dan bongino 2 fbi
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primary for ease ID
CONVERTED TO TWO 2 25 TRIFECTA
SEE CRM
SEE CONSPIR HYPE THREAT
reg subs for hanity?
see nraTV
mma Tag Dan Bongino
bak 11 22
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THREAT TO QUIT? DID IT
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Laura Ingraham claims there is a leftist “plan” to “overthrow” the government. What in the world is she talking about?
Written by Matt Gertz
Published 10/22/26
Republicans are panicking and right-wing media are desperately churning out “fear porn” as polls continue to point to a devastating midterm environment for their party with less than two weeks remaining before election day. From presidential rallies to Fox News primetime, MAGA stalwarts are trying to bolster their party’s turnout by warning Republican voters that if they do not go to the polls, their freedom and very lives may be at stake.
That increasingly deranged environment is generating a level of demagoguery that at times becomes simply absurd.
Fox host Laura Ingraham, for example, announced on her show Wednesday that if Democrats win control of the U.S. House and Senate, a leftist cabal of activists, journalists, “top former staffers” in the Obama and Biden administrations, and even Democratic governors will carry out a plot to force President Donald Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act as a mechanism to “dissolve” the U.S. Constitution and “crush their enemies.”
The argument that the left is planning to destroy the federal government if and only if Democrats triumph in the midterms makes a lot of sense as an attempt to scare Republicans to the polls but none at all as a plot in its own right.
Questions abound: Why in the world is this plan only enacted after Democrats achieve actual congressional power for the first time in Trump's second term? If there is clear evidence of a sweeping plot including “top” Obama and Biden officials, why is the best example Ingraham can point to former Obama White House ethics lawyer Norm Eisen talking about protecting the Constitution with legal action? Why does the plan revolve around getting Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act — an outcome MAGA pundits like Ingraham herself have been lobbying for and Democrats have publicly opposed?
Lastly, why does Ingraham think this grand conspiracy is underway? We don’t really know — she cited no direct evidence for what on-screen Fox graphics described as “The Left’s Plan To Overthrow The U.S. Gov’t.”
But Ingraham’s claims align with a conspiracy theory that Jennica Pounds, a right-wing influencer who goes by the pseudonym DataRepublican and briefly worked for the Defense Department this year, floated over the weekend based on videos of activist meetings she obtained. Pounds’ claim of a leftist “operational plan” seems to be much less than advertised — but has nonetheless been trumpeted this week by prominent MAGA figures like Glenn Beck, Vince Coglianese, Jesse Kelly, and podcaster-turned-deputy-FBI-director-turned-podcaster Dan Bongino.
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neg ad fuckery driven bc repeat fail eg doge or bad polls 10 26?
mma
Here are the right-wing media figures endorsing “despicable” ad from Ohio Republican gubernatorial nominee Vivek Ramaswamy
The ad features Democratic nominee Amy Acton’s estranged mother, who defended her husband’s reported sexual assault of Acton when she was a child
Written by Zachary Pleat
Research contributions from Gideon Taaffe
Published 10/21/26
Multiple right-wing media figures are promoting an ad released this week by Ohio Republican gubernatorial nominee Vivek Ramaswamy’s campaign targeting his Democratic opponent, Amy Acton, featuring her mother calling her a liar. However, Acton has been estranged from her parent since the age of 12 in 1978, when her mother defended the candidate’s stepfather against accusations he had sexually assaulted Acton for two years, then fled the state with him as he became a fugitive from charges of child sexual abuse.
In Ramaswamy’s ad, which right-wing media personalities praised as “brilliant” and “absolutely hilarious,” Acton’s estranged mother accused her of lying about her past. But court records accessed by ABC affiliate News 5 Cleveland back up Acton’s story, with the outlet reporting, “Mahoning County Court records we obtained show that Cledith Arthur was arrested and charged with sexually abusing Acton, then 12 years old. The abuse went from ages 10-12, she said.” The article continued: “After pleading not guilty, he posted bond and fled, becoming a fugitive of the state until his death in 2004. Police tried to find him for numerous years, documents state. He and Acton's mother moved to Pennsylvania, according to public records.”
Acton’s brother, Philip Stearns, issued a statement following the Ramaswamy ad’s release, saying, “It’s not surprising that Vivek Ramaswamy has stooped to such a despicable low as to attempt to turn the sexual abuse Amy endured at twelve years old from our birth mother’s husband into a political talking point. … After he was arrested and Amy and I were removed from their custody, our birth mother stayed married to Amy’s rapist until he died.”
Yet some right-wing media personalities are celebrating the ad, which Ramaswamy campaign manager Jonathan Ewing said “is a campaign-ending moment for Amy Acton.” Ramaswamy also shared commentary on the ad and Acton more generally from right-wing podcaster Megyn Kelly.
Daily Wire host Michael Knowles praised Ramaswamy’s ad as “brilliant, brilliant.” Knowles added: “I think it's a very, very effective ad. It's brutal.” [The Daily Wire, The Michael Knowles Show, 10/20/26]
Newsmax host Greg Kelly: “Everybody in Ohio and the country should be listening to Amy Acton's mom.” Kelly repeatedly praised Acton’s mother, saying, “The mother speaks with love here. I believe the mother loves Amy.” He continued: “And she seems like a very nice lady, actually.” Kelly concluded: “Wow, that's some — the mother, I believe her.” [Newsmax, The Greg Kelly Show, 10/20/26]
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From the October 20, 2026, edition of Newsmax's Greg Kelly Reports
Podcaster and former FBI deputy director Dan Bongino said of Ramaswamy’s ad: “This is the most destructive political ad I have ever seen.” Bongino added: “How do you vote for this lady? It's her mom. That's mom dukes. Ma, mommy, mom, ma. My kid goes, Ma. How do you vote?” [Rumble, The Dan Bongino Show, 10/20/26]
Trump political operative Roger Stone used the ad to smear Acton, saying, “Turns out she’s been lying for personal gain.” Stone claimed that Stearn’s statement “seems like a poor explanation.” [Red Apple Audio Network, The Stone Zone, 10/20/26]
Gateway Pundit’s Wayne Allyn Root called the ad “absolutely hilarious.” Root used the ad to say, “The more you meet these Democrat candidates, they’re all crazy. They’re all covering up for the fact that they’ve had mental illness their whole life. They’re crazy, whacked-out people.” [The Gateway Pundit, War Zone with Wayne Allyn Root, 10/20/26]
10/21/26 8:56 AM EDT
10/21/26 9:00 AM EDT
10/21/26
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AN 10 16
Retired Judge J. Michael Luttig wrote a Substack column Thursday warning that the next big Jan. 6 will be Jan. 3 and that Americans should prepare for it to get ugly.
On Jan. 6, a president refused to accept his loss and relinquish his power in a peaceful transfer of the office, recalled Luttig.
"Today, almost six years later, the 47th President – the very same man – and his Republican congressional allies are determined to prosecute the president’s war against American democracy to its catastrophic end," he wrote. "That catastrophic end for which they senselessly yearn could well come on January 3, 2027, when Donald Trump and his Republican congressional allies wage the final battle in this president’s determined war to corrupt America’s democracy and deliver a lasting political victory over the Democrats for his MAGA Republican Party."
The next date for the transfer of power comes when the House and Senate will be sworn in. Luttig fears it will be the final dying breath of the GOP as they are forced to hand over power to those who defeated them.
"Since his return to the White House, the president’s every unconstitutional act in his effort to seize control over the midterm elections five weeks away – each hailed by his prostrate Republican Congress — has been toward the end of ensuring that Republicans retain a majority in the 120th Congress," explained Luttig.
He cited a conversation between Trump and Dan Bogino on February 2 in which Trump said, “The Republicans should say, ‘We want to take over. We should take over the voting ... The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting.’”
During his midterm convention in Dallas Trump pledged he'd give every American adult a $5,000 "dividend" if Republicans maintain power in the House and Senate. He also demanded that everyone attending the event swear an oath to him and the GOP to vote on Nov. 3.
"So unalterably subjugated to Trump is today’s Republican House that even a decisive victory for Democrats and a resounding repudiation of Trump and the MAGA Republicans at the polls in November will not guarantee that a Democratic majority-elect will be seated in the 120th Congress on January 3," Luttig cautioned.
The retired judge said that Trump has spent the past year pressuring Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and other House Republicans to treat a possible Democratic midterm win as fraudulent, even if all of the votes haven't been completely counted or even cast.
In Luttig’s view, that pressure is working: if Democrats win control of the House, Republicans may claim the election was stolen and, on Jan. 3, try to block some of the Democratic winners from being seated in the new Congress.
It appears that Johnson is on board: “We cannot and will not allow [the Democrats] to take the majority in the House of Representatives," he told members the following day.
"Over the past year and a half since his return to the White House, the 47th President has exploited every conceivable unlawful means possible to rig the upcoming midterm elections in favor of the Republicans, and the federal courts have struck down as unconstitutional every one of these unlawful attempts," said Luttig.
He warned that Trump is likely to "try every unlawful means over the next five weeks to ensure that Republicans handily win the midterm elections in November. Those of us who oppose his illegality will look to the courts, but the federal courts will be institutionally incapable of checking his final unlawful rampage."
He said that the only hope for America to dodge a constitutional crisis on Jan. 3 is for Republicans to be forced to answer whether they'll betray their oath of office for Trump one last time.
"America’s time of testing has finally come," said Luttig.
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MMA
- ### Tucker Carlson: Dan Bongino went “from a critic of the deep state to its most aggressive defender”
07/02/26
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mma
Right-wing media react to Trump's slush fund for allies with unquestioning loyalty — and some vague skepticism
Written by Sophie Lawton
:{Published 05/21/26
Some right-wing media figures are jumping on board with the Trump administration's newest effort to support MAGA allies despite numerous questions about its legality; a few are voicing light skepticism of the plan.
This week, the Department of Justice announced that the Trump family had agreed to drop a legally questionable $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS in exchange for the creation of a $1.776 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund.” According to Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, the fund's intended recipients are “victims of lawfare and weaponization” by the federal government. Critics of the move are calling the idea a “slush fund,” and The New York Times called the deal “highly unusual” and wrote that the fund is “a pipeline to funnel taxpayer money to President Trump’s allies.”
Some right-wing media figures have been praising the fund, calling it a great idea and complementing Trump for his “patriotic” use of the number 1776 while ignoring the more problematic details of the fund.
Newsmax host Carl Higbie staunchly defended the fund, claiming that Trump has “dropped — he dropped — his $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS in exchange for a $1.776 — 1776 — billion-dollar fund set up for truth and justice compensation for people who were victims of Biden's weaponization of government” and that “Trump and his family will get $0 in exchange for just simply an apology from the IRS and a fund set up for every other person who Biden targeted.”
:{Video
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From the May 18, 2026, edition of Newsmax's Carl Higbie: Frontline
Fox's Sean Hannity said the Department of Justice “rightly agreed to set aside the patriotic amount of $1.76 billion to settle other claims like this.”
:{Video
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From the May 19, 2026, edition of Fox News' Hannity
Trump's former co-deputy director of the FBI Dan Bogino praised the fund and the Trump administration on his podcast, saying that “things are happening all over the place, good, positive things.”
Another right-wing podcaster, Vince Coglianese, said on his show that the fund “sounds like justice” and said, “I think it's perfectly wonderful.”
Coglianese also suggested a few people and groups who could benefit from the fund, including anti-abortion activist Mark Houck, other “conservatives who stood outside of abortion mills” and who faced charges, “parents at school board meetings” complaining about curricula and gender-neutral bathrooms who he said were attacked by the FBI and left-wing groups, and “traditional Catholics” who he claimed were targeted by Biden's FBI.
:{Video
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From the May 19, 2026, edition of VINCEstreamed on Rumble
Greg Kelly took to his Newsmax show to make specific claims about the legal precedent for the fund, stating, “The US government gets sued all the time, and they make settlements. This is not an outlandish arrangement. It actually makes a lot of sense.”
Kelly also claimed that the announcement of the fund came after he sat down with Trump and proposed a “compensation fund for the January 6ers.”
:{Video
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From the May 19, 2026, edition of Newsmax's Greg Kelly Reports
The DOJ also claims there is precedent for this type of fund, saying it’s similar to the Obama-era "Keepseagle" case. In reality, the fund seems to have little legal basis.
As Mike Masnick wrote for Techdirt, the fund was created as a settlement offer because “Trump needed to drop that lawsuit in order to end it before a judge called bullshit on the fact that he was negotiating with himself to take $10 billion from American taxpayers.”
Masknick also refuted the DOJ claims of legal precedent, writing, “The Keepseagle settlement was approved by a court in response to a class action lawsuit. Here, this fund, is being created in a manner deliberately to avoid having the court review it.”
A New York Times piece reported that “legal experts struggled to make sense of this week’s developments, saying tentatively that it was unlikely anyone could sue to stop the moves.” The article noted nevertheless that the fund’s creation is a “jarring shock to the conventional understanding of the constitutional system.”
Reuters quoted Tax Law Center policy director Brandon DeBot calling the fund a “breathtaking abuse of the tax and legal system" and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) calling it a “slush fund” that represented “a stunning act of corruption.”
Some Republican lawmakers have spoken out against the fund, such as Senate Majority Leader John Thune, who said he doesn't “see a purpose” for it, and others seem bothered by the lack of details surrounding where the money might go. “I’ve got more questions than I’ve heard answers for,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK).
January 6 Capitol Police Officers have sued to block the fund on the grounds that it violates the 14th Amendment's prohibition on using federal funds for “any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States.”
Even a few right-wing media voices have been lightly skeptical of the move.
On Fox's Special Report, guest anchor Trace Gallagher admitted that “who gets the money and where it comes from is a bit unclear.”
Special Report's reporting on the topic also included clips of Sens. John Kennedy (R-LA) and Jerry Moran (R-KS) asking for clarity on where the money is coming from and “the legality of creating a fund that Congress hasn't had anything to say about.”
The Daily Wire's Ben Shapiro touched on the matter, saying on his show, “I'm generally against slush funds, to be clear. I do not like them. I think there are other ways of pursuing redress for grievances in this fashion. However, many of the myths that you're hearing about it are overstated.”
Megyn Kelly said on her podcast about the fund, “I don't like it,” explaining that she'd rather see individual suits. But she also made false correlations between this move and Obama's Keepseagle fund, saying, “This was created by Barack Obama,” and, “The same media that's now ripping Trump to shreds for doing it said nothing, nothing when Barack Obama started it. … So I really have no tolerance for their cries and protestations about what Trump is doing.”
Already, January 6 rioters, election deniers, and Trump allies are lining up for a chance at the taxpayer money.
//
- ### True the Vote founder hopes “we will see some level of compensation” from Trump's weaponization fund
05/21/26 11:50 AM EDT
05/20/26 5:26 PM EDT
- ### Newsmax's Greg Kelly defends Trump “weaponization” fund: “This is not an outlandish arrangement”
05/20/26
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- Josh Kovensky @ Talking Points Memo: FBI’s Top Influencers Tout ‘Antifa’ Funding Investigations
FBI Director cites NSPM-7 as enabling crackdown on left-leaning activists.
THE White House wanted investigations into those it describes as left-wing activists and the groups that fund them. And now, FBI Director Kash Patel says, the FBI is delivering.
The FBI is investigating funding associated with left-wing activism, Patel confirmed to longtime podcaster and brief FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino on his recently revived streaming show.
“This FBI, thanks to what we stood up over the last year, has made significant headway under the NSPM-7 process in looking at those who funded these streams,” Patel told Bongino, adding that the bureau is “starting to arrest people who used their funds to incite violence in the guise of political peaceful protest.”
The White House issued NSPM-7 in September, a presidential memo that directed federal law enforcement to investigate ideologies — naming those who espouse “anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity” — as potential sources of political violence. That memo has been operationalized in part through several terrorism prosecutions, TPM reported this month. Patel’s remarks suggest that the FBI is implementing the memo to investigate funding sources for left-leaning activist groups.
At the same time, it’s Kash Patel. He’s more a streamer than a law enforcer. Bongino’s brief tenure at the FBI — during which he memorably complained about the workload before the administration took the unprecedented step of appointing a “co-deputy director” to assist him — testifies to some of this. Beyond that, Patel is operating in Trumpworld, a universe where senior officials can curry favor with the president by demonstrating how tough they are in carrying out his fantasies. Even in that credibility-killing environment, Patel has distinguished himself by using his megaphone as FBI director to misstate details in sensitive, ongoing investigations.
One ongoing case that Patel mentioned in Wednesday’s discussion with Bongino is the Prairieland prosecution. The case is the Trump administration’s first terrorism prosecution against a group of people that it has deemed members of “Antifa.” In the case, prosecutors accuse an “Antifa cell” in North Texas of having staged a demonstration outside an ICE detention facility that left one police officer shot and wounded.
After Bongino brought up the case, Patel claimed that there have been more than two dozen federal arrests. Per TPM’s count, sixteen people have been charged in federal court over the incident.
The trial was set to start on Tuesday. But District Judge Mark Pittman for the Northern District of Texas declared a mistrial during jury selection, reportedly after a defense attorney wore a jacket with a T-shirt underneath that featured a picture of Jesse Jackson and other civil rights leaders.
Patel likened the case to the Cop City prosecution in Georgia. There, state prosecutors filed a sprawling RICO indictment against a group of activists that had been protesting the construction of a police training center. Critics accused prosecutors of using the case to silence activists that had no tie to any act of alleged wrongdoing; a judge dismissed the RICO charges in December.
The FBI director said that his agency had to “rearrest everybody” in order to compensate for errors in the state investigation. It’s unclear what he was referring to. No federal charges have been filed in the Cop City case.
He did suggest that his leadership had seen a change in the FBI’s focus to “Antifa,” the chimerical group of beliefs that Trump II leadership has held up as a national, internal enemy.
Federal law enforcement is not only pursuing foreign threats, he said, “but those who cause violence here in America and use the guise of politics to delete that violence.”
Threats from the administration to investigate ideologically opposed charities spread fear in the nonprofit community last year. Some, per TPM’s reporting, sought to move money overseas; others considered whether to incorporate subsidiary fiscal sponsors as separate organizations.
He reminded Bongino that the two of them had “launched a serious investigation” when the podcaster was in government last year.
“We had said these organizations don’t operate alone, don’t operate in silence. They operate with a heavy heavy stream of funding,” Patel said. “And we started looking into it. And guess what, Dan? We found them.”
Josh Kovenskyis an investigative reporter for Talking Points Memo, based in New York. He previously worked for the Kyiv Post in Ukraine, covering politics, business, and corruption there.
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mma
02/17/26
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02/02/2026
by
- David Badash @ The New Civil Rights Movement: Trump to Bongino: ‘Republicans Ought to Nationalize the Voting’
President Donald Trump called into the podcast of his former Deputy FBI Director, Dan Bongino, and said that Republicans should “nationalize” the voting process, especially in fifteen “crooked” states, while insisting that undocumented immigrants are voting in America.
- David Edwards @ Raw Story: 'Grifter bums': Ex-FBI deputy Dan Bongino returns to air with obscene attack on enemies
During his Monday program, Bongino lashed out at the people he perceived as his enemies while he was working for the FBI.
- Perry Stein and Beth Reinhard @ The Washington Post: Justice Dept. demotes Ed Martin, stripping Trump ally of most authority
Martin will no longer head the Justice Department task force that pushed investigations into Trump’s foes.
- Alex Nguyen @ Mother Jones: Texas Democrat Flips State Senate District That Trump Won by 17 PointS
“This overperformance is a warning sign to Republicans across the country.”
- Jake Lahut @ New York Magazine: Nancy Mace Is Not Okay
“Something’s broken. The motherboard’s fried. We’re short-circuiting somewhere.”
- Alex Griffing @ Mediaite: Bombshell Report on Trump’s ‘Secret Deal With UAE’s ‘Spy Sheikh’ Rocks Political World: ‘Unprecedented and Mind-Boggling’
The Wall Street Journal dropped a bombshell report over the weekend on what it dubbed an “unprecedented” deal between a foreign country and an incoming U.S. president, in this case, the United Arab Emirates and Donald Trump.
- Kelli Wessinger and Noel King @ Vox: You may not like what comes after Charlie Kirk
His followers are drifting toward Nick Fuentes, his onetime nemesis.
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an 1 26
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AN 1 26
President Donald Trump is deploying old-school tactics against some of his enemies: using FBI files to target them.
*The New York Times* reported Sunday morning that FBI Director Kash Patel is helping Trump target his foes using the information it has collected.
Now, the report said, "the bureau has added payback to its portfolio."
While Trump spent years alleging the “weaponization” of law enforcement against political foes, the new administration is “using federal law enforcement to carry out a partisan opposition research operation.”
The report said that Patel has been poring over files, trying to uncover documents that can “expose and discredit federal law enforcement officials who investigated Mr. Trump and his allies.”
The Times noted that it is currently unknown how “wide-ranging” Patel’s coordination with political appointees and Republican allies has been. The official overseeing the operation was Patel’s deputy, Dan Bongino, who recently left the FBI after a tumultuous year in the post. Internally, they referred to Bongino’s unit as the “director’s advisory team.”
Most of the focus has been on the investigation into the 2020 efforts to overturn the election and stage an attack on the U.S. Capitol. Former special counsel Jack Smith spoke to the House late last year about the findings of the probe and said he had "proof beyond a reasonable doubt" that what Trump did was unlawful.
During Trump’s last administration, the IRS was used to go after former FBI Director James Comey and his deputy, Andrew McCabe.
While President Joe Biden’s administration refused to turn over documents tied to the ongoing investigation, Patel is now claiming that Smith broke the law. Speaking to the House, Smith said that all of the information he gathered was approved by a federal judge, which will make it difficult to argue that he went rogue or violated the law with his probes.
J. Edgar Hoover ran his own operations while overseeing the FBI. Recently released information detailed the way in which the FBI was surveilling civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. As the Stanford School of Humanities and Sciences detailed, the counterintelligence campaign against MLK involved "illegal wiretaps on his phone and bugging hotel rooms when he traveled."
The FBI also spread misinformation about King being an "immoral communist."
The Times reported that the FBI now claims it is the “most transparent in history,” even as it refuses to release the legally required files on the investigation into sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The bureau has strategically released batches of anti-Smith material right before he testified behind closed doors.
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who once cast himself as a champion of whistleblowers, is now helping funnel FBI leaks through his office. An unnamed FBI whistleblower, for example, alleged that one member of Jack Smith’s team was not “impartial.”
That agent, who no longer works at the FBI, is Walter Giardina, whom Trump has personally attacked for supposedly having “animosity” toward him. “Mr. Giardina vehemently denied those allegations in a meeting with bureau officials last July, two days after the funeral of his wife, who died of adrenal cancer at 49,” the report continued.
Lawyers representing FBI agents who have been fired under the Trump administration’s weaponization effort are calling out the double standard of using the government to attack someone for their politics while accusing others of doing the same. Those making the accusations are granted anonymity, allowing them to hide behind their own partisan protectors.
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New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com › 2026 › 01 › 12 › arts › dan-bongino-fbi-podcast.html
Dan Bongino, No Longer at the F.B.I., Will Return to Podcasting
1 day agoThe former F.B.I. deputy director, who had hosted a right-wing, pro-Trump podcast, will restart the show after a rocky tenure at the law-enforcement agency.
House GOP majority 'down to almost nothing' as yet another Republican retires
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no lnx
Dan Bongino, No Longer at the F.B.I., Will Return to Podcasting
The former F.B.I. deputy director, who had hosted a right-wing, pro-Trump podcast, will restart the show after a rocky tenure at the law-enforcement agency.
Dan Bongino stands in front of a large sign that reads, “The Dan Bongino Show.”
As the deputy director of the F.B.I., Dan Bongino took part in investigations that debunked claims he had earlier made in his work as a podcaster.Credit...Jason Koerner/Getty Images
By Reggie Ugwu
Jan. 12, 2026
Dan Bongino, the right-wing pundit who stepped down as the deputy director of the F.B.I. this month, announced on Monday that he would restart his popular podcast.
The podcast, “The Dan Bongino Show,” will resume broadcasting on Feb. 2, nearly a year after it ceased production while Bongino served a tumultuous stint in the nation’s top law enforcement agency. The revived version of the podcast will stream live daily on Rumble, the conservative video network, with an audio version distributed to podcast platforms.
“I’m excited to get back behind the mic and reconnect directly with the audience,” Bongino said in a statement. “We’re coming back bigger, bolder, and always unfiltered — exactly how people want it.”
The new version of the show will be released only as a podcast, and not also as a radio show, as it had before.
A former police officer and Secret Service agent who ran unsuccessfully for Congress three times, Bongino rose to prominence during the first Trump administration as a voluble, musclebound champion of the MAGA movement. On the earlier iteration of his podcast, he promoted conspiracy theories, including about Jeffrey Epstein and the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, and railed relentlessly against a panoply of purported liberal misdeeds.
That show frequently ranked near the top of the Apple Podcast charts and was downloaded more than 200 million times in 2023, according to Cumulus Media, which will handle the new show’s ad sales through one of its subsidiaries. Bongino is also the founder of The Bongino Report, a conservative news aggregator, and he has hosted a Saturday night talk show on Fox News.
He had no experience at the F.B.I. when President Trump asked him to serve under the agency’s director, Kash Patel. As deputy director, a post that involved overseeing dozens of field offices in the United States and abroad, he took part in investigations that debunked claims he had made in his career as a commentator.
After the F.B.I. arrested a man accused of planting pipe bombs at Republican and Democratic headquarters ahead of the Jan. 6 attack, Bongino distanced himself from one such previous claim — that the bombs had been part of an inside job orchestrated by the federal government.
“I was paid in the past, Sean, for my opinions, that’s clear, and one day I will be back in that space — but that’s not what I’m paid for now,” he said in an interview with Sean Hannity of Fox News in December.
Bongino also clashed with Pam Bondi, who, as the attorney general, oversees the F.B.I., over her handling of files related to the Epstein case. And his frequent, incendiary posts on social media alienated some rank-and-file personnel at an agency with a legacy of quiet professionalism.
In a lawsuit filed last September, a former F.B.I. official who directed the agency’s Washington field office accused Bongino of spending more time “creating content for his social media pages” than working on F.B.I. investigations.
Close observers of the Justice Department began speculating about his potential departure from the agency last August, when Andrew Bailey, then the attorney general of Missouri, was unexpectedly named the F.B.I.’s co-deputy director, appearing to diminish Bongino’s authority.
Reggie Ugwu is a Times culture reporter.
See more on: Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Politics
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The Hill
https://thehill.com › homenews › media › 5684508-dan-bongino-talk-show-rumble-fbi
Dan Bongino set to return to talk show after exiting FBI
1 day agoConservative pundit Dan Bongino, who served as President Trump's deputy FBI director last year, is planning a return to the microphone. Bongino said he will relaunch his popular podcast and v…
Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Dan_Bongino
Dan Bongino - Wikipedia
Daniel John Bongino (/ bɒndʒiːnoʊ / bon-JEE-noh; born December 4, 1974) is an American conservative podcaster, radio host, and law enforcement officer who served as the 20th deputy director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) from 2025 to 2026. He hosted The Dan Bongino Show on Rumble and previously hosted Unfiltered with Dan Bongino on Fox News until April 2023. Bongino began his ...
The Mercury News
https://www.mercurynews.com › 2026 › 01 › 06 › dan-bongino-leaves-fbi-whats-next-podcast
Dan Bongino departs FBI for apparent return to podcasting
7 days agoFormer FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino began returned to civilian life Monday by telling fans of his podcast he'll soon update them on what's next.
Yahoo
https://www.yahoo.com › news › articles › dan-bongino-gets-return-date-214040622.html
Dan Bongino gets a return date for his radio show after 10 ... - Yahoo
1 day agoFormer deputy FBI director Dan Bongino is set to pick up podcasting once again. Bongino, who left his popular podcast and video show to take on the deputy role in March, will return to the ...
POLITICO
https://www.politico.com › news › 2025 › 12 › 17 › dan-bongino-fbi-resignation-00696112
Dan Bongino is out at the FBI after less than a year - POLITICO
Dec 17, 2025Dan Bongino is out at the FBI after less than a year The deputy director announced his departure after Trump confirmed it to reporters.
CNN
https://www.cnn.com › 2025 › 12 › 17 › politics › dan-bongino-leaving-fbi
Dan Bongino plans to step down as FBI deputy director in January
Dec 17, 2025Deputy FBI director Dan Bongino is stepping down soon from the job after eight months marked by clashes with his boss, Attorney General Pamela Bondi, and fighting off the conspiracies he once fueled.
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Dan Bongino returns to private life after FBI deputy director role ...
Jan 4, 2026Dan Bongino returned to private life on Sunday, stepping down from his FBI deputy director role after less than a year on the job.
Radio Ink
https://radioink.com › 2026 › 01 › 12 › dan-bongino-confirms-on-air-comeback-with-westwood-one
Dan Bongino Confirms Comeback With Westwood One
1 day agoThe Dan Bongino Show will return in February with Cumulus Media's Westwood One and Rumble, following a stint as FBI Deputy Director.
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Sean Hannity's Thursday night interview with his former Fox News colleague — and now FBI deputy director — Dan Bongino was remarkable, but not for any details Bongino relayed about the arrest of a suspect in the long-simmering January 6 pipe bomb investigation. Instead, the interview hinged on a stunning admission from Bongino that laid bare the core grift at the heart of the right-wing media complex: that people like Bongino — and by extension, Hannity — make their money by tossing off reckless speculations that confirm their right-wing audience’s biases, and face no perceptible consequences if their claims turn out to be false.
Earlier in the day, the Justice Department announced the arrest of the man who allegedly placed pipe bombs outside the offices of the Republican National Committee and Democratic National Committee on the night of January 5, 2021; the explosive devices were found during the Trumpist revolt at the U.S. Capitol the following day. While the government has publicly revealed little information about the suspect or his alleged motive, it’s clear that he is not, as some right-wing media figures had suggested over the years, part of an inside job perpetrated by the FBI to malign President Donald Trump’s supporters.
Hannity, during his interview with his former colleague, gave Bongino an opportunity to criticize prior iterations of the Justice Department and FBI for failing to arrest anyone in the case, and praise his own colleagues for getting the job done. But then he asked Bongino about the FBI deputy director’s own role in promoting conspiracy theories about the bomber during Bongino’s past career as a right-wing commentator.
“You know, I don't know if you remember this — this is before you became the deputy FBI director,” Hannity said. “You put a post on X right after this happened and you said there's a massive cover-up because the person that planted those pipe bombs, they don't want you to know who it is because it's either a connected anti-Trump insider or an inside job. You said that, you know, long before you were even thought of as deputy FBI director.”
Bongino’s response was astounding. He looked down, as if embarrassed, and replied: “Yeah, that's why I said to you this investigation's just begun.” But after hemming and hawing about the confidence he and FBI Director Kash Patel have that they arrested the right person, he got real.
“Listen, I was paid in the past, Sean, for my opinions,” he explained. “That's clear. And one day, I'll be back in that space. But that's not what I'm paid for now. I'm paid to be your deputy director, and we base investigations on facts.”
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From the December 4, 2025, edition of Fox News' Hannity
Bongino then quickly pivoted to attacking reporters at the day’s press conference, suggesting that he and others on the right are willing to “evolve” when they learn contradictory facts, while mainstream journalists probably “still believe in this collusion fairy tale hoax.” He offered some obsequious praise for Trump, and Hannity moved on.
Bongino is offering the most charitable gloss on his past actions possible. Another way to put it is that his job, as a commentator at Fox and elsewhere in the right-wing media, was to provide chum for the viewers. They wanted conspiracy theories, so he gave them conspiracy theories. Now, he claims, he’s at the FBI, and his job is to provide facts instead.
But there’s an entire ecosystem Bongino left behind (but to which he expects to return in the future) that is still filled with conspiracy-mongers who concoct and disseminate lies to keep their audiences content and coming back for more.
And as Bongino suggested, and as we saw in internal documents and testimony that election technology companies filed in lawsuits against Fox, those right-wing media figures don’t necessarily believe what they’re saying. Hannity, for example, said in a deposition that he had not believed “for one second” that the 2020 election had been rigged against Trump, even though he spent weeks publicly promoting that lie to his viewers following the vote.
These lies have consequences. While right-wing commentators may not believe what they're saying, some fraction of viewers believe what they’re told. And sometimes, the people inculcated with conspiracy theories end up taking action — even if that means storming the U.S. Capitol in an effort to overturn the election they’ve been assured was rigged.
Indeed, on Friday morning, CNN reported that during FBI interviews, the alleged pipe bomber “told investigators that he believed the 2020 election was stolen.” Perhaps he listened to too many people who were paid for their “opinions”
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Writing for the conservative news outlet, The National Review, senior political correspondent Jim Geraghty outlined how revelations following the arrest of a suspect in the January 6 pipe bomb case revealed the "farfetched conspiratorial nonsense" peddled by Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino.
On Thursday, the FBI announced the arrestBrian J. Cole Jr., 30, of Virginia, charging him with placing pipe bomb explosives outside the Democratic and Republican National Committees' headquarters in Washington D.C. on Jan. 5, 2021. This was just before the Jan. 6 Capitol riots that attempted to disrupt the certification of Donald Trump's loss to Joe Biden in the 2020 election. According to the affidavit, Cole was found to have purchased materials consistent with the creation of the specific pipe bomb devices throughout 2019 and 2020. He is the only perpetrator named, with no other co-conspirators named at this time.
This latter fact was one the Geraghty highlighted as a counter to the conspiracy narratives once put forward by Bongino, during his days as a right-wing podcaster before joining Trump's FBI. The reporter cited a Feb. 4 episode of Bongino's show in which he called the pipe bomb case "the biggest scandal of our time because there’s clearly a monster cover up going on.”
"Got that?" Geraghty wrote. "Bigger than Watergate, bigger than Teapot Dome, bigger than Iran-Contra or Chappaquiddick."
In the episode, Bongino and guest Darren Beatie claimed that the pipe bombs were part of hoax, on account of allegations that then-Vice President-elect Kamala Harris and Secret Service officers did not act sufficiently alarmed about the discovery of the bombs on security tapes.
“The January 6 scandal, the hoax of January 6, and specifically the hoax of the pipe bomb seems to implicate in some fashion Kamala Harris herself," Bongino said at the time.
Now, Bongino himself was part of the press conference announcing the arrest, and claimed in an interview with Sean Hannity that Cole's "motive was to drop a couple bombs that could have killed people," with no further mentions of past conspiracy claims.
"That Bongino podcast back in February was full of farfetched conspiratorial nonsense," Geraghty wrote. "And I suspect that the audience listening and watching at the time didn’t particularly care. They know it’s conspiratorial nonsense, and they consume this media because they want to hear conspiratorial nonsense, because they want to believe in conspiratorial nonsense."
He continued: "A certain chunk of the audiences out there want to hear lies. They love it when someone tells them something false. The truth is usually comparably boring. The conspiracy theory narratives can get convoluted in their details but almost always amount to one simple and exciting storyline: Shadowy and malevolent figures at the top of society are fooling most of the public and getting away with terrible deeds by framing or using some hapless patsy. And you, the theory believer, get to be a minor hero in the story; you’re the one who’s not so easily fooled, the who can see through their lies."
Citing this arrest alongside the details discovered about the men who assassinated Charlie Kirk and attempted to assassinate Trump in Butler, Geraghty said that there are "no vast conspiracies, no government cover-ups," merely "angry and usually young men, often with mental health issues, convinced that whatever has eluded them in their lives will be found by committing a terrible act of violence against someone who did nothing to deserve it."
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12/01/2025
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- Alex Horton and Ellen Nakashima @ The Washington Post: Hegseth order on first Caribbean boat strike, officials say: Kill them all
As two men clung to a stricken, burning ship targeted by SEAL Team 6, the Joint Special Operations commander followed the defense secretary’s order to leave no survivors.
- Alex McPhee-Browne @ The Conversation: Nick Fuentes is a master of exploiting the current social media opportunities for extremism
Fuentes is a 27-year-old livestreamer with openly antisemitic views. He has called Adolf Hitler both “awesome” and “right.” But he has become impossible for the Republican Party to banish, despite repeated attempts by some party leaders. This dynamic reveals how fringe ideologies operate differently today compared to the mid-20th century, when institutional gatekeepers – political parties, law enforcement, the media – could more effectively contain extremist movements.
- Miranda Devine @ The New York Post: Damning report labels FBI ‘rudderless ship’ under Kash Patel — with him and Dan Bongino more concerned with building ‘personal résumés'
FBI Director Kash Patel is facing withering criticism from an alliance of active-duty and retired agents and analysts, days after the White House denied media reports that the president is about to fire him. A troubling new report card on the first six months of Patel’s leadership concludes he is “in over his head” and his deputy, Dan Bongino, is “something of a clown,” according to the alliance, which in two previous reports warned about crippling DEI and politicization of the FBI during the Biden administration.
- Sean James @ Mediaite: 6 Craziest Revelations From Scathing Report on Kash Patel — Including His Refusal to Leave a Plane Until He Was Given a Female Agent’s Jacket
A blistering report from a number of current and former federal agents blasted the FBI under Director Kash Patel and Deputy Director Dan Bongino, saying it has been a “circus” and “all f*cked up” under their leadership.
- Will Neal @ The Daily Beast: MAGA Panics That Special Election Will Flip Ultra-Trumpy Seat
The results of this week’s vote have also been billed as a bellwether ahead of the midterms.
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One recent surprise appointment of a co-deputy director at the FBI suggests that President Donald Trump could be preparing to fire one of his most controversial picks at the bureau.
That's according to several law enforcement sources — including a former senior FBI official — who confided to NBC News on Tuesday that current FBI deputy director Dan Bongino may be headed for the exits. Those sources, who spoke to the outlet anonymously, said that Missouri Republican Attorney General Andrew Bailey's recent appointment to serve alongside Bongino in a position that had been created just for him showed it was "clear as day" that Bongino's firing was looming in the near future. Bongino has previously complained about the long hours involved with being the #2 official at the FBI, adding that the job has taken him away from his family.
"All the retired people think it shows Bongino [could be fired]," the former top FBI official said.
READ MORE:'Not of sound mind': National security expert says it's 'fair' to doubt Trump's mental state
Bailey is viewed as a staunch Trump loyalist who used his time as Missouri's top law enforcement official to hound Democrats. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch wrote in a July editorial that Bailey also "improperly inserted his office into various national culture-war controversies."
"For more than two years now, the state’s top lawyer has routinely used that perch to pursue frivolous and often deranged legal action designed to inflame his MAGA base," the editorial read.
In a statement to NBC News, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) who is the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, sounded the alarm over Bailey's appointment. He warned that "a partisan politician" was about to take the reins of the FBI amid Trump's open campaign of retribution against his political enemies.
"Mr. Bailey is another Trump loyalist who has continuously peddled the ‘Big Lie,’ that the 2020 election was stolen," Durbin told the network. “This appointment further proves President Trump will stop at nothing to politicize and weaponize the federal government’s most prestigious and powerful law-enforcement agency to protect his allies and punish his critics."
READ MORE:'Flashing warning': Dems end GOP supermajority in deep-red state by flipping deep-red seat
Click here to read NBC's report in its entirety.
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07/30/2025
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- Nikki McCann Ramirez and Charisma Madarang @ Rolling Stone: Senate Confirms Trump Lawyer Emil Bove Amid Whistleblower Claims
Bove has been accused of engaging in deception in order to carry out Trump’s agenda.
- Angry White Men: Christian Nationalists Defend Proposed Whites-Only Community
White supremacists are (once again) attempting to build a whites-only community, this time in Arkansas. Known as Return to the Land, this private membership association advertises itself as a community for “traditional views and European ancestry.” On Monday, Christian nationalists Joel Webbon and Wesley Todd interviewed the group’s co-founder, Eric Orwoll, and defended their plan.
- Edith Olmstead @ The New Republic: MAGA Official Says Everyone Investigating Him for Porn Should Resign
Oklahoma Superintendent Ryan Walters had an interesting response to being investigated for accidentally playing porn at work.
- Steve Benen @ The Maddow Blog: Right-wing influencer allegedly helps oust a National Security Agency leader (again)
Far-right activist Laura Loomer keeps exercising enormous influence over Team Trump, successfully lobbying for firings across multiple agencies.
- Will Sommer @ The Bulwark: Dan Bongino, an Emotional Wreck, Throws QAnon a Bone
The administration still has FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino’s extreme social-media posting habit to rely on as a way to get the faithful back in line.
- Mother Jones: The Bible Says So…or Does It?
On this week’s “More To The Story,” religious scholar and TikTok star Dan McClellan examines how some Christian nationalists use—and often abuse—the Bible to gain political power.
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an 7 25 ah
During his first presidency, Donald Trump angrily clashed with some of his own appointees to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) — including two U.S. attorneys general: Jeff Sessions and Bill Barr. And he ended up hating Christopher A. Wray, the conservative Republican he chose to replace James Comey as FBI director.
The fact that Wray enjoyed strong bipartisan support and remained as FBI director under former President Joe Biden intensified Trump's disdain for him. And when he nominated far-right conspiracy theorist Kash Patel for that position, Trump sent out a loud message that he wanted ultra-MAGA loyalists running the FBI.
In an article published on July 29, attorney/legal expert Quinta Jurecic warns that six months into Trump's second presidency, the FBI is in total disarray.
READ MORE:Donald Trump is the most dangerous criminal in US history
Jurecic points to the resignation of former FBI special agent Michael Feinberg as a prime example of the agency's dysfunction: Feinberg, according to Jurecic, was under pressure merely for being friends with a former agent who was critical of Trump. Feinberg, like Wray, resigned before Trump had a chance to fire him.
"The FBI has long seen itself as an organization built on expertise," Jurecic explains. "Its founder, J. Edgar Hoover, was an early and devoted advocate of professionalizing the government bureaucracy, to the point of mandating that agents wear a dark suit and striped tie. Now, however, the bureau is in the early stages of something like a radical deprofessionalization. The most important quality for an FBI official to have now appears to be not competence but loyalty. The exiling of Feinberg and others like him is an effort to engineer and accelerate this transformation."
Jurecic continues, "Feinberg’s boss, Special Agent in Charge Dominique Evans, didn't allege any misconduct on his part, Feinberg told me. Rather, as Feinberg set out in his resignation letter…. Evans explained that FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino had found out that Feinberg had maintained a friendship with the former counterintelligence agent Peter Strzok, a longtime target of Trump's ire."
Feinberg, Jurecic notes, is lamenting the "decay" of the FBI.
READ MORE:'All power to Trump': 'Worst modern chief justice' John Roberts bashed in scathing editorial
"An FBI without constraint or apolitical oversight is exactly what Trump wants, and what Bongino and FBI Director Kash Patel seem to be working toward," the attorney warns. "Trump launched his 2024 campaign by declaring to his supporters, 'I am your retribution,' and in their previous lives as MAGA influencers, both Patel and Bongino voiced support for locking up the president's opponents. Citing 'Justice Department sources,' Fox News recently reported that the FBI has opened a criminal investigation into former intelligence chiefs who led the government's assessment of Russian election interference in 2016."
Jurecic continues, "In the first Trump Administration, such a blatant use of the FBI for political ends would have been an unthinkable breach of law-enforcement independence. But the FBI's new leadership has been pushing out many of those who might object. So many people have been driven away, in fact, that after his departure, Feinberg found himself adopted by what he calls an 'exile community' of former Justice Department and FBI officials working to help one another adjust to post-government life."
During his interview with Jurecic, the conservative Feinberg — who was active in the Federalist Society in the past — was highly critical of Trump's politicization of the FBI as well as the way U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), with the FBI's help, is handling deportations. And thinks that wearing masks is a bad idea for ICE agents.
Feinberg told Jurecic, "I was absolutely furious. We live in a democracy. We are an organization that serves the public. We do not hide from our actions."
READ MORE:Trump and MAGA headed for inevitable death spiral
*Quinta Jurecic's full article for The Atlantic is available at this link (subscription required).
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The New York Times Editorial Board says President Donald Trump has derailed countless investigations on his road to turning the F.B.I. into an “enforcement agency for MAGA’s priorities.”
“Over the past five months, many F.B.I. agents, including top managers and national security experts, have been fired, pressured to leave or transferred to lesser roles. Hundreds have resigned on their own, unwilling to follow the demands of the Trump administration,” the Times writes. “Their absence has left a vacuum in divisions that are supposed to protect the public,” obliterating “decades of experience in national security and criminal matters.”
