GAVIN BAK CAPT

GAVINMCi1224

NYC YOUNG REP 12 24 FASCIST? press suppr

proudboy820

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AN 12 24

Some defenders of President-elect Donald Trump and the MAGA movement argue that when MAGA Republicans say threatening, ominous things online, they are simply blowing off steam. More than once, Vice-President-elect JD Vance has accused Trump's critics of blowing his comments way out of proportion and failing to realize that some of his in-your-face comments are simply meant to be humorous.

But The Atlantic's Ali Breland, in an article published on December 18, stresses that when MAGA Republicans say disturbing things, they need to be taken seriously.

Breland recently attended a New York Young Republicans Club gathering, where the MAGA attendees included "War Room" host Steve Bannon (the keynote speaker), Proud Boys co-founder Gavin McInnes, former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Florida), and Rep.-elect Brandon Gill (R-Texas). And one of the big takeaways, according to Breland, is that MAGA Republicans are even more disturbing in person than they are online.

McInnes, at the event, angrily told Breland, "You should slit your wrists."

"Trump and his supporters haven't exactly been quiet about their fantasies and promises," Breland explains. "Trump talked about mass deportations all throughout the campaign, and has doubled down since his victory. But there is a meaningful difference between being aware of the rhetoric and truly experiencing its full force."

Breland continues, "As a reporter who covers the far-right internet, I've seen countless posts from people like Gill and Bannon talking about deporting as many immigrants as possible or incarcerating Democrats and the press. But to hear these men fervently say it and watch a crowd of more than 1000 erupt into cheers and laughter in response added a new dimension."

The Atlantic staffer emphasizes that what he saw at the New York Young Republicans Club went way beyond ordinary conservative trolling.

"They don't just want policies," Breland warns, "and they're not just s---posting to provoke people online. They want their enemies to suffer, and they want to relish in their pain."

Breland notes that "revenge" was a recurring theme at the event.

Bannon told the crowd that Democrats and the mainstream media "need to learn what populist nationalist power is on the receiving end," adding, "We want retribution."

According to Breland, "The theme of the evening was revenge: During the forthcoming Trump Administration, various speakers said, there would be hell to pay. Enemies of the state would be arrested and put in jail, or deported. The intensity of McInnes' disdain for the media was an outlier, but only barely."

*Ali Breland's full article for The Atlantic is available at this link (subscription required).

AN 12 24

But The Atlantic's Ali Breland, in an article published on December 18, stresses that when MAGA Republicans say disturbing things, they need to be taken seriously.

McInnes, at the event, angrily told Breland, "You should slit your wrists."

The Atlantic staffer emphasizes that what he saw at the New York Young Republicans Club went way beyond ordinary conservative trolling.

"They don't just want policies," Breland warns, "and they're not just s---posting to provoke people online. They want their enemies to suffer, and they want to relish in their pain."

Breland notes that "revenge" was a recurring theme at the event.

Bannon told the crowd that Democrats and the mainstream media "need to learn what populist nationalist power is on the receiving end," adding, "We want retribution."

*Ali Breland's full article for The Atlantic is available at this link (subscription required).

rww 1 24

Over the holidays, racist, misogynistic, antisemitic, homophobic Christian nationalist Nick Fuentes hosted an 13-hour “Moneybomb Marathon Stream” to raise money for his America First movement heading into 2024. }:}:

Among the guests were far-right activists and commentators Gavin McInnes, Keith Woods, Elijah Schaffer, Stew Peters, and Vincent James, an unapologetic racist, antisemite, misogynist, conspiracy theorist, and fascist, who currently serves as the treasurer of Fuentes’ white nationalist America First organization.}:

During their discussion, Fuentes and James spent a good deal of time reminiscing about their years of working together to spread their shared racist, antisemitic, and fascist worldview while commiserating over the fact that their dedication to spreading that worldview has largely ruined their respective lives.

Fuentes and James asserted that all of their efforts are starting to pay off, as younger far-right activists are now able to say the sorts of things that have turned Fuentes and James into social pariahs without “having to make the same sacrifices” that they did.

In fact, said James, he and Fuentes are basically the Rosa Parks and/or Martin Luther King Jr. of bigoted fascist far-right activists.

“We’ve reached millions of people,” Jamesvid. “There’s a big benefit to that but it’s something—I’m not saying that I regret it, I’m just saying that it’s not easy. It’s not for the weak, that’s for sure. To go through the things that we [have]—journalists stalking us and shit like that—it’s not for the weak.”

“The fact that we have sort of paved the way and made it easier for people to talk about these things,” he continued, “you’re kind of jealous. It’s like, ‘What the fuck man?’ It’s like, ‘Dude, I lost my job, all these things happened to me, I lost my bank account to say these things.’ It’s kind of like, almost, you know, Martin Luther King in a way, kind of, or Rosa Parks.”

“Yeah,” Fuentes agreed. “We’re the first ones. We’re the ones getting beaten down and firehosed.”

“Yeah, it’s kind of like that,” James replied. “It’s almost exactly like how those Blacks were hit with fire hoses.”

IFrame Content

:{It is also worth highlighting Stew Peters’ participation in Fuentes’ livestream, as not only did Peters speak at Fuentes’ last AFPAC conference, but he has had both Fuentes and James on his program recently, and is now helping to raise funds for the America First organization.

Given that Peters regularly manages to get Republican leaders, elected officials, and candidates for office to appear on his own program, it is becoming imperative that any GOP elected official or candidate who agrees to appear on Peters’ program be held accountable for giving credibility to someone who is not only actively raising money for fascists but is, himself, a unhinged and dangerous far-right activist who openly advocates the overthrow of the U.S. government.}:

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trying for comeback?

https://www.democracynow.org/2022/10/26/penn_state_cancels_gavin_mcinnes_speech

students maced

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kinda lively silly eg not racist bc tarrio and girlfriends

Talk:Gavin McInnes - Wikipedia

===

From Vice to the Proud Boys: How Canadian Gavin McInnes birthed two polarizing legacies

A new documentary tracks his transformation from left-leaning media figure to far-right leader

CBC Docs · Posted: Oct 25, 2024

A still from It’s Not Funny Anymore: Vice to Proud Boys. Gavin McInnes — the Canadian co-founder of the progressive, left-leaning Vice magazine and founder of the far-right Proud Boys — sits for an interview. (Cineflix Media)

How did the "coolest dude in New York media" — according to Thomas Morton, a former contributing editor for Vice magazine — go from leftist counterculture icon to far-right provocateur?

Gavin McInnes co-founded the progressive, left-leaning Vice in 1994. Based out of Montreal, it started out as an alternative print publication focusing on arts, culture, lifestyle, news and politics. Along with co-founders Shane Smith and Suroosh Alvi, McInnes elevated the magazine to Vice Media — which branched out into digital media, film and broadcasting — and moved the operation to New York in 1999.

Then, 22 years after the launch of the magazine, McInnes founded the Proud Boys, a neo-fascist organization known for its involvement in the storming of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

It's a trajectory that has proved jarring and confusing for many of his former friends and colleagues at Vice.

In the documentary *It's Not Funny Anymore: Vice to Proud Boys*, Morton traces how this drastic shift in ideologies may have occurred. Through conversations with McInnes's family, friends, former coworkers and McInnes himself, Morton aims to understand how his one-time mentor became what he calls "a sort of right-wing guru."

Morton, a former contributing editor for Vice magazine, texts McInnes to set up a one-on-one interview for the documentary. (Cineflix Media)

The provocative, envelope-pushing early days of Vice magazine

Vice was born out of another publication, Voice of Montreal, where Smith, Alvi and McInnes worked in the early '90s.

"'Vice' is everything naughty and irresponsible one can do in life. That [name is] going to get people's attention," says Rupert Bottenberg, a comic artist and former Vice contributor, in the documentary.

In an archival interview, McInnes is shown declaring himself the "resident goof" and "madman in a cage" at the magazine.

Morton and fellow Vice alumni also remember McInnes as a funny person who enjoyed pushing the envelope with shock humour and nudity in the office.

In the documentary, puppets are used to recreate a story Morton tells about a time McInnes walked around the Vice office naked from the waist down. (Cineflix Media)

In the early days, McInnes directed much of his rebellious energy toward challenging political correctness, which informed the overall voice of the publication.

Former editor-in-chief Jesse Pearson describes McInnes in the documentary as, "the heart and soul of Vice magazine."

McInnes was also the creative force behind each issue, according to Morton. One of the most popular series in the magazine was McInnes's Dos and Don'ts, which made light of people photographed on the street.

Former head of publishing at Vice Media Thobey Campion says that McInnes wanted people to laugh "in the most painful way they possibly could."

"At that point in time, Gavin was just a comedian who wanted to push it too far," he remarks in the film. "Every time he caught a hold of something that caused a reaction, he felt unable to restrain himself from continuing to get that reaction … [he was] almost pathologically drawn."

'It got old and it got more extreme'

When Morton first met McInnes, he recalls, McInnes "sieg heiled" a mailman.

"I laughed because it was f--king funny," Morton says while reminiscing with writer and editor Dave Carnie in the documentary. "But it was funny because he wasn't a Nazi."

Former Vice editor Amy Kellner tells Morton that she also found McInnes humorous and smart in the beginning. But she says he had several "rules" for how women should look, such as avoiding certain hairstyles and clothing, that made her feel insecure.

When McInnes eventually told her about the importance of "perfectly symmetrical" genitalia, she had had it.

"It got old and it got more extreme," she says. "And it didn't seem like a joke anymore."

Morton says he began to see a different side of his mentor after McInnes was introduced to the work of Jim Goad, co-creator of the zine Answer Me! and author of The Redneck Manifesto — a book that argues that lower-class white people are the last undefended minority.

McInnes brought Goad on as a Vice contributor in 2005, where he wrote a lengthy article — edited by McInnes — that claimed slavery in America wasn't as bad as history classes would have you believe.

After its publication, Vice staff who were familiar with McInnes's envelope-pushing tendencies were left wondering: was this just a radical statement about the importance of free speech? Or was he actually racist?

The rise and fall out of the Proud Boys

McInnes went on to leave Vice around 2007 and soon became known for his far-right political views, which he shared on programs like Fox News's Red Eye and The Sean Hannity Show.

But it was on his own talk radio show, The Gavin McInnes Show, that he first described his growing group of like-minded drinking buddies.

"When you're doing the same thing every week, or in this case it was every night … you start developing a sort of a culture. And a culture needs a name," McInnes says in archival footage shown in the documentary. "I think it was May of 2015, I said, 'OK, we got a name.'" And thus, the Proud Boys were born.

Over the following years, Proud Boys chapters began forming in various cities, including Toronto, where McInnes's words — like the credo, "I am a proud western chauvinist who refuses to apologize for creating the modern world" — were resonating with men.

And as the organization grew, its members became increasingly involved in violent confrontations.

One clash with anti-fascists in 2018 resulted in the arrest of 10 Proud Boys members, and McInnes releasing a statement saying that he was "disassociating" himself from the group in order to help "alleviate their sentencing." Still, McInnes continued to share his political views and support for the Proud Boys on his platform.

Proud Boys membership then increased "exponentially," according to one former member featured in the documentary, after then-U.S. president Donald Trump acknowledged the group during a debate in 2020.

"Proud Boys, stand back and stand by," he said, giving the organization a new motto that was eventually adapted into its logo.

Things would only escalate from there, with Proud Boys members taking part in the storming of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 — an attack that resulted in the deaths of at least seven people, according to a bipartisan report from the U.S. Senate.

The next month, Canada officially labelled the Proud Boys a terrorist entity, and the Canadian arm of the group officially disbanded later that year. The film notes, however, that there is no list of domestic terrorist groups in the United States, and reports suggest the Proud Boys remain active there.

Canada labels the Proud Boys, neo-Nazi groups as terrorists

In It's Not Funny Anymore, Morton works up to sitting down with McInnes himself to discuss the many theories he's come across that might explain how a once left-leaning, progressive media figure became a symbol of far-right militancy — including the theory that McInnes is a racist.

To prepare for his upcoming interview with McInnes, Morton reviews theories that may explain his transformation from the voice of Vice to the leader of the Proud Boys. (Cineflix Media)

McInnes explains what he believes Proud Boys really mean when they say "Make America great again," and asserts that straight, white, male conservatives are the "least racist people in this country, in the world."

After the interview, Morton reflects on the criticism he believes he'll receive for not pushing harder against his former mentor, who continues to platform Proud Boys convicted on conspiracy to commit treason online.

Still, he concludes, "[Gavin's] whole deal is going too far, and now he's facing the consequences for that."

How to watchIt's Not Funny Anymore: Vice to Proud Boys

Watch now on CBC Gem and the CBC Docs YouTube channel.

===

aug 2024 so caro

cOLUMBIA, S.C. (WIS) - Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes spoke in an exclusive interview with WIS Investigative reporter Deric Rush Friday on the controversy surrounding a scheduled roast of Vice President and Democratic Presidential nominee Kamala Harris.

The conversation has been ongoing for a week now. Uncensored America, a student organization at the University of South Carolina, will have McInnes and Milo Yiannopoulos as speakers at a comedy roast of Vice President Harris on Sept. 18.

The University administration said it would not interfere with the event with respect to Uncensored America and their guests’ First Amendment rights

Alumni and some legislators said they felt USC’s reaction to the event has been poor.

“Allowing these types of speakers onto campus and allowing them to use the university facilities? This statement just wasn’t good for minority students or any other marginalized community on campus,” said former Alumna Courtney McClain, who started a **petitionprotesting the event that has received over 15,000 signatures after its initial goal of just 1,000.

Gov. Henry McMaster’s stance on the event, however, was a bit different.

“The University does not have the right to cancel speech,” he said,only making an exception for speech that would directly cause harm to others.

Despite McInnes sparking controversy, legal experts explain that legally, the university stepping in to stop the event could open up the floodgates of lawsuits against the school.

“The organizers would like nothing better than to have the even canceled because then they will be able to claim truthfully that their speech has been censored,” said South Carolina Press Association attorney Jay Bender.

Bender explained, in the event the university stopped the roast, USC would be liable under federal civil rights laws that protect hate speech under the first amendment.

McInnes insists he will not be the one bringing the hate to the event.

“If you’re looking for violence you’re looking on the wrong side of the political spectrum. The left are the violent ones they burnt down this country for two years straight. We had one riot on January 6,” he said.

When asked what he hoped would come out of the event, McInnes said, “It won’t exactly be like the classic roast you see in Comedy Central. We’re just going to make fun of what could be the worst president in American history.”

The roast is scheduled for Sept. 18 at 7 p.m. in the Russell House Ballroom on the university’s campus.

ggl 12 24

Gavin McInnes

Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Gavin_McInnes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gavin_McInnes)

Gavin Miles McInnes is a Canadian writer, podcaster, far-right commentator and founder of the Proud Boys. He is the host of Get Off My Lawn with Gavin ...

Vice (magazine) · ‎Lauren Southern · ‎Hipster (contemporary...

[### Gavin McInnes

GLAAD

https://glaad.org › gap › gavin-mcinnes](https://glaad.org/gap/gavin-mcinnes/)

Wrote in an article: “We're all transphobic…. We see there are no old trannies. They die of drug overdoses and suicide way before they're 40 and nobody ...

[### Proud Boys founder says 'corrupt leftwing media' should ...

The Guardian

https://www.theguardian.com › us-news › oct › proud-...](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/28/proud-boys-gavin-mcinnes-trump-documentary)

Oct 28, 2024 — Gavin McInnes told makers of BBC Trump documentary that far-right group wasn't responsible for US Capitol insurrection.

[### Gavin McInnes: books, biography, latest update

Amazon.com

https://www.amazon.com › stores › author](https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B001H6Q9F6)

Follow Gavin McInnes and explore their bibliography from Amazon's Gavin McInnes Author Page.

$12.99

[### Gavin McInnes | Producer, Actor, Writer

IMDb

https://www.imdb.com › name](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2448354/)

Gavin McInnes. Producer: How to Be a Man. Gavin McInnes was born on 17 July 1970 in Hitchin, England, UK. He is a producer and actor, known for How to Be a ...

[### Gavin McInnes, Founder Of The Proud Boys, Seen On ...

Bwog

https://bwog.com › 2024 › April](https://bwog.com/2024/04/gavin-mcinnes-founder-of-the-proud-boys-seen-on-columbias-campus-on-wednesday/)

Apr 25, 2024 — On Wednesday, April 24, Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes was seen on campus attempting to enter the Gaza Solidarity Encampment.

[### Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes speaks ahead of USC ...

WIS News 10

https://www.wistv.com › 2024/08/31 › proud-boys-fou...](https://www.wistv.com/2024/08/31/proud-boys-founder-gavin-mcinnes-speaks-ahead-usc-comedy-roast-wis-exclusive-interview/)

Aug 30, 2024 — Proud Boys founder ...

[### From Vice to the Proud Boys: How Canadian Gavin ...

CBC

https://www.cbc.ca › documentaries › from-vice-to-the-...](https://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/from-vice-to-the-proud-boys-how-canadian-gavin-mcinnes-birthed-two-polarizing-legacies-1.7362126)

Oct 25, 2024 — A new documentary tracks his transformation from left-leaning media figure to far-right leader.

[### Trump Supporter & Proud Boys Founder Gavin McInnes

YouTube · editorji

2.2K+ views · 1 month ago](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFQoAvGI5kc)

Proud Boys, a far-right group in the United States, which played a major role in the 2021 Capitol riots, has told the makers of a Donald ...

[### The Secret History of Gavin McInnes

Vanity Fair

https://www.vanityfair.com › News › Breitbart](https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/06/the-secret-history-of-gavin-mcinnes?srsltid=AfmBOopEWUeE-KRohBnTz99dzGt7oZBf4rMeoX-PnCSL3KUDGgyNuoyI)

Jun 29, 2021 — In the '90s, he played punk rock and helped create Vice magazine. Five years ago, he founded a very different organization: the Proud Boys, ...

===---

aDAM KLASFELD / October 19, 2018

MANHATTAN (CN) – New York City police arrested two members of the far-right Proud Boys on Friday, a week after videos captured members of the group beating up protesters outside the official Manhattan club of the Republican Party.

Proud Boy Geoffrey Young, 38, was released on his own recognizance after being arraigned on two misdemeanor counts of riot in the second degree and attempted assault in the third degree.

A New York City police detective said that surveillance video caught Young punching and putting one person in a headlock, while kicking another person in the stomach.

A witness recorded Young kicking a third person three times in the head, police say.

The New York Daily News reported that police also arrested Jay Kinsman, who has not yet been arraigned, on Friday.

The arrests fall a full week after video captured the NYPD standing by as Proud Boy members attacked protesters outside the Upper East Side’s Manhattan Republican Club, which invited the group’s leader Gavin McInnes to reenact the samurai sword assassination of a Japanese socialist.

After that event, video captured Proud Boys participating in violence, but the NYPD arrested only three anti-fascist protesters that night.

New York City Public Advocate Letitia James, the Democratic nominee for state attorney general, pushed for police action the day after the violence.

"I am disturbed and disgusted by the videos I’ve seen of members of the neo-fascist, white supremacist Proud Boys group engaging in hate-fueled mob violence on the streets of New York City," James tweeted on Oct. 13. "New York will not become the next Charlottesville, and we refuse to let the actions of a hateful few define our city."

Legal Aid attorney Rebecca Kavanagh argued that the charges show the NYPD continues to treat the group with kid gloves.

“Why when video shows #ProudBoys stomping on person lying on ground in the fetal position is #NYPD planning only to charge them w/ Riot & Attempted Assault?” Kavanagh tweeted two days before the charges became public. “Riot is a Misdemeanor & I guarantee my clients would be charged w/ Gang Assault.”

The Daily News reported that police are looking for seven more Proud Boys and three anti-fascist protesters, widely known as Antifa.

In a press conference on Thursday, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio suggested that both sides are complicating the investigation.

“You’ve got two factions, if you will, that unfortunately both seem to engage in violence at times and don’t want to cooperate with the police,” de Blasio told reporters. “That makes this more complicated.”

Governor Andrew Cuomo refused to draw equivalencies between the groups.

“The Proud Boys are a hate group,” Cuomo told WCBS this morning. “They are a white supremacist group, anti-women group and there was violence after they brought the Proud Boys and they brought them to the Republican headquarters.”

===

an 10 22

no lnx

Proud Boys founder declares 'massive civil war' as members accuse each other of pedophilia

David Badash and The New Civil Rights Movement October 10, 2022

After attending the national convention of the Proud Boys — the far-right, transphobic, extremist organization that participated in the January 6, 2021 U.S. Capitol riots — the group’s founder Gavin McInnes said he’s witnessing a “massive civil war” among the group.

