Alex Jones Detained, Forced to Remove Shoes at Austin Airport

You can think of many nighttime commercial radio talk show hosts the way you think of snake oil salesmen in the old West:

They'll say anything and promise anything to make a buck.

Alex Jones is the latest in a line of radio con artists who are, like prehistoric lizards, crawling toward the main stream. Read about his arrest here.

Catch his rant on Piers Morgan here.

Remember when people thought no one could take Rush Limbaugh seriously? Now, he's a voice for the Republican party, who spent one birthday in the Oval Office with George W. Bush.

How about Michael Savage, a man who claimed that no women or minority rescue workers were killed in 9/11 and was banned from entering Great Britain because of his hate talk? He's one of the most-listened to hosts in the U.S.

Jones, who began his career claiming that 9/11 was an inside job, is heading toward the big time. Santa Cruz's radio station was one of the first in the country to pick him up outside his native Texas.

He tells listeners that the government is poisoning them with "chem trails," which most sane people refer to as clouds or airplane con trails.

He does commercials for agricultural seeds and food storage programs, like they did back in the days of bomb shelters, claiming that the government is imminently going to take away people's rights to grow their own food and we are soon doomed for breadlines like in the Soviet Union.

"Is it better to be six months early or a day late?" he asks.

Michael Zwerling, owner of KSCO, started with Jones on a trial basis and then took him off the air. He got so many responses, he put him back full time.

Zwerling also brings Limbaugh to Santa Cruz every morning, an example of opposites attracting: the conservative host in the most liberal city in the country has a following, although his popularity can't be documented because the owner doesn't pay to subscribe to radio ratings services.

Above all, Zwerling likes controversy.

Read Jone's website here, where he now claims that armed Mafia were following him after his show.

Editor's note: This opinion piece comes to Napa Valley Patch from Santa Cruz Patch editor Brad Kava. I thought some Napa County readers might be interested because of Alex Jones's connection with local former "chalk suspect" Amy Larson. - Louisa

Click here for a link to Jones's first interview with Amy Larson after she was arrested in Napa Sept. 11, 2012.

For more on the Larson saga, please see:

• Napa Chalk Suspect Appears in Court
• Napa Letter: Newspaper Wrong About Chalk Suspect
• Napa Chalk Suspect's Case Dismissed by DA

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