One former Justice Department official told NBC News the decimation of the senior ranks has left it “completely unprepared to respond to a crisis, including the fallout from the current conflict in the Middle East.” Meanwhile, Trump’s department politicization has left it less able to “combat terrorism, foreign espionage, biosecurity threats, organized crime, online scams, white-collar crime, drug trafficking and more” the board claims.
READ MORE: 'Hapless president' deserves 'no courtesy': Trump ripped in scathing NYT op-ed
Trump’s “first priority” with the F.B.I. is loyalty, the Times says, and this explains why the F.B.I. “looked the other way” instead of investigating when senior officials recently disclosed sensitive information in a Signal group chat. Trump installed political hacks Kash Patel and Dan Bongino as director and second-in-command, and they’ve assigned agents to pursue “long-running MAGA grievances,” including conspiracies that China “helped manipulate the results of the 2020 election.”
“Mr. Trump spent years baselessly accusing the F.B.I. and the Justice Department of being weaponized against him; now he is turning federal law enforcement into the very thing he claimed it was: a political enforcer,” the Times warns.
Along with conspiracy theories, the board says the administration is pulling agents away from areas that present true risks to the country and making them search for undocumented immigrants “who have no criminal record.”
Because of what it does, the Times says the F.B.I. has “a particular need to demonstrate that it deserves the nation’s confidence. And that agents “need to know that their managers and civilian leaders have their backs and don’t consider them to be jackals.”
READ MORE:'It's all fake': Trump aide says the quiet part out loud about this 'theatrical' policy
“The public — on which the bureau relies for tips and cooperation — has to trust that agents operate without political bias,” the Times adds. “By abusing that trust, Mr. Trump, Mr. Patel and Mr. Bongino have put the reputation and effectiveness of the F.B.I. at risk. In doing so, they are risking the safety of the American public.”
Read the full New York Times report at this link.
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Several senior officials in President Donald Trump's administration are now finding themselves in the crosshairs of Trump's MAGA base, who are upset with their inability to follow through on promises to get to the bottom of unproven conspiracy theories.
According to a Sunday report in the New York Times, Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel and FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino have all experienced MAGA's wrath on multiple occasions since they were confirmed to their positions. Bondi was lambasted for giving far-right, pro-Trump activists binders full of material that was teased as new revelations about the late convicted child predator Jeffrey Epstein, only to disappoint them once it was found that there was no new information contained in those binders.
Similarly, Bongino acknowledged that Epstein did indeed take his own life in a prison cell while awaiting trial in 2019 (though a DOJ Office of the Inspector General report issued in 2023 found that there were numerous failures by staff to prevent his death by suicide). This deflated conspiracy theorists who had argued — as Trump himself has insinuated — that Epstein was murdered by someone connected to his client base of rich and powerful people.
READ MORE:Republican rep. warns the GOP is following Trump 'off a cliff' — and he won't go with them
As for Patel, conspiracy theorist Alex Jones accused him of "gaslighting" the American public for failing to deliver promised results about the Epstein case during a recent interview with podcaster Joe Rogan. Jones asserted that the FBI director was "committing political suicide" by maintaining that Epstein alone was responsible for his own death.
The Times reported that the MAGA faithful have been more vocal in their condemnations of Bondi, Bongino and Patel in response to their handling of the Epstein case. Trump supporter Suzzanne Monk – who has repeatedly bemoaned the treatment of participants in the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol — said that Trump's base is divided between "Camp Be Patient" and "Camp Demand Results," and that she is firmly on the side of the latter.
Patel and Bongino have since announced new investigations into three high-profile cases: The discovery of cocaine at the White House in 2023, the leaking of the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization Supreme Court opinion that overturned Roe v. Wade and the discovery of pipe bombs left outside of the Democratic National Committee and Republican National Committee buildings on January 6. But former Newsmax White House correspondent Emerald Robinson criticized those new investigations as a distraction.
"Dan Bongino & Kash Patel know they destroyed their credibility by claiming that ‘Jeffrey Epstein killed himself’ so now they’re trying to offer up three investigations you don’t care about to misdirect you from the Epstein files you do care about," Robinson wrote. "Sad!"
READ MORE:'Don't have a violin small enough': Critics mock DOGE staff worried about losing jobs
Click here to read the Times' full report (subscription required).
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Dispatch writer Kevin Williamson says FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino, “the emotionally incontinent former cop turned podcaster appointed for some inexplicable reason by Donald Trump,” doesn’t realize he is now the swamp.
“What Bongino is doing—and whining about!—is the swamp-thing two-step,” writes Williamson, “the swampy revolving-door career path, the exploitation of one’s former position and contacts to make money in a purely self-interested way after leaving government—or, as in Bongino’s case, between feeding sessions while tearily attached to the taxpayers’ teat.”
“The question that interests me,” asks Williamson “… is whether Bongino and others like him are simply too stupid to understand they are The Swamp.
READ MORE: Outrage grows over a single paragraph buried deep in Republicans' 'Big Beautiful Bill'
Bongino has described the FBI, which he now leads as “irredeemably corrupt.” But Williamson said if Bongino genuinely believed the FBI was irredeemably corrupt, he would not waste time on the impossible project of trying to reform it.
“If he were a man of integrity acting in good faith. Irredeemably means something,” Williamson said. “On the other hand, if he were a purely cynical and self-serving calculator, then doing a stint at the FBI would be worth something: A dishonest man coming out of a senior management role at the FBI could milk the conspiracy nuts and rage-monkeys for millions in book sales and appearance fees promising to expose the secrets that “they—THEY—don’t want you to know.”
Williamson, A former National Review writer, says Bongino belongs to the “too stupid” set because he does not think “such energetic, sanctimonious, and utterly unexamined self-righteousness is the kind of thing that even a genuinely wicked person can fake for so long.”
“There is a genuine sense among these Trump sycophants that what they do isn’t corrupt when they do it,” Williamson argues. “… There is no crime that cannot be set aside for Trump supporters … like Scott Jenkins, a former Virginia sheriff convicted of taking bribes, as well as … Larry Hoover, the founder of what is arguably the single most significant criminal enterprise in these United States … responsible for who knows how many thousands of murders.”
READ MORE:America 'being ripped apart': Vietnam vet removes U.S. flag in Trump protest
But Williamson fears there isn’t much to be done about the federal revolving door between public and private sectors, and definitely not by Bongino—who is fresh from the private sector himself after his own stint in government.
Read the full Dispatch report here.
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KASH INVIS AFTER GOT GIG?}:
decorate office but never there, lives in las vegas? BONGINO keeps twting IOU bc got no crimes and base demands scalps 4 25}:
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rww
04/10/2025
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- Steve Benen @ The Maddow Blog: House Republicans pass the ‘SAVE Act,’ which is a solution in search of a problem
The House GOP majority passed a ban on noncitizen voting, which (a) almost never happens; and (b) is already illegal. It’s worth understanding why.
- David Badash @ The New Civil Rights Movement: ‘Giant Grift’: Calls for Trump Insider Trading Probe Surge Over ‘Corruption’ Questions
President Donald Trump’s 9:37 AM call for supporters to buy stocks—followed just hours later by his announcement of a so-called “pause” on his market-crushing tariffs—generated billions in new wealth for those positioned to profit. A few of Trump’s billionaire allies were conveniently at the White House celebrating with him as the markets soared, posting single-day gains not seen in decades. To some, the timing of Trump’s statements—and trading activity that some suggest may indicate insider knowledge—has intensified calls to investigate whether the president used his public office to orchestrate a profitable insider scheme. While no definitive proof of market manipulation or insider trading has been published, questions abound.
- Oliver Darcy @ Status: The Pool Filter
Some White House pool reports are no longer making it to the official distribution list, Status has learned—an unsettling development in the Trump administration's escalating war on the press.
- Chris Cameron @ The New York Times: Trump Signs Orders Punishing Those Who Opposed His 2020 Election Lies
The president targeted two officials from his first administration and an elite law firm as part of his campaign for retribution.
- Will Sommer @ The Bulwark: Dan Bongino Wants You to Know He’s Working Really Hard. Seriously. He Is.
Right wingers are growing impatient with the FBI’s new Trumpian leadership.
- Michael Luciano @ Mediaite: Trump Official Claims Employee He Fired Thanked Him for Termination and Said, ‘This Really Wasn’t a Necessary Job’
The director of the U.S. Federal Housing Finance Agency said a government employee he fired thanked him for the dismissal because, the worker allegedly said, the job was unnecessary.
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On Tuesday, Dan Bongino, the newly named deputy director of the FBI continued to hold forth on his eponymous daily podcast, this time focused on defending President Donald Trump’s Oval Office attack on Ukraine’s president. But first, Bongino offered a word from a sponsor: “Big Brother is watching you,” he said, noting it had been 10 years since news broke that the National Security Agency was spying on Americans’ communications.
“Well, what if I told you there’s a way to get your freedom back?” Bongino went on. “Thankfully, there is. It’s a product called ExpressVPN [which] routes 100 percent of internet activity through encrypted channels… So if you want to protect yourself from corporate and government spying, go to expressvpn.com/Bongino and get four extra months of privacy for free.”
Bongino is a former US Secret Service agent turned MAGA diehard and successful partisan entertainer. Trump announced in a social media post on Feb. 24 that Bongino would be the bureau’s number two in charge, a job that includes managing roughly 38,000 personnel and overseeing the most sensitive FBI operations nationally and around the world.
The pick flouted private assurances reportedly given to GOP senators by recently confirmed FBI Director Kash Patel—who comes rife with extremist views and troubling conflicts of interest—that he would choose a veteran FBI special agent for the position, the traditional practice. Bongino will be the first ever to take this crucial national security and law enforcement role fresh off of hyping antigovernment paranoia and hawking prepper products.
And he’s not done yet.
The day after being tapped for the FBI, Bongino said on his podcast that he will continue hosting it until March 14, explaining to listeners that he has to “wind the show down” to fulfill contractual obligations to advertisers: “We can’t just walk away tomorrow from business partners we had contracts with and say, ‘Hey, see ya.’”
Bongino has long used his show to promote far-right conspiracy theories—including wild-eyed claims about the FBI itself.
Thus, he has not stopped selling. “We believe in preparedness and that doesn’t change because the president’s in the White House now,” Bongino said on Tuesday’s show, pushing listeners to stock up from MyPatriot Supply. “Another crisis could hit, blackout, shortages, pandemics… This bundle has just about everything you need,” he said. “Three months of emergency food storage, water filtration, heirloom seeds, multivitamins, potassium iodide, anti-radiation tablets, and best of all, you can save $300 on this exclusive bundle, but only while it lasts.”
Bongino has long used his show to promote far-right conspiracy theories—including wild-eyed claims about the FBI itself. He has said that the “the FBI and the CIA, members of it, unquestionably tried to rig both the 2016 and 2020 election” and he has called for disbanding the bureau. (Maybe that would only occur after using the FBI to imprison top Democrats, as Bongino has also urged.) He has asserted without any evidence that the FBI has been covering up the identity of the still at-large person who planted pipe bombs at the Democratic and Republican National Committee buildings in Washington the night before the January 6 insurrection because, “it was an inside job.”
On March 1, Bongino got emotional explaining his decision to join the FBI, telling listeners he couldn’t “sit on my ass when an opportunity comes to do the right thing, and not only talk about everything we wanted to change but actually change it.”
Then he pivoted: “The company I trust to help you diversify into physical gold is Birch Gold. The company I buy my gold from, Birch Gold, specializes in helping you convert an existing IRA or 401k into a tax-sheltered IRA and physical gold, for no money out of pocket.”
Bongino’s recent shows have further included pitches for “the country’s only Christian wireless provider,” a CBD-based sleep aid, and an online pharmacy offering “ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, emergency antibiotics, or other essential medications” on demand.
Bongino, who in 2021 decried the prevalence of “grifters” in Trump world, insists on his shows that his advertisers are similar to those of mainstream media outlets. And he depicts his decision to continue broadcasting and promoting these products after his appointment as part of his careful adherence to federal ethics rules, explaining that continuing his show while working at the FBI would be a violation.
Bongino also announced that he is launching a “new production company” with his wife, long the producer of his show, serving as president—an arrangement he says will also comply with federal ethics rules. “It’s going to be divorced from me,” Bongino said.
Federal law bars government employees from working on government matters affecting their own personal financial interests, which include the interests of a spouse. Kedric Payne, ethics director at the Campaign Legal Center, a watchdog group, said Bongino separating himself from his business is a necessary step to comply with that law. Payne said that the media company could still cause ethics issues for Bongino and potentially harm public confidence in the FBI if its content involves subject matter related to the FBI or its work.
“The bottom line is public officials should be looking out for the interests of voters, not their own financial interests,” Payne said.
An FBI spokesperson declined to comment. Bongino did not respond to an inquiry from Mother Jones with specific questions.
Meanwhile, as he winds down his podcast, Bongino is heavily promoting the next incarnation of his show and its production company, called Silverloch Media. He has been reading off social media handles for it and teasing who else may host once he decamps for his FBI job. “I’m really excited,” he said Tuesday, “about the future of Silverloch Media.”
}:
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an no lnx
'A boon to far-right extremists': Alarm sounded over new Trump appointee
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., February 11, 2025.
REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
Jordan Green February 27, 2025
Dan Bongino, the right-wing podcast host tapped by FBI Director Kash Patel to serve as deputy director of the agency, has a history of downplaying white supremacist extremism, the violence committed by Trump supporters at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and threats against school board members.
Bongino suggested during a podcast recorded in September 2022 that the FBI under former Director Christopher Wray pursued investigations of “white supremacists who are terrorists” because of political pressure from President Joe Biden and Attorney General Merrick Garland. He did not mention the deadly Buffalo mass shooting carried out four months earlier that year or dozens of neo-Nazi accelerationist terror plots foiled by the FBI that would warrant such a focus.
“Biden and Garland say, ‘We need white supremacist, domestic violent extremists’ — you know, we learned in the Salem witch trials: If you’re looking for a witch, you’re going to find one, even if there isn’t one,” Bongino said.
The statement was made during an interview with Kyle Seraphin, an FBI agent who was suspended after raising questions about an email from FBI leadership flagging threats against school board members and later separated from the agency after refusing to take the COVID-19 vaccination.
“The idea that you could have this file on you about what you’re surfing online — not criminal, maybe untoward, maybe nasty — but the fact that this happened because you showed up at a meeting and said something is really horrifying,” Bongino said.
In a second interview with Seraphin that was published the following day, Bongino ridiculed the agency for tasking agents with following up on leads that flooded the FBI from members of the public days after thousands of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol and disrupted Congress’ certification of the electoral vote in the 2020 presidential election.
“You know, I get it — I would have not preferred January 6th turned out differently as well,” Bongino said. “I think any sane person would have. But to take six-figure FBI earners with a set of skills and let them run out all across America taking tips about a guy you met potentially in eighth grade showing up on January 6th sounds a little Orwellian.”
President Trump issued blanket pardons to the nearly 1,600 people charged with crimes related to that Jan. 6 siege of the U.S. Capitol, but threats from white supremacist terrorists seeking to cause a collapse of society remain an ongoing concern for law enforcement. Last month, the U.S. State Department named the white supremacist group Terrorgram, whose leaders face charges for soliciting the murder of federal officials among other offenses, a specially designated global terrorist entity.
The mass murder of 10 African Americans in a grocery store in Buffalo, N.Y., in 2022 underscored the threat posed by white supremacist terrorism, while a car-ramming attack by an ISIS sympathizer that killed 14 people celebrating New Year’s Eve in New Orleans provided a reminder that Islamic extremism also remains a threat. Meanwhile, school shootings in recent months have revealed a bewildering array of motivations that include white supremacy, inceldom and nihilism.
“At a time when the violent extremist threat is as diverse and unpredictable as any time in recent years, unqualified conspiracy peddlers and election deniers are running the FBI,” Jon Lewis, a research fellow at the Program on Extremism at George Washington University, said in an email to Raw Story. “It is a boon to far-right extremists in particular, who will undoubtedly feel emboldened counting senior officials like Patel and Bongino among their compatriots.”
Bongino did not respond to an interview request submitted to the press office at FBI headquarters.
Similar to Jan. 6, when Trump supporters angered by false claims that the 2020 election was stolen wound up turning on the U.S. Capitol police, violent white supremacists often target law enforcement, along with Jews, people of color, and LGBTQ+ people.
In one such case, the FBI filed charges against Kyle Christopher Benton, a Washington state man, for unlawful possession of a machine gun, after he posted on social media that he was joining multiple internet chats to encourage other users to commit mass shootings.
In a filing arguing for continued pre-trial detention, the government said that an investigation for domestic violence conducted by the Army Criminal Investigation Division in 2019 revealed that Benton operated social media accounts that promoted white supremacist and antisemitic propaganda. Benton’s partner allegedly told investigators that he wanted to shoot up the “alphabet boys” — a common reference to federal law enforcement — or a local police station.
“At a time when FBI agents are facing calls of retribution following the January 6 pardons, the nomination of a podcast host who has repeatedly promoted harmful conspiracies aimed at delegitimizing the FBI sends a dangerous message,” Lewis said.
During his interview with Seraphin in 2022, Bongino charged that the agency “bought into the hype” that the Jan. 6 attack was an event of the same magnitude as Pearl Harbor or 9/11. He went on to accuse agents of “locking up people for a January 6th insurrection — or whatever, grandma, who trespassed — because you don’t like their politics.”
Bongino and Seraphin’s discussion of Jan. 6 focused on trespassing and other misdemeanor offenses. Still, about 608 out of the nearly 1,600 defendants were charged with assaulting law enforcement or obstructing officers during a civil disorder, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia. Of those, 174 were charged with using a deadly or dangerous weapon or causing serious injury to an officer.
Emblematic of the administration’s efforts to whitewash the violent attempt to overturn the 2020 election, the webpage detailing the crimes committed on Jan. 6 was taken down shortly after Trump returned to office. But an archived page itemizes the array of weapons rioters used or carried at the Capitol: firearms; OC spray; tasers; edged weapons, including axes, hatchets, knives and a sword; makeshift weapons, including destroyed office furniture, fencing, bike racks and stolen riot shields; baseball bats, hockey sticks, flagpoles, PVC piping and reinforced knuckle gloves.
During his appearance on Bongino’s podcast in September 2022, Seraphin outed himself as the source of an email obtained by Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH). The email from FBI leadership mandates the use of specific threat tags to track “threats specifically directed against school board administrators, board members, teachers and staff.” Jordan, as the then-ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, seized on the email as proof that the FBI was “using counterterrorism tools to investigate parents,” even though the email doesn’t specifically mention parents.
“Essentially, they’re asking to tag these inbound threats,” Seraphin told Bongino. “And we don’t have time for those kinds of threats. We really don’t. In the real FBI, there’s not time for threats from some guy who’s yelling at the school board…. But it’s very difficult to convince me you would say that this is a real threat that exists all over the country….”
“Right,” Bongino agreed. “Worthy of FBI resources.”
The threats were, in fact, real.
In November 2021, the mayor of a small city in Ohio accused school board members in Summit County of “distributing essentially what is child pornography.” The accusation reportedly resulted in dozens of threats from around the country. Although the county prosecutor declined to file charges against the mayor, she issued a statement that “these allegations were false and caused numerous public servants to be victimized.”
In another incident, a woman protesting a masking requirement told the Page County Public School Board in Virginia in January 2022, “My children will not come to school on Monday with a mask on. All right. That’s not happening. And I will bring every single gun loaded and ready to — I will.”
As an indication of the turmoil surrounding COVID-19 restrictions and books addressing sensitive topics surrounding race and sexuality during that period, ProPublica reported that 59 people were arrested at school board meetings across the country from May 2021 through November 2022, most of them charged with trespassing, resisting an officer, or disrupting a public meeting.
In 2023, Garland reportedly told a House panel that the FBI received 22 reports of threats against school officials, and the agency referred six cases to state and local authorities to investigate.
“So, if I have a file on the CT side — the counterterrorism side — for showing up at a school board meeting and saying something — it may not have been appropriate thing to say, but it certainly isn’t a terroristic threat, you could have this big body of information available for you to make a criminal prosecution easier is where I’m going with that,” Bongino said during his interview with Seraphin. “The building blocks are already there.”
In at least one instance, a counterterrorism investigation did bring FBI agents to a parking lot outside a school board, if not into the meeting room.
Steve Friend, a former FBI agent, testified before a congressional panel that he had been tasked with surveilling an individual at a school board meeting as part of an open counterterrorism investigation. Based on the date of the subject’s arrest — Aug. 24, 2022 — House Democrats surmised that the subject under surveillance was one of four members of a Three Percenter militia called Guardians of Freedom who were charged with offenses related to the Jan. 6 attack. (A fifth would be arrested separately at a later date.)
“So, essentially we just documented the license plates of the people that were parking at the school board meeting who were January 6th subjects, or people that were in the parking lot with them interacting that we thought could be in their sphere of influence, and then we left,” Friend testified.
One member of the militia had boasted on social media on July 2021 that he was “continuing to build my 3% army so I can overthrow the federal government,” according to the charging document, and he said that 80 percent of the local sheriff’s office was “on our side,” but he didn’t plan on “ever seeing the inside of a cell.”
Ultimately, the five members of Guardians of Freedom were convicted of various charges related to their conduct at the Capitol on Jan. 6, and received sentences ranging from two years of probation to five months in prison, only to be pardoned last month by President Trump.
Bongino, who worked as a New York City police officer and later for the Secret Service before becoming a podcaster, has never worked at the FBI.
But he expressed disdain for FBI upper management when Seraphin told him a colleague reported to Peter Strzok, the former deputy director of the FBI’s counterintelligence division. Strzok, in turn, reported to Andrew McCabe, who served in the role that Bongino now holds—deputy director.
“The trajectory for someone like that is they show up at a field office; they’re there for two and a half years,” Seraphin told Bongino during the September 2022 interview.
“What the hell do you learn in two to three years to be managing cases like yours out in the field?” Bongino scoffed.
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02/25/2025
by
- Yasmeen Hamadeh @ The Daily Beast: Pro-Trump Federal Prosecutor’s Office Brushed Off Arrest Warrant for MAGA Rep
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, D.C., declined to sign an arrest warrant sent to them by local police for a Republican congressman who happens to be an ally of President Donald Trump, according to a new report.
