QAnon Targeted Me – The Fallout Is Frightening

BY BRIAN KRASSENSTEIN March 2, 2019

I’ve been reporting and investigating on a group, which I also prefer to call a cult, called QAnon, and while I’m sure this story will only exacerbate things on my end, it needs to be out there.

QAnon is basically an anonymous individual, or group of individuals who claim that an elaborate ‘deep state’ conspiracy against Trump exists. “Q” as this group or individual refers to themselves, posts almost daily on the 8chan website, and claims to be a ‘high-level government informant’.

It all began in October of 2017 on 4chan immediately following a remark at a military dinner by the president, where Trump said that the dinner was “Maybe the calm before the storm.” When a reporter then curiously asked, “What storm, Mr. President?” Trump replied, “You’ll find out.”

While their conspiracies run wild, the central belief among this group is that Trump has a plan, is in complete control of everything, and eventually will prevail over the “deep state.”

This last week, the official Q account on 8chan dropped a message, #2884, referring to Hill Reporter’s Ed Krassenstein and myself. The message, which linked to an edited parody video of me, where I jokingly say that people pay me to tweet, also included the following text:

“Nothing to See Here. You are the news now.”

The video tweet that it directed to, also read “The @EdKrassen @krassenstein brothers are on video admitting they’re spreading misinformation & being paid to divide Americans. Evil people PAYING evil people to do their evil deeds.”

Within minutes of this post being made by the official Q account on 8chan, a wave of disgusting emails, phone calls and Twitter messages targeting my family, my family’s businesses and myself began circulating.

“One day I am going to see to it that I will beat the “f*ck out of you. I’m going to beat the sh”t out of you. I’m willing to pay a greater cost than you ever will,” one angry voicemail stated.

Other Q followers on Twitter wrote lengthy conspiracy-filled threads, which circulated among QAnon like wildfire, suggesting that I have committed massive FARA violations, because I am somehow linked to Chinese trade since a distant cousin of mine works and lives in China. Then these individuals tried to suggest that I too must be working for China and that’s why I’m against Trump because his Chinese tariffs must be hurting our business.

For the recorded I have never worked for China, I have never traveled to China, and I don’t plan to goto China anytime in the near future. Ed Krassenstein did write an article years ago about a Chinese 3D Printing company though. That’s what they ran with, somehow linking a tech article written by Ed to an insane theory that we are involved in some deep underground Chinese conspiracy.

You would think that people would have quickly realized that this was all bologna, but that’s exactly what did not happen.

“Excellent thread,” wrote one deceived individual.“Everybody needs to read this research on the Krassenstein twins. China connections and everything. No wonder they hate Trump.,” wrote another person who can’t seem to think for themselves.“Wow. I’m impressed! You did a lot of work. I’m not surprised there’s something fishy in this but never thought about the China connection (as well as Feinstein). Great work,” another excited Twitter user stated.

That wasn’t all though. After QAnon realized that they had shared an edited video of us, they then had to try and make up for it. Instead of apologizing for putting out false information, which basically placed a target over our heads for all of this deranged cult to fire at (not literally I hope), they instead dug deeper, this time posting a new message days later, just as the threats began to die down. This post read:

“You are on the right track.”

Ex: video clip re: paid to shill re: K bros. (I assume meaning us)

Think context.

Think bigger picture.

Think connections.

Define ‘Map’.

The truth can always be found”

So basically, all that Q does is throw out a bunch of ambiguous words and phrases, so that no matter what happens next they can always twist those ambiguous words and phrases to meet their false narrative.

For example, they could use this very article to claim that their prediction came true. I mean after all, I am seemingly giving a lot of “context” and “connections” about this conspiracy, providing my readers with a “bigger picture” of these cult members. Perhaps Q’s next post will read:

“We warned you all, ‘think bigger picture, think context, think connections’. Brian just used all three of those phrases in an article. We knew this was coming.”

That’s the “bigger picture!” Q is a cult-like group of individuals who can’t think for themselves.

https://hillreporter.com/qanon-targeted-me-the-fallout-is-frightening-26281

QAnon’s North Korea posts reveal a flaw in the conspiracy theory

Mike Rothschild— 2019-03-02 06:30 am

In the QAnon conspiracy theory, almost nothing happens without having a secret double meaning. This goes for everything from minutiae like typos in President Donald Trump’s tweets to major events like the negotiations between the United States and North Korea. Right before the 2018 summit between Trump and Kim Jong Un, Q spoke of a “deal made” between the two nations, and that the CIA’s “strings” had been cut. The implication was clear: Trump and Kim had already made a denuclearization pact in November 2017, during Trump’s first Asian trip.

Not only that, but it was being kept secret, and the whole Singapore summit was a play to throw the deep state off the trail of what was really happening.

