Good. Hope he can't even afford to live on skid row when the courts are done with him.
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For everything that is in the news and what's going on in the world.
Does this include his own home and/or other properties as well? If it's just his business assets then what is there besides his name and show? Hopefully substantial funds in the bank, assuming they weren't shovelled off shore.
I can't imagine his stock of bullshit supplements are worth much anymore.
Legal Eagle did a video on this recently. He has a federal and a few state trials and a personal and business bankruptcy thing going. The families are in disagreement on how to get the money. Some want to shut the show down and don't care about the money, and some want to go the seize assets route.
There are different federal and state cases to resolve. He also gave his parents some of his assets and he tries to sell his parents supplements now in order to work around the court order since it's his parents making money and not him.
Yeah and he's playing the financial shuffle game to hide assets. This mofo deserves to be living in a box under an overpass.
I believe he did the Texas two-step beforehand and his wife owns the bulk of the assets and he will be enjoying a nice life... The selling off of the studio assets is substantial, but ultimately, anyone can do guy with a microphone news.
... Honestly... Honest to God... what might have actually made more money for the family is allowing Alex Jones & Infowars to persist indefinitely and simply seize all of the profits.
The families don't care about the money, the point is to get him to stop doing this. He's still saying Sandy Hook was a false flag, just like he does every single time there's a shooting. He's still spreading propaganda and lies every day, and still defaming people. His own lawyer argued that the amount was excessive specifically because Alex was going to keep doing the same thing anyway so the fine wouldn't matter and they might as well reduce it. This isn't about letting him do what he does and seizing the profits.
There are so many people doing guy with a microphone news, as you put it (not that InfoWars can be considered news), that without his studio and company he'll just be another one of these extremist grifters ranting on X 24/7 and will hopefully fade away. Reducing the amount of damage he can do to people is the goal.
Reducing the amount of damage he can do to people is the goal.
But there is no real damage being done.
A rational person would say I was part of a public tragedy, and now there are crazy people who try to itnerpret this tragedy inthe way they want, and some grifters use it to their own advantage cynically... I am not harmed by this. You can expect this to happen.
It is irrational to say that Alex Jones hurts you through his conspiracy theories.
pretty biased and ridiculous witchhunt, but also Jones is probably not a "conservative" and is just playing a part of being tarred and feathered for the other side's pleasure. He was just hired to try to make his positions look "ridiculous". He was kind of funny and pushed some true views though
What part of spreading lies so frequently that families of victims get harassed in real life is acceptable to you?
there were a lot of strange things that happened with the incident in question, I'd encourage you to do more research on the topic to see what truly happened
I DID look into it. I woke up to conservative talk radio in high school. I ate that bullshit up. And guess what? There's no substance. It's endless "this is weird, must be a conspiracy/liberals/soros" with zero hard evidence. That's why Jones got bent over in court. He ruined lives over fake bullshit with no proof.
Con artists like Alex Jones and tucker carlson HAVE to do the vague hand waving "there's something wrong with this" talk, because if they provide a list with supporting evidence, it is easily debunked. It's impossible to debunk a feeling. You have a feeling that something was weird about sandy hook, and you have what you think is evidence, but I can debunk them all and you won't feel any different about it.
zero hard evidence
Well with Sandy Hook, there were videos like of one of the alleged fathers laughing and then suddenly turning serious for a camera, which led to speculation that these people were acting and not true victims. It was bizarre behavior for someone whose child just died. I get some people saying that everyone handles "trauma" differently.
like this video: https://inv.tux.pizza/watch?v=s-ZfxxPc0r0 (you could substitute youtube.com/ for inv.tux.pizza if you want, it's just an adless proxy)
Other anomalies were detected like this. Certainly you can connect the dots and understand where these people are coming from in having a theory they may not have absolute proof for? Like evidence of a crime without the absolute surveillance tape that shows the crime happening? A person at the wrong place at the wrong time that a jury could convict, that kind of thing? At least do you understand the perspective such adherents of the theory have? They didn't have "no reason" to ask questions about facts that didn't add up, right?
what do you think has substance in contrast?
It sounds like you already understand that most of those things are bullshit.
Other anomalies were detected like this.
Right. And I could go down the line and debunk every one and it wouldn't change the mind of anyone who watched Alex Jones.
understand where these people are coming from in having a theory they may not have absolute proof for?
That's where the problem is. Alex Jones baselessly accused numerous people BY NAME leading to them being directly harassed and threatened.
This is weird, therefore false flag shooting is a HUGE fucking jump that is not grounded in reality, and why he owes those people hundreds of millions of dollars.
As a person, you are free to come up with whatever crackpot theories you want. You are not free to defame people. That's the bottom line with respect to Jones and carlson.
Listen to Knowledge Fight. It will disabuse you of a lot of the image that Alex Jones has as a "truth teller."
Do you have some of the main points? His role was / is basically to tell certain truths and then misdirect from more important ones. I'm trying to think of what a good analogy is on the left... a lot of the left criticizes big corporations, but doesn't realize the big government they want to come in and regulate those same corporations is run by the same people? AJ was like a person criticizing big corporations... and then saying, here, let the government (which is run by these corporations) solve these problems... (not going to work out)
Having listened to 800+ episodes, my impression of Alex Jones is that he's equal parts reactionary right winger and moneymaking huckster. He generally skims headlines and makes up a take that's compatible with his "the globalists are out to get us" stuff, most of which is based in white grievance identity politics.
Take this for what it's worth. I'm a socialist. But it's worth listening to an episode or two of the podcast to get a glimpse of Alex's typical stuff. Most people who have an impression of Alex as a truth teller haven't spent a lot of time with his show.
Honestly I think you agree with him a bit more than you realize, if we reframe the discussion a bit. Presumably you think "big corporations" are out to get you, right? Wealthy people are the same as "globalists" in this discussion... so do you agree "globalists" ARE out to get you? Or do you think rich people who are "exploiting" workers are "on your side"? You don't have to agree with everyone Jones says here, as I think he is mixing things that aren't true with those that are, but you do like understand he's correct on some of these things, right? Like, do you believe in "corporate conspiracy theories" if I reframe it that way? Companies make people sick so they can profit off giving them a cure? Companies messing up the environment so they can make money cleaning it up? So I guess is there any possibility of recognizing disagreements while also identifying points of agreement?
The core of his grievances is not false, the conclusion is. Yes, rich people own the world. That doesn't mean there's a shadowy satanic cabal that decides literally everything.
Here is as good of a place as any to say it: the decision against him is bullshit.
Yes, he advanced a crazy conspiracy theory and I can see how it is harmful to the victims family that some very strange people have called them up and harassed them. But the answer to that is to punish exclusively the relevant parties - I do not believe Jones revealed any personal information about them, nor did he ever encourage people to harass them, so what's the deal with him owing something like 1.5 billion?
Guy didn't kill anybody.
It was just free speech.
Because defamation is illegal. And just because you don't directly tell people to harass others, if you tell lies with the intention of that happening, it's also illegal.
Also doesn't help that he didn't show up to several trials (which made him lose by default) and lied about damn near everything.
As for the amount, IDK. That part does seem excessive but even 5% of it would likely still bankrupt the guy.
The funny thing is, he absolutely did all those things. He sent "correspondents" to harass parents, on camera, at a funeral for the kids. He told viewers to follow and dox parents who tried to hide, and got one of his "investigators" to do a segment outside their home, after they had moved and changed their name.
He didn't just mess with the trial, he did everything possible to derail and rig the legal process and was basically daring the judge to charge him with contempt. Including calling the judge a literal, biblical demon on the morning of a hearing.
The only tragedy here is that he didn't have to sell everything off immediately, and instead got 2 years to burn as much as possible and hide the rest in his parents' name.
Wouldn't surprise me but I haven't followed this THAT closely. I've got better things to do with my time than find out he's an even bigger piece of shit than I already know he is.
I remember someone saying he did these things but I acutally never saw evidence of it.
He didn’t just mess with the trial, he did everything possible to derail and rig the legal process and was basically daring the judge to charge him with contempt. Including calling the judge a literal, biblical demon on the morning of a hearing.
It always bothered me how you were not allowed to say what you want to the judge.
One of my friends was held in contempt of court and got all these crazy charges because he angrily slammed his skateboard down on the table and spoke back in a snippy manner... and I mean, really, it was quite strange because it was like this 20 year old young adult was being put through the ringer because the judge felt he did not have the right decorum in the court.
It's quite merciless and bizarre approach in a free country - it's what you'd expect from some stuffy colonial kangaroo court or Pomp & Circumstance 17th century butt-sniffer hearing:
Oh, you are going to call OUR JUDGE a NAME?! That'll be half your monthly income and a weekend in jail, peasant!
Imagine court like a classroom, but with actual consequences attached. There are very basic rules, and you already know them. You don't speak out of turn, you present your arguments with logic and respect, and you don't ask an army of wackos to threaten the teacher for handing out homework.
So adults shouldn't be allowed to share a negative opinion of a judge..? They should be treated like a child, who has to sit at a desk and can only provide polite, sweet, respectful feedback when asked..?
Why?
Why is that the model we should aim for in a free country?
I understand maintaining basic decorum so the judge can be heard and waiting one's turn to talk, but why does the judge need to be treated like that? He's not God; he's not my dad; he's someone who has to do his job, and I can have an opinion of him.
In a free country, decorum is not legally imposed.
I do not understand this - he advanced a conspiracy involving a mass shooting. Only in the most indirect way would he really be defaming anyone by implying that the official narrative is a lie. Potentially he has implied that the parents are in on the lie - I don't see any other way as to how it would be remotely rational to charge him - but it seems a bit bizarre to not allow his right to free speech take precedent since he is commenting on a public event involving public discourse and it is not designed to deprive anyone involved of their civil rights or negatively impact their business.
Also doesn’t help that he didn’t show up to several trials (which made him lose by default) and lied about damn near everything.
I am not that familiar with him, but the guy seems unstable, and it would not be beyond the pale to suggest he has a psychological disorder that should be considered in this, right... If you were to tell me that Alex Jones has issues distinguishing truth from fiction and keeping a story straight in his head and was not to be held culpable in a conventional sense for the lies he said, I would not be surprised.
I suppose you'd need some court approved psychologist to make that part of the offiical narrative, but it certainly should be part of the unofficial considerations of everyone involved with this - we are taking a guy with very little credibility who is famous for having an audience of people who want to hear wild, crazy thing, either because they believe in garbage or for entertainment... Having him be seriously sued into the dirt and financially destroyed forever for this is pretty wild for any free country to do.
He didn't imply the parents were lying. He said it directly. Among many other things.
The place for him to make your claims was court. And multiple juries found him guilty. I don't see how you can claim free speech was breeched when multiple juries found him guilty. In different states. It's not some one off.
And if you want to know about the cases, you can look them up. They'll have all the facts presented to the court in them.
It does not matter much to me in this case what the courts decided because it clearly violates the principle of free speech as I understand it.
To me, these decisions represent the decay of all our rights.
Your rights end where other's begin. I don't see how you can have that opinion on this when those affected by it have had so much trouble in their lives as a result.
The decisions made by the courts aren't new precedence. They're upholding what is already there. You can say you don't like it and that they got it wrong, but reality indicates otherwise.
So your clear on this going forward; the first amendment protects a persons speech from repercussions from the government. That's it. Not from aggrieved parties. Not even from businesses deciding to sue. It means your city or state can't censor you - the rest of society ABSOLUTELY can tho.
Free speech doesn't mean you get to say whatever you want. Free speech means the government has to argue you back, if it decides, and not use the power of the state, and it's monopoly of the use of violence against you.
If you want to burn a cross, go ahead. But you're also free to experience the consequences within yr community - the government isn't going to protect your decision to be inflammatory. In both ways in this particular case.
What I want to know, is if money is free speech and the government cannot impinge on that right, then how the fuck can the government charge us for ANYTHING, be that fines or services. All should of been rendered moot with citizens united.
Where do you think the 1.5 billion dollar judgement came from? God?
Ok, the source of the judgement doesn't eclipse me, nor do I see how that could be derived but you got there somehow so...
I'm speculating on the whether citizens united rescinds the gmnts ability to demand money, writ large, as that would impinge our 1st amendment. Punitive judgements, between separate parties neither of which are the government such as with Jones v Sandy Hook parents, I would assume wouldnt be effected because the judge is basically performing arbitrage. The DOL, permitting, and taxes are wholly separate issues. Likewise the EPA bringing a corp to court over pollution, or the SEC against bad actors illegally manipulating pump and dump. Not that cases like that couldn't exist, but not with a government agency as an aggrieved party.
Ya follow? I don't think its a difficult thought experiment.
So your clear on this going forward; the first amendment protects a persons speech from repercussions from the government. That’s it. Not from aggrieved parties. Not even from businesses deciding to sue. It means your city or state can’t censor you - the rest of society ABSOLUTELY can tho.
I actually think the first amendment is to protect you from any kind of oppression by anyone, including your employer.
The government should ensure that your boss can't fire you because you have the wrong opinion or some such.
I also do not understand the idea that he has the wrong opinion, you can sue him..!
To clarify, though: in matters of private affairs, it can constitute harassment or slander to knowingly spread lies that impact someone's reputation with the design to curtail their ability to exercise their rights or do business.
But a different standard is applied to things in the public sphere - the wild speculation of people during a criminal trial makes sense, and any kind of discourse on publicly relevant events makes sense...
While it would be highly inappropriate to claim you are practicing free speech and serving the public interests by spreading malicious lies you know to be untrue about the woman down the street and her affair with the mailman.