Another day, another fake attack – this time a “vehicular” terror attack perpetrated by one Sayfullo Saipov, a native of Tashkent, Uzbekistan, who supposedly mowed down bicyclists and pedestrians in a rented Home Depot truck on a bike path in lower Manhattan on October 31, 2017. This “Halloween massacre” is billed as “the deadliest terror attack on New York City since September 11, 2001.”
Sayfullo Habibullaevic Saipov. Image: New York Daily News.
The crack team of investigators from the NYPD and FBI figured the whole thing out in a matter of hours, helped by evidence provided by Sayfullo himself: his alleged cries of “Allahu Akbar,” a note found on the ground with language associated with ISIS (“It will endure”), and the 90 videos and 3,800 images on his cell phone, which of course the FBI recovered. Or, uh, we seem to have TWO cell phones left at the scene by Saipov, according to some reports.
The rented Home Depot truck that Saipov allegedly used to mow down cyclists and pedestrians in New York, although there is no trace of blood anywhere on the vehicle. Image: NPR.
The cell phone videos reportedly show ISIS fighters killing prisoners as well as instructions for making an “explosive device.” The images include shots of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the supposed leader of ISIS. Saipov is said to have been inspired by one video in which al-Baghdadi “questioned what Muslims in the United States and elsewhere were doing to respond to the killing of Muslims in Iraq.”
This from a criminal complaint filed just 24 hours after the (fake) attack occurred, drawing on an interview of Saipov allegedly conducted by the authorities in the hospital, where he was taken after being shot by NYPD officer Ryan Nash. Nash is said to have fired nine shots at Saipov, injuring him, uh, in the stomach, as was first reported, and then it was the leg, and, well, we’re not quite sure about his injuries.[1] Saipov supposedly wanted an ISIS flag displayed in his hospital room.
Sayfullo Saipov in court on November 1, 2017, artist’s sketch. Image: New York Daily News.
Although shot at close range in the stomach or leg or both, Saipov was able to appear in court the very next day, hunched in a wheelchair, dressed in a gray shirt and pants, with his hair sticking up slightly in the back, according to a colorful description reported by the New York Times. His hands and feet were shackled. Lest one think that he was being treated inhumanely, considering he had just been shot (up to nine times) by a police officer, we are told that his court-appointed lawyer, David E. Patton, asked that he receive a daily change of dressing on his wounds. Officer Nash has been declared a hero.[2]
Officer Ryan Nash, looking uncomfortable while speaking to the press. Image: New York Times.
Meanwhile, the photographic evidence of the attack itself consists of the bikes and bodies on the bike path, the Home Depot truck with its front end smashed (but no blood on the truck), and a school bus that Saipov reportedly rammed—although the damage to the bus was so high up that it could only have occurred if the truck had been airborne.[3] The debris on the bike path was also problematic, looking like props hauled in for the press. The bikes were suspiciously “mangled” (as described by the media) in a way that would not have occurred if hit by a truck.
Mangled bicycle after supposedly being hit by Saipov’s truck. Image: NBC News.
YouTube investigator Anaconda Malt Liquor has provided some footage of bicycles being crushed by a machine and run over by a tank, which look great compared to those on the bike trail mangled by Saipov.[4]
Bicycle being run over by a tank. Anaconda Malt Liquor 11.
Same bicycle after being run over. Anaconda Malt Liquor 11.
Then there’s the bent sign post on the bike path—but how did Saipov’s truck do this strange kind of damage?
Bent sign post. Image: NBC News.
As for the victims, the alleged dead bodies were covered with white sheets, with no blood in evidence—although it was claimed by “eye witnesses” (crisis actors) and reported in the press that there was blood everywhere, and even “visible tire marks on the bodies of at least two of the victims crushed by the truck.”[5] As Hannity would say, “Really?”
An officer stands near an allegedly dead body covered with a sheet, with no EMTs on the scene, and no trace of blood anywhere. Image: New York Daily News.
The injured were transported with great fanfare for the cameras, with a multitude of participants, suggestive of the old light-bulb jokes.
How many emergency workers does it take to move a stretcher? Image: CBS News.
Five of the dead were reportedly friends from Rosario, Argentina, who had made the trip to New York for their 30th high school reunion.[6] Of course they rented some bikes and hit the bike trail immediately once they were in the cultural capital of the western hemisphere—what else could they imagine doing? The group totaled eight men (three of whom survived), photographed in their LIBRE T-shirts—said to be a “joke” as they were traveling without their wives. Or perhaps I should say Photoshopped in their LIBRE T-shirts, since the image is a bizarre concoction of huge and small fellows, with odd-looking arms draped around each other in a way that could only be accomplished digitally.
Photoshopped composite of eight Argentine friends, five of whom supposedly died in the New York truck attack. Image: New York Times.
The other alleged dead included Ann-Laure Decadt, a tourist from Belgium; Darren Drake of New Milford, NJ; and Nicholas Cleves of Manhattan. So much easier to control the narrative when most of the dead are foreigners.
Meanwhile, ISIS has now claimed credit for the (fake) attack in its weekly Al-Naba newsletter, calling Saipov a “soldier of the Caliphate” who carried out the attack in response to their call to target “citizens of the Crusader countries involved in the alliance against the Islamic State.”[7] Saipov is said to have been planning the attack for the past year, in response to the al-Baghdadi video. According to the New York Times, Saipov had followed instructions in the November 2016 issue of the Islamic State magazine, Rumiyah, which called for truck attacks on “the enemies of Allah.”[8]
November 2016 edition of Rumiyah with instructions on vehicular attacks.[9]
The Times cites the following details: (1) the driver should continue to keep driving as long as possible and not exit the vehicle during the attack, (2) continue crushing the remains of the victims until it is no longer possible to do so, (3) then jump out of the vehicle with a secondary weapon like a gun or a knife, (4) write a note, including the phrase “The Islamic State will remain,” and (5) throw it out the window of the vehicle as the attack is being carried out. Bingo! Saipov carried out these instructions to a tee—or the perps who orchestrated the attack made sure it would look that way.
Those following the Islamic State will know that ISIS was—and is—a creation of the Western military alliance, including Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar. The Islamic State was inserted into Syria and northern Iraq to give “us” an enemy to “fight,” with the primary goal of taking out Assad and taking over Syria.[10] So either way—fake attack or ISIS operation—WE carried out the New York Halloween massacre.
