Fake news has been everywhere during election 2016. Fraudulent conspiracy theories, suspicious statistics and blatantly false news have gone viral.
November 21, the New York Times featured Fake News Onslaught Targets Pizzeria as Nest of Child-Trafficking about a pedophile ring operating out of the Comet Ping Pong pizzeria in Washington, D.C. The Comet Pizza restaurant was reported as the front for a child-trafficking ring headed by Hillary Clinton and her campaign chief, John D. Podesta.
There were nearly a million messages sent last month with the hashtag term “pizzagate.” The messages claim that Clinton kidnapped, molested and trafficked children in the restaurant’s walk in refrigerator and basement.
These allegations are absurd and totally false: There is no physical evidence and no victim has come forward but the conspiracy theorists are convinced they are right because Bill Clinton and Donald Trump flew on the private plane of convicted child abuser Jeffery Epstein and Tony Podesta, the brother of John Podesta whose emails were hacked, was a friend of Dennis Hastert. Hastert is the Republican politician who was sentenced to 15 months in prison, for abusing boys.
The crucial point here is that fake Pizzagate stories are now ruining not only reputations but careers, too. The Prime Minister of New Zealand was apparently just forced to resign after his own daughter was caught up in her own so-called scandal now known as Cherrygate.
The Wikileaks connection of Clinton to Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted paedophile, to John and Tony Podesta was enough for "investigators" to believe Pizzagate is real because Tony Podesta said he is a fan of Serbian painter Biljana Djurdjevic.
The conspiracy investigators remembered seeing George Soros's son at a spirit cooking event wearing red shoes (check the background):
And then there is the picture of attendees at one of Tony Podesta's birthday parties (photoshopped?).
What's in a shoe color? According to Harrison Koehli, who co-hosts Sign of the Times (SOTT) Radio Network's Truth Perspective, and is an editor for Red Pill Press, red shoes are a sign, a marker, of something very dark. Harrison is the author of Progressive liberal values: Tony Podesta's creepy taste in art, the creepy people he hangs out with, and Pizzagate and has been interviewed on several North American radio shows about his writings on ponerology, the study of the nature and the origin of evil, and evil in relation to the Politics.
James Alefantis, owner of Comet Ping Pong pizzeria, the center of the paedophile ring and #49 on GQ magazine’s list of the 50 most powerful people in Washington in 2012, "regularly co-hosts casual pizza parties at his friend, Tony Podesta's house,” so he can show off his art collection.
Alefantis, because of his ties to Hillary Clinton and her campaign chief, John D. Podesta, has been threatened with messages like “we’re on to you” on his Instagram feed. He has even received death threats on Facebook and Twitter. “From this insane, fabricated conspiracy theory, we’ve come under constant assault,” he said. The FBI and local police are helping Alefantis and demanded that Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Reddit remove the posts.
Mr. James Alefantis is now working with the NY Times to call for Facebook, Google censorship of what he calls "fake news."
Did you know that John Podesta lost his handkerchief?
Combing through John Podesta’s leaked emails, members of a far-right fringe community on the social media site 4chan and Trump supporters on Reddit pulled out a number of emails unconnected to politics. Several of them mentioned pizza or other Italian food.
The most cited email revolved around a handkerchief left at a house Mr. Podesta visited with a real estate agent that led to speculation that the handkerchief and map on it were clues to some sort of wrongdoing.
Is John Podesta Really a Paedophilie?
The term “cheese pizza” had previously been used on 4chan as code for “child pornography.” An anonymous user speculated that other food-related terms could also have double meanings.
This interpretation spread, and other emails containing supposed code words were reinterpreted as evidence of paedophilie activity.
“hotdog” = boy “pizza” = girl
“cheese” = little girl
“pasta” = little boy
“ice cream” = male prostitute
“walnut” = person of colour
“map” = semen “sauce” = orgy
Examples:
Mary and John
I think you should give notice when changing strategies which have been long in place. I immediately realized something was different by the shape of the box and I contemplated who would be sending me something in the square shaped box. Lo and behold, instead of pasta and wonderful sauces, it was a lovely, tempting assortment of cheeses, Yummy. I am awaiting the return of my children and grandchildren from their holiday travels so that we can demolish them. Thank you so much. I hope you and your gang are well. I miss you both Best wishes fro a merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Herb
Ps. Do you think I’ll do better playing dominos on cheese than on pasta?
wikileaks.org/...
