I can scarcely wait for Trump's rebuttal to this crock of shit. Hope it's as fiery and furious as Wheeler deserves.

I think this mayor wins the prize for 'most disgusting and cretinous speech of Summer 2020', despite the stiff competition.

You'll want the official FightBack link by Kyle's lawyers, not this one (indeed the pictured update pretty much tells you to go donate to FightBack instead). Strangely I've seen it get deleted when posted in this thread, but you can find it on Lin Wood's Twitter page.

To my understanding, this GiveSendGo page was made before Lin Wood got Kyle's FightBack page up for direct donations to their legal war chest, as an alternative to the GoFundMe that was taken down. It could simply be an honest mistake.

That said, since the creator claims to have contacted Lin Wood (he's the one who directed him to Kyle's mother and attorney), I'm sure any confusion or suspicion here can be cleared up - one way or another - just by asking Wood himself 'hey did the GiveSendGo guy contact you'.

I think there's a reasonable middle-ground to be had between 'do nothing, keep your head down & take the high road to election day' and 'start nailing Antifa heads to their doors without (further) provocation'. It may even be considered a stance of enlightened centrism, and it is:

Give Trump and the feds some time to prepare their statements on this story and take action against Antifa (at least in Portland, but preferably nationwide), up to and including invoking the Insurrection Act at long last. See what they do, or don't do. Maybe it will be a few days, maybe a week, maybe two.

Oh, and in the meantime, preparing self-defense is of course a no-brainer.

Thanks for explaining Patriot Prayer to me, I didn't trust Wikipedia's article on them since it opens by calling them a bunch of far-right extremists. Honestly, if this man can be killed for being a Christian patriot wearing Blue Lives Matter apparel, truly nothing and nobody is safe from the threat of Antifa.

Thank you for writing this up. Honestly, I can understand why some people might be hesitant to act - you want to give Trump and the feds some time to figure out how to explain the situation to the public and invoke the Insurrection Act, fine. Wait a day, a week, two weeks, OK, as long as it's not excessive.

But if that doesn't happen, and there's a chance it won't - Antifa was supposed to have been designated a terrorist outfit a long time ago, wasn't it? And yet it's still able to operate openly and with local-level impunity - then it's complete nonsense to sit around moaning about optics and the election. News flash, 'taking the high road' does nothing to dissuade the left, I haven't seen a single occasion where they were left alone with room-to-destroy and didn't escalate. If they're left alone, what are the odds that Antifa won't get bold enough to intimidate, assault and even murder anyone they suspect of being a Trump voter in November?

Meanwhile Kyle Rittenhouse blows three asswipes away and instantly got shit done. The governor of Wisconsin who previously refused to send in the NG did so in sufficient numbers, got federal help he'd declined previously, and Kenosha has been at peace since. And hell, since all the facts have been coming out, people (even normies) are approving of his actions and reposting memes about him.

Looks pretty clear to me which approach works and which one doesn't.

Large pot, slow boil. The violence had only been going in one direction until Kyle Rittenhouse put down the commie fucks attacking him in Kenosha, and after waiting some time for examination, it seems the popular reaction to his acts - even among normies - is actually quite positive.

Attacking BLM/Antifa head on in June would not have been politically wise. But now, the tide is turning against them, the Rittenhouse incident shows that it is possible to straight up kill them and still receive public support, and this murder of a Trump supporter might just give Trump and the feds the exact moment they need to drive a crackdown home...or if not them, then patriotic individuals on the ground.

I keep hearing this 'person who was shot belong to an extreme rightist group' line. What does that mean, what's the group he belonged to? I've heard it might be Patriot Prayer. But to my understanding, they're Portland locals and not even particularly far right in any way (besides the 'right of Mao' one), they've even tried to distance themselves from nationalists since Charlottesville IIRC.

I can agree with that. Give him (and the feds) a few days, a week or even two weeks to do something, fully understand the situation so they can explain it to the public and then take appropriate action.

The worst outcome would be if nothing of substance is done. But I have faith Trump will not sit idle, he's already visiting Kenosha a week after Rittenhouse did his thing after all.

Not jumping to retaliation right away is the right move, I can agree to that after cooling my own head. Give Trump and the feds a week or two to act, see what they do or don't do.

But if nothing happens after a little while, I believe it will be clear that you cannot count on the official arms of justice for protection or, well, justice in the face of the left.

