Claim: "They're eating the dogs" - Trump / Harris Presidential Debate '24

[LilWabbit]

Working "Antifa" into the meme is just creating more dangerous rumors. That's inappropriate and mean-spirited.

Being easily triggered by a harmless jest and unable, or even unwilling, to see good intention behind it and to grasp it is why being too politically-minded is dangerous (and boring) and why this whole thread should in fact be shut down and buried away from viewers.

Ping @Mick West.

 

[deirdre]

to see good intention behind it

I'm the anti-Ann and i dont see a good intention behind it either. granted i have ZERO idea what it's supposed to mean... but still. is it a male joke Ann and I arent comprehending because we're female?

 

[LilWabbit]

I'm the anti-Ann and i dont see a good intention behind it either. granted i have ZERO idea what it's supposed to mean... but still. is it a male joke Ann and I arent comprehending because we're female?

Naah. It was just a 'memetic' response to this other meme that's been going around. Together they gently poke both sides of the culture divide which you and Ann so predictably caricaturize in your various "contributions" to this convo. And I'm not anti-either.

 

[Mendel]

Thank you for the information. I agree that there should be a plan to help any community that has to take on a burden of thousands of refugees. That should be part of any immigration policy.

There is the question of whether this is a State or Federal issue.

Article:

Posted: Jul 15, 2024

City officials said the immigrants have been traveling to Springfield since 2014 after the city launched a "Welcome Springfield" campaign to boost its economy.

City officials are asking the federal government for any financial aid to help law enforcement, emergency services and schools.

Source: https://www.wdtn.com/as-seen-on-2-news/call-for-federal-aid-puts-springfield-into-national-spotlight/

Article:

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — The governor of Ohio will send law enforcement and millions of dollars in healthcare resources to the city of Springfield as it faces a surge in temporary Haitian migrants that has landed it in the national spotlight.

Republican Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said Tuesday he doesn't oppose the Temporary Protected Status program under which some 15,000 Haitians have arrived in the city of about 59,000 people since 2020, but said the federal government must do more to help impacted communities.

His news conference was held just hours before the presidential debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former Republican President Donald Trump, where the divide over immigration policy was sure to be an issue.

Ohio has already provided additional resources to Springfield to help with education and training for drivers, to pay for more vaccines and health screenings in schools, and to enhance translation services, explained DeWine. But he's taking additional action.

On Wednesday, the Ohio State Highway Patrol will be dispatched to help local law enforcement with traffic issues that officials say have cropped up due to an increase in Haitians unfamiliar with U.S. traffic laws using the roads. DeWine said he is also earmarking $2.5 million over two years to provide more primary healthcare through the county health department and private healthcare institutions.

DeWine's family operates a charity in Haiti in honor of their late daughter, Becky, who died in a car accident. He said the Haitians who have moved to Ohio are generally hard-working people who love their families and who are seeking to escape the violence in their home country for good jobs in Ohio.

Source: https://apnews.com/article/springfield-ohio-haitian-influx-governor-dewine-f5a552d7ebc6e246882dca96a39a3aaa

 

[deirdre]

Together they gently poke both sides of the culture divide

how is antifa the 'otherside'? wouldnt the 'otherside' be like Maga people..like the chefs hats should say MAGA. no?

 

[AmberRobot]

There is the question of whether this is a State or Federal issue.

If it's a federal policy that brought them there then it is reasonable to expect the feds to carry some of the financial and administrative burden.

 

[FatPhil]

This thread hasn't had an "every accusation is a confession" element yet. That's easily fixed:

Project 2025 mastermind allegedly told colleagues he killed a dog with a shovel

The man behind Project 2025, the rightwing policy manifesto that includes calls for a sharp increase in immigrant deportations if Donald Trump is elected, told university colleagues about two decades ago that he had killed a neighborhood dog with a shovel because it was barking and disturbing his family, according to former colleagues who spoke to the Guardian.

Kevin Roberts, now the president of the Heritage Foundation, is alleged to have told colleagues and dinner guests that he killed a neighbor's pit bull around 2004 while he was working as a still relatively unknown history professor at New Mexico State University.
...
Marsha Weisiger, a colleague of Roberts at the time who is now an environmental history professor at the University of Oregon, recalled being invited to dinner at Roberts's home with her husband, and Roberts telling both of them the story about how he had hit a neighbor's pit bull with a shovel and killed it.

"My husband and I were stunned. First of all, that he would do such a thing. And second of all, that he would tell us about it. If I did something horrific, I would not be telling my colleagues about it," she said.

To make matters worse, she recalled Roberts saying that the neighbor in question also had puppies and that he had considered killing them, too.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/sep/24/project-2025-kevin-roberts-killed-dog

 

[Ann K]

This thread hasn't had an "every accusation is a confession" element yet.

The thread hasn't, but the campaign has. Kristi Noem was once considered a serious candidate for Vice President.

