A history of FLICC: the 5 techniques of science denial — John Cook

This is useful not only as a primer on recognizing and rebutting science denialism but also as a contribution to critical thinking in general.

I should be obvious by now that dismissing something as "conspiracy theory" without an adequate foundation is just another means of discrediting opponents and  achieving narrative control. But there are conspiracy theories out there that need debunking based on sound reasoning grounded in evidence.

Crazy Uncle
A history of FLICC: the 5 techniques of science denial
John Cook
hat tip to Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism

See also by John Cook

Using critical thinking to analyze misinformation

A Political Junkie — The RussiaHoax Theme Got Started As a Dirty Trick by Hillary's 2016 Campaign

In fairness to the Democrats, they likely saw it as payback for the attackers on John Kerry's military recored and the Obama birther conspiracy theory that Trump backed at least obliquely. Then the GOP Never Trumper's jumped on board, too, followed by some US intel chiefs aligned with one of the above.

Those who know American history know that this is an American tradition. There's nothing new under the sun.

All's fair in love, war — and politics.

And it was not just to crush Trump in the campaign, but also Bernie as a Clinton rival.

Russia Insider

The RussiaHoax Theme Got Started As a Dirty Trick by Hillary's 2016 Campaign

A Political Junkie

See also at RI

Trump Derangement Syndrome

People Aren't Having Intelligent Conversations Anymore, They're Just Yelling at Each Other

Michael Krieger

Ray McGovern — The Deep State’s JFK Triumph Over Trump

That the CIA and FBI are still choosing what we should be allowed to see concerning who murdered John Kennedy may seem unusual, but there is hoary precedent for it. After JFK’s assassination on Nov. 22, 1963, the well-connected Allen Dulles, whom Kennedy had fired as CIA director after the Bay of Pigs fiasco, got himself appointed to the Warren Commission and took the lead in shaping the investigation of JFK’s murder.

By becoming de facto head of the Commission, Dulles was perfectly placed to protect himself and his associates, if any commissioners or investigators were tempted to question whether Dulles and the CIA played any role in killing Kennedy. When a few independent-minded journalists did succumb to that temptation, they were immediately branded – you guessed it – “conspiracy theorists.”

And so, the big question remains: Did Allen Dulles and other “cloak-and-dagger” CIA operatives have a hand in John Kennedy’s assassination and subsequent cover-up? In my view and the view of many more knowledgeable investigators, the best dissection of the evidence on the murder appears in James Douglass’s 2008 book, JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters.

After updating and arraying the abundant evidence, and conducting still more interviews, Douglass concludes that the answer to the big question is Yes. Reading Douglass’s book today may help explain why so many records are still withheld from release, even in redacted form, and why, indeed, we may never see them in their entirety....

Going "there." Pretty incendiary for an ex-CIA officer. You've probably heard it all before, but when an high ranking former CIA officer says it, it's no longer just a "conspiracy theory."

Consortium News
The Deep State’s JFK Triumph Over Trump
Ray McGovern | CIA analyst who prepared the President’s Daily Brief for Nixon, Ford, and Reagan, and conducted the one-on-one morning briefings from 1981 to 1985

Masha Gessen — Russia: The Conspiracy Trap

Masha Gessen is one of the most outspoken Russian-born critics of the Putin regime along with Gary Kasparov and Mikhail Khodorkovsky. She is also an outspoken critic of Donald Trump.

In this piece she warns against being distracted from the real business of opposing Donald Trump and his administration on valid grounds by the Russiagate conspiracy theory. 

Trump is doing nothing less than destroying American democratic institutions and principles by turning the presidency into a profit-making machine for his family, by poisoning political culture with hateful, mendacious, and subliterate rhetoric, by undermining the public sphere with attacks on the press and protesters, and by beginning the real work of dismantling every part of the federal government that exists for any purpose other than waging war. Russiagate is helping him—both by distracting from real, documentable, and documented issues, and by promoting a xenophobic conspiracy theory in the cause of removing a xenophobic conspiracy theorist from office.

The New York Review of Books
Russia: The Conspiracy Trap
Masha Gessen

ht Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism

See also

MASHA GESSEN IS a Russian-American journalist and author who has become one of the nation’s leading Russia experts and one of its most relentless and vocal critics of Vladimir Putin....

