Why the Hell Did News Organizations Report That Klansmen Came Out to Support Donald Trump in Nevada?

All it takes to convince some irresponsible media outlets is wearing a costume.

Tuesday evening, as reports began to circulate that the Republican presidential caucus in Nevada was getting a bit goofy around the gills, photographs of these two cretins blew up all over Twitter:

Ryan Hendricks

You can more than understand why normal human beings expressed outrage at, and drew conclusions from, this image. People in Klan hoods! At a polling place! Supporting Trump!

But journalists, they are not normal human beings. They are supposed to, at least before hitting "publish," operate with skepticism, ask follow-up questions, and engage in verification. And there were at least four reasons to be skeptical about this photograph:

1) It is presidential campaign season. People have a strong vested interest in making their opponents, and supporters of their opponents, look like moral monsters. There have been multiple incidents in recent history of fake racist supporters being planted at right-of-center gatherings. Donald Trump gatherings in particular have drawn bizarre media stunts.

2) Las Vegas is more than 2,500 miles away from New England. Why would a member from the New England Benevolent Police Association travel that far, or how would anyone not from that organization have ever heard of it? (As it happens, NEBPA, which in December drew at least modest national notice by endorsing Trump, released a strongly worded statement of disassociation Wednesday that began with the sentence, "Racism & hate has NO place in civilized society and those who hide under a hood, behind a mask, or under a sheet are nothing short of cowardice.") There has already been a primary election in a New England state, and yet no reports of NEBPA-labeled Klansmen (or any other Klansmen, to my knowledge). Are they simply more comfortable out West?

3) "Jesus deported illegals" does not sound like a sincere slogan of support. It sounds like political satire.

4) There were no reported follow-up interviews with the would-be Klansmen.

So how did news organizations treat these photographs? Outside of Snopes, The Wrap, and various right-of-center outlets, far too many had headlines like this: "Ku Klux Klan Show up to Support Donald Trump's Victory at Nevada Caucus," "KKK Joins Trump Supporters at High School for Nevada Caucus," and "KKK-style protest mars caucus at Las Vegas site." Twitter for an hour or so was a parade of journalists and commentators making brave stances against KKK intimidation in 2016.

Were the robe-wearers actual Klansmen? I seriously doubt it, but who knows? It's been a weird year. One way to better sort through these controversies, however, is for journalists, at the least, to seek some further corroborating information aside from looking at an Internet picture before declaring the latest race war as being upon us once more.

Comments

[GILMORE?]

You think this is bad, someone's been photoshopping pro-Trump labels onto all the Furry-Porn

I mean, that's what I *heard*.

[waffles]

You stay out of my deviantart profile!

[R C Dean]

(Googles deviantart)

Oh. My.

[Limpee Wiltstock]

If the lettering wasn't so bad on their signs, I would have guessed it was somebody's art project.

[Limpee Wiltstock]

I've an account. I used to use it years ago, mainly for exchanging "material" with the pal?artists theron. But then they got crasy about these obscenity rules and they were enforced much more vigorously against male imagery than female, and against possibly gay imagery of men especially hard, when there was like a total lack of pressure on comparable depictions of gay women. It didn't directly impact what I was doing (since it rarely even involved mammals of any kind), but it did come down on some other artists with whom I was exchanging things, and it was annoying and I stopped using it, though I have logged in every few months generally, so the account's still active. Also, the huge fucking tyrannosaur project got almost completely destroyed when the disk all the material was stored on went to hell, and I had only incomplete and disorganised backups, and other crap was going on, and the fustration was too much for my small brain. So now, instead, I've got myself wrapped up in "The Fall of Orion" , another overblown monstrosity involving tons of material (& lots of mammals), but at least not so much digital components, so unless the trailer burns down, it'll keep.

[Suicidy]

Well.....yeah. People like to see pictures of hot lesbians doing most hot lesbian things with each other. Two dudes doing homo stuff? Ick. That's not homophobic, it's just being honest about aesthetics.

[EndTheGOP]

Karl Rove doing what he does best?spreading his GOP establishment filth.

