Conspiranoid claptrap & manipulative manifestos cloud narrative about El Paso & Dayton shootings

Unless you've been hiding under a rock, which these days doesn't seem to be a bad idea at all, you know about the mass shootings in the US over the weekend of August 3-4, 2019: the first in El Paso, Texas and the second in Dayton, Ohio. In other words: just another weekend in Trumpistan. And with those shootings have come another hundred rounds of conspiranoid babble to distract from the real problems of gun violence, right-wing extremism/hate-mongering, and, of course, "the Trump effect." Meanwhile, politicians, police, pundits, and the public are hyper-focused on manifestos and social media posts that raise far more questions than they answer.

Dueling conspiracy tales: pick one or both
From the moment that the stories of the shootings first broke, the fake news -- and I mean the actual fake news, not "fake news" by Trumpian definitions -- was out in force on the Interwebz. Rolling Stone published a pretty good summary on August 5, noting that toxic tongues on the right really commenced wagging when it came out that the Dayton shooter had appeared to be a leftist.

Based on these reported leftist bona fides, right-wing pundits immediately began speculating that the Dayton shooter was a member of antifa. But aside from a retweet of an antifa account, his Twitter does not contain any references to antifascist activity; nor did he appear to engage in any local antifa action, which would be expected in Dayton, an antifascist hotspot, says Emily Gorcenski, a far-right researcher and creator of First Vigil, which tracks far-right extremism in the United States. “Typically what we see is antifascist activists in they’re mostly focused on their local issues. The folks in Portland they talk about Portland; the folks in D.C. talk about D.C.,” says Gorcenski. “He didn’t talk about any antifascist activities.”

On the same day that the Rolling Stone piece was posted, BuzzFeed News published an article along the same lines, summarizing the disinfo and noting that it's part of an ongoing pattern.

During a breaking news situation, there’s often a scramble to understand what happened, and details can change as more information comes to light. But there’s little doubt that campaigns to misinform the public during a critical time are intentional and use similar tactics from year to year.

From what I've seen in my rudimentary research, there have been two main categories of conspiranoid codswallop regarding these two shootings. Neither narrative is in any way original. Some folks lean towards one, some folks prefer the other, some enthusiastically embrace both. In conspiracyville it's always a free-for-all. But like pretty much all conspiracy tales, what both of these have in common is that they are an expression of a stubborn refusal to accept anything that the mainstream news media report (Donald Trump seems to be making this phenomenon much worse and more widespread, though the problem precedes and transcends Trump). This utter refusal to accept the "official" story is generally accompanied by a fierce desire to turn every horrible event into a whodunit.

Theory 1: Antifa done it (per Alex Jones, Dan Patrick, and random Trumpsters (not to mention Trump himself))
I've blogged a bunch about conspiracy-porn purveyor and right-wingnut Alex Jones, who resides in my fair state of Texas but spreads his toxins all over the world via the Internet. He's pretty consistent and quite predictable with his responses to mass shootings, almost always declaring them to either be a false flag (to advance the interests of gun control advocates and other demonic liberals), or an outright hoax (for the same purposes as the alleged false flags), or both. Although he has gotten himself in a lot of legal hot water by mouthing off about the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre being a hoax, that hasn't stopped him from continuing to spew in the wake of subsequent mass shootings. (For that matter, his legal troubles apparently haven't stopped him (or possibly his legal team) from allegedly harassing some of the Sandy Hook parents.)

Jones did not disappoint when responding to the El Paso shooting, and in fact he and another right-wingnut and shame of the Lone Star State, Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, sounded a lot alike in their rhetoric, as noted in an August 4 piece on Media Matters. Not only had they often used language about immigrants of color that is similar to language used in a white-supremacist manifesto attributed to the El Paso gunman, but they also tried to use upcoming antifa protests in the city to derail the story of the shooting.

According to ABC News, the gunman told law enforcement after being taken into custody that “he wanted to shoot as many Mexicans as possible.”

But in the wake of the shooting, both Patrick and Jones pivoted to the boogeyman of “antifa” to distract from the obvious fact that the gunman was inspired by right-wing rhetoric about Latinos and immigration.

Even while media reports on the mass shooting remained hazy, Patrick called into Fox News on August 3 and said, “You know, I was looking at a story recently…where Antifa is posting, you know they want to come down to El Paso and do a 10-day siege. Clear message to Antifa: Stay out of El Paso.” Andy Ngo, an editor of right-wing website Quillette, has recently drawn attention to the upcoming anti-fascism protests, which call for the abolishment of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

Jones, who is based out of Austin, TX, pushed similar claims in a video posted to his Infowars website on August 4. After suggesting that the El Paso mass shooting was possibly a false flag attack carried out by leftists -- typical fare for Jones in the wake of violent tragedies -- the Infowars host suggested the shooting may have been staged to help the anti-fascism protests [video link is in the article ~ CC].

"Antifa" -- short for "anti-fascist" -- has become one of the favorite scapegoats of the right, ranking right up there with Black Lives Matter and George Soros. But "antifa" is not a unified organization, any more than Black Lives Matter is. And George Soros is neither the antichrist nor the universal funder of everything that the wingnuts claim he is. Antifa (and BLM, and Soros) are all just convenient scapegoats used by lazy or cynical right-wing conspiranoids who don't want to face up to real problems and threats -- in this case, the perennial problems of gun violence and racism (or possibly misogyny, in the case of the Ohio shooter).

None of these nuances and complexities have stopped the amateur analysts on social media from positing an antifa false-flag conspiracy behind both the Ohio and the Texas shootings, with some claiming to have predicted such a thing years ago, when the word "antifa" first popped up on their radar. According to some of these narratives, antifa, like suicide bombers, willingly sacrifice a few of their own to the greater cause.

