oregon. He stopped by a gaggle of other journalists, most out-of-towners. “I’ve only been around for the last week,” he said, “but the protests in Portland feel a lot more performative than the ones I’ve seen in other cities. Less genuine.” A local journalist mentioned having been present for over 50 nights of the protests, starting in early June. “Yeah, I can only speak for what I’ve seen this week,” said Clean Helmet. “I’m flying back to DC tomorrow.” …&nbsp;Clean Helmet was on the ground in Portland, by his own description, for less than a week. This means that he was present for approximately 1/10th of Portland’s BLM protests, thus far. I’m sure he got some great footage.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.7;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="background-color: rgb(245, 245, 245);">The Parachutes (as we have come to know them) come with money, and zero community connections</b><span style="background-color: rgb(245, 245, 245);">.&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Their goal is the clip that can make the nightly news. They want a story that will dominate the news cycle. They do not know what is happening in Portland, and they do not care</b>. They are coming to a city with a vibrant, scrappy community of street-level journalists. By and large, they do not want the context that those journalists can provide. And soon they will come to a city near you. When the Feds and the Parachutes come to your town, you’ll want everyone to understand the context there, too. And they are coming. Clean Helmet is already back in DC, and on to the next assignment.</span></font></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The important context which “the Parachutes” usually omit includes the way Portland is depicted as a liberal oasis in America’s popular imagination. In&nbsp;reality, Portland is a very race&nbsp;and class-segregated city. As historian and activist&nbsp;<a href="https://oregonhumanities.org/rll/magazine/skin-summer-2013/a-hidden-history/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Walidah Imarisha</a>&nbsp;and others have richly documented, the Oregon territory passed laws in 1844 explicitly excluding Black people from the region under punishment of whippings and other violence.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2017/06/07/when-portland-banned-blacks-oregons-shameful-history-as-an-all-white-state/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">The state of Oregon formally included white supremacy in&nbsp;its constitution, explicitly banning nonwhites</a>.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>To this day, Oregon remains a redoubt of white supremacy, where white supremacists and other right-wing extremists have a&nbsp;large presence in the state and surrounding region. Portland itself has a long and ongoing history of right-wing violence.</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Alexander Reid Ross is&nbsp;a doctoral fellow at the&nbsp;<b>Center for Analysis of the Radical Right</b>. His most recent book is “Against the Fascist Creep.”&nbsp;<a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/white-vigilantes-kenosha_n_5f4822bcc5b6cf66b2b5103e" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Ross has also completed new research which documents more than&nbsp;500 incidents</a>&nbsp;in which white vigilantes and other right-wing extremists have confronted Black Lives Matter protests. This includes hundreds of acts of intimidation and other threats as well as dozens of examples in which&nbsp;right-wing extremists have assaulted or&nbsp;attacked Black Lives Matter protesters.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In this conversation Ross shares his firsthand experiences with the recent George Floyd protests in Portland. He also provides some context for those events and the police and federal response.&nbsp;Ross also details the long history of right-wing paramilitaries and political street gangs in Portland and their relationship with local police and other law enforcement.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Reid warns that Portland, the right-wing vigilante killings in Kenosha, Wisconsin,&nbsp;and the hundreds of other attacks by right-wing extremists on Black Lives Matter protesters is just&nbsp;a preview of the massive violence that Donald Trump and his movement may&nbsp;unleash before and after Election Day — perhaps&nbsp;including the arrest or imprisonment of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.salon.com/2020/07/23/ruth-ben-ghiat-on-trump-and-the-bitter-american-truth-we-do-not-have-a-real-democracy/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">prominent Democrats, journalists, and others deemed to be enemies of the state</a>.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Q: After almost four years of Trump and his regime’s authoritarian, neofascist behavior, some voices in the mainstream American news media now use&nbsp;that correct and appropriate language to describe the reality of the situation.&nbsp;Why was there so much fear and denial about the obvious? Even when they use the correct terminology, the coverage is largely superficial and avoids serious discussion of the dire implications.</font></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">You must also take into account that many so-called left-leaning voices have also been interfering with bringing that truth to light.&nbsp;There were writers at the Guardian, for example, who were trying to sound the alarm about the dangers of right-wing extremism and fascism in America, but they were derided by their peers across the political spectrum.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">I also believe that publications such as the Washington Post and the New York Times saw themselves as being aloof from questions of the mob and political violence in America. There is a tendency among elite voices to want to say that, “We’re above political violence here in America and we resolve our differences through conversation. Therefore, let’s give everyone a hearing and let’s debate these issues, regardless of how extreme they may be. That is what a democratic country should act like.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In a sense, they put their faith completely in some abstract idea of “democracy” instead of taking the temperature of what is really happening on the ground.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">You live in Portland. How is your experience different from the narrative being offered by the mainstream American news media and other outside observers?</font></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">We in Portland have been dealing with right-wing extremists and police abuse for a long time. Portland has experience with the likes of right-wing extremist groups such as </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Patriot Prayer and the Proud Boys.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> This is not new to us.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">I would go out to protests and see how the political violence is not a result of the breakdown in the monopoly of violence held by the police. The political violence was a result of the Proud Boys and the police effectively acting as two different elements of the same side. It wasn’t that the police had lost the monopoly of violence. It was the police were shooting us in order to allow the Proud Boys to march through the city without proper permits.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Most mainstream news media coverage of the protests which have taken place here in Portland, recently and before, totally fail to acknowledge or even fathom the police&nbsp;involvement in the rise of the far right in this community. That failure has cascaded to the point that we are now at a point where the press is painting the current crisis as some type of grudge match between the feds and the anarchists. In fact, the protest movement is a very diverse group of people —&nbsp;especially by Portland standards —&nbsp;who are coming out night after night and making extraordinarily clear demands and being absolutely brutalized in the streets every night.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">What too many reporters in many cases are trying to do is figure out how to resolve the situation, rather than understanding it and properly explaining to the public what is really happening and the context for it.