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The guardian reports on a sobering event in Washington DC.
US police have arrested a man wielding an assault rifle who entered a pizza restaurant that was the target of fake news reports it was operating a child abuse ring led by Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and her top campaign aide.
[...] The suspect entered the restaurant and pointed a gun at a restaurant employee, who fled and notified authorities, police said. The man then discharged the weapon inside the restaurant. There were no injuries.
[...] [Police] said the suspect during an interview with investigators revealed that he came to the establishment to "self-investigate" Pizzagate, the police statement said. Pizzagate is a baseless conspiracy, which falsely claims Clinton and her campaign chief John Podesta were running a child sex ring from the restaurant's backrooms.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by VLM on Tuesday December 06 2016, @12:52PM
https://dcpizzagate.wordpress.com/ [wordpress.com]
Its at the stage of something really weird being covered up. What exactly, well, thats unclear. Sure is an enormous pile of coincidences and the response from "the usual suspects" to censor it has been way over the top compared to other "weird events". Therefore its almost certainly got a grain of truth in there somewhere.
(Score: 5, Touché) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday December 06 2016, @01:08PM
Thanks very much for that link, which I found totally useful and informative and not at all wacko tinfoil-pants-on-head the-reptilons-are-feeding-on-my-dreams internet conspiracy theory loon crazy.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @01:17PM
When he posts such simple and glaringly obvious bullshit like that as if it were legitimate it gives me great comfort.
That's because it confirms just how untethered the guy is from reality. How all his long racist and reactionary posts, despite being well-formed with good syntax, really are the product of a defective mind suffering from a severe reality-gap.
Unfortunately, what makes me fear for the future is that it seems like mental defectives like himself are on the rise. Looks like Reagan's legacy of deinstitutionalization is really beginning to wreck havoc on our society. Its enough to erode my belief in democracy. I still think the alternative is worse, but democracy is looking a lot less good nowadays.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @06:13PM
I seem to recall that one of the Founding Fathers said that an educated and well-informed citizenry is essential for democracy to work. Unfortunately, VLM and all his other conspiracy-theory loving buddies are showing, in a negative sense, exactly why this is so true.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday December 06 2016, @07:42PM
Looks like Reagan's legacy of deinstitutionalization is really beginning to wreck havoc on our society.
Because ridiculously growing medical costs wouldn't have done it anyway.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 06 2016, @01:58PM
You didn't even try to verify one fact, did you? Just jumped right to assuming it was wrong because it sounded crazy, didn't you? You'd think you'd know better after Snowden.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @02:11PM
Citing snowden is the biggest cop-out ever.
For every snowden there are literally a million conspiracies that are not true.
I am especially reminded of the completely made-up satanic ritual abuse [wikipedia.org] hysteria that ruined a lot of lives.
Pizzagate is just more bitch-hunt logic. Hillary's a satan worshipping pedo so anything that 'proves' it is true, anything that does not is irrelevant.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 06 2016, @06:28PM
I see you've made up your mind on something you can neither prove nor disprove. In the words of Dean Yeager: Your theories are the worst kind of popular tripe, your methods are sloppy, and your conclusions are highly questionable. You are a poor scientist, Anonymous Coward.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @07:20PM
> I see you've made up your mind on something you can neither prove nor disprove.
Lolwut?
Are you talking about yourself?
Because damn, that's some hardcore denialism on your part.
It could be true. Anything could be true. Its pretty revealing to go through this thread and tally up all the people who are arguing in support of this conspiracy theory. What is the common thread here? Bitch-hunt.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday December 07 2016, @11:59AM
Undoubtedly, but in the end if she weighs the same as a duck...
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday December 06 2016, @03:15PM
Not a lot to verify, to be honest, there's just a bunch of circumstantial and often tenuous connections pulled in from all sorts of different directions. Even if we were to assume that all the individual pieces of information are true, there's not enough holding it all together to give it any credit. It's Dan Brown stuff, where if you pick the right sequence of words or letters out of the bible you can get it to quote the free software manifesto, Mein Kampf or the script to the Star Wars holiday special.
