I’ll be honest. I pay no attention to what Alex Jones says. I’m glad there are organizations like Media Matters that are willing to monitor his sludge, but I can’t consume that nonsense and maintain any semblance of mental health. It bothers me that the man just makes stuff up and that so many people are led astray by his lies, and I don’t understand how any amount of money or fame could possibly compensate for a life of rank dishonesty and fraud.

I’m not sure where Jones’s latest lie falls on his spectrum of deceit, but it struck a nerve with me. He’s decided to accuse President Biden of using a “weather weapon” to create the tornadoes that ripped through Arkansas, Tennessee, Illinois, and Kentucky on Friday. These tornadoes were almost unprecedented in their duration and power, scores of people lost their lives and more than 100 people are still missing. The property and economic damage is catastrophic.

The first and most obvious question is motive. What possible motive would Biden have for murdering his countrymen and destroying their businesses, homes and dwellings? If you can get beyond that hurdle, there’s the plausibility of the “weapon” itself. And then there’s the idea that a president could issue such a senseless order and have it not only obeyed but kept secret.

Of course, looking at the totality of Jones’s presentation, some of his other well-worn lies make an appearance.

ALEX JONES (HOST): But I can play you an hourlong lecture by John Brennan, when he was CIA director, six years ago — you’re about to see part of it — admitting that, oh, other governments don’t like what we are doing, it can cause weather problems, weather weapons that were developed in the 50s. I had the father of weather weapons on, Capt. Livingston. So, they just think you’re stupid and they don’t want you knowing they are doing all of this, and they’ve got carbon systems they are putting in, that big, huge geoengineering systems, terraforming systems that are sucking carbon dioxide out of the air when it’s a trace gas that we need, and was hundreds of times higher millions of years ago than it is now. That’s why plants and animals were so much bigger and healthier. But we’ve adapted to live in less air.

Those sound like the ramblings of a lunatic, bur I’m not sure how self-conscious Jones is about his act. I think he’s at least a bit high on his own supply, whereas some demagogues are completely sane and fully manipulative. This is certainly true of many people who make money by denying or minimizing climate change. But you can get money to lie about the climate directly or indirectly from the fossil fuel industry without crossing over into accusing the president of the United States of launching weather weapons at his own country.

It’s a shameful accusation. But for Alex Jones it is little more than the Sunday edition of his show.