Karl. You ought to get Mitt Romney to start talking some trash about Mr Trump showing us his tax returns. Of course I'll bet it backfires on ol' shit -for-brains, pussy-ass Mitt, but it'll be fun for us.

[GILMORE?]

YOU TELL EM!

[kbolino]

Look, there is a quota for batshit insanity in the comment threads, and it's already been met.

[Pan Zagloba]

Libertarians don't believe in quotas!

[AlmightyJB]

Just Alt-Text and Labels

[Charles Easterly]

Citation Needed.

[LynchPin1477]

I'm going to try my hand at making mole poblano this weekend. Any tips?

[Wasteland Wanderer]

I bet you could find some in the circumcision article...

[Adans smith]

+ fore

[The Hyperbole]

Make sure your mole meat is fresh and if you can find it get a Moroccan, free-range one.

[LynchPin1477]

I'm not sure why I expected serious answers, but I did.

[Adans smith]

Eat out.

[Florida Man]

Whom?

[Animal]

Phrasing! BOOM

[AlmightyJB]

Spend an hour making mole and when it's done compare it to this which is actually pretty good right out of the box. 7

http://www.herdeztraditions.co.....-products/

[The Hyperbole]

also spend a shit load of moolah getting all the dried peppers and spices and shit.

[LynchPin1477]

Nah. It's called the Whole Foods bulk section. This will be a fairly cheap meal.

[The Hyperbole]

I hope you're right, the one time I tried to make this I could only find about half the ingredients locally and to get the rest online put the entire endeavor in the not-gonna-happen column.

[AlmightyJB]

Yeah, we made it once. I'm not a huge Mole person to begin with but did kind of see the comparison to a bbq sauce while putting it together. After all the effort, compared the finished product to the Dona Maria Original and quite frankly the difference was negligible. It wasn't that ours was bad, just that their's pretty damn good for zero effort. There were certainly a lot of other flavors in the dish so the sauce was not the only flavor profile going on anyways and it shouldn't be. I had a similar experience with BBQ sauce, spent an hour cooking down a nice bbq sauce which turned out great and tasted exactly the same as Sweet Baby Ray's straight from the bottle.

[AlmightyJB]

I believe the BBQ Sauce was a Neely's recipe. Don't recall where I got the mole recipe.

[SIV]

which turned out great and tasted exactly the same as Sweet Baby Ray's straight from the bottle

Wut?

[Suthenboy]

A lot of sauces are that way. Roux too. Buy it don't make it.

Roux, BBQ sauce, Alfredo, Mole, Seafood boils, etc.

Make your own roux if you need a blonde roux. Unfortunately you have to make your own hollandaise but it is remarkably easy to do.

[Krabappel]

Out of all of those, Alfredo is the one you should definitely make from scratch. Canned Alfredo is fucking gross and any kind of white/cream/cheese sauce is easy to make. Real mac and cheese with a roux cheese sauce is easy and so good.

I've made a pot of BBQ sauce and canned it before. It's only worth it if you make a big batch.

I don't know what sauce goes into a seafood boil - I've just had it made with bay seasoning and then garlic butter to dip things in.

[Suicidy]

I've never tried cooking a mole before. Are they tasty? We do have lots of marmots around here though. Especially at local golf courses. The golfers get angry when I interrupt their games to trap them though. Also, when I take their gold balls off the green as trophies.

[mr simple]

Kill every golfer on the course.

[Limpee Wiltstock]

I get my spices off Amazon, pretty fucking cheap. And chile is like the easiest thing to grow and perserve. Wot you think all them Mexicans is millionaires?

[GILMORE?]

I prefer muskrat to mole

[DEATFBIRSECIA]

Suzy or Sam?

[Charles Easterly]

Oh, you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgCk3bnvO5Y

[Limpee Wiltstock]

Sorry, m8. Mora mi used to make it all the time, really well, but I don't really remember she doing ne thing special about it. I'm not sure it's that complicated. Used real poblanos, though. It always seem to come out better homegrown. It's curious but serrano and poblano both seem to get much more complex, powerful flavours after being dried the fuck out.

