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Anderson Cooper Goes After ‘Anonymous Internet Trolls’ Pushing Conspiracies About Newtown And Gun
Mediaite ^ | 1/15/13 | Josh Feldman

Posted on 01/15/2013 6:27:07 PM PST by Nachum

Last week Anderson Cooper took on some of the more ridiculous conspiracy theories about the tragic Sandy Hook shooting, one in particular claiming that the shooting simply never happened. But tonight, Cooper took on perhaps one of the most shocking theories of all: the whole shooting was a gigantic conspiracy to take away people’s guns.

Cooper reminded viewers of the Florida professor who has been pushing the conspiracy theories, and revealed that said professor reacted to his initial report with a blog post attacking Cooper for “wanting to cause him harm.” Cooper said that the professor has his rights to free speech, and just wanted to hold him accountable for his comments. The professor is also part of a growing conspiracy that the media is falsely reporting on the shooting in a concerted effort to take away people’s guns.

Cooper patiently debunked theories about the media coverage of the shooting, and brought on two guests, one of whom was the family member of an Aurora shooting victim, to address the conspiracies. Cooper pointed out much of the evidence cited is based on initial reporting, which Cooper admitted can often be inaccurate. Alex Seitz-Wald said many conspiracy theorists are taken in by confirmation bias and ignore any evidence that contradicts their conspiratorial beliefs.

(Excerpt) Read more at mediaite.com ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: 2ndamendment; agenda; anderson; anonymous; cnn; cooper; guncontrol; internet; newtown; nwo; propaganda; sandyhook; secondamendment
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To: DKM
Slightly off topic, but there was a pic of Hillary holding up a newspaper saying the same, but I cannot find a copy of it anywhere on the web today...

Yes, funny how google (and yahoo) image searches work these days. It isn't the "most appropriate" match, it may include "the most recent". Also searching for "The Beatles" may produce pictures of The Rolling Stones or even Sonny and Cher etc.

Sometimes my only luck in finding old images is by doing a site search of FR (site:freerepublic.com) and using appropriate terms. Even then older FR threads aren't always returned. The internet is beginning to "forget" the recent past.P

101 posted on 01/16/2013 7:52:33 AM PST by a fool in paradise (America 2013 - STUCK ON STUPID)
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To: Boogieman
I cant relate to sitting down chatting with media after just losing a child.

It seems very sick for this administration and MSM to exploit this for their agenda and undermining the constitution. Their solutions wont stop more shootings,

The families wont matter after agenda is progressed. Fast and Furious and Benghazi deaths show a track record of lack of moral compass and truth in reporting.(imo).

102 posted on 01/16/2013 8:02:39 AM PST by opentalk
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To: SvenMagnussen

No, it did not.

And it doesn’t even make sense as a conspiracy claim? This particular conspiracy would have been enormous in scope, and thus highly planned and well-executed.

And yet the people claiming this conspiracy exists are also expecting us to believe that in multiple cases, they actually advertised their conspiracy before it started. That is absurd.

And what possible advantage would the conspiracy gain from publishing such things before the event?

Sometimes people just seem very confused at how the web actually works, how web pages are created and cached, how urls are re-used, etc.

Which is fine, people don’t have to be experts, but when the neophytes who don’t understand start publishing as “fact” things that aren’t, because of their misunderstanding of how things work, then it becomes a problem for all of us.

There was NO google search which found the United Way condolence before the event happened, because the United Way, not being time travellers, and not having known about the event, did not create the condolence information before the attack took place.

I’ll let you figure out how a cache page could have on it references which have words that might have been actually written LATER than the cache was captured. It will be a good exercise for you.


103 posted on 01/16/2013 10:54:00 AM PST by CharlesWayneCT
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To: stickywillie
you don’t seem to want to find out who the smiling fellow was

Is there some doubt as to who he was? How could that be? We have his name, we know who his child was, we know his child was killed at the school, we have pictures of him with the dead child, we see the clear resemblance of his dead child and his still-living children (so much so that some idiots claimed the sister was actually the dead child come back to life).

So in what way do you think we DON'T know who the guy was? You think that not one person watching a video that was seen nationwide would stand up and say "Hey, that's not the guy, it's an imposter!"?

Or do you think the entire nation is in on the conspiracy....

I don't mind looking at things with a curious eye. Heck, I am very skeptical of EVERYTHING I read on the internet. I believe in the motto "question everything".

Of course, in this instance it means question the supposed conspiracy theories, and the result of that questioning is what you see here, disgust for the idiots who fall for this stuff.

104 posted on 01/16/2013 11:12:35 AM PST by CharlesWayneCT
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To: CharlesWayneCT

OK, why don’t to show us where that information resides. I have never seen it.


105 posted on 01/16/2013 12:07:35 PM PST by stickywillie
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To: Boogieman

As a woman, I don’t know one ‘long gun’ from another and you know we had many different versions of how many guns were used and how many were found inside the school, plus the Medical Examiner’s report that they were shot with a ‘long gun’.

SO, we are NOT idiots for asking questions, and I resent some OTHER pompous people, here, who keep referring to us as ‘idiots’ for wondering.

I am hearing impaired and the computer is my lifeline. I spend hours a day watching and reading and am probably more well informed than many here. I’ve watched MANY videos, but not being able to understand speech well makes me depend upon the written word - and ‘asking questions’.

Thank you for a reasoned reply.


106 posted on 01/16/2013 12:48:16 PM PST by potlatch (~)
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To: iopscusa

Bump to what you said!


