A victory for "Sovereign citizens" in Portland
The "Red House" standoff is teaching anti-government extremists how to get what they want.
After a summer of protests against police brutality and racial injustice across the United States - and nowhere more prevalent, and heated, than in Portland, Oregon - this story from Oregon Public Broadcasting about the “Red House” standoff explains a lot about why this eviction of an African-American family has become the latest cause celebre for that city’s activist community:
The Red House on Mississippi is an 1800s-era home that members of the Kinney family have owned since 1955. A website devoted to their eviction fight says the family came to Portland from Arkansas and bought the house in cash because Black families at the time were prevented from getting home loans. The neighborhood in North Portland was predominantly Black for generations, but in recent years has been developed and aggressively gentrified. Former residents of the area have hold stories of developers going door to door during the housing crisis offering stacks of cash for homes.
The Kinney family is one of the few remaining Black families that have been in the neighborhood since before the 2008 financial crisis.
[…]
Like many cities, Portland has seen extensive protests for racial justice this year. Protesters demonstrated against police brutality for more than 100 consecutive nights through the spring and summer. At times the protests drew thousands of people. While nightly demonstrations have ended, smaller groups of racial justice protesters are still active in the city.
Some of those demonstrators have rallied around the Kinney family and have camped near the home since September in an effort to prevent their eviction.
North Portland, where the Kinney home is located, also carries significance more broadly in the city. Black Portlanders have historically faced significant housing discrimination and segregationist policies that largely restricted them to buying homes in North and Northeast Portland. As the city grew into its current state, many of those same Black families were forced out of their homes by skyrocketing costs and other pressures of gentrification. Until recently, the Kinneys were a family who had survived those pressures in one of the whitest major cities in America.
Many protesters occupying the area around the home say Portland city leaders should try to preserve the Kinneys’ place in the neighborhood.
You actually have to get pretty deep into the story before the Kinneys’ decidedly interesting political beliefs are acknowledged:
The Kinney family never retained a lawyer. The family said is has struggled to find an attorney who would take its case. One family member, Nietzche, told OPB they contacted a number of attorneys and were turned down. Nietzche ended up representing the family himself.
Since the foreclosure, the family, still choosing to represent themselves, has filed lawsuits in Oregon state and federal courts. They lost repeatedly.
“If you look at the case in terms of what a just system would do versus what the law is doing to these people, it’s a stark difference,” said Jesse Merrithew, a Portland-based civil rights attorney.
Merrithew said he sees situations like this often when he reviews civil rights cases of prisoners who represent themselves in court.
“They try to make their arguments sound legal and that’s almost always a mistake,” he said. “And they end up filing things that aren’t following the rules the court has because they aren’t lawyers. For the lawyers on the other side, it’s really easy to just run circles around people who are doing that.”
Adding to the legal trouble, some of Nietzche’s court filings contain anti-government, sovereign citizen arguments that say he is not subject to U.S. law.
The sovereign citizen movement in the United States encompasses a wide array of beliefs but largely centers on false legal arguments that the federal government is illegitimate or doesn’t have jurisdiction over a person. The movement is often associated with militias and far-right groups, such as the Bundy family, but tax evaders and people with less political motivations have also used sovereign citizen arguments in court.
Nietzche’s filings point in particular to his belief in Moorish sovereign citizenship, an offshoot of the movement that grew in numbers in the mid-1990s, according to the Anti-Defamation League. It merges Black identity with sovereign citizen ideology.
Oh, that.
Of course, having some kooky beliefs doesn’t mean you should be thrown out of your house. But the Kinneys’ case looks much less sympathetic when you find out they’re basing their entire case around pseudo-legal, ahistorical babble. And when you find out they own another house not too far away. And when you find out about the animal abuse and general threatening craziness:
Kinney’s Facebook page, which was public until Thursday, included links to baseless QAnon-type claims and posts that referred to “the fall of the democratic deep state” and “the globalist agenda.” He made repeated and unexplained references to “treason and plot.”
Last week he posted an unfounded story about former President Barack Obama being charged with espionage and President-elect Joe Biden being placed under house arrest -- a link that Facebook labeled “false information.”
In a post last month, Kinney linked to a story about the closing of a chain of guitar stores, adding without explanation: “MOMMA THERE GO THOSE EXTRATERRITORIAL EFFECTS AGAIN...WE STOPPED THE FORECLOSURES!!! NOW IT’S TIME TO STOP THE TREASON AND PLOT!!! -WE THE PEOPLE ARE SOVEREIGN IMMUNE TO THE CORONA VIRUS.”
He also last month linked to a clip of conservative Fox News personality Laura Ingraham. The clip is labeled “global assault on your freedom exposed.” Kinney commented: “BIDEN IS BITING HIS TOUNGUE (sic) ABOUT THE GLOBALIST AGENDA!!!”