"As we can see, Trump is wearing a RED tie. Now RED is a colour often associated with communism, including such organisations as the USSR (Or, in Russian, the CCCP). Now, throughout his career Trump has had dealings with an organisation called the Casino Control Commission, or the CCC. In the 1980s, a prominent member of the Pennsylvania branch of this organisation, or the CCCP..."
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 06 2016, @06:20PM
S'what I'm saying. Don't assume. Check into it yourself.
Right at this moment, there's not a serious case by my digging but I was anything but thorough. I'm neither giving them the benefit of the doubt nor withholding it, which is where any intellectually honest person should be at this point.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 07 2016, @01:38AM
I find that there is just enough circumstantial evidence there to warrant suspicion. It's certainly not enough to justify the conclusion given, but it's not as contrived as your analogies make it out to be either. I'm not saying all the conclusions are necessarily solid, but the pizza emails are reasonable evidence that there could be something amiss there, even if it's just drugs and hookers.
Just because someone has an an elaborate conspiracy theory doesn't mean there isn't a conspiracy.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @03:42PM
You didn't even try to verify one fact, did you?
You mean the pictures and "pedophilia symbology" and satanic symbology? I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that they aren't photoshoped.
The use of fucking triangles in a logo for a pizza place or a heart in a logo for a nearby charity that campaigns against child slavery is almost too much of a coincidence to deny.
I'm incredibly disappointed that the level of evidence is on the level of "folded 20 dollar bills predicted 9/11". I admit that I may have missed the really damning evidence, since I only looked through 3/4 of the page (Oh noes! A child sitting on Obama's lap at the white house).
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 06 2016, @06:16PM
You're not interested in the truth? That's fine. Go ahead on with your rose-colored glasses. Don't look for verifiable facts in the story and try to prove or disprove it. Just write it off. It's what we expect of partisan fools.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Tuesday December 06 2016, @07:27PM
In discussions like this, I recall a quotation I first learned on Night Court from Judge Harry T. Stone: "I try to keep an open mind, but not so open that my brains fall out."
The quote didn't originate on TV (and apparently has a long history [skeptic.com]), but I think it's apt when confronted with conspiracy theories that make all sorts of claims, most of which are provably false (and conveniently discarded from the theory after they are demonstrated to be so), and the rest of which have no hard evidence to support them.
People want to see patterns in random data, casting off any inconvenient bits of information that don't fit the pattern. We even have terms like apophenia [wikipedia.org] to describe this fundamental cognitive bias.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday December 07 2016, @11:58AM
If a significant portion of the claims were actually provably false, I'd agree with you. Mostly though it's supposition and evidence that, while provably true, is highly circumstantial.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @08:34PM
I believe that you are an intelligent person and it seems like you are genuine in your belief in some of the conclusions from that dcpizzagate site. You mention that "there's not a serious case" but that you perceive some sort of pattern from what is presented that seems fishy.
From what I've read on the site, the data that they present is not convincing and the emotional way they interpret the data hurts their credibility in my eyes. I'm used to scientific data (so my standards may be too high) but pictures of a Biden-Obama friendship bracelet, pictures of satan, pictures of logos next to "pedophilia symbology", random social media shit, and coded emails with secret messages involving handkerchiefs does not rate very high on an objective scale.
If you have time, could you write a journal where you point to the specific data that is more convincing?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday December 07 2016, @11:55AM
I could but I think it's a case of you evaluating the same data and finding it slightly less indicative of "something going on" than I do. Also, we're currently pushing hard on getting site code tuned up to where it doesn't take a dozen seconds or more to render heavily commented stories and that just ranks higher in my list of interesting/important things right now.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 07 2016, @03:04PM
I hope some more conclusive data arises one way or the other.
The problem is that, while there is obvious physical evidence and testimony that could help prove a child sex ring, I can't think of evidence that would help prove the negative. Negative witness testimony would be unreliable (due to possible coercion) and "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence".
Thanks for responding and I also appreciate what you do for this site.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday December 06 2016, @02:12PM
Just for fun, soak in the ambiance and look at the anecdotes while totally ignoring the narrative. That alone is kinda interesting and entertaining.
Wait, WTF, look at that weird "art" and who owns it, holy crap. Don't pay attention to the narrative that its a trophy or re-enactment of what so and so did to some kid, or some kind of self help therapy to work thru what someone did to them in their own childhood, just look at the facts or pix. There's some interesting, crazy stuff going on even if the narrative is completely wrong.