&nbsp; By doing so, too many reporters are creating false equivalencies regarding the various forces at play here in Portland.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">What does&nbsp;Portland exemplify, in terms of the protests and the Trump’s regime’s reaction?</font></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It is an example of Donald Trump attempting to rise to the level of a right-wing political strongman. Donald Trump is using classic authoritarian tactics that one does not often see in a healthy democracy. Donald Trump is deliberately undermining the Constitution by using federal law to circumvent local governments’ control over their police forces.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump and William Barr’s de facto secret police&nbsp;are literally disappearing people off the streets of Portland and in other parts of the country where the Democratic Party is in power. How do you explain what is happening to people who do not live in those communities? Who are not being targeted by Trump and his henchmen?</font></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The specific federal forces involved are BORTAC —&nbsp;the Border Patrol Tactical Unit —&nbsp;and the U.S. Marshals Special Operations Group&nbsp;and others,&nbsp;under the coordination of the Department of Homeland Security. BORTAC have been&nbsp;in Portland shooting at people and launching tear gas. BORTAC is not trained for crowd or riot control. They are trained to engage in raids against migrants and to separate children from their mothers. That is what BORTAC does.</span><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;They pride themselves on being the most militarized branch and group of the U.S. law enforcement community.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">&nbsp;</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">BORTAC members are extreme Trump supporters</span></font><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">. What is happening in Portland and other parts of the country is the border closing in on the citizens of the United States.</font></p><article style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>BORTAC is loyal to Donald Trump and that’s why he is using them.&nbsp;</b>He’s not using them because they’re the most skilled and&nbsp;adept at riot and crowd control management. That also explains why there are so many incidents of people being shot in the face and otherwise abused here in Portland and other places where BORTAC and other such forces are being deployed by the Trump administration.They don’t know what they’re doing at all.</font><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;" /><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">BORTAC is being used because Trump feels that they are his most loyal forces. That is fully in keeping with the tactics of authoritarian leaders who cultivate&nbsp;secret police whose main function is to serve as the government leader’s private force, one that operates outside of any restraints such as internal review.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The [former]&nbsp;<b>Chilean dictatorship is explicitly supported by Trump’s own supporters, who wear T-shirts that say, “Right-wing death squad” and “Pinochet did nothing wrong.”&nbsp;</b>The American mainstream news media is far too charitable with its narrative that “Trump is playing to his base.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">During the recent protests in Portland, were there moments where you feared that the federal forces were going to start shooting the crowd with lethal rounds?</font></strong></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The fear is very real and it’s constant. The federal forces have assault rifles. They are loaded with live rounds. There are protesters who were throwing fireworks and things of that sort at the courthouse. What if one of the feds has an itchy trigger finger? What if a firework explodes and they then open fire on an entire group of unarmed people?</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump and their defenders and other apologists will just say, “Well, these poor agents have been overworked for 60 days and look at all the things that have been thrown at them” and so on and so forth. We know what the narrative will be. All a person can do when protesting is to act accordingly and stay focused.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">You have been documenting what are now almost 500 attacks, acts of intimidation, vehicular assaults, shootings and other threats by Trump supporters and other members of the right&nbsp;against Black Lives Matter protests. What do we know?</font></strong></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">I have never seen this amount of anti-left vigilantism from the right. During the first year of Barack Obama’s administration, the Tea Party was huge, and they mobilized with events all over the country. There were also armed protests in opposition to Obamacare. But those right-wing protesters were not coming out to confront and intimidate a much smaller group of anti-racists. Of course, those anti-Obama Tea Party and anti-health-care type protesters were extremely racist and a breath away from being fascists, but there was not that same energy and menace that&nbsp;we are seeing today.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The idea of these right-wing protesters and militia types being “anti-government” —&nbsp;again, a narrative circulated by the mainstream American news media —&nbsp;is very uncritical, a total misnomer. They are really pro-government. They are entirely in favor of the United States government as controlled by Donald Trump. Their claim to be “libertarians” is a joke.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Those right-wing militias and others sympathetic to them are arming in opposition to Democrats, liberals&nbsp;and progressives.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Right-wing extremists and other terrorists, including white supremacists and neo-Nazis, are also coordinating at times with the police. &nbsp;</font></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">They actually say that they are at the protests to “protect the police.”&nbsp;Think about that claim: They are “anti-government” vigilantes who promise that they are trying to protect the police. In essence, these right-wing militias and the like are American citizens who believe it is their role not to become police, but to guard the police. Such a claim is ludicrous. It is a paramilitary force.&nbsp;<b>These right-wing forces are coordinating and positioning themselves to be able to launch a coup against American democracy and the Democratic Party, if the latter gains control of the presidency and government.</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The closest parallel with what we are seeing with Trump’s movement would be the “massive resistance” by white people against racial integration in the South during the civil rights movement. I am of the opinion that the United States has not seen such a mobilization of violent, far-right forces to this extent since the 1960s.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Recently, a&nbsp;Trumpist and&nbsp;right-wing militia supporter traveled to Kenosha, Wisconsin and involved himself in the protests there. He apparently shot three people, killing two of them.&nbsp;He crossed state lines illegally with a weapon he was not allowed to own. He&nbsp;was only a teenager, and was radicalized online into&nbsp;right-wing extremism. He is now being valorized by the right-wing media machine. Trump has defended this young man&nbsp;as&nbsp;a hero who was fighting against “criminals” and “looters.”&nbsp;This apparent killer now has hundreds of thousands of dollars pledged to his defense.</font></strong></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump has defended Kyle Rittenhouse with the claim he was firing in “self-defense.”&nbsp;In essence, Donald Trump supports the right-wing vigilante movement, which represents the disintegration of the rule of law.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">We are witnessing an erosion of democratic norms in this country by Republicans. They accept breaking the law as being viable if it supports “traditional values” —&nbsp;meaning racism. As a practical matter, Donald Trump is spearheading the movement of the Republican Party into a full-on violent&nbsp;racist organization that&nbsp;encourages&nbsp;vigilantism.