So you’ve probably heard the news: Conspiracy theorist and professional yeller Alex Jones has been ordered to pay $4.1 million in compensatory damages to a family who lost a child in the Sandy Hook school massacre, which Jones had been calling a “hoax.” Jones is likely going to have to pay a much greater amount in punitive damages.
I found myself wondering just what the biggest idiots on the internet thought of these latest developments, so I took a stroll through Patriots.win, the Reddit-like successor to the long-ago banned TheDonald subreddit, home to an assortment of MAGA-minded conspiracy theorists who aren’t necessarily big fans of Alex Jones.
So let’s take a peek at some of the more, er, intriguing responses.
StrongIsland is all-in for red-faced Alex, and rather down on the “demons” opposing him.
Alex Jones is exposing Unvalde and demons must punish him, I will continue to have his back and speak of his greatness!
Dagoat4l warns that there is a huge conspiracy afoot aimed at the heroic Alex Jones, truthteller.
Rich and powerful people are behind this. AJ not going to quit. We will lift him up. He’s tried to warn us for so long.
TRUMP420KUSH thinks that if they can go after Alex Jones, they’ll soon be going after everyone with “thought crimey” beliefs.
Alex Jones was the first to be “Cancelled” and now look where we are. It won’t be long until average Joe is getting dragged into court for thought crimes.
[T]rudeau_is_a_faggot sketches out what he thinks the big conspiracy here is.
It was August 5th 2018 that Alex was banned off youtube and from the rest of social media. Four years ago tomorrow. Exactly 3 months until the 2018 midterm elections.
They wanted Alex off social media for the midterms back then in 2018, and now they are trying to stack the deck for the 2022 midterms by taking out Alex and Infowars completely.
They do not want Alex and infowars reporting on all the criminal shit going into the midterms and what you can bet will be widespread election fraud during and after the election.
Remember the lesson learned in 2018. First they come for Alex, then they come for everyone else.
Squatch1111 thinks that ordinary civic-minded MAGAs are the real target here.
It’s not so much the money. It’s the precedent it sets. It’s a new political tool to shut us Trump supporters up. See someone on video counting stacks of ballots late at night with no poll watchers around? Or stuffing ballot boxes at 2am in the morning? Don’t say anything… you can be liable for damages to that person (and by default, not jury decision).
N3V1K thinks the real fake news comes from the mainstream media — and the big companies with big ad budgets that support the media.
Any Sponsor that had advertisements aired on CNN or any MSM during that shooting needs to pay also.
JMaN, by contrast, thinks that the real winner here is … Alex Jones?
Alex got well over $4 million worth of publicity, advertising and a platform.
Stupid commies!
PhantomFUZZ thinks it’s about guns, baby, guns.
Even Alex couldn’t fathom the full evil of the US deep state. He couldn’t imagine it was real and that intelligence agencies would not only ignore tip offs about shooters but would seek them out and gas light them into killing innocent Americans so they could push gun confiscation under the guise of stopping mass shootings they foment.
Then there’s Nerdrem1, who also thinks something fishy and gun-related is going on — but argues that Jones himself is “controlled opposition” and not to be trusted.
Yep, there’s no limits to the depths these people will go for their great plan or whatever they call it, and one of the top priorities is disarming the people. This was an attempt at that, nothing more or less. Alex Jones is controlled oppo and a sacrificial lamb to protect higher ups
He also had some thoughts about baby farms.
In my opinion it was real kids that got killed but it wasn’t their real parents on the news. They were just kids from underground baby farms, the parents are paid actors, the killers were cia/FBI/mercs, and this alex jones bullshit is just to cement the official story
DownGoesAJ is also not a big fan of Mr. Piece of Shit Jones.
I’m thrilled to see this piece of shit take a hit, just wish the damages were higher. Pot stirring piece of junk had to look that mother in the eye and apologize, trying to pretend he didn’t believe what he said, or even say what he said. There’s too much on record from that big mouth and I’m delighted he has been bitten in his big fat ass. …
[A]ll you AJ knob suckers are perpetuating a hoax bigger than Russia gate or anything else. Stop supporting this ego maniac and look at the facts.
