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Tea’s Weird Week: Fathers of Conspiracy
SPECIAL POST-FATHER’S DAY COLUMN LOOKS AT REX JONES, GARETH ICKE, and DONALD TRUMP JR.
Ideas are passed down generation to generation and they’re aren’t always good ones. It was Father’s Day last weekend and I stopped by to visit my dad. He’s a pretty cool guy, and I appreciate some of the things he brought into my life, most notably his love of music, old sci-fi, horror, and mystery movies, and most importantly, his love of reading.
I like to think I’ve picked up some traits from my dad but manage to be my own person. But some guys are either the polar opposite or nearly identical to their fathers. On the latter, they say that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
Timed perfectly with Father’s Day was a screenshot shared on social media which showed that Rex Jones, eldest son of conspiracy peddler and scam artist Alex Jones, had his own InfoWars show where he used his air time to rage against… Lord of the Rings themed erotica? Well, by now some of you probably know that I can’t look away from a car crash, so I decided to dive into the murky waters of the Internet and see if this was true. And yes, it more or less is.
Rex has been trained in the dark arts of The Alex Jones Show for a few years. There was some father and son bonding time on vacation in 2018, for example, when they ambushed and harassed Bernie Sanders at an airport (LAX), chasing after the senator and declaring that he was “the living embodiment of communist and socialist evil.”
“Very disturbing to see my son doing this,” commented Alex’s ex-wife, Kelly, at the time. She would later cite the incident in an ugly custody battle. “Plus they are calling out Bernie Sanders on his elite lifestyle, which is hypocritical. So my son is being encouraged to be a bullying hypocrite.” What Alex’s ex is referring to is the millions of dollars Alex Jones and InfoWars have made on pain, misery, lies, and sham products sold on their website.
In the last couple years Rex has appeared as a teenage correspondent on InfoWars. Now that he’s 18, Alex has perhaps told him he needs to be a man and start pounding a fist on the InfoWars desk and screaming about the dangers of the Deep State and liberal elites and communists. And so Rex makes guest appearances on InfoWars shows like The American Journal and has his own short video segment called Doctor Silence with Rex Jones. I don’t know what “Doctor Silence” refers to, but maybe it’s his fantasy superhero persona. We’re going to talk more about fantasy fulfilment in just a minute.
Rex has his imitation of his father down pat– the loud mockery, the crescendo of outrage, the angry hand gesture as punctuation. He’s going to need to chain smoke and start screaming more if he wants to develop his dad’s gravelly voice, though.
In his videos, Rex has ranted about masks and Black Lives Matter protestors, and a Blue’s Clues episode that aired earlier this month that features a Pride Parade. Not surprisingly, Rex’s interpretation of the cartoon was homophobic, transphobic, and generally rambling and stupid– at one points he asked what happens when someone on OnlyFans has a kid and years later their child sees their mom “performing cunnilingus on a man.” At first I thought this was some joke about transpeople, but I’m guessing Rex hasn’t received an adequate sex education and therefore might not be familiar with what cunnilingus is.
On a June 18 episode of The American Journal, hosted by “white genocide” conspiracy advocate Harrison Smith, Rex made an appearance to talk about his rage about interpretations of the sexuality of Lord of the Rings in fanfic erotica, thought the main thing that seems to have set off Rex and Harrison was a list of upcoming talks offered by the Tolkien Society for an online seminar July 3-4, with an overall theme of “Tolkien and Diversity.”
Some of the talk topics riled the Infowarriors up, like the one titled “Gondor in Transition: A Brief Introduction to Transgender Realities in The Lord of the Rings,” to which Rex Jones says that as a war veteran, J.R.R. Tolkien is “used to seeing people get their legs chopped off, not their dicks. Holy Hell! You can’t make this stuff up!” They went on to talk more about the seminars and took a look at some Lord of the Rings fanfic erotica pictures.
I think that these guys have a deeply closeted elf fetish. It’s ok Rex, you can be attracted to elves or dwarves or orcs or whatever the fuck you want to.
