Jimmy Kimmel shared a video of Roseanne Barr imploring people to drop out of college “‘cause it isn’t nothing but devil-worshipping, baby blood-drinking Democrat donors,” the Daily Beast reports.
Macron Dismisses Rumors His Wife Was Born a Man
French President Emmanuel Macron addressed transphobic rumors circulating about his wife Brigitte, dismissing conspiracies that she was assigned male at birth, the Daily Mail reports.
Said Macron: “The worst thing is the false information and fabricated scenarios. People eventually believe them and disturb you, even in your intimacy.”
Bonus Quote of the Day
“Why don’t you fuck off?”
— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), when asked by Emily Maitlis about pushing conspiracy theories like “Jewish space lasers.”
Alabama Chief Justice Appeared on QAnon Show
“Alabama Chief Justice Tom Parker, who wrote the concurring opinion in last week’s explosive Alabama Supreme Court ruling that frozen embryos have the same rights as living children, recently appeared on a show hosted by self-anointed ‘prophet’ and QAnon conspiracy theorist,” the HuffPost reports.
“Over the course of an 11-minute interview, Parker articulated a theocratic worldview at odds with a functioning, pluralistic society.”
“God created government,” he declared, adding that it’s “heartbreaking” that “we have let it go into the possession of others.”
Mike Lindell Must Pay $5 Million to Election Data Debunker
“My Pillow owner and right-wing conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell will have to pay $5 million because of a contest he initiated at one of his ‘cyber symposium’ events after the 2020 election, a federal judge confirmed Wednesday,” CNN reports.
One in Five Believe Taylor Swift Conspiracy
A new Monmouth poll finds that 18% of Americans believe that Taylor Swift is part of a covert effort to help President Biden win the 2024 election.
Fully 71% of those who believe this identify with or lean toward the Republican Party and 83% indicate they are likely to support Donald Trump in the fall.
Also, 73% of those who believe the Swift conspiracy also believe the 2020 election outcome was fraudulent.
On a less sinister note, 68% of the American public approves of Swift encouraging her fans to vote in the upcoming election.
Quote of the Day
“Just like we drew it up.”
— President Biden, mocking the GOP conspiracy theories that he had rigged the Super Bowl for the Kansas City Chiefs.
Texas Lt. Governor Says Obama Is Pushing Biden Out
Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R) pushed a conspiracy theory that a Democratic “deep state” run by Barack Obama is seeking to prevent President Biden from being the Democratic presidential nominee this fall, The Hill reports.
Said Patrick: “I’ve said for over a year many times that Joe Biden would not be on the ticket and Michelle Obama would be the likely nominee. It’s clear the Democrat deep state run by Barack Obama knew they had to take him down to give them a chance in November.”
The Meaning of the Hysteria Over Taylor Swift
The Economist: “Conspiracists have often worried about artists being manipulated for political ends. After Anna Akhmatova, a Russian poet, gave a recital in Moscow, Stalin is said to have raged: ‘Who organized the standing ovation?’ In the 1950s America’s paranoid ‘Red Scare’ blighted careers and lives, including Charlie Chaplin’s.”
“As during the cold war, American politics is now especially conducive to suspicion of entertainers. One of them became president, a reality-TV star whose rallies combine the vitriol of a witch-burning with the reassuring formula of a game show. Donald Trump blurred to vanishing the line between politics and showbiz; he also dragged conspiracy theories to the centre of debate. And he exacerbated a prior political trend—America’s extreme polarisation—which encourages conspiratorial thinking.”
Trump Pushes Immigration Conspiracy Theories
“Donald Trump, in an interview that aired on Fox News on Sunday, suggested falsely that Latin American governments were picking the citizens they didn’t want and shipping them to the U.S. border, resurrecting a claim that was central to his 2016 campaign,” the New York Times reports.
“He also accused the Chinese Communist Party — without providing any evidence — of orchestrating illegal immigration into the United States, and said he believed China would try to interfere in the presidential election, adding that he liked President Xi Jinping ‘a lot.’”