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In terms of engaging in the worst type of “both-sides-ism” and false equivalencies that helped Trump win and now keep power, the American mainstream news media is now advancing a “mutual combat” narrative&nbsp;in its coverage of Trump’s supporters and the violence in Portland last weekend. How does that narrative contradict what really happened in Portland?</font></strong></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The “mutual combat” framing is inane, legally a non-starter, and obviously supportive of the aggressive party, which is typically the Trump supporters. Their strategy is to provoke fights and then call for “law and order” intervention from a corrupt president.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><b style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Patriot Prayer leader Joey Gibson</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">has not been leading protests in Portland for a long time. He is a marginal figure, but the American news media&nbsp;has suddenly selected him and lifted him up for no apparent reason other than that he participated in an aggressive and bellicose Trump “caravan” last week during which right-wing vigilantes tried to run people over with their trucks, shot&nbsp;protesters&nbsp;and bystanders with paintball guns, and used pepper spray to attack people.</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Should Black Lives Matter, antifascist&nbsp;and other human rights and social justice supporters stop protesting in order to deny Trump’s supporters and other right-wing hooligans a narrative that could hurt Joe Biden nd the the Democrats? In essence, should they make a&nbsp;tactical withdrawal to deny Trump a strategic victory, because of how events will likely be distorted by the media to his advantage?</font></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">I will not say what protesters should or shouldn’t do. I do not think what they choose to do or not do will matter much. What is significant is that the far right will deepen its&nbsp;insurgency against the left the more that Donald Trump falters and as he continues demanding “law and order.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The left would be remiss to engage them on this level. The left is not in the streets to spark a civil war or escalate violent encounters to the point of breaking civil society into protracted sectarian warfare. The left is in the streets to make life better for ordinary people, and to present a version of the future that would be better and more prosperous for everyone. The more the left maintains its sanity against overwhelming odds, the more the right’s paranoia and hysteria will marginalize it in American society. This will create new spaces for progressive causes and movements.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">What do you want to warn the American people about? What do you think happens next?</font></strong></p></article></div><div style=""><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/12/trumps-most-fanatical-right-wing-followers-are-going-ballistic-over-impeachment-and-talking-of-civil-war"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.alternet.org/2019/12/trumps-most-fanatical-right-wing-followers-are-going-ballistic-over-impeachment-and-talking-of-civil-war</font></a></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Trump’s most fanatical right-wing followers are going ballistic over impeachment — and talking of ‘civil war’</b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Written by&nbsp;<b>David Neiwert /</b>&nbsp;Daily Kos December 27, 2019</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The most fanatical right-wing followers of Donald Trump have been warning for some time that any attempt to impeach the man in the Oval Office would result in a second American civil war that will produce large amounts of bloodshed as they rise up with their weapons caches and begin murdering liberals.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Now that he actually has been impeached, they’re going even more ballistic.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“He’s not gonna be removed. He’s not gonna be removed. He’s not gonna be removed,” one attendee at Trump rally told a CBS reporter. When the reporter asked, “Do you feel confident in that?” he responded, “My .357 Magnum is comfortable with that. End of story.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">”</span></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Rep. Louie Gohmert</b>—who has talked up civil war on several previous occasions—went ballistic on the floor of the House last week, warning that impeachment meant the end of America: “This is a travesty. We’re in big trouble,” Gohmert huffed, adding, “Now it’s lowered even further, the bar. [Impeachment] will be used for political battles and this country’s end is now in sight. I hope I don’t live to see it. This is an outrage.”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Louisiana Congressman Clay Higgins was even more unhinged</b>&nbsp;in his similar rant last week: “They fear the true will of we the people. They are&nbsp;<b>deep</b>&nbsp;established D.C. They fear, they call this Republican map flyover country. They call us deplorables. They fear our faith, they fear our strength, they fear our unity, they fear our vote, and they fear our president. We will never surrender our nation to career establishment D.C. politicians and bureaucrats. Our republic shall survive this threat from within. American patriots shall prevail.”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The real action, however, has been on social media, where Facebook and Twitter posts eagerly anticipating the violent uprising to preserve Trump’s presidency have been as common as dirt.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Ex-Navy SEAL Jonathan Gilliam, for instance, used Gohmert’s comments as a springboard on Twitter&nbsp;</b>for open discussion of a shooting civil war in which conservatives begin killing liberals for attempting to remove Trump: “Like so many, I see exactly what he sees. Therefor [sic] it is time we begin considering the possibility of civil war.”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“I am counting down the days until the vigilantes take to the streets. I dread the inevitable conflict that is coming but will do whatever I can I can to support the fight against the Left,” one commenter replied. Another answered: “lol it would be a short Civil War II.&nbsp; The vast majority of the peace officers, military personnel, and gritty hard-working 2nd Amendment loving Americans are on our side.&nbsp; The snowflakes have no idea about the sleeping bear they are about to awaken.”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[pix ReneHollan.PNG]</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">A fairly typical response among far-right extremists has been to pledge utter fealty to Trump, even unto death. Rene Hollan, a Monroe, Wash., man who is a regular participant in events organized by&nbsp;</span><b style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Patriot Prayer</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> and the Proud Boys</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;in the Pacific Northwest, posted a screed (later removed by Facebook) vowing that he would even detonate a nuclear bomb in a major liberal city:</span></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As a naturalized U.S. citizen who swore the Oath of Allegiance, if President Trump orders me to drive a truck with a nuke into a city with&nbsp;<b>Facebook</b>&nbsp;offices or an illegal sanctuary city, and detonate it, killing myself, everyone in the city, and rendering it a sheet of glass, it would be my honor to comply.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Another Northwest far-right figure, “</font><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">documentarian” Brandon Farley—long a player in the Portland-area “patriot” scene</font><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">—invited neo-Nazis to start killing his critics: “Hey Atomwaffen, will you please take note of this and act accordingly?” he tweeted.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Farley3.png</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A couple of days later, Farley discovered that his name came up in Twitter searches for Atomwaffen, and expressed his confusion.