SocraticGadfly: Top blog posting of 2018 —A year heavy on refuting conspiracy theories

December 29, 2018

Top blog posting of 2018 —
A year heavy on refuting conspiracy theories

Below are a few of my top 10, by volume, blog posts of 2018, with a bit of summary and a final wrap at the end.

They're all at least somewhat related to conspiracy thinking, which bloomed in profusion this year, as much as rapid-response tweeting on various issues from President Trump.

Speaking of ...

This summer, I called out Marcy Wheeler, aka Emptywheel, along with other Kossack alumni Dead-End Kids, for her absolutist claims backed by less than absolutist evidence that Donald Trump conspired with Vladimir Putin to get Trump elected.

A month later, I called out the presumably non-existent Forensicator, along with Tim Leonard/Adam Carter and anybody else invested in his likely creation, such as Disobedient Media, as well as people involved with propagating his claims that Guccifer 2.0 was NOT a Russian intelligence asset — such call-outs including Bill Binney, Ray McGovern and other members of the majority faction of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity and Patrick Lawrence for his credulous reporting, all of this indulged in detail at Consortium News. I also called out much of this consortium, abetted by the likes of ShirtLost DumbShit Zach Haller, for being the likely originator of Seth Rich conspiracy theories. (That said, Consortium News is a mare's nest of conspiracy thinking.)

Speaking of Seth Rich conspiracy theories, back in February, I called out idiot lawyer Jared Beck and his DNC fraud lawsuit filing, which sounds like it was written with a crayon.

Starting in February, and compiling more evidence throughout the year, I called out Beto O'Rourke for being a Fauxgressive ConservaDem.

When Schmuck Talk Express John McCain died, I called out Beltway media stenographers, bipartisan foreign policy think tanks and the like for failing to tell the truth about a person who was an Islamophobe and a warmonger, among other things.

Fortified by that, later I called out the Beltway stenos and allies for similar hagiography when Iran-Contra and October Surprise co-conspirator Poppy Bush died.

All call-outs, right?

With that pattern, I invite you to read my 2015 post on practicing philosophical Neo-Cynicism, my update on Diogenes' original Cynicism, and rejecting the conventional wisdom — and not just in politics — of the chattering classes.

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