Jesse Ventura

CNN's Piers Morgan gave a (left) thumb up Friday to states legalizing marijuana and opposing a traditional marriage amendment. He joined conspiracy theorist Jesse Ventura in applauding the votes.

"Well, Jesse, I can only say I totally agree with you on both the drugs and the gay marriage issue," Morgan said after Ventura declared "hoorah for Colorado," "Hooray for Washington," and "hooray for the state of Minnesota." [Video below the break. Audio here.]

For the second time in less than six months, Good Morning America offered 9/11 truther Jesse Ventura a platform to hype his conspiracy theories and smear the U.S. government as "Nazi." This occurred on the same day that GMA reporter Bianna Golodryga hit Republicans for having connections to birthers and wondered when the President will "fight back" against such charges.

In contrast, although co-host George Stephanopoulos did press Ventura on his conspiratorial beliefs, he also joked around with the former Minnesota governor. At one point, he fawned, "You've had such a varied career. You were even once on a soap opera. Young and the Restless." Stephanopoulos then played a clip of the former politician on that show.

Ventura appeared on GMA to promote his book 63 Documents the Government Doesn't Want You to Read. He slammed the U.S. government by attacking, "There are dedicated, patriotic people in government, but when you read this book, the scary part of this book for me, you could substitute the word Nazi and it would work." Stephanopoulos just moved on to his next question.

For Joy Behar, saying Muslims killed Americans on September 11, 2001 is "hate speech," but saying the American government did it is perfectly acceptable and well within the bounds of civil discourse.

That, at least, is the standard she set forth yesterday, first throwing a temper tantrum on "The View" when Bill O'Reilly noted the religious identities of the 9/11 terrorists, and then calmly sitting down to discuss the incident with 9/11 truther Jesse Ventura.

"I question 9/11, I got a conspiracy theory." Ventura made sure to note at the outset. "So who's to say [Muslims] actually did [perpetrate the attacks] or not."

Behar's response: "Well that's another thing, yeah" (video and transcript below the fold - h/t Allahpundit).

(Updated with anti-Catholic "New Rules" jokes below.) Liberals complained this week when Rep. Michele Bachmann complained about "gangster government." But do they mind if the Catholic Church is compared to (and prosecuted like) the Mafia? So said former Gov. Jesse Ventura on HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher on Friday.

MAHER: You did a movie called Predator. Let's talk about the Vatican.

VENTURA: That's a predator, too. Never got me, though, the Vatican. An alien did.

MAHER: My crazy radical friends Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins say that if the Pope travels to England, as he is scheduled to in September, he should be arrested when he hits the tarmac. Now do you think that's going too far?

VENTURA: ...I have another alternative, a question I've asked here in the United States. Why hasn't the Catholic Church been prosecuted under the RICO laws of organized crime?

Professional conspiracy theorist (and former independent Minnesota Governor) Jesse Ventura hawked his book American Conspiracies on ABC’s The View on Wednesday. Barbara Walters plays a journalist on TV, so why would she spread horrific and unproven conspiracy theories on ABC? Just for the ratings?

The View began with this promo: "Jesse Ventura’s blowing the lid off American conspiracies. Why he says you were lied to about the 9-11 attacks. How both George W. Bush elections were rigged, and why assassinations from JFK to Abe Lincoln were government coverups."

The actual interview never turned to rigged Bush elections, but Walters (and Elisabeth Hasselbeck) objected to the notion that George W. Bush allowed or participated in 3,000 American deaths. But Walters ended by spreading the Ventura book free to the audience:

Has Joy Behar run out of things to talk about? Is the HLN host and "The View" co-host allowing producers to select her topics?

On HLN's March 10 "The Joy Behar Show," Behar suggested it might be time for conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh to go after making certain remarks involving embattled New York Gov. David Paterson and former Rep. Eric Massa, D-N.Y.

"This whole Massa controversy gave him an excuse to make a racial slur against New York Governor David Paterson," Behar said. "Not that Rush needs an excuse to make a racial slur."