Theory 2: The Deep State done it (per Mike "The Health Ranger" Adams and random Trumpsters)
I've also churned out tons of content about conspiracy peddler, alt-right ranter/Trump fan, and alt-health frauducts pusher Mike "The Health Ranger" Adams. Not surprisingly, Adams has expounded on the latest mass shootings, which he suggests are an FBI plot. Here's a link to the lunacy. Let's unpack it a bit.

Adams opens by claiming that the El Paso and Dayton shootings follow the pattern of "FBI terror plots" that he says were documented by the New York Times and the Kansas City Star as being created and carried out by FBI agents. He doesn't really do justice to his argument by citing stories from both of those papers about FBI mock terrorism drills. But he does attempt to bolster his premise by writing that the two shootings were initiated in the hours following the "bombshell revelation that the FBI conspired with Hillary Clinton and the Obama administration to destroy Clinton's email hard drives as a means to eliminate any evidence of Hillary Clinton's prosecutable crimes." The source for the claim about the "bombshell revelation" is an article on the rabid rightwing online mag, Frontpage, which links to no other external sources. Frontpage is listed on the Media Bias site as a questionable source with extreme-right bias. It has failed numerous fact checks and is a great promoter of conspiracy theories, particularly those involving Islam.

Adams continues:

Former FBI director James Comey is now known to have run multiple criminal schemes to illegally frame Trump administration officials while clearing Obama-era officials as part of a treasonous deep state plot to overthrow the United States of America, defeat President Trump and frame Trump supporters as domestic terrorists.

It now appears abundantly obvious that the FBI is the most prolific terrorist organization in America, and this fact has been confirmed by the New York Times. Under the treasonous command of Barack Obama and James Comey, the FBI was radicalized and weaponized into a treasonous crime syndicate that routinely plotted and carried out acts of terrorism against the United States of America, all while covering up the damning evidence of criminality and treason that should have sent Hillary Clinton to prison.

The FBI is running a massive, coordinated psyop on America. The goal is to demonize all Trump supporters, paint illegals aliens as victims and enraged [sic] the mind-controlled Left to the point of a mass armed insurrection led by Antifa terrorists (i.e. civil war). The deep state knows it is about to be exposed by Trump, Durham and William Barr, so it is running every “Hail Mary” operation imaginable to try to control the minds of the masses and depict Trump supporters as enemies of civil society.

All righty, then.

Just to show that he's really an on-the-ball, cutting-edge thinker who refuses to believe what the "fake news" media tell him, Mikey poses a list of "simple questions" that he claims blow apart the official accounts of the El Paso shooting. He acknowledges that the shooting was real, and that people really were shot and killed, but insists the narrative surrounding the tragedy is "almost all fiction."

Several of the questions Adams asks are based on dodgy premises, such as this one:

If the shooter is on a suicide mission, why does he bother to wear both eye protection and ear protection? Answer: Because he knows he will survive his “mission” and be taken into custody after surrendering to police. It wasn’t a suicide mission at all. Eighteen months from now, the world will have forgotten the name of the shooter, and the media will never report anything about him again. (He will likely be relocated under the witness protection program, living under a new identity after having completed his “mission” for the deep state.)

There's no indication that the El Paso shooter was actually on a suicide mission. The writer of the four-page manifesto (who may or may not have been the shooter) said he would most likely die in his efforts to take back his country from the "invaders," but he didn't express a desire to die, and in fact cautioned his fellow warriors against attacking well-armed opponents such as police. He said it was better to go for the low-hanging fruit -- unarmed immigrants, for instance -- so that one could live to fight another day.

Adams also takes issue with apparently contradictory early accounts of the number of shooters. But news media, always anxious to be Johnny-on-the-spot (or journo-on-the-spot) often get details wrong in the initial confusion surrounding an event like these shootings.

Adams also writes:

If you hate illegals and want to protect America, why would you mass murder Americans shopping in an American store? Wouldn’t you theoretically want to target illegal aliens if that’s who you want to destroy? Nearly all the people who were shot were Americans. It makes no sense to hate illegals and then turn around and mass murder Americans.

Well, now, that's either gaslighting, trolling, or just plain lack of comprehension. I would hate to think that Adams is actually as stupid as he thinks his readers are, because that would mean that I am making fun of stupid people, which isn't nice, not that this has ever stopped me. Anyway, the manifesto indicated a dislike of Hispanics regardless of whether or not they were US citizens. The shooter himself (who, again, may or may not be the person who wrote the manifesto) is reported to have told law enforcement that he was out to shoot as many "Mexicans" as possible. He seemed to have deliberately traveled to an area with a majority population of Hispanics, and to a store that was frequented not only by Hispanics who are US citizens but also by Mexican citizens traveling over the border to shop. Ethnicity rather than citizenship appeared to be the main criterion for the shooter.

Adams also expresses suspicion about a MyLife profile on the shooter that "leftists" supposedly changed from "Democrat" to "Republican/Trump supporter" etc. Here's the skinny on that. It appears that the suspect in the El Paso shooting didn't even have a profile on MyLife until one was created after the shooting, and then it appears that the public started playing games with the profile.

Adams concludes:

In summary, the official narrative doesn’t add up. In fact, it’s all a “staged violence” event which combines real violence with a fake narrative to achieve a specific political purpose. In this case, the goal is the complete disarmament of the American people, blaming Trump for everything and positioning illegals as “victims” of a mass shooting when, in reality, it was Americans who were actually shot.

Straw man, Mikey: nobody is positioning "illegals" as vics of the shooting. They're positioning innocent people of all ages, most of whom were Hispanic, as the victims of a shooter who could very well have been influenced by hateful anti-immigrant rhetoric. Big difference.

There's one thing that Adams got correct, though... well, sort of. I think he was right to be skeptical about both the provenance of the four-page manifesto widely attributed to the El Paso shooter, and its possible correlation to the actual shooting.