South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, a Republican and reported contender for Donald Trump's Vice President pick in the 2024 election, has received pushback after admitting to killing her dog in her new memoir.
....
Noem said Cricket had an "aggressive personality" and was "untrainable," per the Guardian's report.
....
The backlash from Democrats and conservatives alike has been swift. Rick Wilson, who co-founded the anti-Trump PAC The Lincoln Project, criticized on X, formerly Twitter, that Noem "killed a puppy because she was lazy at training bird dogs, not because it was a bad dog." The Lincoln Project released an ad that said when tough moments come with pets, "shooting your dog in the face is not an option."

https://time.com/6971773/kristi-noem-memoir-dog-kill-children-net-worth/

 

[FatPhil]

@Greene - I know you only bravely thumbs-downed, rather than disagreeing, but I assume your thumbs down was based on disagreement. If so, lets see what you've got - which bit of the hypocrisy do you think isn't hypocrisy?

 

[Mendel]

@Greene - I know you only bravely thumbs-downed, rather than disagreeing, but I assume your thumbs down was based on disagreement. If so, lets see what you've got - which bit of the hypocrisy do you think isn't hypocrisy?

I considered down-thumbing based on it being off-topic and not about bunk. Both posts seemed likely to derail the topic, and did not contribute to it.

As your question is even more off-topic, you should've used a private message to ask it. Right now it simply makes it look like you're picking a fight.

 

[FatPhil]

I considered down-thumbing based on it being off-topic and not about bunk. Both posts seemed likely to derail the topic, and did not contribute to it.

The party stands as a single entity in the election. The narrative coming out of one side must be evaluated in the context of the whole. (Unless another part is specifically trying to distance itself from that narrative, but in that case, the narrative must be evaluated in the context of that distancing. Either way...) The scare being used is harm to cute fluffy creatures humans like to share their time and space with, my addition is about harm to cute fluffy creatures humans like to share their time and space with.

As your question is even more off-topic, you should've used a private message to ask it. Right now it simply makes it look like you're picking a fight.

Yes, because you saw the word "bravely", and a nerve fired. However, the verifiable truth is that the thumbs down came first.

 

[Robert Sheaffer]

This is from 2019, so it is not colored by the current controversy.

Why do Haitians eat cats?
Contrary to popular belief, Haitians don't eat cats because they are poor and hungry. They eat cats because it's a tradition.
https://www.haitianreport.com/2019/03/does-haitian-eat-cats.html

 

[deirdre]

This is from 2019, so it has no bearing on the current controversy.

Why do Haitians eat cats?
Contrary to popular belief, Haitians don't eat cats because they are poor and hungry. They eat cats because it's a tradition.
https://www.haitianreport.com/2019/03/does-haitian-eat-cats.html

theres a link policy on Metabunk, which means you need to quote from the link.

Article:

Yes, they eat cats.

However, eating cat meat is not a daily or nationwide practice. Haitians mostly eat cats on December 24th in a national festivity called "Reveyon", a big Christmas party.

This is exclusively known to a select group of Haitians found mostly in the countryside and remote villages.

Source: https://www.haitianreport.com/2019/03/does-haitian-eat-cats.html

 

[Giddierone]

This is really [snip] and unhelpful.

This is from 2019, so it has no bearing on the current controversy.

Why do Haitians eat cats?
Contrary to popular belief, Haitians don't eat cats because they are poor and hungry. They eat cats because it's a tradition.
https://www.haitianreport.com/2019/03/does-haitian-eat-cats.html

It does have relevance because it's nonsense posted on a website with no supporting evidence. Which is now being regurgitated by "conservative" media.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/20...confirms-disturbing-practice-cat-consumption/

This claim is especially problematic.

December 24th in a national festivity called "Reveyon" which is a big Christmas party.

The "journalist" with no biography, who posted the story seems to have changed since it was published in 2019 and they've handily added links to the unsupported rumours from Springfield Ohio of immigrants eating ducks.

It was Mastr p. and is now the equally anonymous L. Slayer.
From the internet archive:

If you look to Facebook for your news then these are the kinds of stories you'll find. Nonsense.

 

[Ann K]

@Giddierone

This claim is especially problematic.

December 24th in a national festivity called "Reveyon" which is a big Christmas party.

The celebration is real. The spelling is idiosyncratic in @Robert Sheaffer's original post.

Haitian Réveillon is not a new tradition. The celebration of Réveillon is very important to Haitian families. They use the holiday to get together and enjoy each other's company. The events usually include special foods and drinks, music, and other activities that bring people together for fun.

The word "Réveillon" comes from the French word for "awakening," and the tradition of celebrating Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve with music and food dates back to France in the 17th century. The Haitian version has its roots in African traditions that celebrate the end of one year and the beginning of another.

https://www.caribbeangreenliving.com/5-surprising-facts-about-haitian-reveillon/

As for the other story referenced within Robert's source, the one you've decried after only reading the rather unfortunate title, it is a rebuttal to the claim, so please don't judge it without reading it first.

These stories are completely false.
This is not the first time Haitians have been accused of that type of thing. They have been through this before.

...(Three examples then follow)...

Guess what these events have in common? Massive Haitian migration into the US.
Every time there is a huge influx of Haitians into the US, someone always tries to pin something on Haitians.

