Month: July 2022

Categories
Right Wing Morons

Alex Jones Facing Financial Ruin As Sandy Hook Parents Seek Over $100 Million In Damages Today 

Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones could be on the merge of discovering that the First Amendment has limits and does not allow a person to attack others with lies in an effort to demean their pain and suffering as testimony begins today in Texas to decide much he must pay the families of children slain in the 2912 Sandy Hook Elementary mass shooting that left 26 dead, including 20 children between the ages of six and seven.

According to the Associated Press, the parents suing Jones are seeking in excess of $100 million in damages. Such a judgement, attorneys for Jones allege, would lead to financial ruin for the controversial radio and podcast host.

The jury could deal Jones a major financial blow that would put his constellation of conspiracy peddling businesses into deeper jeopardy. He has already been banned from YouTube, Facebook and Spotify for violating their hate-speech policies and he claims he’s millions of dollars in debt — a claim the plaintiffs reject.

The trial involving the parents of two Sandy Hook families is only the start for Jones. Damages have yet to be awarded in separate defamation cases for other families of the 2012 massacre in Newtown, Connecticut.

During questioning of potential jurors, Jones’ attorney Andino Reynal conceded that his client is indeed a “very polarizing” and “controversial” figure, but urged to cap any damages at a miniscule $1.

“We’re very happy with the jury we’ve seated,” Reynal said. “It’s a very important First Amendment case. On trial right now is not just people’s freedom of speech, but it’s also people’s freedom to listen. To choose what they watch on television, to make those choices for themselves, instead of having a personal injury lawyer make those choices for them.”

Reynal neglected to mention that juries in both Texas and Connecticut have already found Jones liable for defamation after he suggested that the children and teachers slain at Sandy Hook Elementary were “crisis actors” who staged a fake shooting to increase the likelihood of gun control legislation in the United States.

Since being found liable, Jones has insisted that he’s already broke, claiming that he’s $20 million in debt and cannot possibly pay any judgements that may be assessed against him.

The plaintiffs, however, don’t believe Jones, and the facts simply don’t support his claims of poverty:

Court records show that Jones’ Infowars store, which sells nutritional supplements and survival gear, made more than $165 million between 2015 and 2018. Jones has also urged listeners on his Infowars program to donate money.

Hopefully, when all is said and done, Alex Jones won’t have a proverbial pot to piss in.

Categories
GOP

Former Chief Of Staff To Mike Pence Destroys Matt Gaetz: ‘He’ll Be In Prison’ By 2024

Marc Short was chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence from 2019 to 2021, and recently appeared before a grand jury investigating the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S Capitol.

Short is also now a hero to millions for comments he made Monday evening on CNN regarding Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), who said disparaging things about Pence at a conservative conference over the weekend.

HuffPost notes that Gaetz slighted Pence by suggesting he would never be president:

During a speech at the Turning Point USA Student Action Summit in Tampa, Florida, on Saturday, Gaetz told the cheering crowd that “Our America is proudly ultra-MAGA, not some low-energy roadside RINO safari.” (RINO, one of Trump’s favorite terms for Republicans who won’t do his bidding, stands for “Republican in name only.”)

“On that note, let me just say what everybody here knows. Mike Pence will never be president,” Gaetz continued. “Nice guy; not a leader.”

That led Short to tell host Erin Burnett:

“Well, I don’t know if Mike Pence will run for president in 2024,” Short told CNN’s Erin Burnett. “But I don’t think Matt Gaetz will have an impact on that. In fact, I’d be surprised if he was still voting. It’s more likely he’ll be in prison for child sex trafficking by 2024. And I’m actually surprised that Florida law enforcement still allows him to speak to teenage conferences like that. So I’m not too worried about Matt Gaetz, thanks.”

Damn! That burn is going to leave one hell of a scar.

Of course, what Short said is more than likely true, as Gaetz is under investigation for allegedly being involved in the sexual trafficking and statutory rape of an underage girl in his home state of Florida.

Thanks to the testimony of former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, we also know that Gaetz sought a pardon from President Donald Trump in the closing days of the administration, partially for his role in the January 6 attack on the Capitol and also for other illegal acts, with Hutchinson noting that Gaetz requested a blanket pardon that would cover “any and all things.”

If convicted of sexually trafficking an underage girl, Gaetz could face life in prison.

Categories
Capitol Insurrection Congress GOP January 6

Liz Cheney Claps Back At Tom Cotton After He Slams Jan. 6 Hearings – But Admits He Hasn’t Watched Them

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) made Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) look like a complete fool after he criticized the hearings being conducted by the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 Capitol insurrection.

Cotton appeared on Hugh Hewitt’s radio show Monday and slammed the hearings, Mediaite reports:

“It was clear in Nancy Pelosi’s refusal to seat Jim Jordan and Jim Banks as Republican members of that committee, a break with precedent going back to the beginning of the House of Representatives in the 18th Century. And I think what you’ve seen over the last few weeks is why Anglo-American jurisprudence going back centuries has found that adversarial inquiry, cross-examination is the best way to get at the truth.”

Cotton later confessed that he hadn’t actually watched the hearings, but had merely seen “a snippet here or there on the news.”

“I will confess that I did not watch that hearing, and I have not watched any of the hearings, so I’ve not seen any of them out of the context that I see a snippet here or there on the news.”