Forensic manifestering
That four-page manifesto, posted on the hate forum 8chan around the time of the El Paso shooting (but still, to my knowledge, not 100 percent proven to have actually been written by the man who is in custody for the shooting) has played a part in all of the journalistic coverage and online nattering about the incident, and certainly it has played a role in at least some of the conspiracy theories that are swirling around both the El Paso and the Dayton shootings.

As was the case with a 74-page manifesto, also posted on 8chan and widely attributed to the crazy who murdered 51 people in a couple of mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand this past March (but still, to my knowledge, not 100 percent proven to have actually been written by him), the four-page memo appears to express some ideologically contradictory views. On the one hand -- the right hand, let's call it -- both docs contain strong expressions of racism, xenophobia, white/European supremacy, and a desire to fight the "invasions" of non-white-European immigrants. On the other hand (okay, the left one), the writers seem to be upset about the destruction of the environment, as well as some of the misdeeds of big corporations.

Since this past weekend I have been involved in several lengthy discussions about this matter, mostly about the screed believed to have been written by the shooter in El Paso. These discussions have been fraught with political partisanship "from both sides."

Trump critics point to the blatant racism and xenophobia (in the El Paso case, the hatreds and fears around the so-called "Hispanic invasion" of America and particularly Texas). They point the finger of blame, at least in part, at Trump, for his own divisive rhetoric and policies that encourage these fears and hatreds.

Trump defenders triumphantly point to the gripes about the environment and corporate America, claiming that that these are proof that the document is largely a leftist/liberal/socialist message, and that therefore the El Paso shooter was motivated by leftism/liberalism/socialism. They claim that the "fake news" media have deliberately glossed over those aspects of the document in order to lay the blame at Trump's feet and advance a false narrative of racism and white supremacy.

Some stalwart Trump defenders have even declared that the manifesto -- especially in conjunction with the fact that (as mentioned above) the late shooter in Dayton had expressed Democratic, liberal, and even socialist political views -- offers proof of the wingnut assertion that "liberalism is a disease and socialism kills."

That's quite a stretch -- especially since the El Paso shooter has not, to my knowledge, described himself as a liberal or a leftist or a socialist. And if you'll pardon a momentary digression from my spiel about manifestos, to which I promise to return momentarily, the Ohio shooter, to whom no manifesto has been credited but who left a social media trail, had a long and troubled history that had nothing to do with politics. He was obsessed with violence and mass murders. As well, he sometimes claimed to "hear voices," he was troubled by "dark thoughts," his behavior indicated misogynistic tendencies, and he even infamously posted "hit lists" of high school classmates that he wanted to kill or rape.

Although his social media postings painted him as left-leaning (and, judging by one single tweet, an Elizabeth Warren supporter), police are at this time still trying to figure out a motive for the shooting. I personally think it had something to do with the shooter's long personal history of sick obsession with violence, combined with a twisted obsession for his sister, Megan, who was one of his victims -- but who, in a complicated twist, was apparently a transgender male who had taken on the name of Jordan Cofer, but who had not yet come out to his family or to most of his friends. I don't think that the sibling-dynamics aspect has been properly examined yet, but I assume that if there's a "there" there, it will all come out eventually. As of now, it is unclear whether or not the Dayton shooter knew about his sibling's gender issues, and it does not appear that he was motivated by transphobia.

It does appear that the "violent ideologies" angle that the FBI is now exploring as a possible motive aren't focused on antifa or leftist organizations or forums, but rather on forums and groups of so-called incel (involuntarily celibate) men, who personify the term "toxic masculinity" and can indeed be violent. But again, the true motive(s) for the Dayton shooting are still a mystery, to both investigators and probably most of the people who knew the late shooter.

Nevertheless Trump and various rightist ranters are now pointing fingers of blame for the Dayton shooting at Elizabeth Warren and the Democrats -- which at the very least is absurd false equivalency, since unlike Trump, neither Warren nor the Dems have been systematically and repeatedly spreading vile rhetoric that emboldens racists and xenophobes and violent actors in general. It isn't Warren or any Democratic presidential candidate who are constantly holding fascist-style rallies where impassioned throngs chant about a Muslim congresswoman, "Send her back!" or, in response to a question about how to handle illegal immigrants, yell, "Shoot 'em!" while Trump laughs. It isn't Warren or the Dems who encourage their supporters to beat up on protesters. The Dems and liberals are the ones speaking out against hatred and violence -- and against unfettered access to guns, for that matter.

In short, it isn't liberalism that's the disease and socialism that kills. It's hate that is both disease and killer, and these days it's far-right hatred more often than not. And hateful rhetoric (including Trump's) isn't blameless. Furthermore Trump's occasional attempts to ameliorate the effects of his hate-mongering not only sound insincere, but ignore the real problems.


Take those visits and photo-ops in Dayton and El Paso this past Wednesday, which seemed characteristically tone-deaf -- particularly the incident where he posed, grinning and thumbs-upping, as Melania cradled a two-month-old infant who had been orphaned in the El Paso shooting, and whose family brought the child back to the hospital for the meeting. In my view, the indecency of that moment with the infant and his family is only slightly mitigated by the fact that the child's uncle, Tito Anchondo, said that the child's late father was a Trump supporter, and that Tito himself wanted to have the meeting so he could talk to Trump and see if he was "genuine" in his condolences.

Speaking to NPR, Tito said that his family has always been Republican conservatives, and while he characterized some of Trump's comments as being "in bad taste" and said he could understand why people were linking Trump's anti-immigrant rhetoric to the xenophobic manifesto attributed to the gunman, he believes that overall the public is "misconstruing" the president's ideas. Sounds like faint praise to me, but maybe I'm just projecting. In any case, Tito apparently did not come to any firm conclusion about whether or not Trump's condolences were in fact "genuine."

