Think #antifa is Brainless? A Challenger Rises: "Peak Stupid"

Madmick

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And it's a familiar group:



This took place earlier this year in January. Snopes verified this:
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-supporters-navajo-legislator-legal/
Snopes said:
We confirmed that one of the anti-immigration protesters did indeed ask an indigenous state representative whether or not he was “legal,” both through video footage of the incident and three corroborating interviews with Arizona state legislators who witnessed the scene. In the background of the following video, a protester asks Rep. Eric Descheenie whether he is “legal.” Descheenie is Navajo. Rep. Pamela Powers Hannley filmed the exchange:

The incident occurred during a chaotic, five-hour long demonstration on 25 January 2018 at the Arizona capitol building where roughly a dozen anti-immigration activists turned out to protest the social justice lobbying group Living United for Change in Arizona (LUCHA) — though the group was there to advocate for pro-labor legislation, not immigration. Protesters alleged that LUCHA was “trying to advance social, racial and economic justice for DACA recipients, illegal aliens and their illegal families.” According to state lawmakers who were at the scene, the protesters were visibly armed.

Several state lawmakers and staff reported that the protesters singled out non-white people and accused them of being in the country “illegally"...

Though Caminiti-Harrison did not appear to notice the incident as it played out behind her in the video, she denied the allegations in an interview with the Capitol Times:

First, we were a group of several white, black and Latina Americans. To make assumptions that we were only calling out Hispanic representatives or ‘non-white’ legislatures [sic] is a disgusting, blatant lie. We also had legal immigrants visiting the Capitol who stood in solidarity with us along with Republican lawmakers who thanked us for being there and stopped for a photo.”

We asked every rep, white or otherwise, if they supported illegal immigration and why they put the needs of illegal immigrants over the needs of American citizens. Never at any time did we ask the representatives if they were illegals. Never.



Aside from the incident with Descheenie, a 14-minute video linked by the Capitol Times appears to corroborate complaints that protesters targeted nonwhite people. In it, demonstrators can be following people and yelling at them, demanding to know their stance on immigration...

Descheenie told us he was walking out of the capitol for lunch at a nearby farmer’s market with fellow Arizona state lawmaker Rep. Wenona Benally (D-Window Rock) when he saw protesters “hounding” a group of children and Hannley. In a phone interview, Descheenie told us:

"We could see [Rep. Powers Hannley] walking in our direction. I distinctly remember seeing her face. and I’ll never forget it. She had this look of terror and frustration. She was getting hounded by three of the protesters. I heard her acknowledge they were harassing children and you could see it happening. [Benally and I] in an effort to mitigate the intimidation and harassing, we began to absorb it. My intent was to get them off Pamela Hannley and get them to quiet down, have a constructive dialogue.

The one person I was speaking with primarily, she obliged. The other two did not. They continued to harass Rep. Hannley. I turned to one and asked her to calm down, lower her voice. She asked me if I was legal. I’m not going to tolerate a question like that given the history of indigenous people in this country. These are our aboriginal lands and I don’t need someone asking me about my legal status. It speaks for itself. I told her not to ask me that question."



Legislative staffers say pro-Trump supporters called them ‘illegal’ for being dark-skinned

Arizona Capital Times said:
Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to include strong denials from pro-Trump protesters of allegations they singled out dark-skinned individuals, as well as video links showing their interactions during a protest at the Capitol on Jan. 25.

Supporters of President Donald Trump singled out dark-skinned lawmakers, legislative staffers and children at the Capitol on Jan. 25 as they protested congressional efforts to pass immigration reform, according to staffers of the Arizona Legislature and two Democratic legislators.

Waving large flags in support of Trump while standing between the House and Senate buildings, the protesters, who were also armed, asked just about anyone who crossed their path if they “support illegal immigration.”

They called some “illegal” and told them to “go home,” barbs they reserved for those with brown skin, according to the staffers.

Two women who said they were part of the protest against illegal immigration at the Capitol vehemently denied accusations that they singled out dark-skinned people and accused them of being illegal immigrants.

But Lisette Flores and Selianna Robles, policy advisors for Senate Democrats, said they were yelled at when they walked from the Senate to the House lawn, directly passing the Trump supporters, to get lunch at a farmers market. Three white coworkers offered to escort Flores, Robles, and Democratic staffer Dora Ramirez back to their offices, Robles said.

