Salon.com > Alex Jones http://www.salon.com Fri, 03 May 2013 03:47:40 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 Alex Jones: Conspiracy Inc. http://www.salon.com/2013/05/02/alex_jones_conspiracy_inc/ http://www.salon.com/2013/05/02/alex_jones_conspiracy_inc/#comments Thu, 02 May 2013 11:45:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13287148 It’s good to be Alex Jones. Matt Drudge, the conservative Web entrepreneur and news aggregator, proved prophetic when he predicted that 2013 would be “the year of Alex Jones.” The longtime conspiracy broadcaster is finally breaking into the mainstream consciousness after a buzzy interview with Piers Morgan and his Boston bombing conspiracy, and traffic to his websites has never been higher. The conspiracy business is booming.

And make no mistake, it is a business. That’s not to say that Jones isn’t a believer -- there are easier ways to make money -- but Jones has built a multi-platform new media empire in his Austin, Texas, Free Speech Systems LLC that reaches millions of believers and promises advertisers that it will “direct lucrative buyers to you from our daily audience of active enthusiasts.” And all told, Jones is very likely raking in millions.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/05/02/alex_jones_conspiracy_inc/feed/ 130 Alex Jones takes break from Boston Marathon bombing conspiracies to go on transphobic rant http://www.salon.com/2013/05/01/alex_jones_takes_break_from_boston_marathon_bombing_conspiracies_to_go_on_transphobic_rant/ http://www.salon.com/2013/05/01/alex_jones_takes_break_from_boston_marathon_bombing_conspiracies_to_go_on_transphobic_rant/#comments Wed, 01 May 2013 21:13:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13287101 Alex Jones took a break on Tuesday from the exhausting work of spouting conspiracy theories about  the Boston Marathon bombing (among other favored topics) to launch into a transphobic rant.

Jones blasted the "globalist mafia" behind recent LGBT anti-discrimination measures, and called transgender rights "fake rights." He went on to preemptively defend himself against allegations of transphobia by clarifying: " It's not that I'm against people that think they're a woman or a man or whatever."

More from Jones:

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/05/01/alex_jones_takes_break_from_boston_marathon_bombing_conspiracies_to_go_on_transphobic_rant/feed/ 24 Glenn Beck is back http://www.salon.com/2013/04/26/glenn_beck_is_back/ http://www.salon.com/2013/04/26/glenn_beck_is_back/#comments Fri, 26 Apr 2013 14:35:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13282730 "I've missed you so much," Jon Stewart whispered longingly at an image of Glenn Beck on Wednesday night's "Daily Show," before kissing his fingers and then pressing them against the virtual cheeks of Beck's floating head in the video box over his right shoulder.

You thought the conservative broadcaster had been banished to the Siberia that is the Internet since he left Fox News in June of 2011, but thanks to some signature conspiracy theorizing in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombing, Beck is back, baby. Just look at this Google Trends chart for searches of his name beginning the month after he left Fox:

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/04/26/glenn_beck_is_back/feed/ 32 N.H. lawmaker endorses “false flag” conspiracy theory http://www.salon.com/2013/04/24/nh_lawmaker_endorses_false_flag_conspiracy_theory/ http://www.salon.com/2013/04/24/nh_lawmaker_endorses_false_flag_conspiracy_theory/#comments Wed, 24 Apr 2013 01:37:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13280403 New Hampshire Republican state Rep. Stella Tremblay posted a video from conspiracy theorist Alex Jones on Glenn Beck's Facebook page Friday laying out Jones' theory that the Boston Marathon bombing was executed by the government. "The Boston Marathon was a Black Ops 'terrorist' attack. One suspect killed, the other one will be too before they even have a chance to speak," she wrote. "Infowars broke the story and they knew they had been 'found out.'"

“There's just too many things going on that, to me, doesn't make any sense,” Tremblay told the local Fosters' Daily Democrat, explaining other parts of a theory that is all too familiar a little over a week after the bombings.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/04/24/nh_lawmaker_endorses_false_flag_conspiracy_theory/feed/ 17 Tamerlan Tsarnaev was an Alex Jones fan http://www.salon.com/2013/04/23/tamerlan_tsarnaev_was_an_alex_jones_fan/ http://www.salon.com/2013/04/23/tamerlan_tsarnaev_was_an_alex_jones_fan/#comments Tue, 23 Apr 2013 21:08:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13280136 In a bizarre twist befitting a Hollywood conspiracy theory movie, the AP reports today that Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev was influenced by conspiracy theories, including Alex Jones' website Infowars, which has been pushing a narrative that the Tsarnaev brothers were patsies set up by a government cabal to take the fall for the bombing.

Tamerlan "took an interest in Infowars," according to Elmirza Khozhugov, the ex-husband of Tamerlan's sister. He was also apparently interested in anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and was trying to find a copy of "The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion," one of the most notorious conspiracy tomes of history.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/04/23/tamerlan_tsarnaev_was_an_alex_jones_fan/feed/ 123 Biggest myths from the Boston Marathon bombing http://www.salon.com/2013/04/22/biggest_myths_from_the_boston_marathon_bombing/ http://www.salon.com/2013/04/22/biggest_myths_from_the_boston_marathon_bombing/#comments Mon, 22 Apr 2013 22:07:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13278878 The still-emerging facts of the Boston Marathon bombing case are harrowing enough, but that didn't stop conspiracy theorists, detective-wannabes on the Internet and too-quick-to-the-draw cable news outlets from circulating paranoid, intentionally misleading and otherwise inaccurate reports to feed a frenzied news cycle hungry for information -- accuracy be damned.

From Glenn Beck to John King, a roundup of the very worst coverage on the tragedy in Boston:

Alex Jones and the "false flag" conspiracy 

As Salon's Alex Seitz-Wald previously reported, Alex Jones and others on the conservative fringe wasted no time in launching paranoid theories pinning the Boston tragedy to an elaborate government plot:

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/04/22/biggest_myths_from_the_boston_marathon_bombing/feed/ 41 Worst reactions during the Boston manhunt http://www.salon.com/2013/04/19/worst_reactions_during_the_boston_manhunt/ http://www.salon.com/2013/04/19/worst_reactions_during_the_boston_manhunt/#comments Fri, 19 Apr 2013 21:05:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13276215 Some pundits made it about immigration and gun control, others about Bill Ayers: Here are some of the more dubious responses to the ongoing manhunt in Boston for the bombing suspects.

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Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones also weighed in, as Salon's Alex Seitz-Wald reported, saying that  “These guys kind of look like Israelis. I’m not saying Israel is involved in it, we don’t have any evidence of that. It’s just that they kind of look Israeli."

And then of course there was the misidentification made by Reddit and other "Internet detectives," as Salon's Alex Pareene put it, who "made one last totally shameful false accusation that also in this case involved the harassment of a family currently desperately searching for their lost son and brother."

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/04/19/worst_reactions_during_the_boston_manhunt/feed/ 52 Alex Jones is phoning it in http://www.salon.com/2013/04/19/alex_jones_is_phoning_it_in/ http://www.salon.com/2013/04/19/alex_jones_is_phoning_it_in/#comments Fri, 19 Apr 2013 20:00:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13275823 Alex Jones must be either getting lazy or think his readers are really dumb, because his grand theory about the Boston Marathon bombings is the sloppiest concocted narrative we've seen since that dog ate your homework.

Of course, Jones and his comrades at InfoWars thinks the brothers suspected in the bombing are innocent, citing such reliable sources as Twitter user "Trippin No L’ 4/20."

But if the brothers Tsarnaev didn't do it, who did? Jones laid out his unified theory of the event yesterday in a video promising "PROOF!" that the event was "staged" and an accompanying blog post.

The basic outline is the same as all of his projects: A globalist cabal working through the U.S. government staged a "false flag" operation that will be blamed on terrorists as pretext to take away guns and civil liberties and eventually tyranny. Eventually, they will depopulate the entire planet through massive genocides.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/04/19/alex_jones_is_phoning_it_in/feed/ 124 Alex Jones: Suspects “look Israeli” http://www.salon.com/2013/04/19/alex_jones_on_chechen_suspects_these_guys_kind_of_look_like_israelis/ http://www.salon.com/2013/04/19/alex_jones_on_chechen_suspects_these_guys_kind_of_look_like_israelis/#comments Fri, 19 Apr 2013 14:30:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13276239 In a video posted early this morning laying out a baroque narrative we can't make heads or tails of, conspiracy broadcaster Alex Jones came dangerously close to espousing a Jewish conspiracy theory, speculating that the two suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing might be Israelis.

Claiming that he had identified the suspect who remains at large, Jones boasted, "the media doesn't even have this yet. The FBI will probably give it to them in a day." In fact, the AP and cable news networks identified the two suspects just two or three hours later as Chechen brothers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

But despite supposedly knowing the ID of the suspect, Jones wasn't above speculating about their nationality. "These guys kind of look like Israelis. I'm not saying Israel is involved in it, we don't have any evidence of that. It's just that they kind of look Israeli," he said while pointing to an image of the suspects on a computer screen. He added that they could be "North African" or "Spanish-Muslims." He did not speculate they were Chechens.

He also called MIT, where the suspects reportedly killed a police officer, "mind control central."

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/04/19/alex_jones_on_chechen_suspects_these_guys_kind_of_look_like_israelis/feed/ 39 Massachusetts governor fields question from “false-flag” conspiracist http://www.salon.com/2013/04/16/massachusetts_governor_fields_question_from_false_flag_conspiracist/ http://www.salon.com/2013/04/16/massachusetts_governor_fields_question_from_false_flag_conspiracist/#comments Tue, 16 Apr 2013 01:39:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13272018 On Monday afternoon, media entity and professional truther Alex Jones postulated that the Boston Marathon bombings were part of an elaborate government conspiracy to trample our personal freedoms. Within hours, he'd found a new disciple to preach his gospel, a conspiracist who kicked off Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick's 9:00 PM press conference with this gem: "Is this another false flag attack staged attack to take our civil liberties?"

Watch Patrick's withering response below:

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/04/16/massachusetts_governor_fields_question_from_false_flag_conspiracist/feed/ 38 After Boston explosions, a scapegoat emerges on the right http://www.salon.com/2013/04/15/after_boston_explosions_a_right_wing_scapegoat_emerges/ http://www.salon.com/2013/04/15/after_boston_explosions_a_right_wing_scapegoat_emerges/#comments Mon, 15 Apr 2013 23:36:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13271964 Should we even be surprised that after an event like the bombing of the Boston Marathon today, immediate suspicion would turn to Muslims? Muslims themselves were not. “The thought of every Muslim right now," tweeted Dubai-based Al-Aan TV journalist Jenan Moussa: “Please don’t be a ‘Muslim.'”

It's easiest to explain unexplainable -- or yet unknown -- things by forcing them into an existing worldview, so when a shred of evidence came along, such as an unsubstantiated New York Post report that police had detained a Saudi national, many on the right immediately took it and ran with it.

Of course, the Post's report -- which Fox News picked up -- has zero named sources, zero quotes, and was contradicted by the Boston commissioner, who said authorities have no suspects in custody yet, but why let that get in the way of what you're sure is true.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/04/15/after_boston_explosions_a_right_wing_scapegoat_emerges/feed/ 391 Worst reactions to the Boston explosions http://www.salon.com/2013/04/15/worst_reactions_to_the_boston_explosions/ http://www.salon.com/2013/04/15/worst_reactions_to_the_boston_explosions/#comments Mon, 15 Apr 2013 23:24:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13271515 Update - April 16, 10:15 a.m.: The reactions continue:

Jim Hoft, a blogger for the Gateway Pundit, blamed Obama in a post titled: "Worst. President. Ever… Boston Marathon Terrorist Attack Cements Obama Legacy as Complete Failure."

Patrick Dollard, a contributor to Breitbart News, tweeted:

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Sean Hannity cut news footage of the attacks into a montage set to music - music that Deadspin observes sounds very similar to "Doctor Who" theme song, "I Am The Doctor." Video of Hannity's segment is here.

And amidst the misinformation flying around throughout yesterday, the New York Post did not help with this tweet, which misreported the number of deaths in the attack.

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Officials said Tuesday that three have died so far.

 

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/04/15/worst_reactions_to_the_boston_explosions/feed/ 104 Alex Jones: Boston explosion a government conspiracy http://www.salon.com/2013/04/15/alex_jones_labels_boston_explosion_a_false_flag/ http://www.salon.com/2013/04/15/alex_jones_labels_boston_explosion_a_false_flag/#comments Mon, 15 Apr 2013 20:23:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13271539 While most observers are witholding judgment about what caused the two explosions at the Boston Marathon this afternoon, right-wing conspiracy theorists already know what's going on -- the government did it and is going to pin the blame on them because today is Patriots' Day, a special day in the militia movement.

Alex Jones, who has become the country's preeminent conspiracy theorist, wasted no time. As with 9/11, Sandy Hook and other national tragedies, he sees the Boston explosions as a "false flag" attack committed by the government. The objective this time: Expanding the Transportation Security Administration's reach to sporting events:

 

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/04/15/alex_jones_labels_boston_explosion_a_false_flag/feed/ 338 Alex Jones reads Salon! http://www.salon.com/2013/03/26/alex_jones_i_salute_salon/ http://www.salon.com/2013/03/26/alex_jones_i_salute_salon/#comments Tue, 26 Mar 2013 14:50:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13252111 Yesterday we noted, a bit puzzled, that Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan is a big Alex Jones fan. He stops by the conspiracy theorist's radio show any time he swings through Austin, Texas, and has even written a song about Jones' work.

Jones and Salon do not typically get along, but he liked this story, republishing our piece and appending this note:

COMMENT FROM ALEX JONES: The headline, “Billy Corgan’s strange infatuation with a conspiracy theorist“, was a bit snot-nosed and pretentious, and you can bet wasn’t written by the author. But other than that, it reads as overall factual and non-biased, for which I salute Salon, which in the past has been an engine of bullshit. I’m glad to see that Billy’s wish to have a truly constructive conversation about the nature of reality is happening; we may have even reached someone at Salon. Thank the maker; thoughtcrime is spreading.

Jones will be sad to learn that the author (yours truly) did, in fact, write the headline, so we'll take this as a backhanded compliment, but a compliment nonetheless. Previously, Jones has accused us of being government-funded stooges, so kudos to Jones as well, we suppose, for stepping out of his typically knee-jerk opposition to all things liberal and enjoying a story that helps spread the word that he has a famous friend.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/03/26/alex_jones_i_salute_salon/feed/ 6 Billy Corgan’s strange infatuation with a conspiracy theorist http://www.salon.com/2013/03/25/billy_corgan_hearts_conspiracy_theorist/ http://www.salon.com/2013/03/25/billy_corgan_hearts_conspiracy_theorist/#comments Mon, 25 Mar 2013 15:30:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13251124 When Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan is in Austin, Texas, he drops by the studios of America’s favorite conspiracy theorist, Alex Jones. Corgan, who says he first encountered Jones' work six or seven years ago, has done at least three lengthy interviews with the radio host in the past 12 months alone, including an hour-long sit-down on Friday.

In that appearance, Corgan praised Jones’ visionary work, but pressed him to get to the “next level” by adding a spiritual element to his narratives. “Infowars would benefit from a spiritual perspective, history has shown, whether it’s Gandhi or Martin Luther King or Jesus,” Corgan explained.

The musician added that Jones’ much-discussed interview with Piers Morgan in January was “the greatest ever” because it showed “you’ve broken the trance.” Jones said at the time that Corgan texted him immediately after the interview to write: “Alex you broke people’s hypnosis, you couldn’t have done a better job.”

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/03/25/billy_corgan_hearts_conspiracy_theorist/feed/ 57 Whither the Sandy Hook truthers? http://www.salon.com/2013/01/24/whither_the_sandy_hook_truthers/ http://www.salon.com/2013/01/24/whither_the_sandy_hook_truthers/#comments Thu, 24 Jan 2013 21:52:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13181045 Could the Sandy Hook truther movement, the people who question whether December's mass shooting could have been some kind of government hoax, already be dying out? Conspiracy theories have developed after every major tragedy like this -- “Once I learned about all the false flag attacks in history that have been proven to be true, I knew it was only a matter of time before another came a long,” the creator of "The Sandy Hook Shooting - Fully Exposed" YouTube video told Gawker -- but Sandy Hook seemed different, thanks in part to the fact that it produced meaningful action on gun control, for a change.

But even as the White House and congressional Democrats forge ahead with gun legislation this week, interest in conspiracy theories surrounding Sandy Hook already seem to be flagging after reaching a fever pitch last week.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/01/24/whither_the_sandy_hook_truthers/feed/ 80 Gun control doesn’t violate the Second Amendment! http://www.salon.com/2013/01/18/gun_control_isnt_a_violation_of_the_second_amendment/ http://www.salon.com/2013/01/18/gun_control_isnt_a_violation_of_the_second_amendment/#comments Fri, 18 Jan 2013 09:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13175198 After more than a week of residual buzz from radio host Alex Jones' now famous meltdown during a CNN discussion of gun control, it is worth taking a deep breath and considering the spectacle's two big lessons, especially now that the White House is pushing Congress to debate firearm legislation.