Use mesquite beans, maybe?

[Krabappel]

NOM I'm coming over for dinner.

[Tak Kak]

They don't want people looking up David Duke?

(I think he endorsed Trump)

[Mazakon]

Sort of, he said he endorsed him but not everything about him.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

So, sort of like libertarians and Bernie Sanders.

[Tak Kak]

Or libertarians and Libertarian candidates.

[Crimson Alliance]

Real journalism? Ha! It is to laugh. Real journalism is almost non-existent, especially in the mainstream. Sometimes I look at Yahoo news, just to catch up on headlines. A lot of the links lead to Vox, Mic, TakePart and the Huff. Those aren't even remotely news, just straight progressive propaganda. Millennials don't know any better. They see these headlines and it's like "Damn, Trump's a racist". Which would be the least disturbing thing about Trump IMO.

[Adans smith]

Hell with the klan,I wonder how many mob pay offs Trump made over the years on building projects.Spread the word,wink ,wink,nudge,nudge.

[DEATFBIRSECIA]

He knows where Hoffa's planted.

[Chipwooder]

Thornton Melon: Oh, you left out a bunch of stuff.
Dr. Phillip Barbay: Oh really? Like what for instance?
Thornton Melon: First of all you're going to have to grease the local politicians for the sudden zoning problems that always come up. Then there's the kickbacks to the carpenters, and if you plan on using any cement in this building I'm sure the Teamsters would like to have a little chat with ya, and that'll cost ya. Oh and don't forget a little something for the building inspectors. Then there's long term costs such as waste disposal. I don't know if you're familiar with who runs that business, but I assure you, it's not the Boy Scouts.

[MetalBard]

I'm actually surprised they didn't try something like this earlier.

[Adans smith]

Just wait,if it's Trump against the Hilbeast it'll get crazy.Best thing to do will be stock up on beer,wine,gin,scotch and watch the train wreck .

[AlmightyJB]

Did they bring their copies of the constitution?

http://www.campusreform.org/?ID=7312

[cavalier973]

The Constitution only protects white racists...if there were no limits on government power, then there would be no racism today.

[Suicidy]

Well it was written by a bunch of white slave owners almost a hundred years ago, or something.

[Irish ?s ESB]

In before "plus, how would Irish even get to Vegas?"

Anyone remember during the epic Poop Swastika Freakout of 2015 when there were reports that there were Klansmen driving around the University of Missouri beating up black people and for an entire day the media never asked why there were no pictures of the dozens of Klansmen who allegedly descended on a college campus?

[Adans smith]

Pictures? We don't need no stinkin pictures.

[SIV]

Matt, Do you really have to ask this question?

[Lord Humungus]

It's all about setting up the election battlefield: rallying the democrats base and setting up the grand story about defeating the racists at the ballot box.

[Cytotoxic]

It will probably work. This case is unique because it will have some truth floating around in it.

[lulztopian]

You're a fucking moron.

[Social Contractor]

^ You're point proven.

[Cytotoxic]

Partly because they are stupid and biased, and partly because Trump's insane idiotic ramblings make this more credible than would otherwise be the case.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Goddammit, don't make me pine for horse race coverage.

[Adans smith]

This election is more of a horse's ass race.

[db]

That's quality.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

But journalists, they are not normal human beings. They are supposed to, at least before hitting "publish," operate with skepticism, ask follow-up questions, and engage in verification.

*shoots drink through nose*

[Suicidy]

Most journalists these days are faggot cookies.

[Ken Shultz]

This is when someone with Photoshop should produce a picture showing that ISIS supports Hillary Clinton.

Also NAMBLA.

And Smith & Wesson.

There should be pictures circulating that show they ALL support Hillary Clinton.

[Ken Shultz]

Shouldn't it be relatively easy to make a photo showing that ISIS is supporting Clinton campaign with their "Heads Off for Hillary" campaign?