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Social scientist Caroline Orr collected a large cache of these kinds of comments on Twitter, noting, “It’s easy to laugh at the keyboard warriors in the mix, but there are definitely extremists using this opportunity to try to bring about social and political upheaval by issuing calls for violence.”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>“Lock N Load, PATRIOTS, the demonrats&nbsp;</b>just told us what they want for Christmas: #CivilWar2,” wrote one. “Let’s make the demon rats live on the streets of their own districts!”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“ALERT!! If the Democrats impeach OUR PRESIDENT WE NEED TO HAVE A&nbsp;CIVIL WAR,” tweeted another. “America as we have known it will be gone and the&nbsp;<b>squad will be in charge of us. I shiver thinking of it. A civil war will be the only way to get America back as we remember it.”</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Of course, it’s always worth remembering that this talking point has been deliberately promoted by Russian intelligence agencies&nbsp;</b>as part of their campaign to undermine American democracy. A Justice Department affidavit released in 2018 noted that the “civil war” meme is being directly encouraged by Internet Research Agency, the Russian-financed disinformation agency that purchased 3,500 ads on Facebook during the 2016 campaign with the intent of undermining American political consensus. The affidavit describes directions given to IRA’s writers.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Forcefully support&nbsp;<b>Michael Savage</b>’s point of view with competence and honesty. Savage made it clear that any attempt to remove Trump is a direct path to a civil war in the United States</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. Name those who oppose the president and those who impede his efforts to implement his pre-election promises. Focus on the fact that the Anti-Trump Republicans: a) drag their feet with regard to financing the construction of the border wall; b) are not lowering taxes; c) slander Trump and harm his reputation (bring up McCain); d)&nbsp;<b>do not want to cancel Obamacare</b>; e) are not in a hurry to adopt laws that oppose the refugees coming from Middle Eastern countries entering this country. Summarize that in case Republicans will not stop acting as&nbsp;<b>traitors, they will bring upon themselves forces of civil retribution during the 2018 elections.</b></span></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Over at Trump-friendly Russia Today, op-ed writer Robert Bridge bolstered the civil war talk with a piece headlined “Democrats’ push to impeach Trump is just the latest chapter of US Civil War 2.0,</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">” in which he concluded, “What is happening now in Washington DC between the Republicans and Democrats is just mere dress rehearsal for far more disasters down the road. I just hope the costumes don’t end up being blue and gray, once again.”</span></font></div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div style=""><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div style=""><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/08/far-right-journalist-andy-ngo-exposed-as-right-wing-troll">https://www.alternet.org/2019/08/far-right-journalist-andy-ngo-exposed-as-right-wing-troll</a></div><div style="">
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</div><div><b>Far-right ‘journalist’ Andy Ngo exposed as right-wing troll</b></div><div>
</div><div>Written by Igor Derysh / Salon August 28, 2019</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Andy Ngo, the right-wing journalist and provocateur who was embraced by mainstream Republicans and covered favorably in mainstream media after he was attacked by antifa activists during a street fight in Portland, Oregon, may suddenly be persona non grata among conservatives.</span><b style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;Nearly all mentions of Ngo were scrubbed from the upscale right-wing publication Quillette after a newly-released video showed him acting friendly with members of </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Patriot Prayer, a far-right hate group that has repeatedly sought out fights with leftists.</span></b></div><div>
</div><div>Ngo, who has used selectively edited videos to paint antifa as a violent, criminal group was hit with punches and milkshakes during a clash between antifa activists and members of the Proud Boys, an organization labeled a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Many on the right rallied around Ngo after that altercation, and spread false rumors that the milkshakes thrown at him and others had contained quick-dry cement.</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div><b>Ngo used his newfound fame to boost his profile, appearing on Fox News and other cable news outlets and embracing his victimhood.</b></div><div>
</div><div>Just weeks later, however, a video surfaced on Twitter showing Ngo pal around with the Proud Boys-adjacent group Patriot Prayer.</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The video shows Ngo laughing as the group plans a violent attack on antifa members at a Portland bar in May. The video surfaced as part of a lawsuit brought by the bar, accusing Patriot Prayer members of causing a riot.</span></div><div>
</div><div>The Portland Mercury reports that Patriot Prayer members targeted antifa while they were celebrating a day of peaceful May Day celebrations. The lawsuit brought by the bar owners alleges that Patriot Prayer leader Joey Gibson and six others trespassed onto the property with the aim of engaging in violence.</div><div>
</div><div>The video of Ngo laughing as the group plans their attack, wrote Portland Mercury news editor Alex Zielinski, “is the clearest evidence I’ve seen supporting the claim that [Patriot Prayer] & leader Joy Gibson were intent on instigating a fight that afternoon.”</div><div>
</div><div>Alex Zielinski</div><div>?</div><div>@alex_zee</div><div>&nbsp;This clip, shot right before&nbsp;<b>Patriot Prayer arrived at Cider Riot on May Day</b>, is the clearest evidence I've seen supporting the claim that PP & leader Joey Gibson were intent on instigating a fight that afternoon. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awN9J88j4mA&feature=youtu.be …</div><div>
</div><div>&nbsp;YouTube ?@YouTube</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>2,553</div><div>
</div><div>The video shows members discuss their weapons and making preparations for the attack. Ngo is present the entire time and can be seen laughing at certain points.</div><div>
</div><div>“There’s no way he couldn’t know the group was planning on instigating violence,” Zielinski wrote.</div><div>
</div><div>In Ngo’s coverage of the violence, however, videos of the attack were selectively edited to remove violence by Patriot Prayer members. His tweets entirely blamed antifa for the violence.</div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div>Respectable Lawyer</div><div>@RespectableLaw</div><div>&nbsp;· Aug 23, 2019</div><div>Replying to @RespectableLaw</div><div>And of course, Andy also posted misleading footage after the attack. He shows a woman aggressively approaching Patriot Prayer members in hysterics, and then a Patriot Prayer member hits her with some kind of club.https://twitter.com/MrAndyNgo/status/1125811724932632576 …</div><div>
</div><div>Andy Ngo</div><div>?</div><div>@MrAndyNgo</div><div>Replying to @katemshepherd</div><div>Here is the moment that woman charged in to fight and got knocked out. Notice the masked person who went in the direction of the camera man with a blade or pick. I saw numerous patrons on the bar’s property with weapons ready. pic.twitter.com/exCiimM4cp</div><div>
</div><div>&nbsp;Embedded video</div><div>
</div><div>Respectable Lawyer</div><div>@RespectableLaw</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">But as @imminentbulb pointed out, a full video shows the woman was attacked immediately prior to the start of Andy’s clip. If you listen to Andy’s clip, you can even hear one Patriot Prayer member frantically apologizing for the attack on her</span>.https://twitter.com/imminentbulb/status/1125818772793618432 …</div><div>
