One of the eye-opening things about social media is that people feel compelled to share views they would not air in a real world public setting. You get to learn what people find believable and where their biases may lie. So I found someone on my feed had decided this was completely believable given what they knew about the world:
It took me about ten seconds to find that the claims had been thoroughly debunked at
Snopes and
elsewhere, and that "Obama ordered flags flown at half-mast at Whitney Houston's death" is well on its way to becoming an essential part of whisper campaigns among self described "conservative patriots".
It was, of course, Chris Christie who ordered NJ flags flown at half-mast to honor Whitney when she died (she's from NJ). This was somewhat controversial even then.
Defending Chris Kyle against alleged insults seems to have become a bit of a cottage industry for the reactionary right:
The strange thing is that Obama has made enormous efforts to raise awareness of PTSD and the mental health challenges that returning veterans face (Chris Kyle was shot by a veteran who may have been suffering PTSD). But why would you stop to think when it'll probably stop the delicious foaming you want in your mouth.
This Chris Kyle meme has a lot of catching up to do if it wants to rival the all-time fake outrage leader: