December 1, 2016

"This particular round of hostility between Reddit's leadership and the pro-Trump board began when Reddit banned r/pizzagate..."

"... a subreddit devoted entirely to supporters of a conspiracy theory accusing Democrats of running a secret child trafficking ring, headquartered in a Washington pizza shop. The New York Times and others have debunked the theory, which has only encouraged its believers to implicate those debunkers in the conspiracy, too. Reddit shut down the subreddit, which had a lot of crossover membership with r/The_Donald... The Trump-supporting subreddit has long accused Reddit of trying to censor them because of their political beliefs.... Over the past several months, r/The_Donald has been extremely skilled at exploiting Reddit's algorithms to spam the site with aggressive pro-Trump memes, conspiracy theories and inside jokes. Reddit had to change one of its algorithms over the summer to try to stop r/the_Donald from dominating the board that displays all of Reddit's content, known as r/all. [Chief executive Steve] Huffman said Wednesday that 'stickied' posts from r/the_Donald's moderators would no longer appear on r/all, at all... In response to Huffman's announcement, r/The_Donald's mods stickied a tweet from Lauren Southern: 'Soft quarantine for @thedonaldreddit & @reddit is acting like they're benevolent for not outright banning the sub.'"

From "Reddit to crack down on 'most toxic users' of pro-Trump forum."

ADDED: This news story made me look up  r/The_Donald. I started reading this discussion:
I don't like Trump, and I didn't vote for Trump... but I support T_D wholeheartedly for one reason. And that is because there have been numerous times in the past few months where the only place on this site where certain news stories were allowed was /r/The_Donald. I want a diversity of ideas and opinions, not an echo-chamber of my beliefs.

103 comments:

eric said...

Oh great. Here comes Mick to tell us the "facts" of pizza gate.

Ugh.

Professor, are you just trolling poor Mick?

Ann Althouse said...

I'm interested in censorship. It's a big topic here. I'm especially big on imposing free speech values on private companies that carry the writing of many users, like Facebook and Blogger.

traditionalguy said...

The Pizzagate Child Peadophile supply ring is still the bridge too far, because although totally factually true, and an old tool used to control silence from its participants, It remains something No ONE wants to believe happens, no matter how many times it happens. There is a confirmation bias that refuses to let it be spoken of in polite company. We don't want to know it!

Prosecutorial Indiscretion said...

Somebody get based patriot Althouse a coat! No brakes!

chuck said...

A consequence of PC has been to give the right a monopoly on large portions of the news.

JohnAnnArbor said...

There's confirmation bias in both directions, traditionalguy. Remember the false accusations in the 1980s.

Sigivald said...

I'll assume the Times is right.

But "debunk" gets used far too often when "claimed to debunk" or simply "denied" is correct.

When someone tells me, in general, that The Times has "debunked" something harmful to Democrats, I assume one of the latter more often than not.

"Operatives with bylines".

Unknown said...

I don't know about the whole Pizza store thing, but I'm more inclined to believe it than not.

Why? Because, after all, the core of the story is powerful people who use their power to be able to do things that are totally against the law for the rest of us. Also, it's one of the most sickening ways to demonstrate power; abusing a child sexually. And the law can't or won't touch them.

These are Democrats, who promote the sexual ethic of "The more perverse, the better!" and also promote "The more powerful, the better!" They defend Bill Clinton. Overseas, it's just generally accepted that the political and other power leaders are sexually abusive: that's their "right" after all, a perk of the office.

Why would we believe that today's Podestas, or Clintons, etc. would not be involved in a child sex abuse ring? Heck, we know Bill Clinton flew lots of times to "pedo island." Why would he not do it in DC?

Seriously: these people have no morals or ethics. Why should we believe they wouldn't do a child abuse ring?

Isn't that the entire point of this power they seek, so they can do whatever they want as long as it hurts the innocent? That's the reason for the existence of the Democrat party.

--Vance

David said...

I read some of the "child sex ring" stuff. I believe that anything is possible, but the reporting was highly unconvincing. Quite the dastardly trick.

Anonymous said...

Unknown Vance,
Why should we not assume Trump grabs pussies of underage girls? He said he got away with it because he was a star.

mockturtle said...

