By: Philip | 01-10-2018 | News
Photo credit: Saengdao | Dreamstime.com

Hijacked Kratom Story Comment Section Rebuttal

Earlier this week we pulled a story at the request of the subject. In our story about Emily and Matthew Hagler's ordeal the comment section ended up flooded with some very nasty and untrue comments about Emily and her family. They accused her of being a drug dealer, her parenting skills were impugned. There was even a claim that she had blown marijuana smoke into her new born baby's face. Ironically, it was her ex and father of the son she hasn't seen in years who did this. Parental alienation is no laughing matter, I know this hard truth from experience, so I don't take it lightly when something like this occurs. In addition to this there were photos of Emily's family, including her children posted in the comments section. The Goldwater consider ourselves bastions of free speech and as such, we don't believe in censorship, but we have hard and fast rules regarding doxxing. If someone does not want photos of their children posted in public, they should not be and we apologize that this forum was abused to cause Mrs. Hagler and her family pain. Despite years of trying to contact her ex (who she married and had a child with at the age of 16) she was denied visits and lack of visitation was used as pretext for terminating her parental rights.

Emily met another mother online who had been through something similar. Lonna had had her son taken from her arms by the Seattle Police Department… on film no less. They bonded over being estranged from their children by an abusive father. In the case of Lonna, she had just obtained an order of protection a month before she had her child removed on the basis of lies into temporary custody. Both Emily and Lonna had dealt with a great deal of cyberbullying as a result of this affair as well. In Lonna's case, like Emily's, after an article was published about her the comment section devolved into the meanest sort of untruths. One of the trolls who has latched on to both of them is identified as "Payton Blakely" on Twitter.

<blockquote>Payton Blake, is a troll. She has been trolling my friend Lonna for a couple of years. Along with others as well. I guess because I haven't given up on Lonna, have continued to support her, and gave her money when she was broke, now they are trolling me. Especially her mother who was apart of having her son, River, taken from her. She has not seen him in 3 years. They have cyberbullied her for 3 years. I fought back against them a few times, but they are ruthless obviously.</blockquote>

"Payton" blasted me on Twitter for "lying" and "dancing around the truth" regarding the content of the comments section. I will admit, I had trouble parsing it. I know what it is like to be separated from a child and I know the kind of pain that engenders so I didn't really want to read through the dozens of malicious, personal and untrue messages. Speaking of dancing around messages, I encouraged "Payton" to DM or email me with their side of this story but they still haven't responded as to whether they think it's alright to share pictures of someone's child when you're attacking them online, whether they think it's ok to defame someone online or in public, or why she (and others) seem to have been actively attacking Emily and her friend Lonna for years online.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">I admitted possibly being mistaken because I only skimmed it. In order to lie I would have had to knowingly have passed on falsehood as truth. Not the case. You have dodged questions of mine as well. It&#39;s all cool though, I&#39;ll share my rebuttal soon. I sleep days, DM me your side</p>&mdash; Philip (@kafkaguy) <a href="https://twitter.com/kafkaguy/status/950746714398392321?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 9, 2018</a></blockquote>

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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">…or don&#39;t. Just saying, I gave you a chance. There were a LOT of lies in that comment section, we&#39;ll be sorting through that and may even mention how you&#39;ve been stalking Emily&#39;s family for some time.</p>&mdash; Philip (@kafkaguy) <a href="https://twitter.com/kafkaguy/status/950746931260739584?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 9, 2018</a></blockquote>

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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">…or don&#39;t. Just saying, I gave you a chance. There were a LOT of lies in that comment section, we&#39;ll be sorting through that and may even mention how you&#39;ve been stalking Emily&#39;s family for some time.</p>&mdash; Philip (@kafkaguy) <a href="https://twitter.com/kafkaguy/status/950746931260739584?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 9, 2018</a></blockquote>

