Sabrina Joy Stevens spent nearly twenty years inside progressive activism—teaching, organizing, communications strategy, education reform, women’s rights, racial justice. She was not a bystander. She was a professional in what she later named Group Think, Inc.
Here is the Free Press conversation where she walks through how it ended: [VIDEO]
The rupture came in 2020. It was not one sudden conversion. It was the steady accumulation of contradictions that the ideology could no longer explain away. Progressives treated racism as a “deadly pandemic” while treating actual pandemic rules as optional when their preferred protests required it. The rhetoric stayed maximalist and urgent. The actions often looked unserious, selective, or counterproductive. The gap between the story and the results became impossible to ignore.
Spencer Pratt just dropped his concession video on his X/Twitter profile — classic reality-TV energy meets LA politics.
He’s out of the mayoral race after third place in the June 2 primary. No recount, no fraud challenge. Instead, he’s launching “Phase III” — a full-throated attack on Bass and Raman.
Key Points
Bass leads, Raman advances to November runoff.
Pratt calls out homelessness, crime, and city failures.
Teases bombshell recordings that could force one opponent to resign in shame.
[VIDEO] Tucker Carlson talked about this on his program last nite. AOC's constituents are upset with her because they believe she's part of the establishment. The activists are yelling at her during a meeting chiding her for her support for the conducting the War in Ukraine where she ought to be against the conflict.
AOC may have been seen as an outsider ousting years ago a longtime incument, however, this is the price to pay to being a public official. You do something that goes against the image you project and expect people - whom she called rude - to say something about it.
ALSO, this is kind of what she and other so-called progressive politicians want. She wants disruptions like this people yelling and screaming about issues they care about. She just doesn't want that energy directed at her....
[VIDEO] The sit-down with Mike Netter who organized the recall against Calif. Gov. Gavin Newsom. And then of course reference to this year's attempt to recall LA District Attorney George Gascon which failed.
A few takeaways with this is that, there is a will as opposed to money. That is passion and being in tuned with the issues and the situation is what helps push these initiatives forward. Alas the political establishment who seems OK with high crime and a bad standard of living for everyday people seem to be winning right now.
[VIDEO] Video via FOX Business it seems the BLM Global foundation has ran afoul of authorities in California and Washington state of all places and has been barred from even accepting donations for the time being. And even the feds, think IRS are looking into this. Let's say the time of this pandemic has been something of a boon for them especially after the death of one George Floyd. Another significant thing that happened with them is the scrutiny of Patrice Cullors who left BLM not long after her own finances came under scrutiny.
[VIDEO] I didn't intend for Liberal Hivemind to dominate these last three posts however they've been on a roll.
Perhaps it's about time the Black community of Minneapolis wakes up and realizes who's destroying their communities. No money is coming from the BLM Global Foundation, they did pretty well last year enough for Tucker Carlson to call them a very powerful political movement.
Of course Hivemind points to the so-called "Latte Liberals" they might not have a clue as they may not live in crime ridden poor minority communities. If some of the pain in those communities reach them in their nice communities then they might think differently. Who knows...
Either way could it be the pendulum beginning to shift with everything going on in America right now. High crime, inflation, economic stagnation, etc.
I wish Hivemind would list his sources for any video sound bite or even newsarticles...
[VIDEO] Here Mr. Horowitz brings it all together with his various footage of BLM "freedom riots" around America. He speaks with another leader in BLM out of Los Angeles - Melina Abdullah - in addition to others who were involved with these so-called freedom riots. Ms. Abdullah we learned near the end of this 17 minute video was very much holding back on some of her views.
We can rehash some of what she believes abolish/defund police, the criminal justice system is racist, or police is a relic of chattel slavery. She doesn't want to talk about whether or not law enforcement must be killed. She claimed safety issues prevent her from being more forthcoming of her views.
We see Chicago pastor Corey Brooks who recognizes BLM doesn't care much about the inner city. He recognizes that when we have these "freedom riots" they actually harm plenty of small minority owned businesses who may or may not have insurance. When you target for looting and destruction say a "big box" store that company may just pull out of the neighborhood - which could be a very depressed neighborhood - and leave the community with less essential resources.
Yeah tell that to those whites - some of whom you see talking about burn it down in the above video - that in their rhetoric and actions they're causing more harm than good in Black communities. There's your "white privilege" right there.
Horowitz asked "freedom rioters" whether or not the American experiment should end. Many of them said with no hesitation, yes. OK, end it and replace it with what? Marxism? They have no idea what they're taking for granted when they make such a statement.
