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Tag: conspiracies
sean spicer dancing with the stars

Sean Spicer Gets Owned After Whining About Covid Science Changes

After serving as Donald Trump's favorite footstool in his very brief time as White House Press Secretary, Sean Spicer is certainly no stranger to humiliation. Best known for hiding in bushes like an infant in timeout, Spicer (or "Spicy) has since taken his penchant for public embarrassment to ABC's "Dancing with the Stars."

Sean Spicer doing his best Homer Simpson Impression 

sean spicer bushesSean Spicer Bushes GIFGiphy



Most recently, the former White House Press Secretary weighed in on Covid-19 and, incredibly enough, complained about the changing science of COVID-19. Not surprisingly, Spicer was met with a ruthless smackdown.

“I’d hate to be an elementary school science teacher these days and to explain how quick ‘science’ changes," tweeted Spicer.

One Twitter user was quick to point out how science actually works, including uploading a photo of the Scientific Method.

Others took a more amusing approach to explain how science actually works.


Spicer's complete and utter lack of understanding basic scientific principles is perfectly in keeping with his party's virulently anti-science stance. His willingness to spread outright lies was markedly demonstrated during his brief stint as former President Trump's press secretary. It's really only a matter of time when he starts hawking his own discredited and insane covid "cures" like the rest of the right-wing clown show.

#EndorseThis: Colbert Dons Tinfoil Hat

#EndorseThis: Colbert Dons Tinfoil Hat

As conspiracies actually unfold during the final week before Election Day, Stephen Colbert copes with the cognitive disturbances of this election by going “full conspiracy.” In this episode of “Tinfoil Hat,” sponsored by Reynolds Wrap of course, he unveils his own far-fetched campaign tales. But “stuff way crazier than that gets made up all the time” and distributed on the Internet, he adds, naming a few. And he protests the worst rumor of all, which makes him think of “America playing Russian roulette with two bullets.”

Just click.

Conservative Press Wallows In Latest Clinton Conspiracy

Conservative Press Wallows In Latest Clinton Conspiracy

Caught up in this increasingly chaotic campaign season, sometimes it seems confused conservative media members can’t keep track of what both hands are doing. Confronted with a nominee who’s been rejected by key editorial outlets such as The Weekly Standard and National Review, conservative commentators often find themselves simultaneously condemning Trump’s behavior while trafficking in those same traits.

For instance, on the one hand, lots of GOP commentators have forcefully criticized “unshackled” Trump for wallowing in endless, unsupported conspiracy theories, such as the candidate’s recent claim that the pending presidential election is “rigged” and that he might not accept the November election results.

But on the other hand, the conservative press has been nearly unified this week in excitedly pushing yet another unsupported conspiracy theory about Hillary Clinton’s emails, this one featuring a supposedly ominous “quid pro quo” arrangement between the State Department and the FBI. (Fact: The premise is completely bogus.)

So yes, there are some major self-awareness issues on display during the final weeks of the campaign as the dysfunctional conservative media — which for years (and for decades) has wallowed in wild, baseless conspiracies — calls out Trump for wallowing in wild, baseless conspiracies.

The disconnect is pronounced. “Mainstream Republicans are watching these developments at the top of the ticket with a growing sense of alarm, calling Trump’s latest conspiracy theories of a rigged election irresponsible and dangerous,” The Boston Globe reported.

Really? Conservatives and Republicans are alarmed that Trump trumpets make-believe claims of “rigged” elections? That he might not concede defeat?

“It is interesting that Republicans have chosen to draw the line at Trump’s completely unfounded claims,” noted Mark Joseph Stern at Slate. “For the past 16 years, the GOP has fervidly stoked Americans’ fears of voter fraud and repeatedly declared that Democrats were stealing elections without any basis in reality.” (Making it harder for people to vote has also become a hallmark of the GOP legislative agenda.)

The GOP’s “stealing” claim goes double for right-wing media, which for years have delighted in fanning race-baiting flames about “voter fraud” and stolen elections. But Trump openly discussing “rigged” elections goes too far for the same community of pundits? Apparently the nominee’s sin isn’t claiming Democratic voters, and especially black Democratic voters, cheat at the ballot box, it’s that he lays it on too thick.

