Only in America could the very sleaziest of us huckster their way to riches..
17
Alex Jones's and deep-state conspiracies. Here's a perfect story-line for a thriller to all authors/writers of fiction! Please don't forget the disclaimer!
6
Huh, a con man and nonstop liar who exploits irrational fears and societal divisions to separate the gullible from their money.
Are we talking about Alex Jones or Donald Trump here?
51
Trump likes Jones because he has millions of followers.
Is there someone around Trump, namely Ivanka, who should stop this association?
Does Ivanka think it's ok to terrorize the mourning Sandy Hook families?
Trump has gained power by his endorsing the worst in our society.
People who hate, who scapegoat, and are under educated, and even mentally ill.
The short term goals will be met with long term tragedies.
That Trump himself cannot see this, is truly pathetic.
16
Reading this article and others about how Jones manipulates his audience while bilking them out of millions of dollars it makes me wonder the intellectual level of the people who swallow not only the pills he peddles, but his whacky theories as well, such as that the Sandy Hook massacre was staged using actors.
I know we are supposed to appeal to our higher angels and embrace all points of view - it's what makes America truly great - but honest-to-god I can't shake the thought out of my head that the people who believe this drivel are more than ignorant, they are truly stupid.
Ben Franklin once said, "We are all born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain stupid." Truer words were ne'er spoken.
40
Jones does not have an inherent right to use platforms. If Apple, Twitter and etc... dont want him on their platforms they dont have to have him. They dont have to mainstream him just like the network TV, radio and Newspapers dont. He cant even get a spot on FOX news. This guy is a nutcase and he is affecting peoples lives like drugs do. He spreads misinformation to gullible people and then sells them stuff just like our current president. He can create his own national platform for himself just like all the other nut jobs out there.
15
I can't stand Alex Jones. He's always sweating and shouting, so you know he's lying. He's certainly not a "revolutionary". He's just another con man swindling scared, uninformed people out of their hard-earned money. He incites violence, as was shown in this article, and then won't take responsibility. He and Limbaugh are of the same ilk.
Good riddance to Jones and all his craziness. One "nutter" at a time yelling at us is all we can take. Wish it were so easy to get rid of the Nutter-in-Chief.
17
This is how half of america thinks. Don't fool yourselves otherwise.
26
Oh, come on. Stop picking on the crazy guy. Let him have his Twitter back. He's just a bad dime-novelist with a paranoid streak.
4
Jones and Limbaugh both promote (ahem) male enhancement remedies. This suggests two hypotheses: one is that impotent males are attracted to such programs, or two listening to Jones and Limbaugh creates impotence. Either way the two hawkers are to be commended for finding the solution to the demise of Western civilization. Workers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose save flaccidity.
16
In the same category as "Goop" Paltrow--and all the other snake oil salesmen over the millennia.
3
Even though we have always had snake oil salesmen and televangelists—and Jones has bona fides for both—the internet has given these crazies a far bigger audience of ignorant, gullible readers and listeners than they could ever have reached before.
Consequently, the vicious poison Jones spreads is more dangerous because it has a much more likely chance of reaching someone who believes his lies and insane claims and might act on them.
The pizza parlor deaths and the sickening Sandy Hook lies were crimes. Jones was the cause of these abominations and they alone should have been enough to send him to prison for a very long time. Surely there are laws to punish people like him.
4
It's folks like Alex Jones who make it so hard to be 100% 1st Amendment free speech.
On one had one would like folks like Alex Jones to be regulated yet.....once you knock over that first domino who is next to be regulated or censored?
And what happens when the worst on the left are targeted? Or is it just ok to limit the free speech of one side of a political, religious, economic viewpoint?
And let's not ignore the FACT that the NYTimes and other media thrive on these circus acts because they are profit driven and 'click bait' brings readers/viewers in just like they do for Alex Jones. And this means higher ad revenue and this means more money money money money.
A community college dropout. Nuff said.
3
Jones is merely one in a thousand right wing, scaremongers.
From Limbaugh to Hannity to Levin and on and on, talk radio is filled with people whose very business models demand fear, blame setting, division and, wherever and whenever applicable, a little violence to sustain them.
The listeners and acolytes of these vermin enable the most vile forms of propaganda and divisiveness through their audience participation and patronage.
The nation, while still beset with differences of opinion, mores and values, would be in such a better place if we would ALL realize the extend to which talk radio is sandbagging society and politics and proving the old adage that there is a sucker born every minute and that you can, contrary to popular belief, indeed fool some of the people ALL of the time.
9
Is Alex Jones related to Jim Jones, the so called Minister, who conned poor people out of their money and convinced a bunch of them to commit suicide at his retreat? Sounds as if they could be brothers.
Alex deserves too lose everything he has for lying about Sandy Hook and verbally torturing these parents.
This is what our Country is becoming. A country without shame.
Alex is the personification that "crime does pay". No wonder he supports Trump, another con man.
2
It is an overdue development that this huckster and liar be ushered off the American scene. Hopefully, litigation will bankrupt him and he only ends up polluting minds on skid row.
13
Records viewed by The New York Times show that most of his revenue that year came from the sale of products like supplements such as the Super Male Vitality, which purports to boost testosterone, or Brain Force Plus, which promises to “supercharge” cognitive function. Very funny
1
Growing up I could never understand things like All Star Wrestling and soap operas, or later televangelists, Reaganism, and shows like Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, Dallas, Dynasty-- or The Apprentice.
Who was watching all that garbage, I wondered?
Then I watched the 2002 BBC documentary by award-winning filmmaker Adam Curtis again recently called 'The Century of the Self' (four, 1 hour-long episodes, available in full on youtube).
Humans don't have to be taught to be stupid and greedy. We come by it naturally. But it becomes a certainty if people like Sigmund Freud's nephew Edward Bernays (you can read his obituary here https://www.nytimes.com/1995/03/10/obituaries/edward-bernays-father-publ... ), who famously said (after returning from Paris having accompanied Wilson and the American delegation), are pulling the levers:
"When I came back to the United States, I decided that if you could use propaganda for war, you could certainly use it for peace. And "propaganda" got to be a bad word because of the Germans using it, so what I did was to try and find some other words so we found the words "council on public relations".
Ask not for whom the propaganda spews, it spews for thee. As the Facebook/Twitter Russian troll meddling in the 2016 election shows, rich entitled liberals buy the fake stuff if it agrees with them too.
If you haven't watched the film, watch it. If you watched ten or more years ago, watch it again.
1
I hope more people sue him.
We saw the consequences of the Sandy Hook massacre. Only a soulless, lying and vile person would make up the horrifying conspiracies that Alex Jones did.
Babies were killed. Teachers were shot.
The school administrators were killed.
It was not a hoax. CHILDREN DIED! PEOPLE DIED. Denying it is vicious and malevolent.
Alex Jones is vicious and malevolent.
7
In the "good old days" he would have been tarred and feathered and run out of town. Don't know what the digital equivalent is, but I hope there is one.
7
Could anyone explain how there is a hair of a difference between Alex Jones and Donald Trump.
4
Alex Jones should have long been discredited and shunned for peddling outrageous claims and capitalizing on someone else’s misery and enriching himself along the way. Shame on u, ALEX Jones and people like u and the platforms that took considerable time to shut off the valve on this quackery.
5
Folks should take a look at the link to the brief video included in the article that shows Jones heckling Senator Rubio while the latter is being interviewed in he Senate hearing room. His behavior speaks volumes. He mocks Rubio‘s uncomfortable laugh, calls him a frat boy, invents on the spot a claim that Rubio has just threatened him physically, etc. His behavior is identical to the stereotypical high school bully who gets in your face, intimidates and tries to scare you. It’s disgusting, disgraceful, offensive, and so reflective of the type of human being this is and his approach to the world. Add to this the fact that he is a bald-faced liar and moral criminal, and you have a picture of how awful and similar he is to Donald Trump.
20
He’s mentally ill and caters to the mentally ill. Then they act paranoid when we call them crazy. It’s a never ending cycle.
12
The man is an amoral huckster, just like Trump. I not only hope he loses his court battle and all his ill gotten gains, I hope the same happens to his friend Donald: don’t impeach, neuter him with a Democratic Congress, and when he is finally out of office, penalize him and his family and put them in the poor house with Mr. Jones. You know the special counsel has his tax records, make them public, take away his pension, and put an asterisk on his presidency; titled, biggest mistake even made by this country. And then he and Jones and all the conspiracy nuts can hang out together in a deserted Trump towers, wallowing in self pity and doomed to the dustbin of history.
8
Alex Jones is a 21st century CULT LEADER who has achieved fame and wealth using social media and the internet as his marketing platform. And this FOLLOWERS who drank the KOOL-AID of FEAR are complicit in supporting his hateful, sick rhetoric.
Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering . —Yoda
3
"But in business terms, it is more accurate to describe Infowars as an online store that uses Mr. Jones’s commentary to move merchandise."
Can't the same be said about the NY Times, CBS, etc.?
1
He should be sued into poverty like Gawker.
3
Only a shade of difference separates Jones from all those televangelists telling their faithful to send in a faith offering, because God told them to buy a private jet. In fact, they probably prey on a lot of the same suckers. Gotta love the poorly educated!
2
Maybe we should arrest all conspiracy theorists to protect the public. Lets start with director Oliver Stone who made the film J.F.K. implicating Lydon B. Johnson in the plot to kill the president. What if some lunatic believed the film and took action against the Johnson family? Never mind that the film grossed $205 million and was nominated for eight academy awards. According to the thought police, story-tellers like Alex Jones and Oliver Stone are too convincing for their own good and should be locked up in some Russian gulag.
I hope and pray that Sandy Hook parents take this despicable coward down. That Jones—a parent himself (his poor children!)—could mock, dismiss and scorn these parents’ tragedy—and hound them to the point of putting their lives in danger, demonstrates he’s truly inhuman. He preaches fear and masculine insecurity—apparently the most portent forces in the lives of white male conservatives. How did these alleged men grow up to be such terrified little boys? Pathetic.
15
Anonymous, where are you when we need you? Would you please expose where Alex Jones broadcasts from, just as he exposed all the details of the Pozners?
5
He can intoxicate himself all he wants...the question is does he take enough time off to be sober when he makes corporate decisions that affect many, many people and the well being of the enterprise?
The person who this country elected president is a slightly milder version of Alex Jones. How scary is that?
8
So what is it with this guy?
A 'modern day' War Of the Worlds ....announcer?
And that he reportedly has so many followers, it boggles the mind.
It's amazing that so many people can be duped by nonsense.
These people need to get out more and interact with the rest of the world.
3
If any of Alex Jones “health” supplements actually worked he might look more like his age , 44, instead of a paunchy, balding 64 year old.
5
It seems like a lot of people commenting on here and in real life don't understand the first amendment and social media companies terms of service.
If Apple, Google, Twitter, etc. want to ban you for ANY reason, it's their right as a company to do so. I own a bar, if an Alex Jones type of person came in and spouted hate or opinions that turned people off from coming back into my bar, I can and will kick that person out the door. I have the right to refuse service to anyone for ANY reason. The social media companies are no different. This is NOT infringing on Alex Jones's right to free speech, he is more than welcome to stand on the street corner and babble nonsense without the fear of being thrown in jail for his words. Freedom of speech does not mean you get to use a company to extent your reach.
9
Alex Jones is not the problem. If not him, some other jokester. The problem is your fellow Americans who devour all this poison with relish. And there are a LOT of them. Don't think they are just weird fringe groups anymore. Steve Bannon unified them and they now have their own president in the White House.
There are a lot of sick people in this country. Filled with bitterness and hatred and with violence in their hearts. What do they hate -- the educated, the well-employed, anyone who isn't white, basically they hate everyone and they DO NOT believe in our republic or our democracy at all. They want a rogue dictator in the Oval Office. They are truly enemies of the American people and the American way of life.
Steve Bannon created ALL this. He is a destructive force the likes of which humanity sees only ever so often. He is Trump's brain and he runs all this "Trump base" by remote control at this point, they are all so well and truly entrained.
4
While free speech is an essential part of the American fabric, it has always ended at the point of shouting fire in a filled theater when there is none. Alex Jones is that shouter; his theater is the world. He is pouring gasoline on that world and holding the lit match, and creating that fire that he reports to warn us against. The fault for our diseased national discourse is of course not exclusively his, but he is the most visible and odious non-governmental symptom of the problem, and he needs to be returned to the lunatic fringe from which he came.
Two more quick observations: How does he stand living in Austin, the most progressive city in Texas? And how could the Jewish and African-American people cited in the article sign on to work with such an obvious bigot, and worse, continue in his employ?
3
I hate this guy, and have effectively ignored actually listening to him since first sent a link to a rant some years ago. Why would I bother to waste brain cells reading this, to say nothing of listening to the clip? That said free speech is king of our reality, and the keel upon which the ship All of Our Freedoms remains upright.
"Caesar non supra grammaticos" - The Emperor is not above the grammarians. Council of Constance 1414, but pertains to free speech, not just correct speech, today.
Every deep-state fearing white male should stock up on all of the snake oil, powders, and supplements they can buy. Max out those credit cards, and stock the bomb shelters. What better way to prepare for a return to national sanity than to shelter-in-place and wait for the 'apocalypse' (AKA Impeachment of Trump).
4
The irony, of course, is that the apocalypse *is* near -- it's just due to climate change (government inaction) rather than government overreach.
6
Once again we the "what-about-ers" in the comment section. Just because religion, astrology and other weird theory spreaders are allowed to "sell" their product, does not make Alex Jones right. Twitter, Facebook and other social media giants are companies who are also selling a product. They can claim that people like Alex Jones are an problem to their product and remove him. Discrimination, based on what you are selling is not discrimination. Content discrimination is not something which is protected under any law. If a private/public company sees your content as a problem for their product, they can and should remove your access from their forum.
11
A class action lawsuit should be filed against this huckster for defrauding the gullible.
3
Maybe we should start locking up the insane again.
4
In some ways he’s no different than a pharmaceutical company creating a health crisis and then selling you a drug as a cure.
How many times have you heard ad after ad advising “ask your doctor”. These companies created “inadequate eyelashes” and sold us Latisse....peddled by Brooke Shields. I remember watching an ad for a drug that caused “involuntary grimacing” and “lip smacking”. Even more mendacious than Jones, they have banded together to keep America’s drug costs astronomically high; and like Jones, profits before people; even if it may destroy a few lives.
2
Censorship of disapproved of content is the definition of censorship. Who says everything published on social media has to be "true"? How much of it is?
2
These people aren't owed a platform, especially not when they violate the terms of the platform
1
First off I have not yet bought a product on infowars, even so looking into his suppliments I find they really seem to be top of the line. What prevents me from his suppliments is that my diet already consists of whats in them, something not many can say. I think it's sad that news sources such as the NYTimes and Cnn has such a hard time finding reasons to make you hate him that they need to compulsively lie about him and attack the source of revenue he funds his site with, funds his efforts, battles frivolous law suits that mostly end up dismissed, and to pay his workers. While this article uses the amount of money brought in to make him out to be a con, they dont talk about where that money goes.
But they did talk about where the money goes: it’s goes to Jones 4 Rolex watched purchase in a single, a grand piano, the waterfall pool and the real stone fire place. It goes to the safety box full of precious metals. Jones uses his followers’ hard earn money to enrich himself and to live an opulent life. It reminds me of that televangelist pastor that asked his followers to donate to him so he can buy a private jet to “preach God’s good words”.
3
What a National Treasure you are, Alex Jones, scaring your fellow countrymen and women et al into buying Dinty Moore survival kits for your phony apocalypse along w/ vitamins and minerals disguised as new age panaceas. The beautiful thing about our country is that citizens are free to say just about whatever they please--which includes cashing in on questionable information and conspiracy theories. Sadly, clever scam artists like Alex Jones dupe good-natured, everyday people into believing 'the end is nigh!' while turning a profit off their fear.