But, as is patently obvious, the official story of the New York attack is absurd. This was terrorism but not “Islamic.” It was a hoax, like all the rest of the post-9/11 attacks—meant to terrorize the citizenry, impose higher levels of “security,” and take away our rights. This includes deleting accounts from YouTube, subverting searches on Google, censoring books on Amazon, and firing tenured professors, in the guise of protecting us from bullying, hate speech, etc., but actually to quash our research on these cruel hoaxes. How disturbing that so many people—intel agents, politicians, government and corporate employees, academics, the courts, police, firemen, EMTs, doctors and hospital workers, the mainstream and alternative media, and paid crisis actors—are involved in the perpetration.
VIVIAN LEE is the nom de plume of a tenured professor at an east coast university.
This article was published at JamesFetzer.org and MemoryHoleBlog.org.
[4] “It’s just……what’s the word I’m looking for?” Anaconda Malt Liquor 11. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjjvTajRUP4. The Anaconda Malt Liquor 11 YouTube channel was taken down, and this important video is no longer available.
Judge Affirms Prof. James Tracy’s First Amendment Rights
James Tracy was “exposed” on CNN in 2013 by Anderson Cooper, who branded him a “conspiracy theorist” for his investigation of anomalies surrounding the alleged Sandy Hook Newtown school shooting as portrayed in the media.
On February 21, 2017, a US federal judge ruled that former Florida Atlantic University (FAU) Professor James Tracy’s civil rights lawsuit can proceed to discovery. As this author has observed the case stands to set a precedent in matters of free speech and academic freedom throughout the nation. Defendants include FAU, its Board of Trustees, President, Dean, Associate Provost, the Florida Education Association, and the faculty union United Faculty of Florida (UFF), along with the union’s FAU Chapter President and Service Unit Director.
Tracy was terminated from his tenured professorship in January 2016, ostensibly for questioning university policy regarding the mandatory reporting of “outside activities,” and refusing to submit paperwork disclosing his personal blogging at his website, Memory Hole Blog. Tracy argued that his blogging involved the exercise of his right to free speech as a private US citizen. The popular website was hacked or otherwise sabotaged by unnamed parties after the November 2016 election and, as of this writing, is no longer in operation.
FAU and UFF engaged in conspiracy
Tracy received a spate of unfavorable publicity by CNN and other news outlets in 2013, shortly after the alleged shooting at Sandy Hook School in Newtown, CT. The university set out to discipline Tracy as a result, attempting to dissuade him from making any further statements about the Newtown incident. FAU’s faculty union, UFF, filed a grievance for Tracy on free speech grounds. In late 2015, however, union officials refused to defend the professor.
Tracy’s suit cites UFF as co-defendants, arguing that union officers conspired with university administrators to place an informal gag order on Tracy while allowing the university’s termination proceedings to go forward uncontested. At the same time, Tracy contends, union representatives discouraged him from filing a grievance or lawsuit, instead trying to intimidate him into resigning in lieu of termination. When Tracy refused to resign, the university fired him outright.
FAU’s “Conflict of Interest” policy and its chilling effect on free speech
Part of the case involves a challenge to FAU’s “Conflict of Interest” policy, which extends to all university faculty. FAU and many of Florida’s other public universities now compel faculty members to present all their “outside activities” for administrative approval, whether compensated or not. Tracy objected to the policy, which would have required him to submit an account of his personal blogging. His suit argues that this is a form of prior restraint forbidden by the First Amendment.
Tracy’s concerns were shared by other members of FAU’s faculty as well, including senior political science professor Timothy Lenz, who described a climate of “fear and uncertainty,” speaking at a faculty senate meeting on September 4, 2015. Lenz enjoined administrators to “please call off your dogs,” continuing at length:
The Administration has been sending faculty members who are engaged in outside activity nasty letters, letters of discipline or letters that threaten faculty members who are engaged in outside activity with discipline … there’s a great deal of suspicion that you can say, or write, or do something, but if you say, write, or do something that the Administration disagrees with you’re going to get one of these nasty letters put in your personnel file and that’s untenable.
Tracy’s suit names as defendants individual FAU administrators present at the September 4 faculty senate meeting, including FAU President John Kelly. Kelly and his co-defendants moved to dismiss the first complaint, which was granted in part, necessitating a Second Amended Complaint, filed on December 28, 2016. This second complaint has been upheld, with the defendants’ motion to dismiss denied in a February 21, 2017, decision by Judge Robin Rosenberg. The judge refers to John Kelly’s involvement in her analysis:
The inference from the allegations in the Second Amended Complaint is that Defendant Kelly was personally (and not vicariously) involved in a retaliatory violation of Plaintiff’s First Amendment rights. As a result, Defendant Kelly is sufficiently on notice of the claim against him such that he is able to answer that claim.
Count I – Retaliation in Violation of Right to Free Speech, against Defendant FAU and Defendants President John Kelly, Associate Provost Diane Alperin, and College of Arts and Letters Dean Heather Coltman.
Count II – Conspiracy to Interfere with Plaintiff’s Civil Rights, against Defendants Alperin, Coltman, Kelly, UFF President Robert Zoeller, Jr., UFF Service Unit Director Michael Moats, UFF, Florida Education Association, and FAU.
Count III – Facial Challenge to FAU’s Conflict of Interest Policy, against Defendant FAU.
Count IV – As-Applied Challenge to Plaintiff’s Right to Free Speech, against Defendant FAU.
Count V – Declaratory Judgment and Injunction, against Defendant FAU.
Count VI – State Law Breach of Contract, against Defendant FAU.
Case proceeds to discovery
After Tracy initiated his lawsuit in April 2016, FAU’s attorneys began filing repeated court motions, arguing that Tracy’s suit was “frivolous,” that no conspiracy existed, and that Tracy’s termination was due to his alleged misconduct and failure to disclose his blogging activities in a timely fashion. By this means, the defendants succeeded in precluding discovery for over six months.
These delaying tactics have been brought to an end with Rosenberg’s February 21 decision, in which “the court concludes that Plaintiff’s Second Amended Complaint satisfies federal pleading standards and does not amount to mere ‘labels and conclusions or a formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action,’” as FAU and UFF attorneys have argued.
Tracy’s legal team has now forced FAU to release thousands of internal emails between administrators, trustees, and non-university parties under Florida’s Sunshine Law. Many of the documents tend to confirm the suit’s conspiracy allegations, including notes from a meeting between FAU counsel and administrators strategizing on how to discipline Tracy, and emails between Kelly and FAU’s chief trustee on Tracy’s pending termination.
Two excerpts from defendant Heather Coltman’s notes of January 2013, cautioning conspirators against email communications and acknowledging a First Amendment issue.