I suspect the Republican and conservative media tsk-tsking over “rigged” rhetoric must be confusing for a political novice like Trump who’s trying to figure out which far-out conservative conspiracies are okay to campaign on, and which are deemed to be out of bounds.

Here’s a possible cheat sheet for Trump:

Claiming elections are “rigged” is bad, but insisting there’s been a wide-ranging Clinton email “cover-up” is good.

Pushing the Obama “birther” story is bad, but claiming Obamacare is built around “death panels” is good.

What’s also confusing is that the same conservative commentators and publications that are denouncing Trump conspiracies today are often busy simultaneously pushing their own dubious plots.

For instance, in July, The Weekly Standard’s Stephen Hayes admonished “crazy” Trump for pushing nutty schemes, like suggesting Sen. Ted Cruz’s father played a role in the JFK assassination, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia may have been murdered, and that thousands of people in Jersey City, N.J., celebrated in the streets when the towers at the World Trade Center collapsed on 9/11.

Trump’s conspiracy gibberish sounded like something “one might expect from a patient in a mental institution” wrote Hayes.

So Hayes is adamantly opposed to political conspiracies and thinks Trump looks foolish pushing them. But guess who authored the Weekly Standard article that recently launched the debunked FBI/Clinton email conspiracy? And guess which Weekly Standardwriter spent three years concocting or running with unsubstantiated claims about the terror attack in Benghazi?

Stephen Hayes.

Hayes and The Weekly Standard aren’t alone in their hypocrisy. Last year, National Review Online also criticized Trump for his support of the absurd birther conspiracy theory. More recently, NRO has attacked Trump for hyping the “rigged” allegations: “This is reckless in the extreme.”

Indeed, for conservative commentators who have refused to back Trump this year and who have openly disparaged his candidacy and his nomination, his love of unproven conspiracies has served as a central plank for their opposition.

But like The Weekly Standard, NRO this week eagerly pushed the tall Clinton/FBI email conspiracy tale. Separately, NRO has claimed the reason Clinton wasn’t prosecuted for her use of private emails was because the Obama administration covered up the Clinton “felony” in order to protect the president’s equally illegal email use.

Or something.

Thinly sourced plots that supposedly reveal Democratic criminality (and worse!) have certainly defined the conservative press during the Obama administration. Just look at Benghazi, the three-year conspiracy-palooza proudly presented by Fox News and the entire conservative media galaxy.

Media Matters spent years debunking the endless claims.

Simply put, this is a conservative movement that’s so addicted to dopey conspiracy plots and to connecting non-existent dots, and has so normalized the practice in the pursuit of partisan politics, that it can’t even recognize Trump is simply channeling their own paranoia into a national campaign.

Watching Trump’s ugliness projected onto a big screen, conservatives recoil. But they’re really just watching a self-portrait.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

IMAGE: Bill Kristol, #NeverTrump advocate and editor of The Weekly Standard.

This Week In Crazy: Glenn Beck Has Had Enough, And The Rest Of The Worst Of The Right

This Week In Crazy: Glenn Beck Has Had Enough, And The Rest Of The Worst Of The Right

Welcome to “This Week In Crazy,” The National Memo’s weekly update on the wildest attacks, conspiracy theories, and other loony behavior from the increasingly unhinged right wing. Starting with number five:

5. Louie Gohmert

Noted Constitutional scholar Louie Gohmert checks in at number five, for his illuminating theory on the separation — or lack thereof — between church and state.

Speaking in a WorldNetDaily-sponsored video, Gohmert attempted to explain that because Thomas Jefferson once attended services at National Statuary Hall (where the House of Representatives once met), he clearly didn’t mean all that stuff he said about the “wall of separation.”

“It was to be a one-way wall, where the state would not dictate to the church,” Gohmert claimed that Jefferson had intended. “But the church would certainly play a role in the state.”

“So, that’s a little different idea than a lot of people have about separation of church and state now,” he added. “Including some of our esteemed Supreme Court, who are not quite as familiar with our history as they probably should be.”

Of course, Gohmert’s history lesson doesn’t account for Jefferson’s complicated relationship with religion, or for Article Six of the Constitution (which states that “no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States”).

Perhaps John F. Kennedy’s famous 1960 speech to the Baptist ministers in Houston could explain that to Gohmert — but we wouldn’t want him to get nauseous.

