Marco Rubio gay arrest story debunked

 

Gage Skidmore/Wikimedia

An article began making the rounds on the internet this week alleging that Marco Rubio had been arrested for soliciting a gay prostitute in a Miami park in 1990. If true, the allegations could shatter the campaign of the Republican candidate who is currently surging in the polls.

The story, published on a website called The Political Insider, further claims that Angel Barrios, one of the teens arrested with Rubio that night, was later implicated in a gay porn ring. The article also contains a photo of a “gay foam party” with an arrow pointing to a man that is allegedly Marco Rubio. The Political Insider “bombshell report” concludes with a video from Infowars that makes many of the same allegations.

The Political Insider piece is based on two articles, one from the Washington Post and another from the Miami New Times. The article gets some details of Rubio’s 1990 arrest right, but omits and misrepresents crucial facts that are readily available in the same sources that Political Insider cites. It is true that Marco Rubio was arrested in Wainwright Park in Miami with two friends on May 23, 1990 when he was 18 years old. Political Insider paints this arrest as being connected with gay prostitution and implies that there was no other reason to be in the park at night, but neither original source makes these claims.

According to the Post story, a local homeowner association cited complaints about the park including “gang warfare, gunfire, prostitution (straight and gay), drug dealing and muggings.” The Post also quotes Delrish Moss, a Miami police public information officer, as saying, “It was very dark and had lots of trees. People went out there to smoke illegal substances, have sex, drink.” The Political Insider ignores everything except the gay prostitution angle.

Todd Harris, a spokesman for the Rubio campaign, told the Post, ““When he was 18 years old, he [Rubio] violated a municipal code for drinking beer in a park after hours. He was never taken into custody, never hired a lawyer and never appeared in court. Why The Washington Post thinks that is a story is beyond me.”

In response to the Rubio campaign’s response, The Political Insider breathlessly notes that “the police incident report never mentions alcohol!” The reason is explained in the Post article. The arrest was for the misdemeanor offense of being in the park after it was closed. The Post further explains, “There’s no indication that Rubio was involved in any illegal activity other than drinking beer and being in a public park after closing. The police incident report, which does not mention alcohol, states that drug activity was ‘not applicable.’” The misdemeanor charges were later dropped.

The Political Insider goes on to say that Angel Barrios, one of the boys arrested with Rubio that night, “was sued for running a gay pornography studio in a property his company owned.” The Insider quotes the Miami New Times which says that “Barrios was associated with perhaps the most notorious gay porn ring in Miami history….” Pretty damning guilt by association, right?

Not exactly. At the time, Barrios owned a property management company which rented a house to the firm that produced the porn. Barrios is quoted in the same article that the Insider cites as saying, “We are not in the gay porn business. We are not in the straight porn business. We are not in the porn business. My poor father, he had no idea what was going on in there.” The report continues, “Barrios says that he moved quickly to force the business out and that the gay porn site was gone within six months.” The incident occurred in 2007, 17 years after Barrios’ arrest with Rubio.

The New Times report goes on to say that the City of Miami sued Barrios and Cocodorm, the porn company, for illegally operating an adult business in a residential area. Barrios and Cocodorm countersued. Eventually the city waived the fines against Barrios and removed a lien from the house.

“They [Cocodorm] offered to pay all the attorneys' fees if we sued the city,” Barrios explained to the New Times. “I was looking at these huge civil citation fines from the city for something I had nothing to do with. So I was happy to let them go to court to try to get rid of these fines.”

Barrios denied that he and Rubio had a sexual relationship. “I have nothing against gay people, but this is just so far from the truth,” he said, “I have kids, and now they’re reading all this garbage online. It’s insane.” The New Times reported that Barrios “laughs out loud at the idea of having had a sexual relationship with Rubio.”

Neither source presents any evidence that Rubio and Barrios had any contact after the 1990 arrest.

Barrios did talk about the arrest and his friendship with Rubio in the Post. Barrios says that, while in school, they “were just messing around and partying. Trying to get pretty girls.” Barrios did not recall why they were at the park that night. “We never even used to go to that area,” he said. “That might have been the first time I went there.”

He also said, “I don’t think we got handcuffed and taken to jail.” Instead, they got a “piece of paper.” The Post describes this as a “promise to appear” in court, but Barrios said, ““I don’t think we even ended up going to court.” The Post notes that the charges were dismissed two months later and that “record searches turned up no evidence that mug shots were taken.”

As to the foam party, on the Jimmy Fallon Show Marco Rubio did talk about going to a foam party once, but there was no indication that it was a “gay foam party.” Rubio indicated that he did not enjoy the foam party since the foam ruined his boots, a tacit indication that he was clothed, unlike the men in the Political Insider photo.

The Insider links the picture to a gay website called Towleroad.com. Not mentioned by the Insider is Towleroad’s description of the picture: “Another photo shows a gay foam party at the ’90s South Beach gay nightclub Warsaw Ballroom, and show’s a man’s profile which Madsen says ‘is believed to be’ Rubio. The face is obscured, so it really could be anybody” [emphasis mine].