She has also become a virulent critic of Donald Trump, writing shortly after the election that “Trump is the first candidate in memory who ran not for president but for autocrat—and won,” while describing the critical lessons that can be learned on how to resist Trump’s autocratic impulses by studying Putin.

She now has a new article in the New York Review of Books – entitled “Russia: the Conspiracy Trap” – that I cannot recommend highly enough. Its primary purpose is to describe, and warn about, the insane and toxic conspiracy-mongering about Russia that has taken over not the fringe, dark corners of the internet that normally traffic in such delusional tripe, but rather mainstream U.S. media outlets and the Democratic Party. Few articles have illustrated the serious, multi-faceted dangers of what has become this collective mania in the U.S. as well as Gessen’s does....

The Intercept
Leading Putin Critic Warns of Xenophobic Conspiracy Theories Drowning U.S. Discourse and Helping Trump

Glenn Greenwald

Brendan O'Neill — The Left’s great Russian conspiracy theory

"The Left," yes. But don't forget people like John McCain and Lindsey Graham.

The Spectator
The Left’s great Russian conspiracy theory
Brendan O'Neill

Madeleine Weast — Study Finds Democrats Are More Likely To Fall For Media Hoaxes After Election Loss

A new study shows that an increasing amount of Democrats are likely to embrace conspiracy theories in the media after losing the 2016 election.

Brendan Nyhan, a professor of government at Dartmouth, penned an op-ed in the New York Times Feb. 15 elaborating on a study from the American Press Institute (API) by political scientists Christina Farhart, Joanne Miller and Kyle Saunders, who study conspiracy theory belief.

The study, entitled "Conspiracy Endorsement as Motivated Reasoning: The Moderating Roles of Political Knowledge and Trust," compares how Republicans and Democrats changed their responses to a conspiracy predispositions scale.

According to Nyhan, the research "suggests that people embrace conspiracy beliefs as a way to cope with perceived threats to control."

The scale used in the API study was created by Joseph E. Uscinski and Joseph M. Parent of the University of Miami for their own study, which declares people are more susceptible to conspiracy theory belief when they face "group threats."...

The reason I posted a link to this is because I have noticed that apparently smart and well-informed Democrats, rank and file, politicians and operatives, and office holders, seem to have checked their brains lately and operating from emotion, or being disingenuous to attack Donald Trump and his cohort, which they view as un-American. Apparently, they are being affected by cognitive dissonance if this study has legs. Anyway, it is bizarre.

Washington Free Beacon
Study Finds Democrats Are More Likely To Fall For Media Hoaxes After Election Loss

Madeleine Weast, Assistant Social Media Editor for the Washington Free Beacon and formerly a Communications Fellow at The Charles Koch Institute

Zero Hedge — Trump Slams "Conspiracy Theory" After John Bolton Suggests Russian Hack Was "False Flag" By Obama Administration

Can you imagine if the election results were the opposite and WE tried to play the Russia/CIA card. It would be called conspiracy theory!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 12, 2016

Unless you catch "hackers" in the act, it is very hard to determine who was doing the hacking. Why wasn't this brought up before election?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 12, 2016 John Bolton, 

Zero Hedge

Trump Slams "Conspiracy Theory" After John Bolton Suggests Russian Hack Was "False Flag" By Obama Administration
Tyler Durden

Robert Mackey — Disinformation, Not Fake News, Got Trump Elected, and It Is Not Stopping

The crazy just got crazier.

The Intercept
Disinformation, Not Fake News, Got Trump Elected, and It Is Not Stopping

Robert Mackey

RT — RT beats internet to break #Podestaemails6 & everybody loses their minds (conspiracy theory warning)

RT breaking the latest Podesta emails before WikiLeaks sparked accusations of collusion with the whistleblowing organization. Actually, no conspiracies were involved – just good journalism.

The US Establishment is losing its collective mind over the leaks that showing it up for what it is — a conspiracy against the people.

RT
RT beats internet to break #Podestaemails6 & everybody loses their minds (conspiracy theory warning)

See also

#PodestaEmails7: WikiLeaks releases 7th batch of emails from Clinton campaign chair

Brian Tashman — Trump is a full-blown nutter: Here are 58 unhinged conspiracy theories the Republican leader has promoted

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump not only surrounds himself with conspiracy theorists, he has spent years pushing conspiracy theories himself, much to the delight of his supporters.

