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alex jones
Patel Taps Far-Right Misinformation Peddler Dan Bongino for Deputy FBI Director
"I know this feels like a bad dream," said one Democratic senator. "It isn't."
Feb 24, 2025
In a move cheered by the MAGA faithful but derided by critics, FBI Director Kash Patel picked Dan Bongino—a former New York City police officer and Secret Service agent turned Fox News and podcast host known for spreading right-wing conspiracy theories—as the agency's deputy director.
In what he called "great news for Law Enforcement and American Justice," U.S. President Donald Trump took to his Truth Social site to announce Patel's selection of Bongino for the number two FBI post.
On Monday, Bongino said in a statement: "My career has always been about service. I'm here to work. I'm here to lead. And I'm here to ensure that America's law enforcement institutions uphold the values and integrity they were built upon."
Patel congratulated Bongino, whom he called a "warrior."
"With Pam Bondi as our new attorney general, we are assembling a team focused on restoring public trust, upholding the rule of law, and ensuring justice is served," Patel said on Monday.
The Bulwarkreported Monday that the FBI Agents Association issued a memo implying that Patel broke a commitment he made to appoint "an on-board, active special agent" as deputy director, "as has been the case for 117 years."
Critics lambasted Patel's pick, with progressive podcast host David Paskman
writing on the Bluesky social media site, "We're so screwed."
Adam Goldman and Devlin Barrett wrote in The New York Times: "The combination of Mr. Patel and Mr. Bongino will represent the least experienced leadership pair in the bureau's history. It is also all but certain to prompt concerns about how the men, who have freely peddled misinformation and embraced partisan politics, will run an agency typically insulated from White House interference."
Some critics expressed fears that Trump will use Patel and Bongino to attack political opponents.
Others called Bongino a "grifter."
Bongino worked as a New York police officer from 1995-99 and as a Secret Service agent from 1999-2011, leaving the agency to run for U.S. Senate—the first of three unsuccessful political campaigns.
After failing in politics, Bongino became a popular conspiracy theorist on social media and right-wing talk radio. In addition to hosting his own Fox News program from 2021-23 and a podcast with millions of listeners, he has frequently appeared on Alex Jones' Infowars fake news program. He also hosted a show on the National Rifle Association's defunct online video channel.
Bongino is the author of more than half a dozen books, some of them promoting conspiracy theories about the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections. He quickly became one of the most strident purveyors of Trump's "Big Lie" that the 2020 election was stolen by the so-called "deep state" and Democrats.
Since then, Bongino has used his platforms to amplify conspiracy theories and lies about topics including the January 6, 2021 U.S. Capitol insurrection and the Covid-19 pandemic. He was banned from both YouTube and Google's ad service for spreading pandemic-related misinformation. In 2020, The New York Times included him on its list of "misinformation superspreaders."
At times, Bongino seemed to relish his notoriety, once explaining that "my entire life right now is about owning the libs."
Last year, the purportedly non-political appointee ripped "scumbag commie libs," the "biggest pussies I've ever seen," in a vague threat posted on Elon Musk's social media site X.
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Critics Say Trump Got 'Nothing Right' About Causes of LA Wildfires
One observer blasted MAGA's "conflagration of lies and disinformation."
Jan 09, 2025
Progressive critics were left shaking their heads this week as Republican U.S. President-elect Donald Trump and his MAGA allies absurdly blamed the Los Angeles County wildfires on everything from an ichthyophile governor to diversity policies—while ignoring what experts say is the true cause of the deadly infernos.
On Wednesday, Trump took to his Truth social media platform to falsely accuse Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom—whom he repeatedly called "Newscum"—of refusing "to sign the water restoration declaration put before him that would have allowed millions of gallons of water... to flow daily into many parts of California, including the areas that are currently burning in a virtually apocalyptic way."
Newsom's office responded to Trump's accusation by correctly noting that "there is no such document as the water restoration declaration."
Trump also accused Newsom of wanting "to protect an essentially worthless fish called a smelt, by giving it less water," a red herring and false statement given that the state's plan to protect the endangered delta smelt actually involved increasing the amount of fresh water flowing into its habitat.
Jeffrey Mount, a water policy expert at the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California, toldMSNBC newsletter editor Ryan Teague Beckwith on Thursday that Trump got "nothing right" in his post.
Summarizing his interview with Mount, Teague Beckwith wrote:
Without getting into too much detail, here's what did happen... During Trump's first term, his administration sought to divert some of the water coming into a river delta near San Francisco to farmers in the San Joaquin Valley, among others. They came up with a plan for the water, which Newsom challenged in court. The Biden administration later negotiated a new plan with California on how to divvy up the water.
This is basic stuff, so the fact that Trump describes this as Newsom refusing to sign some kind of document that never existed should give you a sense of how disengaged he is with his own policy.
Meanwhile, MAGA acolyte and soon-to-be Department of Government Efficiency co-leader Elon Musk used his X social media network—formerly Twitter—to amplify racist posts disparaging Democratic Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, an antisemitic diatribe by defamatory conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, implicitly sexist and homophobic attacks on Los Angeles' fire chief, and his own frequent aspersions of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies.
