Dan Bongino Admits to Lying During His Pundit Days; The Atlantic, December 8, 2025

David A. Graham , The Atlantic; Dan Bongino Admits to Lying During His Pundit Days

"The suspect, Brian Cole Jr., reportedly recently told investigators that he was a Donald Trump supporter who believed Trump’s bogus claims of fraud in the 2020 election. But various people in conservative media and politics have insisted for years that the pipe bombs were actually planned or placed by the government in order to make Trump look bad—which was why no one had been apprehended.

One of the most prominent backers of that claim was the podcaster and radio host Dan Bongino. Even the Fox News host Sean Hannity, one of the administration’s most sycophantic pundits, had to point this out during an interview on Thursday night, noting that before joining the FBI, Bongino had called the bombs an “inside job.” Bongino’s answer was astonishing.

“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. “I’m paid to be your deputy director, and we base investigations on facts.”"

The Ex-President Whom Trump Plans to Pardon Flooded America With Cocaine; The New York Times, November 29, 2025

Santul NerkarAnnie Correal and Colin Moynihan , The New York Times; The Ex-President Whom Trump Plans to Pardon Flooded America With Cocaine

[Kip Currier: For any wondering how and why this individual could or would be pardoned by Donald Trump right now, read the full New York Times article and especially the excerpts below...

Corruption, Conspiracy Theories, and Self-Projection.]

[Excerpt]

"He once boasted that he would “stuff the drugs up the gringos’ noses.” He accepted a $1 million bribe from El Chapo to allow cocaine shipments to pass through Honduras. A man was killed in prison to protect him.

At the federal trial of Juan Orlando Hernández in New York, testimony and evidence showed how the former president maintained Honduras as a bastion of the global drug trade. He orchestrated a vast trafficking conspiracy that prosecutors said raked in millions for cartels while keeping Honduras one of Central America’s poorest, most violent and most corrupt countries.

Last year, Mr. Hernández was convicted on drug trafficking and weapons charges and sentenced to 45 years in prison. It was one of the most sweeping drug-trafficking cases to come before a U.S. court since the trial of the Panamanian strongman Gen. Manuel Noriega three decades before.

But on Friday, President Trump announced that he would pardonMr. Hernandez, 57, who he said was a victim of political persecution, though Mr. Trump offered no evidence to support that claim. It would be a head-spinning resolution to a case that for prosecutors was a pinnacle, striking at the heart of a narcostate...

When he was sentenced in 2024, Mr. Hernández spoke for almost an hour in court, airing conspiracy theories and grievances as he portrayed himself as the victim of “political persecution.” In a lengthy letter, Mr. Hernández quoted Edmund Burke, Martin Luther King Jr. and the Bible...

For many Hondurans, his conviction was a rare taste of justice. A woman in a crowd outside the courthouse celebrating his punishment had held a sign that read “No clemency for narcopolitics.”

But on Saturday, Mr. Trump said in a statement to The New York Times that “many friends” had asked him to pardon Mr. Hernández: “They gave him 45 years because he was the President of the Country — you could do this to any President.”"

Doctor Critical of Vaccines Quietly Appointed as C.D.C.’s Second in Command; The New York Times, November 25, 2025

Apoorva Mandavilli, The New York Times; Doctor Critical of Vaccines Quietly Appointed as C.D.C.’s Second in Command

"Dr. Ralph Abraham, who as Louisiana’s surgeon general ordered the state health department to stop promoting vaccinations and who has called Covid vaccines “dangerous,” has been named the second in command at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The Department of Health and Human Services did not announce the appointment, and many C.D.C. employees seemed unaware of it. But the C.D.C.’s internal database lists Dr. Abraham as the agency’s principal deputy director, with a start date of Nov. 23. The appointment was first reported by the Substack column Inside Medicine."

CDC in turmoil after agency backpedals on debunking vaccines-autism link; The Washington Post, November 20, 2025

Lena H. Sun,  The Washington Post ; CDC in turmoil after agency backpedals on debunking vaccines-autism link

"The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has repudiated its past insistence that vaccines do not cause autism after decades of fighting misinformation linking the two, blindsiding career staff and delighting anti-vaccine activists.

The agency’s website on vaccines and autism, updated Wednesday, now makes several false claims about a connection, echoing longtime rhetoric from Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has a lengthy history of disparaging vaccines and linking them to autism.

Career scientists at the agency responsible for information about vaccine safety and autism had no prior knowledge about the changes to the website and were not consulted, according to five agency officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation."

Trump shares false claim Obama earned $40m in ‘royalties’ from Obamacare; The Guardian, November 9, 2025

Robert Mackey, The Guardian ; Trump shares false claim Obama earned $40m in ‘royalties’ from Obamacare

"Donald Trump promoted the false claim that Barack Obama has earned $40m in “royalties linked to Obamacare” in a post to his 11 million followers on Truth Social on Sunday.

The fictional claim that the former US president receives royalty payments for the use of his name to refer to the Affordable Care Act, which he signed into law in 2010, has been repeatedly debunked since at least 2017, when it was featured on America’s Last Line of Defense, a satirical website that produces fake news reports designed to generate engagement from outraged conservatives.

The updated version of the claim shared by Trump on Sunday fooled many of his supporters in February, when it was posted on Facebook by America’s Last Line of Defense, and on the Dunning-Kruger-Times, a satirical site run by the same man, Christopher Blair, the Maine-based “godfather of fake news”.

On Sunday morning, Trump posted a screenshot of an earlier post with an image of Obama and the text: “BREAKING: DOGE halted a yearly payment of $2.5 million to Barack Obama for ‘royalties linked to Obamacare.’ He’s been collecting it since 2010, for a total of $40 million in taxpayer dollars.”"

How RFK Jr. Mastered Fake Science—and Screwed Us in the Process; The Bulwark, August 10, 2025

JONATHAN COHN , The Bulwark; How RFK Jr. Mastered Fake Science—and Screwed Us in the Process

"The year is 2035 and the world is dealing with another pandemic, only this time it’s even worse. A bird flu strain has made the leap that scientists have long feared, evolving into a virus that spreads as quickly as COVID-19 but kills at a much higher rate. Businesses and schools have shut down. Economies have crashed. The infected are overwhelming hospitals.

In a virtual press conference, officials announce that there is hope, because the same kind of vaccine that got us through COVID will work this time as well. The catch is that it will take a few more months to develop and produce. And the death toll, already in the millions for the United States alone, is rising fast.

A reporter on the zoom call asks: Why will it take so long? Well, the officials explain, we had a chance about a decade ago to prepare for this by creating a ready-to-deploy vaccine platform that would have shaved months from the process. But our predecessors who were in charge back then killed the funding. So we don’t have that head start.

EVERYTHING ABOUT THE ABOVE SCENARIO is hypothetical—except the final part about the funding. That part happened last week.

On Tuesday, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced that the Trump administration was canceling about half a billion dollars of federal contracts with companies and institutions that have been working to develop the next generation of mRNA vaccines.

MRNA stands for messenger RNA, the naturally occurring genetic material that cells use as their guide for making proteins. Vaccines with mRNA have a synthetic version of the material, with “coding” instructing cells to manufacture proteins that are part of viruses or other hostile elements, so that the body’s immune system can learn to recognize and fight them."

Zuckerberg fired the fact-checkers. We tested their replacement.; The Washington Post, August 4, 2025

 Geoffrey A. Fowler, The Washington Post; Zuckerberg fired the fact-checkers. We tested their replacement

"Zuckerberg fired professional fact-checkers, leaving users to fight falsehoods with community notes. As the main line of defense against hoaxes and deliberate liars exploiting our attention, community notes appear — so far — nowhere near up to the task."

Trump Attacks ‘Past’ Supporters Upset Over Epstein Case; The New York Times, July 16, 2025

Erica L. Green, The New York Times; Trump Attacks ‘Past’ Supporters Upset Over Epstein Case

 "In a blistering social media post Wednesday morning, President Trump took aim at his supporters who are upset with the administration’s handling of files related to the investigation of Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex offender whose connections to wealthy figures have been a subject of intense interest among vocal portions of his base.

Mr. Trump distanced himself from those who have criticized him, calling them “PAST supporters” who had “bought into this ‘bullshit,’ hook, line, and sinker.”

Mr. Trump also claimed that outrage over the Justice Department’s decision to not release additional information and close the investigation was just the latest “scam” cooked up by Democrats.

“Let these weaklings continue forward and do the Democrats work,” he wrote, “don’t even think about talking of our incredible and unprecedented success, because I don’t want their support anymore!”"

Far-right conspiracy theories spread online in aftermath of the Texas floods; The Guardian, July 9, 2025

Ben Makuch, The Guardian; Far-right conspiracy theories spread online in aftermath of the Texas floods

"Disasters and tragedies have long been the source of American conspiracy theories, old and new. So when devastating flash floods hit Texas over the Fourth of July weekend, and as the death toll continues to rise, far-right conspiracists online saw their opportunity to come out in full force, blurring the lines of what’s true and untrue.

Some people, emerging from the same vectors associated with the longstanding QAnon conspiracy theory, which essentially holds that a shadowy “deep state” is acting against President Donald Trump, spread on X that the devastating weather was being controlled by the government."

Kennedy Withdraws U.S. Funding Pledge to International Vaccine Agency; The New York Times, June 25, 2025

Stephanie Nolen , The New York Times; Kennedy Withdraws U.S. Funding Pledge to International Vaccine Agency

"The U.S. health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has moved to undermine public immunization programs in the United States, took his efforts global on Wednesday, accusing the leading international vaccine organization of having “ignored the science” in immunizing children around the world.

In confrontational remarks sent by video to global leaders who had gathered to support the organization, Gavi, Mr. Kennedy said the United States would withdraw its financial support for the group’s work purchasing vaccines for children in poor countries...

In the video, which was played in the last minutes of the summit, Mr. Kennedy accused Gavi’s leaders of being selective in their use of science to support vaccine choices, and said that the United States would not deliver on a $1.2 billion pledge made by the Biden administration until the organization changed its processes...

In a statement, Gavi’s leaders rejected the suggestion that its vaccine purchases were driven by anything other than the best available evidence.

“Any decision made by Gavi with regards to its vaccine portfolio is made in alignment with recommendations by the World Health Organization’s Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization (SAGE), a group of independent experts that reviews all available data through a rigorous, transparent and independent process,” Gavi’s statement said. “This ensures Gavi investments are grounded in the best available science and public health priorities.”

Dr. Atul Gawande, a surgeon who led global health work in the Biden administration, called Mr. Kennedy’s remarks “stunning and calamitous.”"

How the right spread ‘brutal and cruel’ misinformation after Minnesota lawmaker killings; The Guardian, June 17, 2025

Rachel Leingang and Joseph Gedeon, The Guardian; How the right spread ‘brutal and cruel’ misinformation after Minnesota lawmaker killings

[Kip Currier: The money quote from this Guardian article: 

"Lee didn’t say much, according to Smith, and seemed surprised to be confronted."

 Bullies often are surprised when people stand up to them and call them out.]

[Excerpt]

"Tina Smith, a Minnesota senator confronted Mike Lee, a Utah senator, on Monday to tell him directly that his social media posts fueled ongoing misinformation about a shooting that killed her friend.

Lee’s posts, which advanced conspiracies that a Minnesota assassin was a “Marxist” and blamed the state’s governor for Melissa Hortman’s death, were among many threads of false or speculative claims swirling online after the killings.

Smith told Lee his posts were “brutal and cruel,” according to CNN. “He should think about the implications of what he’s saying and doing. It just further fuels this hatred and misinformation,” she said. She wanted him to hear from her directly how painful it was to see his words after the brutality her state endured. Lee didn’t say much, according to Smith, and seemed surprised to be confronted...

Elon Musk, a frequent poster of unverified rightwing claims, amplified the narrative to his 200 million followers, quote-tweeting claims that “the left” killed Hortman and saying “the far left is murderously violent”...

Boelter’s own recorded sermons expose his extremist views. Preaching in Congo in 2023, he is recorded as saying: “The churches are so messed up, they don’t know abortion is wrong.” He ranted against LGBTQ people as “confused,” claiming “the enemy has gotten so far into their mind and their soul”. His alleged hit list included abortion providers and pro-choice advocates."

RFK Jr. Conducts His Vaccine Purge: His claims about conflicts of interest proved to be nothing.; Wall Street Journal, June 10, 2025

The Editorial Board , Wall Street Journal; RFK Jr. Conducts His Vaccine Purge: His claims about conflicts of interest proved to be nothing.

"We’d like to conclude we were wrong to oppose Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to run the Health and Human Services Department, but alas, no. The latest evidence is his purge of a vaccine advisory panel."

Trans Black Hawk pilot wrongly named in crash rumors wants people to stop sharing fake news; Mississippi Clarion Ledger, January 31, 2025

Bonnie Bolden,Mississippi Clarion Ledger; Trans Black Hawk pilot wrongly named in crash rumors wants people to stop sharing fake news

[Kip Currier: Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness Against Thy Neighbor.

Call out the people and social media sites that knowingly spread falsehoods and harmful statements.]

[Excerpt]

"UPDATE: A video and additional statement from Jo Ellis have been added since the article was originally published.

A trans woman who has been wrongly named as one of the pilots in a deadly mid-air collision between a helicopter and plane in Washington, D.C., is asking people to help stop the spread of the fake news online. The crash killed 67 people, including U.S. Army members and some families tied to the figure skating community.

"Some craziness has happened on the internet and I’m being named as one of the pilots of the DC crash," posted Jo Ellis, a Chief Warrant Officer 2 (CW2) – UH60 Black Hawk Pilot in the Virginia National Guard...

She took to Facebook on Friday morning, asking for help stopping the spread of the wrong information, including uploading a proof of life video and issuing a statement.

She said neither she nor the families of the crash victims deserve to be tied to this tragedy for a political agenda, calling the move "insulting."...

Trump cites FAA DEI efforts as factor in crash with no evidence

On Thursday, President Donald Trump said the crash "could have been" the fault of Biden- and Obama-era hiring practices focused on diversity, equity and inclusion.

“Hearing, vision, missing extremities, partial paralysis, complete paralysis, epilepsy, severe intellectual disability, psychiatric disability and dwarfism – all qualify for the position of a controller of airplanes pouring into our country," he said, specifically talking about the Federal Aviation Administration's criteria to hire air traffic controllers."

Disinformation Transformed Miami Politics. This Radio Station Is One Reason Why.; Politico, November 29, 2024

ALI BIANCO , Politico; Disinformation Transformed Miami Politics. This Radio Station Is One Reason Why

"If you’re from Miami, Radio Mambí’s celebratory vibe is no surprise. This is, after all, the radio station that has been a touchstone for Miami’s Cuban exiliados, or exiles, since they arrived. It’s the radio station that made Miami Cuban politics. But since the 2016 election, it’s morphed into a hotbed of misinformation — one that impacted the 2024 presidential election...

If you tuned in to Radio Mambí 710 AM in 2020, you might have heard a caller questioning the results in Georgia and Pennsylvania, demanding recounts or denouncing the election as a fraud. In 2021, you might have heard the hosts repeat claims that Black Lives Matter and Antifa members were behind the riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6 — and you definitely would have heard claims that President Joe Biden was a socialist. In 2024, listeners tuning in heard callers and hosts calling Vice President Kamala Harris a Marxist extremist, sharing concerns about the “humanitarian crisis” in Springfield, Ohio, or spreading theories about voters being registered without proof of citizenship — with the hosts rarely stepping in to correct the record.

You’d never guess that Mambí, the focus of a national controversy about disinformation in Latino communities, is now owned by Democrats."

‘We live in a climate of fear’: graphic novelist’s Elon Musk book can’t find UK or US publisher; The Guardian, November 23, 2024

David Barnett , The Guardian; ‘We live in a climate of fear’: graphic novelist’s Elon Musk book can’t find UK or US publisher

"A biography by a British graphic novelist of Elon Musk is struggling to find an English-language publisher due to feared “legal consequences”.

Elon Musk: Investigation into a New Master of the World is the latest graphic novel by Darryl Cunningham, from West Yorkshire. Cunningham, 64, has written and illustrated seven nonfiction books on topics ranging from the 2008 global economic meltdown (Supercrash), to Russian leader Vladimir Putin (subtitled The Rise of a Dictator)...

“Delcourt had lawyers go over every single word and picture to make sure there were no problems. I didn’t use any information that hadn’t been published elsewhere, much of it from the book by Musk’s own mother, Maye.