First and foremost, it was surprising that anyone watching Jones was actually surprised. Yes, his references to Hitler and Stalin and his nationally televised promise of a violent revolution if "you try to take our firearms" was at once offensive and frightening. However, this kind of paranoid lunacy has been the lingua franca of the conservative world since Barry Goldwater first said, "Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice."

To know that's true particularly when it comes to guns, try paying attention to conservative radio, blogs and email newsletters this week in the aftermath of policy recommendations by Vice President Joe Biden's commission on firearm violence. If you do, you will inevitably be exposed to one or another attention-seeking Archie Bunker espousing the same deranged nonsense as Jones. Sure, that's disturbing - but it is no longer surprising, except perhaps to a national media and political elite that have no sense of just how corrosive the day-to-day discourse is in so much of the country.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/01/18/gun_control_isnt_a_violation_of_the_second_amendment/feed/ 269 Newtown truthers: Where conspiracy theories come from http://www.salon.com/2013/01/16/newtown_truthers_where_conspiracy_theories_come_from/ http://www.salon.com/2013/01/16/newtown_truthers_where_conspiracy_theories_come_from/#comments Wed, 16 Jan 2013 18:39:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13172856 While it’s difficult to fathom why anyone would deny the deaths of 26 children and teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary last month, the conspiracy theories surrounding the massacre actually follow a fairly common pattern, experts who study them say, and may be more understandable than they first appear.

“This whole thing is bringing a variety of conspiracy theories from American history together,” explained Robert Goldberg, a historian at the University of Utah who has written a book and lectured extensively about American conspiracy theories.

While there are many flavors of conspiracy theories surrounding the shooting, one thread that unites many of them is the notion that this was a government hoax aimed at taking away people's guns. “Whether it’s the Oklahoma City bombing, or the Waco incident, or Ruby Ridge, or 9/11, or Sandy Hook, the idea is that these are modern Reichstags (the event that occurred in Germany in 1933), which is an excuse that the government is going to use to declare an emergency to take the guns away from the patriots, and then confine the patriots," Goldberg said.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/01/16/newtown_truthers_where_conspiracy_theories_come_from/feed/ 22 Sandy Hook truther-reporter? http://www.salon.com/2013/01/14/is_it_okay_for_reporters_to_question_the_official_narrative_of_sandy_hook/ http://www.salon.com/2013/01/14/is_it_okay_for_reporters_to_question_the_official_narrative_of_sandy_hook/#comments Mon, 14 Jan 2013 18:05:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13170718 Journalists are supposed to question official accounts and probe for hidden evidence, but does questioning the media and police’s account of the Sandy Hook massacre go too far?

It’s a question worth asking in regard to Ben Swann, an anchor at the local Fox affiliate in Cincinnati, who uses his personal YouTube channel to “question this whole narrative” and advance alternative theories about the Sandy Hook and Aurora shootings.

Swann, who has attracted a national following by appealing to the Ron Paul-ish “liberty vote,” anchors two newscasts every day for Fox 19, and produces the thrice-weekly “Reality Check” segment, which is billed as a fact-checking series, but can sometimes feel like a conservative-libertarian opinion segment. His interview with President Obama, in which he grilled the commander in chief on the legal underpinning of the “kill list,” captured national headlines, and he’s won an Edward R. Murrow award. He’s been praised alternately by RT and the Atlantic for his fierce coverage of civil liberties issues, but criticized by the Washington Post’s Erik Wemple for being too friendly to Ron Paul and “allow[ing] his affection for constitutionalist politics to corrupt his judgment.”

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/01/14/is_it_okay_for_reporters_to_question_the_official_narrative_of_sandy_hook/feed/ 377 NRA, Alex Jones, Gun Owners of America quiet on new school shooting http://www.salon.com/2013/01/10/nra_alex_jones_gun_owners_of_america_quiet_on_new_school_shooting/ http://www.salon.com/2013/01/10/nra_alex_jones_gun_owners_of_america_quiet_on_new_school_shooting/#comments Thu, 10 Jan 2013 19:46:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13167441 The loudest pro-gun voices remain silent on the latest school shooting, which took place today at Taft Union High School in Taft, Calif., not far from Bakersfield.

The NRA has been quiet, perhaps because the sheriff department in Taft confirmed that an armed deputy patrols the school "before, during and after" classes.

The latest update is that one student and one teacher were injured in the shooting; a gunman, reportedly a student, is said to be in custody. Local officials plan a 3 p.m. press briefing.

Here are the latest tweets from the most vocal pro-gun advocates, as of 2:45 p.m. Eastern.

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