Trump Troll Who Induced Epileptic Seizure On Journalist Arrested

Journalist Kurt Eichenwald was attacked via a seizure-
inducing strobe light via the internet last December.
The alleged attacker was arrested Friday. 

Back in late December, I talked about a journalist named Kurt Eichenwald, who's been tough on Donald Trump for a long time and also happens to have epilepsy

The form of epilepsy Eichenwald has can result in grand mal seizures trigged by certain types of light patterns.

So, some of the horrible people who are the most ardent Trump supporters sent him emails with strobe lights that trigger the seizures. 

Yeah, real cool. You don't like what somebody is saying about Trump? Make his illness worse, dangerous or even fatal.

Eichenwald's seizure wasn't just a momentary event. It was genuinely scary.  After the seizure, he was incapacitated for several days, lost feeling in his left hand and had trouble speaking for several weeks, reports the New York Times.

Trump is cruel, so are some of his followers. Assholes, to be honest.

Eichenwald fortunately fought back and he contacted the FBI about the people who sent him these emails.

I'm happy to report there's finally been one arrest in this case.

The Dallas Morning News reports that the FBI arrested John Rayne Rivello, 29, of Salisbury, Maryland, on Friday in Maryland.

Few other details of the arrest were immediately available.

Eichenwald tweeted that Rivello faces federal charges and would be indicted by the Dallas (Texas) District Attorney in the coming days.

According to The Verge:

"(Rivello).....allegedly sent a message to Eichenwal saying, 'You deserve a seizure for your post.' That message included the strobe. 

After pursuing a search warrant, police say they found Twitter direct messages in which Rivello discussed Eichenwald and said he hoped his message would send him into a seizure and that he was waiting to see if the writer dies. 

He additionally had a screenshot of a Wikipedia page for Eichenwald in which he altered it to say that the victim died on December, 16, 2016 (the day after he sent the strobe.)"

If all this is true, I hope they make an example out of Rivello. He needs to be in jail for a long, long time.  He could face up to 10 years in prison for the charges against him now, but people rarely serve the maximum sentence.

I also can't wait to learn more details about him.  Rivello is probably a real piece of work.

Rivello is about to be pilloried in the court of public opinion, that's for sure. It'll probably hurt him more than the seizure he induced on Eichenwald.

Good.

Eichenwald said he has forwarded information about 40 other people who have sent him the the strobe light emails to the FBI and other arrests are possible.

I'm sorry to say this, but there is an awful subset of Trump supporters who are both stupid and mean, which isn't a good combination.

Part of the resistance against Trump has to include calling out these rank and file idiots, to humiilate them and force them back under the rocks from which they came.

It's OK to be a fan of Trump. It's not OK to physically attack those who aren't Trump fans  There's a few people out there that don't know the difference.  As Trump himself would tweet, Sad!

There are consequences for that awful crew of wannabe fascists out there.

Deplorables Now Trying To Kill Journalists? Harass All 'Enemies"?

Journalist Kurt Eichenwald, who has epilepsy,
was sent Tweets with flashing lights to induce
 seizures. People who can't stand to see
Donald Trump criticized sent them, and now
these assailants might face legal trouble.

One of the reasons I worry about the rise of facism in America at the expense of democracy is some of Trump's biggest fans.  

They are truly The Deplorables, badly attacking, sometimes physically,  anyone who dares criticize Trump or anything he does.

I know this is familiar territory to anyone who reads this blog thingy here. I'm always complaining about the undemocratic, un-American Deplorables who make up the core of Trump's most base base.

However, they must constantly be exposed, called on the carpet and mocked into irrelevance to rid ourselves of this cancer.

And like cancer, it takes repeated treatments, repeated exposure to powerful medicines, to get rid of it. This is my small part. Everyone should partake in providing these "treatments." Mockery is good medicine.

That's becuse It really feels as if the Deplorables believe they have a license to be Trump's "enforcers" making sure any dissent is squelched. If violence is necessary so be it.

Unfortunately, it often works. People are afraid to speak up if they are going to get harassed, threatened, hurt, maybe even killed.

This isn't the M.O. of most Trump supporters, of course. Generally, they just prefer his politics and his way of doing things, and will pretty much leave everyone alone. Totally fine.

It's the still-too-many Deplorables that are and will cause all kinds of havoc during the Trump administration.

This week we have a report of Deplorables attacking a journalist who has epilepsy with messages designed to trigger grand mal seizures. All because the Deplorables don't like what the journalist says about  Trump

THE JOURNALIST

One person brave enough to take the Deplorables on is journalist Kurt Eichenwald. He has a form of epilepsy in which grand mal seizures can be triggered by certain types of light patterns.

Some of the nation's Deplorables know this, so they sent Eichenwald tweets, emails and such that contain these light patterns, in addition to the usual death threats against him and his family, for having the temerity of calling out what he believes are the worst of Trump's excesses.

Like I said, though, Eichenwald is fighting back.

Eichenwald is working to find and press assault charges against the people who send him these seizure-inducing strobes, and also working to get them off social media platforms like Twitter, reducing the Deplorables ability to troll.

The only thing I can say that Eichenwald is doing wrong is trying to appeal to the Deplorables' humanity, or at least trying to get others to encourage the Deplorables to put a lid on it.

One of Eihenwald's tweets read, "Look at how many Trump followers seem to think it's funny or deserved that someone used my disability a weapon. What's wrong with them?"

A lot, but that's not going to stop them, unfortunately.

Eichenwald also tweeted, "How have so many ppl become such sociopaths that they think it's OK to assault someone if they write political stories they don't like?"

I'm not sure, but they certainly have their share of supporters and abetters.

Eichenwald is seeking out the people who sent him the seizure tweets and plans to press charges, which is good. It was an assault, so it should be treated as such.

Twitter, citing its user policies, said it would turn over data that would likely lead to the person who sent the seizure-causing tweet.

Of course, we're all free to criticize Eichenwald's reporting and writing. He's human and capable of being wrong. He's a big boy, he can handle criticism. It's part of the job.

But trying to induce seizures? Sounds to me some of his critics are too afraid to take Eichenwald on intellectually, so they resort to this.

The defense of the seizure tweets by obnoxious web sites like Twitchy, Breitbart the Daily Caller is the usual story: To them, Eichenwald is lying and being silly to boot. Because the Deplorables never do anything wrong, uh-uh!

The Daily Caller the other day seemed to suggest that Eichenwald was lying because a police report hadn't been filed yet.

Twitchy re-ran tweets from some of the worst of the Deplorables who pretty much all said that Eichenwald had a psychotic breakdown, not a seizure. But then, the Deplorables probably are too dumb tell the difference between the two.

I'll let "Ursulafaw," writing in Daily Kos, to say what's on my mind, since they do a great job of summarizing how I feel, and how the rest of us should feel:

"It is beyond deplorable that anybody would lash out at a reporter like the Trumpites have lashed out at Kurt Eichenwald, literally trying to destroy the man. Inducing a grand mal seizure is not something that responsible people choose as a viable tool to express their disagreement with something that someone has written. Not in a civilized society, where divergent opinion in the free marketplace of ideas is the order of the day. 

Post 11/09 we no longer live in a civilized society that much is made manifestly clear by the headlines of each and every day. There are literally two countries now, the United States of America and the Trump States of America and I am not talking about Democratic or Republican. I am talking about civility vs. barbarism, about decency vs. degeneracy. The bottom feeders of Trump supporters defy description."

But the bottom feeders will continue bottom feeding. It's going to be a long four years, and we all need to call out the people who do this kind of thing. Even if it's exhausting.