At a January 7 town hall with Anderson Cooper, President Obama stood firm on the fact that the idea that he and the U.S. government are attempting to implement some kind of massive gun confiscation plan is nothing more than a deluded conspiracy theory.
"I am sorry Cooper," President Obama said. "Yes, it is fair to call it a conspiracy. What are you saying. Are you suggesting that the notion that we are creating a plot to take everybody's guns away so that we can impose martial law is not a conspiracy? Yes. That is a conspiracy. I would hope you would agree with that. Is that controversial? Except on some websites around the country?"
However, it should be noted that if you dig even slightly below the surface, just about everything within the GOP platform and belief structure is also a conspiracy theory. For example, just days before his final State of the Union address, GOP presidential hopeful Marco Rubio argued that for some unfathomable reason the president has spent the last seven years deliberately weakening the nation.”
Sen. Marco Rubio reframed his national security argument around the eighth anniversary of Barack Obama's victory in the Iowa caucuses, calling it "a historic moment in global affairs" because since then, he "has deliberately weakened America."
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“[Obama] has made an intentional effort to humble us back to size as if to say 'We no longer need to be so powerful because our power has done more harm than good,'" Rubio said. "America is in far greater danger today than it was eight years ago."
The fact that there is absolutely no actual evidence to support this theory does not stop Rubio from making the accusation that the president is a traitor for supporting the deal to shut down Iran’s nuclear program. It doesn’t matter, as Obama noted during his final address to the nation, that Iran really has begun shutting down their primary enrichment facility. The “conspiracy” to undermine and weaken America by avoiding a nuclear war with Iran through negotiation and diplomacy still spills unrestrained from Rubio’s lips.
And that is far from the only conspiracy at work within the GOP id.
The idea that President Obama is somehow secretly Kenyan is a conspiracy theory.
During Barack Obama's campaign for president and in the years following his election, many conspiracy theories have been circulated, falsely asserting that he is not a natural-born citizen of the United States and consequently, under Article Two of the U.S. Constitution, is ineligible to be President of the United States.
Theories allege that Obama's published birth certificate is a forgery—that his actual birthplace is not Hawaii but Kenya. Other theories allege that Obama became a citizen of Indonesia in childhood, thereby losing his U.S. citizenship. Still others claim that Obama is not a natural-born U.S. citizen because he was born a dual citizen (British and American). A number of political commentators have characterized these various claims as a racist reaction to Obama's status as the first African American president of the United States
Proponents of this theory never seem to be able to explain exactly when or how a nine-months pregnant, 18-year-old Stanley Ann Dunham-Obama mysteriously traveled from Hawaii to Kenya to give birth—then returned with a newborn baby Barack without being detected or leaving a trace of her multi-thousand mile trip.
Obama “death panels” are a conspiracy theory.
A reader sent us a link to a September American News article that claims an 86-year-old woman was ordered executed after a panel established by the Affordable Care Act determined that "she is no longer useful."
"According to recent reports, a group of death panels organized under Obamacare ordered their first execution.
"Following a hearing by the president’s Patient Resource Efficiency Board (PREB), 86-year-old Dorothy Zborknak has been ordered to death. The reason? According to the administration, she is no longer useful.
"Zborknak worked at Fleur de Lis Florist in Chicago for nearly forty years, before she made the decision to retire in 1998. Since that time, she has struggled with a host of health problems, including diabetes, high blood pressure, and kidney failure.
" ‘Unfortunately, the cost of her care just became too expensive,’ claims Peter Johnston, a member of the Chicago PREB. ‘Under the Affordable Care Act, we have the power to make choices about end of life care and I stand by our ruling. I know it will be hard for the family to accept what’s going to happen…But from a financial standpoint, this was a very easy decision.’
We’ll offer a quick diagnosis: This claim is not accurate. Back in 2009, the myth of death panels was our inaugural Lie of the Year. Almost five years later, death panels are still not a part of U.S. health care law.
