Sandy Hook Families are Now After Alex Jones Social Media Accounts

[Sonny Tufts]

Your logic certainly does go full circle...

Let me explain it so you can understand. In the law of defamation a false statement about a government agent's actions taken in his official capacity is protected in a suit brought by the governmental agent unless it was made with "actual malice", defined as having been made with the knowledge of its falsity or with reckless disregard of whether it was true or false. In a suit brought by a private party, however, all the plaintiff need show is that the statement was false.

Jones's lies about the plaintiffs being "crisis actors" and the whole thing having been staged had nothing to do with governmental action.

 

[acptulsa]

Let me explain it so you can understand.

You may stick your arrogant tone somewhere, it isn't buying you any credulity. I understand lots of things. Just as a random example, I understand how the CIA uses Zuckerberg as a front man so it can attempt to regulate political speech in violation of the First. I understand why the CIA continues to use Zuckerberg as a front man to partially control political speech even though quite a lot of evidence has come out that Zuckerberg has been working for them all along. And I understand that this will continue until some court finally grinds out an injunction telling them to stop. After which they will probably continue business as usual, because they're all spooks.

The notion that someone is literally innocent unless proven guilty is an amusing thing in the hands if propagandists. It fools some of the people some of the time, but it stops real investigators in their tracks never.

This forum is not a court of law. Mere suspicions can be voiced here, and even explored.

 

[Anti Federalist]

Jones's lies about the families' being "crisis actors" and that Sandy Hook was a false flag operation had nothing to do with the government.

For the record, I do not believe the idea that these were fakes or "crisis actors",

They certainly have been "nudged" into political lawfare by the government, howver.

Would Jones have been on more solid 1st amendment footing if he had said something like this:

"In my opinion I think that these people may be crisis actors, and the only reason for this whole incident, which may very well be a false flag type of event, is to agitate people and the government to enact even more restrictive and draconian gun control"

 

[Sonny Tufts]

Would Jones have been on more solid 1st amendment footing if he had said something like this:

"In my opinion I think that these people may be crisis actors, and the only reason for this whole incident, which may very well be a false flag type of event, is to agitate people and the government to enact even more restrictive and draconian gun control"

Possibly, although the line between statements of fact and statements of opinion isn't always clear. Had Jones said something like this he would doubtlessly be grilled in a deposition and asked on what basis he formed these opinions. The "crisis actor" claim is especially problematic, as it suggests that no children were killed and that their parents were simply acting as if they had been. It's hard to imagine any facts that would have supported such an opinion.

For a good discussion of this issue see https://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/opinion-and-fair-comment-privileges

 

[Snowball]

It's hard to imagine any facts that would have supported such an opinion.

No, it isn't. You just don't know anything about Sandy Hook truth.

 

[asurfaholic]

No, it isn't. You just don't know anything about Sandy Hook truth.

I’ll admit that I don’t either. Is it still in dispute of whether the shooting happened or not?

It just seems to me that if you are going to imply that someone’s kids weren’t shot up in the school, then you better have some damn good evidence to support it.

 

[WarriorLiberty]

Jones's lies about the families' being "crisis actors" and that Sandy Hook was a false flag operation had nothing to do with the government.

Liberals have no issues using certain families to push certain agendas.

 

[WarriorLiberty]

Banning guns is not going to prevent the criminals from using other methods.

 

[Sonny Tufts]

Liberals have no issues using certain families to push certain agendas.

And scumbags like Jones have no issues with lying about certain families to push certain agendas.

 

[luctor-et-emergo]

I can understand the conviction, it's libel.

The amount and extend of the punishment are a bit much.

 

[WarriorLiberty]

And scumbags like Jones have no issues with lying about certain families to push certain agendas.

Well if these "Sandy Hook Fammilies" Manage to get away this..

They will come after anyone questioning 9/11 or being a 9/11 truther will be next.

 

[Occam's Banana]

And in any case, whatever the degree of damages (whether egregious or not), they are supposed to represent liability incurred for defamation

A large chunk of the damages awarded in both the Texas and Connecticut cases were punitive damages, not compensatory damages. Punitive damages are intended to punish the tortfeasor for egregious and malicious conduct and to serve as a deterrent to others. Once again, they can be traced to Jones's own egregious conduct.

That's a nice context-dropping snip-job, there (again). I can tell you're a lawyer.

Jones' willful disobedience of court orders may justify the making of a default judgement against him, but it doesn't justify the egregious degree of the damages awarded after that default judgement was rendered (especially if they end up including Jones' social media accounts - see below). And in any case, whatever the degree of damages (whether egregious or not), they are supposed to represent liability incurred for defamation, not liability incurred for disobeying the court (which liability was already accounted for in the making of the default adverse judgement). So, no - any egregiousness of the awarded damages is not warranted by Jones' disobedience, the proper remedy for which, depending on the kind and manner of disobedience, is something along the lines of "contempt of court" or, in the limit, adverse judgement by default (which is what happened in this case).