So the recent online rumor from Springfield, Ohio, is not too different from the past accusations the Haitian community has faced. The claim that Haitian migrants are catching and eating ducks, cats, geese, and other pets in Springfield, Ohio is a lie. This baseless allegation has quickly spread on social media, causing unnecessary fear and prejudice against the Haitian community.

https://www.haitianreport.com/2024/09/haitians-eating-ducks-ohio-park.html?m=1

 

[John J.]

(Edited to add: After posting, saw @Giddierone and @Ann K. have beaten me to it. I'll leave this post as is;
if nothing else it has an example of Haitian Report author L Slayer's romantic advice, which is, um, unconventional
(but strangely, on-topic).

Why do Haitians eat cats?
Contrary to popular belief, Haitians don't eat cats because they are poor and hungry. They eat cats because it's a tradition.

Robert is quoting L. Slayer, 27 March 2019, https://www.haitianreport.com/2019/03/does-haitian-eat-cats.html, on website "Haitian Report".

Some cultures or groups eat cat meat. The relevant Wikipedia article doesn't mention Haiti, but that doesn't necessarily demonstrate anything, https://en.wikipedia.orat.

The Haitian Report website might not be completely reliable, and appears to be mainly the work of L. Slayer.

For instance, as well as the article "Do Haitians eat cats? (the shocking truth)", L. Slayer 27 March 2019,
we also have the more recent article, "How to make love to Haitian woman", L. Slayer, 28 September 2024 (https://www.haitianreport.com/2024/09/how-to-make-love-to-haitian-woman.html),
which from the outset provides somewhat questionable- but strangely familiar- relationship advice:

How to make love to Haitian woman
by L. SLAYER •September 28, 2024

Eating cat meat is not a daily activity or a nationwide practice in Haiti. However, some Haitians do eat cats on December 24th in a national festivity called "Reveyon" which is a big Christmas party.
This is a practice exclusively known to a select group of Haitians found mostly from countryside villages.
Now I know you have many questions that need answers.

Another recent article by L. Slayer, 19 September 2024, is

How a nasty fart under the sheet almost destroys this Haitian family

https://www.haitianreport.com/2024/09/nasty-fart-destroys-Haitian-family.html

I'm no expert on Haiti, and many partnerships are strengthened by mutual respect for certain boundaries, but I suspect the average Haitian in September 2024 might have more pressing issues than their partner breaking wind in bed after 3 years of marriage.

So I'm not sure Haiti Report is reliable. I wouldn't rule out it being a sock-puppet or hacked site (sincere apologies to L. Slayer if not, but you need to check your site a bit more).

Regarding Haiti's take on Réveillon, AKA Reveyon (which L. Slayer claims is marked by the eating of cats in some areas) is discussed on the Caribbean Green Living website, "5 Surprising Facts About Haitian Réveillon", 16 December 2022
https://www.caribbeangreenliving.co...about-haitian-reveillon/?utm_content=cmp-true,
but there is no mention of cats.

I don't know if some Haitian communities eat cats or not. Réveillon is widely celebrated in Francophone countries (Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Réveillon) including Haiti (Caribbean Green Living, link above) but L. Slayer claims

This is exclusively known to a select group of Haitians found mostly in the countryside and remote villages.

Maybe he is only referring to eating cats at Réveillon.
He doesn't say who this "select group" are or in what specific locations they might be found.

Perhaps Mr Slayer- if he's Haitian- is passing on incorrect 'folk wisdom', e.g. I've heard several times that Gypsy/ Romani/ Traveller people in England eat hedgehogs (sometimes as a thinly-veiled ethnic slur).
Maybe their ancestors did, many of our ancestors might have done at times of privation; Romani communities might have been more prone to food shortages than the settled population post-industrial revolution but pre- 'Welfare State', meaning subsistence foraging/ hunting might have remained essential for them for longer.

Even if some "select group" of Haitians eat cat for a seasonal celebration, that doesn't mean they take pet cats in Ohio, a claim for which there is no evidence. I eat chicken, but I've never stolen any.

 

[Giddierone]

The celebration is real. The spelling is idiosyncratic

I neglected to include the full quote which is unfounded.

Haitians mostly eat cats on December 24th in a national festivity called "Reveyon", a big Christmas party.

Robert is quoting L. Slayer, 27 March 2019,

But the 2019 article has a different byline as I mentioned above. (You may not have seen that I'd edited the post to clarify).

Does this article offer any evidence to support Trump/Vance claims? No. Which is why I considered it unhelpful nonsense—trolling even. [to be read in a Snagglepuss voice]. The problem is that the reposting of it is effectivly saying "here's a black Hatian journalist from a Hatian news site confirming that Haitians eat cats, and not only that they find them irresistable."

cat meat [guess what the link doesn't work] is a delicacy that many from the countryside simply can't resist.

 

[FatPhil]

This is really [snip] and unhelpful.

It does have relevance because it's nonsense posted on a website with no supporting evidence.

Firstly, regarding the facts presented, Hitchen's Razor applies, as the namechanging journalist made the claim with zero supporting evidence.

