It’s my belief that this would be the best thing we could get out of this trial. If there’s a court on record that JAQing off isn’t a get-out-of-jail free card it could place a dampening effect on those who would lie about political issues and not care about the damage they do to the people about whom they lie.
Since the lawsuits are about stuff that’s already been done, this won’t stop or ameliorate them. He’s done the shit, he has to pay for it.
This will, however, not play well among the people who followed and supported Infowars over the years because they though Alex Jones was The Last Honest Man, the one who couldn’t be corrupted by the SJWs and Globalists and Cultural Marxists. If he does a big about-face now, in response to obvious pressure, he loses his cachet.
This might hurt his case, too: If he says he’s changed his beliefs in response to evidence, well, he can’t very well say he was an actor playing a role, now, can he? He was someone spreading insane lies because he couldn’t be bothered to check them at any point in time prior to this lawsuit, and that kind of utter recklessness is an element of defamation.
He testified it’s a mix - sincere commentary, satire and humor.
I just skimmed the front page of his Infowars website and his Twitter feed, and found no mention of this change of opinion there. I have no idea if he’s expressed on his radio or television show that he’s changed his mind. My point is that his backtracking should get as much prominence as the original false claims.
So are you a lawyer or not?
[Meatloaf] One out of three ain’t bad. [/Meatloaf]
He also said under oath that eating chili makes him forget his children’s ages, though.
Just how much chili is he eating?!
So, his defense is that it’s not malicious, because he has reason to believe every word, and it’s clearly joking, because obviously nobody could believe such nonsense.
I’d argue that, even with this weaseling, he’s defaming them. “The families are being used by the Democratic Party”, because of course there’s no way the families could honestly think that better guns laws might actually be a desirable result.
And I love the bit about inviting them on to his show. “Okay, sure, I spent years making you out to be evil liars working to destroy 'Murrica, but please, come on my show where I can exploit you some more as content for my advertising schemes!”
And his show isn’t even a live TV broadcast, where you could at least see how many different ways you could call him a fuckhead live on air before they cut you off.
Well you can untwist your panties because no laws have been changed. So if you weren’t frigtened last year there’s no reason to be frightened now. People have the same rights and obligations that they had last year. So were you frightened last year too? If not, why not?
And it is disingenuous of you to bring up in this thread people having different opinions or being mistaken. Defamation laws have been around for a long time. Are you claiming you just found out about them now? If you don’t understand them, wikipedia is free for you to access, and you can do it with one hand while you are untwisting your pants.
The guy we are talking about in this thread is the worst kind of trash. Calling families who have just lost their children forever liars. How does he live with himself? I just can’t imagine.
For those who are interested in following this case, here’s the Petition (what we would call a ‘Statement of Claim’) outlining the allegations:
There’s been a new ruling that lets some of the plaintiffs in the suits against Alex Jones have a look at the financial info in his InfoWars website.
Now that a jury has awarded compensatory damages of $4 million, what are the odds the punitive damages will be much, much higher? Jones seems to be skating with a relatively light slap on the wrist after draining the company of money when the writing started appearing on the wall.
“If you look at the bankruptcy filing, leading up to the declaration of bankruptcy, Alex Jones, the sole owner [of Free Speech Systems], took $62 million in draws in 2021 and 2022,” Moshenberg (one of the family attorneys) told CNN. “Just straight up draws. That’s why the company has few assets.”
Speech may be free but lying has a cost, to paraphrase. But if the cost is so little and lying remains hugely profitable, why stop?
We’re supposed to find out about punitive damages in the next day or two, so I prefer to hold my outrage until it is called for.
In a little-reported outrage, the U.S. Supreme Court has invented a limit on the amount of punitive damages that can be awarded. The formula is complicated in theory, but in practice it means a 4 to 1 or maybe 10 to 1) ratio of compensatory to punitives is the most that the courts will allow.
Here’s the decision if anyone is interested. ( Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg dissented.)
45.2 million in punitive.
Excellent.
So, do the two posts prior to mine mean that he’s actually on the hook for that total?
I hope all of the other families he’s terrorized also sue him and are awarded similar amounts. What a despicable human being.
I think there are two more trials coming up.
I am willing to bet Jones will work diligently to evade paying anything.
OJ Simpson was ordered to pay the Goldman’s $33.5 million. So far he has paid very little.