I consider ice cream, its purchase, and its consumption a rather serious business. We can’t just willy-nilly toss it out and about in casual references, especially linked with the word “free”.
wikileaks.org/...
Lo and behold, instead of pasta and wonderful sauces, it was a lovely, tempting assortment of cheeses, Yummy. I am awaiting the return of my children and grandchildren from their holiday travels so that we can demolish them.
wikileaks.org/...
Thx for coming out. Always happy to babysit.
For example, the following 2015 email was taken as an inquiry about providing sexual services.
RE: Get ready for “Chicago Hot Dog Friday”
Stratfor is the Texas headquarters of the global intelligence company. The company is a “geopolitical intelligence platform.”
RE: Get ready for “Chicago Hot Dog Friday”
If we get the same “waitresses,” I’m all for it!!!
Aaric S. Eisenstein
STRATFOR
SVP Publishing
700 Lavaca St., Suite 900
Austin, TX 78701
512-744-4308
512-744-4334 fax
———————————————————————-
From: Fred Burton [mailto:burton@stratfor.com]
Sent: Thursday, May 14, 2009 2:39 PM
To: ‘Don Kuykendall’
Cc: ‘Aaric Eisenstein’; ‘Darryl O’Connor’; ‘Copeland Susan’
Subject: RE: Get ready for “Chicago Hot Dog Friday”
I think Obama spent about $65,000 of the tax-payers money flying in
pizza/dogs from Chicago for a private party at the White House not long
ago, assume we are using the same channels?
———————————————————————-
From: Don Kuykendall [mailto:kuykendall@stratfor.com]
Sent: Thursday, May 14, 2009 1:59 PM
To: ‘stratforaustin’
Subject: Get ready for “Chicago Hot Dog Friday”
To celebrate all you hot dogs out there. Aaric, you can participate as
well!
Don R. Kuykendall
President
STRATFOR
512.744.4314 phone
512.744.4334 fax
kuykendall@stratfor.com
Second guessing on why Obama decided to spend $65,000 of the tax-payers money flying in pizza/dogs from Chicago is a waste of time. If you wanted to make a case that there is a massive amount of government waste you could find thousands of other expenditures to question. Aaric S. Eisenstein, senior vice president of Stratfor, is entitled to request his favorite “waitresses.”
December 5 Alex Jones Breaking News: The Washington Post noted that one of the main proponents of the Pizzagate theory was the far-right radio host beloved by President-elect Donald Trump, Alex Jones. Alex Jones repeatedly told his nut job listeners in a video that Clinton was involved in a child sex ring and that her campaign chairman, John Podesta, indulged in satanic rituals.
“When I think about all the children Hillary Clinton has personally murdered and chopped up and raped, I have zero fear standing up against her,” Jones said in a YouTube video posted on Nov. 4. “Yeah, you heard me right. Hillary Clinton has personally murdered children. I just can’t hold back the truth anymore.” Jones eventually tied his comments about Clinton to U.S. policy in Syria.
The Jones video, viewed more than 427,000 times, was deleted December 6 because Jones realized Pizzagate is fake news.
Now Jones is making some sense and telling his listeners that Pizza Gate is Fake and is A Diversion From the Greater Crimes.
It doesn’t matter that Jones lies about his most egregious greater crimes claims, he fired Joe Biggs and is finally doing the right thing by backing away from his role in spreading the “Pizzagate” lies.
As a matter of fact the Pizzagate witch hunt is spreading around the globe. Great Britain is experiencing one “Pizzagate” after another, and in Haiti, where these crack pots are now accusing Hillary of murdering Monica Petersen.
Ms. Peterson previously worked for the Colorado Human Trafficking Council’s Data & Research Task Force and was the assistant director at the Human Trafficking Center in Haiti. She died on November 13th, 2016. The director, Professor Claude d’Estrée, of the Center on Human Rights Education, posted the following message on Facebook after her death.
“I am heartbroken to report that Monica Petersen died today in Haiti. She was a recent graduate of the Korbel School, a Research Fellow and an Assistant Director at the Human Trafficking Center, and had moved to Haiti to teach and start an NGO.”
