Tag: hoax

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Grand Jury Indicts ‘Empire’ Star Jussie Smollett On 16 Felony Charges

In a stunning turn of events, Empire star Jussie Smollett has been indicted on 16 felony counts by a grand jury in Chicago.
Jussie Smollett (mug shot via Chicago Police Dept)

In a stunning turn of events, Empire star Jussie Smollett has been indicted on 16 felony counts by a grand jury in Chicago.

Smollett was charged last month with felony disorderly conduct for filing a false police report on January 29.

Smollett had claimed he was attacked during a late-night food run by two masked men. The 36-year-old actor alleged the men beat him, put a noose around his neck, and poured an unidentified liquid on his head – all while yelling homophobic and racist slurs.

Police later tracked down the two men using surveillance footage, who say Smollett paid them to stage the attack.

Chicago’s local ABC News affiliate says the grand jury returned two separate sets of charges.

One related to Smollett’s initial statement to the police about the alleged hate crime. The second set of charges are in regard to his followup interview with the police later that same day.

ABC7 reports, “The new set of charges each carry a possible sentence of probation to four years.”

During a press conference last month, Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson said that the actor initially faked a homophobic, racist letter to himself.

But when the actor didn’t get the response he desired, Johnson said Smollett paid the two brothers $3,500 to stage the attack because he was “dissatisfied with his salary.”

Stay tuned – developing story…

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Rush Limbaugh Claims Hurricane Irma A Climate Hoax, Then Flees Florida

Earlier this week, far-right radio blowhard Rush Limbaugh told his listeners that Hurricane Irma was part of a huge “liberal media” climate change hoax and that Irma would not make landfall in the U.S.

Yesterday he announced he would not be doing his show, broadcast from South Florida because he would be busy evacuating the state.

Via ThinkProgress:

“So there is a desire to advance this climate change agenda, and hurricanes are one of the fastest and best ways to do it. You can accomplish a lot just by creating fear and panic. You don’t need a hurricane to hit anywhere,” Limbaugh said on his show Tuesday. “All you need is to create the fear and panic accompanied by talk that climate change is causing hurricanes to become more frequent and bigger and more dangerous, and you create the panic, and it’s mission accomplished, agenda advanced.”

But on the show Thursday, Limbaugh said he would be off the air for the next few days.

“May as well… announce this. I’m not going to get into details because of the security nature of things, but it turns out that we will not be able to do the program here tomorrow,” Limbaugh said Thursday. “We’ll be on the air next week, folks, from parts unknown.”

Limbaugh said the show will be back on the air Monday, but to be on the air Friday would be “legally impossible” for them do to the show out of South Florida.

Listen to him admit he’s evacuating below:

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Glenn Beck Calls Measles Outbreak A Hoax

Pat Gray (L) and Glenn Beck (R)

As I understand it, there have been 646 reported cases of measles recently. Measles is quite the deadly disease when left untreated.

You’ll remember the GOP was all up in arms last fall when we had 4 people diagnosed and 1 death from Ebola.

It was ALLLL Obama’s fault! Why wasn’t he doing anything???

WHY???

And yet, here we have a preventable situation affecting hundreds of children, and fringe lunatics are calling the measles outbreak a “hoax” and “false flag” territory.

From Right Wing Watch:

Beck and co-host Pat Gray then went on to assert that even though immigrants from the Philippines are responsible for the measles outbreak, the media won’t report that because their intention is “to make the case that you’ve got to obey the government” and get vaccinated.

“Do everything you can just to obey the government.”

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K-98.3 Long Island radio hosts suspended for fabricating anti-gay birthday party invite hoax

Last Wednesday, Wednesday, the K-98.3 (WKJY) Morning Show with Steve and Leeana aired a story about a young girl’s birthday party and one parent’s objection to the same-sex situation of that girl’s parents. The story went viral and LGBT advocates were up in arms over the story.

Then came news over the weekend that the entire event was completely made up by the radio show hosts.

Today, Long Island radio station K-98.3, issued a statement:

“It was brought to K-98.3 management’s attention that all the details of the story were completely fabricated independently by Steve and Leeana.

This was done without the knowledge of K-98.3 management or ownership.

The story, presented as a real event, was, in fact, fictitious.

An internal investigation was quickly launched which has resulted in the immediate suspension of Steve Harper and Leeana Karlson from the K-98.3 Morning Show.”

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Homophobic response to “birthday party” a hoax – Radio hosts cop to making it up

After the story was shared on K-98.3 radio in Long Island that a mother had written a homophoic response to a birthday party invite on behalf of a gay couples child, the internet went insane.

Earlier this week Business Insider writer Josh Barro called the story a hoax.

Now, the radio host, Steve and Leeana, have come clean saying they made the story up.

The radio hosts have issued this apology.

Dear K-98.3 Listeners,

On Wednesday, we told you the story of Sophia’s birthday party, and one parent’s objection to the same-sex household of Sophia’s parents. We also posted the invitation on our Facebook page, and invited comments from our followers.

This story was, in fact, totally fictitious, and created by the two of us. This was done without the knowledge of K-98.3 management or ownership.

We were attempting to spur a healthy discourse on a highly passionate topic, but we made a mistake by misleading our listeners into thinking that this specific situation actually existed.

We are very sorry that we perpetuated this falsehood, even after it was clear that it had taken on a ‘life of its own.’ We deeply apologize for violating your trust, and we will work hard to regain that trust.

Sincerely,

Steve & Leeana

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Chinese zoo tries to pass off dog as “lion”

The People’s Park of Luohe in the Chinese province Henan has an amazing “African lion” on exhibit.

Kinda, sorta…

As Agence France-Presse reports, the hoax was exposed when the dog, a Tibetan mastiff, started barking.

According to the state-run publication Beijing Youth Daily, a mother and son heard the unexpected sound coming from the alleged lion during a recent visit to the zoo.

“The zoo is absolutely cheating us,” the visitor, Sharon Liu, told the paper. “They are trying to disguise the dogs as lions.”

Liu and other zoo visitors reportedly paid 15 yuan ($2.45) for the chance to see the dog and other substitute animals up close.

(source)