The commentary seems in marked contrast to the presumed political leanings of many of the protesters who have risen to back the family’s foreclosure cause.
In a rambling video posted to the family’s website, Kinney described how he and another man, Omar Jibri Brunson, attempted to take over an empty Multnomah County Circuit courtroom earlier this year for unspecified “international violations.”
[…]
Earlier this year, Kinney ordered Multnomah County Animal Services authorities off his property when they showed up to investigate a complaint about animal abuse.
County records show authorities were called to the Kinney home in March on an animal abuse complaint against Kinney.
The caller reported seeing Kinney abusing two Siberian husky puppies by hitting their heads and smacking them into the wall.
The caller said she could hear the dogs “howling all winter long.”
The report includes a warning for law enforcement that Kinney and others in the family consider themselves to be sovereign citizens “and should be considered armed and dangerous.”
When authorities went to the house, Kinney was “teetering on hysterical” and ordered the officials off his “tribal land.”
Kinney was served with a notice of infraction by Multnomah County Animal Services for physically mistreating the animals.
Extreme-left (and overwhelmingly white) anarchists blockading a neighborhood in support of African-American QAnon supporters. I think we just achieved peak Portland here.
Actually, this is peak Portland:
'Red House' standoff drawing to a close with 'agreement in principal'
[…]
There were signs of change over the weekend at the "Red House" on Mississippi Avenue in North Portland, as occupiers and supporters began bringing down barricades and cleaning up.
And on Monday Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler announced an "agreement in principal" between the previous owners and the developer who bought the property in foreclosure.
“The mayor’s office used words, not weapons, to advance the wellbeing and safety of the neighborhood by helping to facilitate this agreement," Wheeler said. "The Kinney family is waiting for legal advice and we've provided them with a list of attorneys they can use with the closure of this project. But my understanding is this is on track.”
The developer who bought the foreclosed property said he would consider selling the home back to the Kinney family, but the deal is far from done.
We’ve learned a valuable lesson here, which is that “sovereign citizen” ideology can work under the right circumstances. And Ted Wheeler, the very embodiment of the old joke about the liberal too timid to take his own side in an argument, acknowledges that this might encourage more such standoffs in the future:
Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler conceded Monday that protesters’ aura of success could lead to similar occupations over other home foreclosures — but said he hopes it doesn’t.
He was unable to offer assurances that his administration could prevent another such standoff, which gripped the city for days as Wheeler considered sending in police to break the blockade.
“I hope it is not an ongoing phenomenon,” Wheeler said. “Our objective is to protect lives and end the occupation. And nobody should take this as an invitation to do it anywhere else. The end result could turn out very differently.”
(Also, Thank God he was re-elected.)
Meanwhile, OPB notes that the people demonstrating in public would very much like you to refrain from reporting on it, or else:
Protesters have been regulating who can enter the area, banning anyone from taking photos or video, including pedestrians and neighbors out walking. Some have enforced that policy through violence, though most confrontations have been verbal.
One journalist was assaulted Tuesday while trying to enter the area. Protesters surrounded a TV crew from KATU with umbrellas to prevent them from filming. One protester grabbed a phone out of the hand of a KATU journalist, smashing it on the ground with their heel. When the journalist went to retrieve her phone, the protester stepped on her hand.
People who livestream video on social media are told to stand in a designated area, and they are prevented from walking around or livestreaming the inside of the barricade zone.
Control the images going out, and you control the story. Sovereign citizens (“freemen on the land” here in Canada) can’t win in a court of law, but Portland is teaching them how to win in the court of public opinion. Don’t be surprised if we see more of this in the coming years, and not just in Portlandia.
He…he…he literally had a TV show in which his catchphrase was “You’re Fired!”
Politico has the funniest story I’ve read all week, explaining how the political donations soon-to-be-ex-President Trump is collecting for the Georgia runoff elections are actually going into his own pocket:
President Donald Trump couldn’t make it any clearer: He needs his supporters to fork over cash for the all-important Georgia Senate runoff elections.
“We MUST defend Georgia from the Dems!” he wrote in one recent text message. “I need YOU to secure a WIN in Georgia,” he said in another. “Help us WIN both Senate races in Georgia & STOP Socialist Dems,” he pleaded a few days later.
There’s just one hitch: Trump’s new political machine is pocketing most of the dough — and the campaigns of the Georgia senators competing in the Jan. 5 races aren’t getting a cent.
Trump’s aggressive fundraising blitz appears to be devoted to helping the party defend Georgia’s two Senate seats and, with them, the Senate majority. But the fine print shows that most of the proceeds are going toward Trump’s newly launched PAC, which he plans to use to fund his future political activities. Only a fraction is going to the Republican National Committee, which is investing $20 million into the runoffs.