Which I have to end it on this, Horowitz asks about the take of the BLM nat'l organization. They took in $10 Billion last year between May and December 2020. And most of that cash is unaccounted for - oh yeah think of another leader of the organization buying her a nice house in the Los Angeles exurbs. Corporations are giving this money to BLM which is portrayed in this video as wanting them destroyed because well they're marxists. They don't like capitalism in any way although BLM is really benefiting from it. And is that money coming into the Black communities that could use it?
Oh I want to add how many of you know of Fairfax in Los Angeles? How many of you know it's a Jewish community that was heavily damaged by these "freedom riots"? Patrisse Cullors in addition to stating that she's a trained marxist also made her statement against the Jewish State of Israel.
[VIDEO] The young man you see chronicled here founded the St. Paul, Minn. chapter of BLM and ultimately swore them off believing them to be anti-Black mind and anti-Black family. He supports school choice while BLM is basically indifferent. You see Liberal Hivemind here discuss Richard Turner and I wonder if you might hear more people from that organization turn on BLM.
It's been in the news that one of the founders of the BLM National Foundation Patrisse Cullors has resigned from the organization. Conservatives have been talking about her purchase of a nice house away from the inner city. Of course this leads to charges of any financial improprieties within the organization.
Hivemind did another video about yet another BLM activist out of Colorado who's accused of child abuse and no I'm not going much further than that you're going to have to watch the video. We're just seeing the many ways BLM is starting to get discredited after they reached the height of their influence in the wake of George Floyd's death in 2020.
However, many have been going after BLM philosophically since last year. Consider that BLM scrubbed their about page once many pointed out how they're anti-family, the focus on single mothers, and of course other sexual identities. Nothing about Black males - other than those killed by the racist police - and certainly nothing about the role of fathers. It causes one to wonder is BLM really concerned about Black Lives?
[VIDEO] I wanted to share this report by Tim Pool from this morning. I know there are more developments out of Brooklyn Center, Minnesota where another police shooting of a Black person has gotten the attention of the media and unfortunately caused the rabble rousers to test their distorted theory. The distortion of rioting is the language of the unheard.
You know Minnesota especially the Twin Cities area has been badly battered by the unrest last year after George Floyd's untimely demise and the trial of the now fired police officer involved is still ongoing. Still more of this it has been said Minnesota has been a bit weird - actually in another YouTube video.
I'm just unhappy that such a great state is getting torn apart by people who are just hell-bent on causing destruction. They hide behind fighting police violence and racism, but what I now recognize is that this is all an excuse.
I don't know enough about the shooting that happened. I hear things that there was a traffic stop and then the car started moving after the stop, and then the police fired shots. Then why did the police fire shots, however, the real-time story doesn't matter for some. On the surface the tragedy that occurred forwards the same familiar narrative and enough people will buy it.
[VIDEO] This isn't exactly new news another thing learned recently that Spelman woman and former Democrat nominee for Governor of Georgia Stacey Abrams was also nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. We learn who nominated BLM for the peace prize he's a "socialist left" member of the Norwegian Parliament, I wonder who nominated Ms. Abrams....
Stacey Abrams, C'95, has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for her transformative work as a voting rights activist. https://t.co/02XIDMb9RH
I have to share this from Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit from October 2nd: "When social justice is privileged white people destroying Black neighborhoods"
That post links to a N.Y. Times piece from a member of their editorial board with the subtitle: "'Insurrectionary anarchists' have been protesting for racial justice all summer. Some Black leaders wish they would go home."
Allow me to excerpt:
That’s the thing about “insurrectionary anarchists.” They make fickle allies. If they help you get into power, they will try to oust you the following day, since power is what they are against. Many of them don’t even vote. They are experts at unraveling an old order but considerably less skilled at building a new one. That’s why, even after more than 100 days of protest in Portland, activists do not agree on a set of common policy goals.
Even some anarchists admit as much.
“We are not sure if the socialist, communist, democratic or even anarchist utopia is possible,” a voice on “The Ex-Worker” podcast intones. “Rather, some insurrectionary anarchists believe that the meaning of being an anarchist lies in the struggle itself and what that struggle reveals.”
In other words, it’s not really about George Floyd or Black lives, but insurrection for insurrection’s sake.
So they don't know what they want. They want mayhem and chaos. They want to tear down statues because many of them - and I'm not talking about the Confederate statues - represent the best of America. They may attack politicians who are sympathetic to BLM because they represent the system, it doesn't matter if these are progressives who are well meaning but just choosing to pander as a safe bet.
