SALON

Thursday, May 20, 2010 1:32 PM UTC

Conspiracist Alex Jones: “Rand Paul is awesome”

The radio host and 9/11 truther says that the mainstream media is out to get Paul, but "out of bullets"

By

Topics: Rand Paul, War Room, 2010 Elections,

Conspiracist Alex Jones: Rand Paul

Alex Jones, the radio host who is closely identified with the “patriot” movement, is thrilled with Rand Paul’s Republican primary victory in Kentucky.

“Rand Paul is awesome,” Jones told me in a telephone interview from Austin on Wednesday. “He is a constitutionalist. He is against the Patriot Act and the Iraq war and what is happening in Afghanistan.”

In Tuesday’s primary, Paul crushed his GOP foe, Trey Grayson, even though Grayson had been favored by the party’s establishment.

“If you are an establishment Republican or Democrat, you are gone come November,” Jones said. “The good news is that people are coming in from both parties who have much better track records and don’t have these establishment pedigrees.”

He also warned the media against smearing Paul: “The mainstream media doesn’t understand, they are out of bullets. When the mainstream media wants to hurt Rand Paul, they should come out and endorse him. When the establishment attacks someone, it only empowers them.”

Paul has appeared on Jones’ show and the host has promoted his candidacy. Jones, a fiery orator who pledges unyielding fidelity to the Constitution, is riding a wave of neo-militant populism sparked by perceived big-government excesses. Even among his ideological kin, however, Jones nurtures a perhaps overly active predilection for conspiracies — particularly on the subject of 9/11.

On a recent segment of his radio show, Jones declared: “This nation is being criminally and unconstitutionally absorbed by private central banks that are looting every major country on the planet. They will destroy borders, destroy constitutions that protect private property and the right to self defense. This is the stated goal.”

Jones believes the U.S. government is involved in a decades-long conspiracy to imprison political dissidents in concentration camps that will be run by FEMA.

He told me that he’s never talked about FEMA camps with Paul. “I know they are concerned about the police state, I know that they are concerned about so many of our liberties being lost,” he said of Paul’s campaign. “They know that if you have a big, powerful government, it always turns towards oppression.”

Mark Benjamin is a national correspondent for Salon based in Washington, D.C. Read his other articles here. More Mark Benjamin.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 41 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

Rand Paul is a U.S. Senator from Kentucky.

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: Chekhov's story mirrors Russia's own

Recommendations