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conspiracy

Friday 19th of April 2024

2016 Presidential election Jeff Jarvis @jeffjarvis Hey @Snowden, for context, how long would it take the NSA to dedupe 650k emails? — — — Edward Snowden @Snowden @jeffjarvis Drop non-responsive To:/CC:/BCC:, hash both sets, then subtract those that match. Old laptops could do it in minutes-to-hours. 5:19PM - 6 Nov 2016 Edward Snowden, responding to Jeff Jarvis, debunking Donald Trump's claim it would be impossible for the FBI to review 650,000 Hillary Clinton emails in 8 days, most of which were duplicates © 2016 Kwiple.com
2016 Presidential election The president's intense resistance to the assessment of U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia systematically interfered in the 2016 campaign – and the blame he cast instead on a rival country – led many of his advisers to think that Putin himself helped spur the idea of Ukraine's culp- ability, said the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal discussions. One former senior White House official said Trump even stated so explicitly at one point, saying he knew Ukraine was the real culprit because “Putin told me.” Washington Post, December 19, 2019 © 2019 Kwiple.com
2020 Presidential election At 11:44 p.m. [on January 6, 2021, after the  Joint Session of Congress had resumed certi-  fying the election following the insurrection], Co-Conspirator 2 [John Eastman] emailed the Vice President's Counsel advocating that the Vice President violate the law and seek further delay of the certification. Co-Conspirator 2 wrote,  “I implore you to consider one more relatively minor violation [of the ECA] and adjourn for 10 days to allow the legislatures to finish their investigations, as well as to allow a full forensic audit of the massive amount of illegal activity that has occurred here.” United States of America v. Donald J. Trump © 2023 Kwiple.com
2020 Presidential election The Defendant's conspiracy to impair, obstruct, and defeat the federal government function through dishonesty, fraud, and deceit included the following manner and means: … false claims of election fraud … fraudulent slates of electors in seven targeted states … attemted to use the power and authority of the Justice  Department to conduct sham election crime inves- tigations and to send a letter to the targeted states that falsely claimed that the Justice Department had identified significant concerns  that may have impacted the election outcome … attempted to enlist the Vice President to use his ceremonial role at the January 6 certification proceeding to fraudulently alter the election re-  sults … convince Members of Congress to further delay the certification based on those claims United States of America v. Donald J. Trump © 2023 Kwiple.com
2020 Presidential election The Deputy White House Counsel reiterated to Co-Conspirator 4 [Jeffrey Clark] that there had not been outcome-determinative fraud in the election and that if the Defendant remained in office nonetheless, there would be “riots in every major city in the United States.” Co-Conspirator 4 responded, “Well, [Deputy White House Counsel], that’s why there’s an Insurrection Act [which Trump would use to deploy armed miiitary forces against civilian protesters].” United States of America v. Donald J. Trump © 2023 Kwiple.com
2020 Presidential election The purpose of the conspiracy was to  overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election by using knowingly false claims of election fraud to obstruct the federal government function by which those results are collected, counted, and certified. United States of America v. Donald J. Trump © 2023 Kwiple.com
2020 Presidential election Shortly after election day, the Defendant also pursued unlawful means of discounting legitimate votes and subverting the election results. In so doing, the Defendant perpetrated three criminal conspiracies: a. A conspiracy to defraud the United States … b. A conspiracy to corruptly obstruct and impede the January 6 congressional proceeding at which the collected result of the presidential election are counted and certified … c. A conspiracy against the right to vote and to have one's vote counted … United States of America v. Donald J. Trump © 2023 Kwiple.com
Beliefs Anyone who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. attributed to Voltaire © 2022 Kwiple.com
Beliefs [W]hile some people hold mostly crazy beliefs, most people hold at least some crazy beliefs. Adam Berinsky © 2015 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Percentage of Republicians who believe millions of illegal votes were probably cast in last year's election: 52 Of Democrats who believe Russia tampered with the vote count: 59 Harper's Index, August 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
Civil wars But political polarization does not increase the likelihood of civil war. What increases the likelihood of civil war is factionalization — when citizens form groups based on ethnic, religious, or geographic distinctions — and a country's political parties become predatory, cutting out rivals and enacting policies that primarily benefit them and their constituents. And nothing abets and accelerates factionalization as much as social media. … A central driver to factionalism has always been conspiracy theories. If you want to incite people to action, give then an “other” to target. Barbara F. Walter, How Civil Wars Start  © 2022 Kwiple.com