I may not believe in 'pizzagate' but I believe Podesta is one sick puppy.

eric said...

Blogger Unknown said...
Unknown Vance,
Why should we not assume Trump grabs pussies of underage girls? He said he got away with it because he was a star.


We need to teach our children active listening skills. They think they've heard things people have never said.

Bob Loblaw said...

The NYT has fallen low enough a story described as "debunked" by that particular Democratic Party house organ bears looking into.

Bob Loblaw said...

Why should we not assume Trump grabs pussies of underage girls? He said he got away with it because he was a star.

No he didn't.

I'm starting to understand the foot stamping and impotent fist shaking we're getting from the left over this election. It all boils down to reading comprehension.

Anonymous said...

We should teach Trumpists to not believe every wacky conspiracy theory that shows up on Reddit, or comes from Alex Jones. I'm thinking of Unknown Vance, who wants oh so much to believe it's true.

Anonymous said...

Trump still is an anti vaxxer. Or did he change his mind on that too?

Anonymous said...

Trump himself tweets conspiracy theories (millions of illegal voters) he got from Alex Jones, so I guess we can't blame his followers.

The Vault Dweller said...


I don't think large swaths of the left realize how absolutely fascist they have become. The idea of freedom of speech isn't just a legal doctrine. It is also a cultural one and should have implications on how an individual acts on their own outside of any legal questions.

Quaestor said...

Vance wrote: [The] core of the story is powerful people who use their power to be able to do things that are totally against the law for the rest of us.

There are reasons to doubt "pizzagate", and there are reasons to give it credence. Anyone who cares to look will find examples of well-connected Democrats (read HILLARY CLINTON et al) escaping prosecution on creditable charges much more serious than those facing mere commoners like PO1 Kristian Saucier.

The history of public corruption is unequivocal. The longer a favored class enjoys effective immunity from the deterrent of trial and punishment the more heinous and outrageous the crimes they commit become. What begins as trifling yet unethical favors and "red tape cutting" for allies and family members often ends in high crimes and misdemeanors, and the longer the corruptible are allowed to escape the censures and corrections of the law the more outrageous the end tends to be. It is not for nothing that the denizens of the deepest pits of Dante's Hell are reserved for the abusers of authority.

Kellogg's delenda est.

FullMoon said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

"Because all pedophiles are democrats, that's why."

Dennis Hastert

Bay Area Guy said...

Whenever the NYT claims to "debunk" anything, a red flag goes off in my mind that the "thing" whatever it is, may have some merit.

FullMoon said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Quaestor said...

Abby Someone wrote:
Why should we not assume Trump grabs pussies of underage girls? He said he got away with it because he was a star.

Your blatant tu quoque deflection is very suspect when stronger defenses against the "pizzagate" rumor are available, leading us to conclude that either you don't know how to argue a position without insulting your opponents, or dreading the truth of the charges leads you commit desperate and thoughtless logical fallacies.

We are inclined to believe it is a bit of both.

Kellogg's delenda est.

Anonymous said...

GOP Hall of Shame

"These are all matters of public record, not hearsay. They have been reported in both the local press where the incidents occurred and in various national media. The perverts in question have come from all over the country. Their major similarity is that they are Republican Conservative Christian activists who have made their mark by preaching family values while performing unspeakable acts of perversion, many with minors.

So much for family values from the religious right. Now, I am not saying that there aren’t a few pervs who call themselves Democrats, but, somehow, these holier than thou arsh luchs (you can look it up, it’s Yiddish for a**holes) are true and certain hypocrites along with being perverts.

When a political party presents itself as the party of the righteous, whether it is The Republican Party or the Shiite Party in Iraq, or for that matter some members of the various Chasidic sects, you can be absolutely certain that there is something being hidden under all of that religious pomp. Consider the child molestation scandals that have rocked The Roman Catholic Church over the past few years, and you will realize that this problem covers a broad range of people.

However, when you consider the number of Republican members of the religious right/anti choice crowd that have been arrested and sentenced for these perverse acts with children, you come to realize that in their place, at least, religion and conservative politics are truly the hiding places of perverts and scoundrels, perhaps in larger numbers than anywhere else in our country.