Fake News and media blackout on the status of Tracy’s lawsuit
After Rosenberg dismissed part of the First Amended Complaint, the Florida Sun Sentinel—which has published a multitude of defamatory articles targeting Tracy—falsely reported that the entire lawsuit had been thrown out. This erroneous report was then picked up by the Associated Press and broadcast nationally (e.g. here, here and here). Only after Tracy’s attorney contacted the management of the Sun Sentinel to complain was the story revised. The Sun Sentinel has neglected to report on the court order allowing the suit to proceed. Nor has the mainstream media taken notice, with only a few exceptions.
In contrast to the media frenzy over Tracy’s research on the Newtown incident, in which he was viciously attacked in op-eds, letters to the editor, and news stories in print and on television, there is a conspicuous silence now that the case will proceed to trial. A legal victory for Professor Tracy would set a major precedent for free speech and academic freedom jurisprudence, and would decisively bolster safeguards for university employees—and indeed all employees—to comment freely on matters of public importance without fear of losing their jobs.
As an alternative to the mainstream press, Memory Hole Blog was used by Tracy and other contributors to draw attention to anomalous news coverage and analyze media reporting on controversial events. Many of these observations were deemed “controversial” or “conspiracy theories” by the very news outlets that came under scrutiny—including CNN and the New York Times—organizations now in the hot seat for disseminating “Fake News” themselves. This battle is currently raging over unsubstantiated allegations in the mainstream media against President Trump, who is called a “conspiracy theorist” himself by the press.
Should Tracy lose his case, the outcome would be disastrous for free speech rights. A decision favoring FAU’s defense could be used by almost any employer, academic or otherwise, to further unconstitutionally monitor and restrict employee expression. This would likely intensify in the current US academic environment, rife with campaigns targeting “politically incorrect” speech and behavior. “The way it stands, [FAU] could start firing people for not disclosing their Facebook pages,” Tracy’s attorney Louis Leo IV said following a December court appearance.
The case moves forward
On February 28th the faculty union and FAU submitted separate responses to Tracy’s Second Amended Complaint, maintaining there was no conspiracy to fire Tracy and reasserting that the cause was his failure to follow FAU’s “outside activities” policy. In its response, FAU characterized Tracy’s repeated attempts to obtain clarification on the unconstitutional policy as “belligerent” and “rebellious.” “While Plaintiff appeared to embrace his nonconformist behavior thinking it would publicize his interests in the light he deemed helpful,” FAU’s attorneys wrote, “the Defendant University’s policy and intent were unrelated to such interests and were intended to provide Defendant University with necessary information for various legitimate and proper reasons.”
FAU is also using the 11th Amendment’s notion of the “sovereign immunity” of state governments and agencies as part of its defense. However, the 11th Amendment does not give the states the right to violate federal law or the US Constitution. According to Alden v. Maine, “A State’s constitutional privilege to assert its sovereign immunity in its own courts does not confer upon the State a concomitant right to disregard the Constitution.”
With the discovery process now proceeding, FAU’s defense looks increasingly weak. A flood of internal documents obtained under Florida’s open records law indicates that university officials met repeatedly to strategize on how they would discipline Tracy without appearing to violate his First Amendment right to free speech. As these meeting notes and emails reveal, there was as much obsession in quelling the controversy surrounding Tracy’s blog as there was in the publicity his firing generated.
Based on the Rosenberg denial to dismiss, the case will now proceed to trial. Tracy is seeking declaratory relief upholding his right to free speech, injunctive relief with reinstatement to tenured employment and full restoration of benefits and lost wages, relief from the requirement to report “outside activities” for Tracy and his colleagues, compensatory damages, punitive damages, and attorneys’ fees as permitted by law.
VIVIAN LEE is the nom de plume of a tenured professor at an east coast university.
This article was published at GlobalResearch.ca and also at MemoryHoleBlog.com (now MemoryHoleBlog.org).
I don’t do it for the money. I’ve got enough, much more than I’ll ever need. I do it to do it. Deals are my art form. Other people paint beautifully on canvas or write wonderful poetry. I like making deals, preferably big deals. That’s how I get my kicks.
-Donald Trump, The Art of the Deal
Donald Trump with his book, The Art of the Deal. Image: The Guardian.
The stunning win by Donald J. Trump in the November 8th U.S. presidential election took many by surprise, since Hillary Clinton was the chosen candidate. Everyone seemed to think that Clinton would win – either legitimately or in a rigged election. News coverage favored Clinton by a wide margin, and the only major network to give Trump a break was Fox News.[1] Most polls predicted that Clinton would win the presidency, with her odds of winning put as high as 85% and Trump’s as low as 35%.[2] The pundits are now asking how they all got it wrong.[3]
Blame is being placed on “the e-mail scandal,” with James Comey’s letter of October 28 to the U.S. Congress refocusing attention on Clinton’s private e-mails just 11 days before the election.[4] FBI Director Comey reopened the investigation after another 650,000 e-mails were found, this time on the laptop of Anthony Weiner, husband of top Clinton aide Huma Abedin. The laptop was confiscated by the New York Police Department (NYPD) and turned over to the FBI. On November 6, Comey caved to pressure, announcing that no charges were warranted, but some said the damage had been done.[5]
Election night was a long, drawn-out affair, with final results not in until 2:40 am on Wednesday. The television networks “called” the electoral vote in the states, a notoriously undemocratic way of deciding U.S. elections before all the votes have actually been counted. Fox News ran consistently high vote counts for Trump, as opposed to the lower numbers predicted at CNN. Dramatic coverage continued into the wee hours, with a number of states said to be “too close to call” – including Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Arizona, all of which eventually went to Trump, who won by a landslide.[6]
Megyn Kelly going to find out why Fox can’t call any more states for Trump. Image Fox News.
Although many states were “called” earlier in the evening based on partial results and exit polls, the last few states were agonized over by the networks, with Fox anchor Megyn Kelly walking back to the desk of experts twice to ask them why they could not call these key states – and when they might be able to do so. According to Kelly, she thought Fox would be able to call the election around 11 pm. She said she expected Clinton to win, until there was an abrupt shift, when “the real vote” started to come in. She ascribed the dramatic turnaround to “a hidden Trump vote…It was a resounding victory. I have never seen anything like this. You will never have a result this shocking where people got it shockingly this wrong.”[7]
A return to Anthony Weiner’s laptop may provide an explanation.
Anthony Weiner. Image Washington Times.