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<blockquote>I could not believe the comments I was reading! They were down right hateful and rude, and they would not stop. I went back and forth with them for hours, not giving in! They tried so hard to get me to believe their lies and to not support her in anyway. All they did was pump me up and got me ready to meet her in person. I wanted to KNOW her and prove them wrong. In February 2016, I bought my first plane ticket and spent a few days with her in Seattle. She took such good care of me while I was there. She was the most loving, caring, honest person, I had yet to meet in my life. In just four days she had become my friend for life. I decided then I would always be there for her and support her in anyway I could. It broke my heart to have to leave her there to fight the battle alone…In July of 2016, I flew back to Seattle for her birthday and she introduced me to kratom. I had a migraine and as soon as I took a dose of kratom, the pain was gone. She told me that one of her childhood friends, Jenny started stripping and had got on heroine so she tried to get her to come off of it with kratom. But Jenny didnt listen, became more addicted and turned into someone Lonna didnt know anymore so she cut communications with her….She told me of her mother who worked for the federal government and abused her growing up. She told me of how hateful, uncaring, unloving, and ruthless she was. She showed me emails of conversations with her mother Lisa, and I couldnt believe a mother could talk to and treat her daughter in such a way. Her grandmother(Lisa's mom) was the same way. It was very clear to me those two women were very cold hearted, cruel, and wanted Lonna to suffer.

So the texts messages that were screenshot and posted in the comments was not just because I was being mean or hateful for no reason, I was simply taking up for my friend against a mother who left her daughter in the cold. I have stood up against these people for Lonna. Once they heard of my arrest for kratom, and saw that I was charged falsely with a heroine charge, they took advantage of the opportunity and started a tweet storm on twitter. Then they blasted me in the comments of the article. I honestly dont know if any of them know me personally. I dont know if some could have been my ex husband Danny or his wife Tina. Its hard to tell, since they hide behind a fake name and screen. What I do know is Lonna and myself have been dealing with cyberbullies for quite some time. There are so many twitter accounts that are made, just to talk shit about her, and now me. There was even a parody of Lonna that was made, just to make fun of and talk about her. I have a list of them that I am getting together. Most I have blocked just so I dont have to deal with the hate.</blockquote>

There were other things noted in the comments section that were wrong enough to deserve to be pointed out. The small army of trolls who attacked the previous article about the Hagler's ordeal claimed that kratom is illegal in Tennessee. In actuality, it is not. It has taken years, but slowly the law has been clarified. Two years ago I contacted Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam at the request of the Tennessee Attorney General's office. Governor Haslam admitted he did not know if the badly worded law (that made no mention of kratom) would refer to the plant. He promised to send over the information I had sent him to the state's Health Commmissioner. He evidently never did as I received no response even when I brought up my letters again a few months ago when <a href="https://giftsfromearth.com/kratom-legality-tennessee-christopher-miller/">Christopher Miller's case</a> was thrown out of a Tennessee court due to the inconsistencies in the law. Representative Tony Shipley (who co-wrote the bill) says the law is only in reference to synthetic products (bath salts, cannibanoids and other related synthetic analogue drugs). As of last month, the TN State Attorney General's office made their official opinion crystal clear in Opinion 17-55, botanical kratom is perfectly legal.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">I did not violate a no contact order. See. You all are making claims you know nothing about. You&#39;re making yourselves look foolish.</p>&mdash; Emily Leah (@EmilyLeah11) <a href="https://twitter.com/EmilyLeah11/status/950802026044116992?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 9, 2018</a></blockquote>

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Another point of contention, using kratom does not mean that someone is a drug addict or trying to wean themselves off of illicit opiates. The wide majority of kratom users use it in place of prescription drugs for chronic pain, depression, anxiety or PTSD because it is more effective for them without the side effects. In the kratom groups I am in there are a great deal of middle aged persons and senior citizens who choose kratom because it doesn't intoxicate or inebriate them. Many people would like relief from physical pain or mental anguish without being stuck in a narcotic haze with a monkey on their back for their whole life.

We here at the Goldwater relish being a voice to the voiceless and standing up against injustice and evils in the world. It is never our aim that any innocents be caught up in the crossfire, but that is exactly what went on this week. As a result, we are offering this rebuttal of some of the callous, cruel and (most importantly) untrue statements that showed up in the comment section. We also offer our sincere apologies to Emily and Matthew Hagler. Bringing someone's children into something like this is the lowest of the low.

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