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MyPillow Chief Executive Officer and conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell called into right-wing twice-convicted felon Steve Bannon's War Room show during a snow goose hunting trip on Monday to complain about "the media" and to "bash" Florida's Republican Governor Ron DeSantis.
Lindell is a firm ally of former President Donald Trump and the most vocal proponent of Trump's debunked lies about the 2020 election. That loyalty landed Lindell on the receiving end of a $1.3 billion defamation lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems, which Lindell falsely alleges switched ballots to President Joe Biden, who won in a landslide.
Dominion also has a $1.6 billion case against Fox News and its hosts for peddling Trump's claims despite having known that they were bogus.
Speaking with Bannon on Real America's Voice, Lindell noted that he chatted with attendees at Trump's Saturday rally in Waco, Texas.
"Great. The, uh, the media, the people I took, uh, I, I went out in the crowd for about five hours and, uh, everybody is just, uh, so, uh, excited for this, uh, campaign and, uh, uh, the media, of course, I was, I did interview after interview, and they, of course, they took out little pieces and the word got out," Lindell said.
"I know one of the ones that went out there as I, I bash, Ron DeSantis, called him the Trojan Horse again," Lindell continued, "and I, I stand by what I say, um, uh, what he's personally done, uh, down there with, uh, the Dominion lawyers and such."
Yet it was Lindell's disheveled appearance and jittery disposition that captured the internet's attention.
BobbyB: "He looks like I used to after being up 3 days on meth."
@The_Gunit11: "Right-wing internet conspiracy theories really are just like drugs. People just can't wait to get their next fix."
AI Chatbot: "HE'S HOMELESS AND LIVING IN A CAR!!!!"
McHammerToe: "That shaking hand…"
Tomo: "Motherf*cker has the shakes."
Lindell was further ridiculed for his fealty to Trump.
Albert Yome: "He's not fascist enough for them?"
Alex Simon: "It's cute how much Mike wants Trump to like him...sorry, not cute...gross. It's gross."
Scott: "If I have to listen to Mike it had better include a promo code."
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'We're going to beat up the gay kid': Teen killed near Murdaugh estate was hate crime victim, lawyer says
March 27, 2023
Stephen Smith was found found dead on July 8, 2015, on a dark road in Hampton County, S.C., three miles away from his vehicle and near the Murdaugh family estate. In the wake of his death being recently ruled a homicide, his family's lawyer is giving his theory on what led to Smith's death, PEOPLE Magazine reported.
"When you start going down the possibility that it was a hate crime and they took a rape kit, this is an openly gay 19-year-old kid," Eric Bland told PEOPLE. "And this isn't in New York City or California or Washington D.C., Philadelphia. It's in the Lowcountry, South Carolina, where being openly gay in 2015 probably is not the most popular thing to be."
"I think it was a hate crime," Bland said. "Meaning that it could be that a bunch of thug kids decide, 'Hey, we're going to beat up the gay kid,' or it was somebody who felt that Stephen was going to out them in their relationship or was uncomfortable with Stephen in their friendship."
"I think that's what we're going to find, because Stephen had told his mother that he was dating somebody of prominence," Bland continued. "He was very secretive about his lifestyle. He wasn't secretive about the fact that he was gay, but he respected the boundaries of people who he had relationships with."
IN OTHER NEWS: Life sentence for Michigan mom who says SpongeBob told her to brutally murder 3-year-old daughter
Buster Murdaugh, who is the surviving son of convicted murderer Alex Murdaugh, and Smith were high school classmates. As PEOPLE points out, authorities haven't accused the Murdaugh family or Buster Murdaugh of being connected to the killing, nor have they ruled the killing a hate crime.
Alex Murdaugh, scion of an elite family of judges and attorneys, was convicted and sentenced earlier this month in a televised three-week trial that captivated viewers nationwide and outside the country.
Despite the lack of concrete evidence like a murder weapon or DNA showing he shot his son Paul and wife Maggie at their sprawling hunting estate on June 7, 2021, it took a jury only a few hours to convict him.
Evidence from his son's cell phone indicated Murdaugh, 54, was the only person with them at the estate's hunting dog kennels several minutes before Maggie was killed with an assault rifle and Paul with a shotgun.
One day after the jury ruled, the judge sentenced Murdaugh to two consecutive life sentences, without parole.
