(Screen shot, NCTeaPartyTV)

Tea Party candidate endorsed by Rand Paul used to run a website full of conspiracy theories

Dr. Greg Brannon's now-defunct Tea Party site was a hotbed of crazy

Elias Isquith
January 23, 2014 10:25PM (UTC)

Before he was running for Senate in North Carolina, before he was endorsed by Rand Paul, and before he was earnestly arguing that food stamps are a form of slavery, Dr. Greg Brannon was the president of a Tea Party group called "Founder's Truth." Like any self-respecting Tea Party group (or political activist of any stripe, for that matter) Founder's Truth had itself a website. The website's no longer operational, but BuzzFeed, using the magic powers of the internet, was able to unearth some of its best material. And, man, is it good.

What BuzzFeed found is that Founder's Truth's website had itself a blog. It was called "The Freedom Blog." And while you'd expect the Freedom Blog to have musings from Brannon or other members of his group, BuzzFeed found that the Freedom Blog featured something else: Articles, reposted in their entirety, from well-known conspiracy theorist websites like Alex Jones' Infowars.com and Mike Adams' Naturalnews.com.


So what kind of stories did Brannon's Freedom Blog repost? Here are some good ones that BuzzFeed found:

  • A post sincerely propagating the Agenda 21 conspiracy theory.
  • A post referring to the Aurora massacre as an "op" (i.e., a government initiative).
  • A post warning of "secret police murder and cover-up in the USA."
  • A post about the nefarious plot of global elites to create "one world currency." (A step, many conspiracy theorists believe, toward the establishment of a New World Order.)
  • A post reporting that the TSA may force people to wear "shock bracelets."
  • A post titled "They Really Do Want To Plant Microchips Inside Your Brain"
  • A post charging that putting fluoride in drinking water is "patently unethical and criminal"
  • A post asking if Israel will engage in a "false flag" operation in order to spark a war with Iran

That's a lot of conspiracy theorizing!

By the way, although recent polling shows Brannon slightly behind Thom Tillis in the race for the GOP nomination, polls also show that if Brannon were to run against Democratic incumbent Kay Hagan, he'd win. By 2 percentage points. So take that, schemers of the New World Order! Once Brannon joins Rand Paul (who also has a history of conspiracy theorizing) in the U.S. Senate, there'll be nowhere left for you to hide.

Elias Isquith

Elias Isquith is a former Salon staff writer.

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