Quote of the Day
“Taylor Swift is allowed to have a boyfriend. Taylor Swift is a good artist. I’ve taken my daughter to Taylor Swift concerts before. You know, to have a conspiracy theory of all of this is bizarre. Nobody knows who she’s going to endorse. But I can’t believe that that’s overtaken our national politics.”
— Nikki Haley, quote by Politico.
Quote of the Day
“What your kind of people call ‘conspiracy theories,’ I simply call an amalgam of collective incentives hiding in plain sight.”
— Vivek Ramaswamy, quoted by the New York Times.
A MAGA Meltdown Over Taylor Swift
“For football fans eager to see a new team in the Super Bowl, the conference championship games on Sunday that sent the Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers back to the main event of American sports culture were sorely disappointing,” the New York Times reports.
“But one thing is new: Taylor Swift. And she is driving the movement behind Donald Trump bonkers.”
“The fulminations surrounding the world’s biggest pop icon — and girlfriend of Travis Kelce, the Chiefs’ star tight end — reached the stratosphere after Kansas City made it to the Super Bowl for the fourth time in five years, and the first time since Ms. Swift joined the team’s entourage.”
“The conspiracy theories coming out of the Make America Great Again contingent were already legion: that Ms. Swift is a secret agent of the Pentagon; that she is bolstering her fan base in preparation for her endorsement of President Biden’s re-election; or that she and Mr. Kelce are a contrived couple, assembled to boost the N.F.L. or Covid vaccines or Democrats or whatever.”
Brian Beutler: Maybe Republicans should wonder why all the attractive, likable people hate them?
Alex Jones Could Exit Bankruptcy in March
“Sandy Hook conspiracy theorist Alex Jones could exit Chapter 11 bankruptcy by late March or early April, his lawyer said on Wednesday after a judge decided families whom he owes $1.5 billion for lying about the 2012 school shooting can vote on competing plans to resolve their claims,” Reuters reports.
A New Effort to Discredit the Special Counsel
Mother Jones: “It claims that Jack Smith, the special counsel who is prosecuting Trump for his attempt to overturn the 2020 election and for his alleged swiping of classified documents, was part of a multimillion dollar extortion scheme when he was the chief prosecutor investigating and prosecuting war crimes in Kosovo.”
“In the past two weeks, this unsubstantiated narrative has started popping up on fringe right-wing sites and social media posts. Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser and QAnonish MAGA champion, has promoted this tale. These allegations appear to be in the early phase of the right-wing transmission belt that propels false stories and conspiracy theories from less prominent platforms to more established conservative media and toward the mainstream—often facilitated by Republican members of Congress.”
Trump Attacks Big Pharma with Conspiratorial Language
“In his first campaign for president, Donald Trump tapped into bipartisan anger over high drug prices to bash pharmaceutical companies. In his latest run, Trump’s echoing the extreme elements of his party to suggest the industry’s products may be hurting Americans, particularly children,” Axios reports.
“The GOP frontrunner’s airing of unfounded, innuendo-filled claims about the pharmaceutical industry could undermine public health. And it reflects how deeply mistrust of health institutions and anti-science rhetoric have become embedded within a sizable faction of the Republican party following the pandemic.”
Elon Musk to Reinstate Alex Jones’s Account on X
Elon Musk said his social media platform X will reinstate the account of the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones after a poll of the site’s users backed his return, The Guardian reports.
Johnson Endorsed Book Filled with Conspiracy Theories
“Speaker of the House Mike Johnson wrote the foreword and publicly promoted a 2022 book that spread baseless and discredited conspiracy theories and used derogatory homophobic insults,” CNN reports.
“Written by Scott McKay, a local Louisiana politics blogger, the book, The Revivalist Manifesto, gives credence to unfounded conspiracy theories often embraced by the far-right – including the ‘Pizzagate’ hoax, which falsely claimed top Democratic officials were involved in a pedophile ring, among other conspiracies.”
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