</div><div>,,</div><div>@imminentbulb</div><div>Replying to @imminentbulb and 2 others</div><div>Here's what happened immediately before the footage Andy is pushing. Deme Cooper, thirsty to carry out further #PatriotPrayer violence, returned to blatantly assault that person. She responded briefly in self defense, then Ian Kramer struck her after she had turned around.</div><div>
</div><div>&nbsp;Embedded video</div><div>1,653</div><div>
</div><div>“As more people send me clips, it becomes clear that Andy’s work is plagued by these&nbsp;<b>dishonest edits,”</b>&nbsp;wrote a Twitter user who has posted numerous videos discrediting Ngo’s tweets. “For example, in this clip, he edited out some goons stomping a man’s head, and did it with a sloppy looking jump-cut in his own clip.”</div><div>
</div><div>Respectable Lawyer</div><div>@RespectableLaw</div><div>&nbsp;· Aug 23, 2019</div><div>Replying to @RespectableLaw</div><div>This is the same woman who Andy had filmed and identified to his followers. She was knocked unconscious and suffered a broken neck. Andy also published her name while she was in the hospital.</div><div>
</div><div>Respectable Lawyer</div><div>@RespectableLaw</div><div>As more people send me clips, it becomes clear that Andy’s work is plagued by these dishonest edits. For example, in this clip, he edited out some goons stomping a man’s head, and did it with a sloppy looking jump-cut in his own clip.https://twitter.com/leftkist/status/1163913780197113856 …</div><div>
</div><div>Grifts Gone Wild</div><div>@leftkist</div><div>For your Andy Ngo list @RespectableLaw&nbsp;</div><div>
</div><div>Andy crudely edited out footage of&nbsp;<b>Patriot Prayer associates Tiny Toese and Igor Ponomarev pummeling someone on the ground on 10/13/18.</b></div><div>
</div><div>Footage from @itsmikebivins shows what he cut.</div><div>
</div><div>&nbsp;Embedded video</div><div>1,927</div><div>
</div><div>376 people are talking about this</div><div>Quillette, where Ngo worked as a photo editor until Monday, announced after the video surfaced that Ngo was leaving his job at the site. Ngo’s name was scrubbed from the site, The Daily Beast reported.</div><div>
</div><div>Quillette editor-in-chief Claire Lehmann told The Daily Beast that Ngo left the site weeks earlier but the move was not publicized until Monday.</div><div>
</div><div>“Andy actually moved on from Quillette a few weeks ago because he is undertaking bigger & better projects, we just hadn’t updated the website and he hadn’t updated his Twitter bio until today,” she told the Daily Beast. “I haven’t seen the video,” she added.</div><div>
</div><div>Lehmann also said that Ngo had been on a “break” from a “brain injury” he suffered at the Portland rally.</div><div>
</div><div><b>Ngo, however, did not remove Quillette from his Twitter bio until Monday, noted National Observer reporter Caroline Orr, the same day that the Patriot Prayer video was released.</b></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Meanwhile, Ngo’s crowdfunding campaign has raised nearly $195,000 since the Portland attack, which was even cited in a letter sent by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, to the Justice Department.</span></div><div>
</div><div><b>Cruz cited the Ngo incident to demand that the FBI investigate Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler and prosecute antifa members under the RICO statute. Cruz’s call was&nbsp;<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">amplified by President Trump to his 63 million followers on Twitter.</span></b></div><div>
</div><div>“At least give Andy Ngo credit,” wrote HuffPost reporter Luke O’Brien, for “lifting $200k off some of the dumbest people alive. Right-wing writers staked their reputations on this guy.&nbsp;<b>Ted Cruz based an anti-anti-fascist congressional resolution on Ngo.”</b></div></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style=""><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div></div><div style=""><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">819</font></div><div><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The leader of a large right-wing militia group told followers to skip a planned rally in Portland, Oregon, on Saturday, saying that organizers hadn’t properly kept white nationalists away from the event and that attendees could face legal consequences.</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span id="more-1243200" style="box-sizing: border-box;" /></font></p><div class="code-block code-block-6" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 8px auto; text-align: center; clear: both;"><div style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-left: -38px;"><p class="p1" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-align: left; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In a&nbsp;<a href="https://oathkeepers.org/2019/08/oath-keepers-will-not-be-participating-in-the-august-17-rally-in-portland-or/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">statement</a>&nbsp;on his group’s website, Oath Keepers founder&nbsp;<a href="https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/we-build-the-wall-oath-keepers-three-percenters-guardian-patriots" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">Stewart Rhodes</a>&nbsp;said he owed it to his membership to disavow the so-called “End Domestic Terrorism” rally, where attendees will demand that anti-fascists, or “antifa,” be labeled a terrorist group.</font></p><p class="p1" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-align: left; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“We do not believe the organizers are taking the steps necessary to ensure that white nationalist and suspected white nationalist groups and individuals will be excluded,” he wrote.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-align: left; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Rhodes expressed concern that threats of violence from the right could put attendees at legal risk.</font></p><p class="p1" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-align: left; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Citing the work of anarchist news website It’s Going Down, Rhodes pointed to the&nbsp;<a href="https://itsgoingdown.org/proud-boy-leaders-tone-down-after-fbi/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">archived</a>&nbsp;posts the site has collected that show prominent far-right figures,&nbsp;including the event’s organizers, seemingly threatening violence.</font></p><p class="p1" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-align: left; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Rhodes said that statements that can be “construed as expressing an intent to come to Portland to seek out Antifa and engage them in street fights” or “worse” could “potentially expose all attendees to possible prosecution using both an Oregon state ‘rioting’ statute and a federal rioting statute.”</font></p><div class="code-block code-block-7" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 8px auto; clear: both;"><div style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-left: -38px;"><p class="p1" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-align: left; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Joe Biggs, an event organizer and former InfoWars host who&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/Johnnthelefty/status/1157872808707235841?fbclid=IwAR0BJVpV6X1txh1Uh0WBC8l80d3bjuJ0xE8j3hxb3R4LEOOEZ_LKCo-6PSQk" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">frequently</a>&nbsp;posts threatening messages and memes online, claimed in a recent Facebook post&nbsp;<a href="https://www.oregonlive.com/crime/2019/08/chief-says-portland-is-becoming-a-magnet-for-brawling-political-protests-while-out-of-state-proud-boys-send-message-to-mayor-city-commissioners.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">flagged by The Oregonian</a>&nbsp;that the FBI had asked him to “tone down” the rhetoric about the event.</font></p><p class="p1" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-align: left; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Everyone in law enforcement is on edge after these last two shootings,” he wrote, presumably referring to the shooting massacres in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, recently.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-align: left; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Portland Police Bureau said in a&nbsp;statement&nbsp;<a href="https://www.portlandmercury.com/blogtown/2019/08/02/26905848/portland-police-brace-for-august-17-proud-boys-rally" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">earlier this month</a>,&nbsp;“Based on publicly-available information, the Bureau is concerned events on August 17 may involve persons interested in participating in criminal activity.