Unnamed but highly-placed sources, including NYPD detectives and prosecutors, revealed that the laptop contained “enough evidence to put Hillary (Clinton) and her crew away for life.” Also reportedly involved were Huma Abedin, Bill Clinton, Jeffrey Epstein – convicted pedophile, as well as members of the U.S. Congress, the Saudis, and other interests in the Middle East. Epstein and his “Lolita Express” have been associated with numerous well-known people, such as Alan Dershowitz, Prince Andrew, and Bill Clinton.[8] The NYPD reportedly said that if the FBI and Department of Justice did not issue indictments against “Clinton and co-conspirators,” they would go public with the e-mails. According to an NYPD chief:
What’s in the emails is staggering and as a father, it turned my stomach…There is not going to be any Houdini-like escape from what we found. We have copies of everything. We will ship them to WikiLeaks or I will personally hold my own press conference if it comes to that…People are going to prison.[9]
This being the case, what better way to stanch the blood than to give Trump the presidency?
Although Comey let Clinton off the hook, it seems clear that forces within the government had decided she was a liability. Should she be elected, the emails would come out, and she would be indicted along with many others. And Trump had vowed to investigate “crooked Hillary” with chants from supporters to “lock her up.”[10] Inconveniently, as it now turned out, the election had been fixed in favor of Clinton.[11] Clearly it was time to make a deal with Trump.
Donald Trump in 1985, shortly before the publication of The Art of the Deal. Image Los Angeles Times.
The best thing you can do is deal from strength, and leverage is the biggest strength you can have. Leverage is having something the other guy wants. Or better yet, needs. Or best of all, simply can’t do without.
-Donald Trump, The Art of the Deal
Let’s say that Trump was approached by government insiders and told he could be president – if he agreed to certain terms. Let’s say that the deal was this: Trump gets a win on November 8th and becomes the nation’s 45th president; he lets all allegations against Clinton and her foundation drop; he respects Obama’s “legacy”; and he agrees to partner with Israel.[12] This deal was struck after Comey’s letter of October 28. Clinton was given notice as Election Day approached (although she may have held out hope that she could win). And the news teams were informed during the course of the election.
When the counter-fix went live, the networks experienced the turnaround – the “hidden Trump vote” referred to by Megyn Kelly. Around 10 or 11 pm, the anchors began to refer to Trump as the winner, frequently correcting themselves or qualifying their statements: “I mean, IF he wins,” or “that is, presuming he is elected.” This included Anderson Cooper and his cronies at CNN, who suddenly turned conciliatory toward Trump after months of abuse and slander. The consolation prize went to Clinton: winning the popular vote. Even this was predicted by the networks, with no surprise or consternation.
It’s strange how things can turn around.
-Donald Trump, The Art of the Deal
Was this the deal of a lifetime? Or did Trump simply win the election?
VIVIAN LEE is the nom de plume of a tenured professor at an east coast university.
This article was also published at MemoryHoleBlog.org and JamesFetzer.org.
You don’t have to be a Trump supporter to be shocked by the anti-Trump rhetoric flooding the commercial media. Features range from gross political propaganda to pseudo-human-interest stories, economic prognostications, and pure psychobabble. The slander and libel are everywhere you look. What does Trump think about this? Is he “working for Hillary” as has long been suspected?[1] And if so, what is he getting out of the deal? A kick in the butt? The short end of the stick? Just how Trump benefits is hard to fathom.
“Bury Trump in a Landslide,” The New York Daily News, 10/20/16.
On October 20, the day after the third presidential debate, TheNew York Daily News ran a gigantic article on Trump’s many faults and follies (nydailynews.com interactive). In the introduction, we learn that Trump is a “liar, thief, bully, hypocrite, sexual victimizer and unhinged, self-adoring demagogue.” We also learn that his defeat is “all but certain,” a recurring theme in the barrage of anti-Trump propaganda. To help us negotiate this epic article, the The News has divided it into 14 chapters: Trump the Demagogue, Trump the Fraudster, Trump the Head Case, Trump the Fake Philanthropist, Trump the Liar, etc. Oh yes – and Trump the Conspiracy Theorist. We have cute cartoons, one showing Trump with a Hitler mustache and another after having plastic surgery to make him look like Lincoln.
Then there’s The New Yorker, that bastion of neo-con fake liberalism, which has been anti-Trump from the outset. In the October 31 issue (The Talk of the Town), we read that Clinton will be elected, “an event that we will welcome for its immense historical importance, and greet with indescribable relief.” We learn that Trump is “a trash-talking, burn-it-to-the-ground demagogue,” “manifestly unqualified and unfit for office,” and “favors conspiracy theory and fantasy, deriving his knowledge from the darker recesses of the Internet.” Following this endorsement of future-President Clinton, we have “Presumptive: What Would a Fiction Writer Do with the Campaign of 2016?” and the creepy “Trolls for Trump: How the Alt-Right Spreads Fringe Ideas to the Mainstream,” by Andrew Marantz. Then “The Unconnected” (“The Democrats Lost the White Working Class. The Republicans Exploited Them. Can Hillary Clinton Win Them Back?”) by George Packer. Plus several online offerings and erudite cartoons.
“How Trump’s Brain Works,” cartoon by Roz Chast. The New Yorker, October 31, 2016.
Many other news/information outlets have followed suit. But nobody can match The New York Times, unrivaled in its prestige, intellectual power, and moral authority. Taking the situation in hand, The Times has set out to brainwash the public and play its part in the (s)election of Hillary. In an Op-Ed piece written by Charles M. Blow, “Trump, The Worst of America” (October 17), we hear about “the staggering magnitude of his social vulgarity and emotional ineptitude” and read that he has “embraced what seems to be most natural to him: acting like a pig.” According to Blow, “Trump is in fact the logical extension of toxic masculinity and ambient misogyny. He is the logical extension of rampant racism. He is the logical extension of wealth worship. He is the logical extension of pervasive anti-intellectualism. Trump is the logical extension of the worst of America.” Very logical. Yes, I see.
And this is just the tip of the iceberg (which is not melting due to man-made climate change, according to Trump).[2] A survey of TheTimes coverage for the week following the third debate yields no fewer than 68 articles and editorials bashing Trump, some in egregiously libelous language. And these are just the obvious ones. Below is a list, taken from the print version – since those reading the online Times have only the vaguest idea of what appears in the daily paper. Links to the online articles (where available) are found at the page numbers following the titles.