“They’re just going back and ruining anything that was enjoyable and nice for anyone,” is the Rex Jones take. “You don’t get to listen to the music you liked, you don’t get to watch the movies you like, you don’t get to read the books you like, you don’t get to live the life you like to live. You have to live in their weird rainbow PC playground and play by their rules or they’ll throw you in jail.”
To be clear, all of Tolkien’s work is still in print, widely available, and legal to purchase or get from your local library in it’s original published form.
In the same segment Rex manages to throw is a comparison that Joe Biden is “the Fuhrer” and Kamala Harris is “Goebbels.”
Alex Jones couldn’t bloviate that better himself.
After posting a screenshot of the above story to Twitter, someone informed me that another famous conspiracy peddler, David Icke, the British theorist who popularized the Reptilians theory, also has a son following in his footsteps– Gareth Icke.
Recently, a theme park called Thorpe Park in Surrey, England asked that unmasked people sit in the back of a rollercoaster to reduce the risk of infection to the masked people sitting in the front. Gareth Icke compared these rollercoaster riders to civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks. Gareth and another Son of Icke, Jaymie, have also given speeches at anti-lockdown protests in the UK alongside their father. Gareth is described as a “leading light” of that movement. He writes articles for his father’s website, podcasts, and is also a musician, writing conspiracy themed tunes like “Trojan Horse,” though the majority of his work doesn’t seem to have a conspiratorial theme.
I’m not sure how exactly to describe the Gareth Icke sound, but it reminds me of the Bible-rock anthems of anti-lockdown “Riots to Revival” missionary/ musician Sean Feucht who grabbed headlines last year for holding revival rallies during the pandemic with no social distancing and few masks in sight.
And let’s not forget the man who became the most powerful conspiracy theorist of all (and maybe will be again soon if you believe the conspiracy that Trump will be back in office January 20 March 4 sometime in August).
Trump had a special Father’s Day message this year: “Happy Father’s Day to all, including the Radical Left, RINOs, and other Losers of the world. Hopefully, eventually, everyone will come together!” This was shared via his political action committee as he has, of course, been banned from his social media platforms.
Like father, like son– Donald Trump Jr. has a long history of promoting conspiracies like Birtherism, school shooting conspiracies, amplifying QAnon accounts, and spreading COVID-19 and “election fraud” misinformation. Politico called him “dad’s ambassador to the fringe.”
Most recently he and conspiracy congressional representative Lauren Boebert of Colorado dusted off a classic– the Clinton Body Count. This suggests that over the last several decades, Bill and Hillary Clinton have had dozens or even hundreds of people murdered. I like to imagine them doing the murders personally– popping out of bushes wearing ghostface masks while death metal plays, Bill choking the person while Hillary shanks them with a butcher knife– the Clinton Body Count.
In this case, Alabama news anchor Christopher Sign, who had reported on the Clintons including the story of the FBI investigating Hillary’s emails, was found to have died by suicide on June 12. There is no sign of foul play, but that didn’t stop Boebert and Trump Jr. from speculating that Sign was the latest victim of the Clinton Body Count.
And just think, if the Orange Menace doesn’t run himself in 2024, there are many pundits who believe Junior is the heir apparent to the Trump political dynasty. Well, that is, if he’s not completely overwhelmed by legal problems, along with the rest of the family.
Tea’s Weird Week, season 2, episode 6: Fathers of Conspiracy: I read this column (with sound clips!) then me and Heidi Erickson discussed this column a little further along with how the Cat got Batman’s tongue and what makes a real hero, as well as Spoonman, aka Uri Geller’s vow to help win a football match (he didn’t), a UFO sighting, a couple handcuffed together for 3 months, and more. Miss Information reveals trivia answers from the first 5 episodes this season and we close out with a track from Rum Revere‘s new album, “Get Up and Watch It.”
Listen here: Tea’s Weird Week S2 ep06: Fathers of Conspiracy (podbean.com)
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Alex Jones, David Icke, Trump, and conspiracy culture is discussed in-depth in my award-winning book American Madness: The Story of the Phantom Patriot and How Conspiracy Theories Hijacked American Consciousness.
