Tag: protests

9th Circuit Court of Appeals allows feds to use crowd-control munitions on Portland anti-ICE protesters

The US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has temporarily blocked an order prohibiting federal agents from using crowd control munitions on protesters at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Portland, Oregon.

The 2-1 panel decision, issued on Wednesday, intervenes in two separate federal cases, with two Trump-appointed judges, Kenneth Lee and Eric Tung, granting the Trump administration administrative stays. Judge Ana De Alba dissented.

An administrative stay is intended to “minimize harm while an appellate court deliberates” and lasts “no longer than necessary to make an intelligent decision on the motion for stay pending appeal,” as stated in the order.

The decision comes just days before the nationwide “No Kings” protests, a coordinated left-wing event that led to the siege of the ICE facility twice last year: in June and again in October. Riots were declared at both of those events.

On March 9, US District Court Judge Michael Simon issued a preliminary injunction barring federal law enforcement officers from deploying less-lethal rounds on protesters, unless there is an “imminent threat” to officer safety. This includes chemical or projectile munitions, such as tear gas, pepper balls, flash-bang grenades, rubber bullets, pepper or oleoresin capsicum spray, and other less-lethal weapons. The ruling followed a three-day evidentiary hearing, in which Judge Simon sided with a group of Antifa-affiliated protesters in Dickinson v Trump.

The plaintiffs, led by Jack Dickinson, also known as the “Portland Chicken,” claimed that federal officers were violating their First Amendment rights through the “unlawful” use of crowd control measures, which were meant to have a “chilling” effect on demonstrators to discourage them from returning to the ICE facility to protest, thus violating their rights through “retaliatory animus.”

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ABHORRENT: Terrorist Sympathizers in Philadelphia Celebrate Fallen U.S. Soldiers, Back Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran While Torch­ing American Flags — “For Every U.S. soldier Who Returns Home in a Casket, We Cheer!”

A mob of masked terrorist sympathizers descended on City Hall Wednesday evening for a so-called “Hands Off Iran” rally and proceeded to cheer the deaths of U.S. soldiers, openly praise Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis, and set American flags on fire while waving Palestinian and Iranian flags.

This wasn’t some fringe gathering hidden in the shadows. This was brazen, in-your-face anti-American extremism happening in broad daylight in a major U.S. city.

Video footage captured by independent journalist Frank Scales of Surge Philly shows the crowd erupting in cheers as a speaker in a bright red hoodie said:

“Until we have done everything in our power to bring the United States to its knees, let us not lose sight of the enemy. For every U.S. military base that crumbles, and for every U.S. soldier who returns home in a casket, we cheer!”

The speaker didn’t stop there. He went full-throated in support of America’s deadliest enemies:

“Hamas, Hezbollah, Ansar Allah [the Houthis], and all the resistance forces – we celebrate these popular forces on the ground. They spend every waking moment in direct confrontation with Zionism, and they rely on a strong Iranian state to maintain their fighting capacity. Do you hate America? May a Hamas rocket blow up your family’s home.”

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Prairieland Verdict: Texas Man Found Guilty of Transporting Constitutionally Protected Pamphlets

A federal jury in Fort Worth, Texas, convicted eight protestors on charges ranging from rioting to attempted murder after a noise demonstration turned violent outside Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Prairieland Detention Center last summer. Federal prosecutors claim the group was part of an “Antifa Cell” and provided “material support to terrorists.” First Amendment legal scholars have raised serious concerns about the chilling effect these prosecutions and convictions will have on future political dissent.

One man’s conviction emphasized just how far that chilling effect could go. Daniel Rolando Sanchez-Estrada, the husband of one of the convicted protestors, wasn’t present at the time of the July 4 demonstration. After receiving a call from his wife, Maricela Rueda, from the Johnston County Jail, in which she told him to do “whatever you need to do” and “move whatever you need to move at the house,” officers began watching Sanchez-Estrada, according to the criminal complaint filed against him.

Shortly after, officers observed Sanchez-Estrada load and move a box from his home to another residence. Sanchez-Estrada was then arrested on state traffic offenses, and officers obtained a search warrant to locate and search the box. Inside, they found “numerous Antifa materials, such as insurrection planning, anti-law enforcement, anti-government, and anti-immigration enforcement documents,” according to a November indictment. Sanchez-Estrada was subsequently charged federally with corruptly concealing a document and conspiracy to conceal documents.

Sanchez-Estrada was convicted on both counts on March 13 and now faces up to 40 years in federal prison. But despite ICE proclaiming in a post on X that the contents of Sanchez-Estrada’s box contained “literal insurrectionist propaganda,” these controversial materials fall squarely under constitutionally protected speech.

