On Friday, expat woman-hating woman-chaser Roosh Valizadeh put up a post on his Return of Kings blog with the sensationalized headline “Did Anita Sarkeesian Commit Felony Wire Fraud?”
Roosh breathlessly “reported” that
Two independent journalists have confirmed with the San Francisco Police Department that Anita Sarkeesian, a video game social justice warrior, may have used false pretenses to raise money for her non-profit entity. The police have said that she has not contacted them as she claimed after receiving a Twitter death threat in August. Under Federal law, this may put her on the hook for felony wire fraud.
The two “independent journalists” in question are tech journalist and self-described “fan of 4chan” Milo Yiannopoulos of Breitbart, and Davis Aurini, the cigarette-smoking, scotch-drinking, Anton LaVey-looking blogger who’s trying to raise money to make a “documentary” about the evils of Anita Sarkeesian and “social justice warriors.”
Both journalists – well, the one dude who writes for a sleazeball right-wing site and the other dude who’s not actually a journalist at all – did indeed contact the San Francisco Police Department and were told by a media spokesman that he couldn’t find a record of Sarkeesian contacting them about the threats she received in August.
This bit of “news” sent #GamerGaters and other Sarkeesian-haters around the internet into a bit of a frenzy.
But it turns out they got worked up over nothing. The police spokesman just hadn’t looked hard enough. A day after Tweeting a number of accusatory questions to Sarkeesian, Yiannopoulos had to backtrack, noting in a series of Tweets that he’d had another conversation with the SFPD, who told him that Sarkeesian had in fact reported the harassment to the FBI.
Another writer posted emails he’d gotten from the police spokesman that seemed to confirm Yiannopoulos’ updated information. In the emails, SFPD Public Information Officer Albie Esparza said that Sarkeesian had indeed contacted the SFPD in August but that the case had been handed off to the FBI. (I’ve confirmed this with Esparza .)
Given that the main “proof” that Sarkeesian was lying about the threats she said she received had just vanished into thin air, you might expect that Roosh and Aurini might, you know, correct their now-clearly incorrect posts on the subject and retract their accusations. Well, not so much.
Roosh’s post remains up, with only a brief “update” at the end, noting that “the police have changed their story and now state that they were contacted.” Aurini’s post remains unchanged, and as I write this he’s posted nothing more on the subject.
Even considering the people we’re dealing with here, the hypocrisy is breathtaking.
Roosh ends his post by declaring that
these new revelations concerning Sarkeesian show that no form of media is safe from the SJW and feminist agenda, and that we must do all the fact checking ourselves. The entire media establishment in the United States is potentially corrupt. Proceed accordingly.
Yet he refuses to frankly acknowledge that the “new revelations concerning Sarkeesian” were based on faulty information, offering instead a weasel-worded “update.”
Aurini, for his part, claims in his post to be “fight[ing] for openness and integrity within Tech and Video Game circles.” But he hasn’t bothered to update his post.
When ethical journalists discover that they were wrong about something, they acknowledge their errors and post straightforward corrections. When they get something spectacularly wrong, they apologize.
Somehow I don’t think we’ll be getting apologies from either of these guys.
And thus we get to the whole wire fraud thing. In his post, Roosh repeated a claim made by Mike Cernovich of the “game” blog Danger and Play, who tweeted:
https://twitter.com/PlayDangerously/status/510245982131335169
https://twitter.com/PlayDangerously/status/510246926990594048
As it turns out, there’s zero proof that Sarkeesian lied about anything here. And she made no direct connection between the threats and her Tweet asking for donations.
Indeed, by Cernovich’s logic it’s Davis Aurini, not Anita Sarkeesian, who’s guilty of felony wire fraud. Why?
Because in his post, he made a direct connection between his accusations against Sarkeesian and his own fundraising efforts. Here’s how he ended his piece:
Personally, I’d like to see a lot MORE documentation on Sarkeesian, because this isn’t the only claim she’s made which I suspect is fraudulent – and not just her, but all of the individuals hiding behind the shield of Social Justice, and the journalists who have been aiding and abetting them, culminating in outrage known as #GamerGate. That’s why Jordan Owen and myself have started a Patreon page, so that we can create a feature-length documentary about these people and their methods, and how they bully and victimize the very people they claim to support.
So please help us get this documentary made, so that we can fight for openness and integrity within Tech and Video Game circles, and expose the professional victims for the con artists that they are. Please support our documentary, The Sarkeesian Effect: Inside the World of Social Justice Warriors.
Given that Aurini now knows that his post was based on faulty information, and given that he hasn’t corrected his post or retracted his insinuations, could he now be guilty of felony wire fraud?
For what it’s worth, I don’t think so. While admittedly I’m no lawyer, Cernovich’s logic seems to me like a bit of a stretch.
I do feel safe in saying, however, that neither Roosh V. nor Davis Aurini should be lecturing anyone about ethics.
