Under ordinary circumstances, I would never do this, but I feel I have no choice but to say a few words about Alex Jones, who is now Americas most thoroughly disgraced right-wing grifter and please excuse the language scumbag.
The InfoWars host is not nearly as important a fake conspiracy theorist as say, Donald Trump, the former Grifter in Chief, or Tucker Carlson, who (Im guessing) doesnt believe a single provocative word he says, or even Laura Ingraham or Steve Bannon.
But Jones is an avowed QAnon-level conspiracy theorist, whose Infowars broadcasts are all in, for instance, on the Democratic pedophile conspiracy hoax, and who has a long history of promoting lies hes a longtime COVID anti-vaxxer, of course for profit, money reportedly running into many tens of millions of dollars, even as Jones keeps claiming bankruptcy. But Jones seems to have specialized in suggesting the worst of the many mass shootings in America had been staged. You know, like the moon landing. Thats when he isnt ranting about gay frogs.
In Jones latest trial, he was forced to admit the Sandy Hook massacre was 100% real as every sane person had to know and that he should never have claimed that the school shooting was a false flag operation, with crisis actors pretending to be grieving parents of children who didnt really exist. The fakery was supposedly in the would-be cause of governmental gun grabbing and the trashing of the Second Amendment.
In the Austin trial, Jones was caught lying by the prosecutor, Mark Bankston, who asked Jones if he actually understood what perjury means, and by one of the parents who lost a child at Sandy Hook, who asked him directly, Do you think Im an actor? Jones admitted he didnt. It seems that even someone like Jones can be shamed by a real parent of a real child lost in another senseless shooting or maybe, and this is my guess, it was Jones regret that was faked.
In any case, Jones had to admit it was all a fraud, even though another host on Infowars was busily calling Jones trial rigged and blasting out a video of the judge in flames.
But Jones was hit with a $4 million verdict for compensatory damages to the parents of a Sandy Hook victim. And that was just the beginning. The jury came back the next day to award them $45.2 million in punitive damages. Given the living hell, as one parent put it, that Jones put the Sandy Hook parents through, $452 million would have been better but still not enough. The punitive awards are punishment and a warning. And while the $45.2 million, with more Sandy Hook trials to come, could bury Jones, it wont snuff out the conspiracy theorists. Thanks to the darker places on the internet, and to the millions who visit them, this is never going way.
Still, it was a great moment for Sandy Hook parents there are more trials coming and for the injured parties in other school shootings. And, at minimum, the jury awards and Jones testimony did shine a light on the worst of the hoaxes and the damage they cause.
When Jones has to admit under oath that hes a giant fraud, hes basically saying under oath that a long list of his conspiracy theorist pals are also fraudulent.
Most in the MAGA community, including Trump himself, had little to nothing to say about Jones, although Marjorie Taylor Greene she of Jewish space laser infamy did tweet support for him for his testimony trying to link the Clintons with Jeffrey Epstein. Of course she did.
And it was Trump, of course, who years after Jones lies about Sandy Hook, told the renowned fabulist, Your reputation is amazing.
Yes, he did. Just as he once told the Proud Boys to stand back and stand by.
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And guess what Jones said back to Trump in that infamous 2015 radio interview: What youre doing is epic. Its George Washington level.
What makes this Jones humiliation especially satisfying is that the trial was happening at the same time that Big Lie conspiracist or maybe shes a Big Lie dupe Tina Peters was paying $255,000 for a recount of her decisive loss in the GOP primary race to be the partys secretary of state nominee.
In the recount of a race the Mesa County clerk lost by 88,000 votes, she picked up 13 votes. Thats it. And the 13 votes were coincidentally the exact number picked up by Pam Anderson, the actual winner. Peters is still claiming fraud what else? but youd have to hope that at least some believers might now have doubts. I mean, do you really think the Chinese had any interest in Tina Peters or even know who she is?
Youd also think that at least some of the suckers who contributed as much as $500,000 to Peters after her loss were, at minimum, embarrassed by their navet. Maybe not, but the rest of the country had to notice what was happening in Austin and in Colorado.
Read more of Mike Littwins columns.
Ive got a feeling that Peters coming days in court on 10 election-related charges, seven of them felonies, might not turn out any better for her than this latest day in court did for Jones.
Im not suggesting that this is a new day. In the recent Arizona primary election, Republican Big Lie proponents swept the major offices. People are keeping score in how Trump-backed candidates do in the primaries, and hes definitely holding his own.
Political grifters have a long history in America, dating back at least to Mark Twains famous line in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in which he has the fraudulent King telling the fraudulent Duke, Haint we got all the fools in town on our side? And aint that a big enough majority in any town?
Well, it wasnt a big enough majority for Peters or for Jones. Thats progress. And now were left to wonder where that leaves the House January 6 select committee, which has laid out, in one hearing after another, compelling evidence that Trumps Big Lie was an even bigger lie than we knew.
It now looks as if the hearings, which are scheduled to resume in September, have put enough heat on Merrick Garland and the Department of Justice to do a genuine inquiry into Trumps more-than-obvious attempt to steal the 2020 election, not to mention to incite a riot at the nations Capitol, putting Mike Pence and others in real danger and, well, I could go on. And on.
Meanwhile, in Georgia, it seems that theres an excellent chance a grand jury will indict Trump for various crimes - it seems they havent forgotten Trumps coercive phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, asking him to find 11,000 votes against democracy.
Trump is, of course, a serial liar. The Washington Post, which kept score, put the number of lies during his four years as president as 30,573. His path to the presidency began with his full commitment to the Obama birther conspiracy. That was also a Big Lie but not as big as the one weve been dealing with since Trump began scheming to overturn his 2020 defeat.
The cynical view which, sadly, may prove to be true is that Trump will never have to pay for his misdeeds. But lets hope, at least, that there comes a day when a prosecutor gets to ask Trump if he knows what perjury is.
Mike Littwin has been a columnist for too many years to count. He has covered Dr. J, four presidential inaugurations, six national conventions and countless brain-numbing speeches in the New Hampshire and Iowa snow
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Littwin: It's been a tough week for conspiracy theorists. Is Trump next? - The Colorado Sun