The world LOVES a comeback story!
And I’m not speaking about your comeback theoretically. I’m
speaking from painfully lived experience, so I know how to help
you regain what you had through the crisis.
~ Convicted killer James Arthur "Death" Ray, aka The
Scumback Kid, who hasn't yet been
able to make his own successful comeback
Isn't it a pity that one little itty-bitty
teeny-weenie mistake can ruin your reputation and business and
maybe your whole entire life? James Arthur "Death" Ray -- motivational guru, star of the infamous moviemercial
The Secret, and
convicted killer who served less than two years in an Arizona
state prison for negligently homiciding three people in a phony sweat
lodge -- feels your pain. And he can
guide you right on through it with one of the newest offerings on
his menu of desperate comeback attempts services,
"Crisis Coaching."
Ray recognizes the profound unfairness of it all. The world, as he has learned the hard way, is so unforgiving:
One mistake and no one recognizes everything
that you’ve brought to the table.
Crisis Coaching® brings you back to
your pedestal, brings back your life, and brings it back with
grace.
You’ve worked hard for your name. You’ve put in more
hours than you can possibly count.
And you’ve contributed way more than most to the world.
But one PR explosion, one big error or misstep, and no one
remembers any of the good you did.
Take back your life and everything that you’ve worked for.
Now
Regardless of what they’re trying to do to you and your
career.
I’m James Arthur Ray and I coach the biggest and best
through, back from, and beyond crisis.
Whether they’re accusing you of sleeping around, taking
something that wasn’t yours, substance abuse, or spilling
oil in the ocean, I help public figures, athletes, and
high-powered execs just like you pull through the storm that
envelops you.
With Crisis Coaching, your business and legal team will most
likely have the tools to manage ruthless media with finesse
and suave. So you can get back to what life is really
supposed to be like again.
Yet, while they have you in front of a firing squad, you
still have to manage your own mental toughness, emotional
strength, family and friends (and everything and everyone
that seems to come at you when you’re at your lowest); and
you have to manage them with confidence, prowess, and power.
I help you do that.
I'm just wondering which one of his coaching
clients spilled oil in the ocean.
Death Ray warns that you should not trust such a profoundly
important mission to people who haven't been where you are. Trust
it instead to Ray, who has been through hell and back himself.
After having built a multi-million
dollar brand, I was drawn and quartered because of
unfortunate incidents that took place during a retreat I and
my company conducted.
As the leader, I lost everything.
But I have since rebuilt my empire.
And I want to make sure you rebuild yours.
"Unfortunate incidents..." So that's
how he describes the deaths of James Shore, Kirby Brown, and Liz
Neuman, each of whom spent thousands of dollars for the
once-in-a-deathtime opportunity to be cooked alive during
Ray's "Spiritual Warrior" weekend in Sedona in October
2009. Notice how he spreads the blame around a bit to include
"my company."
And as for rebuilding his empire... well, let's just say that
despite his continuing efforts, it seems to be an egregiously downsized scampire at best, and that the downsizing does not appear to be
at all voluntary.
But never mind that. If you are a sleep-arounder, a taker of something that
wasn't yours, a substance abuser, an oil spiller, or even a
killer -- and it's affecting your emotional health and, most
egregious of all, your income -- Crisis Coaching might be just
the ticket for you; accordingly, James has thoughtfully included,
at the bottom of the Crisis Coaching promo page, a handy
assessment form for you to fill out. Even if you haven't done
something awful, I get the feeling that James will be glad to
hear from pretty much anyone, so if you happen to be a loved one
of one of his victims, or you were a victim yourself of his well-documented emotionally abusive and/or physically
injurious and/or reckless behavior over
the years... or even if you're just really, really sick and tired
of his adamant refusal to take responsibility and his constant whining
how awful things have been for him... go ahead and fill
out the form. Pour out your heart. That's what the form is there
for.
And here's an even better idea, if you're at all tempted to give
money to James Arthur Ray for any reason: Give it instead to a
worthwhile organization, such as, say... Seek Safely, which was founded by Kirby Brown's family to guide
consumers and make self-help practitioners more accountable for
their actions through legislation. (Here is
the link to donation info.) So far,
more than 160 leading lights in the industry have been invited to
sign the "Seek Safely" promise... and not
one of them has yet done so. In all
fairness, some of them are now dead, such as Louise Hay and Wayne
Dyer. But as for the rest... well, the invitation has been open
for years, but nobody who's anybody in the industry seems very
interested. That should tell you something.