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But let's get back to the manifestos. I could probably write several long posts refuting the argument that some seemingly "leftist" sentiments in both the four-page manifesto and the 74-page one prove that they are liberal/socialist docs, and that therefore the shooters who supposedly wrote them are leftists/liberals too. But that would be a waste of time on two levels. First, these manifestos are actually written to manipulate and to keep everyone guessing; it's just a form of entertainment for the sickos who write them (more on that below). Secondly, others have beat me to some specific refutations, so I'll just provide a few links.

I'll begin with the environmental issue, which is the big smoking gun, so to speak, that jumps out for right-wingers trying to pin the manifestos, and the shootings, on leftist/liberal/socialist influences. As this August 5 opinion piece on The Intercept site points out, environmental extremism actually exists on the right as well as the left. A genuine concern for the environment and for the human-fueled climate crisis should not be a partisan matter, but it has become one, and in the US is more commonly associated with "liberals," because "liberals" are the ones who are pushing initiatives to address the problems. And by and large environmental advocates and activists are not extremists, though left-leaning eco-extremists do of course exist. But right-wing eco-extremism -- eco-fascism, if you will -- is actually a thing too. From the Intercept article:

Against the perilous climate change denialism typical of U.S. conservatives, environmental decimation is broadly seen as a liberal and left concern. But eco-fascism has seen a notable reemergence among far-right groups and festering corners online in the U.S. and Europe. While campaigning for the European elections, Marine Le Pen of France’s far-right National Rally party promised to make the “first ecological civilization” of a “Europe of nations,” claiming that “nomadic” people with “no homeland” do not care about the environment. Neo-Nazi Richard Spencer wrote in a 2017 manifesto, “We have the potential to become nature’s steward or its destroyer.”

And corporation-bashing? Well, the writer of the manifesto attributed to the El Paso shooting seemed to be pissed off at American corporations not because they are capitalistic (which would be a gripe that you'd expect from a socialist), but because (1) they are replacing many human workers with automation, cutting down on the number of good jobs available (not an invalid complaint, actually); and (2) for many years they have taken advantage of cheap labor from undocumented immigrants (mostly Hispanic immigrants in Texas and several other states), and therefore are as culpable for the so-called "Hispanic invasion" as anyone else.

But one toxic and very clearly right-wing/white nationalist thread runs strongly through both the four-page and the 74-page manifestos, as well as similar messages on the hate forums: the "great replacement theory." This is the white nationalist article of faith -- so central that the writer of that 74-page document titled his work, "The Great Replacement" -- that insists leftist "elites" are plotting to repopulate majority white countries with foreigners, usually Muslims or Hispanics, in order to gain a political advantage.

This poisonous brew of hatred and fear has seeped from the fever swamps into the right-wing mainstream. In fact the Trump campaign is not above exploiting the theme for its own means, using the volatile word "invasion" as the focal point, as Trump himself has on numerous occasions in his speeches and tweets. The point is that the invasion/replacement tropes are a major theme, if not the main theme, of the hateful manifestos -- and that is not a leftist, liberal, or socialist construct.

But there is an even more important point that too many of us (me included) seem to have overlooked in all of our own passionate exchanges: manifestos lie. They're written by people who are just yanking our chains. I don't mean to suggest that the writers are actually open-minded, tolerant, love-filled liberals who are champions of diversity and equality. Quite the opposite seems to be true. But they are having fun at our expense, keeping the press, politicians, the public, and investigators guessing.

Whether you see the two screeds attributed to the New Zealand and the El Paso shooters as rabid rightism or lethal leftism, the important thing to know is that these documents and those like them are above all manipulative, and even if poorly written they are crafted to give maximum exposure to the loathsome ideas therein. For all practical purposes there is a formula for these missives.

They are often rambling and, as I noted above, appear to be espousing ideologically contradictory ideas, which prompts both amateur and professional forensic "investigators" to cherry-pick and assign blame to "the other side" -- but very often, that's exactly the point. The writers want attention. And discussions/arguments equal attention. Even if their ideas are presented in the harshest and most critical light... that's still attention.

Complete silence is not the answer; people deserve to know what may be going on in the background. But widely publishing the screeds in their entirety isn't the answer either. So journalists have to walk a fine line between informing the public and giving the writers (and possible actors) too much of that coveted attention. And I imagine that law enforcement officials and investigators have to be careful not to read too much -- or too little -- into the writings, especially if there is still some doubt about whether or not the writer of a given document was actually the person who committed a given violent crime.

Both the public and law enforcement have a need for clear answers; investigators want to close cases, of course, so that justice may be done, and people in general want an answer that somehow makes sense, even if it makes sense in a totally crazy way. That's why journalists as well as investigators -- not to mention the rest of us bewildered souls who are watching all of this unfold -- grasp for answers and often jump to conclusions. We need to be aware that the manifestos written by crazies are only a piece of the puzzle, and sometimes a deceptive one at that. Here's a cautionary note from Wired, published August 4.

There’s inherent danger in covering [the manifestos] at all, and even more so at face value.

“It’s not a good-faith document. It isn’t information that is sincerely offered. It is manipulation that is deliberately forwarded in the hopes that journalists will report it verbatim, will dissect it for days and weeks and months and years,” says [Syracuse University researcher Whitney] Phillips. “There’s an awareness of the audience, and that should make us very, very suspicious of anything that’s in those documents.”

It’s not that the alleged shooters are insincere in their hatred. But the contours of that hate are irrelevant, Phillips argues, and often for show.

Those cautions apply not only to the media, of course, but also to anyone who encounters these postings...

And here's a Vox piece, published just after the New Zealand shooting, that offers further insight into these manipulative manifestos. From that piece:

...it’s also worth mentioning that a lot of the document is akin to what’s known as “shitposting” — intentionally throwing out red-meat content to readers to distract them or draw them deeper into the same online pits where [the writer] himself was radicalized.

