THE CENSORSHIP BATTLE OF ALEX JONES & WHY IT AFFECTS US ALL
BY THE NEW AMERICAN
SEE: http://the-trumpet-online.com/censorship-battle-alex-jones-affects-us/; republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research purposes:
TheNewAmerican.com
Bombastic talk-show host Alex Jones knows how to get under people’s skin, and he does so regularly. Currently, he is facing no less than five defamation suits against him in Texas courts, a 30-day suspension of his personal Facebook account, constant scrutiny and strikes against him by YouTube, calls for him to be banned from Spotify, and a coordinated attempt by mainstream media outlets such as CNN to marginalize him.
Three of the five lawsuits against Jones are being brought by Houston Attorney Mark Bankston, who is representing three families of the victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting. The suits claim that Jones both pedaled and endorsed conspiracy theories that claimed the Sandy Hook massacre was a staged government event designed to impact the gun-control debate. Jones denies the charges and claims he was acting as a “devil’s advocate” during discussions on the Sandy Hook tragedy and the resulting conspiracy theories around it.
On Wednesday, Bankston and Jones’ attorney Mark Enoch will be in court to argue whether one case, brought by Sandy Hook victim Noah Pozner’s family, should be thrown out owing to the Texas Citizens Participation Act, a law that passed unanimously and was signed by Governor Rick Perry in 2011. The law is designed to protect Texas citizens’ free-speech rights against meritless claims designed merely to silence their speech.
“Plaintiffs suffered a horrible tragedy. Alex Jones and his InfoWars are not responsible for that tragedy,” the motion to dismiss stated. “To punish them for First Amendment protected speech on this matter of public concern will not bring back the lives lost. To stifle the press by making them liable for merely interviewing people who have strange theories will simply turn this human tragedy into a constitutional issue.”
Should the case go to trial, it’ll be less about young Noah Pozner’s death and his grieving family than it will be about the blurry line between free speech and libel. It will become a televised free-for-all pitting free speech against so-called fake news.
“The purpose of this lawsuit is to create new Texas law that opens citizens of the state to civil liability should they openly question the government and/or craft any type of ‘conspiracy theory’ or differing view to that which is reported by the mainstream media,” Enoch said.
Besides the Pozner case and the four other Texas cases against him, Jones faces another defamation suit in Connecticut over his Sandy Hook conspiracy reporting. Jones is also the defendant in a Virginia defamation suit brought by a witness to the Charlottesville unrest, Brennan Gilmore, who claims that Jones smeared him as a “shill for the deep state.” In addition, Jones is being sued over his coverage of the Parkland, Florida, school shooting.
Jones appears confident in his ultimate victory in these lawsuits, letting his lawyers do most of his talking for him. In all, Jones has been sued more than a dozen times in the past year, settling one of the suits against Idaho-based yogurt maker Chobani. Jones was forced to apologize for making statements about Chobani importing “migrant rapists” to work for them.
The host of Infowars seems much more intent on challenging the powers behind the social-media bans and mainstream media smear campaigns against him. Jones has frequently gone up against globalist groups such as the Bohemian Grove, the Bilderbergers, and the Council on Foreign Relations, accusing them of conspiring to create a one-world socialist government and imposing a caste system of sorts, with the elites at the top and the rest of us in servitude to them.
Is it any wonder that the globalists want to shut him up?
“The establishment is making its move against free speech here in America,” Jones told his audience Monday. “These aren’t journalists. These are killers of free speech; these are corporate mercenaries making their move ahead of the 2018 mid-terms.”
For globalists and denizens of the Deep State, the First Amendment to the Constitution is a problem. How can they impose a one-world-system and a socialist “utopia” with all of these conservatives, advocates of freedom, and yes, even conspiracy theorists out there speaking their minds? Love him or hate him, give Alex Jones credit. His swagger and bombastic actions are calling attention to something that the globalists hoped they could keep under the radar: their attempt to slowly erode our freedoms without us noticing.
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