An additional photo on Political Insider allegedly shows Rubio dancing in what the New York Observer called a “Chippendales performance” when it published the photo in April 2015. The Insider does not provide any context for this photo, but far from being a strip club act, the picture was taken at an annual male talent show at South Miami Senior High School in 1989. The Observer identifies Rubio and the other dancers as members of the school football team, the Cobras.  Rubio also performed a rendition of “Still” by Lionel Ritchie. He did not win the title of “King Cobra.”

One final question is who “The Political Insider” really is. The site makes no pretense of objectivity with its claim that “we break down the barriers employed by the government and the liberal media….” To underscore the site’s pseudonews status, the byline of the Marco Rubio article is an anonymous handle, “Kosar,” not the actual name of a writer. The terms and conditions page of the site invites submissions and makes no mention of journalistic standards, editorial supervision or basic fact checking.

The information presented in this article is readily available. Much of it came from the same sources that the Insider linked in its piece. If a reader bothers to click the link and read the articles from real news sources, the truth is readily apparent. Instead, The Political Insider selectively quoted and misrepresented the real news accounts.

[An attempt was made to contact The Political Insider for this article, but no response was received. I have elected not to provide a link to the original article to avoid driving traffic to a fake news story. Caution should be exercised in visiting The Political Insider site. My computer got slow every time I went to the site.]

Rubio’s previously undisclosed arrest is a legitimate issue. Just prior to the 2000 election, news broke that George W. Bush had a previously undisclosed arrest for DWI in 1976. Bush had been leading in the polls, but the news of the arrest was enough to sway the popular vote to Al Gore.

Even though Rubio’s arrest was real, the charge that he is a closeted homosexual is unsupportable by fact. The article from Political Insider is nothing more than a very thinly veiled attempt to destroy Rubio’s character and standing in the conservative community.

Bernie Sanders tweet quoting Marx is fake

Yesterday an alarming tweet by Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders went viral. The tweet contained the radical message, “My object in life is to dethrone God and destroy capitalism.” The big problem is that the tweet is fake.

The phrase in the tweet is actually attributed to Karl Marx, German revolutionary and the father of communism. The quote does not appear in “The Communist Manifesto,” Marx’s most famous work or any of his other known writings, but is similar to a documented quote from “Revelations Concerning the Communist Trial in Cologne.” In that work, Marx wrote, “If I dethrone God I also dethrone the king who reigns by the grace of God.”

Bernie Sanders, a sitting senator from Vermont, is an avowed socialist. While the line between socialism and communism is thin and blurred, Sanders seems to shy away from vocally supporting communist countries like the Soviet Union and China. Instead, he lavishes praise on the democratic socialism of Scandinavian countries like Denmark, Norway and Sweden according to Oregon Live.

Steven Wolf of Daily Kos notes that Sanders “Sanders advocates for three things that should be the backbone of the Democratic Party. These include reducing economic inequality, removing the rigged influence of the rich on our political system, and of course most importantly, preventing climate change.” He calls Sanders a social democrat “despite his chosen label of democratic socialist” and notes that this breed of politician wants to “ensure that every person has access to housing, health care, education, meaningful employment, and transportation.” With the exception of reducing the influence of the rich on politics, this makes Sanders almost indistinguishable from other Democrats, including Hillary Clinton.

It must be noted that the reference to “dethroning God” can apply to many modern Democrats as well. Democrats have shown a hostility to the free expression of religion in recent years including loud opposition to religious freedom laws. In 2012, an attempt to add a reference to God to the Democratic platform resulted in loud, almost overwhelming, boos.

Sanders, who is Jewish, is not religious, but does not seem overtly hostile to religion. According to the Christian Post, he is more likely to pick and choose from various religious texts to find passages that support his views. For her part, Hillary Clinton said in a speech last March that “deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs and structural biases have to be changed” to make way for more progressive policies according to the Daily Caller.

While Sanders might or might not agree with the Marx quote, he apparently never tweeted it. A review of the timeline of the Sen. Sanders Twitter account does not show the offending tweet. The time stamp on the tweet is August 10, 2015 at 9:27 p.m. There is a tweet on the Sanders timeline at the same time, but with a different message. The actual Sanders tweet reads, “The cost of war is real. It is terrible. I believe that war should be the last resort, not the first resort.”

A comparison of the two tweets reveals a subtle difference. The fake tweet shows the date is numeric characters while the authentic tweet uses the word “August” in the date. This may simply reflect a difference in device or settings.

Examiner traced the fake tweet to the Facebook account of John Trulli. Trulli’s Facebook wall contains a post claiming responsibility for the fake tweet: “Lol [sic] I'm still getting notifications for people sharing that fake Bernie sanders tweet I made. Hundreds of shares and everyone's pissed that he said that.”

The post immediately above Trulli’s admission of responsibility is another fake Sanders tweet. This one reads, “Pretty much everything I say is a lie lol [sic]. My closest friends growing up called me Bernie Slanders.” Further examination of his timeline shows other tweets supposedly by George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

An attempt was made to contact the Sanders campaign in connection with this article, but no reply was received. Sanders leads Mrs. Clinton by a small margin in the latest New Hampshire poll.

