Robert Bowers, the Pennsylvania man accused of a fatal shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue Saturday morning, posted prolifically online about conspiracy theories and made repeated threats to Jews. Bowers frequently wrote on the social network Gab, where he made a specific threat against Jews hours before allegedly conducting Saturday’s attack. In the post, Bowers said that the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, a humanitarian aid nonprofit group that provides assistance to refugees, brought immigrants to the United States to do violence against others. “Screw your optics, I'm going in," he wrote. Bowers frequently posted about the “migrant caravan,” a group of several thousand refugees walking to the U.S.-Mexico border from Honduras to seek asylum. Preventing refugees in the caravan from entering the U.S. has been a major talking point among both right-wing commentators and President Donald Trump, who has spoken about it in recent pre-midterm election stump speeches. Bowers’ anti-Semitic posts and his apparent disdain for the caravan are tied to a viral image that appears to show refugees hopping onto the bed of a truck that had a Star of David visible on the side. The image has been widely shared on far-right forums like 4chan and the Russian propaganda operation USA Really. He reposted a screenshot of a video of the caravan that that aired on Fox News, as well as other networks, that does not mention the symbol. Bowers frequently reposted conspiracy theories about the image of the truck and reposted comments about it from other Gab users. That anti-Semitic conspiracy theories posited by the users that Bowers later reposted are still viewable on Gab. In another post, he linked to a directory of synagogues participating in an HIAS event, National Refugee Shabbat, that was held last week, saying he “appreciated” the list. Bowers also reposted a user who imploring others to be forewarned of a “false flag” attack before the midterm elections — a false claim repeated by far-right and some mainstream conservatives this week about the 14 explosive devices sent to prominent Trump critics. The biography section of Bowers’ Gab profile used his full name and said he was a verified user on the platform. His profile’s banner image included what seems to be a radar gun showing the numbers 1488, a white supremacist numeric symbol. On the page one month ago, Bowers posted pictures of his gun collection, calling it “my glock family.” Gab is a site often promoted as an alternative to Twitter for those banned from the platform for racism or harassment, like InfoWars’ Alex Jones. A study of Gab’s top posts published this year, which analyzed 22 million posts, said the social network mostly “attracts alt-right users, conspiracy theorists, and other trolls.” Gab CEO Andrew Torba issued a press release mostly defending the social network, and saying the company was alerted to Bowers’ profile shortly after the attack. Bowers’ profile has since been removed. “Gab took swift and proactive action to contact law enforcement immediately. We first backed up all user data from the account and then proceeded to suspend the account,” Torba said in the statement. “We then contacted the FBI and made them aware of this account and the user data in our possession. We are ready and willing to work with law enforcement to see to it that justice is served.” https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-new...-jewish-groups-pushed-migrant-caravan-n925256
And why did he target HIAS? HIAS works with the US government to help resettle a wide range of refugees. The organization has worked to mobilize other Jewish organizations against the Trump administration’s attempts to limit and block the admission of refugees, particularly Muslims and, more recently, those from Central America. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/oct/27/pittsburgh-shooting-suspect-antisemitism
Trump jokes about canceling event due to bad hair day after declining to cancel it over shooting Really? The bodies aren't cold yet and he is having a party?
So let's take a look at reality instead of exGOPers fantasy narrative.... His posts included criticism of President Trump Among the many anti-Semitic social media posts were comments suggesting that President Trump was surrounded by too many Jewish people. "Trump is surrounded by k****", "things will stay the course," read one post on the Gab social media platform, which used a derogatory term to describe Jews. Another post, apparently intended as an insult, read: "Trump is a globalist, not a nationalist," Bowers said two days before the shooting. "There is no #MAGA as long as there is a k*** infestation. He said he didn't vote for Trump Roughly four hours before the shooting, Bowers commented in a post that he did not vote for Trump. Read more for yourself at CNN... https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/27/us/synagogue-attack-suspect-robert-bowers-profile/index.html
You know who else criticized Trump? "He's a f**king moron." --Rex Tillerson, Trump's Secretary of State "An idiot, a dope with the intelligence of a kindergartner" --HR McMaster, Trump's National Security Advisor "He's an idiot" --Steven Mnuchin, Trump's Treasury Secretary "Dumb as sh*t" --Gary Cohn, Trump's Senior Economic Adviser "What a f**king idiot.” --Rupert Murdoch, owner of Trump's news network "He's like an 11-year-old child." --Steve Bannon, Trump's Senior Adviser These are all nevertrumpers now? I didn't say he did, Trump is too liberal for him, that's how far right this idiot was. He didn't want to just stop the caravan, he went ahead and murdered people who help people like that even attempt at helping refugees. Trump just hates brown people, this guy wants to kill them - that is a difference but not a big one when they are all operating under the same ideology.
Yes, you are great at spotting idiots given your unconditional support of Trump, who would doubt your judgement on idiots here.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...wers-identified-suspect-synagogue/1789239002/ #MAGAshooter says Trump wasn't MAGA enough Bowers, though, said he did not vote for Trump. He seemed to believe the president was too soft on those of the Jewish faith and wrote that Trump was surrounded by those individuals, preventing him from keeping true to his slogan: "Make America Great Again." Also, there goes the "warning signs" defense: Law enforcement officials at a news conference Saturday afternoon said Bowers was not known to authorities, making it hard to foresee the tragedy.
Tons of lefties didn't vote for Hillary; now they're not democrats nor liberals by your logic. The suspect's anti-Semitism fueled other hate speech that he shared on Gab. He promoted a conspiracy theory that Jews were helping transport members of the migrant caravans in Central America. He repeatedly called the migrants "invaders," using language that's common on right-wing TV and radio. "I have noticed a change in people saying 'illegals' that now say 'invaders'," read one post, six days before the shooting. "I like this." The suspect repeatedly disparaged the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, a Jewish refugee support group, by claiming that "HIAS likes to bring in invaders that kill our people." HIAS held a "National Refugee Shabbat" last weekend.