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The Onion to Take over InfoWars

nytimes.com

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Re: The Onion to Take over InfoWars

#181

Post by sjsdaiuasgdia »

carlosjobim wrote: post #166
sjsdaiuasgdia wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you feel would be an outcome to this situation that aligns to the realism and pragmatism you believe the court system should have? All of the threads related to this topic have had a pile of folks going "the amount was too much!" but hardly any of them say what they think an appropriate punishment would look like...

Not the person you asked, but the sensible thing is of course that the court decides the amount - not the plaintiffs. That's how it works in other places. In criminal cases, I've seen victims getting anywhere between 50% to 10% of what they've demanded, or even nothing even when the judgement has been in their favour.

You're aware a judge was still involved in the process and agreed to it, right? It's not just the plaintiffs.

Re: The Onion to Take over InfoWars

#182

Post by wredcoll »

carlosjobim wrote: post #166
sjsdaiuasgdia wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you feel would be an outcome to this situation that aligns to the realism and pragmatism you believe the court system should have? All of the threads related to this topic have had a pile of folks going "the amount was too much!" but hardly any of them say what they think an appropriate punishment would look like...

Not the person you asked, but the sensible thing is of course that the court decides the amount - not the plaintiffs. That's how it works in other places. In criminal cases, I've seen victims getting anywhere between 50% to 10% of what they've demanded, or even nothing even when the judgement has been in their favour.

The court does decide, but the plaintiffs are allowed to present their opinion on what it should be and if you manage to screw up your defense enough then the jury gets told to agree with the plaintiff.

This is also the result of multiple lost lawsuits as well as additional penalties from not complying with court directives during the cases.

Re: The Onion to Take over InfoWars

#183

Post by fncypants »

tnelsond4 wrote: post #125

Organizations love to run controlled opposition. Just came out that the Southern poverty law center has been funding the KKK of all things. https://www.justice.gov/usao-mdal/pr/federal-grand-jury-char...

Are you not aware that that the credibility of the US DOJ under the present administration has been completely destroyed and you should not trust anything they say simply because they said it in a press release (perhaps especially because they said it in a press release)? Federal judges have repeatedly declined to give the DOJ the benefit of the doubt (called "presumption of regularity") and all but called them liars. [1]

In this case, experts are unanimous that this is a hit job by Director Patel (see his poor record here [2]) who had a political vendetta against this civil rights organization. SPLC's actions were all related to investigations to EXPOSE the KKK using undercover informants. They were paying investigators, not the organization. They were absolutely in no way "funding the KKK."

“SPLC is a leading authority on organized hate groups and undertakes the complex and often dangerous work of investigating and exposing these networks. Its outstanding record of tracking and addressing hate belies the misguided premise of the indictment — that SPLC was somehow supporting the very hate groups it has long helped to discredit and dismantle.

“The DOJ’s actions are wrong and part of a broader effort to intimidate organizations working to advance civil rights, strengthen our democracy, and hold bad actors accountable.[3]

[1] https://www.justsecurity.org/120547/presumption-regularity-t...

[2] https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/2026/04/kash-patel-fbi-...

[3] https://www.lawyerscommittee.org/statement-from-the-lawyers-...

Re: The Onion to Take over InfoWars

#184

Post by laweijfmvo »

oo0shiny wrote: post #171

For anyone curious about the events that led to this decision, I made a timeline that shows how it happened: https://alexjoneslies.com/

just a heads up, this is pretty dark (as any mass shooting discussion would be, but particularly this one), and doesn’t include anything about the sale of infowars or the onion.

Re: The Onion to Take over InfoWars

#185

Post by ijk »

guywithahat wrote: post #162
tnelsond4 wrote: post #125

Organizations love to run controlled opposition. Just came out that the Southern poverty law center has been funding the KKK of all things. https://www.justice.gov/usao-mdal/pr/federal-grand-jury-char...

It's sort of tragic the onion takeover came on the heels of him being right about SPLC. There's something morally questionable about the largest civil fine in history being against a guy who accused a shooting of being a false flag and then apologized a few weeks later when better information came to light. I'm not saying he shouldn't have been sued, but rather it feels like the wrong amount for how apologetic he was…

I don't see anywhere he was apologetic enough to fix any of the damages that he caused, and plenty of places where he was documented as doubling down on lies he knew were lies at the time.

The man was making money off of lying about dead children. Where's the comedy in that?

Re: The Onion to Take over InfoWars

#186

Post by wredcoll »

some_random wrote: post #170
mcdonje wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're not going to have a rehash of the McDonald's coffee settlement argument here, are we? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punitive_damages

Stella Liebeck was awarded 2.7 million in punitive damages, that seems like a much more reasonable number than 1.4 billion.

It was considerably less on appeal and the mcdonalds lawyers didn't anatagonize the court every chance they got and it was literally 30 years ago and there was only one victim.

Just with inflation (6.4m) and number of victims (22?) you get a much larger number real quick.

Re: The Onion to Take over InfoWars

#187

Post by Zak »

declan_roberts wrote: post #149
Zak wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, at first. If it was a typical defamation case based on a single incident or short pattern of conduct, and if Jones behaved like a typical defendant, hiring a competent lawyer and mostly complying with court orders, the judgment would have been a few million dollars. That's not what happened. Instead, Jones repeatedly failed to comply with court orders and attempted to delay the trial. He lied under oath, broadca…

If he did something criminal then there's a code of law that provides a remedy to that. As far as I know that's not what happened here. Because what he did wasn't criminal, many people wanted a maximal civil settlement in substitution.

What he did is lose his civil lawsuits about as hard as it's possible to lose, which is easily explained by his behavior during those lawsuits.

Re: The Onion to Take over InfoWars

#188

Post by dvlsg »

ziml77 wrote: post #98
Schiendelman wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She deserved way more than that for the way they tried to smear her afterward!

Seriously, the reporting on that was so terribly biased that many people still think it was a frivolous lawsuit.

It's honestly kind of chilling just how effective smear campaigns can be.

I don't think there's any reasonable person who could read the full medical description of the injuries sustained and think "yeah 2.7 mill was too much".

Re: The Onion to Take over InfoWars

#189

Post by wredcoll »

Rover222 wrote: post #152
dml2135 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which Hasan Piker interview was this? The only one I saw was about shoplifting.

That one. They asked if the murder of the United CEO was justified because he committed "social murder". Piker is the left equivalent of Charlie Kirk - saying outrageous things for attention, but he has constantly called for violence, while Kirk never did.

Do you think charlie kirk would be proud of you for lying about what he said?

Re: The Onion to Take over InfoWars

#190

Post by mschuster91 »

tombert wrote: post #138
phatfish wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely he just waits for the Trump pardon in 2028? Or is this something he can't be pardoned for?

I don't the president can pardon away a lawsuit. He could pardon away a crime, and sometimes the crime can be a basis for a civil lawsuit, but in this case I don't think anyone has seriously considered criminally charging Jones for anything here.

> I don't [think] the president can pardon away a lawsuit.

Never underestimate Trump's ability in decreeing something and hoping for it to stick long enough to cause real damage before the courts eventually strike it down - it took almost a year until the Supreme Court struck down the tariffs, by the time the first large corporations get their refunds it will be over a year, and honestly I'd be surprised if the first consumers get refunds by the end of 2026.

Trump's ability to do that is solely caused by a lot of people across all branches and levels of government too afraid to say "no" to him and getting on the receiving end of "you're fired".

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