Tag: conspiracy theories

New Dem Conspiracy Theory Just Dropped: Poll Watchers Are A Threat To Democracy

In light of the chaotic 2020 presidential election, conservative groups across the country have prioritized getting everyday Americans off the sidelines and involved in helping to facilitate the smooth conduction of the 2022 midterms — but, of course, Democrats and their media allies can’t have that.

After mass mail-in (and unsupervised) balloting and hundreds of millions of “Zuckbucks” in government election offices shook many Americans’ confidence in election integrity in 2020, national organizations such as the Republican National Committee (RNC) have been hard at work training grassroots activists to become poll watchers for the 2022 midterms. To date, the RNC has recruited more than 70,000 new poll watchers and workers ahead of Election Day to “help deliver the election transparency that voters deserve.”

Despite the completely legitimate and legal nature of Americans supervising election administration, Democrats masquerading as journalists have cast Republicans’ efforts as a massive voter intimidation campaign by 2020 “election deniers.”

In an article published Wednesday titled, “Extremist groups are going local to disrupt the midterms,” Axios correspondent Jennifer Kingson hyperventilates about groups such as the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers signing up to be poll workers and “drop-box watchers” in order to “sway the upcoming midterms in favor of their preferred candidates.” Throughout her diatribe, Kingson tries to make the intimidation of election workers by fringe, right-wing organizations seem like a widespread problem plaguing the entire country, writing that “[e]lection offices are installing bulletproof glass” and “bulking up on security and conducting active-shooter trainings” ahead of the November midterms.

“Rising threats are prompting a shortage of election workers — which extremists could use to their advantage,” she writes.

But Kingson isn’t the only journo espousing such hysteria. In a recently published Time Magazine article titled, “How ‘Stop the Steal’ Became ‘Watch the Polls,’” writer Vera Bergengruen stresses about the “tens of thousands” of Americans who have been recruited to be poll watchers by “right-wing groups” that she says push “false claims that the 2020 election was stolen.” As if she were writing the plot to a bad horror film, Bergendruen warns about “[t]hese newly minted poll watchers motivated by election conspiracies” and their top-secret plan to “observe, record on their phones,” and “let both voters and election workers know that they’re being monitored.”

In other words, she’s worried about conservatives fulfilling the role of your average Election Day poll watcher.

“At best, this is likely to disrupt overburdened election offices. At worst, it could lead to further harassment of election workers and deepening distrust in the country’s democratic systems,” she writes melodramatically.

As laughably alarmist as Kingson and Bergengruen’s hot takes are, their hit pieces on GOP poll watchers are just two of the many articles pushed by left-wing outlets over the past several weeks to push a similar narrative.

“Some Officials Fear Sabotage From Republican Election Workers,” an Oct. 20 Huffington Post headline reads.

“Election officials brace for confrontational poll watchers,” said The Associated Press earlier this month.

The leftists at Reuters went the extra mile and conducted an “exclusive” poll claiming to show that two-fifths of voters are “worried about threats of violence or voter intimidation at polling stations” during the midterms. The publication of the survey is ironic given that in the same write-up of the poll’s findings, Reuters writers Moira Warburton and Jason Lange admit there have been no reports of violence at any ballot drop-off or early-voting location to date.

(For other examples of corporate media hitting the panic button over Republican poll watchers legitimately overseeing the conduction of elections, see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.)

Despite the left’s outcry, having poll watchers monitor elections has proven to be crucial. As Federalist Staff Writer Victoria Marshall reported, during the 2020 election, a GOP poll watcher in Georgia found a recount error in DeKalb County that “gave more than 9,000 extra votes to Biden over Trump,” with the batch of ballots in question being “incorrectly labeled as containing 10,707 votes for Biden, when it only contained 1,081 votes for him.”

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Why Society Needs “Conspiracy Theories” and “Conspiracy Theorists”. It‘s No Secret that We’ve been Lied To

It seems like you can’t catch a news headline or social media post these days without coming across the terms conspiracy theory and conspiracy theorist, or phrases like ‘spreading conspiracies’. One has to wonder: why are they so frequently employed?

In my most recent published work, I referenced an article from Canada’s National Post which ran with the headline ‘CBSA says it’s investigating border officer spreading COVID conspiracies online.’

The problem with these kinds of articles is that they are too often merely used as hit pieces to ridicule, degrade, and discredit any individual or group that goes against a certain narrative or disagrees with an author’s (or their publication’s partisanship or funders’) views.

Moreover, their authors very seldom make specific references or claims as to why they label their targets when using such over-used and over-abused disparaging rhetoric. When this is the case, it leads me to believe that the overall purpose of their pieces is to disparage their targets more than anything else.