[Charles Easterly]

+1 Queen of Hearts

[JWatts]

Yes, but those attempts will be reported with the utmost in skepticism and leading questions as to what other candidate (Trump?) is behind the obvious frame up.

[Tak Kak]

Add Klansmen to the list of demographics Trump's won. Uniting the country!

[Mazakon]

Planned Parenthood and white supremacists, now there's a history lesson in the making.

[Charles Easterly]

I suppose you Gen X people never go away.

[Suicidy]

I can live with them, as opposed to Sanders and his pinko pals. Also, Klansmen are not that numerous relative to those traitor Sanderinistas.

[Crusty Juggler]

The only solution, of course, is to pay journalists more. If we paid journalists more, we would have better journalists.

[Ken Shultz]

We need to license them.

Otherwise, how do you know which ones to believe?

[AlmightyJB]

Well if they criticize the government you know that they're right wing kooks.

[JWatts]

If they criticize the Obama government they're right wing kooks. If they protest the Bush government, they're people speaking Truth to Power.

[Charles Easterly]

In my case, depending on the crowd I was attempting to debate, when I criticized the (W) Bush administration I was:

a spoiled kid living in his mom's basement
a typical liberal who was had no grasp of logic and reason
a hater of America
a terrist sympathizer
and other labels I cannot now remember

Now whenever I criticize the Obama administration (except here at H&R and a few other places) I am:

a Republothug
a rassist
et cetera

[Charles Easterly]

a typical liberal whowashad no grasp of logic and reason

[Charles Easterly]

Dang it!

Clearly I am a man who cannot a) edit well and b) properly use strikethrough in his follow up comment.

[db]

NEBPA, which in December drew at least modest national notice by endorsing Trump, released a strongly worded statement of disassociation Wednesday that began with the sentence, "Racism & hate has NO place in civilized society and those who hide under a hood, behind a mask, or under a sheet are nothing short of cowardice.")

Except when police wear balaclavas or riot masks, amirite?

[The Grinch]

Who needs evidence and proof when you've got feelz? Also, why do you racist libertarian jagoffs hate Black people?

Furthermore, look at these pictures elsewhere on the interwebs. These people are black, or at least nonwhite.

[Notorious UGCC]

They're probably Black Republicans.

/sarc

[Hank Phillips]

Shades of Blazing Saddles!

[straffinrun]

In Vegas, always bet on black.

[AlmightyJB]

When are we going the see Hillary with her shooting glasses and vest skeet shooting?

[goneGalt]

If they show up again, Trump should simply offer them 10x whatever they got paid to spill the beans on who put them up to this.

SLD: Not a Trump voter!

[scawarren]

I seriously doubt these guys are real Klansmen considering they appear to have dark skin.

[The Grinch]

Where the white women at?! (Thanks Mel Brooks)

[Pan Zagloba]

+1 wash after weekly cross burning

[Notorious UGCC]

"Now, Mr. Jones, you earned high marks on the written exam and scored very high on the cross-burning exercise...in fact, I see only one thing which might potentially hold up your application for Klan membership..."

[AlmightyJB]

obligatory

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i.....comments=1

[goneGalt]

Maybe they are blind?

[goneGalt]

Reply to scawarren @ 7:05

[Zeb]

Even if it was real, so what? Did Trump actively court them or ask them to come? If not, I'm not sure how a candidate can be held responsible for the people who decide to support them.

[Charles Easterly]

I think that many of us here understand and agree with you Zeb, yet if I recall correctly Ron Paul's later two campaigns were harmed by the exact sort of "guilt by association" tactics.

[Raven Nation]

Or that someone's endorsement of a candidate, even if accepted by the candidate, means the candidate endorses the supporter.

There's an old story about Reagan's 1980 campaign receiving support from a gay group (when that was really novel). When asked about Reagan just said, they support my policies I don't necessarily support theirs.

[Notorious UGCC]

Recommended: more bad guys in costumes

[Charles Easterly]

For reasons I cannot explain, that high quality rap reminded me of this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0nERTFo-Sk

[Quincy.]

Love those videos.

