'Clearly chicken you weirdo': People respond to JD Vance sharing video he claims shows migrants grilling cat
By: Justin Rohrlich (The Independent)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
The "gotcha" footage posted online by Vance may not be the slam dunk he apparently hoped it would be
Republican vice-presidential candidate Senator JD Vance continues to stoke outrage against foreign-born members of his own constituency, sharing video footage with his 1.9 million social media followers that he claimed showed African migrants in Dayton, Ohio "eating cats" — but instead appears to show nothing more than poultry cooking on an outdoor grill.
"Kamala Harris and her media apparatchiks should be ashamed of themselves," Vance posted Saturday on X, the social network formerly known as Twitter. "Another 'debunked' story that turned out to have merit."
Vance has claimed, falsely, in recent days that Haitians — who are not Africans — living in Springfield — a town of 58,000 which is not Dayton — were stealing, killing, and consuming their neighbors' pets.
The video was originally posted by the right-wing Manhattan Institute's Christopher Rufo, who offered a $5,000 bounty to anyone that could provide "proof" of cat-eating immigrants in Ohio. The footage was filmed last year in Dayton, Rufo wrote in a companion article published Saturday on his personal website. He said he spoke with the person who shot the video, and that this person said the cat-eaters were "some Africans that stay right next door to my kid's mother," according to Rufo's piece, which insists the claims were verified by "multiple witnesses and visual cross-references."
"One can make the case for migration, but one cannot, at the same time, deny that it comes with costs — which, in this case, seem to include a pair of flayed cats on a blue barbeque in Dayton, Ohio," the article concludes.
Backlash was swift, with replies ranging from, "I find it strange that a self-professed 'hillbilly' doesn't know what whole chickens look like," to, "HOW DO YOU NOT KNOW WHAT CHICKENS LOOK LIKE WITH THEIR LEGS ATTACHED YOU F****ING DIPSHIT." Oliver Alexander, an open-source intelligence analyst, weighed in, sharing images of plucked chickens looking remarkably similar to whatever was being grilled in the video. "Clearly chicken you weirdo. Dude's never seen chicken that wasn't dino-nugget shaped," he wrote.
Clearly chicken you weirdo.
Dude's never seen chicken that wasn't dino-nugget shaped. https://t.co/6TwLNZy1Gupic.twitter.com/kXHfAXKEVu
— Oliver Alexander (@OAlexanderDK) September 14, 2024
Rufo did not respond to a request for comment on Saturday. The Vance campaign declined to comment on the record. An expert at the National Chicken Council did not reply to inquiries. However, a source close to Vance told The Independent that they do not believe the carcasses seen on the grill are chickens. A visual comparison of skinned cats prepared for laboratory use and whole-plucked chickens suggested the animals in the video are almost certainly not feline.
Saturday's repost by Vance, a Yale-educated lawyer who represents the State of Ohio, marks yet another escalation in the anti-immigrant narrative he publicly launched less than a week ago. On Monday, Vance claimed, falsely, that newly-arrived Haitians in Springfield were feasting on their neighbors' domestic animals, prompting national outrage by the right. GOP Sen. Ted Cruz gleefully stirred the pot, posting a photo that same day of a cat with a single line of text reading, "Please vote for Trump so Haitian immigrants don't eat us."
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Why the hell do they continue to perpetuate these lies?
Because it will 'grab' the minds of bigots and lock those bigoted minds in place, while giving them a 'viral' talking point. It does'nt matter that it is a lie: "A sucker is born everyday" - the saying goes. . . one with a vote. . . who only needs a justification of sorts to legitimize a 'bigoted' vote. When one is struggling in the polls and for attention: this kind of s-it is what one must do- Lie BIG and never apologize!
We must not let them get away with a Big LiE - forget their apology we don't need it anyway!
So this isn't satire?
https://x.com/OAlexanderDK/status/1834994358237503886?ref_src=twsrc^tfw|twcamp^tweetembed|twterm^1834994358237503886|twgr^694a777c6a413c71049e3a005bc1e2bca943ea6c|twcon^s1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.independent.co.uk%2Fnews%2Fworld%2Famericas%2Fus-politics%2Fjd-vance-cats-grill-chicken-ohio-b2612999.html
I have no personal line to explain what the hell the problem is here. But, these are the images posted on the link! - CB. Observe that the 'grill' image is blurred. . .reminds me of those opaque "washed out" images of alien space crats we often see circulated. The other two images: 'crystal clear.'
In all seriousness, it isnt possible to tell what is on that grill. Like you say, its blurry, plus it is a bad angle to see what they are.
When I first saw the video the thought that came to me was why would someone cook any animals positioned in that way? Where is the smoke from the grill? If they are cooking something why isnt the grills lid closed?
Too many questions.
JD Vance, and Rufo are irresponsible.