2
If there was any justice in the world, Jone's ill gotten gains would be taken away from him and give to the people he has hurt like the Sandy Hook families.
9
Alex Jones and Donald Trump are simply spiritual doppelgangers. Both are delusional nut cases and brilliantly self-centered. The difference is this. Alex prefers the communications studio. Donald prefers the boardrooms and golf courses. When I see the rabid Alex going ballistic, I think we really could have a worse President, Alex Jones. Then again, Donald Trump at a campaign rally is as insane as Alex Jones on a podcast rant.
Trump is unhinged and it's time to invoke the 25th Amendment.
Please, let's surround Trump with the best people in Washington. Vote for Democrats.
12
Jones is the single most detestable individual in a time when there are so many contenders for the honor. I cannot stand even the thought that I am on the same planet with him; his toxic hypocrisy infects the very air we all have to breathe.
Now, let me tell you how I really feel . . .
19
At the end of the third paragraph, there is a lament to Alex not being able to reach a mainstream audience. A mainstream audience will never need to have access to infowars. All it takes is about four and a half minutes of either watching or listening to realize there is something seriously wrong here. I know this because I've tried. I even know a few regular listeners. One or two of them aren't stupid. I'm not sure what would drive anyone to such none sense, ignorance, fear, or some gumbo of psychological issues, but in no way is mainstream part of the picture.
2
The downside of democracy is that the idiocracy has the same equality of vote as those who listen to news and analysis.
I thank God that I a close to age 70 and that I will not have to deal with the fall out from the boobwazie voting against their personal needs by being stroked by nativists and white supremacists.
6
What has to be said regarding this disgusting human being has already been written.
What I am finding disturbing is that all these social companies are all realizing more or less at the same time that A. Jones violated their rules. Despite their weight, are they finding the courage to block him because one of them started the process? Were they not monitoring and ready to block Infowars the same way they do it for the regular Joe? For me, this means that even if these social companies are now doing the correct thing to do, they use double standard when it comes to applying their Terms of use.
3
In contrast,
Twitter Japan does nothing about Account of Japanese Nationalists or Japan version Alt-rights who spread Hate and Discrimination or False information.
2
a typical American stock character: a snakeoil salesman, a ruthless huckster, a phony prophet, a conman.
there's one born every minute.
if something happens to silence Jones, you can get a dozen replacements from Central Casting in half an hour, and a score more are waiting in the wings. some are better at it than others, but anyone can succeed at this gig...
because there are always plenty of Americans looking for the paranoia a Jones type has to sell.
I know because the Bible tells me so.
9
There's a lot more to Alex Jones than just this- on air he's confessed a small number of times that he has family in CIA and Special Forces. It seems his uncle may have been a supporter of the 'banana republic' movement by managing a massive fruit farm in Guatemala. To me he reeks of purposeful disinfo to cover for a far right wing 'liberty' ideology found in certain parts of the country and in the Pentagon.
1
No worries, Mr. Jones. You can afford to create a competitor to Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. Hire some programmers and get to it, bro. Then you can quit whining.
2
Couldn't resist checking out "Brain Force Plus" after reading about Mr Jones' many sparkling intellectual rides on the Great Sprinkler of Conservatism. Seems Brain Force Plus contains a compound called phosphattidylserine. Checking out this substance, I found on Wikipedia:
"Phosphatidylserine is a phospholipid and is a component of the cell membrane. It plays a key role in cell cycle signaling, specifically in relationship to apoptosis. It is a key pathway for viruses to enter cells via viral apoptotic mimicry. "
This claim isn't cited, but according to Nature.com:
"Phosphatidylserine is a global immunosuppressive signal in efferocytosis, infectious disease, and cancer."
Seems Mr Jones spreads sunshine wherever he goes. I am now firmly convinced of Mr Jones' intellectual credentials.
1
I’m glad that Apple, Twitter, Facebook, etc. are finally coming around. Now, it’s time for the FCC to start doing something with Fox News.
6
I understand exactly how disgusting Alex Jones’ business model is, but I wonder just how different it is from the likes of CNN, FOX, MSNBC and even the NYT? All of these media companies are owned by larger corporations that use their media outlets to hawk their other products and sell advertising time/space.
I often wonder how the coverage of “the news” is affected by this model. News media should be a public service, not a business model.
4
Every once in a while Jones hits the nail on the head. Unfortunately, the house is no longer standing from the number of times he missed. It’s tough out there for a lunatic.
42
Jones is not crazy. He is just one more in a series of con men. The fact that he sells bogus supplements should make it all clear.
His political rants are just a tool to rope the dopes.
Look to Osteen and Trump for similar examples.
There is something in the water that dims the brains of humans. That Jones can make himself rich speaks volumes about the intelligence of Americans. It must be the water....
It's frighteningly easy for state, globalist media like the Times to fringe, marginalize and destroy an individual...and it's simply frightening the way the indoctrinated mob of it's citizen "followers" falls into lock step to help finish the job.
These are DANGEROUS times, but not in the cartoon way that the narrative is being floated to the "left".
Jones is correct - his name and allegations against him have been bandied about in MULTIPLE congressional hearings, and not ONCE has he been called to testify in his own behalf. THAT should be deeply disturbing to ALL Americans.
As he said on the Hill before Twitter hammered the last nail into his blacklisting from social media, this is FAR WORSE than any of Joe McCarthy's tactics - at least in that dog and pony show, one got to face their accusers DIRECTLY and tell them what they thought...Jones not so much.
But it's too late, really - the cat is out of the bag...and besides - you can destroy a single human or an indigenous tribe easily, but not an idea, or the wisdom it resides in. The Native Americans of North America come to mind.
Will the Times have the guts to publish this in their highly curated (read manipulated) comments section? Doubtful.
2
Child abuse at Bohemian Grove? Hillary Clinton and Democratic operatives were running a child sex ring from a pizzeria in Washington, D.C.? May I suggest that Mr. Jones direct his energies to the REAL child abusers, the Catholic Church?
6
Its good you finally point out Jones is the Arthur Godfrey of dangerous, violent social media.
An avuncular presence spouting hatred, calls to mayhem, and lies he creates to move the survivalist pap he hawks between warning of liberal goon squads and pleas to "be ready".
But you stop talking before you address the whole game.
Yeah, Jones is a weasel, a greasy hate-monger in service to his real business: e-tail survivalism and revolutionary-wannabe warehouse.
He is the quintessence of American business today.
We make and sell more arms than anyone ever in history, then we moan about the danger we face, and we steal even more from our people, from their health, their education, their communities and their general welfare to arm ourselves against...us.
We obscenely reward speculators and traders who acquire and destroy companies, towns and working families. What a service! What a great American businessman!
We thrill to the sound of an executive or a corporation getting shredded in the media by some Great American who bet they would fail, and is damned if he isn't gonna make that happen. And get rich into the bargain. Again, never mind the lives ruined, the communities abandoned, the jobs shipped out of country. Just...never mind.
Trump may as well paint his nose red and wear giant shoes, but he is the perfect exemplar of the business you spend whole sections praising and kowtowing to. Jones is a loud mouth toad by comparison, a businessman for the little people.
4
Alas, the truth had been spoken finally.
1
Recently, my girlfriend and I stayed four nights at a vacation rental in a very upscale and progressive town in the Southwest. It was a private wing of the house but without a kitchen so we had access to the main house’s kitchen. The home was owned by a white couple, recently retired, photos of a large family throughout the house, had a music room with electric guitars and a keyboard, and expensive yet not opulent decor.
They were intelligent and good conversationalists. They were very helpful with tourist suggestions and easy going. The man did yoga every morning and the woman maintained her Japanese garden.
On the third day, and I don’t recall what prompted this, but they commenced to lay out a string of conspiracy theories that were verbatim rants from InfoWar. We tried to hide our shock and managed to survive the conversation without confrontation. Had it taken place with strangers in a public place we’d have simply walked away or flatly disagreed. We still had to be there another day.
My point here is that you can’t stereotype who in our culture has these beliefs.
6
The scuttlebutt in Austin about Alex Jones is that he's buying lots of property attempting to hide assets. He's also in contact with the mother ship; a rendezvous is pending.
3
How do these ppl find an audience? How can Americans be so easily duped? There is something inherently wrong with the civility today that was not apparent in years gone by. The collapse of simple courtesy and apathy have marked this nation.
2
I'm not sure what's difficult about the proposition that pretty much anybody can say anything on Twitter and the rest, right up to the point that you repeatedly and flagrantly violate their terms of service.
But then, I'm not sure what's difficult to undestand that "liberal discourse," which is what right-wingers and conservatives rely upon, rests on the proposition that everybody has a right to speak--until they start spreading hatred, inciting violence, and attacking everybody else's right to speak.
And in any case, it's hilarious to see snake-oil sellers like Jones try to scuttle under the rocks when they get pushed back on.
1
How about a "warning label" of one category or another? For example: "Facebook has determined content on this site to be inaccurate and provocative; " or "Google has determined assertions on this site to be largely untrue or unsubstantiated; " or "The sources for this site are anonymous and unverified. " People would be alerted to be skeptical without direct suppression of the content.
1
The fatal flaw in this suggestion is that it is founded on the assumption that his acolytes would accept such warnings as true. They have been brainwashed to do just the opposite. They would take it as proof that the platforms are out to get him.
2
Pity us poor men, that so many of us can be conned into expending actual time and energy fretting about whether we are "virile" enough, and spending actual money on herbal concoctions to make us so.
As a Communications major in the late 1970s, I was taught that being in front of a microphone was an awesome responsibility and if I wanted to be a broadcaster, I had to hew to high standards of fact-checking and objectivity, choosing words carefully to avoid misunderstanding and always, always presenting the other sides of any issue. Even small errors were not tolerated. We were constantly reminded that our words could destroy someone's reputation, put people in danger, undermine our credibility and endanger our employer's license.
We were taught that the airwaves belonged to the people, and we owed it to our audience to present the truth to the best of our ability.
I took this all very seriously. When I was admonished for lazily referring to a robbery suspect as a robber I searched my soul for days, even though the suspect was caught red-handed.
Then came the Reagan FCC, which decided the Fairness Doctrine was an unnecessary drag on a broadcaster's ability to peddle its own point of view, freeing Rush Limbaugh and Fox to demonize a whole class of Americans.
Then came the Internet, which was hailed as a liberating platform that allowed ANYONE to be a news source, whether they respected facts or not.
Alex Jones is the predictable result of deregulation, as are his fans' attacks on Sandy Hooks parents and a pizzeria. It's not about censorship. If Jones and his ilk refuse to behave responsibly, we will have to re-regulate them. It's really that simple.
9
Alex Jones, Donald Trump, Roger Stone, Advanced Liver Cleanse Pack, Super Male Vitality.
I don't buy any of it.
But I'm concerned about the people who do buy in. How can they possibly? Especially Sandy Hook.
What does the world look like through their eyes? What kind of logic do they use? What kind of neighbors would they be? How can a significant amount of people have gotten so far off the track?
But I must admit, I am a "gun grabber".
3
A few commenters here are concerned about the loss of Alex Jones' free speech and marketing rights because he's being shut out of mainstream social media platforms. Aphorisms like 'with freedom comes responsibility,' and 'you are not allowed to falsely yell 'fire' in a crowded theater,' are there for a reason. Is there no line that we are unwilling to cross in the name of freedom of speech and profits? In my opinion, his social media courtesy permissions should have been yanked the minute he started claiming that the Sandy Hook massacre was fake news. The the additional suffering he has inflicted on the people who lost loved ones there should be reason enough to turn our backs on him.
11
Next up for shining a light could be the AM Coast to Coast syndicated radio show purported to be carried on 600 stations across the country. The large radio conglomerates who own the stations apparently look away from very similar false claims, theories, bogus consumer products, and providing a large platform for Alex Jones, an occasional guest on the show.
1
I don't understand the argument that demands Jones be heard, and that his being denied a channel to express his views is curtailing free speech, and thus the genesis of some slippery slope.
It's akin to arguing that publishing houses, in rejecting some manuscripts, are curtailing the speech of the authors of those rejected manuscripts.
The notion that we are all owed a captive audience is pure fantasy and, frankly, a rather bizarre interpretation of the First.
13
I hate to say it about such a thoroughly reprehensible person, but his treatment by the big companies like Google and others is extremely troubling from a First Amendment standpoint. Yes, these are private companies, but they have such a stranglehold on the internet and the virtual marketplace of ideas that they can impose censorship more complete than any government edict. I prefer to handle this stuff the traditional way, letting people say whatever they choose, but imposing liability for defamation when they step over the line. That system actually seems to be working quite nicely in Mr. Jones’ case. I’ll be much more impressed with the New York Times’ populist description of the number of Jones’ Rolex watches, etc., when they start printing the same type of information about Wall Street bankers, hedge fund managers and the like.
4
I beg to differ. Jones’s constitutional rights have nit been abridged: the US government has not silenced him. He can still say and write whatever he cares to.
Private companies, all commercial enterprises, have denied him access to their platforms. Should he build his equivalent of twitter, facebook, google, etc,, he can still compete with these businesses; he can use his versions to spread his ideas.
So, your logic is faulty and reflects a poor understanding of the Bills of Rights and the government versus commerce and commercial enterprises.
The flip side if the coon is that the above mentioned companies also have rights.
Snake oil is the grease of Wall Street. Always has been.
1
Concerning compensatory damages, Jones owes me something too. I suffered unspeakable horror at the very thought that someone with a worldwide megaphone would insist that those priceless six-year-olds slaughtered on their Sandy Hook playground were just made up by their scheming parents. It still hurts me to think about it.
5
So, it appears that Alex Jones is nothing more than a modern day snake oil salesman. Interested only in taking the money from his followers...and if his message or his products hurt innocent people...well, just like the snake oil salesmen of old, that doesn't seem to matter to him.
There will be snake oil salesmen in every generation and every culture. The fact that the GOP knowingly and willingly went along makes them no better.
6
The Evangelicals and other intensely religious people are especially susceptible to fantasy and unsubstantiated theories. The Bible itself demands a good amount of belief in what cannot be confirmed. Alex Jones is not the first to take advantage of this. He is just the latest, taking advantage and enhanced by the new digital media era.
3
Some comments say that, as much as they dislike his peddling of crazed conspiracy theories, Jones should not be censored. Libel and slander are not free speech. Platforms that knowingly let someone spew slander and hate speech can also be held liable. There are limits to speech that Jones is finally learning. Now, if some of the disappointed users of his products would sue him for fraud....
26
Also, free speech only means a person can say what they want, not that a private entity has to provide access to it. Facebook, Twitter, etc. are within their rights to ban InfoWars from their services.
3
@J. Libel and slander IS free speech, but subjects the person to civil liability for damages.
1
Wonder if the supplements contain some type of mild hallucinogen that impacts brain function?
Or if there are small doses of psychotropic drugs that stimulate lower brain functions over reason?
Alternatively, users of hallucinogens and psychotropic drugs may be the natural audience for this huckster.
7
Except... except, the only supplement he doesn’t sell is snake oil.
Is he missing an opportunity?
Just a few squeezes of a certain occupant of a certain residence on Pennsylvania Avenue would yield gallons of the stuff
21
I first ran across Alex Jones and Infowars about 10 years ago, when one of my children was diagnosed with autism. As I read through the many vaccine-autism conspiracy theories, I found that many of the key players could be found on both Infowars and the Natural News website, run by Mike Adams. Both sites were transparently quacktacular, and peddled the same bunch of conspiracies, but Infowars was so crazy that it was shunned as a source, even by my friends who believed in one version or another of the vaccine/autism link.
About 5 years ago, one of their crackpot theories came to life and made the news. Both Adams and Jones had been ranting and railing against the TSA, which was, as I recall, trying to steal our DNA, training us in compliance to prepare us for Obama's re-education camps, sexually molesting us, and, at the very least, pilfering from our luggage. Needless to say, there were security products for sale to protect us from the TSA's nefarious plans. Then a TSA agent was murdered at LAX. I remember thinking that they would surely get some kind of blow back, but no. The suspect mentioned the conspiracy theories in his confession, but most news stories didn't mention this at all, let alone address where he may have gotten such an idea. He was "disturbed." Who had disturbed him? Maybe Alex Jones and Mike Adams?