Conspiracy theories The distinguishing thing about the paranoid style is not that its exponents see conspiracies here and there in history, but that they regard a “vast” or “gigantic” conspiracy as the motive force  in historical events. History is  a conspiracy, set in motion by demonic forces of almost transcendent power, and what is felt to be needed to defeat it is not the usual methods of political give-and-take, but an all-out crusade. Richard Hofstadter, “The Paranoid Style in American Politics” © 2020 Kwiple.com
Conspiracy theories The emotional appeal of a conspiracy theory is in its simplicity. It explains away complex phenomena, accounts for chance and accidents, offers the believer the satisfying sense of having special, privileged access to the truth. Anne Applebaum, The Atlantic, October 2018 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Conspiracy theories I've heard these are people that love our country. So I don't know really anything about it other than they do supposedly like me. Donald Trump on QAnon conpsiracy theorists who believe he's fighting a war against a Satanic cult of Democratic pedophiles and whose tweets he reposts © 2020 Kwiple.com
Conspiracy theories It's not going to happen from mocking them or calling them stupid or making smart remarks like,  “If Kamala Harris really is a lizard person, why didn't she eat that fly on Mike Pence's head?” Don't do that. I'm saying don't do that.  Bill Maher,  Real Time with Bill Maher, November 20, 2020, advice on what not what to do to get QAnon followers out of their cult and over their great disappointment about Trump not being reelected  © 2020 Kwiple.com
Conspiracy theories  It saves so much thinking to think like this, to survey the world and to know that all its disorders are due to the malignity of a single group of mysterious plotters. John Gwyer, Portraits of Mean Men: A Short History of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion © 2020 Kwiple.com
Conspiracy theories Many people assume, he [Joseph Uscinski] told me, that a propensity for conspiracy thinking is predictable along ideological lines. That's wrong, he explained. It's better to think of conspiracy thinking as independent of party politics. It's a particular form of mind-wiring. And it’s generally characterized by acceptance of the following propositions: Our lives are controlled by plots hatched in secreet places. Although we ostensibly live in a democracy, a small group of people run everything, but we don't know who they are. When big events occur – pandemics, recessions, wars, terrorist attacks – it is because that secretive group is working against the rest of us. Adrienne LaFrance, The Atlantic, June 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Conspiracy theories The paranoid's interpretation of history is in this sense distinctly personal: decisive events are not taken as part of the stream of history, but as the consequences of someone's will. Richard Hofstadter, “The Paranoid Style in American Politics” © 2020 Kwiple.com
Conspiracy theories Realizing that no single cabal can secretly control the entire world is not just accurate – it is also empowering. It means that you can identify the competing factions in our world, and ally yourself with some groups against others. That's what real politics is all about. Yuval Noah Harari, New York Times, November 20, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Conspiracy theories  Suspicion is the companion of mean souls, and the bane of all good society. Thomas Paine, Common Sense  © 2020 Kwiple.com
Conspiracy theorists I used to think conspiracy theories were the refuge of the powerless and the uneducated. … But conspiracy theorists have moved from the streets to the suites. They have become presidents of countries, including Turkey and Brazil. In the US, Donald Trump  — who sees plots against him everywhere — is planning his political comeback. The most dangerous conspiracy theorist of them all is Vladimir Putin, who is currently threatening the world with nuclear war. Gideon Rachman, Financial Times, October 3, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Conspiracy theorists say The Deep State is out to get me © 2018 Kwiple.com
Conspiracy theorists say How can we account for our present situation unless we believe that men in this government are concerting to deliver us to disaster? This must be the product of a gross conspiracy on a scale so immense as to dwarf any previous such venture in the history of man. A conspiracy of infamy so black that, when it is finally exposed, its principals shall be forever deserving of the maledictions of all honest men. Joseph McCarthy, 1951 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Conspiracy theorists say Infamy, infamy, they’ve all got it in for me! Kenneth Williams as Julius Caesar in the British film Carry on Cleo © 2022 Kwiple.com
Conspiracy theorists say The intell on this wasn't 100 percent. Edgar Maddison Welch, admitting he had been misled by Pizzagate conspiracy theorists after driving 360 miles from home to Washington, DC, to free children from the pizzeria where they claimed Hillary Clinton ran a child sex ring and shooting it up with his AR-15, only to discover that no children were being trafficked there © 2020 Kwiple.com
