Trump Wars' previously (Infowars) founder Alex Jones is being used to set an insane potential precedent in court against Free Speech, Freedom Of Press and the eviscerating of the First Amendment.
Court papers filed last week in Travis County, by Houston attorney Mark Bankston have brought up a defamation suit against Alex Jones. Bankston wrote in a post that Jones was already a victory “in one important respect.”
“Compelling Mr. Jones to admit in a legal pleading that Plaintiffs’ son truly died was an important step towards safety and justice for this family,” Bankston wrote. “But it is not the last.”
Jones is accused by the parents of Noah Pozner, one of the 20 children killed in the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut of defamation and harassment. In the suit, Jones is cited referring to Leonard Pozner’s and Veronique De La Rosa’s son as their “supposed son” or a child who “reportedly” died, Bankston said.
While Bankston's case is built heavily by Fred Zipp, the former editor of the American-Statesman, who now teaches journalism at the University of Texas, supervising a digital media initiative known as Reporting Texas.
“I was aware of InfoWars’ extremely poor reputation in the media industry with respect to the reliability of the information it publishes, and I also knew that Mr. Jones had alleged the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was a government hoax involving actors,” Zipp writes in his 26-page affidavit, which is accompanied by 172 pages of transcripts from Jones’ broadcasts.“While the site purports to be a news and information operation it is actually a propaganda site for Mr. Jones’ theories about a global conspiracy to control and enslave the world’s population,” Zipp writes. “In Mr. Jones’ view, communists are active participants in the conspiracy, and depriving citizens of access to firearms is a tactic used in enslaving the population.”
Jones is broadcasted on more than 160 radio stations. While his YouTube channel has more than 2.4 million subscribers.
Especially worrying is, Zipp notes, “Mr. Jones’ rise to notoriety coincided with his assertions that the 9/11 terrorist attacks were orchestrated by the U.S. government.”
Since then, Zipp writes, “a major element of Mr. Jones’ brand is built on his allegations that major national tragedies are actually the results of orchestrated government actions.”“Mr. Jones’ pattern of predictably asserting that events are 'false flags,' sometimes within hours of the event, is circumstantial evidence that Mr. Jones recklessly disregarded whether his broadcast was true in this case,” Zipp wrote in reference to InfoWars’ Sandy Hook coverage.
It's true that false flags have occurred throughout history as Zero Hedge reports and they are a method used by governments to control the population.
However, claiming a government psyop false flag murder whether a staged event or real, a few minutes or hours after the event is dangerous and disgusting.It not only completely destroys your credibility but it provides a reasoning for the mainstream media to attack such theories while brushing off real evidence of false flags like the proposed U.S. military Cuba false flag Operation Northwoods.
“Alex Jones and InfoWars generally have a signature style: rapid-fire assertion of various data points with little or more often, no attribution,” Zipp said. “The assertions are presented to the viewer as facts. Underlying the presentation is the premise that Jones is at war with `the globalists’ and that he wins the war by marshaling his assertions more effectively than they do. In traditional journalism, by contrast, attributing assertions to sources is an essential element of the work, and the attribution becomes more important in proportion to the seriousness of the facts asserted.”
Jones faces five defamation lawsuits, three brought by Bankston in Jones’ home of Austin, Texas. These lawsuits threaten Jones’ for his website and reporting, My Statesman reported.
Meanwhile, a Dallas attorney Mark Enoch, representing Jones, is arguing to dismiss the defamation case under the Texas Citizens Participation Act — a legislation that was passed by in 2011 and signed into law by Gov. Rick Perry, intended to protect citizens’ First Amendment rights from meritless claims intended to silence them.
Enoch argues that the lawsuit is a “strategic device” to silence Jones “as well as anyone else who refuses to accept what the mainstream media and government tell them, and prevent them from expressing any doubt or raising questions.”
Alex Jones present statement, however, alludes to the use of "crisis actors" after the event rather than stating the event didn't happen. While his actions and statements during the event contradict each other. And while I don't personally subscribe to Alex Jones' Trump is the savior radio, I agree with Alex somewhat that there may have been PR stunts, because of the strange video of Robbie Parker smiling and various other anomalies of Sandy Hook.
“For years I have been very, very clear that I think Sandy Hook happened, but that there was PR involved, and CNN and others basically didn’t want to let a good crisis go to waste,” Jones told the Statesman.
The alternative is that there were some "witnesses" in the shooting that were just seeking fame from a tragedy. This doesn't mean that I believe Sandy Hook was all around fake. Is it possible? Sure, anything is possible but is it probable? Not very likely.
It's more than likely a mix of government funded PR propaganda (not letting a good crisis go to waste), fake witnesses, and real grieving parents.
No matter what you think of Sandy Hook it's a fact that media has been manipulated in the past, for political goals and MSM works hand in hand with the government as the 4th branch pushing government-styled propaganda packages. This doesn't mean that every event is a false flag or manipulated what it means is it could be.
While it's also a fact that Alex Jones has harassed purported victims' Families of Sandy Hook like Leonard Pozner’s and Veronique De La Rosa and many others who are suing him.
In his affidavit, Zipp documents Alex Jones broadcasts statement after statement, show after show, in which Jones describes the Sandy Hook shooting as - “staged,” “scripted,” “a giant hoax,” “the whole thing was a fake,” “synthetic, completely fake with actors, in my view, manufactured." Alex Jones also once said that he “did deep research and it pretty much didn’t happen,” and the shooting was “as phony as a three-dollar bill.”
Whatever, you think of this writer's opinion or Alex Jones doesn't matter. The ultimate thing that we should all be focusing on is that this case is being used to set a precedent in Texas and introduce a law that is completely anti-First Amendment, that quite literally is being pushed to silence free thought. Which Jones lawyer argues is “all in their quest to outlaw conspiracy theories, assault rifles, high-capacity clips and to increase firearm registration requirements."
In a subsequent other case brought by numerous other Sandy Hook parents in Connecticut, Jones’ attorneys, Jay Wolman and Marc Randazza filed a motion July 20th to dismiss another suit that contests that Jones “firmly believes” the Sandy Hook shooting “was not a hoax,” but that, “as a proponent of free and open debate, he permitted others to state their opinions that it was a hoax and comment on the evidence in support of those opinions.”
Citing Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein’s reliance on the infamous anonymous source Deep Throat in their Watergate reporting, Jones’ Connecticut motion argues that "questioning official narratives, would be chilled if reporters were subject to liability if they turned out to be wrong." Adding “to stifle the press (by making them liable for merely interviewing people who have strange theories) will simply turn this human tragedy into a Constitutional one.”
However, we already have laws against harassment, Jones has displayed multiple documented instances urging harassment of individuals by showing addresses and more. It's one thing to investigate and dig into a tragedy and legitimately question the situation, it's a whole other story to urge harassment of individuals by your listeners and have no integrity to spread baseless lies due to poor investigation or manipulated reporting intentionally inflicting emotional distress.
You are free to think and express whatever you want but you aren't free to harass someone under U.S. law or libel a non "public figure" without adequate evidence or by stating "alleged allegations." Why do we need any additional unconstitutional laws that will stifle real investigative journalism because of a bad apple that has knowingly promoted hoaxes, and sensationalized reporting?
This is the same straw man argument that guns kill people when a gun is a tool. Journalism is a tool; it's all how you choose to use it.
It's worth noting that any viewpoint that is suppressed usually has the opposite Streisand Effect. It will be very interesting to see this case play out if it goes into the courts, as the verdict may determine if there will be further laws imposed on journalists and publishers in the near future.
More than likely the plaintiffs in the case will be classified as private actors rather than public figures and that will make it easier for them to prove that Jones defamed them and as a result caused emotional stress.
Again, all because of a bad apple that wants to consistently spread fake news and hype hoaxes. Great job, Alex Jones we all thank you for helping limit our rights as journalists due to your horrendous consistently erroneous reporting remember the Swine Flu broadcasts and Y2K? Before you sold out to Trump? Sell more brain force and herbal meds you are going to need the sales to pay the legal fees.