My attention while watching the debate was focused on how Trump would talk about Springfield, Ohio. He mixed up his words and messed up badly. It was his worst gaffe of the debate. It was a mistake to mention Springfield at all, though it could have been done better. I was focused on Springfield because it went viral on X only a couple days ago. Trump didn't learn about the viral story out of Springfield until less than a day before the debate. This was not enough time, obviously, for him to process the information and formulate a plan to exploit it. I was curious to see if Kamala knew about the Springfield "cat hoax", but she never had to respond because the moderator gave a thorough rebuttal to Donald Trump in her stead.
Why? He's not trying to get a good grade in debate class. He's trying to frame the election in advantageous terms. The more people talk about this, the better for Trump.
It hits on a visceral level: a town being destroyed by Biden's policies. The cat is just the hook to get the media to report it. "Rust Belt town goes to shit" will never get airtime. "People hunting cats" is irresistible. The media won't be able to help themselves.
Sufficiently debunked? In what way? The debunkings have seemingly confirmed that Haitians are poaching waterfowl and have killed at least one person's cat and were in the process of butchering it when police intervened. Whether or not that was for food is unconfirmed, but no one should take official sources seriously regarding that.
Here's one alleged debunking. When I look at the evidence they present I believe the citizen accounts over the "authorities" because the latter are far more incentivized to lie. So IDK. If you are inclined to believe the city manager, then I suppose it is dubunked. I think that if you ask a guy if he's doing a bad job, hes unlikely to say yes.
I haven't seen any citizen accounts of a Haitian having killed a person's cat, though, just an account of an account of an account. A screenshot of a private Facebook post about a report from a neighbor about what a daughter's friend saw ... is technically evidence, but it's approximately the same quality of evidence as a typical urban legend, the sort of "Fw: Fw: Re: Fw: Watch Out!" material that used to spread virally back when the only way we had to spread things virally was email. Today you can read a hundred of them en masse if you prefer.
Recorded evidence would be nice, too, now that we live in a country where 90+% of the population habitually carry video cameras in our pockets. How does someone see something shocking, something ongoing (like a hanging cat corpse) rather than instant, and not be on the ball enough to get photo and video evidence? Even if you're just going to call the police, and you don't anticipate the need to get independent evidence in case the conspiracy goes all the way to the top, wouldn't it be a good idea to get evidence to give to the police in case the criminals mess with the crime scene while you're waiting for a cop to arrive?
Obviously nobody will care about this at all since it's happening in Shelbyville Dayton instead of Springfield, and appears to be a Congolese guy rather than a Haitian!
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Notes -
My attention while watching the debate was focused on how Trump would talk about Springfield, Ohio. He mixed up his words and messed up badly. It was his worst gaffe of the debate. It was a mistake to mention Springfield at all, though it could have been done better. I was focused on Springfield because it went viral on X only a couple days ago. Trump didn't learn about the viral story out of Springfield until less than a day before the debate. This was not enough time, obviously, for him to process the information and formulate a plan to exploit it. I was curious to see if Kamala knew about the Springfield "cat hoax", but she never had to respond because the moderator gave a thorough rebuttal to Donald Trump in her stead.
Why? He's not trying to get a good grade in debate class. He's trying to frame the election in advantageous terms. The more people talk about this, the better for Trump.
It hits on a visceral level: a town being destroyed by Biden's policies. The cat is just the hook to get the media to report it. "Rust Belt town goes to shit" will never get airtime. "People hunting cats" is irresistible. The media won't be able to help themselves.
Reports of people eating pets were sufficiently debunked, and him rambling on about an obviously fake story made him look uninformed and weak.
Sufficiently debunked? In what way? The debunkings have seemingly confirmed that Haitians are poaching waterfowl and have killed at least one person's cat and were in the process of butchering it when police intervened. Whether or not that was for food is unconfirmed, but no one should take official sources seriously regarding that.
Links?
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2024/sep/09/social-media/authorities-rebut-claims-that-haitian-immigrants-a/
Here's one alleged debunking. When I look at the evidence they present I believe the citizen accounts over the "authorities" because the latter are far more incentivized to lie. So IDK. If you are inclined to believe the city manager, then I suppose it is dubunked. I think that if you ask a guy if he's doing a bad job, hes unlikely to say yes.
I haven't seen any citizen accounts of a Haitian having killed a person's cat, though, just an account of an account of an account. A screenshot of a private Facebook post about a report from a neighbor about what a daughter's friend saw ... is technically evidence, but it's approximately the same quality of evidence as a typical urban legend, the sort of "Fw: Fw: Re: Fw: Watch Out!" material that used to spread virally back when the only way we had to spread things virally was email. Today you can read a hundred of them en masse if you prefer.
I wouldn't consider this debunked, but we're going to need to trace the gossip chain back a few more links before I'd consider it confirmed either.
Recorded evidence would be nice, too, now that we live in a country where 90+% of the population habitually carry video cameras in our pockets. How does someone see something shocking, something ongoing (like a hanging cat corpse) rather than instant, and not be on the ball enough to get photo and video evidence? Even if you're just going to call the police, and you don't anticipate the need to get independent evidence in case the conspiracy goes all the way to the top, wouldn't it be a good idea to get evidence to give to the police in case the criminals mess with the crime scene while you're waiting for a cop to arrive?
Looks like Rufo has found a pretty well validated case of cats on the grill:
https://x.com/realchrisrufo/status/1834926318883852543
Obviously nobody will care about this at all since it's happening in
ShelbyvilleDayton instead of Springfield, and appears to be a Congolese guy rather than a Haitian!More options
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