[__Warren__]

Frightened cops kill couple passed out in car.

[AlmightyJB]

"But it appears as if they had too much to drink and ended up passing out, which drew the attention of police, who claimed the woman was holding a gun. That prompted them to call the SWAT team and at least one armored car"

Sounds reasonable. Did they let Barney drive the Armored car?

[Agammamon]

For at least 45 minutes, police attempted "to rouse" them in an effort "to de-escalate the situation,"

WAKE UP! WE NEED YOU TO WAKE UP SO WE CAN CALM YOU DOWN!

[Agammamon]

At one point, the couple apparently did wake up, which led to the gunshots.

OH SHIT THEY WOKE UP! SHOOT! SHOOT! BEFORE THEY CALM DOWN!

[AlmightyJB]

Workplace shooting in Kansas

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016.....tcmp=hpbt3

[AlmightyJB]

Workplace shooting in Kansas

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016.....tcmp=hpbt3

[AlmightyJB]

Local news there reporting a lot more dead and injured

http://www.kake.com/home/headl.....90361.html

AK Variant?

http://www.kake.com/home/headl.....90361.html

[AlmightyJB]

First link has live feed. sounds like there were multiple locations

[AlmightyJB]

Shooters facebook page

https://www.facebook.com/cedric.ford.161

[AlmightyJB]

He's got a picture with a Glock (full size maybe even a long slide) with an extended mag and and AK variant.

[Chipwooder]

So it was a black guy and not a militiaman/Klansman/neo-Nazi? The fervent hopes and dreams of profs dashed yet again.

[0x90]

Newtown + Boston = Newton, just a coincidence??!?!11??!

Crisis actors! FEMA camps! Nibiru! Building 7! Truth!

[Jackand Ace]

Hey Matt, Reason put that photo out the night of the caucus, on Suderman's article. And this is what he wrote under it

"Actual Trump supporters? Anti-Trump activists trying to make him look bad? Who knows!"

So the photo was published here (no investigation first) with the disclaimer that it might in fact be Trump supporters.

Not much better here. Check your own mote.

[Jackand Ace]

Link

http://reason.com/blog/2016/02.....usion-poss

[Irish ?s ESB]

Hilarious. Reason publishes the picture while specifically saying there is no evidence it's actual Trump supporters and you think that's comparable to headlines like "KKK Joins Trump Supporters at High School for Nevada Caucus."

Even if your argument is that Suderman should have been more explicit in his skepticism, he was skeptical of whether or not the picture was real and did not report it as definite fact. That is completely different from what Matt is criticizing.

[__Warren__]

You might as well talk to a stale Twinkie.

[GILMORE?]

Hey! there's no reason to start insulting Twinkies here.

[Charles Easterly]

Old commercial for Twinkies: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wi7HUqXx8yA

[Jackand Ace]

Matt

" They are supposed to, at least before hitting "publish," operate with skepticism, ask follow-up questions, and engage in verification. And there were at least four reasons to be skeptical about this photograph"

Did Suderman "engage in verification?" Nah, he just published. Was he aware of the 4 reasons to be skeptical? Nah, he said it might be or might not be Trump supporters.

Good try. Hilarious for sure.

[GILMORE?]

"Did Suderman "engage in verification?""

because stating "Who knows!" as a caveat isn't clear enough to retards like you.

I'm shocked you havent blinded yourself with a fork

[Jackand Ace]

Actually Suderman says this as well

*"The person who posted the KKK photo says it was taken at Cimmaron Memorial High School tonight, by a friend, though I can't verify this."

So published at Reason admittedly without verification.

Keep trying.

[GILMORE?]

I'm shocked you haven't choked on your own tongue.

[Charles Easterly]

Jackand Ace,

Do you intend to watch the event called the Republican Debate tonight?

I have the same question for whoever is active on this thread.

[Jackand Ace]

On now, switching back and forth to Islander game.

[Charles Easterly]

Just think of it in this manner, if you will: There is a possibility that one of those two viewing experiences will end in you not being angry.