Read the full article on Examiner.com

Response to the Busta Troll hoax

In light of the revelations regarding the hoax of Busta Troll’s alleged outing and retirement, I feel that a few personal comments are necessary to complete the record.

First, the world of Facebook politics, goats and trolls is a shadowy world where many people on both sides protect their anonymity with fake names and “alts,” fictitious accounts. “Busta Troll” is simply one (or possibly several) of many people with a fake identity on Facebook. With such a high premium placed on anonymity, it can be extremely hard to verify who is who and what is true.

This is not to say that I posted the article without fact-checking. Busta suggests that searches for “Christopher Lyman” in Orono, Maine would yield no results. This is not true. I found several results for Christopher Lyman in Maine, some close enough to the Orono area that they could be considered legitimate hits. What I did not find was a phone number that I could use to call and make a direct verification.

Addresses are funny things. Depending on the area, who one is talking to, and what medium is used, a person might give different answers to the question of “Where do you live?” For example, a person from New York City might answer that he lives in Queens, the neighborhood of Astoria, or on 50^th Street in addition to saying that he lived in New York. All three different answers could be equally truthful. In smaller towns, the address might be a post office in the larger city nearby, but a small, unincorporated community could legitimately be listed as a hometown on a medium such as Facebook.

Additionally, I attempted to check the legitimacy of Kevin Kopper, another anonymous source. No one seemed to know who Kopper was, but everyone seemed to consider him legitimate. Anyone who has seen the goats harass people online could understand Kopper’s desire for anonymity.

When dealing with anonymous sources, especially on the internet, there is always the chance that they are lying or are not who they claim to be. This is particularly true when dealing with goats who, by definition, base their online personas and actions on deception and dishonesty. That turned out to be the case with both Christopher Lyman and Kevin Kopper. Nevertheless, the information in the article was the best available at the time.

As it turned out, the deception was only half false. Christopher Lyman was Busta Troll. When I submitted a series of questions in good faith to Lyman, it was Busta who answered them as he admits in his video. Busta trumpets the fact that I published his unedited replies, but that was always the point. I submitted the questions to him because I and my readers wanted to know what made a liberal troll tick, why they do what they do. By definition, an interview is an attempt to find out what someone else thinks and to communicate it to others. In that, I was successful. The fact that Busta’s answers were not based in fact is an indictment of him and not me. I chose not to rebut Busta’s answers in the interview piece because that was not its purpose, but I can do so here.

First, I must agree with Busta that it irks me to see “ridiculous rumors that can be easily debunked by five minutes of searching Google.” In fact, I’ve written more than a few “tinfoil hat” articles that debunk conspiracy theories from the right. Some recent examples include the rumors that Barack Obama was planning to run for an unconstitutional third term and that Obamacare would make beheadings legal in the U.S. Where I disagree with Busta and his trolls is their notion that people with “ridiculous” ideas don’t have as much right to share them as anyone else. The best cure for ridiculous and untruthful speech is more speech.

Further, Busta seems to have a partisan view of what is “ridiculous.” I’m not aware of any liberal pages ever being goated in spite of the fact that there are some liberals spout stories just as outlandish as any conservative site. In fact, the idea that Barack Obama is not a “natural born” U.S. citizen is not a right wing idea at all; this conspiracy theory has its roots in a 2007 memo from Mark Penn, Hillary Clinton’s chief strategist, according to Businessweek. Further, as late as 2011, Politico reported that more than half of Democrats subscribed to 9/11 conspiracy theories propagated by liberals such as Michael Moore.

Second, Busta’s claim that page owners “posted pure hate and lies” and “refused to talk about it, listen to reason or even debate in a civil manner” is not true in every case. Some page owners had posted indefensible material such as the infamous “noose” meme. Others were guilty only of operating conservative pages.

I first became aware of the goats when they took my friend Jason Doolin’s “Citizens’Post” Facebook page. Doolin did post the “noose” meme “in an attempt to defend the original poster.” The goats never contacted him with their objections to the meme, however. In fact, Doolin says that he doesn’t think that he realized that they existed prior to their hijacking his page.

As I described in an article in January, a goat purporting to be Patrick Blair contacted Doolin and several others with promises to help them expand their page reach. Blair claimed to be a representative of the Freedom Alliance, a real organization. The goats say that they were given control of the pages and that they have done nothing wrong. In reality, their actions are a textbook example of fraud. In other cases, their actions could be considered slander, harassment, and cyber stalking.

In fact, the trolls seem to be part of a left wing that is focused on shutting down debate through harassment and intimidation. Some of the most famous harassment of conservatives came during and after California’s “Prop 8” definition of marriage campaign in 2008. The blog Tom O’Halloran has compiled a list of incidents against Prop 8 supporters that include harassing emails and phone calls, attempts to jeopardize employment, vandalism, threats and actual acts of violence. Liberals are attempting to use campaign disclosure laws and other means to attempt to intimidate other conservatives as well. The ultimate fulfillment of the liberal intention to stifle debate is the Udall Amendment which would gut the First Amendment and allow Congress to regulate money “that may be spent by, in support of, or in opposition to” candidates.