I also note (also again) that nothing you have said has been at all responsive to the contention that started this branch of the thread - namely, the claim that "[t]hey won't stop until Jones' 1st Amendment rights are taken away"). Indeed, the very egregiousness of the sanctions now being sought (especially with respect to things such as stripping him of his social media presence and destroying his ability to "promote new business ventures") speaks in favor of that claim (with the supposed egregiousness of Jones' conduct serving as a convenient and face-saving fig leaf for that motivation).

They are not seeking merely to recover damages (compensatory, punitive, or otherwise). One does not seek to impair another's ability to do tings such as "promote new business ventures" if one's primary concern is to actually recover damages from that other.

They are seeking to squelch Jones completely, and for reasons having nothing to do with any "egregiousness" of the originating defamation, or with the recovery of damages for such.

If they are so concerned about recovering damages from Jones, then why are they trying to deprive Jones of his ability to "promote new business ventures"? It makes absolutely no sense to seek to recover damages by imposing conditions that are explicitly specified to be for the purpose of delimiting Jones' ability to exercise a means of earning the resources required to be able to pay those damages. Pray tell, how does deliberately impairing Jones' ability to "promote new business ventures" redound to the benefit of the plaintiffs or of their chances of recovering damages?

And of what possible value are Jones' social media accounts, anyway, if they are no longer owned or controlled by Jones? I wouldn't be surprised if just the mundane and routine legal costs involved in depriving Jones of ownership and transferring it to someone else are more than the accounts are even worth without Jones behind them. Such a process appears to be aimed, not at compensating the plaintiffs for damages, but at applying a surreptitious kind of "prior restraint" by impeding or preventing the defendant's ability to publish anything at all (including things having nothing at all to do with the original defamation). It's like suing an old-fashioned newspaper for defamation, and then, after winning the suit, demanding that ownership of the newspaper be granted to the plaintiffs (or the state) in order to "deplatform" the publisher. But at least in the case of an old-fashioned newspaper, the physical plant of the newspaper would at least continue to be worth something significant even if ownership was seized and transferred. That is not the case for Jones' social media accounts, the seizure of which seems to be motivated by the desire to punitively silence him, and little or nothing more (it certainly won't serve to help make the plaintiffs whole in any significant way).

And what is to happen if, after seizing Jones' social media accounts, Jones simply creates new ones (which will, of course, end up being more valuable than the seized ones, by virtue of the fact that they will be Jones')? Are such new accounts then to be seized as well, under the same justifications? If not, then what is the point of having seized his previous accounts (which would now be of little if any value)? If so (which seems must be the case, if the justifications for the previous seizures are to be accepted), then how would that not dovetail perfectly with the claim that "[t]hey won't stop until Jones' 1st Amendment rights are taken away" (your reply to which is still a non sequitur), whether one actually believes that claim or not? Jones being held liable for defamation does not in any way obviate (and is not mutually exclusive of) a deliberate attempt to exploit that holding of liability as a means of squelching Jones (especially given the feds' self-admitted proclivity for "nudging" things in the direction they desire).

"First they came for the socialists Alex Jones, and I did not speak out—

Because I was not a socialist an obnoxious, loudmouthed crackpot.​

Then they came for ..."

 

[vita3]

Real perpetrators of 911 deserve credit for hiring Alex Jones to be their dis-info agent or letting him be free to muddle the waters this long

 

[Snowball]

Real perpetrators of 911 deserve credit for hiring Alex Jones to be their dis-info agent or letting him be free to muddle the waters this long

That's not true because 9/11 happened with active complicity by the Feds.

 

[acptulsa]

Real perpetrators of 911 deserve credit for hiring Alex Jones to be their dis-info agent or letting him be free to muddle the waters this long

That's not true because 9/11 happened with active complicity by the Feds.

That doesn't exactly disprove the proposition. If you don't yet know that the federal government is capable of anything, I don't know what to tell you.

Or maybe you have faith in Alex Jones, despite the number of times he has been used to distract people from important events.

 

[Sonny Tufts]

That's a nice context-dropping snip-job, there (again). I can tell you're a lawyer.

I was addressing your statement that "Jones' willful disobedience of court orders may justify the making of a default judgement against him, but it doesn't justify the egregious degree of the damages awarded after that default judgement was rendered" and explaining that the punitive damages were based upon Jones's conduct that formed the basis for the the lawsuits in the first place, not his disobedience of court orders.