Thursday – 10/20/16: 8 anti-Trump articles
“Trump Won’t Say If He Will Accept Election’s Results: ‘I Will Keep You in Suspense,’ He Says – Clinton Calls It Horrifying.” By Patrick Healy and Jonathan Martin (page A1)
“Interrupting, Mocking, and Taunting, Clinton Turns the Tormenter” (“News Analysis”). By Amy Chozick and Michael Barbaro (A1)
“Trump’s Foreign Policy Is Not Actually about Foreign Policy” (“The Interpreter”). By Max Fisher and Amanda Taub (A15)
“Sticking to Truth, and Sometimes Departing from It, on a Range of Topics” (“Fact Check”). By various authors (Twohey, Appelbaum, Gabriel, Pear, Liptak, Irwin, Eder, and Lichtblau) (A16)
“Donald Trump’s Contempt for Democracy” (Editorial)
“The Debate in One Scary Answer.” By Gail Collins (Op-Ed)
“How Tech Leaders Treat a Trump Backer.” By David Streitfeld and Mike Isaac [re Peter Thiel] (Business, B7)
“‘Trumpland’ Isn’t Really about Trump.” By Neil Genzlinger [film review] (Arts, C1)
Friday – 10/21/16: 10 anti-Trump articles
“In ‘Nasty’ Turn, Clinton Unites Generations: Host of Women’s Issues Coalesce for Liberals.” By Farah Stockman (A1)
“Trump Stays Firm on Having Option to Dispute Vote: Rallying Base, He Says He Would Accept a ‘Clear’ Result.” By Alan Rappeport and Alexander Burns (A1)
“Experts Dispute Trump in Mosul Attack Critique: Officers and Historians Assert Criticism by Candidate Demonstrates His Ignorance.” By Eric Schmitt (A14)
“Trump’s Defiance Is Seen As Threat to U.S. Image.” By Alexander Burns (A16)
“Was That a Presidential Debate or a Pitch for an Edgy Trump Channel?” (“Critic’s Notebook”). By James Poniewozik (A16)
“Videos Force Democrats On Defensive about Tricks.” By Steve Eder and Jonathan Martin (A17)
“‘Absurd’ Trump Errs on Abortion, Doctors Say.” By Pam Belluck (A18)
“In Night of Punchlines, Trump’s Routine Prompts New York’s Elite to Heckle.” By Matt Flegenheimer and Ashley Parker [re the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner] (A19)
“Repairing Moral Capital.” By David Brooks (Op-Ed)
“Letting Go of the Secrets: Trump Tapes Have Couples Talking about Sexual Assault.” By Jack Healy (A9)
“Disputing Vote Is an Uphill Battle.” By Nick Corasaniti (A12)
“For Some Immigrants, Trump’s Warning on Election Results Sounds All Too Familiar.” By Yamiche Alcindor (A12)
“The Powerful Woman: A Prime Target for Jobs” (“The Upshot”). By Claire Cain Miller (A12)
“How Citing Voter Fraud Became a Political Tactic.” By Michael Wines (A13)
“America, the Beautiful Untainted.” By Roger Cohen (Op-Ed)
“Nixon’s Civics Lesson for Trump.” By Mark K. Updegrove (Op-Ed)
“Don’t Take Donald to Dinner.” By Gail Collins (Op-Ed)
Sunday – 10/23/16: 15 anti-Trump articles
“Outside Money Favors Clinton at a 2-to-1 Rate over Her Rival.” By Nicholas Confessore and Rachel Shorey (A1)
“Trump Recording Narrows National Divide on Sexual Assault.” By Amanda Taub (A4)
“Trump’s Threat to Reject Election Outcome Alarms Scholars” (“The Interpreter”). By Max Fisher (A22)
“Trump Pledges To Heal Divisions (and Sue His Accusers).” By Ashley Parker and Amy Chozick (A 23)
“The Rich Vote Republican? Maybe Not This Time” (“Inside Wealth”). By Robert Frank (Sunday Business, BU3)
“An Election Sends America to the Couch: Safety, Secrecy, Boundaries – Therapists Say Our Deepest Worries Are Surfacing” (“Well”). By Leslie Alderman. (Sunday Styles, ST1)
“No Undecideds in This Audience: Hillary Clinton’s Longtime Friends Gather in Chicago To Watch Her Debate.” By Jessica Bennett (Sunday Styles, ST7)
“Room for Debate: The Trump Tower Bar” (“Night Out with Chelsea Handler”). By Katie Rogers (Sunday Styles, ST10)
“Final Debate Takes a More Somber Tone.” By Vanessa Friedman (Sunday Styles, ST13)
“The Media’s Moment of Truth: Donald Trump Will Continue To Rant, But Do We Have To Listen?” By Frank Bruni (Sunday Review, SR3)
“The Republican Lion in Winter: Will McCain Finally Stand Up to Trump?” By Evan Thomas (Sunday Review, SR4)
“How Kids Learn Prejudice: Psychology Suggests That the ‘Trump Effect’ is Real” (“Gray Matter”). By Katherine D. Kinzler (Sunday Review, SR9)
“Can Trump Help Us Bridge the ‘God Gulf’?” By Nicholas Kristof (Sunday Review, SR11)
“Why Hillary Clinton Needs To Be Two-Faced: To Get Things Done in Politics, You Sometimes Have To Be a Hypocrite” (“Opinion”). By Jonathan Rauch (Op-Ed)
Monday – 10/24/16: 9 anti-Trump articles
“Victory in Sight, Clinton Presses beyond Trump – Appeals to Vote Early: With Lead in the Polls, She Turns To Backing Other Democrats.” By Alexander Burns and Amy Chozick (A1)
“Clash of Two Lives at Trump Rally Reveals Layers of Nation’s Divide.” By Farah Stockman (A1)
“All the People, Places, and Things Donald Trump Has Insulted on Twitter Since Declaring His Candidacy for President. To an Unprecedented Degree in American History, Mr. Trump Has Made Personal Insults and Attacks Part of His Campaign. This List Represents Our Best Effort To Identify and Characterize Them All.” By Jasmine C. Lee and Kevin Quealy (A10-A11, two-page spread)
“Money Spent on Clinton Ads Dwarfed That Spent on Trump Ads.” By Adam Pearce (A13)
“Obama Assails Senate Candidate and Others in G.O.P. for Links to Trump.” By Julie Hirschfeld Davis (A15)
“G.O.P. Hopefuls in State Congressional Races Walk Tightrope on Trump.” By William Neuman (A16)
“Clinton’s Specter of Illegitimacy.” By Charles Blow (Op-Ed)
“Turning a Skeptical Eye toward the Election.” By Neil Genzlinger (The Arts, C1)
Wednesday – 10/26/16: 9 anti-Trump articles
“What Drives Trump? A Fear of Fading Away: Hours of Interviews Reveal a Refusal To Accept Defeat.” By Michael Barbaro (A1)
“Growing Costs of Health Law Pose a Late Test.” By Patrick Healy and Abby Goodnough (A1)
“‘A Bizarre Experience’ in North Carolina’s Races: Protests, Hurricane, and Firebomb Add Drama to 3 Tight Contests in a Swing State.” By Richard Fausset (A13)
“Black Voters on Trump: We’ve Heard It All Before.” By Yamiche Alcindor (A21)
“Poll Shows Wide Fears That Ballots Won’t Count.” By Giovanni Russonello (A22)
“Muslim Parents Grapple with How To Explain a Tumultuous Election.” By Samantha Schmidt (A24)
“Trump Wanted To Put His Name Across the Earth. New York City Said No.” By David W. Dunlap (A25)
“Trump, Alien to All That’s Great.” By Thomas Friedman (Op-Ed)
“Clinton’s Resounding Mandate.” By Frank Bruni (Op-Ed)
…
This trend is set to continue through November 8 – with a stand-out article on October 28: “Trump Backers See Revolution If Clinton Wins: Dark Fears and Talk of a Stolen Election.”
