Having been accused of being a perpetrator of fake news (Hey, the title “Fantasy Tale” should have been a tip off that the Trump press conference was not real.), I am calling your attention to the story below, which is true, as anyone who lives in the Washington area will confirm.
At 3:00 pm yesterday, Sunday, December 4, a 28-year old man from Salisbury, NC, armed with an assault weapon entered a popular pizza restaurant called Comet Ping Pong, few blocks from where we live. He pointed the weapon at an employee, who fled out the front door and called the police. At that time of day the restaurant was not crowded, and customers managed to flee before he started shooting up the place. It was a miracle that no one was shot. The owner of the restaurant had received hundreds of death threats during the preceding few weeks and had alerted the FBI and police. The owners of at least two other restaurants in that retail complex had received similar threats as had the owners of Politics and Prose, a popular independent book store.
Police arrived on the scene in minutes and arrested the guy. Additional weapons were found in the restaurant and in the suspect’s car.
The reason for the incident? He was merely following up on a widely viewed “news story” on the internet which documented that Hillary Clinton and her campaign manager were operating a child sex ring in the back room of the restaurant and in the underground tunnels connecting the various business establishments. He was doing his duty to investigate and bring justice. For the record, Michael Flynn, Trump’s nominee for national security advisor, and who earned an F on the Trump scorecard, has posted similar stories of Hillary being involved in pedophilia.
As whacky as this is, this is not an isolated incident. A couple of weeks ago a multi cultural Episcopal Church in the Washington area was vandalized with swastikas painted on the walls along with anti immigrant and racist slogans. Similar incidents have been reported throughout the Washington region since the election. Others we know who have lived and worked in the Washington region for many years, but are not documented, live in fear that come January 21, an armed deportation force will haul them off in the middle of the night.
Our 13 year-old goddaughter, who lives in Iowa, a few days ago returned home from school in tears because her classmates told her she was going to be deported now that Trump had been elected. She is adopted from China and a full American citizen.
The Southern Poverty Law Center documents these “hate incidents” and ten days following the election posted that 867 incidents had been reported, a much higher figure than would have been normal. That translates to almost 90 hate incidents a day, and the number appears to be on the rise. Take a look at their website for current information: splcenter.org.
Folks, these are early and frightening warning signs. Things could very quickly get out of hand. Our democracy and our civility are fragile. We tend to take both for granted. Trump with his tirades against “political correctness” and his anti immigrant and anti Muslim harangues has created an atmosphere where acting out in anti social and dangerous ways no longer carries the stigma that it should. We humans are herd animals. We tend to follow our leaders. We tend to do what is permissible within societal norms. When those norms change, behavior changes. We are entering unchartered waters in dangerous and very frightening times.
I share your fears Joe. It is a very sad and frightening time ahead.
And there are the reports this morning that the Trump call with Taiwan was intended to send a message to Chia. He said in a follow up tweet that China taxes USA imports but the USA does not tax imports from China, which is not true. Don’t get me wrong. I actually agree with Trump that companies that offshore jobs to China or other countries should face financial consequences when they try to then import those goods made overseas. But Trump needs to get his facts straight.
Now, Joe, here we have a topic that is right at the top of my list of existential threats to our country, namely, the ability to post ANYTHING on the internet with impunity. If I were a middle eastern hate group or any one of our other enemies that want to bring us down, I would start posting incendiary stuff designed to get us fighting each other and watch the US implode from the inside. Snopes and Truth or Fiction make a good living looking in to this sort of stuff. Of course some feel that Snopes itself is left wing and on the take, shooting down everything that attacks the left. I have no idea how to handle it, but something must be done to hold people accountable for the stuff they put on the internet.
As for the Flynn posting, is it an allegation or a documented FACT that he HIMSELF actually posted an accusation that HRC is involved in child sex trafficking? If it really is Flynn himself, THAT’S NEWS, and I would expect the news media to be in a world class feeding frenzy. Meanwhile, I am withholding judgement. Your post is the first I’ve heard of it.
I agree with your general assessment of Trump. His rhetoric and persona are bad, horrible for the country. His allegation of vote rigging is the worst, setting the stage for major civil unrest had he lost. If ever there were a time for the electoral college to change the putative result of the election it is now…, and then hunker down for the fury to follow.
Sorry about all the caps, but italics aren’t available on your blog.
The Flynn info was in the “Washington Post” today and not clear exactly what he did. The Post reported that “Even Michael Flynn…shared stories about another anti Clinton conspiracy theory involving pedophilia. None of them true.” So I may have jumped to conclusions about his posting on the Internet.
You are right about the fake news and the dark use of the internet. Big problem.
MSNBC had a segment on fake news and the Comet Ping Pong affair. I have still seen nothing about Flynn and his alleged accusations regarding HRC.
NY Times article says Flynn passed on such anti-Hillary accusations but does not accuse him of authoring them himself. As I told Joe in a separate communication, that’s a fine distinction, but not an insignificant one; and he certainly seems to be a “fire accelerant” himself, worthy of the failing grade Professor Howell gave him. I’ve never been sure that I could actually define the duties and responsibilities of a National Security Advisor, but it sounds like Mattis may be a buffer around Flynn. It also sounds like Flynn could prove to be an embarrassment, if such be possible with The Donald.
So now the AP is out with the story saying it was Flynn’s son, Flynn, jr., not Flynn himself that did the posting. If I were a journalist I’d forever be in hot water.