Category: conspiracy theory

The Importance of Getting Things Right

Mike Rothschild

On Sunday, the New York Times posted an article going in depth into the motivations of Anthony Comello, the Staten Island day laborer who allegedly shot and killed Gambino family boss Frank Cali, supposedly after being brainwashed by QAnon propaganda. To show his allegiance to the mysterious conspiracy avatar, Comello got a blue ballpoint pen and scrawled a number of Trump and Q slogans on his hand, including a large, unmistakable “Q” in the center of his palm.

Why someone aligned with Q would kill a Mafia boss, when Q has never mentioned the Mafia, remains a mystery, a baffling element of a baffling murder. Times reporter Ali Watkins spoke to Comello’s lawyer, and both seemed a little baffled by the whole thing.  Which is entirely appropriate, because QAnon can get pretty baffling if you’re not ensconced in the arcane mythology and jargon of the conspiracy theory.

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Hey, What Happened to All Those People Hillary Killed?

Mike Rothschild5 Comments

Remember when Hillary Clinton killed all those people? Not that time, or that other time. The most recent time she killed all those people. You know, two former state senators in Arkansas and Oklahoma, both found shot dead one day apart. And her brother. And a bunch of NYPD officers. And a bunch of other people. Yeah, that time.

What happened to all that? After a brief burst of activity on conspiracy theory social media, the murders all seemed to disappear from the news. Which seems like an unlikely thing to happen to a string of murders committed by one of the most well-known political figures in the world.

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Was QAnon Right About Jeffrey Epstein?

Mike Rothschild4 Comments

The sex trafficking arrest of billionaire hedge fund manager and convicted/registered sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was not especially surprising for anyone who knows even the slightest thing about the island-owning, Trump-gladhanding perv. The accusations that Epstein has been involved in a trove of sexual misconduct, assault, rape, and trafficking have been run down by outstanding journalists and now backed up by the legal work of the Southern District of New York. It’s not a shock.

Also not surprising: the outpouring of gloating from QAnon acolytes and believers crowing that their “military intelligence” avatar was proven correct in his/her/their promises that Epstein would be revealed as a Satanic sex pervert in bed with the Clintons and some of the worst criminals in the world. After all, Q is wrong so often that it seems like something to celebrate when Q is right. And celebrate, they did:

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How Can We Miss Q if Q Won’t Go Away

Mike Rothschild

Last week, I wrote a story for Daily Dot about the month-long absence of new QAnon posts, and what it means for the QAnon movement. I asked believers (who hate to be called that, except that it’s the only term that conveys their status with any accuracy) whether they were losing faith in Q, and if they’d walk away from the movement if Q didn’t post again.

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The NYPD Suicide Cluster: Clinton Chicanery or Mental Health Crisis?

Mike Rothschild1 Comment

This week, the cluster of suicides plaguing the NYPD added another name to its tragic ranks today, with news breaking of the suicide of an unnamed veteran officer who worked patrol in the Bronx.

This marks the fourth NYPD officer to die by their own hand in June. First there was 38 year NYPD veteran Deputy Chief Steven Silks of the Patrol Borough Queens North, who was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot on June 5th. The next day, the body of veteran Brooklyn Homicide Detective Joseph Calabrese was discovered in a grove of bushes near a beach, also dead by his own hand. Then on the 14th, a Staten Island patrolman, with six years of experience, killed himself behind his precinct.

The four suicides have been deemed a “mental health crisis” in the NYPD, shedding light on the high suicide rates of police officers around the country.

Sadly, they’ve also been latched onto by conspiracy theorists as part of both the QAnon conspiracy and the ever-expanding “Clinton Body Count” – the list of people supposedly killed by the Clintons over the last four decades.

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