Facts, huh? I haven’t seen many of those in this discussion. But everyone gets their own conspiracy theory. It’s the MAGA way.
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The sad thing is, he may be right.
We got to learn a lot about InfoWars operations and finances during the trial. Including that they usually pull in $800,000 per day; and their viewership has actually gone up during the trial. The judge had to admonish some of IW’s staff for doing shows about the trial during the trial. Showing a graphic of the judge being on fire didn’t exactly endear them to her either.
If regular social media is any indication, the trial has really fired up the IW fanbase; and gawd knows what’s going on in the more anonymous areas of the web.
Notwithstanding his claims of bankruptcy, the trial showed Jones has amassed a personal fortune of $162 million from IW; and that’s just the money that can be accounted for.
It does frighten me a bit that we’re in a post truth world. It’s like an anti-enlightenment. I know 1984 references are a bit naff; but this reminds me of how O’Brien exercises ‘reality control’ and his ability to totally disregard objective truths that don’t fit with the Party’s subjective viewpoint.
And there’s obviously a massive audience just begging to be fed this prolebait.
Dude, you think you’ve been smoking pure kush. But I’m pretty sure your kush has been cut with something awful, maybe embalming fluid. Don’t you know that stuff can harm your brain?
Just done a livestream about the inadvertent disclosure issue in case anyone is interested in the technical legal aspects.
I gotta admit, I am SO looking forward to hearing the punitive damages decision when it comes.
@ Vicky P
Yes. I was going to chat about that in the livestream. But, without breaching privilege myself, I have a defamation client who was on trial in a related criminal matter; and whilst we were live someone posted in the chat that the jury had returned a verdict. So we had to cut short. So, not only Alex getting surprises live on air.
But anyway, as to punitive damages…
As the tort was intentional or malicious, the statutory cap doesn’t apply.
However a while back SCOTUS said they found a 1:1 ratio (compensatory damages:punitive damages) seemed about right.
However they did also say this was arguably a state rights issue, and they would be saying more about that in Dobbs.
So with that in mind, the family’s lawyer thinks they could go as high as 1:10, before the state appellate court interferes.
Technically the judge could reduce them; but she seems to have made it very clear she doesn’t give a toss about the law when it comes to Jones.
(AJ’s acolytes do have a point there; but you’d have to have a heart of stone not to laugh)
@Alan
Yeah, I half expected Judge Gamble to trade in her gavel for a chancla a few times when she was explaining to Alex Jones that he had to behave himself in court.
It’s almost a pity she didn’t. But she’s obviously aware of the attention this case is getting.
@ Vicky P
Over here we have someone called a Tipstaff. Traditionally they were responsible for court security. Today that’s more dealt with by privatised companies; and the Tipstaff is ostensibly more of a ceremonial and administrative role.
Having said that, I once commented to the Tipstaff at the RCJ about his actual tipstaff (that’s the ‘ceremonial’ staff they carry).
He said: “The trick is to go for their knees.”
@Alan
There’s something rather Pratchettian about that.
@ Vicky P
Yeah. I love some all the traditional costumes court staff wear. Like the under-sheriff at the Bailey is all tights and frilly collars. But then it turns out they’re all like ex SAS.
This is the Tipstaff; and also the tipstaff.
The undersheriff gets an actual sword…
@Alan
Reminds me of the time a friend was visiting the Tower of London (his daughter works in the City, and he wanted to do the touristy stuff in between admiring his new grandbaby), and there was a rather rambunctious group of schoolchildren who were at the state of rambunctious where it’s all going to go to “uncontrollable” any second now.
My friend is a former US Army NCO, so he was delighted to see the Yeoman Warder assisting with the tour take a breath and say, “RIGHT THEN, SETTLE DOWN, YOU LOT – WE’RE GOING TO LEARN SOME HISTORY.”
The magic still worked.
@ Vicky P
I do advocacy training at a place called Cumberland Lodge. Once, due to some road closures in the park I got lost and accidentally ended up driving into the Queen’s private bit. Her majesty will be reassured to know that within 30 seconds there was a Range Rover next to me.
