Just Asking Questions
Of course, you've heard that Ted Cruz's father was involved in JFK's assassination. Right? Didn't President Trump say so? Haven't experts stated that Ted's dad was a go-between with Lee Harvey Oswald and Fidel Castro? People say that Rafael Cruz, who is second cousin to Fidel and his brother Raúl, coordinated with the Soviet KGB to buffer Oswald. After the assassination and the Russians' arranged murder of Jack Ruby with Rafael's help, didn't he flee to Canada to begin a new identity? And I've heard that the bundle of cold hard cash the KGB gave him financed Ted's platinum Princeton and Harvard education. Can you prove it's not true? Do you have any evidence to contradict these very serious questions?
Just asking.
Why in hell is Jim Jordan still in Congress? Isn't it known by everyone by now that he's a pederast? Covering up his sexual assault crimes while working with a cabal of child-abusing wrestling coaches at Ohio State? They say that these Satan-worshipping coaches lured young boys to a pizza parlor near campus where they abused them. I don't know, but that's what people are saying. Why hasn't this been investigated? Why are the Republicans covering it up? And how is it that the Koch and Mercer families can get away with blackmailing Jordan to do their bidding?
Just asking.
Why aren't Fox, Breibart and the ever-expanding alphabet soup of right-wing propaganda machinelettes not reporting on the worldwide conspiracy of moneybag Evangelical Christians to clandestinely finance Josh Hawley's political career after his major backers pulled out their support because of Hawley's voting not to certify Joe Biden as president? Can Hawley and his fellow-travelers in the Land of the Lunatic Fringe, such as Elise Stefanik and Louie Gohmert, et al., survive without the megatons of dark MAGA cash coming from the pockets of Franklin Graham, Jerry Falwell and other uber-wealthy Christians and their bible-thumping cosmopolitan Jesus-loving financiers?
Just asking.
Can you prove that Ron Johnson and Rand Paul aren't paid assets of Russian intelligence? Of course, isn't it known within the D.C. Beltway that their fifth column Republican friends, all also suborned by Moscow, forced the CIA to destroy the evidence while Trump was fuehrer? DNI John Ratcliffe personally burned the materials on the roof of CIA headquarters, as we all know by now, verdad? How is it that Johnson's and Paul's diplomas from the SVR's Directorate "S" covert training program haven't surfaced? Prove to Americans that there hasn't been a cover-up.
Just asking.
Finally, where are certificates of sanity for Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert? I want to see the certificates, don't you? Otherwise, how can we believe their assertions that they are not crazy? Let's see the certificates!
Just asking.
Nick Harper, a voting attorney in Minnesota, aptly describes in an essay how the radical right has mastered the canard of "just asking questions" to deviously spread disinformation:
A lot of people are weaponizing this notion of "just asking questions." Framing it this way allows the person to make a wild accusation in question format, rather than phrasing it as a statement. Often either the questioner knows the truth and denies it for political reasons, or they are willfully ignorant. Conspiracy theorists and malicious actors who spread disinformation intentionally — such as propagandists or foreign adversaries — often favor this tactic.
Doing so allows them to shift the burden of truth, then implicitly reject the truth, and finally legitimize the disinformation — all while maintaining an air of respectability.
Those who propagate the Big Lie that our voting systems are fraught with fraud to justify imposing voter suppression measures, he adds, like to turn the tables on their opponents and demand that they disprove a negative: "Give us proof that there's no fraud in voting." It's rhetorical trick going back to the ancient Greeks.
This kind of deceptive disinformation dissemination has underpinned the ludicrous QAnon phenomenon. Millions of our nation's weak-minded and infantilely gullible citizens lap up the superstition-laden canned horse manure being spoon-fed to them, leading many to violent talk and actions - culminating in the Jan. 6 storming of Congress by a mass-delusional MAGA-mob.
According to a just released poll, 15 percent of Americans believe a cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles controls the country and that "American patriots may have to resort to violence" to get rid of them. It gets better. Twenty percent said they thought an apocalyptic storm would soon rid the world these evil elites and "restore the rightful leaders." A mere 20 percent of Republicans fully rejected the QAnon conspiracy theory – compared with (a still scary, it should be much more) 58 percent of Democrats. This translates to more than 30 million gullible fools.
"Thinking about QAnon, if it were a religion, it would be as big as all white evangelical Protestants, or all white mainline Protestants," the pollster toldthe New York Times. "So it lines up there with a major religious group,"he added.
When and how will this madness end?
Just asking.
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