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On my previous post I wrote about
a frivolous defamation lawsuit from a whiny-boy US congressman,
Republican Devin Nunes, who is miffed at Twitter, a fake cow, and
a few other assorted parties. I also riffed a bit on the general
hypersensitivity of conservatives who sure can dish out the
harassment and bullying to their perceived "enemies"
(liberals, progressives, Democrats), but can't take it when it's
dished back. Right-wing/conservative (and, in the US., Republican
or libertarian) whining is an issue that has received a bit of
attention recently, because contrary to what the tough guys and
gals fighting "political correctness" would like us to
believe, it is actually a thing.
An 18-liter bottle of aggressive red whine was recently uncorked by Mike "The Health Ranger" Adams, alt-right/alt-health fear crapitalist and
rabble-rousing Trumpian. On a Natural News screed posted on March 22, 2019, Adams gripes at length, and not for the first time,
about how the tech giants -- Google, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube,
and all the usual suspects -- are systematically censoring and
shadow-banning conservatives and any speech that is
"pro-Trump, pro-Christian, pro-America," in favor of
"granting artificially high visibility to pro-Democrat,
pro-socialism, pro-communism and pro-Islam speech."
If you told me five years ago that I
would wake up one day in America and have Facebook, YouTube,
Twitter and Google all banning natural health news, and that
the entire U.S. Congress and President of the United States
would do absolutely nothing about it, and that there
wouldn’t be a single prominent voice on the political Left
who would speak out against the scourge of censorship, I
wouldn’t have believed you.
Yet that’s where we are right now in America. Actually,
it’s even worse. Our Brighteon.com free speech video
platform is under such intense threats and assault from
upstream internet infrastructure providers that we are now
being forced to implement outrageous limitations on speech in
order to avoid the entire platform being annihilated (new
announcement to come soon). Certain ISPs in New Zealand have
now blocked the entire domain of
Brighteon.com, even after all the mosque
shooting videos were removed from the platform under threat
from other infrastructure providers. (New Zealand and
Australia are now essentially Communist China in terms of
internet censorship, with NZ rapidly becoming a new Islamic
state that celebrates hijabs, a symbol of the oppression of
women and gays.)
So... non-Muslim women in New Zealand donning head scarves to
express solidarity with Muslim victims of white nationalist
terrorism... that's the
problem? What a putz.
And it isn't just political and religious oppression that Captain
Murica is fighting. He is also bravely standing up against the
tech giants' suppression of "the truth" about vaccines,
cancer cures, and all manner of things that, in the words of
imprisoned serial scammer Kevin Trudeau, they don't want
you to know about. Warns Adams:
We have now reached the point where the
tech giants are banning all questions about vaccines… where
“anti-cancer” content is being stifled on Facebook and
Google… where any opinion that opposes the authoritarian
left-wing techno-tyranny is silenced into oblivion.
But he can't help himself: he brings it back to
politix in the next part of the paragraph:
Our elections are no longer fair and
free, given that Democracy depends entirely on public
knowledge and public debate so that citizens who vote might
decide for themselves which candidates and policy decisions
to support, yet we now find ourselves in a world where tech
giants like Google and Twitter are now deciding
all future elections by silencing
conservative, pro-Trump, pro-Christian, pro-America speech
while granting artificially high visibility to pro-Democrat,
pro-socialism, pro-communism and pro-Islam speech.
And so on. Actually -- to address one of the
points with which Adams led -- "the Left" has
spoken out about censorship, and so have the mainstream media
(aka the "fake news" in Trumpian parlance), sounding an
alarm every time Donald Trump bullies his critics and frames that
bullying in threats to the free press
and to freedom of assembly and to other First Amendment and civil rights. Trump's re-election campaign is now even reaching out to TV
producers and trying to get them to blacklist certain prominent
Democrats for "lying to the
American people" about the Mueller Report and the
Trump/Russia scandal. Millions of us are hugely concerned about this. The rest of the world has also taken notice of the
"Trump effect" on our freedoms.
But apparently our frequently expressed collective outrage is not enough for
Adams. He is only focused on preserving freedom of speech for his
kind, much like his idol Trump, who is fresh from signing an executive order to "protect
free speech" -- at least
conservative speech -- on college campuses.
And as for Adams' claim about Google and Twitter "deciding
all future elections," presumably in favor of "the
Left"... Hello!?? Russian interference, anyone?
Of course, the tech giants played a starring role in that debacle
too, and they've been faced with
growing demands for accountability since then, but you don't
notice Adams complaining about the results of the 2016 US
presidential election, do you? Clearly he is only afraid of the
Interwebs driving current and future voting trends leftwards.
Obeying Godwin's Law, Adams goes on to claim that what the tech
giants are doing today to the conservatives "is far worse
than the book burning of the Third Reich." Here he gets a
bit rambly, as he is wont to do. (I know, I have no room to talk
about rambling.)
It’s not just books that are under
attack today, of course: It’s all human
knowledge which runs counter to the insane,
deranged narratives of the political Left.