Third, Busta’s concerns about conservative harassment and endangering children were revealed to be totally false. In fact, it was Busta himself who put an innocent man, the real Christopher Lyman, a firefighter in Maine, in danger of losing his job. By citing his fictitious role as an umpire in a real Little League, Busta also was the one who brought innocent children into a potentially dangerous situation. In essence, Busta did what he accused conservatives of doing. If anyone endangered children, it was Busta himself. The fact that Busta claims to have planned the hoax for more than a year speaks volumes as well.

For what it’s worth, I do have to admit to laughing at a number of goat memes. There are some clever and creative people among the goats and trolls. The problem is how they use their talents as a tool for bullying and conning others. Perhaps they will take to heart the words of President Obama who said, “Bullying can have destructive consequences for our young people. And it's not something we have to accept.” In 2011, Obama pointed out that “bullying is just a harmless rite of passage or an inevitable part of growing up.” It doesn’t make it better when the behavior is that of adults.

Debunked: Obama’s third term

An alert reader recently sent a link that purported to prove that President Obama “wished to seek an unprecedented 3^rd [sic] term as Commander in Chief.” The article, published as “breaking news” by the Rand Paul Review website claims that Obama made the announcement of his intention to seek a third term “earlier this week” in a “speech to supporters.” The reader cited this article as proof of President Obama’s intent to subvert or alter the Constitution and install himself as an authoritarian ruler.

Upon investigation, Examiner has determined that the article is a hoax. Red flags were raised immediately by the undated article which was not attributed to a legitimate news source. The date of the article was determined to be August 2013 by examining the link’s URL. There is also no author listed.

An obvious problem with the article’s claim was that the quote from President Obama did not announce his intention to run for a third term. Additionally, a third term would not be “unprecedented” since President Franklin Roosevelt was elected to a third term in 1940 and fourth in 1944.

According to the Rand Paul Review, Obama told supporters:

“I would put [my administration] up against any prior administration since FDR,” Obama said. “We didn’t ask for the challenges that we face, but we don’t shrink from them either.” He continued, “And the truth is, it will take more than a few years for us to solve challenges that have built up over decades. It will require common effort, shared responsibility, and the kind of bold, persistent experimentation that Franklin Roosevelt pursued during the only crisis worse than this one.”

The author of the article jumps to the conclusion that, because Obama says that “it will take more than a few years for us to solve challenges that have built up over decades,” he intends to run for a third term. The author never makes the claim that Obama had explicitly declared his candidacy for 2016.

An additional problem with the claims made in the article is that Obama did not make that speech in 2013. A search of the internet found a Politico article that referenced the same Obama quote. The date on the Politico piece? May 27, 2009. This was a mere four months into President Obama’s first term.

In fact, the Politico quote is slightly different from the Rand Paul Review quote. In the Politico piece, which is accompanied by a video clip of the quote, President Obama actually says, “I would put these first four months up against any prior administration since FDR”[emphasis mine]. He then continues, “We didn't ask for the challenges that we face, but we don't shrink from them either."

The authors of the Rand Paul Review apparently edited the Obama quote to conceal the fact that the President’s words were from 2009 and not 2013. In context, the president is clearly referring to the next three years of his first term and not announcing his intention to seek a not-unprecedented third term.

The Politico article also gave the location of the speech in question. It reportedly took place during a Democratic National Committee fundraiser at the Beverly Hills Hilton. The date was presumably May 27 or shortly before.

With this information the original speech can be located on the White House website. The speech titled, “Remarks by the President at a DNC fundraiser reception” and gives the location as the Beverly Hills Hilton. The published version of the speech is dated May 29, 2009. Interestingly, the text of the speech does not contain the FDR comparison. Another video on the Politico site shows the president with a microphone in hand giving the speech on the White House website while he was at a podium in the first video. This may mean that the FDR comparison was not part of the president’s speech, but was given at a question-and-answer session. In either case, Obama definitely made the remark only four months into his presidency.

When Examiner contacted the Rand Paul Review, Kevin G., a spokesman for the site, responded that the article is “labeled as political satire and links to a petition that calls for term limits for all Congressman [sic]. This issue is important to those of at Rand Paul Review, as well as Rand Paul's campaign and superpacs” [sic]. The Rand Paul Review does note on its Facebook page that it is a “grassroots effort” and states that it is “not Rand Paul’s official page,” but this is not apparent on the website.

While the article was not real, Rep. Jose Serrano (D-N.Y.) did introduce a bill in 2013 that would repeal the 22^nd Amendment and allow President Obama to run for a third term. The bill has apparently died in committee in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives since no action has been taken. Govtrack gives the bill a zero percent chance of becoming law.

