A Sucker Born Every Minute?

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Alex Jones, infamous for his online show InfoWars, just lost a civil lawsuit for damages due to the parents of the children killed in the Sandy Hook school shooting. Alex Jones spread lies on his show about Sandy Hook being faked, that the kids weren’t actually killed, and the families were paid actors. Typical, ugly conspiracy theory bullshit.  Alex Jones is free to say these awful things; the First Amendment protects him from the government stopping him. It doesn’t protect him from liability for the damage he caused these private families.

A jury awarded the families $4.1 million in compensatory damages plus $45.2 million in punitive damages. Texas law might cut that way down.

The trial was a train wreck of stupidity, including Jones’s lawyers accidentally turning over a digital copy of Jones’s phone, health records, and text messages without claiming it as privileged information. All of which proved where Jones was lying.

But the real shock came when information was revealed about how much InfoWars was pulling in- at one point up to $800,000 per day.

From spreading lies and conspiracies. Oh, and selling unregulated and unproven “vitamins” and other pills (yes, including “male enhancement” pills). It’s all junk science. 21st Century snake oil.

And so many people bought his crap - both his lies on his show and the crap products - that it brought in millions.

And there are so many others running their own grift. So many people, so many suckers, so eager to give their money to these charlatans.

The approach is modern, but it’s a scam as old as time.