It's about time they get some scrutiny. It's a shame that it's because their views have made it into mainstream politics.
79
Just a thought here, but it seems to me that this charlatan's products and the ridiculous claims he makes for their efficacy would violate numerous state and federal consumer protection and pure food and drug statutes.
Wouldn't it be a relatively straightforward matter for the FTC and FDA to shut this fellow's business down and impose substantial monetary penalties for every future violation of an injunction barring the advertising and sale of his garbage?
And wouldn't the Model Consumer Protection Act, patterned after the FTCA and adopted in some form in most states, similarly empower state AG's to enjoin false and misleading advertising and sale of these products; as well as permit private civil actions for damages, including treble damages and attorney fees?
I realize that the Republican Party believes the law should be enforced only against the poor, the vulnerable, the foreign born, and those with dark skin... but why haven't the Washington, Oregon, California, New York and other Democratic (and democratic) attorneys general gotten their act together to run this pernicious, thieving jerk to ground?
19
No, because supplements have never been included in the medications under the FDA's purview. Every time the government wants to regulate supplements, there is an outcry to Congress to prevent that.
10
There certainly is. And the outcry comes from right-wingers, for whom--as apparently for Jones--freedom consists of the right to buy all the quack nostrums you want. Who cares if they're dangerous?
@Pat That may be, but the Model Consumer Protection Act prohibits ‘unfair and deceptive acts and practices in trade or commerce.’ That casts a broad net, and provides rights of action to enjoin and seek damages resulting from advertising and other conduct ‘with the capacity to deceive...’ Furthermore, de minimis damages will sufficiently support a claim; and prevailing party attorney fees can be awarded to a CPA plaintiff in an amount many times the actual damages.
I have no doubt that Jones’ schtick would be actionable under the Consumer Protection Act in my state; and likely in most other states as well.
First Amendment protection at its worst, or best?
3
The First Amendment only states that the government can’t silence someone like Alex Jones. Private entities such as Facebook, Twitter, bookstores, etc. are not required to provide a forum from which he can peddle his nonsense.
3
I have met and worked with many people who have grown up in Dallas suburbs like Rockwall, McKinney, Euless, Garland, Grand Prairie, etc.
Would be interesting to get stats on which towns in this country have highest per capita purchases of Jones' products.
7
All I can say is Justice and Karma is good. Alex Jones deserves everything that is happening to him. He is literally the boy who cries wolf. The amount of lies he has told has made him unbelievable for everything, if he said the Sky was blue I’d have to go look and see. I hope that everyone who has sued him will win there suits and for millions of dollars he can afford it including his ex who knew what she was getting. I only feel sorry for his children who will be effected by having him as a Dad. But hopefully their mother will me a good moderating effect on them.
7
Alex Jones portrays himself as a tough guy. One round in the ring and that would be over. Guaranteed.
9
Let's be sure to ban all speech we don't like. Great move.
4
@Mario Benvenuti--I see you do not understand our country's laws. Nobody is banning his speech. With freedom of speech comes responsibility.
And, you cannot force a private company to give him a platform.
1
His right to speak has not been banned. Private entities are refusing to provide a forum for his rants, which is a business decision, not censorship. He can stand on a soapbox and spout his nonsense all day long.
6
@Mario Benvenuti
This is a private company keeping to its terms of use.
Why complicate it with grandtanding about the First?
3
May it please the court. Break Alex Jones' bank. He has caused enough trouble and he has no intention of stopping. The money is simply too strong an incentive for an unprincipled man.
7
Both Twitter and Facebook have rules about civility and bad actors and are within their rights to ban Alex Jones who is a menace.
12
Any private business does. The first amendment simply protects individual citizens' right to freedom of expression from the state or its agents. It has nothing to do with private venues, or censorship by the controllers of those venues. It's a federal statue, not a local business statute. One cannot logically support Jones right to express himself unless one also supports NFL players who take a knee.
20
So he's figured out how to make money off of fear mongering, like the medical system, and certain financial newsletters. The bet is sooner or later they may be right, you had better act now, buy that annuity, do that heart procedure, protect your family. It is so wrong headed, then again so is greed.
7
Yes, Alex Jones is entitled to his first amendment tights and thus his biological voice. However, the first amendment gives him no right to a megaphone, both literally or through that of social media.
17
He's dangerous. That Sandy Hook family is living in hiding BECAUSE of this man. It's like yelling fire in a crowded movie theater. He is causing harm.
38
Any Classical Liberal is by default pro free-speech. What a topsy turvy world where now it is the left who is pro censorship and in such large numbers! You don't get to pick and choose in a Democracy.
Censorship is a strong sign of authoritarianism. Sorry folks, everyone gets a seat at the table in a Democracy. Or when power flips it may be you next.
5
Everyone can speak, but there is no requirement that a private entity has to give you a forum for your speech. Mr. Jones’s speech has caused harm and it doesn’t deserve a corporate megaphone.
2
He had a seat at the table. But when he started doing what he did to Sandy Hook parents, it’s a bridge WAY too far. If you’re too open-minded, your brains fall out, as they say. There have to be some limits. Forcing parents of slaughtered kids into hiding to avoid the Alex Jones crazies should be one of them.
2
@Wildemind--From your post, it appears you lack an understanding of our laws. Censorship, by definition, is a government action. A private company does not have a duty to provide someone with a platform for their free speech.
To argue for censorship, you must show which government is curtailing his freedom of speech.
2
The Times reporters note: "The best-selling Survival Shield X-2 nascent iodine drops were discounted 40 percent, to $23.95, while Alpha Power, a product marketed as boosting testosterone and vitality to “push back in the fight against the globalist agenda,” was half off, at $34.95."
This suggests that Alex Jones is being forced into sudden deep-discount sales of his products in order to o raise cash -- but that's inaccurate and misleading.
I've been monitoring the InfoWars.com website since before the 2016 elections. These supposedly 40- and 50% off prices have been a standard Jones marketing ploy long before his current woes.
13
Alex Jones is, and always has been, a nothingburger. Just a man using whatever means he can to gain attention and sell products. But, inasmuch as his messages have included hate and slander, I am not sorry to see him go. It always amazes me the extent to which some people are attracted to this kind of thing. I wish that we could bring back the day when equal time for opposing views was the rule.
9
I would have loved to see an attempt in this piece to quantify Jones' audience, rather than just his finances. Relative to his influence on politics and society, I'd bet it's quite small. But it has been amplified by a social-media machine that promotes the most-controversial, most-negative content. A better solution to the problem Jones and his ilk present than censorship would be for citizens to either delete their social media accounts or use them more wisely, with the knowledge that they are hate-amplification and behavior-modification systems.
5
Sandy Hook victims and others who have ever been hurt by Jones's conspiracy theories should sue him into oblivion. The First Amendment doesn't - at least shouldn't, so time will tell if SCOTUS has indeed mutated into a political outfit - protect people shouting fire in theater, let alone people like Jones who incite violence and mayhem, to victims of violence and mayhem no less.
Suing him individually may not be enough though. If one can establish a pattern, do a class action one. Racketeering is not unthinkable. Throw every book at him and anyone protecting him as accomplices
28
As I was reading the comments to this article I noticed that there are some who defend Mr. Jones and say he should have the right to use all social media without limit. I just want to remind that the acts of private social media companies reflect a conscientious sense of social responsibility. Remember, Mr. Jones has caused great danger to Sandy Hook families and to the people in the pizza parlor. His rants are not harmless.
I also want to remind that people can be moved to do horrible things by media. Remember the massacres in Rwanda? Radio was used to incite. It created a hostile racially charged atmosphere which allowed the massacres to occur. This same environment is being prepared, sadly, not only by Mr. Jones, but by the President of the USA against Democrats and liberals.
47
The real problem is that so many people, including otherwise intelligent people, get their news from social media. Why they would do so is a mystery to me.
I don't think that Alex Jones' brand of invented stories is more outrageous or more dangerous than than many others'. The social media companies just bowed to public pressure, in his case.
5
@PaulSFO Sorry but "intelligent people" don't get their "news" from social media. If someone is doing so then there is no "otherwise intelligent." They are just gullible people who can't discriminate between what is news and junk being peddled as "news."
8
I don't know, I have a grudging admiration. A community college dropout who made millions catering to the suckers who are born every minute. But we shouldn't underestimate them. They control the presidency, the House, the senate, the supreme court, and most state legislatures. Not bad.
5
Jones preaches for the kind of government that Trump is creating. That government certainly will come for his audience's guns and money.
9
If this hasn't been mentioned, someone with a good public platform should find out where Jones's products are made.
I would not be the least bit surprised if much of them, including "supplements", are made in China.
That would be embarrassing indeed.
31
A digital version of a snake oil side show. People are free to listen or not listen; believe or not believe. They are also free to totally ignore the ridiculous. I chose the latter.
7
Is anyone else amazed by how succinctly our reality is playing out according to the last season of Homeland?
5
"appealing to an angry, largely white, majority male audience that can choose simply to be entertained or to internalize his rendering of their worst fears"
The problem is, his audience can't "choose" to not internalize his message.
The message is internalized every time they return to his channel, every time a friend tweets out a reaction to his channel, every time a friend "likes" a jones video on facebook, every time jones appears on the news, every time the president validates him or they come across old videos of the president validating him.
I don't understand the refusal of many Americans to accept that their mindset is indeed being influenced and messages are being internalized without their choosing, by what they are seeing repeatedly on the internet.
7
Many of the responses criticizing Alex Jones
go well beyond complaints regarding his personal views and actions, but also how he looks, how he must smell and what he does for a living promoting health supplements.
Many people are sales persons
and are proud of their jobs and do the best they can in their circumstances and it is unwarranted that so may writers stereotype sales people as 'slimy 'and ‘oily.'
Also, does one know what Aleks Jones's blood pressure, sugar level or cholesterol levels are ? How do we know if his supplements have improved his health or that of others ?
Supplements have benefits the users may or may not value and to broadly suggest that those buying supplements are dim witted and remain ugly looking despite of it, is really a low blow and even quite callous.
It’s quite disappointing to witness this level of frenzied hatred and that everything Alex Jones is associated with is now fair game for picking on.
One can try to rise above the qualities of persons regarded as appalling and fanatic, or resort to similar outbursts and lack of moderation in tone and content.
1
There have always been gullible, low functioning people; with the advent of the Internet and social media, these sad individuals have gained strength through the unity of numbers. No longer isolated, they flock to men like Jones, who validate their amorphous fears and hatreds. Jones should have been stopped long ago.
20
@Lacey Sheridan
This dude's bombastic language actually lines up pretty well with the hokum fed to political convetioneers by party spokesmen over the years. You switch out all the topics and recognize that handful at every Dem meeting who have been just this unattached to reality.
@L'osservatore:
How are Dems "unattached to reality"?
Be specific.
So important for the people who get caught up in the odious diatribes of Jones and his ilk to understand that none of it is sincere - it’s simply a schtick allowing amoral cretins to make money. They don’t believe their own nonsense anymore than we do. With the false passion of a snake-oil charmer in reverse, an empty “remedy” is sold to marks not to make them feel better, but worse.
Even more sad is that the strategy has gone from the fringes to the mainstream of the Republican Party.
20
This is a very dark moment in American history. There will always be a portion of the population who can be made to believe conspiracies through appeals to their anger and desperation. Unfortunately those people can be made to harm other people. Alex Jones is in it to get rich and if he didn't make money pedaling this trash, he wouldn't be in it. America has had it’s fair share of hate mongers, but we have beaten most of them. We can beat Alex Jones and Donald Trump if we are vigilant speak truth. It is difficult and no small task, but then history may see this as our finest hour.
30
Some years ago men like him were referred to is snake oil men. Sad that so many men buy into his conspiracies, spending their hard earned money making Jones rich. Sandy Hook parents suffered a terrible loss at the hands of this lying immoral man. I truly hope every person who sues him wins big and he ends up broke.
427
Aside from the allegations that he defamed people and enabled some of his listeners to threaten other citizens, most of what Jones does is just business. Sleazy business, but not unprecedented.
He’s not much different for those televangelists and prosperity preachers. He sells a different version of the rapture and a bunch of dubious products to flock he fleeces.
To the extent that he has defamed others or orchestrated threats against them, the law can deal with him. His crazy propaganda and product empire is another story.
64
@Jazz Paw So aside from all those things done wrong, he's not that bad really?
The difference is that innocent people are not being threatened or having to go into hiding because of those televangelists.
4
@Jazz Paw - "the law can deal with him"? I don't see Jones getting anything but a pass from any of the right-wing judges and justices that Benedict Donald and his acolytes have imposed and would further impose on the country.
3
He has a channel. He is a salesman. We are all selling something. Shutting him down because one perceives his product as unsavory is wrong. Every politician in America would be banned from showing their faces. The days of Allowing media companies to filter content are over. The supreme court will agree with that fact.
13
@Pilot:
If he were harassing your family and spreading vicious lies about your family's tragedy to the point you had to move multiple times, I think the conclusion would not be an abstraction about "everybody sells stuff".
This man is a criminal menace who incites untethered fools to harass American citizens. He should be in jail and paying these families back at 10cents an hour for the rest of his life.
16
@Pilot Reducing the totality of Alex Jones machinations, and the consequences stemming from the sphere of influence he casts, to simply "he is selling something" is akin to stepping back from the planet and saying, "Humans & cockroaches, they're both living organisms." While it's true Jones is a salesman your blatant and deliberate effort to remain utterly blind to the destructive and erosive nature of his "product" is almost as irresponsible as Alex Jones himself.
6
Beg to differ. The media companies in question are private entities, just like Hobby Lobby. A Supreme Court that allows a business to deny government-mandated access to health care coverage for its own employees is unlikely to force social media companies to enable hate speech.
3
I don't listen to InfoWars and I'm no fan of Alex Jones. However, I believe that censoring his content on social media is unfair. I just checked twitter and found that Coast to Coast AM—who peddle in UFO's and cryptozoology isn't banned. Likewise, the Flat Earth Society is still there as well. So fake news isn't really the problem after all.
I'll be there are countless twitter accounts that promote astrology, homeopathy, anti-vaxxing and other nonsense. So why is Jones being singled out when so many other sources peddling in fake news remain?
I don't think we should try to get rid of fake news or reprobates like Jones. We should become better consumers of information and learn to pick more intelligent and reliable sources. Because when we instead choose to limit those sources, the decisions invariably come down to popularity and politics.
27
@Hugh Alex Jones literally endangers lives. That makes his situation completely different from the other examples you provide. If the flat earthers are causing violence at a pizza restaurant in Washington state or causing families whose loved ones died in Sandy Hook to go into hiding to save themselves from assassination, then we would have to reconsider the flat earther's posting on social media. Thankfully, that is not happening.
93
@Hugh - The other twitter accounts that you mention are not advocating for people to arm themselves to arm themselves to the teeth and hunker down in bunkers. Yes, they should "become better consumers of information and learn to pick more intelligent and reliable sources" - but they can't. Ignorance can be cured, but there is no cure for stupidity.
7
When people threaten other people and cause them to do violence based on fake information (eg comet pizza) they should be banned and I would say prosecuted
7
Reading the report about Alex Jones, I wonder what drives him to become embroiled in so many legal battles, law suits, and financial problems. Is it because he needs the attention – any attention is better than being ignored. He joins a long list of snake oil salesmen that have marketed their products and ideas to gullible people looking for their own kind of recognition and virile validation. Finally, the social media platforms have rejected him, his hate speech, and his disinformation. Not our president. He still embraces Alex Jones as a kindred spirit; the two are fighting against elites they despise.
