Police blotter acid @BloggersRUs

Police blotter acid

by Tom Sullivan

Photo by Tony Webster via Creative Commons.

The desperation of some people. I cannot recall how many versions of the "Clinton Body Count" chain email arrived in my box during the 1990s, but I'm sure they arrived, as most did, after multiple, non-blind-copied forwards from one list of wingnuts to the next, as many as 75 email addresses all ripe for spamming by Nigerian princes.

All things old are new again. While front pages everywhere rail against the latest Trumpian outrage — he suggested in Wilmington, NC that "Second Amendment people" could put a stop to Hillary Clinton's agenda if she wins the presidency — the Clinton "Body count" is back.

David Mikkelson writes, "We shouldn't have to tell anyone not to believe this claptrap," and it's especially embarrassing to see lefty friends trafficking in it, but there we are.

Washington, D.C. may not be the deadliest of America's cities, but neither is it idyllic. People get shot there. A teacher's assistant was shot in Alexandria in late May after coming upon a crime in progress after 2 a.m. Seven were shot and two died in late July in one night of attacks between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. But when a Democratic National Committee staffer was killed while walking in D.C. just after 4 a.m., well, that's somehow mysterious. Hillary Clinton's assassins must be responsible. Let the hunting of the next president begin.

Not to worry, Wikileaks' Julian Assange is on the case:

Seth Rich was killed last month in Washington D.C. in an early morning shooting that police have speculated was a failed robbery. Because Rich did voter outreach for the DNC and because we live in a ridiculous world, conspiracy theorists have glommed on to a fantastical story that Rich was an FBI informant meeting with purported agents who were actually a hit team sent by Hillary Clinton. There is of course absolutely zero evidence for this and Snopes has issued a comprehensive debunking of the premise itself (Rich is only 27 and has only worked at the DNC since 2014 so is unlikely to be in possession of information that might take down Clinton, he was on the phone with his girlfriend at the time of the shooting and she hasn’t reported any FBI meeting, there have been a string of robberies in the area, an FBI rendezvous at 4 a.m. only happens in movies, the whole thing is batshit crazy, etc.).

The fact that the idea is so absurd, though, has not stopped Assange from suggesting that Rich was murdered for nefarious political purposes either because he was an informant for the FBI or because he may have been a source in last month’s WikiLeaks release of thousands of DNC emails. In an interview on Tuesday that was picked up by BuzzFeed’s Andrew Kaczynski, Assange seemed to lend credence to the idea that Rich had been retaliated against.