- Ahmad Austin Jr. @ Mediaite: 5 Craziest Moments From Dan Bongino, Trump’s New Deputy FBI Director
President Donald Trump shocked the nation once again on Sunday when he announced the appointment of Dan Bongino, one of his most infamous and aggressive boosters in the media, to the role of FBI deputy director.
- Matt Shuham @ HuffPost: New FBI Deputy Director Is 'Significant Shareholder' In Right-Wing Video Platform
Dan Bongino, the new deputy director of the FBI, doesn’t have any experience with the bureau. But he’s majorly influential in conservative media.
- Ben Makuch @ The Guardian: Neo-Nazi group plots rebuild as Trump’s FBI chief takes helm, audio reveals
Terrorist group the Base appears defiant as new administration aims to deprioritize threat from far right.
- Brian Slodysko and Byron Tau @ The Associated Press: Federal technology staffers resign rather than help Musk and DOGE
More than 20 civil service employees resigned Tuesday from billionaire Trump adviser Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, saying they were refusing to use their technical expertise to “dismantle critical public services.”
- Aja Romano @ Vox: Why the Trump administration is publicly supporting an alleged human trafficker
This latest high-profile turn in Tate’s ongoing legal saga has again brought the horrifying allegations against him to the forefront — this time with apparent approval from the US government.
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RWW
02/24/2025
by
- Julia Ornedo @ The Daily Beast: FBI Boss Taps Trump Sycophant Podcaster Dan Bongino as His No. 2
Newly installed FBI Director Kash Patel made a surprising choice for his No. 2 Sunday night: Dan Bongino, a MAGA podcaster and former Secret Service agent with no experience in the bureau.
- David Edwards @ Raw Story: 'Cutesy time is over': Dan Bongino weeps after taking Trump's offer as FBI deputy director
Fringe right-wing conspiracy theorist Dan Bongino wiped away tears on one of his final broadcasts after accepting the job of FBI deputy director from President Donald Trump.
- Jack Jenkins @ Religion News Service: Trump's pick to run White House Faith Office sparks theological turf war
Idaho pastor Doug Wilson referred to White-Cain as an 'erratic woman preacher who has been all over the map.'
- Andrew Perez and Asawin Suebsaeng @ Rolling Stone: Kristi Noem Says $200 Million DHS Ad Campaign Thanking Trump Was His Idea
Trump’s Homeland Security Secretary said he instructed her to make ads that “thank me for closing the border.”
- Kiera Butler @ Mother Jones: The Anti-Abortion Movement Is Splintering
Is the faction that wants the death penalty for women who terminate pregnancies winning?
- Jessie Blaeser @ Politico: DOGE shared its receipts — and some of them don’t match
Elon Musk promised to deliver a “maximally transparent” government efficiency program. What he’s disclosed so far is a messy and inaccurate accounting of his group’s early work.
- Justin Glawe @ Public Notice: Despite the hype, DOGE hasn't found a shred of fraud
A month into Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s much-hyped efforts to root out fraudulent and wasteful spending by government agencies, not a single instance of fraud or waste has been discovered.
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MMA
Dan Bongino is proof that Donald Trump wants politicized law enforcement
Written by Matt Gertz
Published 02/24/25
The selection of right-wing podcaster Dan Bongino for a senior FBI role hammers home that President Donald Trump is eliminating the guardrails that prevented right-wing conspiracy theories becoming criminal prosecutions during his first term. It also shovels more dirt on the farcical idea that Trump and his allies want depoliticized law enforcement.
A regular pattern played outover Trump’s first term as the president sought to wield federal law enforcement as an extension of his will. Right-wing conspiracy theorists, typically led by Trump adviser and Fox News host Sean Hannity, would offer bogus claims that Trump’s foes had committed crimes. Then Trump, an inveterate Fox viewer, would publicly or privately demand investigations and often get them. But the probes would ultimately fall apart without significant charges after Trump’s own appointees — Republicans who nonetheless evinced some semblance of independence and professionalism — figured out there was nothing to them.
Trump’s second-term selections are intended to eliminate the disruptions caused by appointees with a higher priority than carrying out the president’s whims. They are sycophants who are zealously loyal to the president and some either previously worked as his personal lawyers or have long public records of calling for criminal investigations of his foes.
Trump said on Sunday that Bongino, who embarked on a career as a right-wing media commentator after serving in the New York Police Department and U.S. Secret Service and losing several congressional campaigns, will serve as deputy director of the FBI. Bongino worked as a Fox contributor and host before leaving in 2023 to focus on his eponymous podcast, which streams on Rumble and airs on Westwood One radio stations.
In announcing Bongino’s new role, Trump said the podcaster would help restore “Fairness” to the justice system. But Bongino is one of the last people you’d select for such a role if your intention was really to run a nonpartisan bureau: He is an inflammatory partisan who has declared that “owning the libs” is “my entire life right now” because they are “pure unadulterated evil" and has fawned over Trump as “an apex predator” and “the lion king.”
Bongino gained influence and an audience during Trump’s first term specifically because of his willingness to issue florid denunciations of special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election. On his NRATV show and in frequent guest appearances on Fox (particularly on Trump’s beloved Fox & Friends and on Hannity’s show), Bongino described Mueller’s probe as “an obvious frame job and set-up” that is “designed to cover up for the misdeeds of the Obama administration” and called for the special counsel’s firing.
That left him well-positioned to jump to a Fox job in early 2019 amid NRATV’s collapse.
- ### Bongino’s’s views of law enforcement weaponization seem entirely based on who is doing the weaponizing.
“The FBI is lost, it’s broken, irredeemably corrupt at this point,” Bongino said in 2022 after bureau agents executed a search warrant at Trump’s Mar-A-Lago home. “It’s way past time to clean this FBI house up. They have burned every last shred of faith and trust freedom-loving Americans had in it.”
“It's clear now we're living in the police state,” Bongino said after a federal grand jury handed down an indictment of Trump over his attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election. “The republic is now officially dead.”
But at the same time, Bongino said there should be “an FBI raid at the White House" to target then-President Joe Biden, whom he described as “the real criminal” based on fictitious right-wing corruption claims.
An inveterate conspiracy theorist, Bongino has also pontificated about the Democrats planning a coup in the lead-up to the 2020 election; said that election was marred by “unbelievably suspect behavior”; and suggested that pipe bombs planted near the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee and Republican National Committee on January 5, 2021, were an “inside job” and the FBI is withholding the perpetrator because the information would “blow up the entire January 6 insurrection narrative.”
After Trump returned to office in January, Bongino called for an investigation into “special tyrant” Jack Smith and urged the president to “set up a courtroom” in the White House and “start making judicial decisions.” Now he’ll be one of seniormost figures in federal law enforcement with a mandate to carry out such deranged ideas.
- ### It’s unlikely Bongino will be hindered by the higher-ups Trump has installed.
Kash Patel, the Trump-appointed FBI director, said in a 2023 interview that a second Trump term would target “the conspirators, not just in government but in the media” who had “lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections.” The appendix of Patel’s 2023 book “names more than 50 current or former US officials that he claims are ‘members of the Executive Branch deep state,’ which he describes as a ‘dangerous threat to democracy,’” in what has been frequently referred to as an “enemies list.”
At the Justice Department, Attorney General Pam Bondi previously parlayed frequent Fox appearances defending Trump into a post on his first impeachment legal defense team. Her acting deputy, Emil Bove, previously represented Trump in state and federal prosecutions.
Meanwhile, Ed Martin, who will oversee major cases in the District of Columbia as its acting U.S. attorney, “was an organizer in the ‘Stop The Steal’ movement that falsely claimed the 2020 presidential election was rigged against Trump” and then “worked as a defense attorney for some people charged in the January 6 riot.”
Over the first month of the Trump administration, this new team has proved grim for the rule of law, with January 6 perpetrators pardoned en masse, top prosecutors and FBI leaders purged, and Justice Department lawyers resigning after receiving what they viewed as unacceptably partisan orders to dismiss charges or launch an investigation.
On Sunday, the Federal Bureau of Investigation Agents Association told its members that Patel had committed to selecting as his deputy “an on-board, active Special Agent as has been the case for 117 years” in order to preserve “operational expertise and experience, as well as the trust of our Special Agent population.” But Trump doesn’t care about any of that, and he announced hours later that Patel had picked Bongino, someone who lacks that experience but shares the president’s desire to punish his political enemies. And that means the months ahead will be worse.
Dan Bongino is somebody now, and he owes it all to Donald Trump
05/21/21 7:34 AM EDT
01/30/19 12:20 PM EST
11/13/24
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YIKES BONGINO #2
AN 2 25
The Base, a paramilitary neo-Nazi/white supremacist group founded in 2018, was a major target of the FBI and its former director, Christopher Wray, during Joe Biden's presidency. And in 2022, according to The Guardian's Ben Makuch, The Base "seemed to disappear" in the United States.
But Makuch, in an article published on February 24, warns that The Base appears to be "regrouping" in 2025.
"An international neo-Nazi terrorist group with origins in the U.S. appears to be quickly rebuilding its global and stateside ranks, according to information obtained by The Guardian from its digital accounts," Makuch reports. "Founded in 2018, The Base has been the intense focus of a years-long FBI counterterrorism investigation that has resulted in more than a dozen of its members arrested. It has plotted an assassination, mass shootings and other actions in Europe, which made it a proscribed terrorist organization in several countries."
READ MORE:**'Hitler been dead!' Crowd runs off armed neo-Nazis and burns their swastika flags**
The Base's "regrouping," according to Makuch, "comes at a time when the Trump Administration has made it a policy goal to move away from policing far-right extremism" and the FBI is now under the direction of Trump loyalist Kash Patel.
Makuch reports, "Experts say federal law enforcement ignoring far-right groups such as The Base could expose Americans to increased domestic terror threats…. A flurry of new images on The Base's various social media accounts, some closed and some open, show members claiming to be in the U.S. and across Europe brandishing pistols or military-style rifles and donning the trademark skull mask of the accelerationist neo-Nazi movement — one that demands acts of terrorism to bring down world governments. In one photo, a member is holding a knife and what appears to be a pistol in front of the Base flag in the United Kingdom, while others feature members in Bulgaria, Italy, Belgium and Sweden. "
Steven Rai of the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) warns that The Base's activities in the U.S. need to be taken seriously.
Rai told The Guardian, "The Base has released a slow but steady trickle of propaganda over the past several months that has mostly highlighted their presence in Europe, so this shift in focus towards the U.S. should raise alarms. The timing of this shift is particularly noteworthy. While neo-Nazi accelerationist groups like The Base have been on their back foot due to intense law enforcement pressure, which disrupted their most integral organizers and propaganda artists, they may sense an opening with the recent change of administration in the U.S…. Violent extremists are absolutely paying attention to the changes in the national security establishment in the U.S."
Terrorism expert Colin Clarke, who serves as director of research at the Soufan Center, stresses that The Base are well-aware of changes in leadership at the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).
Clarke told The Guardian, "I think groups like The Base, far-right extremist groups that are strategic, have been waiting for the right opportunity before reinvigorating their respective organizations. This means that far-right extremist groups likely perceive the reelection of Trump as a green light to rebuild without fear of arrest or prosecution."
READ MORE:**'There is going to be hell to pay' as the FBI braces for Kash Patel's retribution: reports**
February 18, 2025, edition of The Dan Bongino Show, streamed on Rumble
DAN BONGINO (HOST): Watch yesterday's show if you think I’m BS-ing you. I covered Wall Street Journal segments and other segments where some Republican lawmakers are like, “Hey, that cutting's great, but don’t cut anything in my district.” I saw someone — I liked a tweet saying today, they tweeted to their lawmaker: “Hey, Dan Bongino’s right. Everybody is going to take a little bit of a kick in the stomach here.” Everyone. There’s going to be a weapons program in your district. There’s going to be some NGO a friend-of-a-friend may work for. Ladies and gentlemen, you want the — you want to be statesmen in the spirit of our revolutionary forefathers who gave up everything to fight the world's greatest empire at the time — the British Empire? We’re just asking you to sacrifice for a little bit for the long-term prosperity of the United States. Now’s the time. We are never going to be in a golden age of politics again like we are in the next year and 11 months now. We have two freaking years. We’re all going to take it on the chin a little bit. Rich guys, poor guys, middle class guys, someone’s going to lose their tax cut. It is time to take it on the chin. We have to fix this thing now, not tomorrow.
https://www.mediamatters.org/dick-morris/newsmax-contributor-vote-against-donald-trump-endorse-dictatorship
https://www.mediaite.com/news/dan-bongino-was-reportedly-forcibly-removed-from-miami-bottle-service-club/
4 23 rww
April 20, 2023
- David McAfee @ Raw Story:Judge who denied abortion to teen over bad grades may become next Florida Supreme Court justice.
- Kate Riga @ Talking Points Memo: Major Anti-Abortion Organization Attacks Trump For Wanting To Leave It To States.
- Josh Dawsey and Amy Gardner @ The Washington Post: Top GOP lawyer decries ease of campus voting in private pitch to RNC.
- Sara Murray @ CNN: My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell ordered to follow through with $5 million payment to expert who debunked his false election data.
- Nick Corasaniti @ The New York Times: A Super PAC Targets Greene, Gaetz, Boebert and Others on the Far Right.
- Justin Baragona @ The Daily Beast: Fox News Parts Ways With MAGA Blowhard Dan Bongino.
Tags: Cleta Mitchell Dan Bongino Jared Smith Mike Lindell Round-Up Susan B. Anthony List
mAGA diehard andserial blowhard Dan Bongino is no longer a Fox News star, *Forbes* first reported on Thursday morning.
“We thank Dan for his contributions and wish him success in his future endeavors,” the network wrote in a statement confirming the end of Bongino’s Saturday evening show, Unfiltered with Dan Bongino, along with his Fox Nation show, Canceled in the USA.
“The show ending last week was tough,” Bongino said on his podcast Thursday morning, confirming he’s done at Fox News. The Trump-boosting pundit, who has long been a proponent of election denialism, also noted that the “timing’s not great” considering the network’s recent $787.5 million settlement with Dominion Voting Systems.
“It’s not some big conspiracy theory, I promise you. There’s no acrimony,” Bongino declared. “We just couldn’t come to terms on an extension. That’s really it.”
Bongino also appeared to get somewhat emotional about his Fox tenure coming to an end, adding that he had “really enjoyed myself there” during his 10 years as a guest and paid contributor.
“It’s a sad day,” he sighed. “They did give me the opportunity to do one last show, I don’t want you to think they showed me the door. That’s on me, not on them, but I thought it was best to go this way for now.”
According to Forbes, Fox News will air one of the network’s other weekend programs, Lawrence Jones Cross Country,in Bongino’s stead before a new schedule is announced.
Sadly, the end of the Bongino era at Fox News means there will be no more on-air fights between him and frequent sparring partner Geraldo Rivera. Their tussles, typically during Sean Hannity’s primetime show, would sometimes grow so heated that physical objects would get thrown.
Additionally, throughout his time at Fox, Bongino would occasionally take potshots at his employer, especially if he felt they were hurting his credibility among his far-right base. Namely, he attacked the network in 2021 for posting an edited version of his interview with Donald Trump that removed the former president’s baseless claim that the 2020 election was “fake.”
At the same time, the network sometimes had to clean up Bongino’s on-air screwups, such as the time he claimed that the 10 healthiest cities in America were actually the “unhealthiest” in an attempt to own the libs.
https://www.mediamatters.org/donald-trump/right-wing-media-scramble-defend-trump-ahead-potential-indictment-and-arrest
mma 3 23
no twt
after former President Donald Trump predicted his own arrest and indictment, right-wing media pundits were quick to provide cover for him and attack an investigation that they claimed would help the 2024 hopeful’s reelection campaign.
On March 18, Trump posted to his Truth Social account that he was expecting the Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office to indict and arrest him the following Tuesday, March 21. The posts came while a Manhattan grand jury heard testimony as part of an ongoing investigation into Trump allegedly paying hush-money to adult film actor Stormy Daniels in 2016 over an alleged affair[trmp twt caps]
in response, right-wing media have continued their pattern of defending Trump from various investigations and smearing Trump’s longtime associate-turned-witness Michael Cohen, who testified in 2019 that Trump had directed Cohen to repeatedly pay off women for their silence about their sexual relationships with him. Right-wing media outlets are claiming Bragg is backed by liberal philanthropist George Soros, accusing Bragg of running a politically motivated investigation that unfairly targets the former president, and claiming that an indictment of Trump would benefit his 2024 presidential campaign.
Right-wing media baselessly claim liberals are “weaponizing” the judicial system to punish political enemies
- Right-wing podcast host Steven Crowder warned that arresting Trump would be “how you start a civil war," saying, “Not saying I want it [civil war], but I'm saying if you look throughout history, jailing political opponents is, kind of, one of the key items that pops shit off.”
- Discussing a potential indictment, Daily Wire’s Michael Knowles said that “it's so obvious that the Democrats here just want to stop the people from having a chance to re-elect Donald Trump,” and he called for Republican governors state attorneys general to indict “prominent criminal libs”: “You should find every stupid little fake misdemeanor charge and you should trump it up as high as you possibly can.”
- One America News Network’s chief White House correspondent Chanel Rion suggested on Twitter that Trump would be a political prisoner and compared him to Jesus, Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi, and nobel laureate Nelson Mandela.
- Conservative radio host Jason Rantz tweeted “Donald Trump will be arrested on misdemeanor charges next week by far-left DA Alvin Bragg, who rarely charges and prosecutes FELONIES against dangerous criminals” before asking, “We’re supposed to pretend this isn’t political?”
- On Fox & Friends Weekend, guest and attorney Sol Wisenberg characterized the charges as “a hyphenated term” that “starts with chicken and then it ends with i [and] t.” Wisenberg argued that such a case would never be brought against anyone other than Trump. “The question to ask yourself in a case like this: Would a case like this be brought against anybody else, whether he or she be president, former president, or a regular citizen? And the answer … is ‘no.’”
- Newsmax host Tom Basile claimed that the investigation into Trump “appears to be the weaponization of our justice system for political purposes.”
Right-wing media claim Bragg is a “radical” leftist backed by George Soros who “has to pay his master back”
- On Fox and Friends Weekend, Fox host Mark Levin attacked Bragg, saying, “What would you expect from a radical left-wing legal bomb thrower who’s inserted into this position by George Soros.” He accused Democrats of trying to “destroy the law and destroy the Constitution” and claimed, “Their whole goal is to destroy the civil society and the morality that undergirds.”
- On Fox Business’ Varney & Co., host Stuart Varney suggested Trump’s purported indictment and arrest were a “setup,” before adding, “I’m going to editorialize: This looks like a political charge inspired by raw Trump hatred.” Varney’s guest Fox News contributor Charlie Hurt argued that Bragg was on a “political jihad” that is “insane.”
- Newsmax and Daily Caller contributor Benny Johnson smeared the investigation as a “witch hunt” while rhetorically asking, “Is it any surprise that the driving force behind the Trump indictment witch hunt is a District Attorney in New York backed by none other than George Soros?”
- Fox & Friends Weekend co-hosts Will Cain and Rachel Campos-Duffy accused Bragg of prioritizing “a weak case against Trump” over Black lives. Cain asked, “How many Black lives have you sacrificed under a higher crime city with increased murder rates to devote a limited number of resources to the priority of pursuing a weak case against Donald Trump?” Campos-Duffy said the political left doesn’t “really care about Black lives or the working class or the poor” and blamed the alleged indictment on “a George Soros-funded D.A.” who “has to pay his master back” by prosecuting Trump.
- Fox News host Dan Bongino told his Fox Nation audience to “get the hell out of blue states as soon as you can” because “disgusting piece of garbage” Bragg “will find you and they will hunt you down if you’re a conservative.”
- Right-wing radio host Bo Snerdley baselessly claimed that “Bragg along with other Soros-funded DA's” are prioritizing investigations into Trump while “releasing repeat-offending criminals with low or no bail, and failing to prosecute real crimes.”
Right-wing media figures argue Trump arrest would backfire and benefit him politically
- Crowder speculated on his podcast that pursuing legal charges against Trump would start a civil war, stating, “Frankly, some of me thinks that maybe some people up top are saying don't do this because it will backfire. But if you arrest your political opponents, people who are actively seeking the presidency -- look, do you guys want to start a civil war? Because that's how you start a civil war.”
- Salem Radio’s Eric Metaxas compared a potential Trump indictment to “what the British wished to do” with the Founding Fathers, including George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. He also claimed that indicting Trump “will dramatically clarify the narrative for anyone still on the fence. Time to choose. Tyranny will lose. Again.”
- Right-wing host Todd Starnes tweeted, “The Manhattan District Attorney is about to guarantee @realDonaldTrump will win reelection in a landslide.”
- On Twitter, Fox News contributor Newt Gingrich said, “To arrest a former and future President is an act of hatred and poison and will further harden support for Trump while discrediting the left. Remember Hunter Biden!”
- National Review’s Rich Lowry tweeted, “Alvin Bragg is engaged in election interference, in favor of Donald Trump.”
- Conservative radio host Mark Simone tweeted: “Some now wondering if the DA is getting paid off to help Donald Trump get elected.”
- Echoing a tweet shared by Twitter CEO Elon Musk, Donald Trump Jr. claimed on Truth Social that arresting his father would “lead to landslide victory for Trump.”
- Breitbart’s Joel Pollack predicted that a potential Trump indictment would result in a “red tsunami” in 2024. He also tweeted, “Arresting Trump over the Stormy Daniels settlement, while the serious charges against Biden et al. go unaddressed, will launch a new era of political conflict in the United States. Short of civil war, but with deep divisions that make ordinary government operations more difficult.”
- On Truth Social, Students for Trump founder Ryan Fournier said, “If Alvin ‘chipmunk’ Bragg indicts President Trump.. it’s over. We will WIN in a landslide and we will handle Alvin. Choose wisely.”
mma 2 23
Right-wing radio host and Fox News contributor Dan Bongino praised and promoted a known QAnon influencer while discussing the recent train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio. On his show, Bongino gave a “hat tip” to Kanekoa[at substack ] , a QAnon supporter and member of the QAnon influencer collective We The Media, adding that he got “decent information” from the QAnon supporter’s content. Kanekoa in turn thanked Bongino for promoting them.
wtf? mma 11 22
DAN BONGINO (CONTRIBUTOR): I'm running out of conspiracy theories, because they're all coming true. So, to the Watters audience, if you'd please email me some new conspiracy theories, because I'm running out of show content. Because the FBI spied on Trump was called a conspiracy theory. That was true. The Wuhan lab leak, we were fact checked to Hades on that one. That one looks pretty true, too. The FBI interfered in the Hunter Biden story pre-election, we were told we were crazy people for that one -- what are you guys -- one of these ayahuasca things? You're nuts. Turned out that was true, too.
