In recent weeks, General Electric and Comcast have both ceased doing business with companies in the gun trade. One media outlet thinks it knows why: Unable to get gun control from Congress, the Fortune 500 firms are working with their favorite socialist president to eliminate America's free market in guns.
It's already begun: The wacko conspiracy theories about the Boston Marathon bombings are taking over the internet. (In fact, "it" began only 30 minutes after the explosions, when conspiracy kingpin Alex Jones pre-emptively declared it a "False Flag" attack.) Here's our rundown of the most popular—which is to say the dumbest—conspiracy theories and general internet horseshit.
That faint rumble you heard on Friday afternoon was the sound of a thousand gleeful conspiracy-theorists firing up their webcams (and bobbing excitedly in their desk chairs like a kid at a toy store) as Vice President Joe Biden used the term "New World Order" when describing trade laws at the Export-Import Bank Conference in Washington.
Hours before the death of Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez, Vice President Nicolás Maduro ejected two U.S. diplomats from the country, accusing them of plotting to "destabilize" Venezuela and implying that the U.S. had infected Chávez with cancer. "We have no doubt," Maduro said in a television address, that a scientific commission would find "that commander Chávez was attacked with this illness," comparing Chávez to Palestinian Yasser Arafat, whom Maduro suggested was also poisoned. The removed diplomats, U.S. Air Force attaché Col. David Delmonaco and another, unnamed military official, had, Maduro claimed, attempted to recruit members of the Venezuelan military into an unspecified plot against Venezuela. U.S. officials scoffed at the claims, and most observers understood Maduro's accusations against "imperialists" to be a fairly standard base-rallying move that Chávez himself had frequently resorted to in the past. Conspiracy theorists, nevertheless, turned to Venezuelan lawyer and commentator Eva Golinger, who claimed in an interview with Russia Today—the media wing of the administration of longtime Chávez ally Vladimir Putin—that there's evidence that the E.U. had had infected the president with cancer. She declined to present or describe this evidence. The U.S. has indicated it will likely ask some Venezuelan diplomats to leave the country over the next few days in response. Chávez's funeral is on Friday; Venezuela will hold elections in 30 days. [Reuters | WSJ | Ultimas Noticias]
I never realized how not pregnant Beyoncé might have been until the Saturday premiere of her HBO documentary, Life Is But a Dream. Since announcing her pregnancy at the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards (in August of that year), there have been naysayers, referred to with tongue in cheek as "Beyoncé birthers." There was that footage of her apparently pregnant belly folding in on itself when she made an appearance on Australian TV in the fall of 2011. Months later, Beyoncé addressed it with a pithy explanation: "It was a fabric that folded - does fabric not fold? Oh my gosh, so stupid."
As nearly everyone in America knows by now, the heartbreaking and inspirational story of Notre Dame football star Manti Te'o and his dead girlfriend was a hoax. As Deadspin conclusively proved yesterday, "Lennay Kekua," whom Te'o claimed to have dated until her death from leukemia last fall, never existed. But if Kekua isn't real, then what happened? Was Te'o the hoax's victim, or its perpetrator, or something else entirely? We run down six of the most popular theories.
As Boeing scrambles to figure out why the lithium-ion batteries in their 787 Dreamliners keep starting fires, the residents of Japan already know exactly who the culprit is.
"This is a simple, logical video," the text on the screen reads. "No aliens, holigrams, rituals or anything like that, just facts." (All sic.) There's some light piano (from Guns 'n Roses' "Estranged") playing in the background. "New information comes up every single days, so by the time you see this video there may be a lot more evidence that has come to light." In a few seconds, the guitar solo kicks in.
If you've got a certain kind of Facebook friend — an End-the-Fed, mechanical-elves, Monsanto-causes-cancer, Nibiru-fearing cousin, say — you may have already heard the "news" that Newtown shooter Adam Lanza's father was a key witness in a congressional hearing about a banking scandal. Or the theory that the new Batman movie predicted the shooting. Or that The Hunger Games did. None of these conspiracy theories are true, obviously. But they're all over the internet.
Yesterday afternoon, on a busy street in midtown Manhattan, a law student named Brandon Woodard (above, left) was shot once in the head by an unknown assailant, who hopped into a waiting car and quickly melted into traffic. Woodard died of his wound in a nearby hospital; police are still looking for his killer and the getaway driver.
As Hurricane Sandy, now combined with a Nor'easter, bears down on the mid-Atlantic, people everywhere are looking for answers: will I be safe? What should I do? Where should I go? And most importantly, what shadowy organization, group, or cosmic force is manipulating the weather to cause this terrible storm? Luckily, the internet has answers to all those questions — especially the last one. (Current suspects: President Obama, the gays, and perennial weather-conspiracy favorite the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program.) Let's take a look at the best conspiracy theories on the web.
How did Mitt Romney win the debate? Sure, it could be because his opponent was unprepared and listless. Or it could be because he had a cheat sheet with all the answers on it. Careful video analysis of Romney taking something out of his pocket has revealed, Daily Kos bloggers and others claim, a tiny piece of paper covered with answers. ("OBAMA POLICIES = BAD.")
When the sunny unemployment figures came out this morning, savvy conservatives knew that something rotten was afoot. A 0.3% decline in unemployment—one month before an election? Tell us another one, NObamatards. And now, these clear-eyed zealots may have found the smoking gun that they need to prove that something that is clearly not a conspiracy is, in fact, a conspiracy.
The unemployment rate has dipped below 8 percent for the first time since 2009 — evidence of a slow, but steady recovery? Or evidence that hundreds of thousands of unemployed Democrats gathered together to lie about being employed?
From crime to AIDS to the debt, America is facing a lot of problems. But there's a simple solution, according to this letter: cast this woman in a movie with Leonardo DiCaprio. Not only will "less [sic] children... be harmed by confused followers of Leonardo DiCaprio," but Los Angeles might get the Olympics again.
Neil Armstrong, the first human being to ever set foot on the moon, died over the weekend, triggering an avalanche of eulogies, remembrances, and memorials. Both from the vast majority of human beings who are in awe of Armstrong's feat — and from the few hundred weirdos on the internet who believe the moon landing was faked by Illuminati Reptilians.
Is the 2012 London Olympics a flawed and corrupt but ultimately heartwarming celebration of athletic achievement and a sign of peace and cooperation among nations? Or is it a sinister occult ritual undertaken by the British Royal family and the Illuminati to summon ancient demons and secure their power over the mindless masses? The peaceful celebration, definitely. But that hasn't stopped the internet from doing what it does best: making weird YouTube videos and posting to conspiracy theory message boards. Behold, the best of the internet's Olympic conspiracy theories.
Despite Richard Nixon's efforts to remove all Jews from the Bureau of Labor Statistics in 1971, President Obama is now attempting to nominate a known Jew to head the agency. And not just any Jew: Erica Groshen sent her children to "a politically left-wing Jewish summer camp with Communist roots." Will he succeed? Not if the Daily Caller's Matthew Boyle has anything to do with it.
