Clinton Body Count Rebooted?

After President Bill Clinton's election, several conspiracy theories surfaced about Clinton. For several years, Hillary Rodman Clinton has been pulled into these discussions. Things are heating up again. It's time for an update.

Fifty Deaths?

One such reportedly thin hypothesis batted around has centered on what is called the "Clinton Body Count" or "Clinton Death List" about a catalog of associates Clinton was allegedly purported to have had killed. The theory asserts that former US President Bill Clinton and his wife Hillary Clinton have assassinated fifty or more of their associates.

Perhaps the most prominent name on the list is Vincent Foster, who died on July 20, 1993. Foster was a childhood friend of Bill Clinton's, and was a Deputy White House Counsel during the first six months of President Bill Clinton's administration. He had been a partner at Rose Law Firm in Little Rock, where he was a colleague and friend of Hillary's.

During the Ken Starr investigations of the Clintons in 1997, it was associate Brett Kavanaugh (now a Supreme Court Justice, thanks to President Donald Trump) who reopened the investigation of the Vincent Foster gunshot death and took three years to come to a finding of death by suicide. Kavanaugh had invested large amounts of federal money and resources to investigate the partisan conspiracy theories surrounding the Foster death.

Seth Rich

The unsolved 2016 murder of DNC staff member Seth Rich has prompted conspiracy theorists to claim that his killing was instigated by Hillary Clinton following alleged collaboration with WikiLeaks during the 2016 United States presidential campaign. Elements of this story have been promoted by figures including Alex Jones, Newt Gingrich, and Sean Hannity.

The Reboot?

Now, in June 2019, there appears to be renewed interest in deaths associated with the Clintons.

Former State Senator Linda F. Collins-Smith

Filed under "conspiracy theory," Mike Rothschild asks, "Linda Collins-Smith: Did the Clinton Death List Just Get One Name Longer?" 

‪Former Arkansas State Senator Linda F. Collins-Smith, 57, was found outside her Pocahontas, Arkansas, home, on Tuesday, June 4, 2019. She had been found shot to death. On June 6, Arkansas State Police announced the body had been positively identified to have been Linda Collins-Smith, and that a homicide investigation was underway with the Randolph County Sherriff's Department. They did not confirm a cause of death. She had been discovered wrapped in a blanket.

The prosecutor has issued a gag-order on the Collins-Smith. Collins-Smith’s body had decomposed considerably and it’s not known how long she had been dead when her body was found, although it’s being reported that neighbors said they had heard gunshots a day or two earlier.

Collins-Smith was a conservative Republican and owner of a Days Inn motel in Pocahontas.  In 2017, Collins-Smith introduced Senate Bill 774, the Arkansas Physical Privacy and Safety Act which would limit transgender individuals in the use of government facilities that correspond to the sex on their birth certificates. She said that the bills set a baseline for privacy across the state and would shield public schools from lawsuits by organizations "seeking to impose their anti-privacy agenda on our children."

Collins-Smith, back in 2016, was asking about the deleted Clinton emails. 

Reportedly, Linda Collins-Smith was working with a Department of Human Services insider to expose the missing 27 million dollars from the DHS/Child Protective Services. Allegedly, these funds were being placed into trade, and the dividends are being filtered back to the Clinton Foundation or other companies owned by the Clinton Foundation. (Source.)

On May 27, State Senator Linda Collins tweeted: "I have information that will lead to the arrest of Hillary Clinton."

Kassel Council Chair Walter Lübcke

Walter Lübcke (born August 22, 1953) was killed on June 2, 2019. He was a German politician and a member of the Christian Democratic Union of Germany.

Lübcke was found shot in the head at close range. Suicide has been ruled out. He was head of the regional council of Kassel.

Clinton Donor Herb Sandler

Herb Sandler, right, and his wife, Marion, shown in 2006.

Herbert Sandler (November 16, 1931 – June 4, 2019) was a co-CEO (with his wife, Marion Sandler) of Golden West Financial Corporation and World Savings Bank. Sandler, who lived in San Francisco, died on June 4, 2019, at the age of 87.

In an article on the 2012 death of Marion Sandler, Ryan Mac of Forbes noted that Golden West "instituted borrowing practices that were largely blamed for the housing market collapse".

Former State Senator Jonathan Nichols

On Wednesday night, June 5, 2019, Jonathan Nichols, 53, a former Oklahoma state senator was found dead inside his home in Norman from an apparent gunshot wound. Law enforcement sources told The Oklahoman that Nichols’ body was found in his home and a gun was on a table across the room.

Tony Rodham

Hillary Rodham Clinton's brother, Anthony Dean Rodham (born August 8, 1954) died on Friday, June 7, 2019.  He was an American consultant and businessman who was the youngest brother of Hillary Rodham Clinton, and the brother-in-law of former U.S. President Bill Clinton. His business dealings had sometimes appeared to take advantage of his connections to the Clintons and accordingly attracted public scrutiny.

