Posted on 12/07/2016 6:46:38 PM PST by nickcarraway
East Side Pies co-owner Noah Polk first heard of the conspiracy theory known as “pizzagate” around the time of the presidential election. The fake news story was started by an online community, fueled by misinterpretations of emails released by WikiLeaks, that claimed associates of Hillary Clinton were behind a child sex-trafficking ring headquartered at the Comet Ping Pong pizza restaurant in Washington, D.C. The fake story turned into a real crime scene on Sunday when a gunman walked into that Washington restaurant and fired a shot. Now, Austin police are investigating harassment and vandalism that’s been waged against the local restaurant by believers of the “pizzagate” conspiracy.
For Polk’s restaurant, the conspiracy theory first hit home when someone he’d never met left a review on East Side Pies’ Facebook page. The comment mentioned “pizzagate” and Comet Ping Pong owner James Alefantis. It was the commenter’s second post in a few days. The first had referenced pedophilia.
That day Polk was also alerted to a thread on the message board Reddit suggesting East Side Pies might also be a part of the fictional sex-trafficking ring. Once he went down that internet rabbit hole, Polk was shocked to find myriad posts falsely tying East Side Pies to the debunked conspiracy theory.
East Side Pies is continuing to suffer sporadic harassment and name-calling via social media, and one of its delivery trucks was vandalized with a scrawled epithet.
The online posts have made wild and baseless accusations about East Side Pies. They interpreted the restaurant’s logo as a symbol of the “Illuminati,” questioned the meaning of photos of pizza-eating children on East Side Pies’ Facebook account, inferred that a picture of staffers with former Austin Mayor Lee Leffingwell was proof of nefarious political ties and claimed co-owner Michael Freid, an alumnus of the Culinary Institute of America, had “connections to the CIA.”
“This is absolutely insane and unfounded and ridiculous,” Polk said Tuesday of his thoughts after reading the initial posts. “The dots they are trying to connect are so ludicrous. I was not happy about it.”
Polk said he became worried about the safety of his employees, as well as his restaurant’s reputation, and he contacted Austin police and the FBI on Monday.
Austin police on Wednesday confirmed that a report for criminal mischief had been filed Tuesday involving one of the restaurant’s vehicles. A police spokesman said profane and sexual statements had been carved into the vehicle in the 5300 block of Airport Boulevard. The complete report on the incident and additional details weren’t immediately available Wednesday.
The online targeting of East Side Pies had gained steam Saturday when Owen Shroyer — who hosts a live-streaming podcast called “Engage Liberty” and makes videos for the Austin-based conspiracy-fueled website Infowars.com — hosted a 21/2-hour broadcast detailing his visits to multiple East Side Pies locations.
In the broadcast uploaded to YouTube, Shroyer said he was “weirded out and creeped out” by his visits to East Side Pies. What he saw, he says, left him “gripping my gun tighter every night.”
The “weird stuff” he encountered? Employees with large-gauge piercings and blue hair, a “weird locked-up grate in the back” of one location, disturbing rock music and band fliers with “satanic” symbols. The “coup de grace,” according to Shroyer: two children playing dominoes in the presence of an adult.
He also thought the restaurant’s logo, a pizza in the shape of an eye, with the catchphrase “We know what you want,” was a nod to the Illuminati.
While the other accusations probably don’t require much explanation from a laid-back, family-friendly, rock-and-roll pizza joint in the Live Music Capital of the World, Polk offered a quick back-story on the name and logo.
Polk, who opened the restaurant with Freid in 2006, wanted to name the restaurant East Side Pies, written as three separate words. When he told a friend, the guy immediately quipped, “ESP. We know what you want.” Thus was born a clever piece of marketing, soon to be accompanied by a logo with a circular pizza minus a slice representing an eyeball.
Polk has received about a half-dozen calls over the past several days from people using unidentifiable phone numbers requesting interviews with East Side Pies management or ownership.
The co-owners refused the requests from the suspicious callers, because, in the words of Polk, “You argue with the fool, you’re the fool yourself.”
On Sunday, a North Carolina man was arrested in Washington, D.C., after entering Comet Ping Pong with a semi-automatic weapon and firing at least one shot. Police said he later told them he was “self-investigating” conspiracy theories about child slaves there. The incident, which made national news, reaffirmed to Polk that his instinct to contact law enforcement was correct.
“Luckily nobody got hurt during the shooting, but I do believe it’s come to light now, it’s a national story, about fake news,” Polk said. “I do believe people who’ve been on the fence or thought maybe there was something to it … now most thinking people will realize that this is fake and not to get behind it or think there is any truth to it.”
Freid and Polk said the false accusations and character assassination has been “alarming, disappointing, disconcerting and scary.”