However, the actual fact remains that someone thought this fiction was worth putting up on a website - a website that was apparently created for the sole purpose of carrying this story:

(The wayback scrape was a full 9 months after the appearance of the story, and no other stories had been posted.)

Who would do this? Not much information is available about who registered the site:

$ whois haitianreport.com
   Domain Name: HAITIANREPORT.COM
   Registry Domain ID: 2383741180_DOMAIN_COM-VRSN
   Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.squarespace.domains
   Registrar URL: http://domains2.squarespace.com
   Updated Date: 2024-05-09T22:36:02Z
   Creation Date: 2019-04-24T00:49:02Z
...
Registrant Organization: Guens Services LLC
Registrant Street: REDACTED FOR PRIVACY
Registrant City: REDACTED FOR PRIVACY
Registrant State/Province: FL

That company name has seemingly no presence on the internet, which could be an indicator it was created specifically for the purposes of registering this domain and nothing else. Alas the state business database goes clunk:

Sorry, an error occurred while processing your request.

-- https://search.sunbiz.org/Inquiry/C... Services/Page1?searchNameOrder=GUENSSERVICES
(And for those who think that "sunbiz.org" doesn't sound very official and governmental, that search link came via: https://dos.fl.gov/sunbiz/search/

 

[FatPhil]

There are other stories (see my post above).

You can't counter an statement about the past ("had been") with a statement about the present ("are").

Even in 2020/08 there was still just one story in the site, 16 months after the first story appeared: http://web.archive.org/web/20200805184416/https://www.haitianreport.com/

Some rando on the internet seems to have had more luck following the same path as me:

It took 5 minutes to find details for the LLC that registered hatianreport domain - using only Whois and Florida's open database sunbiz.org -They slapped it together on SquareSpace.

A couple living in a 2BR apartment 8-miles straight up the road from Mar-a-Lago, in West Palm Beach.

There's no way to contact them through their skeleton of a website. Does anyone care?

--
Source: https://old.reddit.com/r/AskConservatives/comments/1fidiul/what_do_you_make_of_the_recent_threats_to_schools/?rdt=33384

 

[FatPhil]

Cats and dogs are getting old hat. We need to up the narrative to eating babies!

Comedian Roseanne Barr borrowed from bonkers QAnon conspiracy theories and allegations about Haitian migrants in Ohio to go on an extended rant that "they eat babies" and "drink human blood" during a discussion with the disgraced former Fox News host.

"They eat babies. That is not bulls--t. That's true," Barr told Carlson during the sit-down Wednesday in Fort Worth, Texas, although it was unclear whom "they" referred to during her screed.

"It's not just the dogs and the cats. There are full-on vampires, and everybody still thinks I'm crazy. But I'm not crazy. They're full-on vampires. They love the taste of human flesh, and they drink human blood. They do, Tucker, stop staring at me like that," she said.
...
She said she was going to pray to God that He "opens everybody's eyes in this country."

Barr said she hopes God acts in time for the November presidential election.

"By the time we go in to vote for Trump that he will open up everybody's eyes and they will stop pretending to be asleep. You know what they say. You can't wake people up that are pretending to be asleep," the star of the eponymous hit sitcom that ran for 10 years on television in the '80s and '90s said.

"But I pray to God, please wake up. Even those who are pretending to be asleep with the irrefutable truth of what the worst people on this planet are really up to. They are really up to that. They're doing it. There are so many victims. There are so many victims!" she claimed.

-- https://www.ibtimes.com/roseanne-barr-tucker-carlson-they-eat-babies-3744716

Video clips are available, it's an accurate transcript.

 

[Giddierone]

Cats and dogs are getting old hat. We need to up the narrative to eating babies!

Refer back to #48

 

[NoParty]

I'm kind of enjoying that so many Republicans are keeping this meme alive.

Don't get me wrong, I feel for the innocent Haitians, and think that everyone who has a voice
should strike down this nonsense.

But I also think that it's one of the most obnoxious & infamous lines in American debate history,
and that it shouldn't quickly disappear from discussion. Too often ludicrous Trump statements
get lost in the flood of Trump nonsense. "Trump being Trump." But I suspect that this one will
live on and on. I especially love that he took pains to deliver the line clearly and with full throat:

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5llMaZ80ErY

 

[deirdre]

I'm kind of enjoying that so many Republicans are keeping this meme alive.

Don't get me wrong, I feel for the innocent Haitians,

relax, she's talking about the left wingers, not the Haitians.

First she goes on a few minutes about Hollywood people "they're psychos" then she segues into the left party in general. "they have no self reflection" "they're vampires" " then, prompted by Tucker she zeroes in specifically to the people on the Epstein list. 1:32:00

the only reason she says "dogs and cats" is cause Tucker says after the "they eat babies" thing "so its not just the dogs and the cats".

If @FatPhil 's quote wasnt so cut up and misleading, it is super obvious she is going full in on the [Hilllary Clinton et al] drinking blood and eating babies q anon thing. I'm not sure she even knows why Tucker brought up dogs and cats, she's in full q-anon mode. child victims, child rapes etc. the original pizza gate thing.

She looks good though.

Article:

Tucker: they're not even investigating the Epstein murder they
1:32:52
promised an investigate a they've never done it.

