One of the guys behind "pizza-gate" tries to accuse Senator Chuck Schumer of sexual misconduct using a forged document.

Wait, what did they day I did?

Courtesy of he Daily Beast:  

A forged document accusing the top Democrat in the Senate of sexual harassment copied language verbatim from a real sexual-harassment complaint filed against Rep. John Conyers. 

On Tuesday afternoon, right-wing social media personalities Charles Johnson and Mike Cernovich boasted of obtaining a document that would put a senator out of a job. 

“Michael Cernovich & I are going to end the career of a U.S. Senator,” Johnson posted on Facebook on Monday. 

The senator was Minority Leader Charles Schumer of New York, Axios first reported. 

But the document was fake. A copy of the document, obtained by The Daily Beast, purports to be draft lawsuit complaint against Schumer by a former staffer. It accuses him of sexual harassment. Schumer’s office told The Daily Beast the document and her signature are forgeries. Schumer’s office said the senator was not in Washington, D.C. or the United States during several dates in the document when he is said to have harassed the staffer. 

“The document is a forged document and every allegation is false,” Schumer spokesperson Matt House told The Daily Beast. “We have turned it over to the Capitol Police and asked them to investigate and pursue criminal charges because it is clear the law has been broken. We believe the individual responsible for forging the document should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law to prevent other malicious actors from doing the same.” 

The former staffer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, confirmed the document was a forgery.

This Mike Cernovich guy is the same asshole who claimed that coded messages in John Podesta's hacked emails showed that Hillary Clinton and other prominent Democrats were involved in a child sex ring in a DC pizza joint.

Currently Cernovich is trying to save face by claiming that he was duped by whoever was shopping this around, but the forgery should have been fairly obvious to anybody who was utilizing critical thinking skills.

The genius who forged the sexual-harassment complaint against Chuck Schumer literally copied-and-pasted from John Conyers complaint https://t.co/1HlHd8xdQS pic.twitter.com/2KhiAEgu4E

— Justin Miller (@justinjm1) December 13, 2017

Look we need to listen to women reporting on sexual harassment, even if the person being accused is one of our guys, or even a personal hero.

However we also have to maintain a certain amount of healthy skepticism because this #MeToo movement is a powerful tool, and clearly folks with a partisan agenda can use it to attack and even defeat those who they perceive as enemies of their cause.

And by the way this goes for both sides.

Even if we REALLY want to believe that somebody we dislike did something terrible, we still need to pay attention to the evidence and let THAT dictate their guilt or innocence.

That Pizzagate dude threatens to drop a "motherload" of truth on Donald Trump if he fires Stephen Bannon.

Courtesy of The Daily Beast: 

A week after President Donald Trump began to publicly distance himself from White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon, alt-right ringleader Mike Cernovich threatened to release a “motherlode” of stories that could “destroy marriages” if Bannon is formally let go from the administration. 

Cernovich made the claims that he’d release a series of “scoops” if Bannon is officially pushed out of the White House on an eleven-minute, self-recorded Periscope Thursday night. 

“If they get rid of Bannon, you know what’s gonna happen? The motherlode. If Bannon is removed, there are gonna be divorces, because I know about the mistresses, the sugar babies, the drugs, the pill popping, the orgies. I know everything,” said Cernovich. 

“If they go after Bannon, the mother of all stories is gonna drop, and we’re just gonna destroy marriages, relationships—it’s gonna get personal.”

I have no idea if this conspiracy theorist is bluffing or not, but I certainly hope that Trump calls his bluff so that we can find out.

Come on Donny you're not going to let this little punk ass threaten you like that are you?

Oh wait, the little punk ass is already starting to backtrack: 

“Fake news people are claiming that I threatened the Trump administration because I said I would release damaging information about Deep State,” Cernovich said in a self-recorded Periscope video Friday night. “I would never threaten anyone in the Trump family, legally or otherwise.”

Yes how dare the "fake news people" simply quote you verbatim.

Actually I guess if Trump does NOT fire Bannon we have no real choice but to believe that this Cernovich fellow really does have evidence of Trump's mistresses, orgies, and pill popping, right?

I mean, what else are we to assume?

The conservative's new Benghazi is accusing former National Security adviser of "unmasking" the names of Trump aides caught up in the Russia collusion investigation. Update!

Courtesy of NBC News: 

It doesn't have the ring of "Benghazi," or "Whitewater," but Republicans are seizing upon what they see as a new scandal: "Improper unmasking."

"Now we know that someone in the Obama administration was eavesdropping and specifically searching a databank looking for the Trump (people)," Sen. Rand Paul proclaimed Tuesday on MSNBC's Morning Joe. 

In fact, there is no evidence of that.

Senior Obama administration officials don't dispute that Rice requested the "unmasking" of certain Americans whose names appeared in intelligence reports resulting from eavesdropping on foreigners — meaning the foreigners were discussing the Americans or talking to them. Usually, those names are blacked out. But the blackout can be lifted if doing so is necessary to help understand the intelligence. 