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-align: left; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Messaging for Saturday’s rally has focused on the assault of right-wing commentator Andy Ngo in Portland in late June. Video from the last time the right-wing “Proud Boys” gang rallied in Portland appeared to show counterprotesters — clad in black with their faces covered, a uniform of some — attacking Ngo and pouring milkshakes on him. The footage spread like wildfire on the right and was touted by conservatives as supposed evidence of the left’s terrorism problem, and used as fodder for Sens.&nbsp;<b>Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Bill Cassidy’s (R-LA)&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cassidy.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/cassidy-cruz-antifa-is-a-domestic-terrorist-organization" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">resolution</a>&nbsp;calling antifascists a domestic terrorist organization.</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-align: left; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But Portland has seen multiple violent confrontations in recent years between extreme right-wing groups, including outright hate groups, and anti-fascists.</font></p><p style="text-align: left; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Rhodes’ note to Oath Keepers membership came on the same day the leader of the ultranationalist group&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);"><b style="">Patriot Prayer, Joey Gibson,</b>&nbsp;was&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wweek.com/news/courts/2019/08/15/patriot-prayer-leader-joey-gibson-will-face-criminal-charges-in-may-day-riot-his-lawyer-says/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">reportedly</a>&nbsp;charged with felony rioting</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> over a brawl at a&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Portland cidery&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">on May Day. (Gibson’s attorney&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.opb.org/news/article/joey-gibson-criminal-charges-cider-riot/" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">denied wrongdoing</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.) The group’s leader is one of several people&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.oregonlive.com/crime/2019/08/fourth-suspect-arrested-in-connection-with-may-day-clash-following-three-others-within-a-week.html" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">charged recently</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;in relation to the incident.</span></font></p></div></div></div></div></div></div><div style=""><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="">
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</font></div><div style=""><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">no many lnx</font></div><div style=""><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" /><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
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</div><div>&nbsp;NEW FAR-RIGHT</div><div><b>Why Young Men of Color Are Joining White-Supremacist Groups</b></div><div>Patriot Prayer’s leader is half-Japanese. Black and brown faces march with the Proud Boys. Is the future of hate multicultural?</div><div>
</div><div><b>Arun Gupta</b></div><div>09.04.18 4:54 AM ET</div><div>
</div><div>Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast</div><div>PORTLAND, Oregon—Outfitted in a flak jacket and fighting gloves, Enrique Tarrio was one of dozens of black, Latino, and Asian men who marched alongside white supremacists in Portland on Aug. 4.</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Tarrio, who identifies as Afro-Cuban, is&nbsp;</span><a class="LinkWrapper LinkWrapper--external" href="https://www.thenation.com/article/afternoon-portlands-multi-racial-far-right/" style="transition: color 0.15s ease 0s; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">president</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;of the Miami chapter of the Proud Boys, who call themselves “</span><a class="LinkWrapper LinkWrapper--external" href="http://proudboysusa.com/" style="transition: color 0.15s ease 0s; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Western chauvinists</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">,” and “regularly spout white-nationalist memes and maintain affiliations with known extremists,”&nbsp;</span><a class="LinkWrapper LinkWrapper--external" href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/group/proud-boys" style="transition: color 0.15s ease 0s; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">according</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;to the Southern Poverty Law Center. Last month, prior to the Patriot Prayer rally he attended in Portland, Tarrio was&nbsp;</span><a class="LinkWrapper LinkWrapper--external" href="https://twitter.com/arunindy/status/1025588199660244993" style="transition: color 0.15s ease 0s; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">pictured</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;with other far-right activists making a hand sign that started as a hoax but has become an in-joke. Last year, Tarrio&nbsp;</span><a class="LinkWrapper LinkWrapper--external" href="https://www.local10.com/news/white-nationalist-who-attended-rally-in-charlottesville-explains-his-beliefs" style="transition: color 0.15s ease 0s; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">said</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;</span><a class="LinkWrapper LinkWrapper--external" href="https://www.local10.com/news/white-nationalist-who-attended-rally-in-charlottesville-explains-his-beliefs" style="transition: color 0.15s ease 0s; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">traveled to Charlottesville</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, Virginia, for the&nbsp;</span><a class="LinkWrapper LinkWrapper--external" href="https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2017/08/alt-rally-charlottesville-braces-violence-170810073156023.html%22" style="transition: color 0.15s ease 0s; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Unite the Right</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;rally that ended with a&nbsp;</span><a class="LinkWrapper LinkWrapper--external" href="https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/evkeza/neo-nazi-who-killed-heather-heyer-in-charlottesville-was-just-charged-with-29-hate-crimes" style="transition: color 0.15s ease 0s; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">neo-Nazi allegedly killing</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;an anti-fascist protester. (The Proud Boys&nbsp;</span><a class="LinkWrapper LinkWrapper--external" href="https://www.thisamericanlife.org/626/transcript" style="transition: color 0.15s ease 0s; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">said</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;any members who went to the event were kicked out.)</span></div><div>
</div><div>Tarrio, who identifies as Afro-Cuban, is president of the Miami chapter of the Proud Boys, who call themselves “Western chauvinists,” and “regularly spout white-nationalist memes and maintain affiliations with known extremists,” according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. Last month, prior to the Patriot Prayer rally he attended in Portland, Tarrio was pictured with other far-right activists making a hand sign that started as a hoax but has become an in-joke. Last year, Tarrio said traveled to Charlottesville, Virginia, for the Unite the Right rally that ended with a neo-Nazi allegedly killing an anti-fascist protester. (The Proud Boys said any members who went to the event were kicked out.)</div><div>
</div><div>View image on Twitter</div><div>View image on Twitter</div><div>