Hillary Clinton announced Tony Rodman's death on Twitter. No cause of death has been announced. He was 64.

Former NASA Deputy Russia Representative Lola Gulomova

The former US Embassy, Moscow representative in 2006, and more recently an official in the US Commerce Department, Lola Gulomova reportedly died in a murder-suicide on June 7, 2019. 

The Washington Post began their report thusly:

They were scheduled to be in D.C. Superior Court Friday morning to work out the final details of a fiercely contested divorce.

But Lola Gulomova and Jason Rieff never made it.
Shortly before the 10 a.m. hearing was to begin, Rieff’s lawyer got an urgent message from her client, according to two law enforcement officials familiar with the case who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an active police investigation. Something was wrong at the couple’s house near American University in Northwest Washington.
The lawyer, Jenny Brody, said she called 911, and police, fearing a mental health emergency, broke down the front door to the redbrick home. They were met by the 51-year-old Rieff holding a handgun, according to a police report. Police said he retreated and shot himself in the head

According to one conspiracy theory site, Gulomova's "death came just days after she requested a meeting at the Embassy of the Russian Federation in Washington D.C. to discuss what she said were 'vital issues' related to the just completed Planetary Defense Conference whose attendees included top officials from NASA, FEMA and other US government agencies (including her Commerce Department) and experts from around the world."

These "alarming new findings" allegedly included items 

discussed at the Planetary Defense Conferencerelated to the mysterious flashes of light coming from the Moon's surface—most particularly how they’ve now been linked to the shocking discovery of a mysterious 10-million light-year wide “intergalactic bridge”—that’s further believed to be the cause of the equally “mysterious unraveling” of “The Great Spot” of Jupiter that’s been under continuous observation since 1830 and has never changed before now—but whose most troubling words written by Gulomova were in her ending postscript warning that “by 11 November it will be too late”—which is the date that the planet Mercury will pass directly in front the Sun—a transit that occurs only 13-times each century, and whose next one won't occur again until 13 November 2032—and is a planet the ancient Babylonians called Nabu after the messenger to the gods—the ancient Romans called the “swift footed messenger god”—thus leaving one to wonder what “message” was Gulomova trying to convey—or even worse, what “message” is Mercury about to reveal as the US military prepares for “The Big One”.  (Source.)

Former State Senator Nancy Schaefer

An old case is being discussed now too.

Nancy Schaefer, 73, was found dead at her home in Turnerville, Georgia in Habersham County on March 26, 2010 with a single gunshot wound to her back along with her husband of 52 years, Bruce Schaefer who was found with a single gunshot wound to his chest. Police concluded the deaths to have been a murder–suicide perpetrated by her husband, but the motive for the murder was unclear and never established.

Before her death she published and promoted the report "The Corrupt Business of Child Protective Services," leading to conspiracy theories surrounding her murder. Upon her death, fellow State Senator Ralph Hudgens eulogized her as "almost like a rock star of the Christian right".

###

Pocahontas statue in Jamestown, Virginia.

Pizzagate Arson

No matter what side of the fence you come down on regarding the Pizzagate melodrama,  the fact is it has caused some real world violence often buried at the back of the paper, so to speak. 

The Pizzagate Shooting

Take, for example, the "Pizzagate shooting" of December 2016. Few media outlets even talked about the news, let alone tackling it, or putting it into any context. I wrote about it here, as an introduction to the stories, thinking it might grow and mellow with age.

The essence of that event was that a true believer in the Pizzagate rumors decided to take matters into his own hands. On Sunday, December 5, 2016, Edgar Maddison Welch, 28 of Salisbury, North Carolina, walked into the front door of Comet Ping Pong and pointed a firearm in the direction of a restaurant employee. 

Welch told police he'd come to the restaurant to "self-investigate" the Pizzagate theory that spread online during Hillary Clinton's run for the White House during the 2016 campaign. At one point, Welch fired an AR-15 at a locked closet. But he discovered there were no children being held in the restaurant. No one was hurt in the shooting. He surrendered and was later sentenced to four years in prison.

Edgar Maddison Welch

Pizzagate

The Pizzagate stories centered on one location, the pizza restaurant named Comet Ping Pong in Washington D.C. The mainstream site Wikipedia summarized the case as follows. Please note the use of value-laden words, such as "fake," "falsely," and "debunked."

In early November 2016, several fake news websites and online forums falsely implicated the restaurant and various Democratic Party figures as part of a fake child trafficking ring, which was dubbed "pizzagate" in some circles. This fake story was debunked by the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia, fact-checking website Snopes and The New York Times, among others. The restaurant's owners and staff were harassed, threatened on social media websites, and given negative Yelp reviews. After continued harassment, Comet Ping Pong increased the security for concerts held inside its premises. Source.