Or as Gomer Pyle might have put it, “Surprise, Surprise!”"

Anonymous said...

Republicans rape and molest children at a rate of 10 to 1 compared to Democrats.

FullMoon said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
FullMoon said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

"Nope, all RINOS"

Says you.

Anonymous said...

Josh Duggar.

Mary Beth said...

Immediately after the Orlando shooting, posts made to news subreddits were being deleted by mods. (They mentioned Islam so they had to be censored.) The_Donald was one of the few places on reddit where people could find and exchange information about it. It wasn't the only time news was just being reported in T_D, but it was one that got a lot of people who wouldn't have normally gone to that topic coming to browse it.

Maybe the people in that subreddit were "skilled at exploiting Reddit's algorithms to spam the site" or maybe all of the upvotes some of the posts got were just a sign of the enthusiasm behind Trump. They are good at generating excitement and at pushing buttons. (When you make a post on reddit you can go back and edit it if you want. Now in T_D, the "edit" link says "spez".)

Unknown said...

Consider: Republicans get rid of the scum that rises to the top. Democrats? They celebrate it. See: Kennedy, Ted. Clinton, Bill. Dodd, Chris. (He of "waitress mattress" fame). Podesta. Barney Frank. The left's love of Roman Polanski.

Republicans got rid of Hastert, of Foley, even Bill Cosby. Democrats offer to let Bill Clinton abuse them in order to kill babies.

Moral equivalence? None.

--Vance

FullMoon said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Mary Beth said...

The least weird finding from T_D/Pizzagate was that the police sketches of the men wanted for questioning in the Madeleine McCann case shown in this article - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/madeleinemccann/10391348/Madeleine-McCann-is-there-hope-at-last.html - look similar to the Podesta brothers.

I can't tell what's serious and what's trolling with the pizza posts.

Anonymous said...

"It is impossible for a Republican to be a pedophile, as the party is against pedophilia. Therefore, any pedophile pretending to be Republican is actually a Democrat and most likely a member of Nambla, a 100% democrat organization."

Subreddit material brought to Althouse's comments section. She won't censor you though, good for her!

FullMoon said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
YoungHegelian said...

@Unknown,

Do you simply not follow your local news? In the the DC area alone, every three months or so, a teacher in one the many local schools will be arrested for sexual relations with a minor student. It just seems to happen over & over.

Now, the teacher unions, that's one of the most powerful of the Democratic unions left standing, so the Left never makes hay out of misbehaving teachers. They're just like you -- "Oh, those perverted Catholic priests!". Never, "Oh, those perverted high-school teachers! Always fuckin' with the jail bait!". Just doesn't help the narrative.

F said...

Harry Reid has still not denied rumors of engaging in pedophilia.

Quaestor said...

Abby Someone wrote: Republicans rape and molest children at a rate of 10 to 1 compared to Democrats.

I followed that link and discovered a concoction of truth, half-truth, and blatant hoaxes easily demonstrated by a few minutes use of Google.

Nevertheless even if the ravings at patrick.net were true in every detail the information is hardly relevant to the "debunking" side of the question, in fact it is detrimental to that stance. Abby is evidently unaware that her finger pointing doesn't serve her argument, unless her argument is in favor of the plausibility of pizzagate.

Kellogg's delenda est.

MisterBuddwing said...

"Nope, all RINOS"

Ever hear of the "True Scotsman"?

Anonymous said...

http://www.salon.com/2016/04/25/republicans_rush_to_defend_dennis_hastert_plead_court_for_leniency_in_pedophile_hush_money_case/

"A list of the names of people who wrote to support Hastert was made public in court Friday, complete with over 40 letters of support for Hastert from the likes of former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and the head wresting coach of the University of Chicago. Hastert’s defense team said he had received more than 60 letters of support for Hastert in recent months, but nearly 20 writers did not want their letters made public or had requested their letters be “withdrawn” from consideration after disturbing details of Hastert’s pedophilia emerged. (The Chicago Tribune published all of the letters released, and they may be found here):

Hastert’s supporters included a handful of former national and state politicians as well as local leaders, board members, police officers and others from his home base in rural Kendall County.