Buy a signed copy online from Lion’s Tooth: https://www.lionstoothmke.com/american_madness.html#/
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Tea’s Weird Week: Conspiracy on the Suez Canal (and Canadian Mason Arson)
In this age of QAnon, we’ve seen the most outlandish conspiracies spread on the Internet. Just to mention a few– “mole children” being held captive underneath Central Park, prisoners of the “Deep State” to be used in sex trafficking and to harvest their “adrenochrome” by the same sinister cabal that brought you Pizzagate. There was also the theory that Wayfair was delivering child sex slaves in their furniture. On March 4, the “real inauguration” of Trump was supposed to take place. Recently, there’s been a conspiracy that Joe Biden is either a deepfake or is just pretending to be president in front of a greenscreen.
And now the news of the day– a cargo ship getting stuck sideways in the Suez Canal is the latest to have a thumbtack and long piece of yard attached to it. This theory stars QAnon’s ultimate boss bad guy Hillary Clinton.
The first and longest running conspiracy involving Hill and Bill is the “Clinton Body Count.” I love the title of that conspiracy because I imaging the Clintons sneaking around as a couple, killing people in person. Bill sneaks up behind someone and chokes them with his tie while Hillary whips out a shank and starts stabbing, all while some grindcore shreds in the background. Brutal!
But seriously, the theory suggests that a great number of people somehow associated with the Clintons have been killed by Clinton bankrolled hitmen. It’s like a death version of “Six degrees of Kevin Bacon”– anyone you can tie to the Clintons who has died is said to be part of the hit list.
Pizzagate was the next step of adding to the Clinton conspiracy mythology. Hillary and her people (most notably John Podesta, who was a member of Bill’s cabinet and campaign advisor to Hillary–leaked emails showing his love of pizza parties was the centerpiece of Pizzagate) were said to be the masterminds of a child sex trafficking ring operating in DC, a satanic cabal of Democrats, Hollywood elites, the fake news media, etc. that rape and eat children and get high off of their “adrenochrome.”
The darkest place these conspiracies go is a hoax called “frazzledrip.” This is supposedly the name of a snuff video that shows Hillary and her advisor Huma Abedin torturing, raping, and drinking the blood of a young girl to get high on her adrenochrome. It was supposedly leaked from the laptop of Abedin’s ex-husband Anthony Wiener, but the video does not exist on the dark web or anywhere else.
The latest QAnon nonsense suggests that this ship that was stuck in the Suez Canal is Hillary Clinton’s personal sex trafficking vehicle. That’s right, those shipping containers are filled with children heading to a Pizzagate-style ring. That’s a big claim. What’s the evidence? Well…
– The ship, the Ever Given, is owned by a Taiwanese company called Evergreen. Clinton was given the Secret Service code name “Evergreen” (Bill’s was “Eagle”).
-The Ever Given’s radio call sign is H3RC, uh oh that means Hillary Rodham Clinton.
-What’s on the boat? Shipping containers that QAnon says are full of sex trafficking victims. And maybe a lot– the ship holds up to 20,000 20 foot long containers.
-The ship’s charted course allegedly shows that it drew a dick in the Red Sea. To what end? The Qanon theory was to draw attention to the ship. As Vice reports, one Q follower posted:
“Those ships are on auto-pilot most of the time. The computers do the work. I am suggesting that the ship’s computers were hacked. My suspicions lean toward the White Hats. This was part of the plan.”
QAnon believed that the ship had purposely been grounded so the world could see the shipping containers being opened, the sex trafficking victims released and Hillary Clinton exposed for the satanic pedophile cannibal/ shipping magnate that she was. That, of course, didn’t happen.
Why would someone who is running a human trafficking ring leave clues as to their identity behind? Do people actually believe this shit? They sure do, and it’s led to a social epidemic of unhinged violence.