“The biggest thing: It was unfair,” Freid said. “We have too many other things to do just to keep our business going every day. It’s completely unfounded and ludicrous. It is absolutely absurd.”
How the freaking aitch do you know there isn’t an investigation into any of this?
Oh wait, you don’t know.
All that is clear to me is that there is a cadre that keeps attacking everyone who thinks there is something there there. Oddly enough, such people are on the same side as the NYT.
Odd.
There isn’t going to be. Because any investigator that goes beyond reddit and 4chan for “evidence” is going to be laughing at themselves for even entertaining the idea of investigating this.
The point is this is way bigger than Comet Pizza.
The Clintons personally got Silsby charges reduced.
It’s all connected in a huge elite run pedo ring.
Yet not one witness, nor victim claiming wrongdoing.
But it’s a global conspiracy of tens of thousands of children and perpetrators.
Is debunking pedo pizza a full time hobby or are you paid?
“.Because any investigator that goes beyond reddit and 4chan for “evidence” is going to be laughing at themselves for even entertaining the idea of investigating this.”
I read on Reddit, that someone read on 4Chan, that someone heard on Alex Jones, that someone read on Reddit that the pepperonis on Comet’s pizza are arranged like a pentagram.
That’s all you needI It proves the whole conspiracy!
If you think it’s a hobby, or that I am paid then you haven’t been reading what I have been saying.
If you think it’s a hobby, or that I am paid then you haven’t been reading what I have been saying.
Wow. Your post is totally code for pedophilia!
Investigate Timpanagos1! He said PIZZA.
“So only the law can accuse?”
If you want to make the accusation, go ahead and do it.
Who committed what sex crime? To whom?
“How did a pizza restaurant owner end up so powerful in D.C. and why did Democrats hold fundraisers in a little local pizza restaurant?”
He’s the boyfriend of the founder of Media Matters, and a bundler for the DNC.
Well, some other people have accused Bill Clinton of flying on Epstein’s plane down to the island, long before this pizzagate stuff started. However, I think it was the same person that was accusing a whole slew of celebrities and she doesn’t seem to have been able to substantiate any of her stories.
“Do they really need to know details of everything that goes on to have a good idea something bad is going on?”
So you’re okay with liberals calling the police when they see someone open carrying? I mean, they don’t need to know the details of everything to have a good idea that the person is going to do something bad with the gun, right?
“Some people here seem to know all about it. Strange isn’t? “
Hard not to when people have been posting about it on FR constantly for a month now.
Gee, it’s almost like they didn’t want to take pictures of a homosexual wedding.
I did not say anyone committed a sex crime. Others have. I accuse them only of using coded language, symbology, artwork, and talking (posting) like pedophiles and spiritcooking fellow travelers.
Defend these freaks all you want.
>>just to stop this story
IMHO, “this story” (the “pizzagate” story) is a tangent folks in Reddit’s “The Donald” forum stumbled onto (either accidentally or by misdirection) when they found an image file name “pizza.jpg” attached to an email in the “Podesta Emails” that were released by Wikileaks.
I examine/debunked the assertion there was a hidden Zip file in Pizza.jpg here:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3495383/posts?page=181#181
But then folks read a bunch of emails that had various references to “Pizza” - and presto, the fixation of “pizzagate”, centered on the Pizza “code”, fed by some of the typical rainbow reprobate stuff you’d expect to be self-documented by the Commit Pizza crowd, was born.
There’s no doubt the behavior those folks are proud of is not something we on FR would condone or want to see “normal” in association with the leadership of our Republic.
BUT, the “pizzagate” focus has become a tangent that’s distracting from what the Podesta emails really appear to document — the Clinton Foundation.
This guy George Webb, whoever he is, appears to have applied a reasonable approach to putting light on the subject of the alleged arms trafficking, money laundering, and other activities of the Clinton Foundation:
[Day 40 - Where is Eric Braverman?]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vbhni75jYio
FYI, Eric Braverman was the CEO of the Clinton Foundation, who has disappeared.
From what I understand so far, Webb is following up on the leads suggested by Braverman before Braverman’s disappearance.
I’d suggest reviewing what he’s put together on his Eric Braverman series to give yourself a perspective on what the scope of the Clinton Foundation’s alleged activity is.
Remember Benghazi and Extortion 11? The very least owe those guys is to go into the rabbit hole and try to make sense of what we can.
Yep. Right on cue.
>>Yep. Right on cue.
What does the Webb’s presentation of the Clinton Foundation’s associations and activies tell you about where “pizzagate” fits into the overall landscape?
[Day 40 - Where is Eric Braverman?]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vbhni75jYio
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