The Proud Boys has split into two factions: “National” chapters that still recognize the group’s U.S. leaders (a handful of which have been arrested for participating in the riots) and “Standard” local chapters that reject those leaders. Both groups have accused the other of racism, pedophilia, and harboring federal informants.

The split began with the revelation that Enrique Tarrio, the group’s national “chairman,” served as a federal informant on cases before the Proud Boys group formed. Some Standard members feel that Tarrio led the group into disgrace by involving them in the riots. These local chapters said that individual groups should have more autonomy to avoid government informants who have infiltrated the organization.

:{McInnes, who formally abandoned his leadership over the organization in 2018 when its members were accused of attacking Democratic events in mob-style violence, recently went online to dismiss two Standard supporters with connections to racist skinhead groups.

“McInnes’ move to issue expulsions suggests that he still holds leadership power over the Proud Boys:{, despite his claims to the contrary. McInnes didn’t respond to requests for comment,” The Daily Beast reported.

Last week, a prominent Proud Boy named Jeremy Bertino pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy for his role in coordinating the Proud Boys’ presence at the Capitol riots. He is now cooperating with federal prosecutors in their investigation of the Proud Boys.

New Zealand declared the Proud Boys a terrorist organization in June 2022.

McInnes has also published several transphobic articles calling trans people “mentally ill gays,” voicing support for Trump’s trans military ban, and calling parental support of trans children “child abuse.”

===

https://www.thedailybeast.com/gavin-mcinnes-allies-believe-proud-boys-founder-faked-arrest

no lnx

Trumpland

Gavin McInnes Allies Believe Proud Boys Founder Faked Arrest

'SPILL THE BEANS

What once looked like an arrest now looks like a desperate bid for attention.

Will Sommer

Politics Reporter

Published Aug. 31, 2022

Stephanie Keith

When Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes suddenly vanished last Thursday while recording his internet show, moments he claimed that someone had barged into his studio while he was filming, his fans were immediately concerned.

“We’re shooting a show, can we do this another time?” McInnes said someone off camera, adding that he wanted to get a lawyer.

“I didn’t let you in,” McInnes said finally, as he walked off his set.

McInnes’s camera filmed an empty chair for another hour.

The aspiring comedian’s supporters and detractors both wondered whether McInnes had been arrested, especially since a Proud Boy facing criminal charges wouldn’t be unprecedented. Among other cases, five top members of the group have been indicted for seditious conspiracy in the wake of the Jan. 6 riot. On the Telegram social media app, Proud Boys speculated that McInnes had been detained.

:{Then paranoia set in among McInnes’s conservative circles, where other far-right figures wondered whether they might be next. Right-wing website The Post Millennial declared that McInnes had been “arrested on-air.” Josh Denny, a comedian and former Food Network host scheduled to join McInnes in a comedy tour next month, also confirmed that McInnes had been arrested.

:{“He’s rotting away in jail because he dared to question authority,” Denny tweeted, adding a “Free Gavin” hashtag.

:{Nearly a week later, though, many of McInnes’ fans have come to believe that he faked his disappearance in a bid for attention. The local and federal law enforcement agencies that could potentially have arrested McInnes have all denied involvement, and McInnes hasn’t been charged with any crimes. Now McInnes, still laying low, is facing backlash from his former allies and supporters over the hoax.

McInnes didn’t respond to a request for comment.

[Proud Boys Founder Sues Over ‘Hate Group’ Designation

LOUD BOY

Will Sommer]

McInnes’s fake arrest has gone over especially poorly since other Proud Boys have actually been imprisoned, with one Proud Boy involved in the Capitol riot sentenced to 55 months in prison just days after McInnes vanished.

“Gavin McInnes has never spent a day in prison,” fumed Matthew Walker, a Tennessee Proud Boys leader, in a Telegram post. “7 of my friends are in there because of him!”

McInnes’s false arrest scheme came to light after Owen Benjamin, a far-right anti-Semitic figure and former comedian, posted text messages he claimed to have received from McInnes on Instagram. In Benjamin’s telling, he had texted McInnes out of genuine concern that McInnes was facing criminal charges.

“Prank,” McInnes wrote back, according to Benjamin. “Don’t tell.”

Benjamin ignored McInnes’s request, exposing the prank on a livestreamed broadcast to his own fans. Benjamin — who gained notoriety forhis failed attempt to create a bear-themed compound in Idaho for his supporters — complained that McInnes’s ruse worried his fans, who feared a tyrannical Biden administration might launch mass arrests after seizing McInnes.

:{“People are actually scared, you know?” Benjamin said. “People are actually afraid when things like that happen.”

:{Benjamin’s revelation angered McInnes, according to the text messages Benjamin released.

“Did you spill the beans?” McInnes wrote back to Benjamin after the broadcast. “Looks like you did. We’re done.”

The debunking also angered Denny, who had once insisted that McInnes really had been arrested. On Twitter, Denny complained that Benjamin had ruined the “bit” out of jealousy over McInnes’s success.

:{Benjamin, who frequently attacks other right-wing figures, insisted that McInnes’s fake arrest was more of a con on his supporters to raise money than an actual joke.:(

:{“I went to the right wing politically because I thought the left were grifting immoral liars,” Benjamin wrote on Instagram. “Boy was I mistaken.”

:{----

:{ref no lnx

Politics

Gavin McInnes Sues Southern Poverty Law Center for Branding Proud Boys ‘Hate Group

LOUD BOY

Ex-boss of the ‘Western chauvinist’ clique claims he’s been made ‘socially despicable’ by the civil-rights group.

Will Sommer

Politics Reporter

Updated Feb. 04, 2019

Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes sued the Southern Poverty Law Center on Monday, claiming that the civil-rights organization has cost him business opportunities by designating the pro-Trump men’s group he created as a hate group.

In the lawsuit, McInnes blames the SPLC’s “hate group” designation for the Proud Boys for everything from his being kicked off of PayPal, Facebook, and Twitter, to criticism from his own neighbors in a tony New York suburb.

“Mr. McInnes is essentially an untouchable, unable to retain or be considered for gainful employment in his line of work,” the lawsuit claims.

McInnes is suing the SPLC for defamation and tortious interference with economic advantage. McInnes also wants a court order stopping the SPLC and its employees from referring to him as someone connected to a hate group.

The SPLC declined to comment on McInnes’s lawsuit until Monday afternoon, after McInnes holds a press conference on the suit.

McInnes created the Proud Boys in 2016 as a club for “Western chauvinists,” with rules about what its members could wear and even how often they could masturbate. Since their founding, the Proud Boys have frequently clashed with left-wing protesters at rallies, and even served as bodyguards for Trump adviser Roger Stone.

McInnes announced in November that he was leaving the Proud Boys.

:{In his lawsuit, McInnes alleges that the SPLC has “falsely” described the Proud Boys as violent. But McInnes himself created a high-level rank for Proud Boys who got involved in fights, a distinction he later claimed only applied in cases of self-defense. Several Proud Boys were arrested in October after an attack following a McInnes speech in New York City.

:{McInnes isn’t the first person covered by the SPLC to pursue legal action against it. The SPLC issued an apology and a $3.4 million settlement payout in 2018 over listing British political activist Maajid Nawaz as an “anti-Muslim extremist.” In January, the anti-immigrant Center for Immigration Studies filed a racketeering lawsuit against the SPLC over its own hate group designation.

https://www.alternet.org/2021/05/proud-boys-2652973184/

salon

The right-wing media company Censored.TV, launched by Proud Boys founder (and VICE Media co-founder) Gavin McInnes in 2019, is "laying off all its staff," according to one of its hosts, onetime alt-right superstar Milo Yiannopoulos. For the moment, however, the site remains live. Censored.TV website hosts content posted by various conservative personalities behind a paywall, accessible to subscribers who pay $10 a month.

It remains unclear whether the site will keep trying to produce content without paid staff or will close down. "Sad news! You may have heard the rumors that Censored.TV is laying off all its staff," Yiannopoulos wrote on Telegram on Wednesday morning. "This week, I was told there's no longer enough money for my producer, despite the thousands of subscribers I've brought into the network. I love Gavin and will always be grateful to him for hosting my show when no one else would. In the meantime, I am entirely without any regular source of income. ...They paid me late 11 months out of the last 12, so I suppose I should have seen it coming."

Yiannopoulos didn't return Salon's request for comment[twt

mcInnes' entire site will reportedly no longer have any production or editorial staff, which would seem to make producing new content problematic. "I am told the whole editorial team is gone, and the shows are all getting stripped back to bare bones,"

Yiannopoulos, who now identifies as "ex-gay," added. "Gavin has fought tooth and nail to keep the company alive, and I wish him well and pray for his continued success."Yiannopoulos hosted a Friday night program on Censored.TV called "Friday Night's All Right,"which frequently far-right ideology with absurd hijinks, such as inviting white nationalist Nicholas Fuentes on the show to pour alcohol on himself, in an apparent effort to lure subscribers.

Other "stars" who host programming on the Censored.TV platform include right-wing hoax artist Jacob Wohl, anti-Muslim activist Laura Loomer and the anonymous online troll known as "CopperCab." Loomer didn't return Salon's request for comment on the future of her respective program on the website.

In a Wednesday afternoon interview with Salon, Wohl argued that Yiannopoulos' claims about the far-right media company lacked nuance and it was only Yiannopoulos' staff that was laid off due to subpar program ratings. "Censored TV isn't going anywhere," Wohl told Salon. "None of the staff, besides the staff that worked on Milo's show, have been, in fact, laid off or furloughed," he added.

Wohl further took problem with Yiannopoulos' claims that the network didn't pay out the far-right pundit on time for his work. "I have never had anything show up late from Censored TV," Wohl, known for his sticky relationship with the truth, further told Salon.

Yet, there is plenty of reason to take Wohl's claims with a grain of salt, as the duo (Yiannopoulos and Wohl) have become bitter enemies after Yiannopoulos threatened to kill Wohl associate, Jack Burkman's dog "Jackie Jr." over an unpaid speaking fee stemming from an appearance made at one of Wohl's meritless press conferences.

Late on Wednesday night, in an email to Salon, McInnes wrote, "completely false," apparently contradicting the claims made by Yiannopoulos.

McInnes started Censored.TV shortly after his sudden departure from Glenn Beck's The BlazeTV (Blaze Media) in December 2018, which was never clearly explained. "Blaze Media no longer has a relationship with Gavin McInnes, and per company policy, cannot comment on personnel matters," Beck's media group tweeted out at the time.

While the future of McInnes' media company hangs in the balance, the Proud Boys, the extremist men's group he founded, has etched its name into history. "Established in the midst of the 2016 presidential election by VICE Media co-founder Gavin McInnes, the Proud Boys are self-described 'Western chauvinists' who adamantly deny any connection to the racist 'alt-right,'" the Southern Law and Poverty Center notes. McInnes left the Proud Boys in 2018, around the time the group began to be identified with street violence, and more than two years before it became infamous for numerous members' involvement in the Capitol riot on Jan. 6.

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

In its own words

“I was talking to a Ukrainian guy the other day. And about a year ago a bunch of Muslims beat a Ukrainian man to death. The Ukrainian people got together, they all picked up AR-15s, and about 70 of them went into the Muslim neighborhood and shot it the hell up. Now I’m not saying that’s what we need to do, but I’m telling you that spirit and the heart of these people is something to be commended. And the willingness to fight and die in defense of their civilization is a beautiful thing and we need to embrace that sort of spirit here in America.”

—Kyle Chapman, Unite American First Peace Rally, July 8, 2017

“How many of our children have to die before we rid our lands of Islamic invaders? Our civilization destroyed. WAKE UP YOU COWARDS! FIGHT!”

—Kyle Chapman, posted on Twitter, May 23, 2017

“Our brethren in Europe, they're struggling right now. Their societies are under vicious attack from Islam, Globalization and Neo-Marxism. Our European Brethren are in a struggle for their very existence. Let's send them our prayers and support their causes wherever we can.”

—Kyle Chapman, Reddit AMA, April 4, 2017

Background

Kyle Chapman was transformed from an obscure Bay Area commercial diver to celebrated right-wing meme in March 2017 when — sporting a gas mask, ski goggles, bike helmet and homemade shield with a design inspired by a Ron Paul campaign logo — he beat a counter-protestor over the head with a wooden rod during the #March4Trump in Berkeley, California. Footage of the attack spread online, transforming Chapman into “Based Stick Man” — “based” referring to an indifference toward other’s opinions, and “stick,” of course, being his weapon of choice.

The right quickly embraced Chapman, and images of Based Stick Man in his Berkeley armor were photo-shopped into scenes of Captain America, on the Gadsden flag, and into a painting of a charging Confederate army. In the internet’s perpetual meme war, Chapman’s actions placed the racist so-called “alt-right” back on the offensive after suffering a blow when a video of Richard Spencer being sucker punched went viral.

:{The sudden fame provided Chapman with a platform to build both a brand and a ragtag vigilante movement. He began selling Based Stick Man apparel with Gruntworks (including a $35.99 sweatshirt printed with the slogan “F CK ANTIFA,” in which the “U” is replaced with a blood splatter) and building his online presence :{— even though, before Berkeley, he was only a casual Facebook user who wasn’t sure how to }:pronounce the word:{ “meme.” He instructed his followers to make shields like his own using a wooden table top from Home Depot, and, in a Reddit AMA, told them to look for hickory or ironwood to fashion a stick that would ensure “max damage.”}:

His participation in the Berkeley protest also put Chapman into contact with Gavin McInnes, a co-founder of VICE who left the company in 2008 due to “creative differences” (and was subsequently nearly completely expunged from its online archive). In the midst of the 2016 presidential election, McInnes created the Proud Boys, a “pro-Western fraternal organization” made up of men who “refuse to apologize for creating the modern world.” He reached out to Chapman after a Proud Boy had started a WeSearchr fund — which raised more than $87,000 after a promotional bump fromMike Cernovich –— to pay his bail and legal fees, and began featuring him as a guest on “The Gavin McInnes Show.”

:{After Chapman and the Proud Boys the violent “Second Battle of Berkeley” in mid-April, Chapman announced that his newly created organization, the Fraternal Order of Alt-Knights, would be partnering with the pro-Western fraternity with McInnes’s “full approval.” “The weak or intimidated need not apply,” he wrote in a Facebook post announcing the new paramilitary organization’s launch:{.}:

To Proud Boys leadership, the partnership only made sense and was, in fact, necessary for the progress of their movement: with violent “neo-Marxists” stopping at nothing to destroy Western civilization, a contingent of men should be in place to defend against the ever-present threat. As Chapman explained to McInnes after the Berkeley rally, “I knew…it was going to be full of domestic terrorists that were intent upon attacking us and the chance of violence on their part was 100%.” Because “many people were going to be unaware of this…I knew I was going to have to protect those people.” Indeed, Chapman sees himself as a selfless warrior, constantly emphasizing that he has, through no choice of his own, been thrust into a position of leadership.

While Chapman insists FOAK only engages in violence as an act of self-defense, their attendance at left-leaning events is clearly meant to create a confrontation, and Chapman has been caught goading them on. In a tweet he posted before a June “Free Speech” rally in Portland where 14 people were arrested and dozens of weapons confiscated by police, Chapman told his followers to declare “open season on antifa” and “smash on sight.” He’s also endorsed lynching politicians who allowed a “dirty illegal” to enter the country. In speeches, he dips into moments of grander oratory, like when he told an audience at the Sacramento on July 8 that he was there to impress upon them “the necessity of sacrifice.” You’re going to “have to come to the realization that you may have to bleed to keep this going … and you very may well have to die,” he told the crowd, “I’m willing to die. Are you guys willing to die?”

In addition to his pending felony charge related to the March 4 rally, Chapman has three felony convictions that date back to 1993 and include armed robbery, grand theft, and being a felon in possession of a firearm. According to an investigation by “The Smoking Gun,” he has an extensive history of drug abuse — he apparently particularly enjoyed huffing Scotchgard fabric spray — and his own lawyer once described him as having “severe psychological problems.” The evidence of his erratic and violent behavior is all over YouTube. Even a cursory search of Chapman’s name reveals endless examples of him attacking even those who are supposedly on his side, like when he after he suggested that Chapman might be a white nationalist.

Though Chapman is quick to deny claims that he’s part of the "alt-right," his views are ideologically consistent with others in the movement, and he regularly borrows from the white nationalist playbookwhen identifying those he counts as enemies. Namely, it’s the “cultural Marxists” — a (fictitious) shadowy cadre of leftists hell-bent on toppling white, heteronormative, Christian society — who’ve pushed multiculturalism and convinced white people to feel “ashamed of their culture, their heritage,” blinding them to the threat of radical Islam.

“Western countries must place a moratorium on immigration from all countries NOW,” he tweeted in October 2017, “Stop the unholy alliance of Marxism and Islam.” It’s no surprise that he idolizes Tommy Robinson, an anti-Muslim activist and former leader of the English Defense League who in 2010 sent hordes of men into Muslim neighborhoods around London and Bradford to harass their residents and instigate violent clashes. Chapman has expressed hope that Robinson “will be leading an army in a short time.”

Like McInnes and the Proud Boys, Chapman hawks an “anti-white guilt” agenda, arguing that white people “are the least racist and most generous ethnicity on the planet” and “the worst sufferers of racism in the world.” He frequently cites an ongoing and intensifying war against whites, using the hashtags #WhiteGenocide and #TheWarAgainstWhitesIsReal. In August 2017 he outlined a supposed biological assault against Western men when he spoke at the “Make Men Great Again” event, warning they risk further decline due to low sperm mobility and birthrates, and implored men to stay away from BPA in plastics and to work out more in order to increase their testosterone levels.

Chapman has a wide reach — with his platform on McInnes’s show, upwards of 42,000 Facebook followers, and more than 33,000 followers on Twitter — and an assemblage of FOAK chapters and vetting groups have cropped up online expressing ideological agreement with Chapman, echoing his calls for violence, warnings about the threat of Islam, and eschewal of white guilt.

Their accounts are filled with images of Pepe, Kekistani flags and “IT’S OKAY TO BE WHITE” Facebook profile filters. Several have meme-ified images of the car that killed Heather Heyer as she protested white supremacy in Charlottesville during the "Unite the Right" rally, including one that shows George Washington entering the car before it drove through counter-protestors and another that includes the caption “Communism is bad for your health.”

On the California-based Alt-Knight Facebook community, the page’s administrator advertises his homemade armor, ranging from $250 for a “functional” set to $1,500 for one that’s reminiscent of those worn during the Middle Ages. “This armor will protect against things such as pepper spray, tasers, knives (or anything else meant for stabbing), and blunt trauma,” they promise. If FOAK’s intentions were unclear, another associated Facebook group posted a photo-shopped image of a billboard featuring Based Stick Man and the message “Join Your Local Right Wing Death Squad.”

Some FOAK members cast their participation in the group as part of a greater historical and even divine mission to protect the white race. For instance, Travis Pinkerton — who holds a leadership position in the Alt-Knights and acts as an administrator for nearly all of the organization’s Facebook pages where they vet new members — is also a member of the Wotan Network. A creation of Stephen McNallen, a longtime peddler of a racist brand of paganism, is to “awaken the European peoples from their sleep, and to empower them so that they have — now and forever — complete control over their destiny.” They worship the Norse god Odin, apparently, as Pinkerton does, by posting images of blonde children alongside the slogan “The existence of our people is not negotiable” — one that sounds remarkably similar to the white-supremacist 14-word slogan coined by David Lane.

Medieval references — like the armor crafted by one member — suffuse the language and imagery of FOAK. Indeed, they make numerous references to Christian warriors who fought against the Islamic Empire during the Crusades and, in addition to Based Stick Man’s headgear and facemask, the Medieval battle cry “Deus Vult” graces the crest of the Alt-Knights. It’s an attempt to turn themselves into the latest iteration of white, Christian warriors in an ongoing mythical battle against Islam.

The same preoccupation with destiny pervades the rhetoric of FOAK’s former second-in-command, the 2016 Florida Libertarian Senate candidate Augustus Invictus, who was known as Austin Mitchell Gillespie before changing his name to the Latin for “majestic unconquered sun.” Identifying as pagan, Invictus once slaughtered a goat after a spiritual quest through the desert and drank its blood as part of a ritual sacrifice.

Invictus doesn’t identify as a mere worshipper, however, but as a god who is here on earth to restore the “Ancient Ways.” His demeanor is likewise ostentatious, delivering his speeches in a bizarre JFK-inspired accent often while donning a three-piece suit. When he attended the Charlottesville rally, his usual clean-cut uniform made him stand out among the other ersatz armor-clad attendees.