Now we find out -- we were a little suspicious about some informants. We said, you know, we think the FBI may have had some informants. We were told we were looney tunes, maybe you know the edibles kicked in too early, we were crazy. And now it turns out that's true, too.
So, folks, if you'd do me a favor, I'm running out of material. I have three shows, a radio, a podcast. I got nothing left. If you could send me some new stuff -- UFOs, maybe, whatever-- I'll take it because I'm clean out of material.
https://www.mediamatters.org/climate-deniers/fox-news-platforms-climate-denial-and-great-reset-conspiracy-theory-during-cop27
ted macd
During the final weekend of the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference, known as COP27, two Fox News programs invited longtime climate denier Marc Morano to discuss the conference and link it to a conspiracy theory about the Great Reset.
As Media Matters wrote last week, adherents to the Great Reset conspiracy theory absurdly believe that global elites are using climate change policies in order to crush individual freedoms and install a global dictatorial government. Morano is a key driver of the climate denial components of this conspiracy theory. We also noted that given the high-profile nature of COP27 and the presence of numerous world leaders there, this conspiracy theory would proliferate within right-wing discussions of the conference.
And now, the most-watched cable news network in the U.S. has prominently featured the false claims in its discussions around COP27.
On the November 12 edition of Unfiltered with Dan Bongino, Morano stated that world leaders want to “use the COVID template to fight climate, i.e. authoritarianism, you don’t have a say, democracy goes to die.” He also falsely downplayed the health threats associated with climate change, wrongly dismissed the need for climate action as too expensive, and directly referred to COP27 as “the Great Reset summit.”
Host Dan Bongino also brought up a key tenet of the Great Reset conspiracy theory, which is that climate change is all about control. He stated that the conference is “a totalitarian way to control things. This has nothing to do with climate science."
[vid]11/12
MORANO (FOUNDER, CLIMATEDEPOT.COM): I'm here in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, at this conference. And not only is the World Economic Forum here, the home of the Great Reset— they were on the panel with John Kerry when he went to use the COVID template to fight climate, i.e. authoritarianism, you don’t have a say, democracy goes to die when they talk like that. But the World Health Organization was also here to morph COVID and climate together by declaring climate a massive public health threat.Despite the fact, Dan, that climate-related deaths have dropped 99% in the last hundred years and they’ve declined due to wealth creation, and development, infrastructure, and fossil fuels. So, this is very scary. This is John Kerry. Al Gore also is here. Along with John Kerry he's pushing his climate trace app that’s going to be tracing all individual CO2 contributors globally. Remember, humans inhale oxygen; we exhale CO2. So they’re modeling a track and trace app for CO2 to go after businesses and agriculture. This is the Great Reset summit here in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt.
DAN BONGINO (FOX HOST): Marc, and you’ve been sounding the alarm about this forever. This is all about control. This has nothing to do with science. When the vax started to lose effectiveness against transmission, they almost doubled down on mandates. Their push for digital ID, digital currencies, you know, CO2 monitors — this is just a totalitarian way to control people. This has nothing to do with climate science.
MORANO: It has nothing to do. Here’s how absurd it is. Goldman Sachs economist two weeks ago said on CNBC that we’ve spent almost $4 trillion to reduce fossil fuels 1%. And so, and you’d would think they’d look at that and say solar and wind are failing, you cannot replace fossil fuels at any scale they’re talking. Al Gore comes this week along with John Kerry and wants private industry to spent $4 trillion per year to fight climate change.
That’s how insane this is. It's almost like the old, you know, socialism never failed, it wasn't done correctly in the Soviet Union, it wasn’t done correctly in Venezuela, it wasn’t done correctly in Eastern Europe, it wasn’t done correctly in Cuba. They are now literally looking at this and saying all the failure we see everywhere is more of a reason to double down. And this is what’s scary, Dan: You have every major corporation listed as quote “main partners” at this U.N. climate Great Reset summit including IBM, Google, Coca-Cola, Bank of America.
The next morning, on Fox & Friends Sunday,Morano again fearmongered about the Great Reset at COP27. In addition to claiming that climate change is all about control, he also invoked the idea of lockdowns and the idea that global elites want to disrupt agriculture — also key tenets of the Great Reset conspiracy theory.He closed the interview by insinuating, again, that COP27 is all about the Great Reset, and that these global elites want to increase their power at the expense of human liberties.
[vid]
CAMPOS-DUFFY (FOX HOST): President Joe Biden pledging $150 million to advance Africa's resilience to climate change. This despite 146 million people across the country going hungry. ClimateDepot.com publisher, and author of The Great Reset: Global Elites and The Permanent Lockdown, Marc Morano joins us now. Marc, always great to have you on the show. So 34 million Africans are actually in danger of famine right now. So, why are they offering them money for climate policies and initiatives and not food?
MARC MORANO (FOUNDER, CLIMATEDEPOT.COM): This is an incredible situation. They have it completely backwards. Instead of looking at all the problems in the world, and saying we need more food production, we need high-yield agriculture, they look at it and say we need to stop climate change. And this whole agenda, they have harmed Africa, first of all through COVID policy —
CAMPOS-DUFFY: Yes.
MORANO: — and this is chiefly occurring through COVID lockdowns, which, by the way, the World Health Organization was there, the World Economic Forum was at this U.N. Climate summit where Biden was. And they're pushing more response to climate as the same template as COVID, which means essentially bypassing democracy. But what the Biden administration’s done, they’re allowing this to happen in Africa. We've seen it in the Netherlands. They're collapsing modern high-yield agriculture. They’re doing it in Australia, in Canada. They’re making food more expensive, creating shortages. They’re doing the same thing in transportation and doing the same thing in energy, all in the name of climate change.
…
CAMPOS-DUFFY: Marc, really quickly, yes or no. Is this summit, and all of the initiatives that they're pushing, even thistracking app— is it about the environment, or is it about the Great Reset and population control?
MORANO: This is all about increasing their power, imposing their vision, and their vision is population control, economic control, and basically civil liberties control of every human on the earth. That is really what this conference is about. That is what the United Nations teaming up with the World Economic Forum is all about.
Later in the program, host Rachel Campos-Duffy again brought up the Great Reset. After a discussion about Biden meeting Chinese President Xi Jinping, Campos-Duffy stated that Morano “wrote a book about climate change and how it is part of the Great Reset. It is really fantastic, being very clear what this is about. Climate change is not about the climate. He actually proves it is not really affecting the climate and certainly not worth the trillions of investment that the world and especially America have made in that. But he says it’s about the Great Reset, it’s about control, and it’s ultimately about population control.”
msnbc muslim host says only need 1 word, projection = rubber glue? ~ j6
https://www.mediamatters.org/dan-bongino/dan-bongino-says-joe-bidens-speech-independence-hall-was-incredibly-hostile-incitement
Nov. 10, Thomas drew a reply from Meadows. She wrote, “Mark, I wanted to text you and tell you for days you are in my prayers!!” She continued by urging him to “Help This Great President stand firm” and invoking “the greatest Heist of our History.”...“Where the heck are all those who benefited by Presidents coattails?!!!” she wrote in her text message to him late on Nov. 10. She then told him to watch a YouTube video about the power of never conceding. Thomas added in the message thatMeadows should “Listen to Rush. Mark Steyn, Bongino, Cleta”
ginni groundswell working group: jan 2013
- NEED WORKING GROUPS for division of labor for 30 front war (Ginni to seek out/discuss); seek volunteer leaders or team-players on various
fronts. Expectation: Teams should connect once a week before Groundswell meeting.
- Guns: Michael James Barton, Gayle Trotter, Rick Manning
2. Messaging: Dan Bongino, Cherylyn Harley LeBon, Alex Cortes,Anita MonCrief
- Groundgame: Peter List
- Getting on Offense: Anita MonCrief
- Alternative to Rove: Sandy Rios
- National Security lane - Frank Gaffney
- Energy and Environment lane – Myron Ebell
- UN lane - Austin Ruse
9.Shadow Govt teams: Tom Fitton, Mike Farris, Heritage?
10. Benghazi– Boykin, Thomas,Fitton
- Others needed: Immigration,
new am mag:
whatfinger video clips
eg bongino biden green police
twt https://twitter.com/BonginoReport/status/1522648982585065474
[pix of garland]
Bongino Report on Twitter: "Woke Biden Admin. Unleashes New "Green ...
Bongino Report @BonginoReport. Woke Biden Admin. Unleashes New "Green Police" To Target YOU [emoticons eyeballs, thumb?] rumble.com. Woke Biden Admin. Unleashes New "Green Police" To Target YOU. What does "environmental justice" even mean? 6:46 PM · May 6, --> qanon
aug 21? biden senile russ disinfo
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/11/18/dan-bongino-election-fraud-messaging-437164
politico
no lnx doc
2020 ELECTIONS
Dan Bongino leads the MAGA field in stolen-election messaging
As far-right media entrepreneurs seize on Trump’s fraud claims to build new audiences, a former Secret Service agent rises to the front of the pack.
Dan Bongino speaks onstage during Politicon 2018 at the Los Angeles Convention Center.]
Dan Bongino, a latecomer to the talk-show world, is the surprise leader in the far-right media sweepstakes set off by the president's refusal to concede the election. | Phillip Faraone/Getty Images for Politicon
By MAGGIE SEVERNS
11/18/2020
As President Donald Trump pushed his theory last week that the presidential election had been stolen from him, the three-time failed congressional candidate turned prolific commentator Dan Bongino was penning dozens of Facebook posts and generating hours of podcast programming, pointing out “anomalies” in the election results and telling his listeners he’s “never been more fired up” in his life.
“You wanted us to quit? How about you go [bleep] yourself, I’m not going anywhere. You ain’t either,” Bongino said on his podcast.
“And ‘ain’t’ is a word — I just made it one,” Bongino added. He uploaded the clip to Facebook, where it received 17,000 “likes.”
Bongino — a former police officer and Secret Service agent who was a latecomer to the talk-show world — is the surprise leader in the far-right media sweepstakes set off by Trump’s refusal to concede the election. While the president’s chances of clinging to power remain wafer thin, the prospect of a new conspiracy theory that could dominate right-wing discourse for four years is not being ignored by the pundits, podcasters and mini-moguls who populate MAGA-world.
Even as he fights a public battle with Hodgkin’s disease — a treatable cancer of the lymphatic system — Bongino is pushing himself to a career high: In the days following the election, he had the No. 1 podcast on iTunes, besting The Joe Rogan Experience and The New York Times’ The Daily. His Facebook posts were among the most-shared posts in the United States almost every day, putting Bongino on par with all of Fox News.
And an app that Bongino partly owns and unfailingly promotes, Parler, saw an explosion of postelection interest from Republicans furious at Twitter for placing warning labels on the president’s tweets. Soon, Parler became the No. 1 app on iTunes for five days in a row and was similarly popular on Android, where it remains in the top slot.
Bongino, a Queens native, celebrated the victory by praising his followers on Parler for giving “a collective middle finger” to Twitter and the rest of Big Tech — a favorite foil. Then he resumed his usual posting: Dozens of links that drive either to his show or to stories aggregated by his website, BonginoReport.com, that he set up as an alternative to the popular Drudge Report, which Bongino has repeatedly said “sold us out” by catering too much to moderates and liberals and not enough to Trump’s base.
While the 45-year-old Bongino lacks the widespread clout of Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh, he has found a lucrative role to play in the increasingly segregated, angry internet, where different audiences rarely interact, or even see each other’s content.
Bongino’s popularity has surprised both Democratic and Republican operatives, who are not Bognino’s target audience and who, for the most part, do not listen to his show. For an hour each weekday, he rails against mask mandates, probes the latest news on Hunter Biden’s business dealings and, in recent days, offers highly dubious spins on alleged irregularities and unusual voting patterns in the 2020 election. On Facebook, he posts clips of himself in a T-shirt, recording the podcast and talking straight-to-camera, giving the posts a sense of intimacy.
[Wayne County, Mich.
2020 ELECTIONS In abrupt reversal, Michigan’s largest county certifies election results
BY KYLE CHENEY AND ZACH MONTELLARO]
Bongino said in an interview that, though he repeatedly highlights accounts of questionable votes and possible ballot harvesting, “I make very clear on the show, I’m not saying it’s fraud.” But he isn’t above raising questions about the vote for days on end — and there’s a booming market for such stories.
“People like the content on my Facebook page because it’s me — it’s my clips, from my show, that millions upon millions of people see,” Bongino said. “People find my stuff genuine and they share it. Why are we more popular than The New York Times and The Washington Post combined? Obviously people don’t like The New York Times’ content.”
Listeners don’t doubt that Bongino believes what he says, said Doug Stafford, former chief of staff for Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul who consulted for Bongino during his 2016 House race in Florida.
“He’s a good messenger,” said Stafford. “And it’s aprincipled message — it comes from a place of conviction.I think people hear that right away.”
A former New York City police officer, Bongino joined the Secret Service in 1999 and later served on protective duty for presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. In 2012, he started a series of three unsuccessful runs for office, first for the U.S. Senate in Maryland (where he won the Republican nomination but lost to Democrat Ben Cardin with only 26.6 percent of the vote), and then for a Maryland congressional seat (where he lost again, by a narrow margin of 1.5 percent).
[Dan Bongino during his 2012 Senate run in Maryland
In 2015, Bongino and his family moved to Florida, where he said he had a “non-emergency family situation,” but added, bluntly, “I enjoy politics and there are certainly opportunities down there.” He ran in a primary in a district near his home against Francis Rooney, a local businessman who self-funded his campaign with more than $3 million. At one point, a POLITICO reporter and Bongino got into a phone argument over Bongino’s criticism of a news report, and Bongino went on a minuteslong recorded tirade, before shouting, “Go fuck yourself, you piece of shit!” and hanging up the phone.
:{
}:
Bongino lost again — but found a new niche. The shout-talking, Trump-loving ex-cop became a cable news guest perfectly suited for the Trump era, and he started appearing frequently. Soon he caught the attention of Trump himself, who started retweeting Bongino and praising him for his appearances.
Bongino landed a show on NRATV, the now-defunct digital streaming service affiliated with the pro-gun rights network, and made frequent guest appearances on Fox News, where he eventually became a contributor. He defended Trump-fueled conspiracies like Spygate, which contends the Obama administration embedded an informant on Trump’s 2016 campaign for political purposes, and which became the subject of Bongino’s 2018 book.
Trump himself has become a repeat guest on Bongino’s show, as have Trump allies like Rudy Giuliani.
There, Giuliani made claims last week that the voting software used in some states, Dominion Voting Systems, is owned by a foreign company that has ties to both Venezuelan leaders and Democratic billionaire George Soros and that “flipped” some votes.
:{
}:
“We’re basically having our votes counted by Venezuelans who are close to [Nicolás] Maduro,” Giuliani told Bongino.
“That’s insane,” Bongino replied. (Dominion has said it has no ownership ties to the other company, and U.S. cybersecurity authorities from the Department of Homeland Security have said in a statement: “There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.”)
Bongino’s show is not the only conservative podcast to catch fire since the election: Other podcasts including The Mark Levin Show and The Ben Shapiro Show have also seen their audiences rise significantly, to top-10 slots on Apple’s charts in recent days, Vulture reported.
:{
}:
“[Bongino’s] not an exception, he’s just the top of a larger trend,” said Angelo Carusone, president of the left-wing media watchdog group Media Matters for America.
Bongino has captured an audience online — boosted by his frequent appearances on Fox News — that is hungry for news of election fraud and a potential Trump victory, and the more engagement he gets, the more he’s rewarded by Facebook and other social media algorithms,Carusone said.
“Ultimately, it’s Facebook’s wave, and he’s just managing to stay above it,” Carusone said.
Indeed: Bongino’s posts were among the day’s 10 most-shared on Facebook at least 63 times in the past month, according to data collected by the analytics platform Crowdtangle and shared by The New York Times on Twitter.That’s more exposure than Trump, whose posts were ranked in the top 10 at least 31 times, and Fox News, who were top 10 at least 46 times.
Yet as Bongino’s show has grown in popularity, he is increasingly relying on websites and platforms he has an ownership stake in, giving him more control over his content and greater potential for profit.
:{
}:
Late last year, he launched Bongino Report, his alternative to Drudge Report, and he routinely posts his links on social media to drive to the site. This summer, he announced he’d become an investor in Parler, the right-wing social media site pitching itself as an alternative to Twitter or Facebook that has become a safe harbor for banned figures like far-right commentator Alex Jones. Bongino has formed a similar partnership withRumble, a video platform trying to siphon traffic away from YouTube.
But the postelection boom has brought a whole new level of success for Bongino, if he can sustain it.
“We’ve always done well,” Bongino said. “And now we’ve been doing very well — it was really a banner week.”
[The Biden Transition
Joe Biden may be the new president-elect — but with President Donald Trump continuing to challenge the results and Senate control up still up for grabs, the story of the election is far from over.
BIDEN'S PLANS
Kathleen Hicks is Biden’s pick to be the first female deputy defense secretary.
Biden has tapped three senior officials onto his Covid-19 Response team.
Biden's transition chief blasts ‘obstruction’ by political appointees at OMB and the Pentagon.
Trump's unplanned gift to Biden is that clean energy is on the rise.
TRUMP AND THE GOP
Sen. Josh Hawley pledged to challenge Biden's victory in Pennsylvania on Jan. 6.
Nancy Pelosi will seat a Republican in a contested Iowa race.
Congress and the coronavirus could quash Trump's Electoral College gambit.
Sen. Ben Sasse delivered a critique of his Republican colleagues challenging 2020 results.]
FILED UNDER: BARACK OBAMA, JOE BIDEN, JOE BIDEN 2020, FOX NEWS, RUSH LIMBAUGH,
big lie ggl 8 22
Prominent political podcasters played key role in spreading ...
https://www.brookings.edu › techstream › prominent-p...
Jan 4, 2022 — Without a better understanding of how the Big Lie spread so widely in the ... Ben Shapiro, Dan Bongino, and Steven Crowder, for example, ...
Missing: insurrection | Must include: insurrection
Opinion: The Big Lie might be bigger than we think - Poynter
https://www.poynter.org › commentary › the-big-lie-mi...
Oct 28, 2021 — On Wednesday, for the third consecutive day, conservative radio host Dan Bongino was not on the air. Bongino has been in a contentious and ...
The Next Big Lies: Jan. 6 Was No Big Deal, or a Left-Wing Plot
https://www.nytimes.com › U.S. › Politics
Jan 6, 2022 — He quickly received a verbal lashing from another guest, the popular right-wing radio host Dan Bongino. “The back-stabbing of the president ...
The Big Lie and Big Tech: Misinformation Repeat Offenders ...
https://www.cartercenter.org › news › democracy
Nov 22, 2021 — 156% during the period between Election Day and the Jan 6. Capitol insurrection. ... Dan Bongino Show Fan Club. Roane Dems.
Dan Bongino and the Big Business of Returning Trump to Power
https://www.newyorker.com › Magazine › Conservatives
Dec 27, 2021 — This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from. Dan Bongino, one of America's most popular conservative commentators, lives in ...
Dan Bongino is not just taking over for Rush Limbaugh, he is ...
https://www.washingtonpost.com › style › 2021/04/19
Apr 20, 2021 — One day in the waning months of the 2020 presidential campaign, Dan Bongino — a former Secret Service agent turned serial congressional ...
https://www.washingtonpost.com › 2022/06/10 › trump...
Jun 10, 2022 — and “Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. ... Conservative radio host Dan Bongino posted to his Truth Social account a few minutes before the ...
Dan Bongino - WJR-AM
https://www.wjr.com › dan-bongino
Join Dan Bongino as he tackles the hottest political issues, debunking both Liberal and Republican establishment rhetoric. Catch Dan weekdays noon to 3 p.m. ...
Dan Bongino leads the MAGA field in stolen-election messaging
https://www.politico.com › news › 2020/11/18 › dan-b...
Nov 18, 2020 — His Facebook posts were among the most-shared posts in the United States almost every day, putting Bongino on par with all of Fox News. POLITICO ...
Missing: insurrection | Must include: insurrection
Fox News Blow-Up After Geraldo Rivera Confronts Hannity on ...
https://www.thewrap.com › fox-trump-bongino-hannity...
This time, Bongino accused his fellow “Hannity” guest of “backstabbing” former President Donald Trump by saying that Trump himself incited the deadly ...
rww
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Right Wing Leftovers – 11/1/13
…calls “his friend and Congressional candidate” such as Dan Bongino. The “Draft Ben Carson” movement is setting up shop in Iowa and is being headed by none other than Vernon…
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Right Wing Leftovers – 12/11/13
…James Dobson’s ministry has filed suit against Obamacare’s contraception mandate. Dan Bongino says that people in Washington are stuck in a “bubble” and surrounded by “a haze of staffers, consultants,…
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Ginni Thomas Gives Awards To James O’Keefe, Sean Hannity, Frank Gaffney & Other Right Wing Activists
…its own public relations and fundraising extravaganza.” Charlie Kirk, who heads Turning Point USA, a right-wing youth leadership training organization. Also honored were Dan Bongino, a former cop and secret…
- ###
Right Wing Round-Up: Trump’s Darkest Hour
…Reed @ Raw Story: House GOP leader says there’s no need for Dems to launch Trump probes Lachlan Markay @ The Daily Beast: Professional Trump booster Dan Bongino Out at…
- ###
Mark Levin: Andrew McCabe ‘Was Leading a Coup’
…week, the chatter of a coup took another tumble through the right-wing news cycle. “This was an illegal coup attempt on the President of the United States.” Dan Bongino on…
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Right Wing Round-Up: Gullible Minorities
…Thomas’s Wife Advised Trump to Hire Dan Bongino and David Clarke For Government Posts. Alex Paterson @ Media Matters: Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh melts down about pedophilia because Pete Buttigieg…
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The QAnon General: Tracing the Rise, Fall, and Rebirth of Michael Flynn
…few radio hits on “The Dan Bongino Show,” among others. His aim was not only to rehabilitate his own public image, but to stand in vehement opposition to Biden’s imminent…
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GETTR: The Pro-Trump Social Media Alternative Filled with Trolls, Grifters and Hentai Porn
…2021 include popular conservative voices like Ben Shapiro, Dan Bongino, and Candace Owens, as well as politicians with ties to the QAnon conspiracy movement such as Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene,…
- ###
Right-Wing Activists, White Supremacists Celebrate Rittenhouse Acquittal
…image shared on the Proud Boys Telegram channel. Former Trump attorney Jenna Ellis told right-wing commentator Don Bongino, “The media needs to be held accountable.” Ali Alexander, the lead organizer…
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Right Wing Round-Up: MAGA War
…‘Far Better Journalist’ Than NBC’s Ken Dilanian and CBS’s Margaret Brennan. Zachary Petrizzo @ The Daily Beast: Lin Wood’s Bonkers War on Bongino and Tucker Carlson Gets Even Uglier….
