Paranoia-Rama: Far-Right Reactions To Orlando Edition

RWW’s Paranoia-Rama takes a look at five of the week’s most absurd conspiracy theories from the Right.

It took almost no time at all for conservative pundits and politicians to claim that President Obama either wanted the terrorist attack in Orlando to take place or will use the tragedy to advance his nefarious agenda.

5) False Flag!

As expected, InfoWars broadcaster Alex Jones swiftly declared that the Orlando massacre was a government-instigated false flag attack.

According to Jones, President Obama and other leaders are trying to encourage Muslims to settle in America in hopes that they will soon turn to violence, which will in turn justify government attempts to censor speech and seize firearms: “Our governments are bringing these people in and they’re allowing them to operate openly in our society so they can attack us and then have our freedoms taken.”

The fact that the shooter was born in New York didn’t stop Jones from blaming “the Islamic invasion” of America through immigration.

Later, Jones accused the LGBT rights movement of allying with Islamic extremists because both groups “want access to our kids” to sexually abuse them.

“I charge the left and I charge Obama and I charge the LGBT community in general with endangering America and with the blood of these 50-plus innocent men and women,” he said.

4) ‘Confiscate Muslims’

“Trunews” host Rick Wiles wants the government to go one step further than just banning Muslim immigration, telling his listeners that every single Muslim living in the U.S. must be rounded up and deported before Islam, which he said should be criminalized, “destroys civilization”:

The left is calling for gun control. What we need is Muslim control. We don’t need to confiscate guns, we need to confiscate Muslims. You’re not going to solve this problem until you round up the Muslims and ship them out of this country. End of discussion. Outlaw Islam. Make it an illegal religion. Don’t tell me it can’t be done. Pass a constitutional amendment that says we’re a Christian nation and Islam is illegal. Done. Get rid of it. Stamp it out before it destroys civilization.

3) Tom DeLay Has Some Thoughts

Former House GOP Leader Tom DeLay weighed in on the massacre in Orlando by telling Wiles that the president is a Marxist/Islamist anti-American mastermind who has “empowered” terrorist groups and “put American lives in danger.”

“He’s certainly a Muslim sympathizer and he’s scared to death that the United States and the people of the United States will go after and discriminate against Muslims and that’s why he can’t say the words, ‘radical Islamists,’” he said. “It’s his worldview. This is who he is. He was raised in a communist upbringing. He hates America.”

2) ‘Obama Intends To Take Control Of The Internet’

Apparently unaware of how net neutrality works, Rush Limbaugh said today that the president, when he commented that “deranged individuals” like the Orlando shooter are often “warped by the hateful propaganda that they had seen over the internet,” actually revealed that he “intends to take control of the internet, using this as justification,” linking it back to Obama’s support for net neutrality rules.

“Obama’s takeover of the internet will not be to prevent these kinds of things from happening,” he said. “He’s got an entirely different agenda. All the Democrats do. It’s total control. It’s limiting access to information. It’s about shutting down opposition. That’s why they want control of the internet.” Watch via Media Matters:

If Limbaugh is really worried about an American leader using terrorism as an excuse to “take control of the internet,” then he should look no further than Donald Trump.

1) Donald Trump Is Just Sayin’

During his egotistical and nauseating reaction to the Orlando massacre, Donald Trump made a not-so-thinly-veiled suggestion that the president may in fact be on the side of the terrorists.

As Trump often does, he framed the claim by saying that he was simply saying what “a lot of people” think, and that anyone who tries to hold him answerable for his remarks must be dishonest and biased.

After vigorously denying that he ever implied that Obama supported ISIS, he tweeted an article from the pro-Trump outlet Breitbart alleging that the administration is backing ISIS.

Trump’s insinuation that Obama is a champion of ISIS shouldn’t be that surprising, since he has repeatedly accused Obama of arming ISIS and claimed that the president “doesn’t want to get rid of the problem” of terrorism.

But that’s just what happens when the GOP decides to put up a notorious conspiracy theorist for the most powerful office in the world.