Bartholomew's Notes

A Tweet from American model Christine Teigen:

It is INCREDIBLY weird to be two (semi) normal, ridiculously boring human beings who literally make food, watch tv and clean up dog barf in any kind of off time and then be suddenly accused of being in Hollywood’s hottest pedo ring. What a year what a year, 2017.

Teigen (var. Chrissy Teigen) has been targeted on social media by Pizzagate cranks after conspiricist pedo-hunter Liz Crokin purported to discern secret meanings in Teigen’s social media postings. In particular, Crokin noted that Teigen had posted images of her toddler daughter “dressed as a hot dog, Alice in Wonderland & a pineapple”, and had used an emoji of a pizza slice. Such supposed codes were the inspiration for the Pizzagate conspiracy, as I discussed here.

Crokin also added three tags to her Tweet: “followthewhiterabbit”; “Qanon”; and the “TheStorm”. These terms refer to the latest incarnation of the conspiracy theory, as recently explained in a New York Times Magazine article by Paris Martineau, under the grim headline “The Storm Is the New Pizzagate — Only Worse”. According to Martineau (links in original):

On October 28, someone calling themselves Q began posting a series of cryptic messages in a /pol/ thread titled “Calm Before the Storm” (assumedly in reference to that creepy Trump quote from early October). Q claimed to be a high-level government insider with Q clearance (hence the name) tasked with posting intel drops — which he, for some reason, called “crumbs” — straight to 4chan in order to covertly inform the public about POTUS’s master plan to stage a countercoup against members of the deep state.

…According to Q, Trump was never really involved with Russia, and isn’t actually under investigation by Mueller & Co. On the contrary, Q insists that it’s actually Clinton and Obama who were corrupted by Putin (and are now actually under investigation by Mueller) 

…In this fantasy world, all of the far right’s wildest dreams come true: Q promises that Clinton, Obama, Podesta, Abedin, and even McCain are all either arrested and wearing secret police-issued ankle monitors, or just about to be indicted; that the Steele dossier is a total fabrication personally paid for by Clinton and Obama; and that the Las Vegas massacre was most definitely an inside job connected to the Saudi-Clinton cabal…

It seems to me very likely that the conspiracy theory also draws on a claim made to Alex Jones by one Craig Sawyer in April that Trump had made 3,000 secret arrests of “elite paedophiles”. As I blogged in July, this claim – in essence a millenarian fantasy – has been subsequently disseminated by others, such as the Christian Right’s “firefighter prophet” Mark Taylor.

Crokin believes that commercial flights are being “turned around”, presumably because of alerts from the supposed ankle-tags, and Teigen appears to have come to her attention because she was recently on a flight to Tokyo that was returned to Los Angeles as a security measure after it was realised that an extra person had been allowed to board in error. Teigen’s Tweets on the subject made the incident newsworthy.

In response to threats of legal action from Teigen and her husband John Legend, Crokin has attempted to reel back from her unambiguous and foul insinuation about why Teigen had dressed her daughter in innocent costumes: she has now deleted her Tweet, although she has also RTed a screenshot of it posted by someone else. Further, she is now falsely suggesting that she only ever said that the celebrity couple were “pals” of abusers, and she has posted photos of them at public events with Harvey Weinstein, the Clintons and Kevin Spacey (Teigen is a long-time critic and mocker of Trump, and was even blocked by him on Twitter in July).

As I noted in October, Crokin has previously written for Townhall, Hagmann Report and WND, and she has also appeared as a guest on various fringe media outlets: these include – as noted by Right Wing Watch – “anointed speaker” Meri Crouley’s Now is the Time programme on Joseph Nassralla’s The Cross TV station, and Dave Hodges’ The Common Sense Show. In May, she appeared on the David Icke-affiliated Richie Allen Show, claiming that Townhall had fired her for writing about VIP paedophiles, and she returned in October to explain that paedophilia in Hollywood was being covered up because of Jewish control of the media.

Last month, Right Wing Watch noted that according to Crokin, “the fact that Democratic lobbyist Tony Podesta likes to wear red shoes is a sign that he is a pedophile because the Illuminati uses the movie ‘The Wizard of Oz’ to brainwash child sex slaves.” She made the claim during her “second appearance on a program hosted by one-time ‘Survivor’ contestant Anna Khait that was streamed on Mike Cernovich’s Facebook page“.

Twitter has responded to Teigen’s concerns by removing Crokin’s blue tick verification symbol, but the platform continues to allow her to vilify a young couple who have done nothing wrong – and perhaps to endanger Teigen’s family by riling up gun-toting cranks with saviour complexes, as happened at Comet Ping Pong.

Legend has also drawn attention to a very informative thread on the subject by Alexandra Erin.

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From Right Wing Watch, earlier this month:

On his television program yesterday, End Times prepper pastor Jim Bakker interviewed Sadhu Sundar Selvaraj, who has born to a Hindu family but converted to Christianity as a teenager and whom Bakker hails as a modern-day prophet for supposedly having prophesied Hurricane Harvey and the destruction it would cause to the city of Houston.

During the program, Selvaraj told Bakker that during the 2016 election, he was called up to heaven and directly told by Abraham that it has been decided by “the council of the prophets” that Donald Trump would be America’s next president.

Selvaraj was born in 1962; he has a television ministry based in Chennai (Angel TV), and he has apparently been undertaking regular missionary work in Tibet since 1986. As indicated by his use of the title “sadhu”, Selvaraj’s outward appearance is that of a Hindu holy man – he wears a simple orange gown, and he has an impressive white-and-grey beard.

Selvaraj says that God asked him to continue the work of Sadhu Sundar Singh, a famous Sikh convert to Christianity who similarly described himself as Christian sadhu at the start of the last century, and who attempted missionary work in Tibet before dying young. (1) One US Evangelical/Neo-Pentecostal book thus compares him to Elisha, the Hebrew Bible prophet who received Elijah’s mantle. (2)

In the US, Selvaraj speaks at annual conferences held at Reverend Ann Ott’s In His Presence Ministries in Houston, Texas, and at Pastor Joe Sweet’s Shekinah Worship Center in Lancaster, California; these events are described as being “hosted by Angel TV” (for 2015 see here and here), and if you happen to live in California it may be useful to know that Selvaraj recently told Jim Bakker that “The Lord has shown me that Lancaster California is one of the places of refuge chosen by God for the last days”. The California conferences also include Neville Johnson, an “End Times” neo-Pentecostal from Queensland, Australia. (3)

Numerous videos of Selvaraj have been uploaded to a YouTube, particularly by a channel called “The Seraphim”. Titles include “The Antichrist Will Politically Rise From Berlin, Germany” (here); “Donald Trump 4 YR Tenure is the Final Grace Period And Warning For America” (here); “Jerusalem Becomes a Burden to All Nations, Gog Magog War” (here, with a bizarre computer generated backdrop); “Israel will build 3rd temple in exchange for land. Prophecy !!!” (here); “Identification of the Beast (Revelation 13) as revealed to Bro. Sadhu Sundar Selvaraj” (here); and “URGENT WARNING!!! Prophet Sadhu Sundar Selvaraj says Trump Is In Danger 2017” (here). Much of his teaching is based on personal messages received from God, although he also draws on ideas promoted by others – thus he joined in promoting the “Four Blood Moons” phenomenon that was supposed to signal the End-Times in 2015.

Another video is “Pope Francis is the Prophesied False Prophet in Revelation 13”, and the American neo-Pentecostal news service Charisma News has in the last few days run a prominent piece claiming that ” information confirms Sadhu Sundar Selvaraj’s prophecy that Pope Francis is the false prophet from Revelation”. The “information” is presented in a discussion between Jim Bakker and Tom Horn, whose religious writings are full of extravagant and bizarre David Icke-style science-fiction elements.

In particular, Bakker cites the fact that the Pope does not approve of Trump’s decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel; Bakker, of course, is a fervent Christian Zionist who believes that modern Israel is an indication of the Last Days. Bakker and Horn also refer to the new anti-Francis book The Dictator Pope by the pseudonymous Marcantonio Colonna, and to attacks on the “Phariseeism” of Francis by the Catholic author Michael O’Brien (e.g. here). Horn, as discussed previously, believes (or at least claims) that Francis is in fact “Peter the Roman”, the final pope and thus involved in a plan to create an “Alien Serpent-Savior”.

Evangelicals of course have a long history of naming the anti-Christ, but it is nevertheless unusual for a high-profile source to positively state, without any wriggle-room, that a figure supposedly predicted in the Book of Revelation can be positively identified beyond doubt. Charisma News is owned by Steven Strang’s Charisma Media, and in 2005 Strang – author of a recent book on God and Donald Trump, discussed here – was one of Time magazine’s “25 Most Influential Evangelicals in America”.

Footnotes

1. An essay by the late scholar of religion Eric Sharpe posted here explains that “during the 1920s, the attention of Christians in practically every part of the world was seized and gripped by the work, witness and personality of an Indian Christian preacher, Sadhu Sundar Singh.” Sharpe also notes his interest in Emmanuel Swedenbourg, and “resemblances between Sundar Singh’s visions (or rather the explanation which he gave to those visions) and some aspects of the teaching of Swedenborg.” He also quotes Singh as having written in 1929 that

I have conversed with Swedenborg and some other Hindu saints who, after entering into the spiritual world, have accepted the Lord as the only true God and Saviour…

This quote strays from orthodox Christianity, and as such some Evangelicals suggest that his conversion, which Singh claimed was facilitated by a vision of Jesus, was a demonic deception. The issue was raised in 2009 in relation to the controversial neo-Pentecostal evangelist Todd Bentley (blogged here); Bentley claimed in 2006 to have had “a vision” of Singh.

2.  Steven Brooks, Standing on the Shoulders of Giants: The Release of Mantles to the End-time Generation (Destiny Image, 2008). This was based on his 2003 Where are the Mantles?, which was self-published though Xulon Press.

3. Here’s Johnson speaking on the subject of “Sex With Strange Flesh – Jude 1:7 – Origins of Demons”.

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From WND:

“Spirit cooking.” Occult imagery outside meetings of the most powerful people in the world. Bizarre rituals held at globally important events…

Global insider Theodore Roosevelt Malloch… has a disturbing answer. It’s “Luciferianism.” And Malloch described the ideology and its influence on world leaders in a recent interview on Infowars.

..Malloch identified many people in the E.U. hierarchy and in the Democrat Party as aligned with this belief. He explained how Lucifer is seen as a symbol of independence and of true human progress.

…Malloch said the leaked emails of John Podesta, as revealed by Wikileaks, contain powerful evidence there is something sick and wrong in America’s political class.

…”They prove he is involved, very deeply involved, as a committed Luciferian,” Malloch intoned. “Among other things is the invitation by Marina Abramovic to what is called a ‘spirit cooking’ ritual, which I think is the most revealing.

…Malloch further contended cannibalism and pedophilia are “common practices amongst Luciferians.”

The long-distance interview was with Alex Jones, and the official Alex Jones Channel has uploaded it to YouTube here. It follows an earlier appearance with Malloch in the studio, which Jones uploaded on 8 December as “Former Head Of Davos Group Talks About The Elite Practicing Satanism And The Occult”.

There’s no evidence here that Malloch had anything to say to Jones that comes with the authority of being a “global insider”. Saul Alinsky’s jocular literary reference in 1971 to Lucifer as “the first radical” is frequently touted as evidence by some conservatives that liberals are literally in league with the devil, while lurid allegations about “spirit cooking” that were promoted by Wikileaks collapse under scrutiny. (1)

It is remarkable that Malloch was a year ago regarded as a serious commentator. An American business academic based in the UK, Malloch made various television appearances as a apparent expert on Brexit and the rise of Donald Trump – including on Newsnight and This Week.

It was also widely reported that Trump was intending to make Malloch the US Ambassador to the European Union (indeed, that he was the “frontrunner”), but although the claim was taken at face value across the media in both the UK and the US, the basis for it was oddly hard to pin down. The prospect even drew formal critical comment from the EU officials Manfred Weber and Guy Verhofstadt – which was in turn condemned on Aaron Banks’s Westmonster website as “EU Nationalists attempting to block Trump’s EU Ambassador” and by Nigel Farage on Twitter. Farage had interviewed Malloch on LBC in January, describing him as “the man tipped to be Trump’s EU ambassador”, and he provided an Afterword for Malloch’s book Hired: An Insider’s Look at the Trump Victory, which was published in the same month. (2)

However, things fell apart in February, when a bit of journalistic digging found a discreditable financial history and questionable claims about his academic status. The Financial Times reported at the start of the month:

This week the FT identified a number of misleading statements in Mr Malloch’s autobiography, including claims that he was “knighted” into the Sovereign Order of St John by the Queen and called a “genius” by Margaret Thatcher.

…He has built his credibility on associations with a wide variety of well-regarded institutions, from Yale University to the World Economic Forum. However, many of his roles have ended after two years or less.