Roseanne: no right, but I think all of them,
the uni party, they are just trying to they are
they're scared to death and they're just trying to protect themselves cuz when that list comes out and all the other
stuff is declassified you know it's going to be like worse than the emperor naked
it's going to be the emperor went to epstein Island and ate people
and you know they do that you know they eat babies that is not

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYAqczZ-1Vo

 

[Greene]

@Greene - I know you only bravely thumbs-downed, rather than disagreeing, but I assume your thumbs down was based on disagreement. If so, lets see what you've got - which bit of the hypocrisy do you think isn't hypocrisy?

What exactly do you think is going to happen here?

Whether it's the personal attacks on other posters, or the continual irrelevant posts based on your political beliefs; you've recently exhibited a pattern of failing to meet one of the prime ruless of this forum.

"Be polite"

I'm here for one reason, for the debunking of false information.

There is no evidence to support the claim that Haitian immigrants are eating pets (or any other random animals). It's a spurious claim that was easily debunked.

Your desire to pick fights doesn't interest me. Your opinions aren't original or compelling to me. If you have personal issues, share them with your therapist, your emotional support gecko, or whatever needed. Those are concerns outside the scope of this forum.

 

[TheNZThrower]

Christopher Rufo, a conservative activist in Florida, offered $5000 for proof of people eating cats in Springfield.

A few hours later he amended the offer "the incident had to happen before the debate, don't eat your own cats." Which... Yeah, I did the math. Shelter cats are $35 and Springfield is only a day's drive.

So far, it seems like the best Rufo was able to provide is a grainy video of some carcasses being grilled by allegedly African [nation unspecified] immigrants.


His proof for his claims is that that the video taker allegedly confirmed to him that the carcasses were cats in an accompanying substack article, as well as some of the comments that came from the neighbours of the grill owner:

We spoke with the author of the video... He told us that he was picking up his son last summer, when he noticed the unusual situation. "It was some Africans that stay right next door to my kid's mother," he said. "This African dude next door had the damn cat on the grill."

We then identified the home by matching it to the visuals in the video and cross-referencing them with the eyewitness. When we knocked on the door of the first unit, a family answered, telling us they were from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and that all of the surrounding units were occupied by other African migrants.

One of the residents told us that her former neighbors, also from Africa, had lived in the adjacent unit until last month. They had a blue grill and the father would find meat in the neighborhood. "Her dad was going to find meat," she said. "Her dad was going, holding a knife." The current residents also showed us a blue grill of the same make and model as in the video... There were at least ten cats wandering around the complex and another resident complained that they were breeding on the property.

https://christopherrufo.com/p/the-cat-eaters-of-ohio

Now even if I were to grant him that the carcasses were cats, and everything else, it still doesn't prove that African immigrants, let alone Haitians, are eating cats en-masse, or stealing cats to eat. You cannot make such a wild generalisation merely from one sample, especially since it is inevitable that there will always be at least some weirdos among immigrant populations. Indeed, the fact that only one semi-substantiated instance of cat eating by any immigrant has been produced so far is telling. It also was occurring in a different city, Dayton, not Springfield. It also occurred almost a whole year prior, back in August 2023 per Rufo's admission.

Really, Rufo's only attempt to tie this to the Haitian pet eating claim is by making an unsubstantiated claim that Haiti and other developing nations have traditions of animal sacrifice or consumption of what are typically household pets in the US:

Many developing nations, including the Congo and Haiti, have traditions of animal sacrifice or consumption of what Americans would consider household pets. And if this occurred in Dayton, where the migrant population is relatively small, it could be going on down the road in Springfield, where it is relatively much larger.

This is a wild extrapolation to say the least. Even if cat eating is common in the Congo or some other developing nations, it doesn't follow that it is common in Haiti. It's like inferring that the presence of dog eating in China means that it must also be similarly prevalent in Japan. Given that only a sample size of 1 has been provided, it can easily be dismissed so far as a fluke.

While I wasn't able to find anything about Congolese customs on eating "exotic" meats, it is fairly common knowledge that some Haitians who practice voodoo do engage in animal sacrifice:

Another common misconception is that animal sacrifice is a widely practiced form of Voodoo. Although Karen did witness and document animal sacrifices, that aspect isn't embraced by all. Some of the images shown here aren't representative of the day-to-day practice of many Voodoo followers. The group featured here is based in a remote, rural area, and they practice what they consider to be the Voodoo of their ancestors, which can include animal sacrifice.

https://slate.com/culture/2013/11/a...ok-inside-a-haitian-voodoo-ritual-photos.html

There is no mention of cats being sacrificed. And to my knowledge I can't find any evidence as such.

In the end, Rufo honestly needs to do better than this.

 

[Mendel]

Now even if I were to grant him that the carcasses were cats

...and not, for example, rabbits or hares.

 

[Ann K]

Indeed, the fact that only one semi-substantiated instance of cat eating by any immigrant has been produced so far is telling. It also was occurring in a different city, Dayton, not Springfield. It also occurred almost a whole year prior, back in August 2023 per Rufo's admission.