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Right Wing Bonus Tracks: A Demonic Bioweapon
…Lin Wood says that Tucker Carlson, Dan Bongino, Sebastian Gorka, Charlie Kirk, Sean Hannity (and possibly Michael Flynn and Marjorie Taylor Greene) are all members of “the deep state.” John…
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Right Wing Bonus Tracks – 6/15/17
Sheila Zilinsky says she is like Jesus and being attacked simply for sharing her view that Gov. Jerry Brown “should be hanging from a rope.” Dan Bogino…
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Right Wing Round-Up: Trump ‘Aced’ His Cognitive Test
Justin Baragona @ The Daily Beast: Trump: Doctors Were ‘Very Surprised’ I ‘Aced’ Cognitive Test. John Fea: Thursday night court evangelical roundup. KJ Edelman @ Mediaite: Trump…
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Right Wing Round-Up: Blizzard Warning
Aaron Rupar @ Vox: The Arizona “audit” finally seems to be wrapping up. Prepare for a blizzard of disinformation. John Fea @ Current: Josh Hawley’s “Love America…
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Right Wing Leftovers – 3/31/14
…running for office: “Dan Bongino: Guest of honor at WND Christmas party.” Scott Lively has now taken up the case of Justina Pelletier and is challenging his fellow gubernatorial candidates…
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Right Wing Bonus Tracks – 8/22/16
…Accuracy in Media. Carpetbagger congressional candidate Dan Bongino didn’t take kindly to a reporter asking him about his move to Florida after several failed congressional campaigns in Maryland. Gina Loudon…
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MAGA Folks are Absolutely Crushing Some In-N-Out Burgers
Sometimes a hamburger is just a hamburger. Other times, a hamburger is a way to signal your support for the Republican Party and its fast-food loving president to…
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Right Wing Round-Up: A Lie in Almost Every Sentence
…Lachlan Markay, Asawin Suebsaeng & Maxwell Tani@ The Daily Beast: Dan Bongino Devotes His Life to ‘Owning the Libs.’ Trump Hangs on His Every Word. Steve Benen @…
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Right Wing Round-Up: The Right-Wing Echo Chamber
…Launching Bitcoin for Catholics. Connor Mannion @ Mediaite: Dan Bongino Melts Down on Conservative Writer, and Publications She Writes For, Over Twitter Joke. Kelly Weill @ The Daily Beast: Daily…
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Right Wing Round-Up: Laughingstock of the World
…Ilhan Omar, Florida congressional candidate writes in fundraising letter. Joe Concha @ The Hill: Conservative Dan Bongino launches alternative to the Drudge Report. Josh Kovensky @ Talking Points Memo: Can’t…....
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https://www.alternet.org/2022/02/the-trumpified-gop-has-a-whole-new-generation-of-power-brokers-and-influencers-report/
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The Trumpified GOP has a whole new generation of power brokers and 'kingmakers': report
Alex Henderson February 04, 2022
The fact that so many well-known right-wing Republicans endorsed Joe Biden during the United States’ 2020 presidential race —from former Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona to former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina to Sen. John McCain’s widow Cindy McCain — speaks volumes about how dramatically former President Donald Trump remade the GOP in his image, and how alienated they fell from the party. The GOP landscape is radically different from what it was during the Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama years, and journalists Jonathan Swan and Lachlan Markay describe that landscape in an article published by Axios on February 4.
“Paths to power and winning elections inside the GOP are changing rapidly and radically, spawning a new generation of kingmakers while diminishing the clout of many who lorded over the party for years,” Swan and Markay explain. “Why it matters: 14 of the Republican Party's top consultants and operatives across the country spoke in detail with Axios about how profoundly primary races have changed since 2014 — the last pre-Donald Trump midterm election and the last midterms in which a Democrat occupied the White House.”
The reporters continue, “What we found: Those sources — whose clients range from as Trumpy as they come to establishment Republicans — described a clear shift in the party's power brokers. They spoke of changes to the ecosystem across four categories: institutional upheaval, endorsements, conservative media and donors.”
Swan and Markay go on to list Republicans who “had the power” in the past — a group that includes the National Review, the National Rifle Association, the Drudge Report, Heritage Action and the “Koch network,” among others.
But their “who has the power now” list is much more MAGA.That list includesTrump and his “family and former aides” as well as Breitbart News,Fox News’ Tucker Carlson, Ben Shapiro’s the Daily Wire, former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon and the Susan B. Anthony List.
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Swan and Markay also mention “online influencers, including Candace Owens, Ben Shapiro, Dan Bongino, Joe Rogan, Jack Posobiec, Charlie Kirk and Marjorie Taylor-Greene.”...
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Befuddled conservatives react to Dan Bongino being banned from YouTube
Meaghan Ellis January 27, 2022
Befuddled conservatives are not pleased with YouTube's decision to permanently ban right-wing political commentator Dan Bongino from its platform. According to Newsweek, many of Bongino's conservative fans have taken to social media to express their disapproval of the video-sharing platform's decision to remove "The Dan Bongino Show."
"@YouTube banned @dbongino for speaking the truth! The problem is they just don't want you to hear it...... The End!" tweeted Graham Allen, a conservative U.S. army veteran who is currently running for a Congressional seat in South Carolina.
Brent Bozell,President of Media Research Center News Busters, also weighed in to suggest that Bongino's ban was biased. "Now YouTube has permanently banned Dan Bongino—one of the most popular conservative stars around. Yet, the news media still pretend there's no censorship of the right. Conservatives better wake up. The press never will," Bozell tweeted.
Bongino's ban follows a week-long suspension from YouTube earlier this month after he claimed in one of his videos that masks are "useless" in mitigating the spread of COVID-19. Trump enthusiasts Diamond and Silkalso chimed in with their disapproval of the ban tweeting, "YouTube bans Dan Bongino, but everyone who pushed Russia Collusion, which was a lie, still has their channels!"
Prior to his channel being banned, Bongino had nearly 900,000 subscribers. However, his Rumble account currently stands at 2 million. Now, conservative commentator Jeremy Frankel also tweeted to encourage Bongino's YouTube audience to follow him on Rumble as an alternative.
"YouTube's loss. At least now we all know it's the Communist echo chamber they always wanted to be but never could admit to being. Subscribe to @dbongino's Rumble channel: https://rumble.com/Bongino," conservative commentator Jeremy Frankel tweeted.
As the COVID-19 pandemic progressed, YouTube incorporated strict policies to combat the spread of misinformation on its platform. From conspiracy theories to misinformation about COVID-19, the vaccine, and the presidential election, YouTube has removed a number of accounts belonging to right-wing influencers contributing to the spread of harmful information.
Like most right-wing figures who have been kicked off mainstream social media platforms, Bongino will likely turn his focus toward alternative avenues to spread his message.
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After the acquittal of Kyle Rittenhouse on Friday afternoon, right-wing trolls — many of whom are elected members of Congress — were ecstatic at this prime opportunity to trigger the liberals.Reps. Matt Gaetz of Florida, Madison Cawthorne of North Carolina, and Paul Gosar of Arizona — all Republicans more interested in trolling than governance — made showily public offers of an internship to Rittenhouse. Cawthorne even took it to the next level, instructing his supporters to "be armed and dangerous."
Never one to be out-trolled, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia let loose with some truly unhinged tweets about "radical Marxists" who are trying to start "a race war," proclaiming that "gun rights are the only thing holding back the Communist Revolution the Democrats are waging." And on the Senate side, Ted Cruz of Texas attacked the "corrupt corporate media," skillfully targeting the very people he needs to amplify his message and get that sweet trolling attention.
Right-wing pundits joined in on all the gleeful trolling, as well.
Ann Coulter tweeted a meme equating Rittenhouse with superheroes, and Donald Trump Jr., forever trying and failing at being a Twitter wit, wrote, "The Rittenhouse jury just gave Biden his second colonoscopy of the day." Multiple right-wingers on social media wrote songs to honor Rittenhouse. On Friday, popular and t**rollish YouTuber Steven Crowder**celebrated the verdict by insisting, "it's so wrong that we teach young men that violence is immoral," and encouraged viewers to follow in Rittenhouse's lead by taking up arms against Black Lives Matter protesters. Tucker Carlson, King of the Trolls, will host Rittenhouse on his Fox News show and insisted that he's "not a racist person." This claim is impossible, of course, to square with the photos taken earlier this year in a Wisconsin bar where Rittenhouse partied with Proud Boys and flashed white supremacist signs at the camera.
All of these provocations worked as intended: They got attention and garnered liberal outrage. "Liberal tears" are the most valuable commodity in Republican circles these days, and nothing brings forth tears like senseless violence. For those who subsist on liberal outrage, the dunks were easy and plentiful, because it turns out those silly liberals really do make frowny faces over the celebration of political violence.
The right is reacting to this verdict like they're sports fans whose team just vanquished a rival team in the Superbowl. The excitement on the right was palpable, but also measurable. As an analysis from Raw Story shows, Facebook exploded with conservative celebrations of the verdict, with "18 of the top 20 most engaged page links in the world" originating with conservative American pages. And the pleasure of the moment was explicitly tied to joy over how upset liberals — or at least those perceived as liberals — were. Right-wing figurehead Dan Bongino, who is reliably one of the most popular figures on Facebook, posted a link claiming Chuck Todd "nearly cries" after the verdict. The post garnered over 3,000 shares and 68,000 reactions, the majority of which were the "laughing" emoji.
It's not just that this behavior is tasteless. It also illustrates how violence is the logical endpoint of the right-wing obsession with trolling liberals. If your goal is provoking a reaction, then violence is surely the most efficient way to do it. Unlike mean tweets and "f*ck your feelings" T-shirts, violence simply cannot be ignored. By celebrating this violence, congressional Republicans and right-wing media are openly inviting more of it, because the reward of upsetting people on the left is just so delicious. The distinction between right-wing trolling and violence is collapsing.
To be certain, the escalation of violence-as-trolling has been going on for a while now. As Eric Boehler wrote in his Press Run newsletter, "The flashpoints of Republicans and conservatives promoting political violence have become ceaseless, to the point of frightening normalization," to the point where polling data suggests "that as many as 21 million Americans think that the use of force is justifiedto restore Donald Trump to the presidency."
Much of the month has been dominated by a story about Gosar tweeting out a fan-made video that depicts him murdering President Joe Biden and Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York. The Democratic-controlled House responded to this unsubtle threat by censuring Gosar and stripping him of his committee assignments, but nearly all Republicans stood by Gosar. The excuse used to defend Gosar's behavior was that he was just trolling liberals for fun. Gosar's digital director even put out a statement saying, "Everyone needs to relax. The left doesn't get meme culture. They have no joy."
However, right-wing "joy" is not mutually exclusive from violence.
Gosar's tweet wasboth trolling to get a reaction from the left and a threat of violence. Trolling is a crucial aspect to both amplifying violent threats and helping conservatives hype each other up for more violence. That's why Gosar doubled down by retweeting the video minutes after being censured for it. The message is clear: If you love outraging the left, then violence is the swiftest way to do it.
Even Rittenhouse's behavior prior to killing two people at a Kenosha, Wisconsin protest last year embodies this troll logic. As Farhad Manjoo of the New York Times observed, Rittenhouse's presence at the protest was clearly a provocation. Rittenhouse carried a showy AR-15 "in part because the rifle "looked cool," and the gun "seemed to invite conflict." Popular right-wing troll Drew Hernandez was at the protest that night, an
that, when some protesters saw Rittenhouse and other men with guns, "they immediately attempted to agitate them, to try and start some conflict with them."
In other words, Rittenhouse's AR-15 functioned both as a troll and as a deadly weapon. The distinction between trying to "trigger the liberals" and actually pulling the trigger on liberals collapsed completely the night Rittenhouse shot three people, killing two. He certainly got what every right-wing troll wants, which is an outraged and dramatic reaction from people he perceived as liberals. The result was two dead bodies — and another opportunity for GOP leaders to troll some more, further reinforcing the idea that, for those who live for triggering the liberals, nothing works better to get a reaction than actual violence.
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https://www.alternet.org/2021/06/twitter-parler/
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Right wing conspiracy theorists are using the death of an Alabama news reporter to perpetuate the same baseless claims about former President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton being "master assassins."
According to the Daily Beast, Christopher Sign, 45, was found dead inside his own home following what is believed to be an apparent suicide. Since Sign was a local news reporter, his story most likely would have been predominately reported by local news stations. However, right-wing conspiracy theorists have put a new spin on it which has accelerated the circulation of the story.
The publication reports that a number of right-wing media personalities and a Congressional member are now suggesting Sign may have been killed. The late news reporter's death is being compared to the death of Seth Rich, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) staffer who was killed in Washington, D.C. back in 2016.
At the time, law enforcement officials believed Rich's death was a "botched robbery." However, Fox News' Sean Hannity added fuel to the fire following Rich's death when he suggested: "he was somehow involved in the release of Democratic emails obtained by WikiLeaks—a claim that was quickly discredited and resulted in a confidential Fox News settlement with Rich's family."
While there were similar discussions about Rich following his death, Sign's death has been immediately pushed to the forefront as multiple people suggest he has somehow been added to the Clinton body count."
Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) was one of the first to speak publicly about asking death.
"Could this story have a perfectly normal, albeit tragic, explanation?" Bongino asked in a June 14 broadcast of his show. "It could. Anyone claiming otherwise should produce evidence. But I am suggesting it's getting quite odd, isn't it? People in the Clintons' circle—it's strange."
"Why is it that so many who cross the Clinton Crime Syndicate end up dead?" Boebert tweeted on June 13. Conservative radio host Dan Bongino also weighed in with similar conspiratorial thoughts.
"Could this story have a perfectly normal, albeit tragic, explanation?" Bongino asked in a June 14 broadcast of his show. "It could. Anyone claiming otherwise should produce evidence. But I am suggesting it's getting quite odd, isn't it? People in the Clintons' circle—it's strange."
What's more disturbing is how popular these types of incorrect stories have been. Brooke Binkowski, the managing editor of the fact-checking website "Truth or Fiction" also offered a quick overview of those types of stories.
"I think the Clintons in general are ideal for the conspiracy theorists of the world because of their power and influence," Binkowski told The Daily Beast. "They get folded into the Illuminati conspiracy theory and give the haters political direction. Hillary Clinton, in particular, is a perfect person for the world's misogynists to focus on."
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Welcome back to HEATED, a newsletter for people who are pissed off about the climate crisis—written by me, Emily Atkin.
A new anti-climate leader
Dan Bongino, a climate denier who spread the Texas wind energy lie, is gearing up to take Rush Limbaugh's place today.
Emily Atkin May 24
Dan Bongino at Fox News Channel Studios on June 18, 2019 in New York City. Photo by Roy Rochlin/Getty Images.
Rush Limbaugh’s death in February left a deep hole where some of America’s most influential climate disinformation used to be. That hole will start being filled today, as far-right Fox News pundit Dan Bongino steps in to take Limbaugh’s place.
Twitter avatar for @TPPatriots
Tea Party Patriots
@TPPatriots]
Donald Trump to Be First Guest on Bongino's Show, Expect a Powerful Debut Episode in Limbaugh's Old Time Slot
Dan Bongino will begin a new chapter of conservative talk radio Monday with former President Donald Trump as his first guest.
patriotproject.com May 23rd 2021 204 Retweets1,127 Likes
Bongino, who in 2018 declared his life mission as “owning the libs,” is already an popular purveyor of general disinformation.His Facebook page,The Bongino Report, regularly boosts false claims of election fraud, among other things.
Though the page only has about 135,000 followers, these posts “consistently land among the site’s top posts and outperform mainstream news outlets like The New York Times, CNN and Fox News,” reports Forbes. That’s in part because Facebook’s algorithim rewards misleading content from conservative creators, as Wired reported in March:
According to researchers at the Cybersecurity for Democracy project at New York University, far-right purveyors of misinformation have by far the highest levels of engagement per follower compared to any other category of news source. Indeed, the researchers found that while left-leaning and centrist publications get much less engagement if they publish misinformation, the relationship is reversed on the far right, where news organizations that regularly publish false material get up to 65 percent more engagement than ones that don’t.
Bongino is about to be rewarded even further with his new radio show. Though it’s yet unclear exactly how many of the 600 stations that once ran Limbaugh’s show will pick up Bongino’s, the opportunity to pick up some of Limbaugh’s 15 million regular listeners is large. In addition, earlier this month, Fox News also announced that it would start airing a new show on Saturday nights lead by Bongino, called “The Big Saturday Show.”
Bongino is thus well-positioned to soon become one of the most influential sources of right-wing disinformation in America. Here’s what we can expect on climate front.
Less flagrant denial, more insulting liberals
Bongino is a straight-up climate denier, and for the most part, is not particularly shy about it. “These climate change alarmists have been wrong about just about everything. All their charts have been debunked,” he said on Fox in 2019. “The climate’s been relatively stable. There’s not any evidence that storms are out of control. All this stuff is made up.”
But just like the fossil fuel industry, Bongino’s anti-climate policy talking points lately have moved further away from flagrant denial. Instead, they promote more insidious falsehoods— like that wind energy was a significant contributor to deadly blackouts in Texas following February’s deep freeze, and that liberals were trying to cover it up.
Bongino delved into that subject specifically for a February episode of his podcast, which he began by strongly defending the quality of his own information regarding “What really happened with Texas and the energy system failures there.” “I never want to be first if I don’t have the facts,” he said. “I’m tired of the lies.”
Bongino went on to disparage “These filthy people on the left who can never ever tell the truth,” like MSNBC’s Chris Hayes, who he called a “sick little turd” for debunking Texas Republican officials’ prolific claims that wind energy was the culprit of Texas’s woes. Bongino did admit that natural gas and nuclear energy failed as well. But he said wind turbines had failed, too, and the only reason liberals were mad that Republicans were pointing it out was because they had to “protect their golden calf.”
He said liberals were taking “advantage of an ongoing tragedy to score cheap political points,” and added: “The hacks at Facebook and soviet fact-checkers will ding this segment because the facts trouble them.”
In reality, the blackouts in Texas were caused not by any particular power source, but by Texas’s failure to prepare for climate change-fueled extreme weather. In order to protect their “golden calf”—fossil fuels—Republican officials publicly sought to place the majority of the blame for Texas’s blackouts on wind reliability. Practically every major news outlet in the country debunked that lie, an attempt to use a tragedy to score political points.
Still, Bongino adopted wholesale the argument made by the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board, which was that the only reason nuclear and gas failed during the deep freeze was because it was trying to make up for the gaps in wind power. Ironically, that editorial was debunked by the journal’s own news section.
[Twitter avatar for @EricKleefeld Eric Kleefeld @EricKleefeld
Texas’ utter failure to winterize — despite a freeze and rolling blackouts 10 years ago — makes the choice of particular energy sources irrelevant. Their whole system is going down across the board!
This happens when you only pursue short-term cost cuts, don’t invest in safety.
February 18th 2021 44 Retweets213 Likes]
Green New Deal-bashing, arguments for human dominion
Here are some other trademark Bongino climate claims that we can expect to proliferate on conservative talk radio and Fox News as his profile continues to rise:
People who compare the challenge of climate change to World War II are participating in the “Moron Olympics.”
The Green New Deal is “outrageous,” “ridiculous,” and “expensive.” It looks “like it was conceived by a high schooler” and “proofread by a bartender.” It’s also not actually about climate change at all. It’s a “bad joke.”
“The climate changes all the time. Temperatures have been flat for 18 years.”
“We should care about the environment. It’s the right thing to do, if you’re really a God-loving person. But God gave us the world, not the other way around.”
“The Left is the one destroying their own credibility. Because ironically there are a lot of Republicans, me included, who are absolutely open to a conversation about a cleaner, better future, just not with a bunch of lunatics telling me the world is going to blow up.”
Moving forward, it’ll be interesting to see which advertisers are willing to sponsor claims like these. Bongino’s interview with Trump airs at noon EST. So, you know. Right now.
Bonus: Gina McCarthy on HBO]
out front defense of trump covid foto op wave
https://www.alternet.org/2021/02/without-merit-dan-bongino-ordered-to-pay-the-daily-beast-31-000-for-filing-frivolous-defamation-lawsuit/
https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/the-qanon-general-tracing-the-rise-fall-and-rebirth-of-michael-flynn/
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The QAnon General: Tracing the Rise, Fall, and Rebirth of Michael Flynn
By Karim Zidan | December 18, 2020
RETIRED ARMY GEN. Michael Flynn was speaking to a crowd of unmasked Trump loyalists on the steps of the Supreme Court when Marine One flew overhead, soliciting cheers from the delighted audience. Flynn—a special guest speaker at the Dec. 12 rally—stopped mid-sentence and stood in awe of the helicopter while the crowd attempted to sing the national anthem.
“That’s pretty cool,” said Flynn, who served as President Donald Trump’s national security adviser for 22 days before resigning and eventually pleading guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russia’s ambassador. “Imagine just being able to jump in a helicopter and just go for a joy ride around Washington.”
The retired Army lieutenant general continued where he left off, echoing unfounded allegations that Trump lost the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden because of widespread voter fraud. He called for “fair, transparent counts,” demanded that Americans get the “truth,” and called out the “media” for its supposed censorship of that truth.
“We’re waging a battle,” Flynn told the raucous crowd.
Flynn’s remarks came a day after the Supreme Court rejected a lawsuit from Texas that sought to overturn Biden’s wins in Wisconsin, Michigan, Georgia, and Pennsylvania. Despite the judicial decision, Flynn encouraged the crowd to have faith in their president and to seek out “avenues” to challenge the results of the election, insisting that the “courts aren’t going to decide who the next president of the United States is going to be. We the people decide.”