Requesting that is a routine thing for national security advisers to do, according to former senior officials, including Keith Alexander, who directed the National Security Agency.

Rice didn't and couldn't "order" the unmasking of any American, current and former officials say. The agencies that hold the raw surveillance transcripts — usually the NSA or the FBI — make that decision. It's a process subject to rules and reviewed by lawyers, and it has to be justified by an intelligence purpose.

It should be noted that a request to unmask one of these names only reveals that name to the person making the request, it does NOT make the name public.

And to be clear if Rice did make this request it was only because she was doing her job, and NOT because she was necessarily targeting Donald Trump and his associates.

However considering what we have learned since the election I am pretty upset that she WASN'T targeting Trump and his associates.

For her part Rice says she had nothing to do with the names becoming public:

“I leaked nothing to nobody,” she said.

By the way the person who supposedly "broke" this scandalous story was Mike Cernovich famous for his role in spreading the Pizzagate story.

Donald Trump Jr. is so impressed with his work that he is suggesting that he receive a Pulitzer.

Congrats to @Cernovich for breaking the #SusanRice story. In a long gone time of unbiased journalism he'd win the Pulitzer, but not today!

— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) April 4, 2017

Thought I was kidding didn't you?

Clearly this is just more obfuscation on the part of the Trump team, much like their suggestion that the real scandal is not that they have so many ties to the Russians who hacked our election, but that the information concerning that fact was leaked to the media.

Attack the media, attack the leakers, and attack the intelligence professionals conducting the investigation.

Richard Nixon would be VERY proud.

Update: Here is a little more on this Mike Cernovich douche nozzle.

This is the guy the White House is promoting today, in case for a second you thought this wasn't all a dumpster fire. pic.twitter.com/iiVdxPWLBf

— Kyle Foley (@KFoleyFL) April 4, 2017

Gee, I can't imagine why he does not have a Pulitzer already.

Pizzagate protests prove that you really can fool some of the people all of the time.

And look they actually brought their children!

Courtesy of WaPo: 

Several dozen people assembled outside the White House Saturday to demand an investigation into the unfounded Internet rumor known as “Pizzagate.” 

Wearing T-shirts and holding banners defending the conspiracy theory — which falsely linked Hillary Clinton to an alleged child-sex-trafficking ring operating out of a D.C. pizza parlor — protesters took turns climbing onto an elevated stage in Lafayette Square to demand politicians and mainstream news media take their claims seriously. 

“I don’t have any doubt that Pizzagate is real,” said Kori Hayes, a corrections officer who drove with his wife and three kids to Washington from Middleburg, Fla., on Friday night for the event. “But nothing is being said about it.”

This of course comes after the Pizzagate shooter, Edgar Welch, agreed that he was motivated by  "unfounded rumors about a child sex-trafficking ring."

And after Alex Jones, one of the biggest promoters of this conspiracy theory,  said this: 

"I want our viewers and listeners to know that we regret any negative impact our commentaries may have had on Mr. Alefantis, Comet Ping Pong, or its employees. We apologize to the extent our commentaries could be construed as negative statements about Mr. Alefantis or Comet Ping Pong, and we hope that anyone else involved in commenting on Pizzagate will do the same thing."

God there are SO MANY dumb people in this country. 

Is it any wonder that the Russians were able to get Donald Trump elected president?

Alex Jones more or less apologizes for his part in the Pizzagate conspiracy theory.

BREAKING: Alex Jones apologizes for pizzagate coverage, blames other media outlets https://t.co/FxLkT46oB5 pic.twitter.com/EZtWV8yP6x

— Media Matters (@mmfa) March 24, 2017

Courtesy of Raw Story:  

Conservative radio host Alex Jones apologized Friday for promoting an anti-government conspiracy theory that allegedly inspired one man to open fire in a Washington restaurant last year. 

Broadcasting from his website InfoWars, Jones said he was not the author of the so-called "Pizzagate" conspiracy theory, but regretted prior comments made in support of it. He specifically appealed to James Alefantis, owner of Comet Ping Pong. The Washington pizza place was one of several that the theory's supporters believed hosted a child-sex trafficking ring sponsored by Democratic Party officials. In December, 28-year-old Edgar Maddison Welch entered the restaurant and opened fire with an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle without any reported injuries. After his arrest, Welch claimed he was motivated to take action based on his belief of the theory and that he was an avid listener of Jones' radio show. 

"I want our viewers and listeners to know that we regret any negative impact our commentaries may have had on Mr. Alefantis, Comet Ping Pong, or its employees. We apologize to the extent our commentaries could be construed as negative statements about Mr. Alefantis or Comet Ping Pong, and we hope that anyone else involved in commenting on Pizzagate will do the same thing," Jones said in a prepared statement. 

A lot of this apology is made up of bullshit excuses, however it IS the first time that I can remember Jones taking ANY responsibility for the damage done by his careless spreading of unfounded conspiracy theories, so that is at least something.

Now I am just waiting for him to apologize to the parents of the children killed at Sandy Hook who he accused of participating in a "false flag" operation designed to help President Obama take away people's guns.