But wait, you say, surely The Times prints articles critical of Hillary as well. No, not really. The very few that appear to find fault actually give her a pass for her lies and bad behavior. Pandering to Wall Street? Hey – no problem.[3] Private e-mails for State Department business? Please.[4] Incriminating campaign e-mails from WikiLeaks? A Russian hack.[5] Serious health problems? A minor bout of pneumonia.[6] And videos of DNC operatives admitting to instigating violence at Trump rallies, and actually conspiring to rig the election?[7] Honestly, does anyone care? (See article 14 above.)
We do get cuddly features like “True or False? Hillary Clinton, a Native Chicagoan, Is a Cubs Fan.” Also a gauzy cover photo for a recent New York Times Magazine along with two admiring articles (“Her Way” and “How Hillary Became ‘Hillary’“). This charade masks her fealty to Israel, a word strangely absent from coverage on foreign powers conspiring to influence the (s)election.[8]
Clinton and Netanyahu, September 14, 2010 (one of many such photos). Image CNN.
One of the biggest anti-Trump articles is the two-page spread of October 24 (see article 44 above). This catalogs Trump’s insults on Twitter since he declared his candidacy. In tiny but readable print, we see his opinions on people, corporations, the debates, and the electoral process.
“All the People, Places, and Things Donald Trump Has Insulted on Twitter Since Declaring His Candidacy for President.” The New York Times, October 24, 2016 (A10-A11).
The longest string of insults is reserved for Hillary, but we also have Trump’s comments on the media. On ABC News Politics: “LIE.” On Anderson Cooper 360: “a waste.” On The Wall Street Journal: “bad at math, nobody cares what they say in their editorials anymore…so dishonest…so wrong, so often.” On TheNew York Daily News: “failing, failing, dead, worthless, bleeding red ink, a total loser.” On The Washington Post: “dishonest reporting, bad, big tax shelter, loses a fortune.” On TheNew York Times: “Just write whatever they want to write, making up sources along the way! Really disgusting, a laughingstock rag! no longer a credible source…gets worse and worse by the day…newspaper of fiction…false, malicious, and libelous…a disgusting fraud…They knowingly write lies, truly one of the worst newspapers, failing, failing, allows dishonest writers to totally fabricate stories…should focus on fair and balanced reporting…” And as for Charles M. Blow: “dishonest reporting.”
You don’t have to be a Trump supporter to agree with his take on the press.
VIVIAN LEE is the nom de plume of a tenured professor at an east coast university.
This article was also published at MemoryHoleBlog.org.
The US news media is gearing up for the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks with a diverse and perverse set of offerings to bolster the official story. None is stranger than the release of “I Kinda Like It When A Lotta People Die,” which George Carlin recorded on September 9-10, 2001, for an HBO special that would have been aired in November but was shelved after the attacks – since it “seemed in bad taste after nearly 3,000 people were killed a day later,” according to a story in the New York Times this week.[1]
Carlin, the brilliant comedian and brutally honest social critic, died at the age of 71 in 2008; he was posthumously awarded the Kennedy Center’s 2008 Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.[2] Despite Carlin’s anti-establishment bent, you don’t get big awards without friends in high places.
George Carlin, 2003. Image New York Times.
“I Kinda Like It” is set for release on September 16, 2016, and can be pre-ordered at amazon or GeorgeCarlin.com (download, CD, or vinyl). But for those who can’t wait, it has been available on SiriusXM, Channel 400 (Carlin’s Corner) since September 1.[3] Mocking the public’s fascination with disaster scenarios, Carlin says he enjoys mass destructions where lots of people die – such as tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, tidal waves, volcanoes, monsoons, forest fires, avalanches, heat waves, famines, and, his favorite disaster, “an asteroid.”
“I’m always rootin’ for a really high death toll,” he says. “That’s why I like the natural disasters … that no one can control.” According to Carlin, “the world is one big theatrical production.” In the face of mass tragedy, “folks, you gotta have fun.”[4]
Not only that, but he includes a joke about “a fart so potent it blew up an airplane,” according to the Times. “You know who gets blamed? Osama bin Laden,” he says. “The FBI is looking for explosives. They should be looking for minute traces of rice and bok choy.”[5] A preview/trailer is available on YouTube, which does not, however, include the bit about bin Laden.[6]
“I Kinda Like It When a Lotta People Die,” album preview.
Not too many people were riffing on Osama bin Laden on the eve of 9/11, although the media jumped on board the next morning with reports of terrorist attacks – and Ehud Barak, former Prime Minister of Israel, pinned it on Osama the same day in a BBC interview. One can see why Barak would speak up, since Israel was one of the perpetrators. Neocon L. Paul Bremer also named bin Laden that day on NBC, but he too was in on the scam, as the future “proconsul” of Iraq after the 2003 invasion.[7] But why was George Carlin thinking about bin Laden – in the context of mass casualties – on September 9-10? It seems he knew what was going to happen.
The “lost special” was reworked and replaced after two months with a new HBO special, “Complaints and Grievances.” The new version was nominated for a Grammy in 2003. Was Carlin brought around after his indiscretion?
“I Kinda Like It” was deemed suitable for release by Carlin’s daughter Kelly, after it was located in the Carlin archives.[8] But why now? Perhaps because we can handle it, 15 years later, as the Times explains:
Today, we have a more accelerated news coverage and politicized comedy scene. No one canceled a late-night show after the June attack on a nightclub in Orlando, Fla., and the sober way talk-show hosts speak after national tragedies has hardened into something like ritual, a part of the job.
That’s funny. No one canceled a talk-show after the Orlando attack, because everyone knew it was fake.[9]
Or is the Carlin special being pulled out to ramp up the level of cognitive dissonance already plaguing our society, in order to tamp down the fact that a good portion of the world’s populace now knows that 9/11 was a false-flag enterprise?