Conspiracy theorists say Tap water? You're drinking toilet water with birth control drugs in them. Chloramine, and on top of that they're putting in fluoride. Call me a conspiracy theorist, but it's a mind-control drug that has no benefit to our dental health.  Mukhande Singh (née Christopher Sanborn), founder of Live Water, a purveyor of unfiltered, untreated, unsterilized – “raw” – water  © 2018 Kwiple.com
Conspiracy theorists say What do you think tap water is? It's a gay bomb baby. … I don't like them putting chemicals in the water. They turn the freaking frogs gay.  Alex Jones © 2018 Kwiple.com
Crime … committed the felony offense of … Phrase appearing one or more times in 35 of the 161 overt acts in furtherance of the Trumpist conspiracy to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election that are specified in State of Georgia Fulton County v. Donald John Trump and 18 others © 2023 Kwiple.com
Criminal justice UNITED STATES * CRIMINAL NO. OF AMERICA * v. * GRAND JURY ORIGINAL DONALD J. TRUMP, * Defendant * VIOLATIONS: * * Count 1: 18 U.S.C. § 371 * (Conspiracy to Defraud the * United States) * * Count 2: 18 U.S.C. § 1512(k) * (Conspiracy to Obstruct an * Official Proceeding) * * Count 3: 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c)(2),2 * (Obstruction of and Attempt to * Obstruct an Official Proceeding) * * Count 4: 18 U.S.C. § 342 * (Conspiracy Against Rights) © 2023 Kwiple.com
Democracy The biggest threat to democracy is the use of conspiracy theories by governments, who then try to deligitimise opposition or any independent thought by attributing them to conspiracies. Richard J.Evans © 2017 Kwiple.com
Kwiplers say  I accuse Donald Trump and Mike Pence of conspiracy to transfer sovereignty from America's citizens to its largest  corporations and richest families and to make governments and the courts instruments for promoting their interests against all others' — actions democracies should deem treason punishable by death ——— Prominent Congressional Co-conspirators ——— Lamar Alexander • John Barrasso • Roy Blunt • John Boozman • Richard Burr • Shelley Capito • Bill Cassidy • Thad Cochran • Susan Collins • Bob Corker • John Cornyn • Tom Cotton • Mike Crapo • Ted Cruz • Steve Daines • Mike Enzi • Joni Ernst • Deb Fischer • Jeff Flake • Freedom Caucus • Cory Gardner • Lindsey Graham • Chuck Grassley • Orrin Hatch • Dean Heller • John Hoeven • James Inhofe • Johnny Isakson • Ron Johnson • John Kennedy • James Lankford • Mike Lee • Ron Johnson • John Kennedy • James Lankford • Mitch McConnell • Jerry Moran • Lisa Murkowski • Rand Paul • David Perdue • Rob Portman • Jim Risch • Pat Roberts • Mike Rounds • Marco Rubio • Ben Sasse • Tim Scott • Richard Shelby • Luther Strange • Dan Sulliven • John Thune • Thom Tillis • Patrick Toomey • Roger Wicker • Todd Young ——— Prominent Unelected Co-conspirators ——— Sheldon Adelson • Samuel Alito • American Legislative Exchange Council • Americans for Prosperity • Americans for Tax Reform • Betsy DeVos • Federalist Society • Fox News • Neil Gorsuch • Charles & David Koch • Robert & Rebekah Mercer • Scott Pruitt • John Roberts, Jr. • Sinclair Broadcast Group • Peter Singer • Peter Thiel • Clarence Thomas • U.S. Chamber of Commerce  © 2017 Kwiple.com
Power In today's unequal digital society, power accrues to those who already have too much of it,  fuelling popular discontent with the elites and giving rise to conspiracy theories about the omnipotence of Silicon Valley. Evgeny Morozov, Financial Times, September 1, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Psychopaths say That was a retweet. That was an opinion of somebody. And that was a retweet. I put it out there. People can decide for themselves. I don't take a position. Donald Trump, justifying retweeting a QAnon conspiracy theory to his 87 million followers that Barack Obama and Joe Biden had members of Navy SEAL Team 6 killed to cover up the fake death of Osama bin Laden © 2021 Kwiple.com
Public discourse The paranoid spokesman sees the fate of conspiracy in apocalyptic terms – he traffics in the birth and death of whole worlds. He is always manning the barricades of civilization. Richard Hofstadter, “The Paranoid Style in American Politics” © 2019 Kwiple.com
QAnon The Seventh-day Adventists and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are thriving religious movements indigenous to America.  Do not be surprised if QAnon becomes another. It already has more adherents by far than either of those two denominations had in the first decades of their existence. People are expressing their faith through devoted study of Q drops as installments of a foundational text, through the development of Q-worshipping groups, and through sweeping  expressions of gratitude for what Q has brought to their lives. Does it matter that we do not  know who Q is? The divine is always a mystery. Does it matter that basic aspects of Q's teachings cannot be confirmed? The basic tenets of Christianity cannot be confirmed. Adrienne LaFrance, The Atlantic, June 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Racists say I heard today that she doesn't meet the requirements. Donald Trump, repeating a right-wing conspiracy theory that Kamala Harris is ineligible to run for vice president because her parents weren't citizens when she was born © 2020 Kwiple.com