@Alan
Reminds me of the story Mr. Parasol told of a friend who was driving around certain highways in the American Southwest. Y’know, the highways that’re posted with signs that say, “Do not go off road. Do not even think about going off road. If your car breaks down, do not pull over. Stay in place and we will fetch you.” This Parasol friend actually did have car trouble, but he obeyed the signs … and a couple minutes later, members of the US military came over to render assistance and keep an eye on him until he was back on the road.
@VickyP & @Alan you reminded me of something from a long time ago; I was doing a live interpreting gig at a trade fair thingy, and unbeknownst to me the guest of honour was princess Anne who was wandering about in a frightfully gracious sort of way flanked by security goons. At one point she came up to the bit where I was working to Graciously Address the boss of this company.
All the Trade Stuff was on display, and as it happens I was surrounded by sharp implements and all manner of very Pointy Edgy things.
You know that sort of hideous attraction feeling you can sometimes feel at the edge of a cliff? Or Dougal faced with the Big Red Button?
I had to concentrate quite hard for a moment to make sure I didn’t make any sudden moves towards anything Pointy and Edgy while princessing was happening about three feet away (>.<)
(nothing about her in particular, apart from being Royle; just the vertiginous sensation of being surrounded by security all just standing quietly about but Ready to Pounce)
Jury is deliberating. Plantiff’s attorney has pointed out that Alex Jones “is worth almost $270 million that we know of. Please take an amount that punishes him, and an amount that ensures he never does this again.”
We’re getting a few comments from AJ fans. I don’t mind that. Rageclicks are good for the algorithm.
But I have noticed more than a few of them now going after Jones himself.
He was forced to admit on the stand that Sandy Hook was real. Some are giving him the benefit of the doubt and saying he must have been coerced into saying it. But others are now saying he’s either been turned by the Deep State; or was a plant all along.
Same thing happened when Irvine had to admit the Holocaust was real.
So I found a Letsrun thread about Charlie Sheen’s allegations of CP/pedophilia. And this commenter “yourewelcome” sounded like something out of Saiddit.
yourewelcome seems to be MRA-aligned to some extent.
@Alan:
Granted, there’s been a sizable contingent for many years that have believed that Alex Jones was always one of the ‘elites’ being used as a high-profile false flag operation to cover up the real conspiracies by publicizing an over-the-top parody of them and making them look too stupid to believe in.
So people from Jones’ prospective audience turning against him isn’t exactly a new thing.
@Alan Robertshaw:
But I have noticed more than a few of them now going after Jones himself.
He was forced to admit on the stand that Sandy Hook was real. Some are giving him the benefit of the doubt and saying he must have been coerced into saying it. But others are now saying he’s either been turned by the Deep State; or was a plant all along.
Same thing happened when Irvine had to admit the Holocaust was real.
And here—if the story is reliable—is an instance of a school shooting survivor whose father has accused him of being a crisis actor:
https://www.insider.com/parkland-survivor-qanon-convinced-dad-shooting-was-hoax-2021-7
Punitive damages: $44 million.
WOW.
ETA: Correction – $45.2 million.
https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/jury-alex-jones-defamation-case-begin-deliberations-punitive-damages-2022-08-05/
@Alan: That is good news. He’ll still have over $200 million to soothe him, though, and he can probably grift all of it back.
I would have liked to see either a chancla or a tipstaff applied to him a lot.
@VP: A friend of mine’s mother was a fearsome chancla wielder. She and her brother joked that Mama could set it to whirling/hovering in the air, go to bed, and it would smite them when they came in. Like some kind of slipper-drone.
Punitive damages total: $45,200,000
So $49,300,000 overall.
ETA: Ninja’d
Lucky for him Texas has a punitive damage cap (because it’s one of our worst states):
https://abovethelaw.com/2022/08/texas-damages-cap-looms-over-alex-jones-sandy-hook-defamation-case/
@ nequam
It looks like the statutory cap doesn’t apply. See post upthread for details.
@Jenora Feuer:
A quarter of a billion dollars? The amazing bit is that anyone believed otherwise.