For example, the Christchurch shooter mentions a popular YouTube personality and a popular American right-wing figure before joking that he was radicalized in reality by the game Fortnite, which taught him to “floss on the corpses of my enemies” (flossing being a dance move that the game helped popularize.) He also describes himself as an expert in “gorilla warfare.” Many people reading the manifesto jumped on those mentions immediately, which is, as Robert Evans, a journalist and expert on far-right terror communication argued, exactly the point.

While “shitposting” is a common thread in far-right online culture — meme-ing racism and anti-Semitism is how white supremacists hope to spread their ideology — jokey characteristics of the manifesto are in line with similar language used in older far-right groups as well.

In short, everything in the Christchurch shooter’s manifesto is what the Christchurch shooter wants us to know about him. Like Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber who killed three people and injured 23 others in a nationwide bombing campaign from the 1970s to the 1990s, or even Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf, published in 1925, the point of these manifestos is not to be factual or realistic about the inner worlds of their authors. In Mein Kampf, Hitler portrays himself as a talented artist and lover of architecture. In Kaczynski’s manifesto, he portrays himself as a man profoundly concerned about the material problems of industrial society. Manifestos aren’t honest. Manifestos are for mass consumption.

But that doesn’t mean they aren’t useful for people who study terrorist movements, particularly white nationalism. Rather, connections between manifestos and the terrorists who write them — what they say, how they say it, and who they mention — tell us about the international flow of white nationalist ideology.

Yes. And not to belabor the point, but as Zak Cheney-Rice (apparently working under the assumption that the El Paso shooter did indeed author the 4-page document) wrote in the New York Intelligencer column on August 6:

Crusius’s motive seems clear and aligns neatly with its execution. But warnings have materialized since that suggest looking for meaning in the manifesto is folly. The online forum 8chan — which hosted both the Christchurch killer’s and Crusius’s alleged missives — has been written about extensively as an insular network fueled by in-jokes and obscure references aimed at an audience of fellow 8chan users. As such, the argument goes, attempts by journalists to extract a coherent political ideology from such documents are playing the killers’ game: incorrectly ascribing motives for their behavior to high-profile social or political entities, thus generating arguments and finger-pointing, and maximizing exposure for the perpetrators. “The first mistake people are making is to assume the creep meant anything he said in his manifesto,” tweeted Epoch Times columnist Brian Cates, in a series of posts to this effect amplified by conservative activist Candace Owens. “Part of the ‘fun’” for the Christchurch killer and his copycats, a group that Cates suggests includes Crusius, was “that they knew the authorities were going to treat his contradictory, absurd manifesto as if it were ‘real.’” Our new reality, Cates added, is “[mass] shootings done for ‘fun’ as the ultimate troll where these shitposters write confusing manifestos and then sit back [and] watch the fun as both sides claim he belongs to the other.”

That's something we all need to remember, no matter where we fall on the political spectrum. And I'm lecturing to myself as much as I am to anyone else.

Even so, it would be a huge mistake to underestimate the Trump effect and the larger issues of white-right terrorism and the re-emergence of fascism. And it's an even bigger mistake to give serious consideration to the cynically conspiranoid histrionics of Alex Jones or Mike Adams, or the equally cynical and blatantly political declarations of Dan Patrick, when trying to puzzle out why madmen go on rampages with high-powered weapons that they never should have been allowed to get their hands on in the first place.

* * * * *

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Thank you, Herr Drumpf

Watch this VICE News Episode from August 14, if you haven't already. Or watch it again.

Then tell me with a straight face that the counter-protesters (or "alt-left" or "anti-fa" or whatever you choose to call them) in Charlottesville, Virginia were morally equivalent to, and equally to blame as, those who were hosting this vile party.

And tell me again how your "president" is the president of all of the American people, and is blameless in this saga.


PS ~ On his blog, Rev Ron's Rants, my husband Ron Kaye offers a voice of peace and reason and sanity regarding the events of the day.

True Spanish lies: A scam in any tongue is still a scam

For some time I've been aware of -- and have blogged and Facebooked about -- the fact that certain Scamworld sociopaths in the US love to hate on "the illegals," by which, traditionally, they most often mean Hispanic/Latino immigrants from Mexico and Central America. More recently the hucksters have been hating on Syrian/Muslim immigrants as well, warning that the Muslims are taking over Europe, raping all the women in their path, and that the US is next -- but by no means have these vociferous xenophobes let "the Mexicans" off the hook. Some have been griping for years about the influx of undesirables from South of the border.

For instance, there's currently imprisoned serial scammer Kevin Trudeau, aka KT, aka Katie, who, as reported in this June 2011 Whirled post, came down hard on the "Mexicans" a few years ago. In November 2012 my pal Salty Droid also paid tribute to Katie's apparent racism (or at least Katie's pandering to racists, which is just as bad).

And on the Fourth of July, 2014 (cue patriotic music), former Trudeau b.f.f. and alt-health/cancer quack/fake doctor/conspiracy theorist/racist Leonard Coldwell, linking to the aggressively nativist NumbersUSA site, wrote about how he is proud to be "AND [sic] AMERICAN." He wrote that "they" (the New World Order and Obama and all enemies of freedom) "want to destroy our national pride, our way of life, our language and our culture by flooding us with these illegal immigrants." By "our" language I assume he means English, which he is doing quite an effective job of destroying on his own, but I digress.

More recently, LoonyC shared this on Facebook, linking to yet another article that attempts to indict all "illegals" for the crime committed by one. Obama is blamed too, of course; it wouldn't be a proper Loony rant (or in this case, Loony-approved rant) without vilification of our president.

 
Then of course there is GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump, and if you don't think he belongs in a discussion of Scamworld, read this. Apart from that whole "build a wall" shtick, Trump has made himself very not-loved by Latino voters by running off at the mouth about illegal "Mexican" immigrants being diseased criminals.

Here's a recent Facebook posting from the aforementioned Loony Coldwell, citing an article regarding yet another Trump tweet about "Mexicans."