Despite his transcendent pronouncements, Invictus is motivated by earthly prejudices: racism, sexism and antisemitism. Trained as an attorney, in 2012 he represented the white supremacist militia American Front against charges related to their preparation for a race war and, in a law school essay that shares its name with one of Hitler’s speeches and cites a number of racist academics, he defended eugenics. He’s also a Holocaust denier:

“Do I believe that 6 million Jews were killed by evil Hitler? Is that what you’re asking me?” he asked during an interview with Hatewatch. “Okay, then I am still waiting to see those facts.”

He is a prolific writer, and his fiction features frequent denigrations of women, including the graphic rape of a 14-year-old girl. Invictus himself has been accused of engaging in violence against women, although he has not been convicted. In February 2016, a woman called 911 to report Invictus had threatened her with a gun and, in March 2017, a former girlfriend filed a report against Invictus accusing him with domestic abuse, including sexual battery. According to the police report, in one incident “Mr. Invictus got angry, beat her until her eyes were shut, dragged her into the closet and put a gun to her head, asking her why he shouldn’t just kill her.” After breaking up with another woman, he concluded a rant about her on Facebook, “F--- you, ----. Kill yourself, worthless piece of shit.”

Invictus’s violent ideation is extensive, seeing as he deems bloodshed necessary to conquer the nebulous forces seeking to destroy Western civilization. On “The Gavin McInnes Show,” for instance, he called for journalists and lawyers to be hung from lampposts, and his writing is replete with calls for Westerners to take up arms against politicians who have forced Arab and African immigrants upon them. “You must execute the traitors,” he wrote in a longwinded letter addressed to the people of Europe.

Invictus’s penchant for violence puts him in good company with FOAK’s leader in Indiana, Brien James, who in 2003 helped found the racist skinhead gang Vinlanders Social Club. Before that, James belonged to the Outlaw Hammerskins and Hoosier State Skinheads – all organizations with extensive reputations for engaging in extreme violence.

He now claims, however, that he’s left his racist past behind, and that both FOAK and his own organization, American Guard – based on the 19th-century nativist group the Bowery Boys and inspired by its violent leader, William “Bill the Butcher” Poole — are “civic nationalist” groups. Nevermind that James and his fellow Indiana American Guard members marched alongside neo-Nazis in Charlottesville.

Invictus, too, was a member of American Guard, acting as Sergeant at Arms for the Florida chapter of James’s organization. But in late September 2017, Invictus found himself ousted from the organization. His attendance at "Unite the Right," it seems, had drawn bad publicity for American Guard. “He will no longer be allowed to discredit our organization, or its membership,” an official statement read. “We reject his claim that disagreement with Nazis, Socialists, and other totalitarians makes one a coward, ‘c---’, or traitor.”

Only a month later, Invictus also withdrew his FOAK membership — not due to any clear ideological disagreements between him and Chapman, but because of petty infighting.After California FOAK member Johnny Benitez was forced to step down (after evidently challenging Chapman’s authority by getting “way too into” the fraternity), cracks started to appear in the organization’s fragile foundation.

Chapman gave a “Green light” on Benitez if he showed up at any more rallies and, when someone on a Facebook thread suggested he should “Just put a f------ bullet in him and move on,” Chapman concurred by liking the comment. Though Invictus had to admit that “Every time Chapman has attacked a communist, he’s done a great service to America,” the drama was too much for him. Since his departure, he’s embarked on new extremist ventures, including joining Kyle Bristow’s Foundation for the Marketplace of Ideas and growing his online store and video channel called The Revolutionary Conservative.

Chapman has a lot to worry about in the coming days — aside from internecine squabbles, he was recently charged with violating the conditions of his parole after being caught with a small, knife-like weapon called a Kubotan and, once again, his supporters helped him make bail. But even if Chapman does wind up back in prison, there’s reason to believe the organization he built will continue to function without him, and men will keep showing up to rallies in hopes of beating a protestor on the other side. As one FOAK member recently said of Chapman, “He may be an icon, but he’s not the movement.”

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In this article

What brings someone into the alt-right ecosystem?

"Stepping stones" and "in-betweeners"

Race realism

Chan culture

"Lolbertarians" and Neoreactionaries

YouTube personalities

"The JQ"

What brings someone into the alt-right ecosystem?

The question was posed in two threads posted during the last week of March on the white nationalist forum The Right Stuff (TRS), leading 74 individual users to describe their radicalization narratives.

Respondents recount a transformation that takes place almost entirely online. Led either by their own curiosity or an algorithm, the content they consumed became increasingly extreme, fostering their radicalization and guiding them eventually to TRS. Their responses reveal a pipeline between the alt-lite and racist “alt-right,” with many users explaining that alt-lite figures like Gavin McInnes were the first to introduce them to hardcore, veteran white nationalists.

The two threads, titled “WHAT BROUGHT YOU INTO THE MOVEMENT?” and “Path here beginning from Gavin,” asked posters to reflect on their own “red pill” narratives and provide tips for converting others. “Here’s the challenge,” a user identified as The Somalisher wrote. “Create a list of succession from the Alt-Light to us. I have friends who like Gavin…But I can’t exactly throw [Andrew] Anglin at them.”

The user continued, “It sometimes requires softer steps to ‘radical’ perspectives.”

The two threads refer specifically to bringing people into the fold of TRS and the Daily Stormer, which together serve as the core of neo-Nazism online. TRS, the brainchild ofMike “Enoch” Peinovich, started as a political blog in 2012 and has since transformed into one of the largest alt-right media platforms. It hosts a lively message board called the 504um and dozens of podcasts, the most popular of which are “The Daily Shoah” and news-oriented “Fash the Nation.” The Daily Stormer operates in the same orbit, consciously using humor to indoctrinate its readers.

Together, the two sites have become the preeminent propaganda machines for the alt-right. They’re also some of the most effective spaces for organizing real-world, local groups, called “book clubs” by the Stormer and “pool parties” on TRS.

The alt-right is a motley movement, drawing in people from a number of venues and subcultures. The 107 individuals and platforms mentioned by posters in the TRS threads have been labeled according to their ideology, which include alt-right, legacy white nationalist, alt-lite, mainstream, libertarian, skeptic, men’s rights activist, and conspiracy, in addition to a random category for those not easily classified. This heterogeneity is a boon to the movement, creating a number of avenues for individuals of different taste and predilections to fall within its clutches.

Though both the alt-lite and alt-right reject “establishment” conservatism, the former claims to adhere to civic nationalism — a poorly defined catch-all term for those who embrace nativism but shy away from more radical racist rhetoric — while the latter is explicitly white nationalist. Legacy white nationalists include those like Jared Taylor,Patrick Buchanan and Paul Kersey who, although they might be popular within the alt-right, were part of the white nationalist movement before that label emerged.

The number of times each individual or platform was mentioned as an influence was tallied, and those mentioned by three or more posters are listed in the chart below. Disconnected as they might seem, the most cited influences — the “politically incorrect” 4chan board /pol/ and the American Renaissance editor Jared Taylor — hint at two common paths to the alt-right: either through participation in the rampantly racist and misogynistic online trolling culture of 4chan and its offshoots, or through exposure to Taylor’s variety of pseudo-academic “race realism” that couches timeworn racist tropes in the language of science.

Within alt-right spaces like TRS, these two fibers of the movement are woven together — resulting in an ironic, meme-ified version of old-school race science — and embellished with antisemitism.

TRS and the Daily Stormer both argue that, with the right optics and messaging, they can attract a critical mass of followers to the cause and eventually shift what lies within the respectable terms of political debate. The respondents in these threads show how the current media landscape — replete with podcasts, YouTube channels and blogs that contain tempered bits of white nationalist propaganda under the guise of patriotism, “Western chauvinism,” science or hard truths — can aid that agenda, coaxing the “normies” down the path to white nationalism.

Stepping stones" and "in-betweeners"

TRS 504um posters describe their radicalization as a gradual process, with charismatic alt-lite personalities like Gavin McInnes introducing them to ideas they would eventually take to their extreme. McInnes, especially, hides under a guise of irony, freely using racial slurs and making incendiary comments about women, Muslims and African Americans in the name of mocking political correctness.

McInnes, who formed the Proud Boys in 2016, has repeatedly insisted the SPLC-designated hate group is simply a right-wing men’s drinking club in the vein of the Elks Lodge, and has taken pains to distance himself from the alt-right. But even he agrees that there’s overlap between his “Western chauvinist” Proud Boys and self-proclaimed white nationalists: “both sides have in common Western chauvinism, they’re not embarrassed by whiteness or whatever, [and] they don’t believe diversity is the end-all and be-all.”

Responses within the TRS threads show how easy it is to slip from the notion that “the West is the best” into believing that western culture is superior because it’s white. Of the respondents in the sample, roughly 15 percent mentioned McInnes as a step in their path to white nationalism or recommended using his videos and writing to convert others. There are more than a few real-life examples of Proud Boys moving into more extreme groups.

McInnes is loathed by many at TRS for being unwilling to take racial politics head-on and “counter-signaling” them, but he’s still credited with helping to cultivate their own belief in white nationalism. In a thread called “Do We Still Hate Gavin McInnes?” a user calling themselves KarlVonBraun came to his defense, writing “I remember first hearing Gavin trash niggers who do that pole/street dance thing on the subway…Basically he says everything short of calling them worthless niggers. I'd literally never heard anyone be brutally honest about what is uniquely nigger behavior while maintaining decorum, without crossing lines you can't cross. It was totally exhilarating.” Another user wrote, “I guarantee that he is still (without meaning to) funneling people into the Alt-Right.”

McInnes is also responsible for introducing a number of TRS users to Jim Goad and, indeed, for much of the writer and podcaster’s recent resurgence in popularity. Goad got his start as a writer in the 1990s producing his own controversial and acerbic independent magazine and, in 1997, published a book in the same vein. The Redneck Manifesto, which begins with a chapter called “White Niggers Have Feelings, Too,” bemoans liberals’ tendency to look down on poor whites and argues, “Multiculturalism is a country club that excludes white trash.” Goad (much like McInnes) began his career as a sort of small-time countercultural celebrity, but his focus on white persecution now earns him widespread praise within the alt-right.

McInnes has hosted Goad on his shows numerous times and, on a list he created of “required reading” on Western culture, included Redneck Manifesto together with Patrick Buchanan’s The Death of the West and Charles Murray’s Coming Apart: The State of White America — both writers who are also mentioned as influences by TRS posters. One respondent called Goad’s book “an early redpill on the malicious anti-white agenda of the left.”

Goad takes advantage of the fact that he’s often treated as a serious literary figure, presenting his extremist views on race as simply thoughtful meditations on politically taboo topics or as an attempt to resist political correctness. He’s used his numerous platforms to perpetuate the myth of white slavery and criticized the “corporate globalist left” for making it difficult for the Daily Stormer to maintain a domain. He even hosted Andrew Anglin, the site’s founder, on his podcast, as well as former Ku Klux Klanlawyer Sam Dickson and the Holocaust-denying author Michael Hoffman.

Goad, who is cited six times by TRS members, disparages “Those who blame Jews for everything.” But in the same breath, he repeats their rhetoric, making him into what one poster calls the “missing link” from people like Gavin to the white nationalist TRS. If you’re trying to red pill a friend and “they like Gavin,” NotDonSilvo wrote, “send them his old podcast with Jim and some of his Taki articles or guest appearances in Gavin’s Compound Media [show].”

Besides his podcast, Goad’s main platform is Taki’s Magazine, an extreme right-wing publication with an irreverent tone that promises its “only ideology is to be against the junk culture foisted upon us by Hollywood and the mainstream media.” Along with Goad and McInnes, it publishes authors like John Derbyshire, who was fired from the conservative National Review after he wrote an article for Taki’s about advising his teenage children to “stay out of heavily black neighborhoods.” It described black people as “ferociously hostile to whites” and is now listed in the “greatest hits” section on Taki’s website.

Taki’s contributors overlap with those at the hate site VDARE, including Steve Sailer — cited four times by TRS users — whose writing is largely dedicated to opposing immigration and drawing a false link between race and intelligence.

Both Taki’s Magazine and VDARE are cited by posters of the TRS threads as “good in-betweeners,” and, together, are cited in more than 16 percent of responses. Both websites, the user Cniva wrote, are “good at presenting racism in a ‘we’re just being reasonable/this is what the science says, why are you acting so upset?’ type of way.”

Race realism

Many members of the forum note that McInnes’s online videos were particularly impactful because they introduce viewers to more extreme figures. “[D]ude i got here from Gavin because there was a time about 2-3 years ago when Gavin would take [sic] to people like Jared Taylor and Richard Spencer,” one user posted. In one of his genial interviews with Taylor (who he’s called a “super smart guy”), McInnes allowed the American Renaissance editor to peddle his racist tract “The Color of Crime,” which uses faulty statistical analysis to argue that non-whites are more prone to criminal behavior.

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all that section

"Stepping stones" and "in-betweeners"

McInnes has hosted Goad on his shows numerous times and, on a list he created of “required reading” on Western culture, included Redneck Manifesto together with Patrick Buchanan’s The Death of the West and Charles Murray’s Coming Apart: The State of White America — both writers who are also mentioned as influences by TRS posters. One respondent called Goad’s book “an early redpill on the malicious anti-white agenda of the left.”

REP BIG BLANK NOW FIXED

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Alex Jones has found a new home on Instagram after being largely removed from the likes of Facebook, YouTube, and Spotify. Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, is the only major platform that continues to permit Jones and Infowars to publish content. Jones gained a massive amount of Instagram followers after his appearance on Joe Rogan's podcast, which is increasingly a magnet for the far right.

Jones has used his Instagram account -- which has about 314,000 followers -- to post videos featuring hate speech, conspiracy theories, and various extremist figures who have already been banned from the platform.

On his account, Jones posted an Infowars clip claiming that "globalists" in the U.N. are "flooding nations with millions of foreigners who have no intention to assimilate and who are not held accountable for their criminal actions." This white supremacist talking point -- that migrant caravans are evidence of a Jewish plot to replace white people -- was embraced by the shooter who killed 11 people in a Pittsburgh, PA synagogue last October.

Another post featured anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant extremist Katie Hopkins describing immigrants "snaking their way" through Europe and pushing out "white Christians" and "Christian culture."

Since publication of this Media Matters report on Jones' move to Instagram, three videos containing anti-LGBTQ speech and three videos containing white nationalist content have been removed from Jones' account. They appear to have been removed by Jones. In addition, six posts and one IGTV video featuring Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes have been removed from Jones' account. These videos appear to have been removed by Instagram for violating their community guidelines.

Also: Alex Jones and Infowars had a secondary YouTube channel where they pushed conspiracy theories. In one of the videos, Jones even alleged that the New Zealand mosque shootings were a false flag. After Media Matters reported on the channel, YouTube removed it, citing violations of YouTube's terms of service.

This year, by contrast, a collection of white nationalists, far-right grifters and conspiracy theorists were kept at an arms’ length and mostly had to be content with roaming the Gaylord Hotel outside of the convention. Many were initially denied passes, but managed to wangle their way inside, although they had to be content themselves with posting about CPAC on Twitter, rather than having direct contact with attendees.

Among those spotted was Nick Fuentes, a white nationalist podcaster who lurked around the edges of CPAC like a vulture. Faith Goldy, a white nationalist who ran for mayor of Toronto in 2018 — getting 3.4 percent of the vote — was also present. Patrick Casey, the executive director of the far-right group Identity Evropa, tried to get into CPAC before being informed that his pass had been canceled. Casey then promptly launched into an angry tweetstorm about how CPAC wasn’t a forum for real conservatives anyway.

Certainly the most amusing example of the far-right and its associated grifters attempting to get some form of CPAC cred occurred on Thursday afternoon, when noted pro-Trump trolls Laura Loomer and Jacob Wohl — both of whom were also denied their in their initial attempts to get into CPAC — held a “press conference” along with conservative lobbyist Jack Burkman to outline another set of spurious, unsubstantiated allegations, this time against Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN).

The event rapidly devolved into farce, with Wohl talking over Loomer every time she tried to speak about her supposed “censoring” on social media, and journalists asking why a document marked “Strictly Private and Confidential” was being distributed to the public.

Wohl and Goldy were later spotted chatting to each other at CPAC, but wearing attendee and not media badges. It is not immediately clear why Wohl especially was allowed in, after being so pointedly denied entry earlier in the day.

Later that night Wohl made an appearance at an afterparty hosted by Turning Points USA, the conservative student group, which featured Donald Trump, Jr. and TPUSA leader Charlie Kirk. Among the (mostly college-aged) revelers was Enrique Tarrio, current leader of the far-right Proud Boys gang was also spotted roaming the halls.

On Friday, two members of the Proud Boys in New York City pled guilty to charges stemming from a fight outside the New York Metropolitan Republican club in 2018, where the Proud Boys viciously attacked counter-protesters.

But CPAC’s shooing away of far-right personalities, at least superficially, isn’t the sign of some conservative bulwark against far-right ideas

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/gavin-mcinnes-abandoned-the-proud-boys-but-its-simply-too-late:(

McInnes, CRTV host and the founder of the Proud Boys, publicly announced his departure from the Proud Boys last weekend, but it’s unlikely to rectify the group’s hastening into the fringes of the far-right and its impending implosion.

McInnes’ withdrawal from the Proud Boys came days after The Guardian’s Jason Wilson reported that a document produced by Washington state law enforcement stated that the FBI had classified the Proud Boys as an “extremist group with ties to white nationalism.” Alexander Reid Ross at Haaretz noted that, as far back as 2017, McInnes had expressed worries of facing charges under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, which provides stiff penalties for leaders of criminal enterprises, including gangs.

Several Proud Boys members are facing charges for the violence they committed, captured on video, against anti-fascist protesters who demonstrated in protest of McInnes’ speech at the Metropolitan Republican Club in New York City last month, which attracted individuals affiliated with skinhead gangs. Violent encounters are common when Proud Boys gather in public; the group’s “Fourth Degree” hierarchy incentivizes engaging in violence for their cause.

McInnes announced that he was quitting the organization he started in hopes, he said, that it would assist the group’s members who are facing charges for engaging in violent brawls in the streets of New York City last month. (Some contend that it was just his way of bailing when the going got rough.)

“I am told by my legal team and law enforcement that this gesture could help alleviate their sentencing,” McInnes said in the video.

McInnes goes on to repeat his longstanding assertion that white supremacists don’t actually exist in America, in spite of the fact he has featured white supremacists and white nationalists on his web-based radio show throughout the years, not to mention that time he personally thanked the white nationalist Richard Spencer for helping him land a column at Taki’s Magazine.

[vid]

Following McInnes’ lead, Milo Yiannopoulos, a far-right provocateur with prior affiliations with white nationalists, also publicly distanced himself from the group. Yiannopoulos had been cozy with members of the Proud Boys, attending many of their events. In September, Yiannapoulos was identified by the Proud Boys’ media arm as the organization’s “New Vice President.”

“I have been instructed by my lawyers today to add my voice to that of Gavin McInnes, the founder of the fraternal men’s organization, and announce that I am publicly dissociating myself with the club,” Yiannopoulos wrote on his blog. “It’s fucked up, and I wish to God I didn’t have to do it, but this is America in 2018, a country gripped by moral panic about a ‘white supremacy’ outbreak that simply doesn’t exist.”

Similarly, a statement announcing the organizational change states that the Proud Boys group “has never had any association with the alt-right or with white nationalism.” (It has.)

McInnes spent the better part of 2016 and 2017 recruiting young men to his group and filling their minds with far-right ideology and stoking a longing for committing acts of violence that could be portrayed as righteous acts of self-defense. But over the last year, McInnes has apparently struggled to control Proud Boys members, who have participated in white supremacist gatherings against his wishes and provoked semi-regular violent clashes alongside white nationalist groups on the West coast.

Now that the consequences of flirting with extremism are starting to manifest in ways that might have a consequence for McInnes, he has abandoned the group. Although, it appears the group will attempt to continue under the direction of other aggressive leaders.

The Proud Boys statement on McInnes’ departure announces that Jason Lee Van Dyke had become the “duly elected chairman of the Proud Boys Elders Chapter,” identifying him as a “fourth degree brother and current Sergeant-at-Arms of the Dallas/Fort Worth chapter.” Van Dyke told Right Wing Watch he told the Proud Boys he “would only serve as chairman to preside over proceedings for as long as it took to pass bylaws.”

“I occupied the position of chairman for a grand total of about 36 hours and that was only to pass the bylaws that are attached here. Now that they have been passed, I occupy no position with the organization,” Van Dyke said.