The paper later added a footnote to its article “in response to false statements by Mr Malloch” about its reporting – in particular, it noted that BrexitCentral.com had “published a correction and apology above an amended article that had previously contained some of Mr Malloch’s false statements”. The footnote also rebutted claims made by Malloch at Breitbart. A later piece in the FT discussed court papers in the US alleging that Malloch had “made false statements to deceive two US banks into giving him multimillion-dollar loans”, and it noted that Malloch had filed for bankruptcy in 2013.

Eventually, the Wall Street Journal confirmed in May that according to “officials in Washington”, Malloch “is not and never was a candidate” for the ambassadorship.

Footnote

(1) Jones was careful to distinguish these claims from the related “Pizzagate” story that he apologised for promoting in March, following a legal threat. Inevitably, he now claims that “Pizzagate” was deliberate misdirection created by those who want to cover up the real conspiracy.

(2) The book was published by Joseph Farah’s WND Books on 9 January 2017, and came with several blurbs on the preliminary first page. The first of these was from the birther conspiracy theorist Jerome Corsi.

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A bit late with this – from the Guardian:

The Church of England has been criticised for a “rush to judgment” in its handling of allegations of sexual abuse against one its most revered figures of the 20th century in a highly damaging independent inquiry.

The report by Lord Carlile, released on Friday (15 December), said that although the church acted in good faith, its processes were deficient and it failed to give proper consideration to the rights of the accused.

The findings, which the church has made public two months after receiving them, concerned claims made against George Bell, the former bishop of Chichester, who died in 1958. A woman now in her 70s alleged that Bell had abused her in the bishop’s palace over a period of four years, starting when she was five years old.

I looked at the allegations here and here. The report can be read on the Church of England’s website – Bell’s niece is of the view that the current Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, ought to resign over the matter. The woman is known in the media as “Carol”.

Criticism of the police

Carlile’s review has been widely discussed in the media, but it is worth highlighting here that he is critical of Sussex Police as well as of the Church of England. When the Diocese of Chichester first announced the allegations, in late 2015, it included the detail that

Following a meeting between the survivor and Sussex police in 2013, it was confirmed by the police that the information obtained from their enquiries would have justified, had he still been alive, Bishop Bell’s arrest and interview, on suspicion of serious sexual offences, followed by release on bail, further enquiries and the subsequent submission of a police report to the CPS.

As I noted previously, this tends toward the view that arrests are indicative of well-grounded suspicion, or perhaps even of guilt. The journalist Peter Hitchens made a complaint about the statement to Sussex Police’s Professional Standards Department, which was initially dismissed (anyone who has dealt with a PSD will know that this is par for the course) but eventually prompted a semi climb-down from Det Supt Jeremy Graves that “there was no intention to release a police statement about the alleged criminality of Bishop Bell”.

Carlile has a bit more on this:

On the 12 December [2013] Detective Constable CD from Sussex Police emailed Carol and informed her that DI EF would review the file to establish whether, if the suspect was alive, there would be a realistic chance of prosecution, i.e. would he have been charged with an offence?

This was clumsily phrased. DC CD should have referred to ‘a realistic prospect of conviction‘, the CPS evidential test for a prosecution; and to whether there was sufficient suspicion to justify interviewing the suspect under caution or, possibly, arresting him. A charging decision would not have been made without an investigation and interview, and in a case of this kind the advice and involvement of the Crown Prosecution Service would have been routine.

Further:

On the 5 March 2015 Detective Inspector EF of Sussex Police emailed Colin Perkins to the effect that: …If Bishop Bell were still alive he would have been arrested on suspicion of rape… Had Bishop Bell denied the accusations, a file would have been sent to the Crown Prosecution Service…

Carlile’s commentary on this is that (emphasis added):

Had Bishop Bell still been alive, unless there was evidence that he appeared to represent a danger to the public he would not have satisfied the arrest conditions. I am surprised that the police did not appear to be aware of this. The probability is that, had he been alive, his premises and any computer would have been searched under a warrant, and he would have been interviewed under caution at a police station, not under arrest. This is of some significance because the Core Group may well have taken an exaggerated view of the use of the word ‘arrest’, as being in some way of itself evidence pointing towards guilt – which it is not.

…Unfortunately, DI EF did not emphasise that no enquiries had been carried out beyond interviewing Carol. Nor did he set out accurately the two-stage test to be applied by the CPS in deciding whether to prosecute, namely whether there is a realistic prospect of conviction on the evidence and, if so, whether it is in the public interest to prosecute -using the merits based approach…

…Nor was any specialist criminal lawyer asked to advise on the strength of the evidence. 

…Had the evidence my review has obtained without any particular difficulty… been available to the Church and the CPS, I doubt that the test for a prosecution would have been passed. 

Reading this, one immediately recalls the headline “Police: If Ted Heath was alive today we’d quiz him under caution on child abuse claims”, which appeared in the Mail on Sunday in September (discussed here). Again, routine police procedure was presented in sensational terms, to the detriment of a dead man’s reputation and at the cost of misinforming the public more generally about what inferences they should draw from police investigations and legal decision-making (a matter of some particular significance for living people accused of comparable crimes, as seen for instance during Operation Midland) (1).

One mild criticism I have of the above is that more could have been said about the distinction between the “advice and involvement” of the CPS during an investigation and “a file” going to the CPS following an investigation. The latter may or may not be appropriate, depending on what an investigation uncovers. In this case, of course, there was no police investigation, just the record of a complaint. Sending Carol’s statement to the CPS without further scrutiny, it seems to be, would be in breach of the “Police duty to assess evidence before charging or referral”, as specified by the CPS and explained here.

Criticism of the 1995 church response

It should not be overlooked that while Carlile sees a “rush to judgment” in 2015, he is also critical of the way the woman’s complaint was handled dismissively by Bishop Eric Kemp, who was Bishop of Chichester from 1974 to 2001:

I have concluded that the Church did not serve Carol well in 1995, whatever the truth or otherwise of her allegations. As Bishop Bell’s successor, Bishop Kemp should have met Carol, or at the very least appointed a responsible person to meet her. He should have set in train a genuine process of inquiry and assessment. I find that the Church failed Carol in 1995.

The report reveals that a member of staff in 1995 advised Kemp that Carol lived at a location “where the council houses problem people” – a statement described by Carlile as “an inappropriate comment”.