Read the full article on Atlanta Conservative Examiner

Leftist con men hijack conservative Facebook pages

In the early morning hours of January 11, a group of leftist con men launched a sneak attack on an undetermined number of conservative Facebook pages. The perpetrators, calling themselves the “Goatz Alliance,” gained access to the conservative pages, deleted the page administrators, and began posting anti-conservative propaganda and memes depicting goats.

Jason Doolin, owner of the conservative Citizens’ Post page on Facebook, said that Patrick Blair, allegedly a representative of The Freedom Alliance contacted him several months ago about helping him to expand his page. Blair gained his trust over a period of months. There is a real Freedom Alliance as well, a Virginia based charity organized as 501(c)(3) organization that educates young Americans in civic responsibility and provides scholarships to the children of American soldiers.

Blair apparently operated several fake conservative Facebook pages and websites as a cover. In some cases, he seems to have even recruited conservative activists to administer and work on these pages, only to delete their work and revert the pages to goats later. Blair used the fake conservative pages to make conservative friends and seem more credible to his targets.

Doolin said that after gaining his trust Blair proposed an “admin exchange” in which the various pages in his Freedom Alliance would grant each other administrator status and exchange ideas. The plan was also promoted as a way to increase awareness of smaller pages like Doolin’s Citizens’ Post.

Blair allegedly put his plan in to action on January 10. He asked Doolin to grant administrator status to himself and a friend, Lyman Briggs. Late that night, Blair and his comrade deleted Doolin and his other page administrators and vandalized the page with anti-conservative and anti-Republican hate.

Doolin attempted to contact Facebook to report the abuse and theft of his page, but it is almost impossible to get in touch with Facebook’s customer service and security personnel. Although Facebook says on its legal page that the company “respects the intellectual property rights of others and is committed to helping third parties protect their rights,” the company makes it very difficult to report problems.

Emily Garman on the blog, The Social Animal, posted a video that describes the process to recover control of a hijacked Facebook organizational page. The process is essentially to report the abuse via dropdown menus on the page and hope that a Facebook representative deigns to contact you. A search of the internet did turn up a Facebook page with a procedure for reclaiming business pages. Depending on how the page was set up, this procedure may allow users to regain control of hijacked sites.

Patrick Blair was traced to a Facebook page in Buxton, Maine. On his timeline, he admitted to duping conservatives and “goating” their pages. Blair appears to also be involved with pages called “Busta Troll” and “Busta’s Army.” These pages are dedicated to “trolling,” visiting opposing sites and trying to provoke arguments. A post on Busta’s Army from January 10 claims responsibility for hijacking Doolin’s Citizens’ Post.

Various posts on the three pages refer to “paid liberal trolls.” It is unknown whether these internet denizens are actually paid and, if so, by whom. On his Facebook page, Blair claims to be paid by George Soros, but this is doubtful.

Examiner’s investigation turned up an several earlier attacks by the Goatz Alliance. Miss Lilly (name changed to protect her identity) was an administrator on a conservative page called, “America, the Next Generation.” One of the other administrators on the page posted a picture of President Obama in a noose, a picture that Miss Lilly agrees was “in bad taste.” The page’s owner removed the picture, but not before it was noticed by leftist bloggers.

Orlando Liberal Examiner Robert Sobel was apparently the first to notice the picture on December 31, 2013. The next day, Addicting Info, a far left-wing blog picked up the story and credited Steve Marmel, “a TV writer and producer with a left-wing Facebook page,” for pointing it out.

As the story hit the liberal blogs, Miss Lilly said their page was inundated with liberal trolls. “These were the nastiest, vilest [people],” she says. “I have never encountered such utter hatred and contempt. This goes way beyond racism. They called us racists, but what they said and did to us was beyond the scope and definition of racism. They are truly sick people.”

She continued, “We must have banned hundreds and hundreds of them. Facebook did nothing to help.”

Eventually, the site’s owners were contacted by James M. Ritchie, a.k.a. “Ranger,” who claimed to be a “troll killer.” Ritchie offered to help the site’s owners fight off the liberal attacks if they granted him administrator status on the page.

About the same time, the goats first appeared on the page, posted by a user calling himself “Vlad the Emailer.” Vlad claimed that goats were “an international peace sign” and offered his help as well. Another user who offered help, “Irwin Jr.,” may also be one of the goats.

There are several levels of administrators on Facebook pages. Content creators can post content, moderators can delete comments and messages, and managers have the ability to delete other administrators. Ritchie quickly persuaded the site’s owner to grant him manager access. Almost immediately, the page was hijacked and the legitimate administrators were deleted.

At this point, Patrick Blair enters the story. Miss Lilly says that he contacted the owners and told them that he had seen what happened to their page and that he wanted to help as well. He said that he had several pages that were “abandoned” by other administrators and offered to give one to the owners of America, The Next Generation. Where Blair got these pages is uncertain, but they may have been hijacked as well. Miss Lilly worked on one of these pages until Blair changed it back to goat pictures again over the weekend. “All they got from me the second time,” she says, “was the pleasure of calling me a dummy.”

