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Alex Jones must pay $4M in damages for Sandy Hook hoax claims

bbc.com

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Re: Alex Jones must pay $4M in damages for Sandy Hook hoax claims

#21

Post by papito »

Loughla wrote: post #4

So all the memes aside, is anyone else astounded at how poorly that went for Alex Jones? Just a shit-show nearly the entire time. From his terrible legal representation, to his own terrible testimony. Just a mess. I mean, his 'on-air' personality is a mess, but I always sort of thought it was just a show. It's interesting to me that it turned out he really is just an absolute train-wreck of a person.

In his, uh, defense - years of serving nonsense to gullible chumps who eat up every word of your insane drivel who then send you piles of money, makes one lose their edge in the real world.

Re: Alex Jones must pay $4M in damages for Sandy Hook hoax claims

#22

Post by snet0 »

superb-owl wrote: post #11
Loughla wrote: post #4

So all the memes aside, is anyone else astounded at how poorly that went for Alex Jones? Just a shit-show nearly the entire time. From his terrible legal representation, to his own terrible testimony. Just a mess. I mean, his 'on-air' personality is a mess, but I always sort of thought it was just a show. It's interesting to me that it turned out he really is just an absolute train-wreck of a person.

This is a pretty good profile: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/05/magazine/alex-jones-infow... That disabused me of the notion of Jones as an Evil Genius. He's just an alcohol-and-attention-fueled nut.

Watching him on Joe Rogan post Sandy-Hook gave me a pause that made me wonder if, under the public persona, there was a genuine human. I can certainly imagine that, if you're getting so heavily rewarded for the OTT absurdity, vitriol and anger, you can eventually get lost in the act.

Occam's razor holds true, though. He's just a clown with issues.

Re: Alex Jones must pay $4M in damages for Sandy Hook hoax claims

#23

Post by 300bps »

Loughla wrote: post #4

So all the memes aside, is anyone else astounded at how poorly that went for Alex Jones? Just a shit-show nearly the entire time. From his terrible legal representation, to his own terrible testimony. Just a mess. I mean, his 'on-air' personality is a mess, but I always sort of thought it was just a show. It's interesting to me that it turned out he really is just an absolute train-wreck of a person.

It's interesting to me that it turned out he really is just an absolute train-wreck of a person.

He seems to me like he is a very successful rabble rouser and promoter. He seems to have made millions of dollars per year fulfilling that role - as much as $800,000 per day:

https://www.celebritynetworth.com/articles/celebrity/alex-jo...

The $4.2 million verdict doesn't seem significant to him, despite his protestations to the contrary. The plaintiffs were seeking $150 million. We'll see how much the $4.2 million is increased during the punitive phase of the trial but so far it seems like a cost of doing business for him.

Re: Alex Jones must pay $4M in damages for Sandy Hook hoax claims

#25

Post by tmn »

akudha wrote: post #5
lalaland1125 wrote: post #2

That's probably still a net profit for Alex Jones. According to the documents discussed in court he makes $800,000 a day from his show. If anything, he probably made more covering his own trial than what the trial cost.

Jeez! 800k per day. That is obscene, for a charlatan. How much of this is profit I wonder. 4M is chump change for someone making THAT much money. Plus, who knows how much money his nut job supporters are donating to him.

OP said 800,00 so I'm not sure if that was intended to be 800,000. But that obviously doesn't pass the BS test. Alex jones is not pulling in over 100m a year or anywhere close to that.

Re: Alex Jones must pay $4M in damages for Sandy Hook hoax claims

#26

Post by jliptzin »

Loughla wrote: post #4

So all the memes aside, is anyone else astounded at how poorly that went for Alex Jones? Just a shit-show nearly the entire time. From his terrible legal representation, to his own terrible testimony. Just a mess. I mean, his 'on-air' personality is a mess, but I always sort of thought it was just a show. It's interesting to me that it turned out he really is just an absolute train-wreck of a person.

