Tag: alex jones
Alex Jones

Unhinged Theories Erupt On Far Right After Baltimore Bridge Collapse

At a press conference on Tuesday, March 26, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore told reporters that there was no sign of terrorism or foul play in the collapse of Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge — which had been struck by a freighter. According to Moore and the Biden White House, there was no indication that it was anything other than a tragic accident.

But that hasn't stopped far-right conspiracy theorists from claiming otherwise or looking for ways to blame the Biden Administration for the tragedy.Rolling Stone and The Daily Beastgathered some of the more extreme reactions in articles published that Tuesday.

Infowars host Alex Jones remarked, "Looks deliberate to me. A cyber-attack is probable. WW3 has already started."

On Newsmax, American Conservative Union president Matt Schlapp implied that "drug-addled" employees and "lockdowns" during the COVID-19 pandemic were somehow to blame for the bridge's collapse.

Schlapp told Newsmax, "All I would say is that if you talk to employers in America, they'll tell you that filling slots with employees who aren't drug-addled is a very huge problem; so, I'm making no specific charges here because we don't know. But you know, anybody who flies in America can see that you're constantly waiting on a tarmac somewhere for some crew to show up."

On X, formerly Twitter, anti-feminist Andrew Tate posted, "This ship was cyber-attacked. Lights go off and it deliberately steers towards the bridge supports. Foreign agents of the USA attack digital infrastructures. Nothing is safe. Black Swan event imminent.

Fox News' Maria Bartiromo, interviewing Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL), tried to link Biden's border policy to the tragedy. And Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC), on Newsmax, claimed that Biden's bipartisan infrastructure bill was to blame because it overemphasized "Green New Deal" spending.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Why Trump's Delaying Tactics Will Lead To Further Self-Destruction

Why Trump's Delaying Tactics Will Lead To Further Self-Destruction

Alex Jones did it two years ago to avoid paying a $1.5 billion jury award for defaming the parents and relatives of the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre. Rudolph Giuliani did it just before Christmas to escape a $148 million jury award for defaming two Georgia election workers he falsely accused of vote tampering.

Now, there’s a good chance Donald Trump will do it, too, given that a judge on Friday ordered him to pay $454 million, including interest, for persistent business fraud, and the $88.3 million he already owed advice columnist E. Jean Carroll for defaming her and, after being found liable for defaming her, did it again.

It refers to seeking refuge from creditors in federal bankruptcy court. Ultimately, a bankruptcy filing is unlikely to save Trump from paying what he owes, according to Professor Gregory L. Germain, who teaches bankruptcy law at Syracuse University College of Law.

Germain, my law school colleague for many years, says what Trump can achieve is delays, but almost certainly not escaping paying, assuming he has the assets to fulfill the judgements against him.

Contrary to stories circulating widely on the internet, Trump has never filed bankruptcy, as I will explain below.

Delaying legal proceedings has always been Trump’s first strategy, taught to him more than a half century ago by the notorious Roy Cohn, a corrupt lawyer and political fixer.

Trump’s second strategy, also taught by Cohn, is to attack anyone who comes after you: federal prosecutors, housing or gambling regulators, journalists or political opponents are all corrupt and illegitimate, Cohn taught Trump to shout.

Trump’s third strategy — never admit even the slightest wrong or mistake no matter how powerful the evidence against you.

The immediate problem facing Trump isn’t the order by Justice Arthur Engoron removing Trump from running the Trump Organization for at least three years while putting in place an independent compliance director. It’s not the ill-gotten gains that the judge says trump must disgorge, $454 billion including interest so far.

The immediate problem is that three weeks from today is the deadline for Trump to appeal the $83.8 million award to E. Jean Carroll.

In a previous DCReport piece, I questioned whether Trump has the capacity to either deposit that much money with the court or to put up about $17 million to obtain a bond that will cover the entire amount should Trump prove unable to do so.