Miss Lilly also said, “We took the goats for what they are, symbols of Satanism.”

While there is no evidence that Blair and his band are Satanists, they have made anti-Christian and anti-religious postings on their pages. It is likely that they have the same anti-religious beliefs that many members of the modern left seem to share.

At this point, Examiner has identified at least seven pages that have been hijacked by the goats. Owners of conservative Facebook pages should be aware that Patrick Blair and Busta’s Army may try to target them as well. While it might be difficult to stop a horde of liberal trolls like the one that assaulted Miss Lilly’s page, owners can prevent their pages from being hijacked by not elevating anyone to administrator status that they do not know personally. In most cases, the page owner should keep manager status for himself or closely trusted associates.

Abuse or harassment should be reported to Facebook. This can be done by clicking the gear symbol at the top of the offending page or user’s timeline and selecting “report page.” Individual posts can be reported as well. Click the “v” symbol in the upper right corner of the post. This will open a menu with an option to “report post.” Any threats should definitely be reported to Facebook as well as to the police.

Originally published on Atlanta Conservative Examiner

Relax. Obamacare doesn’t bring beheadings to US.

A new rumor about Obamacare, formally known as the Affordable Care Act, making its rounds on the internet is that the law will make beheading an official method of execution in the United States. The rumor, apparently started by Lorri Anderson on the Freedom Outpost on Nov. 18, 2013, claims that a medical code for “legal execution” reveals that beheading and decapitation are coming to the United States. The Freedom Outpost is a conservative pseudo-news site that promotes birtherism, nullification as well as other conspiracy stories.

Anderson claims that a medical code, “ICD 9 E 978,” purports to list the legal methods of execution in the United States. The definition of the coding is found on CentralX.com under “International Classification of Diseases” and is as follows:

E978 Legal execution

          All executions performed at the behest of the judiciary or ruling authority
          [whether permanent or temporary] as:
           asphyxiation by gas
           beheading, decapitation (by guillotine)
           capital punishment
           electrocution
           hanging
           poisoning
           shooting
           other specified means
           INJURY UNDETERMINED WHETHER ACCIDENTALLY OR PURPOSELY
          INFLICTED

Anderson notes that the code is part of an international coding system, but doesn’t seem to understand what the codes are for or how they are used. She seems to believe that, because the United States is using the coding system, all parts of the code will apply to patients in the United States.

Writing for About.com, Trisha Torrey explains that “ICD” codes are “International Statistical Classifications of Diseases.” The codes are used to categorize every disease, set of symptoms or cause of death that can be attributed to human beings. The coding system was developed by the World Health Organization, the coordinating authority for health in the United Nations. As electronic medical records are implemented, the codes will be used for diagnosis and treatment of health problems.

When someone dies, an ICD code will also be used to record the cause of death. This is where Anderson’s code for “legal execution” comes in. The code will obviously be used when a person has been executed “at the behest of the judiciary or ruling authority [whether permanent or temporary].” Even though “beheading” and “decapitation (by guillotine)” are not legal methods of execution for the federal government or any of the 50 states, beheading is still legal in Saudi Arabia. Additionally, rebels in Syria and the Taliban in Pakistan (possibly a temporary authority in areas that they control) have been known to use beheading, as did Saddam Hussein in pre-war Iraq. Other Islamic terrorists have also been known to behead their captives. In one notable case, Nick Berg, an American business who was Jewish, was kidnapped and beheaded by Iraqi Muslim terrorists in 2004 and the video of the murder was posted online. And no, there is no evidence that Barack Obama is a Muslim.

Regardless of what international medical codes define as legal methods of execution, the method of legal execution in the United States is established by the legislature. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, 35 states plus the federal government have the death penalty. All states have lethal injection as the primary method of execution. In Georgia, lethal injection is the only legal means of execution. Federal law requires that in federal death penalty cases, the method of execution follows the law of the state in which the conviction took place. No state law permits execution by beheading.

Anderson also attempts to tie in the ICD coding to Agenda 21 by asserting that “WHO is a specialized agency of the United Nations and directly linked to the League of Nations under the guise of collecting data.” In reality, the League of Nations was the predecessor to the United Nations and was disbanded in 1946 after failing in its primary mission of preventing a second world war. The United Nations was founded a year earlier in 1945.

Agenda 21 (read the full text here) is frequent fodder for conspiracy buffs. Agenda 21 is a protocol for achieving “sustainable development” in the 21^st century that was drafted by the United Nations Earth Summit in 1992. The agenda is not a treaty. The Heritage Foundation noted in 2011 that Agenda 21 is “voluntary” and “nonbinding.” The United Nations Association agrees that Agenda 21 is “not legally binding” and “does not take precedence over U.S. law.” Agenda 21 passed the House of Representatives in 1992 (sponsored by Nancy Pelosi) according to the Library of Congress but was never passed by the Senate so it never became U.S. law.

