Now here is the dirty little secret that the protesters don't want anyone to know about.
Even the Grace Life Church pastor, James Coates, doesn't want them there and they are ignoring his requests not to come. 4/
Another video of the same discussion. 5/
What WOULD Jesus do, Kevin? 6/
And in addition to saying they have enough people to rush the police (though he "hopes" that it won't come to that), Kevin has something to say to Coates and others who don't want them there.
"Tough shit."
Sort of puts their narcissism into perspective eh? 7/
Johnston's attitude also reinforces the premise of the thread I tweeted earlier today. 8/
Much of the day has been boring, but things got a bit spicy when the idiots tore down the fence.
Members of the church put it back up. They were then attacked by the idiots who claim to be there to support them.
And even the idiots have started fighting amongst themselves.
I had been watching Johnston's feed. Of course there is the usual harassment of journalists and his grandiose claims of what he will do when he is mayor, but this is when things really went south. 14/
Let the KJJ boot licking commence! 15/
I sort of enjoy listening to KJJ getting screamed at by another extremist. 16/
And now for the conspiracy woo. 17/
And though he says there will be a time for violence, KJJ is called a coward for saying that it isn't now. 18/
And just to give everyone more of idea of the chaos at the end, here is a guy yelling at church members he was, ostensibly, there to support. 19/
I might mention that the Grace Life Church protest was a focus of the talk Johnston's live feed with Pat King and Derek Storie where Waco was invoked. 21/
The discussion was interesting in that they were ansty for some sort of confrontation. 22/
They shared rumours of what would be happening. 23/
Claimed the dreaded "antifa" would be there (in fact, there were no counterprotesters planning on attending). 24/
And they suggested that any violence that DID occur wouldn't be them. It would be a false flag. 25/
I mean, that's certainly convenient, eh? 26/
Apparently Ezra Levant approves of tearing down the fence if this tweet is any indication.
Mark Friesen not surprisingly suggests that the fence being taken down was as a result of agent provocateurs because they always disavow every act of violence they commit, blame others (or claim it is a false flag), so they can continue to claim they are peaceful. 29/
I had been watching the feeds looking for members of hate groups who said they would be participating in the protest. One of those was Steven Lane, founder and "president" (though perhaps no longer?) of the Urban Infidels. 30/
As I didn't see him I figured him to be a no-show.
However, a few minutes ago and after everyone else had left, Lane and a supporter arrived to... do something I guess? 31/
No words.
This is just pathetic and sad. 32/
As an aside, didn't a lot of the protesters claim they would be pitching tents and staying the night?
I guess a cold night can change one's commitment pretty fast. 33/
I wish that everyone can find a soulmate who will look at them like Kevin Johnston looks at himself. 34/
Apparently "Pastor" Artur Pawlowski believes that warnings not to trespass on indigenous land is a sin that leads to the bowels of Hell because, you know, completely normal response. 36/
Johnston's promised "live stream" occurred tonight in which he cried about people who said mean things to him. Nothing especially significant, though there were a few interesting things.
First, he is pro-violence ("last resort") and as mayor will allow people to cross arms. 37/
He continues his fever dream of arresting AHS workers, seizing their possessions, and painting a target on them for vigilantes to attack. 38/
And he whines about being assaulted, though given he accused the manager of a Dawson Creek grocery store of assaulting him because the man's face touched Johnston's fist, let's take that claim with a grain of salt. 39/
In fact, the lead up to the incident indicates he intended to harass the media and take photos of their faces for further harassment. 40/
And Humpty Dumpty falls down. 41/
Just going to put this right here for no reason in particular. 42/
On Monday the anti-mask, anti-vaccine, and anti-common health protocols moved to the legislature to continue their protest. Based on the video I saw, which included Max Bernier (of course), there were between 200 and 400 people. 1/17
Also present was Kevin Johnston who streamed the event on Instagram. Most of the speeches were boilerplate conspiracy woo so I won't bother repeating them. What was interesting was what happened as the event concluded. 2/17
We can look at this as another example of KJJ becoming increasingly unhinged having threatened AHS workers previously. I can be convinced that this is the case, but I hypothesize that there is something more deliberate. 3/17
During the 12 years I ran ARC, I always made an effort not to provide an uncritical platform for the people who I wrote about (usually using humour and mockery) as these people also craved attention and validation they believed that attention brought to them. 1/25
They hated being laughed at and shamed.
But there were always those who were shameless and sought any sort of attention. Those cases proved to be especially challenging. 2/25
One of those cases was, and continues to be, Kevin Johnston. An absolutely shameless self-promoter and liar, he seems to thrive on negative publicity. 3/25
In light of news that the @edmontonpolice don't have evidence to link the torch march to hatred (despite literally using imagery from a neo-Nazi torch march in Charlottesville) I thought I would do a bit of a deep dive into the Pawlowski brothers. 1/
FYI, this may be long and exceedingly boring for most people.
There will also be a great deal in this thread for which people will rightfully be very offended so please be warned. 2/
Artur Pawlowski again led a march, this time through Calgary (Feb 27), with torches claiming that there wasn't anything racist about it (again... they used the Charlottesville neo-Nazi torch march on their promotional material). 3/
Evidently there was another anti-mask rally in Calgary. As Artur Pawlowski is currently in Vancouver for the anti-mask rally set to occur there tomorrow I'm not sure how well attended today's event in Calgary was. 1/17
That said, yesterday's event was interesting in that it might have been the most overt example of the marriage of anti-mask/anti-lockdown/anti-vax conspiracies with the discredited sovereign citizen movement. 2/17
One of the keynote speakers was Christopher James Prichard, a "common law expert" from Burlington
@nolifeneet does a fantastic job of presenting who Prichard and directing his arguments here. 3/17
The organizers of the Edmonton torch rally claimed that the focus was on the lockdown and "persecution of Christian pastors" who refused to abide by bylaws 1/17
However they also had other targets. They attacked the "globalists", health professionals, science, the left in general and "antifa specifically", among others.
They also went after the media. 2/17
Journalist @BaileyNitti posted a clip of her collegues being harassed by Brad Carrigan, one of the organizers as well as Dawid Pawlowski whose bother Artur was the other organizer. 3/17