“But it looks like we live in a climate of fear where the worst people have immense power, and because of this there’s a tendency for the individuals, institutions, businesses and the state to run for cover.”

Cunningham praised Delcourt, who also put out the French edition of his book on Putin, for “having the courage” to publish the book...

Cunningham said: “Knowing what I know about the man, my conclusion is that it’s incredible that such a mediocre figure can amass such wealth, but it was ever thus.”"

Satire publication The Onion buys Alex Jones' Infowars at auction with Sandy Hook families' backing; AP, November 14, 2024

Dave Collins | AP; Satire publication The Onion buys Alex Jones' Infowars at auction with Sandy Hook families' backing

"The satirical news publication The Onion won the bidding for Alex Jones’ Infowars at a bankruptcy auction, backed by families of Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims whom Jones owes more than $1 billion in defamation judgments for calling the massacre a hoax.

“The dissolution of Alex Jones’ assets and the death of Infowars is the justice we have long awaited and fought for,” Robbie Parker, whose daughter Emilie was killed in the 2012 shooting in Connecticut, said in a statement Thursday provided by his lawyers.

The Onion acquired the conspiracy theory platform’s website; social media accounts; studio in Austin, Texas; trademarks; and video archive for an undisclosed sales price. The purchase gives a satirical outlet — which carries the banner of “America’s Finest News Source” on its masthead — control over a brand that has long peddled misinformation and conspiracy."

‘Chaos and confusion’: Microsoft braces for foreign election interference in days ahead; Politico, November 4, 2024

STEVEN OVERLY, Politico;  ‘Chaos and confusion’: Microsoft braces for foreign election interference in days ahead

"“I do think people should expect that the noise levels — the sort of chaos and confusion — will continue through Election Day and then most certainly in the days after,” Ginny Badanes, the general manager of Microsoft’s Democracy Forward program, told the POLITICO Tech podcast.

In recent months, Russian disinformation campaigns designed to disparage Vice President Kamala Harris have experimented with artificial intelligence to create or enhance fake content. And Iranian hackers have successfully infiltrated former President Donald Trump’s campaign.

Microsoft’s election defense efforts focus on these foreign adversaries because they “have the funding to be persistent over time” and are willing to “pick up on whatever narratives are working, regardless of the source,” Badanes said.

But many of the rumors and conspiracy theories that emerge in the days ahead are expected to originate from American political groups. Trump and his allies have preemptively churned up claims about voter fraud in swing states like Pennsylvania.

Since 2020, attempts by tech companies and academic researchers to crack down on American-made disinformation have drawn accusations of censorship from Republicans. And some tech firms, chiefly Elon Musk-owned X (formerly known as Twitter), have pulled back on their efforts to police political content this election cycle.

For its part, Microsoft has tried to carve out a different lane. “What you’ll find is we’ve been more vocal about what we’ve seen this cycle than any year before,” Badanes said. “We feel like the American public deserves more information, not less.” Listen to the full interview."

Disinformation Watchdogs Are Under Pressure. This Group Refuses to Stop.; The New York Times, November 1, 2024

Steven Lee Myers and Stuart A. Thompson, The New York Times; Disinformation Watchdogs Are Under Pressure. This Group Refuses to Stop

"Inside two small, windowless conference rooms on the campus of the University of Washington in Seattle, a group of students and researchers is prowling the internet to track the rumors and conspiracy theories eroding faith in this year’s presidential election...

“We can’t possibly track them all down,” Kate Starbird, a founder of the university’s Center for an Informed Public, said of the rumors, which began with a steady drip in recent weeks and have now turned into a torrent.

Four years ago, the center’s researchers were part of a larger coalition formed to debunk claims by President Donald J. Trump and others that the 2020 election was rigged. At its peak in the weeks around that vote, the effort had 120 analysts working around the clock to monitor disinformation.

In the last two years, however, that work came under a concerted political and legal attack from conservatives who portrayed it as a secret scheme to censor critics.

Called the Election Integrity Partnership, the coalition has since collapsed under the weight of that attack, smothered by civil lawsuits, Congressional subpoenas and records requests that have been time consuming and costly.

But the Center for an Informed Public has persevered, adapting to more limited resources, even as disinformation about the country’s electoral process has become more pernicious than ever."