“We’re walking back, and they start yelling again, ‘Get out of the country.’ At that point, they pointed to Lisette, called her an illegal, and said, ‘Get out, go back home!’” Robles said. “But they pointed at Jane (Ahern), who works for the House, and they said, ‘No, you can stay.’”

Ahern, a policy advisor for House Democrats, is white.

“I was born in California,” said Flores. “I’m obviously of Mexican descent, so I think in that group I’m the darkest one. Selianna and Dora, they’re light-skinned Latinos. So, I think probably that’s why they pointed at me out of a group of six.”

“They assume things about you. There’s not much we can do,” said Robles, an Arizona native raised in the town of San Luis. “We work for the state, we’re public servants, and we’re just here to do our job.”

Lawmakers said they were also questioned based on their appearance. Rep. Eric Descheenie, D-Chinle, said he was confronted by Trump supporters while helping defend a young student that he said was being harassed.

They asked Descheenie, a Navajo lawmaker, if he was in the United States illegally.


Rep. Eric Descheenie (D-Chinle)

“I’m indigenous to these lands,” Descheenie said. “My ancestors fought and died on these lands. I just told them, ‘Don’t ask me that question.’”

Rep. César Chávez, D-Phoenix, said he was approached by a female Trump supporter asking who he was and who he represents. For “the fun of it,” Chávez said, he replied, “I’m an undocumented legislator.” Chávez was brought from Mexico to the United States as a child.

He said he wanted the protesters “to understand that in this country, through a process, you, too, can be a part of a nation that provides opportunity to everybody. I wanted them to understand that an individual who came to this country undocumented at the age of three is now a member of the Arizona State Legislature.”

Chávez said the woman reacted by calling him “illegal.”

“She said something like, “You’re illegal. Once illegal, always illegal,” he said. “I took no offense, no attention. It was just simply one of those things where you’re going to have a stance and I’m going to have a stance and we’re never going to agree on things.”

Jennifer Caminiti-Harrison and Lesa Antone said they were at the Capitol to protest activists with Living United for Change in Arizona (LUCHA). The women told the Arizona Capitol Times in a phone interview tonight they’re against illegal immigration and don’t believe the LUCHA activists, who they alleged are undocumented, have the right to lobby state legislators.

In denying the allegations, Caminiti-Harrison and Antone countered that their group was harassed by the LUCHA activists. In a live stream of the protest uploaded to Facebook by Antone, a LUCHA member could be heard telling a black Trump supporter, “You’re gonna be the first to get lynched.”

“First, we were a group of several white, black and Latina Americans. To make assumptions that we were only calling out Hispanic representatives or ‘non-white’ legislatures (sic) is a disgusting, blatant lie,” Caminiti-Harrison also wrote in an email. “We also had legal immigrants visiting the Capitol who stood in solidarity with us along with Republican lawmakers who thanked us for being there and stopped for a photo.”

In a video uploaded to YouTube, Republican Reps. Jay Lawrenece, of Scottsdale, and Bob Thorpe, of Flagstaff, are seen speaking and taking photos with protesters.

“We asked every rep, white or otherwise, if they supported illegal immigration and why they put the needs of illegal immigrants over the needs of American citizens,” Caminiti-Harrison wrote. “Never at any time did we ask the representatives if they were illegals. Never.”

A 14-minute video of yesterday’s protest uploaded on YouTube shows several interactions initiated by the anti-illegal immigration protesters. Near the beginning of the video, one protester could be heard assuming that members of a group are staying illegally in the U.S.

“No, they’re not legal. They’re illegal,” a woman can be heard saying.

“Yeah, we know they’re illegal. Get legal or get out of America … They’re illegal, see that?” another woman shouted at the group.

In another part of the video, a woman can be heard confronting a group of men.

“Why do you want to stay in our country if you hate it so much?” she said.

One member of the group, a man, came back to tell the protester that she and others “need to get educated.”

They exchanged a few more words, and he said, “This land wasn’t your guys.’” She yelled at him as he walked away, “You are an illegal alien.”

When the man denied the accusation, the woman responded: “Those guys are illegal … They do not have any rights here. It is not their time. This is our time. Our nation. Our laws. Our streets.”

The video also shows what appeared to be a LUCHA activist shielding a young man who was being questioned by the protester about his stance on immigration.