The idea that Social Security is “going broke” is a conspiracy theory, because the fact is the program operates at a surplus.
Nancy Altman is co-director of Social Security Works, which today released an analysis of the Social Security Trustees report titled “Strengthen Social Security, Don’t Cut it: Key Points about the 2013 Social Security Trustees Report.”
The group states: “Today’s report from the Social Security Trustees shows that our Social Security system has a large and growing surplus. Unlike the banks, which nearly brought the economy to ruin, Social Security didn’t need a bailout. Its surplus has grown year after year, even during the Great Recession. The result of decades of foresight and planning, its cumulative surplus is projected to be $2.8 trillion in 2013, growing to $2.9 trillion by 2020. Social Security does not and cannot contribute to the deficit. Social Security will take in more money than it pays out, roughly $28 billion more in 2013. Social Security has a large surplus in 2013 because it has more than enough income from its three sources of revenue to cover its expenses — payroll contributions, interest payments on the $2.8 trillion invested in U.S. Treasury bonds and taxation of benefits.
The idea that tax cuts increase tax revenue, which has been most recently stated by Sen. Rand Paul, is a conspiracy theory.
“The last president we had was Ronald Reagan that said we’re going to dramatically cut tax rates. And guess what? More revenue came in, but tens of millions of jobs were created.”
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When Ronald Reagan became president in 1981, individual tax rates were as high as 70 percent. His first tax cut, the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981, slashed the top rate to 50 percent—and then a 1986 tax overhaul brought the top rate down to 28 percent. Those were certainly dramatic changes, though as we shall see, Reagan also raised taxes repeatedly.
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A Treasury Department study on the impact of tax bills since 1940, first released in 2006 and later updated, found that the 1981 tax cut reduced revenues by $208 billion in its first four years. (These figures are rendered in constant 2012 dollars.) The tax reform act of 1986, which was designed to be revenue neutral, reduced revenues by less than $1 billion four years after enactment.
The idea that America has lost its international standing and leadership position under President Obama is a conspiracy theory.
Global leadership: Gallup surveyed 130 countries in 2012 and asked people if they approved or disapproved of the leadership of the United States, China, Russia, the United Kingdom, and Germany. The US tied Germany for the highest approval among the countries surveyed, with 41% approving of each country’s leadership. Russia ranked at the bottom, with 23% approving of their performance.
President Obama addressed this particular theory directly during his State of the Union address.
I told you earlier all the talk of America’s economic decline is political hot air. Well, so is all the rhetoric you hear about our enemies getting stronger and America getting weaker. Let me tell you something. The United States of America is the most powerful nation on Earth. Period. (Applause.) Period. It’s not even close. It's not even close. (Applause.) It's not even close. We spend more on our military than the next eight nations combined. Our troops are the finest fighting force in the history of the world. (Applause.) No nation attacks us directly, or our allies, because they know that’s the path to ruin. Surveys show our standing around the world is higher than when I was elected to this office, and when it comes to every important international issue, people of the world do not look to Beijing or Moscow to lead -- they call us. (Applause.)
The idea that Mexicans are “pouring across our borders” is a conspiracy theory because in reality, net migration between the U.S. and Mexico is virtually nil.
At the Democratic debate in Des Moines, former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley shared a statistic that he said you would never hear out of one of the leading Republican presidential candidates.
"Let’s say it in our debate because you’ll never hear this from that immigrant-bashing carnival barker Donald Trump: The truth of the matter is net immigration from Mexico last year was zero. Fact-check me. Go ahead, check it out," O’Malley said.
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According to Census Bureau data, the number of U.S. residents born in Mexico dropped each year from 2010-13. It bounced back up in 2014, but it remains lower than the peak in 2007, said Alex Nowrasteh, an immigration policy analyst at the libertarian Cato Institute.
"That is not a small statistical difference, but it's small compared to the days of rapid Mexican immigration from 1994 to 2007," Nowrasteh said. "O'Malley was mostly correct. The population increased but it was small. Mexican immigration certainly isn't surging anymore."
