Mark Ames Invoices Jon Stewart For Molested Content

What You Should Hate / October 1, 2009

By Mark Ames

Someone on Jon Stewart’s staff molested me this past Tuesday. He or she plagiarized my Fresno/Hannity story, which Alternet ran Monday, and the Daily Show aired Tuesday, much to my horror. It was as though someone—say, a writer/producer—fondled my funny-taint, and now it’s bleeding. Well, I am not pressing charges, yet, but I am attaching an Invoice.

Here’s what happened: on Tuesday, the Daily Show ran a huge segment (“one third of the show” according to HuffPo) on the Fresno County water battle and Sean Hannity’s bizarre role in it, just one day after I published my story in Alternet on the very same subject. There was no other timely reason for running a story on Hannity in Fresno, because it’s been 2 weeks since Hannity was in Fresno, or what our British allies would call “a fortnight.” So let’s go over this again: Hannity aired a crazy show in Fresno leading a mob against minnow-terrorists way back on September 17th, and it vanishes from the news cycle the next day and week. Then this Monday, I run a story on Fresno-Hannity-water-eco-terrorists, the story gets linked all over the web, and one day later—the usual timeframe for a pitch to get turned into a segment for a daily format like Stewart’s—a Hannity-in-Fresno-fighting-eco-guppies segment runs.

And the very same day, my funny-taint starts to bleed.

Am I being paranoid, conspiratorial, and grand-delusional? Yes. But that doesn’t make me wrong. My funny-taint is still bleeding, and that is real, people. If you show me a doll, I can point to the exact place on that doll where Stewart’s producer touched me.

Look, I’m not angry. I’m just disappointed. When Yasha Levine and I exposed Rick Santelli’s FreedomWorks/Tea Party connection, forcing Santelli to cancel his appearance on the Daily Show, we were happy to help Stewart out. Even though Stewart didn’t acknowledge our role in setting up the biggest slam-dunk of Stewart’s career on Jim Cramer, that it was fine, because we knew we’d done good, for all of mankind.

But this isn’t just about creative theft. No, this is much more serious: it’s about middle-aged-child molestation. How many more middle-aged children has Stewart’s staffer fondled?

Seriously: If your overpaid producers are going to take advantage of my innocence, if they’re going to violate my funny-taint in my sleep, then at least tell them to take me out for dinner first, soften me up with a Shirley Temple and a Krazy Straw, buy me some Hush Puppies…

Until then, here is the Invoice. Please wire the money to my Panama account care of eXiled Online’s secretary, Olga…Olga something, can’t remember her last name. Anyway, Olga’s on standby at our Panama City office; the “bank” address is listed below. I’m not asking for much–but I am asking that you pay me in Chinese yuan. My accountant, you see, says that it’s a good time to diversify out of dollars. So if you could just wire that 1.3 billion yuan to my account, I’ll send you a receipt, destroy the evidence, and we’ll forget this ever happened.

Mark Ames is the author of Going Postal, and the co-author of The eXile: Sex, Drugs and Libel in the New Russia (Grove).