At times, Trump tries to remain evasive about whether he actually believes these conspiracy theories, insisting that he simply “heard” or “read” them somewhere or is just asking a question.…

Politically incorrect, or nutter? You decide.

Raw Story
Trump is a full-blown nutter: Here are 58 unhinged conspiracy theories the Republican leader has promoted
Brian Tashman, Right Wing Watch

Also, in case you missed it.

INFOWARSDONALD TRUMP TELLS ALL ON THE ALEX JONES SHOWTrump joins the Alex Jones Show for an exclusive interviewThe Alex Jones Show - DECEMBER 2, 2015

Jacob Heilbrunn — A New Conspiracy Theory: Obama Murdered Scalia

This time it's not "Putin did it." Now it is, "Obama did it."

The National Interest
A New Conspiracy Theory: Obama Murdered Scalia
Jacob Heilbrunn

Travis Gettys — Iowa Republican vows to overturn phony UN Agenda 21 plot to take away private property (via Raw Story )

Iowa state Sen. Joni Ernst won the GOP primary as candidate to replace Sen. Tom Harken (D-IA) who is retiring. Female Steve King?

She just had to slap her hubbie down for calling Hillary a "hag" and making other insulting remarks about women on Facebook.

 “I'm appalled by my husband's remarks. They are uncalled for and clearly inappropriate. I've addressed this issue with my husband and that's between us,"

Should be quite a race.
 

Iowa Republican vows to overturn phony UN Agenda 21 plot to take away private property (via Raw Story )

An Iowa Republican lawmaker running for the U.S. Senate vowed in a recently posted video she would overturn United Nations plans to strip private property rights to promote environmental protection laws. “The United Nations has imposed this upon us…

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Hunter — Crackpot Pennsylvania police chief makes good case for town quarantine

It gets worse, or funnier, depending on how you look at it. 

This is rural Pennsylvania, after all. Your remember the Whiskey Rebellion that George Washington himself put down at Alexander Hamilton's urging in order to enforce the federal whiskey tax? (Got that? "Enforce the tax law.") 

I guess rural Pennsylvanians have either forgotten about it or are game for a re-match in the hope of winning this time. Maybe they think Barack Obama is no George Washington.

Daily Kos
Crackpot Pennsylvania police chief makes good case for town quarantine
Hunter

Stephen C. Webster — Alex Jones pushes tornado truther theory: ‘There’s weather weapon stuff going on’

Alex Jones pushes tornado truther theory: ‘There’s weather weapon stuff going on’ (via Raw Story )

Conspiracy talk show host Alex Jones, increasingly a favorite of conservative media for his extremely vocal support of gun rights, outed himself Tuesday as a tornado truther by telling a caller on his show, “Of course there’s weather weapons stuff going on.” Jones, a longtime proponent of the…

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Rand Paul: UN has secret plot to ‘CONFISCATE and DESTROY ALL’ of America’s guns

File under humor.

Rand Paul: UN has secret plot to ‘CONFISCATE and DESTROY ALL’ of America’s guns (via Raw Story )

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) on Saturday warned President Barack Obama was working on behalf of “anti-American globalists” in the United Nations who were plotting against the U.S. Constitution. In a fundraising email sent on behalf of the National Association on Gun Rights, Paul alleged the U.N. Arms…

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Chris Mooney — The More Republicans Know About Politics, The More They Believe Conspiracy Theories – Dems, on the other hand, are more gullible the less they know

In the mainstream political press, the standard practices of neutrality and balance carry with them an implicit assumption: that Democrats and Republicans are separate but equal in their ideological biases, with each group just as inclined to support its own team and attack the other side. The trouble is, data from psychologists and political scientists suggest that this might be a naive approach. At worst, it may fundamentally misunderstand the nature of American politics.

The latest evidence on this head comes from pollster and political scientist Dan Cassino of Fairleigh Dickinson University. In a national survey, Cassino examined belief in political conspiracy theories on both the left and also the right. He did so by asking Americans about two "liberal" conspiracy beliefs—the 9/11 "Truther" conspiracy, and the idea that George W. Bush stole the 2004 election—and two conservative ones: the "Birther" theory that Barack Obama was born in Kenya, and the claim that he stole the 2012 vote.