Of course the scammers, including and perhaps especially Trump, mostly insist that they're not, not, NOT racist, and that they have nothing against "Mexicans." It's just those lazy, diseased, sexually predatory illegals they don't like. By way of proving that he's not racist and actually likes Mexicans, for instance, Kevin Trudeau said, back in 2011, that he admires Che Guevara and likes guacamole. Things haven't gotten any better since then. If anything they're worse, and If you call someone who's clearly racist out for being clearly racist, the least violent response you can expect is to be jeered at for being "politically correct" and a "libtard."

But for even the most racist scammer, one yuuuuge thing trumps (so to speak) white Western Euro-purity, and that one thing is, of course, money. And any scammer worth his or her salt has realized by now that the Spanish-speaking market is enormous and potentially very lucrative -- and damned if they're going to let a good cash op pass them by.

Accordingly, Kevin Trudeau's scampire has been peddling some of his info-frauducts in Spanish for years, both online and via infomercials. I'm sure the company currently handling those info-frauducts would gladly accept moneys from the undocumented, no questions asked. For that matter, I bet that Katie's legal defense fund would be similarly open-minded.

Leonard Coldwell, brave guardian of the English language and American culture, brags that his "mega bestselling" books are being translated into Spanish, but I'm guessing that he won't be demanding proof of citizenship status before taking money from those people who are helping to destroy said language and culture.

And despite his apparent racism, and the fact that he has shot himself in the foot business-wise with his racist remarks about Latinos, Donald Trump would gleefully welcome the Latino vote and has said he's confident he'll get it if he wins the nomination, because, he asserts, "Latinos love me".... though thousands of Latinos nationwide apparently disagree. (Illegal immigrants have no voting rights, despite what the wingnuts would have you believe.) Regarding "illegals," Trump has little room to speak, given his own business practices. And he knows as well as anyone else that if all illegal immigrants were suddenly deported, the US economy would implode.

Although there's no way of knowing for sure, I have little doubt that had Trump's more blatant Scamworldly enterprises such as Trump University and the Trump Network been longer-lived, those scams would have penetrated deeply into the Spanish-speaking market. As it is, Trump is currently dealing with a class action lawsuit over the alleged fraud that was Trump U, and he blamed the fact that the suit wasn't thrown out on the hostility of a "Spanish" judge.
 
[Update 29 May, 2016: Important development in the case of Drumpf and that "Spanish"/"Hispanic"/"Mexican judge.]

But as Salty Droid indicated in his posts about Trump U and Trump Network, linked to in the first sentence of the paragraph above the update (and you should read those posts, if you haven't already), Trump has proven himself to be a fan of network or multilevel marketing, or, as Salty put it, "the MLM fraud vortex of doom." Which is as good a way as any to segue into this point: If you think the MLM industry is sitting on its hands when there are potentially so many millions of Spanish-speaking victims to suck into that vortex, you simply haven't been paying attention.
 
Brown folks' money is just as green as white folks' money.
A long-running theme on Salty's blog is the destructive force that MLMs have been in the lives of so many people. I published a two-part guest post about the matter myself in December 2013. (Here's the link to Part 1.)

One of Salty's most frequent targets has been the mega-scam and pyramid scheme Herbalife, which he addresses yet again in his post of April 26.

I'm sure he'll have more to say about this subject soon, in light of his yet-to-be-completely-told tale of stowing away on a scammer sea cruise last fall, and of the recent release of a documentary about the Herbalife scam, Betting on Zero, which made its debut at the recent Tribeca Film festival. For the time being he has embedded a heartbreaking thirteen-minute bilingual video that poignantly demonstrates how a scam is still a scam, even in a loving tongue.



There is also a thriving Herbalife wannabe called 90 for Life, which is the unholy child, spawned in 2012, of Youngevity (founded by long-time frauduct peddler and former veterinarian Joel Wallach) and Livinity (founded by Barb and Dave Pitcock, who cut their huckster teeth with Kevin Trudeau back in the late 1990s). I've mentioned all of these folks on this Whirled previously, and here they are again. Loony Coldwell and his ex-bro Peter Wink were even involved in 90 for Life for a while, under the company name Coldwell Brothers LLC, until Loony blew his little balding top at Barb Pitcock some time in 2013, and that was that.

But more to the point here, 90 for Life, which peddles a large line of overpriced nutritional drinks and supplements and potions, launched its big Hispan-o-scam a couple of years ago, and front and center in that scheme was another longtime Katie bud (and frauduct/flopportunity peddler, Scamworld circle jerker mutual admiration society member, apparent xenophobe and Trump lover) Fred van Liew. who has also been mentioned here a few times.



"I am heavily invested in this project to open the door to the Huge Spanish speaking community throughout the world, as well as the US and Canada," said Fred in 2014. And here's a May 2015 upload of Spanish Financial Freedom with Dave & Barb Pitcock: "The most effective system for building wealth ever created."

I only recently found this upload and felt a need to join in the conversation, but so far it's just a monologue and not a conversation. I seem to run into that problem a lot. On the other hand, that particular video has only had 206 views at the time I'm writing this, so there's that.

But... if you've seen one scheme, you've seen 'em all. As Salty wrote in his April 26 post about Herbalife:

Everything they do :: everything they say :: everyone they hire … it’s all about perpetuating a lie that facilitates some of the world’s richest people str8 stealing from some of the world’s poorest people.

Every distributor I’ve investigated :: every lead generation method :: every retention method … everything … fucking all of it … lies

Yep, that about says it all. A good rule for financial, emotional and perhaps even physical survival is this: If some smirking, overfed huckster approaches you blathering about a new opportunity to realize the American dream... solo di no.