J.D. Vance is putting on full display why he is 'perfect' for Crooked Donald's running mate. He is willing to be a deeply dangerous man-politician for Donald's cause. He and Donald have no daylight between them. One man's lie is symbiotic with the other man's! These are hardcore calculated LIES playing out in the 'end' of THIS campaign season. The 'big lie' - "Lie Big" can and will get worse by election day.
Voting has begun and so the lies are designed to trick people out of their votes, before they can recognize "THE BIG CON" is even afoot.
Watch out! This is about to get 'red-hot'! Harris/Walz need to get out there and get EARNED MEDIA (free media because of TRUTH-TELLING) that 'animates' itself!
VOTERS: ELECT HARRIS/WALZ if we want honest patriotic Americans governing and selecting judges up and down the line who are not 'hand-picked' by the trumpist FEDERALIST SOCIETY!
Btw. Another observation. It has not escaped my notice that Donald has not changed one significant iota from the person he was before, during, and after 2016! He is basically the same rotten human being. What has changed-or were they fake all along-are some conservatives in the GOP! They have all fallen down from their status and are vassals to a service-less COWARD named Donald!
So yes! There will be more BIG LIES coming. It's the nature of Crooked Donald to lie with ease (especially when the stakes are HIGH!)
The blurry video looks like chickens that have partially spatched cocked. Mr G does this sometimes with a whole chicken but he does it fully where the chicken is completely flat, then he grills it. Those don't look like feline feet
I have never seem a 'skinned' cat (nor care to see one). Certainly, I am a tad traumatized by having to look at these scrawny whole chickens hanging around in the photo!
Lol. I guess all you need is some anonymous twitter accounts to swear and make claims on the internet and Democrats believe it.
Here's the actual reporting on the barbecued cats:
: “The video shows what appears to be animal carcasses on a grill. The man filming the footage alleges, without evidence, that they are cats.” Without evidence? The eyewitness directly observed the incident and took a video recording of it—both of which are firsthand evidence. But CBS’s apparent standard, when such evidence violates the establishment narrative, is: Don’t believe your lying eyes. The report also quotes Dayton’s Democratic mayor, who says there have been “absolutely zero reports of this type of activity.” Which is true, but does not contradict the evidence at all. Nobody filed a police report, so there would be no police report—and the absence of a police report does not mean that something did not happen. This is a convenient way of ignoring the evidence, and laundering lies through friendly media apparatus
. What did CBS not do? Journalism.
The network, which has massive resources, did not send a reporter to the scene, interview the eyewitness, interview the neighbors, investigate the visual evidence, conduct background research, or provide a detailed analysis. They simply adopted “don’t believe your lying eyes” as their standard and repeated an empty, evidence-free statement from a partisan political figure. Now, I’d like to take you through exactly how we produced the story and analyzed the evidence. This is precisely the case that I made in the original piece, that the establishment media is more interested in denial and obfuscation, even when the evidence points the other way. Sourcing An individual in my personal social netwo rk reached out with a tip and a link to the social media post with the video. (This source neither requested, nor received, the monetary prize I had posted on social media a few days prior.)
Our team then collected the timestamped social media from August 2023, which was still live. We tracked down the author, authenticated the video, matched it to his voice, and conducted an interview by phone, in which he confirmed the key details of the story. The following day, we had the author bring us to the location and make introductions, had a team member conduct background research, and sent a reporter into the field to make observations and conduct interviews. To confirm the exact location of the video, we matched the visual elements in the picture to the visual elements on the scene, down to matching knot patterns in fence planks, which provided us with the precise address and camera position relative to the scene. For extra care, we also cross-referenced the visual evidence with street and satellite images, plus residential property records.
Eyewitness Account Our interview with the eyewitness matched the details of the original video and was unambiguous in its conclusion: “This African dude next door had the damn cat on the grill. They was barbecuing the damn cat!” The eyewitness was familiar with the African families in the housing complex (his son played with their children) and his child’s mother, who lived next door to the Africans, had observed them on at least one occasion butchering a large mammal on the street. The eyewitness had a close, unmediated look at the incident and maintained a consistent story over one year, to multiple different groups, including his own peer group. He is familiar with barbecuing and, like anyone, is familiar with cats. The source of his initial shock was that the animal on the grill was not a chicken, burger, hotdog, or other usual fare. Again, he witnessed the incident firsthand, recorded a video, and maintained a consistent story over a year. This is all direct evidence, contrary to CBS News’s disingenuous claim.
Field Interviews Our field reporter spoke with a half-dozen people in the housing complex, who confirmed the following details: all of the residents of the complex were migrants from Africa, most commonly the Congo; they were familiar with the eyewitness, his child’s mother, and his son; they told us another African family had recently moved out of one of the units; this family owned and used a blue grill; the father would go out with a knife and gather meat; there were stray cats breeding on the property and some residents wanted to get rid of them.
