Angry God, omens, and 'Dark Brandon' - N.Y. quake gets wacky
Agence France-Presse
April 6, 2024
The skyline of midtown Manhattan in New York City is seen from the United Nations headquarters in New York City, New York, U.S., July 20, 2018. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
Was it God feeling angry? A dire portent? Or perhaps Joe Biden's superhero alter ego pursuing Donald Trump?
Many were reluctant to admit that the 4.8 magnitude earthquake rattling New York on Friday was just an unimpressive little shake.
This is New York after all.
And with a rare total eclipse set to blot out the sun up the eastern United States on Monday, some are already looking for answers.
"God is sending America strong signs to tell us to repent. Earthquakes and eclipses and many more things to come," Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene -- a noted conspiracy theorist even in normal times -- wrote on X.
"I pray that our country listens," she posted.
On the other side of the political spectrum, some spotted that the epicenter of the quake was close to Trump's New Jersey golf club in Bedminster.
The MeidasTouch group, which opposes Trump, highlighted the New Jersey map under a meme of "Dark Brandon" -- a version of Biden in which the 81-year-old president is depicted grinning with red laser beams shooting from his eyes.
Others poked fun at the doomsayers with a little doomsaying of their own.
"Old Gypsy woman: *turns over a tarot card that shows an Earthquake in NYC just days before a total solar eclipse*," wrote Robert McNees, described as a physicist, on X.
"Sources say that New Yorkers should expect a swarm of locusts following the earthquake, floods and eclipse. Rumblings of concern about plagues so soon before Passover," another poster on X wrote.
New York is also the US media capital, ensuring an unparalleled ratio between the number of journalists and relative lack of news to cover.
In the ensuing race for original headlines, perhaps The Guardian will be recorded as the winner, with: "US man was getting vasectomy as earthquake struck."
According to the article, he emerged from the experience as smoothly as everyone else in the city that never sleeps.
"It mostly felt like a speed bump," he told the outlet.
Agence France-Presse
April 6, 2024
The skyline of midtown Manhattan in New York City is seen from the United Nations headquarters in New York City, New York, U.S., July 20, 2018. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
Was it God feeling angry? A dire portent? Or perhaps Joe Biden's superhero alter ego pursuing Donald Trump?
Many were reluctant to admit that the 4.8 magnitude earthquake rattling New York on Friday was just an unimpressive little shake.
This is New York after all.
And with a rare total eclipse set to blot out the sun up the eastern United States on Monday, some are already looking for answers.
"God is sending America strong signs to tell us to repent. Earthquakes and eclipses and many more things to come," Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene -- a noted conspiracy theorist even in normal times -- wrote on X.
"I pray that our country listens," she posted.
On the other side of the political spectrum, some spotted that the epicenter of the quake was close to Trump's New Jersey golf club in Bedminster.
The MeidasTouch group, which opposes Trump, highlighted the New Jersey map under a meme of "Dark Brandon" -- a version of Biden in which the 81-year-old president is depicted grinning with red laser beams shooting from his eyes.
Others poked fun at the doomsayers with a little doomsaying of their own.
"Old Gypsy woman: *turns over a tarot card that shows an Earthquake in NYC just days before a total solar eclipse*," wrote Robert McNees, described as a physicist, on X.
"Sources say that New Yorkers should expect a swarm of locusts following the earthquake, floods and eclipse. Rumblings of concern about plagues so soon before Passover," another poster on X wrote.
New York is also the US media capital, ensuring an unparalleled ratio between the number of journalists and relative lack of news to cover.
In the ensuing race for original headlines, perhaps The Guardian will be recorded as the winner, with: "US man was getting vasectomy as earthquake struck."
According to the article, he emerged from the experience as smoothly as everyone else in the city that never sleeps.
"It mostly felt like a speed bump," he told the outlet.
