A Deplorable Nexus

#deplorable | #WhatTheyVotedFor

The tweet is not a joke. Or, as Brian Patrick Byrne really does explain for the Daily Beast:

On Friday, Persson, who sold Minecraft to Microsoft for $2.5 billion in 2014, tweeted “(pizzagate is real),” to his almost 3.9 million followers. The tweet immediately caught the attention of a vocal crowd of supporters that continues to believe a debunked conspiracy theory that Democrats led a pedophile ring out of a pizzeria in Washington, D.C.

When The Daily Beast asked Persson to clarify his beliefs on Friday, the 38-year-old responded: “I feel more like people are picking one of two sides emotionally in this incredibly insanely huge binary split, much like politics.”

However, shortly afterward, Persson embarked on a verbose defense of Pizzagate. The man who publicly called Zoe Quinn, the initial victim of Gamergate, a “cunt” in June, rallied up even more support among ardent believers, writing: “People are saying there’s a lot of suspect codewords including the word ‘pizza’. That place has very disturbing art and social media.”

Persson was referring to Comet Ping Pong, the name of the pizzeria from where conspiracy theorists falsely believe Clinton, and her former campaign chairman John Podesta, operated a child sex trafficking ring in its basement, despite the shop having no basement. The theory was born out of what believers say are coded messages in Podesta’s emails, like “pizza” for “little boy,” made public by Wikileaks during the 2016 presidential election.

And, you know, while it is easy enough to appeal to any excuse to recall Elton John, but sometimes the answer is simply no. We already know this story and its sickness, and while it is easy enough to say this is all about supremacism and lulz, at some point these facts are supposed to mean something. We might suggest this is an astonishing nexus of deplorability, but would be overstating the circumstance. Predictable is hardly astonishing, and a steaming heap of blended whatnot does not a nexus make.

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@pointclickbait. “Shame on The Daily Beast for stealing this joke headline from our draft folder, we [puts finger to ear] ah, I see”. Twitter. 29 August 2017.

Byrne, Brian Patrick. “Minecraft Creator Alleges Global Conspiracy Involving Pizzagate, a ‘Manufactured Race War,’ a Missing Tabloid Toddler, and Holistic Medicine”. The Daily Beast. 29 August 2017.

(h/t to Barry Deutsch.)

¿Normalization?

This is a sentence that ought to thrill hearts: “America may be closer to a post-gay state of politics than most realize”. Alex Roarty’s report for Roll Call either begs certain questions or else desecrates them; matters of perspective abide.

The St. Jerome Fancy Farm Picnic is an annual showcase for Kentucky’s top politicians to give (they hope) a funny, sharp-elbowed speech at the other party’s expense. While they speak, hundreds of loud-mouthed partisans are encouraged to yell and scream as loudly as they can―as if the American political id was caged in a small pavilion two hours from a major airport.

“I want to introduce myself to Sen. McConnell,” he said, looking over to the Senate majority leader seated a few feet away, who minutes earlier had given his own speech. The Republicans, whose voices drowned out the sound of nearby thunder, chanted “Go away Gray!”

The candidate continued: “He earlier called me a ‘nobody.’ Well, let me introduce myself, senator. I am Jim Gray, and I am the guy who is going to beat Rand Paul.”

What went unnoticed this recent Saturday afternoon was that Gray was probably first openly gay person to speak at Fancy Farm. Records aren’t easy to come by for something that began in 1880, but veterans of the event say they can’t recall an openly gay speaker.

This is how Gray’s campaign has gone: He’s making history, and nobody seems to notice. Or, for that matter, care.

Nearly Perfect

This is the challenge: Can reality provide us a more perfect headline than that brought to us by Hilary Hanson and Huffington Post?

‘Muslim-Free’ Gun Store Now Selling George Zimmerman’s Confederate Flag Paintings

Yes … that really is the headline. And here’s the thing: It is apt. Apt, I tell you!

George Zimmerman, who rose to national notoriety in 2012 after shooting and killing unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin, is now selling prints of a Confederate flag painting, in part to benefit a Florida gun store owner who is facing a lawsuit after declaring his business “Muslim-free.”

The prints — copies of an original work hand-painted by Zimmerman — are available for about $50 each at Florida Gun Supply in the city of Inverness. Andy Hallinan, the store’s owner, declared his store a “Muslim-free” zone in a July YouTube video, on the grounds that he did not want to “arm and train those who wish to do harm to my fellow patriots.”

The Council on American-Islamic Relations subsequently filed a lawsuit against Hallinan, WFLA reports.

Zimmerman had initially set out to paint an American flag, but after hearing about that lawsuit, he “decided to scrap the original American Flag painting and repaint it with a Confederate (Battle) Flag,” according to an FAQ section about the painting on the Florida Gun Supply site.

This is the sort of sickness that you just can’t make up.

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Hansen, Hilary. “‘Muslim-Free’ Gun Store Now Selling George Zimmerman’s Confederate Flag Paintings”. The Huffington Post. 18 August 2015.

Your Lede of the Week

“Fianna Fáil Senator Averil Power said she received a rape threat as a result of her support for a Seanad motion recognising the state of Palestine last year.”

―Órla Ryan

Our apologies. Normally we do a sick joke of some sort for the Lede of the Day. And while this certainly fits the bill for sickness, there really isn’t anything of a joke about it.

And let us also take a moment to dismiss the question of Palestine from this issue in any context that might be construed as what those wicked Israeli something or other whatnot but anyhow, you know? Because the truth of the matter is that human societies will invent any excuse to threaten a woman with rape. And while on this occasion we might find any excuse to wonder at the obvious question―“Really? No, I mean, really?”―there is also the obvious counterpoint: “Why not?”

For being a Muslim. For being a Jew. For being an atheist. For having an opinion. For dressing like that. Or for dressing like that. For being a bitch. For being a wife. Because she owes it. Because our team lost. Because our team won. Because her eyes said yes. Because her voice said no. Because she’s a woman. Because she’s alive.

Because Palestine is a state? Why not? It makes just about as much sense as any other reason we might think of.

Which, in turn, brings us back to the problem.

And who needs that part explained?

Anyone?

Oh, come on. It’s clear somebody, somewhere needs this explained to him, because otherwise this sort of thing wouldn’t happen.

Easy enough?

Figure it out.

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Ryan, Órla. “Senator: I was called a Nazi and threatened with rape for supporting Palestine”. The Journal. 4 March 2015.