The results were hardly symmetrical. First, 75 percent of Republicans, but only 56 percent of Democrats, believed in at least one political conspiracy theory. But even more intriguing was the relationship between one's level of political knowledge and one's conspiratorial political beliefs. Among Democrats and independents, having a higher level of political knowledge was correlated with decreased belief in conspiracies. But precisely the opposite was the case for Republicans, where knowledge actually made the problem worse. For each political knowledge question that they answered correctly, Republicans' belief in at least one conspiracy theory tended to increase by 2 percentage points.

What's up with this? Cassino views these data as just one more indicator of an "asymmetry" in how Democrats and Republicans, or liberals and conservatives, respond to politics—with Republicans tending to be more partisan and tribal (and in this particular case, more willing to believe conspiracies about their political opponents), and Democrats less so. And while Cassino admits that his latest study wouldn't, in and of itself, constitute definitive proof of ideological asymmetry, he thinks it fits into a bigger body of evidence.

Mother Jones
The More Republicans Know About Politics, The More They Believe Conspiracy Theories – Dems, on the other hand, are more gullible the less they know

Chris Mooney

Really? Never would have guessed. But there it is in black and white, folks. The wingnutz really are nutz.

Looney is not just a Texan thing

No, that judge in Texas was not an aberration.

On his Facebook page, Szabo claims that sheriffs in the United States have broad powers and are duty-bound to prevent any action they deem to be unconstitutional. He also said that as sheriff he would stop the United Nation’s sustainable development plan known as Agenda 21, which some conspiracy theorists claim is a plot to force “communitarianism” on Americans.

The Raw Story
Sheriff candidate would use deadly force to stop abortions
Eric W. Dolan

The GOP establishment is now riding the tiger as they watch the loonies trash their brand.

• Republican House Speaker Bill O’Brien has called for Szabo to drop out of the race.

How far to the right is the Tea Party, in Jerome Corsi's mind anyway

Corsi later said in his video that the media tried to please the left and that Fox News was “packed with leftist commentators.” He warned the news network that they were in danger of losing their core conservative audience.

This is arguably to the right of the John Birch Society aka Koch Bros. (Their father, Fred C. Koch, was a founding member of the JBS, and "the boys" are carrying on the family tradition.)

The post also contains Corsi's latest conspiracy theory about Obama. You may remember Corsi as the originator of birtherism.

Raw Story (with video)
Tea party activist: Fox News too far left because of Bob Beckel
Eric W. Dolan

How a conspiracy theory works

In concluding his reporting on the last conspiracy theory (fun read), Fitzer says, "Fortunately, unlike the ramblings of Nostradamus, the accuracy of Pamela Schuffert’s prediction of NATO tyranny is easily tested. If we don’t have NATO martial law by four weeks from today, we will know for certain that Schuffert has no genuine inside sources in the FBI or in secret offices in Belgium."

Not really. The alleged author of the conspiracy theory will just claim that her blowing the whistle just postponed it for a while. — But it's coming. Like that hyperinflation thing we've all been waiting for.

Read it at Irregular Times
4 Weeks Left Until NATO Troops Impose Martial Law In USA, Or Not
by F. G. Fitzer

Culture Wars And Craziness

The Occupy movement's evolving agenda is in danger of being sullied by association with neo-Nazi David Duke and antigovernment crusader Ron Paul.

Read it at AlterNet
How Right-Wing Libertarians, John Birchers and Conspiracy Freaks Are Trying to Hijack the Occupy Movement
by Eric Johnson

In my anecdotal experience this is not affecting only Occupy and the 99% movement. Quite a few people with whom I am acquainted, who I had thought were sane, are falling into this hole of dark fantasizing about conspiracy theory. For some it is an anxiety neurosis, but for others, often the leaders, it is a paranoid psychosis. But for many, it is only uncritical thinking that can be countered by introducing rigor.

A lot of this centers around the Fed and it related in some way to Ron Paul and Rockwell-Rothbard Libertarianism, based on the persistent conspiracy theory about and "international banking cabal" instituting a "new world order" based on a repressive "world government" under UN aegis — the Money Masters, Bilderberg, Trilateral Commission, Council on Foreign Relations stuff that is supposedly controlled by "the Rothschilds." There is just enough fact to support the outlandish claims, so that uncritical minds make logical jumps that are unwarranted.

This quote from the article cited above sums it up.

For many of the people involved in the Occupy movement, this is their first involvement with political activism. Their openness to new ideas and reluctance to embrace any one political dogma is refreshing. But as the saying goes: “It’s good to have an open mind, but not so open that your brains fall out.”