Carlile also suggests that Kemp should have done more because 1995 was three years after Bishop Peter Ball had accepted a police caution for “gross indecency”. This was shortly after Ball had become Bishop of Gloucester, although before that he had been Suffragan Bishop of Lewes within the Diocese of Chichester. We now know that the police caution merely scratched the surface of – indeed, it served to minimise and gloss over – a long history of predatory sexual behaviour (blogged here and here). It is significant, although Carlile does not mention it,  that Kemp’s memoir falsely stated that Ball had been the victim of “mischief-makers”. This indicates that Kemp was aware of a plurality of allegations, and that his attitude was at best dismissive and at worst calculatedly dishonest.

General

The report contains a more explicit account of “Carol’s” allegations, specifying digital penetration, ejaculation, and the particularly grotesque and blasphemous detail that “he would always chant suffer little children to come unto me till I was anointed.”

Carlile states that he is not in a position to judge whether her account is true or not. However, he has met her, and he is confident that she believes that she is telling the truth. Further, he notes that “she has been examined by two experienced forensic psychiatrists, who found no evidence of any material mental illness or psychiatric condition.”

Carlile also notes that there have been no other allegations against Bell despite his access to many children, and he discusses a woman he calls “Pauline”, who as a child was the adopted daughter of Bell’s housekeeper and lived in the Palace. Nothing untoward happened to her, and Carlile suggests that had the team set up by the church to investigate the allegation – the “Core Group” – “been aware of this evidence, they might well have approached their task differently.” Carlile also criticises the Core Group for not pursuing further enquiries in relation to the Kinderstransport, which Bell was involved in prior to World War Two and which resulted in a number of Jewish children staying at the Palace.

The report also considers “Carol’s” knowledge of the Palace’s layout. Peter Hitchens has suggested that Carol has confused a medieval kitchen that is sometimes open to the public with a different private kitchen in the building; Carlile does not refer to this specifically, but suggests that a re-interview of Carol “might have ascertained evidentially material detail” pertaining to the layout, including asking her “which kitchen was she abused in”.

One member of the Core Group also drew attention to an apparent discrepancy: on the one hand, Carol supposedly told no-one, because Bell had had told her that the abuse was a secret; but on the other, she has supposedly told the person she visited at the Palace (which was why she was there) that the bishop had been “interfering” with her, and her account had been rejected as “fibs”.

Memory

The report included also a long quote from a psychiatric report by Professor Anthony Maden, which was apparently not provided in full to all members of the Core Group. Maden included general observations about memory and credibility in general, including the following:

…there are enormous problems for the expert arising from the fact that the Claimant is now assessed 63 years after the material events. The alleged abuse was not reported until over 40 years after the material events.

…Memory is not reliable over such long periods of time.

…The Royal College of Psychiatrists, in common with similar professional bodies in other countries, recognises that in some cases so-called “false memories” of abuse may arise. The emphasis in the College document on the subject (Brandon et al, 1997) is on such memories arising during therapy but the literature cited above gives no reason to believe the problems associated with recall of distant events are limited to therapeutic situations. Therapy is simply one of the many influences on the individual’s beliefs, needs and values that shape and determine memories.

…In the present case, the Claimant looks back on a life that for the first 30 years or so was often unhappy. There is an obvious temptation to seek to (consciously or unconsciously) allocate the blame for that unhappiness to the actions of others in the distant past.

…The Claimant strikes me as a sympathetic and in many ways admirable woman. She does not suffer from a personality disorder. I have no doubt that she is sincere in her beliefs. Nevertheless it remains my view that the possibility of false memories in this case cannot be excluded.

Carlile does not overstate the importance of this – after all, it seems to me that the general observation that a memory may be inaccurate is little more than a truism. Further, plenty of childhood memories are vivid and can be corroborated, which suggests that despite the reality of false memories (discussed here), radical scepticism goes beyond reasonable doubt. However, Carlile suggests that

Given the comments of Professor Maden cited above, had there been full knowledge of them in the Group, my expectation would have been that the majority would have steered back towards a fuller evidential investigation of the claim.

Footnote

1. In mid-2016, IPSO, the Independent Police Standards Organisation, dealt with a complaint that the Chichester Observer newspaper had been wrong to run a piece headlined “Bishop now known to have abused child”, given that this had not been established in a court of law. IPSO rejected the complaint, noting that the article “accurately reflected the Church of England’s position on the claim”. This suggests that it is acceptable for a newspaper to present a disputed allegation as fact and then to rely on the defence that they are merely “reflecting” one party’s view of the matter.

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From the Ahwatukee Foothill News, April 2015:

Ahwatukee resident and author Tom Morrissey looks to the future after releasing the third novel of his “The Sacred Search” series.

…The series, which Morrissey said is categorized as a metaphysical martial arts series… even captured the attention of Steven Seagal.

…Now, Morrissey and Seagal are planning to team up on a new project. As explained by Morrissey, the project is a series that will focus on Native American law enforcement officers who do work as trackers.

The opus has now appeared: The Way Of The Shadow Wolves: The Deep State And The Hijacking Of America, published by Morrissey’s 5th Palace Publishing and complete with a foreword by none other than birther ex-sheriff Joe Arpaio. According to the blurb:

...Both author’s [sic] have worked with, confronted, and seen the power of the Deep State and the manner in which, at times, federal government agencies willfully violate the Constitution and the laws of the land in service to special interests. Recent events has for the first time made many American citizens aware that the Deep State is very real; that the mainstream media tends toward bias by often offering a false narrative designed by the secret intelligence world in service to special interests. The fight for America’s soul is taking place far from Washington, D.C. This is a story of one small group of patriots fighting the good fight.

The back cover comes with an endorsement from Louie McKinney, former Director of the US Marshals Service, who says that “although it is fiction, the story could have come from today’s headlines”.

The reincarnation of Chungdrag Dorje known as Stephen Seagal is known internationally; Morrissey is not quite so famous, although in 2012 the martial artist and former US marshal was the Arizona Republican Party chairman. Towards the end of his tenure, Morrissey raised doubts about the authenticity of Barack Obama’s birth certificate, while insisting that this did not make him a “birther”; a commentary piece in the Phoenix New Times suggests that this was “an effort to win back some of that crazy support he used to be able to count on”, but which had evaporated during his “disastrous chairmanship”. Morrissey then however stepped down, citing upcoming knee surgery. Two years later he came last in an election to become Maricopa County GOP chairman, despite support from Arpaio, who is a long-term friend, and Ted Nugent (videos available here).

