Three-time Pea Brain Award nominee Jeff Rense finally clinched the un-coveted dishonor last week following a rare guest appearance on the Alex Jones show where he savagely trashed WING TV's Victor Thorn and Lisa Guliani, alluding to them as "government agents."

Though never actually mentioning them specifically by name and only vaguely alluding to them in a cowardly fashion, it was clear to those of us in the know that Thorn and Guliani were indeed the targets of this vicious attack. No irrefutable proof or credible evidence of these very serious and damning charges was offered by either Rense or the host of the show, anti-NWO info-warrior and video promoter, Alex Jones, who alluded to them as "paid federal informants," "garbage," and "parasites," who are "going down," and whose "New World Order" and "parasitic rulers" are likewise "going to fail."

So often in the mainstream we've heard the phrase "trial by media," especially in regard to such prominent cases as that of Richard Jewell, wrongly accused of the 1996 Olympic Park bombing, and Dr. Steven J. Hatfill, wrongly accused of the 2001 anthrax attacks. These were totally innocent individuals whose reputations were unfairly and unjustly dragged through the mud by unscrupulous reporting in the MAINSTREAM media.

But now it seems that two very prominent representatives of our own supposedly more ethical ALTERNATIVE media have joined in this fray of "trial by media" and are now behaving in an identical manner: as EXACT MIRROR IMAGES of their unscrupulous counterparts in the corporate media!

Jeff Rense and Alex Jones are now irresponsibly airing unproven accusations, and in so doing, are guilty THEMSELVES of the exact same libel, slander, and defamation of character that has tainted their counterparts in the mainstream media. It's six of one and half a dozen of the other, whether it's Jewell, Hatfill, Thorn, or Guliani. It's INNOCENT people having their reputations smeared and tarnished by false charges that are self-serving, contrived, and totally bogus. Whether it's coming from Tom Brokaw or from the "great" Jeff Rense, as Alex Jones ass-kissing-ly calls him, the effect is the same. It makes no difference.

In our courts, don't we all deserve the presumption of INNOCENCE until proof of guilt is definitively established? And shouldn't this admonition apply in the news media also? And most especially, shouldn't this apply even MORE to responsible reporting in the alternative media? Shouldn't these Internet journalists and talk show hosts be held to an even higher standard?

Rense was first nominated for this prodigious Pea Brain dishonor way back in March of 2005, after irrationally and arbitrarily refusing (by his silence and inaction) to have Thorn and Guliani on his program as guests, in SPITE of the fact that one of them, Victor Thorn, is the author of an important new book on the September 11 attack, 9-11 on Trial, which PROVES beyond any doubt whatsoever that the official version of the collapse of the WTC towers is a lie. This is an important book, and it merits attention - certainly a lot more attention than ghost stories and aliens!

Rense, however, steadfastly refused to have them on as guests, even though I personally wrote him a letter requesting that he do so (to which I received no reply whatsoever) - and though they were appearing on shows, right and left (literally), all over the country. One prominent observer has characterized the puzzling lack of willingness of Jeff Rense to have these guests on his program and his overall paradoxical attitude toward them as completely "irrational."

And speaking of this haughty lack of response to my letter: Isn't this also what one would expect from the likes of Rush Limbaugh? Perhaps the exact same disease of aloofness, lack of responsiveness, lack of accountability, and flat-out arrogance is beginning to infect our "alternative" media as well. Just try to send a personal email to Alex Jones, for example, and see what kind of (auto generated) response you get from him.

The second nomination of the "great" Jeff Rense for this ignominious prize of great dishonor, the un-coveted PEA BRAIN Award for pusillanimous mini-mindedness, occurred only two weeks prior to my writing this article. Lacking the courage to specifically NAME Thorn and Guliani himself, and sitting there watching from his high ivory tower, Rense stood by idly as one of his chief MINIONS attacked them by proxy. Firing shoulder-launched missiles of groundless hot air, like-minded Rense minion and columnist Jim Kirwan launched his OWN precisely targeted assault of explosive conflagration on the real TV journalists of WING TV!

Comparing their Internet TV show to "reality television," Kirwan unsuccessfully tried to show in his sorry excuse for an article that WING TV is nothing more than the worthless equivalent of cheap corporate television. This is a outright falsehood and a writhing DISTORTION! spit forth like snake venom! from a slithering hit piece SCREAMING OUT for rebuttal!

So I attempted to set the record straight with my own counter-article, which would give the many thousands of Rense.com readers the OTHER (true) side of this pathetic story. But Rense refused to run it, just as he'd earlier refused to honor my request that he have Thorn and Guliani as guests on his program.

Instead of posting MY countervailing article and fairly presenting BOTH sides of this story, Rense intensified his high-powered assault on these hapless young journalists by posting yet ANOTHER shock-and-awe-style attack - this one combative and LETHALLY malicious - in the place beneath Kirwan's where my DEFENSE should have been posted. This time, the deadly attack came from someone whose EXISTENCE ITSELF is in question, and who without any question is a sniveling coward, the strange and enigmatic "Alastair Wiggins." For this, his second such posting of a one-sided smear job, three-time loser, the "great" Jeff Rense, received his third unsuccessful nomination for the Pea Brain Award.