“So, you also believe in ‘No border, No wall, No USA at all? Do you also believe in that? … Because if you do, why are you here? Because if you don’t support America, why are you here?” the protester said.

“He’s not talking to you,” the LUCHA activist tells the protester and unleashes a profane word. Another protester then replies, “Get legal or get out. Go in there and fill your [expletive] paper out and get legal.”

Trump supporters also disrupted a press conference hosted Thursday morning by LUCHA activists who came to the Capitol to raise awareness about legislation they’re backing.

As LUCHA Executive Director Tomas Robles spoke to a crowd of supporters in Spanish, Trump supporters could be heard shouting over him, “Go home.”


“I served five years in the Marine Corps. I fought for people’s freedoms to be able to come into this space and to be able to voice their concerns to the representatives that represent their cities and towns,” he said. “The fact that I got called an illegal, the fact that all our constituents were called so many names … every single person has a right to be here.”


Antone posted on Facebook a nearly two-hour video showing pro-Trump supporters shouting at the LUCHA activists on the subject of wages. At one point, a woman who was part of the pro-Trump group yelled at the LUCHA activists, “You don’t deserve more money just for showing up … You don’t get more money ’cause you’re brown.”

Mary Lou Sandoval, a Maryvale resident who attended the LUCHA event, later saw the protesters screaming at children who were touring the Capitol on field trips.

“[It] was a little ridiculous. You can protest peacefully as well, and you can make your own presence [felt] peacefully,” she said.


Senate Minority Leader Katie Hobbs (D-Phoenix) (Photo by Katie Campbell/Arizona Capitol Times)

Senate Minority Leader Katie Hobbs, D-Phoenix, wrote a letter to Senate President Steve Yarbrough, R-Chandler, and Senate security officials outlining what she called the harassment of staffers who the protesters “perceived not to be white,” and complained about a lack of response from law enforcement at the scene observing the protest.

“I can tell you that the Democratic staff who were yelled at by the protesters and called illegals definitely felt harassed and were not satisfied with the response,” Hobbs wrote. “They did not feel safe.”

Hobbs said she was told by an officer on Thursday that law enforcement was instructed to stand down while the Trump supporters exercised their First Amendment rights.

Their protest went “far beyond” the First Amendment, Hobbs wrote.

“This is a public place. When armed protesters aggressively go after members, staff and visitors, there needs to be a response that ensures the safety of everyone involved,” Hobbs wrote. “I have seen instances here at the capital (sic) when peaceful protesters with a different agenda were surrounded by many more law enforcement officers with a much more aggressive response.”

“This is unacceptable,” she added.

Officials with the Department of Public Safety did not return a request for comment.
Kate Hobbes's letter below:
https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/4360686/Yarbrough-Letter-of-Concern.pdf

https%3A%2F%2Fblogs-images.forbes.com%2Fbryanrolli%2Ffiles%2F2018%2F05%2Fchildish_gambino_this_is_america.png


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I think they're both brainless, antifa and the ones who this article pertains to.
 
"andy_melonseedThis whole story was twisted and taken out of context on so many levels it forfeits any merit gained over exposing the ridiculous tactics of the protesters. It incinuates all of the protesters were harrassing Mr. Descheenie (and that all Trump supporters act like this) when it was just one stupid lady in the background of a clip. Rogan, youre an idiot. Take a break from the intermet dude it's messing with ya."
 
Antifa and Trump supporters are both unbelievable annoying. It's just that Trumpers are half as smart and twice as dangerous
 
These folks are PhD ‘s compared to antifa.


Anarchism is about the silliest political philosophy possible.
 
Antifa and Trump supporters are both unbelievable annoying. It's just that Trumpers are half as smart and twice as dangerous

Trumpers were white people out in the suburbs who own factories, and businesses. Nice lawns on those houses, and in front of the businesses that had those signs up. Detroit was were you didn't see any Trump support. There are dumb people that support trump, but don't be comically stupid and lump them all together.
 
"andy_melonseedThis whole story was twisted and taken out of context on so many levels it forfeits any merit gained over exposing the ridiculous tactics of the protesters. It incinuates all of the protesters were harrassing Mr. Descheenie (and that all Trump supporters act like this) when it was just one stupid lady in the background of a clip. Rogan, youre an idiot. Take a break from the intermet dude it's messing with ya."
LOL, I have a GIF of Andy Melonseed:

tumblr_mze7lyJ00O1r2kdoao1_500.gif
 
The "antifa" movement is largely a response to all the right wing groups parading around with Nazi flags and other far right happenings.