The biggest incident was the Jan. 6 insurrection, which had a large contingency of QAnon believers. But there’s been a few examples over the last month. On March 15, a man drove a car covered with spray-painted Q slogans (like “wwg1wga” which means “where we go one, we go all.”) to a National Guard.
And here’s the latest person to snap from conspiracy– a person named Benjamin Orion Carlson Kohlman went on an early morning rampage earlier on March 30, setting three Vancouver area masonic lodges on fire. The Freemasons have long been a part of conspiracy lore as a secret organization that controls the world. He escaped an altercation with a police officer and posted on his social media that he had “just cleaned three satanic clubhouses and nobody could do anything,” there was no QAnon connection reported, but other posts promoted 9/11 and Flat Earth conspiracies, and a post from 2018 showed an image of a masonic hall with text that read “Masons meet secretly to plan the truth they want you to see.” Source: CTV News
Conspiracy continues to beget violence.
SEE ALSO: The new HBO documentary Q: Into the Storm documents the origins of QAnon and how it evolved from a dark corner of the Internet to the mainstream.
In the opening sequence of Q: Into the Storm, the documentary maker talks about not being able to see an owl without thinking about Moloch; if you want to know the origins of all that, as well an intro to QAnon and many examples of how conspiracy thinking is dangerous, please do check out my book American Madness: The Story of the Phantom Patriot and How Conspiracy Theories Hijacked American Consciousness. You’ll find similarities– arson, Freemasons– to this latest story out of Vancouver.
Tea’s Weird Week, episode 12: I talk more about this column and the future of this podcast in the “Please Clap Dept.” Me and Heidi talk about a zombie rabies strain (plus the zombie-vampire political study), a plague doctor stalking Scotland, the saga of Salmon Dream, the worst T-shirt ever, and a sewer mystery. Plus trivia with Miss Information, and we close out with a track from our sound engineer, Android138, “The Dreams that we Dare to Dream.”
You can listen here: Tea’s Weird Week episode 12: Conspiracy on the Suez Canal (podbean.com)
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Check out my latest books:
American Madness
Tea’s Weird Week: 2020 Review (ebook)
Tea’s Weird Week: There are Two Dozen Members of QAnon Running for Congress
“That being said, I do believe there is a group in Brussels, Belgium, that do eat aborted babies.”– Matthew Lusk, QAnon member and Florida Congressional candidate
L-R: Twitter page of Joanne Wright, California’s 34th district, Danielle Stella (w/ a Q necklace), Minnesota’s 5th district, QAnon supporter at a Trump rally, campaign website (misspelling “where”) of Christine Scott, Florida’s 22nd district.
I wish I were joking with this week’s column title, but I’m not. Media Matters for America, a liberal watchdog group that monitors right-wing media, has identified 24 candidates (though two have already dropped out) who have launched 2020 campaigns that are promoters of the QAnon theory. Yikes.
QAnon is a cult-like conspiracy following that believes in a Trump Messiah. I wrote about them in a chapter of my upcoming book American Madness: The Story of the Phantom Patriot and How Conspiracy Theories Hijacked American Consciousness (Aug.25, Feral House) in a chapter titled, simply enough, “Q.”
QAnon beliefs go in a number of crazy directions, but the heart of the belief says that Democrats are running a secret satanic pedophile ring (the Pizzagate theory ties into this) and are practicing cannibalism. They believe Trump is silently plotting a day of reckoning, referred to as “The Storm” when all of these liberal villains– “Crooked Hillary,” Obama, “Nervous Nancy,” members of the Fake News media, and everyone else part of the “Deep State” will be rounded up, given military tribunals and sent to rot in Guantanamo Bay. Cryptic messages about this “Great Awakening” are sent to the initiated by a figure known as “Q.” There is much speculation on who Q is. Some say it is John Kennedy Jr., who faked his death and is secretly helping Trump out, or that it is Trump himself or someone in his inner circle. Spoilers: Q is probably an Internet troll.