Arpaio, meanwhile, has links with Seagal through Steven Seagal: Lawman, a reality show that relocated from Louisiana to Maricopa County following a lawsuit (later dropped without explanation) accusing Seagal of sexual harassment; in 2014, the Atlantic described Seagal as

part of Arpaio’s celebrity “posse” of tough guys who support the sheriff’s tough (and probably unconstitutional!) ideas for targeting undocumented immigrants in the state.

In 2011, there had been controversy over Arpaio’s decision to apprehend a suspected cockfighter by having a tank crash into the suspect’s property; there was some suspicion that while this made for exciting television, the destruction may not have been strictly necessary. At the time, it was reported that Seagal had been “riding” the tank, although a recent Washington Post profile says this is “disputed”.

News of the book came to wider attention from a Twitter user calling himself The Warax, whose thread also inspired a post on the subject at Boing Boing. The Warax also drew attention to supposed insight into the book provided by 5-star Amazon review by conspiracy theorist Robert David Steele:

I read this book in galley form after Steven asked me to when we shot a documentary together in Thailand in May 2017, and it was my great privilege to not only be able to work with him directly, but also with best-selling author and US Marshall Tom Morrissey, of Arizona, offering a few thoughts from my time as a clandestine case officer (spy) working the Latin American terrorist – cartel target and my time in Washington working the inter-agency enemies of the Constitution target…

This is a book written by patriots for patriots. This is a book that offers truths as fiction that the mainstream media will never report on accurately. The authors chose not to cover pedophilia and Satanism, and Uranium One was not on their scope, but they hit just about everything else.

…Read this to understand how the Obama Administration was the peak of criminality started by the assassination of John F. Kennedy (both George Bush Senior and Yitzhak Rabin were part of the plot and present in Dallas) and going through multiple Administration both Republican and Democratic…

Presumably the last paragraph is an extrapolation by Steele, rather than a reflection of the content of the book. Steele has also produced an essay, which he originally posted as “to support a forthcoming book by Steven Seagal and Tom Morrissey” but now just says “to support a forthcoming book” (1).

Steele’s most extravagant claim perhaps is that NASA has kidnapped children to create a slave colony on Mars, as he recently explained to Alex Jones. I haven’t been able to confirm his claim about filming in Thailand with Seagal. Unlike the book’s authors, Steele is also engaged with the conspiracist left, denouncing “Rothschilds” and in the UK appearing on the David Icke-associated Richie Allen Show. It’s also not a surprise to see him on RT, being interviewed by Max Keiser.

Footnote

(1) The phrase was captured on a couple of scraper-sites, as shown by Google here.

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From the Guardian:

The Syrian volunteer rescue workers known as the White Helmets have become the target of an extraordinary disinformation campaign that positions them as an al-Qaida-linked terrorist organisation.

The Guardian has uncovered how this counter-narrative is propagated online by a network of anti-imperialist activists, conspiracy theorists and trolls with the support of the Russian government (which provides military support to the Syrian regime).

The article has been met with howls of outrage from the supporters of those named, and the author, Olivia Solon, has been receiving abusive comments (e.g. “You, and the Guardian are more distasteful, than a dogshit inadvertently trodden upon. Fuck off and die”).

Solon’s article contains much of interest, but I here focus here on the conspiracy theory angle. Solon notes that evidence from White Helmets was used during a UN investigation into Khan Sheikhoun chemical attack in April:

Some of the most vocal sceptics of the UN’s investigation include the blogger Vanessa Beeley, the daughter of a former British diplomat who visited Syria for the first time in July 2016; a University of Sydney senior lecturer, Timothy Anderson, who described the April chemical attack as a “hoax”; and Eva Bartlett, a Canadian writer and activist who said the White Helmets staged rescues using recycled victims – a claim that’s been debunked by Snopes and Channel 4 News.

…Beeley frequently criticises the White Helmets in her role as editor of the website 21st Century Wire, set up by Patrick Henningsen, who is also an editor at Infowars.com.

Beeley’s reporting has apparently been gratefully received by the Assad regime and Russia; Solon explains that

In 2016, Beeley had a two-hour meeting with Assad in Damascus as part of a US Peace Council delegation, which she described on Facebook as her “proudest moment”. She was also invited to Moscow to report on the“dirty war in Syria”; there, she met senior Russian officials including the deputy foreign minister, Mikhail Bogdanov, and Maria Zakharova, director of information and press at Russia’s foreign ministry.

However, her work is problematic not just because of what she claims, but because of what she is willing to pass over in silence. Private Eye recently reported on this (1456 p. 10, and provided by Eliot Higgins here), after Beeley spoke at an event called “Media on Trial” at Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church:

There was, of course, not one Syrian among the speakers. But there were some in a small group of dissenters… [One] of the protesters’ placards – “Tell the TRUTH about Assad’s TORTURERS” – touched a sore spot for Beeley. Earlier this year she had an exchange of private Twitter messages with an American conspiricist about whether the Syrian government uses tortue. “Tbh [to be honest] torture happened,” she wrote, “I am never going to say it publicly but it happened.” She added: “[I] have been to Syria and I know what went on and I don’t say it publicly… not going to give that opening to anti Syria brigades.”

The admission was made to one Scott Gaulke, and it was made public as part of a denunciation of her by Assad supporters who objected to even a private acknowledgement that the Syrian government was involved in torture.

Beeley appears to play both sides of the aisle when it comes to the conspiracy milieu: she doesn’t appear to have been interviewed by Alex Jones, but the association with the Infowars editor Patrick Henningsen indicates an affinity, and she has been promoted in the US by Ron Paul (1). On the other hand, though, she has also appeared on the alternative left conspiracy podcast The Richie Allen Show, which is produced “in association with David Icke” (previously blogged here), and on UK Column. UK Column‘s Brian Gerrish – previously noted on this blog for his promotion of Wilfred Wong’s Satanic Ritual Abuse claims – has responded to the Guardian article with a graphic full of arrows that has been commended by one Caitlin Johnstone at Medium.

According to Solon:

Separately, both Graphika and [Fil] Menczer’s Hoaxy tool identify Beeley, the British blogger, as among the most influential disseminators of content about the White Helmets.

Footnote

1. Beeley was also quoted by WND as part of the site’s attack articles aimed at Melissa Zimdars, an academic who included the site on an informal list of unreliable news sources (blogged here). WND advised readers to bombard Zimdars and her employer with emails and phone calls, and reported Beeley’s crowing that Zimdars had upped her social media privacy settings because she “can’t take the heat. Named ‘fake media’ & then protected all her own media sites.”

