Another hoax suckering conservatives? No, the Washington Navy yard shooter was not identified as a registered Democrat


As if it mattered.

Some poor minion, in thrall to the RWNJ Machine, Tweeted me today that all mass shooters have been Democrats. I know the family of one, who happened to be Republican.  The odds of all of them over the years (and we have about one mass shooting each week) being registered Democrats just defies statistical probability.  The Columbine shooters were not old enough to vote; the New Town shooter probably was not active politically in any way . . .

Masthead to National Report. C'mon would these guys lie to you?

Masthead to National Report. C’mon would these guys lie to you?

Oh, yeah, and the Hemingway™ Brand Solid Gold, Shock-proof Sh** Detector started clanging away.

I challenged him for a citation; he offered none, but kept tweeting badgering posts all afternoon . . . finally he named Aaron Alexis.  Well, if that were so, that would be one, not “all mass shooters.”  I suggested others who would not be Democrats . . .

Then, after I’d cooked, after I’d fed the critters, washed some dishes and sat down, I thought about.  Where’d he get the crazy idea that Aaron Alexis was politically involved at all?  Nothing in the Fort Worth or Dallas papers (he lived in Fort Worth for many months).  So I Googled it.  “Aaron Alexis Democrat.”

Here’s the story, at our increasingly least favorite site, National Report.  Out of nowhere, the National Report story claims Alexis was a Democrat.

NBC News has identified the suspect in the Washington D.C. Navy Yard shooting as Registered Democract Aaron Alexis, 34, originally of Ft. Worth, Texas (click here for report circulating on Twitter regarding the shooter). Alexis, allegedly a Muslim (possibly gay), was a civilian contractor who reportedly used the ID of a former employee to gain access into the facility. At this time, 13 people are reported dead and several others wounded.

None of the links in the story make any reference to voter registration or any other way of identifying the shooter as a Democrat.  Veering off into bizarre, tasteless parody, National Report said:

National Report has attempted to contact Darrell Issa’s office for information regarding an investigation into Obama’s involvement with this tragedy. Alex Jones has information regarding the attack that suggests this was a false flag operation to deter attention from Syria.

National Report extends its warmest wishes to the family and friends of those involved in this horrific attack.

These phrases are red flags for bad information:  “Alex Jones has information” and “false flag operation,” favorite phrases of unhinged conspiracy aficionados.  “Warmest wishes” seems a particularly inept and tasteless line.

Why would any reporter think the president was involved in any way, and unless the reporter had information California Rep. Darrell Issa was involved himself, why would he contact Issa’s Congressional office?  Congress would have no role whatsoever in any investigation at such an early phase.

“National Report” avatar for “Chase Logan.” A man running from the scene of a hoax?

The reporter is identified as “Chase Logan,” which is probably a pseudonym, a mashup  of “Chevy Chase-Logan Circle,” two neighborhoods in northern DC and Maryland.  Alleged to be a graduate of Georgetown Law, Chase Logan’s bio as a reporter looks like fiction.   This alleged reporter is also the wit who wrote the National Report story parody on a new “boobs” merit badge for Boy Scouts.

Taste, accuracy and information, are not in these people.

The claim that the Washington Navy Yard shooter was a Democrat is based in no report deeper than this horrible National Report story, and is a hoax.  Bogus claims from an established hoaxing site should not be given the respect and circulation this report got.  No other credible source makes the same claim.

When one spots “National Report” as a source, one may well bet that the information sourced there is false, aimed at the truly gullible.

More:

Twitter Wall of Shame, the Truly Gullible:

  • File these under “anatomy of the spread of a hoax infection”

http://twitter.com/joemel921/status/379697459959984128

This next guy was even told it was a hoax site he got the information from; he chose to dismiss the warnings.

http://twitter.com/joemel921/status/379700184244289538

http://twitter.com/Weber_Ken/status/379704059697311744

Update:  Missed this one.

http://twitter.com/MaryBro77801894/status/379706489075535872

http://twitter.com/rembrandt208/status/379706546055176193

http://twitter.com/Numb3rTech/status/379706725831430144

http://twitter.com/rovibe71/status/379708450575380480

Joemel921 came back for another duping:

http://twitter.com/joemel921/status/379715570847211520

This guy figured it out, but his whistle-blowing was too subtle:

http://twitter.com/YossiGestetner/status/379717396505706496

Original hoaxsters back for another round:

Hoaxsters push deeper into the desert sands:

I don’t see that MSNBC offered the information this guy claimed:

http://twitter.com/mwerner89/status/379779634931306497

http://twitter.com/thegardner97/status/379788102283186176

http://twitter.com/P_CARROLL2525/status/379788728882851842

https://twitter.com/rovibe71/status/379803401992691712

http://twitter.com/MaryBro77801894/status/379856471288053760

Real crazies start to crawl out, now:

http://twitter.com/UniteRight/status/379937023471415296

Update January 11, 2014:  Good heavens, is this hoax still finding ill-informed, unthinking suckers?  Take a look at some of the other debunkers.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 30th, 2013 at 11:15 pm and is filed under Accuracy, Hoaxes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

8 Responses to Another hoax suckering conservatives? No, the Washington Navy yard shooter was not identified as a registered Democrat

  1. Another hoax goes viral: No, Volkswagen is NOT closing Chattanooga plant | Millard Fillmore's Bathtub says:
    March 2, 2014 at 10:18 am

    […] “Another hoax suckering conservatives: No, the Navy Yard shooter was not identified as a registered D…“ […]

    Like

  2. JamesK says:
    October 2, 2013 at 7:51 am

    To quote: hey scum bag why don’t you create original work instead of using people tweets

    Perhaps, Mary, you should find your brain and your manners?

