The Other “Trump Protest Buses” Story, the One from Austin, Turned Out to be BS as Well

by Scott Creighton

Yesterday, thanks to a tip from elizabethharris001, I wrote about how Zero Hedge was promoting a flawed, BS story about a score of charter buses being used to bring protesters to Chicago to demonstrate against the future Trump presidency. I showed you how that location was used by ALL of the tour bus companies traveling to Chicago for multiple events and it was certainly not a fact that they were all there to bus in Soros’ paid protesters (though I am sure there were several of those folks there at the time)

While doing research on that story (an idea that maybe someone at Zero Hedge should consider next time) I came across another video purporting to show another set of tour buses lined up in Austin, Texas with a guy spouting off about the “butt-hurt liberals” and how it “takes a lot of money to spontaneously fill up those buses with protesters”

Franco Gonzalez, doing his best Joe Rogan lookalike attempt, made a video where he “sips on liberal tears” and talked about “another hoax” meaning the busing in of protesters to Austin. Turns out, Mr. Gonzalez is perpetrating the hoax.

His whole video is based on some photos taken by Eric Tucker in Austin on the day of the protest and a Tweet he sent out accompanying them. The Tweet has since been removed but it read “Anti-Trump protestors in Austin today are not as organic as they seem. Here are the busses they came in. #fakeprotests  #Trump2016  #Austin”

Franco, sipping “liberal tears” and saying the “conspiracy theorists were proven right again” actually read Mr. Tucker’s Tweet word for word and then showed all of Tucker’s photos commenting “Look at this. Look at all those buses. Dozens of big expensive buses… takes a lot of money to spontaneously organize all those protesters… when are they going to learn”

After Tucker got some questions from his new followers about the scene he photographed, he FINALLY did some research and found out…

But when people started questioning Tuckers claim, so did he. Turns out the buses were being used as hotel shuttles for the Tableau Conference being held at the Austin Convention Center. “Was I wrong in this case, yes I was,” Tucker said.

But for many, they believed it was part of a national conspiracy that anti-Trump protesters are being recruited and paid. Tucker said it’s a lesson learned for the more than 16,000 who retweeted it. “I don’t want to speculate too much, but I do think that it does speak to sort of shallowness of this current election cycle.” And a lesson learned for him. “I’ll be more careful, especially if I know that it’s going to be picked up by this many people.”

Tucker wrote on his blog and said he would like to express his sincere apologies to anyone who felt misled and his intentions have always been for the best. ” Fox 7 Austin

So, it turns out, that “Trump protest buses” story is just as full of BS as the one I wrote about yesterday.

I wonder if Mr. Gonzalez will be as quick to retract his self-satisfied BS story now that it’s been made perfectly clear that it is based on absolutely nothing. I kinda doubt it since he does mention and link to his personal website which he calls “simplefreedom.com” but actually goes to “actractionlistbuilding.com” which is a marketing scheme website.

Yeah, that’s right. The guy runs a website which he uses all sorts of click-bait headlines in order to build lists and incorporate them in his bullshit internet marketing schemes. The guy has a Tony Robbins interview video up on his site if that gives you any indication of how committed he is to “truth media” and “citizen journalism” (as he claims on the header of his marketing website)

It should also be noted Eric Tucker has a marketing scheme business called Pocketmath.

So this whole thing was nothing more than a marketing scheme concocted by Eric Tucker and latched onto by another shyster, Franco Gonzalez, in order to make some money. It was completely disingenuous from the start.

Genuine, alternative, independent journalism is hard to come by because it takes discipline, integrity and work. Click-bait identity politics marketing schemes are a dime a dozen. Make sure you do a little research before you reTweet something, or post a Youtube video sipping liberal tears and patting yourself on the back for your rightness of being. You may just end up looking like a self-absorbed asshole like all those CNN pundits that said Trump was dead two weeks ago.

Get me, Franco?

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