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From the Friends of Zion Museum website:

President Donald Trump, received the Friends of Zion Award from Dr. Mike Evans founder of the Friends of Zion Museum in Jerusalem.  The event was attended by Vice President Pence, Senior Advisors Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump and faith leaders representing over 150 million Christians globally.

…During the ceremony Dr. Evans declared that: “No president in history has ever built such an alliance for the State of Israel and the Jewish people, and no president has courageously stood up for the State of Israel on the global stage as you had Mr. President. President Trump’s historic recognition of Jerusalem will secure his place in history as the first American president to take that step since the founding of the State of Israel in 1948.”

The post comes with an official White House photograph, although the only detail on the White House website is a short notice from 11 December that is no longer available: “This afternoon, the President will participate in a presentation of the Friends of Zion award with Faith Leaders”. The photo shows that around 30 “Faith Leaders” were present –  and as with the Oval Office photo-op in July, the attendees were overwhelmingly white men in suits, exclusively representing conservative evangelicalism and the Christian Right. The only woman present in the photo, other than Ivanka Trump in the background, is “Trump’s God Whisperer” Paula White, who is placed at the President’s right hand. Next to her is Gary Bauer, and a central place in front of Trump’s desk is given to the controversial fundamentalist Robert Jeffress, whose loyalty to Trump was recently rewarded with a Presidential book plug.

Along with the official posed photo, Trump’s Instagram account has a photo of the “Faith Leaders” laying hands on him while he adopts a pious pose at his desk. Some of those present afterwards made statements praising Trump’s various policies, as recorded by CBN (in a video curiously titled “Christian Leader Steakout”).

Evans has now followed up with an advertising campaign across Jerusalem, involving 110 “God Bless Trump” signs “throughout the city, on billboards, buses and even camels”. The press release text is accompanied by a gimmicky photo of a festooned camel, held by what appears to be an uncomfortable-looking Palestinian in traditional dress.

Evans has been based in Jerusalem for many years, and he he has built relationships with Israel’s political leadership. His various books include works warning of the inevitability of conflict with Iran, such as The Final Move Beyond Iraq (blogged here) and Showdown with Nuclear Iran: Radical Islam’s Messianic Mission to Destroy Israel and Cripple the United States (written with the assistance of Jerome Corsi, whose birther “investigations” inspired Trump).

In 2012 Evans brought out The Final Generation: Jesus is Coming Soon. According to the blurb:

…I have written almost two-dozen books on the Middle East and radical Islam, many of them discussing their relationship to the evens of the book of Revelation. I have studies the prophecies about the end of the age given by Jesus, the Old Testament prophets, and the New Testament apostles. I have read and reread books on Bible eschatology written by experts, teachers, and scholars. And in all my research and years of experience, there has been no other time when the signs of Jesus’ imminent return were happening with the intensity we are seeing today. Bible prophecy after Bible prophecy points to the likelihood that the last generation before Jesus’ return is now on the Earth, and the last lap for the Church has begun.

A few days ago, a member of the Florida Senate named Doug Broxton told a Trump rally that “Where our soon-coming King is going to return back to Jerusalem, it’s because of President Trump declared Jerusalem to be the capital of Israel”.

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From The Hill:

Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Ajit Pai appeared Wednesday in a video promoting his impending net neutrality repeal, dancing with a woman who has a history of promoting the so-called “Pizzagate” conspiracy.

The Pizzagate conspiracy theory, which proliferated during the final days of the 2016 presidential race, posits without evidence that high-ranking Democrats were involved in a nonexistent pedophile ring based out of a Washington, D.C. pizzeria. In December 2016, a man motivated by the conspiracy theory fired a gun in the business.

…The video, produced by conservative outlet The Daily Caller, features Pai insisting that the FCC’s impending, highly criticized repeal of net neutrality will not affect what users can do online.

In one clip, Pai is seen dancing alongside Martina Markota, a video producer for The Daily Caller.

…Markota said in a message to The Hill that the video in question was about a New Jersey corrections officer being charged in October for possessing child pornography, pointing to an Associated Press report about the matter. That article states that the accused offender used the phrase “Cheese Pizza” to refer to child pornography.

Markota has complained about the article on Twitter, telling a journalist who referred to the article to “expect a letter from lawyer”. She explains in the same Tweet:

When did I mention comet ping pong? Did I say anything about anything that wasn’t true? Mk ultra ? Operation paperclip? “Cheese pizza code”? All true. Not once did I mention the conspiracy involving comet ping pong.

Markota’s uploaded video was first noted on Twitter by Alex Smith, a musician who fronts a band called Lydia Burrell. Smith posted extracts, which he intercut with Pai’s dance video (his mash-up also appears on The Hill website). Gizmodo then brought the story to wider attention in an update to a post about Pai. The site noted

…an unlisted YouTube video in which she discussed a sprawling conspiracy theory intertwining the Clinton political dynasty, John Podesta, email scandals, cocaine, “government pedo programs,” and “cheese pizza,” which she alleged was a code word referring to sex with children.

Further:

Markota tried to play off the video as comedy in a series of tweets to Gizmodo, writing “I didn’t talk about pizza gate, I spoke about what cheese pizza meant on the deep web and made a funny video relevant to the time.”…

But Markota alluded to having originally delisted the video for professional reasons in another, now-deleted tweet: “The video was about my experience on the deep web in 2014 and how I came across the code word for child pron, cheese pizza. That was my two cents on Pizzagate. I decided to remove many videos when getting a job in media.”

The “New Jersey corrections officer” was obviously of interest to Markota because his use of the phrase “Cheese Pizza” as a code-word supposedly validated the conspiracy theory that Podesta emails released by WikiLeaks contain various pizza-related paedophilic code-words (as I blogged here). “Pizzagate” proponents may have dropped the Comet Ping Pong element of the story (particularly since Alex Jones issued an apology about it), but it is difficult to see how the material highlighted by Smith makes her anything other than a “Pizzagate” conspiracy theorist.

Of course, there is no reason to suppose that the Chairman of the FCC knew anything about this – and Markota is simply one among several Daily Caller staff members shown dancing in the video. But such a juxtaposition can only help to mainstream discourses that ought to remain on the very margins.

Markota was profiled by Salon last month, in an article titled “Daily Caller gone wild: Tucker Carlson’s site descends into far-right weirdness”. According to the post:

Whether Markota is a true believer in the alt-right cause or an entrepreneur exploiting a market opportunity is not entirely clear. But she has ties to various extremist figures, including exiled Breitbart News commentator Milo Yiannopolos and Vice co-founder Gavin McInnes, who more recently launched the Fraternal Order of Alt-Knights, a would-be paramilitary group for men “comfortable in fisticuffs.” McInnes has consistently denied being a racist, an anti-Semite or a member of the alt-right, but has a long history of making dubious “jokes” that appear designed to appeal to the far-right fringe while maintaining some level of  deniability.