Van Dyke was suspended from Twitter in 2017 after sending another user a photo of a noose and calling them a racial slur. Van Dyke said the tweet came after a computer hacker he “believed to be black based on his Twitter profile picture” posted social security numbers belonging to him and his parents on Twitter.

“I regret the racially charged language that I used in that tweet but I absolutely do not regret threatening that individual under those circumstances,” Van Dyke told Right Wing Watch.

In another post, he said he was “very close to ‘coming out’ as a full blown fascist,” which he said was meant to ridicule HuffPost for allegedly referring to Trump supporters like the Proud Boys as “fascists.” He admitted to HuffPost that he once threatened to kill someone’s entire family.

Austin Gillespie, an alt-right activist who uses the moniker “Augustus Invictus,” claimed on YouTube that he had been appointed the new leader of the Proud Boys, although his remarks appear to be made sarcastically. Gillespie is the former leader of the “Alt Knights,” a paramilitary faction of the Proud Boys. Van Dyke denied that Gillespie was a Proud Boy and said the newly passed bylaws made him “ineligible for membership.”

Proud Boys Redacted Bylaws

...

===

The Constitution and Bylaws of Proud Boys International L.L.C.

Revised November 24, 2018 Proud Boys International L.L.C. c/o The Van Dyke Law Firm P.L.L.C. 108 Durango Drive Crossroads, TX 76227

===

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I have used the Van Dyke Law Firm on numerous occasions. Every time, the effort and results are the same, a win. I highly recommend Mr Van Dyke and his team. Always prompt, efficient, and they know their way around the court room. Great job.

2 people voted for this review

San Francisco, CA

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1.0 star rating 11/30/2018

This man is a homophobe, racist, and scumbag. If you want to support the worst of humanity, Jason is your guy.

Photo of The Van Dyke Law Firm - Crossroads, TX, United States

1.0 star rating 11/29/2018

Very unprofessional. Threatens others with violence and calls others "faggots" if they disagree. Google Jason Van Dyke Law and see what comes up. He's a thug and a criminal. Exhibit A twitter.com/AndyBCampbel…

S H. and 5 others voted for this review

Albuquerque, NM

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1.0 star rating 11/30/2018

Former Proud Boys lawyer and known violent racist. Do not recommend. Good for racists, I guess.

Photo of The Van Dyke Law Firm - Crossroads, TX, United States

1.0 star rating 11/28/2018

Extremely unprofessional when I called to get insight in a case. Spoke to Jason was like he couldn't understand the basic concepts of what I was discussing, and was in some type of manic out of breath rush. He kept saying how it would be "all good" but I just needed to pay him, but he couldn't even articulate the basics of my situation. Avoid, avoid, avoid.

Matt N. and 4 others voted for this review

1.0 star rating 11/27/2018

Jason handled my case very poorly. I was arrested for assault and he was unable to get the charges dropped or reduced. I was simply trying to become a 4th Degree Proud Boy and was told by Gavin that getting arrested for the cause would grant me this rank. I hired Jason to represent me against these charges and was very disappointed. He showed up to court smelling of alcohol and performed laughable cross-examinations of the other side's witnesses. He's a terrible lawyer. Do NOT retain his services unless you want to spend time in jail

Anthony F. and 5 others voted for this review

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Lawrence, KS

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1.0 star rating 11/24/2018

This man harassed black individuals on twitter sending them pictures of nooses and using the n word telling them he will murder then

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5.0 star rating 7/18/2014

I worked with Jason at a commercial collection agency for three years and I would recommend him for any case, big or small. He get's the job done and takes care of his clients.

Hal W.

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5.0 star rating 7/17/2014

I had the pleasure of working with Mr.Vandyke at a commercial collection agency. He is a professional businessman with a tenacity like no other. He fights for his clients rights and actually puts them in front of his self. a rare quality in lawyers. He worked tirelessly on every case he had and strives for nothing but excellence. I have no problem recommending him and will contine to do so.

=-=

We Were Promised Proud Boys. Philadelphia Had Other Ideas.

By Jared Holt | November 19, 2018

It was hard to hear what right-wing rally goers were saying over the speakers without standing close. Hundreds of anti-fascism protesters had gathered across the street from Saturday’s “We The People” rally outside the Independence Visitor Center in downtown Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to overshadow the few dozen self-declared “patriots” who attended Saturday’s—a light turnout, peppered with members of the violent, right-wing Proud Boys group.

Ted Chmielnicki

“To be completely honest, this is pitiful,” Ted Chmielnicki, a rally speaker, said of the weak attendance. He accused members of a state-based militia group of trying to “actively sabotage” the event by telling people hate groups had been invited to the rally.

Christian Yingling of the Pennsylvania Light Foot Militia responded to the claims in a Facebook post, writing that event organizers were “attempting to blame us for the hate groups they invited not showing up.” Right Wing Watch has contacted Yingling via Facebook Messenger asking if he would let us review private messages he claimed in the post to possess, which allegedly contain evidence that hate groups were courted ahead of Saturday’s event.

“They were using the same rhetoric as Antifa, as the left, to try to destroy,” Chmielnicki said. “To have it from our own side, it’s disgusting.”

The rally’s Facebook event page stated that “all Patriots, Militia, 3%, constitution loving Americans, pro good cop, pro ICE, pro law and order, pro life, pro American value, pro gun and anti illegal immigration” believers were welcome to attend Saturday’s rally. The event’s initial planning involved members of the Proud Boys organization, which was founded by CRTV host Gavin McInnes and has been labeled a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

The event had also piqued the interest of Bob Gaus, member of a neo-Nazi group, as Rewire News reported. Gaus, who co-founded the Neo-Nazi group Keystone United, had asked in a comment on the Facebook event page if there was a meeting point for participants. Right Wing Watch did not spot Gaus in attendance at Saturday’s rally and a rally organizer told us that they privately asked Gaus not to attend.

Organizers were adamant that the rally was not a “Proud Boys event,” but Zach Rehl, a planner of We The People, is a member of the group. Rehl has organized past rallies in the city that have attracted people in extremist circles. Andrew Kovalic, who was reported to have originally planned security for the event, was fired from his job at Comcast for being a Proud Boys member.

When chatter first began that members of the Proud Boys group would take part in the rally, anti-fascist organizers began mobilizing crowds to turn out and oppose the demonstration. The Push Back Campaign spearheaded the effort, earning the endorsements of a handful of anti-fascist groups, legal groups, and labor unions. A post on the Push Back Campaign’s website read:

Far-right groups with ties to Neo-Nazis known as the “Proud Boys” and the “Three Percenters” are planning to attend a rally in Philadelphia on November 17th called “We the People”. They provoke and attack people on the streets who they deem to be unworthy of their far-right, fascist vision of the country. The Proud Boys were present in Charlottesville, terrorize residents in the cities of Portland, New York, and Providence, and have been listed as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

The residents and allies of Philadelphia must stand in opposition to this escalation of the far-right’s push into the city’s culture and politics.

Rehl said the planned demonstrations against his event would be “kind of hilarious” if the Proud Boys didn’t attend his event during an interview on WPHT 1210AM before the rally.

They did.

Proud Boys member David Kuriakose

At least two Proud Boys attended Saturday’s rally, including David Kuriakose, who is facing riot and assault charges in New York City for his participation in brawls after McInnes delivered a speech to the Metropolitan Republican Club in Manhattan last month. McInnes’ speech, and the subsequent violence, attracted members of the New York skinhead gangs 211 Bootboys and Battalion 49, and led to the arrest of several Proud Boys.

Alan Swinney, another Proud Boy, showed up at the Philadelphia event dressed in a full suit of armor. On two occasions, Swinney exited the barricades surrounding the rally to in apparent attempts to goad anti-fascist protesters into committing violence. On Swinney’s second foray outside the perimeter, an opposing demonstrator took the bait. The counter-protester was arrested.

Proud Boys member Alan Swinney

A separate scuffle involved a man that Billy Penn identified only as “Zachary.” Billy Penn purported Zachary to be a person mistakenly attacked by anti-fascist protesters, although there is some debate over whether he may have obscured his connection to the Proud Boys. Zachary entered the crowd wearing a hat advertising the Silver Dollar Bar, which coincidentally is the name of a bar where Proud Boys members crashed a Democratic Socialists of America meeting in September. (Update: The Silver Dollar Bar hat Zachary was seen wearing is actually from a bar in North Dakota). When an observer of the scuffle asked Zachary why he left the rally to go to the counter-protest side, he responded: “it’s a free country.”

McInnes was allegedly spotted in the city on Thursday, and many anti-fascist demonstrators told Right Wing Watch they had worried he might attend with a troop of his followers. But at Saturday’s rally, McInnes was nowhere to be seen.

Hundreds turned out on Saturday to oppose the rally, including government whistleblower and activist Chelsea Manning. Many protesting the event brought along signs, costumes, and memorabilia of the Philadelphia Flyers mascot “Gritty,” whose likeness has been co-opted by anti-fascist demonstrators and leftist activists.

“Whose streets? Gritty’s streets!” activists chanted.

Embedded video

Jared Holt

That's the good stuff

Without active threats to oppose, anti-fascist demonstrators spent most of their day mingling with one another. Many groups that had demonstrated at the 2017 Unite the Right white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, had traveled to the Philadelphia event, which became something of a reunion for many in the anti-fascist crowd, who were overheard sharing stories in good spirits. One activist described the gathering to Right Wing Watch as a sort of “Antifa Thanksgiving.”

‘Gritty’ Patch eat the rich"

Daryle Lamont Jenkins, a well-known anti-fascist activist in Philadelphia and the founder of One People’s Project, told Right Wing Watch that the community organizing efforts were responsible for the right-wing rally’s low turnout, which he called “pathetic.” One People’s Project endorsed the Push Back Campaign.

“They tried to pick a fight with us and we weren’t having it,” Jenkins said. “We mobilized against them and we’ve done it before. … Their numbers are down because of us.”

The less-clued-in participants in the right-wing rally were confused at the opposition to the event they were attending. We the People rally-goer Dmitry Kyrychenko, a local Philadelphian, said he found out about the event via a post on the Philadelphia Police Department Facebook page. Kyrychenko said he believed that rally counter-demonstrators were opposing “free market principles,” and expressed his shock that they would oppose a rally promoting American exceptionalism.

He was wearing a shirt displaying the NPC meme that received a flash of attention in right-wing internet circles, accidentally matching another rally attendee.

View image on Twitter

Jared Holt

@jaredlholt

Replying to @jaredlholt

These two folks have NPC shirts. They don't know each other and accidentally matched.

9:47 AM - Nov 17, 2018

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Tags: Gavin McInnes Alt-Right New Right CRTV Proud Boys

===

https://boingboing.net/2018/11/19/fbi-describes-proud-boys-a.html:(

extremist

https://www.alternet.org/i-blame-soros-trump-loving-proud-boys-founder-whines-after-being-shunned-liberal-neighbors:(

'I blame Soros!': Trump-loving Proud Boys founder whines after being shunned by liberal neighbors

Like every bully, Gavin McInnes proves he's the biggest snowflake of all.

By Brad Reed / Raw Story November 13, 2018,

Gavin McInnes, the Trump-loving founder of the far-right Proud Boys organization, has been bitterly complaining in recent months that his liberal neighbors in a wealthy New York suburb do not like him.

The Daily Beast's Kelly Weill reportsthat McInnes has been heard regularly whining about the people in his neighborhood who want nothing to do with him -- and he blames none other than liberal billionaire George Soros for his struggles.

"I blame Soros for all of this," McInnes recently told InfoWars founder Alex Jones. "Soros is terrorizing me and trying to shut down my fraternal club, the Proud Boys. And he’s paying people to mess with my life, and spread these lies about me, spread fake news."

One of the alleged hardships McInnes has had to endure was having his application to a local country club sabotaged by a fellow golfer whom he said mocks his involvement with InfoWars.

Additionally, McInnes has told Jones that his proud love for President Donald Trump results in him getting disgusted looks on the streets wherever he goes.

"I see whispers all the time," the Proud Boys founder explained. "I’m walking down the street and a housewife goes like she’s finally seen Hannibal Lecter walk by. And what is the horror? The horror is that I like Trump, and that if I like Trump I might be conservative."

After the infamous street brawl between Proud Boys and left-wing demonstrators at New York's Metropolitan Republican Club, several of McGinnes' neighbors also started planting "Hate Has No Home Here" signs on their front lawns to let him know he wasn't welcome in their community.

Read the whole story of McGinnes' plight here.

ref

https://www.thedailybeast.com/gavin-mcinnes-whines-his-fellow-rich-neighbors-dont-like-him:(

no lnx

Gavin McInnes Whines His Fellow Rich Neighbors Don’t Like Him

The self-styled conservative punk lives in a liberal New York enclave where he says he’s the victim of everyone from soccer moms to George Soros.

Kelly Weill

11.13.18 4:44

Online, Gavin McInnes is the gung-ho, ex-punk leader of a hate group who rails against liberal decadence. At home in his wealthy New York suburb, he’s upset that liberals won’t accept him.

“I blame [George] Soros for all of this,” McInnes said during a September broadcast of Infowars, on which he bemoaned what he claimed was his supposedly degraded social status. “Soros is terrorizing me and trying to shut down my fraternal club, the Proud Boys. And he’s paying people to mess with my life, and spread these lies about me, spread fake news.”

McInnes, 48, built his profile as a New York media provocateur. As co-founder of the media company Vice, he was an architect of the ironic hipster culture of the early 2000s, a scene that sometimes gave him cover for racist remarks that he defended as jokes before leaving Vice in 2008. Years later, in 2016, he began a new chapter in life: founding the Proud Boys—a violent, ultranationalist men’s club—and selling his $2.5 million Brooklyn penthouse to buy a home in Larchmont, a tony Westchester County town 20 miles north of the city.

After months of high-profile street fights involving the Proud Boys, neighbors in McInnes’ upscale town are starting to take notice of who exactly moved next door.

A local man at a country club mocked McInnes for being involved with Infowars and tried to sabotage his application to join, he claimed in the September broadcast. One of his daughter’s tutors allegedly stopped working for the family, citing McInnes’ politics. In a June broadcast, he claimed to have gotten into an altercation with a neighbor and kicked the man’s dog.

“I see it in my neighborhood,” McInnes said. “I see whispers all the time. I’m walking down the street and a housewife goes,” he made an outraged face “like she’s finally seen Hannibal Lecter walk by. And what is the horror? The horror is that I like Trump, and that if I like Trump I might be conservative.”

Larchmont residents’ real problem, locals say, is with McInnes’ role in the Proud Boys, which has been designated as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. And the Proud Boys’ involvement in a Manhattan brawl brought McInnes to the neighborhood’s attention.

“I myself am Native American with a full blood mother who grew up fully immersed in our tribe, speaking our traditional language. I would never accept racism to surround me in my own life.”

— Emily McInnes

RELATED IN U.S. NEWS

NYPD Arrests Three More Far-Right ‘Proud Boys’

NYPD Arrests More Proud Boys for Manhattan Fight With Antifa

Synagogue Suspect Hated Trump—for Not Hating Jews

On Oct. 12, McInnes spoke at Manhattan’s Metropolitan Republican Club. While he received a police escort after leaving the club, a crowd of Proud Boys lingered behind, and they brawled with anti-fascist protesters. Police arrested five Proud Boys and are seeking the arrest of four others, as well as three anti-fascists involved in the brawl.

Michael Sabino, who lives near Larchmont, said he’d been unaware of McInnes’ residence until then.

“What made me aware was the brawl at that event in Manhattan,” he told The Daily Beast. “Among my friends and people I speak with online, everybody’s disgusted.”

On Oct. 20, a Larchmont local emailed neighbors.

“So the founder of the proud boys lives in [a Larchmont neighborhood],” read the email, which was reviewed by The Daily Beast. “I suggest we buy the ‘Hate Has No Home Here’ lawn signs and ask our friends and neighbors in [the neighborhood] to put one on their lawn. Imagine if everyone had one. It would send a clear message to him and his ilk. The signs are $20 each and bulk orders ship free. Spread the word.”

The email was quickly forwarded to other community members, a person familiar with the messages said. By the following day, the campaign had “gone way beyond me and farther than anything I can manage,” the original emailer wrote neighbors, reminding them that the campaign should preach “the opposite of hate and intimidation.”

Two days later, McInnes’ wife, Emily, sent emails to people involved with the lawn-sign campaign.

“Hello neighbor,” she began. “I want to make sure some misinformation about my family is not being spread. The media has recently accused my husband of being an alt-right hate group leader. This is simply not true.”

She described the Proud Boys as multiracial and blamed the media for implying otherwise.

“The club that is affiliated with my husband is multi-ethnic and it explicitly states it does not endorse these sentiments in any way,” she wrote. “The men affiliated with my husband who were in an altercation with the masked Antifa group that is getting press recently are either people of color or married with children to African American women. To be clear—they are the ones being painted in this slanderous and completely false light.

Unlike her husband, Emily said she is a Democrat.

“I myself am Native American with a full blood mother who grew up fully immersed in our tribe, speaking our traditional language,” she said. “I would never accept racism to surround me in my own life. It is true my husband is a Trump supporter and enjoys being a provocateur at times. I think this, paired with the climate right now and his passion for free speech has caused this horribly inaccurate narrative. I vote Democrat but I respect if you don’t. My kids have been raised this way as well—to respect all humans—and it pains me to think they may be suffering because of these very adult conflicts and narratives. I wanted to make this all clear and I am happy to discuss anything at any time if needed.”

The following week, liberal writer Amy Siskind wrote a Facebook post warning that McInnes lived in Larchmont. Siskind lives nearby and announced that she was planning an anti-hate vigil “in light of events last week.”

The evening after local news site LoHud ran a story on Siskind’s announcement, the McInnes family showed up on Siskind’s doorstep. Siskind, alarmed, called the police. McInnes later told LoHud that Siskind shouldn’t have been alarmed about the unannounced visit.

Of the people gathered outside, “three of them are little kids and one was holding his teddy bear,” he said. “The pipe dream was that she opened the door and my wife would say, ‘Look, let’s talk about this. I’m a Hillary supporter. Why are you putting my beautiful children in danger?’ This was not about intimidation and I was very open with everyone.”

Although the neighborhood skews liberal, Larchmont’s Sabino said he knows people on the political right who reject McInnes. “Even they see this guy and hear what he has to say, and they don’t like it,” he said. “They’re like ‘This guy’s a jerk.’ I’m not trying to say nobody likes him. He obviously has a pretty big following.”

But Emily McInnes’ email touched on a reality of the Proud Boys that has sometimes confused media who attempt to portray the group as strictly white-nationalist: Some members are men of color. But the Proud Boys’ ideology is more nebulous than other right-wing extremist groups. Some members and former members are undeniably affiliated with white nationalism: A 41-year-old Proud Boy arrested in the Manhattan brawl attended Unite the Right, the deadly white-supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, last year.

THE NEW FAR-RIGHT

Why Young Men of Color Are Joining White-Supremacist Groups

Arun Gupta

More than anything, the Proud Boys are anti-leftist. Members talk openly of beating leftist opponents (“commies” and “antifa”) in the streets. Proud Boys at a violent Portland, Oregon, rally wore T-shirts valorizing Augusto Pinochet, a Chilean dictator who murdered tortured and murdered leftist political foes. When a prominent Twitter user made videos mocking the Proud Boys, a member showed up at his home. Members have also variously expressed sexist, anti-Semitic, and anti-LGBT views. The ideological flexibility gives some space for members of color; the aforementioned Proud Boy who attended Unite the Right also runs with a primarily Latino skinhead crew. It also gives plausible deniability for figures like McInnes, who constantly toe the line of acceptable hatred.

“Racism isn’t a thing,” McInnes said in the same September Infowars appearance in which he described neighborhood spats. “So why are you so obsessed with it?”

McInnes uses these broadcasts to craft his public profile as an edgy, conservative grouch. He’s used punk-rock posturing to present himself as a counterculture voice in decidedly un-punk outlets like Fox News. When he talks about street violence, it’s nostalgic, hitting Fox News-friendly notes about the supposed decline of masculinity.

Members of McInnes’ old scenester circles have also called out the contradiction: Being a rich conservative isn’t very punk. When McInnes praised Sheer Terror, a hardcore band that sings about being broke and miserable, the band denounced him and the Proud Boys. “The whole ‘Conservatism Is the New Punk’ thought is a fucking travesty, and a sad joke,” Sheer Terror’s frontman told RVA Mag. “I don’t want to hear about how you’ve ‘grown up, and have kids and a mortgage.’ You don’t eat shit just because the toilet’s closer than the fridge.”

