slatten49 Loc: Lake Whitney, Texas

By Leonard Pitts Jr, April 19, 2017

So it turns out Alex Jones was only kidding.

That time the radio host and ringmaster of the “Infowars” website said the government brought Ebola into the country to terrorize us? That time he said a Beyonce video was created to start a new civil war, that time he wished gang rape on Jennifer Lopez, those times he suggested the Oklahoma City bombing, the Sept. 11 attacks and the bombing of the Boston Marathon were “false f**g” operations by the government against the people?

It was all an act. His lawyer says he was just playing a character. You see, he’s a “performance artist.”

That claim, reported Sunday by the Austin American-Statesman, came in an Austin courtroom as Jones’ ex-wife, Kelly, seeks custody of their three children on the not-unreasonable grounds that a man who spews spittle for a living is not someone you want raising your kids. She says Jones is “not a stable person.”

But lawyer Randall Wilhite argued that judging Jones by his on-air persona would be like judging Jack Nicholson by his performance as The Joker in “Batman.” In other words, like the Oscar-winning actor, Jones is just pretending to be a madman.

You have to wonder how Edgar Welch feels about that. He’s the North Carolina man who shot up a pizzeria in Washington, D.C., last year because he believed a tale spread by Jones and others that it was the headquarters of a child molestation ring run by Hillary Clinton. He faces the possibility of many years in prison when he is sentenced in June.

You have to wonder how Leonard Pozner feels about it, too. He’s been getting death threats and has been challenged to prove that his son Noah ever existed, all because Jones and others claimed the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, in which Noah and 25 others were k**led, was a h**x. He faces the rest of his life without his child.

Finally, you have to wonder how Donald Trump feels about it. The so-called president has professed admiration for Jones and has built his worldview, such as it is, around a Jones-like belief that a tangled skein of conspiracies explains virtually everything in life that refutes, frustrates or embarrasses him. We face four years of him steering the ship of state.

As regards the lawyer’s claim, there are two possible conclusions. One: he’s telling the t***h and Jones never believed the garbage he vomited. Or two: Jones is trying to h**x the court.

Not that it matters which is true. Either way, Jones has hurt people and ruined lives. Either way, he has helped damage the country.

We now live in the United States of Confusion, a nation of alternative realities and alternative facts where reasoned and informed political debate is all but impossible because too many of us prize ideology above factuality. A coterie of media charlatans eagerly caters to that intellectual flaccidity and Jones was loud among them, so there is a certain satisfaction in seeing him revealed as a hypocrite and fraud.

But the feeling is fleeting. After all, given the gullibility of his followers, there is no reason to believe this will be the end of him — or what he represents.

Jones fills a need. Frightened people seek easy ways to comprehend the big, bad world. Alternative facts and realities are among the easiest. And never mind the damage that is done, the ignorance that is fostered, the pain that is caused.

Meantime the rest of us — dare we still say, “most” of us? — muddle through actual reality using actual facts to confront the big, bad world. It is not easy.

BigMike Loc: yerington nv

Hey friend! I guess you made it home OK.

Alex Jones is funny and a definite nut, but the discerning ear can glean information from him that is actually useful...you just have to install a good filter.

slatten49 Loc: Lake Whitney, Texas

Yeah, Mike, just arrived back late this morning. Sure enjoyed my visit with you, and the bargain lunch we had at the casino. You make for good company, my friend.

My oldest son knew Alex Jones when they were both high school students in Austin, Texas. Gabe went to McCallum and Alex went to Anderson High. Jones has always been considered (by many) one of the village i***ts. But, to your point...everyone contributes something of value. For me, at least, it is very difficult to spot what that is with Alex Jones. I certainly find little to be said for the broadcast rhetoric of his program.

BigMike Loc: yerington nv

Thank you sir!

I'll go to YouTube once in a while to see what he's reporting on. There I can pick and choose topics that catch my attention. I do the same with NPR, RT, Middle East Forum, Daniel Pipes, Bill Bonner etc. Sometimes it helps to just hear what is being said for perspective's sake.