“I feel like the U.S. lost here with this verdict and what it means for future defendants,” Christopher Weinbel, Sanchez-Estrada’s federal public defender and a U.S. Army veteran, told The Washington Post. “I feel like it turned its back on justice with this.”

The other eight protestors were charged and convicted of rioting, providing material support to terrorists, conspiracy to use and carry an explosive, and using explosives after they set off fireworks outside the Prairieland ICE facility. Rueda was also convicted of conspiracy to conceal documents along with Sanchez-Estrada. Additionally, Benjamin Song was convicted of attempted murder of a U.S. officer and discharging a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence after he allegedly shot and wounded a police officer during the demonstration.

In response to the convictions, Attorney General Pam Bondi said the guilty “verdict on terrorism charges will not be the last as the Trump administration systematically dismantles Antifa and finally halts their violence on America’s streets.” But First Amendment lawyers are wary of conflating constitutionally protected speech after President Donald Trump signed an executive order in September categorizing the loosely defined “antifa” as a “domestic terrorist organization.”

Suzanne Adely, president of the National Lawyers Guild, a progressive legal group, told the Associated Press that the government wants to “squash” opposition, and a case like this one creates fear, “hoping that folks in other cities then will think twice over protesting.” The U.S. district judge presiding over the case, a Trump nominee, Mark Pittman, also signaled First Amendment concerns, according to The Guardian, when he asked prosecutors about the relevance of including antifa in the jury instructions. “Whether it’s antifa or the Methodist Women’s Auxiliary of Weatherford, why does it matter?” Pittman asked during the trial, reported The Guardian.

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Joe Kent Under FBI Investigation For Leaking Classified Information: Semafor

According to Semafor, Joe Kent, the top counterterrorism official who just resigned in protest of the Iran war, is under FBI investigation for leaking classified information.

The investigation predates Kent’s departure, Semafor’s White House correspondent reported.

Joe Kent resigned on Tuesday and said the US started the war against Iran due to pressure from Israel.

“After much reflection, I have decided to resign from my position as Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, effective today,” Joe Kent said.

“I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran,” he said.

“Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby,” he said.

“As a veteran who deployed to combat 11 times and as a Gold Star husband who lost my beloved wife Shannon in a war manufactured by Israel, I cannot support sending the next generation off to fight and die in a war that serves no benefit to the American people nor justifies the cost of American lives,” he added.

On Tuesday, Fox News’ White House Correspondent Jacqui Heinrich said Joe Kent was a “known leaker” and was cut out of President Trump’s intel briefings months ago.

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When Do Protest Observers Become Lawbreaking Participants?

When an ICE agent shot and killed Minneapolis resident Renee Good after she allegedly obstructed immigration authorities with her vehicle, disobeyed their commands, and attempted to flee – drawing fatal fire from an officer nearly struck by the vehicle – politicians and pundits decried her death as murder. They called it particularly unjust because she was not acting as a protester but a legal observer.

After federal agents arrested Don Lemon for allegedly disrupting a St. Paul church service in protest of the same Twin Cities immigration enforcement surge Good had opposed. His lawyer defended the former CNN anchor as a journalist, persecuted by the Trump administration for having carried out “constitutionally protected work” in violation of his First Amendment rights.  So too did myriad media organizations ranging from the National Association of Black Journalists to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

While Good’s shooting presents a distinct issue, her case and Lemon’s highlight the complex legal issues surrounding those who claim to be chronicling protests. Legal observers and journalists have long worked on the frontlines of civil unrest, the former documenting instances of alleged police misconduct in violation of constitutional rights to peaceably assemble, and the latter chronicling the assemblies. Their efforts have brought transparency and accountability. But what happens when legal observers and journalists act, or are seen by authorities as unlawful protestors rather than the neutral parties they are supposed to be? To what degree do their titles afford them special protections from prosecution in a court of law?

These questions have been brought into sharp relief as the Trump administration has brought hundreds of cases against people whom it alleges have not merely monitored but participated in illegal actions impacting immigration enforcement operations. 

“We respect the First Amendment and the right to peacefully protest,” a DOJ spokesperson told RealClearInvestigations, but “journalists and observers are not provided special protections to obstruct law enforcement operations.”

Northwestern University Law Professor Steven Lubet, who has criticized the Trump administration’s approach to immigration, concurred that legal observers “have no special legal status,” nor do journalists have “license to engage in violence or disruption.” But, he added, “law enforcement authorities should have a heavy burden to show that a journalist…or legal observer…had overstepped their role.”