There are many times QAnon has pointed to Trump supposedly acknowledging them– most recently I was amused to see that the Associated Press talked to QAnon members at the Milwaukee Trump rally that I attended and said they “believed the president had traced the shape of the letter ‘Q’ as a covert signal to followers of QAnon.” [“‘QAnon’ conspiracy theory creeps into mainstream politics,”Associated Press.]
You can identify QAnon believers by the lingo they use, often signaled as hashtags. “Where we go one, we go all” (abbreviated to wwg1wga) is the QAnon phrase of solidarity. “The Storm,” and “The Great Awakening,” refer to the QAnon revolution and “trust the plan” is another common signature. Q leaves “drops” and “breadcrumbs” as clues.
Some analysis of the QAnon candidates: Twelve states have QAnon candidates. California and Florida are tied with the most QAnon Congress hopefuls at five each. California has two vying for the 36th district (a huge mass of land east of LA in the Joshua Tree State Park), while in Florida, two are also competing for the 22nd district (which includes Fort Lauderdale and Boca Raton). Texas follows with three (though one dropped out) and Minnesota with two. The candidates are split almost 50/50 between men and women. All but one (a Libertarian) are running as Republicans.
The most infamous of these contests include Matthew Lusk, running in Florida’s 5th district (which includes Tallahassee, Jacksonville) unopposed, meaning he’ll be running in the general election against Democrat Rep. Al Lawson. Lusk’s website includes a page devoted to Q, which only has three words of information on it:
Danielle Stella of Minnesota is running against Ilhan Omar, a favorite liberal villain. Stella says Omar hired a hitman to kill a woman and was banned from Twitter after tweeting that Omar should be hung for treason. She’s been a guest on InfoWars, and on a QAnon YouTube channel called “Patriot’s Soapbox.” She apparently also has a problem with shoplifting “cat merchandise.”
Another QAnon contender (and InfoWars guest) is DeAnna Lorraine Tesoriero, running against top Trump enemy Nancy Pelosi in California. As noted in the #TrumpConspiracyCounter, Trump has retweeted Tesoriero.
Here’s the list of known QAnon members running for office in 2020:
- Daniel Wood, Arizona’s 3rd District
- Dan Belcher, Oklahoma’s 5th District
- Matthew Lusk, Florida’s 5th District
- Michael Blumeling Jr., Florida’s 21st District
- Jeremy Brown, Florida’s 14th District
- Christine Scott, Florida’s 22nd District
- Darlene Swaffer, Florida’s 22nd District
- DeAnna Lorraine Tesoriero, California’s 12th District
- Erin Cruz, California’s 36th District
- Ignacio Cruz, California’s 39th District
- Rhonda Furin, California’s 45th District
- Patrice Kimbler, California’s 36th District
- Joanne Wright, California’s 34th District
- Marjorie Taylor Greene, Georgia’s 14th District
- Steve Von Loor, North Carolina’s 4th District
- Rich Helms, Texas’s 33rd District
- Michael Moates, Texas’s 26th District (dropped out after sending creepy messages to teens)
- Joe Walz, Texas’s 22nd District
- Nichole Williams, Tennessee’s 1st District
- Gary Heyer, Minnesota’s 3rd District
- Danielle Stella, Minnesota’s 5th District
- Bobby Jeffries, Pennyslvania’s 10th District (has reportedly dropped out)
- Jo Rae Perkins, Oregon’s 4th District
- Lauren Witzke, Delaware, candidate for U.S. Senate
Source: “Here are the QAnon Supporters Running for Congress,” Alex Kaplan, Media Matters for America.
This is crazy, damn damn damn crazy. It shows how important local elections can be. Please look into your local elections and VOTE. Don’t let these candidates and their imaginary friend Q get into office.
My upcoming book American Madness features a journey through conspiracy culture, including QAnon. It’s out August 25, 2020 from Feral House. To pre-order: CLICK HERE
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“Journalist Tea Krulos has made a curious and enlightening career out of examining groups of people with odd beliefs.” — Skeptical Inquirer
As noted in today’s column, Trump has already gotten a number of hits on the #TrumpConspiracyCounter by retweeting followers of QAnon, including some this week. Here’s the tallies for Feb.6-12.