Jones still enjoys his First and Second Amendment rights, even though Facebook, You Tube, Twitter, and other social platforms have ended his access to them. He will have to try harder, maybe build his own social platform. Perhaps in the end he will make the blind see and the lame walk. Meanwhile, he joins a host of former con artists that grew rich off the ignorance and desires of millions of people looking for some kind of hope in a better world. Purchasing four Rolex watches in one day should tell us something about is insecurity.
163
A precarious existence panhandling on a freeway exit ramp is better than Alex Jones deserves.
25
Trump is cut from the same cloth.
47
It's obvious Mr Jones elevator doesn't go to the thirteenth floor!
13
An evil, twisted man can make a lot of money these days.
38
the question isnt why was he banned, but why wasnt he banned YEARS AGO! the first time he attacked the sandy hook victims he should have been banned.
81
I believe the term for Alex Jones used to snake oil salesman.
15
Alex Jones: "I am here giving you the unfiltered filth of my soul." No matter the harm caused, people hurt, lies parading as truth. It's all about money." Hopefully, his ex-wife and others represented in the lawsuits will help him part with all of it as well as his out-sized and undeserved megaphone. Advertisers too need to severe ties as his brand is toxic.
28
Bad News Mr. Jones. From what I see, the Brain Force Plus isn’t working.
39
"They May Bring Him Down."... Do you think it may "bring down his 'riches' " too?
4
Ironically it seems self-evident that at least one of Jones’s products, “Brain Force Plus”, is a complete fake.
20
"I'm not a businessman, I'm a revolutionary." Wrong on both counts. You're a member of the lunatic fringe, whose fifteen minutes have expired.
36
I would offer that there are two lessons here. One, Mr. Jones fully appreciated the meaning of the old adage that a fool and his money are soon parted. Two, Mr. Jones puts on full display that he is a Capitalist and that corporations have no moral obligations. They exist only to generate profit. Again, that this corporation preys upon the uneducated and fearful is of no concern to Mr. Jones, his only concern is to generate profit. The case should be made that Mr. Jones's operation should be regulated to inform his audience that the views expressed within are opinion and not supported by evidence or fact, and that the supplements he sells have not been proven to provide results.
Oh, yes, I can hear the Free Market advocates howling from here. Caveat emptor.
5
Now if this company isn’t delusional crazytown, I don’t know what is...and he and Roger Stone advise the President. C’mon McConnell and Ryan,what is the matter with you that you let all this go on inside the WH.
40
Trump conspiracy theories have made Twitter rich. That's why they have a double standard about closing Jones' account but NEVER @therealdonaldtrump.
9
Another rotter who has had everything handed to him including dad's $$$ who is now whining that he doesnt want the crop growing from the seeds he has sown.
This man's evil towards the parents of the Sandy Hook kids who were murdered is not forgivable. He should be in jail for his harassment. I hope he is sued within an inch of his life.
54
There will always be a hoard of stupid anti- intellectuals whose lives are ruled by fear of the things they don't understand. They are weak and susceptible to believing the things that wack-jobs like Jones will yell at them.
For example, in the picture of the "Infowars" employee talking to people at a rally, there is a sign with a rifle on it saying, "Come take it." No one has or will come to take their precious guns, but Jones' frothed-up rants have them believing that the "gubmint" is just days away from doing it.
Life's tough, and it's much tougher if you're stupid and gullible.
The real problem is that stupid, gullible people vote, and they support liars like the Clown, who is stupid and gullible like them.
115
sadly, all true. but not news.
@Citizen--When someone claims the government wants to take their guns and therefore they need to revolt, I always ask "Where will you get more ammunition?" And, they respond--"on the Internet or down at the local store"...as if a revolt will not hamper their daily routines.
1
Oh, to be the judge(s) who eventually hand down so many multimillion dollar awards in damages to plaintiffs like the grieving Pozner family, that this loathsome conman and his sleazy business “empire” disappear in a puff of sulfur. It can’t happen soon enough.
157
This man is deeply mentally ill.
The fact that he's managed to stake out a presence in our media is disturbing, and the fact that *anyone* gives his manic, paranoid-delusional rantings any credence is a sad statement on our educational standards.
He's a danger to society, and I hope these lawsuits take _every last penny_ he has.
104
@maktoo, I believe you should be careful calling Alex Jones "mentally ill." Calling Alex Jones "mentally ill" is an insult to people with mental illness. Alex Jones is clearly an individual who is fully aware of all the decisions he makes and has done so to become a thriving businessman thriving off fear.
People struggling with mental illness do not deserve to be compared to such a despicable creature.
13
This guy effectively 'productized' his own propoganda? The end must be near.
17
This vile excuse for a human being should be in jail for libel, defamation and slander.
28
Aimee Semple McPherson did it first. And better.
9
In every decade, in every age, in every millennia, there is a charlatan using fear, sleight of hand, and misdirection to get people to buy in. It will never end. What does this say about a large chunk of humanity--about the deep-seated need to feel empowered, able to fight an enemy regardless of fact or fiction. And the irony…so biting, that the only one here, catapulted by ego, is a corrupted power monger selling lies.
13
Trump repels me, but for every one of me, there is a deplorable who believes that: Alex Jones is a truth teller; Ted Cruz’s father shot Kennedy; Friday is an unlucky day.
You cannot appeal to the better natures and common sense of people who are bereft of these.
I advise crossing the street whenever you encounter them.
14
It's bad enough to have the Enquirer facing one at the check out stand at the grocery store with their outlandish headlines, but this guy Jones is way worse, and is very damaging to a portion of the population that has the brain power, or lack of, to fall for this kind of garbage. And to make it worse, Jones laughs all the way to the bank. I hope he is off the air for good.
34
Noice and well made vid
2
Umm, so what if the globalists want to silence him. Last I checked, no one in America is owed a living... right Republicans?
39
Marketing fear.
This is no different from all the snake oil salesmen of the past couple centuries.
It's also no different from a collection plate at plenty of Christian churches.
There's a sucker born more than every minute these days.
14
@HR
I think it’s a lot worse than snake oil salesmen.
Alex Jones capitalized off of calling Sandy Hook a hoax.
2
Pretty frightening and amazing that the President of the United States would be listening to, and agreeing with, even channeling, the ravings of this utter lunatic. Even the people on Fox News have at least a tenuous grasp on reality, but not Mr. Jones.
12
It's interesting that movies are rated from PG to X. I suppose that's OK as parents have a choice.
But the "weaponizing" of the first amendment by people who run something like the Infowars channel is a slippery slope in our democracy. Example: People who possess child pornography are prosecuted and yet people like Mr. Jones who claim that Sandy Hook never took place make money on the people who believe him.
Where to draw a line? The most frightening thing is that there are so many out there who have no discriminating quality of thinking to judge real right from wrong, and who vote and act with this garbage propaganda foremost in their consciousness.
9
Nut job, pure and simple. His attorney referred to him as a "performance artist" at his custody hearing in Austin. Mr. Jones may not believe the crazy things he says, but his legions of poorly educated, angry white men do. It will be a glorious day when his business goes belly up. Kudos to the platforms that banned him. It's too bad they didn't take this step years ago. Sad!
62
Or maybe he can become President. "Deep State" malarkey seems to work for Trump.
24
I used to occasionally listen to his shows on shortwave simply to laugh at his ludicrous theories. But when he put callers on the air who actually believed him, it wasn't funny anymore. It seemsed to me that he was preying on the uneducated, and the mentally ill.
80
"...most of his revenue that year came from the sale of products like supplements such as the Super Male Vitality, which purports to boost testosterone, or Brain Force Plus, which promises to “supercharge” cognitive functions."
Wow. A snake-oil salesman who actually sells...snake oil. But the pain and fear he was trying to "heal" was of his own making.
Sadly, the trail of misery he created is wider then just a few gullible rubes.
73
Future leader of the Republican Party? How else could they top Trump... and I imagine the party leaders would find a way to justify it. VOTE!!!!
9
Alex Jones is a self-admitted actor, who is in no way a journalist. He himself used this as a defense for his own child custody case. Sorry, but you cannot have it both ways:
‘However, Randall Wilhite, Mr Jones’s attorney, said the behaviour was merely an act.
“He’s playing a character. He is a performance artist.” Mr Wilhite said, according to the Austin-American Statesman.
Mr Wilhite said that using Mr Jones’ on-air persona to judge him as a father would be like judging Jack Nicholson in a custody dispute based on his performance as the Joker in Batman.’
35
@Jonathan Edwards
Mr. Jones is an actor, entertainer, or journalist. All three are hats of convenience that are selected to make him the most or cost him the least amount of wealth.
3
@Jonathan Edwards
I don't think his followers who went to Sandy Hook and terrorized the families there realize that he is an actor, right?
1
Perhaps the greatest indictment of Donald Trump's America: Alex Jones doesn't have a mildly successful business, he has a `lucrative' business. Maybe this is why more and more Americans are wearing Canada t-shirts when they travel overseas.
24
“Conspiracy Theories Made Alex Jones Very Rich. They May Bring Him Down.”
One can hope. Poetic justice, indeed.
29
Alex Jones is in the media business, like the Times, Facebook, YouTube, Apple, Spotify and Twitter. When his rivals forbid him entrance to their platforms they are engaging in restraint of trade.
Sorry, but some of us believe the Times is as partisan as Jones. I’d like to see Jones and his rivals in the media compete fairly in the marketplace if ideas. Blacklisting media moguls like Jones is a huge betrayal of the idea of America itself, which was founded on the idea that error has rights. The Founders did not believe there was anyone in a position to declare dogmatically what is true in politics and history and what is not.
Now we have precisely the opposite. A quasi-religious Left has adopted the slogan of the Inquisition, “error has no rights” — the Left will decide what is true, in South Africa or at the Twin Towers on Sept. 11, 2001. This is a slippery slope toward Orwellian dictatorship coming from virtue-signaling ideologues who deny the existence of the lies and misinformation they have promoted, most egregiously in March of 2003 when Mr. Bush invaded Iraq.
I fear a media monopoly that suppresses Jones in the name of their own supposed virtue and omniscience. I’ve been deceived by the “experts” and the Ivy League journalism grads too many times to applaud the suppression of Alex Jones and dozens of dissidents like him. Let every voice be heard.
6
Listen up, then. This voice is afraid of people like Alex Jones pulling strings in the White House.
2
@Michael Hoffman
Why should Alex Jones be able to use his hate speech to shame parents who have lost a child at Sandy Hook? Some had to keep moving as Alex Jones claimed they were crisis actors, and they kept being harassed. If losing your child was not bad enough, they have been hounded out of their home by Alex Jones supporters.
Freedom of speech does not give your the right to promote lies as fact. One should be responsible for their speech and Alex Jones should be held responsible for the continued stream of right wing lies he dishes up on a daily basis.
Words have consequences and Alex Jones needs to be held accountable for his words.
7
Sure, let Jones have his radio show, but his fake health supplements and body armor survival stuff should be regulated and taken off the market when it is shown they are false advertising. Once he has nothing to sell, he won't be too interested in spreading his fictionalized version of reality.
1
The despicable thing about Jones' followers is that, deep down, they know fully well that immigrants are not the evil monstrosities that Jones portrays them to be. Jones' followers are just genuinely bigoted against immigrants and willing to stoke hatred for them in any way they can, even if it's based on lies. It's truly disgusting.
23
Alex Jones is a clinically diagnosed narcissistic personality disorder. Dr. Alissa Sherry is the diagnosing physician. Specifically, an inhuman absence of empathy came up. The man is legitimately crazy. We, the public, can only debate the degree. More accurately, the degree to which those around him suffer.
Aside from his public content though, there other things here I find quite offensive about Mr. Jones. Obviously the obscene wealth he's garnered for selling harmful conspiracy theories is one. He needed his father to run the business too. However, I find his use of intellectual argument to justify a sham personally offensive. The argument is sophomoric. You can tell he dropped out of college early. For my own piece of mind, allow me to correct the record.
Dear Mr. Jones,
There are things in the universe that are 100 percent fact. That's why we call them laws. Newton's laws of physics are 100 percent fact. Newton is what got the Apollo astronauts to and from the moon. Newton is what floats the satellites espousing the nonsense broadcast on your radio program. Facts exist.
What you are referring to are known as theories. They are ideas about how something might have happened. Theories are never 100 percent certain. Einstein's relativity is still a theory. Fortunately though, we have a method for determining which theories are good theories and which theories are bigoted nonsense. It's called the Scientific Method. It's called evidence. You hold claim to neither.
35
@Andy I happen to be re-reading Stephen Hawking's _A Brief History of Time_ and he puts it much better than I could:
"Any physical theory is always provisional, in the sense that it is only a hypothesis: you can never prove it. No matter how many times the results of experiments agree with some theory, you can never be sure that the next time the result will not contradict the theory. On the other hand, you can disprove a theory by finding even a single observation that disagrees with the predictions of the theory. As philosopher of science Karl Popper has emphasized, a good theory is characterized by the fact that it makes a number of predictions that could in principle be disproved or falsified by observation. Each time new experiments are observed to agree with the predictions the theory survives, and our confidence in it is increased; but if ever a new observation is found to disagree, we have to abandon or modify the theory."
13
@Andy - I think you are actually confused about how science works. There can never be a scientific theory that is to be believed with 100% certainty. You can certainly *disprove* a theory but it's impossible to *prove* a theory. It's ironic that you use Newtonian physics as an example of a "law" that you are 100% certain is true, because it was actually Einstein who *disproved* that Newton's laws were correct! (Newton's laws are very very close approximations for most typical uses, but Einstein's version provided more accurate predictions for very large masses or other extreme cases.) As of now, Einstein's theory of general relativity supersedes Newton's theory of gravity as the most accurate explanation we have, but his theory could be superseded by something even more accurate at any time. That's how science works. I urge you to read Karl Popper for more insight.
FYI: Newton's theory was used for the Moon landing as it was a good enough approximation for that purpose, but actually satellites and the entire GPS system wouldn't work without the more accurate predictions provided by Einstein's theory of general relativity.
5
@Andy I think you may actually be confused about how science works. There is no such thing as a theory that can be believed with 100% certainty. You can certainly *disprove* a theory but you can never *prove* one. I urge you to read Karl Popper for more insight.
It's ironic that you're using Newton as an example of a "law" that should be believed with 100% certainty because it was actually Einstein's theory of general relativity that *disproved* Newton's law of gravity! (Newton is a very, very close approximation for most uses but Einstein is more accurate around large masses and other extreme cases.) Einstein's GR is the most accurate theory we have *as of right now* but that's not to say that something more accurate will be dreamed up tomorrow which will supersede Einstein.
FYI: I believe NASA used Newton's theory when planning the Moon landing as it was close enough for that purpose, but modern communications satellites and certainly our GPS system rely on the more accurate predictions provided by Einstein's theory of general relativity.
Yes, AJ is clearly a con artist, but you should be careful with making statements about how science works and what constitutes scientific knowledge.
It amazes me that it is much easier for so many people to accept such baroque fantasies — that every news outlet in the world except for Infowars and Fox News coordinate a false narrative, for example — than it is to accept the truth. Or maybe, like the UFO stories peddled by talk radio to previous generations, it's just a lot more fun for the bored and alienated who are drawn to the likes of Jones or Trump.
29
@WTK...and at the same time, deny climate science.
6
And not a moment too soon.
4
Clearly, Alex Jones has sold his soul to the Devil. I hope he is happy with his money. That is all he has.
10
I burst out laughing when I read he makes lots of money selling “Brain Force Plus” to his flock. How ironic. Apparently it doesn’t work, or his listeners might be tuning into real news.
May this clown get his just desserts in the libel trial. Basically this vile human makes up preposterous nonsense to torture people going through unimaginable horror to sell his snake oil garbage.
38
I hope with every bone in my body. What he's done is evil. Straight out of a Satanic playbook, if there ever was such a thing.
11
Conspiracy theories made him rich?
Sorry, it was the vile and vermin-like viewers and supporters who believed his nonsense who are to blame.
