Get Your Gun

I wasn't sure it was possible to make that Alex Jones appearance on Piers Morgan's show any funnier than it already was, but Conan managed to step up to the plate and give it a try last night.

The result is pretty entertaining.



By the way, Cesca put together an entire column on Jones's insane rant over at the Daily Banter and it's definitely worth reading. One of the things he hits hard is how in reality Alex Jones is nothing more than another performance artist grifter who's made a career out of playing the wild-eyed raving conspiracy nut. I don't doubt that he probably believes at least some of the nonsense he's spouting, but Cesca's right -- a good portion of it is all just for show. Yes, it's still valuable as a window into the way real gun-worshiping paranoiacs think -- their utterly unhinged view of the world -- but overall Jones is just a standard conservative entertainment complex carnival barker playing his act to the hilt to the crowd of lunatics he knows will continue to line his pockets.

Alex Jones and the Prophecy of Doom

There are a few people who inexplicably have a role in our national discourse, regardless of how far to the fringe they are and should be relegated, who kind of leave me without much to say. One of them is, of course, Alex Jones. Yeah, there are people who actually take him seriously -- but who gives a shit? He's a fucking conspiracist lunatic and doesn't deserve to be granted even the tiniest amount of credence.

Proof of that, at least as far as my own view of him is concerned, is the fact that I think I've mentioned him around here maybe once or twice in almost seven years. Still, last night's hysterical meltdown by him on Piers Morgan's show -- in which he almost literally foamed at the mouth over the 1776-style revolution that he promises will be the result of any attempt at sensible gun control -- really deserves to be seen by as many people as possible. Believe it or not, there actually are people who listen to this idiot, although not enough to make him as dangerous to the establishment as he thinks he is.

The problem, though, is that his furious, fetishistic passion for guns gives you a pretty good idea what common sense gun control advocates are up against. Remember, this is a guy who believes that guns are needed to defend against the black U.N. helicopters that are going to fly into Anytown, USA and take all of us under the control of the New World Order. He's fucking insane. His beliefs aren't in any way based in reality. And he should be completely ignored -- no matter how loud he is.

Anyway, watch Jones's warm bukkake of crazy for yourself. It really is something to behold.



Incidentally, the above video comes courtesy of someone with the screen-name "Save Our Sovereignty" whose profile pic is a Ron Paul logo. Need I say more?

Hack

One of the most inadvertently amusing ongoing memes in media involves the always inadvertently amusing Piers Morgan. Every so often, Morgan decides to exercise his imperial privilege as a CNN host and decree that someone is "banned" from ever appearing on his nightly show. Right now that list includes Madonna, Kelsey Grammer, and Cherie Blair, the wife of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. In other words, given that his show is a low-rated dud hosted by a third-rate international punchline, Morgan choosing to publicly tell these people they can't be on it is like me declaring that Mila Kunis is not, under any circumstances, allowed to perform oral sex on me. He may as well be saying, "You can't fire me -- I quit!"

On that subject, I'd really like to know why CNN continues to keep Morgan around. First of all, he was one of the final bad decisions of the bad decision machine that was former CNN U.S. President Jon Klein, and it's become obvious to everyone that Klein's stewardship and ongoing influence is burning the once-great network to the ground from the inside out. Second, there's the continuing controversy over Morgan's role in the phone and e-mail hacking scandal that shuttered News of the World, led to several arrests and resignations, and generally turned Murdoch's media empire upside down overseas.

Now, guess what? Morgan's under fire again.

The Huffington Post: Piers Morgan Faces New Phone Hacking Claims/10.22.12

Morgan's a cancer at CNN. He's all cost and no benefit. Fire him, for Christ's sake.

Unreason of the Witch

The interesting thing about this "dramatic" walk-off by Christine O'Donnell during an interview with CNN's Piers Morgan tonight is that, to her credit, she doesn't come off at all like some kind of blithering idiot. She does, however, come off as somebody who has no idea how an interview with a news outlet that isn't Fox generally works -- to wit, no, you don't get to dictate what you're asked and you're not guaranteed to be pitched only softballs.

That said, as Oliver Willis intimated on Twitter this evening, in the end this was nothing more than somebody who didn't do anything worth being interviewed for getting pissed at a guy very few people care about on a show hardly anyone's watching.

Connected Guys

So as I sit here looking over the latest media news -- because that's how I spend my Sundays these days, I guess -- Donnie Brasco is on TV in the background. Great movie, by the way. Anyway, I've just caught the part of the movie where Pacino's character, Lefty, vouches for Depp's Donnie-- who of course is really an undercover FBI agent named Joe Pistone -- which makes him a connected guy in the Brooklyn mob. Lefty toasts Donnie and says, "Anything happens to you, I'm responsible... I die with you, Donnie." Anyone who's seen the movie knows what eventually happens, given that Donnie's true identity is ultimately revealed.

I bring this up because as I was watching this, in a humorous bit of synchronicity, I was reading a statement from CNN chief Ken Jautz which expresses full-throated support for Piers Morgan. For those who haven't been following the latest developments in the ever-widening News Corp scandal, Heather Mills is claiming that a former journalist for the Mirror Group in the UK has admitted to her that she was the target of phone-hacking back when she was Paul McCartney's girlfriend; Piers Morgan was editor of the Mirror at the time. Morgan of course has consistently and indignantly denied that he knew of any wrongdoing, but Parliament wants to talk to him in person nonetheless.

What's interesting is that Morgan's latest denial of the charges came in a statement issued last Wednesday via a CNN press release. What that means is that CNN is officially going on record with its belief in what Morgan is saying; if he's lying, he's doing it through CNN and is being allowed to with the network's official sanction. If it turns out he's not telling the truth about his involvement in the phone-hacking scandal -- and I'm not saying he is, in fact, involved -- CNN will have participated in the court-of-public-opinion version of suborning perjury. And even Jautz saying that "it's up to Piers Morgan to respond" to the accusations against him won't mitigate that.

I'm not saying that CNN should throw Morgan under the bus, but it should keep in mind that when it officially vouches for somebody -- that guy goes down, it goes down too. To a certain extent, it dies with him.

Friends with Benefits

You know something? Piers Morgan should do himself a favor and go back to not talking about the News Corp scandal. Via his Twitter feed:

"'You're shown immense guts, Mr Murdoch.' Hysterical. This has all gone horribly wrong for the anti-Murdoch brigade."

And you thought the biggest hack was the one the News of the World pulled on the voicemail of Milly Dowler.

Donald Dreck

I get that by even bringing this up it'll seem like I'm blowing gaping holes in the very argument I'm making, but part of what new media mosquitoes like me are for is to call the established press out for the promotion and legitimization of the patently ridiculous. That's why I want to ask the obvious question: Why the hell is anyone in the mainstream media giving even a second of airtime or a millimeter of copy-space to Donald Trump's entirely bullshit flirtation with running for the White House?

Last night on CNN's Piers Morgan show, Trump was allowed to filibuster undisturbed for several minutes on the subject of Barack Obama's supposed failings in dealing with Libya. Put up against him was New York Congressman Anthony Weiner, who, while disputing his arguments at every turn, inexplicably treated Trump with respect and deferred to him as if his opinion actually mattered and wasn't coming from a pompous, buffoonish reality TV star whose only goal is wanton self-promotion. Given Weiner's reputation for throwing caution and decorum to the wind and simply speaking his mind, I had high hopes that he'd be the one to have the balls to finally say something like, "Excuse me, Piers, but what the fuck is he doing here? I'm a United States congressman and you bring me on to debate a subject of national and international importance with this walking punchline? You are smart enough to know that every obnoxious word that comes out of his Zoolander-Blue-Steel-looking puss is aimed at getting you to pay attention to him, which of course you're always happy to do, right? I'm insulted that you imply that a U.S. lawmaker who's dedicated his life to public service is on essentially the same level as an almost universally loathed turd who's best known for paying a supermodel to fuck him and for going bankrupt three times. Now I'm done here. Give me a call if you want me to discuss this with somebody I should give a crap about."

By the way, Trump's decision to kiss-up to the birther crowd was absurd from the beginning, though not the least bit surprising. Also not surprising: that this happened.

Bottom line: Stop paying attention to this clown.