Its like reading some of the Greek classics from 2500 years ago with a very secular or at least non-pagan eye. Yeah yeah I'm not very interested in the God Apollo willed it or WTF narrative, you can kinda skim past that stuff, but its an enjoyable pile of anecdotes and events anyway. I wouldn't rely on Herodotus as a primary text for veterinary school, for example, but he tells a hell of an interesting story anyway.
Now after enjoying the facts and anecdotes and "the scene" in general think up your own narrative and see if it matches anything you heard recently.
Or another analogy, think of it like a travelogue book about an interesting, weird, foreign land. I'm not asking you to move there permanently or asking you to convert to pre-islamic egyptian religion, but just look at those pyramids and WTF about them for a bit. Impressive, aren't they? No need to convert to "UFOs made them conspiracy theory" to be impressed. You don't have to worship Ankenaton or Ma'at or egyptian cats or whatever to look at the pyramids and WTF about them a bit. I suppose if you do convert, then looking at the pyramids is even cooler, but whatever.
Its really a no lose situation. The anecdotes and events are entertaining enough in themselves that even if you don't convert religions and become a priest of the God Apollo, or a true believer in pizzagate, its still fun to look at.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday December 06 2016, @11:16PM
The email cited is on Wikileaks and it does say that. There is, apparently, such a thing as a "hanky code" (learn something new every day). That the emails were coded talk about pedophilia is not clear. Possible, but not established. I say possible because I'm a freemason and we employ coded language and symbols to communicate in the open. Not established, because it's highly circumstantial and means nothing without real evidence.
FWIW, I never saw, heard, or picked up on anything that connected the Clintons to pedophilia. It's also not necessary to know that they're bad people. Have we really arrived at a discursive space where somebody's really not all that bad until you can prove they're a pedophile?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday December 06 2016, @11:23PM
> Have we really arrived at a discursive space where somebody's really not all that bad until you can prove they're a pedophile?
I'd like to think we're in a place where we don't call people pedophiles until you can prove they're a pedophile...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Serial_Priest on Tuesday December 06 2016, @01:11PM
Another summary of the suspicious circumstances that draws parallels to past child abuse and trafficking cases may be found here: http://www.counter-currents.com/2016/12/pizzagate/ [counter-currents.com]
There is a fair bit of confirmation bias in the evaluation of the Podesta emails, but there is also a lot of smoke.
What seems unambiguous is that Comet Pizza is uncharacteristically well-connected and influential in elite circles and that most involved have a taste for sexually suggestive artwork and music involving children and simulated child abuse.
(Related - as a DC resident I can confirm that a significant number of people in government/finance are involved in sexual degeneracy and thrill-seeking, and there are generally rumors of children being "available" though I've never seen confirmation.)
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Tuesday December 06 2016, @01:52PM
most involved have a taste for sexually suggestive artwork and music involving children and simulated child abuse.
Some of the "art" stuff the owner of the CP restaurant and Podesta's family publicly admits to owning don't even bat an eye in DC but would be probable cause for a CP warrant anywhere else. Which leads to the puzzle of how much of the massive over the top backlash is due to actually covering up a CP ring or abuse ring and how much is merely a PR exercise in that they're guilty of nothing other than being utter sexual degenerates which probably sells very well in DC and certain "urban areas" but not so well in 99% of the country.
The situation is nearly perfectly analogous to the Marilyn Monroe/JFK situation. Probably JFK or the SS did not kill her and had nothing to do with her death. However in the short run any discussion of that conspiracy had to be almost violently suppressed (maybe was violently suppressed?) because no one knew JFK was going to be assassinated (well, thats another topic) and he was secretly fucking her brains out on a regular basis which if that got out at that time, probably wouldn't help his re-election campaign, so the whole murder conspiracy thing had to be stomped on which meant it must have been true given the extreme reaction. Now that his sex life with her is public knowledge and not controversial as an accepted fact, nobody gives a shit about loony conspiracy theories so they naturally die out. JFK was basically the behavior prototype of Bill Clinton, except he never got shot and some of the chicks didn't enjoy his company (he must not be very good, or not as good as JFK was) leading to rape allegations the morning after etc.