</div><div>Arun "295 Revenue Streams" Gupta</div><div>@arunindy</div><div>&nbsp;Patriot Prayer + Proud Boys in Vancouver night b4 Aug 4 Portland rally many fear will end in violence. Tusitala "Tiny" Toese and others make an apparent "White Power" hand gesture. T-shirts read, "Pinochet Did Nothing Wrong."</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Tarrio and other people of color at the far-right rallies claim institutional racism no longer exists in America. In their view, blacks are to blame for any lingering inequality because they are dependent on welfare, lack strong leadership, and believe Democrats who tell them “You’re always going to be broke. You’re not going to make it in society because of institutional racism,” as one mixed-race man put it.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">If racism doesn’t exist, I ask Tarrio, how would he explain the disproportionate killing of young black men by police? “Hip-hop culture,” he says. It “glorifies that lifestyle… of selling drugs, shooting up.” Because of that, “Obviously you’re going to have higher crime rates. Obviously you’re going to have more police presence and more confrontations.” (Police kill black males aged 15 to 34 at nine times the rate of the general population.)</span></div><div>
</div><div>Elysa Sanchez, who is black and Puerto Rican, attended the “Liberty or Death Rally Against Left-Wing Violence” in Seattle on Aug. 18, joining about 20 militiamen open-carrying handguns and semi-automatic rifles.</div><div>
</div><div>Sanchez says, “If black people are committing more murders, more robberies, more thefts, more violent crime, that’s why you would see more black men having encounters with the police.”</div><div>
</div><div>Also in Seattle, Franky Price, who said he is&nbsp; “black and white,”wore a T-shirt reading, “It’s okay to be white.”</div><div>
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</div><div>They are among nearly a dozen black, Latino, and Asian participants at far-right rallies on the West Coast interviewed by The Daily Beast recently. They represent the new face of the far right that some scholars term “multiracial white supremacy.”</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The Proud Boys and Patriot Prayer, which overlap, embrace an America-first nationalism that is less pro-white than it is anti-Muslim, anti-illegal immigrant, and anti-Black Lives Matter. “Proud Boys is multi-racial fraternity with thousands of members worldwide,” a lawyer for the group’s leader, Gavin McInnis, said in a statement. <b>“The only requirements for membership are that a person must be biologically male and believe that the West is the best.”</b></span></div><div>
</div><div>Daniel Martinez HoSang, associate professor at Yale University, co-author of the forthcoming Producers, Parasites, Patriots: Race and the New Right-Wing Politics of Precarity, says “Multiculturalism has become a norm in society” and has spread from corporations and consumer culture to conservatism and the far-right.</div><div>
</div><div><b>Indeed, Patriot Prayer’s leader is Joey Gibson, who is half-Japanese and claims Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., as a hero. But his agenda is the opposite of King’s. Gibson’s rallies have attracted neo-Confederates and neo-Nazis.</b></div><div>
</div><div>His right-hand man is Tusitala “Tiny” Toese, a 345-pound Samoan American who calls himself “a brown brother for Donald Trump” and is notorious for brawling. By bringing diversity to what is at heart a white-supremacist movement, people of color give it legitimacy to challenge state power and commit violence against their enemies.</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">David Neiwert, author of Alt-America: The Rise of the Radical Right in the Age of Trump, says, “The ranks of people of color who show up to these right-wing events are totally dominated by males.” He says the alt-right targets white males between the ages of 15 and 30 with a message of male resentment, which ends up attracting black, Latino, and Asian men as well.</span></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Neiwert says many young men of color in the far-right grew up on conservative traditions common in minority communities. Their journey to the far-right has been enabled by the ease of recruitment in the internet age and the endorsement of extremism by Trump</span>.</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Entry points to the far-right include male-dominated video-game culture, the anti-feminist gamergate, troll havens on 4chan and 8chan, and the conspiracism that flourishes on websites like Infowars. Libertarianism is another gateway.</span></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“A lot of these young guys,” Neiwert says, “especially from the software world, who are being sucked into white nationalism, start out being worked up about Ayn Rand in high school.”</span></div><div>
</div><div>Andrew Zhao, 25, a software engineer, says his parents, physicists who emigrated from mainland China, “are Trump fans.” He found out about the Seattle rally from Reddit and Facebook and said, “We need more patriotism. A lot of liberals don’t like America.”</div><div>
</div><div>“A lot of these young guys, especially from the software world, who are being sucked into white nationalism, start out being worked up about Ayn Rand in high school.”</div><div>— David Neiwert</div><div>
</div><div>Daniel HoSang says some people of color are drawn to the far-right because they “identify with the military, with nationalism, with patriotism, with conservatism.”</div><div>
</div><div>Wearing a Proud Boys hat, David Nopal, 23, came to the Seattle rally alone, like others. Nopal, whose parents crossed illegally from Mexico, said, “I’m very patriotic. The U.S. isn’t perfect, but we are a hell of a lot better than other countries.”</div><div>
</div><div>Sanchez comes from a military family. “They all love America. It’s a big part of the reason I’m a patriot.”</div><div>
</div><div>Similarly, Tarrio attributes his anti-socialist politics to his grandfather’s experience in Cuba under Fidel Castro.</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">They proudly identify as “American” without modifiers. In their America they’ve never experienced racism. They eagerly talk politics, but evidence of their America is scant beyond the internet. Institutional racism has been ended by affirmative action, “black privilege,” and equal protection under the law. Any remaining black inequality is caused by social welfare and liberal policies. In any case, it was Democrats who started the Klan.</span></div><div>
</div><div>People of color within the far-right play a role that “excuses white racism and bears witness to the failure of people of color,” HoSang says, adding that they make “white supremacy a more durable force.”</div><div>
</div><div>HoSang said the far-right is trying to broaden its appeal from a whites-only movement in a multiracial America, so it is “laying claim to the ideas of anti-racism, racial uplift, and civil-rights progress.”</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">HoSang says, “It’s hard for people to wrap their head around how Dr. King and civil-rights language are being used to legitimate positions approaching fascism and violence to restore hierarchy and order. But they are.”</span></div><div>
</div><div>Editor's Note: This story has been updated with a statement from the Proud Boys and to clarify that the group formally opposed the Charlottesville march.</div><div>
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</font><div style=""><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/heres-why-proud-boys-claim-self-defense-when-defending-ring-wing-violence-total-joke">https://www.alternet.org/heres-why-proud-boys-claim-self-defense-when-defending-ring-wing-violence-total-joke</a></font></div><div style=""><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div style=""><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">amanda m</font></div><div style=""><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">W<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">hen far-right groups like the Proud Boys or Patriot Prayer get into street brawls, they have a go-to rationalization: It was self-defense. The argument is that fringe right-wingers&nbsp;are out there peacefully protesting or&nbsp;attending speeches, and that the violence that&nbsp;often seems to erupt afterward is merely a reaction to leftist provocation.</span></font></div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Antifa terrorists attacked us, not the other way around," argues a typical post at the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.facebook.com/TheProudBoysUSA/posts/759331481076443?