What the "Wiggins" hit piece brazenly let loose upon readers was the same wolf pack of lies that Rense and Jones would later unleash on radio: that Thorn and Guliani are traitorous government "intel" agents - but without a shred of real evidence to back up this assertion. The only difference is that "Wiggins" had the audacity to NAME THEIR NAMES in his scandalous article, whereas Jeff Rense and Alex Jones on the radio were just too plain cowardly.

Someone else was doing their dirty work for them! Someone without even so much as an email address posted! In all my experience with the alternative media, this has to be the WORST thing I've ever personally experienced, or ever encountered. It is utterly despicable to sink to such depths! to that darkened realm devoid of all TRUTH! where one-sided propaganda masquerades for real journalism! and where slander is PROTECTED so that it goes unopposed! Why would Rense stoop so low as to post putrid garbage?

But it gets even WORSE when one considers that here once again (for the second time now in less than a week) Rense categorically refused to post ANY rebuttal. My response to that scoundrel "Alastair Wiggins" was completely ignored by the "great" Jeff Rense. This is especially troubling in light of his hypocritical assertion that he posts varying viewpoints, even the expression of ideas that he himself doesn't always agree with.

Obviously, however, in this particular instance, he has absolutely no willingness or intention WHATSOEVER to post anything at variance with his OWN agenda. And what exactly IS his agenda? Perhaps rendering a much-needed favor to the beleaguered and on-the-ropes Alex Jones, who has lately been receiving a firestorm of criticism for book banning and censorship taking place on his show? God only knows. One can only wonder what sly machinations were going on behind the scenes among Rense, Jones, and the mysterious and unscrupulous individual (whoever he might be) behind the malicious and slanderous "Alastair Wiggins" attack piece.

The icing on the cake and what finally clinched this prestigious Pea Brain Award for the "great" Jeff Rense was his rare guest appearance just a week or so ago on the Alex Jones show, where he alluded to Thorn and Guliani as "government agents." Here on this show, out of his own mouth and in his own familiar soft-spoken voice, he essentially echoed the written words of that lying scoundrel "Wiggins," but without naming names, since "Wiggins" had already done his dirty work for him.

But I, and many, many others, know exactly who he was talking about without him ever saying so. And I know too that what he was intimating is a monumental lie! Thorn and Guliani, government disinfo agents? Give me a break! I know these two people. I've sat across the table from them. I've eaten with them. I've talked with them. I've joked with them. I've laughed with them. I've worked with them. I've ridden in the same car with them. I've walked across city streets and highways with them and through restaurant doors with them. I've waited in bus terminals with them. I've looked them in the eye. I KNOW THEM! And the one thing they're not is "government agents."

There's a whole world of difference between the humorous satire and legitimate (though hard-hitting) criticism being put forward by Thorn and Guliani of WING TV, and the malicious LIES and intolerable SLANDER being fired back at them from Rense, Jones, and their surrogate mouthpiece, "Alastair Wiggins." Government agents indeed! Anyone claiming or even believing such outrageous nonsense about these fine, upstanding journalists should be ashamed to even show their faces!

Jim Kirwan should be especially commended for himself not stooping to the same low level as Rense and Jones. Even though I completely disagreed with Kirwan's warped and twisted view of WING TV, he had every right to say what he did in the way that he said it, because it was a legitimate expression of his own flawed opinion. We should all remember that the people at WING TV have a similar right to express their own (much more well-reasoned) opinions as well, and to vociferously criticize whomever they please, as long as they continue to do so in a legitimate manner.

Even though they have engaged only in humorous satire and, like Jim Kirwan, only in a legitimate expression of their own OPINION - involving no libel or slander, as some foolish observers have FALSELY claimed - one prominent 9-11 researcher, Phil Jayhan of the website LetsRoll911.org, is now PUBLICLY proclaiming that they are "just bad people." In a post dated Tuesday May 24, 2005, in his own Let's Roll Forum, Jayhan came out and flatly asserted, "Like I said before, they are just bad people. Mean and, well, just bad people."Phil Jayhan Attacks Alex Jones

They can't even read what he's now saying about them since he has banned them from even ACCESSING his forum. He's engaging in the politics of personal destruction and doing everything possible to turn others against them - when (unlike Rense and Jones) they've done NOTHING WRONG (except to point out wrongdoing) and do not deserve such a vicious reprisal.

I want to make it perfectly clear that this vile, vengeful attitude held by some against Thorn and Guliani is not MY attitude toward either Alex Jones OR toward Jeff Rense. I do NOT believe that they are "bad" people, in the sense that they are inherently or irrevocably bad (they've only done bad things), and my intent is not to trash or to destroy them. I haven't ostracized them from my website, given up hope on them entirely, or written them off as evil people. But I feel it is IMPERATIVE to speak out forcefully against them when they engage in blatant and egregious wrongdoing. Otherwise, how will they ever be compelled to change and once again be the kind of TRUE patriots and good examples that we listeners in their audience can all look up to?

Should so-called "patriots" like Rense and Jones be hoisted up on high pedestals above reproach - and be held unaccountable - even when they resort to such underhanded tactics as outright libel and malicious slander? Should the "trial by media" of INNOCENT people be complacently and passively ignored, when it is presided over by high-ranking members of our own "alternative" media? Why should THEY get a free pass when those in the mainstream, like Brokaw, do not? Are some "Christian Patriots" above even the laws of GOD HIMSELF, because it has now become impermissible to "attack" other patriots?

"Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor." We seem to have forgotten who it was who first said that.