That went terribly for him? $4 million is pocket change for him, he made way more than that off his nonstop lies and conspiracy theories

Re: Alex Jones must pay $4M in damages for Sandy Hook hoax claims

#27

Post by klenwell »

superb-owl wrote: post #11
Loughla wrote: post #4

So all the memes aside, is anyone else astounded at how poorly that went for Alex Jones? Just a shit-show nearly the entire time. From his terrible legal representation, to his own terrible testimony. Just a mess. I mean, his 'on-air' personality is a mess, but I always sort of thought it was just a show. It's interesting to me that it turned out he really is just an absolute train-wreck of a person.

This is a pretty good profile: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/05/magazine/alex-jones-infow... That disabused me of the notion of Jones as an Evil Genius. He's just an alcohol-and-attention-fueled nut.

This American Life also did a pretty interesting story on his origins:

> Reporter Jon Ronson travels to Jones' hometown in Texas, to investigate the story Jones tells about himself, and how he became who he is.

https://www.thisamericanlife.org/670/beware-the-jabberwock/a...

Re: Alex Jones must pay $4M in damages for Sandy Hook hoax claims

#28

Post by boomboomsubban »

akatechis wrote: post #17
wing-_-nuts wrote: post #3

I hope they throw the book at him for punitive damages as well. Maybe then people will learn you don't get to sit there spouting blatant lies without consequence. I thought forwarding his messages to the jan6 committee was just a stunt but apparently there's some juicy stuff in there. Will be interesting to see what comes out of it.

> Maybe then people will learn you don't get to sit there spouting blatant lies without consequence. That is partly true. The ruling class gets to lie with impunity whenever they want, for profit or power. Remember WMDs in Iraq? And Iran has been "6 months away from a nuclear bomb" for the past 50 years.

>And Iran has been "6 months away from a nuclear bomb" for the past 50 years.

To be fair, that statement has always been "if Iran seriously tried to build a nuclear bomb, it'd take them roughly six months to do so."

That is probably fairly true, but they've constantly lied about how serious Iran has ever been about building a nuke while using the statement stoke fears.

Re: Alex Jones must pay $4M in damages for Sandy Hook hoax claims

#29

Post by mattkrause »

jliptzin wrote: post #26
Loughla wrote: post #4

So all the memes aside, is anyone else astounded at how poorly that went for Alex Jones? Just a shit-show nearly the entire time. From his terrible legal representation, to his own terrible testimony. Just a mess. I mean, his 'on-air' personality is a mess, but I always sort of thought it was just a show. It's interesting to me that it turned out he really is just an absolute train-wreck of a person.

That went terribly for him? $4 million is pocket change for him, he made way more than that off his nonstop lies and conspiracy theories

This is the first of several cases, I think.

If he were to be charged with perjury, it might take a little while to prepare the indictment too.

Re: Alex Jones must pay $4M in damages for Sandy Hook hoax claims

#30

Post by 300bps »

akatechis wrote: post #17
wing-_-nuts wrote: post #3

I hope they throw the book at him for punitive damages as well. Maybe then people will learn you don't get to sit there spouting blatant lies without consequence. I thought forwarding his messages to the jan6 committee was just a stunt but apparently there's some juicy stuff in there. Will be interesting to see what comes out of it.

> Maybe then people will learn you don't get to sit there spouting blatant lies without consequence. That is partly true. The ruling class gets to lie with impunity whenever they want, for profit or power. Remember WMDs in Iraq? And Iran has been "6 months away from a nuclear bomb" for the past 50 years.

The ruling class gets to lie with impunity whenever they want

You seem to be parroting the exact thing that Alex Jones said in his video responding to the $4.2 million verdict. It's simple Whataboutism.

The fact is, people's children were murdered. He created and spread a conspiracy theory that the entire event was fake, and that the parents of the murdered children participated in the conspiracy.

He admits he was wrong. He admits he did harm to the parents. A jury found he was liable for $4.2 million in compensatory damages. We'll see what the punitive damages end up being soon.

In the meantime, talking about lies that other people have done doesn't take away from his reprehensible actions.

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