Even McInnes’ mockery of the suburbs—a common punk trope—takes on a right-wing bent. In the September Infowars broadcast, McInnes pushed an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory, claiming his neighborhood spats were the effects of a campaign by George Soros, a billionaire philanthropist and prolific Democratic donor who is Jewish.

“I’m laying on the couch here bitching about the sort of pariah status that has been imbued upon me,” he told viewers. “The reason it’s relevant to your life, is I believe it can be traced back to Soros.”

Right-wingers have blamed Soros for everything from immigration to Black Lives Matter to efforts to count every vote in the 2018 midterm elections. The blame game echoes previous efforts to portray wealthy Jews as mass manipulators, efforts that have led to pogroms and genocides against Jews. Most recently, Soros was sent a bomb allegedly by a rabid Trump supporter.

In McInnes’ case, he accused Soros of funding a network of “lesbian” lawyers who harass the far right. (He also falsely accused Soros’ staff of organizing Unite the Right “to discredit us all.”)

“I think I’m part of this sort of computer virus the Soros machine sends out in the system to mess with your life,” he said.

But there’s something more sinister than simple conservative shit-talk at play: With one foot in the world of right-wing street fights and the other in upstate country clubs, McInnes is marshaling an extremist group from a safe remove. One Gavin McInnes champions violence and reaps speaking fees, the other doesn’t care for critical emails from neighbors.

“Of course he’s got to live somewhere,” Sabino said. “But I consider this as factual: The Proud Boys are a gang. They’re listed as a hate group. When the leader of a hate group moves within driving range of you and people you care about, that’s concerning. That’s not petty, that’s real.”

BEDFELLOWS

Republicans Are Adopting the Proud Boys

Kelly Weill,

Will Sommer

ref

https://www.thedailybeast.com/republicans-are-adopting-the-proud-boys

Nine members of the far-right Proud Boys group and three protesters are facing riot and assault charges after a street brawl between them Friday night in New York.

The fight wasn’t a random clash, though: The Proud Boys were in Manhattan thanks to an invite from the Metropolitan Republican Club.

In a speech at the club, which was vandalized before the event, Proud Boys leader Gavin McInnes waved a sword at anti-fascist protesters and celebrated the assassination of a socialist Japanese politician. McInnes, a Vice co-founder who left the company in 2008, dressed up as the Japanese assassin who killed the politician, complete with glasses that made his eyes into a racist caricature of a Japanese person’s eyes.

It was a bizarre event to host at the GOP’s Manhattan clubhouse, but the Metropolitan Republican Club defended McInnes and the Proud Boys after the fight. In a statement released Sunday, the club said McInnes’ speech “was certainly not inciting violence.”

WANTED BOYS

NYPD Looks to Charge 9 Proud Boys for Manhattan Fight

Pervaiz Shallwani,

Kelly Weill

The Republican club’s role hosting the event highlights how the Proud Boys have managed to insinuate themselves with mainstream Republicans, even as they increasingly make the news for their violence. But the New York Republicans aren’t alone—the Proud Boys have already managed to make their way into other mainstream GOP campaign events and conservative media.

Representatives Mario Diaz-Balart and Devin Nunes have posed for pictures with Proud Boys on the campaign trail. Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson posed in a Fox green room with two Proud Boys and Republican operative Roger Stone earlier this year.

“The skinheads, for example, would become functional equivalents of Hitler’s SA and Mussolini’s squadristi only if they aroused support instead of revulsion.”

— Historian Robert Paxton

Stone has himself taken steps to be initiated into the Proud Boys and made headlines in March, when he used the Proud Boys as a security force at the Dorchester Conference, a Republican event in Oregon. By then, the Proud Boys were already notorious in Oregon for a series of bloody Portland brawls. But Dorchester board member and former Oregon legislator Patrick Sheehan defended the Proud Boys’ attendance, telling Willamette Week that Stone “was worried about getting killed… He gets death threats constantly.”

RU s

https://vimeo.com/295460900

https://www.alternet.org/heres-why-proud-boys-claim-self-defense-when-defending-ring-wing-violence-total-joke

amanda m

When 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 are out there peacefully protesting or attending speeches, and that the violence that often seems to erupt afterward is merely a reaction to leftist provocation.

"Antifa terrorists attacked us, not the other way around," argues a typical post at the Proud Boys Facebook page, after members of the group were filmed beating up anti-fascist protesters after Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes gave a speech at New York's Metropolitan Republican Club.

Conservative media has picked up this talking point and has aggressively defended and promoted far-right groups — who have also gotten into street fights in Portland, Oregon, and Providence, Rhode Island, in the past month — painting them as victims who only engage in violence as a last resort to defend themselves.

On her Fox News show, Laura Ingraham interviewed Joey Gibson, the head of Patriot Prayer, who denied "any intention to get violent" and said the violence in Portland was purely self-defense.

Sean Hannity, on his own Fox News show, put the blame on for these outbreaks of violence on Democratic rhetoric he considers rude, even though none of the figures or incidents he mentioned were anywhere near these events. He explained what happened last week this way: "A bunch of anarchists go to the New York GOP club, Republican club, whatever it happens to be, and they’re committing vandalism, anarchist signs that they’re putting up, etc., and then there’s a confrontation on the street there."

David Neiwert, an investigative journalist and author who does research for the Southern Poverty Law Center, disagrees. In a recent report on the Portland brawl, he argues that both the Proud Boys and Patriot Prayer deliberately assemble "a ready-to-rumble crew with out-of-town violent extremists, then troll through the urban center in hopes of confronting left-wing protesters, ensuring violence eventually will break out."

It's the question that bedevils this particular issue: Are these groups out with innocent intentions and only acting in self-defense, or are they actively seeking to create violent confrontations, while using "self-defense" as an excuse and for legal cover for their actions?

On Monday, Media Matters tweeted a video showing how frequently far-right pundits, and McInnes in particular, have praised violence as, to quote McInnes, "a really effective way to solve problems."

Gavin McInnes: "i cannot recommend violence enough. It is a really effective way to solve problems." pic.twitter.com/XcWBWBkrh8

— Media Matters (@mmfa) October 15, 2018

At the New York event itself, McInnes, as he promised on Instagram, celebrated an act of unprovoked violence against leftists that has become a major far-right meme.

"Wearing glasses with caricatured Asian eyes drawn on the front, McInnes played Otoya Yamaguchi, a young far-right extremist who assassinated the leader of the Japanese Socialist Party on live television exactly 58 years ago on October 12, 1960," described Carol Schaeffer, a journalist for Bedford & Bowery.

Meanwhile, the Portland Mercury has contradicted Joey Gibson's claim that he wasn't looking for a violent encounter, sharing a video that appears to have been recorded on Friday in which Gibson tells his followers, "We will challenge and we will instigate, but we do it by marching through these streets." He makes sure to say that leftist protesters "have a right to be here as long as they are not being violent," but promises that if "they want to get in our way, then they need to deal with the punishment."

During the period when he was forming the Proud Boys, McInnes had a self-titled show on Compound Media. Salon has reviewed numerous clips from this show in which McInnes spoke about violence against leftists.

“If you’re wearing a MAGA hat, and some guy with a slightly punk demeanor comes up to you and says, ‘Hey, are you Sal’ or ‘Are you pro-Trump?,’ choke him," McInnes advised on Feb. 2, 2017. "Trust your instincts. Don’t give him a fucking chance. The guy’s not there to chat.”

That episode was one in which McInnes spent a great deal of time dwelling on photos of Proud Boys with injuries they claimed were from fights with leftists. He praised the group members for leveling up to the "fourth degree" in their hierarchy by fighting with the left.

“This is the Civil War. If you’re dressed as a Confederate soldier and a Yankee comes up to you, don’t listen to what he has to say. Choke him," he continued during this segment.

"Oh, I think I’m not allowed to say that," he added, in a joking tone. Then he turned to the camera and added, "In self-defense."

A few months later, McInnes posted on the Proud Boys website to say that he had been joking when he praised "kicking the crap out of antifa." He added, "We don’t start fights, we finish them."

New York state law defines self-defense as "an emergency measure to avoid an imminent public or private injury which is about to occur by reason of a situation occasioned or developed through no fault of the actor."

"When you start griping and yelling and telling us to shut up and calling us Nazis and saying you’re going to come punch us, we beat the shit out of you," McInnes said on the June 12, 2017, edition of his show. He added that the goal of such violence was to support "freedom," but added, "We do it cause it’s fun."

“It’s fun beating you up, because you suck shit," he added.

“I think there’s not enough violence in today’s day and age," McInnes complained on March 30, 2016. “I want violence. I want punching in the face. I’m disappointed in Trump supporters for not punching enough.”

To be clear, some of the anti-fascist counter-protesters who confront these right-wing groups are, in fact, throwing the first punches or throwing bottles. (That may have been the case last Friday in New York.) While some radical leftists justify this kind of response as necessary to counter far-right groups, there are questions involved not just about morality but also about tactics. If, in fact, right-wing groups are trolling for fights so they can beat people up under the guise of self-defense, it seems unwise to play into their hands.

"I don’t foresee violence, but we’re happy to deliver it if it wants to rear its ugly head," McInnes declared on May 9, 2017.

Three anti-fascist protesters were arrested immediately after the fight in New York last Friday night. None of the Proud Boys were, which drew heavy criticism. Police have subsequently announced they are seeking to arrest nine of the far-right brawlers. According to the New York Times, surveillance footage "captured a protester hurling a plastic bottle toward the Proud Boys" and a "man in a red hat then appears onscreen and can be seen throwing the first punch."

seems to be trying to throw off wacko bad PR?

but not so much

Friday, October 12, the Metropolitan Republican Club in New York City invited Proud Boys founder and right-wing media host Gavin McInnes to speak.

On his CRTV show (CRTV is the digital network run by Fox News host Mark Levin), McInnes advocates for revanchist positions: He's called for "a big memorial for all the whites," teamed up with a men's rights activist to attack Black women, talked about how great he thinks the patriarchy is, made disgusting remarks about LGBTQ people, argued that women don't belong in the workplace, and much more. McInnes' written work can best be described as attempting to forge new ways to be racist.

McInnes is also the founder of the Proud Boys. Proud Boys is a self-described “Western chauvinist” men-only fraternal organization. There are two crucial things to understand about the group: Misogyny and violence. Misogyny is the core operating principle of the group: Not only are women not allowed to join, they are not even allowed to be present when meetings take place. The group even has a ritual where members subject themselves to punches while naming breakfast cereals. To reach the inner sanctum of the group, a Proud Boy must engage in violence with anti-fascists. The group also has ties to white supremacists; the chief organizer of the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville was a Proud Boy, and when a white nationalist narrative goes viral, there's usually a link to the Proud Boys. In terms of finding members, Proud Boys has used Facebook and Infowars to recruit. If you had to sum up the Proud Boys, it would be to describe them as a pro-Trump street gang, the violent wing of the modern Republican Party.

After the event, Proud Boys assaulted three protesters; video shows "more than a dozen" Proud Boys, including at least three skinheads, punching and kicking protesters on the ground. The NYPD told Buzzfeed News that they were still "researching a response" as to why none of the Proud Boys were arrested even though there were officers on the scene. Video from the scene is horrifying.

As the beatdown happened, Fox News immediately put the blame onto left-wing protesters and portrayed the Proud Boys as the victims. There is no evidence whatsoever for that conclusion, and to the contrary, while Fox News warned of "swords and vandalism" at the event, the only sword was wielded by McInnes himself -- the event was to commemorate and reenact the execution of the Japanese socialist Inejiro Asanuma.

While shocking, Fox News' protection of the Proud Boys should come as no surprise. Fox News is explicitly deferential to the Proud Boys. They've interviewed McInnes on air without even identifying him. Tucker Carlson has posed for pictureswith Proud Boys and refused to distance himself from the group, and in fact has even echoed some of McInnes' rhetoric. A New York Post columnist recently arguedon Fox & Friends that the Proud Boys "don't have any real dark beliefs."

But it's not just right-wing media that gets the Proud Boys wrong. NBC News profiledthe Proud Boys in 2017 and made a series of mistakes, in the end only glamorizing the group. A New York Times headline about the melee merely labelled McInnes a "right-wing provocateur."

Trump has repeatedly incited violence at his rallies. Of course a pro-Trump group would take that call to action to the streets.

Amidst right-wing violence, conservatives complain about angry left-wing mob

Roger Stone and ‘Sheriff Joe’ Surprise Attendees of Rally Peppered with Far-Right Extremists

By Jared Holt | September 10, 2018

The Mother of All Rallies, the pro-Trump “patriot” rally that attracted far-right extremists last year, featured surprise guests at this year’s event last weekend, including failed U.S. Senate candidate from Arizona Joe Arpaio and GOP operative Roger Stone, who arrived on site with an entourage of members from the Proud Boys hate group.

While last year’s Mother of All Rallies brought out an underwhelming showing, this year produced the same as only about 200 people— including event organizers, speakers, reporters and supporters—gathered on the National Mall on Saturday.

(Photo: Jared Holt for Right Wing Watch)

Stone, who is a focus of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into possible ties between Trump associates and Russian officials, stopped by the rally for an unscheduled appearance and told attendees they were the “tip of the spear” and the “cutting edge of the counter-revolution,” borrowing mainstay lines from his frequent appearances on the conspiracy theory outlet Infowars.

“Let me say one thing about Russian collusion: It’s bullshit,” Stone said, to applause. “It’s a canard, it’s a fraud, it’s a left-wing conspiracy theory.”

He went on to label Mueller “illegitimate” and suggested Mueller may have covered up the deaths of inmates who were imprisoned to conceal ties between the FBI and the mob. Stone also claimed he will not be indicted, but that he might be “framed,” though he promised not to flip on Trump.

(Photo: Jared Holt for Right Wing Watch)

Event organizers said they met Arpaio at the Trump International Hotel in Washington the night before the event and that he had agreed to speak at their rally.Arpaio’s speech was brief, but he did tell the crowd that he was turning over his unused campaign funds to Trump’s re-election efforts.

While most of the event attendees appeared to be standard-issue Trump supporters, the rally—as it did last year—also contained several hardcore extremists.

(Photo: Jared Holt for Right Wing Watch)

Running security were clusters of people wearing insignias of anti-government militia groups, including the Oath Keepers, Three Percenters, and the Light Foot Militia. The latter group’s Pennsylvania branch was named as a defendant in a lawsuit filed by the City of Charlottesville, Virginia, after the melee sparked by the 2017 Unite the Right event—a lawsuit they resolved by “agreeing not to return to Charlottesville to engage in coordinated armed activity during rallies and protests.”

(Video Still: Alejandro Alvarez / News2Share)

At this year’s Mother of All Rallies event, News2Share filmed members of American Guard, a group of white supremacists. American Guard was founded by Brien James, who was also in attendance. The Anti-Defamation League reported that James was also a founder of a violent skinhead gang called the Vinlanders Social Club whose members and affiliates have been responsible for at least nine murders. The Southern Poverty Law Center reported that in 2000, James punched and stomped a man “to the brink of death at a party for refusing to seig heil,” and that James had bragged about multiple trials he faced for attempted murder, batteries and hate crimes.

(Photo: Jared Holt for Right Wing Watch)

Also among those in the crowd this year was Jovi Val, a far-right activist who, for a brief moment, rose to fame in online pro-Trump circles after he was attacked with a glass bottle in a New York City bar fight over his wearing of a Trump hat. Since then, he’s been showing up at far-right rallies like the “Speak English Please” rally in New York City and has proven himself to be inflammatory enough to get reportedly denounced by CRTV host Gavin McInnes. The video host, who also founded the Proud Boys, now claims that Val is not a member of his group despite the fact he had previously identified Val as such. Val was spotted last month in Washington amongst the neo-Nazis attending the anniversary event of Unite the Right.

The event ended early due to rain.

Tags: Joe Arpaio Roger Stone Alt-Right Anti-Government white supremacist American Guard Light Foot Militia Oath Keepers Proud Boys Three Percenters

started at vice media

https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/group/proud-boys

Their disavowals of bigotry are belied by their actions: rank-and-file Proud Boys and leaders regularly spout white nationalist memes and maintain affiliations with known extremists. They are known for anti-Muslim and misogynistic rhetoric. Proud Boys have appeared alongside other hate groups at extremist gatherings like the "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville. Indeed, former Proud Boys member Jason Kessler helped to organize the event, which brought together Klansmen, antisemites, Southern racists, and militias. Kessler was only “expelled” from the group after the violence and near-universal condemnation of the Charlottesville rally-goers. Other hardcore members of the so-called "alt-right" have argued that the “western chauvinist” label is just a “PR cuck term” McInnes crafted to gain mainstream acceptance. “Let’s not bullshit,” Brian Brathovd, aka Caeralus Rex, told his co-hosts on the antisemitic The Daily Shoah — one of the most popular alt-right podcasts. If the Proud Boys “were pressed on the issue, I guarantee you that like 90% of them would tell you something along the lines of ‘Hitler was right. Gas the Jews.’”

McInnes himself has ties to the racist right and has contributed to hate sites like VDare.com and American Renaissance, both of which publish the work of white supremacists and so-called “race realists.” He even used Taki’s Magazine — a far-right publication whose contributors include Richard Spencer and Jared Taylor — to announce the founding of the Proud Boys. McInnes plays a duplicitous rhetorical game: rejecting white nationalism and, in particular, the term “alt-right” while espousing some of its central tenets. For example, McInnes has himself said it is fair to call him Islamophobic.

In its own words

“We brought roads and infrastructure to India and they are still using them as toilets. Our criminals built nice roads in Australia but aboriginals keep using them as a bed. The next time someone bitches about colonization, the correct response is ‘You’re welcome.’”

—Gavin McInnes, “10 Things I like About White Guys,” Taki’s Magazine, March 2, 2017

“Well look at the canary in the coal mine called Britain. We see guys get away with raping children regularly, and they have excuses like ‘I didn’t understand the word ‘no.’’ We have a woman raped several times in one night. All these guys seem to…they don’t all get away but they seem to get away way too often. And then you have people being jailed for rude tweets and comments when they’re white, so…people in America say ‘Muslim are what? One or two percent of the population? There’s never gonna be sharia law here.’ And I say have a look at Britain. Have a look at Europe. That’s where we’re headed.”

—Gavin McInnes, “Get Off My Lawn”, November 4, 2017

“Maybe the reason I’m sexist is because women are dumb. No, I’m just kidding, ladies. But you do tend to not thrive in certain areas — like writing.”

—Gavin McInnes, The Gavin McInnes Show, June 28, 2017

“I just realized something. Cory Booker is kind of like Sambo. He’s kind of shucking and jiving for the white man. Cory Booker grew up rich in an all-white suburb. He’s basically a white guy. His parents were very wealthy executives at IBM… .But he wants to be a black dude, so he pretends that he’s down with the brothers and he acts outraged about racism all the time — for white people. That gets him votes from whites.”

—Gavin McInnes on his CRTV show “Get Off My Lawn,” January 17, 2018

“The white liberal ethos tells us blacks aren’t at MIT because of racism. They say blacks dominate the prison population for the same reason. They insist America is a racist hellhole where ‘people of color’ have no future. This does way more damage to black youth than the KKK. When you strip people of culpability and tell them the odds are stacked against them, they don’t feel like trying. White liberals make this worse by then using affirmative action to “correct” society’s mistakes. When blacks are forced into schools they aren’t qualified for they have no choice but to drop out. Instead of going back a step to a school they can handle, they tend to give up on higher education entirely. Thanks to the Marxist myth of ubiquitous equality, this ‘mismatch’ leaves blacks less educated than they would have been had they been left to their own devices.”

—Gavin McInnes, “America in 2034,” American Renaissance, June 17, 2014

“I’m not a fan of Islam. I think it’s fair to call me Islamophobic.”

—Gavin McInnes, NBC interview, 2017

“Palestinians are stupid. Muslims are stupid. And the only thing they really respect is violence and being tough.”

—Gavin McInnes, The Gavin McInnes Show, March 8, 2017

“Why don’t we take back Bethlehem? Why don’t we take back Northern Iraq? Why don’t we start our own Crusades? That’s what the Crusades were. They weren’t just someone picking on Muslims for no reason — they were a reaction to Muslim tyranny. We finally fought back.”

—Gavin McInnes, The Gavin McInnes Show, March 8, 2017

“Buying woman parts from a hospital and calling yourself a broad trivializes what it is to be a woman. Womanhood is not on a shelf next to wigs and makeup. Similarly, being a dude is quite involved. Ripping your vaginal canal out of your fly doesn’t mean you are going to start inventing shit and knowing how cement works. Being a man is awesome. So is being a woman. We should revere these creations, not revel in their bastardization.”

