Alex Jones' latest deranged Hillary Clinton tirade: "Listen witch! You turned Libya over to al-Qaeda "

The right-wing conspiracy theorist responded to an anodyne Clinton tweet with pure bile

Published August 28, 2015 12:00PM (EDT)

We can always count on radio conspiracy theorist Alex Jones to class up the discourse, especially in the wake of a tragedy. Usually, he shrieks through his polyp-infested larynx about false flag operations, as he did with the Boston Marathon bombing, or he tweaks the paranoia of his listeners by predicting martial law and a government takeover, as he did when the military announced the Jade Helm 15 training exercises.

One of my personal favorite Jones moments was when he said with a straight face that President Obama might have used helicopters and tiny airplanes to guide a monster tornado toward an Oklahoma town. Jones said to a caller,

"I don’t know if this was a weather weapon or not, but they can, with the right conditions -- they can create and steer groups of tornadoes. [...] The question is, were there helicopters and small aircraft seen... in and around the clouds, spraying and doing things?"

Yes, "spraying and doing things" to a super-tornado. Because we all know how well small aircraft handle the deadly wind-speeds of a tornado funnel.

With that in mind, Jones might just have just topped himself with his rant about the on-air murder of two journalists in Virginia earlier this week.

Before we get into what exactly Jones said, it's important to underline two points. First, the shooter, Vester Lee Flanagan, confessed in his suicide note that he was retaliating against white people for the Charleston massacre, even mentioning a "race war." Along those lines, Jones has belched his way through countless monologues about a race war for quite some time now. Mainly, he believes the government is deliberately fomenting one by funding radical African-American groups in the same way it apparently funds "La Raza" and white supremacists -- playing various groups against each other.

Fast forward to Wednesday: Jones threw a conniption fit on his show after Hillary Clinton tweeted her thoughts about the Virginia shooting and how we need to curb gun violence. But first, he ripped into gun control supporters on Twitter, employing the ludicrous oxymoron about liberals somehow being fascists.

"It's the same leftist American scum. Literal scum. Social engineers. These people are fascist, I know them. They know they are engineers. They know they're manipulating gullible people. They're not liberals like Thomas Jefferson. They're scum of the earth."

The projection is strong with this one. Jones wrote the playbook on manipulating and exploiting gullible people. (See the aforementioned "helicopters and tiny aircraft spraying and doing things" remarks.) Jones' entire empire is built around selling snake oil. (He literally sells an elixir called "Super Male Vitality.") As for the Thomas Jefferson thing, it's ironic that Jones can praise slave-owning racist Jefferson while condemning someone like Margaret Sanger for considerably lesser trespasses, but okay. (Incidentally, Jefferson was more of a states' rights libertarian.)

Jones continued:

"Look at Hillary Clinton. [Reading Clinton's tweet] 'Heartbroken and angry. We must act to stop gun violence, and we cannot wait any longer. Praying for the victims' families in Virginia.'"

Note that Clinton didn't call for more gun control. She merely called for action to "stop gun violence." Seriously, is anyone actually against stopping gun violence? Perhaps Jones is.

"I want to send a tweet out... at Hillary, saying listen witch! You turned Libya over to al-Qaeda and killed over 50,000 people. Shut up about violence!"

Clinton also helped the president to thwart a genocide in Benghazi before it happened by engaging with the U.N. to meaningfully stop Qaddafi's death march toward the city. Why is Jones against that, too?

"And I wanna hit her with another tweet."

Please, no! I don't think she can withstand the raw power and awesome logic of Jones’, you know, tweets. Especially just after being called a "witch."

"Listen, witch, it's your White House pushin' race war. And now blaming the Second Amendment. I want her hit with all that."

The White House isn't pushing any race war. That's a lie. Nor is the White House blaming the Second Amendment. However, reasonable people are suggesting ways to prevent someone like Flanagan from acquiring deadly weapons. Again, why is Jones against stopping this? Such measures are supported by upwards of 90 percent of the American public and 74 percent of NRA members.

"It's time to hit these people. On Twitter, on Facebook. All of you, because they are up there arrogantly blaming the Second Amendment and almost 200 million gun owners in this country that protect ourselves as if we are guilty of the Charleston shooting and the Virginia shooting that two whacked out nuts carried out."

Yes, and why should "whacked out nuts" be allowed to buy guns exactly?

"Hey Hillary, you got bodyguards. Are their guns bad, too? Why can't I have a gun to protect myself, ya' bitch!"

Who's saying Alex Jones shouldn't have a gun? Unless he's really as "whacked out" in real life as he pretends to be on-the-air, he's perfectly within his rights to own as many guns as he wants, especially given how he lives in Texas where it's far easier to buy a gun than it is to cast a ballot in an election.

Anyway, that last chunk is the perfect gun-nut elevator pitch: Gun control means taking away all of my guns, when, in reality, the most imposing gun control legislation in the last five years would've meant background checks for internet and gun show sales to make is harder for "whacked out nuts" like Flanagan to buy murder weapons.

In Jones' universe, everyone is part of the big conspiracy except him and his listeners. What he won't tell his people, though, is that when everyone's part of the conspiracy, then no one is. Ah hell. Here I am trying to parse the screechings of a carnival barker. But, in this case, his threats and rhetoric match the threats and rhetoric of the broader pro-gun movement, as well as the flailing lack of rationality or logic.


By Bob Cesca

Bob Cesca is a regular contributor to Salon. He's also the host of "The Bob Cesca Show" podcast, and a weekly guest on both the "Stephanie Miller Show" and "Tell Me Everything with John Fugelsang." Follow him on Facebook and Twitter. Contribute through LaterPay to support Bob's Salon articles -- all money donated goes directly to the writer.

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