Pizzagate, Wikileaks and MSM

Should Wikileaks have edited the Podesta leaks? Should the media have reported Wikileaks better in the past? Is the MSM trying to debunk a fake story or cover up a real one? A serious charge, circumstantial evidence, some unverified, but not yet truly debunked. Please debunk it if it is not true.

A vaguely sourced rumor not yet truly debunked. This picture remains unexamined.

Long before the term “Pizzagate” existed, Glenn Greenwald of the Intercept said that “you would have to be a sociopath” to indiscriminately release information on the internet, as Wikileaks has done in the John Podesta/DNC release of documents. Greenwald expressed concern that innocent people might be hurt if a media outlet throws information out there to let people draw their own conclusions.

Greenwald raises a legitimate point. On the other hand, Wikileaks has opened the door to how politics really works in America as no other publication in history. Here I write about eight major scandals emerging from Podesta’s emails. These are major scandals that should end careers and put people in jail.

We need to know how our government works and maybe we have to grow up a bit on how we, the public, interpret information. Or maybe that’s asking too much. And there will always be cranks…

EDIT: The shirt may refer to a neighborhood in DC and be completely innoculous. See comments below for a long discussion of whether or not this picture is in fact from Alefantis’ instagram account, includes a photo of a child rapist or not, and who the individual in the shirt might be. Edit on the edit: there is also discussion of the truth of the existence of a 2007 FBI list of pedophile symbols. Here is the original document showing that the document does indeed exist and was produced by the FBI in 2007. Here is a Slate article from 2007 explaining the document.

The Podesta emails on Wikileaks were certainly released fairly indiscriminately. Spam is included in the database, things like special offers from the Sports Authority. We also learn the John Podesta believes that aliens from other planets have landed on earth.

When Greenwald made his “sociopath” comment, before Pizzagate, I thought about John Podesta’s son, Gabe, an officer in the Air Force. Gabe seems to have absolutely no connection to his father’s political work and to be a decent person, unlike almost everyone who actually works for the DNC or HRC. I did a crowdsourced study of most of the emails in the database and found that there were almost no altruistic sentiments among the millions of pages of emails and attachments sent by staffers and political operatives.

Gabe is not like those guys. He seems decent. John Podesta seems to have raised a good man: Gabe is serving in the Air Force and seems committed to doing his duty. In one email, however, he complains about his co-workers. It’s the kind of thing a lot of us have done in a private email to a friend or family member. I thought of Greenwald’s complaint and imagined trouble among the people Gabe works with as an example of “damage” done by the lack of editing in the Wikileaks releases.

Now, with the apparent shooting at Comet Pizza, and the abuse of the people associated with Pizzagate, we now have a more serious example of harm, as per the “sociopath” comment above. Before the shooting, the New York Times reported on the harassment experienced by people at the various businesses apparently connected to the scandal. The New York Times is implicated in collusion with the HRC/DNC campaign. This is not journalism. The paper did not include a disclosure as to their own involvement in the general set of Podesta scandals, thus falsely suggesting that the paper is a disinterested party. The BBC also ran a story with “fake” in the headline prior to the shooting.

Shooting up a restaurant, or whatever happened, and harassing people based on innuendo on the internet is despicable. Nothing in any source relating to the idea of a scandal called Pizzagate indicates that ANYONE is guilty of anything. There is not enough information to indict anyone. There is no reason for vigilantes to attack people who quite likely are not guilty of anything. It’s terrible, and it does raise questions about Wikileaks practices, as Greenwald suggested.

An internet mob is ugly and terrible. The mobbing should stop. No one is benighted by God to judge anyone, let alone some internet busybodies who think they can judge the innocent from the guilty by reading a few posts on Reddit. I am sure that people are being harassed and their lives upended completely unjustly.

One way to stop it might be to move Pizzagate out of the “fake” news category, look at in the light of day, and find out what it is and is not, the extent we can, and let people know that there is no cover up in progress.

While Pizzagate is certainly a rumor, an unconfirmed set of coincidences, the scandal has not been debunked by the New York Times or the BBC or anyone else. It could be debunked. Pizzagate is not yet “fake” news. This blog post raises some questions that need answers.