The more recent incident happened in Canton (170 miles away), and did not involve an immigrant.

CANTON, Ohio — The Canton Police Department released bodycam footage on Wednesday of 27-year-old Allexis Ferrell being arrested after allegedly eating a cat in Ohio.
The incident happened on Friday, Aug. 16, in the 1100 block of 13th Street Southeast in Canton. After receiving multiple calls about the incident, police arrived at the scene and arrested Ferrell on animal cruelty charges.
........
It is worth noting that this incident in Canton is completely unrelated to the false claims being made in Springfield.
Following the debate, the Associated Press also reported that Ferrell is not Haitian. She was born in Ohio and graduated from Canton McKinley High School in 2015.

https://www.wkyc.com/article/news/l...field/95-204df879-5de1-4a07-9aab-10d19aca3ba4

 

[John J.]

Even if cat eating is common in the Congo or some other developing nations, it doesn't follow that it is common in Haiti.

The hunting and eating of "bushmeat"- pretty much any wildlife that can be caught- is widespread in poorer communities in central/ western Africa, e.g. in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where there is widespread and sometimes extreme poverty.
Feral cats might be prey I guess, but I'd be mildly surprised if the people involved are from communities where domestic pets are common.

Wildlife hunting for food is important for the livelihood security of and supply of dietary protein for poor people.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bushmeat

Sadly, but perhaps understandably, bushmeat hunters don't refrain from killing endangered species /anthropoid apes,

Between 1983 and 2002, the Gabon populations of western gorilla (Gorilla gorilla) and common chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) were estimated to have declined by 56%. This decline was primarily caused by the commercial hunting... ...In the late 1990s, fresh and smoked bonobo (Pan paniscus) carcasses were observed in Basankusu in the Province of Équateur in the Congo Basin.

(Wikipedia, as above.)

Eating whatever animals are available- including wild animals, pets, even zoo animals- has been documented in many parts of the world during times of privation or starvation.

Cats were sometimes eaten as a famine food during harsh winters, poor harvests, and wartime. Cats gained notoriety as "roof rabbit" (Dachhase [de]) in Central Europe's hard times during and between World War I and World War II.

Wikipedia, Cat meat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_meat

Zoo animals were eaten in Paris during a siege in the Franco-Prussian war
"During an 1870 Siege, Trapped Parisians Dined on Rat, Cat, and Elephant," Anne Ewbank, 10 April 2017 Atlas Obscura
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/paris-siege-eating-zoo-animals,
"The Christmas when Parisians ate the zoo", Rachael Phillips, 27 December 2022, The Spectator
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-winter-when-parisians-ate-the-zoo/

The slur cast on recent immigrants to Springfield, Ohio might depend on us holding a number of assumptions:
-Behaviours that we consider unpleasant -eating cats- might happen in their country (ignoring the facts we have no reliable evidence of this in Haiti; Europeans have eaten cat at various times, some communities in East Asia occasionally ear cat meat),
-This is a widespread cultural practice, not the result of extreme privation*,
-This is a practice that immigrants can't, or won't, stop from pursuing in the United States,
-The immigrants don't understand, or don't care about, other people's affection for their pets, their property rights, or American cultural taboos.

To hold all the above views and apply them to immigrants as a group seems at best uncharitable.
There are serious issues surrounding immigration, but eating the pets of local people probably isn't one of them.

*The survivors of a 1972 plane crash in the Andes, mainly Uruguayans, were marooned above the snowline for some 10 weeks, and wouldn't have survived without consuming the flesh of those killed in the impact and those who subsequently died.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uruguayan_Air_Force_Flight_571
We don't make the mistake of saying Uruguayans routinely eat people, or fear their doing so.

 

[Ann K]

We don't make the mistake of saying Uruguayans routinely eat people, or fear their doing so.

...or we would have to include the Donner party as caucasians eating caucasians.

 

[LilWabbit]

The hunting and eating of "bushmeat"- pretty much any wildlife that can be caught- is widespread in poorer communities in central/ western Africa, e.g. in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where there is widespread and sometimes extreme poverty.
Feral cats might be prey I guess, but I'd be mildly surprised if the people involved are from communities where domestic pets are common.

Wildlife hunting for food is important for the livelihood security of and supply of dietary protein for poor people.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bushmeat

Sadly, but perhaps understandably, bushmeat hunters don't refrain from killing endangered species /anthropoid apes,

Between 1983 and 2002, the Gabon populations of western gorilla (Gorilla gorilla) and common chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) were estimated to have declined by 56%. This decline was primarily caused by the commercial hunting... ...In the late 1990s, fresh and smoked bonobo (Pan paniscus) carcasses were observed in Basankusu in the Province of Équateur in the Congo Basin.

(Wikipedia, as above.)

Eating whatever animals are available- including wild animals, pets, even zoo animals- has been documented in many parts of the world during times of privation or starvation.

Cats were sometimes eaten as a famine food during harsh winters, poor harvests, and wartime. Cats gained notoriety as "roof rabbit" (Dachhase [de]) in Central Europe's hard times during and between World War I and World War II.

