Laura Loomer’s Greatest Hits; NewsGuard's Reality Check, September 13, 2024

NewsGuard's Reality Check; Laura Loomer’s Greatest Hits

"Loomer has initiated or promoted 17 of the provably false narratives on significant news topics in NewsGuard’s catalog of False Narratives.

Conservative commentator Laura Loomer has been in the headlines this week amid reports that she has been a regular on former President Donald Trump’s campaign plane and has steered him toward promoting conspiracy theories. These include the debunked claims of Haitian migrants abducting and eating cats and dogs in Springfield, Ohio.  

Loomer’s claims have long been a subject of interest at NewsGuard. Here’s what we know:"

Laura Loomer, a Social-Media Instigator, Is Back at Trump’s Side; The New York Times, September 12, 2024

Ken Bensinger , The New York Times; Laura Loomer, a Social-Media Instigator, Is Back at Trump’s Side

"A far-right activist known for her endless stream of sexist, homophobic, transphobic, anti-Muslim and occasionally antisemitic social media posts and public stunts, Ms. Loomer has made a name for herself over the past decade by unabashedly claiming 9/11 was “an inside job,” calling Islam “a cancer,” accusing Ron DeSantis’s wife of exaggerating breast cancer and claiming that President Biden was behind the attempt to assassinate Mr. Trump in July.

Just two days before the debate, Ms. Loomer, 31, posted a racist joke about the vice president, whose mother was Indian American. Ms. Loomer wrote on X that if Ms. Harris won the election, the White House would “smell like curry.

For many observers, including some of Mr. Trump’s most important allies, the Republican presidential nominee’s choice at a critical moment of the campaign to platform a social-media instigator, albeit one with nearly 1.3 million followers on X, was stunning.

“The history of this person is just really toxic,” Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a Trump ally, told a reporter for HuffPost on Thursday. “I don’t think it’s helpful at all.”

His comments were echoed by Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican from Georgia and a devoted supporter of Mr. Trump. “I don’t think that she has the experience or the right mentality to advise a very important presidential election,” Ms. Greene told reporters Thursday morning."

'This is violence against Donald Trump': rightwingers interrupt Julius Caesar play; Guardian, June 17, 2017

Calla Wahlquist and Lois Beckett, Guardian; 'This is violence against Donald Trump': rightwingers interrupt Julius Caesar play

"A rightwing protester has been charged with trespassing after interrupting a New York production of Julius Caesar during the assassination scene and shouting: “This is violence against Donald Trump.”

The protester, who later identified herself as Laura Loomer, interrupted the Shakespeare in the Park production on Friday night and shouted “this is political violence against the right” while audience members booed and told her to get off the stage.

The incident was filmed by Jack Posobiec, a rightwing provocateur best known for helping to spread the Pizzagate conspiracy theory. He stood up as Loomer was escorted off stage by security guards and yelled at the crowd: “You are all Goebbels. You are all Nazis like Joseph Goebbels … You are inciting terrorists. The blood of Steve Scalise is on your hands.”...

In a statement issued after the play, director Oskar Eustis said: “Free speech for all, but let’s not stop the show.”

“The staff removed the protesters peacefully and the show resumed with the line ‘Liberty! Freedom!’,” he told the New York Times. “The audience rose to their feet to thank the actors, and we joyfully continued. Free speech for all, but let’s not stop the show.”"