June 07, 2020 09:18 AM UTC

Rep. Dave Williams Believes All The BS

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• by: Colorado Pols

Apparently, this flyer was found outside the CO Capitol during the “peaceful” protests.

Obviously, this is unacceptable to say the least.

Encouraging violence & calling for the murder of Republicans is disgusting.#GeorgeFloyd #copolitics #cogov #coleg pic.twitter.com/Jp8tznzPb9

— Rep. Dave Williams (@RepDaveWilliams) June 6, 2020

That’s hard-right GOP Rep. Dave Williams of Colorado Springs, who has taken it upon himself to become one of the louder detractors from the week-plus of protests in Denver over the alleged murder of George Floyd in police custody–loudly demanding that more cops show up to crack more skulls and applauding President Donald Trump’s bellicose mismanagement of the ongoing situation.

In the Tweet you can see above sent yesterday, Williams claims that a flyer proclaiming among other things “Death to America is all we need” was found among trash left behind by protesters in Denver. “Republicans are not actual humans, they are sub-human troglidytes [sic] and God approves of killing them,” screams this flyer in language that oddly resembles the Westboro Baptist Church protests against LGBT people.

The problem, as Michael Karlik of the Colorado Springs Gazette reported on June 3, days before Rep. Williams’ Tweet, is that this letter is 1. from a website in California and 2. almost certainly fake:

The image originated on a Facebook page titled “Californuzuela,” which labels itself as a news and media organization whose mission is to “bring awareness to the dangerous path of Socialism and the future of California.”

The page is filled with news articles about “antifa,” the abbreviation for the anti-fascist movement whose members aggressively counter-protest right-wing demonstrations. Californuzuela posted on Tuesday morning, “ANTIFA recruitment flyers being passed out last night in Denver,” with the image attached. As of Wednesday morning, 197 people had shared it…

“The first hint [that it is fake] is that it’s a call to Democrats – leftist protestors do not identify as democrats,” wrote Showing Up for Racial Justice, a white-led anti-racism group. “It’s also clearly worded to incite violence, which is a far right tactic, and protestors do not advocate violence.”

…After Colorado Politics contacted Californuzuela with a series of questions, the webpage updated the post with a label of “unsubstantiated.”

“Californuzuela,” which is a same we’re sad local Republicans didn’t think of because it’s much more clever than “Radicalifornia,” now says that “after reviewing, I could not find anything to substantiate the flyer image’s authenticity or where it originated.” Let’s be clear on this: the website originally responsible for spreading this image disowned it on June 3. This development was reported in Williams’ own hometown paper, the Colorado Springs Gazette.

Dave Williams Tweeted it out as fact on June 6.

You’re free to give Rep. Williams the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he didn’t see the news story days before he Tweeted debunking these flyers. But knowing Rep. Williams as we do, we see no reason to give him the benefit of the doubt on this or any other question of truthfulness. Let us know if he makes even a token attempt to correct the record.