“In this crucible moment of our time, we have to pray that truth triumphs over lies, justice triumphs over abuse and fraud, honesty triumphs over corruption,” Flynn said. “Our sacred honor triumphs over infamy.”
After concluding his speech, the disgraced general, who has since been pardoned by Trump, stopped to enjoy his growing fandom among Trump loyalists. He smiled as the crowd chanted “Fight like Flynn” and was even chased by ravenous fans who screamed “We love you, general!” before being stopped by his bodyguards.
Despite Flynn’s unceremonious exit from Trump’s administration in 2017, the retired general remained popular with fringe corners of Trump’s loyal fanbase, including adherents of the far-right QAnon conspiracy theory. For years, Flynn has been an important component of the QAnon community, a portion of whom believe he holds pivotal secrets about the so-called “deep state.” His recent presidential pardon reinvigorated their conspiracy theories and validated his status as a hero to their cause—a cause that the general appears to have embraced himself.
“Flynn Facts”
IN JULY 2016, Michael Flynn delivered a fiery speech at the Republican National Convention targeting Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton over her handling of top secret information. After calling Clinton “weak,” “spineless,” and “reckless,” Flynn led chants of “Lock her up” with the crowd in attendance.
“Yeah, that’s right; lock her up,” Flynn said while clapping into the microphone.
Less than seven months later, Flynn was dismissed from his post as Trump’s national security adviser shortly after The Washington Post revealed that the general had spoken to the Russian ambassador to the United States, Sergey Kislyak, about sanctions between the two nations, and had later lied to the FBI about the conversation with Kislyak. Flynn continued to deny the accusations in the days leading up to his firing on Feb. 13, 2017.
Two months later, acting Attorney General Sally Yates testified to a Senate Judiciary panel that she believed “Gen. Flynn was compromised with respect to the Russians.”
“To state the obvious, you don’t want your national security adviser compromised by the Russians,” Yates, who was later fired for refusing to defend Trump’s travel ban, added.
By Nov. 30, 2017, Flynn had signed a plea agreement with special counsel and former FBI Director Robert Mueller, in which he acknowledged lying to the FBI about his sanctions conversation with Kislyak. Then, on Dec. 1, Flynn pleaded guilty and began cooperating with the special counsel’s investigation into the Kremlin’s interference in the 2016 election.
“I recognize that the actions I acknowledged in court today were wrong, and, through my faith in God, I am working to set things right,” Flynn said in a statement that day. “My guilty plea and agreement to cooperate with the Special Counsel’s Office reflect a decision I made in the best interests of my family and of our country. I accept full responsibility for my actions.”
Flynn’s plea agreement was a significant development in the Russia probe at the time. The retired lieutenant general was one of Trump’s top advisers during the 2016 presidential campaign. Though a registered Democrat, Flynn campaigned for Trump and attacked Clinton, even going so far as to accuse her and her aides of child-sex trafficking. Ironically, his son, Michael Flynn Jr., lost his job as one of Trump’s aides after posting similar tweets involving the Pizzagate conspiracy theory.
Flynn’s political tenure began long before Trump was campaigning for the U.S. presidency. In 2012, President Barack Obama promoted Flynn to director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, elevating him to one of the most powerful positions in U.S. military intelligence. During his time as head of the DIA, U.S. intelligence officials became concerned by Flynn’s contacts in Moscow. According to the New York Times, Flynn also made baseless assertions about Islam—he once incorrectly claimed that Islamic law, known as Shariah, is spreading in the United States—which his subordinates have labeled “Flynn Facts.” He was dismissed by Obama in 2014 and retired from the U.S. Army after 33 years of service later that year.
Michael Flynn seated two seats down from Vladimir Putin at RT gala in Moscow, Russia (Credit: Wikicommons)]
Following his retirement, Flynn founded the Flynn Intel Group Inc, a consulting agency that provided intelligence services for governments. In 2015, he attended a gala for the Russian state-owned RT media company in Moscow, Russia, where he was seated two seats down from Russian President Vladimir Putin and was paid $45,000 to give a talk during the event. Then, during the 2016 presidential campaign, it was revealed that Flynn was paid more than $500,000 to represent the interests of the Turkish government. While he did not work directly for the Turkish government, the firm that hired him is owned by a Turkish-American businessman with ties to Erdogan’s government. Flynn also failed to file paperwork registering as a foreign agent.
Despite his past role as a foreign agent and lobbyist for foreign interest in the U.S., when QAnon—a far-right, pro-Trump conspiracy theory that claims a cabal of elite pedophiles consisting of Hollywood actors, Democrats, and high-ranking officials are behind a global child sex-trafficking ring—was born was internet message boards in 2017, the retired general was seen as an ally to the cause. When he was being investigated by the FBI, many QAnon adherents expected him to be exonerated of all alleged crimes in the Russia probe. His delayed sentencing on several occasions only helped fuel the conspiracy theories regarding his innocence.
By July 2019, Flynn fired the attorneys who helped negotiate his plea agreement and hired Sidney Powell, a QAnon supporter who would later become known for filing the infamous “Kraken” lawsuit alleging widespread election fraud in the 2020 election. (Read Right Wing Watch’s in-depth reporting on Sidney Powell here). At Powell’s urging, Flynn moved to withdraw his guilty plea, citing a breach in the plea agreement, and further proclaiming his innocence. Then, following pressure from Trump who called for the charges against Flynn to be dropped, the Department of Justice filed motions to dismiss the case. The motion was then put on hold by the federal judge overseeing the case as he reviewed the request.
Despite the snag, Flynn would soon be a free man, ready to assume his figurative role as the QAnon general.
The Digital Soldiers [interesting grafix]
“IT IS MY Great Honor to announce that General Michael T. Flynn has been granted a Full Pardon,” Trump tweeted on Nov. 25, 2020. “I know you will now have a truly fantastic Thanksgiving!”
The move had been expected. Trump had hinted back in March that he was “strongly considering” pardoning Flynn, despite the fact that the retired general had not yet been sentenced. The pardon was met with criticism from Democrats—Speaker Nancy Pelosi called it “an act of grave corruption and a brazen abuse of power” in her official statement—while Trump loyalists celebrated the decision to save a man they viewed as a political casualty. Even the White House described Flynn as an “innocent man” and the “victim of partisan government officials engaged in a coordinated attempt to subvert the election of 2016.”
In the weeks that followed, Flynn underwent a strategic public relations campaign, which included appearances on Fox News and the right-wing Epoch Times,public speeches (as seen at the Jericho March on Dec. 12), and even a few radio hits on “The Dan Bongino Show,” among others. His aim was not only to rehabilitate his own public image, but to stand in vehement opposition to Biden’s imminent presidency.
During media appearances, Flynn repeated baseless conspiracy theories about election fraud and Dominion Voting Systems, citing his lawyer Sidney Powell’s “Kraken” lawsuits. He alleged that “thousands” of Americans have come forward with grievances and proof regarding voter fraud and that transparency is required to ensure the sanctity of the election process. During a recent appearance on Fox News (his third since being pardoned), Flynn suggested that Americans will “not allow” Biden’s inauguration to go ahead in January 2021.
Flynn also encouraged Americans to boycott the upcoming Georgia Senate runoffs, despite the fact that the winners will help determine which party will control the Senate. “We have to get the last election right before we start talking about any other runoff election like they are down in Georgia. That’s a falsehood that people shouldn’t even be considering right now,” he said.
While much of Flynn’s arguments are rooted in references to QAnon-linked conspiracy theories, the former three-star general has also pandered to the group by appearing on podcasts hosted by QAnon influencers. During a Dec. 4 appearance on “The Matrixxx Groove Show,” a podcast that claims to have the “most red-pilled audience” and is popular within the QAnon community, Flynn revealed that the show’s “listeners have inspired us and allowed us to fight the deep, deep corruption that we face in our government.”
“The digital army that we have is unstoppable,” Flynn continued. “The digital soldiers that we have are committed, dedicated servants of our country.”
This is not the first time that Flynn has referenced the term “digital soldiers.” The general first used the term during a November 2016 speech to the Young America’s Foundation, where he bragged about being the general of an “army of digital soldiers” that waged an “insurgency” to “take over” information and the media. The term has since been adopted by QAnon adherents, many of whom view themselves as digital soldiers fighting against the forces of the so-called deep state.
Flynn has continued to reference digital soldiers during media appearances and on social media—it is one of the main hashtags on his Twitter bio, along with #TakeTheOath, which is also a reference to QAnon. During his interview with “The Matrixxx Groove Show,” he referred to digital soldiers as the “largest law firm in the world” because they would “enlighten the people of this country and also the tactical legal team that we have, eventually led by America’s guardian angel of justice, Sidney Powell.”
To close out his appearance on the show, Flynn hinted that he is on the run from the deep state, “I’m on the move. I gotta make sure I’m a moving target because these son-of-a-guns, they’re after me, in a literal and a figurative sense at some time.”
The general’s deepening ties to QAnon have been apparent for several months now, well before he was pardoned in November. On Independence Day, Flynn posted a video of himself alongside members of his family reciting the QAnon slogan “Where we go one we go all,” making Flynn the most prominent former U.S. official to publicly stoke QAnon.
Michael Flynn taking QAnon oath with family members (Credit: screenshot)]
Flynn’s overt show of support to the QAnon movement has only helped energize a community that has been struggling to stay on message in the wake of Trump’s election loss and Q’s limited drops. While QAnon adherents would have preferred to see Flynn exonerated instead of pardoned, as the latter suggests guilt, they have used the pardon as a sign that thing are going according to plan.
“Any anons apart from myself getting goosebumps now that Flynn is free?” an admin of a QAnon channel with thousands of subscribers asked on Nov. 28. (Anon refers to anonymous users.)“My whole body is in goosebumps.”
“I am anxious to see Gen. Flynn in action,” another replied.
The lionization of Flynn within the QAnon movement emphasizes his importance to the movement. For QAnon adherents, the idea that a three-star lieutenant general and former high-ranking U.S. official supporting their community validates their efforts and proves that the deep state exists. When he refers to them as digital soldiers, he is exciting the countless QAnon followers who feel compelled to take matters into their own hands and legitimizing their undertaking.
QAnon meme referencing digital soldiers (Credit: Telegram) band of bros]
The QAnon community was further electrified on Dec. 1 when Flynn retweeted a call for Trump to temporarily suspend constitutional order and declare martial law to have the U.S. military oversee a new presidential election—a topic that had been popular within QAnon circles in the weeks following the Nov. 3 election. One QAnon follower in a private QAnon channel called for martial law after stating that Americans have “no Supreme Court, no DOJ, no FBI to protect us from the Government,” while another suggested that worldwide martial law would “fix” the “fucking fake Media.”
Not only is Flynn an important figure within the QAnon conspiracy theory, he is also a key proponent of the movement. His willingness to pander to the dangerous far-right conspiracy theory, encourage its adherents to continue tumbling down their rabbit holes, and promote totalitarian militaristic policies such as martial law raises concerns about his potential to further radicalize Trump loyalists ahead of Biden’s inauguration.
After spending 33 years as a decorated combat veteran who retired from the military with three stars, Flynn has now assumed the role he seems to have long dreamed of: the star general leading a digital army in service to Q.
Tags: Barack Obama Donald Trump Hillary Clinton Lin Wood Michael Flynn Robert Muller Sidney Powell conspiracy theories Deep State Pizzagate QAnon
9/20?
https://gizmodo.com/right-wing-content-flourishes-on-facebook-because-fearm-1845192571
even though right-wing elites repeatedly tout claims of anti-conservative bias on Facebook and other online platforms, in reality, the bulk of data shows the opposite to be true. Per a weekend Politico report, as we near the 2020 presidential election, some of the most engaging posts on Facebook come from conservative voices outside the mainstream media, including Ben Shapiro, Dan Bongino, and David Harris, according to the Facebook-owned traffic analysis tool Crowdtangle. Engagement on Facebook is defined as likes, comments, shares, and reactions.
The company has maintained time and time again that its platform is free of political bias. Facebook says that its algorithm doesn’t favor conservatives, but it also doesn’t have to because the right has one primal advantage:
“Right-wing populism is always more engaging,” a Facebook executive told Politico. They added that conservative content caters to “an incredibly strong, primitive emotion” by referencing concepts like “nation, protection, the other, anger, fear.” Essentially, the right-wing finds so much success online because it leverages the same fearmongering tactics on which early 20th-century dictators rose to power.
“That was there in the [19]30's. That’s not invented by social media—you just see those reflexes mirrored in social media, they’re not created by social media. It’s why tabloids do better than the [Financial Times], and it’s also a human thing. People respond to engaging emotion much more than they do to, you know, dry coverage. ...This wasn’t invented 15 years ago when Mark Zuckerberg started Facebook.”
(Politico’s report doesn’t name the Facebook executive they spoke with. We’ve reached out to Facebook for additional information regarding these claims and will update this article with their response.)
Democrats have long been playing catch-up to try and secure the same online foothold that conservative media maintains, and in the past have accused Facebook of kowtowing to the right to avoid perpetuating the idea that they have a liberal bias. Those allegations have surfaced once more as both parties pour nearly $150 million into political ads on the platform and desperately compete for user engagement in these last weeks before the election, according to Facebook’s political ad tracker.
Democratic presidential nominee and former Vice President Joe Biden has repeatedly denounced Facebook’s speech policies, arguing that, in its attempts to appear neutral, the tech giant has given politicians free rein to push inaccurate claims and allowed dangerous misinformation campaigns to take root and flourish on its platform.
The watchdog group Media Matters, which is known for monitoring conservative media, tracks 5,250 Facebook pages and groups determined to be either influential or of concern, an agency spokesperson told the outlet.
“There’s something [at Facebook] that reflexively or intentionally is mollifying the right-wing,” Angelo Carusone, the president of Media Matters, said in an interview with Politico.
A former Facebook employee, Adam Conner, echoed this sentiment. Connor, who now works as VP of Tech Policy at the liberal Center for American Progress, told the outlet that the platform is far from neutral, and that, “Facebook is not a mirror—the newsfeed algorithm is an accelerant.”
However, the Facebook executive Politico spoke to disagreed, arguing that the left’s losing battle against right-wing populism existed long before social media amplified their embarrassing struggle.
“If you’re a far-left partisan then why can’t you fight fire with fire? That debate among progressives—[and] I count myself as a center-left progressive—is as old as the hills. All center-left campaigners and politicians always ask themselves, ‘Why can’t [we] seem to rile their supporters as much as right-wing populists have?’”
Having said all that, it should be noted that Facebook has been caught relaxing its fact-checking standards for right-wing content in the past. Internal discussions reviewed by NBC News revealed that the company waived “strikes” and downgraded violations for spreading misinformation for conservative news outlets and personalities like Breitbart and Trump surrogates Diamond and Silk. A Buzzfeed investigation also alleged that a Facebook employee was fired after amassing evidence of the company’s preferential treatment for right-wing pages.
The deck certainly appears stacked in the right’s favor. Conservatives are purportedly facing less culpability online, with Facebook giving them essentially a free pass to spew any bullshit they please in the digital sphere. Typically it’s whatever’s likely to rile up their base the most. And with that content, they’re specifically tapping directly into their supporters’ lizard-brain fears to override any sense of logic or factual evidence they may otherwise come across. It’s like a perfect storm of ignorance.
Dan Bongino, wife stalked by Black Lives Matter activists outside RNC: 'Follow these motherf--ers'
Washington Times
Former Secret Service Agent Dan Bongino joins other high-profile figures with evidence of Black Lives Matter belligerence outside the Republican National Convention. The popular podcaster shared ...
During House Judiciary hearing on police brutality, Fox's Dan Bongino says "all lives matter"
Media Matters for America|69 days ago
REP. HAKEEM JEFFRIES (D-NY): Mr. Bongino,the police are at times able to show restraint under very difficult circumstances -- is that correct? DAN BONGINO: Of course. JEFFRIES: Let's review a ...
aha: nra a criminal enterprise/lobby that has amped up hysteria for decades so now we have bizillion assault rifles, some infiltration of cops and military by alt rt
direct mail racist grifters, proto-trump (gave him 30m$? russians?!)
https://www.alternet.org/2020/10/far-right-militia-groups-are-quite-capable-of-launching-a-rural-insurgency-in-the-us-political-professor
[debate]...Biden on Tuesday night, September 29 — expressed his solidarity with the far-right Proud Boys, many critics accused him of promoting violence against his adversaries. Political violence in major cities is a possibility that Trump's detractors fear, but Vasabjit Banerjee, an assistant political science professor at Mississippi State University, warns of a possible "rural insurgency" in an article published in Just Security this week.
"The intrusions of white supremacist militias into cities to intimidate and attack protestors from the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement highlights the possibility of rural insurgency," Banerjee explains. "Rural insurgencies range from week-long armed rebellions against local governments, law enforcement, and the wealthy to decades-long ones against subnational and national-level security forces, which seek to impose new revolutionary regimes."
Banerjee goes on to note that white supremacist and white nationalist groups have been expressing "fears of becoming a minority group due to changing demographics."
"The targets of such fears have shifted from primarily African-Americans to include non-White immigrants," Banerjee observes. "In conjunction with racial fears, other causes include anti-Semitism as well as perceived threats to Christianity from Muslims, who have replaced Catholics as antagonists. Some scholars have observed, however, that the militias do not constitute a cohesive movement, but have many groups with varied beliefs."
Trump's "anti-immigrant nativism" and promotion of "fundamentalist Christian beliefs" have been an inspiration to far-right militia groups, Banerjee warns.
"After he assumed office — in addition to his equivocation about deadly white supremacist attacks against protestors — his administration's policies also appeared to favor militia groups by reducing monitoring by federal law enforcement," Banerjee notes. "Trump may accept pre- and post-electoral violence by such militias during the 2020 elections, as indicated by his statements about the white supremacist Proud Boys during the first presidential debate."
According to Banerjee, insurgent groups in the U.S. could have easier access to weapons than insurgent groups in other countries.
Banerjee points out, "In most countries, insurgent groups must smuggle quantities of small arms, offered by willing foreign sponsors or bought in black markets, across international borders. In the United States, however, per capita gun ownership is the highest in the world, while gun laws are some of the least restrictive. Thus, militias can legally acquire vast quantities of small arms."
Banerjee concludes the article by emphasizing that the United States' "geography" — which includes a lot of wide-open spaces — would be conducive to a rural uprising.
"The preconditions for insurgencies are already present," Banerjee warns. "Consequently, militia groups deserve more scrutiny from security forces and a unified political consensus to deter and suppress them in order to maintain peace and stability."
https://www.mediamatters.org/roger-stone/roger-stone-antifa-and-black-lives-matter-thugs-are-going-be-clubbing-people-suburbs
Roger Stone: Antifa and Black Lives Matter “thugs” are going to be “clubbing” people in the suburbs to suppress voting
09/18/20 4:25 PM EDT
roger Stone continues to lay the groundwork for Trump to declare martial law
09/18/20 1:26 PM EDT
https://www.mediamatters.org/roger-stone/roger-stone-continues-lay-groundwork-trump-declare-martial-law
https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/warning-left-wing-coup-trumpist-media-prep-their-audience-election-unrest
no lnx many
Warning of a left-wing coup, Trumpist media prep their audience for election unrest
WRITTEN BY MATT GERTZ
PUBLISHED 09/18/20 10:25 AM EDT
Trump
Molly Butler / Media Matters
Nearly 5 million people were watching on Tuesday night as a Fox News host who claims that white supremacy is a hoax and a former speechwriter for President Donald Trump who was fired for speaking at a white nationalist conference spun out a wild-eyed conspiracy theory portraying mail-in voting as a sinister Democratic cabal’s coup attempt.
Tucker Carlson opened the segment by telling his viewers that Democrats were promoting mail-in voting not as a way to boost safe turnout during a pandemic, but because “they want the uncertainty over the outcome of the election, so they can manipulate the results.” His guest, Revolver News’ Darren Beattie, then explained that “a very specific type of coup called the color revolution” is “unfolding before our eyes.”
A color revolution, Beattie explained, is “a regime change model favored by many in our national security apparatus, particularly against Eastern European countries to overthrow target regimes that they don't like.” (They were actually peaceful protests that toppled despots in places previously dominated by the Soviet Union.) And now, he claimed, that model is being applied to the United States, with “color revolution professionals” deliberately generating election fraud in order “to use lawfare in order to overturn the 2020 election.”
Right-wing media figures generally push a baseline level of apocalyptic rhetoric about the purported predations of progressives. But Trumpist media have reached a dangerous fever pitch over the last week or so, even by that standard. With polls showing Trump trailing former Vice President Joe Biden following the party conventions and the election only weeks away, commentators like Carlson are preparing their audiences to treat a Trump defeat as a left-wing coup -- and encouraging the president toward an authoritarian response.
Their deranged statements are fed by -- and fuel -- the president’s own unhinged remarks. Trump has portrayed himself as “saving the world from a radical left philosophy that will destroy this country.” He describes his political opposition as supporters of “angry mobs,” “far-left fascism,” and “left-wing cultural revolution” so dangerous that he has even endorsed extrajudicial executions.And all the while, he’s been openly claiming that he could not possibly lose a fairly held election, and that any defeat would be the result of a Democratic election fraud conspiracy.
Carlson’s show is the most prominent vehicle fearmongering about a Democratic coup, but it is not the only one. A new special from The Blaze TV’s Glenn Beck is titled“CIVIL WAR: The Way America Could End in 2020,” and it details how “the Left is grooming us for an Eastern European-style color revolution this election.” His complex plot sprawls over three chalkboards and features mail-in voting as a vector for “something dangerous happening in November if we don’t act now.” (Beck praised Carlson during the program for the way he has been “putting the puzzle pieces together.”) The Trumpist publication The Federalist has offered up a similar “coup” theory.
The right-wing “coup” talk is the natural result of their demagoguery and dehumanization of the political opposition. Months ago, Trumpist media figures began warning that civilization itself was on the ballot in the fall, with Trump standing as the only thing preventing the left from making America “unrecognizable.” That type of rhetoric has only escalated, producing ever-more-inflammatory claims about what Trump’s defeat might mean to the safety and security of his supporters.
Over the last week or so alone:
Carlson described Black Lives Matter as “poison” that “we have to fight” because “if we’re going to survive as a country, we must defeat this.”
Wall Street Journal columnist Bill McGurn explained that he bought a gun in case “100 or 200 people bent on violence” show up in his suburb.