H/t: Raw Story

4. Allen West

Former congressman and genuine crazy person Allen West checks in at number four, for winning the Fox News race to blame the Fort Hood shooting on President Obama.

During a Tuesday night appearance on Hannity, Colonel West explained that the tragedy could have been prevented — if only Obama had been tougher on Vladimir Putin!


“We have a civilian leaderhsip that does not want to recognize that the enemy exists,” West explained. “You look at what is happening in the Crimea when the president says that Vladimir Putin is operating from a position of weakness. So if you don’t want to admit that there’s evil, if you don’t want to admit that there’s an enemy, then you don’t have the right type of security protocols in place.”

And if anyone knows about the right type of security protocols, it’s the guy who needs a Post-It note to remind him that his computer password is “allenwest.”
3. Gordon Klingenschmitt And The El Paso County GOP

Thursday was a pretty standard day for Gordon Klingenschmitt, who used his “Pray in Jesus’ Name” program to remind his viewers that gay people are evil.

“I’m not saying — let me be clear about this — that gay couples always abuse children. Of course not,” Klingenschmitt began. He probably should’ve stopped there.

“Even if a child is not physically abused,” he continued, “what’s the next worst thing you can do to a child? It’s to take away their mother.”

“In the case of homosexual couples who get ‘married,’ so to speak,” he added, “and then they adopt children, even if they never physically harm those children, they are taking away that child’s right to a mother, or maybe they’re taking away that child’s right to a father. And that, in my opinion, is also abusive.”

Klingenschmitt’s sentiment, while perfectly horrible, is relatively bland coming from a man who once warned that militant gays will kick you out of your house to have sex in it.

Indeed, the real crazies this week were the delegates at the El Paso County Republican Assembly. Klingenschmitt, who is running for the state House in Colorado, won 71 percent (!) of their votes on Saturday, cementing him as the frontrunner for the seat in the state’s conservative 15th district. He is expected to face Dave Williams in a primary election.
2. Pat Robertson

It was a busy week for televangelist Pat Robertson, who returns to the list at number two.

On Monday, Robertson was joined by Jack Abramoff-linked Rabbi Daniel Lapin for a discussion of why Jews are so good at making money.

“What is it about Jewish people that make them prosper financially? You almost never find Jews tinkering with their cars on the weekends or mowing their lawns,” Robertson said while introducing his guest.

He later suggested that Jews are just too busy “polishing diamonds, not fixing cars.”

On Tuesday, Robertson’s show featured a segment from Christian Broadcast Network reporter Daniel Hurd, who compared Sweden’s social democracy to the Soviet Union and North Korea (without all the mass killings).

And finally, on Thursday, Robertson warned that credit cards are Satanic.

“We’re going into some strange world, ladies and gentlemen,” Robertson declared. “The pros — the people who are in charge — find that paying cash is an annoyance, and they want everything on your cards. And they want it all by computer.”

“I hate to tell you, but it’s coming. Because it is a control thing. And Satan wants to control the lives of all the world,” he continued. “He wants to be God, he wants to be worshipped as God. And he wants to have control over everybody, and that’s how it will be done. It’s a shame…can’t buy, can’t sell without the Mark of the Beast.”

So before you spend your next paycheck at the Christian Broadcast Network’s well-stocked online store, remember: Satan is watching.
1. Glenn Beck

Plenty of Republicans are upset about the Affordable Care Act cracking 7 million enrollments this week, but none were more disturbed than this week’s “winner,” Glenn Beck.

Beck was set off by President Obama’s triumphant speech lauding the law’s successful open enrollment period.

“This guy, you put him in a military uniform, I’m not kidding you, you put him on a balcony in a military uniform, this guy is a full-fledged dictator,” Beck raged.

After criticizing the “rat bastards” in the media for allowing Obama to get away with his outrageous lies, and repeatedly calling the president a “sociopath,” Beck really snapped.

“I’m not going to pay attention to these people anymore,” he later declared. “I’m not going to waste my life. I’m going to do what I was born to do.”

“All men were created equal and endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, among them life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness!” Beck shouted near the end of his rant. “I have a right to pursue my happiness! I have a right to do what I was born to do!”

“My state of mind is great,” Beck said calmly at the end of his rant. “Because I’ve had enough.”

Trust us, Glenn: So have we.

Check out previous editions of This Week In Crazy here. Think we missed something? Let us know in the comments!