Wikipedia, Cat meat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_meat

Zoo animals were eaten in Paris during a siege in the Franco-Prussian war
"During an 1870 Siege, Trapped Parisians Dined on Rat, Cat, and Elephant," Anne Ewbank, 10 April 2017 Atlas Obscura
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/paris-siege-eating-zoo-animals,
"The Christmas when Parisians ate the zoo", Rachael Phillips, 27 December 2022, The Spectator
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-winter-when-parisians-ate-the-zoo/

The slur cast on recent immigrants to Springfield, Ohio might depend on us holding a number of assumptions:
-Behaviours that we consider unpleasant -eating cats- might happen in their country (ignoring the facts we have no reliable evidence of this in Haiti; Europeans have eaten cat at various times, some communities in East Asia occasionally ear cat meat),
-This is a widespread cultural practice, not the result of extreme privation*,
-This is a practice that immigrants can't, or won't, stop from pursuing in the United States,
-The immigrants don't understand, or don't care about, other people's affection for their pets, their property rights, or American cultural taboos.

To hold all the above views and apply them to immigrants as a group seems at best uncharitable.
There are serious issues surrounding immigration, but eating the pets of local people probably isn't one of them.

*The survivors of a 1972 plane crash in the Andes, mainly Uruguayans, were marooned above the snowline for some 10 weeks, and wouldn't have survived without consuming the flesh of those killed in the impact and those who subsequently died.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uruguayan_Air_Force_Flight_571
We don't make the mistake of saying Uruguayans routinely eat people, or fear their doing so.

As one notorious American psychopathic serial killer and rapist replied to interviewers wondering why his wife stayed married and believed all his lies about his atrocities for decades, "a lie built around truth is always the most effective one."

Surgically extracting an unpleasant fact about a cultural group (ie. group x occasionally consumes animals, for whatever reason, which are regarded as pets in another culture and even in theirs) and falsely declaring it as their regular practice and defining feature in comparison to an allegedly more civilized cultural group (ie. unhinged Haitian immigrants in a peaceful and decent American town) is a classical tactic of demonization of 'the other'. The evident tactic is to paint that 'other' as barbaric, hostile and threatening to good harmless people, and oneself as a defender, protector and purifier against such threats.

We're really beating a dead cat horse here. No real mysteries to debunk.

 

[deirdre]

-This is a widespread cultural practice, not the result of extreme privation*,
-This is a practice that immigrants can't, or won't, stop from pursuing in the United States,
-The immigrants don't understand, or don't care about, other people's affection for their pets,

you might be exaggerating a bit. school shootings aren't widespread but it doesn't stop people from being extremely upset when 1 in 6000 years happens in their town. They might even ban the weapon in their State because of it.

There are plenty of Americans who kill their neighbors pets because they don't care about people's affections for their pets.

I'm not sure the argument [some people seem to be making: not you] that every Haitian is an angel, is any less racist. < not that i think Haitian is a race, but that's the term we use in America now for such things.

 

[TheNZThrower]

The hunting and eating of "bushmeat"- pretty much any wildlife that can be caught- is widespread in poorer communities in central/ western Africa, e.g. in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where there is widespread and sometimes extreme poverty.
Feral cats might be prey I guess, but I'd be mildly surprised if the people involved are from communities where domestic pets are common.

Speaking of that, I have found some leads about cat consumption in the neighbouring Republic of Congo, specifically in their capital Brazzaville.

[Google Translated]The scene takes place in a police station in Brazzaville, in front of police officers who cannot help but laugh when the complainant, a West African shopkeeper whose plump cat ended up in the saucepan of his neighbour, a young man in his late thirties, recalls the story.

Scenes of this kind are now legion and young people no longer hide, to indulge in hunting cats, sometimes assuming their eating habits...

It is true that the law remains silent on this dietary practice, it goes without saying that it nevertheless undermines social customs, because the cat is considered by everyone as a pet.

Many local grocery store owners have one or more cats to keep mice away and prevent them from nibbling on certain food products on sale...

Perhaps it is time for the authorities to look into the matter, even if some young people justify their practices by the crisis situation in the country.

https://lesechos-congobrazza.com/so...-viande-de-chat-au-menu-de-certains-congolais

I don't know for sure what's the motivation behind the young men hunting cats, nor whether this is a recent practice or not. It seems like the last sentence hints that this is due to, as you said, poverty or crisis.

 

[Ann K]

you might be exaggerating a bit. school shootings aren't widespread but it doesn't stop people from being extremely upset when 1 in 6000 years happens in their town. They might even ban the weapon in their State because of it.

You have just pooh-poohed people who are rightly concerned about school violence, a cruel and callous indifference to life on your part. There are more things than an actual shooting to be concerned about. Verbal or telephone threats, or people bringing a gun but being thwarted by police (it's happened in my town) ALL get people "extremely upset", children traumatized, parents furious, and teachers quitting. Those threats are not rare items at all:

The district home of Oxford High School in Michigan – where a teenager in 2021 killed four students and wounded six others and a teacher – got 35,000 threats in a month after the massacre. It typically gets 500 in a year, according to an academic study that claims it's one of the first to quantify more than 1,000 threats of school violence over four academic years.
.....
No agency or group tracks all threats of US school violence, from possible gun attacks to bombings to any other conceivable danger.

"Schools likely quietly handle thousands of threats of shootings that do not make the news," the study's authors wrote this year in the American Psychological Association's Journal of Threat Assessment and Management.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/05/us/school-violence-threats-parents-dilemma-dg/index.html
All of these of those threats requires police time (that we pay for) to investigate. Many of them, such as bomb threats, require a school to be evacuated with the loss of class time. ALL of them traumatize the school staff, even when the students are not aware of them. It's heartless to hand-wave away that trauma, and all, apparently, for the sake of keeping your gun.

 

[Mendel]

You have just pooh-poohed people who are rightly concerned about school violence, a cruel and callous indifference to life on your part

I don't think that's what deirdre was going for, though I had to read it 3 times to understand it.
I think her point is that something doesn't need to be widespread to be (rightfully) upset about it.

Kinda like attacks on (ex-)Presidents aren't all that frequent, but upsetting when they occur.

Of course the populist anti-immigrant rhetoric doesn't usually make that distinction, and if it does it's typically pro forma.

 

[Ann K]

I don't think that's what deirdre was going for, though I had to read it 3 times to understand it.
I think her point is that something doesn't need to be widespread to be (rightfully) upset about it.

Kinda like attacks on (ex-)Presidents aren't all that frequent, but upsetting when they occur.

Of course the populist anti-immigrant rhetoric doesn't usually make that distinction, and if it does it's typically pro forma.

What I most strongly objected to is her "one in 6000 years" comment. I see no reason for that comment except to belittle a very serious problem. She then goes on to do the same about gun control, people killing pets, and suggests that defending the Haitians is "racist". Hers was not a post made in good faith, but just one meant to vent her political views.

 

[Mendel]

extremely upset when 1 in 6000 years happens in their town.

you're off by a factor of 10
~5000 towns in the US with >5000 population, ~40 school shootings per year makes 120 years per town on average

somewhat like 30,000 highschools, makes 700 years per school

 

[John J.]

-This is a widespread cultural practice, not the result of extreme privation*,

you might be exaggerating a bit. School shootings aren't widespread but it doesn't stop people from being extremely upset when 1... ...happens in their town.

I see where you're coming from re. my use of "widespread", and people can (often rightly) be appalled at just one instance of unpleasant or criminal behaviour.
But the mud only really sticks (for the eating cats and dogs claim) if some people think it applies to numbers of immigrants-
-most people probably understand that in any large group of people, there might be one or two who do unusual or offensive things because they don't understand local cultural norms at first, or e.g. have acute mental illness.

The former President said

"In Springfield, they're eating the dogs, the people that came in, they're eating the cats, they're eating the pets of people that live there".

"Eating pets, inflation, abortion - key debate claims fact-checked", BBC News, US & Canada, 11 September 2024
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cgjv3gdxv7go

-Which implies numbers of people are doing this (ignoring the fact that we haven't found reliable evidence of 1 instance in Springfield AFAIK), which I think was what he was trying to convey.

Much easier to marginalize a group of people if "we" are convinced a significant number of them act inappropriately.
And pledging to take a hard line on people who we have been told behave in unpleasant ways is sometimes popular, even if the underlying premise is incorrect.

 

[FatPhil]

As one notorious American psychopathic serial killer and rapist replied to interviewers wondering why his wife stayed married and believed all his lies about his atrocities for decades, "a lie built around truth is always the most effective one."

Is that true? You could believe the person who fooled one person, or you could believe the person who fooled 13.7 million people, because a "große Lüge" that only has the "force of credibility" (http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0200601.txt) seems to be working for even more people now than back then, and your murderer doesn't seem to be influencing anyone, not least internet search engines.

 

[captancourgette]

you're off by a factor of 10
~5000 towns in the US with >5000 population, ~40 school shootings per year makes 120 years per town on average

somewhat like 30,000 highschools, makes 700 years per school

I think you're also off a bit.
I looked up school shootings USA 2023 apparently there were 38, where I assume you got the ~40 figure from (but these were shootings only where injuries or deaths occurred) i.e. The number doesn't include shootings where no-one is shot.
https://k12ssdb.org/data-visualizations
Seems like there was 346 school shootings in 2023, though I'm not sure what counts as a school shooting, perhaps they're including someone bring a gun to school but not actually pulling the trigger

 

[Mendel]

I think you're also off a bit.
I looked up school shootings USA 2023 apparently there were 38, where I assume you got the ~40 figure from (but these were shootings only where injuries or deaths occurred) i.e. The number doesn't include shootings where no-one is shot.

Correct, except I found figures for several years, and it varies wildly.

https://k12ssdb.org/data-visualizations
Seems like there was 346 school shootings in 2023, though I'm not sure what counts as a school shooting, perhaps they're including someone bring a gun to school but not actually pulling the trigger

k12ssdb's criterium is "firearm discharged on school property" (inside/outside/school bus). They state this at the top of the page.

My estimates are very crude anyway. Nice to hear they're probably still too high.