[Jackand Ace]

I'm hoping it's the Isles, Charles.

[Jackand Ace]

This debate is a rolling disaster.

[Cytotoxic]

For you.

[Charles Easterly]

For you and I as well, it seems to me, Cytotoxic.

This "debate" (as well as the others I've seen sponsored by both main parties) is (are) embarrassing. I wonder what the citizens of other countries think of us if they form part of their opinions upon these types of engages.

[Jackand Ace]

It's getting worse. Yikes. And Isles are losing. Bad night.

[Agammamon]

I don't even know why you're bothering to watch the debate - and I don't mean in a 'you're a communist arsehole' way either, we all know what its going to be about.

Just a bunch of people screaming about how this or that is really dangerous and they are the only one's who have the knowledge, drive, and discipline to save the country.

And then it'll repeat with the next D debate.

Its not like its even good theater either. They're not funny, you can't even say they're awesome like a train wreck. They're just horrifying like a spreading green color and bad smell from a wound.

[Agammamon]

Have you seen other countries? NONE of them have anything to say about the state of US politics in this election.

Half the countries in the world have their politician *shooting* at each other and even in the other half most of them get into fistfights.

Even in a supposedly civilized country like the UK has politicians out and out lying about the consequences of Britain leaving the EU. Hell they even had a vote on the EU referendum and when the government got the wrong answer they had another.

[Suthenboy]

Noticing the guy on the left is black. I am gonna go out on a limb and say these are BLM people attempting to generate bad press for Trump and the police association mentioned; not KKK anything.

There, and it only took me three seconds looking at the photo. Am I smart enough to be a journalist? I guess not since I didn't go to Columbia School of Journalism.

[Charles Easterly]

In my opinion Suthenboy, you are intelligent enough to be a journalist in contemporary U.S.A. (and other places).

However, you also have your own sense of ethics.
Even though I don't share your set of standards, I can nonetheless see that you have ethics.

I doubt you'd sell them at your own expense.

[Suthenboy]

I apologize if that came off in any way as a dig against you, it is not intended to be. It was intended to be a dig against the very same journalists you criticize.

I was just yelling at the clouds, not at you.

Also: Say what you want, at least its an ethos? Well done.

[Limpee Wiltstock]

Fuck, man, the klan isn't going to be that fucking shabby. You can tell in a split second of glawncing at the photo it's not them. For that matter, I've rarely seen anyone at any demonstration of any kind that was that harf-arsed about it. For what it's worth, I've not observed any black life matters demonstrations. If they are as uncommonly shabby in presentation as these gentlemen, then you're probably dead on it.

[JoWaDat889]

Dude that is like the craziest thing I have heard of.

http://www.Anon-Net.tk

[Sanjuro Tsubaki]

Gee, reminds me of 2012, 2008, 2006, 2004... only this time Reason is rushing to the defense of somebody they don't even pretend to like...okay, lately they do appear to be sucking up to Trump...

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

LOL. Is Carson even paying attention?

[Chipwooder]

I like the SF Gate one that says it's "Klan-style". Not actually Klansmen, but fuck it, close enough for journalism!

[buybuydandavis]

Hey Matt, a decent article.

Perhaps the tide has turned at Reason, and they can start criticizing Trump without the hysterical pants shitting.

In fact, Sheldon just had *two* articles in a row that didn't mention DA JOOS.

What is going on around here? I'm so confused. Next Reason will be admitting that the laws of economics are not magically suspended when low skill illegal immigrants enter a labor market.

[prakomokeh]

You're getting ?150 worth of bonuses for just a fraction of that price. Everything to get you started in learning a proven system for accelerating your exam success. qj So if that's what you want to do, this is the opportunity you've been waiting for.....

--------- http://www.workprospects.com

[Mickey Rat]

"They are supposed to, at least before hitting "publish," operate with skepticism, ask follow-up questions, and engage in verification."

What do you think this is? The Fifties?

[Hank Phillips]

Looters are willing to kill all who resist their tax collectors. Why should their willingness to lie come as a surprise?