Police said they were stunned by the cycle of events, which began at an apartment building in Garden Grove and then spread to businesses. https://t.co/2FuKcTET0g— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) August 8, 2019
How does one commit suicide while on suicide watch...or was it not suicide? https://t.co/7PX3iHG9Ri
— ColorMeRed 🇺🇸 📌 (@ColorMeRed) August 10, 2019
That is difficult to believe. Epstein already made one suicide attempt and everyone knows that pedos are not very popular with the prison population. How many inmates could implicate several Presidents as well as a Prince of England not to mention many other high powered names?
— ColorMeRed 🇺🇸 📌 (@ColorMeRed) August 10, 2019
My God, they’re already covering it up. Twitter has completely replaced the hashtag #ClintonBodyCount with #TrumpBodyCount on the trending newsfeed even though the numbers were higher.
— Mindy Robinson 🇺🇸 (@iheartmindy) August 10, 2019
The media bias is UNREAL at this point. pic.twitter.com/38QBO7HBIB
People close to Epstein fear he was murdered...as Epstein told authorities someone tried to kill him in a previous incident weeks earlier. He was described as being in good spirits in recent days... https://t.co/J9QNSo1N2v
— Carol Leonnig (@CarolLeonnig) August 10, 2019
Sweden views itself as a moral and progressive superpower, but an anti-immigration backlash has allowed right-wing populism to take hold. Aiding the rise in far-right, national sentiment: a global disinformation machine. https://t.co/YD1jn8oU3S
— The New York Times (@nytimes) August 10, 2019
it took the conspiracy people no time to go overdrive on peddling that the clintons killed epstein pic.twitter.com/MhJKPFoJQm
— Ali Breland (@alibreland) August 10, 2019
“It’s quite a transition from being invisible to being visible in a lethal way. It’s something new to my community. We are used to the basic darkness of racism, not this.” https://t.co/Dap8EGaIWe— Patricia Mazzei (@PatriciaMazzei) August 7, 2019
For Latinos, the El Paso slaughter & its bigoted motive have marked a devastating new low in the Trump era. Stay tuned for coverage of the candidates later today. /4 https://t.co/wFv1f4IXO6— Michael Finnegan (@finneganLAT) August 5, 2019
CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico — The massacre at an El Paso Walmart store on Saturday hasn’t diminished Silvia Ivania’s desire to move to the United States — even if the killer of 22 people was apparently motivated by hatred of Latino immigrants.
“That’s something that can happen anywhere,” said Ivania, 37, a citizen of Honduras, speaking at the Good Samaritan migrant shelter in this border city across the Rio Grande from El Paso. “The violence in Honduras is a lot worse than in the United States.”
She and several other migrants interviewed Tuesday at the shelter — temporary home to about 100, mostly Central Americans, but including U.S.-bound Cubans, Africans and others — agreed that the mass killing would not dissuade them.
“If anything, I want to go to the United States even more than before,” said Danieska Del Toro, 34, from Havana. “They arrested the guy, right? Maybe he was crazy. In Cuba we have violence too, even if the regime says there is none.”
Along the nearby Rio Grande, which separates the U.S. and Mexico, scattered groups of migrants could be seen Tuesday scampering across the river — which, at the moment, has been reduced to a few scattered puddles amid a narrow ribbon of green, and easy to traverse on foot. Its shallow depths seem to mock signs warning people of the danger of drowning.
At midday, amid 100-degree-plus temperatures, about 20 people — some holding their children’s hands — surrendered to U.S. Border Patrol vans waiting on the other side. As is usually the case, the migrants didn’t attempt to evade U.S. immigration authorities, but sought them out.
Mexican National Guard troops posted on the south side said they urged border crossers not to proceed, but didn’t prevent their passage.
“That’s their decision; we just tell them of the risks,” said one Mexican National Guard officer, who declined to be named because she wasn’t authorized to speak publicly.
Sad to see so many San Antonians as 2019 maximum donors to Donald Trump — the owner of @BillMillerBarBQ, owner of the @HistoricPearl, realtor Phyllis Browning, etc.
— Joaquin Castro (@Castro4Congress) August 6, 2019
Their contributions are fueling a campaign of hate that labels Hispanic immigrants as ‘invaders.’ pic.twitter.com/YT85IBF19u
MSNBC's Willie Geist to Joaquin Castro after he doxxed @realDonaldTrump supporters:
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) August 7, 2019
"These people are undoubtedly are already being harassed ... they will be because you put their names in public."
Castro later responds: "I didn't create the graphic."
Give me a break Castro. pic.twitter.com/XgBw8fkevA
Julie Kelly today at American Greatness with What’s Really Behind the ‘White Supremacy’ Terrorism Scare https://t.co/AAGEOGmfii pic.twitter.com/73L20945u9
— American Greatness (@theamgreatness) August 6, 2019
The anti-Trump forces, now stripped of their Russian collusion ammunition, have invented another imaginary threat they hope to weaponize against the president: The public menace posed by “white supremacist” terrorism.
Much like the collusion conspiracy theory—which relied on random incidents, fictional villains, unconvincing evidence, and the Bad Orange Man in the White House—there is little substance to this purported danger.
Unironically, the whole ruse is being pushed by the same people who foisted the Russian collusion hoax on the American people for three years in the hopes of prompting President Trump’s impeachment and removal. The political agenda behind this manufactured white supremacy crisis is equally sinister because its specific purpose is to influence and undermine the 2020 elections.
The “white supremacy” canard is intended to further demonize Trump; falsely defame his supporters as white supremacists; and pressure nervous voters into defeating Trump and Republican candidates next year. The strategy is as cynical as it is pernicious...
