There's a maxim in the entertainment business: beat it to death if it succeeds. And no one can beat something to death quite like InfoWars.com flimflam artist Alex Jones who continues to market the conspiracy theory that the Boston Marathon Bombing was faked. Indeed, every mass ...read more
Kevin Edson, who refers to himself as Kayvon, made the news Tuesday. Barefoot, wearing makeup and a black veil and armed with a backpack containing a rice cooker filled with confetti, the 25-year-old self-described performance artist and fashion designer from Wakefield, Mass., ...read more
My favorite thing of the day comes courtesy of a friend of mine who, through what I'd imagine is a little bit of amusing skulduggery, gained a window into the barely functional brain of InfoWars "reporter" Dan Bidondi. You'll remember Bidondi as the doughy doofus who ...read more
Let's take a ride down the conspiracy theory rabbit hole, shall we? Shortly after the Boston Marathon bombings when an InfoWars stooge crashed several law enforcement press conferences, I was speaking with The Daily Banter founder Ben Cohen about Alex Jones. We were joking about ...read more
Fox News Channel amplified its crusade against the president yesterday, implying that the same administration that killed Bin Laden and much of al-Qaida's leadership, and the same administration that boasts a considerable record of killing terrorist operatives with targeted ...read more
I managed to make it through a 1,300 word column on Alex Jones yesterday without giving myself the kind of excruciating migraine that usually leads me to spend hours hovering near the sink out of fear that I'll need to throw up into it at some point. Jones has that kind of ...read more
Let me begin by stating that I do not believe there is an equivalency between conspiracy nut Alex Jones and civil libertarian Glenn Greenwald. Jones peddles loony theories on government plots to destroy freedom that include 9/11, the moon landing, and now the Boston Marathon ...read more
By Paul R. Pillar The seemingly scripted national response to the Boston Marathon bombing continues. Over the past few days that response has included expressions of patriotism and community spirit that have included ovations for law enforcement officers and special observances ...read more
I'm old enough to remember when country singer Natalie Maines said during a Dixie Chicks concert, "We're ashamed that the President of the United States is from Texas." She wasn't broadcasting a political demand for impeachment or a half-baked conspiracy theory to anyone outside ...read more
BuzzFeed, 'The Next Big Thing' in journalism has a very clear business model: Do anything to get clicks, regardless of how fucking stupid it is. This isn't to say that the viral site is without merit - BuzzFeed is certainly very clickable and quite fun to read (the french ...read more
By Coleen Rowley I almost choked on my coffee listening to neoconservative Rudy Giuliani pompously claim on national TV that he was surprised about any Chechens being responsible for the Boston Marathon bombings because he’s never seen any indication that Chechen extremists ...read more
Welcome to this week's edition of The Daily Banter Mailbag! Today, Bob, Ben and Chez discuss the Boston marathon bombing suspects, filibuster reform, and the indestructible status of CNN's John King. The questions: 1) Wow. I guess we could've seen the religion of the Boston ...read more
If Dzhokhar Tsarnaev had somehow managed to evade capture and had traveled to a gun show in, say, neighboring Vermont, New Hampshire or Maine, he would've been able to easily purchase one or more military-style assault weapons without a background check thanks in part to the ...read more
UPDATE: The line from TPM: A 19-year-old college student wanted in the Boston Marathon bombings was taken into custody Friday evening after a manhunt that left the city virtually paralyzed and his older brother and accomplice dead. Police announced via Twitter that Dzhokhar ...read more
Apparently FBI's Suspect No. 1 in the terror bombing of the Boston Marathon, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, was a former amateur boxing champion. The 26-year-old man killed on Friday morning by police in Watertown, Mass. after a prolonged shoot out. Professional boxer Edwin Rodriguez ...read more
Ruslan Tsarni, of Montgomery Village, Md. spoke to the press telling them that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has brought shame to the family. "Dzhokhar, if you are alive, turn yourself in and ask for forgiveness," he said. Watch below: ...read more
UPDATE 3: Buzzfeed has found Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's actual twitter account. Some screenshots from the google cached version: Two days after the bombing: And one day after the bombing: UPDATE 2: From the Guardian: An uncle of the suspects, Ruslan Tsarni, has given a TV ...read more
Here's your quote of the day and you should read it a couple of times so that it's seared into your memory: "Just because Jon Stewart makes fun of it doesn’t mean he’s right." That's CNN Worldwide President Jeff Zucker, at a meeting of the Atlanta Press Club earlier this week. ...read more
There is a lot of misinformation swirling around the internet regarding the bombing of the Boston Marathon, and the tragedy is being used by people from all ends of the political spectrum to project their own particular agenda. If you have a theory regarding who was responsible ...read more
It's a shame that Alex Jones and his jittery cuckoo's nest of schizophrenic dittoheads are so tightly wedged up their own asses. Their paranoid self-fulfilling prophecies of nefarious "false flag" government conspiracies involving the mass murder of its own people entirely ...read more
On the morning of September 11th, 2001, as the unimaginably horrific sight of bodies raining down from the upper floors of the World Trade Center was being beamed out across the country and around the world, my grandmother sat on the couch in my parents' living room taking it ...read more
Three seconds after the bombing of the Boston marathon, and Glenn Beck took to the airwaves to talk about the need to buy gold. And it's definitely not that Goldline, the sponsors of his 'network' TheBlaze had anything to do with it (h/t Buzzfeed). "The only thing I have to ...read more
It is very important that facts rule a response to the atrocious bombing of Boston Marathon runners yesterday. As conspiracy theorists attempt to insert their own prejudice and hate into the equation, responsible news outlets and publications must do their best to provide the ...read more
In the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombing, as with any national tragedy, we're generally supposed to embrace our better angels and proclaim the requisite "We're All Americans Now" sentiment, but today I simply can't do it. Not after what I witnessed online yesterday. ...read more
I always feared this day because I always feared being proven right. A couple of times since the election of Barack Obama and the consequent collective freak-out of the American Right -- a freak-out so mind-boggling and profound that the extent and potency of its shockwaves ...read more