“Aliens” is fake news. Podesta believes aliens have landed on earth. That is fake. There is no basis for the idea that aliens have been on earth. No reasonable person can find any credible reason to accept the idea. Aliens do not occasionally land on earth. If they did, we’d likely know about it. You don’t need to debunk the claim. The New York Times and the BBC did not debunk this idea. Like many crazy ideas out there, the alien idea is simply baseless.

Pedophile rings do exist, unlike alien visitors. The vatican, Belgium, Norway, Canada, the BBC: they happen. 250,000 people protested in Belgium. Such crowds have not emerged for allegations of alien contact. Connected, prestigious people have been involved in all of the abuse networks cited above. Please click the links above from traditional news sources.

Now, MSM, I would encourage you to cover the more solid stories in Wikileaks, not Pizzagate. While Pizzagate is a rumor, the routine violations of election law are facts. While the pedophilia story is very weak in terms of evidence, the idea that Google would try to sway an election is absolutely terrifying. A memorandum against conflict of interest has the force of law and Hillary Clinton broke her agreement.

If the media did not cover up the career-ending nature of these facts, they would now have credibility to debunk Pizzagate. If the media did not collude in fixing an election, or attempting to, they would have credibility to write off a story as “fake” and people would believe it.

They have already ruined their credibility. I again encourage people who want to know what are the facts in the rumor about pedophilia to consult aceloewgold.

The “evidence” for Pizzagate is all circumstantial. Most people on any board talking about this agree that there is no evidence to indict let alone convict anyone. Mostly, the rumor is a set of questions.

The screen shots from Alefantis’ Instagram page can only be seen as controversial by interpreting the comments and context. No one has claimed the screen shots are fake, as far as I can tell. Even with comments they are not obscene or explicit in anyway. There is one of a girl “tied up.” There is one referring to John Podesta’s art collection. Stuff like this is easy to explain as something other than a pedophile ring. Just dumb, sometimes tasteless, jokes. For this to be at all disturbing you have to look up “chickenlover” … and then it might be a very tasteless joke?

What did or did not happen at Comet Pizza or whether Hillary Clinton knew about whatever happened in any place are not central to the rumor. Hillary is a bit player in Pizzagate and the restaurant site as such is not really central either.

The owner of the restaurant, James Alefantis, is a critical piece of “this.” His archived Instragram account is significant. If you want to debunk the story as potentially explosive politically, you need to disconnect Alefantis from the central Clintonites or disconnect the Instagram images or their implications from Alefantis. Either route would defuse the energy behind the rumor. Because no MSM outlets have mentioned the Instragram images, I’m inclined to believe they are legitimate representations of Alefantis’ account and, as a set, they are odd. Perhaps that’s all they are and there is nothing more to that account but the account was legitimately his. I just don’t know.

What does Pizzagate allege? At a minimum, that there is something mildly creepy about James Alefantis and John and Tony Podesta. The scandal, if it anything at all, might not involve any violations of law or might not involve many people. It might be some people who have some strange sexual proclivities that they share in ways that are not illegal, as sort of a low end “scandal” emerging from the coincidences that build up to Pizzagate.

At most, on the high end, you might have something like a pedophile ring. Those do exist.

The trigger for the controversy were pizza-themed emails sent by or to Podesta in Wikileaks. Those emails are clearly real and not fake. To debunk those, you would need to explain what appears to be pizza code language and something other than pedophile double speak.