“We all have our flaws, but Dennis Hastert has very few,” DeLay wrote in his defense of Hastert. “He is a good man that loves the Lord.”

“He doesn’t deserve what he is going through,” the Texas Republican who served as majority leader under Hastert in the early 2000s and who ran into his own legal problems argued. “I ask that you consider the man that is before you and give him leniency where you can.”

DeLay detailed their relationship of nearly three decades, 12 years of which they spent working “side by side.”

“I have observed him in many different and difficult situations,” Delay explained. “He has never disappointed me in any way. He is a man of strong faith that guides him. He is a man of great integrity. He loves and respects his fellow man. I have never witnessed a time when he was unkind to anyone. He is always giving to others and helping anyone including me so many times.”"

Anonymous said...

7 Things you need to know about Trump and Sex Slave Island.

"Why wouldn’t Trump use this ammo? The answer is simple: Trump himself has ties to Epstein, the billionaire Democratic donor and convicted pedophile known for having under-age sex slaves on his private plane and what the media calls "Sex Slave Island.""

FullMoon said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

http://www.ajc.com/news/breaking-news/police-cobb-gop-chairman-dendy-charged-states/3vCZyGShYKmOX5r5SU5r9M/

"The former chairman of the Cobb County Republican Party was arrested Friday morning and charged with child molestation, according to police.

Joseph Russell Dendy, 71, was arrested at his West Cobb home and charged with aggravated child molestation and child molestation, both felonies. He was being held at the Cobb jail without bond Saturday.

Later Friday, an additional charge was added: fugitive. Dendy is also wanted by the Washtenaw County Sheriff’s Office in Michigan, as well as the Laurens Police Department in South Carolina on additional sexual abuse allegations, Sgt. Dana Pierce with Cobb police said late Friday.

In Cobb, Dendy allegedly molested two boys, ages 4 and 12, during separate incidents inside his Creekview Court home, his arrest warrant says. One victim, who is now 20, told police he was molested in 2007 or 2008, when he was 12 or 13 years old. A second victim said Dendy molested him in December 2011, according to police."

mockturtle said...

Once a thread is taken over by the Unknown troll, it ceases to be relevant.

FullMoon said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

Ms. Turtle,
Funny, I always considered you a troll. Go figure. "Troll" must be in the eye of the beholder.

FullMoon said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Jon Ericson said...

One must be tolerant of opposing views and weigh them on their merits.

MeatPopscicle1234 said...

Blogger F said...
Harry Reid has still not denied rumors of engaging in pedophilia.

12/1/16, 6:11 PM

---------------

Hail... fellow AoS moron!!!

Fabi said...

Another thread clogged and trolled by UnknownInga -- what a waste of pixels.

Captain Drano said...

Prosecutorial Indiscretion said...
Somebody get based patriot Althouse a coat! No brakes!


FOR THE LOVE OF GOD GET THIS PATRIOT A COAT! THATS 185,559 COATS HANDED OUT!
THIS TRAIN HAS NO BRAKES, AND IT WON'T BE RUNNING OUT OF STEAM ANY TIME SOON! THE TRUMP TRAIN JUST GOT 1 BILLION MPH FASTER!

narciso said...

I'm not at all sure about this story, but the times was wrong about death panels, Obamacare in general, Benghazi, Sanford, ferguson, Baltimore, Russia in 2012, the iran deal, need I go on...

narciso said...

I'm not at all sure about this story, but the times was wrong about death panels, Obamacare in general, Benghazi, Sanford, ferguson, Baltimore, Russia in 2012, the iran deal, need I go on...

narciso said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Laslo Spatula said...

“I’d like to order a ‘pizza’….”

“Will that be delivery or carry-out?”

“Is the delivery discreet?”

“Oh, yes sir. We pride ourselves on the discreet nature of our ‘pizza’ services.”

“Then delivery, please.”

“Excellent. What kind of ‘pizza’ would you like?”

“I like my pizzas… young. Do you have ‘young pizza’?”

“Oh, indeed: our ‘pizzas’ are VERY young, I assure you. What kind of cheese would you like for your ‘pizza’?”

“Uh… Blonde?”

“‘Blonde cheese’: an excellent choice. Would you like thin crust or deep dish?”