xts%5B0%5D=68.ARAzIg-6li5-w59jR1RZLqAnBTO0Ttr8j-lYmKsCSD4N-KtJCH2tlmy6XQi-wZtREYFc41uD-r-qHqAlZ06dL5dPwrQOVN6UYw1CL2sbhKqcBWZ_WvUuWvkoarRaAKxg0lGOtf061Wy2dja5XBZCFV924ypmr2j9sLndKLJ_Iyk07OWBJjrNspa-d6xj6_6-n7z1e_CMMlfroiVSMLcB&tn=-R" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Proud Boys Facebook page</a>, after&nbsp;<a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/nypd-looks-to-charge-9-proud-boys-with-assault-for-manhattan-fight" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">members of the group were filmed beating up anti-fascist protesters</a>&nbsp;after Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes gave a speech at New York's&nbsp;Metropolitan Republican Club.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Conservative media has picked up this talking point and has aggressively defended and promoted far-right&nbsp;groups — who have also gotten into&nbsp;<a href="https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2018/10/patriot_prayer_flash_march_cal.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">street fights in Portland, Oregon</a>, and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.providencejournal.com/news/20181006/state-police-intervene-as-protest-groups-clash-at-state-house--videos" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Providence, Rhode Island,</a>&nbsp;in the past month — painting them as victims who only engage in violence as a last resort to defend themselves.</font></p><div style=""><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">On her Fox News show,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2018/10/15/laura-ingraham-hosts-leader-right-wing-group-responsible-violent-portland-riots-softball-interview/221697" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Laura Ingraham interviewed Joey Gibson</a>, the head of Patriot Prayer, who&nbsp;denied&nbsp;"any intention to get violent" and said the violence in Portland was purely self-defense.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Sean Hannity, on his own Fox News show,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/video/2018/10/15/hannity-and-his-guests-lie-about-violent-rioting-pro-trump-supporters-claim-it-was-left/221695" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">put the blame on for these outbreaks of violence on Democratic rhetoric he considers rude</a>, even though none of the figures or incidents he mentioned were anywhere near these events. He&nbsp;explained what happened last week this way:&nbsp;"A bunch of anarchists go to the New York GOP club, Republican club, whatever it happens to be, and they’re<b>&nbsp;committing vandalism, anarchist signs that they’re putting up, etc., and then there’s a confrontation on the street there."</b></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
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=</b></font></p><div style=""><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2020/08/31/what-we-know-about-patriot-prayer">https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2020/08/31/what-we-know-about-patriot-prayer</a></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style=""><div class="field field-name-field-long-text field-type-text-long field-label-hidden" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.2; float: left; margin-right: 24.6094px; width: 865.891px; margin-left: 89.0469px;"><div class="field-items" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field-item even " style="box-sizing: inherit;"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 0.75em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On Sunday morning, the New York Times&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/30/us/portland-trump-rally-shooting.html" target="
blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; background: transparent;">reported</a>&nbsp;that a man wearing a hat branded with the insignia of Patriot Prayer was shot and killed in Portland.</font></p></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden" style="box-sizing: inherit; float: left; margin-right: 0px; width: 865.891px; margin-left: 89.0469px;"><div class="field-items" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field-item even " style="box-sizing: inherit;"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 2em; line-height: 2;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Patriot Prayer is a far-right group active in the Pacific Northwest. Over the past three years, the group has hosted and promoted rallies in progressive cities like&nbsp;</span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Portland</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, frequently engaging in violence against their political opponents. Patriot Prayer rallies regularly include the&nbsp;</span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Proud Boys,&nbsp;</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">a hate group, and various antigovernment extremist groups. In</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">2018, the FBI&nbsp;<a href="https://www.opb.org/news/article/portland-fbi-proud-boys-clarifies-statement/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s;">included</a>&nbsp;the Washington-Oregon Proud Boys during a presentation to the Clark County Sheriff’s Office on “domestically inspired acts of violence</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.”&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The FBI&nbsp;<a href="https://www.opb.org/news/article/fbi-proud-boys-extremist-group-white-nationalism/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s;">advised</a>, “Proud Boys members have contributed to the recent escalation of violence at political rallies held on college campuses, and in cities like Charlottesville, Virginia, Portland, Oregon and Seattle, Washington</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">,” a report from the Clark County Sheriff’s Office stated.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 2em; line-height: 2;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Joey Gibson, the leader of Patriot Prayer, lives in Vancouver, Washington and has&nbsp;<a href="https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2018/07/25/another-charlottesville-threats-violence-loom-over-upcoming-portland-proud-boys-patriot" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s;">called Portland</a>&nbsp;“disgusting” and filled with “so much darkness.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">” He has instructed members and supporters to be armed at rallies, saying, “Everyone should be carrying around guns at all times, especially people in our situation.”</span></b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 2em; line-height: 2;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">One associate of Patriot Prayer, Reggie Axtell,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2019/01/25/proud-boy-threatens-portland-mayor-im-coming-you" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s;">threatened</a>&nbsp;Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler, and another, Skylor Jernigan, has made explicit threats against Portland antifascists. “You’re gonna be getting knives put into your throat. You’re going to be getting bullets put into your head if you don’t stop this shit with us,” Jernigan said.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 2em; line-height: 2;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Read our past coverage of Patriot Prayer:</font></p><h3 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 1em 0px;"><a href="https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2019/01/25/proud-boy-threatens-portland-mayor-im-coming-you" style="box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; background: transparent;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="font-weight: normal;">Proud Boy Threatens Portland Mayor: “I’m Coming For You”</font></a></h3><h3 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 1em 0px;"><a href="https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2018/07/25/another-charlottesville-threats-violence-loom-over-upcoming-portland-proud-boys-patriot" style="box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; background: transparent;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="font-weight: normal;">Another Charlottesville? Threats of violence loom over upcoming Portland Proud Boys, Patriot Prayer rally</font></a></h3><h3 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 1em 0px;"><a href="https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2018/09/26/police-intervened-stop-proud-boy-becoming-violent-free-alex-jones-event-austin" style="box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; background: transparent;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="font-weight: normal;">Police intervened to stop a Proud Boy from becoming violent at a 'Free Alex Jones' event in Austin</font></a></h3><h3 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; background: transparent; font-weight: normal;"><a href="https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2018/10/15/patriot-prayer-again-brings-violence-portland-flash-march-downtown-rounding-out-weekend-far" style="box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; background: transparent;">Patriot Prayer again brings violence to Portland with 'flash march' downtown, rounding out a weekend of far-right violence</a></font></h3></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>