We are now being told that biology no longer exists and that
gender is “fluid.” Despite the fact that this insane idea
violates the basic sciences of physiology, this is now such
an ingrained position in the minds of the tech giants that
anyone who opposes the gender fluidity delusion is labeled as
being engaged in “hate speech.” Facebook has even
announced it will no longer allow advertising companies to
market to women or women by gender selection, claiming there
is no such thing as biological gender. (Yes, Leftists now
literally believe there is no such thing as a “man” or a
“woman.”)
We’re also being told that carbon
dioxide is a “pollutant”
and that the world will end in 12 years if we don’t shut
down all combustion engines and fossil fuel consumption (the
“Green New Deal”). This is pure insanity on its face,
especially given the fact that India and China are the
world’s largest producers of CO2 by far, and they would
obviously not be stupid enough to collapse their entire air
travel, agriculture and transportation industries in order to
appease some insane, deranged Democrat from New York whose IQ
is so low that is strains the very definition of
“intelligent species.”
I don't want to waste too much time and space
unpacking this mishmash of alt-right conspiranoia, but I do want
to address a few points in passing. The "insane, deranged
Democrat" with the "low" IQ is, presumably, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, whose IQ, education level, and accomplishments so far
in her young life far outstrip most of her critics, probably
including Adams himself, despite his very lengthy boasts on his
own sites about his amazing intelligence and impressive
accomplishments. Adams' comment about "Leftists" as a
group completely disavowing the existence of biological genders
is really too stupid to address at length here. Suffice to say
that there is a wide range of beliefs and opinions about these issues
on both the left and the right, but
clearly neither Adams nor his target audience are fans of nuance
and complexity. As for Adams' anti-environmentalist grousing
about the carbon dioxide issue, basing his gripes on the fact
that because plants need CO2 to survive there's no
such thing as too much CO2, that's bollocks.
Too much of a good thing is... well... usually a bad thing. It's a pretty simple principle.
The "only way to avoid a civil war"
Adams projects that if the online oppressors aren't stopped PDQ,
there will be "civil war" as a result of the tech
giants having designated all "pro-America forces" -- in
other words, people who think like Adams and his conspiranoid
audience -- as "terrorists." To preserve their good
name as well as their freedom, these brave patriotic Muricans
will have no choice but to engage in a civil war with the Left,
and one of the very first things they'll have no choice but to do
is seize control of all online platforms, including and
especially Google and Facebook.
Seizing control over these assets and
forcing a restoration of First Amendment freedoms for all
Americans would be one of the most urgent priorities for
pro-America forces. At the boots-on-the-ground military
tactical level, this would be made difficult by the fact that
tech giants tend to reside in left-wing Antifa-ridden areas
of the country where anti-America forces would fight any
patriots, National Guard troops or military forces that
attempt to halt the Left’s Fourth Reich crimes against
humanity via speech oppression.
It’s worth noting that the tech giants really are engaged
in crimes against humanity. Silencing the speech of human
beings in the way now being conducted by the tech giants is
an assault on human dignity and basic human rights...
Absent civil war, what is Adams' proposed
solution to the "censorship" that he says is destroying
America? It's something that any sane person would see as
tyranny: He wants Donald John Trump -- the man whose butt-cheeks
have, for the past few years, been the virtual repository of
Adams' smug nose and probably much of the rest of his face as
well -- to "seize the domain names" of the tech giants
and hold them hostage until they stop their oppression.
The “ace in the hole” in all this
would be a conservative president declaring a national
emergency and seizing the domain names of
Google, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and
other tech giants. By declaring these tech companies to be
engaged in an active insurrection against the United States
of America — and operating in open complicity with Antifa
terrorists and Mexican drug cartels that engage in human
trafficking across the open border — the President could
demand those domains be seized by the U.S. State Department
and prohibited from operating...
...On the flip side, a left-wing President could exercise the
same power against conservatives sites and seize domain names
such as Infowars.com or ZeroHedge.com — two independent
media websites which are already targeted and largely
de-platformed by leftist tech giants. Control over the domain
space is the ultimate control over online speech, and
that’s exactly why President Trump needs to give the tech
giants this ultimatum:
If you will not halt your
oppression of human rights and your censorship of
Americans based on political and religious bigotry as
well as active election meddling, you will no longer be
allowed to operate as the dominant “public square”
content controllers...
...Believe it or not, any President of
the United States has the power to seize corporations if they
are engaged in treason against America. It is time to
exercise that power and restore a level playing field of free
speech for all Americans...
If I'm reading this correctly, the Health
Ranger is declaring that the tyranny of a right-wing prez is a
far, far better thing than the tyranny of a left-wing leader. So
Trump has a mandate to tyrannize while the tyrannizing is good.