So what makes the news important? Well, unsubstantiated rumors are spreading that Petersen’s death was a result of her work in uncovering child sex rings and sex trafficking networks in Haiti related to the Clinton Foundation in Haiti.
The rumor gained widespread attention after a post on Reddit, The Donald sub, and The Political Insider.
Fortunately, we have a number of reliable common sense websites which are ready, willing, and able to debunk these rumors and conspiracy theories. One of the most popular fact-checking and debunking websites is www.Snopes.com. David and Barbara Mikkelson are the unassuming California couple who are honest referees to help us, “ordinary folks,” sort out the “news” from the 24-hour cable gasbags, partisan talk radio hosts, chain e-mails, blogs and Web sites.
The real truth seekers at Snopes investigated a comment made by d’Estree at the memorial service: “(She) decided to take on one of the demagogues in the field of human trafficking. Produced a 110-page analysis of human trafficking in Haiti – 2 years of research. We were looking for someone who was smart enough and maybe brave enough to publish her work. I will continue to seek out and publish it for her. We are in a state of shock. We may never know what exactly happened to her,” that the conspiracy community believed was referring to Clinton when in fact he was allegedly talking about Siddarth Kara.
Suddenly, the non-existent investigation was supposedly confirmed. Efforts to correct the record were dismissed and then on November 18th Professor d’Estrée cleared things up and announced that, “it was best to ignore rumors circulating about Petersen being killed for investigating sex trafficking in Haiti that may have been related to the Clinton Foundation, we do not support any of the rumors that have been circulating around the internet..”
Unfortunately on December 4, Alex Jones, who now admits Pizzagate is fake, posted a YouTube video titled “Haiti PIZZAGATE: Death of Child Trafficking Investigator.” Snopes investigated and confirmed Jones claim that “she had just begun investigating the correlation regarding the Clinton Foundation’s Caracol Industrial Park Complex and its connection to a human trafficking network when her life was cut short,” was FALSE.
The rumors are continuing just because her cause of death has not been stated, there hasn’t been an autopsy and one of her friends shared a message that she posted online a year ago to a “Woman’s Work Goes On” Facebook group, about investigating the Hillary’s brother’s mining operation and sex trafficking. The post reads:
“[…] the real significance of this scandal for me, I know you feel me [redacted], is the link to contemporary slavery and trafficking. I can’t say to what extent, but there is human trafficking happening through the Clinton’s Caraol Complex. And mining has always been historically linked to trafficking, slavery, and labor exploitation. I’d like to go see for myself who’s laboring at Morne Bossa, but I would hypothesize that the Dominicans are doing the contractual oversight of the mining, while marginalized Haitians are being exploited for low or no cost labor in dangerous mining conditions.
“That’s two huge human trafficking scandals, an environmental degradation scandal, a social displacement scandal, a Presidential election scandal, a scandal with billions in unaccounted for earthquake aid… all leading directly back to the Clintons racist cronyism in Haiti.”
The message foreshadows the Wikileaks e-mail dump, where those close to Hillary warned about her brother’s operation in Haiti. Former legislative assistant Brent Budowsky wrote in a message dated March 21st, 2015 to John Podesta.
“If there is one thing that could well bring down a Hillary Clinton candidacy it is this cycle of money issues about which I am now feeling red alerts, loud bells, warning signals, and red flags and I am now seriously pissed off that there is a real chance that her candidacy, and the Democratic Party, could be destroyed by these self-created dangers that continue to proliferate the closer she gets to presumably announcing her candidacy.
“[…] it will be megaphoned throughout the media, and foreign donations and paid speeches and hustling gold mining deals by her brother are entirely legitimate issues that are self-created, and must self-corrected before it is too late….and I do not believe the Clintons fully understand the magnitude and immediacy of the danger in the current political and media climate.”
Another one of Petersen’s friends, Bella Robinson, mentioned on Facebook that “It seems Monica was in Haiti investigating the Clinton possible ties to a pedophile ring. Monica family hasn’t been able to get any straight answers about her death.”