Conspiracy proponents like Townhall.com columnist Rachel Alexander sometimes refer to Executive Orders that supposedly implement Agenda 21 without congressional approval. In reality, President Obama’s Executive Order 13575 which in 2011 established the White House Rural Council specifically says that “nothing in this order shall be construed to… affect… authority granted by law” and that the order “shall be implemented consistent with applicable law….” Obama’s Executive Order 13547 carries similar disclaimers to avoid in pretense of amending current federal law. Similar claims about other presidents are also farfetched. Two orders by Bill Clinton cited by conspiracy buffs (12852 and 12996) establish an advisory council for the president on sustainable development and create wildlife refuges on public use lands. George W. Bush is also blamed for Executive Orders 13423 and 13366, which are equally innocuous and also carry disclaimers that they do not amend existing law.

It takes little research to quickly determine that the Affordable Care Act will not implement beheadings in the United States. It can be determined almost as quickly that however ill-advised that Agenda 21 may be, it does not apply to the United States.

If you find an internet conspiracy theory that would like Examiner to investigate, contact the Atlanta Conservative Examiner at ThorntonDavid@yahoo.com or on the Common Sense Conservative Facebook page. If your conspiracy is selected for an article, you will receive an official Atlanta Conservative Examiner tinfoil hat. Readers might also be interested in Examiner’s guide to “Becoming a discerning internet user,” a helpful article on distinguishing fact from fiction on the internet.

Originally published on Atlanta Conservative Examiner

Becoming a discerning internet user

Anyone who has spent any time on the internet knows that there are an abundance of fraudulent claims, hoaxes, and conspiracies. Cartersville, Ga. was the centerpiece of a 2008 hoax about rigged gas pumps and countless Georgians have received variations of the Nigerian email scam. The proliferation of such lies means that internet users need to learn how to separate fact from fantasy.

There are steps that that internet users can take to become more discerning about the information available on the internet. The first and most obvious step is to distinguish between trustworthy and unreliable websites. When looking for factual information, be leery of blogs and other websites that do not meet journalistic standards.

Wikipedia is a popular online encyclopedia site, but its articles can be edited by users. There have been several cases of false or unreliable information on Wikipedia. Wikipedia can be useful for an overview of a topic, but information found there should be verified elsewhere. Fortunately, Wikipedia entries are often footnoted with links to the source information.

Other websites have no such saving graces. World Net Daily is a news website that is less than credible. It is associated with a wide range of conspiracy theories including questioning Barack Obama’s birth certificate. The websites of Alex Jones, Infowars and Prison Planet, are notorious for propagating outlandish conspiracies on topics from 9/11 to UFOs. Documentaries posted on Youtube or other internet sites should also be treated with skepticism unless the creator of the piece can be determined to be credible. Articles by mainstream political groups and politicians may be so slanted that the truth is barely recognizable.

As a general rule, information should not be believed unless it can be independently verified by more than one source. In many cases, this can take a little searching. Sometimes this can be accomplished by following links in the article to the source. In other cases, it will involve using an online search engine such as Google or Bing.

Internet users should hone their innate BS detectors. If something sounds either too good or too outlandish to be true, it probably is. Atlanta consumer talk show host Clark Howard offers a list of resources for use in cases of suspected financial fraud. For internet rumors and conspiracies, there are several resources as well. The most famous of these is Snopes.com, but the Urban Legends page on About.com and Hoaxbusters.org are recommended as well. Politifact and Factcheck are good resources for political claims, but both of these sites sometimes lean left.

Even on reliable sites, it is important to distinguish between commentary and factual reporting. For example, the Atlanta Journal is usually considered to be a fairly reliable source, but its columnists and bloggers merely state their opinions. Therefore, news items from AJC.com can generally be trusted. On the contrary, statements by its famously left wing editorial writer Cynthia Tucker (who recently left to teach journalism at UGA) should be taken with a grain of salt.

Another clue that a website is unreliable is a fixation on how one group is conspiring for nefarious purposes. This could include racial groups, religious believers, corporations, or the government. Jews, Catholics, and Freemasons are favorite targets of conpiricists. The Illuminati, the Bilderbergers, UFOs, the United Nations, and a shadow U.S. and world government are also frequent topics on conspiracy sites.

In one recent example, the Atlanta Conservative Examiner was sent a link that purported to show recently unclassified National Security Agency documents detailing how extraterrestrial messages were decoded by government cryptologists. These documents immediately set off the BS detector because of the incredible claim that aliens had contacted Earth and that the government had decoded their message, published it on the internet, and all this had somehow been missed by the major news outlets. Googling the author of the report and the report’s title yielded only links that referred back to the original source document as proof of alien contact. Snopes and the debunker sites had no information.

Finally, an article on Open Minds (admittedly not a first tier site when it comes to credibility) was found several pages into the search results. It detailed how the messages were part of an NSA cryptology exercise from the 1960’s. As Sherlock Holmes said, “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”

Don’t believe everything you read. Use common sense and look for verification from objective, reliable sources.