Jones is an entertainer, which is what Rush Limbaugh calls himself. What's sad is that 90% of media personages are entertainers. They just don't admit it and they present their offering with mock solemnity and seriousness.

lindajoy Loc: right here with you....

This is a very good read, slatt...Isn't it amazing the perception anything can be given..

Here's another, I think goes in line with yours but from a different perspective ... Attorney tried to play him off as an entertainer while he stands and says, believe me.. I wonder why he was given custody of his children and not Kelly?? Usually mother gets custody unless something amiss?? I note the kids were under counseling just doesn't say why..

I also note. Jones considers Trump a fan.. wonder why he didn't refer to him as a friend?? Do you know if the two actually know each other?? I do not know..

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_59024d96e4b0bb2d086c2f0c/amp


POLITICS
04/27/2017 05:10 pm ET
Alex Jones Child-Custody Trial Ends With Only A Hint Of Conspiracy
Attorneys for his ex-wife were forced to muzzle the argument that his talk-show persona made him an unfit father.

By Roque Planas

AUSTIN, Texas ― When noisy conspiracy theorist Alex Jones went into his child-custody trial two weeks ago, his ex-wife’s attorneys promised to showcase his vitriolic talk-show comments for the jury as evidence of his lack of fitness as a father.

The spectacle of Jones ― a trusted source of news for President Donald Trump ― having to account for his history of fact-free, aggressive and often spiteful opinionating, attracted a flock of national reporters.

But as the jury began deliberations Thursday, the trial remained what it always was for the Jones family: a bruising custody battle stemming from an ugly divorce.

Travis County Judge Orlinda Naranjo said from the trial’s first day last week that she wouldn’t allow a focus on Jones’ politics or public statements. She refused to admit all but a few recordings that lawyers for Jones’ ex-wife Kelly had planned to play for the jury.


But closing arguments came and went, with Kelly Jones’ lawyers barely mentioning the right-wing star’s on-air comments. Instead, they repeatedly accused Jones of turning the couple’s three children against their mom. Further, they said he paid off therapists to take his side in the case.

“I don’t know whether to call it an ‘army’ or a ‘battalion,’” one of Kelly Jones’ lawyers, Robert Hoffman, said of the roughly 27 therapists involved in custody proceedings that followed the Jones divorce. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Lawyers for Alex Jones described the case against him as conspiratorial. Attorney Randall Wilhite pointed out that the dozens of therapists Hoffman accused of lying were appointed by the court. They concluded that his ex-wife struggled with emotional issues that affected her parenting and needed treatment in order to earn more time with the children.

“How is it possible that every single one of them has lined up against Ms. Jones?” Wilhite asked the jury. “They have all conspired to work against her? Is that possible? It’s not possible.”


Hoffman did take a moment Thursday to remind the jury of public comments Jones has made, calling him “someone who is r****t, who is bigoted, who h**es women.”

But he didn’t have nearly as much evidence to make those claims as he would’ve liked. The jury saw a video of an allegedly inebriated Alex Jones saying he’d go “piss” on a tree. But the jury was not permitted to consider other behavior Kelly Jones’ lawyers wanted to raise, like an appearance in which Alex Jones made light of Trump’s famous comments about sexual assault, or Jones’ offer of $5,000 to people who would photobomb national cable TV with shirts reading “Bill Clinton is a rapist!”

“Mr. Jones is like a cult leader,” Hoffman said, accusing Jones of recruiting his own children as “foot soldiers” for his InfoWars website. “We’ve seen in our lives the horrific damage that cult leaders can do to their followers.”

Early in the trial, Jones’ team tried to argue that Jones’ on-air persona was a fictional creation, irrelevant to the trial. They compared their client to comedian Jon Stewart or radio pundit Rush Limbaugh, describing Jones’ outrageous statements as political “satire” that he doesn’t take home with him to his kids.


“I don’t want to think about work when I go home,” Alex Jones said last week on the witness stand.

Jones struggled through the entire trial to keep a straight demeanor. He rolled his eyes, smirked and shook his head as Hoffman delivered his closing argument to the jury.

Jones currently has primary custody of the children, and Kelly Jones is allowed some supervised visits.