It’s kind of hard to accurately gauge the fairness or probative value of a congressional hearing if you haven’t seen any of it, and that’s exactly what Cheney reminded Cotton on Twitter, where she absolutely destroyed him:

It should be interesting to see if Cotton attempts a retort to Cheney. If he has even a shred of a brain, he won’t. Then again, he’s already proven that he isn’t exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer.

 

Categories
Capitol Insurrection January 6 Racism WTF?!

Mom Of Jan. 6 Rioter Ashli Babbitt Says A ‘Black Woman’ Would Have Been Treated Better Than Her Daughter

The mother of the late Capitol rioter Ashli Babbitt is suggesting that if her daughter had been black, she might still be alive.

Speaking with former New York City mayor and Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani on his podcast, Micki Withoeft remarked:

“Nancy Pelosi sitting up there in her castle mad that the minions dared show up that day — well, you know there are a million strong people there to address their government and they made an attempt to kill the First Amendment. But the First Amendment isn’t dead. It’s wounded but it’s not dead. And people are startin’ to realize things that happened that day.”

The First Amendment, however, doesn’t give anyone the right to attack the seat of government and call for the vice president to be hanged.

And while Withoeft also claimed that her daughter did nothing wrong on January 6, the facts suggest otherwise, the Los Angeles Times notes:

In the seven months since she was killed, Babbitt has become a martyr to the far right. In the twisted revisionist narrative being pushed by former President Trump and his supporters, she was a peaceful demonstrator — an “innocent, wonderful, incredible woman” — who was unjustifiably murdered by the police even though she posed no danger.

But that’s not what the video shows. Her death was a tragedy, to be sure — but it was hardly an unjustified murder.

Here’s how Babbitt managed to get herself killed:

Members of Congress can be seen on the other side of the door. Also on the other side of the door is a police lieutenant holding a gun, pointing it at the mob, an unmistakable warning to stay back.

But Babbit decides instead — although it’s a little hard to see on the video — to climb through the shattered glass window into the Speaker’s Lobby, past the police barricade, toward the pointed gun. If she is allowed through, it seems inevitable that the mob will follow.

As she climbs through, a single shot is fired and she drops to the floor.

If Ashli Babbitt didn’t want to get shot, she shouldn’t have rioted and gone against the orders of the cop who told her to stop. She’s the one who caused her death.

Here’s the podcast:

Categories
Congress Corruption Elections

Madison Cawthorn Is Flat Broke, Hundreds Of Thousands Of Dollars In Debt And Facing Criminal Charges: Report

North Carolina GOP Congressman Madison Cawthorn’s life is in complete shambles, and it’s hard to feel sorry for him considering the bad shit he’s done over the past couple of years.

First and foremost, Cawthorn is broke and cannot pay his campaign debts, which, it just so happened, he incurred for illegal purposes, meaning that in addition to soon being unemployed, he’s also facing indictment and time in prison if found guilty.

Roger Sollenberger of The Daily Beast reports that everything that can go wrong for Cawthorn is doing exactly that

With two weeks to go until a primary election he was fated to lose, Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) was already underwater. His campaign held more than twice as much debt as it had cash on hand, the donor well was dry, and he and his staff were months into a madcap spending streak that one campaign source called “baffling.”

And now, after indeed losing that primary, there’s no money to pay the piper.

Specifically, there’s no money to repay the supporters who donated hundreds of thousands of dollars in advance to Cawthorn’s election efforts beyond the primary—to the general election he now won’t be competing in.

That shuffling of money is illegal, and that complicates matters considerably for the soon-to-be ex-congressman, who is going to be hard-pressed to find an attorney who will represent him without a retainer:

The breach of fiduciary obligations follows a string of personal and professional embarrassments that hounded the one-term congressman across the weeks and months leading up to his primary defeat—accusations of insider trading, multiple alleged ethics violations, unforced public gaffes, and photo and video leaks designed to humiliate him.

But the campaign’s financial washout is more than another embarrassment; it’s against the law.

To borrow a phrase from Homer Simpson, D’oh!

But perhaps most confounding and embarrassing for Cawthorn is the spending reports which show how he managed to burn through so much cash so quickly. The details in federal reports sound like something a college frat boy would have done:

This person pointed to a spree of frivolous charges over the last year that all accelerated into 2022, such as $1,500 in “egregiously” frequent trips to Chick-Fil-A, almost $3,000 at a place called Papa’s Beer, three separate charges at a high-end cigar shop, $21,000 for lodging in Florida and—the biggest drain—hundreds of thousands of dollars in sky-high consulting and fundraising fees, including for Cawthorn’s friend and campaign manager, Blake Harp, who was drawing a salary beyond federal limits.

Jordan Libowitz, communications director for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, says Cawthorn is screwed:

“There are few more ironclad rules in campaign finance than you can’t spend general election funds in a primary. There are strict limits on how much may be given and spent in each. If Cawthorn spent funds raised for the general during the primary and made no attempt to refund the general donations, he’ll likely be in a lot of trouble with the FEC.”

Beginning in January of next year, Cawthorn will no longer have his congressional salary, so he’s quite literally going to be jobless, penniless, and facing the prospect of legal action against him.

Sometimes karma is a very beautiful thing.