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GOP House Candidate Pushes Mass Shooting Conspiracy Theory

GOP House Candidate Pushes Mass Shooting Conspiracy Theory

Carl Paladino, who announced that he’s running for Congress, previously shared a post on Facebook which pushed conspiracy theories about the recent mass shootings in Buffalo, New York, and Uvalde, Texas. The Facebook post portrayed the tragedies as false flag attacks meant to help Democrats “revoke the 2nd amendment and take away guns” and claimed “the Texas shooter was receiving hypnosis training” apparently under the direction of the CIA.

Media Matters and others have documented how social media, especially Facebook, helps facilitate the spread of conspiracy theories.

Paladino announced on June 3 that he is running as a Republican for New York’s 23th Congressional District (which includes part of the Buffalo suburbs) after Republican Rep. Chris Jacobs said that he would drop his reelection bid. Jacobs made the move after he lost party backing for saying he would support gun safety measures.

Rep. Elise Stefanik, the third-ranked Republican member of Congress, announced that she is "proudly" supporting Paladino’s campaign. President Donald Trump also recently praised Paladino.

Paladino is a longtime Republican politician and businessman who has also appeared as a commentator on media outlets over the years and briefly hosted a podcast. He has a history of bigoted remarks, including stating that he wanted to see Michelle Obama “return to being a male and let loose in the outback of Zimbabwe where she lives comfortably in a cave with Maxie, the gorilla” and hoped that former President Obama catches “mad cow disease after being caught having relations with a Herford.”

Shortly before he announced his candidacy, Paladino shared a post on June 1 to his Facebook page responding to the recent tragedies in Buffalo and Uvalde by pushing conspiracy theories about shootings. The post, which was written by someone named Jeff Briggs, claimed that “gun control” is actually “population control” and “mass shootings tended to explode when there is a Democrat in the WH who would not hesitate to revoke the 2nd amendment and take away guns.”


​Regarding the Buffalo and Uvalde tragedies, the post stated: “In almost every mass shooting including the most recent horrific Buffalo Tops Market & the Texas school shootings, there are strange occurrences that are never fully explained. How did an 18 yr old obtain $5000 in weapons and a $70k truck? Why were the officers told to stand down when their training just two months ago instructed them to rush in. The man who rushed in was a Border Patrol agent who defied the onsight officers’ instructions. The absence of crisis leaders reminds me of the broken cameras and napping guards when Epstein committed suicide.”

It also stated of the 2017 Las Vegas mass shooting: “Why did the media suddenly stop covering the Vegas Shooting and the government go silent after 55 were murdered by a lone shooting using bump stocks?”

The post rambled on, stating: “Multiple conspiracy theories that raise eyebrows, The CIA’s MK Ultra mind control program, the shooter of RFK claiming he didn’t remember doing it, The JFK assignation one shooter story, The murder of John Lennon who was writing songs about ending wars, The fact that the Texas shooter was receiving hypnosis training, Stories of multiple shooters in mass shootings that are never explained.”

Conspiracy theorists have frequently claimed that the government engineers “false flag” attacks as a justification to enact political measures, including after the recent shootings in Buffalo and Uvalde.


Paladino's Facebook post:

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

Endorse This! Kimmel's Funny, Sad Response To GOP Inaction On Guns

Endorse This! Kimmel's Funny, Sad Response To GOP Inaction On Guns

While the world watches in shock as America's so-called leaders do little and mostly nothing on gun safety, Jimmy Kimmel gleefully mocked feckless and pathetic Ted Cruz over his total lack of courage to stand up to the deadly NRA:

"His need for attention is so powerful. He has been everywhere this week doing interviews… defending the disturbing allegiance these guys have to semi-automatic weapons, which Ted says aren’t the problem. The problem, according to Ted Cruz, is that schools need to be more like prisons.”

But Kimmel offered his own way to compel deranged, hateful clowns like Cruz into action.


Watch the entire clip below:

Why Crowd Cheered Bidens And Jeered Abbott At Uvalde Massacre Memorial

Why Crowd Cheered Bidens And Jeered Abbott At Uvalde Massacre Memorial

On Sunday, Texas Governor Greg Abbott was greeted by jeers upon his arrival at a memorial site for the victims of the Robb Elementary School massacre in Uvalde, Texas — the state that has seen the most mass shootings since 2012.

The escalating gun violence has sparked nationwide grief and a clamor for increased gun control in a country that has experienced at least 12 mass shootings since last Tuesday.

Abbott and his Republican colleagues have endured waves of criticism for their weakening of the state’s gun laws, as well as their unrelenting support for the easy acquisition of guns, even after numerous mass shootings.

In a recent report, the Texas Tribune stated that “in the last two legislative sessions, Texas legislators have loosened gun laws, most notably by passing permitless carry in 2021, less than two years after mass shootings in El Paso and Odessa took the lives of 30 people.”

Abbott had traveled to the town to meet with President Biden, who had also come to pay his respects and condole with the victims’ families.

As Abbott wheeled past the elementary school sign, the crowd — comprising Uvalde residents and visitors from out of town — booed the governor.