In interviews, Markota’s former associates in the burlesque world say she was always regarded as a conservative, but began to go much further with the emergence of Trump in the 2016 Republican presidential race.

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UPDATE (July 2018): The MP is Andrew Griffiths, who at the time was a Tory Whip. He came forward under his own name in April 2018, in an article for his local paper in which he called for new laws against trolling, and he has now been named by the Mail on Sunday following a sexting scandal in which he sent messages indicating that enjoys inflicting pain and humiliation during sex.

From the Mail on Sunday‘s latest front-page splash:

Jeremy Corbyn was last night accused of ‘inciting’ vicious Labour trolls who targeted the heavily pregnant wife of a Tory MP.

…One fanatic told her, ‘hope your baby dies’ while the MP received death threats that are now being investigated by police.

…The Mail on Sunday has, in agreement with the MP, chosen not to name him or his wife to protect mother and child from further abuse. 

…The online abuse was sparked after the MP made a jibe at Mr Corbyn in the Commons chamber after the Labour leader attacked the Government’s treatment of the elderly. The Tory MP shouted: ‘That’s you!’ 

A furious Mr Corbyn claimed the MP should be ‘called out’ for his ‘uncaring’ attitude.

…[T]he Conservative MP was not referred to by name by Mr Corbyn, was not rebuked by the Speaker, and his identity remained a mystery until Labour MPs named him on Twitter shortly afterwards.

That was the spark for a torrent of abuse from thousands of Left-wing activists.

…the MP turned the tables on Mr Corbyn… ‘Labour, in effect, incited this. I am not saying that was the intention but if Mr Corbyn hadn’t said I should be ‘called out’ and Labour MPs hadn’t blown a bit of routine parliamentary banter out of all proportion, it wouldn’t have happened.’

There is no reason to doubt that the unnamed MP’s wife really was subjected to distressing malicious communications, and we must hope that the police get to the bottom of it. However, the Mail on Sunday article is less than satisfactory. [UPDATE: In a later article, the “hope your baby dies” message is described as having been sent to Griffiths rather than to his wife.]

First, why are we not told the names of any of these abusers? In some cases, there may be legal reasons relating to the police investigation, but no such restriction is mentioned in the article and it would not apply to the alleged “thousands” of examples of mere unpleasant abuse targeting the MP. Some (perhaps most) of these messages may have been anonymous – but it would still be relevant to refer to usernames. This is not pedantry: has the abuse or threats come from users with lots of followers, and who may have interacted with known figures associated with Corbyn? Or are these obscure and isolated trolls? The wider political significance of the incident rests on this point.

Second, although the MP is not named in the article, it is obvious who he is. I’ll go along with not naming him either, but it is inherently unfair that an MP can make allegations against against a political opponent from a position of anonymity, with the implication that any wider discussion must be circumscribed by the need to protect the accuser’s identity. Thus the casual reader will not know that the content of the MP’s “banter” is contested, and that there was a particular (and unusual) reason why the MP perhaps escaped a deserved rebuke from the Speaker at the time.

[UPDATE: The MP had heckled Corbyn while Corbyn was talking about the elderly needing help. Griffiths says he shouted “that’s you!”, although Labour MPs say that he made a comment to the effect that Corbyn ought to be in a care home. Either way, he was rebuked by Corbyn for an “uncaring, uncouth attitude”. Griffiths made his heckle while crouching between two benches, which meant that the Speaker could not see him. The Mail on Sunday hack would have known all this.]

Any reasonable person will sympathise with the MP’s concern for his family, but when this motive is mixed with the political aim of “turn[ing] the tables on Mr Corbyn”, then we must retain our critical faculties. The idea that a heckler in the House of Commons would have an expectation of privacy is nonsensical, and there is no reason why Corbyn should not have responded to the jibe or Labour MPs to have named the MP on Twitter. This cannot reasonably be described as “incitement”, although of course trolls will seize on any excuse for a pile-on (if there actually was one – the “torrent of abuse from thousands” is not apparent on Twitter from the time of the incident).

The article also includes this detail:

Theresa May last night called for a halt to social media abuse and other threatening behaviour in politics, by all sides. 

Speaking in response to the ‘hope your baby dies’ attack, and menacing posts against Conservative Brexit rebels, she told The Mail on Sunday: ‘Threats of violence and intimidation are unacceptable and have no place in our politics. 

‘Everybody should be treated with tolerance, decency and respect.’

This was actually a Tweet issued on Saturday evening, before the story went live. Perhaps the same statement was issued by her office to the Mail on Sunday in response to a request for comment, but it is doubtful that the Tweet reflects May’s personal knowledge of the malicious message sent to the MP’s wife, or that it was drafted as a response to the story.

The “menacing posts” against Brexit rebels (which some are blaming in part on a denunciatory Daily Mail front page) was given as the context for May’s Tweet by the Press Association, along with the publication of a report by the Committee on Standards in Public Life on social media harassment during the 2017 General Election. However, the write-up in today‘s Times instead highlights the Mail on Sunday report about the MP as the most significant context, with the targeting of “Brexit rebels” now only a secondary factor:

The prime minister’s words came as The Mail on Sunday reported that left-wing activists had targeted the pregnant wife of an unnamed Tory MP after he challenged Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, in the Commons. One told her “hope your baby dies” while a Facebook user said he would “spear” the MP while he was out jogging and another vowed to “put your head on a spike”.

…Some Tory Brexit rebels have been subjected to vicious abuse. Anna Soubry revealed that she had got messages calling for her to be “hung in public”.

The Mail on Sunday article was written by the paper’s political hack Simon Walters (previously blogged here), rather than a crime correspondent or social media journalist; as such, it is not a surprise that his “value added” contribution to the MP’s account would be a polemical profile of the pro-Corbyn Momentum movement tacked onto the end (“‘Mob-mentum’: The shock troops”) rather than a critical probing of information provided to him.

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Self-Styled “bishop” had long-standing links with Larry Klayman and Gordon Klingenschmitt

Johnson at 2013 rally with Larry Klayman

Kentucky-based WDRB reports:

Kentucky State Rep. Dan Johnson, who was under investigation for alleged sexual molestation, died of a “probable suicide,” the Bullitt County coroner said.

