There comes a day inside the bubble where outside events inevitably come leaking through, requiring immediate emergency maintenance lest reality come flooding in and you sink without a trace into…

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…the Great Lake of Fail.

One way to patch the bubble is to construct a new hunk of reality where the inhabitants can be safe until repairs are complete. So, on Monday, when the storm threatened to swamp the White House, everybody piled into a hastily built shelter provided by the Fox affiliate in Washington. In their scramble, of course, they trampled on the feelings of a family still coping with an unspeakable tragedy and on human decency in general. But any old fantasy in a storm, I guess.

Last July, a Democratic National Committee staffer named Seth Rich was shot to death in what police called a botched robbery attempt in Washington. No suspect yet has been found. Throughout the summer, showing the same kind of discretion it once extended to the family of Vince Foster, the wingnuttosphere was alive with speculation that the Clinton Death Squad once again was abroad in the land.

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Which brings us to Monday's story, which appeared almost simultaneously with the Washington Post story about the president* and his relaxed attitude toward top-secret classified information. From Fox 5 DC:

Rod Wheeler, a private investigator hired by the Rich family, suggests there is tangible evidence on Rich's laptop that confirms he was communicating with WikiLeaks prior to his death. Now, questions have been raised on why D.C. police, the lead agency on this murder investigation for the past ten months, have insisted this was a robbery gone bad when there appears to be no evidence to suggest that. Wheeler, a former D.C. police homicide detective, is running a parallel investigation into Rich's murder. He said he believes there is a cover-up and the police department has been told to back down from the investigation. "The police department nor the FBI have been forthcoming," said Wheeler. "They haven't been cooperating at all. I believe that the answer to solving his death lies on that computer, which I believe is either at the police department or either at the FBI. I have been told both."

So the evidence for this blockbuster is on a computer that Wheeler never has seen and that he "believes" is locked away either by the FBI or the local cops in Washington. Oh, OK.

Not only that, but…

Wheeler also told us, "I have a source inside the police department that has looked at me straight in the eye and said, 'Rod, we were told to stand down on this case and I can't share any information with you.' Now, that is highly unusual for a murder investigation, especially from a police department. Again, I don't think it comes from the chief's office, but I do believe there is a correlation between the mayor's office and the DNC and that is the information that will come out [Tuesday].

Let us stop for a moment and consider Wheeler. He has been a Fox TV personality for some time; he was a regular on Bill O'Reilly's program where, among his other gumshoe work, he broke wide open the international criminal conspiracy of violent gangs of gay women. From the SPLC:

Wheeler, a Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police Department officer-turned-paid Fox News commentator, launched right in: "Well, you know, there is this national underground network, if you will, Bill, of women that's lesbians and also some men groups that's actually recruiting kids as young as 10 years old in a lot of the schools in the communities all across the country," he reported. "And they actually carry a number of weapons. And they commit a number of crimes." Wheeler asserted that "we've actually counted, just in the Washington, D.C., area alone, that's Washington D.C., Maryland, and Virginia, well over 150 of these crews. … And they — like I said, they recruit these kids to be members of these gangs."

Nevertheless, Breitbart piled on, which allowed Drudge to pile on, and the piling on continued until it reached all the way over to the Prison Planet-InfoWars chronic ward, and there suddenly was Real News to talk about instead of that fake story down at the White House.

This outraged the Rich family who, according to Business Insider, would like to have several heads on a plate.

"It's sad but unsurprising that a group of media outlets who have repeatedly lied to the American people would try and manipulate the legacy of a murder victim in order to forward their own political agenda," Bauman told Business Insider. "I think there is a special place in hell for people like that."… Even if tomorrow an email was found, it is not a high enough bar of evidence to prove any interactions as emails can be altered, and we've seen that those interested in pushing conspiracies will stop at nothing to do so," the family said in a statement. The family's statement continued: "We are a family who is committed to facts, not fake evidence that surfaces every few months to fill the void and distract law enforcement and the general public from finding Seth's murderers. The services of the private investigator who spoke to press was offered to the Rich family and paid for by a third party, and contractually was barred from speaking to press or anyone outside of law enforcement or the family unless explicitly authorized by the family."

I suspect the fine hand of Julian Assange in here, too.

They never have been shy about hiding behind corpses. Why just this morning, as the rest of the media was chewing over the question of whether or not the president* was stupid or evil, the folks on the Fox and Friends couch invited Ken Starr on for a chat about…Vince Foster. From Mediaite:

When asked about his investigations into the Clinton's in the 1990s, Starr mentioned Foster, who was the subject of similar right-wing conspiracy theories — some even pushed by Trump — claiming he too was killed by the Clintons: "There was a connection directly going back to the death of Vincent Foster — believe it or not — and Linda Tripp, Monica Lewinsky. It was all one big unhappy family."

May you have, as JJ Grey puts it, the hottest spot in hell.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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