Glad they are around to protest that garbage.
 
The "antifa" movement is largely a response to all the right wing groups parading around with Nazi flags and other far right happenings.

Glad they are around to protest that garbage.
Haha, ya, it’s so rampant.
Just Nazis everywhere.
 
The "antifa" movement is largely a response to all the right wing groups parading around with Nazi flags and other far right happenings.

Glad they are around to protest that garbage.

Yeah, that isn't true. But thanks for proving you can't think for yourself.
 
Haha, ya, it’s so rampant.
Just Nazis everywhere.

No, not everywhere, but they are literally marching with Nazi flags, kkk flags and outfits, etc..

I don't recall seeing these kinds of things happening till recently (last few years). Same with the large scale antifa protests.
 
Yeah, that isn't true. But thanks for proving you can't think for yourself.

Oh OK, thanks.

Can you just email your interpretation of world events from now on so I don't have to form my own opinion?

Thanks bro.
 
No, not everywhere, but they are literally marching with Nazi flags, kkk flags and outfits, etc..

I don't recall seeing these kinds of things happening till recently (last few years). Same with the large scale antifa protests.

Yeah.. 30 of them last time out. The media is setting it up that everybody who voted for the non-pc candidate is an awful person. Complete media head morons buying it.
 
No, not everywhere, but they are literally marching with Nazi flags, kkk flags and outfits, etc..

I don't recall seeing these kinds of things happening till recently (last few years). Same with the large scale antifa protests.
I seem to remember Antifa showing up with their black flags and masks destroying shit the day after Trump took office then the blatant KKK/Swastika flags were like 4 months later.
 
OMG 25 people gathered to be hateful retards, that means half the country is racist!

Just like how the Westboro Baptist church with 50 members represents all Christians.

Wet Blanket is right! They are LITERALLY marching with Nazi flags. derp

It doesn't matter that more people were in line at my local taco truck then were gathered for the last KKK rally. Because if one racist white person exists we are all guilty and hate is LITERALLY everywhere! With flags!
 
I seem to remember Antifa showing up with their black flags and masks destroying shit the day after Trump took office then the blatant KKK/Swastika flags were like 4 months later.

Those flags were all around his supporters rallies before the election. They were around before that as well, but that's when I remember them starting to appear quite frequently.
 
ED: Maybe another time.

Trumpers were white people out in the suburbs who own factories, and businesses. Nice lawns on those houses, and in front of the businesses that had those signs up. Detroit was were you didn't see any Trump support. There are dumb people that support trump, but don't be comically stupid and lump them all together.

This is worth a re-post for perspectives.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/19/opinion/trump-corporations-white-working-class.html

WICHITA, Kan. — Is the white working class an angry, backward monolith — some 90 million white Americans without college degrees, all standing around in factories and fields thumping their dirty hands with baseball bats? You might think so after two years of media fixation on this version of the aggrieved laborer: male, Caucasian, conservative, racist, sexist.

This account does white supremacy a great service in several ways: It ignores workers of color, along with humane, even progressive white workers. It allows college-educated white liberals to signal superior virtue while denying the sins of their own place and class. And it conceals well-informed, formally educated white conservatives — from middle-class suburbia to the highest ranks of influence — who voted for Donald Trump in legions.

The trouble begins with language: Elite pundits regularly misuse “working class” as shorthand for right-wing white guys wearing tool belts. My father, a white man and lifelong construction worker who labors alongside immigrants and people of color on job sites across the Midwest and South working for a Kansas-based general contractor owned by a woman, would never make such an error.

Most struggling whites I know live lives of quiet desperation mad at their white bosses, not resentment of their co-workers or neighbors of color. My dad’s previous three bosses were all white men he loathed for abuses of privilege and people.

It is unfair power that my father despises. The last rant I heard him on was not about race or immigration but about the recent royal wedding, the spectacle of which made him sick.

“What’s so special about the royals?” he told me over the phone from a cheap motel after work. “But they’ll get the best health care, the best education, the best food. Meanwhile I’m in Marion, Arkansas. All I want is some chickens and a garden and place to go fishing once in a while.”

