Out of nowhere, we seem to have ourselves a slow burn mass hysteria event. In November, New Jersey residents began to report swarms of drones allegedly the size of cars in the night skies.
Mike Walsh, a resident of New Jersey’s Randolph township, told Pix11 he’s seen hundreds of the drones in recent weeks. He said they’re aloft “for hours” at a time and don’t seem to follow any discernible flight path.
“They come towards you. Then they change direction a little. They’re all going different ways,” he told the outlet. “Some are very big, probably the size of a car.”
Morris County Sheriff James M. Gannon said Monday the office is actively investigating the drone activity and asked photographers to send in “higher resolution captures of the questionable flights.”
By last week, the phenomenon had reached a fever pitch, spreading to neighboring states. And yet, all evidence indicates that these drones are, in fact, regular planes.
Donald Trump waded into the conversation with a very normal tweet for a president-elect.
Senator Andy Kim of New Jersey and Maryland Governor Larry Hogan took to Twitter to investigate the alleged drones.
Since last week, the Department of Homeland Security has said there is “no question” that drones have been spotted; meanwhile, NSC spokesperson John Kirby said federal investigators were unable to confirm any unauthorized drone usage.
Fresh off of the highly controversial pardon of his son Hunter, on December 12, President Joe Biden announced his administration would commute a record-breaking 1,500 sentences. The commutations, in which the convictions remain but the sentences are reduced or terminated, affected individuals convicted of non-violent crimes who were released from prison and placed in home confinement during the pandemic.
As part of this sweeping act, a number of pretty terrible individuals had their sentences commuted, upsetting many on the left and the right, prompting yet another online dialogue about the role of groups like the ACLU in setting the policy agenda of Democratic administrations.
A week has passed since Luigi Mangione was arrested in a Pennsylvania McDonald’s, and some of the online fervor is dying down. In the days following his arrest, we’ve learned that, contrary to early assumptions, his back surgery was by his own account successful, and that he was not insured by UnitedHealthcare. A good reminder that anybody jumping to conclusions about his motive or what this shooting symbolizes about healthcare in America is at the very least operating with incomplete information.
Meanwhile, the first polling on the UHC shooting his out, and it indicates that public sentiment is not in fact behind Mangione, though like the rest of this story, we’ll almost certainly get a more thorough understanding over time.
Nevertheless, the memification of Mangione continues to bleed from the internet into real life.
Continued in Part 2.
Today on the Internet 