Pizzagate Arson

During January and February 2019, a series of incidents occurred that appear to have flown below the radar of the mainstream news, again, in the realm of Pizzagate. 

On January 23, 2019, a fire broke out at Comet Ping Pong. He set the location's curtains on fire. No one was hurt, but the video appears to not have been released to the public until January 25, 2019.

Then on February 4, and again on February 5, 2019, a man that was later found to fit the describe of the suspect, climbed the fence around the Washington Monument.

Video taken on the 5th of February showed "two officers trying to restrain a man at the base of the Monument as he fights back wildly. The man appears to punch at the officers. He falls at least twice and gets back up. 'Get on the ground!' an officer can be heard ordering the man. An officer runs at him with a baton, but he continues to resist. Finally, an officer uses a stun gun on the man. He brings his hand to his chest and then falls backward," wrote WashingtonNBC4 on February 14, 2019.

Then on February 13, 2019, Ryan Rimas Jaselskis, 22, was charged with arson. Federal prosecutors say that on January 23, 2019, that Jaselskis started the fire in the Comet Ping Pong.

Jaselskis, who uses the name Ryan Rimas in his acting and modeling career, entered the Comet Ping Pong restaurant on January 23 [2019] about 9:30 p.m. and set fire to curtains inside the eatery, federal prosecutors say. He was caught on surveillance video, which was released by the DC Metropolitan Police and ATF arson task force. The video showed a man in a blue and white jacket inside the Connecticut Avenue restaurant trying to knock down a camera as a fire burns in the background. No one was inside the restaurant and there were no injuries. Source.

 

Rimas or Jaselskis used images of himself in modeling photographs and on Facebook in which he employed the same jacket he is shown wearing in the Comet Ping Pong surveillance video. As one tweet author sarcastic noted online, "He really liked that jacket."

Jaselskis appears to be a Lithuanian name. Rimas or Remas is a given name, which can be an Arabic feminine name or a Lithuanian masculine name. In Arabic, Rimas is derived from the name of "a type of diamond."

He also wore the jacket in his IMDb profile photo.

Ryan Rimas has appeared in nine films since 2015, according to his IMDB profile, all of which appear to be small or independent movies. The films include Four Blood Moons, It Happened in L.A., The Curse, Tiger Leaves Skin, Serial Killer Superstar, Evening Installation, Betting on Amanda, and Josh Taylor’s Prom Date.

∆∆∆

This "pedophile conspiracy" rabbit hole is a deep one if you decide to dive into it. Source.

Pizzagate Shooting

On Sunday, December 5, 2016, Edgar Maddison Welch, 28 of Salisbury, North Carolina, walked into the front door of Comet Ping Pong and pointed a firearm in the direction of a restaurant employee. 

Maddison is an unusual name. Maddison is an elaborate respelling of Madison. As a given name, Madison originated as the transferred use of a surname. The surname is derived from maternal ancestors and comes from the medieval female given name Madde, which was a short form of Maud.  From English, the meaning of the name Madison is derived from Matthew, "gift of God'," or from Matilda "strong fighter." (James Madison Jr. was the fourth President of the United States, from 1809 to 1817.)

Comet Ping Pong has been associated with the Pizzagate story.

In early November 2016, several fake news websites and online forums falsely implicated the restaurant and various Democratic Party figures as part of a fake child trafficking ring, which was dubbed "pizzagate" in some circles. This fake story was debunked by the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia, fact-checking website Snopes and The New York Times, among others. The restaurant's owners and staff were harassed, threatened on social media websites, and given negative Yelp reviews. After continued harassment, Comet Ping Pong increased the security for concerts held inside its premises. Source.

Sunday's event was a realtime drama allegedly caused by a fake news story. Various pro-Pizzagate sites are saying this incident, however, is a "false flag" incident so everyone will think that the conspiracy story is "nuts."

Welch said he was investigating a conspiracy theory about Hillary Clinton running a child sex ring out of a pizza place fired an assault rifle inside the Washington, D.C., restaurant on Sunday injuring no one.

The employee was able to flee and notify police. Welch then fired the gun into the floor. Police responded and arrested Welch without incident. They recovered an "assault rifle," Brown said. Welch was charged with assault with a dangerous weapon.

Welch has appeared on social media with an assault weapon.

Two firearms were recovered inside the restaurant and an additional weapon was recovered from the suspect's vehicle, police said in a statement on Sunday evening.

Welch told police he'd come to the restaurant to "self-investigate" the fictitious online conspiracy theory that spread online during Clinton's run for the White House, the police statement said.

The Comet Ping Pong is in a neighborhood of well-tended private homes and apartment buildings on leafy streets that lead to a mix of shops, restaurants and the Politics and Prose book store. The restaurant gained notoriety during the presidential campaign after fake news stories stated that Hillary Clinton and her campaign chief ran a child sex ring out of the restaurant, The New York Times and other news organizations have reported.