“We need change, governor!” shouted a man in the crowd. “Our children are under constant attack in this community. We need help,” the man continued, yelling at Abbott, who had delivered taped remarks at the National Rifle Association’s convention in the immediate aftermath of the school shooting.

“Shame on you, Abbott,” another voice rang out loud, according to Reuters, as Abbott’s security kept the crowd at bay.

Confidence in the governor took a hit last Friday when, in a press conference, Abbott announced that his earlier statements extolling the state’s law enforcement's speedy reaction had been wrong, but that was what he was told.

Abbott’s admission came after the state’s top safety official admitted that the police made the “wrong decision” by not storming the classroom where the shooter had killed the children and barricaded himself.

"If I thought it would help, I would apologize," said Steven McCraw, the director and colonel of the Texas Department of Public Safety, during a heated press conference.

Abbott tried to placate the public, saying, “Law enforcement is going to earn the trust of the public by making sure they thoroughly and exhaustively investigate exactly what happened.”

The same crowd greeted Biden and his wife, First Lady Jill Biden, with cheers as they laid flowers at the memorial. The first couple attended services at a Catholic church afterward, and when they were leaving, someone yelled “Do something!” The request caught the president’s attention, and he replied, “We will.”

Abbott has announced that new laws could be enacted because of the school shooting — laws that address mental health, not gun violence, per the Hill.

“You can expect robust discussion and my hope is laws passed that I will sign addressing health care in this state,” Abbott said. “There are an array of health issues that relate to those who commit gun crimes.”

“Anyone who suggests we should focus on background checks instead of mental health, I suggest to you it is mistaken,” he added.

A poll conducted by Morning Consult and Politico after the Uvalde incident found that an overwhelming majority of Americans — 88% of the respondents — support background checks on all guns.

However, Republicans appear hellbent on ignoring the outcry, as Democratic gubernatorial candidate Beto O’Rourke pointed out when he confronted Abbott at the governor's press conference last Wednesday.

Greene Joins Extremists Pushing 'Transsexual' Lies About Uvalde Killer

Greene Joins Extremists Pushing 'Transsexual' Lies About Uvalde Killer

Emboldened by her successive victories in court and the GOP primary in Georgia, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) has joined the list of House Republicans deploying shockingly baseless conspiracy theory that the Uvalde gunman was transgender in a bid to deflect public attention elsewhere and stunt the growing calls for common-sense gun reforms.

On Sunday, Greene, a known far-right conspiracy theorist, started a Facebook Live — which she titled “Something doesn’t add up” — before 9:30 pm and quickly began pushing an utterly unfounded rumor, without evidence, that Texas school shooter Salvador Ramos “clearly had a lot of mental issues going on, as was shown with him wearing eyeliner, cross-dressing, a lot of his language, being a loner.”

Since the massacre, new details have continued to emerge about Ramos, but there’s been nothing to suggest that the gunman was transgender or had been crossdressing, as Greene had claimed, without evidence. According to the Independent, the rumor appeared to have originated on 4chan, a hotbed of right-wing conspiracies, where extremist netizens falsely blamed a transgender woman for the shooting. However, the woman whom the 4chan users accused did not live in Texas and did not bear any significant resemblance to Ramos.

Greene isn’t the only Republican spreading false rumors about the deceased 18-year-old suspect’s identity. MAGA fanatic and anti-vaxxer Candace Owens and Republican Reps. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) and Pete Sessions (R-TX) have disseminated variants of the same rumor on social media and in interviews.

However, Greene went further down the conspiratorial rabbit hole than the others did, as is her style. She claimed — without evidence, of course — that Ramos had been in the same Discord server as Payton Gendron, the teen charged in connection with the recent massacre at a supermarket in Buffalo, a majo black neighborhood.

Eventually Greene issued a disclaimer on her live stream, stating that she had been unable to verify the information she was peddling on air.

The Georgian congresswoman didn’t stop there, though. She pushed the misinformation still further, claiming that an unidentified party was “grooming” young men into mass shooters, inching towards a conspiracy that QAnon is founded on — that former President Trump, a hero, is facing down a cabal of Satan-worshipping pedophiles in government. The conspiracy theory is a staple used by conservatives to slander the LGBTQ community, as well.

Just hours after the shooting, in response to a tweet that claimed Ramos supported right-wing House members, Gosar wrote, and later deleted, a tweet claiming the shooter was a “transsexual” illegal immigrant.

"We know already fool. It's a transsexual leftist illegal alien named Salvatore Ramos. It's apparently your kind of trash," Gosar tweeted.

The Arizonian would later delete his tweet, but it’s not his first social media attack on Democrats or left-leaning Americans. "The Democratic party is the party of hatred. They hate America, they hate people who love America, and they hate the religion and the descendants of the people who built America," Gosar tweeted on Monday.

Another Arizona Republican, Josh Barnette, who is challenging incumbent Rep. David Schweikert (R-AZ) for his House seat, publicly questioned whether or not Ramos was in the United States legally, but Texas Governor Greg Abbott stated that the gunman was a citizen of the United States.