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Mammoth Springs

Tuesday, July 23, 2019

The devil made me do it.

Cesar Sayoc
Serial bomber Cesar Sayoc's lawyers are pointing the finger at what they believe is the cause of his criminal behavior, Trump and Fox News.
Sayoc was an avid follower of Trump's Twitter account and his federal public defenders point to Trump throughout the filing. New defense filings in the case of admitted serial bomber Cesar Sayoc paint a grim picture of a man who "lost everything in the Great Recession," had "cognitive limitations and severe learning disabilities" and was "abandoned by his father and sexually abused by a teacher at his Catholic school.""In this darkness," his defense counsel wrote, "Mr. Sayoc found light in Donald J. Trump."
Anthony Comello
In Staten Island, Mob Boss killer Anthony Comello's defense team has a similar explanation.
A 24-year-old man who has been charged with shooting to death a reputed New York mob boss earlier this year thought he was under the influence of QAnon, pro-Trump Internet postings about the president supposedly battling a cabal of liberal elites, his lawyer wrote in a recent submission to New York state court.
Prosecutors have charged Anthony Comello with murder over the fatal shooting Francesco Cali, the alleged leader of the Gambino crime family who was gunned down outside of his Staten Island home in March.
But in a new court filing, Comello's attorney argues that he became so engrossed with unsupported QAnon theories that on the night of Cali's death, he was acting under a delusion, which included that Democratic politicians, celebrities and people associated with organized crime were part of the "deep state," according to Comello's lawyer. He wrote that his client believed he was on a mission "to save the American way of life."
"Beginning with the election of President Trump in November 2016, Anthony Comello's family began to notice changes to his personality," attorney Robert Gottlieb wrote. "Mr. Comello's support for QAnon went beyond mere participation in a radical political organization, it evolved into a delusional obsession."
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Andrew Anglin
Trump said there was nothing racist about his tweets referring to the four minority congresswomen. White supremacists apparently feel differently:
Andrew Anglin again praised the President, writing on the Daily Stormer the day after the rally: “Telling those women to go back to their countries is by far the most racist thing he’s ever said – especially since one of them was a black American, descended from slaves. And by refusing to apologize, he has effectively normalized the opinion among the masses of goyim that you can believe that America is a white country, for white people – and that brown people are our guests and if they don’t like being guests then they have to go home.
So the President may not think he is racist, but racists think he is racist, so whatever he thinks is moot, his message is getting to the troops, people like Sayoc, Comello and Anglin. Charlottesville, Pittsburgh and Poway.
Neo-Nazi Andrew Anglin was apparently thrilled by the tweets, posting on his popular Daily Stormer website: “Man, President Trump’s Twitter account has been pure fire lately. This might be the funniest thing he’s ever tweeted. This is the kind of WHITE NATIONALISM we elected him for. And we’re obviously seeing it only because there’s another election coming up. But I’ll tell you, even knowing that, it still feels so good.”
Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind. Does the president bear any responsibility for the misguided acts of his followers? You tell me.

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