What my father seeks is not a return to times that were worse for women and people of color but progress toward a society in which everyone can get by, including his white, college-educated son who graduated into the Great Recession and for 10 years sold his own plasma for gas money. After being laid off during that recession in 2008, my dad had to cash in his retirement to make ends meet while looking for another job. He has labored nearly every day of his life and has no savings beyond Social Security.

Yes, my father is angry at someone. But it is not his co-worker Gem, a Filipino immigrant with whom he has split a room to pocket some of the per diem from their employer, or Francisco, a Hispanic crew member with whom he recently built a Wendy’s north of Memphis. His anger, rather, is directed at bosses who exploit labor and governments that punish the working poor — two sides of a capitalist democracy that bleeds people like him dry.

“Corporations,” Dad said. “That’s it. That’s the point of the sword that’s killing us.”

Among white workers, this negative energy has been manipulated to great political effect by a conservative trifecta in media, private interest and celebrity that we might call Fox, Koch and Trump.

As my dad told me, “There’s jackasses on every level of the food chain — but those jackasses are the ones that play all these other jackasses.”

Still, millions of white working-class people have refused to be played. They have resisted the traps of racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia and nationalism and voted the other way — or, in too many cases, not voted at all. I am far less interested in calls for empathy toward struggling white Americans who spout or abide hatred than I am in tapping into the political power of those who don’t.

Like many Midwestern workers I know, my dad has more in common ideologically with New York’s Democratic Socialist congressional candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez than with the white Republicans who run our state. Having spent most of his life doing dangerous, underpaid work without health insurance, he supports the ideas of single-payer health care and a universal basic income.

Much has been made of the white working class’s political shift to the right. But Mr. Trump won among white college graduates, too. According to those same exit polls trotted out to blame the “uneducated,” 49 percent of whites with degrees picked Mr. Trump, while 45 percent picked Hillary Clinton (among them, support for Mr. Trump was stronger among men).Such Americans hardly “vote against their own best interest.” Media coverage suggests that economically distressed whiteness elected Mr. Trump, when in fact it was just plain whiteness.

Stories dispelling the persistent notion that bigotry is the sole province of “uneducated” people in derided “flyover” states are right before our eyes: A white man caught on camera assaulting a black man at a white-supremacist rally last August in Charlottesville, Va., was recently identified as a California engineer. This year, a white male lawyer berated restaurant workers for speaking Spanish in New York City. A white, female, Stanford-educated chemical engineer called the Oakland, Calif., police on a family for, it would appear, barbecuing while black.

Among the 30 states tidily declared “red” after the 2016 election, in two-thirds of them Mrs. Clinton received 35 to 48 percent of the vote. My white working-class family was part of that large minority, rendered invisible by the Electoral College and graphics that paint each state red or blue.

In the meantime, critical stories here in “red states” go underdiscussed and underreported, including:


Barriers to voting. Forces more influential than the political leanings of a white factory worker decide election outcomes: gerrymandering, super PACs, corrupt officials. In Kansas, Secretary of State Kris Kobach blocked 30,000 would-be voters from casting ballots (and was recently held in contempt of federal court for doing so).

Different information sources. Some of my political views shifted when my location, peer group and news sources changed during my college years. Many Americans today have a glut of information but poor media literacy — hard to rectify if you work on your feet all day, don’t own a computer and didn’t get a chance to learn the vocabulary of national discourse.

Populism on the left. Today, “populism” is often used interchangeably with “far right.” But the American left is experiencing a populist boom. According to its national director, Democratic Socialists of America nearly quadrupled in size from 2016 to 2017 — and saw its biggest one-day boost the day after Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s recent primary upset. Progressive congressional candidates with working-class backgrounds and platforms have major support heading into the midterms here in Kansas, including the white civil rights attorney James Thompson, who grew up in poverty, and Sharice Davids, a Native American lawyer who would be the first openly lesbian representative from Kansas.

To find a more accurate vision of these United States, we must resist pat narratives about any group — including the working class on whom our current political situation is most often pinned. The greatest con of 2016 was not persuading a white laborer to vote for a nasty billionaire with soft hands. Rather, it was persuading a watchdog press to cast every working-class American in the same mold. The resulting national conversation, which seeks to rename my home “Trump Country,” elevates a white supremacist agenda by undermining resistance and solidarity where it is most urgent and brave.
 
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