Trump’s first problem is how much cash he actually has. The second, should he seek a bond, is whether any financial institution would be foolish enough to guarantee the full $83.3 million in return for about a fifth of that amount upfront, and a promise by Trump that he will pay if his appeal fails.

Trump has little chance of prevailing on appeal, though he might get modest modifications of the three damage awards. Delaying payment will likely make him even worse off, assuming he actually is worth as much as he claims, a figure that changes from day to hour to minute.

Professor Germain notes that Trump could put his company, the Trump Organization, into bankruptcy, but that would not help him because he is personally liable as the sole owner for the judgments in all three cases.

“It wouldn’t do him any good to get his corporations discharged from bankruptcy because the debts are against Trump personally,” German said.

In bankruptcy proceedings, the responsibility of the trustee and the bankruptcy judge supervising the case is to extract maximum value from the businesses, bank accounts and other assets, known as the estate. The creditors, at the moment Carroll and the state of New York, would have to agree to any combination of asset sales and other actions to satisfy the debts, or press to liquidate the Trump organization.

But there are more civil cases pending against Trump, including those brought by Capitol Police officers who were injured when Trump sent a mob to the Capitol on January 6, 2021.

In 1990 his lawyers engineered a private equivalent of bankruptcy made possible because New Jersey casino regulators — in violation of their legal duty — took Trump’s side against bankers he owed $3 billion. At the time, Trump boasted that he was worth billions, but the public record showed he was underwater to the tune of almost $300 million. As I wrote in my 1992 casino expose´ Temples of Chance, in 1990 you were probably worth more than Donald Trump.

Later, his publicly traded casino company filed bankruptcy four times while Trump was its president, as he collected at least $83 million in compensation and benefits.

After Trump was, in effect, paid to go away, the casino company went bankrupt two more times before going out of business.

How a Trump personal bankruptcy would fare now can be gleaned from the Alex Jones and Rudy Giuliani filings.

Jones, who grew rich formulating conspiracy theories on his Info Wars internet program, repeatedly charged that the 2012 elementary school massacre was a hoax, and the grieving parents and other relatives were paid actors. The survivors filed a defamation case. A decade later a jury awarded the survivors $1.5 billion. Jones quickly sought refuge in federal bankruptcy court. So far Jones has paid nothing.

In October, a Texas judge ruled that Jones cannot use bankruptcy to avoid paying a $1.5 billion award for defaming the parents and relatives of the Sandy Hook massacre murders. Jones has yet to pay anything.

Similarly, Giuliani repeatedly insisted that two Georgia election workers, a mother and daughter, passed around a USB stick with fake election results despite clear evidence that this was untrue. After a jury awarded $148 million to the victims, who were harassed in their homes and repeatedly threatened with death, Giuliani walked onto the sidewalk outside the courthouse and declared he had spoken the truth about the two women and had done nothing wrong. One of his lawyers says that the once wealthy mayor of New York City is close to broke.

Giuliani is also under criminal indictment in Georgia over the same efforts by Trump and his confederates to steal the 2020 Georgia election.

Reprinted with permission from DC Report.

Arizona Republicans Feature  '#TeamYe' Conspiracy Theorist On Covid-19 Panel

Arizona Republicans Feature '#TeamYe' Conspiracy Theorist On Covid-19 Panel

Arizona Republican lawmakers at the state and federal level have created a committee that will bring in alleged experts to talk about COVID-19. One of their scheduled panelists is an Alex Jones follower who has said that “9/11 was an inside job” and wrote that she’s on “#TeamYe” after the rapper’s notorious appearance on Jones’ program.

Arizona Republicans set up the Novel Coronavirus Southwestern Intergovernmental Committee, which they claim will “examine federal, state and local efforts to mitigate the COVID-19 pandemic.” The committee features Arizona state legislators and U.S. members of Congress.

One of the committee's “expert panelistsnext week is Kristen Meghan, who is described as an industrial hygienist. Meghan is also a podcast host and guest on various streaming programs.