22
He supplied the noxious synergy.
1
Ugly little man with an ugly little voice and an ugly little mind. I guess we can take some comfort that HE is not president. Would be fun to see a matchup between the two in a ring, though. Hard to say who would be the winner - which one would be more vicious and break as many rules as possible?
10
@Karen Cormac-Jones--neither. Both would cower in their respective corners, shivering.
When I was a teenager I read a sci-fi novel about a disutopian future where the smart people produced everything for an enormous preponderance of stupid consumers. The smarts came to the conclusion that they needed to thin out the stupids. The stupids weren't that stupid, and they realized what the smarts were doing.
The smarts responded by creating a "revolutionary leader" for the stupids who sounded so very much like Alex Jones, and sold them on buying stuff that "protected" them from the smarts and gave them power in ways that were transparently idiotic ... and were in fact a combination of slow poisons and sterilants.
I can't remember the name of that story or the author. Anybody here know?
But then maybe it's not all that far-fetched now?
8
Fear-mongering fraud...fleecing conservatives for every penny he can. About bloody time his expiration date arrived.
9
The comments clearly show that everyone reading this has a similar disdain for Alex Jones, but do you not have a sneaking suspicion in the back of your minds that silencing him is the wrong move?
Are your loyalties and beliefs so in line with those of Jack Dorsey that you’re willing to give him the power to silence you? I know he has the right to do it, he is not beholden to the First Amendment, but he *is* beholden to his customers.
Everyone who believes in free speech should delete their Twitter account, because what if Dorsey was a Trump supporter? What if he held Madonna, Snoop Dogg, or the countless other lefties who threatened Trump to the same standard as Alex Jones?
We all have the freedom to ignore bigots and morons. We don’t need anyone to protect us from words or decide what we shouldn’t see.
We’re being treated like children.
5
Nobody is silencing Alex Jones except Alex Jones. All he had to do was follow the rules he agreed to when he signed a ToS, just like every one of us does. Why did he get away with this harassment, bigotry, and calls for violence, for so long? He never had a right to do these things without consequence on a non-government owned social media platform.
So now he's got his website & podcasts to continue his shtick. Maybe he'll get a radio show if he doesn't already have one. There are plenty of other extremists who shows and podcasts he can guest on.
So he hasn't been silenced at all.
5
@Gary Taustine What is your definition of “silencing”??? He still has his website. He still has his show. He can still say and do whatever he wants. His business hasn’t been taken over by the state or shut down. How is he being silenced?
If there are people on the left that are attacking regular civilians and encouraging strangers to harass innocent people during their worst moments based on sensationalized stories that make one a litany of profits, then a private company should have the right to kick them off of their platform also. They can be reckless on their own.
He takes feeding off of people’s hate to a different level. There are still plenty of conspiracy theorist and people with opposing views on Social Media that have not been silenced.
5
Ironically Mr Jones often makes the case for those he opposes. By suggesting that Sandy Hook was a hoax he is acknowledges that if it were real it is so damning to his pro-gun position that the only way to counter the obvious - that free access to powerful fast high capacity weapons result in carnage - is to suggest that it was faked.
9
Sadly, human beings are drawn towards fear, a source of believed to be comfort. And too much electronics can ruin a man’s freedom to speak clearly. Perhaps a soap box in the middle of the wilderness for this poor creature?
2
Only in this country can it be claimed that money and hate speech are protected as though they are sacrosanct.
6
It's weird how you can sell products that don't work and some people will keep buying them.
13
Really interesting article. I am disgusted by Mr Jones antics concerning the Sandy Hook tragedy, but if he wants to peddle harmless nostrums to gullible preppers, more power to him. That's the price we pay for a fee society.
5
The point at which Mr. Jones pushes his conspiracy lies to where people got hurt or worse is the issue, not the fact that he sells fear or snake oil to dupe his "parishioners" to part with their money is not really the issue, and is usually quite legal...just turn on your TV.
If we indict Mr. Jones for conning his parishioners with baseless stories and/or fear for what might happen for the purposes of getting their money, then, we pretty much indict every religion out there, and a good deal of the products sold to us daily. Baseless claims are all around us, but baseless claims that get people death threats and ruin their lives is a whole different kettle of hate.
6
"Let all the poisons that lurk in the mud break out."
I, Claudius by Robert Graves (1936).
3
The President should not be spending his time tweeting and/or following social media. He has a big job as an executive and chief defender of his Administration's policies. I believe the President uses social media primarily as an incendiary tool. For this reason alone, while in office, he should be denied the privilege of chiefly being a provocateur which we see works against national security and national stability.
5
He'd be nothing without an audience. What did Mencken say? "No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public..."
15
Jones does not appear to be a psychopath, contrary to the comments of some, but he could easily cross the threshold into the realm of the sociopath. The motivations for his behaviors would appear to be the accumulation of money, a need for recognition to assuage his inadequacies, and the paean of the narcissist.
He cares little if at all for the trauma to others caused by his actions which are a product of a rational thought process, however warped. Mr. Jones is thoroughly reprehensible in his awareness that his is misdirecting a vulnerable group of people towards conduct that is dangerous to themselves and others in order that they may continue to enrich him.
3
@Wordmorpher--It sounds to me as if you are talking about Donald Trump.
1
So all this time, what did he think was going to happen?
Being able to foresee the long-term effects of your actions is what it means to be a grownup.
4
By sharing this story we perpetuate his evil.
We need to make sure no one forgets his evil by telling this story.
Over and over and over, so we never forget what evil really is.
And to.... never forget.
5
The only difference between Jones and history’s long list of greed driven opportunists is that he had access to a gold mine in the new age of social media. Problem is he was relying on them to tolerate his ‘content’ and ultimately they were going to pay the price for facilitating the dissemination of his program.
He wrongly sees this as a first amendment issue—-it isn’t, media platforms are just kicking him out of their houses because the rest of their business is based on reality and economics.
3
One readily suspected that Alex Jones' outburst after a recent congressional hearing concerning social media had much more to do with protecting what's going into Jones' pocket and little to do with the first amendment. Speech is money, after all, and as we all know, disinformation is not only politically viable, it's downright entrepreneurial! By Jones' way of thinking, it matters not whether what he says is true or false, but rather, whether its profitable - and regardless of the harm it does. That's the only criteria that counts. That's why it is necessary that the lawsuits now in motion against Jones be successful. He needs to be made an example of, otherwise there's a long line of snake oil salesmen waiting to take his place.
15
Amazing that in this day and age, a man like Alex Jones can succeed at this game. With the world's information at your fingertips, any of these "theories" could be easily verified or refuted. You'd literally have to conclude that EVERYONE else is lying to you and that Alex Jones is the only source of truth.
Sound familiar? Here's the venn diagram of Alex Jone's audience and Trump's base: O
54
His influence is proof of (some) people’s hatred, paranoia, and laziness to actually read and think (critically) and today’s unusually high incidence of stupidity.
8
Mr. Jones should never be seen as someone trying to seek out the truth of anything. He's nothing more than an amoral businessman, his eyes fixed on the bottom line. He depends on the underlying mechanics of social media to spread hate and lies. It's time for the public all over the world to see that, for instance, Facebook's motto of 'Bringing the world together' has long lost its initial purpose and is being used to very efficiently peddle anti-intellectual nonsense to filterbubbles and echochambers. Mr. Jones, as deplorable as he is, just used the tools provided by social media to increase the effectiveness of his business model. Seeing evidence of his reach decrease so drastically without social media should be a wake up call as to what a threat social media can pose to a society which has turned free speech into a hollow phrase.
30
@Leremyr
Privately run media platforms can kick you off because they don’t like the way you part your hair—-speaking on Twitter is not free speech, it is Twitter speech. Standing on a public street corner, talking to yourself is free speech—which Jones is free to do.
6
Do we really need to talk about another megalomaniac, narcisist, paranoid, snake oil salesman, Elmer Gantry type when we already have one in our face day after dreary day? Are the people who support Trump and Jones so bereft in their lives that they need to cling so tightly to the likes of these men? Trump and Jones seem to feed off of their emptiness which in the past has been filled with religious passion and a belief in conspiracy theories. Charlatans smell a possible buck and power like vampires drawn to the blood of prey only this time it is our society that has become their victim.
81
Unfortunately the "gun-grabbers" lost and if Sandy Hook didn't help, nothing will.
13
Borderline psychopaths seem to have a devoted American audience in the millions. One might recall that the current occupant of the Oval Office is on the record praising Alex Jones for all the wonderful things he has done; and assuring Jones he will be 'very happy' with the Trump administration.
Rod Serling might have scripted this for an episode of The Twilight Zone; but imaginative though he was, Serling's imagination was never that demented and twisted.
239
Try Black Mirror, you'll see it has been done.
I've always contended that the conservative media (print, TV, and internet) in this country really took off when they realized they could make big money selling products of dubious value to their gullible followers. Tell them what they want to hear, even if most of it is made up or plays to their fears, and then sell, sell , sell them useless products.
49
When does spreading conspiracy theories become fraud? Perhaps when those "theories" are clearly out right lies and the lie-teller profits from those lies through fear. Seems like a reckoning is due here. Leading, one would hope, to bankruptcy and jail time.
This crank is only a small part of the problem though. The real problem is that there are so many people willing to buy what he touts and make him rich in the meantime. Those gullible masses will still be out there long after this guy implodes.
It's easy to name leaders who prospered by generating fear. (Not that this clown is "leader.") But, I dare say, you'd not want to be on that list...
17
I don't care about the people who order Alex Jones' supplements - he peddles so much hate on his sites that they know exactly who they are ordering from. But he should be jailed for the violence he unleashes by terrorizing Sandy Hook families, the pizza shop and other innocent people.
Rotten to the core. And now that his Dad is helping him run his "business" - clearly the apple didn't fall far from the family tree.
287
Couldn't have happened to a more deserving guy...
23
Alex Jones has been in the metaphorical movie theater shouting FIRE!! for nearly two decades.
54
And stop by the concession stand on your way out!
4
Some may say that social media companies should not have the right to decide who can use their platform. These are private companies who can establish whatever standard they choose. Mr. Jones and anyone else are free to set up their own web-sites and peddle their conspiracies and products to the gullible. However, they like using these free channels because they get so much more exposure for really no cost. However, that doesen't mean that Facebook has anymore obligation than the New York Times to offer him a platform. He is free to start his own. What I continue to find startling and troubling is that there are so many people out there who buy into not only the hate, but the bogus products. Mr. Jones really is just using extremism as a marketing tool. No different than most televangelists really.
58
Gee, I sure hope Jones' customers don't find out what the global conspiracy is slipping into all their supplements. They probably already know how dangerous it is to take too much ground-up Area 51 space alien, yet there it is in their Super-Duper-Big-Man-Women-Love-Me pills.
But seriously, what kind of person would buy a health product from someone who looks and sounds like Alex Jones?
109
@b fagan Apparently quite a few people are buying those products. They're also buying into his paranoia - and loading up on guns, dynamite, and anything else they think they might need to protect their bunkers. The idiot in the White House exploits those fears, once again proving that while he might be a moron when it comes to politics, he's a genius at making a buck by feeding their fear. Here's the really scary part: they vote.
12
Rather than fighting the agents of free speech, great American ingenuity and enterprise are already bringing new media platforms online to give voice to real Americans.
1
@Tiger shark
Wait, what?
Who's a "real American"?
I was raised in a Midwestern, white, christian family with roots to ancestors who came over on the Mayflower.
My upbringing through the 1960s taught me that Jesus was love, and that we should treat everyone the way we would want to be treated.
My mother would have been disgusted by Alex Jones. He, and Donald Trump are perfect examples of what my family taught me not to be!
I'm pretty sure that "real Americans" don't have to be just like me.
That's kind of a summary of what "real America" actually is: the freedom to be you and me!
Shame on you hateful people!
9
As real as a three dollar bill.
1
@Tiger shark
And Alex Jones is a real American? You may have been had, now swallow!
4
Fundamentally, what is the cause for rise of fragmented media catering to the extremes?
AJ, Bannon are businessmen with political leaning like Fox chief Roger Ailes/Rupert Murdock who have monetized the fears since the passage of the 1965 civil rights act. The difference since late 1990's is accessible communication channels at a lower capital investment. Faux News started with "Fear & Balanced" and capitalized by mixing news and opinions and catering to the right leaning and extreme right. The business model is being copied to the extreme fraction on the right. Folks, thank Silicon Valley for democratizing information. While data analysis is not the forte of folks listening to these extreme views, the feedback cycle involving emotions and resonance with personal views dominate outlook of the world around them. Unfortunately, USA though with best university system in world is not able to provide basic analytic capability to its citizens to keep this wonderful democracy going. Only time will tell how it all evolves.
13
"a 1971 book by Gary Allen that advanced the conservative theory that domestic decision making is not guided by elected officials, but international bankers and politicians" - Really? So Karl Marx was a conservative?
Shoddy, talkative, uninformed reporting seen from any political side.
5
@MO I think you have to take the "conservative" description in the context of American politics of the time.
2
If he hurries, I'll bet he can still get a job with this administration. Trump only surrounds himself with the "best" conspiracy theorists.
48
P.T. Barnum was right.
51
Wasn't this the guy on the Showtime series Homeland?
1
@Craig Serling
Yes, a mockery of him.
About time this huckster of lies learns that yelling fire in a crowded theater is not protected speech
Hit him in his wallet
Good
Keep hitting him
41
Authoritarianism and propaganda machine = dog and fleas.
11
Anyong buying Brain Force Plus must certainly be in need of a boost to their cognitive function.
46
@Bradley Bleck If that's how supplements make an (alleged) 44 year-old guy look, then I will do a hard pass. He is one rough stretch of road--mentally and physically.
7
If you ever actually watched his program for just a couple of minutes (before you required a deep shower), then you would see an ''empire'' that was based on the outrageous, but really was just a glorified shopping channel.
Some stayed for the message, some stayed to buy some stuff, and some were repulsed.
I think the tipping point of the latter has been reached.
20
“I am here giving you the unfiltered truth of my soul."
Please don't. That's for four-year olds. All in all, I'm rather weary of the tell-it-like-is crowd and those that lap up their over-heated, thin soup.
17
I watched Mr. Jones for the entertainment value, like watching programs on UFOs, never actually believing anything he said. For me he crossed the line when he said Sandy Hook was fake.
Trying to profit on the deaths of anyone, especially children, was going too far.
35
@SteveRQA
Do you slow down at traffic accidents, too? What do you do for entertainment?
Woah, that's not fair. I apologize. But, I would like to know, have you learned anything from this episode?
Some people, the ones I prefer to hang out with, do not enjoy the suffering of others, and never want to witness an accident or anything like Mr. Jones has to offer.
2
Trump does has value. If it werent for him, we would not know that these people existed. Or, in the bigger picture, the mendacity of conservatism in general. He turned over the rock.
It remains to be seen whether we will survive what has crawled out from under the rock.
23
@HT Alas, Alex Jones was around and well established before his kindred spirit Donald Trump blundered his way onto the political scene.
5
@HT
Yeah, hate and tribalism has existed for the complete history of humanity. How can we turn that rock back over!!
@ChristopherM Yeah, but only his millions of fans knew about him. Multiple other millions did not know about him. Lots of us do not have time on our hands to look for junk like this to listen to or watch. If we accidentally tuned radio to his show we would maybe listen for about 10 seconds before switching the channel.
First time I ever heard of him was after Trump. In fact, the first time I ever heard of Rush Limbaugh was accidental. I was driving the back roads of Texas and couldn't get any FM stations so I tuned in to an AM and there was Limbaugh spouting horrors. My brain connected the spewing to a handmade billboard I had seen when I was driving around the back roads of Oklahoma. I later read about Limbaugh because he was on my radar. Jones never was until Trump. I found one of Jones' rants on U-Tube shortly after the Trump-phenomenon-as-candidate came to be. This article is the first time I have been aware that he is selling products.
Handmade billboards, by the way, are great harbingers of political dysfunction. There were quite a few of them along the highways of Indiana during the past decade condemning President Obama. The first handmade billboard I ever saw was one in Texas, many years ago, outside Dallas, rooting for the John Birch Society.
With electronic media as the billboard of the world, the stakes have gotten way higher and the audience much larger.
But, we know what the humble radio can do. Look at the massacres in Rwanda. Scary stuff.
Time and time again, I return to the following questions, all of which could be asked of Jones, Trump, Limbaugh, Hannity, et al:
1) What applicable skills, expertise, and experience does he have? Is he a public policy expert, constitutional law scholar, or highly regarded politician? Jones, Limbaugh, and Hannity aren’t even college graduates.
2) In the absence of applicable skills, expertise, and experience, how could he possibly be seen as credible, trustworthy, or respectable?
3) How could anyone be receptive to and influenced by what he says? Who are these people? What’s wrong with them? Why are there so many of them? Why should I have any respect for them?
The millions of mindless followers are a much, much bigger problem that the demagogues themselves are.
114
A lot of blame can be laid at the feet of the conservatives who have weakened our once-great public education system, as well as the snake-oil salesmen peddling organized religion.
3
@BCM I also wonder who are these people, but not why there are so many. These are not people who carefully plan their families. Snake oil salesmen and women use their lack of credentials to simulate camaraderie with their marks: "I'm not one of those Harvard elites; I'm just like you, and I'm going to tell you everything you want to hear about who you should blame for your life". Alex Jones wouldn't get anywhere telling people to look in the mirror, then go finish college or get trained for a new career.
2
@BCM The Lineage of Alex Jones through the rest of conservative internet, radio, FOX news and finally Trump is just as big a problem. He was aided and abetted. My concern is that this infrastructure will just replace him with something else. The whole cabal has to be discredited and brought down.
Look, I wish Alex Jones would go back under the rock from where he came, but the opposition to him and the desire to curtail his voice on Twitter etc. has a few basic impacts, as I see it.
One, it provides more fuel to the fire that some "deep state" wishes to silence his type. Granted these folk will see anything through the conspiracy lens, but muzzling Jones adds a hint of credibility to these notions.
Two, connected to the second, it gives Jones more attention, exactly what he wants.
Three, short of a few particular situations, free speech is and should remain as absolute as possible. Once we get in the business of deciding what is offensive, dangerous etc., what is to stop that process from eroding our civil liberties? I understand it is often those on the left who are particularly outraged at Jones' bile. But imagine the chilling impact limiting the role of the free press would have during the Trump era? The President's undemocratic tendencies could have an even more pernicious impact, if that is possible.
Is Jones simply a polemic, as opposed to a journalist? Of course. And clearly free speech is not without limits, but please, be very careful in limiting it. I doubt Jones deserves that much credit.
7
@Paul
No, no, no. You miss an important point in the free speech argument.
Being able to speak your mind is important! But, knowingly putting out things that you know to be false in an attempt to have damaging results is not.
This is the "shouting 'fire!" in a crowded theater example. If you honestly think there is a fire, or danger of a fire, even though everyone else wants you to shut up and enjoy the show, that's free speech.
But, if you know there is no fire and you are only speaking to create panic, and a panic that threatens the lives and well-being of other citizens, you have no free speech rights, and would be rightfully prosecuted as a criminal.
Alex Jones is clearly in the second category of shouting "fire" only to create chaos and sell his products. There is no first amendment issue here.
6
@Paul Sorry, it is not free speech when what you say leads to people being terrorized and in fear for their lives.
7
Information Warfare is a real thing. Alex Jones is a practitioner. Just an insight into how curbing Alex Jones gets insinuated as curbing "conservatives":
If you wanted to take Reagan's "...government is the problem..." and prosecute an information warfare campaign to create fear and doubt in government, it would look like the Alex Jones' enterprise.
If you wanted to create a visceral response supporting the pro-gun lobby, the campaign would look like the Alex Jones' enterprise.
Alex Jones supplies fear-enabled emotional support for the "movement conservative". He does this by using the techniques of Information Warfare, which are, you guessed it, designed to create fear.
It is interesting Trump noted to the NYT author that true power was, you guessed it, fear.
That conditions within the culture created by people like Alex Jones could be exploited by foreign intelligence and security services practicing Information Warfare is not surprising at all.
13
This is how our hallowed First Amendment has been weaponized by unscrupulous people who abuse the seductive power of the internet to transmit false ideas directly into the minds of their uncritical audience.
It wasn't long ago that print and broadcast media were cumbersome, expensive technologies mediated by professionals with certain standards of editorial responsibility. The internet age has enabled irresponsible people armed with a laptop or a smartphone to speak directly to a vast and suggestible audience.
In the pre-internet era, the Russians, our president, and the creepy Mr. Jones, practitioners of the Big Lie, wouldn't have the means to inject their propaganda into our collective consciousness. In our pre-internet innocence we believed the daily paper and the nightly news.
The internet is a powerful new tool that enables the assault on Truth, weakening the fragile bonds of belief that once held society together. In this propaganda war, weapons are ideas. Truth is under attack in the battle for our minds.
26
Alex Jones is so far off my radar : I had absolutely no idea he was personally and aggressively peddling "male health" pills for $$.
Jones is a genuine modern version of those Old West traveling salesmen that would sell addictive laudanum "that will cure all your ills!". Only those salesman were savvy enough to leave town for the next one. Jones cannot do that.
56
If things were right in this world,
Alex Jones would be ripping his shirt off and running around screaming incoherently in a mental institution instead of on a reckless conspiracy "news" show.... watched faithfully by MILLIONS.
46
The only thing worse than giving Steve Bannon a front page headline in the NYT is giving one to Alex Jones.
10
If you ever actually watched his program for just a couple of minutes (before you required a deep shower), then you would see an ''empire'' that was based on the outrageous, but really was just a glorified shopping channel.
Some stayed for the message, some stayed to buy some stuff, and some were repulsed.
I think the tipping point of the latter has been reached.
4
If you ever actually watched his program for just a couple of minutes (before you required a deep shower), then you would see an ''empire'' that was based on the outrageous, but really was just a glorified shopping channel.
Some stayed for the message, some stayed to buy some stuff, and some were repulsed.
I think the tipping point of the latter has been reached.
6
Here's the way we sees it: The 1st. amendment of our democratic republic stipulates that there are some instances of speech (written, spoken) that are not protected under its "banner", to include: Obscenity, Fighting words, Defamation (including libel and slander), Child pornography, Perjury, Blackmail, Incitement to imminent lawless action, True threats, and more.
What A. Jones , along with POTUS and his ilk have promulgated over the years fall, in our opinions, well within those proscripted categories ... that is, not under the protection of the 1st. amendment.
Too, the attempts made by the current administration and the majority of his supporters to establish our democratic republic as a one religion country seems to be in violation of that same 1st. amendment.
37
@Drs. Mandrill and Peos Balanitis, and Basha Kutomba Insightful comment. One wonders if destroying the separation of church and state is the end game of all of this. It has already been accomplished through the fracturing of publlc schools into charter schools and extending tax dollars into religious schools. Clearly, this will accelerate constitutional deterioration. Demagouges like Jones will continue to flourish absent a stable non-religious public school system in the U.S.
3
Good riddance. Hopefully he will lose the lawsuits and be hit with business crushing damage awards going to the plaintiffs.
Hopefully that will be the big domino starting a run on and the demise of the many right wing, actual "fake news" 'factories'. Circling the drain...
Going down along with President Tweeter and his crew of swamp dwellers.
36
Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy!
9
Absolutely no different than Popoff. Yes he is revealed as a fraud, but he'll just re-emerge in a different place and resume his profiteering, in a quieter mode.
6
Back in the day The Hearst News Papers helped spawn the Spanish American War, by delivering angry nativist rants,
fearmongering, and baseless conspiracy theories.
46
Listen. What's your final offer for sixteen-hundred size extra-large one-hundred percent cotton "CNN IS ISIS" t-shirts?
Please Alex. You're killing me. I can't lower my offer. Take it or leave it.
Alright. Sixty-cents each for thirty shirts. But you pay my shipping costs.
Alex?
Never mind. Expect 'em in two weeks.
4
I can almost smell him, from here. Eww!
23
@ChesBay That's the way I feel when I see Mnuchin.
1
We are awash in con men.
39
Cry me a river, inciter. You have no place in our society.
20
NYT, please stop writing about this waste of space, unless is to let us know he has been convicted and taken to the cleaners by those who suffered greatly from his hate-spewing.
Especially now that he lost his main distribution platforms, we will see more and more desperate attention grabbing measures similar to the one earlier this week, meant only to keep him in the public eye. Attention is the currency he trades, so please don't give it to him.
23
Alex Jones is cut from the same cloth as Donald Trump. Both are self-serving, amoral conmen trafficking in lies to the cowardly and susceptible. I hope his business goes down in spectacular fashion.
154
He and Donald can rent a stadium together for their next act. Once Donald is out of office, he’ll probably be banned from Twitter too so it will be back to megaphones, shouting into the wind, two crazy codgers, together forever.
8
I once heard a timeshare sales person, who toiled in the high pressure 2-hour, 'first call close' arena where he sold a $15,000 product that nobody really "needs", describe his sales process as "Hurt'em then heal them." He explained that his task was to create and magnify a need so he could sell them the solution. Alex Jones has been doing precisely that as he set people on fire then sold them a fire extinguisher. The important difference is that Jones traffics in hate. But he's heading for a crash landing. Well-deserved.
50
Hey, if he wants to sell questionable supplements I guess it's okay as long as they do not harm. There is a sucker born every minute as the saying goes and Mr. Jones knows his target market.
As for his 'predictions', 'conspiracies' and provocative warnings, I am all for free speech. What is important to understand is that Mr. Jones crossed the line from simple free speech to threatening personal harm when he included the personal information of the Pozner family.
As hateful and hurtful as his Sandy Hook hoax comments were and are, the comments alone are most probably protected by law.
It is when he goes beyond that with specific information about his 'targets' that people can get physically hurt. I hope Mr. Pozner wins big time.
As for the rest, Mr. Jones joins a long line of hucksters to the gullible. If Infowars ceases to be profitable for Mr. Jones we can rest assured that he will find a new avenue for his film flam and willing followers.
Gee, Bob Woodward's book and Mr. No Name help us understand why Trump is such a fan. Pity he is the President.
20
Go on and chat with the Alex Jones audience. They will tell you are brainwashed by the media. That you are sheep. You've taken the blue pill. It is easier to fool you than convince you are being fooled.
It's so depressing your only hope is to muse if this failing NYtimes piece is brainwashing you - at least someone lives an examined life.
6
This sleaze bucket deserves everything that happens to him.
13
Sandy Hook.
There is no excuse for what he did, and no excuse to support anyone who supports him. Stupidity, or simple capitalism greed, or ignorance, or...
Nope, one forfeits one's right to call oneself a fellow human being when that person mocks the parents of little children murdered by an insane person.
Hugh Massengill, Eugene Oregon
177
Most excellent, SIR.
2
Why does NYT cover this nonsense. I just visited the website, and it's front and center.
See, there's the problem. Y'all give him the grandstand. Is the world that boring that you need to keep giving the stage to its looniest court-jesters?
Look at the photo mid-way down the article. He's standing there with journalists surrounding him with microphones. Honestly, this guy should be sitting on the corner of 32nd and Lex with a change jar -- y'all made him rich.
66
Best comment!
3
@BrendanMF The mainstream media did not make Jones what he has become. I think it's useful, now that he is under scrutiny, to shed light on his whole game. Sure, he'll use the extra press coverage to suit his own agenda in a way similar to Trump. Nonetheless, it's a story that needs a little attention.
4
You ignore him at your peril. The reason he suddenly leapt to the headlines is because it became clear that his ilk was serving exactly the kind of viewer that gave us the White House’s current occupant. It’s why Hillary Clinton started talking about the Alt Right at the very end of the campaign. Being completely unaware of its existence made the country vulnerable to its relatively weak power.
9
When do we recognize that Alex Jones, Donald Trump, the RK Church are nothing but the top of the pyramid of what America is all about: a country so weak in intelligence and inner strength that it gladly follows insanity, lies, and child molestation - from Sea to Shining Sea.
21
"...a bogus assertion about the slaughter of white farmers in South Africa."
Yes, it is true that white farmers are now only being murdered at a rate of 47 a year, down from a high of 153 in 1998. Between 80 and 100 were murdered each year from 2003 to 2011, and around 60 until 2016. To declare that this is just an anomaly and not a slaughter is ludicrous. What if we had 37 journalists murdered last year, down from a high of 153. Would that be ok?
5
@Robert
South Africa has a very, very high murder rate, there is nothing unique or special about the murder of white farmers. Blacks in the cities are murdered at a FAR higher rate so are concerned about that "slaughter" or like Mr, Jones do you only care when whites are killed
15
@Robert. No murders are acceptable. But, South Africa has 20,000 murders annually with all but a small number being blacks that are murdered. The year that there were 153 white farmers murdered there were also 1,100 black farmers and black farm workers murdered as well. Somehow that did not appear in either Alex Jones's or Trump's data. I wonder why not.
5
@Robert
The conspiracy theory asserts that the the farmers are being murdered because of their race. And there is no evidence whatsoever that that is the case. There were over 19,000 murders in South Africa during 2016-2017. The number you cite is simply the number of victims that happened to be farmers. Sounds like the farmers are faring far better than other members of the general population.
Thus, the bogusness of the theory that these farmers are being murdered as part of a white genocide.
3
Isn't this right in line with the dark side of American tradition. Create a problem, provide an answer.
Before Trump University and other grifter scams, haven't TV preachers been milking the fear of eternal damnation for years. With the promise that a substantial tithe as the answer to all. Rather than travelling from town to town, the TV and now the internet, economies of scale, greed is not just good, but better every day!
Freedom of 'religion' + freedom of 'speech' = freedom to may lots of money at the expense of the sucker. Come to think of it, creating fear of the bogeyman has sold literally armories of guns. Fear is a great business strategy, big and small.
Last thought, the founder of Amway passed away last week. The alternative to using fear is creating a great pyramid scheme, if you want to get rich in America. His children Betsy DeVos and Erik Prince basically have inherited the same grifter DNA and should share Jones' fall and fate.
Voting straight D in November, and in 2020 is the best way to drain this swamp. Americans deserve much, much better!
46
If the money was better on the left of the divide than the right, then Jones would happily be on the left. He has no real agenda other than enriching himself. It's just much easier to scare people than it is to lead them.
34
@aimlowjoe It's not about money, it's about lack of gullible customers.
11
I say the same about Trump, aside from his racism. It's about political expediency, which is why once upon a time, in liberal New York City, Trump was a Democrat. Identifying as Conservative is simply a means to an end for these loathsome men. Their audience and base is another story completely. They literally believe in the garbage both men sell.
3
I cannot but admire all journalists who, like Williamson & Steel, pay close attention over time to unpardonable dross like this Alex Jones so we can know about them.
Theirs is a true dedication to the Truth.
12
Great reporting and it shows that this digital carnival barker has simply hit upon the modern day equivalent of snake oil -- virility and "brain" pills -- to get rich quick.
But may I humbly submit for consideration that we retire the phrase "conspiracy theory"and "conspiracy theorist" to describe the lies that Alex Jones and his ilk propagate over the internet.
There is no -- none, zero, zilch. nadda -- "theory" behind Jones' statements. They are malevolent fabrications. They are fantasy and he is a fabulist. That's all. To call Jones a "conspiracy theorist" is to elevate him to the level of a legitimate source of true ideas that only need to be tested to be validated and proven.
In fact, he trades in hallucinatory rants that have no base in facts. There's a word for that. It's called claptrap.
Phrases such as "conspiracy monger" or "conspiracy fabulist" would be the proper terms to use when describing Jones -- and let's use the word "theory" in its proper context, such as in "theory of evolution" and "theory of relativity," etc.
230
@Philoscribe
"he is a fabulist"
I would avoid that word just because it sounds too much like "fabulous", which has taken a meaning at odds with its roots, and completely incompatible with the non-fabulous Mr. Jones. :)
1
He's a billboard for the End Times...which many of his listeners probably believe in. I hope the litigation leaves him flat broke.
48
I've long called his show InfomercialWars.
9
Blame the tech Execs of Silicon Valley. They should be tried in the Hague for creating weapons of mass destruction when they linked all the "home shopping network" customers; gave them ability to communicate over the internet.
1
How do people get sucked into this guy's orbit? The problem is that enough do such that he can make a living peddling stuff. Doesn't common sense eventually sink in with people such that they realize it's all a big scam? Don't their family and neighbors try to pull them out of the darkness? I guess I'm just too anchored to reality to understand.
5
Ken L, common sense ain't common that's why, and given people listen to the Twitter fool on a daily basis, what's the difference?
1
This huckster is a perfect match up for trump. The weak minded that buy into Jones' nonsense had better start upping their dosage of Brain Force Plus.
11
Get him court and pray the judge rules in favor of the families who lost their children at Sandy Hook. And make the settlement large enough to clean out Jones and send a warning to any future greedy, self-serving, scurrilous nut jobs that think they can make millions off the pain and suffering of others.
44
Jones has brought nothing but misery, provocation, deranged conspiratorial lunacy, real danger and violence to the mass market. His products are toxic and deadly. He peddles in gossip, innuendo, sinister lies and irresponsibly promotes theories he knows are going to influence soft minds and could result in violence. Such incidents have occurred. The parents of those poor little murdered children in Newtown, CT have great strength; to be accused of staging the death of your 6-year old child is beyond anything indecent. It is perhaps the most cruel thing one human can do to another. I wish only the very worst for this utter fraud and charlatan. I think legislation should be passed making inflammatory gossip like Jones illegal subject to mandatory jail time. This man is a pariah of society.
21
The intensifying suppression of free speech will be just one of the detonators of an increasing likelihood of a greater American crisis than we are hurdling towards. Differences are irreconcilable at this point. Who’s telling Twitter who to ban? And to what meaningful end??
1
@Tiger shark That's your take from this article?!
6
@Tiger shark This *isn't* free speech — it's yelling, nay screaming FIRE in a crowded theater. This miscreant and the nattering nabobs of gullibility that follow and parrot him should be shunned by all Americans who can tell the difference between right and wrong (which is practically everyone who isn't Trump, his family or their willfull supporters).
7
@Tiger shark Twitter like FB is a private platform. Nobody is censoring AJ, he is free to say what ever he wants on his website(s), in public etc. He just can't do it within the confines of a privately owned environment that has specific community standards. If you have ever belonged to a FB/Yahoo group or even Compuserve back in the day then you'd know you can't say what ever you want without getting kicked off if you violate pre-established community standards. FB/Twitter are just larger specimens of the same.
7
To everyone saying that Twitter is a private company so they have a right to ban whomever they choose...
First, private organizations may have the right to censor users, but unless that censorship is applied equally across the board, based on a standard set of rules, the practice is discriminatory.
Second, social media platforms have become more than just a place to post cat videos, many people get their news through feeds on these platforms, and those feeds are being filtered and curated by the proprietors’ algorithms. If they are permitted to omit opinions it’s no different than your newspaper delivery service cutting out the articles they don’t like before you can read them. You may be ok with that when it comes to Alex Jones, but sooner or later the algorithm is gonna get you.
And finally, while The First Amendment is still intact from a legal standpoint, its spirit is no longer a guiding principle in our society. Laws are made by people, and people are getting far too comfortable of late, with the notion that words and opinions they find offensive can simply be banished. If they're willing to accept censorship as customers, they’ll be willing to accept it as constituents. The precedents being set by private industry, if left unchecked, will become policy, and policy left unchallenged will eventually become law.
6
@Gary Taustine Or, maybe the absolutist free speech ideology is a form of paranoia about what will happen without the First Amendment...
2
What Alex Jones won't acknowledge is that with rights come responsibilities. Mr. Jones has used his free speech rights without a thought to the consequences. While the damage from his lies won't be undone, the best outcome is that he be prevented from spreading even more.
50
I feel sorry for the people who support those like Mr. Jones. There’s clearly a problem in their lives they cannot or will not fix, and use vessels like Jones to believe in something because their elected officials have let them down. That’s how Trump got elected, for not being a politician. That should clue us in that our political system is broken, that tens of millions of Americans would put their trust in a charlatan con man. Voting blue in November is not enough. We need to make sure our elected officials at all levels are doing everything they can to help as many Americans as possible. Because Trump and his complicit comrades in Congress sure aren’t doing it now.
8
1. In one sense it's sad that Jones' followers are being duped into buying by products that are as phony as his ideas; but on the other hand it means they have less money to feed Republican politicians. It seems to be a moral conundrum how one should judge this state of affairs.
2. I wonder if there is any well-off country in the world that has as high a percentage of people as we do who are susceptible to Jones' (and Trump's) kind of demagoguery.
12
@Greg Weis Look to Eastern Europe, England, Hungary, Poland, Myanmar, Egypt, ah well everyone.
Conspiracy theories work both ways. How many "anonymous", "reliable" sources do we need to see on the Left before more people start questioning what is being reported as the truth by the MSM?
2
@Bill - Do you really not know how journalism works?
10
@Bill,
Don’t blame the Left for the anonymous letter. It so easy for you right-Wingers to lie and deflect, but doesn’t surprise me. You’ve had a good is role model.
9
@Bill,
In fact, conspiracy theories **don't** work "both ways."
Ever since the times of town criers, when a journalist cites an anonymous source intelligent people start wondering out loud "Who is it?? and go looking for "it." Responsible journalists make sure that someday "it" will be identified. Witness Nixon's Deep Throat who was finally named.
Conspiracy theorists rely on a lack of critical thinking which, itself, has come under attack from Republicans in the US. Alex Jones is a branch of the Republican party. My bet is they will try to protect him.
1
We must be out of actual news on this Friday afternoon. Time to log off..
3
If it weren't for his tendency to advocate violence, I'd have no problem with Alex Jones.
Question the facts, deny them, state something never happened but don't insinuate that violence against others is somehow legitimate.
He saw a market and became its media figurehead. He saw that he could fund himself by selling supplements which are easy to discount but may have real effects on people depending on if they believe it's working.
I'm sure NYTimes readers can understand this: buying organic versus buying regular produce although there's no real difference between the two.
I'd never call Jones stupid and I find the phenomena leading to his growth throughout the 1990s and today personally interesting in a sociocultural kind of way.
If he comes across that way it's only to ingratiate himself with those that are (marketing 101) but he is violent and that's enough to ban him from social media which may be enough to shut down Infowars as it currently exists.
4
Jones is commonly called a scammer, a con artist, but I think “cult leader” is more apt. And, like all cults, it serves only to enrich its parasitical leaders.
28
He lies and sells merchandise on a scope and scale that would make even the most ambitious snake oils sales man weak.
9
Alex Jones is an evil man who should be sued into the poor house. That said, limiting speech is a poor solution. The only saving grace here is that the private sector is shutting him down. More worrisome are government moves to silence speech we don't like. The prime example is Backpage and other websites that, until Congress passed a law (nearly unanimously) this year, advertised the services of prostitutes (or sex workers, if you prefer that term.)
I can legally run a website that includes ads for guns, heroin, explosives, shady rent-to-own schemes, even slaves (so long as they do not engage in sexual activity.) But, if I run a website that includes an ad pitching prostitutes, I can be thrown in jail, fined and sued simply for allowing someone else to post an advertisement. Sex is the only thing that, if advertised on a website, can result in the webmaster being prosecuted and sued. Everything else is allowable, and this law passed the Senate with just two dissenting votes, a smattering of "no's" in the House and the full-throated endorsement of President Trump. Even NYT cheered the effort.
It is not hard to see where this will, inevitably, lead. The solution, of course, is to punish Jones, along with prostitutes and drug pushers, under existing law, which is absolutely possible and especially easy if criminals openly advertise themselves on the internet. Instead, we trample the First Amendment while pretending that we care about what's good about America.
5
I think what he touts does not allow him the protections of the first amendment. For instance if you yell “fire “ in a movie theater and there is no fire and people are trampled as they are running to the exits, I believe this is considered a crime. I am not a lawyer but if he makes false accusations and there is harm as a result, he should be made to pay the consequences. At the very least, he should just shut up.
2
So the Posner family lost a child at Sandy Hook, and now must live in hiding because of the reprehensible Alex Jones?
146
I hope he doesn't go to jail before I get me one of them there tin foil hats.
23
@Jeff M
Thanks! You made me bust out laughin'!!!
1
Even if he loses the law suits and his ability to peddle cockamamie paranoid conspiracies gets clipped a little, he's still laughing at all of his suckers and thumbing his nose at decent people -- as he counts his ill-gotten gains.
The preppers and paranoids will likely stick with him, at least those who manage to stay out of jail.
I do wonder how many of his followers are dumb enough to pay for an “Advanced Liver Cleanse Pack” hawked on his show, and what they think it will do. But then these people believed in a child sex ring in the basement of Comet Ping Pong, run by Hilary Clinton.
15
So how are Jerry Falwell Jr. and Franklin Graham different from Alex Jones?
72
@Kent R
A: Not very.
4
Amen!
1
Alex Jones and Donald trump, poster boys for the dumbing down of America movement.
14
It used to be: “Behind every great fortune there lies a great crime.”
Is it now just a bit different? Does utter and continual shamelessness now lie at the heart of many an American “success” story?
Has our democratic republic lost its soul? Has our educational system wholly failed to impart ideals? Are our civic and religious institutions wholly ineffective?
9
Alex Jones is like some demented character on Homeland.
Very poor toupee.
17
Looking at Alex Jones the last thing I would ever associate with him is anything related to "health." Just how gullible was his audience?
65
we are the product of our own choices. if we make non-virtuous choices, we bring those elements into our lives, and the results are inevitable.
alex jones is just another in a long line of people that demonstrate we will not be punished for our fear and anger, we will be punished BY it.
17
This is exactly the way Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity make their money, just a little less strident and lunatic. Some people just need to hate to feel whole and there will always be oily creeps to feed their paranoia as long as there's money to be made out of it.
49
When I retire, I will probably make orders of magnitude more than the millions I already have. All I need to do is sell products to people who voted for Donald Trump. What a country!
19
@MoneyRules - I had the same thought the day after the election. I thought I'd bottle dirt and call it a condiment. Trump supporters could sprinkle it on their food because it's obvious they will swallow anything.
20
Those who attack Alex Jones elevate him, and those who silence him confirm his claims that he is being targeted.
When you go after his right to speak, you put everyone who believes in the First Amendment on his side.
He's an anti-Semitic huckster, let him rant so everyone knows who and what he is.
6
@Gary Taustine No one has any right, 1st amendment or otherwise, to speak on a privately owned media platform.
13
@Gary Taustine
Civil juries should enter judgments that would cause him to ask for bankruptcy protection.
Once he is reduced financially, expect him to find Jesus and become a televangelist.
What do such luminaries like Franklin Graham and Pat Robertson have to say about his conduct?
7
@Douglas Lowenthal
Agreed, but...
First, private organizations may have the right to censor users, but unless that censorship is applied equally across the board, based on a standard set of rules, the practice is discriminatory.
Second, social media platforms have become more than just a place to post cat videos, many people get their news through feeds on these platforms, and those feeds are being filtered and curated by the proprietors’ algorithms. If they are permitted to omit opinions it’s no different than your newspaper delivery service cutting out the articles they don’t like before you can read them. You may be ok with that when it comes to Alex Jones, but sooner or later the algorithm is gonna get you.
And finally, while The First Amendment is still intact from a legal standpoint, its spirit is no longer a guiding principle in our society. Laws are made by people, and people are getting far too comfortable of late, with the notion that words and opinions they find offensive can simply be banished. If they're willing to accept censorship as customers, they’ll be willing to accept it as constituents. The precedents being set by private industry, if left unchecked, will become policy, and policy left unchallenged will eventually become law.
I'd like to be Mr. Jones' neighbor and live in whitetrashville. Open up a Dixie think-tank and fund everything by selling old Jefferson Davis memorabilia. Where are we in America? Crazy town is an understatement.
20
The idea that his followers are exclusively Southern is just another example of the predjudice that blinds so many well-meaning non-Southerners. Ugly paranoid racism knows no state border.
2
Alex Jones is a coward and a sleaze. He had no qualms about revealing personal information and maps to addresses associated with Leonard Pozner's family out of vindictiveness, yet would only grant an interview to the New York Times on the condition that the location of his headquarters not be specified. This man has no shame.
515
This man is not crazy. He knows exactly what he is doing and probably does not believe in any of his "conspiracies." He is an opportunist, plain and simple. He preys on the weak minded who want to believe in something and feel powerful. It's a shame he will retire a multimillionaire and probably never see jail time.
Simply put -- he's a bad man.
29
Jones promotes and spreads hate, fear and lies. Isn't it time to stop...Hate?!
"Those who will make you believe absurdities, will make you commit atrocities." ~ Voltaire
Americans need to read about the rise of Hitler, Mussolini, Franco and Stalin. What we don't know can kill our freedoms and democracy!
23
@Mari
“You can have the most advanced and efflorescent of cultures. Get your politics wrong, however, and everything stands to be swept away. This is not ancient history. This is Germany 1933.”
---Charles Krauthammer, RIP
1
I had never heard of the man until recently and then I heard a couple of minutes from one of his shows and at first I was waiting for the skit to be over because I believed it to be a segment of sarcasm on another show- especially when he did one of his product promotions for something I was sure was made up. I kept waiting for the voice-over or laughter.
Then I realized it was serious and could not believe that anyone at any intelligence level could think that this guy was capable of either rational,reasoned thought or worthy of attention. He makes the ultra-right look like a band of clowns- I am surprised they themselves haven't shut him down long ago.
24
@ Millie Bea
You and me both. How anyone could spend more than a few minutes watching or listening to him is astonishing. And then to buy his products, too.
I hope someone digs into his nest of LLCs and whatever other corporate forms he uses. It might be the case, as with any number of others, that income tax become another problem for him.
2
His audience and customers are even MORE gullible than Trumps. Congratulations, or something. Seriously.
42
The only word that suffices to describe this man and his poisonous ravings is “evil”. How else to describe a person who multiplies the already massive torment of the parents of murdered children? He belongs in prison.
197
@DMW Alex Jones is actually a CIA operative rooting out the dangerous elements in American Society. Anyone who buys his products is kept in a data base of "people who are susceptible to powers of suggestion that threaten decency and US strength". Those that even watch his show are being watched. So thank you for your service Mr. Jones.
As the song says:
Mr. Jones Mr. Jones
He got a thing goin'on
We both know that it's wrong
But it's much too strong
To let it go.
Alex Jones is the personification of Donald Trump's core of the republican party. He has been successful because he represents the character and human values of that segment of our population.
Conman. SnakeOil salesman. Liar. Bigot. Coward. Bully.
A demonstrated willingness to vilify and torture psychologically bereaved parents of murdered children just so he can make a buck.
Dante had Alex Jones in mind when he conceived of his innermost circles.
21
Ugh! It is hard to say anything that doesn’t reflect revulsion but putting up with this kind of nattering is the price we pay to have a free society. He doesn’t appear to share that view and only takes the privilege without the responsibility, just like his pal in the White House.
If there is still justice here, he should pay a heavy price for his assault on the grieving Newtown parents.
And I watched the video with Senator Rubio, Jones looked severely hygiene deficient. Would you really buy health products from a guy like that?
6
Is there a difference between Alex Jones and televangelists? Not much.
26
And not a moment too soon. Let’s hope that he hires Rudy Giuliani so that he goes broke even quicker.
58
a con artist fleecing the rubes. again.
11
In the video of Jones and Rubio (see link at "embarrassing rebuff"), Jones reminds me of the obnoxious immature kid that every middle school seems to have. He thinks he's being clever and hysterically funny but you rarely see anyone laughing at his jokes except 1 or 2 other socially inept kids.
10
Because they made him rich, I hope the courts order him to pay every last cent he owns to people he has hurt. Because he does not have enough money to compensate for the pain he has caused innocents in the most barbaric, horrifying, medieval ways - I hope the courts also require him to serve out the rest of his lousy life in a high security prison devoted to housing violent offenders of the worst sort. And if this were to bother his most fervent supporters, and others that fed off him, I hope the court metes similar justice to them. Hurting parents of young children mourning death is a heinous crime; let's treat it like it is.
105
That people are actually credulous enough buy these ridiculous products says a lot about the intelligence of the people who follow Jones and his ilk.
20
Well, mental illness, greed and hate must run in the family.
And for the Jewish man and African American woman who claim they were harassed, what were you thinking? I would clean toilets all day before I would work for this horrible man.
21
@Marti Detweiler, And if you couldn't find a gig cleaning toilets, what would you do? People have an unassailable right to seek work and hold jobs.
Inciting violence and spreading lies and conspiracy theories just to make money is despicable.
Alex Jones is a dangerous con man.
43
“disseminate fact-challenged assertions”?! Why not call them what they are—dirty lies.
13
Fear sell stuff.......
Beer ads tell ya no sexywomen if you don’t drink the product
Car ads tell ya the same if you don’t drive the car.
Food ads suugest you’ll be real sick without added antioxidants
Toothpaste ads tell ya nobody’ll like you if teeth aren’t whiter than white
. . . Seldom dothey just espouse the function of the product
.... often the only real function is to arouse fear so somebody can relieve you of your money. . .
The difference between average snake oil and infowars snake oil is mostly in the degree of immorality and fear-mongering involved
7
Jones is a loser, nothing more. That he got rich trumpeting his nonsense is part of the same simple-minded goo which propelled Trump to the White House.
Dense, ignorant, paranoid, nasty, and racist people ... there's the universe surrounding these cons.
30
“I don’t think you can establish that anything is 100 percent fact.”
People love buying lies.
13
Reality and the law generally catch up to Snake Oilers.
I really hope that Alex and Donald get to share a bunk in a prison cell and tell each other bedtime Snake Oil stories.
Perhaps we could squeeze an extra bunk bed into the cell for Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh.
But could the American heartland and fake Bible Belt survive without its Recommended Daily Allowance of fear, loathing and white spite fed to them by these hatemongers ??
They might all go into shock.
578
@Socrates -- the sad fact of the matter is that the law generally doesn't catch up with the scammers and grifters ... as long as they stay small, and keep moving.
"Huckleberry Finn" is a morality tale; the "Duke" and the "King" do end up tarred & feathered, ridden out of town on a rail.
Nothing could be more fitting for our modern-day scammers, but it was rare in 1800's and sure won't happen today.
5
Hardly. Example? The Mormon Church is thriving.
1
@Socrates Don't forget Sebastian "Hungarian Guard" Gorka and Steven Bannon.
1
Jones may convince his followers that he's a "revolutionary," but he's just a con man. He admitted in a court hearing that he is just a “performance artist” and his on air persona is an act. His "theories" are completely fabricated, and he lives lavishly on the money his gullible listeners send him for his useless "supplements." He might as well be picking the pockets of the sorry people who send him money.
151
First they came for Alex Jones
And I was totally fine with it because he lacks human decency, and Twitter is a private platform.
519
@RP Smith
You are wrong here. I sincerely hope this evil lunatic loses everything in the defamation lawsuit to the grieving families of Sandy Hook. But no one appointed Facebook, Twitter and the rest of them as censors in our country. Let this idiot rant and rave, the war of ideas is never won with silencing others, no matter how insane and inarticulate they are. Free speech even for him. It’s not a slippery slope, it’s a cliff we fall off when we start limiting free speech. I hope the ACLU (of which I am a proud member) represent this idiot and have him reinstated on all media platforms that banned him.
@RP Smith
And?
So when does your sympathy stop for hate speech?
It's hard to define, but I kind of think of the line stopping at where people get hurt (pizza-gate?, Charlottesville?).
Alex Jones have been knowingly promoting false hate speech for years. Intentional false hate speech should not be protected by the first amendment. That was created for honest, unpopular expression!
4
@Dan
I continue to be stunned at the number of people who don't know what censorship means.
Only governments can censor. Conversely, private companies have the legal right to refuse to provide a platform for anyone. Jones can create his own Twitter-like media all he wants.
Besides, do you really want to give people free reign to shout "Fire!" in a crowded theatre? Come on. Don't be naive.
Jones isn't owed a captive audience by Twitter, Facebook, or any other private venue. No one is.
5
An unsavory blend of opportunist, charlatan, grifter and nut job.
It’s difficult to imagine that Sandy Hook parents have to expend energy fighting this gratuitously cruel miscreant.
May he go down quickly with the rest of his ilk, including the entire Republican Party.
341
>>Mr. Jones bought four Rolex watches in one day in 2014, and spent $40,000 on a saltwater aquarium; the couple’s assets at the time included a $70,000 grand piano, $50,000 in firearms and $752,000 in silver, gold and precious metals, in a safe deposit box, court documents say.<<
I'd love to see the safe deposit box that will hold a grand piano.
22
@Joel M Shearer Apparently, everything IS bigger in Texas.
10
His banning from various social media outlets could not have come fast enough. Let's not forget that the President is a fan of this guy and once referred to him as "Amazing". So dangerous to normalize people like this.
269
When I was young people like Jones became television evangelists, where the harm they did was at least directed only at their gullible viewers.
Jones has done harm not only to his audience and customers of his snake oil, but to those poor parents of murdered children, who have suffered enough, the owner and customers of a random Washington pizza parlor, and the entire idea that there are verifiable historic truths.
I miss Jim and Tammy Faye.
40
Alex Jones is amoral and dangerous, and I am sad to read that he has made a lot of money from his "business." He preys on the gullible and frightened among us, those who cannot see how unlikely his "theories" are. The saddest part is that the U.S. has a president who listens to this man and that many people have accepted his crazy premises as "truth." I look forward to Jones' comeuppance in the courtroom, and am relieved that some of his on-line platforms have been removed. He spews hate. What good does that do for anyone?
151
Marilyn--Maybe, soon, we can return to the days when the rich paid their fair share of taxes. His rate should be 80%
7
The saddest part is people are gullible enough to vote for someone who believes in Alex Jones and not in climate change.
Nothing more American than a dubious sociopath who will literally peddle lies, sell outrage, and manipulate people par excellence if it makes them rich.
And especially nothing more American than a crowd of proud know-nothings (emphasis on egomaniacally proud know-nothings) happily getting swindled in their know-nothing-ness by a devoted flim-flam man because they will NEVER admit there is anything wrong with them, that they have any room to grow in understanding or maturity, or that their decision making is ever questionable.
120
What's amazing to me are the people who believe these theories, even when they don't materialize.. Like Jade Helm a couple of years ago... Obama was going to declare martial law, declare himself president for life and the military was going along with all this and was going to round up dissenters and put them in some shut down Walmart stores throughout the country. . When NONE of that happened, these people just accepted it and moved on to Jones' next theory. It's the weirdest thing on the airwaves... and that's saying something.
251
@Cheryl Wooley - Good point. Why don't these people ever catch on?
I've often wondered about Republican voters who never seem to realize that all of the doom and gloom predicted by right wing politicians never seem to actually happen.
6
@Cheryl Wooley Agreed, although it does seem that his vision might be coming to fruition, just not at President Obama's hand, replace dissenters with refugees or minorities and we have Trump and his policies or at a minimum his aspirations.
5
Cheryl Wooley--Tee hee...don't forget that Obama was going to INVADE Texas!
7
He is an awful, disgusting individual. I hope he is brought down and if possible, thrown in jail. What he unleashed on those grieving parents should be illegal- it’s definitely immoral. Why does anyone listen to this degenerate?
450
@Maxie I think his audience must have needs that he satisfies. As long as they stay within the limits of the law, I have no problems with Jones and his followers believing whatever that want.
1
@Maxie:"Why does anyone listen to this degenerate?" Because they are just as paranoid and unhinged as he is.
2
Where is the FDA?
25
@CJ
Sadly, supplements aren't regulated unless they are shown to be harmful.
10
@CJ FDA is right where Mr. Orrin Hatch, Senator of Utah, put them - with very little regulatory power over dietary supplements. FDA can't regulate supplements like drugs - requiring safety AND efficacy. It can only remove supplements from the market after many die or are harmed (remember ephedra?). By the way, the State of Utah has thriving supplement companies - thanks to Mr. Hatch.
28
In court papers filed as part of his divorce and custody battle, lawyers for Jones characterized his profession as "performance artist", and stated that his on-air persona was a character, not the real man.
It may be profitable and very engaging for his regular listeners and viewers, but quite a few of them take it all more seriously than it is meant. It's very much like reality TV (which is contrived, scripted and highly edited), which is pitched as "real" but of course is more procssed than Spam.
22
it is good for the mankind that this seller of mind junk goes out of business. Junk food makes many Americans morbidly obese, and junk from Alex Jones and the like stupefying certain people and incite conflicts and hatred. Obesity affects only individuals but people consumes mind junk have tendency to infringe other people’s freedom.
21
So Alex Jones has got rich preying on the wallets of the stupid and the suggestibles - good for him. After all this is America and we do worship money, don't we? I'm proud to announce he hasn't received a penny from me or anyone I know.
23
Just don't confuse attention with respect. You may get attention, but Aretha gets RESPECT.
47
So he stokes paranoia and fear and then sells product to a vulnerable audience? Isn't Fox News basically Alex Jones dressed up for court?
653
@Vote with your $'s
Question No. 2: Isn't religion basically Alex Jones dressed up for the faithful? Conjure up the problem, then sell the solution.....
PayPal should stop processing payments on Infowars, along with Visa and MasterCard. It’s a violation of Paypal’s Temrs of use to promote hate and theCard Association rules.
795
It’s financial matter, should go through the court.
@RM - Yet another reason for people to close their PreyPal accounts. They've also had an uncomfortable amount of data breaches. Thieves got to my own account. Beware.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2017/12/04/paypal-acquired-company-r...
3
@Sam, PayPal, Visa, and MasterCard have terms that any user has to agree to before they will be provided payment services. Included in the terms are prohibitions against using payment service to fund hate related material. Also included are specific terms that the companies can decide whether a user is violating the terms. The courts don't need to get involved, PayPal can terminate the Infowars account and there would be no remedy for Jones.
1
I cannot think of a single person that takes this clown seriously or even listens to him on the radio. He's more a media made phenomenon then anything else.
5
I recently lost a very good, very long-term friend because I questioned his absolute faith in how "infowars" is portraying the truth and any other media outlet was not. This person is educated, with several degrees, and works in software engineering. Not a dummy, and not a WASP, either. Just mind-boggling.
21
@Sara
I sympathize for your loss. I have a brother who is the same way (a little less educated, but still enough to know better). Because he is family I have just barely tolerated his Infowars-themed rants, and have learned to patiently try to base our relationship on other things. I have often wondered what happened to his brain. He uses the word "science" regularly, but hasn't a clue about the relationship of fact to evidence, or the importance of falsifiability. I once asked him, after reaching my limit of tolerance listening to one of his theories, to provide some evidence for it. He looked at me with surprise as though the thought had never occurred to him and said "my stories are as good as anyone else's".
It hit me then that he had no idea what the word "true" means. I still find that thought staggering.
The NYT shouldn’t give this maniac, racist, Holocaust denier an inch of space. It’s not part of “All the news that’s for to print.” It’s junk and he’s junk.
35
@Samuel, NO -- we **need** to know these things!
8
Good riddance. It's a small step towards taking down largely unchecked hate speech online, but hopefully this portends effective media shifts in the future!
28
Like his pal Trump he personifies the classic American business story. 'There's a sucker born every minute'.
80
There are those who dwell in the swamp and those who wallow in a septic tank of their own devising.
It’s time to start pumping the sump.
33
Germany and the EU know better than to let liars keep spewing their dangerous shtick. Why can’t the US learn from it?
113
@GIt is, I am sorry to say, the sacrosanct status of the First Amendment, Free Speech. In the terribly polarized and haywire political and societal climate currently holding the US hostage, this very Amendment may well harbor the seeds which could lead to the undoing of the republic. Indeed, Germany and the EU can teach the nation much about why the criminalization of hate speech is essential to protecting free speech.
9
@G, Experience says don't canonize Europe -- not all of their solutions are good ones.
@Edgar, the First Amendment you refer to is not the one envisioned by anyone of influence as recently as 50 years ago. It has been turned inside out by the corporatist idoleogues on the Supreme Court Republican presidents have given us. (And now they're sealing that in place with Gorsuch and Kavanaugh.)
Great job continuing to shine the spot light on these people who crave attention.
13
We must shine the spotlight on them, otherwise they get away with their hate, lies and fear mongering!
13
@Mark Joseph
"Sunshine is the best disinfectant"
2
A scammer, profiting off the fears and prejudices of his ignorant audience.
But in his defense he probably pays at least some taxes on his income, unlike churches.
38
And so goes the drumbeat of unfettered capitalism goes on. When you can lie, and bate, and anger, and in doing so line your pockets without recourse we as a nation have uncovered a problem. What will we do about it? Bandaids?
13
Peddling toxic garbage to the mentally deficient should never be allowed to have an assist from social media or any other form of media other than a soapbox that is within range of rotten vegetables.
40
"Mr. Jones operates from behind bulletproof glass at an Austin industrial park, in a dimly lit hive of studios and cluttered, open-plan desks. He invited a New York Times reporter there for an interview on two conditions: that the location of his headquarters not be specified."
And this guy is a huge opponent of gun control. Oh, that is rich.
383
……or Brain Force Plus, which promises to “supercharge” cognitive functions……
It’s not working, just take a look around at one of those Trump rallies. Do you see supercharged cognitive brains there? Not on your life!
Just another “flim-flam” man selling lies and hate.
139
@cherrylog754
And apparently Jones is not taking his own medicine...
9
Looking at Alex Jones' photo, I'd say his supplements for virility and physical fitness aren't working.
738
@Linda - Best comment of the day.
8
Agreed. I also was surprised to read that he is in his 40's. To me, he looks a lot older.
12
@Linda :-)
most probably bc he does not take them himself,
knowing full well they don't really work
[while he found solace in his account balances].
i continue to be truly amazed that
so many people buy [into] his bogus.
can good education [systems] ever fix that?
Alex Jones belongs in a straitjacket, taken away by men in white coats, to a mental institution where he can tell his psychotic conspiracy theories to the other mental patients. He will fit right in and you won't be able to tell the difference between him and the other patients.
Perhaps they could give him a fake microphone and tell him he's on the air to make him feel at home...
82
@sfdphd
Please tell them to take trump with him
26
@sfdphd; Since Jones characterized himself in court as an "entertainer," and he has since offered condolences to the Sandy Hook parents, it is obvious that he doesn't believe the poisonous rhetoric that he pushes. He is something worse than insane: he is someone who doesn't care who his actions hurt as long as he can make money from them.
19
Alex Jones is a noxious little snake oil salesman.
More concerning are people who would throw money away on "... Alpha Power, a product marketed as boosting testosterone and vitality to “push back in the fight against the globalist agenda,”... half off, at $34.95."
The only real conspiracy is against those who support this lunacy.
283
@Suzanne Moniz
Vulnerability and desperation are excellent motivators. A well-educated friend was recently diagnosed with diabetes. Suddenly, the obnoxious ads for dubious articles/products at the bottom of web pages were worth a click.
5
@Suzanne Moniz
Interesting....."half off" might also describe both Mr. Jones and his acolytes.