Kathleen Culliton
April 5, 2024
Trump seen in the rough atTrump National Golf Club Potomac Falls, Va., on Father's Day 2020. (Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)
The far-right gets a lot of credit for concocting conspiracy theories linked to the highest level of government, but an earthquake near former President Donald Trump's golf Friday gave Democrats a chance to shine.
Donald Trump’s National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey, Friday was at the epicenter of a magnitude 4.8 earthquake that Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) warned was a message from God to "repent."
This spurred Trump biographer Tim O'Brien to reply, "Does MTG know the earthquake’s epicenter was a 12-minute drive from Trump’s Bedminster, NJ golf course?"
News spread fast that the golf course — among those Attorney General Letitia James considered seizing as Trump struggled to find a $464 million bond in his civil fraud trial — was at the heart of the day's quake.
"Now I'm not normally one of those Doomsday people," said X user the Real Thelma Johnson, "but with an Earthquake epicenter at Bedminster Golf Club, Lightning striking the Statue of Liberty, and the upcoming Eclipse... God is obviously very angry Donald Trump is not in jail."
The Bedminster golf course is also where Trump's ex-wife Ivana was laid to rest not too far from the main clubhouse, as one source told the New York Post upon her death in 2022.
"Relax, New Jersey," wrote X user Marc Goldstein. "That was no earthquake. It was just Ivana rolling over and knocking down a stack of classified documents."
X user @dreamwithfaith agreed, adding, "That was Ivana rolling over in her grave cause the classified documents are getting too heavy."
Trump has dominated the 2024 news cycle as he became the first former president to head to court on criminal charges — his New York City hush money case is slated to go to trial on April 15 — and become the professional focus of journalists across the nation.
One of those reporters, Anna Bower, was among the first to chart the earthquake's proximity to the Bedminster golf course.
"Is there any news this man doesn’t touch?" the Lawfare reporter demanded to know on Friday.
Replied Eric Columbus, a former appointee of former President Barack Obama, "On Monday he’ll blot out the sun."
'Girl you are insane': MTG slammed for claiming earthquake was sign from God
Kathleen Culliton
April 5, 2024
U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) at a news conference this month.
(Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
As Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) prayed Friday that America would heed God's warning that had been supposedly been delivered by a relatively minor earthquake, many other Americans prayed someone would tell her about science.
As Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) prayed Friday that America would heed God's warning that had been supposedly been delivered by a relatively minor earthquake, many other Americans prayed someone would tell her about science.
Greene issued a stern warning on social media Friday after a magnitude 4.8 earthquake rumbled east coast cities from Philadelphia to Boston and three days before a solar eclipse is slated to cross over the northern hemisphere.
"God is sending America strong signs to tell us to repent," Greene declared. "Earthquakes and eclipses and many more things to come. I pray that our country listens."
This is not the first time Greene (R-GA) has evoked God's name to express a political point. She once accused transgender people of "destroying God's creation" and last year claimed her savior flooded the music festival Burning Man.
Nor is this the first time Greene has offered a questionable take on natural events, having infamously blamed space lasers supposedly financed by the Rothschild family for California's wildfires.
This may be why Greene's comment Friday was not met with the reverence she might have anticipated.
"Girl you are insane," replied X user Jersey Craig.
X user @SundaeDivine replied with a pithy round-up of Greene gaffes that include mistaking Nazi secret police with cold Spanish soup and fruit-bearing arbors for cell-culture plates.
"It was the Jewish Space Lasers being controlled by the Gazpacho Police targeting the Peach Tree dishes on Capitol Hill," they replied.
Christopher Hale provided Greene with a friendly reminder of the complicated but precise astrophysical calculations that have rendered solar eclipses predictable for centuries.
"Bless your heart, Marjorie," Hale replied. "Eclipses have been predetermined since the dawn of creation. You are perhaps the dumbest person ever elected to the United States Congress."
Christopher Hyre had another interpretation of the message God meant to send Greene.
"Maybe God is telling you to do your job?" Hyre said. "Stop being a horrible person."
Keith Higgins had a historical question: "Did we just slide backward to the Dark Ages?"
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