—Gavin McInnes, “Transphobia is Perfectly Natural,” Thought Catalog, August 8, 2014

“I am not afraid to speak out about the atrocities that whites and people of European descent face not only here in this country but in Western nations across the world. The war against whites, and Europeans and Western society is very real and it’s time we all started talking about it and stopped worrying about political correctness and optics.”

—Kyle Chapman, who formed the Fraternal Order of Alt-Knights, a wing of the Proud Boys, Unite America First Peace Rally, Sacramento, California, July 8, 2017

“Put something on the table! Give us a reason to accept you, because you know what? Sharia law ain’t it. Raping women ain’t it. Cutting off clits ain’t it. Throwing gay people of roofs ain’t it. You are a disgrace.”

—Pawl Bazile, a production director of Proud Boys’ magazine, on Muslims, March against Sharia rally, New York City, New York, June 10, 2017

Background

Canadian Gavin McInnes has been flaunting his contempt for PC culture for decades. Before entering the fray of right-wing politics, McInnes co-founded VICE Magazine, a publication that came to epitomize hipster culture in the late 1990s and 2000s. While the magazine tended to dabble in provocative and taboo topics — generally under a veneer of irony — McInnes took pleasure in stepping over the line. In 2002, for instance, when a New York Press reporter asked McInnes what he thought about his neighbors in New York’s Williamsburg neighborhood, he responded, “Well, at least they’re not niggers or Puerto Ricans. At least they’re white.”

While presenting his observation as a joke and revenue-generating ruse (“incendiary political statements garnered endless publicity for us,” he later told Gawker), McInnes seems to have meant its underlying sentiment sincerely. “I love being white and I think it’s something to be very proud of,” he told The New York Times a year later, revealing an ideology that would later form the foundation of the Proud Boys. “I don’t want our culture diluted. We need to close the borders now and let everyone assimilate to a Western, white, English-speaking way of life.” McInnes also started writing for VDare.com, a white nationalist hate site. In one 2005 article, he railed against Canadian multiculturalism and lamented that Jared Taylor, the editor of the race-science newsletter American Renaissance, had not been invited to speak at the University of Ottawa. Ten years later, McInnes would welcome Taylor onto his own show, where the white nationalist spent more than an hour explaining why he believes white people are “better” than African Americans.

McInnes left VICE in 2008, citing creative differences, and pursued a variety of other media projects. But his relationship with mainstream outlets started to erode in 2014 as he began to swap irony for earnestness. As part of an American Renaissance series featuring “race-realist commentators on the future of American race relations,”McInnes offered his predictions alongside fellow contributors like John Derbyshire, Paul Gottfried, Richard Spencer and Jared Taylor. In his piece, McInnes wrote that while he didn’t harbor any hate for minorities, he did for white liberals who subscribed to a “Marxist myth of ubiquitous equally” and refused to acknowledge innate disparities between people of different races — a notion he supported using the long-discredited work of Charles Murray. McInnes insisted he held out hope for the future of American race relations: once “we’re all forced to live side by side, we’ll quickly realize we’re incompatible, and agree to disagree,” he concluded. “The blind utopians at The New York Times will be crushed and the rest of us realists will be dancing in the streets.”

Only months later, McInnes published an article titled “Transphobia is perfectly natural” that prompted his then-employer, the ad agency Rooster, to indefinitely sever ties with him. “We’re all transphobic,” he wrote in the Thought Catalog piece. “We see there are no old trannies. They die of drug overdoses and suicide way before they’re 40 and nobody notices because nobody knows them. They are mentally ill gays who need help, and that doesn’t include being maimed by physicians.” McInnes has also referred to transgender people as “gender niggers” and “stupid lunatics.” McInnes’ repugnant rhetoric extends to women, too. He’s written that “through trial and error, I learned that women want to be downright abused” by men, and, in a tweet, that “Every guy I’ve ever known to be involved in a ‘domestic’ was the result of some cunt trying to ruin his life.”

With former business partners turning him away, in the spring of 2015 McInnes formed a partnership with the Canadian far-right video channel Rebel Media and, a couple months later, launched “The Gavin McInnes Show” with Compound Media. On both platforms, he regularly chatted with right-wing guests (his first show featured the far-right provocateur and former Breitbart reporter Milo Yiannopoulos) and carved out an ideological space for frustrated young men to rally around: western culture is superior to all others, racism is a myth created by guilty white liberals, Islam is a culture of violence, and feminism “is about de-masculinizing men,” he told his audience. A group of like-minded men at Compound Media — who bonded over their shared frustration with PC culture — began to meet in New York City dive bars. From these gatherings, the Proud Boys were born, and McInnes officially introduced the group in Taki’s in September 2016.

There are three degrees of membership within the Proud Boys, and to become a first degree in the “pro-West fraternal organization” a prospective member simply has to declare “I am a western chauvinist, and I refuse to apologize for creating the modern world.” To enter the second degree, a Proud Boy has to endure a beating until they can yell out the names of five breakfast cereals (in order to demonstrate “adrenaline control”) and give up masturbation because, in theory, it will leave them more inclined to go out and meet women. Those who enter the third degree have demonstrated their commitment by getting a Proud Boys tattoo. Any man — no matter his race or sexual-orientation — can join the fraternal organization as long as they “recognize that white men are not the problem.” Women have their own contingent called the Proud Boys’ Girls.

Members are identifiable by more than ink: they sport yellow-trimmed black Fred Perry polos and yell the tongue-in-cheek catchphrase “Uhuru!” — a Swahili word they picked up from a YouTube video in which an activist talks to white people about reparations. Their name comes from an Aladdin song, “Proud of Your Boy.” They adhere to a list of libertarian-leaning principles, including opposition to the drug war, racial guilt, and political correctness, and support for small government, closed borders, and “Venerating the Housewife.”

The oddball humor that tinges Proud Boys culture, and creates a set of references incomprehensible to those on the outside, has attracted a surprisingly large number of men. There is an obvious overlap between their views and those of President Donald Trump, whose election in 2016 played a clear role in increasing Proud Boys’ membership. A red MAGA hat is nearly as prominent at Proud Boys gatherings as their Fred Perry polos, and, in fact, one of their first public outings was at a pro-Trump art show – called #DaddyWillSaveUS – where McInnes displayed photos of himself as a white slave. It’s a favorite mythical reference of his as well as neo-Nazis and white nationalists; one episode of his Rebel Media show centered on the notion that the “history of slavery is rife with white slaves.”

The Proud Boys took off after the presidential election. Each of their official Facebook and Twitter pages had over 20,000 followers at the end of 2017. The website Rewire estimates there are roughly 6,000 members. Group meetings, according to McInnes, “usually consist of drinking, fighting, and reading aloud from Pat Buchanan’s Death of the West.”

For McInnes and the Proud Boys, much like Buchanan, pro-Westernism is indistinguishable from outright opposition to Islam. McInnes’s Rebel Media videos feature titles like “Donald Trump’s Muslim ban is exactly what we need right now,” “10 examples of the Koran being violent,” and “Islam isn’t ‘dope.’ It’s sexist.” He’s also hosted Pamela Geller, among the most prominent figures in today’s anti-Muslim movement, on his newest show on the conservative online outlet CRTV, “Get Off My Lawn.” “People in America say ‘Muslims are what? One or two percent of the population? There’s never gonna be sharia law here,’” he said during the interview before assuring viewers that Britain, where Muslims are “raping children regularly” and where “women are raped several times in one night,” is the “canary in the coalmine.” In an interview with NBC, McInnes admitted “I’m not a fan of Islam. I think it’s fair to call me Islamophobic.”

The Proud Boys’ pro-western posture allows them to position themselves— somewhat counterintuitively — as a tolerant and progressive social force. If Islamic backwardness, as they imagine, threatens gay people and women, then they serve as their guardians by protecting and promoting “western values.” Their opposition to Muslims and Islam, improbably, stands as a marker of their own tolerance. In that way, their ideology is similar to many European far-right groups — like the French National Front and Danish Party for Freedom — who push hardline anti-immigration policies at the same time they call for greater tolerance in the form of secularism and gender equality, all the while attempting to distance themselves from overt racists. According to the sociologist Rogers Brubaker, the concurrent embrace of intolerance and inclusion is not only a rhetorical strategy but a political one, employed to “reach out to new constituencies and gain mainstream acceptance” from people who might otherwise hold an aversion toward extremist groups.

Proud Boys do their best to muddy right-wing taxonomies. Despite the pains they’ve taken to distance themselves from open white nationalists and antisemites, Proud Boys have been present at high-profile alt-right events, including the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. “[J]ust don’t fucking wear your Fred Perry, or decide to belt: ‘Proud of Your Boy,’” McInnes limply warned followers before the event. “[I]f you decide to rub elbows with those people [while] in colors, you very well could find yourself disavowed.”

But they did show up, which McInnes evidently expected. In the first episode of his Compound Media show after the August rally, McInnes said he had been “just combing through all the media reports going, ‘Don’t say Proud Boys, don’t say Proud Boys, don’t say Proud Boys,’” hoping the “lunatic Nazi” who allegedly killed Heather Heyer wasn’t a member of his group. He wasn’t, but the white nationalist Jason Kessler — who has been filmed undergoing his second-degree Proud Boy initiation — was the rally’s principal organizer. Less than two months earlier, Kessler had been a guest on “The Gavin McInnes Show,” where he promoted Unite the Right and, in a chummy interview, laid out the ideological overlap he and McInnes shared. “What’s really under attack is if you say, ‘I want to stand up for white people. I want to stand up for western civilization. I want to stand up for men. I want to stand up for Christians,’” to which McInnes nodded in agreement and added other examples: “I’m against immigration…I’m against jihadis. I’m against radical Islam.”

After Charlottesville, in a move to protect the fratty and innocuous Proud Boys’ brand he’s worked so hard to cultivate, McInnes ejected Kessler from the organization and insisted he had never really been a Proud Boy. “I’m suspicious of you, coming to Proud Boys meetings saying you’re not alt-right…and I think you were there to try to recruit guys,” McInnes told Kessler when they spoke on his show two days after the rally. It was only after the violence in Charlottesville, when any doubts about the true nature of the movement were stripped away, that Mcinnes attempted to earnestly distance the Proud Boys from the alt-right label. Before that, he seemed content to let the Proud Boys brand appear more ideologically ambiguous, profiting off the alt-right’s rising popularity until things got ugly.

Although McInnes has attempted to distance his organization from the violence of Charlottesville, violence is firmly entrenched in Proud Boy dogma. McInnes was filmed punching a counter-protestor outside of the Deploraball in January 2017, and after a speaking engagement at New York University the next month turned violent, he wryly declared, “I cannot recommend violence enough. It’s a really effective way to solve problems.” In fact, in early 2017, the Proud Boys added another degree to their membership hierarchy: in order to enter the 4th degree, a member needs to “get involved in a major fight for the cause.” “You get beat up, kick the crap out of an antifa,” McInnes explained to Metro. Though he claimed in the interview he was ready to “get violent and beat the f--k out of everybody,” he later backtracked in a Proud Boys Magazine piece, assuring the public the fraternal group was opposed to “senseless violence.” “We don’t start fights, we finish them,” McInnes wrote.

Around the same time, Proud Boys member Kyle Chapman announced he was forming a new “tactical defense arm” of the Proud Boys — with McInnes’ “full approval” — called the Fraternal Order of Alt-Knights (FOAK). The paramilitary wing positions itself as a defensive organization formed to protect right-wing activists at political demonstrations. Chapman, who has an extensive criminal history, first gained renown within the alt-right when he was photographed hitting a counter-protestor over the head with a stick at a March 4, 2017, pro-Trump rally in Berkeley, California.

....

===

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/crtv-has-been-booking-its-hosts-on-infowars-and-pivoting-toward-the-fringe/

right-wing digital media outlet CRTV has booked three of its hosts on the conspiracy outlet Infowars in the last two weeks, serving as the latest indication that the network is pivoting to appeal to the fringes of the far-right.

CRTV is a subscription-based video streaming network that streams through services like Roku and Apple TV. It was launched in 2016 by Conservative Review, the online outlet founded and edited by conservative political commentator Mark Levin, and was initially headlined by Levin and Michelle Malkin.

The network’s initial hires were voices who were already well known in conservative media, such as Steve Deace and Steven Crowder. But CRTV has recently hired a few right-wing YouTube personalities who have established cult followings in the far-right. Recent hires have included McInnes, a far-right media personality who leads a bizarre fraternity called “Proud Boys” that initiates its members by beating them until they name five breakfast cereal brands (really). The Southern Poverty Law Center recently named the Proud Boys a hate group thanks in part to McInnes’ track record of using racist, misogynistic and xenophobic rhetoric on his CRTV show. Laura Tam—known online by her username “Roaming Millennial”—has also been hired by the network and has been producing videos for CRTV aimed at mocking concepts like structural racism.

McInnes has made numerous appearances on Infowars over the past few years and appeared on the network as recently as March 14. But in recent weeks, more CRTV hosts have appeared on the conspiracy outlet—the latest indication of CRTV’s apparent efforts to appeal to the fringes of the Right.

CRTV did not respond to request for comment.

Earlier this month, after CRTV host Steven Crowder was temporarily suspended from Twitter after he posted a video containing an anti-gay slur, he appeared on Infowars with Alex Jones. Crowder urged conservative YouTube personalities who believe they are being censored on the platform to begin taking legal action against YouTube to “hit them where it hurts legally and sting them.”

During his Infowars appearance, Jones praised Crowder’s popularity with younger viewers, which Jones claimed “scares the globalists.” Jones also used Crowder’s appearance to repeat his bizarre claims that LGBTQ activists want to protect people who want to have sex with your car and declared gender nonconformity was “total mental illness.”

Crowder, who hosts a late night show for CRTV that often features distasteful jokes about LGBTQ people and racial minorities, also used his appearance to complain that his critics have falsely labeled him a neo-Nazi.

Jones sympathized with Crowder, saying, “That’s what they do to me. They say that I say there’s Martian bases. They say I say firefighters blew up the World Trade Center. No, I said there was a stand-down. It’s come out in the news. That’s how they get us all. They misrepresent what I say. They misrepresent what you say. Then they attack when you go on my show or I go on yours.”

Jones made an appearance on “Louder with Crowder” in December 2016, shortly after Crowder announced that his show had been picked up by CRTV. Crowder had also appeared on Infowars oncein 2016, before he was employed with CRTV.

Yesterday, Tam joined Infowars editor-at-large Paul Joseph Watson while he complained that conservative institutions like Fox News haven’t sufficiently embraced right-wing internet stars popular with younger audiences. Tam said that liberals have turned TV networks popular with young people, like MTV, “into propaganda mills” that are “dang effective” and that conservative leaders aren’t putting the same amount of effort into connecting with young people.

The duo went on to discuss one of Tam’s more recent YouTube videos, in which she claimed that so-called “social justice warriors” and members of the racist alt-right movement are “a mirror image of each other when it comes to race, segregation [and] views on society.” Watson said the alt-right movement only exists so members of the press can use it as a tool to attack “ordinary conservatives,” going on to cite our report last year about alt-right activists on YouTube and the figures like Tam who have helped to legitimize them to more mainstream audiences. Tam lied about the contents of our report and claimed she was labeled an alt-right figure (she wasn’t) before saying that the alt-right is “exactly like Black Lives Matter, but for white people.”

In the hours prior to Tam’s appearance, Alex Jones had been comparing the teenage leaders of the March for Our Lives rallies to Hitler Youth, going so far as to dub over footage from Florida shooting survivor David Hogg’s speech at the D.C. rally with audio from an Adolf Hitler speech.

Infowars is the nation’s most notorious conspiracy theory factory, where viewers are indoctrinated every day with conspiracy theories including the idea that a top-level Trump administration official is posting cryptic riddles on 8Chan about a secret operation to destroy a satanic pedophile ring, that humanity is on the verge of a world war that will kill nearly everyone, and that global elites ordered last month’s school shooting in Florida to distract from Rep. Devin Nunes’ nothingburger FISA memo. The outlet has also stood behind claims that Michelle Obama is secretly a transgender woman, that global elites are using liberals to commit genocide, and that the FBI may execute Jones.

Jones routinely declares that mass shootings are “false flag” attacks orchestrated by liberal global elites, spouts bizarre and inflammatory claims about LGBTQ people, and warns listeners about a secret satanic pedophile cult supposedly controlling mainstream media.

And believe us when we say that barely scratches the surface.

Tags: Alex JonesGavin McInnesPaul Joseph WatsonRoaming MillennialSteven CrowderAlt-Rightconspiracy theoriesMediaNew RightCRTVInfoWarsProud Boys

===

The Proud Boys, a truly bizarre “western chauvinist” fraternity that was recently named a hate groupby the Southern Poverty Law Center, is hosting a Patriots Day rally in Massachusetts headlined by three figures who inhabit the far reaches of right-wing politics.

According to a Facebook event created by the New England chapter of Proud Boys, the April 16 rally will feature alt-right icon Kyle “Based Stickman” Chapman, who was charged with assaulting counter-protesters at a rally in Berkeley last year, right-wing Senate candidate V.A. Shiva Ayyadurai, who has cozied up to alt-right activists, and YouTube pundit Carl “Sargon of Akkad” Benjamin, who calls himself “liberalist” despite offering himself as an ally to the fringes of the far-right.

The rally will be hosted by John Medlar, a “local free speech activist” who also organized a “free speech” rally at Boston Common last year shortly after a woman was murdered at the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. The event page promises “music, rousing speeches, and open-mic free speech.”

Last year’s rally at Boston Common ended early after it was overwhelmed by counter-protesters. Ayyadurai also spoke at that rally.

The Proud Boys and their founder, CRTV host Gavin McInnes, have a well-documented history of spreading hate and vitriol. Former Proud Boy Jason Kessler helped organized the “Unite the Right” rally, which several Proud Boys attended. McInnes has made a career out of peddling transphobic, misogynistic and anti-Muslim rhetoric—ideas that have taken hold with many members of his organization.

The group also has a history of violence at rallies, some of which may be motivated by the fact that the final “degree” of Proud Boys membership requires physically assaulting an anti-fascist “Antifa” protester.

One member has already created an anime-style promotional video for the event:

berkeley trump rally

Oakdale, CA, resident, Nathan Damigo. Identity Evropa

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/04/far-right-white-supremacists-berkeley-protests-antifa-trump

...

Some people on this side came in from other parts of the country. A white man named Ian Herrin tells me he came from Colorado Springs to be "part of the movement." He says he was inspired to come by Lauren Southern, an alt-right activist and writer. Southern is walking around in a helmet surrounded by a security entourage of Proud Boys, a group of self-proclaimed "Western chauvinists" led by Vice magazine co-founder Gavin McInnes. I approach a man dressed head to toe in camouflage, who wears a mask reminiscent of Jason from Friday the 13th. Mike won't tell me his last name, but he says he's from Orange County, California, and a member of the West Coast Patriots Three Percent, a militia-type prepper group that does armed paramilitary training. "The last rally when they shut down Milo, it kinda pissed me off," he tells me. "Everyone has a right to say what they want to say, regardless of whether you agree with it or not. That's what the Second Amendment—uh, First Amendment—is for."...

kpfa radio: tried to keep damagio at arm length? not on stage, no security from militia?

===

https://www.compoundmedia.com/guest/lauren-southern/

April 17, 2017

The Gavin McInnes Show 333

Today on TGMS, Gavin talks to everyone he knows that was at the riots at Berkeley. We hear from Rich Black, Lauren Southern, Nate Comstock, Sabo, Based Stickman, Irma Hinojosa, and Baked Alaska all about their experiences covering, fighting in, and participating in the riot.

http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2017/04/15/proudboys-berkeley-violence-trump/

http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2017/04/15/proudboys-berkeley-violence-trump/:

(CBS SF) — A pro-Trump group known as the Proud Boys sponsored the protest that descended into bloody violence at Berkeley’s Civic Center Park on Saturday. They say they have a right to bring their views to liberal Berkeley.

According to the description on their Facebook page, “The Proud Boys are a fraternal organization founded on a system of beliefs and values of minimal government, maximum freedom, anti-political correctness, anti-racial guilt, pro-gun rights, anti-Drug War, closed borders, anti-masturbation, venerating entrepreneurs, venerating housewives, and reinstating a spirit of Western chauvinism during an age of globalism and multiculturalism.”

Mtn_Sn3k @Mtn_Sn3k

PHYSICAL REMOVAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!#Antifa #Berkeley #BerkeleyProtest #BashBack

3:20 PM - 15 Apr 2017

174 174 Retweets 337 337 likes

Rich Black @boldandproper

Today was an enormous victory! I could not be more proud or grateful for every one who attended the event! This was the turning point!