UPDATE: I confirmed with the SFPD that Sarkeesian had indeed called the SFPD and that the case was handed off to the FBI; the post has been updated to reflect that.
Everything Sean needed to know about feminism, he learned by asking 12-year-old boys.
“Ohh, I see, so you expect people to jump to your conclusions that everyone here believes it’s okay for a woman to horribly abuse a man, because that’s what feminism is. And that it’s not wrong simply because it’s horribly abusive, only that it was wrong because a man did it to a woman.”
Umm…..what?????
Possibly it matters legally because beating someone until they’re black and blue is wrong?
Aaaaaaaaand we’re back to men beating women up should be OK because obvs we think it’s OK for women to hit men (which we don’t but whatevs, dude knows what we think and feel better than we do ourselves because manfeelings.)
No one cares what gender or how big and strong someone is. If Ray Rice’s ladyfriend had done that to him everyone would be mortified. Lucky for him, she wouldn’t have been capable of the same degree of damage without a weapon.
And yes, the abolition of assigned gender roles is how equal opportunity is accomplished hence feminism being about equality.
And how exactly did those “spoiled wealthy communist women” and “rich old white guys” become rich and wealthy, hmmm?
It’s actually not factual. That’s pretty far from reality, there, dude.
Is “cultural Marxists” on the Bingo card?
I’m a man. As are many of the regular commenters, and the person who runs the blog. Fuck off. You have no new material, walked in here with flagrantly false information, and you failed the flounce, putting you in something like -5 Troll material.
“Everything Sean needed to know about feminism, he learned by asking 12-year-old boys.”
Translation: I have no retorts to his statements.
Oh bless. I understood the joke. It wasn’t funny, but I got it. But there is often a kernel of truth in jokes and the fact that you brought up your football team losing at all indicated that perhaps this was the source of your decision to throw a tantrum on a kind of old thread.
“I’m a man”
Thats debateable
Scroll up, Sean. You’ve been trashed from the beginning.
I am giving him:
3 for persistence
1 for logic
0 for originality
-3 for failure to stick the flounce
……someone physically assaulted someone else. There was no fight. Someone beat someone else up. That’s why what happened matters. No need to bring any other factors into play. Shitkicking others is wrong and people who do it shouldn’t be rewarded.
You have a hard time processing concepts that are alien to you so I’ll spell it out: I am being facetious. Gender roles are unnecessary in determining whether or not hitting people is wrong. That you brought up a case where a big man beat up a woman is not itself proof that a case where a woman beat up a man would be lauded as acceptable.
“Oh bless. I understood the joke. It wasn’t funny, but I got it. But there is often a kernel of truth in jokes and the fact that you brought up your football team losing at all indicated that perhaps this was the source of your decision to throw a tantrum on a kind of old thread.”
No, I was just making fun of feminists who make up false stats to give their failed ideology Creedence.
If it were up to me, we’d still be examining your logical operations. We kind of ran into a brick wall when you demonstrated that you didn’t actually have any.
That’s all you got? Can’t find the apostrophes and bad spelling in a tired insult?
“You have a hard time processing concepts that are alien to you so I’ll spell it out: I am being facetious. Gender roles are unnecessary in determining whether or not hitting people is wrong. That you brought up a case where a big man beat up a woman is not itself proof that a case where a woman beat up a man would be lauded as acceptable.”
So then you agree with me?
When the fuck did “Keep your hands to yourself or face consequences” become controversial?
Wut?
So, what you’re trying to say, is that if gender roles are social constructs that somehow makes it okay for one person to beat up another person? Can you explain how you reached that conclusion? Show your work, please.
Seriously, troll is hilarious.
If you look at the tape she smacked him first.
@ Sean……I don’t argue with ideologues. If I thought I could POSSIBLY get you to reconsider your point of view I would engage with you. But that ain’t happening.
Anyway…
That batshit screed you posted is the most ridiculous and inaccurate history that I have ever read. You’ve taken arrogance, personal bias, and stupidity to lows I haven’t personally experienced in some time.
You must have taken many years of some very intense yoga classes in order to jam your head quite that firmly up your ass. Your thought processes show what amazing things can be accomplished with properly trained slime-molds. The premises upon which your arguments are based were washed out to sea in the last hurricane, your logic is circular, and your grasp of history as weak as a four year old child’s. You have all the charm of a ripe roadkill opossum carcass, roiling with maggots. You are an annoyance, a pestilence, a pustule.
Was Creedence a racist jibe? Never heard that one.
I’m pretty sure literally everyone here agrees that Ray Rice is a bad person for beating up his fiancee.
…So fuck off.
“So, what you’re trying to say, is that if gender roles are social constructs that somehow makes it okay for one person to beat up another person? Can you explain how you reached that conclusion? Show your work, please”.
I’m saying she smacked him first. So if gender roles don’t exist and you seek equality then why is he in trouble for hitting her back? Cuz he’s a man and hit her harder? Because a man should never hit a woman? If gender doesn’t exist then his actions are ok.