…On Tuesday, Johnson held a press conference at his church on Bardstown Road, where he denied the molestation allegations. According to court documents obtained by the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting, the alleged molestation took place on New Year’s Eve in 2012. The alleged victim, who was 17 at the time, told authorities that she was staying in a living area of the Heart of Fire City Church where Johnson was pastor, when Johnson, who had been drinking a lot, approached her, kissed her and fondled her under her clothes.

Johnson left a semi-coherent post on Facebook in which he stated that “the accusations from NPR are false GOD and only GOD knows the truth”, and referred to “NYC/WTC, PTSD 24/7 16 years”. Johnson was previously in the news in 2016, after it came to light that he had posted images to Facebook mocking Barack Obama as a chimpanzee – a revelation that was apparently not so offensive as to prevent his election.

The link in the paragraph quoted above clicks through to a long-read by R.G. Dunlop and Jacob Ryan which documents Johnson’s history. The researchers found evidence of “bounced checks and credit card debts”, insurance-related arson, and illegal sales of alcohol at his church. The alleged molestation included digital penetration, and Johnson apparently afterwards said that he had been “drugged” by someone on the night it was alleged to have occurred and that he had no memory of the incident. The article also explains that a police complaint at the time was “botched”, but that it had now been re-opened.

The most credible explanation for Johnson’s suicide is that this was the final attempt of an inveterate liar to re-assert control over his destiny as his past caught up with him. Even the World Trade Center reference in his suicide note is spin; as the article notes:

To hear him tell it, Johnson has been on stage nearly his whole life. Like Forrest Gump, he just so happens to be in the front row, playing a pivotal role in America’s biggest moments. Time after time. Decade after decade.

He claims he served as White House chaplain to three presidents. A United Nations ambassador. He says he set up the morgue after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and was the pastor who gave last rites for all of those pulled from the towers.

However:

…But Storm Swain, a Philadelphia theology professor who wrote a book about chaplains at Ground Zero, has never heard of Johnson. She said it’s highly unlikely that any civilian, let alone an out-of-town clergyman, would have been asked to — or would have been able to — set up a morgue in the immediate aftermath of 9/11.

And a spokeswoman for New York City’s medical examiner’s office said she checked with several colleagues who were at the scene. No one remembers Danny Ray Johnson.

Despite this, Johnson was apparently drawing an income from benefits payable to workers who were injured or became ill as a result of 9/11.

At first glance, Johnson might seem to be a marginal figure, a big name in his own small pond but not of wider significance. However, the article also notes that in 2013 he was a speaker at a Freedom Watch rally in Washington, DC, organised by Larry Klayman. Klayman is a lawyer notorious for grandiose and absurd lawsuits (I blogged one here), and his rally called for the creation of a “shadow government” should Obama resfuse to resign. US News & World Report noted at the time:

A long video of the event has been uploaded  to YouTube; the various speakers and the timings of their appearances are posted underneath. The first speaker, following Johnson’s introduction and opening prayer (recorded on a different video) and a turn by a George Washington impersonator, was none other than Joseph Farah, who advised Donald Trump during Trump’s “birther” period and who has often promoted Klayman on his WND website. The line-up over the following five hours included Bob Barr and Michael Peroutka, and a recorded statement from Pat Boone.

Two years before the rally, Johnson was part of an attempt by Klayman to force New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg to give clergy an official role at the Ground Zero ceremony on the tenth anniversary of 9/11. Bob Unruh wrote it up for WND:

Klayman said his clients who would be plaintiffs in a legal action include Bishop Dan Johnson, a member of the “World Bishops Council” who on the early morning hours of 9/11 had arrived in Manhattan.

According to his story, he was resting when his wife called concerned about an airplane accident. He immediately responded to offer his help, and was asked by the New York Police Department to set up the first morgue in the financial district.

He kept records of victims brought in, performed last rites on the dead and prayed for them, and has participated in every 9/11 ceremony at Ground Zero since.

“Originally I was invited to attend this year’s 9/11 ceremony as a first responder, just like I was every year since 2001,” Bishop Johnson told former U.S. Navy Chaplain Gordon Klingenschmitt, who also is involved in the case.

“But then I heard Mayor Bloomberg banned clergy, so it took five phone calls to his office before [a Bloomberg senior staffer] asked me if I was going to wear my clerical collar. I said I planned to dress just like I did the previous nine years, so she replied ‘they’ prefer you not attend. And that was it. I was disinvited.”

Bloomberg’s decision of course related to having clergy-led prayer; there was no dress rule that banned attendees from wearing clerical collars. However, according to Klingenschmitt:

“Disinvited because of his religion, his clergyman status, and his faith in Jesus Christ. Bishop Dan Johnson is a hero who faces arbitrary and illegal persecution and discrimination for religion by the mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg.”

A short post on Free Republic has further details:

In a sad display of anti-Christian censorship, Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York City has banned clergy from participating or praying at the 10th anniversary 9/11 memorial ceremony honoring the victims of terrorist attacks from September 11th, 2001.  

Today I spoke with Bishop Dan Johnson, a 9/11 first-responder clergyman who ministered to the dead and dying in New York City on Sept 11th, 2001.  For the last nine years, Mayors Giuliani and Bloomberg invited Bishop Johnson to the annual ceremony, but this year he was told by Mayor Bloomberg’s staff that he cannot attend “in his capacity as clergyman,” but only in his capacity as first-responder.  And he dare not pray aloud.

“It’s unbelievable,” says Southern Baptist leader Richard Land.  “We live in a country where the overwhelming majority of people identify as Christian or have a religion, and clergy were some of the first people to respond on 9/11 to minister to victims.  Why aren’t they welcome today?”

“I’m stunned,” said Tim Wildmon of the American Family Association.  “This event affected the whole psyche and soul of the country, and you are going to have no prayer? What’s a memorial service if you are going to leave God out of it completely? It seems kind of hollow.”

The original source for the post is not given, although it presumably derives from something written by Klingenschmitt that is no longer live. The quotes from Land and Wildmon in fact relate to Bloomberg’s decision in general, although they are here misleadingly presented as if made in specific response to Johnson’s complaint.

Of course, this was all before Johnson became known for his chimpanzee joke about Obama, and before his troubled history was fatally exposed by the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting. But it doesn’t look like the prominent conservatives who put him on a platform more than once did much due diligence – and neither did local Republicans, who accepted him as a candidate.

UPDATE (15 December): Although Johnson’s death has received widespread media coverage, his past allies seem to have forgotten him: Larry Klayman hasn’t said anything on social media, while WND only has a brief excerpt from the WDRB article and a link.

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