64.) Feb.6: Trump, furious at Romney for voting for one of the articles of impeachment, posts a video that promotes Mitt Romney as being a “secret Democrat asset.”
65.-71.) Feb.6-7: Bongino! Dan Bongino has racked up the most #TrumpConspiracyCounter points so far this year. He’s a former InfoWars regular, NRA-TV host, and now a FOX contributor and author of conspiracy book Spygate.
72.) Feb. 6: G’day, mate: Trump retweets Australian conspiracy theorist Miranda Devine, who has promoted the white genocide conspiracy theory, as well as climate change hoaxes, including a strange one that suggests Boeing planes crashed because of pressures to make them more eco-friendly. Make your brain hurt here: “NY Post Columnist Miranda Devine Bizarrely Blames Climate Concern for Boeing Disasters,” Daily Kos.
73.) Feb.6: Trump retweets Charlie Kirk, founder of college orientated Alt-Right Turning Point USA, promotor of many conspiracies, most recently Iowa voting theories.
74-75.) Feb.9: Retweets of Big League Politics. Started by a former Breitbart News writer Patrick Howley, who has called Alex Jones “my Walter Cronkite.” Formed in 2017, the site has promoted several conspiracies including QAnon, the Clinton Body Count, and Charlottesville false flag conspiracies.
Source: “Roy Moore Consultants’ New Project: A Conspiracy-Theorizing Pro-Trump News Site,”Daily Beast.
77.) Feb.9: Trump retweets Red Pill Report, sharing a video of House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler being shouted at by a heckler. The video was made by a QAnon YouTuber called “In Pursuit of Truth.”
78.) Feb. 9: Trump goes on an ALL CAPS Tweet freakout, ranting about the Spygate conspiracy. It read, in part:
SIMPLY PUT, THE PARTY IN POWER ILLEGALLY SPIED ON MY CAMPAIGN, BOTH BEFORE AND AFTER THE ELECTION, IN ORDER TO CHANGE OR NULLIFY THE RESULTS OF THE ELECTION. IT CONTINUED ON WITH THE IMPEACHMENT HOAX. Terrible!
79.) Feb.10-12: These could be stretched out to several counts, as over two days Trump tweeted and spoke to the press in defense of his old campaign advisor and conspiracy theorist (and possible Batman villain) Roger Stone.
Stone has a hand in Trump becoming president, being one of the early people to suggest a White House run to him in the 1980s. In 2015, Trump tapped him to unleash the “Stone’s Rules” playbook. Stone has a long career as being a self-described “dirty trickster” as well as being a conspiracy theorist, spreading ideas like the Clinton Body Count, the Deep State, and many others. He teamed up with Alex Jones and had his own InfoWars show.
Although Trump claims “nobody really knows what he did,” the 7 felonies charged against Stone are specific– obstructing an official proceeding, witness tampering, and five counts of making false statements to Congress for his roll in trying to get dirt on Hillary Clinton from WikiLeaks and intimidating witnesses to lie from him.
After the Department of Justice announced a 7-9 year reccomended prison term, Trump vigorously defended Stone, saying his sentence was a “miscarriage of justice” and “very unfair” and that the Stone prosecutors were “rogue prosecutors maybe? The Swamp!” Attorney General Bill Barr stepped in to say that the sentence wasn’t reasonable and would not “serve the interests of justice.” The four prosecutors who made the sentencing recommendation all withdrew from the case, with one quitting the Department of Justice completely. Many have speculated Stone will end up being pardoned by Trump, though he wouldn’t provide an answer when the press asked him.
More on Stone’s dirty trickster history: “A Brief History of Roger Stone,” The Atlantic.
80.-82.) Feb.10: Retweets of Tom Fitton/ Judicial Watch. Fitton is president of conservative activist group Judicial Watch, which has spread conspiracies about the Clinton Body Count, voter fraud, Spygate, George Soros, climate change, and others.