She has also described herself as “a former contributor” to Alex Jones’ show. She has appeared on the show to criticize vaccine mandates -- alongside scheduled committee panelist Tammy Clark -- and talk about chemtrails, the conspiracy theory “that governments or shadowy forces are routinely spraying the planet with chemicals.” (Meghan has written that “chemtrails is a term used to disparage the truth about it.”) She told Jones during one appearance that his film Terrorstorm -- which purports to document how 9/11 was an inside job -- “woke me up.”

Meghan has frequently promoted 9/11 conspiracy theories. She has tweeted:

  • “9/11 was an inside job for sure!” [link]
  • “Does anyone even believe it wasn't an inside job? Hell, most of my fellow veterans definitely don't believe the official story.” [link]
  • “Brace yourself for the amount of 9/11 truth tweets I will be posting all day.” [link]
  • “tower 7 pancaked into itself, which was demo.” [link]
  • “#afterseptember11 I joined the military, only to later learn it was a false flag sold to us with lies and flawed logic.” [link]

She has also tweeted that the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing “was an inside job.”

On December 1, Ye (the rapper formerly known as Kanye West) appeared on Alex Jones’ show and “repeatedly referred to antisemitic stereotypes, made antisemitic jokes and praised Hitler.” Following his appearance, Meghan wrote “#TeamYe” and “I don't agree with everything Ye or Alex does, but I agree with a lot and support free speech that is suppressed.” She then added in response to a Twitter user: “I said this because the video of Ye talking about Hitler and Nazis is the only thing some may stick to when they see my tweet and I don't need the ‘oh you live Nazis’ replies. And, Ron Paul is pretty close to my mental twin.”

The Arizona committee will also feature COVID-19 conspiracy theorists Peter McCullough and Pierre Kory, among others.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

Alex Jones

'Kill Every Person You Need To': Alex Jones' Newest Conspiracy Foments Race War

Infowars host and chief conspiracy theorist Alex Jones warned on Sunday's show that "foaming-at-the-mouth Black people" would wage war on white populations after they flee "race-specific bioweapons" attacks in Africa later this decade. Jones issued these racist predictions while declaring himself a "vessel" of God.

"They intend on making the world so hellish in the build-up to 2030 that everybody will just 'wink, wink' when they release the race-specific bioweapons starting with Africa that are gonna wipe that continent absolutely out. And you'll be under such invasion from the refugees of the economic warfare in Africa that you will quietly, while you're playing cards with your buddies say, 'well, it had to be done.' And when you go along with that metaphysically, spiritually, culturally, the devil's got your soul," said Jones.

"So I don't like the big giant African hordes being brainwashed against us and the left programming brown people to hate white people. It's all part of a plan, folks. It's all part of a very sophisticated plan and I don't just study history. I don't just study the New World Order," Jones continued. "I have the Holy Spirit. Doesn't mean I'm a perfect vessel, far from it. But I do have deep connection to God and God tells me that if I take part in wiping out the brown people, the Black people, that I will be cut off from God. We’re supposed to lift each other up."

Jones then encouraged responding through violence.

"Now that doesn't mean when a gang of racist, foaming-at-the-mouth Black people come to rape, rob, or kill you, which is just, it's out of control right now, that you don't defend yourself and kill every person you need to protect your family if they're attacking you," he suggested.

"That said though, just because they're brainwashed, some of them, and are being part of that doesn't mean we have to fall into the brainwashing either," the right-wing provocateur added. "And they tell you everything they're doing in the movie, the 'Kingsman,' where they send out the program through the cell phones and cell phone towers to make everybody start killing each other. That's what Klaus Schwab talks about, the angrier world, this is part of that plan. And so the Black people that have succumbed to this have succumbed to it through mind control. Doesn't make them any less dangerous."

Watch below via Media Matters for America or at this link.


Reprinted with permission from Alternet.