User:Binarystep/sandbox2

Claim: The Wikileaks emails contain numerous pedophile code words.

Rebuttal: The only source for that is an anonymous post on /pol/, which provided no evidence for its claims. None of these words have ever been proven to have pedophilia-related usage prior to Pizzagate.

Claim: The code words were confirmed by the FBI.

Rebuttal: No, they weren't. You're thinking of the FBI's list of pedophile symbols.

Claim: But "cheese pizza" has been used to mean child porn.

Rebuttal: And the phrase "cheese pizza" doesn't appear at all in the Podesta emails. Additionally, the existence of one food-related code word doesn't prove that all food-related words are code words.

Claim: They obviously shortened "cheese pizza" to just "pizza".

Rebuttal: There's no evidence that anyone's actually done that. The whole point of the "cheese pizza" term is that it has the acronym "CP", hence other terms like "Captain Planet"

Claim: What about the email where a realtor asks John Podesta about a black and white handkerchief with a "map that seems pizza-related" on it? According to the handkerchief code, black means S&M and white means pedophilia.

Rebuttal: The Wikipedia article that's usually cited doesn't actually mention white handkerchiefs, though vandals started adding them after Pizzagate started. Wikipedia's list specifically originates from The Leatherman's Handbook II by Larry Townsend, which, again, doesn't assign a meaning to white handkerchiefs. Granted, several versions of the handkerchief code exist, but the ones that do mention white handkerchiefs generally define them as referring to safe sex or jacking it. In fact, going by one version, Kewpie dolls are used to signify pedophilia, not white handkerchiefs.

Claim: What kind of handkerchief has a "pizza-related map" on it?

Rebuttal: This kind, for starters. A handkerchief with "a map that seems pizza-related" could mean any number of things, and there's no reason to assume it's a coded reference to pedophilia. If it wasn't for that 4chan post claiming that "pizza = girl" and "map = semen", would you still have assumed the email was about pedophilia?

Claim: But "MAP" means "minor attracted person", i.e. a pedophile.

Rebuttal: That wouldn't make sense in the context of the email:

Claim: What about the email where Stratfor employees ask how thinly they should slice a single slice of pizza so everyone in the office gets some? That's clearly code for something.

Rebuttal: It's clearly a joke, as shown by the replies to said email:

Claim: What about the email revealing that Obama spent $65,000 on pizza and hot dogs delivered to the White House, even though outside food isn't allowed in the White House?

Rebuttal: The exact email says this:

Note that the email was sent on May 14, 2009, not long after Obama had large quantities of pizza ingredients flown to the White House to be prepared by Pi Pizzeria. Shortly afterwards, right-wing websites criticized Obama for allegedly spending taxpayers' money on the event.

Additionally, the email's sender is Fred Burton, who was very vocal about his dislike of Obama, to the point of referring to him as "Hobama" in some emails. Keeping that in mind, as well as Burton's specific reference to Obama spending "$65,000 of the tax-payers money", it's pretty obvious the email is just a joke referencing this controversy.

Claim: What about the email to John Podesta where Herb Sandler asks if he'd do better playing dominoes on cheese or pasta? That doesn't even make sense.

Rebuttal: It sounds weird because it's an inside joke stripped of context. Herb Sandler, who is friends with John Podesta, rented a house on Martha's Vineyard in August 2014. Sandler is a widower, but he was joined there by his daughter Susan and possibly other family.

John and Mary Podesta joined them for almost a week. While Podesta was there, he taught the Sandlers how to play dominoes. In 2015, the Sandlers returned to Martha's Vineyard and played dominoes again. Herb Sandler ended up playing poorly, and made a joke about Podesta changing the rules.

Then in December, John Podesta sent Herb Sandler a Christmas present. Podesta already had a habit of regularly sending pasta as a gift, as shown by an email from Herb Sandler the previous year, as well as an email from Jennifer Palmieri. But in 2015, Podesta sent Sandler cheese instead of the usual pasta.

In response, Sandler made a joke asking if he'd do better at playing dominoes after eating cheese instead of pasta, as he played badly last time. As for the "on cheese or pasta" phrasing, that's just a joke comparing food to performance-enhancing drugs.

Claim: What about the email where Brooke Coleman tells John Podesta she isn't picky about what kind of pizza she gets as long as there's no hair on it?

Rebuttal: That's fake. Despite the numerous references to this email on Pizzagate websites, no one's ever provided a direct link to the email itself, only a screenshot at best. In reality, the screenshot's edited from an existing email, as shown by the timestamp and the inconsistent subject line.

Claim: Why did Joe Biden give Barack Obama a friendship bracelet with a slice of pizza on it?

Rebuttal: That's a slice of cake, as shown by literally any other angle.

Claim: What about the kidnapping of Madeleine McCann? The police released e-fit sketches of the kidnappers, who look exactly like John and Tony Podesta.

Rebuttal: The sketches are of the same person. The only reason they look different is because they're based on two different eyewitness accounts. Additionally, witnesses described the suspect as "aged between 20 and 40". The Podesta brothers were 59 and 65 at the time of McCann's disappearance.

Also, research suggests that e-fit sketches only have a 20% accuracy rate, and their accuracy is entirely dependent on the level of detail given by the witness.