Regarding the plaintiff's alleged desire to shut Jones up (instead of merely seeking to recover that damages imposed), the effect is the same. Once you grant the plaintiffs' right to go after any asset Jones has now or may acquire in the future (subject to any bankruptcy and state exemption laws) you are effectively limiting his ability to start new business ventures, since any profit from a new venture or the ownership of the venture itself would be seized by the plaintiffs. Under such circumstances, why would Jones ever start a new venture?

I suspect that Jones could easily be hired by someone else to be the mouthpiece for a radio show; it's just that he wouldn't have any ownership interest in the deal, just a salary. Under such circumstances, he'd still be free to spout his B.S., and since he is a Texas resident any wages he receives would be exempt from execution by the plaintiffs. So much for shutting him up.

I have no idea whether Jones's social media accounts have any value, and I don't believe the bankruptcy judge has ruled on that matter.

 

[Anti Federalist]

[MENTION=41772]Sonny Tufts[/MENTION]

Why not, instead of continuing to argue this point, when you clearly are coming at it with an anti Jones bias, and take a look at this case:

Thread: Texas Children's Hospital said it stopped trans surgeries on kids. Leaked docs prove they have not.

Dr. Ethan Haim has been charged.

This nurse is now being investigated by the FBI.

https://x.com/realchrisrufo/status/1803144650984714361

 

[Snowball]

Fetzer case:

http://postwtc.com/frame-pvf.html

 

[Occam's Banana]

I was addressing your statement that "Jones' willful disobedience of court orders may justify the making of a default judgement against him, but it doesn't justify the egregious degree of the damages awarded after that default judgement was rendered" and explaining that the punitive damages were based upon Jones's conduct that formed the basis for the the lawsuits in the first place, not his disobedience of court orders.

This is what you previously said (bold emphasis added):

The default judgments on liability rendered in Texas and Connecticut resulted from Jones's willfully disobeying court orders, so any egregiousness regarding a finding of liability is entirely his own doing.

"So" conveys the meaning of "thus" or "therefore", implying that any "egregiousness" in the degree of liability found was caused or warranted (at least in part) by Jones' disobedience to the court, rather (or in addition to) the conduct alleged by the plaintiffs. If it is the case that you did not intend to convey that implication, then so be it - but it is the reasonable inference to have been drawn from what you said. (Even if the degree of liability found for the conduct alleged by the plaintiffs was warranted, then it would still have been so, regardless of any disobedience to the court by Jones - thus, the explicit association of the latter to the former in your statement only served to reinforce that inference).

Regarding the plaintiff's alleged desire to shut Jones up (instead of merely seeking to recover that damages imposed), the effect is the same. Once you grant the plaintiffs' right to go after any asset Jones has now or may acquire in the future (subject to any bankruptcy and state exemption laws) you are effectively limiting his ability to start new business ventures, since any profit from a new venture or the ownership of the venture itself would be seized by the plaintiffs. Under such circumstances, why would Jones ever start a new venture?

I suspect that Jones could easily be hired by someone else to be the mouthpiece for a radio show; it's just that he wouldn't have any ownership interest in the deal, just a salary. Under such circumstances, he'd still be free to spout his B.S., and since he is a Texas resident any wages he receives would be exempt from execution by the plaintiffs. So much for shutting him up.

I have no idea whether Jones's social media accounts have any value, and I don't believe the bankruptcy judge has ruled on that matter.

There is a substantive and quite significant difference between incidentally and indirectly happening to impair someone's ability to "promote new business ventures" or the like by reasonably (albeit perhaps harshly) fining them for something they've done (on one hand) and deliberately seeking to directly inflict such impairments as an explicit goal (on the other hand) - not to mention that in any case, such a purpose clearly runs counter to any compensatory objectives (as for punitive objectives, see below).

The only purpose of seizing Jones' social media accounts is to deprive him of their use. They are otherwise of little or no value. No one is going to give a damn about Jones' Twitter or Instagram accounts without Jones behind them. That is why they are seeking to take them from him.

Whatever one thinks of the obnoxiousness of Jones' defamation of mass shooting survivors as "crisis actors" and such, the notion that it rises to the level of imposing ruinous 10-figure damages so great that they can never reasonably be hoped to be recovered is grotesquely absurd. It is neither compensatory nor (justly) punitive, but only viciously destructive. Such carte blanche is not punitive justice - it is punitive "lawfare". That Jones may be an "egregious" jackass does not change this (nor does the weak sop that he will mercifully be permitted to have a job at which he might graciously be allowed to say things publicly, if someone will hire him).

 

[vita3]

Alex Jones...What a joke