2:55 PM - 15 Apr 2017

20 20 Retweets 74 74 likes

Shane Bauer ? @shane_bauer

.@BasedStickMan_ says "Berkeley got sacked." To Seattle, Boston, and other cities: "We're coming for you."

2:46 PM - 15 Apr 2017

1,683 1,683 Retweets 2,068 2,068 likes

Saturday’s melee in Berkeley, was similar to recent clashes between left and right-wing factions in the recent past. There is almost a script to how these rallies and counter-protests go in Berkeley.

KPIX 5 asked Tom Marcianno of Fremont, who took part in Saturday’s rally, if his group was intentionally trying to provoke a reaction by bringing a pro-Trump message and gathering to the heart of liberal Berkeley.

Q: Coming to Berkeley, isn’t that like poking the bear?

A: Well, it is in a way, but, we’re not doing it to be gleeful about it or to deliberately upset people who are against us. We have every right to be here.

Q: But you are going to upset people by your presence.

A: But, that’s their problem. They seem to be upset about a lot of things that are completely irrational. We don’t have an answer for that. If they want to hold a rally where I’m from, they’re welcome to do it. There might be a counter demonstration But, we’re not going to stop them from exercising their freedom of speech.

EDITOR’S NOTE — Strong Language, Violence

According to Berkeley police, the organizers did not seek or obtain a permit for Saturday’s rally, but they “widely advertised the rally.”

RELATED: Viral Video Shows Student White Supremacist Sucker-Punch Berkeley Anti-Trump Protester

In all, some 20 people were arrested, and “more arrests will be pursued” when police review footage posted on social media.

Charges include assault with a deadly weapon and other felony assaults.

IMAGES: Violent, Bloody Day In Berkeley

Police said 11 people suffered injuries and required medical treatment. Seven were taken to local hospitals.

READ: Protest Turns Violent, Bloody As Pro-Trump, Anti-Trump Camps Clash In Berkeley

http://sfist.com/2017/03/05/pro-trump_rally_in_berkeley_turns_p.php:

..lp, that pro-Trump rally happened as scheduled on Saturday in downtown Berkeley despite the lack of a permit, and as was widely predicted, a bunch of black-clad anarchists showed up and started throwing punches. As the Washington Post reports and as you can see in the video above, "a few hundred" people showed up to the rally, including counter-protesters, and things turned quickly violent, with police arriving in riot gear.

Per the LA Times, seven people were injured and 10 people were arrested following the melee.

Saturday's March 4 Trump was one of about two dozen similar events happening simultaneously around the country, organized at least in part by the alt-right Proud Boys, a vaguely defined movement promulgated by former Vice editor turned conservative pundit, Gavin McInnes. And it was happening just a month after another alt-right hero, Milo Yiannopoulos, was supposed to speak at the UC Berkeley campus, but was instead met with a night of violent disruption and protest. When the March 4 event was announced in mid-February, it was billed as a rally in support of "free speech."

It was less of a show of free speech as free shouting, however, and as the Chronicle reports, "The fighting Saturday started even before the event began, with people throwing punches, swinging signs and tossing smoke bombs." Also, only about 60 to 75 Trump supporters were there, according to the Chronicle, and counter-protesters and self-proclaimed anarchists far outnumbered them.

According to the Daily Californian, "Trump supporters attempted to continue to march towards UC Berkeley’s campus as originally planned, but many counter-protesters blocked them to prevent them from leaving." Also, multiple Make America Great Again hats were set on fire.

Berkeley Councilman Ben Bartlett gave a statement to reporters saying "This is a sad day. We are better than this."

City spokesperson Matthai Chakko told the Chronicle that five people were arrested on suspicion of battery and four on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon.

Some of those in attendance, and the injured, suggested that Berkeley police had waited too long to intervene, but Chakko said they held back initially because they thought their involvement would cause an escalation. "The goal was to work quickly to identify and arrest anyone specifically involved in criminal activity,” Chakko tells the Chronicle. “We also made an attempt to intercede during acts of violence.”

Said Trump supporter David Tomes — who, bizarrely, is a 49-year-old yoga studio owner from Marin County and a Republican — "This is the most immature and disgusting display of human interaction."

Has he read any of the president's tweets lately?

https://medium.com/@willsommer/the-fratty-proud-boys-are-the-alt-rights-weirdest-new-phenomenon-7572b31e50f2

tracking

no link

Feb 5

The fratty Proud Boys are the alt right’s weirdest new phenomenon

Excerpted from Right Richter, a weekly newsletter on right-wing media

The first-ever Right Richter Special Report covers the phenomenon that is the Proud Boys adult “Western chauvinist” fraternity. It’s like Old School, but with uncomfortable racial and sexual subtext!

I suspect that the Proud Boys will soon get a good amount of media attention, now that antifascist protesters crashed their founder’s NYU speech last week. Unlike many alt-right developments that have scored press, the Proud Boys actually do have members who show up to real-life events.

Be warned, though: this is a mindbender. As one right-wing critic of the Proud Boys said in a video explaining their rules: “I shouldn’t know about any of this… I can’t relate to anyone in my life anymore.”

Consider the Proud Boy: An angular young white man stands in what looks like a poorly decorated frat house.

“Ready, go…Cheerio!” he says, before getting punched in the face.

A friendly beating ensues. He’s well on his way to being a Proud Boy.

(Update: The Proud Boy initiation video above went private, but here’s footage of multiple second-degree initiations.)

Proud Boys Origins: Where does a young man looking for fellowship turn to in a world where, according to some, masculinity is a sign of shame? To hear Vice co-founder turned neo-masculine reactionary Gavin McInnes tell it, the answer is the Proud Boys, a “pro-West fraternal organization.”

Launched last year by McInnes, the Proud Boys take their name and #POYB hashtag from “Proud of Your Boy,” a song in the Aladdin musical.

Aladdin apologizes to his mother for his rascally ways. When McInnes heard the song at a school recital, though, he thought that no one could truly be proud of a boy singing such an apologetic song. McInnes, a newly former Fox News contributor who says he quit the network because it wasn’t conservative enough, now looks to move the Proud Boys from his own fan club to something more significant.

The Life of a Proud Boy: Today the Proud Boys’ public Facebook group has thousands of fans, with several requests daily for admission to the private Facebook group.

They’re starting to make news?—?Proud Boys scrapped with antifascist protesters at one of McInnes’s speeches, and one account from “antifa” activists describes Proud Boys in “Make America Great Again” hats brawling with protesters at the Berkeley riots outside a Milo Yiannopoulos last week. A Proud Boy apparently got roughed up in the action.

The Proud Boys operate on tenets that McInnes has been pushing in his second career as a right-wing provocateur: unapologetically rowdy and pro-Trump, the Proud Boys operate under the credo that “the West is the best.”

The Proud Boys welcome gay and non-white members?—?as long as people of color who hope to be Proud Boys “recognize that white men are not the problem.” Other Proud Boy doctrines are similarly politically conservative and lame, including “glorify the entrepreneur” and “venerate the housewife.”

What a World: The Proud Boys were thrilled with Trump’s election:

Proud Boy Ethos: Being a Proud Boy seems to be mostly about getting drunk and shoving antifascists. A Politico video shot on inauguration weekend sums up what a Proud Boy meet-up is like: weird pseudo-intellectual stuff and street scuffling with leftists. McInnes reads from Pat Buchanan’s Death of the West, leads the Proud Boys on a march to the Deploraball?—?and licks a protester’s face along the way.

The rambunctious but socially awkward vibe is very odd-kid-in-middle-school-who-isn’t-really-a-nerd, or guy-who-got-into-a-fraternity-only-because-he’s-a-legacy. Which leads us to…

The Masturbation Thing: A recurring trope on various parts of the fix-your-life internet, whether it’s Reddit’s “nofap” page or pick-up artist forums, is the idea that abstaining from masturbating will bring about a wholesale life change.

McInnes promotes a similar idea called “#nowanks,” saying that masturbating more than once a month drains one’s interest?—?especially for millennials?—?in sex. The caveat: Proud Boys can always masturbate within a yard of a woman, with her consent.

Proud Boy Initiation: Proud Boys membership operates on three degrees. The first is just declaring yourself an “out” Proud Boy. The third is getting a Proud Boy tattoo?—?in a prescribed font, naturally?—?and keeping with the masturbation regimen.

Getting a shot (or not!) at the third level, though, means running a true gauntlet at the second: the cereal punching. In this initiation, Proud Boys enthusiasts punch a hopeful (albeit not around the face or testicles) while he cries out the names of cereals.

You must get the crap beaten out of you by at least five guys until you can name five breakfast cereals. If you hammer out, “Chex, Cheerios, Rice Krispies, Corn Flakes, and Special K” in a matter of seconds, you’re free to go. If you get flummoxed by the punches and cannot think straight, well, sorry, you’re going to get pounded.

This sounds like nonsense, but it’s real.

Proud Boy “Culture”: The Proud Boys have a uniform?—?a black Fred Perry polo shirt with yellow stripes. (Coincidentally or not, Fred Perry is also a popular brand for skinheads.) They have a catchphrase, “uhuru,” a slogan they cribbed from a video calling for reparations over slavery.

They also have a fan song that centers on the “Uhuru” refrain, and it’s weirdly catchy.

Proud Boy Feuds: Naturally, an alt-right, all-male movement is riven with feuds, both internal and external.

Despite how bizarre their politics can look from outside of Trump circles, the Proud Boys actually fall on the moderate side of the alt-right.

On far more extreme sites like the Daily Stormer, writers blast McInnes as a “cuck” for refusing to discuss the “JQ.” That’d be the “Jewish Question,” or the deranged idea that a Jewish conspiracy runs the world.

One video, shot in a mocking take on the Proud Boys usual throwback 1980’s style, summarizes what Nazis don’t like Proud Boys:

“We’re the Proud Boys, we don’t talk about race / I even let a black guy fuck my wife in my place. Don’t talk about Jews. Please, don’t talk about Jews. Please.”

What to Make of the Proud Boys: I think the Proud Boys are too weird to ever become more than an oddball off-shoot of the alt-right. Their name is terrible, and who wants to hand over their sexual activities to Gavin McInnes?

Still, the Proud Boys offer a bizarre, structured look into the new era of white male identity politics. It’s one that’s willing to fight, even if their looks are very bad.

Update, April 15: Since I originally wrote this in February, the Proud Boys have publicized a new, fourth degree.

The first degree is declaring yourself a Proud Boy, the second is getting the cereal beat-in, and the third is adhering to the masturbation regimen and getting a tattoo. Now the fourth degree is brawling with antifascists. Summarized here:

Fourth degree?—?The final step involves “a major fight for the cause,” McInnes said. “You get beat up, kick the crap out of an antifa” and possibly get arrested.

The Proud Boys’ April 15 brawl in Berkeley, Calif. with antifascists and backed up by affiliated pro-Trump groups produced plenty of opportunities for Proud Boys to earn their fourth degrees.

In one video from the fighting, a Proud Boy?—?naturally in a black and yellow Fred Perry shirt?—?is shown getting arrested while another yells “You got your fourth!”

Gavin Miles McInnes (/m?'k?n?s/; born July 17, 1970) is a Canadian writer, actor, comedian, co-founder of Vice Media (which he departed in 2008),[1] and the host of The Gavin McInnes Show on Compound Media. He is a contributor for The Rebel Media and Taki's Magazine, and was a frequent guest on television programs on Fox News and TheBlaze.[2] The co-founder in 1994, and long-running editor (until 2008), of Vice Magazine, [3] McInnes has been called "the Godfather of the Hipster movement"[4] and "one of hipsterdom's primary architects".[5]

Since leaving Vice McInnes has become increasingly known as a right-wing provocateur[6] and media figure,[7] while also being called a "troll".[8] He is cofounder of a "pro-Western fraternal association" known as the Proud Boys.[9]

Contents

1:{ :(Early life

2:{ :(Career

3:{ :(Personal life

4:{ :(Publishing history

5:{ :(Filmography

6:{ :(References

7:{ :(External links

Early life

McInnes was born in Hitchin, England, to Scottish parents, James and Loraine McInnes.[10] His family immigrated to Canada when McInnes was four.[11] He attended Ottawa’s Earl of March Secondary School, studied English literature at Carleton University and received a BA degree at Concordia University in 1991.[12] As a teen, McInnes played in the Ottawa punk band Anal Chinook.[13] As an adult, McInnes immigrated to the US from Canada.

Career

McInnes co-founded Vice in 1994 with Shane Smith and Suroosh Alvi.[3] His role as an editor at Vice led to him being referred to as "the Godfather of hipsterdom"[4] and one of the "primary architects of hipsterdom".[5] He occasionally contributed articles to Vice, including The VICE Guide to Happiness[14] and The VICE Guide to Picking Up Chicks,[15] and co-authored two Vice books: The Vice Guide to Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll,[16] and Vice Dos and Don'ts: 10 Years of VICE Magazine's Street Fashion Critiques.[17] McInnes was featured in a 2003 New York Times article about Vice magazine expressing his political views.[18] In an interview in the New York Press, McInnes said that he was pleased that most Williamsburg hipsters are white.[18] McInnes later claimed in a letter to Gawker that the interview was done as a prank intended to ridicule "baby boomer media like The Times".[19] After he became the focus of a letter-writing campaign by a black reader, Vice apologized for McInnes's comments.[18] In 2006, he was featured in The Vice Guide to Travel with actor and comedian David Cross in China.[20] He left Vice in 2008 due to "creative differences".[1] In a 2013 interview with The New Yorker, McInnes claimed his split with Vice was about the increasing influence of corporate advertising on Vice's content, stating that "Marketing and editorial being enemies had been the business plan."[21]

In 2008, McInnes created the website StreetCarnage.com. He also co-founded an advertising agency called Rooster where he serves as creative director.[22] In 2009, McInnes convinced a journalist at The Village Voice that he had been knocked out after losing a challenge to an MMA fighter.[23] The footage was actually an outtake from a failed TV pilot.[24] In 2010, McInnes convinced a journalist at Gawker that he had eaten a bowl of urine-soaked corn flakes after not winning their "Hipster of the Decade" competition.[25] The footage was actually an outtake from a collection of comedy sketches called Gavin McInnes Is a Fucking Asshole.[26]

McInnes was featured in Season 3 of the Canadian reality TV show Kenny vs Spenny, as a judge in the "Who is Cooler?" episode. In 2010, McInnes was approached by Adult Swim and asked to play the part of Mick, an anthropomorphic Scottish soccer ball, in the short-lived Aqua Teen Hunger Force spin-off Soul Quest Overdrive.[27]After losing a 2010 pilot contest to Cheyenne Cinnamon and the Fantabulous Unicorn of Sugar Town Candy Fudge, six episodes of Soul Quest Overdrive were ordered, with four airing in Adult Swim's 4 AM DVR Theater block on May 25, 2011 before quickly being cancelled. McInnes jokingly blamed the show's cancellation on the other cast members (Kristen Schaal, David Cross, and H. Jon Benjamin) not being "as funny" as him.[28]

An occasional standup comedian, McInnes directed a documentary on his standup comedy tour in 2013's The Brotherhood of the Traveling Rants.[29] For the film, McInnes faked a serious car accident. The year before (2012), he published a book titled How to Piss in Public.[30] In 2013, McInnes starred in the independent film How to Be a Man, which premiered at Sundance Next Weekend.[31] He has also played supporting roles in other films including 2010's Soul Quest Overdrive and 2015's Creative Control and One More Time.

In October 2013, McInnes was interviewed by The Huffington Post on a panel about masculinity. He said that "people would be happier if women would stop pretending to be men", and that feminism "has made women less happy".[32] He explained that "We've trivialized childbirth and being domestic so much that women are forced to pretend to be men. They're feigning this toughness, they're miserable."[33] A heated argument ensued with University of Miami School of Law professor Mary Anne Franks.[34]

In August 2014, McInnes was asked to take an indefinite leave of absence as chief creative officer of Rooster, following online publication at Thought Catalog of an essay about transphobia titled "Transphobia is Perfectly Natural"[35] that sparked a call to boycott the company. In response, Rooster issued a statement, saying in part: "We are extremely disappointed with his actions and have asked that he take a leave of absence while we determine the most appropriate course of action."[36] McInnes defended the article by saying "All I was saying was transsexuals have a huge suicide rate", and calling the reaction "fake hysteria".[37]

In June 2015, Anthony Cumia announced that McInnes will be hosting a show on his network, therefore retiring the Free Speech podcast. The Gavin McInnes Show premiered on Compound Media on June 15 and airs Monday through Thursday at 10:30 A.M EST. McInnes is a contributor to Canadian conservative portal The Rebel Media and a regular on Fox News' Red Eye, The Greg Gutfield Show, and The Sean Hannity Show. He writes for the web magazine Taki's Magazine,[38] and previously wrote for TruthRevolt,[39] Death and Taxes,[40] The Federalist,[41] and VDARE.[42]

He has also argued that then-presidential candidate Donald Trump's proposal to "ban Muslims from returning to America is brash and bold, but it's also what we need in this day and age."[43]

On February 2, 2017, in an episode of his show The Rebel, McInnes announced his resignation from Fox News.[44]

McInnes was accused of antisemitism in March 2017 when, during a trip to Israel with The Rebel, McInnes made controversial comments about the Holocaust and also alleged Jews of being responsible for the Holodomor and the Treaty of Versailles. He subsequently claimed his comments were meant to be humourous. McInnes also produced a satirical video for Rebel called "Ten Things I Hate about Jews", later retitled "Ten Things I Hate About Israel", which also resulted in accusations of antisemitism.[45][46][6][47]

Personal life

In 2005, McInnes married Manhattan-based publicist and consultant Emily Jendrisak,[10] who is of Native American descent.[48] McInnes said in 2013 that after being an atheist most of his life, fatherhood made him believe in God and he became Catholic. He has three children.[49]

McInnes adheres to libertarianism. He has referred to himself as a "western chauvinist" and started a men's organization called Proud Boys who swear their allegiance to this cause[50][51] In a 2003 New York Times profile, McInnes stated: "I don't want our culture diluted. We need to close the borders now and let everyone assimilate to a Western, English-speaking way of life." [52] He previously wrote for VDARE, a white nationalist website.[53][54]

As a Catholic, McInnes is a member of the Knights of Columbus.[55]

Publishing history

The Vice Guide to Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll (Warner Books, 2003)

Vice Dos and Don'ts: 10 Years of VICE Magazine's Street Fashion Critiques (Grand Central, 2004)

Street Boners: 1,764 Hipster Fashion Jokes (Grand Central, 2009)

How to Piss in Public: From Teenage Rebellion to the Hangover of Adulthood (Scribner, 2012)

The Death of Cool: From Teenage Rebellion to the Hangover of Adulthood (Paperback version of How to Piss in Public) (Scribner, 2013)

Filmography

Kenny vs Spenny: Episode "Who is Cooler" (2006) – as himself (guest judge)

Vice Guide to Travel (2006) – as himself

Sophie Can Walk (2008) – as himself

Asshole (2009) – as himself

A Million in the Morning (2010) – as host

Soul Quest Overdrive (2010) – as Mick

How to Be a Man (2013) – as Mark McCarthy

The Brotherhood of the Traveling Rants (2013) – as himself

Creative Control (2015) – as Scott

One More Time (2015) – as Record Producer

Long Nights Short Mornings (2016) – as Comedian

===

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vice_Media

Vice Media (stylized VICE Media) is a North American digital media and broadcasting company. Originating from the Montreal-based VICE magazine co-founded by Suroosh Alvi,[4] Shane Smith, and Gavin McInnes (who departed the company in 2008),[5] VICE expanded primarily into youth and young adult-focused digital media, including online content verticals and related web series, the news division VICE News, a film production studio, and a record label among other properties. In February 2016, VICE Media launched a cable television network in Canada and the United States known as Viceland—a millennial-targeted network which draws upon the resources of the lifestyle-oriented verticals of VICE. The Viceland TV channel currently operates in many international territories, with plans to expand to a total of 44 by the end of 2017.[6] VICE Media broadcasts two news programs on HBO. VICE News Tonight, which premiered October 10, 2016, showcases a nightly roundup of global news, technology, the environment, economics, and pop culture while eschewing traditional news anchors.[7][8][9] HBO also broadcasts the Emmy-winning weekly documentary series VICE, which premiered on the network in April 2013. VICE features segments on global issues hosted by Shane Smith, co-founder Suroosh Alvi, and a rotating cast of correspondents.[10][11]

Originally based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, VICE re-located to New York City in 2001. In 2014, VICE Media was the subject of a 10%, US$200 million equity investment by U.S. broadcasting company A&E Networks, a joint venture of The Walt Disney Company and Hearst Corporation. Disney made a second 10%, US$200 million investment in 2015.