Claim: It's unlikely two people would give such different descriptions.

Rebuttal: Not really. Eyewitness testimonies are notoriously inaccurate, and this would be far from the first time witnesses gave completely different accounts of what they saw.

Claim: It's unlikely that the sketches would just happen to look like the Podestas.

Rebuttal: It's unlikely, but it's definitely possible. People look like different people all the time, that's nothing new or unusual. This wouldn't even be the first time a police sketch ended up looking like someone else.

Claim: The Podesta brothers were in Praia da Luz, Portugal at the same time Madeleine McCann was kidnapped. Not only that, but they were staying at a villa owned by Clement Freud, who was a pedophile.

Rebuttal: The only source for that is an "FBI anon" cited by Victurus Libertas, which provides no evidence that this person is a legitimate FBI insider. Victurus Libertas also has a history of posting fake stories, such as the time they claimed Hillary Clinton threw a tantrum and threw a glass at a staffer, which didn't happen.

Claim: Besta Pizza, which is just down the street from Comet Ping Pong, used to have a logo that looks exactly like one of the FBI-confirmed pedophile symbols. Not only that, but they changed their logo after Pizzagate broke.

Rebuttal: First off, is it really surprising they'd change their logo after people start associating it with pedophilia? That doesn't prove they're guilty, it means they don't want people accusing them of trafficking kids. As for their logo looking "exactly like a pedophile symbol", triangular spirals are a pretty common shape. Plenty of logos incorporate them, including Actualized.org, Amateo Ra, Arrowhead Towne Center, Gracie Jiu-Jitsu, the city of Lakewood, Colorado, and Landfall Games.

Claim: All of those businesses are being investigated for possible connections to Pizzagate.

Rebuttal: So in other words, you've preemptively decided that all triangular spirals are references to pedophilia, then used your assumption as proof of itself. That's circular reasoning.

Claim: Terasol, another restaurant near Comet Ping Pong, used to have a different pedophile symbol on their website.

Rebuttal: The only thing those symbols have in common is that they're both hearts.

Claim: Terasol's clearly using a variant of the original symbol so they don't get caught.

Rebuttal: That's not a thing. The FBI document being used as the sole evidence of these pedophile symbols existing in the first place also shows that they're always depicted pretty consistently.

Claim: A logo on Comet Ping Pong's menu looks like yet another pedophile symbol.

Rebuttal: That's a stretch. That's arguably the most common design for ping pong-related logos.

Claim: James Alefantis, supposedly a normal restaurant owner, is #49 on GQ's list of the 50 most powerful people in Washington, DC.

Rebuttal: GQ is a men's style magazine, not a definitive source on the most powerful people in the nation's capital. To put things into perspective, the list also features a blogger (#34; Ezra Klein), weather bloggers (#38; Capitol Weather Gang), another restaurant owner (#41; José Andrés), party planners (#42; Svetlana Legetic, Jayne Sandman, and Barbara Martin), a baseball player (#47; Stephen Strasburg), and bookstore owners (#50; Bradley Graham and Lissa Muscatine).

Taking all this into consideration, it's pretty obvious that GQ's list of "the most powerful people in DC" is just a list of notable people in the city, since the alternative would be a fairly bland list of politicians. Additionally, seeing as how Alefantis was previously dating, it makes sense that GQ would consider him a notable figure.

Claim: Edgar Welch, the Comet Ping Pong "gunman", was an actor.

Rebuttal: He had an uncredited extra role in a D-list horror movie. It really doesn't take all that much to qualify for an IMDb page. Besides, him being an actor doesn't somehow make the shooting a false flag. There's no reason actors can't commit crimes just as easily as anyone else. Just look at Bill Cosby, O.J. Simpson, Mike Tyson, and even some more obscure examples like Joe Son, who played Random Task in the first Austin Powers movie, and is also a gang rapist and possibly a murderer.

Claim: Welch was also in a movie called Something About Pizza, where he played a character called "The Gunman".

Rebuttal: That role was added to his IMDb page sometime between December 6-8, 2016, several days after the Comet Ping Pong shooting, and removed shortly after it was added. IMDb's just a glorified wiki, anyone can add whatever they want for any reason, especially if it's an obscure page no one really monitors. It's pretty obvious someone added that role just to mess with Pizzagaters.

For the record, Something About Pizza is a seven-minute short filmed in Luxembourg about two kids fighting over pizza, which was released when Edgar Maddison Welch was 16.

Claim: Welch fired one bullet into a closet and it somehow happened to hit the computer's hard drive.

Rebuttal: According to the original court documents, Welch fired three shots, one of which hit a computer desktop. The idea that he fired one shot and specifically hit a hard drive was made up afterwards by Pizzagaters.

Claim: It's still suspicious that Welch shot Comet Ping Pong's computer in the first place.

Rebuttal: Not really. Assuming there was anything illegal on their hard drive, shooting the computer wouldn't destroy the evidence. More importantly, destroying or replacing a hard drive no one even knew existed is a lot easier and more covert than hiring an actor to shoot up the place.

Claim: Comet Ping Pong couldn't just get rid of the hard drive themselves because it's illegal to tamper with evidence.

Rebuttal: Comet Ping Pong isn't under any investigation, so they could get rid of their hard drives whenever they feel like it.