We also made the following direct observations on the scene: we matched the visuals in the video to the location; we found an abandoned grill that matched the make, model, and color in the video and the descriptions in the interviews; we noticed that there were at least ten cats on the property, which appeared to be strays and were very comfortable with the residents, coming onto the porches and milling around the exterior of the house. Background Research Our research team learned that there is a tradition of cat eating in the Congo and surrounding nations. We also learned that, since at least 2021, Dayton has accommodated a relatively large number of migrants from the Congo.
By chance, one of our in-house researchers had experience dissecting cats and studying their anatomy. In addition, we spoke on background with a chicken farmer, surgeon, biologist, hunter, and medical professor. Af ter some left-wing conspiracy accounts on social began claiming that the animals were chickens, rather than cats, we asked them to provide their opinion. I will reproduce some of the quotations from two of those interviews below.
Chicken Farmer Interview This farmer, who has processed thousands of animals per year, confirmed that it could not be a chicken in the video: • “The most obvious evidence is that the claws on the grill are facing the wrong way for it to be an avian creature. Size-wise the only poultry [the claws] could credibly be compared to is a Cornish game hen or something small, but the carcasses are much larger than that. Literally any poultry farmer or butcher would tell you that’s not a chicken or a waterfowl.” • “A bird wouldn’t be able to rest upside down like that. Its heavy legs would cause it to flop to one side or another, or the legs would just drop down to either side … There’s no way for a bird to naturally sit that way. They’re bottom-heavy creatures.” • “The legs are too skinny [to be a chicken]. The ‘drumstick’ even on a laying hen would be much meatier. Number two is that, even if it were a bird, the talons are facing in the wrong direction. But they are in the right direction for cat’s paws. They are basically claiming that the two legs on the left are those of a chicken, and that its butt is somehow propped in the air. First of all, why would it be propped in the air? ... But more importantly, why would the drumsticks be stuck up in midair? For a quadruped like a feline this makes sense (they are the front legs) but not an avian creature which has one set of legs with a sort of folding joint in them. If the bird were face up as they are claiming, the legs would fold down onto the thighs, not project straight into the air.” • “The feet of a chicken or a waterfowl are much larger in proportion to the carcass than what’s in the video. Whereas the proportion fits that between a cat’s leg and paw. When you shoot a cow or sheep or pig, they might fall and roll onto their back with their legs straight up in the air like the cat is. Because they’re also quadrupeds. Not possible with a chicken because it just has a totally different leg structure. Made to do different things.”
Lol. Let’s base a massive post-debate media blitz on some story about a black guy who supposedly cooked a domesticated animal and pretend it’s a widespread phenomenon. Trump failed his debate so crushingly hard that this is his only recourse. Pathetic and racist as hell. Par for the course.
Originally I was semi-impressed with Rufo's explanation. But even at its best its not proof. The video is totally inconclusive. It might as well not exist for all the help it gives his story. As for all this "expert" opinion, the counter argument has experts too.
They should stop with all this crap until and unless they have a string of credible sources. I dont put Rufo's substack into that category.
And if someone was cooking on that grill, where is the smoke? This could easily have been staged.
This and saying (paraphrasing here) "the bullets are flying and its only going to get worse"
Keep moving those goalposts.
d that this is his only recourse.
Yet Democrats are the ones literally spreading edited videos to promote the obvious lie that Vance admitted making these allegations up. They seem to have no other recourse than to lie.
If you want to believe the video from 2023 was staged so it could be used in 2024 as a campaign issue there's not much I can say.
An honest rebuttal would be:
There is no definitive proof of this happening in Springfield
Trump should not be promoting allegations of this type without more definitive evidence.
Instead, Democrats lie and claim there's no evidence of it happening and, even more egregiously, that Vance admitted making the allegations up.
It could have been staged in 2023 to make Haitians look bad in 2023. After all, Vance says they have been a problem in Ohio for years.
The video and Rufo's substack article might be "evidence",kind of, but not the kind of evidence that would get a conviction in court.
There is no evidence - if it can't be produced on demand. No gaslighting allowed here. We're smarter than that-way smarter!
How do their supporters continue to tolerate this insanity? Anybody???
Because they are more insane than he is.
Because it gets mileage. When you are denying it: you clearly are not talking and doing other more important and mundane campaign discussions. They want the distraction. We should not give it to them UNLESS WE ALSO BRING IT BACK TO THE IMPORTANT ISSUE:
VOTE FOR HARRIS/WALZ - democrats with golden integrity in a filthy campaign season!
Did you mean to use green font or did you mean green integrity?
He has to answer to you? LOL
Of course not, no one has to answer here. I’m surprised that you had to ask.
I'm surprised you asked him why he was using a certain color of text.
Because he wrote “golden integrity” in green font.
oh
This wacko is a VP candidate for the US.
To call him an embarrassment is a vast understatement.