All of this is just circumstantial evidence, but what is really ludicrous is that the Clinton haters are bringing up F. William Engdahl, the strategic risk consultant and lecturer who holds a degree in politics from Princeton University.
Carlos Slim’s net worth is more than $64.8 billion dollars. The richest man on earth is a Mexican telecom mogul, whose career’s “most interesting parts” are his links to businessmen “suspected of involvement in Mexico’s so-called ‘Cartel of the Southeast.” He is a Clinton associate and donor to the Clinton Foundation. In 2015, Carlos Slim became the largest shareholder in the New York Times. William Engdahl, an author and lecturer with a degree in politics from Princeton suggests in this revealing article that this may explain why we will not be reading about the “murky dealings” of The Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation in Haiti from the New York Times; “formerly America’s most respected newspaper of record.” According to Haiti activist Ezili Dantò: “The Clintons have used governmental power to conduct their private business and called it ‘helping poor Haitians.’”
Hillary Clinton should get far more scrutiny for her scandalous conduct in Haiti; from rigging the March 2011 presidential election for her favored candidate Michel “Sweet Mickey” Martelly (supporter of the CIA created death squad FRAPH) to insuring that her brother Tony Rodham and “a company that barely exists” got a “sweetheart gold mine concession in Haiti” that “royally cheated” the state of Haiti.
Another example in a continuing lineup of scandals that makes Hillary Clinton toxic and unfit to be considered for the presidency of the United States.
You should be asking yourself this question, if Engdahl is really a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics, then why isn’t he writing that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is required by law to turn over the emails to the US Government?
The article by F. William Engdahl, Hillary: The New York Times Will Never Tell Us This is still found at the Journal New Eastern Outlook but in case it is taken down, I archived it in [Appendix B].
There is no evidence whatsoever that the emails contain explosive revelations about her role in Haiti after the earthquake. [Appendix A]
Another post by Monica Petersen written in 2014 doesn’t prove that she was murdered because she was about to expose the nefarious dealings of the Clinton Foundation in Haiti.
Root Causes and Contradictions of the Displaced Youth along the U.S./Mexico Border•
by Monica Petersen, guest blogger
September 04, 2014
- Illicit markets thrive where licit markets have been destroyed. Despite the façade of “free-trade” in Central America (or anywhere, for that matter), international trade is far from free flowing. Economic development policies between countries of the global North and South have favored Northern profits and the United States for decades. This has resulted in massive inequality of worldwide wealth and acute global poverty. Many Latin American economies attest to this. Where “free-trade” policies have collapsed the legal and formal markets of local economies, illicit and informal markets will fill the economic void as a necessity of human survival. Weapons, narcotics, endangered plants and wildlife, humans, and other illicitly traded commodities are advantageous to developing economies because regulated, domestic exports (such as auto parts, factory garments or agricultural crops) have been devalued to the point they are no longer competitive on the global market. Illicit markets are the natural comparative advantage for sustaining local livelihoods, and this is apparent in the homelands of border youth and children.
- Criminal gangs often establish the supply niches for these illicit markets. Some are highly organized and violent cartels but most are loosely based. Minors in Central American conflict zones are at a higher risk for various types of child trafficking. Youth and children trafficked for gang soldiering and/or drug mules are an increased concern in the present context. Returning minors at the border to their homelands subjects them to these risks of human trafficking. Individuals caught in repeated cycles of fleeing and trafficking are common when violence and poverty occur together, making repatriation to these regions an unsustainable solution.
- Hasty deportations of unaccompanied Central American minors violate international children’s rights. The United Nation’s Convention on the Rights of the Child outlines these child-specific rights and legal protections for anyone under the age of eighteen. Further, the current position of Congress and the Obama administration – to overhaul the 2008 Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act and deny fair trials that recognize refugee, asyees and trafficking victim statuses – is unacceptable for a nation claiming to lead the global fight against trafficking in persons.
- The international principle of non-refoulement is being disregarded by the United States government. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees defines “non-refoulement” as the obligation of states to allow territorial access to refugees and asylees seeking safety from life threatening risks in their countries of origin. Returning border youth to documented violence in Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador is another significant U.S. violation of international law. In the modern era, “forced” and “willing migration” are almost never clearly defined categories, but U.S. immigration policies typically insist upon the later. This undermines the human rights of fleeing children – who are still owed due legal process regardless of whether they are undocumented.
