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progree

(11,463 posts)
Sat Nov 3, 2012, 09:13 PM Nov 2012

Chart: Almost Every Obama Conspiracy Theory Ever (Debunked) - Mother Jones. The embedded links

Last edited Sat Nov 3, 2012, 10:49 PM - Edit history (1)

in each conspiracy theory are to articles debunking the claims.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/10/chart-obama-conspiracy-theories

Most of it is really nutty stuff, but some of the links address more serious issues, like the cause of the 2008-09 financial meltdown.

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Chart: Almost Every Obama Conspiracy Theory Ever (Debunked) - Mother Jones. The embedded links (Original Post) progree Nov 2012 OP
Wow, some of those I have never heard before...Obama is a lizard? Curmudgeoness Nov 2012 #1
"Follow the links at your own risk. a few of them are so creepy" ... yup, some are progree Nov 2012 #2
I agree that there are some serious topics discussed too. Curmudgeoness Nov 2012 #3
Some more, from The Nation magazine (gay theories) progree Nov 2012 #4
Color me shocked. Curmudgeoness Nov 2012 #5

Curmudgeoness

(18,219 posts)
1. Wow, some of those I have never heard before...Obama is a lizard?
Sun Nov 4, 2012, 01:47 PM
Nov 2012

He married a Pakistani guy? He went to fucking Mars? All news to me.

I have to agree with that disclaimer: Follow the links at your own risk. And to be honest, a few of them are so creepy that I will heed that warning.

This is definitely a must-read for anyone who is faced with any of these woo-woo theories. Thanks for posting.

progree

(11,463 posts)
2. "Follow the links at your own risk. a few of them are so creepy" ... yup, some are
Sun Nov 4, 2012, 03:31 PM
Nov 2012

When I originally posted, I thought all the embedded links were to debunking articles, like at snopes.com or ThinkProgress or MotherJones, based on actually checking out a few, and also looking at many of the link's addresses in the status bar when I hovered my mouse over them. But on a second look, I see some of them have links to the nut-job article or video before links that debunk them. Just to name a couple I've seen: "wnd.com" is World Net Daily which is a complete whacka-doodle-site. On the other hand, the suspicious-looking obamaConspiracy.org is a debunking site.

I'm happy to say I haven't heard most of these conspiracy theories either. I am blessed many years ago to have told everyone (who had done so in the past) not to forward to me any political chain e-mails because it makes them look to be idiots in the eyes of most people who receive them, and miraculously I haven't seen a single one in my inbox for years. So I'm "out of the loop" on a lot of this. I can't understand anyone (other than someone totally malicious) forwarding a totally un-sourced political email (as the few I've ever seen are all un-sourced) among many other signs that they are a work of fiction meant for low-information low-IQ goobers.

I posted the OP mostly for the serious few topics it had, like the cause of the recession (it goes beyond something Obama allegedly did in 1995), but I see there aren't that many such. Or semi-serious ones, like "Obama spiked the jobs report" -- unfortunately too many think that (I was in a bar and overheard a conversation about this), and its nice to be able to post the motherjones.com links if encountering these claims online.

ON EDIT: I found an interesting resource: snopes.com 's 25 hottest urban legends (debunked): http://www.snopes.com/info/top25uls.asp

Curmudgeoness

(18,219 posts)
3. I agree that there are some serious topics discussed too.
Sun Nov 4, 2012, 09:53 PM
Nov 2012

I have also told my right wing friends/relatives to stop with the loony emails, but they don't....it is too much fun for them to get me riled up. Some of them also like to have me research them and do the work of debunking. I am not entirely sorry that I still get them. It is better than going to FR to find out the latest wingnut conspiracy. You are right, they are rarely sourced. But the ones that are sourced are the funniest. Often they will state "check this link to Snopes to see that this is true", and when I actually click on that link, it will go to the Snopes debunking of that same email. Not one of the goobers who forward those emails ever click the link. Which is almost sick on the part of the originator of the email---making them look even stupider.

So picture me surprised when I see some of these screwball theories that are new to me. I thought I got them all. Maybe the people who know me are nuts, but not nuts enough to forward an email saying that Obama is a lizard....even this one is too far out for them.

BTW, whenever I debunk these emails, I have been told by the wingnuts that Snopes is also a conspiracy....I have to use Truthorfiction. Well unless they agree with Snopes. Sigh. It is basically "stop throwing facts around here"!

progree

(11,463 posts)
4. Some more, from The Nation magazine (gay theories)
Mon Nov 5, 2012, 09:34 AM
Nov 2012

Last edited Mon Nov 5, 2012, 11:03 PM - Edit history (1)

[font color=blue]>> So picture me surprised when I see some of these screwball theories that are new to me. I thought I got them all. <<[/font]

Here's some from the current issue of the progressive publication, The Nation (theNation.com) which I have been continuously subscribed to since 1998 or so. The excerpts are mostly "gay theories" about Obama (I bold-faced some phrases to highlight some of the more amusing wording). But most of the rest of the article (beyond the excerpts) is how mainstream conservative pundits try to paint Obama and male Democrats in general as (gasp!) effeminate, and have been doing so since the 1950s at least. A lot also on the voting patterns of the white male demographic.