“Oh, I like them thin. I really like the thin ones.”

“‘Thin crust’ it is. What kind of meat would you prefer?”

“Umm… White meat?”

“We have excellent ‘white meat.’ What other toppings would you like?”

“Blue eyes. I really like when my pizzas have blue eyes.”

“Perfect! I have just the ‘pizza’ you desire. Do you want any side orders?”

“Handcuffs. I’d like some handcuffs. And an orange ball-gag, if you have it.”

“Handcuffs and an orange ball-gag: we certainly can add those to your order.”

“Umm… does my pizza do anal?”

“For a slight surcharge, of course! What’s ‘pizza’ without anal?”

“I really like anal pizza.”

“Many of our customers do. So, to confirm your order: a fresh young ‘pizza’, white meat, blonde cheese, blue eyes, anal on the side, with handcuffs and an orange ball-gag. Will this complete your order?”

“Yes: yes it does.”

“Thank you for your order. As a special thank you, we’re going to throw in an order of ‘cheese sticks’, no charge.”

“Cheese sticks?”

“What — you’ve never had ‘cheese sticks’ before?”

“I don’t think I have…”

Trust me: you’re going to LOVE the ‘cheese sticks’. Most men do.”

“Exactly what are the cheese sticks?”

“Oh, let’s let that be a surprise, shall we…?”


I am Laslo.

Paul Snively said...

We'd all like to believe "pedophile rings" are just too outrageous, too obviously sickly evil, to be real. But then, let's remember this. And no one seems to have falsified the pedophile island stories, either.

There are sick people in the world. Some of them have power over other people, so they're less likely to answer for their evil. This isn't new to the human experience. If anything is, it's the fantasy that man is perfectible this side of heaven. Perhaps we should call evil what it is, and treat powerful people the same as the powerless.

Nahhhhhhhhhhhhh.

I'm actually slightly heartened, though, as I believe one of the reasons Hillary! lost the election is that, even if Comey wouldn't do the right thing and indict her, most voters actually decided not to put someone we already know is a criminal in the White House. (Generally, we wait for the President to prove they're a criminal after they're the President.)

Drago said...

More left-wing "fun".

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/entertainment/celebrity-news/elijah-wood-says-hollywood-has-child-sex-abuse-problem/hYtHYg6p3ye1c00lMnnIQN/

http://time.com/3195725/1400-children-exploited-in-u-k-child-sex-ring-according-to-new-report/

But it's all good. These are "good" groups of people which is why the left covers up and defends them.

Jupiter said...

"Over the past several months, r/The_Donald has been extremely skilled at exploiting Reddit's algorithms to spam the site with aggressive pro-Trump memes, conspiracy theories and inside jokes."

Interesting use of "spam". If Reddit has an algorithm for selecting pieces of information, how could the pieces of information it selects be "spam"? I have heard of "violating the spirit of the law". This would appear to be a violation of the spirit of the algorithm.

Bob Loblaw said...

I'm actually slightly heartened, though, as I believe one of the reasons Hillary! lost the election is that, even if Comey wouldn't do the right thing and indict her, most voters actually decided not to put someone we already know is a criminal in the White House. (Generally, we wait for the President to prove they're a criminal after they're the President.)

I would agree with you, but still... she got the most votes.

Of course, here in California you just sort of assume politicians are corrupt, and you'll only be wrong once or twice in your life. So maybe Clinton was the political equivalent of comfort food.

mockturtle said...

Paul says: Perhaps we should call evil what it is, and treat powerful people the same as the powerless.

Good idea but how will we get everyone to agree with what constitutes 'evil'? My daughter tells me the public schools in both Seattle and Tacoma are now allowing Satanic clubs to meet there after school. Equivalency, y'know. As Isaiah warned: " Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!" Isaiah 5:20,21.

I've probably quoted that passage here before but it seems so relevant today.

alan markus said...


@ Young Helgian:

Now, the teacher unions, that's one of the most powerful of the Democratic unions left standing, so the Left never makes hay out of misbehaving teachers. They're just like you -- "Oh, those perverted Catholic priests!". Never, "Oh, those perverted high-school teachers! Always fuckin' with the jail bait!". Just doesn't help the narrative.