You can find the #TrumpConspiracyCounter on Twitter: twitter.com/TrumpConspirac3
Tea’s Weird Week: Summer of Conspiracy Theory
Tune in here every Friday for Tea’s Weird Week.
Today starts my 3-day vacation, where I’ll be doing nothing but laying in a hammock drinking pina coladas. Just kidding. I will be doing some kicking back at the Moonlight Retreat, but I’ll also be taking a red pen to a couple manuscripts and leading a ghostlore workshop.
Being somewhat in vacation mode (and looking forward to fall), for today’s column I thought it would be appropriate to round up of some stories I’ve studied this summer. I’m working on finishing up a book about conspiracy theory (American Madness) and 2019 has been a helluva year for it. This summer in particular feels like the one where we collectively lost our damn minds. [I included links to further reading.]
Here’s my top 5 Summer of Conspiracy stories:
(1.) Storm Area 51: I wrote about the viral “Storm Area 51” event in this column a few weeks ago. Now there’s going to be a 3-day “Alien Stock” music fest, already drawing comparisons to the disastrous Fyre Festival. As I wrote before, I’ve been through the area and Rachel, the town the fest is happening in, has a population of 58 people, no infrastructure, no shelter, no nothing– the nearest gas station is 50 miles away! Not the best place for an EDM festival. [USA Today]
(2.) QAnon Vigilante: One of my editors sent this article to me and I’m surprised I haven’t seen it more in the news cycle. Francesco “Franky Boy” Cali, who was head of the Gambino crime family and spent most of his life avoiding death, had his ass capped by a vigilante conspiracy theorist named Anthony Comello, inspired by QAnon. I’ll be dissecting the story more in my book. [New York Times]
(3.) Flight of the Flat Earther. After aborting his mission last weekend, Flat Earther and rocketeer “Mad” Mike Hughes is set to blast 5,000 feet into the stratosphere in his homemade rocket tomorrow, which reads “Research Flat Earth” on the side and was funded by a hook-up dating app called Hud. The attempt will be filmed for an upcoming show called Homemade Astronauts for the Science Channel, which sounds fun. At first I was completely confused as to how launching 5,000 feet in the air could prove anything about Flat Earth as we have planes, hot air balloons, and hang gliders that can rise higher than that, but then I realized this is more about publicity. It’s not the journey, it’s how you get there. [Space.com]
(4.) V is for…Anti-vaxxer? This year’s San Diego Comic Con featured an appearance by a large group of protesters dressed as V, the character from V for Vendetta in a protest appearance made popular by Anonymous. A couple months earlier, the same (or similar) group protested outside of Disneyland for the opening of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, dressed as Star Wars characters. [respectfulinsolence.com]
(5.) Epstein Suicide Conspiracy. The most interesting news story of the last week for me was the suicide of Jeffrey Epstein. It was just crazy to see conspiracies explode and proliferate online within minutes of his death being reported. Because Epstein had some connection to both Bill Clinton and Donald Trump, the theories were partisan– Trump had him rubbed out or the Clintons had him whacked (to fit the Clinton Body Count theory) or a Deep State cabal did. I even saw theories that Epstein made a getaway, leaving a dead hobo’s body in his place (a theory spread by the band Foster the People, among others, who tweeted “Epstein’s on a private plane to somewhere in the middle east getting prepped for plastic surgery right now”). [NBC News]
Alright, enough conspiracy– I’m off to the Moonlight Retreat. Have a good weekend!
Links
My favorite barbershop is Jose’s. Sad to hear of namesake Jose Ortiz’s death. Here’s an “Off the Cuff” I wrote on him for the Shepherd Express back in 2008, after someone suggested I stop in and talk to him because he was an interesting person. Indeed he was.: https://shepherdexpress.com/arts-and-entertainment/off-the-cuff/barber-extraordinaire
My latest book is Apocalypse Any Day Now: Deep Underground with America’s Doomsday Preppers. You can find it here: www.chicagoreviewpress.com/ApocalypseAnyDayNow
Twitter: @TeaKrulos Facebook: www.facebook.com/TheTeaKrulos
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