For those not familiar with The Nation, it is not into conspiracy theories (neither presenting them or debunking them) or salacious stuff, so this article is unique (in my 14 years of reading the magazine) in this respect. Though like I say, the purpose of it is part of the background and explanation for the more serious relentless RepubliCON efforts to paint the Democrats as "the mommy party".

Anyway, when I read the article, I wondered how much of this was new to you -- almost all of it was new to me until a few days ago when I ran across that Mother Jones chart in the OP.

[] The GOP's Macho Posturing, The Nation, 11/12/12
http://www.thenation.com/article/170787/whats-behind-rights-obama-gay-conspiracy
(Online the title is "What's Behind the Right's 'Obama Is Gay' Conspiracy", by Neal Gabler

You probably know by now that President Obama is a Muslim who professes socialism and that he was born in Africa, which makes him ineligible to occupy our highest office. But here is something you may not know: Obama is gay. Not only is he gay; he frequented gay bath houses in Chicago along with his former chief of staff and current Chicago mayor, Rahm Emanuel. And not only did he frequent those bath houses; he was under the influence of a “transgender nanny” when he lived as a boy in Indonesia. Plus, he was “married” to his Pakistani roommate while attending Occidental College (one theorist says that the ring he wore at the time was a “homosexual symbol for ‘women stay away’”); had a cocaine-fueled romance with a right-wing activist and ex-convict named Larry Sinclair in 1999 (who, of course, wrote a book about it); and orchestrated the murders of another gay lover and two gay associates from the Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s church just before the Iowa caucuses in 2008—all of which helps to explain why he married, in the words of one Obama investigator, a “mannish wife with big, muscular arms.”

... conspiracy theorist Jerome Corsi, one of the original Swift Boaters, who interviewed a man who knew Obama at Occidental and described the future president’s relationship with his roommate as a “close, intimate emotional attachment,” even though the only evidence for that attachment was the fact that “I saw them standing very close to one another.” Or a blogger named Kevin DuJan, who reports that Reggie Love, the former basketball player who served as Obama’s “body man,” was actually the president’s lover, and that it is “quite clear that in the years ahead Barack Obama will replace Elton John as the reigning party queen, gay icon.” (DuJan also says he expects that Obama will retire to Honolulu after his defeat by Romney, where, “draped in colorful muumuus, with a retinue of hunky shirtless Secret Service studs around him, Barack Obama will find himself in a new kind of paradise no doubt.”)

Or right-wing journalist Wayne Madsen, whose eponymous newsletter is the source on Obama’s visits to the bath house and who revealed how Obama used basketball pickup games to pick up men. Obama, Madsen says, had homosexual trysts with Representative Artur Davis, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick and Senate majority leader Bill Frist! Who knew? Meanwhile, Paul Cameron of the Family Research Institute, another right-wing organization dedicated to protecting the country from the likes of Obama, told a radio audience on VCY Crosstalk that while “I’m not sure about the claims by various people who have reported that Obama has at least participated at times with them in homosexual acts, this {support of gay marriage} certainly lends some credence.” Case closed.

Citing a remark by Fox News host Greg Gutfeld that “Obama is now out of the closet” after the president announced his support for gay marriage, former George W. Bush speechwriter David Frum blogged at the Daily Beast, “You cannot ‘get’ Gutfeld’s joke unless you ‘get’ that a large part of his audience ardently believes that Obama is in fact gay, that his marriage is a sham, and that Mrs. Obama leads a life of Marie Antoinette–like extravagance to compensate for her husband’s neglect while he disports himself with his personal aides.”


Oh, thanks for the "TruthOrFiction.com" website - I haven't seen that before.

Curmudgeoness

(18,219 posts)
5. Color me shocked.
Mon Nov 5, 2012, 06:57 PM
Nov 2012

I really have not heard a peep about this, although I am not surprised that they would jump to this....if being black wasn't enough to stop him from getting elected, they would have to double down with another horror. And since Obama did come out in favor or gay marriage, that would be all they needed. Although I have to say that personally, I wouldn't see what the problem would be if he was. But I get the "white male macho" thing...and that would be an explanation for why they are prone to be Republican. And I only thought it was because they all had delusions that they, too, would be wealthy one of these days.

But I am feeling a little sick over all this. Michelle is mannish? They have a loveless marriage? Good lord. I believe that the people who are believing this should be institutionalized. Tin foil hats are not enough.

BTW, I use four different fact checking sites when arguing with the right wingers, since almost every time, all of them agree. And it just makes them look ridiculous when they deny four sites. So besides Snopes and TruthOrFiction, I also go to factcheck.org and politfact.com.

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