Another recent example of this involves that from the article entitled ‘Network of Syria conspiracy theorists identified – study’ written by Mark Townsend from The Guardian (UK). In the article, the author claimed “journalist Aaron Maté at the Grayzone is said by the report to have overtaken Beeley as the most prolific spreader of disinformation among the 28 conspiracy theorists identified.” Maté had to refute the claim made against him which also involved contacting Townsend by phone. His counter article and the phone conversation appear on his Substack page (see ‘NATO-backed network of Syria dirty war propagandists identified)’ and is definitely an interesting case on how these ploys take place.

Countless other instances could be cited, but suffice it to say that there is no shortage of them.

But what is perhaps even more laughable with this phenomenon is the fact that these authors wantonly use these terms without even knowing their true meanings and where they actually originate from.

Before looking into these, though, we must first and foremost examine the meaning of the word ‘conspiracy’ itself. Oxford defines it as:

a secret plan by a group of people to do something harmful or illegal

Conspiracies have been an integral part of humanity ever since people have bonded together in groups for a better chance at survival.

Lord knows that history is riddled with an abundant supply of conspiracies and we will look at some notable examples later on.

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Seven times ‘disinformation’ turned out to be just the opposite

At the heart of the second trial to come out of Special Counsel John Durham’s investigation into the origins of the Trump-Russia collusion probe is a story of disinformation.

Marc Elias, general counsel for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, testified both during a House Intelligence Committee investigation in 2017 and recently during Durham’s ongoing probe that he was the one who hired the opposition research firm Fusion GPS to dig up dirt on then-candidate Donald Trump.

Fusion GPS went on to commission former MI6 agent Christopher Steele to create the infamous “Steele dossier,” which purported to show collusion between Trump’s campaign and the Kremlin. It contained several salacious and since-debunked claims about Trump and his alleged ties to Russia.

The federal government infamously used the now-discredited dossier to obtain a warrant to surveil former Trump 2016 campaign aide Carter Page. The Justice Department later admitted the warrant application was full of misinformation and the surveillance warrant should’ve never been approved.

The primary source of the Steele dossier was Igor Danchenko, a Russian analyst who’s now on trial as part of Durham’s investigation for allegedly lying to the FBI about his own sources for the information that he provided to Steele.

Federal prosecutors allege that Danchenko, who has pleaded not guilty, fabricated and concealed his sources in conversations with the feds. The trial began in Alexandria, Va. on Tuesday.

The case highlights how potent a weapon disinformation can be in today’s political climate, where falsehoods can slip through the cracks and transform into received truth without the public noticing.

However, it works the other way as well.

Indeed, in the past few years the opposite has more often been the case: Something deemed disinformation ultimately turns out to be true.

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When a ‘conspiracy theory’ turns out to be…not a theory

WHEN A ‘CONSPIRACY THEORY’ TURNS OUT TO BE…NOT A THEORY. On Monday, the New York Times published a story about Konnech, a small election software company that has just 27 employees, 21 based in Michigan and six in Australia. The paper reported that Konnech has been the target of “election deniers” who have made it the focus of “a new conspiracy theory about the 2020 presidential election.”

“Using threadbare evidence, or none at all,” the New York Times’s Stuart A. Thompson reported, the “election deniers” said Konnech “had secret ties to the Chinese Communist Party and had given the Chinese government backdoor access to personal data about two million poll workers in the United States.”

In the last two years, the New York Times added, “conspiracy theorists have subjected election officials and private companies that play a major role in elections to a barrage of outlandish voter fraud claims.” But now, “the attacks on Konnech demonstrate how far-right election deniers are also giving more attention to new and more secondary companies and groups.”

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Konnech officials assured the New York Times that “none of the accusations were true.” Thompson reported that employees “feared for their safety” from right-wing violence and that “Konnech’s founder and chief executive, Eugene Yu, an American citizen who immigrated from China in 1986, went into hiding with his family after receiving threatening messages.”

Any reasonable reader would come away with the conclusion that Konnech, an innocent company that makes products to deal with “basic election logistics, such as scheduling poll workers,” has been the target of crazy, and possibly dangerous, conspiracy theories. To press the point, the New York Times used the phrase “conspiracy theory” or “conspiracy theorists” nine times in the article, once in the headline — “How a Tiny Elections Company Became a Conspiracy Theory Target” — seven times in the body of the story, and once in a photo caption. Got it?

Fast forward one day. Twenty-four hours. The New York Times published another story about Konnech, this one headlined, “Election Software Executive Arrested on Suspicion of Theft.” Thompson reported that Yu had been “arrested by Los Angeles County officials in connection with an investigation into the possible theft of personal information about poll workers.”