I talked to the founder and former admin of 8chan this morning. He told me he wants the site to be shut down, after being involved in 3 mass shootings this year. https://t.co/tewgBEqYeF
— Kevin Roose (@kevinroose) August 4, 2019
Fredrick Brennan was getting ready for church at his home in the Philippines when the news of a mass shooting in El Paso arrived. His response was immediate and instinctive.
“Whenever I hear about a mass shooting, I say, ‘All right, we have to research if there’s an 8chan connection,’” he said.
Mr. Brennan started the online message board 8chan in 2013, as a spinoff of 4chan, the better-known message board. In its early years, the site was known as an unmoderated free-for-all site populated by anonymous posters, where shocking and offensive humor reigned.
Now, 8chan is known as something else: a megaphone for mass shooters, and a recruiting platform for violent white nationalists. And Mr. Brennan, who stopped working with the site’s current owner last year, is calling for it to be taken offline before it leads to further violence.
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“Shut the site down,” Mr. Brennan said in an interview on Sunday. “It’s not doing the world any good. It’s a complete negative to everybody except the users that are there. And you know what? It’s a negative to them, too. They just don’t realize it.”
So far this year, three mass shootings — El Paso, the mosque killings in Christchurch, New Zealand, and the synagogue shooting in Poway, Calif. — have been announced in advance on 8chan, often accompanied by racist writings that seem engineered to go viral on the internet.
Moments before the El Paso shooting on Saturday, a four-page message whose author identified himself as the suspected shooter appeared on 8chan’s politics board, known as /pol/. The person who posted the message encouraged his 8chan “brothers” to spread its contents far and wide.
Given its repeated involvement in mass shootings, 8chan has become a focal point for those seeking to disrupt the pathways of online extremism.
“8chan is almost like a bulletin board where the worst offenders go to share their terrible ideas,” said Jonathan Greenblatt, the chief executive of the Anti-Defamation League. “It’s become a sounding board where people share ideas, and where these kinds of ideologies are amplified and expanded on, and ultimately, people are radicalized as a result.”
8chan has been run out of the Philippines by Jim Watkins, a United States Army veteran, since 2015, when Mr. Brennan gave up control of the site.
The site remains nearly completely unmoderated, and its commitment to keeping up even the most violent speech has made it a venue for extremists to test out ideas, share violent literature and cheer on the perpetrators of mass killings. Users on 8chan frequently lionize mass shooters using jokey internet vernacular, referring to their body counts as “high scores” and creating memes praising the killers.
Mr. Brennan, who has a condition known as brittle-bone disease and uses a wheelchair, has tried to distance himself from 8chan and its current owners. In a March interview with The Wall Street Journal, he expressed his regrets over his role in the site’s creation, and warned that the violent culture that had taken root on 8chan’s boards could lead to more mass shootings.
After the El Paso shooting, he seemed resigned to the fact that it had.
“Another 8chan shooting?” he tweeted on Saturday. “Am I ever going to be able to move on with my life?”
Mr. Watkins, who runs 8chan along with his son, Ronald, has remained defiant in the face of criticism, and has resisted calls to moderate or shut down the site. On Sunday, a banner at the top of 8chan’s home page read, “Welcome to 8chan, the Darkest Reaches of the Internet.”
“I’ve tried to understand so many times why he keeps it going, and I just don’t get it,” Mr. Brennan said. “After Christchurch, after the Tree of Life shooting, and now after this shooting, they think this is all really funny.”
Mr. Watkins did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
In the early days of 8chan, Mr. Brennan defended the right of 8chan users to post anonymously, without censorship. And he dismissed incidents of harassment or violence by users of the site as the price of being an open forum...
Never let a crisis go to WASTE --> Neera Tanden TROUNCED for dancing on El Paso/Dayton graves to campaign for Dems https://t.co/DYa5JklEoB
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) August 4, 2019
Never let a crisis go to waste, eh Neera? Instead of an intelligent conversation about what’s driving these shootings, who’s responsible, and how to stop them, why not attack your ideological opponents to score points?
— Tryx™️🌪 (@Tryxt3rocks) August 4, 2019
You don’t care about lives, you only care about power.
‘Media and politicians DON’T get it’: Brian Cates’ thread on the gunman’s alleged ‘manifesto’ is a must read https://t.co/rSDkI6aykT— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) August 4, 2019
We’re now facing something new.— Brian Cates (@drawandstrike) August 4, 2019
Before, a person intensely motivated by politics would write a manifesto to explain their reasons for resorting to violence.
Shitposting trolls on the chans aren’t trying to affect real political change.
The manifesto is PART of the trolling.
The **Antifa** guy from three weeks ago, now THAT was an old style attempt at a mass murder.— Brian Cates (@drawandstrike) August 4, 2019
He left behind a rambling, disjointed manifesto enumerating political reasons for his attack on the ICE facility. https://t.co/ZDA16zeYhT
But something new has been added into the mix in the last year and we have to recognize it:— Brian Cates (@drawandstrike) August 4, 2019
Mass shootings done for **fun** as the ultimate troll where these shitposters write confusing manifestos and then sit back & watch the fun as both sides claim he belongs to the other.
I’m going to agree here. But, if Trump denounces “White nationalist terrorism” blood thirsty #Democrats won’t be satisfied. That’s the problem when it all gets politicized. Double standards will get more people killed. 🤷♂️ #ElPaso #CieloVista #MassShooting #Walmart https://t.co/noG9uWz0jY
— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) August 4, 2019