The Comet, its owner, staff and nearby businesses were caught up in an onslaught of conspiracy theories and fake news during the often contentious presidential campaign and were the victims social media attacks and death threats, the Post reported.

James Alefantis, owner of Comet Ping Pong, released a statement late Sunday night that denied what he called the “malicious and utterly false accusations” and said the company hoped to resume normal operations within a few days.

“I hope that those involved in fanning these flames will take a moment to contemplate what happened here today, and stop promoting these falsehoods right away,” Alefantis said in the statement widely distributed by the media.

Social media's visuals tagged to "Pizzagate" have been ongoing since November 2016. That "fake news" would inspire "real news" in such a matter may be a first.

Fakelore and Fake News: Have You Heard The One About Anti-Trump Protesters Blocking The Ambulance?

Paul Bunyan is a clear example of fakelore. Fakelore is described as "inauthentic, manufactured folklore" presented as if it were genuinely traditional.

The term fakelore was coined in 1950 by American folklorist Richard M. Dorson. Dorson's examples included the fictional cowboy Pecos Bill, who was presented as a folk hero of the American West but was actually invented by the writer Edward S. O'Reilly in 1923. 

Dorson also regarded Paul Bunyan as fakelore. Although the number one fakelore hero, Paul Bunyan originated as a character in traditional tales told by loggers in the Great Lakes region of North America, James Stevens, an ad writer working for the Red River Lumber Company in Minnesota, is said to have invented many of the stories about him that are known today. Others say the character originated in the oral tradition of North American loggers, and was later popularized by freelance writer William B. Laughead (1882–1958) in a 1916 promotional pamphlet for the same previously mentioned Red River Lumber Company. According to Dorson, advertisers and popularizers turned Bunyan into a "pseudo folk hero of twentieth-century mass culture" who bore little resemblance to the original.

Research does not demonstrate

whether Bunyan actually lived or was wholly mythical. [Researchers] have noted, however, that some of the older lumberjacks whom they interviewed claimed to have known him or members of his crew, and the supposed location of his grave was actually pointed out in northern Minnesota. In this regard, it should be noted that Bunyan's extreme gigantism was a later invention, and that early stories either do not mention it or, as in [one research] paper, refer to him as being about seven feet tall. Source.

Fakelore, at some level, develops from "fake news," i.e. local or regional stories that are untrue but many people are convinced what they have heard or read in social media is "real."

Fake news has been in the news of late, as the realization settles on the mainstream media, Facebook executives, and Twitter readers that much of what they read has little to do with reality.

Headline stories this week speak volumes about what is occurring:

"Trump's fake-news presidency," Washington Post, November 18, 2016.

"Obama, With Angela Merkel in Berlin, Assails Spread of Fake News," New York Times, November 17, 2016.

"I fooled America with fake news stories and got Trump elected," New York Post, November 17, 2016.

"7 signs the news you're sharing is fake," Mashable, November 17, 2016.

"Here are all the fake 'news' sites to watch out for on Facebook," The Daily Dot, November 16, 2016.

Let's look at one "fake news" story that has greatly circulated in the wake of Donald Trump's election and the anti-Trump demonstrations. It is the alleged story of anti-Trump protesters blocking an ambulance with the father of a 4-year-old girl dying. It's false, fake, and a hoax, but it's become fakelore extraordinary.

There are a half million hits on the Internet where you can read versions of the story, with most mentions of them presenting the "news" as "real."

The only problem with the "news item" is that there are no names, no locations (although various ones do pop up before another one is mentioned), no sources, and not too surprisingly, there is a short history of the same tale showing up down through the years.

Earlier in 2016, a variant on the story was tied to Black Lives Matter protestors on a bridge with a "suffering child" in an ambulance being blocked by their march. The child was reported to have died.

ABC News, on July 11, 2016, debunked that story:

A rumor swirled on Facebook that a young girl died as a result of the "Black Lives Matter" protest Sunday night. That rumor is not true.
Early during Sunday's protest that stopped traffic on the Interstate 40 bridge, a car trying to take a child to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital got stuck in the traffic jam. Police worked with protesters, who let the car go through. Source.

The debunking site Snopes examined the post-Election Day fake news of the father dying because of the blocked ambulance, and 

found no corresponding news reports of any such death occurring (in conjunction with anti-Trump protests or otherwise) in the United States since the 8 November 2016 election. Source.

But the protesters-blocking-ambulances fake news continues to spread, and is now part of current urban fakelore.

Could you have seen us being here, ten years ago? This is the era of post-truth.

Political Creepy Clowns Cartoons Connections Continue

The linkages between political cartoons of Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, and the Phantom Clowns/Stalking Clowns/Creepy Clowns epidemic of 2016 continues.