Another Legal Hoaxer Takes The First Of An Expected Many Hits

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While punitive damages are capped in Texas, lawsuits in other states have succeeded in having such caps overruled as unconstitutional.

A few commenter rather weakly claim Jones was exercising his free speech. Defamation is never included in that.

(If you go back into American legal history it was for a few years very easy to sue for defamation, and so corrupt politicians were avidly wiping out media outlets. The First Amendment swung the balance the other way. Unfortunately It protects the NY Times-driven Amanda Knox hoax, but as a US court ruled the whole Internet is a free-speech zone, so it protects us too.)

Here are some useful tips in the YouTube comments:

Punitive damages: (1) can’t be covered by insurance, and (2) not dischargeable in bankruptcy. Say goodnight, Alex.

Anyone mentioning “FREEDOM OF SPEECH” in relation to this is ignorant of the facts. This was a damages hearing, not the defamation trial. That ended months ago, in default against Alex because he and his lawyers refused to comply with basic court orders, including not providing relevant documents. The disrespect he showed the families and the court was so grave, pulling every stall tactic, he lost the case by default. And with it any chance he could’ve argued that his lies were covered on “free speech” grounds.

I will tell you what is really gross, congress allows companies to shield themselves from lawsuits by declaring bankruptcy. Not only is in bad faith to allow this practice of bankruptcy, it’s a moral hazard to the extreme. I hope the families exact as much as they can punitively and gut Jones financially.

It was a default judgement because Jones violated a court order. Default judgements are essentially “You did not comply with ensuring there was a fair trial for the other side (Goes both ways but this is from the perspective of the person who violated the court order) so we will assume your side lost as a deterrent for people in the future as well as the assumption of guilt.”

Freedom of speech does not grant you freedom of consequences. Borderline hate speech from this guy, calling the murder of 20 children a hoax, getting his brain dead followers to target those parents. Those defending him are the lowest tier of thought that’s existed.

The judge was so professional, unbiased, and patient. She gave Jones far more leeway than he deserved. A perfectly fair trial, but the punishment was not severe enough.

Is the heyday for conspiracy theories past and as folks wisen up, are they in some decline? That might be the case, but as tools for getting rich and for winning at politics they seem far from dead yet.

On the UK front the YouTube comments threads on the Conservative leadership election seem to me to reflect a lot of fear, some quite justified about the awful economy, but some also that seem to me unreal, about internal and external enemies of the UK. Such as the supposed plotting of global takeover by some core group of the WEF (always a toothless tiger to me).

On the US front both old and new conspiracy theories are again more noticeable now, and despite his legal setback, this Alex Jones (video above) is still pretty busy stirring things up every day. See this from Democracy Now:

After Jones spread the lie that the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre was a hoax, “it went from there to Pizzagate to QAnon to Charlottesville and the ‘Great Replacement’ theory … to coronavirus myths, the ‘Stop the Steal’ lie, and then ultimately the violence at the Capitol on January 6,” [NY Times reporter Elizabeth] Williamson says. “Alex Jones has his fingerprints on pretty much all those theories that have circulated in the decade since.”

We were always cautious about Meredith’s case becoming a political football, as it seems White House administrations of both parties had their fingerprints on the disrupting of the legal process.

So it will be a relief when the UK leadership & US midterm elections have been and gone! Then we can raise our voice with much less risk. Dr Mignini’s book will be out in Italy then meaning Italians may be up in arms!

Where next:

Or to next entry Georgia Meloni Likely To Become Italy’s First Woman Prime Minister Next Month

Or to previous entry Back In The News: UK’s Suzy Lamplugh Case, Maybe Most Obsessed-Over Anywhere