conspiracy theories
Bookman: In MTG’s grimy paws, a beautiful video becomes something sickening
“I’ll say it again,” Marjorie Taylor Greene says in a new video labeled “The Predator President.” “Democrats are the party of pedophiles.” What follows in the video is a compilation of interactions between Joe Biden and various young people, attempting to make the case that the 80-year-old president sexually abuses young children. This is what […]
U.S. House members battle over ‘weaponization’ of government in hearing on Missouri lawsuit
WASHINGTON – U.S. House Judiciary Committee Republicans decried what they described as a partisan “weaponization” of the federal government over issues of free speech during a highly contentious Thursday hearing surrounding a lawsuit filed by the Missouri attorney general’s office. Democratic committee members objected strongly to the hearing as spreading “false narratives” and lies […]
State election officials at U.S. Senate hearing discuss threats to workers, call for funding
WASHINGTON — Election officials on Tuesday detailed to the U.S. Senate Rules Committee how their states countered threats to election workers and worked to combat misinformation and disinformation during the 2022 midterm election. With the 2024 presidential election closely approaching, Senate Rules Committee Chair Sen. Amy Klobuchar said she was concerned about threats to election […]
Bookman: Marjorie Taylor Greene ascends in GOP because of stupidity, not in spite of it
Marjorie Taylor Greene is an idiot, and idiots, as a rule, aren’t interesting people. They aren’t interesting because their idiocy overshadows all other aspects of their personality. Greene is more an exemplar of that rule than an exception to it. Nonetheless, in their wisdom, the voters in Georgia’s 14th Congressional District have elected Greene as […]
Election deniers who lost secretary of state races now run several state GOP operations
Many of the election deniers who ran last year for positions that would have given them control over state elections systems lost their races. But several have found a new path to exert influence: as chair of their state Republican Party. On Saturday, Kristina Karamo, an activist who rose to prominence for her efforts to […]
GOP’s new U.S. House “weaponization” panel to probe FBI, IRS, ATF
Will committee provide genuine oversight or pursue paranoid conspiracy theories? WASHINGTON — U.S. House Democrats on Thursday urged the GOP lawmakers running the new Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government to work with them on genuine oversight investigations that weren’t political or focused on leveling grievances. Maryland Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin said […]
Conspiracy theorists urge voting as late as possible on Election Day to ‘stop the steal’
A close ally of Republican Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano has a plan that she claims will help win him the election and prevent voter fraud: She wants voters to cast their ballots “as late in the day as possible” on Election Day. Conspiracy theorist Toni Shuppe, who has ties to QAnon and who is […]
America is amusing itself to death and hack politicians are taking advantage
Explicit and implicit validation of election denialism is paving the path toward destruction In 1985, Neil Postman’s crowning achievement, “Amusing Ourselves To Death,” provided the most prescient analysis and forecast of the current lobotimization of American public discourse. Postman’s work drew a distinction between the Orwellian vision of a totalitarian government seizing individual rights and […]
Weekend humor from Celia Rivenbark: Wacko pols turn their paranoia toward the IRS
Fearmongering politicians claim the IRS is hiring 87,000 agents, arming them, and ordering them to kick down the door at Meemaw’s trailer home to scare the grits out of her if she’s behind on her taxes. That’s a terrifying scenario or would be if it were true. Which it’s not. To these folks, “fact” is […]
Prolonged challenges by losing candidates could overshadow November election results
Joey Gilbert, a Reno-based attorney, lost the GOP primary for Nevada governor by roughly 26,000 votes in June, a margin of around 11 points. But he wasn’t ready to admit defeat. Empowered by former President Donald Trump’s false claims of voter fraud after the 2020 election, Gilbert refused to concede. He offered a $25,000 reward to anyone who could provide evidence of fraud, lodged a legal challenge and filed for a recount.
A conspiracy-fueled push to count ballots by hand gains traction
Nye County, a rural enclave in Nevada, has positioned itself as the epicenter of a Donald Trump-fueled conspiracy about the security of electronic vote tabulators. The Nye County Commission voted in March to make the county one of the first to act on the false narratives that machines that count votes are rigged. County Clerk Mark Kampf, who has falsely claimed that Trump won the 2020 election, has said that volunteer voters there will hand count the roughly 30,000 ballots expected in the November election.