Unfortunately Carlin is not alive to comment on the coverage, although he may be turning over in his grave. According to the Times’ cynical interpretation of his “operatic yarn”:
One way to see it, though, is as a sendup of the terrorist mind-set that led to the attack on the World Trade Center and other sites that day, a biting take on an extremist view that imagines that a twisted form of deliverance will come from violence and hate. Seen from a certain angle, a story once too provocative to release might be the perfect example of comedy in the post-Sept. 11 world.
Yes – 9/11 is quite a laugh.
Other anniversary coverage is more typical fare, straight propaganda calculated to support the official version, such as the moving story of Robert Franz, a guide at the Flight 93 National Memorial near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
Robert Franz, Flight 93 National Memorial, Shanksville, PA. Image New York Times.
Franz, according to the Times, is an “interpretive park ranger,” whose job is “to tell the story of what happened in that color-dappled field behind him, again and again and again.”
Helping some to remember what we already know. Helping others, especially those who were not yet born, to envision a beautiful, calamitous day now nearly 15 years in the past.
He tells the visitors the official story of United Airlines Flight 93, with all the requisite components, ending with the plane crashing “at 563 miles an hour into the soft, strip-mined earth, killing all.” Despite the complete lack of evidence for a plane crash in Shanksville, Franz must know what he is talking about – he was a military pilot who spent “the better part of two decades flying Army Hueys and Black Hawks.” He takes questions as well, “and keeps his counsel as conspiracy theorists question whether such a crash even occurred.”[10] Luckily there are people out there like Robert Franz to reassure us.
So for this year’s anniversary, we have comedy, we have pathos, and we also have museum-quality documentation. The National September 11 Memorial Museum has issued a new commemorative volume, No Day Shall Erase You: The Story of 9/11 As Told at the National September 11 Memorial Museum.[11] It will not be lost on the reader that the word “story” is the operative term in all these, well, stories.
No Day Shall Erase You, 2016. Image National September 11 Memorial Museum.
Edited by Alice M. Greenwald, the director of the museum, the book “is both a memorial and a celebration of survival, courage, endurance and resilience, made all the more poignant because, unlike so many other museums, it is site specific.”
Like visitors to Pearl Harbor, where sailors are still entombed and where oil still bubbles to the surface from the submerged battleship that is part of the USS Arizona Memorial, people at the museum can stand at ground zero, where the terrorist attack took place. Even readers, while paging through this book, can feel themselves inescapably transplanted there.[12]
How appropriate to compare the attack on Pearl Harbor to the 9/11 attacks, since they were the “new Pearl Harbor” called for by the Project for the New American Century in their 2000 report, Rebuilding America’s Defenses.[13]
All this coverage includes prominent nods to the 9/11 “conspiracy theorists” and those in the know about what did and did not occur on that day. One might take this to be a good sign – that the “truthers” are now so numerous, and the amount of viable information available in print and online is so vast, that the opposition to the official “story” must be acknowledged by mainstream sources. One recent book, America Nuked on 9/11: Compliments of the CIA, the Neocons in the DoD & the Mossad, gives an up-to-date account.[14]
Yet the propaganda continues in ever more devious and creative forms, and far too many people are taken in. One wonders what George Carlin would say in 2016 about the 9/11 theatrical event – and the mass destructions that have followed.
Vivian Lee is the nom de plume of a tenured professor at an east coast university.
[13] “Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor.” Rebuilding America’s Defenses, section V, “Creating Tomorrow’s Dominant Force.” http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/pdf/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf.
Figure 1. A “survivor with no visible injuries, being carried back toward the club. Image: ABC News.
New information on “the worst mass shooting in U.S. history” reveals a complex and confusing scenario at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando during the three hours of the “shooting” and its aftermath. The official story – or perhaps one should say stories – is a fragmented narrative composed of bits and pieces, consisting of interviews by “survivors” and “witnesses,” cell phone videos supposedly taken inside the club, news footage, and remarks of various officials. Added to this are the texts and phone calls allegedly made by Omar Mateen, the “shooter,” along with statements given by his father and wives, past and present.[1]
Leaving aside the ludicrous idea that Mateen phoned 911 several times while he was killing people, and also called News 13 TV as well as “a friend,” at the same time as he was texting his wife and searching on Facebook – the various parts of the Orlando story just don’t add up.[2]
As with other recent “mass shootings,” there is a pronounced lack of evidence that a “massacre” actually took place – no bodies, no frantic attempts to save anyone at the scene, and no ambulances rushing people to the hospital, although 53 people were said to have been injured. Notably, there is no blood. But this does not present a problem for the official story, as numerous witnesses have attested to a huge amount of blood everywhere inside the club and covering all those who were shot. The use of the “blood” meme for the “Pulse” shooting is positively Satanic.
Figure 2. A “victim” being transported from the scene by “hero” Christopher Hansen and others – although he is actually being carried back to the Pulse. Image: CNN.
One of the witnesses describing the blood bath is Christopher Hansen, who claims to have helped several injured people – including a man who was shot in the back, whom he supposedly hoisted over his shoulder and carried. Hansen gave many interviews to the media while the “shooting” was still in progress, and more after the fact.
He says he crawled out of the club, drink still in hand, crawling over many bloody bodies, finally making it out and into the street. According to Hansen, there was:
… blood spattering – I didn’t know if it was mine or somebody else’s, but when I got out I realized it wasn’t mine – it was somebody else’s. The person I was with was shot in the back – I had to take my bandana off and tie it up…He was bleeding so bad his whole pant leg was red, and it was so soaked…my hands were just covered…[3]
But Hansen’s on-camera presence shows no blood at all, with his clothes and hands virtually spotless. One wonders where and how he had a chance to clean up. A Facebook post by his father, Bill Hansen, confirmed that Christopher “helped so many people,” including two who were bleeding. And yet, there was no blood to be seen.[4]
Figure 3. Christopher Hansen, “hero,” giving an interview to the press, with no blood at all on his hands or clothes.
Chris is a performer, one of many at the Orlando event – and several attempts have been made to find him acting in footage. One possible match is a photographer in a promotional video for “Motivated Models,” a “boutique trade show modeling agency” of “competitive, college educated individuals…looking to help you reach your event goals.”[5] Professional connections aside, one can see Chris dancing and clowning in several online videos (Figure 4). For more on Christopher Hansen, see “Orlando Nightclub Shooting: Questions and Anomalies Surround ‘Worst Mass Shooting in U.S. History’” (supra n. 2).
