The Banter Long Read: CPAC is the yearly gathering of the right wing's loudest and nastiest elements. It's the weekend when the media gets a good look at the true face of conservatism and immediately develops amnesia by Monday morning. But while CPAC is always filled with the ...read more
I came across Vox's "How conservatives want to break Bernie Sanders’s spell over young Americans" and expected something resembling a plan with actual thought put into it. Instead, I got this: Rep. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) said in a panel discussion that if millennials saw that ...read more
I've managed to go the length of my time here at the Banter, and as an internet writer in general, without mentioning the name Milo Yiannopoulos other than once in the context of a larger piece about Donald Trump's relationship with Twitter. This was by design, because it always ...read more
Happy Monday, Banterers, and welcome to this week's Members Only column, in which you will learn, for better or worse, what it's like to cover the president's departure from the White House on Marine One, plus go behind the scenes of a Thom Hartmann The Big Picture Rumble ...read more
Sadly, the 2015 Conservative Political Action Conference is over. And while none of the speakers used Super Big Gulps as props this year, the level of stupid reached all new depths. One speaker after another proved that far-right conservatives are more interested in thoughtless ...read more
The Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) began in earnest on Wednesday, so get ready for the usual conga-line of YouTube videos featuring various guest speakers saying obnoxious things. It's an annual tradition: members of Congress as well as characters from the ...read more
A couple of weeks ago the men's rights group, A Voice for Men, held its first International Conference on Men's Issues, which is a thing, in St. Clair Shores, Michigan. If you're unfamiliar with Men's Rights Activists (MRAs), all you need to know is that they are men who blame ...read more
Sarah Palin was the closing night speaker at this year's Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), and her speech was just as awful as we've come to expect: an incoherent syllabus of bullet points, bumper stickers and word salads. It was an epic clown show -- a ...read more
It's Monday and here we are again. Hope you survived the weekend; some of us barely held on. Here are a few internet goodies to keep you occupied this morning. 1. The mysterious case of a missing Malaysia Airlines jet is very likely going to end exactly how you'd expect, but ...read more
Bill O'Reilly has not shied away from calling Congresswoman Michele Bachmann out when he sees fit. This week he was at it again after her CPAC speech in which she bashed the Obama White House for the president's lavish lifestyle (the gardiner walks the dog!). If you missed this, ...read more
Andrew Breitbart, the conservative blogger whose posting of a sexually explicit photo of former U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner led to the congressman's downfall, has died, his attorney confirmed Thursday. He was 43. Joel Pollak, editor-in-chief and in-house counsel for Breitbart's ...read more
They of course find a receptive audience. (via) Their mission statement: We have the self-evident right and duty to work for the survival of our own culture and civilization. There is no reason to believe that the advances of modernity and the political freedoms we enjoy will ...read more
Watching this gang of kooks beat up on each other is really fun. Following in the footsteps of right-wing pundit Frank Gaffney, David Horowitz is accusing CPAC of having connections to radical Islam. Horowitz spoke at a CPAC panel in 2009, where he was introduced by notorious ...read more
The retort, of course, is the same that was used with Goldwater when his supporters used this slogan: "In your gut, you know she's nuts." (via) ...read more
Conservatives once again show gays that they would rather they not be a part of their movement, as Media Research Center and the Heritage Foundation boycott CPAC because the group GOProud will be participating. The tent over there is only for straight (or closeted at least) ...read more