Yeah, I won't be holding my breath for that one.

46% of Trump voters believe that Hillary Clinton is involved in a child sex ring.

Courtesy of New York Daily News:  

Nearly half of all Donald Trump voters believe a widely debunked conspiracy theory claiming that Hillary Clinton is involved in a child sex ring run out of a popular Washington, D.C. pizzeria, a recent poll suggests. 

The Economist/YouGov poll released Tuesday shows that a staggering 46% of Trump voters believe the so-called “Pizzagate” conspiracy, which began circulating on obscure sites like 4chan and Reddit ahead of Election Day before spurring controversy on Twitter and Facebook.

Now remember this whole thing was based on internet cyber sleuths taking a bunch of things out of context from those Podesta e-mails, and creating a completely ridiculous conspiracy theory that apparently fooled a number of people into believing that the DNC was literally running a child sex shop out of a DC pizzeria.

Interestingly enough a full 80% of Trump voters however REFUSE to believe that the intelligence communities assertion that Russia meddled in our election process is accurate.

Well that is certainly telling now isn't it?

By the way one of the main disseminators of that Pizzagate conspiracy theory was Alex Jones, who now also suggests that Carry Fisher was killed in order to improve her book sales, just like he believes that Joan Rivers was killed for outing Michelle Obama as a transsexual.

This is who the Trump supporters go to for their "facts."

Pizzagate gunman says "intel on this was not 100 percent." Gee, ya think?

Courtesy of ABC News: 

Three days after Edgar Maddison Welch allegedly opened fire in a Washington, D.C., pizza restaurant, he spoke to The New York Times about the conspiracy known as “Pizzagate” and his intentions this past weekend. 

On Sunday, Welch told the Times, he drove 350 miles from his home in North Carolina to Washington, D.C., in order to look into claims -- proven to be fictitious -- that Comet Ping Pong, a restaurant in the capital, housed a child slavery ring. 

After entering the restaurant with an AR-15-style rifle and a .38 caliber handgun, firing at least one shot, and finding no evidence to corroborate the allegations he came to investigate, Welch surrendered to police, according to court documents.

Welch claims that he came armed to "to help rescue" the children he was sure were being held captive based on conspiracy theories he read online.

When he arrived and found no captive children I guess he just fired his gun out of.....frustration?

(I mean he brought it 350 miles. What is he going to do, not shoot it?)

Welch also had this to say:

“The intel on this wasn’t 100 percent,” Welch told the Times. “I regret how I handled the situation.”

Well there's an understatement for ya.

The gunman also added that he recently became very religious (Aha!) and that he still did not dismiss the claims made against the pizza joint and the DNC completely.

That is the real danger of fake news sites, and those who purposeful spread conspiracy theories, it is quite easy to plant a false narrative, much more difficult to correct it.

Samantha Bee takes on Trump's inability to tell the truth and fake news stories. Excellent show.

My favorite line: 

“One of the major questions being debated in our country today is whether it’s okay for the president to lie his fucking face off 24 hours a day. Somehow, the jury is still out on that one.”

Next Bee takes on the fake news debacle and one of her correspondents interviews the " godfather of fake news."

I swear this show is getting better and better every week.

This episode in particular addressed very important topics in a consistently humorous and informative manner.

What more could you ask for?

Enraged by baseless conspiracy theory man opens fire inside Washington pizza joint.

Source

Courtesy of The New York Times: 

A man fired a rifle on Sunday inside a Washington pizza restaurant that has been subjected to harassment based on false stories tying it to child abuse, the police said. No one was hurt, and the man was arrested. 

The man, Edgar M. Welch, 28, of Salisbury, N.C., told the police that he had come to the restaurant, Comet Ping Pong, in northwest Washington, to “self-investigate” what is being called Pizzagate, an online conspiracy theory asserting, with no evidence, that the restaurant is somehow tied to a child abuse ring. He entered the restaurant shortly before 3 p.m. with a rifle and fired it at least once inside, the police said. 

The gunfire sharply escalated what had already been a tense period for the restaurant, its employees and the quiet neighborhood since the fake stories began spreading. Dozens of threats against employees had been made via email and social media. 

People inside the restaurant fled, and the police locked down the area, ordering patrons of a nearby bookstore and cafe called Politics and Prose to remain locked inside. Officers with rifles and protective gear surrounded the restaurant and apprehended Mr. Welch. Two additional firearms were found, one on Mr. Welch and the other in his vehicle, the police said. 

The police closed down a normally busy Connecticut Avenue, which runs in front of the restaurant, for several hours Sunday as they searched the area for other potential threats.

If you are not a Right Wing lunatic you probably have not heard of pizzagate, so visiting this BBC article will bring you up to speed.

In a nutshell it was the result of a some prankster sites purposefully misreporting the content on those Podesta e-mails and a bunch of simple minded knuckledraggers taking it from there.

So even though Snopes identified this as bullshit back in November, it did nothing to change the minds of these cretins and this is the result.

It just goes to show that fake news is not only dangerous, it can in fact prove fatal.