Likewise there's something going on at high levels in the D party that is probably not illegal CP or abuse, but there is a possible story lead about something legal or semi legal where Huma and/or her estranged husband are having group recreational activities "rug munching" or whatever with bill and hillary, or the podestas and/or the people running the pizzeria have some kind of mental issue where they love children in an inappropriate way, although they've never acted on their urges beyond buying disgusting "art" that if it didn't come from famous and well connected progressive "artists" would get incinerated as the CP that it is. I'd say given the over the top censorship reaction there's about 100% odds there's something disgusting but legal going on leading to massive censorship overreaction against the conspiracy. Its not illegal if Huma and Hillary find each others companionship to be highly satisfying but it would make an uncomfortable TV infotainment scandal show headline.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Tuesday December 06 2016, @06:02PM
In the end, your 'best case scenario' is probably closest to the truth. My problem with the whole hog satanic pedo ring theory is logistics. Where do they get all the kids and where do they dispose of the bodies? No way you have recognizable world leaders buggering kids and letting them live to testify so they would have to be sacrificing them to Satan and disposing of a lot of bodies. That makes for a lot of moving parts in an operation that would have had to have been operating for decades right in the heart of every Western Capital.
Of course if we really want to think dark, Pedo rings HAVE been turning up in the heart of Western Civ for some time now. Norway just broke one up involving elected officials. And isn't it interesting how little international coverage it got. The BBC comes to mind. The Madeleine McCann incident is really spooky, that wanted poster really does resemble the Podestas and Weiner, who really (still not as certain about Weiner and 'his' police sketch isn't as close a fit) were in the area at the time and they really were staying with a guy who was just arrested on pedo charges. Juts how much circumstantial evidence does #pizzagate need to dig before we have to say there is some fire inside the cloud of smoke.
All of which leads to the inescapable conclusion that whether it is true or not we will never be told. Trump might quietly clean it up, but there would be no public mention. If true this story would throw society into an upheaval far worse than if saucers landed on the White House lawn.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday December 06 2016, @07:09PM
Not disagreeing with any of that, but the logistics are a lot simpler if its one kid per lifetime "initiation" or whatever rather than one kid every friday night with a large pepperoni with extra sausage. Might explain the weird art. Looking at art rather than doing. One kid every new years celebration perhaps for the whole coven or whatever they'd call themselves.
Something interesting to think about is they have a congressional page system to provide a steady stream of high school kids. Maybe they're a little old for their tastes such that the artwork leans young in reaction.
Probably going to turn out like the spirit cooking thing, which interestingly is mostly the same people. Are they actually opening gates to hell and eating human flesh, well, it seems not, merely symbolically (which is almost as bad, and for PR reasons almost seems worse).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @11:38PM
> Probably going to turn out like the spirit cooking thing,
You mean a big bunch of nothing?
“just a normal menu, which I call spirit cooking. There was no blood, no anything else. We just call things funny names, that’s all,”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2016/11/04/no-john-podesta-didnt-drink-bodily-fluids-at-a-secret-satanist-dinner/ [washingtonpost.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 07 2016, @02:01AM
https://sli.mg/a/mdv0hG
Explain that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 07 2016, @04:37AM
You seem unfamiliar with the concept of performance art.
Which. I am sure, the artist would take great pleasure in.
Not unlike when an author of a fake news story finds someone who took it at face value.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday December 06 2016, @11:30PM
And Bill Cosby was drugging and raping women for years. Not just anonymous women, but women with clout. The dude was the poster child for family values in the 80's. His show and his comedy were wholesome entertainment.
The Belgian politician Marc Dutroux had a pedophilia operation going for years.
Just to add a couple more examples. There is too much precedence now to dismiss allegations out of hand. People in power often commit ghastly crimes.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @11:53PM
Ugh. Base rate fallacy for the fail.
Just because there are a handful of high profile cases out of a population of tens, if not hundreds of thousands, does not validate something outlandish supported by nothing more than coincidence.
The cosby case was well known long before it broke in the public, even had been to court and settled with previous victims more than a decade prior.
And Dutroux was not a politician. He was a damn car thief who had been in and out of prison and liked to tell tall tales that were completely unsupported by evidence.