And why I say real white privilege check out this article out of NY. Rioting is the voice of the unheard, how unheard are you if you have privilege? Are the unheard the people who's city you're choosing to destroy to fill some empty need?
It sure is white privilege to say "fcuk the police" when you live in a nice community of your own, especially if it's protected by an effective police department. Meanwhile you leave those communities of folks you purport to fight for vulnerable. Beware of your allies, they may not have your best interests at heart.
BTW, back to the NY Times piece. They discuss the work of one Jeremy Lee Quinn who actually works in media though furloughed. He's been looking at these so-called "insurrectory anarachists" he's been marching with them. He's noting the weirdness and has documented them on his own site at Public Report. So I would like very much to check out his work in the near future.
[VIDEO] My favorite saying as of late is that I support BLM in principle, however, I do not support the organization. The above video shows one reason, and of course I can't support the riots in the name of BLM.
We live in America and our culture is often built upon distrust of authority. Of course we want a fair justice system, we want a police that serves and protects. So what's BLM?
My view of BLM is that they could care less about a fair justice system or a police that serves and protects. They want to upend society as we know it.
With this said Anthony Brian Logan looks at BLM's about page, the nat'l organization. You see a number of things that involve disrupting the nuclear family or collective value (Marxism). You hardly see anything about heterosexual men - of course as ABL argues this organization will be out for any reason to come out for the death of a Black man. They talk about helping mothers however they mention nothing about fathers.
Anyway, ABL is talking this because recently they removed their about page from their website. This was discussed over the course of the summer in a variety of places so this isn't new. However after the initial unrest at the end of May 2020 BLM got a lot of financial support and even Tucker Carlson recognized them as a very potent political movement. However, as we still see unrest out there around the nation and in Kentucky they've announced a state of emergency in Louisville in the case of Breonna Taylor we see how BLM support is beginning to wane. Americans are tired of the riots, and I suspect that BLM is still trying to wage a PR battle thus to change their image.
In the morning, I hope to share Larry Elder's latest video and he asks one question which is related to what ABL explores here. What does BLM actually want?
[VIDEO] I'm glad to hear that due to a variety of factors the protests riots are starting to cool off. Tim Pool noted that the riots in Portland are beginning to slow down a general trend because the Oregon State Police was federally deputized last month. Although let's also note that there are some major forest fires happening on the west coast and I'm sure that's slowing down some activities out west.
If you follow any of the unrest you might have heard an infamous Dr. Martin Luther King quote "A riot is the language of the unheard". You might get the idea that Dr. King might understand what the rioting is all about. However, what gets lost is that Dr. King is an adherent to non-violent protest. Of course his philosophy on that is what I somewhat learned when I was still at Morehouse.
I don't normally post on Sundays although that custom has been broken fairly recently, but I just needed to share this lunacy from Reason:
David Peterson is an art professor at Skidmore College, a private liberal arts college in Saratoga Springs, New York. In late July, the professor and his wife, Andrea Peterson, attended a "Back the Blue" rally—not as supporters of the cause, they say, but as curious spectators.
"Given the painful events that continue to unfold across this nation, I guess we just felt compelled to see first-hand how all of this was playing out in our own community," he later told the student newspaper.
They stood on the edges of event, watching pro- and anti-law enforcement demonstrators argue with each other. After 20 minutes, the Petersons left to eat dinner.
But unbeknownst to Peterson, the couple's attendance at the rally was noticed. Now Skidmore students are demanding that both Peterson be fired for "engaging in hateful conduct that threatens Black Skidmore students," according to Times-Union columnist Chris Churchill, who wrote about the controversy.
All Professor Peterson and his wife did at this Back the Blue rally was to observe. If you're down with BLM and their fcuk the police rhetoric they can't be observers, they have to say fcuk the police....
So here's the truth of this matter with these students with the professor feelings over logic. Logic is thrown out of the window. If you're not with the students who are there for an education and likely utilizing student aid, student loans or even their family's money to say their boycotting a member of the faculty because their classroom is no longer considered a safe space is utter lunacy. No longer a safe space because they were observers to a pro-police rally and the people who demonstrated against the rally. 🤷
I will refer you to my free expression page, although if you're a passive observer not taking either side free expression doesn't apply here unless someone out there just decides your presence and lack of participation constitutes expression.
[VIDEO] I saw this video last week and it was interesting to see an Arizona BLM activist - Jared Maupin - take up an offer from a police department to see what law enforcement has to go through at any given moment. Let's be clear that policing day-to-day is a very dangerous job and by the current climate even more dangerous especially with the onerous rules that are being imposed because well BLM.