READ MORE: Murdaugh family member mysteriously buying up family heirlooms on auction
Just ahead of the sentencing, the lanky, red-headed attorney who made a fortune suing companies but also stole millions from his law firm to feed a huge opioid habit, denied he killed them.
"I'm innocent. I would never hurt my wife Maggie. And I would never hurt my son Paw Paw," he said, using his son's nickname.
"It might not have been you," the judge responded. "It might have been the monster you become when you take 15, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 opioid pills."
The twists and turns of the case focused on a family which the judge said "controlled justice" in the South Carolina coastal lowlands for generations.
The trial delved deeply into the culture of hunting wild pigs and other wildlife in the area, Murdaugh's admitted theft of huge sums from clients including poor families, and raised questions about two other deaths possibly tied to the Murdaugh family.
Even before the trial finished, Netflix and HBO rushed out docu-dramas on the case.
With additional reporting by AFP
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Residents of Philadelphia and the surrounding area demanded clarity about the safety of their drinking water from city officials on Monday, three days after chemicals leaked from a plant into a tributary of the Delaware River, which provides water for about 14 million people in four states.
About 8,100 gallons of acrylic polymer solution leaked from a burst pipe at the chemical plant Trinseo PLC in Bucks County, Pennsylvania late Friday, entering Otter Creek, which flows into the Delaware.
The solution contained butyl acrylate, ethyl acrylate, and methyl methacrylate, which are used in paints and adhesives.
Exposure to butyl acrylate and ethyl acrylate is associated with breathing difficulties, and the latter is listed as a "potential occupational carcinogen" by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Despite the leak of the chemicals, city officials did not alert residents until Sunday morning, when they said people in Philadelphia should use bottled water to prevent exposure and warned that although contamination had not yet been detected in the drinking supply, water from Otter Creek could have traces of chemicals.
Hours later, Michael Carroll, the city's deputy managing director for transportation, infrastructure, and sustainability said residents no longer needed to buy bottled water—which had rapidly sold out at stores across Philadelphia following the earlier warning—and that the chance of contamination was diminishing over time.
"In a matter of days, the water in the Delaware should be okay," Carroll said, noting that tap water which had gone through the city's Baxter Water Treatment Plant had been determined to be free of contaminants as of Sunday.
Carroll said the city's drinking water had been confirmed to be safe to consume until at least Monday at 11:59 pm; the Baxter treatment facility took in new water overnight, which still has to be tested, according toThe Philadelphia Inquirer.
Democratic mayoral candidate and former city council member Helen Gym accused officials of "haphazardly" communicating with residents about the safety of their drinking water.
"There is no circumstance under which the city should announce that tap water may be unsafe two full days after they learned of possible contamination and without a plan to provide safe water to every resident," said Gym. "The mayor must guarantee access to safe drinking water... Should future water samples at the treatment plant show contamination, the city must provide clear guidance to residents on how to access safe water, and when to expect safe water access to return."
She added that Trinseo PLC must be held accountable for the pipe rupture.
Business owners and residents echoed Gym's concern about being forced to wait for information about whether the water will be safe to drink after Monday night.
Scott Coudriet, a co-owner of Lloyd Whiskey Bar, closed his restaurant temporarily on Sunday, telling the Inquirer that the cocktail-focused business relies heavily on ice and that he didn't want to risk serving contaminated drinks.
"We didn't feel equipped to make any other choice than to close," Coudriet told the newspaper Monday. "But if anything, today I'm still confused about the language that 'You're safe through 11:59 p.m'... I don't know what happens at midnight."
Helicopter surveillance on Sunday did not show visual evidence of a chemical contaminant plume in Otter Creek or the Delaware River, and a water quality expert at Drexel University, Charles Haas, told the Inquirer that his concern level about contamination was "fairly low" based on the information provided by Carroll and other city officials.
The chemicals would be highly diluted in the river, Haas told the newspaper, and a reservoir at the Baxter plant could close off intake of new water from the river if necessary.
A map released by the city, however, showed more than two dozen zip codes in Philadelphia listed as ultimately being "potentially impacted" by the spill.
Consumer rights and environmental justice advocate Erin Brockovich denounced officials' assurances of the safety of the water as "bullshit... from the 'stay calm and carry on' folks."
"I honestly don't know what to make of this latest update," said journalist Kim Kelly, a Philadelphia resident. "After everyone ran out and bought up all the bottled water, the tap water is now safe until 11:59 pm Monday night? What happens after that?"
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