Although it did not respond to a request for comment, the American Civil Liberties Union has litigated against federal law enforcement authorities in connection with ICE’s activities in Minnesota. It argues that the government is violating the “constitutional rights” of people “observing, documenting, and protesting ICE activity in their neighborhoods.”

Like so many issues, the very nature of protest and the definitions of legal observers and journalists have come into question during the Trump years. America has a long history of protest, but the anti-ICE protests are different. Typically, protestors have engaged in somewhat organized demonstrations, with law enforcement responding if there is violence or property damage. But residents of Minneapolis, Los Angeles, and other sanctuary jurisdictions to which the second Trump administration has surged ICE agents have turned this dynamic on its head by arriving at the scene in response to law enforcement actions, and sometimes challenging such efforts.

It is hard to distinguish protestor from legal observer as many self-described ICE-watchers pursue officers in their cars and approach them during encounters – often times with phone in hand to record the events, and, they claim, to deter misconduct. Alex Pretti, an armed man who was killed by border patrol agents in Minneapolis after appearing to come to the assistance of another protestor, had been filming the scene before his deadly encounter. While he was widely described as a legal observer, just a few days prior, he had kicked in the taillight of an ICE vehicle, raising the murky issue of whether one can toggle back and forth between protester and observer depending on the circumstances.

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Cuban protesters ransack Communist office as energy crisis deepens

Protesters in Cuba have ransacked a Communist Party building following a rally over steep food prices and persistent power cuts, in a rare show of public dissent.

Five people were arrested after a small group vandalised the offices in the central city of Moron overnight into Saturday, Cuba’s Interior Ministry (Minint) said.

Discontent among Cubans has been mounting as the island is buffeted by rolling blackouts and shortages of food, fuel and medicine, exacerbated by a prolonged US oil blockade.

Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel said that, while the protesters’ complaints and demands were “legitimate”, “violence and vandalism that threatens citizen tranquility” would not be tolerated.

He wrote on X that the prolonged blackouts had understandably caused “distress”, blaming them on the US blockade that he characterised as having “cruelly intensified in recent months”.

The protest came hours after the government in Havana confirmed that talks with the US to “seek solutions through dialogue” to the two countries’ differences were under way.

Díaz-Canel said in a national broadcast on Friday that no fuel had entered the country in three months as a result of the US oil blockade.

US President Donald Trump has made no secret of his desire for a change in Cuba’s leadership. He said on Monday that Cuba was in “deep trouble” as he threatened a “friendly takeover”.

Trump previously said the one-party state would be “next” following the capture of its ally, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, in January.

Since then, the US has blocked Venezuelan oil shipments – which provided for about half of Cuba’s energy needs – and threatened to impose tariffs on any country that sold oil to the island nation. This is on top of a six-decade US trade embargo.

Havana relies heavily on imported fuel for electricity generation, and the oil blockade has brought Cuba’s beleaguered economy close to collapse.

The crisis has affected rubbish collection, emergency hospital wards, public transport and education.

Friday’s demonstration “initially began peacefully” before escalating into “acts of vandalism”, state-run newspaper Invasor said.

“A smaller group of people stoned the entrance to the building and started a fire in the street with furniture from the reception area.”

Other state-run facilities, including a pharmacy and a government-operated market were also targeted, it added.

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Chicago Teacher Union Wants to Close Schools on May 1st to Protest Trump

The Chicago Teacher Union is calling for school to be cancelled on May 1st so that teachers, staffers, and even students can spend the day protesting Trump. Someone might want to clue these teachers in to the fact that this is not their job. Not even close.

Students in Chicago can barely read or do math at grade level. Maybe that is because their teachers care more about organizing protests than they do about teaching their students.

Maybe they could save the protests for the summer months when they’re not even working.

FOX News reports:

Chicago Teachers Union calls for school shutdown on May Day to protest Trump

The Chicago Teachers Union is advocating for a day off for teachers and students on May 1, for the national May Day movement.

May Day is also known as International Worker’s Day, which celebrates workers and advocates for labor rights.

On Wednesday, the union approved a resolution to designate May 1 as the day of “Civic Action and Defense of Public Education,” and seeking support for this from Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and Chicago’s Board of Education.

“If we still want to have democracy in the midterms this November, public schools that provide our students with quality education, and unions to defend workers’ rights, then it is up to every Chicagoan to stand up for what we believe in and show the authoritarian billionaire in Washington that when he breaks every rule, we will not go along with business as usual,” CTU Vice President Jackson Potter said in a statement.