Hell. even Huffington Post has over 100 articles about teachers having sex with students. I would guess that 2/3 of them are women, as I scan through the 5 pages of links. Some of them ladies are rather good looking, and some of them were grabbing their share of pu**y. Maybe Trump's new Secretary of Education can shine a bright light on where sexual victimizing & pu**y grabbing is actual going on right now.

Huffington Posts with "Teacher Sex" tags

Dr Weevil said...

YoungHegelian and others:
I don't have a link, and it's been a few years, but I have read of a serious large-scale study that was unable to find any significant difference in the percentage of molesters among Catholic priests, Protestant ministers, rabbis, and mullahs. (I don't recall whether the study included e.g. Mormons, Orthodox, Hindus, or Buddhists.) Nor could they find any significant difference between religious leaders, scout leaders, and primary/secondary school teachers. (Again, I don't recall if other categories of adults with easy access to children were included, e.g. pediatricians.)
I seem to recall a figure of 1.5% for the percentage of perverts across all categories. I hope that number includes those who would molest kids if they thought they could get away with it, but don't, as well as those who have actually succeeded in molesting kids, because 1.5% of the millions of adults with easy access to children and some authority over them is a really large number - so large I don't really want to calculate an estimate, even just for the U.S. Also, I seem to recall that married adults were just as likely to be perverts as single ones - not just in the Protestant/Catholic comparison.
I wish I could think of an effective way of Googling this study.

Spiros Pappas said...

Pizzagate is a disgusting, absurd lie.

FullMoon said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
narciso said...

and you see why we can't have nice things, you can add the ring that bryan singer was allegedly part of,

Gretchen said...

The whole pizza gate thing is very strange. Something was going on, perhaps a code for something else, but there was some seriously, objectively bizarre stuff going on in Podesta's emails. The pizza restaurant in question also has some disturbed murals that appear to depict child sacrifice of some sort, and had a logo that included pedophile symbols. That is strange. Podesta owns some odd artwork, including, according to WaPo, photos of nude teens in his bedroom. Is that "normal" or beyond the limits of appropriate "art".

I can't say what exactly is going on there, if it is child trafficking and rape, or code for some other nefarious activities, but there were some emails that were very, very odd in the bunch.

I am on the fence if this is actually what the conspiracy theorists believe it is, but whatever, there was something off about the whole deal.

Prosecutorial Indiscretion said...

Thanks Captain Drano, I thought I was going to be left hanging there.

Lauderdale Vet said...

I enjoy reading /r/The_Donald.

I don't post there very often, but they do pick up on news stories pretty quickly.

n.n said...

disturbed murals that appear to depict child sacrifice of some sort

Abortion rites. Only a faith that adopts the fantasy of spontaneous human conception would deny evolution of human life from biological conception. Progress describes monotonic change. The positive connotations were added by the sect's acolytes.

Mick said...

eric said...
"Oh great. Here comes Mick to tell us the "facts" of pizza gate.

Ugh.

Professor, are you just trolling poor Mick?"


Influential gay rights advocate and top Obama donor, Terry Bean, and alleged former boyfriend arrested.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2014/11/20/kiah-lawson-terry-bean-human-rights-campaign-gay-sex-obama-prison-column/70021560/

Evidence that Andrew Breitbart May Have Been Murdered to Conceal #Pizzagate


http://freedomoutpost.com/evidence-that-andrew-breitbart-may-have-been-murdered-to-conceal-pizzagate/

https://twitter.com/hashtag/pizzagate?lang=en



Mick said...

Spiros Pappas said...
Pizzagate is a disgusting, absurd lie.


How do you know?

Mick said...

Reddit CEO Admits To Editing Comments By Trump Supporters Attacking Him

http://dailycaller.com/2016/11/24/reddit-ceo-admits-to-editing-comments-by-trump-supporters-attacking-him/

Mick said...

Joe Biden fondles little girl's breast

https://twitter.com/hashtag/RedditGate?src=hash&lang=en

JAORE said...

"Spiros Pappas said...
Pizzagate is a disgusting, absurd lie."


No delivery at your house, Spiros?

tim in vermont said...