From the New York Times: “The company has been accused by groups challenging the validity of the 2020 presidential election with storing information about poll workers on servers in China. The company has repeatedly denied keeping data outside the United States, including in recent statements to The New York Times.” And then: The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office “said its investigators had found data stored in China.” And this is from the New York Times on the core of the matter:

Konnech came under scrutiny this year by several election deniers, including a founder of True the Vote, a nonprofit that says it is devoted to uncovering election fraud. True the Vote said its team had downloaded personal information on 1.8 million American poll workers from a server owned by Konnech and hosted in China. It said it obtained the data by using the server’s default password, which it said was ‘password.’ … The group provided no evidence that it had downloaded the data, saying that it had given the information to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

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News & Conspiracies

The Western political/media class has been dismissing as “conspiracy theories” all claims that the U.S. is likely responsible for last month’s sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipelines, even while leveling the exact same accusations against Russia without ever using that term. Which probably says a lot about the way that label has been used over the years, if you think about it.

At a U.N. Security Council meeting on Friday, U.S. envoy Richard Mills repeatedly accused Russia of promoting “conspiracy theories” in its Nord Stream accusations against the United States, saying that “our Russian colleagues have decided to instrumentalize the Security Council meeting to spread conspiracy theories and disinformation.”

“It’s important that we use this meeting not to foster conspiracy theories, but to focus our attention on Russia’s blatant violation of the Charter and its crimes in Ukraine,” Mills argues, after saying that “the United States categorically denies any involvement in this incident” and that there is no justification for “the Russian delegation raising conspiracy theories and mass disinformation in this Council.”

Mills then spends the remainder of his remarks insinuating that it is actually Russia who perpetrated the attacks, mentioning the word “infrastructure” no less than nine times in his arguments to establish that in Ukraine, Russia has a history of attacking critical civilian infrastructure similar to the pipelines.

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It’s Only A ‘Conspiracy Theory’ When It Accuses The US Government

The western political/media class has been dismissing as “conspiracy theories” all claims that the US is likely responsible for last month’s sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipelines, even while leveling the exact same accusations against Russia without ever using that term. Which probably says a lot about the way that label has been used over the years, if you think about it.

At a UN Security Council meeting on Friday, US envoy Richard Mills repeatedly accused Russia of promoting “conspiracy theories” in its Nord Stream accusations against the United States, saying that “our Russian colleagues have decided to instrumentalize the Security Council meeting to spread conspiracy theories and disinformation.”

“It’s important that we use this meeting not to foster conspiracy theories, but to focus our attention on Russia’s blatant violation of the Charter and its crimes in Ukraine,” Mills argues, after saying that “the United States categorically denies any involvement in this incident” and that there is no justification for “the Russian delegation raising conspiracy theories and mass disinformation in this Council.”

Mills then hilariously spends the remainder of his remarks insinuating that it is actually Russia who perpetrated the attacks, mentioning the word “infrastructure” no less than nine times in his arguments to establish that in Ukraine, Russia has a history of attacking critical civilian infrastructure similar to the pipelines.

“Sabotage of critical infrastructure should be of concern to us all,” Mills says. “In the context of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, we have seen numerous Russian attacks damaging civilian infrastructure. We witnessed Russia recklessly seize control of Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, risking a nuclear disaster in Europe. We saw countless attacks destroying civilian electricity infrastructure.”

“Despite efforts that we heard today to distract us from the truth, to distribute more disinformation and slightly wacky theories, the facts on the ground in Ukraine speak for themselves,” Mills concludes.

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Xi Jinping’s Fake Coup

Many readers reported reading that strange things were happening in China. For example, Twitter and Newsweek reported that China mysteriously canceled thousands of commercial flights and trains. Some bloggers wrote that Chinese leader Xi Jinping was under house arrest, and others reported seeing hundreds of military vehicles heading toward Beijing.

Others said these rumors are fake news.

What’s Really Going On?

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has not confirmed or denied the rumors. The CCP wants people to wonder what’s going on.

Xi is conducting a “palace coup” to flush out his opponents and remove them before the 20th National Congress begins on Oct. 16.

Many dictators and autocratic rulers conduct these actions to ensure they stay in power. In 2016, Turkish President Erdogan acted similarly and subsequently “declared a state of emergency, imprisoning opposition politicians, arresting tens of thousands of perceived opponents, journalists, and civil society leaders, confiscating opponents’ businesses and bank accounts, and cracking down on the remnants of the free press,” according to think tank American Enterprise Institute.

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There’s a conspiracy theory that the CIA invented the term ‘conspiracy theory’ – here’s why

Conspiracy theories have a long history, but the actual term “conspiracy theory” emerged much more recently. It was only a few decades ago that the term took on the derogatory connotations it has today, where to call someone a conspiracy theorist functions as an insult.