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20 Comments

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1. Jack Reynolds | October 1st, 2009 at 10:04 am
I found the source for the “crazy racist institution” claim. Grayson hired Matt Stoller, some liberal blogger poindexter, as a senior policy consultant. Stoller has a blog post on OpenLeft.org wherein he discusses AIPAC: http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=9549
Stoller responded to a reader’s comment and called ADL a “crazy racist institution” here: http://www.openleft.com/showComment.do;jsessionid=6C8A0A9958672B66AECEF476A582E4E8?commentId=121669
I’m not sure if that last URL will work since it has a session ID in it. But you can go to the blog post and do a search for “crazy racist” and get to the comment.
I’ll do some more Google-ing and see if I can find where this started. It would be fun to know.
Also, Frank Luntz is a cocksucker.
2. Rob | October 1st, 2009 at 10:42 am
Shine on Ames, you crazy diamond.
3. az | October 1st, 2009 at 11:34 am
Well it wasn’t that similar to the article as he talked about environmentalism and the short-sightedness of letting the water flow rather than corruption. Though he obviously did take the cue from Ames.
4. Dom11 | October 1st, 2009 at 1:09 pm
LOL !!
Priceless !
5. Brody | October 1st, 2009 at 3:34 pm
Your apartment kind of sucks.
6. Adam | October 1st, 2009 at 4:02 pm
eXile > Buffalo Beast (when it was in its prime, they never update anymore and when they do, it kind of lacks effort) > Jon Stewart > Colbert > The Onion.
7. mechagodzilla | October 1st, 2009 at 4:12 pm
So how long till you get interviewed on there anyway?
8. Adam | October 1st, 2009 at 4:19 pm
Oh, and This Hous Has 22 Minutes was about equal to the Daily Show, but again This Hour is way past its prime. And it’s Canadian, so I’m sure you guys will just dismiss it off hand.
9. Anonimus Coward | October 1st, 2009 at 5:30 pm
Yasha, Mark and who is the third?
10. aleke | October 2nd, 2009 at 2:26 am
@6
Wrong bitch!! Colbert is above Stewart, he actually goes after the scumbags for all they’re worth (see calling out Limbaugh and Beck’s race-baiting by putting them in blackface). Compared to Stewart, Stewart usually plays nice and friendly, Colbert only puts on a sarcastic veneer. In a way, Stewart usually plays up the caricature of the bland corporate lapdogs of ‘mainstream’ coverage, and Colbert hits it from the highly-effective corporate pitbull propagandism of Fox News. Both are good, fulfill roles, but of course Colbert is more effective. And The Onion News Network (aka the video section) is consistently the best satire of the structure of American media, economy and culture around.
These are like the handful of things that are not absolutely abhorrent about modern America.
11. Dr. Luny | October 2nd, 2009 at 6:36 am
@Adam
Where’s Canadia?
12. Bat-mite | October 2nd, 2009 at 6:55 am
I love how a poster of Putin is the only decoration in that place. Classy as fuck.
13. doctor k | October 2nd, 2009 at 7:04 am
idk about this one mark, it’s not like you’re the only one to have read cadillac desert & seen that hannity thing.
14. Spanky | October 6th, 2009 at 1:19 am
Your invoice is only for 130 million yuan. A one, a three and seven zeros.
You need to add another zero and/or rearrange the commas in the figure. The commas go every three digits from right to left, not left to right.
Sorry to be a dick, but I want you to get your full payment, Mark.
15. Roy44 | October 22nd, 2009 at 4:41 pm
The whole debate in general revealed high calibre thinking on the part of the panellists on both sides. ,
16. N. as Fuck | February 8th, 2010 at 11:27 pm
I’m sure that you’ll censor this comment, but I hope you won’t, if you believe at all in free speech.
Plagiarism is really lame, but likening all forms of injury to sexual abuse is sad. If you’d been molested, you wouldn’t likely be writing this tripe, and you’ve certainly got a lot of nerve talking about horrible things that you can’t even begin to imagine.
If you have actually been molested, that really sucks and I’m sorry. But why use it to argue a position that has nothing to do with actual molestation? Use it or dismiss it to your personal advantage; it won’t make you or your cause any greater.
17. DerpVonDerp | March 1st, 2011 at 9:43 pm
Well, I am a troll with no life and I’m trolling all over Mark Ames’ site. My name is Jim Goad and I swear Ames didn’t hurt me not a lick!
18. 15-Year Old Russian Girl | March 1st, 2011 at 9:57 pm
Mister Goad likes beating young girls and busting their eyesockets. It’s just like Mr. Goad wrote about. He’s very authentic.
19. casey | March 24th, 2011 at 1:53 pm
Y’all are so beautiful, can you come over to my place and show me personally where they touched you, rofl. Just saw Yasha on MSNBC, Dylan Ratigan, and googled this site. I’ll be a reader from now on. I love intelligent, and principled, people!!!!!
20. casey | March 24th, 2011 at 2:54 pm
btw, i’m not making light of sexual abuse, any more than the writer was. Reading all the comments here, #16 N. as Fuck stood out to me. I AM a victim of sexual abuse, quite violent and traumatic, when i was 6-7 years old. It has colored my entire life, and I’m 53 now. BUT, context is everything. Tone is everything. We must not lose our sense of humor or we truly lose everything. Mark Ames was not making light of real abuse. To use it as a metaphor is not off limits. I’ve lost much in my life due to my early experiences, but reading between the lines, understanding satire and understanding context, is not one of the them.