Donald Trump’s claim that Mexico is “sending us their rapists” is a conspiracy theory. The truth is that many migrants entering Mexico from Guatemala are being sexually abused and forced into prostitution as payment for their travel.
“Women and girl migrants, especially those without legal status traveling in remote areas or on trains, are at heightened risk of sexual violence at the hands of criminal gangs, people traffickers, other migrants or corrupt officials,” the 2010 Amnesty International report stated. “… Many criminal gangs appear to use sexual violence as part of the “price” demanded of migrants. According to some experts, the prevalence of rape is such that people smugglers may require women to have a contraceptive injection prior to the journey as a precaution…”
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“I think almost all of the women are abused on the way north,” said lawyer Elvira Gordillo, who helps trafficked migrant women who get trafficked into prostitution. She’s lived and worked in Frontera Comlapa, along the Mexico-Guatemala border, for over a decade. “[These migrants] know the price to pay for getting to the United States. The price is being sexually violated.”
Perpetrators can be coyotes, other migrants, bandits, or even government authorities.
The idea that Planned Parenthood has been selling the body parts of aborted babies is a conspiracy theory.
Several Republican presidential candidates have claimed that Planned Parenthood is “profiting” from abortions. But the full, unedited video they cite as evidence shows a Planned Parenthood executive repeatedly saying its clinics want to cover their costs, not make money, when donating fetal tissue from abortions for scientific research.
Four experts in the field of human tissue procurement told [Factcheck.org] the price range discussed in the video — $30 to $100 per patient — represents a reasonable fee. “There’s no way there’s a profit at that price,” said Sherilyn J. Sawyer, the director of Harvard University and Brigham and Women’s Hospital’s “biorepository.”
The idea that the majority of scientists who study climate are engaged in perpetrating a giant hoax on the world in order to keep receiving research grants on climate change is a conspiracy theory.
A global warming conspiracy theory invokes claims that scientific consensus on global warming is based on conspiracies to produce false data or suppress dissent. It is one of a number of tactics used in climate change denial to legitimise political global warming controversy disputing this consensus.[1] Global warming conspiracy theorists typically allege that, through worldwide acts of professional and criminal misconduct, the science behind global warming has been invented or distorted for ideological or financial reasons, or both.
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As stated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the largest contributor to global warming is the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) since 1750, particularly from fossil fuel combustion, cement production, and land use changes such as deforestation.
It's not just the things that presidential hopefuls claim. It’s also what the GOP rank-and-file believe. For example, the majority of them truly believe the conspiracy theory that President Barack Obama does not love America.
About one out of three likely voters in the U.S. thinks President Obama doesn’t love America.
Thirty-five percent of likely U.S. voters agreed with the following statement former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani made last week: “I do not believe that the president loves America. He doesn’t love you. And he doesn’t love me. He wasn’t brought up the way you were brought up and I was brought up through love of this country.”
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Sixty-two percent of Republicans do not believe Mr. Obama loves the country, while 77 percent of Democrats and unaffiliated voters, by a 48 percent to 33 percent margin, say that’s not true.
They continue to believe that despite the president making statements such as this:
Sixty years ago, when the Russians beat us into space, we didn’t deny Sputnik was up there. (Laughter.) We didn’t argue about the science, or shrink our research and development budget. We built a space program almost overnight. And 12 years later, we were walking on the moon. (Applause.)
Now, that spirit of discovery is in our DNA. America is Thomas Edison and the Wright Brothers and George Washington Carver. America is Grace Hopper and Katherine Johnson and Sally Ride. America is every immigrant and entrepreneur from Boston to Austin to Silicon Valley, racing to shape a better world. (Applause.) That's who we are.
During last Tuesday’s State of the Union address, he also spoke of how the rancor between political parties has grown during his presidency.