So it may come as no surprise that there is even a conspiracy theory about the origins of the label. This conspiracy theory claims that the CIA invented the term in 1967 to disqualify those who questioned the official version of John F Kennedy’s assassination and doubted that his killer, Lee Harvey Oswald, had acted alone.

There are even two versions of this conspiracy theory. The more extreme version claims that the CIA literally invented the term in the sense that the words “conspiracy” and “theory” had never been used before in combination. A more moderate version acknowledges that the term existed before, but claims that the CIA intentionally created its negative connotations and so turned the label into a tool of political propaganda.

The more moderate version has been particularly popular in recent years for two reasons. First, it is very easy to disprove the more extreme claim that the CIA actually invented the term. As a search on Google Books quickly reveals, the term “conspiracy theory” emerged around 1870 and began to be more frequently used during the 1950s. Even die-hard conspiracy theorists have a hard time trying to ignore this. Second, the more moderate version received a big boost in popularity a few years ago when American political scientist Lance DeHaven-Smith propagated it in a book published by a renowned university press.

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QAnon Follower Killed Wife and Shot Daughter Before Cops Shot Him Dead

A 53-year-old Michigan man who was consumed by “Stop the steal” and QAnon conspiracies allegedly shot his wife, daughter, and their dog at their suburban Detroit home early Sunday morning, killing his wife and the dog.

He was shot dead by police officers moments later when he exited his home and began firing at the officers. While police said Sunday they don’t know what led to Igor Lanis shooting his wife, Tina, 56, and one of their daughters, Rachel, 25, another daughter who was not in the house at the time has claimed that QAnon is to blame.

“My Qdad snapped and killed my family this morning,” Rebecca Lanis, 21, wrote in a thread on the QAnon Casualties subreddit on Sunday, hours before the Detroit police and media first reported the details of the shooting.

She wrote that “growing up, my parents were extremely loving and happy people. I always had a special bond with both my parents.” But, she said, things began to change with her father a couple of years ago, after former President Donald Trump contested the results of the 2020 presidential election.

“In 2020 after Trump lost, my dad started going down the Q rabbit hole,” she wrote in the forum, which provides support to the families of those who’ve been affected by QAnon believers. “He kept reading conspiracy theories about the stolen election, Trump, vaccines, etc. It kept getting worse and he verbally snapped at us a few times. Nothing physical though. He never got physical with anybody.”

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Robert Anton Wilson on conspiracies…

“Indeed, those who think “conspiracy theories” never contain anything but paranoid fantasy should remember that our government itself and all advanced governments believe in conspiracies and have laws against them. Special branches of the police power have the job of investigating possible conspiracies in various areas—the SEC looks for bank swindles, the Red Squad of every police department looks for subversive ideas, district attorneys hunt for books so evil they are not protected by the First Amendment (which radicals like the late Justice Brennan believed was intended to protect all books), even the CIA (when it can spare the time from its profitable cocaine business) looks for external conspiracies, etc. If we (or three out of four of us) don’t trust the people who govern us, they don’t trust us, either. And no other country lacks some criminal conspiracy laws or agencies charged with seeking them out and prosecuting them. This, for instance, explains how the Italian government in the 1980s discovered the P2 conspiracy, which had placed over 950 of its agents in top government positions. Similarly, the U.S. government has recently found evidence of a conspiracy of deception by the tobacco industry. Such facts should warn us again dismissing all conspiracy theories as the pastime of dingbats and cranks. None of the investigative agencies charged with bringing hard evidence into court, however, have ever found traces of any of the Really Big Conspiracies that most “conspiracy buffs” believe in. This, of course, only proves one thing to the true conspiriologist: The major conspiracies really do have almost universal power, because the investigating agencies themselves “are part of the cover-up.” Against that kind of logic, the gods themselves contend in vain. But, of course, a truly powerful and truly intelligent conspiracy would never get “exposed” or even suspected, as Mel Gibson says in the popular film Conspiracy Theory.

Thus nobody can totally refute any truly crazy conspiracy theory, because all such theories have a Strange Loop in their construction. Any evidence against them also functions as evidence to support them, if you want to look at it that way. Thus, like its cousin, theology, the pop demonology of conspiracy theory survives any and all criticisms. People do not believe theological or demonological models of the world for logical or scientific reasons, but for “artistic” or at least emotional reasons. These models or narratives provide harmonious, coherent, and starkly simple explanations of events that otherwise seem chaotic and beyond human comprehension. That’s why I believe in so many of them myself.”

Robert Anton Wilson