Court slashed Alex Jones' libel payout

ABC is reporting that "A Texas court on Friday slashed a $50 million judgment to $1.5 million against Infowars founder Alex Jones after he falsely claimed the 2012 Sandy Hook elementary school mass shooting was a hoax. The ruling does not affect a $1.25 billion judgment against Jones in Connecticut, but is a legal victory for him after he and his company, Free Speech Systems, were found liable for damages for claiming the mass shooting didn’t happen."

I don't follow Alex Jones because I think he's extreme. However, I do think the judgement against him was also extreme. The US First Amendment guarantees free speech. People can say I believe the world is flat. They don't have to pay absurd court judgements. I do think that someone has the right to say that they believe Sandy Hook was faked. I disagree with that position but I do believe someone has the right to say that. Especially when we see so many mass shootings appear orchestrated. 

There's a big difference between saying I think the Sandy Hook shooting was orchestrated and saying I think the Sandy Hook shooting never happened. That's like saying 9/11 never happened. We all saw it. We saw the ruble. We also saw the molten metal. There's a big difference between saying I think 9/11 was an inside job and saying I think 9/11 never happened. 

Yet if someone did say I think 9/11 never happened, who cares? The obscene size of the court award against Alex Jones was clearly to send a message that the land of the free is no longer free. The fact that Alex Jones had a large internet presence may have had something to do with it like a TV station or a newspaper outlet can be sued more that and individual but again the award against Alex Jones was over the top. It's almost as it the lady doth protest too much me thinks. It's like the Orlando shooting.

The Orlando shooting definitely happed but there was way too many rounds fired for there to just be one shooter. Or the Nova Scotia mass shooting. Gabe Wortman was a police agent. So was his fake common-law spouse. That had nothing to do with intimate partner violence. He was a swinger. He was having threesomes with his neighbour and a whole list of young girls. That's not the profile of a jealous ex. None of the firearms used were legally obtained. He got them from the NB RCMP when he was a police agent for them.  

So yeah, we need to talk about the mass shootings that are orchestrated.