- The U.S. has a sixty-year history of provoking regional instability in Central America. The complexity of this has included crippling Cold War policies, CIA backed coups, civil wars instigated and funded by the U.S. government, and the infamously chaotic War on Drugs. Gangs have flourished as a result of the illicit market niches created by sixty years of political-economic strife, and present levels of violence in these countries are deeply rooted in this historic trauma. Still, the U.S. continues to ignore the realities Central American youth and children are faced with as a result of its aggravating (often illegal) involvement there.
- Research overwhelmingly shows increased border militarization is an ineffective, inhumane solution for stopping migrant flows everywhere in the world. The current solution to quell youth flooding the border is a request for emergency funds from Congress. The funding would provide badly needed health and human resources for fleeing Central American youth. However, more than half of the requested $3.7 billion will fund an impressive boost in U.S. border patrols, surveillance, expedited immigration courts and anti-immigration campaigns – all proven to be inadequate controls in the long term. Completely open borders would not be sustainable without addressing root causes either. Nevertheless, two billion dollars toward creating fair-trade markets and formal employment opportunities in Central America (rather than creating more U.S. border military jobs) would be more likely to have a lasting effect on stabilizing the region.
- “Border Children” is a one-dimensional label. Perhaps necessary for categorical references, it is critical to remember that each one of these migrant youth is an individual human being. They represent diverse identities, experiences, resistances and courage in their individual life journeys. Their futures need to be considered valuable to our world and they must be supported as whole people with equal human rights.
The United States
has yet to develop an immigration strategy that will appropriately address the interdependent forces behind what is now a
worldwide phenomenon – the
largest, global displacement of human beings in all of history. That’s a big statement for U.S. leadership to continue neglecting. Awareness of the tremendous underpinnings of the current border crisis is a vital first step for the American public to take. Without citizen demands for policy reforms – of both a broken immigration system and
flawed model of international development – it is unlikely the entrenched roots of Central American oppression will shift within U.S. bureaucracy. The youth at the border are merely one casualty of this.
*Monica Petersen graduated in 2014 with an MA in International Development from the Josef Korbel School of International Studies, University of Denver. She is currently a research intern at the Laboratory to Combat Human Trafficking in Denver and a research assistant for The Human Trafficking Center at DU. This blog does not necessarily reflect the position of any other person(s) or organization(s), and is the author’s work alone. [End of Root Causes and Contradictions of the Displaced Youth along the U.S./Mexico Border•]
Conclusion
Again, all of this is circumstantial and doesn’t prove anything. A few more #PizzaGate baseless claims are disputed below.
The Comet Ping Pong Pizzeria is a child sex trafficking headquarters.
Some pizza-related emails mentioned a Washington pizzeria, Comet Ping Pong, whose owner is connected to prominent Democratic figures. An email about a pizza fund-raiser there fed speculation about sex parties.
The pizza parlor owner, James Achilles Alefantis listed as the 49th most powerful man in Washington DC., was swept into the rumor mongering on message boards. Amateur online sleuths linked the pizzeria’s signage to satanic symbols. Fake stories emerged putting the restaurant and Mr. Alefantis in the center of a child-trafficking ring.
[From Progressive liberal values: Tony Podesta’s creepy taste in art, the creepy people he hangs out with, and Pizzagate]
Laura Wainman wrote a
piece on Tony’s home, published for
Washington Life on June 5, 2015. In it, Tony lists Louise Bourgeois and Marina Abramovic (of “spirit cooking” fame) as among his top five favorite “artists”. But the first “artist” in Tony’s collection mentioned in the article is Serbian painter Biljana Djurdjevic. Here’s a selection of her work (more photos available
here and on her
website):
And this is where things get weird. (Understatement?) Wainman writes:
According to the FBI document released by WikiLeaks, the following symbols are used by paedophiles to identify sexual preferences.
Conspiracy theorists claimed that other design elements used by businesses near the Comet Ping Pong restaurant also resembled paedophile symbols.
Note that a number of other major American brand logos contain similar shapes. Hearts, triangles and spirals are widely used symbols in business logos.
Robert Armstrong, a Progressive Democrat