I'd advise you to suck your own dick, but I'm getting the impression you'd never be able to reach it.

Nothing wrong with a little caution in war, but too much and you enter the McClellan tier of uselessness. Do you know what they're saying about the guy who was shot? That this was a long time coming and hey, he's a fascist who deserved it. Now it is apparent that there is nothing you can do, including literally dying at their hand, that will stop the left from claiming you deserved it and casually moving along anyway.

And do you also know what the side that refuses to fight back as they're being shot down in the streets, backs down from public confrontation, refuses to do ANYTHING but shout at others 'don't do anything, we can beat them on election day' even though doing nothing has and will clearly embolden these people to go further and further - all the way to voter intimidation at the polls, as was the case in the Jim Crow South - is called?

The side that loses civil wars before they even get to fight.

Besides, the guy who died was reportedly a member of Patriot Prayer. They're Portland locals, that city was his as much as it was Antifa's. Intimidation and assault of local wrongthinkers is bad enough, but when it moves up to murder? That cannot fly in America, where freedom of speech and assembly is protected in the very first amendment, ahead of even the right to bear arms. Is Portland still an American city or not?

I pray that's the case. This - an unprovoked murder, nothing like the Kenosha case where Rittenhouse only fired in self-defense - is a real watershed moment, and speaking with the experience of someone born in a country that's still periodically riven by un-civil political unrest, if the feds don't get a handle on this quick it's almost certainly going to get real bloody real soon for real good reason.

I pray you're right.

A high-profile call-out from the leader of the country will help, first and foremost by shining a light on the incident for all the public to hear and (if done outside Twitter, where Dorsey can just delete the tweet and the media can pretend to not have seen it) force even the MSM to give it at least a few seconds' coverage.

I wasn't aware political affiliation, no matter how out-of-the-mainstream and 'extreme' it might be, is now grounds for being murdered without provocation in America. If it is, then there's even less reason to cry about the *two far-leftists killed and one wounded in Kenosha, surely.

Also, Antifa, BLM and the media have made a habit of calling anyone to the right of Friedrich Engels 'far right'. I have yet to hear of this 'Patriot Prayer' bunch do anything Klannish.

Trump tweets are always fun to read but uh, has he said anything about the murder of one of his supporters in Wheeler's city late last night/early this morning? Even a simple 'we've heard about it & are looking into it' would be nice, to put it mildly.

I'm seeing this just now, when I went to bed the news was still in a confused frenzy and nobody seemed to know if the victim was even dead, much less who he was and who killed him. It is critical that this remains up for as long as possible.

Unlikely at best, and more likely impossible, given who Portland's DA is and how permissive the city has been toward Antifa criminals even before he took office.

No, I believe this calls for more...direct means of retaliation.

Yes, I see now that it was a Trump supporter. Previously saw news about it right as I was going to hit the sheets, but it was all confused and nobody seemed to have known who died and who did it back then. It would also appear to be a completely unprovoked murder, unlike Rittenhouse's pure self-defense.

This, along with the Rittenhouse incident, still certainly represent a turning point IMO. The war with Antifa in the streets has fully heated up. Carrying to every rally, every counter-protest, and becoming much more willing to shoot and outright kill Antifa on sight at the first sign of trouble is now clearly necessary going forward.

Certainly. The way it had been timed and pitched earlier seemed purely reactionary to the then-totally-uncontested Floyd narrative and even a little panicky, though.

Totally understandable. In Blake's case, the police report on what happened just came out yesterday. It'll take some time to really sink in, but I believe Trump (or if he can't do it himself because of optics reasons, based allies such as Tucker) can accelerate that process by steadily and consistently pushing its contents onto the public.

Good work to & God bless everyone involved with this caravan. Show Antifa that they don't own those streets, and that Portland is still an American city.

My thoughts exactly. Trump referred to Floyd positively and walked the 'police reform' line back in May-June because, well, few knew what we now know about what happened there and public support for BLM was at a fervent peak, so doing otherwise would probably have been political suicide. But now, not only has Trump shaken up his campaign staff a while ago and taken a much more strident law-and-order line, but BLM is weakening and support for the protests/'''''protests''''' seems to be waning quickly, especially as more details about Rittenhouse's battle with BLM and Antifa come out.

I stand by the idea that Kenosha's a turning point and will soon enable, if it hasn't already, previously unthinkable direct attacks on BLM's formerly-near-untouchable image in the public sphere and on a mass scale.