107 posted on 01/16/2013 12:52:23 PM PST by potlatch (~)
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To: potlatch
My daughter died two months ago and there is no way a grieving parent could do what he did. No Way!

________________________________

Research personality disorder - narcissism - inappropriate affect. The guy's behavior is text book example of what you will find.

108 posted on 01/16/2013 1:07:22 PM PST by wtc911 (Amigo - you've been had.)
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To: stickywillie
Photo is from ABC News archives. #27 of 144 pics that I just went through this afternoon... Girl in red & black dress is Emilie Parker ONE OF THE SHOOTING VICTIMS! Pic was taken on the day of the memorial... WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?
109 posted on 01/16/2013 1:22:11 PM PST by wesagain (The God (Elohim) of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is the One True GOD.)
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To: potlatch

“SO, we are NOT idiots for asking questions, and I resent some OTHER pompous people, here, who keep referring to us as ‘idiots’ for wondering.”

Well, in their defense, there have only been a few posters who have stepped up to try to combat the conspiracy theorists, so those posters have probably answered the very same questions, from thread to thread, dozens and dozens of times. In that situation, it’s easy to lose your patience with the people asking questions.

Also, there are some people proposing theories that are not only strange or unsupported, but downright offensive. I have to really suppress my outrage when responding to some on these threads, or I think I would get myself banned.


110 posted on 01/16/2013 1:28:04 PM PST by Boogieman
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To: wtc911

Narcissism

Yes, I’m familiar with that, have read about it often. I just call it “self love”.

The list of SYMPTOMS stuns you when you first read them. None of my family or friends are like that so I can’t understand those who are.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissistic_personality_disorder

The loss of a child is the worst loss of all, so that man’s behavior is not normal. Some people just have more love in them than others do.


111 posted on 01/16/2013 1:35:14 PM PST by potlatch (~)
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To: wtc911

I just realized that you and I joined FreeRepublic on the same exact day!


112 posted on 01/16/2013 1:38:56 PM PST by potlatch (~)
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To: GenXteacher
A long study of history shows that all this isn’t new and has been done before.

Nice post. As Sarah might say, it shows good commonsense.

Today in his presentation, Obama mentioned all of the gun-caused American mass killings in recent memory -- except Ft. Hood.
113 posted on 01/16/2013 1:54:24 PM PST by Resettozero
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To: Boogieman

I don’t think my questions were inappropriate. There were so many different statements put out by law officers about the number and type of gun. Plus the absence of more pictures in a time when everyone uses cellphones to take them.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2978500/replies?c=38

I got this reply;
“Nothing you mentioned was an oddity. They are all normal things. I have no idea why you think they are “odd”. Or why you can insist on “facts” for which you have no evidence whatsoever.”

Frankly, that reply was ‘odd’, lol.
‘Normal things’, and ‘insisting on facts for which you have no evidence whatsoever’.......say what!!?


114 posted on 01/16/2013 2:12:05 PM PST by potlatch (~)
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To: potlatch

Your post is filled with the same basic questions that everyone posts when they have watched one or two of the youtube conspiracy videos, so anyone who is on these threads that isn’t a conspiracy theorist has answered them over and over again. It’s frustrating to keep retyping the same responses and trying to stay polite, so I would just take that reply as a sign of that frustration.


115 posted on 01/16/2013 2:34:31 PM PST by Boogieman
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To: potlatch
Narcissism as a personality disorder is not about 'self love' at all. That common meaning is based on the legend of Greek literature who fell in love with his own reflection.

Narcissism in the clinical sense is an affliction of the mind that causes the sufferer to create two distinctly different personae, one that he keeps to himself and one that he shows to the world.

There is a distinct inability to feel empathy or any honest emotion in the inner persona. Without the ability to feel the outer persona is forced to "act out" what the person thinks is the appropriate public response.

The behavior of the parent, seeming to be two different emotional responses, is classic in that the video shows both the lack of true feeling (inappropriate affect)as well as the seemingly scripted outer persona display of what the inner persona believes is correct.

Narcissism also allows the person to create a reality that is untrue and to genuinely believe that reality to be true. This leads to a lifetime practice of lying seemingly for no reason and then compounding the lie with more lies, that he genuinely believes, in support of the original lie.

You are cursed if you have one of these people in your life because you will never understand them and you can never change them. Living with one change you.

116 posted on 01/16/2013 2:53:26 PM PST by wtc911 (Amigo - you've been had.)
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To: wesagain
Girl in red & black dress is Emilie Parker

That is not Emilie??? That is her little sister. Emilie was 6 y/o and that girl in that dress handed down by her older sister is not 6.

117 posted on 01/16/2013 3:25:28 PM PST by Uncle Chip
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To: Uncle Chip
You really took the koolaid didn't you Uncle Chip. Her little sister is in the picture with the (so called) president's arm around her. Look at the family picture here.....
118 posted on 01/16/2013 3:34:13 PM PST by wesagain (The God (Elohim) of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is the One True GOD.)
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To: wtc911

Perhaps I should have said ‘self serving’. I’ve read up on sociopaths a number of times and there are differences between them and narcissists. Obama has been accused of being a sociopath.

Interesting article comparing the two;
http://www.naturalnews.com/036112_sociopaths_cults_influence.html


119 posted on 01/16/2013 3:40:13 PM PST by potlatch (~)
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To: wesagain

You’re the one drinking the kool aid. That picture is from over a year ago.


120 posted on 01/16/2013 4:21:41 PM PST by Uncle Chip
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