Racketeering The manner and methods used … to further the goals of the enterprise and to achieve its purposes included, but were not limited to, the following: 1. False Statements to and Solic- itation of State Legislatures … 2. False State- ments to and Solicitation of High-Ranking State Officials … 3. Creation and Distribution of False Electoral College Documents … 4. Harassment and Intimidation of Fulton County Election Worker Ruby Freeman … 5. Solicita- tion of High-Ranking United States States De- partment of Justice Officials … 6. Solicitation of the Vice President of the United States … 7. Unlawful Breach of Election Equipment in Georgia and elsewhere … 8. Obstructive Acts in Furtherance of the Conspiracy and the CoverUp State of Georgia Fulton County v. Donald John Trump and 18 others © 2023 Kwiple.com
Racketeering This was an act of racketeering activity under O.C.G.A. § 16-14-3(5)(A)(xxii) and an overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy. Phrase appearing one or more times in 28 of the 161 overt acts in furtherance of the Trumpist conspiracy to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election that are specified in State of Georgia Fulton County v. Donald John Trump and 18 others © 2023 Kwiple.com
Republicans Party We are the party of Lincoln. We are not the party of QAnon or anti-Semitism or Holocaust deniers, or white supremacy or conspiracy theories. Liz Cheney, whistling past the graveyard after being censured by Wyoming Republicans for saying Donald Trump should have no role in the Party going forward © 2021 Kwiple.com
Republicans say Scientific consensus about global warming is an elitist conspiracy to impose a world government on freedom-loving people © 2017 Kwiple.com
Social media If you want to know why it's called social media, I’ll tell you why: Because Karl Marx was hired by  Henry Rothschild, by the Rothschild family, to develop a system of social control. So when you see social, it is a form of control — that’s all it is. Social media is a form of controlling us all. Lara Logan © 2023 Kwiple.com
State of the union The problem is not just that with politics no longer stopping at the water's edge, U.S. foreign policy could veer unpredictably from administration to administration. It is that the United States is taking on water itself. The country has entered what can only be characterized as an age of unreason, with large swaths of its population embracing wild conspiracy theories. The United States today looks like Athens in the final years of the Pelopponnesian War or  France in the 1930s: a once strong democracy that has become ragged and vulnerable. Jonathan Kirshner, Foreign Affairs, March/April 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Surely you jest NASA Denies That It's Running a Child Slave Colony on Mars — — — — — — — — — — — On Thursday, Alex Jones welcomed a guest to talk about how kidnapped children have been sent on a two-decade mission to space. NASA now denies the interplanetary conspiracy. headline, Daily Beast, June 29, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say I think spying did occur. Yes, I think spying did occur. William “Whitewash Willie” Barr, Trump's self-proclaimed Exonerator General, legitimizing conspiracy theories propular with Trumpists that his 2016 campaign was subjected to unlawful surveillance by the FBI and intelligence agencies as part of their investigation into Russian meddling in the election © 2019 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say I'm gonna tell you something: I'm not into conspiracies; I'm not into anti-government rhetoric. This is the first time in my lifetime that I would say I am deathly afraid for Donald Trump. I would not put assassination behind these people. Bernard Kerik, former NYC Police Commissioner,  commenting on the court-ordered search by the FBI of Trump's home at Mar-a-Lago © 2022 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say There hasn't been any non-evidence yet. A Trump supporter's response when asked why she believes QAnon's conspiracy theory that the government was run by pedophilic Democrats and Hollywood celebrities before Trump's ascension © 2018 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say We need to work with Israel to track serial numbers on any U.S. weapons used by Hamas against Israel. Did they come from Afghanistan? Did they come from Ukraine? Highly likely the answer is both. Marjorie Taylor Greene, 8:07 AM — Oct 8, 2023   [The Russian state news agency, RT, fact-checked Greene's claims and concluded, “Thus far, no solid evidence has emerged to support these claims”] © 2023 Kwiple.com
 
Trumpists say What's one way to get rid of a Supreme Court justice in order to get the kind of people that you want on it? Hunting. Marlene Bourne, the "ghost woman" Fox News relied on as its source for claims of election fraud during the 2020 presidential election, who believes Antonin Scalia was murdered as he was being hunted for sport during a weeklong human hunting expedition at the annual Bohemian Grove camp © 2023 Kwiple.com