Fox’s Laura Ingraham and the pro-Trump podcaster Joe Rogan baselessly attributed the massive western wildfires to left-wing arsonists, blasting false rumors circulating on social media to millions of viewers and listeners.
Fox contributor Dan Bongino claimed that “we're watching the greatest nation in the history of sentient beings collapse in front of our face.”
Fox host Sean Hannity said that U.S. cities have become “war zones” and that there is a “war on police now.”
And Charlie Kirk, a frequent Fox guest and head of the Trumpist youth group Turning Point USA, warned on his podcast that if Trump loses, leftists seeking “bloodthirsty revenge” will “come for us all. They will come for your children.”
Some are taking their hatred of the left to lawless, authoritarian conclusions.
Roger Stone, a longtime confidant of the president, said during an appearance earlier this month on far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ Infowars network that if Trump were to lose (illegitimately as a result of voter fraud, of course), he should try to retain power by having federal agents seize purportedly tainted ballots, using martial law or the Insurrection Act to carry out widespread arrests, and nationalizing state police forces.
Fox’s Mark Levin,meanwhile, has also urged Trump to consider invoking the Insurrection Act -- but he argued that it would be needed if he wins. “He will have to use it to put down the enemy,” Levin explained on his radio show last week.
“The enemy is antifa, the enemy is Black Lives Matter, and the enemy is anybody that is going to use rioting, arson, looting, violence against our country to try to overthrow our country,” he added. “Those are traitors. That's treasonous.”
Extremist violent rhetoric is nothing new for right-wing media. Glenn Beck made it a staple of Fox News during President Barack Obama’s first term. Before the midterm elections, Fox warned its audience members that they needed to vote for Republicans to protect themselves from being killed by Democratic mobs.
But this sort of demagoguery can come with a heavy price. Beck’s rhetoric inspired an attempted domestic terror attack against one of his regular targets that ended with a firefight with law enforcement. And in the days before the 2018 midterm elections, a Trump superfan sent bombs to leftist leaders whom Fox commentators had attacked.
There’s still six weeks to go before the election. How will this spate of violent rhetoric end?
IN THIS ARTICLE
Voter Fraud and Suppression
Voter Suppression
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07/21/20 3:52 PM EDT
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06/24/20 11:06 AM EDT
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07/08/20
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Bongino
daniel John Bongino (born December 4, 1974) is an American political commentator, radio show host, author, politician, former congressional candidate, former NYPD officer and former Secret Service agent. Bongino ran unsuccessfully for Congress as a Republican in 2012, 2014, and 2016.
- :{:{Professional career:(style="display:table-cell"):}::(style="display:table-cell;padding-left:0px;padding-right:0.5em"):}:
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Professional career[
NYPD[
Bongino worked for the New York City Police Department from 1995 to 1999.[1]
Secret Service and book release:{:(style="margin-right:0.25em"):}:[edit:{]}:
Bongino joined the United States Secret Service in 1999 as a special agent,[1] leaving the New York Field Office in 2002 to become an instructor at the Secret Service Training Academy in Beltsville, Maryland. In 2006, he was assigned to the U.S. Presidential Protection Division during George W. Bush's second term. He remained on protective duty after Barack Obama became President, leaving in May 2011 to run for the U.S. Senate.[1]
Bongino's first book, Life Inside the Bubble, about his career as a Secret Service agent, was released in 2013. The book discusses his experiences protecting presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama and investigating federal crimes along with his 2012 run for the U.S. Senate in Maryland.[2]
Bongino was criticized by former colleagues at the Secret Service for using his Secret Service background as part of his run for political office and for his claim of having secret information based on conversations he overheard in the Obama White House.[3][4][5] A former colleague criticized him for trying to use his proximity to President Obama in his political career: "He's trying to draw attention to himself and he's hijacking the Secret Service brand. That's all he's got going for him." Bongino said he had access to "high-level discussions" in the White House. Unnamed former colleagues said he "tends to exaggerate his importance on the presidential detail and exaggerate his proximity" and that "We don't sit in on meetings at the White House. We don't sit in on high-level meetings."[3] In response to the criticism from an anonymous former colleague, Bongino stated "There's nothing confidential in the book" and "It's not a tell-all. It's my tale of the Secret Service."[6]
Bongino has rejected claims that Obama was born outside the United States.[7]
Bongino's second book, The Fight: A Secret Service Agent's Inside Account of Security Failings and the Political Machine was published in January 2016.[8]
Media[
Bongino has been a radio host and commentator on both local and national radio programs. He has been a guest host for both the Sean Hannity and Mark Levin radio shows and sometimes fills in on WMAL-FM talk radio in Washington, D.C. and WBAL in Baltimore.He was a paid contributor toNRATV,[9] until December 2018.[10][11]
Bongino has frequently appeared on Fox News' opinion programming and on the conspiracy theory website InfoWars.[5] He guest-hosted Hannity's Fox News show in December 2018.[12]
Bongino is a proponent of Spygate, a conspiracy theory alleging illegal spying on Donald Trump's 2016 campaign was perpetrated by Barack Obama's administration in his book Spygate: The Attempted Sabotage of Donald J. Trump.[13][14]
In December 2019, Bongino launched an alternative to the Drudge Report known as the Bongino Report.[15] Prior to the site's launch, he criticized Drudge for having "abandoned" Trump supporters.[16]
Political views[
In 2018, Bongino said of himself, "My entire life right now is about owning the libs. That's it."[17][5] He is a staunch supporter of President Donald Trump.[12]
Bongino has called the investigation of the alleged Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections a "total scam,"[18] and is a proponent of the Spygate conspiracy theory.[19] In May 2018, Bongino was quoted by Trump in a tweet, as Bongino attacked former CIA Director John O. Brennan. Bongino was quoted as saying Brennan "has disgraced the entire Intelligence Community. He is the one man who is largely responsible for the destruction of American's faith in the Intelligence Community and in some people at the top of the FBI."[20] Bongino was also quoted as alleging that Brennan was "worried about staying out of jail."[20]
In May 2018, after Republican Congressman Trey Gowdy and some conservative legal experts challenged Trump's claims that the FBI had spied on his 2016 presidential campaign, Bongino claimed Gowdy had been "fooled" by the Department of Justice.[21] In February 2019, Bongino accused Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein of attempting a coup against Trump.[22]
According to Mother Jones, Bongino is a member of Groundswell, a group of conservative activists working to advance conservative causes.[23]
In 2019, Bongino published Exonerated: The Failed Takedown of President Donald Trump by the Swamp. It was on *The New York Times* Best Seller list with an asterisk noting that thebook benefited from bulk sales.[24] In August 2020, Bongino denied that his book benefited from bulk sales, maintaining that the only event at which books were bought in bulk took place over a month after his book appeared on the list.[25]
Political campaigns[
2012 U.S. Senate election:{:(style="margin-right:0.25em"):}:[edit:{]}:
Main article: 2012 United States Senate election in Maryland
Bongino ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate in Maryland in 2012.[26] Former gubernatorial candidate Brian Murphy was his campaign chairman.[1] Bongino won the Republican primary on April 3, 2012, with 33.8 percent of the vote, defeating nine other candidates. He finished a distant second with 26.6% of the vote against incumbent Democrat Ben Cardin.[27]
2014 House of Representatives election:{:(style="margin-right:0.25em"):}:[edit:{]}:
Main article: 2014 United States House of Representatives elections in Maryland § District 6
Bongino ran for the U.S. House of Representatives seat from Maryland's 6th Congressional District in the 2014 election against incumbent Democrat John Delaney. Bongino lost to Delaney by two percentage points. While Bongino carried four of the district's five counties, he could not overcome a 20,500-vote deficit in the district's share of Montgomery County in the outer suburbs of Washington.[28]
2016 House of Representatives election[
Main article: 2016 United States House of Representatives elections in Florida § District 19
In an August 2016 interview with a Politico reporter, Bongino went on a profanity laced rant against the reporter, who asked about a story in the Naples Daily News that Bongino said was dishonest.[32] The recorded phone call was published by Politico.[33] He later explained that he was under stress due to his wife's illness and said that the reporter had goaded him.[34] Bongino placed third in the August 2016 primary, losing the nomination to Rooney.[35]:{After moving to Florida in 2015, Bongino contemplated running for the United States Senate and Florida's 18th c:(style="background-color:#ffff66ff"):}:ongressional district in 2016.[29][30] However, in June 2016, Bongino declared that he would seek the Republican nomination for Florida's 19th congressional district.[31] He faced Chauncey Goss, a Sanibel City Councilman who sought the seat in 2012, and Francis Rooney, a businessman and former United States Ambassador to the Holy See, in the primary.
Personal life[
Bongino was born in Queens, New York City.[5] Bongino graduated from Archbishop Molloy High School.[36] Bongino attended Queens College in the city, where he earned both a bachelor's and master's degree in psychology, and Pennsylvania State University, where he earned a Master of Business Administration.[37]
Bongino is married to Paula Andrea, née Martinez, who was born in Colombia. They have two daughters. In 2012, Bongino and his wife operated three businesses from their home, selling martial arts apparel, designing websites, and consulting on security and risk management.[38] While running for office in 2016, Bongino resisted talking about his business interests and said he and his wife had shut them down.[39]
Having lived in Severna Park, Maryland since 2002,[38] Bongino moved to Palm City, Florida in 2015.[40][39]
On September 23, 2020, Bongino announced that a seven-centimeter tumor had been found in his throat. Bongino added that he was unsure if the tumor was cancerous or benign, but would fly to New York on September 25 for further screening.[41]
Electoral history
...
https://www.businessinsider.com/sean-hannity-trump-crazy-vaping-**stelter**-fox-news-book-2020-8
no lnx
'If you were hearing what I'm hearing, you'd be vaping too': Sean Hannity privately called Trump 'bats--- crazy,' according to a new book
Jake Lahut Aug 20, 2020, 7:37 AM
A new book details private conversations the Fox News host Sean Hannity had with friends in which he expressed dismay at what he was hearing from President Donald Trump.
"Early on in the Trump age, Hannity gained weight and vaped incessantly, which some members of his inner circle blamed on Trump-related stress," Brian Stelter, CNN's chief media correspondent, wrote in "Hoax: Donald Trump, Fox News, and the Dangerous Distortion of Truth," set to be published next week.
The book — an excerpt of which was published by Vanity Fair on Thursday — says Hannity told a colleague, "If you were hearing what I'm hearing, you'd be vaping too."
"I barely get a word in," Hannity told another confidant of his conversations with Trump, Stelter wrote.
Seeking an escape from President Donald Trump's rambling monologues over the phone early in his presidency, the Fox News opinion host Sean Hannity turned to vaping and stress-eating, a new book from CNN's Brian Stelter says.
Stelter said he spoke with more than 140 staffers at Fox News and 180 former employees and people "with direct ties to the network" for the book.
The book focuses on Trump's relationship with Hannity — "the president's 'shadow chief of staff,' as he was known around the White House," Stelter wrote.
The access Hannity enjoyed also came with some downsides, Stelter's sources said.
"Hannity counseled Trump at all hours of the day; one of his confidants said the president treated Hannity like Melania, a wife in a sexless marriage," he wrote. "Arguably, he treated Hannity better than Melania."
For all his pro-Trump coverage on his 9 p.m. show, Hannity, the longest-serving Fox News anchor, privately griped about the president, the book says.
"'Hannity would tell you, off-off-off the record, that Trump is a bats--- crazy person,' one of his associates said," Stelter wrote, adding that another friend told him, "Hannity has said to me more than once, 'he's crazy.'"
Hannity also told a colleague that on his calls with Trump, "I barely get a word in," the book says.
Trump, who often live-tweets Fox News programming, would also chat with Hannity as a fan.
"Trump was just like the rest of Hannity's viewers: He wanted more of Gregg Jarrett on the show, more of Dan Bongino, more of Newt Gingrich—the toadiest toads possible," Stelter wrote.
===
https://www.alternet.org/2020/03/pence-secretly-meeting-with-right-wing-media-personalities-on-how-to-spin-trumps-virus-crisis-report/
no lnx
Pence secretly meeting with right-wing media personalities on how to spin Trump’s virus crisis: report
Written by Tom Boggioni / Raw Story March 17, 2020
As part of his duties overseeing the task force in charges of dealing with the coronavirus pandemic, Vice President Mike Pence has been holding secret meetings with prominent right-wing “influencers” on how to spin Donald Trump’s administration’s efforts to contain the growing health crisis.
According to a report from the Daily Beast, the outreach began at the annual CPAC conference long before the administration had any idea what they were dealing with, the report notes.
“The direct outreach occurred on Thursday, Feb. 27—the day after Trump tapped Pence to lead the task force. There, the vice president hosted an informal briefing on COVID-19 and the administration’s latest efforts, with several right-leaning personalities with large followings on Twitter and other social media platforms, according to a source with direct knowledge of the gathering,” the Beast reports, adding, “The following Wednesday, Pence hosted another closed-door meeting with conservative ‘influencers,’ with this one lasting for roughly an hour in the vice president’s office on White House grounds.”
Among those Vice President Pence has been reaching out to are “Fox New fixture and prolific MAGA tweeterDan Bongino; former Trump adviser and current “War Room: 2020” podcast host Jason Miller; Newsmax TV host and Trump’s former press secretary Sean Spicer; former White House official and Sinclair ‘must-run’ commentator Boris Epshteyn; Sinclair anchorand ex-Fox News host Eric Bolling; and former Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA), a Trump surrogate.”
The report notes that the outreach illustrates that White House knows it has a public relations problem of epic proportions on its hands and needs all Trump-supporting hands on deck, who are being used to praise the president while at the same time lashing out the media for their coverage of the administration’s failures.
“For weeks the Trump administration’s coronavirus task force has struggled to maintain continuity in messaging, with different departments seemingly operating off of different scripts and with different ideas about how to disseminate information to the public. Part of that tension is internal, with a White House and a president having been desperate to calm the markets at a time when state governments are calling for help amid rising death tolls,” the report continued. “Through it all, the vice president’s office, and communications teams on the task force, have tried to minimize the noise, calm Americans, and relentlessly lauded the president’s response to the outbreak in the U.S. The efforts to loop in conservative influencers has been seen as a way to maneuver beyond the regular briefings to the White House press corps and reach a different and more sympathetic media cohort. “
Defending the meetings, Pence chief of staff Marc Short described their efforts by stating, “The vice president has said that he wants to get as much information out to the American people as possible… There are a lot of different channels of communication. It’s not just press briefings every day, it’s not just TV interviews… There’s a whole lot of different streams of information. And one of those is surrogates.”
You can read more here.
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https://act.pfaw.org/go/81955?t=7&akid=13916%2E2556770%2ENLib3d
mma 1219
Fox's Dan Bongino appears in Trump campaign video despite purported network policy
12/10/19 3:16 PM EST
Loesch on School Shield: "This program works"
NRATV promoted a school “safety” program that the National Rifle Association allegedly used as “fundraising front”
12/10/19 3:28 PM EST
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Dan Bongino had a meltdown about Republicans who criticize Trump.
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AN 119
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What kind of reporting does the Fox News viewership receive through prime-time reporting and commentary? Consider the lessons viewers learned on Thursday, December 20, 2018, an extraordinary day of troubles for Trump’s presidency. Leading print and television journalists outside of Fox expressed shock that Trump suddenly announced plans to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria and quickly draw down half of U.S. troops in Afghanistan. They warned that an American exodus in Syria could benefit the Russians, Syrians, Iranians, and Turks at the expense of Kurds who fought bravely against ISIS. Military leaders and foreign policy experts blasted Trump’s decision as ill-advised and dangerous.
General Jim Mattis’s decision to resign as Secretary of Defense, also received abundant commentary on December 20. Mattis’s letter of resignation communicated strong disagreement with the direction of U.S. foreign policy. Mattis, in a clear rebuke of the president, noted that during his four decades of “immersion in the issues” he had learned the importance of treating allies with respect and “being clear-eyed about malign actors and strategic competitors.” Both American and international leaders were alarmed that the last general who seemed capable of taming the erratic president planned to leave his post.
On the home front, President Trump led congressional leaders to believe that a compromise was workable on temporarily funding the government. But Trump suddenly reversed his position, insisting there would be no settlement unless Congress provided $5 billion for a border wall. On December 20 the stock market tanked on this news and other developments. The next day Wall Street closed with its worst week since the financial crisis of 2008.
Mainstream journalists focused on the chaos associated with these developments. Several Republican leaders joined them in expressing concern, including Senators Lindsay Graham and Bob Corker. Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell backed compromises aimed at averting a shutdown, but Trump and his backers in the Freedom Caucus made compromise unworkable.
Fox News television viewers got almost no sense of this mounting crisis when watching prime-time programing on the night of December 20. Shows hosted by Martha MacCallum, Tucker Carlson, Dan Bongino (sitting in for Sean Hannity) and Laura Ingraham directed viewers’ attention to other matters. The programs focused on a subject that had already received extensive coverage on Fox in previous months and years: undocumented immigrants. Hosts and guests warned repeatedly that dangerous foreigners threatened to overrun American society.
Even though the real “news” on December 20 was about struggles in Congress to keep the government running, Fox’s prime-time programming highlighted stories about an immigrant invasion. Commentators asserted falsely that Democrats advocated “open borders.” They accentuated a report about a violent undocumented immigrant in California. In each program hosts and commentators left viewers with an impression that the big news of the day concerned security threats from aliens. Speakers praised President Trump for his determination to build a wall.
What other topics dominated the night’s discussions on Fox, essentially eclipsing any discussion of the big stories of the day about blow-back from the president’s controversial actions?
Martha MacCallum’s program featured a lengthy interview with Susan Collins. The senator from Maine talked at length about some extremist critics of Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court (individuals who harassed her in disgusting ways).
Tucker Carlson drew attention to the work of Robert Shibley, who maintained that America’s universities have been pushing aggressively against free speech. Carlson also took shots at a “Climate Tax” and made fun of claims about Russian interference. He maintained that China was the real threat.
Dan Bonginoand his guests blasted Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s defense of the “so-called Russia investigation.” Bongino praised a “terrific book” by Gregg Jarrett called The Russia Hoax: The Illicit Scheme to Clear Hillary Clinton and Frame Donald Trump.
[[https://www.politifact.com/punditfact/article/2018/aug/02/fact-checking-fox-news-analysts-pro-trump-book-rus/]
Laura Ingraham, like all the other prime-time hosts, devoted considerable time to immigration, but she encountered difficulty when a sheriff objected to some of her arguments. The officer acknowledged the difficulty of holding a violent undocumented man in California because of laws pertaining to sanctuary cities, but he noted that many immigrants in his community were good citizens and sought help from law enforcement when troubled by criminals. “That’s a lie!” Ingraham responded. She ended the interview quickly by mentioning “violence, rape, burglary, robbery and other offenses against property and people.”
A pattern in the reporting and commentary on Fox was evident in these four prime-time programs. By focusing on old news stories that had been red meat in right-oriented media commentary for years, there was little time left for an analysis of stunning developments in the previous 24-hours. General Mattis’s resignation letter hardly got a nod. The outcry by national and international leaders regarding President Trump’s plan to withdraw from Syria and Afghanistan received little or no attention. The impact of a government shutdown on the American economy and the American people was almost completely ignored. There was hardly a word about the stock markets’ plummet that day or the huge slide of recent weeks. Instead, viewers heard about scary threats from immigrants, Democrats, university administrators, and Chinese hackers. They were reminded often that President Trump fights tenaciously for ordinary Americans.
Much of the discussion did not reflect what used to be identified as mainstream Republican stands on economic and political affairs. Instead, viewers got an earful of analysis from individuals who spoke from the margins of political debates. Hosts and commentators seemed eager to please their most important viewer, the President of the United States. Most of them endorsed and celebrated Donald Trump’s statements and actions, despite their sharply controversial nature. Dan Bongino, substituting as host for Sean Hannity, provided an example of the slant by promoting his co-authored book, Spygate: The Attempted Sabotage of Donald J. Trump.
Endorsing controversial and often questionable ideas, has, of course, been evident in Fox’s broadcasting over many years. A decade and a half ago, the channel sounded a drumbeat for war in program after program, convincing many viewers that Saddam Hussein had been responsible for the 9/11 tragedy, threatened the world with WMDs, including nukes, and needed to be removed. On the same channel host Bill O’Reilly devoted considerable time to warning viewers about a “war on Christmas.” Anti-religious forces were trying to replace “Merry Christmas” with “Happy Holidays,” O’Reilly cautioned. During those years, Roger Ailes, then Chairman and CEO at Fox News, designed the channel’s modus operandi, applying a heavy-handed slant on the news.
Complaints about Donald Trump’s enthusiasts are often misplaced. Many citizens who are regular patrons of Fox News and other right-oriented programming want to be well-informed about current events. They take civic engagement seriously. Those listeners and viewers should be more discerning, of course, but they are not fully to blame for making judgments about national and international affairs that raise the eyebrows of Trump’s critics. Fox News, and other opinion sources on television and radio are primarily responsible for the base’s narrow and skewed viewpoints. Millions of Americans have turned to the Fox News Channel and other sources, seeking knowledge about current events. They have been let down by the manipulators of “news.”
Robert Brent Toplin has published several books about history, politics, and film. He is Professor Emeritus at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington
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NRATV host Dan Bongino used doctored Infowars video of Jim Acosta in White House press briefing
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"best advisors" he can get are Fox News pundits and commentators.
On Monday morning President Trump, just like his Sunday morning "meltdown," launched into a lengthy Twitter tirade.
He's tweeted seven times in an hour.
The last three tweets were a quote from one of the NRA's most aggressive TV talk show hosts, **Dan Bongino**a three-time loser in Republican races for Congress.
The crux of Bongino's conspiracy theory is that former CIA Director John Brennan is behind the Russia probe, based on the famous Russian dossier, which he falsely claims is "phony." In fact not a single aspect of the dossier has been proven false, and many portions have been proven true.
Trump clearly typed this tweet, given the absurd capitalizations.Bongino's rant, which the president tweeted out to his 52 million followers, is that Brennan "is the genesis of this whole Debacle. This was a Political hit job, this was not an Intelligence Investigation. Brennan has disgraced himself, he’s worried about staying out of Jail.”
Media Matters' Matthew Gertz noticed Bongino had just been on "Fox & Friends."
https://twitter.com/MattGertz/status/998540316079742979
And Fox News just posted the video so we can all play along: