Rep. Himes slams Alex Jones and ‘his ilk’

Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.) slammed radio host Alex Jones on Tuesday night after Jones made headlines for confronting CNN anchor Piers Morgan over gun rights.

Like many if his ilk, Alex Jones can’t stop the barrage of name calling, nonsense and non sequitur or a fact or question might get through.

— Jim Himes (@jahimes) January 9, 2013

{mosads}The pro-gun Jones launched a White House petition to deport Morgan over his on-air gun-control advocacy, and loudly confronted the CNN host on his show Monday night in a segment that went viral. “1776 will commence again if you try to take our firearms,” Jones told Morgan on the show.

Himes, in his tweet, grouped Jones with an “ilk” of no particular description. Jones is a Texan, pro-gun, and a syndicated radio host and filmmaker. He affiliates himself with the Sept. 11 “Truther” conspiracy movement that claims the U.S. government knowingly allowed the terrorist attacks, and although he is typically described as a conservative, he calls himself “an aggressive Constitutionalist” with no political party. 

Glenn Beck, another syndicated radio host often similarly labeled, blasted Jones on his radio show Tuesday for making “a fool out of himself” on CNN and “giving the left the perfect poster boy for their attempts to paint every logical conservative as an extremist nut job.”

Morgan seems to agree, tweeting on Wednesday that Jones should “keep ranting.”

“[T]he more we hear from you, the better chance proper U.S. gun control legislation will be passed,” he wrote.

The White House intends to respond to the deportation petition against Morgan because it has gained more than 100,000 signatures, well over the 25,000 threshold required to prompt an official response.

“It is worth remembering that the freedom of expression is a bedrock principle in our democracy,” White House press secretary Jay Carney said in a statement about the petition on Tuesday.