The jury began deliberations Thursday afternoon to decide whether to reverse that arrangement by giving Kelly Jones sole custody, to give her primary custody, or to leave the situation unchanged.

BigMike Loc: yerington nv

eden

H**e to break up the camaraderie but the best filter would be the off switch. After watching an interview Jones had with Piers Morgan on CNN it seemed "infowars" was just a crude racket, a cheap trick played on the gullible oppositionally defiant contrarians in society. I did not care for the pompous self righteous Morgan but Jones behaved like an adolescent and failed his followers in my view by mocking Morgan personally instead of providing a credible adult argument for his point of view. Little surprise that all his pandering bluster is now being framed as just an "act", a move driven more by legal expediency than genuine recant I suspect.

How the mighty have fallen....

lpnmajor Loc: Arkansas

Well, he isn't alone is he. Politicians and political candidates revel in this type of confusion and fear mongering, often using the very ridiculous claims Jones makes themselves, and very successfully I might add. Terry Goodkind wrote a series if books entitled "the Wheel of Time", and the 1st installment was titled "Wizards First Rule". In it, he establishes the Wizards greatest weapon, which is not magic as one might expect, but a simple technique of using people's innate fears and prejudices against them. The Wizards 1st rule is: People will believe something because they WANT it to be true, or because they fear it MIGHT be true - which gives rise to such things as "the bluff".

No matter how ridiculous or outrageous a claim may be, someone is bound to believe it immediately and without reservation, either because they were already predisposed to believe such things, or because they hope it is true. Others, who may dismiss such claims at first, will begin to ponder them, until they begin to wonder "what if it's true?". The longer such claims are passed around and discussed, the more people will begin to wonder, with anecdotal evidence mounting in favor of the claim, drawing in more adherents. Eventually, barring some overwhelming evidence to the contrary, the claim will become universally accepted - and thereby true.

How many irritants have been removed throughout history, with a claim of witchcraft, or heresy? Civic and religious leaders, wishing to quell questions about their competence, often used such claims to calm the populace, giving them someone else to blame. None of these claims had to be true in any sense, people merely needed to be afraid that it MIGHT be true, and feel they couldn't take the risk, whereupon murder ensued.

The more an outrageous claim is heard, the more people will come to believe it MIGHT be true, until the claim becomes the t***h. The Earth was flat for centuries, not because it was a fact, but because people universally accepted it as fact - and did not become rounded until enough people believed that it was. Belief is a powerful tool, and those that have the ability to manipulate people's beliefs, are the most powerful creatures on Earth. Should enough people become convinced that the Earth is indeed flat - the Earth will be flat again. That might be useful, come to think of it, because there are a large number of people I'd like to direct over the edge.

lindajoy Loc: right here with you....

Factual recitation of what is and that almighty, if said long enough it can convince not only the one saying it but those that keep hearing it..Its not like we haven't witnessed such with all the propaganda and f**e news by our illustrious government over the years...Some do buy it hook, line and sinker, until its too late, then they are left going what the heck is going on???

Anyway, great post major!!!

BigMike Loc: yerington nv

I saw that. I also saw Snowden, Assange and numbers of others who are questionable at best but. Sometimes it's not so much what a source says as the subjects they bring up. RT is nothing but Russian propaganda, but watching it is kind of like watching the Hazzard County local news, it may be mostly bulls**t but you still learn about Hazzard County.

slatten49 Loc: Lake Whitney, Texas

BTW, Mike...that hot sauce you gave me is pretty darn spicy/hot Iced tea is in order.

lindajoy Loc: right here with you....

RT is as you say but you also get better insight about the things we're being fed via f**e news......Comparison tool....I don't bother with the propaganda news sites anymore..i believe nothing they say and kow from having read others its all garbage...Not withstanding it all being to incite and h**e Trump~~ They aren't winning there either.......

lindajoy Loc: right here with you....

You tease!!!!!

BigMike Loc: yerington nv

It is, isn't it? After the fire died was the flavor OK?

BigMike Loc: yerington nv

They aren't winning and they think they should be. Must be very confusing!