This video was published in the wake of the unrest in Kenosha, Wisconsin - you might have heard President Trump was just up there checking out the damage - in light of a police shooting of Jacob Blake. He is said to be paralyzed from his encounter with police which stems from his unwillingness to cooperate with police.
I keep seeing different conflicting reports about Blake for example some reports show he was unarmed and yet that are enhanced photos showing he does have an object in his hand. Some speculate that he had a knife known as a karambit in his hand as he walks away from police. Not only that when he got shot in the back - sounds awful on its face doesn't it - he was reaching in his car for something possibly another weapon.
See if you have a police officer pointing their weapon and they're trained to assess threats it's probably the best idea to just cooperate with them. We also hear he had a warrant on them so police probably wasn't going to give the man a lot of leeway.
In this video you hear one clear thing - cooperating is key. Cooperate with police and the police will be at ease and most importantly you won't get hurt. Fight with police and it's likely to not end well for you. If you want to fight police it's best to do so in court....
However, at this moment people who are deadset against police want them defunded or abolish. I just read a story where in Oak Park, Illinois - another socialist people's republic in the Chicago area - the mayor of that city had his home targeted by anti-police activists.
There are people out there who think what's wrong with our society is law enforcement personnel, and they're bold enough to not only fight police they're bold enough to go after those who won't defund or abolish police.
Despite near-daily efforts to show America how woke they are, or, because of it, the NBA’s playoff ratings are still tanking.
“Weekday afternoon games have certainly hurt, but the first weekend of the NBA Playoffs was no ratings bonanza either,” Sports Media Watch reported.
Viewership on ABC is down 23 percent and the numbers are down 20 percent overall compared to last year’s playoffs
“The Lakers’ win ranks as ABC’s least-watched playoff opener in five years (2015 Pelicans-Warriors: 3.49M), with the caveat that this year marked the first time since 2004 that it did not air a game on the opening day of the postseason,” Sports Media Watch added.
The league has tried to blame the coronavirus and its effects; however, SportsBusiness Daily recently noted that ratings for last season were also bad, as the 2018-2019 season lost 12 percent in viewership. That, of course, was pre-pandemic.
Other ratings reckoning also finds the NBA has lost viewers. ShowBuzz, for instance, noted that the league lost 28 percent in the important 18-49 age bracket.
I was following last week's news about LeBron James' rant on twitter about what happened in Kenosha, Wisconsin. No he wasn't entirely upset about the rioting, especially if it was mostly caused by people from out of the state of Wisconsin. Nope this was just another police shooting of a Black man.
Sometimes in thinking about some of these stories I just wonder if that's where the thinking stops. A Black man was shot by police, no context, not even any consideration as to whether or not the officer may have been justified. Another Black man was shot by police and the system is killing people of color.
Well either way the NBA playoffs, some MLB & NHL games were canceled although all seasons resumed. And I thought this was sad because sports fans have been waiting for sports to return after postponement thanks to coronavirus. However, we got the ongoing fallout from George Floyd going on and here we are.
I wonder if sports fans have gotten tired of athletes choosing to go "woke". NFL fans were already tired of players kneeling before the national anthem. NBA choose to plaster racial justice messages - well actually Black Lives Matter - on their basketball courts and allowing players to place social justice messages on their jerseys. And then the blowup by LeBron James and others.
I'm still willing to bet the NBA and even woke athletes in other leagues are going to suffer the consequences of low attendance at games - once fans return to arenas and stadiums - or even TV ratings because of the social justice actions being taken by athletes. It could be coronavirus sure, however, I think it's more than that.
As stated earlier, movies are my escape and so is wrestling - at least WWE for example wasn't very thick with social justice messaging in light of George Floyd (I would expect Vince McMahon wouldn't play that for long if it messed with business). I had to see these "woke" athletes hurt themselves by turning off fans with their attempts at activism.
I've mentioned Protest Warrior on this blog over the years. If this website and organization is ever revived I think it would be more relevant than ever. It could wonder what signs could they come up with to trigger the far left of today including BLM.
I went through their long defunct website to pick out images of signs that would likely still be relevant today. Signs that would work, however, when PW was active back in the 2000s most of their counter activism was pro-Israel and focused a lot on the Middle East. Some of the characters they had on their signs Yasser Arafat and Saddam Hussein are no longer alive. Also they took aim at the United Nations as for some they don't even represent the best solution to the issues of peace and security of the world.