I don't know anything about pizzagate, but I do know that a New York Times "debunking" is less than worthless.

damikesc said...

There are sick people in the world. Some of them have power over other people, so they're less likely to answer for their evil. This isn't new to the human experience. If anything is, it's the fantasy that man is perfectible this side of heaven. Perhaps we should call evil what it is, and treat powerful people the same as the powerless.

Jimmy Seville did it for decades, if memory serves.

damikesc said...

As a rule, kids --- when journalists are on record planning to simply call people they don't like racists for no reason whatsoever, trust in their reporting drops. When OTHER reporters don't speak out against what they planned to do, those people's credibility also goes down. And when a major political party has zero problems blatantly lying about people (see Reid in regards to Romney's taxes), don't expect the other side to not play that game as well.

As the old saying goes, If you don't want none, then don't start none.

tim in vermont said...

http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/12/1/13803036/gop-boo-cnn-jeff-zucker-defense-trump-harvard

I think Chuck might have been at that meeting!

Rusty said...

I don't know about 'pizza gate' professor, but I sure would like to know what was on Anthony Weiner's computer.

tim in vermont said...

Donald Trump promised a “new era of peace” during the first stop of his “Thank You” tour in Cincinnati, Ohio, vowing that the US will stop trying to overthrow world governments and will cooperate with countries fighting terrorism. The president-elect also promised to cooperate with any country interested in destroying Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL). "We will partner with every nation that is willing to join us in the effort to defeat ISIS and radical Islamic terrorism,"

Now I feel good about my vote.

Mick said...

Rusty said...
"I don't know about 'pizza gate' professor, but I sure would like to know what was on Anthony Weiner's computer".


Yeah, what exactly was in those 650K emails that no one is talking about? Are they stuffed down the rabbit hole?

Franklin said...

OK I know it's (most likely!) a conspiracy theory and Reddit was probably right to shut it down since the owners of Comet Pizza/Besta Pizza were getting "harassed" via bad Yelp reviews. Having said that, Reddit goes crazy on people all the time and destroys their businesses and harasses them and those subreddits aren't shut down.

Plus, the guy that runs Comet Pizza is called "James Alefantis" and is David Brock's former lover. James Alefantis aka J'aime les enfants.

That's pretty strange.

Matt Sablan said...

I thought the Reddit nonsense started when the CEO started changing users' posts.

Pizzagate is stupid and more than likely untrue, but so is the Moon Hoax, and that has a Reddit board.

Mick said...

"Ping Pong" has been found to be a euphemism for "child rape"

J'aime les enfants = James Alefantis - "child lover"

"Comet Ping Pong" logo (Triangle inside of triangle spiral) is a known symbol of pedophilia.

Podesta has artwork in his home depicting child torture

These are not coincidences.

Mick said...

"Pizzagate is stupid and more than likely untrue."

So how do you know?

Matt Sablan said...

"Immediately after the Orlando shooting, posts made to news subreddits were being deleted by mods"

-- That's what made me go there the first time. I don't like the place; it is the worst of Reddit condensed into one subreddit, but tilting right instead of left.

Matt Sablan said...

"So how do you know?"

-- I don't "know." But, it is going to require a lot more to make me believe than the "evidence" I've seen. That barrier to belief would put me in the "moon hoax" category of believers. If people want to keep "investigating" it, by which I mean reading through emails and harassing pizza stores, I suppose it is useful.

But, there are no smoking guns, and to accuse someone of this grave a crime on flimsy nonvidence is a very serious thing, and I would rather have more information before condemning someone for it, especially since for many people, there is no way to recover from a false allegation like this.

Matt said...

Did my graduate work at a school in DC area; starts with 'George' ends with 'university'. Part of my study was on human trafficking. It is widely understood that there are sex traffickers of children in and around DC, and all up and down east coast.

I probably shouldn't mention these traffickers are ummmm 'diverse'. That would be racist.

Matt Sablan said...

For clarity: I don't doubt that there is child trafficking. I do have doubts about the specific allegations related to Pizza Gate. I can be persuaded, but I need more than "cryptic Podesta emails" and "creepy pizza logos."

Matt said...

I have no idea of the veracity of 'pizzagate'. But i don't consider it outside the realm of possibility.