If such a deal exists, it hasn’t been revealed to the public. And now a second summit between Trump and Kim took place this week in Hanoi, ostensibly to build on the progress made in Singapore. Naturally, Q had predicted in a recent drop that it would be “historic” and that everything involved had been “planned out ahead of time” as part of a great series of events that would culminate in 21 days.

QAnon believers went along with it, proclaiming it would reunify Korea, end the long war between North and South, and make the world a safer and better place, thanks to President Trump. But unlike the love fest between the two leaders in Singapore, this summit ended in failure as both sides left Hanoi without a deal, pointing fingers over who was to blame. And one question that nobody asked, either before or after the second summit, was why would the second summit be “historic” and “planned out ahead of time” if there was already a deal? Why didn’t Q mention the “deal” that had already been made in any of his posts? Why even take the risk of a second summit at all, given that QAnon already “revealed” that Trump survived an assassination attempt via submarine-fired-missile on his way to Singapore.

In fact, Q acted as if the fate of the world hung in the balance–throwing up a few photos of the location (likely screen grabs from press pool videos), titled “Peace is the Prize,” to prove he was there, along with a series of ominous numbered posts simply called “tests.”

And if such a deal had been made, wouldn’t now be the perfect time to make it public, with coverage of Michael Cohen’s testimony dominating the news? Sure, President Trump might have been called a conman and a racist who likely committed numerous felonies, but nobody would care if he ended the Korean War and brought the Kim regime into the modern world.

It seems like a pretty major continuity error for the summit to be “historic” and all part of a show at the same time. It’s either important or not important. So why did QAnon make such a major mistake? There are several possibilities.

One is that someone else is running the QAnon account, and intends to take the story in a different direction. Why else would whoever is posting now ignore the previous posts about a deal having been made? Did the deep state sabotage the summit? Was the Cohen testimony their way of distracting the president to the point of being bested by Kim Jong Un? Such events would render whatever “deal” was made previously moot, right?

1/2

QAnon’s identity is still unknown, with a variety of theories for who is making the posts, encompassing everyone from President Trump himself to a small group of conspiracy grifters.

It’s possible that multiple people post as Q, or that whoever started Q is not the same person as the one currently posting, and that the identity has been “handed off” on several occasions. Even Alex Jones claimed that Q’s original identity was “compromised” in May, with the deep state taking control of the account in order to push propaganda.

There’s some evidence to be found in Q’s posts themselves, which tend to veer wildly in tone and style, going from long lists of rhetorical questions to out-of-context photos to Bible quotes with little rhyme or reason.

Q’s first posts from November 2017 are made in an extremely different style, using concrete predictions with specific names and dates rather than the now familiar drumbeat of rhetorical questions and riddles that Q uses now. It’s possible that the reason for this is because all those predictions failed and Q needed to change styles or risk losing all credibility. But it also could be a sign that the identity was indeed “handed off,” and that the current writer changed Q’s style.

So the change in storylines could indicate someone else running the QAnon account.

But it’s just as likely that it doesn’t actually matter what Q says, even if one drop contradicts another. Such contradictions are an inherent part of conspiracy theories. Believers are practiced in the art of cognitive dissonance and have little trouble believing two contradictory things at once. A classic example is the idea that Barack Obama was secretly a Muslim and a terrorist sympathizer, while also ordering the mission that killed Osama Bin Laden.

More recently, QAnon pushed the idea that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was being kept alive through “off market drugs,” continuing to stick to it even once she returned to work and began issuing decisions—which would require a conspiracy so massive it would take every other justice to comply with it. Could QAnon believers be conned into thinking Trump and Kim already have made a deal, while simultaneously walking away from a failed summit with an attempt to make a deal falling apart?

Absolutely. And of course, the Q poster would know that, and have the freedom to write anything, knowing it’ll be believed.

It’s also possible that the poster simply screwed up their own continuity. Q has made numerous mistakes before, making typos and correcting them with subsequent posts, along with factual errors and posting fake pictures as real. Naturally, all of these are rolled into the conspiracy, most recently seen when Q posted a photoshopped picture of comedian Patton Oswalt as if it were real, only to backtrack and claim the deception was on purpose when the fake was called out.

Ultimately, whatever QAnon posts is not as important as what Q believers take from it. In the case of the failed Hanoi summit, they’ll take whatever they need to take that furthers their belief that Trump is in control, and (very slowly) eradicating the forces of evil that the last 200 years have kept propped up. Was it a failure sabotaged by the cabal? Was it a secret success that we just can’t hear about yet? Was it both?

It doesn’t really matter, as long as it keeps the story going.

https://www.dailydot.com/layer8/qanon-north-korea/

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>>5463909

He created Minecraft, the video game that is pretty popular.

>>5464075

>>5464266