RWW’s Paranoia-Rama takes a look at five of the week’s most absurd conspiracy theories from the Right.
While liberals are busy destroying freedom, committing voter fraud and “glitter bombing,” it seems that many of us failed to hear the news that President Obama almost nuked an American city. Thankfully, God stopped him, but you won’t hear such news from the liberal media!
5) Obama’s Charleston Nuclear Attack Averted
Likely Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum spoke to a South Carolina activist last week who was convinced that Obama, whom she called a “communist dictator,” “tried to blow up a nuke in Charleston a few months ago.” While Santorum didn’t directly respond to the nuke accusation, he did take offense to the activist’s claim that he didn’t do enough to stop Obama’s executive actions on immigration.
Santorum told her that Obama is a “tyrant” and agreed that congressional Republicans showed a “complete lack of leadership” in fighting his “dangerous” agenda.
The claim that Obama tried to nuke the South Carolina city as part of a “false flag” attack goes back to “InfoWars” host Alex Jones and an obscure website called the European Union Times (EUT), neither of which are exactly credible sources. The EUT has quite the record of posting fantastical stories, and the Southern Poverty Law Center reports that “the EUT was created in October and is registered to the wife of a racist skinhead gang member who was involved in a bizarre stabbing incident” in 2009 during a Holocaust-denial conference.
Another right-wing promulgator of the claim, Jim Garrow, even took to Jones’ show to allege that God stopped Obama’s nuclear attack.
But as Wonkette wryly observed, “we are all going to feel pretty stupid when Barack Obama really does nuke Charleston.”
4) Gays Causing Persecution, Destruction And Drought
“There is persecution afoot,” Sandy Rios of the American Family Association said yesterday, warning a group of conservative pastors that they “must prepare for martyrdom” as a result of the success of gay rights advocates in the U.S.
Rios was channeling a long line of Religious Right activists who believe that gay people are bent on persecuting Christians, such as Pat Robertson, who recently claimed that gay rights advocates are attempting to destroy the U.S. Constitution, or Rick Scarborough, who predicted that Christians will be thrown in jail following a potential Supreme Court decision striking down bans on same-sex marriage.
Radio host Rick Wiles knows another threat of gay rights: drought. Wiles told his “Trunews” audience on Wednesday that the California drought is God’s punishment for homosexuality, abortion rights and the wicked media:
3) Glitter Bomb Attack!
In another case of right-wing activists claiming to face severe persecution, LifeNews.com recently sent out a fundraising email with the ominous title, “URGENT! Our office was bombed, we need your help.” The anti-choice outlet told its readers that it had come under a devastating attack… from “glitter bombs.”
Yes, apparently a group called “Glitter Bombs for Choice” has sent the website’s office “insulting,” “intimidating” and “threatening” letters which contain glitter that “goes everywhere and makes a huge mess.”
“Please help LifeNews today continue our battle against abortion and the culture of death,” the group urged, calling the glitter bombs evidence that “the pro-abortion side knows LifeNews is effective!”
As Jezebel points out, having to clean up glitter from the floor is nothing compared to the threats abortion doctors and clinics have faced every day for decades.
2) America Becoming A ‘Single Party State’
Another Republican politician is embracing the far-right claim that the only reason President Obama and Democratic elected officials want to pursue immigration reform is so they can destroy the Republican Party.
Rep. John Fleming, R-La., warned this week on a radio show first spotted by BuzzFeed that Democrats are using immigrants, who he says are coming to America to “enjoy free healthcare” and “enjoy welfare,” as part of a “grand plan for the Democrat [sic] Party to make this nation into a single party state.”
Democratic officials, the congressman said, are trying to make it easier to commit voter fraud and will rely on the support of immigrants who are ineligible to vote: “We know they come from cultures that look to government for solutions and so the Democrat [sic] Party knows this and they know that if they can’t win elections using American citizens, this is a good way to go around that.”
1) ‘I Wish I Could Just Kill Some Of These Cops’
In case you needed further proof that conservative activist James O’Keefe is not the great muckraker that Fox News makes him out to be, a former staffer for O’Keefe’s group has come forward with emails regarding an O’Keefe scheme to deceptively portray people attending “Black Lives Matter” demonstrations as supporters of violence against police officers.
The scheme would play into claims from the conservative media that the Obama administration is encouraging attacks on the police. According to the ex-staffer, O’Keefe wanted undercover operatives to goad protesters into making statements endorsing the murder of policemen, using scripts first posted on Talking Points Memo:
As a minority and a Muslim, I know what it’s like when the police treat me unfairly. They have even searched my little daughter’s body. Can you believe that? Do you know what it’s like to have your rights violated because of the color of your skin or because of your name? -PAUSE-
Sometimes, I wish I could just kill some of these cops. Don’t you just wish we could have one of the cops right here in the middle of our group? -PAUSE-
What would you do if we could get Officer Pantoleo (who killed Eric Garner) right here in this crowd? What would you do to him?
Seeing that O’Keefe’s other discredited and deceptive efforts haven’t seemed to harm his image in conservative circles, we wonder how they will react to this attempt to incite violence against the police.