Regardless I would dare say for PW is that today's activist environment is a lot more volatile in 2020 than it was in say 2003-04. Basically the fight was against the so-called peace movement which could be described as more anti-American than anti-war. These days I think counterprotesting groups as BLM and Antifa is a far more dangerous proposition in more ways than one.
The signs you see below would be very relevant today.
This sign is exceptionally relevant. The worst part of this sign is that some of the loudest elements of this especially that small retort at the bottom are white. They're the ones say the police should be defunded, they're talking the most about systemic racism, they're talking the most about white privilege. Wait did they talk about white privilege in the 2000s?
Hmmmm, some people can argue those same whites who are willing to pay for the sins of the atrocities over the past few centuries might me more racist than they realize. I would argue being a so-called anti-racist is the real white privilege. And consider this a Black police officer out of Portland, Oregon did a media availability to state that it was usually a white anti-racist activists who prevented Black people - who should care about solving the issue of police brutality - from actually engaging in dialogue with police.
We could change this sign for looting yes? Looting is reparations that's what a "spokesperson" for Chicago's BLM stated for local TV cameras and got some play on FOX News in recent weeks. There is one city that I know of that has voted on reparations for the descendants of slaves.
Well this could apply to more than the Green Party. I think the activists who remain in the streets into August really have this mentality. They're not going to solve any problems, the goal is the spread the misery to those who aren't suffering any misery. Or indeed to complain about gentrification claiming you're squeezing minorities out of their communities.
This is more of a message for today as we're still in the heat of a global pandemic. We're trying to figure out how to insure our young people can continue their education. We hope to send them back to the classrooms while the teachers are far more concerned about the possibility of getting sick. However today's crisis has caused me to wonder if we need reforms in our education system. One reform I do support is vouchers so that the young people living in low-income communities can go to a great private school and get a high level of education.
What's true before coronavirus is that there are doubts you can get a high level of education in public schools. Of course we can expand this to higher education, we need to reform what's going on there as well.
[VIDEO] A few days ago I shared a video of a protest outside of a Minneapolis Police union official Bob Kroll in his suburban Twin Cities home. It was such an angry and vile speech by a state legislative candidate that has made the news - well FOX News who knows if it even made it to CNN, MSNBC, CBS, etc. Either way Kroll who is also currently a Lieutenant in the Minneapolis Police was interviewed by Laura Ingraham on her FOX program.
I've revisited in a couple of posts the initial unrest in Minneapolis back in May on this blog recently and shared posts from the Minnesota based blog Powerline which discusses the rift between the Minneapolis Mayor and the Minnesota Governor. It seems a riot in one of the state's largest city wasn't urgent enough for the Governor to immediately mobilize the Nat'l Guard there. I used those posts to stick up for the Mayor Jacob Frey as he hoped to maintain control of city streets there.
Of course what's clear from Lt. Kroll's comments is that there was a failure of leadership long before the unrest back in May of this year. And if you believe what's being said in this report, the damage from this disaster will take many years to recover from and I'm led to believe in spite of Minneapolis being such a "progressive paradise" it's not right now!
[VIDEO] Washington, DC had calmed down over the course of the past month with the initial unrest back at the end of May. It seems that Mayor Muriel Bowser was all in on Black Lives Matter enough to not only allow a mural painted on that street, but to change the name of that street formerly 16th Street to Black Lives Matter Plaza.
I saw live video from DC during the month of June from Breitbart where it was shown on Facebook. And I believe it was at the height of protests over statues and monuments around the country - this isn't about any past wrongs I think it's about "erasing history". Those who want to tear down our statues wants to rewrite the story of America in their own twisted image.
Either way this live feed showed how out of control the anti-police people really are. I don't think they care about justice for a segment of the population. I think many of those individuals who were walking up to police to antagonize verbally and occasionally physically have some severe mentald issues. It takes something to think its OK to abuse people, especially police officers and I have to laude those officers ability to take the punishment without reacting. I also recognize that police in many cities around the country have been effectively restrained by their Democrat run city gov'ts.
Either way Tim Pool talks about what's going on in DC. I didn't know that in addition to painting Black Lives Matter in 16th Street which is not far from the White House there was a message of Defund the Police on 16th Street also. Well recently Mayor Bowser has paved over the Defund the Police portion of that mural. Pool connects this to former VP Joe Biden's pick of Sen. Kamala Harris as his running mate. They probably are starting to figure out how this defund the police message just isn't playing well at all.
I wanted to show you this video from the Daily Caller they showed this part of 16th Street being paved over. When I first saw it, I made the connection that the Defund Police portion was no longer visible as they showed how it looked when it was first presented and then afterwards. [VIDEO]