Some of the stuff we covered was stomach-churning.

Gretchen said...

The more I think about it the more I think there is something to the Pizzagate story, mainly because the Dems are pushing the Fake News lie. Remember the "vast right wing conspiracy"? What exactly it is, I am not sure, but some of the emails written to and received by Podesta appeared to be in some kind of code. The more the Clintons claim something is a non-story the more I believe there is something fishy going on.

ben said...

The quote from the subreddit was pretty cherry-picked. I haven't spent a lot of time there, but I spend time on Reddit. The stories from r/the_donald that make it to r/all (which tries to gather of the most popular posts from across all the message boards, so that you can see something interesting even if it isn't in your curated feed) are almost always reposts of "fake news." They may be the only subreddit talking about that piece of news - but it was a news story built on someone's lie.

Mick said...

-- "I don't "know."


But you are the one that called it "stupid"...

Matt Sablan said...

And right now, it is. This is a conspiracy theory based on pizza secret code words from pizza stores with demonic goat mascots. That is stupid.

It may, in a highly unlikely event, turn out to be stupid-true. But it will still be stupid-stupid.

Bad Lieutenant said...

How are you going to know unless you investigate? And when I say investigate, I mean take all the suspects and put them through the coffee grinder. Surveillance. Interrogation. Backgrounds. Bloody ask, people!

mikee said...

Althouse, your comment threads are wonderful and of high quality on a daily basis. That is why I read your blog.

But for laugh out loud amusement, reddit.com comments are where I go to waste my time.

Reddit is run in an interestingly elitist manner. Volunteers monitor the posts and comments. Control of commenters and original posters is their reason to exist, and their behavior ranges from autocratic to bizarre.

The reddit corporate weasels, on the other hand, have experienced over time the Conquest's 2nd Law shift to the totalitarian Left. Imagine, the greatest reddit outrage before this election cycle (which was fraught with political operatives posting and commenting in an attempt to influence the vote) was over fat-shaming.

Yancey Ward said...

While I find the Pizza-gate allegations unlikely to be true, I also have to continually remind myself that people in positions of power and influence are probably very unlike myself in numerous ways. Also, on a historical note, the active predilections of men and women in positions of power are often quite immoral and distasteful to me and most of my peers.

For me, I would start paying attention to this story if one could really demonstrate beyond reasonable doubt that the so-called code words and symbols really were linked to child-trafficking rings. A great deal of weight in this story rests on two pillars- that allegedly official FBI cheat-sheet for pedophile code, and that the corresponding symbols and language were used by some of the organizations implicated.

As for Podesta, I am working on the assumption that the leaked e-mails are authentic- no one to date has demonstrated otherwise in this case or any other case of a Wikileak that I have seen, and it would be relatively easy to demonstrate such inauthenticity if it existed. With that written, there are some Podesta e-mails that are extremely odd and seem to be some sort of code between the correspondents. I tried reading them with the underlying belief that I was simply missing some kind of innocent underlying context, and while that helps, it doesn't really make the e-mails any less odd to me.

Mick said...

100s of children are missing in Va. Only second to Ca.

http://sgtreport.com/

Mick said...

I know, It's only a coincidence.

mockturtle said...

Yancey Ward says: A great deal of weight in this story rests on two pillars- that allegedly official FBI cheat-sheet for pedophile code, and that the corresponding symbols and language were used by some of the organizations implicated.

Exactly. The video information looks compelling but is it accurate? It should be easy enough for the FBI to debunk. If they cared to.

EMyrt said...


There's confirmation bias in both directions, traditionalguy. Remember the false accusations in the 1980s.

I remember this moral panic being pretty bipartisan, form law n order types on the right to the entire psychiatric community and the proto-SJW save the children left.

And the McMartin coverage is what finally got me to see (with the help of my libertarian since he was 12 husband) that the media are lying.

I saw the fnords.

MeatPopscicle1234 said...

MayBee said...
Althouse said:
critiqued by freakily emotive commentators on CNN

That just gets right to the heart of it.
You're gonna need a tag for that.

--------------------------

#TheHystericalPress
#ApoplecticMedia
#SpasticNewsStories
#OverwroughtMSM

etc...