Alex Jones will finally face Conn. justice

Alex Jones, who has become synonymous with the word “hoax,” seems like he was made up. But Jones is not fake news. He is not a character yanked from some fictional multiverse whose bombastic sins strain credibility. Jones is ridiculous, and has been for a very long time. That doesn’t mean we should ignore him. A reasonable impulse would be to disregard Jones because of his claims. But they cause a lot of suffering, and to pretend he doesn’t matter would be a blind response to the galling reality that he reliably attracts followers. Jones reached out to his acolytes after Connecticut state Superior Court Judge Barbara Bellis ordered escalating $25,000 sanctions against him until he submits to pretrial testimony in the lawsuit with some Sandy Hook families over his claims the 2012 massacre was staged. In a Thursday episode of his “InfoWars” show, Jones said, “We got this judge up in Connecticut, if you could call it that, this thing that has just cheated us every way, lied about us, said we didn’t give them this, sanctioned us for not giving them the Sandy

Alex Jones is a charlatan for our times. We deal with a lot of scammers in 2022, fending off a steady rain of spam calls and texts. But that doesn’t make hucksters with an mic and an audience any less important.

Hook marketing. It’s like saying give me the unicorn. Don’t have one, lady. I know you got a leprechaun.” Off the air, he reportedly agreed to testify April 11 while seeking relief from the sanctions. Bellis could have — probably should have — ordered Jones’ arrest after he failed to show up in court twice to give testimony. He responded by blaming stress and an infection from COVID. That would be the same COVID he claimed was a hoax. It joins his lengthy checklist of other conspiracy claims, which also includes moon landings, 9/11, the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, global warming, autism and 2020 election results. Alex Jones is a charlatan for our times. We deal with a lot of scammers in 2022, fending off a steady rain of spam calls and texts. But that doesn’t make hucksters with an mic and an audience any less important. That he profits from conspiracy rants means it’s something we need to talk about. He repeatedly hides behind the cloak of “free speech,” which insults the First Amendment. Hopefully, the outcome of these legal proceedings will persuade Jones & Co that there are consequences for chasing blood money. Jones has already lost his defamation case. He tried to squirm out of the pending trial to award damages by offering 18 members of Sandy Hook families and an FBI agent $120,000 each as a settlement. The offer was roundly rejected. Neil Heslin, who lost his son, Jesse Lewis, in the shooting, vowed to go “to trial to fight him.” Jones, a Texan, will finally learn what Connecticut justice looks like nearly a decade after the shooting. As Heslin said, it is about principles. Those principles need to win the day. This public reckoning should give voice to the dead to hush a man who spews hate into a microphone.