A stampede of political figures from both parties are emailing their donors with links to donate directly to the Georgia candidates, but the president is not among them.
Trump’s fundraising ploy has rankled senior Republicans, who worry small-dollar donations are being redirected away from the runoffs. The National Republican Senatorial Committee has reached out to the White House and RNC to express its concern and to question the decision, according to two people familiar with the discussions.
[…]
…Georgia Republicans are concerned that small donors may be deceived by Trump’s fundraising appeals. Givers who don’t read the fine print closely enough may think their dollars are going directly to Loeffler and Perdue when in fact it’s going to Trump.
“Money is speech, and if it can get to the right place it should be used. But if it’s going to [Trump's] leadership PAC and not being spent on the behalf of David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler I think that’s problematic,” said Martha Zoller, the chair of Georgia United Victory, a conservative super PAC that is planning to spend $6 million during the runoff.
A Trump campaign spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
Here’s my own comment for Republicans wondering why their hero won’t support them when they need it:
Honestly, the Trump campaign is kind of like the bad guys in Die Hard, pretending they’re political activists to cover up a heist.
Trump did get one thing right: they were never going to stop with statues of Confederate Generals.
Abraham Lincoln, an iconic American hero, could soon be an outcast in San Francisco, his legacy called into question and his name ripped off a high school.
Lincoln is one of dozens of historical figures who, according to a school district renaming committee, lived a life so stained with racism, oppression or human rights violations, they do not deserve to have their name on a school building.
[…]
To many, Abraham Lincoln was one of the country’s greatest presidents, the Great Emancipator, a beloved historic figure as well as political mentor to his successors, including Barack Obama, who used the Lincoln Bible for his inauguration.
Yet the renaming of Lincoln High School was a slam dunk for the committee, which didn’t even discuss it, according to video of the meetings. The members of the committee, appointed by the school board, deemed whether a person’s actions or beliefs met the criteria for renaming, and moved on. The committee’s spreadsheet with notes on their research listed the federal treatment of Native Americans during his administration as the reason.
“The discussion for Lincoln centered around his treatment of First Nation peoples, because that was offered first,” Jeffries said. “Once he met criteria in that way, we did not belabor the point.”
Jeffries, however, said the narrative of Lincoln’s legacy is false.
Regardless of the pop culture myths of Lincoln and his motivations, the Civil War was not fought over slavery or the liberation of Black people, he said.
“The history of Lincoln and Native Americans is complicated, not nearly as well known as that of the Civil War and slavery,” he said. “Lincoln, like the presidents before him and most after, did not show through policy or rhetoric that Black lives ever mattered to them outside of human capital and as casualties of wealth building.”
So, how do you think Mao High’s football team will do this year?
iMAGINE 425 INDIVIDUALS WHO THINK THEY CAN TELL YOU THE SOVEREIGN CITIZEN HOW,WHEN,WHERE, WHY,WHEN TO DO THINGS WHILE THEY GO PARTYING AND RUBBING THEMSELVES ALL OVER THEMSELVES IN THEIR LITTLE ITTY BITTY CUBICALS. THE RIOT AT THE CAPITAL SHOULD HAVE HAPPENED ALONG TIME AGO AND SHOULD HAVE BEEN BACKED BY A MILLION PEOPLE MARCH. WE NEED TO FORCIFULLY TAKE BACK OUR GOVERNMENT. WHY? FBI IS SOLD OUT TO CHINA. CHRIS RAY IS A CHINESE SPY. THAT IS WHY SOME OF OUR AGENTS ARE BEING UNMAKED IN PUBLIC. ALSO REP SWALWELL WHO IS ON THE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE HAS A SEXUAL RELATIONSHIP WITH A KNOWN ,KNOWN CHINESE SPY. SO YOU REALLY THINK VOTING WILL SOLVE THIS? NO ARMED FORCE AND TAKING OUR GOVERNMENT BACK BY FORCE IS. OH AND PELOSI DOES INSIDER TRADING TO BUY TESLA STOCK AND THEN BIDEN ANOUNCES THAT ALL CARS ARE GOING ELECTRIC AND HIS FAMILY BOUGHT MILLIONS OF TESLA STOCK ALSO. HMMMMMMMM. WE NEED TO DRAG ALL THOSE TRAITOERS OUT BY THE HAIR AND PUBLICALLY EXECUTE THEM FOR BEING TRAITORS AND SELLING OUR COUNTRY OUT TO THE CHINESE.
RED HOUSE IS BLACK LIVES MATTER AND ANTIFA GROUPS. THEY ARE NOT SOVEREIGN CITIZEN COMMITTEE MEMBERS. NO ONE FROM A SOVEREIGN CITIZEN GROUP IS VIOLENT UNLESS THEY THEMSELVES ARE THREATENED. YOU ALL NEED TO QUIT SPINNING THE SHIT