 

Read this article on Examiner.com:  http://www.examiner.com/conservative-in-atlanta/becoming-a-discerining-internet-user

Photo credit:  Stuart Miles/ http://www.freedigitalphotos.net

Obama's Birth Certificate

A rumor that won’t die is the myth that Barack Obama’s birth certificate is fake. There are different theories on where Obama was born, if he was not born in Hawaii as he claims. A prevailing belief is that he was born in Kenya, and as a native Kenyan, is not eligible to be President of the United States. Some have also claimed that his full name includes the name “Mohammed,” adding to speculation that Obama is a secret Muslim.

At this point, mountains of evidence are in and they all point to the fact that Barack Obama is a natural born citizen of the United States. As far back as July 2008, Obama had released a copy of his birth certificate. Obama had to release the birth certificate himself because in Hawaii, birth certificates are not public documents and must be requested by the family. Obama’s birth certificate can viewed here.

Almost immediately, the certificate came under attack due to the lack of an embossed seal and signature. The answer to that challenge is that in Hawaii, the seal and signature are on the back of the certificate. The political fact-checkers at Politifact.com emailed the copy of the certificate released by Obama to the Hawaii Department of Health. They were told by a spokesman that the copy was a valid Hawaii birth certificate. The name on the certificate is Barack Hussein Obama II.

According to Snopes.Com, Hawaiian government officials have vouched for the authenticity of Obama’s birth certificate twice; once in October 2008 and again in July 2009. Additionally, Snopes also provides the testimony of a Hawaiian school teacher who actually spoke with the obstetrician that delivered the baby Barack.

Politifact also checked Obama’s other public domain records. These other records included his marriage certificate from Cook County, Illinois, his driver’s license records in Illinois, and his attorney registration and public disciplinary record from Illinois. All show that his name is Barack Hussein Obama. He also has no moving violations and has not been disciplined as an attorney.

If that were not enough, Obama’s birth announcements can be seen in both Honolulu newspapers. The Honolulu Advertiser and the Honolulu Star Bulletin both record the birth of Barack Hussein Obama on August 4, 1961. The newspaper announcements can be seen here.

In August 2009, a birth certificate surfaced that purported to show that Barack Obama was born in Kenya. This birth certificate was quickly revealed to be a forgery. Among the tell-tale mistakes on the certificate are the phrase “Republic of Kenya,” which did not exist at the time, an incorrect age for Obama’s father, and the claim that Barack Jr. was born in Mombasa, which was located far from where Obama Sr. lived. In fact, Mombasa was so far from where Obama lived that it was not even part of Kenya at the time; it was actually then a part a part of Zanzibar.

A further claim is that US law at the time specified that if only one parent was a US citizen, to pass citizenship along to the child, that parent must have been a US citizen “for at least ten years, at least five of which had to be after the age of 16” [citation]. The claim is that since Obama’s mother was 18 at the time of his birth, she does not meet the requirement to pass along citizenship to Barack Jr. According to Snopes, this law applied only to children born to US citizens outside the US. Since the evidence is that Obama was born in Hawaii, this claim is moot.

There is also the claim that Obama’s Kenyan grandmother claimed to be present at his birth. Since she had never left Kenya, the implication is that Obama must have been born in Kenya. When the entire transcript is reviewed, it seems that there was confusion over the word “present” since Mrs. Obama did not speak English and was relying on a translator. Throughout the conversation, she continues to claim that Obama was born in Hawaii.

Finally, there have been two lawsuits regarding Obama’s birth certificate and citizenship. Suits filed by Philip Berg and Alan Keyes were dismissed as frivolous and without merit. The Supreme Court declined to hear the case.

While we can easily see that Obama’s does not and has never included the name “Mohammed,” it is not easy to see what is in Obama’s heart. Claims that Obama is a closet Muslim are not easily proved nor disproved. What can be shown is that Obama has long been a member of a Christian church, although one of a far left denomination. Obama’s family heritage includes many links to Islam so it is understandable that he would have sympathy for Muslims around the world. However, neither being a Muslim nor having sympathy for Muslims would be disqualifying for a president.

After having President Obama lead the United States for almost a year, it is easy to understand why wishful thinking could lead people to grasp at straws for reasons why he could not be president. Nevertheless, the evidence is overwhelming that Barack Hussein Obama II is a natural born citizen of the United States, having been born in a Honolulu hospital. To believe otherwise requires belief in a massive conspiracy that includes Obama’s entire family, the Hawaii Department of Health, his birth doctor, and countless others.

It makes more sense to accept the reality of Obama’s citizenship and fight him on the issues. His foreign policy favors dictators and terrorists over democracy. His domestic policy is built on unsustainable spending that must surely be followed by economy-killing taxes and inflation. To effectively fight his policies, Obama’s opponents must ground themselves in reality and facts, which can easily illustrate that Obama’s policies are all wrong for America.

Sources:
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2008/jun/27/obamas-birth-certificate-part-ii/
http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/birthcertificate.asp
http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/obamabirth.php
http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/birthers/kenyacert.asp
http://www.obamaconspiracy.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/kenyanphonetranscript.pdf

December 7, 2009
Villa Rica GA