    Like

  3. Ed Darrell says:
    October 1, 2013 at 5:29 pm

    Sheesh!

    Several commenters on Twitter complain so many of the mass shooters have been Democrats . . .

    Fact Check got an e-mail on it (inspiration to my correspondent?). Fact Check said back in March:

    Fact Check: Email was wrong about recent mass killers being liberals
    Posted: March 15, 2013 – 12:52am | Updated: April 4, 2013 – 4:01pm
    By Carole Fader

    Times-Union readers want to know:

    An email says that recent mass killers were all progressive liberals and most were registered Democrats. Is that true?

    The viral email lists the shooters in the killings at Fort Hood, Columbine High School, Virginia Tech, Aurora, Colo. and Newtown, Conn., as being registered Democrats. “Instead of registering and banning firearms,” the email says,”possibly we should register and ban progressive liberal Democrats.”

    A look at what’s known about the suspects pretty much debunks this viral email.

    The information in the email seems to have originated with Roger Hedgecock, a former mayor of San Diego and now a lobbyist, lecturer and conservative radio talk show host. In his radio broadcast, Hedgecock did not provide any evidence in any of the cases, making assumptions in some and inaccuracies in others.

    The email assigns a Democrat tag to Adam Lanza, the Newtown, Conn., shooter, because, it says, Connecticut has almost twice as many registered Democrats as Republicans. That is true (815,713 to 449,648, according to the latest state records) and it is also true that President Barack Obama carried Connecticut in the past two presidential elections.

    But to assume that Lanza was a Democrat because of that makes an awfully large reach. Incidentally, as of the last election, there were 5,364 people registered as Republicans in Newtown, and 4,505 registered as Democrats. And Newtown went for Mitt Romney 51.7 percent to 47 percent, according to official election results.

    NO PARTY TAGS IN VIRGINIA OR TEXAS

    There is no proof of Fort Hood suspect Nidal Hasan’s political affiliation. He registered to vote in Roanoke County, Va., where he lived before being sent to Fort Hood, according to a Nov. 9, 2009, story in the Roanoke Times. Virginia does not allow registration by party, so he wouldn’t have been registered as a Democrat.

    Hasan could have registered in Texas when sent to Fort Hood, but Texas also does not register by party. If he voted in the Democratic primary in Texas, that would be his affiliation until a general election, in which he could have voted for whomever he wished, according to Texas voting law.

    But Hasan’s voting habits have remained undisclosed; there’s absolutely no evidence that he is a registered Democrat.

    Since Virginia does not have partisan registration, it would have been impossible for Virginia Tech shooter Seung-Hui Cho to register as a Democrat there. Cho and his family were permanent residents of the U.S. as South Korean nationals, according to a Washington Post article that quoted the Department of Homeland Security.

    While some Green Card holders can vote in state and local elections in a few states, they cannot do so in Virginia as all registered voters must be U.S. citizens.

    ERRORS MADE BY BREITBART BLOGGER

    Hedgecock’s allegation that Colorado theater shooting suspect James Holmes was a registered Democrat was based on Breitbart blogger Joel B. Pollack, who said he found Holmes’ voter registration records. But it was later determined that those records — though of a Holmes of a similar age — were not those of the suspect.

    Breitbart later retracted the claim, saying: “Newly released information on the suspect’s birthdate (which, as indicated in our initial report, was a slight mismatch), combined with new details Breitbart News has obtained about the suspect’s likely addresses, together suggest that the suspect may, in fact, not have been registered to vote.”

    Unfortunately, several conservative websites continued to run the incorrect information.

    Dylan Klebold, 17, and Eric Harris, 18, the Columbine killers, were not old enough to vote, and Hedgecock acknowledges that. But claims that their parents were Democrats and progressive liberals have no proof. Both youth admired Timothy McVeigh, according to published reports, not Ted Kennedy, as the email purports. There is no substantiation that the families were registered Democrats.

    Carole Fader

    Read more at Jacksonville.com: http://jaxairnews.jacksonville.com/news/premium-news/2013-03-14/story/fact-check-email-was-wrong-about-recent-mass-killers-being#ixzz2gVo8IPKJ

    Like

  4. Ed Darrell says:
    October 1, 2013 at 3:47 pm

    A week ago a guy took me to task for writing that “XYZ said this” instead of posting the Tweets.

    Why don’t you check the accuracy of what you post, instead of passing false crap around? Do that, you’ll be happy to have me cite your Tweet here, no?

    Seems like the change needs to come on your side, not mine.

    But thanks for dropping by. We’re here often to help Tweeters get their stories straight. Feel free to come back and get the facts.

    Like

  5. Mary Brown (@MaryBro77801894) says:
    October 1, 2013 at 2:58 pm

    hey scum bag why don’t you create original work instead of using people tweets

    Like

  6. JamesK says:
    October 1, 2013 at 10:45 am

    Agreed, Black flag. So perhaps we should actually do something, and do pay attention to how I’m saying this, to limit their ability to engage in violence.

    Like

  7. Ed Darrell says:
    October 1, 2013 at 7:47 am

    We share common ground on that understanding, Black Flag. Flights from reality, not by choice, affect people in all walks of life, probably with a statistical distribution unrelated to ideology.

    Most of these cases involve mental disease. Pretending otherwise doesn’t help.

    Like

  8. Black Flag® says:
    September 30, 2013 at 11:29 pm

    Insane violent men exist in all politics.

    Like

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