Figure 4. Christopher Hansen, mugging in a home movie.[6]
Chris is not the only one who saw blood – a continual feature of the horrifying story. “Survivor” Miguel Leiva, who has also given many interviews, sat down with CNN’s Anderson Cooper on June 17 to chat about his experiences. Leiva is the one who supposedly took the video released to the press that purports to show a group of people holed up in a stall in the bathroom. Leiva not only saw the blood, he smelled it. According to his account:
I just remember, like, you can smell, like, the blood. There was so much blood, there was, like, you could just smell it, and it’s like everywhere you lean, like all my clothes was full of blood…we were sitting down, and it was just like a huge puddle of blood, and after awhile when it started drying up, it just started, like, to smell really bad…
Figure 5. Miguel Leiva and Anderson Cooper, June 17, 2016. Image: CNN.
According to Leiva, the gunman fired twice into the stall, where “there was about 17 of us” – but “only like five or six of us made it out.” The scene inside the bathroom stall is captured in Leiva’s video, said to be one of three he took – either to send to his girlfriend, or to tell the world what happened if the group didn’t survive.
Unfortunately for the official story, the “grainy cell phone video” doesn’t provide any real evidence, and certainly does not show the “huge puddle of blood” that Leiva describes.[7] However, since he smelled the blood, it must have been there, and we can all believe Leiva and Anderson Cooper.
Figure 6. Video purportedly taken in the bathroom stall by Miguel Leiva. Image: CNN
Numerous Orlando doctors and medical staff are complicit, giving press conferences and interviews to detail the bloody carnage they supposedly saw. Drs. Matthew Lube, Michael Cheatham, Chadwick Smith, Joseph Ibrahim, William Havron, and Marc Levy sat down with Scott Pelley from CBS News for a televised conversation. In the presence of doctors and hospital staff, “survivor” Angel Colon, another staple on the interview circuit, recounted a medically impossible version of his injuries.[8] The fact that so many personnel have signed on does not inspire confidence in Florida’s medical establishment.
Figure 7. Bodies supposedly being removed from the Pulse after the “shooting,” with no visible signs of blood. Image: Orlando Sentinel.
Bringing up the rear are Dr. Joshua Corsa’s bloody sneakers. In a Facebook post, Corsa details the mess he encountered:
These are my work shoes from Saturday night…On these shoes, soaked between its fibers, is the blood of 54 innocent human beings…This blood, which poured out of those patients and soaked through my scrubs and shoes, will stain me forever. In these Rorschach patterns of red I will forever see their faces and the faces of those that gave everything they had in those dark hours…while I work I will continue to wear these shoes. And when the last patient leaves our hospital, I will take them off, and I will keep them in my office. I want to see them in front of me every time I go to work…I never want to forget that night.[9]
Figure 8. Photo of Dr. Corsa’s bloody sneakers, with other bloody items, posted on Facebook.
If one looks closely at Dr. Corsa’s sneakers, however, one sees only a small amount of red color, which may or may not be blood stains, and not “the blood of 54 innocent human beings” that had “soaked between its fibers.” The red bandages seen at left are certainly too bright for real blood – and look more like the red paint of the Boston Marathon “bombing.” BUT – if we can’t see what they say we should see, we can trust that they saw it – and smelled it – because otherwise there would be no evidence at all for the Orlando “shooting.”
The Orlando event coincided with the one-year anniversary of the Charleston Church “shooting,” where there is likewise no evidence that a “massacre” occurred. Except, of course, for the body of the Reverend Clementa Pinckney, which lay in state at four separate venues, shuttled around before his burial on June 26, 2015.[10]
Figure 9. Parishioners embracing on June 21, 2015, in the basement of Emanuel A.M.E. Church, the room where the “shooting” supposedly took place on June 17. Image: NBC.
The blood meme is featured here too, with a horrific blood bath supposedly occurring in the church basement. Amazingly, only four days after the “slaughter,” the Emanuel A.M.E. Church opened its doors for its regular Sunday service, with no indication that a bio-hazard team was brought in for a clean-up. In fact, an NBC photo shows members of the church community pitching in to tidy up the site.[11]
Figure 10. Parishioners clean up the basement of Emanuel A.M.E. Church on June 21, 2015, where the “massacre” supposedly occurred four days earlier. Image: NBC.
The anniversary of the Charleston Church “shooting” elicited press coverage and television tributes.[12] The New York Times interviewed members of the families of the “victims,” many of whom said they forgave the “shooter,” Dylann Roof. Felicia Sanders, mother of alleged victim Tywanza Sanders, alluded to the room in the basement, saying she was told at the time that the room “smells like blood.” Daniel Simmons, whose father was supposedly killed, said he didn’t think the church should have opened so soon: “When I went down to the church a couple of days after, I could still sense and smell blood.”[13] The shooting must therefore have occurred, and the smell proves it.
What a clever way to convince us that, despite the lack of physical evidence, all the “mass shootings” actually took place. Starting with Sandy Hook, the many horrifying “massacres” produced no torrent of blood – and no bio-hazard teams to clean it up.[14] As if to counter this deficit, the media reports are increasingly gruesome and graphic. With each new shooting we get more blood and gore, as though the worse the accounts of the witnesses, the more readily we will accept the story.
Figure 11. People line up to donate blood after the “shooting” in Orlando. Image: Newsday.
Even the call for blood donors in Orlando was macabre. People rushed to give blood in such large numbers that the blood banks were filled to capacity, and donors were asked to return – but later.[15] The urge to donate blood was surpassed only by the urge to donate money, with the Pulse GoFundMe page tallying over $5 million from 110,000 people in five days – and this is only one funding venue. Finally, the “shooter,” Omar Mateen, allegedly gave blood on May 29, two weeks before his shooting rampage – in a bizarre twist – to a center that supposedly supplied blood to the victims.[16]
All of this enforces the idea that any of us could die at the hands of a domestic terrorist, or a racist, or a guy who hates gays – or is gay – or something. At any rate, we had better watch out, or we too could be victims of a hideous blood sacrifice.
VIVIAN LEE is the nom de plume of a tenured professor at an east coast university.
NOTES
[1] This story was first posted at MemoryHoleBlog.com (now MemoryHoleBlog.org) and is updated and revised here, for publication in the book, From Orlando to Dallas and Beyond (James Fetzer and Mike Palecek, eds., Moon Rock Books, 2016). Links for the videos and other supporting evidence are given in the notes, although many important videos have been since removed by YouTube.
“Bury Trump in a Landslide,” The New York Daily News, 10/20/16.
“How Trump’s Brain Works,” cartoon by Roz Chast. The New Yorker, October 31, 2016.
Clinton and Netanyahu, September 14, 2010 (one of many such photos). Image CNN.
“All the People, Places, and Things Donald Trump Has Insulted on Twitter Since Declaring His Candidacy for President.” The New York Times, October 24, 2016 (A10-A11).