The comments that offended Behar involved Limbaugh saying Paterson was going to be a "Massa," a double entendre Behar asserted was racist.

NBC's Ann Curry invited former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura to promote his new book of conspiracy theories, on Tuesday's Today show, and pressed the former professional wrestler to throw out the loony charge that the Bush administration had foreknowledge of 9/11. On to promote his book American Conspiracies, Ventura charged that the CIA was involved in the assassination of John F. Kennedy and when prompted by Curry accused the Bush administration of allowing the 9/11 attacks to happen. [audio available here]

ANN CURRY: And you say what the, the, the constant in all of these assassinations, virtually all of them, is this, is starting with Kennedy, is the CIA.

JESSE VENTURA: They, they come up.

CURRY: What are you implying, why are you, what are you implying with that?

CNN’s Larry King carried water for President Obama’s move to send more troops to Afghanistan during an interview of Michael Moore on early Wednesday morning. King later shifted further to the left, asking Moore if he agreed with Jesse Ventura’s call for a new draft and a “war tax” and quoting from Bob Herbert of the New York Times, who labeled the Afghan war a “tragic mistake.”

The CNN host interviewed the famous left-wing director for the first two segments of his program. Near the end of the first segment, King sought Moore’s take on something from his interview of Ventura, whom he interviewed the night before: “Jesse Ventura said last night- and he agrees with your position, by the way- that we should consider bringing back the draft and we should have a war tax so that people suffer if we’re all going to pay a price for this. What do you think?”

The leftist one-upped his celebrity counterpart: “There would be no increase in the troops if there was a draft and if people had to pay for it. I actually have proposed bringing back the draft now for some years, but only draft the children of those in the upper five percent income bracket, because if the wealthy have to send their kids over to Iraq or Afghanistan, trust me, there won’t be many wars.”

The host quoted from Herbert in his last question to Moore: “Bob Herbert, writing in The New York Times today, called this a ‘tragic mistake,’ and then he quotes Dwight David Eisenhower...Eisenhower said, ‘I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can and as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, and its stupidity.’And then he said- this will impress you, I think- Eisenhower: ‘Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed.’ That’s from a four star general and a president.”

Former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura says that MSNBC canceled his cable program "Jesse Ventura's America" back in 2003 because he was opposed to the Iraq war.

According to the former professional wrestler, the network continued to pay his salary despite his termination in order to prevent him from speaking his antiwar views elsewhere.

Such was reported by the Los Angeles Times in an interview with Ventura published Sunday (h/t Ed Morrissey):

Good news for Alex Jones and his fellow 9/11 Truthers. They will finally have a television outlet in which to spew their absurd theories about how "9/11 was an inside job." The reason is that Jesse Ventura has been named as the host of a TruTV mystery show about conspiracy theories. Here is the report from the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star-Tribune announcing the show that is sure to light up the tinfoil hats of conspiracists in dark basements all across the land:

Jesse Ventura may or may not have a "judge" show in his future, but one thing's for sure: He's definitely going to be searching for justice.

The former governor will host a new program for TruTV (formerly Court TV) in which he'll travel the country, exploring modern-day conspiracies and getting input from believers and skeptics.

"I've been a mayor; I've been a governor. Now I get to be a detective and seek the truth," he said in a news release.

It always comes down to this one, doesn't it? Leftists and fringe politicos calling Republicans "Nazis." Well, the "N" word was once again unleashed against John McCain's Republican Convention on September 2 during CNN's Larry King Live show. Actor D.L. Hughley and Independent former Governor of Minnesota Jesse Ventura both went for that shopworn epithet as King discussed the Convention.

Along with Hughley and Ventura, King had on former Clinton Press Secretary Dee Dee Myers who claimed that Republicans were saying with their convention theme that “only Republicans put their country first” ridiculously saying that Independents shouldn't vote for the GOP because they are insulted so much. "I don't understand why any independent or Democrat would consider voting for the McCain/Palin ticket," Myers partisanly intoned, "after being called all night that only Republicans put their country first."