Contents [hide]

1:{ :(History

1.1:{ :(Founding and early years (1994–2005)

1.2:{ :(Digital expansion (2006–2011)

1.3:{ :(Global expansion (2012–present)

2:{ :(Properties

2.1:{ :(VICE magazine

2.2:{ :(Digital channels

2.3:{ :(VICE News

2.4:{ :(Viceland

2.5:{ :(VICE HBO series

2.6:{ :(VICE Music

2.7:{ :(VICE Films

2.8:{ :(The VICE Guide To Everything

2.9:{ :(VICE Books

3:{ :(Business operations

3.1:{ :(Global expansion

3.2:{ :(Virtue Worldwide

4:{ :(Lack of union recognition

5:{ :(Office expansion in Brooklyn

6:{ :(See also

7:{ :(References

8:{ :(External links

History

Founding and early years (1994–2005)

VICE Media founders Shane Smith, Suroosh Alvi, and Gavin McInnes[12] launched the magazine Voice of Montreal in October 1994 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada with government funding to cover music, trends and drug culture not covered in print.

They changed the name to VICE in 1996, and as the magazine became increasingly popular, the company found it difficult to scale their operations while based in Canada.[13] After being acquired in 1999 and moving to New York City , the co-founders bought VICE back and moved to new offices in Williamsburg, Brooklyn in 2001.[14] The magazine continued to gain attention and readership due to its content, commentary, and contributions from the likes of Terry Richardson, Ryan McGinley, and others. The magazine then rapidly expanded internationally, with Andrew Creighton and Andy Capper co-founding the UK division of VICE. The magazine then expanded further into all 5 continents.

Digital expansion (2006–2011)

In 2006, on the advice of creative director Spike Jonze, VICE began expanding into digital video, launching new video service VBS.tv as a joint venture with MTV Networks.[15][16] VBS gained a fan base with shows like The VICE Guide To Travel, Epicly Later’d, and Toxic. The documentaries on the channel featured unusual subjects, and were hosted by young people working at VICE Media, often the founders themselves.

In 2007, VICE Media began aggressively expanding its digital video operation, launching new channels, such as Motherboard (tech), Noisey (music), and The Creators Project, an arts/technology site founded in partnership with Intel. VICE Media would later launch sites around Electronic music culture (Thump), global news (VICE News), food (Munchies) and sports (VICE Sports). Additionally, VICE Media launched Virtue Worldwide, a creative services agency, to expand their capabilities for work around their platforms.[17]

In 2008, co-founder Gavin McInnes left VICE Media due to "creative differences" with the company,[18] and founded the website streetcarnage.com. He later co-founded Rooster, an advertising agency, where he has since been terminated after publishing his controversial opinions on transgender issues.[19]

Global expansion (2012–present)

In 2012, VICE Media continued to expand its coverage focused around news and current events.

In mid-August 2013, Rupert Murdoch's 21st Century Fox invested US$70 million in VICE Media, resulting in a 5 percent stake. Following the announcement, Smith explained, "We have set ourselves up to build a global platform but we have maintained control."[20]

In 2013 VICE Media premiered a new 30-minute news program for HBO titled VICE, executive produced by Bill Maher. In 2014, the second season of the show won a Creative Arts Emmy Award for Outstanding Informational Series or Special in the 66th Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards.[21]

In 2014, VICE Media launched its news channel, VICE News, which almost immediately gained global attention for its coverage of protests and conflict in Ukraine and Venezuela. As of October 2014, the leader of BBC’s Newsdesk claimed the organization was “playing catch-up” to VICE News.[22]

VICE Media has routinely advocated for their “immersionist” brand of journalism in the pursuit of more authentic and interesting stories. Their founders and editors have regularly garnered controversy from the likes of the New York Times’ David Carr, who bristled in an exchange with Shane Smith in the 2011 documentary Page One: Inside the New York Times. In a 2014 Time column, Carr said that VICE had since grown into a strong news entity. In August 2014, Carr published a New York Times column further reversing his earlier criticism of VICE, saying, "Being the crusty old-media scold felt good at the time, but recent events suggest that VICE is deadly serious about doing real news that people, yes, even young people, will actually watch."[23]

On July 2, 2014, VICE Media announced that it would be relocating into a warehouse space in Williamsburg formerly occupied by music venues 285 Kent, Death by Audio, and Glasslands. VICE spent US$20 million to renovate the 60,000-square-foot (5,600 m2) building as part of an eight-year lease,[24] facilitating the establishment of new production facilities with full broadcast capabilities, and received an offer of US$6.5 million in tax credits from New York state's Empire State Development.[25]

In June 2014, it was reported that Time Warner was negotiating to acquire a minority stake in VICE Media; among the company's plans were to give VICE Media control over the programming of HLN—a spin-off network of CNN which had recently struggled in its attempts to re-focus itself as a younger-skewing, social media-oriented news service. However, the deal fell through as the companies were unable to agree on a proper valuation,[26] and VICE Media chose to partner with A&E Networks for a 10% minority stake.[27] A&E's co-owner Disney made a second investment of $200 million[28]

On October 30, 2014, VICE Media announced a CDN$100 million joint venture with Rogers Communications that to facilitate the construction of production facilities in Toronto, as well as the introduction of a VICE-branded television network and digital properties in Canada in 2015. Rogers CEO Guy Laurence described the proposed studio as "a powerhouse for Canadian digital content focused on 18- to 34-year-olds" that will be "exciting" and provocative." The content of the partnership will be aimed primarily toward digital platforms.[29][30]

In November 2014, VICE Media announced that Alyssa Mastromonaco, who formerly worked in the Obama administration, would come on board as the company's chief operating officer in January 2015,[31] and that James Schwab, who had previously advised VICE and Dreamworks on media deals, would be joining as Co-President.[32]

On March 26, 2015, HBO announced it would renew its contract to broadcast the weekly VICE documentary series for four years, while expanding the annual broadcast schedule from 14 to nearly 30 episodes.[33]

In November 2015, VICE and A&E Networks announced Viceland, a then-upcoming cable network that would feature VICE-produced content.[34][35][36] In March 2016, VICE acquired controlling stake in UK television and film production company Pulse Films.[2]

VICE partnered with HBO again to launch nightly news program VICE News Tonight, beginning on October 10, 2016. The program is slated to run 48 weeks each year, featuring pre-edited video and graphics segments covering global news, technology, the environment, economics, and pop culture, while eschewing the use of live TV anchors.[37][38][39]

On March 22, 2017, VICE Media finalized a deal with French digital media studio Blackpills for the creation of a lineup of original short-form programming, set to premiere on VICE's digital video hub, video.vice.com. Blackpills is set to enlist filmmakers including Luc Besson, Bryan Singer, and Zoe Cassavetes in the creative effort. VICE's London subsidiary Pulse Films will also contribute original content that will air on video.vice.com.[40]

On March 14, 2017, VICE announced an expanded original programming deal with Snap Inc. The new deal builds on VICE's previous deal to serve as a 2015 global launch partner on the Discover platform. The first program planned under the new deal is Hungry Hearts with Action Bronson, starring the titular rapper.[41]

Later in March 2017, Shane Smith stated that Vice Media would enter the Indian market in the second half of 2017 through a partnership with the Times Group. The company intends to operate a TV network with the Times Group, mobile and online platforms, an OTT platform, and print media. Smith also revealed that the company had "held India back as a launch partner because it's so important to get it right. We didn’t just want to come in, set up a studio and go. We wanted to have a plan, make sure we did it correctly."[42]

Properties

VICE magazine

Main article: Vice (magazine)

VICE is a print magazine and website focused on arts, culture, and news topics. Founded in 1994 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, the magazine later expanded into VICE Media, which consists of divisions including the magazine and website, a film production company, a record label, and a publishing imprint. As of February 2015, the magazine's Chief Creative Officer is Eddy Moretti, Andrew Creighton is President, the editor-in-chief is Ellis Jones[43] and Alex Miller is the global head of content. The monthly publication is frequently focused on a single theme.

Digital channels

Name:{ :(Launch[1]:{ }:Genre

VICE:{ :(2011:{ }:Culture

VICE News:{ :(2013:{ }:News

Noisey:{ :(2012:{ }:Music

Motherboard:{ :(2010:{ }:Technology and science

Broadly:{ :(2015:{ }:Women's interest

Munchies:{ :(2014:{ }:Food and cooking

VICE Sports:{ :(2014[2]:{ }:Sports

The Creators Project:{ :(2010:{ }:Arts and creativity

Thump:{ :(2013:{ }:Electronic music

i-D:{ :(2013:{ }:Fashion

Fightland:{ :(2014:{ }:Mixed martial arts

Waypoint:{ :(2016[44]:{ }:Video Games

Tonic:{ :(2016[45]:{ }:Health and Wellness

^ Launch refers to year where the first VICE-produced video was released on their respective channels.

^ In 2014, VICE Media took over the YouTube-funded channel The NOC, which was launched in 2012.

VICE News

Main article: Vice News

VICE News is the name of VICE Media's current affairs brand, consisting primarily of documentaries. It was created in December 2013 as a division of VICE Media, Inc. VICE News promotes itself on its coverage of events that may not be as well covered by other news sources. VICE News creates content daily, distributing written articles and video on its website and channel.[46]

Viceland

Main article: Viceland

Viceland is a cable television network operated by VICE in partnership with A&E Networks in the U.S. and Rogers Media in Canada, primarily featuring documentary-style programs targeted toward millennials.[34][35][36]

VICE HBO series

Main articles: Vice (TV series) and Vice News Tonight

In 2013, HBO aired the first 10-episode season of a half-hour newsmagazine known as VICE, with Bill Maher as executive producer. The initial season saw international coverage for the season one finale that had VICE play an exhibition basketball game in North Korea with Dennis Rodman and the Harlem Globetrotters. The show was renewed for a second season, which aired in 2014 and won an Emmy award for Outstanding Informational Series or Special.[47]

The show was picked up for two more 14-episode seasons by HBO in May 2014, which aired in 2015 and 2016.

In October 2016, a second Vice News program, a nightly news program called Vice News Tonight, premiered.

VICE Music

Vice Records

Parent company:{ :(Vice Media

Founded:{ :(2002

Status:{ :(Active (as of 7/27/2016, website is nonfunctional)

Genre:{ :(Rock, hip hop, electronic, reggae

Country of origin:{ :(United States

Location:{ :(Brooklyn, New York

London

Official website:{ :(www.vicerecords.com

VICE Records or VICE Music is a record label founded in 2002. It has released albums and singles by the following artists through various major label distributors:

120 Days

Acrassicauda

Action Bronson

Almighty Defenders

The Black Lips

Bloc Party

Boredoms

Charlotte Gainsbourg

Chromeo

Death From Above 1979

Deniro Farrar

Fucked Up

Growing

Head Wound City

Justice

King Khan and the Shrines

Off!

Rich Boy

Snoop Dogg

The Raveonettes

The Stills

The Streets

Team Spirit

Vybz Kartel

VICE Films

On December 8, 2014, 20th Century Fox and VICE Media launched VICE Films to finance, produce, distribute, market, and acquire narrative films.[48]

VICE Films released the feature length rockumentary Heavy Metal in Baghdad in 2008, which follows the thrash metal band Acrassicauda in Iraq. The New York Times praised the production and reporting, calling it a "splendid feat of D.I.Y. reportage...Both a stirring testament to the plight of cultural expression in Baghdad and a striking report on the refugee scene in Syria, this rock-doc like no other electrifies its genre and redefines headbanging as an act of hard-core courage."[49]

VICE Films had its first theatrical release White Lightnin' in 2009, and a documentary on professional bull riders, entitled The Ride, in 2010.[50]

Swansea was featured in a television documentary "Swansea Love Story" as part of the Rule Britannia series on VBS.tv. The episode covers a heroin epidemic in the UK.[51]

Reincarnated, a documentary film on Snoop Dogg's transformation into reggae artist and Rastafari Snoop Lion, was released in 2013.[52]

Lil Bub & Friendz, a feature documentary about meme cats such as Grumpy Cat,[53] premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 18, 2013[54] and won the Tribeca Online Festival Best Feature Film.[55]

In 2014, VICE produced and distributed all this mayhem follows the rise and fall of renown skateboarders Ben Pappas and Tas Pappas.

“Fishing Without Nets,” VICE Films’ first narrative feature, won Best Director for Cutter Hodeine at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival.[56] The film was released online in partnership with 20th Century Fox in October 2014.

The VICE Guide To Everything

The MTV series The VICE Guide to Everything, which premiered in December 2010, was a weekly news magazine featuring short video segments on various global issues, hosted by Shane Smith and roster of correspondents. The segments sought to cater to a younger audience with a more condensed, entertaining approach to the news.[57][58][59][60][61]

VICE Books

VICE Media, through its magazine VICE, has published the collections The DOs and DON'Ts Book and The VICE Guide to Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll. In 2008, the photograph compilation The VICE Photo Book was released and featured published works from previous editions of the magazine.[62]

Business operations

...

Virtue Worldwide

On January 26, 2017, VICE announced the consolidation of its in-house agency Virtue with Carrot Creative, a digital and mobile agency VICE acquired in 2013, Pulse Films, a production company VICE acquired in 2016, and Starworks Group, a fashion and entertainment brand development agency VICE acquired in 2016, into the new “Virtue Worldwide.” Based in Brooklyn, New York, the combined 450-person global consultancy provides the services of a full agency network and multi-platform content creation studio. Virtue Worldwide will be led by CEO Lars Hemming Jorgensen.[85]

Relying on these in-house and acquired agencies, apart from its editorial operations, VICE works with advertisers to create global ad campaigns tailored to the company's younger audience.[86][87] The ads generate revenue from the production of the ad and placement within a given media property.[88] VICE maintains the separation between the production of branded and hard news content, while some critics contend that their operation "blurs the line between editorial and sponsorship".[89] This practice is sometimes referred to as "native advertising," due to how ads are often mingled with regular content.[90] Co-founder Alvi has also said that VICE has had "franchises that were underwritten by sponsors - that's our goal, to get a lot of our news franchises and stories and reports sponsored by advertisers. It's kind of the way news used to be in the fifties: 'Brought to you by Gillette' or whatever it was. We love that model."[91]

Some of the brands that VICE has worked with are Google, Unilever, Bank of America, Samsung, Toyota, Levi Strauss & Co. and Intel.[92] However, some advertisers have been controversial; Edition Worldwide, a subsidiary of VICE UK, was called "highly irresponsible" by the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids and other anti-smoking groups for their work producing content for tobacco giant Philip Morris International. This was seen as unethical by anti-tobacco groups due to the young audience which VICE News usually attracts.[93][94]

Lack of union recognition

On August 7, 2015, the roughly 70-person writing staff of VICE Media US voted to unionize, joining the Writers Guild of America. VICE management quickly recognized the union. The successful union drive followed in the footsteps of Salon, Gawker, and The Guardian.[95][96]

In February 2016, staff members at VICE UK called for unionisation with an officially recognised trade union by the National Union of Journalists. Staff members said this was following the steps of VICE US (which unionised with the Writers Guild of America, East[97]), in order to allow the staff to "share in the success of the company", to strengthen job security by VICE providing better contracts, to address "pay issues ... so everyone gets a fair deal, including freelancers" and enhance career progression opportunities.[98]

This proposition was rejected by VICE UK; the company refused to recognise the National Union of Journalists but instead said that they were free to set up an internal staff council. VICE chief executive, Matt Elek, claimed the NUJ had displayed "a concerning lack of transparency from them about who they are purporting to represent here [and had] not been able to provide us with any numbers to demonstrate the degree of support they have in this office", adding that: "The NUJ are used to working with old print media businesses and structures – they are not used to innovative, digital workplaces like this where the culture has always been to encourage flexibility and allow people work across different departments."[99]

The rejection is in contrast to the US, where journalists working for the digital operations of VICE, Gawker and the Guardian have all won union recognition.[99] In response, Michelle Stanistreet (General Secretary of the National Union of Journalists) said:

The accusation that the NUJ has not been transparent in its discussions with VICE management is simply untrue. It's a shame that the company has proven so resistant to listening to its own staff and facilitating what they want – a collective voice at work. That the NUJ and its 30,000 members – including those at VICE – are not used to the reality of a digital workforce is laughable and shows it's the company who are out of date with 21st century trade unions. Rejecting calls for union recognition from their own journalists and then trying to fob them off with a Rupert Murdoch-style staff association is a pretty old-fashioned union-busting ruse that misses the point. NUJ officials and reps at VICE will continue with the push for recognition and if the company wants that to be gained

The Rebel Media (often stylized as TheRebel.media) is a right-wing Canadian online political and social commentary media platform[1][2][3] founded in February 2015 by former Sun News Network host Ezra Levant. The Rebel Media broadcasts its content on the Rebel Media channel and website.

Former Sun News Network parliamentary correspondent Brian Lilley and former SNN reporter Faith Goldy have joined the outlet.[4] Gavin McInnes[5] is also a contributor.

Levant argued that his online production would be unencumbered by the regulatory and distribution difficulties faced by Sun News Network and that its lower production costs would make it more viable.[6] A crowdfunding campaign raised roughly CAD 100,000 for the project.[7]

As of April 1st, 2017, the YouTube channel of the Rebel Media has more than 640,000 subscribers.[8]

Contents [hide]

1:{ :(History

2:{ :(Contributors

3:{ :(Past contributors

4:{ :(Shows

5:{ :(See also

6:{ :(References

7:{ :(External links

History

The Rebel Media was formed by Levant and Lilley following the closure of the Sun News Network, on which they were leading personalities. It soon attracted a number of other former Sun News Network personalities such as David Menzies, Paige MacPherson, Faith Goldy, Patrick Moore, and briefly by Michael Coren.[9]

In the summer of 2015, the channel, led by Levant, launched a campaign to boycott Tim Hortons, a chain of Canadian coffee shops, after it rejected in-store ads from Enbridge due to complaints from customers opposed to the oil pipeline projects being promoted by the ads.[10][11]

In early 2016, the Alberta government banned The Rebel Media's correspondents from press briefings on the grounds that, because Ezra Levant had testified in court in 2014 that he was a columnist or commentator rather than a reporter, none of his current correspondents could be considered to be journalists. On 17 February 2016, the government admitted that it made a mistake and said that it would allow The Rebel Media correspondents into press briefings.[12] The Canadian Association of Journalists supported preventing government from choosing journalism coverage."[13]

In late 2016, The Rebel Media advocated for accreditation by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to permit its access as journalists to their event. The Rebel Media had previously published articles claiming that the public is being deceived about climate change. Its criticism of journalists at the 2015 Paris climate change event was also described as inaccurate by DeSmog Canada.[14] Rebel Media also criticized that UN had accepted The Tyee, National Observer and DeSmog Canada.[15]

Rebel Media did receive support from the federal Canadian government and three journalism organizations and eventually was granted access by the UN.[16]

Lauren Southern, one of The Rebel Media's popular contributors, left the organization in March 2017.[17]

In March 2017, the Rebel sent several of its contributors on a tour of Israel. The trip became controversial when Gavin McInnes made questionable comments about the Holocaust and also alleged Jews of being responsible for the Holodomor and the Treaty of Versailles. He subsequently stated that these are not his own views. McInnes also produced a video for Rebel, intended to be humorous, called "Ten Things I Hate about Jews", later retitled "Ten Things I Hate About Israel" which also resulted in accusations of antisemitism.[18][19][20][21]

Contributors

Ezra Levant

Gavin McInnes

Tommy Robinson

Faith Goldy[22]

Jay Fayza

Barbara Kay[23]

David Menzies[24]

Brian Lilley

Sheila Gunn Reid[citation needed]

Andrew Lawton[citation needed]

Christopher Wilson[25]

Holly Nicholas[citation needed]

Tiffany Gabbay[citation needed]

Alexander Jones[citation needed]

Joe Oliver[citation needed]

Michael Campbell[citation needed]

John Robson[citation needed]

Victor Laszlo[citation needed]

Claire Lehmann[26]

Past contributors

Michael Coren

Lauren Southern

Marissa Semkiw[27]

Shows

The Rebel has several shows, including:[citation needed]

The Ezra Levant Show

On The Hunt with Faith Goldy

Stand Off with Lauren Southern

Culture Wars with Tiffany Gabbay

How's It Goin', Eh? with Gavin McInnes

The Sensible Environmentalist (hosted by Patrick Moore)