The union claimed in the resolution that public education is under attack by “MAGA politicians,” seemingly referring to supporters of President Donald Trump.

The resolution says “public education is facing an unprecedented national assault driven by MAGA politicians, billionaire donors, and corporate interests who seek to privatize our schools, censor educators, ban books, dismantle civil rights protections, criminalize and separate immigrant families, and weaken workers’ unions.”

None of that matters at all. These people were hired to do a specific job and this ain’t it.

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UK Parliament Plans ISP Blocking and Age Verification Powers

If you wanted a case study in how modern democracies widen state oversight step by step, Britain has offered a clear example. On March 9, two major surveillance-related bills advanced through Parliament, each pointing toward broader government authority, reduced personal privacy, and tighter limits on protest activity.

These measures advanced through procedural votes and technical amendments that sounded administrative, yet carry consequences for how millions of people use the internet and exercise civic rights.

The main legislative action unfolded in the House of Commons during debate on the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill. Members of Parliament actually rejected amendments from the House of Lords that would have required age verification for VPNs and certain user-to-user services.

But don’t get too excited. Replacement amendments approved by MPs would grant significant new authority to the state. The powers allow the government to require internet service providers to block or restrict children’s access to specific online platforms, impose time-of-day limits on when services can be used, and mandate age verification across nearly any platform that enables users to post or share content.

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Suspect screams ‘Allahu Akbar’ after Molotov cocktail thrown at anti-Muslim protest in NYC: report

After a Molotov Cocktail was reportedly thrown at an anti-Muslim protest taking place in New York City, a suspect who was arrested by police shouted “Allahu Akbar” in response as he was being detained. 

Freedom News TV reported that a Molotov Cocktail was thrown at the anti-Muslim protest taking place. The suspect in question was then seen lighting what appeared to be a smoke bomb and was tackled and detained by police. As he was getting arrested, the man yelled, “Allahu Akbar.”

Police later said that there were possible explosive devices used by two Muslim men in the incident.

The protest taking place appeared to be led by Jake Lang, who posted about the incident. Lang, an anti-Muslim activist wrote, “Muslim ISIS terrorist just threw a homemade nail bomb at us in NYC.”

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SHOCKING VIDEO RESURFACES: Trump’s New DHS Pick Markwayne Mullin PRAISED and HUGGED the Cop Who MURDERED Unarmed Air Force Vet Ashli Babbitt – Called Him a Hero!

A newly resurfaced video is raising eyebrows across conservative circles after comments from Sen. Markwayne Mullin, President Trump’s latest pick to head the Department of Homeland Security after removing Kristi Noem, praising and even hugging Capitol Police Lt. Michael Byrd, the officer who shot and killed Ashli Babbitt.

Ashli Babbitt, a 35-year-old Air Force veteran and Trump supporter, was gunned down in cold blood on January 6, 2021, while peacefully protesting.

She was unarmed, posing no threat, yet Byrd fired a single shot that ended her life as she attempted to climb through a broken window in the Capitol.

But according to Mullin, Byrd is the real victim here! In an interview on C-SPAN from July 2021, six months after Babbitt was murdered, Mullin recounts the moments after the shooting.

“After it happened, he came over. He was physically and emotionally distraught. I actually gave him a hug and I said, ‘sir, you did what you had to do.’” Mullin went even further, telling investigators that he heard Byrd issue a warning before firing, a claim debunked by video evidence showing no such warning was given.

He told media outlets that Byrd “didn’t have a choice” and that his shot “saved people’s lives.”

Sen. Mullin: I guarantee you—I don’t know for a fact, but I guarantee you—he’s never had to pull his weapon in a manner like that before. He was the last person in the world who ever wanted to use force like that; he wasn’t wanting to do that.

I know for a fact because, after it happened, he came over and was physically and emotionally distraught, and I actually gave him a hug. And I said, “Sir, you did what you had to do.” And I mean that.

Unfortunately, for the young lady, her family’s life has changed. It was an unfortunate situation where she lost her life, and some people lost their loved ones.

But the lieutenant’s life has also changed, too, because if it’s the first time you’ve ever had to use lethal force, that doesn’t ever leave you.

And it wasn’t his choice; he didn’t show up to work that day to have to do that. He was doing his job, and he got put in a situation where he had to do his job because there was a member still on the balcony.

If you’re going to present your weapon in a [certain] manner and give commands, and they still don’t listen and they still approach, you don’t have a choice. Either you have to, at that point, discharge your weapon in a manner of self-defense, or that weapon is going to be taken away from you.

It’s going to be used on you, and it’s going to put all of our lives in danger, too.

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