Slate web editor Nitish Pahwa condemned MAGA's "conflagration of lies and disinformation."
"Just one day after Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook and Instagram would no longer be fact-checking informational posts, and mere months after nonstop online hoaxes obstructed federal efforts to assist North Carolinians in the recovery from Hurricane Helene, we're getting an early-year preview of how the United States is going to experience and respond to these rampaging climate disasters throughout the near future," Pahwa said.
"In the vacuum left by mainstream TV networks that did not at all mention climate change in their fire coverage, bad-faith digital actors swooped in with their own takes," Pahwa added. "Climate change doesn't just boost record weather events—it boosts the snake-oil salesmen, too."
Climate experts and defenders weighed in with science-based explanations for the increase in extreme weather events like the Los Angeles County wildfires.
As Common Dreamsreported earlier Thursday, Aaron Regunberg, Public Citizen's Climate Program senior policy counsel, noted that "a recent study found that nearly all of the observed increase in wildfire-burned area in California over the past half-century is attributable to anthropogenic climate change."
"This devastation is the direct result of Big Oil's conduct," Regunberg asserted.
As Fossil Free Media director Jamie Henn said, "This is exactly the sort of disaster that Exxon's own scientists predicted more than 50 years ago, but they spent billions to keep us hooked on fossil fuels."
According to the U.S. National Park Service, the area burned annually by California wildfires has increased fivefold since the 1970s.
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Media Justice as The Onion Buys Infowars From 'Hateful' (and Bankrupt) Alex Jones
"This is going to be our answer to this no-guardrails world where there are no gatekeepers and everything's kind of insane," said the CEO of The Onion.
Nov 14, 2024
In what one journalist called an "insane twist" to the long saga of conspiracy theorist Alex Jones' use of his online platform to spread rampant disinformation, satirical newspaper The Onion on Thursday announced it had won an auction to buy Infowars, Jones' bankrupt publication.
Jones declared bankruptcy in 2022 after the families of the victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting won nearly $1.5 billion in damages in lawsuits they filed over Jones' repeated claims on his show that the shooting had been a hoax.
Jones claimed the families and victims—20 first graders and six educators—were crisis actors, inciting his supporters to threaten the grieving families.
The auction included everything from Jones' desk and production studio to his diet supplement line, and the Sandy Hook families supported The Onion's effort to take control of Infowars, which the company said would be relaunched as a parody of itself.
"The Onion's goal with the acquisition is to end Infowars' relentless barrage of disinformation for the sake of selling supplements and replace it with The Onion's relentless barrage of humor for good," said the company in a press release, which did not state how much The Onion paid for Infowars.
Ben Collins, CEO of The Onion's parent company, Global Tetrahedron, toldThe New York Times that he and other leaders at the newspaper initially thought purchasing Infowars "would be a hilarious joke" to play on Jones.
"This is going to be our answer to this no-guardrails world where there are no gatekeepers and everything's kind of insane," he told the Times.
Collins, who previously reported on misinformation for NBC News, reached out to a lawyer representing Sandy Hook families and asked for their input on The Onion's auction bid. The families approved.
"By divesting Jones of Infowars' assets, the families and the team at The Onion have done a public service and will meaningfully hinder Jones' ability to do more harm."
"From Day One, these families have fought against all odds to bring true accountability to Alex Jones and his corrupt business," said Chris Mattei, the families' lawyer. "Our clients knew that true accountability meant an end to Infowars and an end to Jones' ability to spread lies, pain, and fear at scale... By divesting Jones of Infowars' assets, the families and the team at The Onion have done a public service and will meaningfully hinder Jones' ability to do more harm."
Mattei added that the families rejected Jones' offer "for allegedly more money if they would only let him stay on the air because doing so would have put other families in harm's way."
Robbie Parker, whose daughter Emilie was killed at Sandy Hook, said in a statement that the families had been "told this outcome would be nearly impossible, but we are no strangers to impossible fights."
"The world needs to see that having a platform does not mean you are above accountability—the dissolution of Alex Jones' assets and the death of Infowars is the justice we have long awaited and fought for," said Parker.
The Onion has "made an indelible mark on the public response to school shootings," said the company, pointing to its repeated printing of the headline, "'No Way to Prevent This,' Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens," which has appeared in the newspaper 37 times following school shootings.
Advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety plans to work closely with The Onion on the new Infowars parody site, which Collins said would mock "weird internet personalities" who traffic in misinformation. Everytown has signed a multiyear advertising deal with the company.
"Alex Jones has profited off the pain of Sandy Hook families," said Everytown, "and his brand of hateful disinformation has seeped into mainstream American culture.We're excited to join them as they turn the page on this toxic chapter of misinformation and begin the next chapter of InfoWars, turning it into a tool to combat disinformation and extremism through humor. Not only will this new venture staunch the flow of hurtful misinformation, but it also holds significant potential for us to reach new audiences in the fight for gun safety."
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