Some thoughts for Stupor Tuesday

"Donald Trump v the First Amendment" would actually be a better title for this post, since that's really the gist of it. As Trump has escalated his fight for freedom of (hateful) expression for himself and his frothing fan base -- and has lobbied against that same freedom for anti-Trump protesters and the journalists who have offended him over the decades -- I have added a few updates to this post since its initial publication on March 1, 2016, the original Stupor Tuesday. The stupor has deepened and spread since then.
~CC, March 17, 2016

 As I've mentioned a few times, this is not normally a political blog, though I'm not averse to donning my extra-thick boots and gas mask and wading into the quagmire on occasion, such as on this 2009 piece and, marginally, on my most recent post. But since this is a Very Big Day in US politics, and the November presidential election is very much at stake, I felt a need to post some more thoughts about the orange-haired blowfish and clown prince of American xenophobia and racisim, Donald J. Trump, while it is still legal to do so. And I am only being partly facetious about the legality matter, in light of Trump's recent declaration that he wants to "open up libel laws" in this country, to make it easier for him to sue people who say or write bad things about him, and even, possibly to make it easy for an unspecified "we" to "win a lot of money" in these lawsuits.



In that respect, it could be argued that Trump is actually building on a tradition that is reflected in everything from the Church of Scientology's Fair Game policies and practices, to the dirty but futile tactics clumsily employed by the stupidest man in Scamworld, Leonard Coldwell, who has both outrageously defamed and unsuccessfully sued his own critics. At any rate, in light of Trump's long litigious history where his critics and perceived "enemies" are concerned, his pompous declarations are not really very surprising.

Never mind that he'd probably have an uphill battle re the whole "libel law" thing; what's worrisome is the declaration itself -- along with the fact that so many of the TrumpChumps enthusiastically embrace the idea (apparently not realizing that if we'd been under such Draconian laws now, many of these idiots would be thrown under the jail for sedition because of the lies about, and violent threats they've perpetrated against, President Obama).

Fred van Liew, longtime friend and mentor of now-imprisoned serial scammer Kevin Trudeau, is a passionate Trump supporter. (If you don't mind a brief diversion, here's a January 2015 article where Fred defends Trudeau and says that Kevin made such good money as a used-car salesman because he knew that "most people are idiots"). Like so many other passionate Trump supporters, including the aforementioned Not-Doktor Coldwell, Fred seems to truly believe that Trump is the only hope to save America. And he appears to be supporting Trump's intentions to gut the First Amendment. 

On another recent Facebook thread, Fred described me as a blogger who is not above publishing slander and distortions in order to increase my readership. Not true at all, but to his credit, Fred (unlike Coldwell and even Trudeau) does allow the occasion dissenter to post on his Facebook threads, though I don't think this was always the case. On his Trump/libel thread I wrote the following (note: although the non-embedded Salty Droid links in the text were in my original post on the Facebook thread, I added the embedded links for the purpose of this blog post):

Trump's implied threats regarding libel law are the words of a tyrant, not a leader of the free world.

I say this as a blogger who has been sued by a public figure (not a politician but a deranged self-help/alt-health guru who also happens to be an ardent Trump supporter). He claimed that I knowingly published false and defamatory things about him (ironic, in light of the actual falsehoods he has published about ME, some of which do not enjoy First Amendment protection). The lawsuit was later dropped at his own lawyer's urging, perhaps because the lawyer realized that his client was indeed doing the very things I had (supposedly falsely) accused him of doing.

Although I know that some writers and even some organizations make a sport of deliberately publishing distortions and lies -- in fact , that is one of the bases of the Church of Scientology's "Fair Game" policy -- I have never knowingly published anything false about anyone. But I have published strong opinions based upon my subjects' very public words and actions, and their publicly advertised products and services. However I have always offered to correct or clarify or even retract inaccuracies when pointed out to me -- provided that I have reason enough to believe they are inaccurate or that my opinion was totally misguided.

In the US defamation is based upon KNOWINGLY uttering or publishing falsehoods about someone or something. That is as it should be. Do you really want to change this?

For months I have been expressing my fear that under a Trump presidency a new form of "political correctness" would emerge and that Trump (and his lackeys and loyal supporters) would attempt to chill criticism of Trump. This article and others seem to substantiate that fear.

Now, he could just be blowing smoke. But consider this: Trump has a long history of suing people who write or say things that he thinks make him look bad. Do you really want a president who is willing to gut the First Amendment, especially after winning over thousands by decrying "political correctness?"

Also consider all of the vicious, ugly, hateful lies that have been published about Obama. I support people's right to spread these ridiculous lies even though I disagree with them, because this is, after all, still supposed to be the Land of the Free.

I even support the right of someone who doesn't like me to publish a "Connie Schmidt Exposed as Big Pharma Whore" blog. This happened last year (although in fairness, I should say that guy is in Belgium, not the US).

Finally, there's a lot of stuff coming out now about Trump U because, as Fred pointed out, it is indeed election season. But at least one blogger (not I) was really on the ball and has been pointing out Trump's Scamworld creds for years. These two posts are from 2013:

http://saltydroid.info/donald-trumps-rich-dad-university/

http://saltydroid.info/trump-network-marketing-for-dummies/

And the issue about Trump U isn't really that he was using the word/concept "University" as a marketing tool. The core issue was that he was running a scam, and lots of folks did feel that they squandered money on it. Just like GIN ...

GIN, of course, is Kevin Trudeau's scammy brainchild, the Global Information Network, with which Fred van Liew was deeply involved back when Trudeau was at the helm. As you may know, I've written a lot about GIN on this blog over the past few years, but the post linked to at the end of the above text has a link to a document that explains exactly why GIN was such a big scam -- a pyramid scheme, to be more exact. So far Fred hasn't responded to that particular comment, but again, to his credit, he allowed it, so that's something.

But this is about Trump, not about Fred. And although I do realize that part of the complaint against Trump U did indeed center around the dodgy use of the word "University," that was far from the crux of the matter. (See PS below for a link to an article about the latest (as of this writing) court decision regarding Trump U.)