Come on man, get a grip on reality.
(Score: 2) by wisnoskij on Tuesday December 06 2016, @02:39PM
This. Some of the people drawing conclusions and parallels are either alien conspiracy stupid or paid to cloud the issue. But their are serious questions that should be answered.
Did Obama actually pay a hundred thousand dollars to get hot-dogs shipped in from Chicago? I had heard at one point that the White House does not allow outside catering, which makes sense from a security perspective (is this true)?
Their are a series of other similar questions, like does John Podesta actually own a secret hot dog stand in Hawaii, and why?
Why do a whole bunch of diverse elites seem to worship (???presumably tongue in cheek???) some sort of satanic old world god of child sacrifice?
Why are paintings of child torture and sexual abuse legal, and why is anyone is the public spotlight willing to be friends with people who make and collect that sick shit?
What is with the Lolita Express? Is that a conspiracy theory, or does it legit exist and have the Clinton's taken rides on it?
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday December 06 2016, @03:18PM
Did Obama actually pay a hundred thousand dollars to get hot-dogs shipped in from Chicago? I had heard at one point that the White House does not allow outside catering, which makes sense from a security perspective (is this true)?
Their are a series of other similar questions, like does John Podesta actually own a secret hot dog stand in Hawaii, and why?
If they're using their own money, who the fuck cares?
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @09:45PM
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday December 06 2016, @10:18PM
Use your words
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by jimtheowl on Tuesday December 06 2016, @06:10PM
(Score: 3, Insightful) by gidds on Tuesday December 06 2016, @02:38PM
...that everything can look weird, if you dig down far enough, produce enough material out of context, and let people fill in the gaps themselves.
Hence the quote [brainyquote.com] commonly (but perhaps wrongly) attributed to Cardinal Richelieu.
Similarly, it seems Freud may never have said "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar" [quoteinvestigator.com], but there's still a lot of truth in it.
That's why we have courts and are required to prove that people committed crimes before sentencing them, because we know how deceptive appearances can be.
In fact, because deceiving ourselves is so easy, we have a whole huge field of endeavour called 'science' based on trying to avoid it!
So no, just because something looks 'really weird', and like a 'pile of coincidences', doesn't mean there's anything wrong. There might be something going on that's related but mostly innocent and blown out of all proportion; there might be something completely unrelated and innocuous; there might be nothing at all. Especially if some of the things that look 'really weird' are the results of misunderstandings, exaggeration, misrepresentation, and/or outright invention. But even if not.
[sig redacted]
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday December 06 2016, @03:03PM
The value of that link is the article isn't even true.
which falsely claims Clinton and her campaign chief John Podesta were running a child sex ring from the restaurant's backrooms
has nothing to do with it.
It would be like claiming Bill Clinton and Monica invented the quote about sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Not even talking about the right people, but the media people are very certain about whats right or wrong, which is weird.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @03:50PM
> The value of that link is the article isn't even true.
You sure put in a lot of work to avoid addressing contradicting evidence that might pop your bubble.
You must have a lot of yourself invested in the idea of pizzagate.
What would it take to convince you that pizzagate is completely false?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @03:08PM
I was on /pol/ when the whole pizzaagate thing came up. Really never got interested in it but some of those Podesta emails were really creepy. I do not know when a bunch of neckbeards crossed over into generating fake news, but it seems to me that we have this whole freedom of speach thing.
Although I guess clickbait articles about the top 10 ways trump is destroying america with whatever conspiracy theories lie within is totally legit real high quality news that only CNN/MSNBC/etc are allowed to run.
(Score: 1) by kurenai.tsubasa on Tuesday December 06 2016, @04:36PM
After skimming through that, I don't see how anybody can take this theory seriously. Well, unless I presume that the moon is hollow and transmitting some kind of matrix from the Sol-Thuban primary relay station near Saturn….
Why is the media giving this any airtime? I mean, it's fun shit, for sure, and well done too. The way it's all put together is expertly done. If somebody wanted a plot for a hard boiled detective adventure game, it would be very good. Maybe an X-Files spin-off.
It looks like some /b/ tards had a field day, and for whatever reason the MSM took them seriously!