RWW’s Paranoia-Rama takes a look at five of the week’s most absurd conspiracy theories from the Right.
It seems President Obama will stop at nothing in his effort to destroy America, as he attempts to diminish the military, turn kids gay through Common Core, kill America’s livestock, blackmail the Supreme Court and grant himself a third term.
Of course none of this is actually going on, but that is just a dose of what you will find this week in the land of right-wing conspiracies.
5. Obama’s Third Term
The National Report, a parody website that reads like an unfunny version of The Onion, struck again this week with an article entitled “Obama Announces Plans For A Third Term Presidential Run.” The article has now been shared over 264,000 on Facebook, and based on previous experience, we imagine that many of the people who have shared it don’t realize it is a spoof:
“I can’t abandon the American people now when they need me more than ever,” Obama told reporters at a press conference this morning. “We’ve come this far as a nation, now is not the time to do something different. This is the change you wanted and this is the change you’re getting.”
…
Paul Horner who is a spokesman for the Obama Administration told reporters how amazing this news is for the country. “Obama is guaranteed to win in 2016 and then we’ll all be able to enjoy this great man for another four years. Things could not get any better for the American people. I’m so stoked!”
As Snopes notes, “many of those who encountered the item [are] mistaking it for a genuine news article.”
Maybe we shouldn’t be surprised that people are taking National Report’s spoof at face value. After all, several right-wing websites and commentators, including Rush Limbaugh, David Barton, Joseph Farah and Alex Jones, have voiced fears of an Obama third term, and haven’t meant it as a joke.
4. Obama Snubbed Troops On Armed Forces Day
Right-wing activists were up in arms this week over allegations that Obama ignored Armed Forces Day in favor of marking the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia. Tony Perkins told Family Research Council members that the president “couldn’t be bothered to acknowledge Armed Forces Day” because he was too busy trying to “lecture Americans on an [LGBT] agenda tearing apart the very military he ignored.”
Of course, had Perkins and others bothered to do a simple Google search, they would have easily found the 2014 Presidential Proclamation on Armed Forces Day.
But the far right rarely misses a chance to throw around baseless accusations about the president, especially when they can promote the fear that Obama secretly despises America. Conservatives have also recently pushed false stories about Obama refusing to commemorate the D-Day anniversary and Memorial Day.
3. John Roberts Was Blackmailed!
While John Roberts may have moved the Supreme Court decidedly to the right, Larry Klayman believes President Obama is using the NSA to blackmail the chief justice.
“He was going to side with the other justices and find that Obamacare was unconstitutional. Is it something that was dug up on him by the NSA or the CIA? Was that used against him to blackmail him?” Klayman asked.
Now, Klayman admits that he has zero evidence that the president is blackmailing Chief Justice Roberts and is just asking the question. But now that the question has been asked (by Klayman), Klayman is determined to “get the truth on this.”
And if he fails to get to the bottom of this scandal he created in his own mind, then Hillary Clinton will abuse the NSA even more egregiously. “Can you imagine Hillary Clinton having the power to use this?” he warned.
That’s why, Klayman maintains, a revolution is needed to block the next election and stop Hillary Clinton from becoming president.
2. Obama Creating ‘Meatless Society’
Citing the Bundy Ranch standoff, Renew America pundit Sher Zieve writes this week that the Bureau of Land Management is attempting to “end cattle farming and begin the process of turning the USA into a meatless society.”
“This is Obama’s private army,” Zieve says of the BLM, “one that will be used against American citizens and likely very soon.”
Don’t worry, Zieve has just a few small concerns about Common Core too:
“Today, in U.S. government schools both Marxist and Islamic propaganda are regularly taught and the curricula for these are growing markedly,” Zieve writes, alleging that the “Holy Bible is being banned in schools along with the targeting of any and all Christian thought and speech, while Islam is being actively taught.”
“Common Core is – in fact – designed to train good Communist subjects; that is subjects in the feudal sense,” she adds.
1. Common Core Will Turn Kids Gay
Florida State Rep. Charles Van Zant, boosting the far right’s campaign against Common Core, told an education conference this week that the new curriculum standards will turn children gay: “These people, that will now receive $220 million from the state of Florida unless this is stopped, will promote double-mindedness in state education and attract every one of your children to become as homosexual as they possibly can. I’m sorry to report that to you.”
Think Progress captured his remarks:
Naturally, the Republican lawmaker defended his remarks by explaining that “lifestyle changes” do not “need to be part of our children's curriculum.”