And just so you don't accuse me of being blinded my my own liberal bias -- which I fully acknowledge I possess -- here's something from a well-known old-school conservative, George Will, mulling over Trump's intentions to slash freedom of speech in the US.

And here is a good summary from The Federalist, regarding some of my own most pressing concerns about Trump. Of Trump's vows to tighten up on free speech, the author writes:

Freewheeling, raucous debate is an essential part of what makes democracy work. Having to look over your shoulder before criticizing a public official is exactly the kind of culture of suspicion and fear that the American Founders believed to be un-American.

And number 5, "Trump Is an American Fascist" really resonates with me.

The case against Trump, then, is that he is an autocrat in democrat’s clothing, a tyrant in the wings, a bully who admires the “strength” of tyrants and butchers, who finds a free press to be an inconvenience that he intends to tame with legal force once elected, a man who demonizes opponents and romanticizes violence, especially against minorities, who pines for the day when government could have its way with people without the trouble of constitutional law getting in the way.

In other words, Donald Trump is a fascist. Or, at least, as close to a fascist as America’s political culture is ever going to produce. As Wehner rightly said, Trump is “a demagogic figure who does not view himself as part of our constitutional system but rather as an alternative to it.” It is startling how few of the contributors to the National Review symposium—David Boaz and Ben Domenech excepted—got this right.

Some readers will dismiss my argument right off as alarmist nonsense. Trump is no Hitler, they say. Calling Trump a dangerous autocrat and quasi-fascist only shows how paranoid and unhinged I and other Trump critics have become.

Maybe. But you don’t have to go full Hitler to be a danger to the culture of a free society. Most dictators in history, in fact, have not stooped to Hitlerian levels of barbarism and madness.

For those who think "it can't happen here"... well, don't be so sure. My pal Shel Horowitz at the Green and Profitable blog made some good points on this January 2016 post.

It will come as no surprise to regular readers of this blog that, apart from his apparent tyrannical leanings, one of my main objections against Trump has been his Scamworld connections. As usual Salty Droid was way ahead of the curve here; see the two blog posts linked to my Facebook comment, quoted above.

As I'm getting ready to publish this post, Stupor Tuesday is winding down, with the polls in my state set to close in less than 15 minutes. At this point I have little doubt that Trump will come out ahead of the other loathsome autocrats/plutocrats/theocrats in his party, at least nationwide, but for now, if you haven't done so already, enjoy John Oliver's brilliant takedown of Donald "Drumpf."* Watch it while you still can.




* Drumpf, as many now know, was the former Trump family name, changed by his German immigrant grandpa, so it was never Donald's own legal surname. (And speaking of toxic, racist German immigrants who felt it necessary to change their name...)

PS ~ This won't make much difference to Trump's faithful followers, especially those who are scammers or wannabes in their own right (some of them that I know of have heartily condemned Kevin Trudeau as a scammer but they can't see that their political idol is an even worse one)... but it appears that the lawsuit against Trump U is going forward. Here is a direct link to the decision.

PPS added March 15, 2016: Well, here we are on yet another Very Important Tuesday, and I'm not just talking about the Ides of March, a day on which we can celebrate the entertaining ways that various political players who are now supposed to be allies continue to stab each other in the back (Carson stabs Trump while Trump stabs Christie). I am also referring to the fact that it is "Mega Tuesday,"  and some Very Important States are at stake.

Meanwhile, in news that is especially pertinent to this blog post, information continues to emerge about Trump's attempts to stifle free speech. The non-disparagement clause that even his lowliest volunteers are reportedly having to sign probably wouldn't hold up in court, but isn't the fact that he is going to such lengths to stifle criticism more than a little scary? You think that "political correctness" is cramping your style? Try living in a country ruled by "Trump correctness." Also see this piece on Salon.com regarding the right's hypocrisy/double standard regarding Trump protesters. Now get out there and vote, if you're in a state where that's happening.

Addendum March 16, 2016: Mother Jones speaks out about Donald Trump's "media enemies list, once again demonstrating that Trump = cowardice plus tyranny in one loud, smirking, bloated orange package. The MoJo piece is an important read from one of the media on Trump's enemies list. And yes, I know that MoJo is a "liberal" outlet, but for those of you who claim to care about the Constitution, doesn't this raise any red flags to ANY of you? What about you Trumpsters who support your candidate because you say he is fearless? Or you who have been screaming about President Barack Obama's supposed "tyranny?" Or you who are hollering that Trump's -- and your own -- rights to "free speech" are being trampled by "political correctness" or Obama or "libtards" or Black Lives Matter or Muslims or the New World Order or anyone else on your imaginary "enemies" list?

Hello?

Whether or not one agrees with the Trump/Hitler comparisons (and the head of the Anti-Defamation League, Jonathan Greenblatt, does not, for several reasons), Trump has so far shown us a pretty scary and potentially tyrannical aspect to his demagoguery. His attempts to control the media around him, in an effort to quash criticism of him, are quite telling and an indication of what he is capable of. I can envision even harsher efforts should he be elected. He might frame his efforts as an attempt to restore respect to the office of the presidency, a respect that he will of course say was destroyed by Obama.

But however you look at it, the elements for a prospective Trump dictatorship seem to be present, even without genocide or work camps or a "final solution," as this September 2015 piece, framed around a retrospective look at Sinclair Lewis' classic 1930s novel It Can't Happen Here, so eloquently insinuates. And even though he may not be actively advocating things such as pro-Trump militias to "protect" his fan base from those evil protesters, Trump hasn't condemned them either. So the Lyin' Guard marches on even as Trump is quite clearly going overboard in an attempt to control the conversation about him -- bringing to mind everything from Scientology's efforts to shield its members from external influences, to Kevin Trudeau's infamous "rats in your head" admonition regarding critics (an admonition still being embraced by GIN loyalists). Turds of a feather...