If Pizzagate is “fake” let’s get rid of it and cover the real news in Wikileaks. Here’s how you get rid of it, to debunk Pizzagate, you could do any of the following:

Find out if the archived Instagram account, now on the web as screen shots, really belonged James Alefantis. Alefantis posted the picture. He may have taken the picture. If those screenshots are fake, that would put a huge dent in Pizzagate. The screenshots should be part of any story claiming to debunk Pizzagate. Is Michael Quinn, convicted pedophile, one of the shirtless, breaded men in this picture with James Alefantis? If not, then a huge area of suspicion is gone. Maybe the picture is fake. Maybe James Alefantis is not in the picture. Maybe Michael Quinn is not in the picture. I don’t know if this means anything at all. What Michael Quinn admitted to doing, however, is absolutely horrifying. Still, Alefantis may not have known Quinn was a pedophile. How did they meet, if they did? Did Tony and John Podesta socialize frequently with James Alefantis? Was James Alefantis the former boyfriend of Clinton confidant David Brock? If Alefantis has no significant connection to Clinton, then his sexual proclivities may be a scandal, but not a political one. So, ask them. Tony Podesta celebrated his birthday at Alefantis’ restaurant? Once? Often? What do the references to pizza in the Wikileak emails mean? Clearly not pizza. Someone should ask John Podesta. If he as a credible answer, then that would solve that problem. It really does sound like code for something. What? I don’t talk about pizza as something that is maining a matter of time, an hour, or a date coming up. In fact, although I eat pizza, I rarely talk about it. Podesta is usually quite taciturn and clearly quite busy in these emails. Yet he has time to talk about pizza. There weirdest emails are the “handkerchief… map that seems pizza-related” and the “pool party” emails. Ask Podesta to explain. These emails, like many in the Wikileaks collection, should have been the subject of articles in the MSM. Did Bill Clinton ditch his secret service detail to fly on Jeffrey Epstein’s plane (Lolita Express) 12 times? 26 times? Where did he go? Why? As far as I’m concerned, if Bill admitted to sex with adult prostitutes, that would be no big scandal. If the implication is sex with underage sex slaves, well, that’s worse. Why not find out? Ask him. I don’t expect him to admit to a crime, but he should be able to say yes or no to questions about flying on the plane and visiting the island. If he was not on the island for sex, why was he there? Was he there? If he was there for sex, it may be a private matter, depending on the kind of sex. This should have been a bigger story for some time. Dennis Hastert, Republican former speaker of the House, convicted pedophile, knew the Podesta brothers for 40 years. Emails pertaining to his arrest suggest concern for him on the part of John Podesta but not for his victims. However, John Podesta may have expressed concern for the victims in another forum. The issue here, as far as debunking the Pizzagate story, would be to re-open Hastert’s history. Was he a life-long pedophile, even when sharing an apartment with Tony Podesta? Was the extent of his criminal activity covered up in any way? This should have been a bigger story at the time. Haiti and Laura Silsby, convicted of child trafficing: did Hillary Clinton intervene personally to reduce the charges? There is a conviction here and solid (Wikileaks) evidence of interest and involvement by Clinton herself. Explain please. This should have been a bigger story at the time.

We have four convicted pedophiles and child trafficers in this story: Hastert, Epstein, Silsby and Quinn. Hastert is a long time friend of the Podestas. Epstein is friends with Bill Clinton. Silsby knows Huma Abedin and Hillary Clinton is concerned about her fate. Quinn may or may not know Alefantis.

These connections can be debunked but have not been. It’s not Quinn in the photo with Alefantis. The Podestas have nothing to do with and were unaware of Hastert’s pedophilia. Bill did not fly on Epstein’s plane and/or did not have sex with underage children on his island in the Virgin Islands. Hillary did not intervene on Silsby’s behalf and/or did not know what she was really up to. I don’t know any convicted pedophiles while four are poking around the Clinton circle. But their circle is wider than mine. Maybe it’s a coincidence.

There are many ways for a journalist with access to these people or, certainly, an investigator with a badge, to clear this up. Unfortunately, the MSM has ignored a series of major scandals and has no credibility to simply write off Pizzagate as entirely fake. It’s a rumor. It’s not a wacko aliens area 51 story. There are pieces of evidence. Some of them could be fake. Are they? Find out.

I know that vigilante harassment is terrible and want that to stop. I know that Wikileaks has revealed profound corruption at the heart of government that has nothing to do with this rumor. I know that I don’t believe the hype when it comes to the MSM. Pizzagate? I do not know what to believe, personally.

Michael Quinn, convicted pedophile