But democracy does require basic bonds of trust between its citizens. It doesn’t work if we think the people who disagree with us are all motivated by malice. It doesn’t work if we think that our political opponents are unpatriotic or trying to weaken America. Democracy grinds to a halt without a willingness to compromise, or when even basic facts are contested, or when we listen only to those who agree with us. Our public life withers when only the most extreme voices get all the attention. And most of all, democracy breaks down when the average person feels their voice doesn’t matter; that the system is rigged in favor of the rich or the powerful or some special interest.
Too many Americans feel that way right now. It’s one of the few regrets of my presidency -- that the rancor and suspicion between the parties has gotten worse instead of better. I have no doubt a president with the gifts of Lincoln or Roosevelt might have better bridged the divide, and I guarantee I’ll keep trying to be better so long as I hold this office.
Yet this rancor and discord isn’t entirely his fault. He has not supported or encouraged the various conspiracies which have undermined our ability to come to anything resembling a consensus on basic facts and reality. It has been widely reported that the Republican leadership had a meeting and agreement to deliberately deny him any success during his administration.
WASHINGTON -- As President Barack Obama was celebrating his inauguration at various balls, top Republican lawmakers and strategists were conjuring up ways to submarine his presidency at a private dinner in Washington.
The event -- which provides a telling revelation for how quickly the post-election climate soured -- serves as the prologue of Robert Draper's much-discussed and heavily-reported new book, "Do Not Ask What Good We Do: Inside the U.S. House of Representatives."
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For several hours in the Caucus Room (a high-end D.C. establishment), the book says they plotted out ways to not just win back political power, but to also put the brakes on Obama's legislative platform.
Discord was their goal. Disruption was their intent even if it meant putting the nation, its finances, and its security at risk. It wasn’t members of the White House staff who walked out on budget meetings as the nation approached crashing into the debt ceiling, ultimately prompting the downgrade of our national credit rating.
It’s rather difficult to negotiate in good faith with someone who refuses to accept the same reality and facts that you do. With someone who flatly denies that facts are indeed facts, who constantly presumes that every claim that you make is nothing more than a cynical plot to gain some type of advantage, or to “weaken the nation” in some way in order to put forth a Kenyan-Muslim-al-Qaeda-Iran-loving agenda.
As we look forward to the final year of the Obama presidency, it can’t be said that it has been perfect in every respect. But neither has it been anywhere near the abject failure that the GOP claims. America’s unemployment has been cut in half, its deficit has been cut by 75 percent, the Dow has increased, and we have exited the fruitless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. America has begun a clean energy revolution. Osama bin Laden is dead. ISIL may be continuing its vision of a caliphate, but the movement is rapidly losing territory, its leadership, its assets, and control of cities such as Ramadi to international efforts. Crime rates and violence are down, even if fear of crime continues. The nuclear threat of Iran is declining while the freedom of the people of Libya is increasing.
More challenges await us. But maybe chief among those challenges is being able to bring our fellow right-wing Americans down from the clouds of confusion and conspiratorial delusion with some form of interventionist deprogramming, when so many financial vested interests—from the gun lobby to the energy sector—depend on them remaining there.
But how we do that, when simply pointing out these that these conspiracies are, in fact, conspiracies, often manages to make our ideological opponents most upset and strident?
President Obama is a confirmed liar. But we’re all conspiracy theorists if we worry that President Obama, who has repeatedly praised Australia’s gun confiscation regime, wants to take our guns, and is pursuing an incremental policy toward doing so
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Well, no. Nobody is suggesting that Obama will declare martial law. But we are suggesting, based on Obama’s own words, that he would love to use the power of government to disarm the population, and that he will pursue any incremental change toward that end.
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The reason Obama’s been great for gun manufacturers is because we have a dying republic, not a dictatorship
Nobody is suggesting Obama will declare martial law? Yeah, they are. They did during the Jade Helm 15 “crisis.” We have a “dying republic?” Seriously? How, exactly, do you reason with that?
I wish I knew.