This is not the first time that Mike Adams has endorsed Trumpian
tyranny. I've written about that a few times on this blog, such
as on this October 2018 post
(scroll down to the sub-head, "Elsewhere on the conspiranoia
front: martial law is okay as long as it's alt-right martial
law"). Back in May 2016 I also mentioned the matter (scroll down to the sub-head, "The Health Ranger
is also a major Trumpian"). In both instances I cited Adams'
endorsement of Trump declaring martial law in order to whip the
country into shape. And in July 2017, I wrote about
Adams' endorsement of "burn(ing) the leftist-scripted
newspapers," which segued into another one of his tributes
to Trump. See under, "Little Hitler strikes again" (I
am not above obeying Godwin's law myself).
Unfortunately Adams doesn't seem to be alone in his wish that
Trump would just take matters into his own fat orange hands and
totally remake the United States according to the MAGA wet dream.
At a recent event held by gone-but-not-forgotten Trump aide Steve
Bannon, an
angry Trump supporter expressed a wish for Trump to become a
dictator and "crush Congress"
-- and she was applauded by both Bannon and the audience.
That's pretty scary stuff.
Nothing could be finer than to block a little
whiner...
Meanwhile, in the conspiranoia outback, where the
traffic and the Facebook "likes" and the retweets are
much lighter than they are around the Natural News scampire,
cancer quack/fake doctor/neo-Nazi/ridiculous little hater-man
Leonard Coldwell (who is a fan of both Trump and Mike Adams) has bottled his own
third-rate whine. He is upset about having been thrown in Facebook jail for 30 days...again. The graphic on his blog post about the matter,
employed without any apparent trace of irony, depicts a Nazi, and
the clear message on the graphic is that Lenny was
Facebook-jailed for posting anti-vaccination info.
But we've heard that song before. More than likely Lenny was
reported for hate speech, as has
happened so many, many times before. There's more than a hint of
this on his main English-language Facebook page, in what appears
to be his last post under his own name before Facebook took
action. One of Lenny's alter egos, "Eyn Rand," had to
take over the whinery on that Facebook thread.
As you'll see if you take a closer look at the
screen grab, "Eyn" couldn't just leave it at bitching
about Lenny being "censored." He also had to post a
link to a video offering "proof" that the horrific mosque shootings in New Zealand were a "hoax."
For those of you who might be wondering why I keep spending (or
perhaps you think "squandering" is a better word) time
and energy writing about these crackpots, it's simple, apart from
the fact that they're low-hanging fruit and I am still a lazy
blogger. It's also because Mike Adams is undoubtedly an
influencer of sorts, about which I'll have a bit more in the next
section. And though Coldwell is a far lesser influencer, except
in his own mind -- yes, even though he is so nearly irrelevant
that even the UK blogger Longdog, who has devoted his entire blog
solely to Coldwell's hatefulness and stupidity, has grown bored
with him -- Lenny nevertheless reflects the nuttiest conspiracy
narratives, the most toxic right-wingnut hatreds, and the most
egregious medical and scientific misinformation, and all of these
things have become all too mainstream. My philosophy is that as
long as Coldwell continues to make blatantly stupid and hateful and
wrongheaded public statements, he should continue to be held up
as an example of blatant stupidity and hatefulness and
wrongheadedness.
Just the (anti)-vaxx, ma'am
Mike Adams and Leonard Coldwell, like numerous
others harvesting the fruits of the alt-health whinery, are
chronic complainers that "natural health" information
is being ruthlessly censored by Big Pharma and the medical
industry and the Rothschilds and the Killuminati and, of course,
Big Tech. As a result, they insist, untold numbers of people are
surely getting sick, and many are even dying, because they are
being deprived of this life-changing, life-saving health
information. I have spilled more than my share of words about
this false narrative, one example being this August 2014 post. It's long. I'll wait.
One of the focal points of the alt-health brouhaha -- and
certainly a perennial pet issue for both Adams and Coldwell -- is
the anti-vaccination or anti-vaxx movement, about which I've also written a few words before. This matter has received a lot of renewed attention
lately due to outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases in the US and numerous other spots across the world.
There's also the story of Governor Matt Bevin of Kentucky, who became one of the latest heroes of the anti-vaxx
movement after he announced that he had deliberately exposed his
nine (!) children to chicken pox rather than having them
vaccinated. He presented it as being all about personal choice re
vaccinations, but at least one opinion writer believes that Bevin's "choice" was informed by
darker cultural and religious forces,
and she may very well be right.
One of the latest developments that got the anti-vaxxers all
fired up again was Facebook's announcement earlier this month of a plan to
rein in anti-vaxx conspiracy theories.
The company didn't say it would actually remove the
anti-vaxx groups and pages; it will simply wipe these pages and
groups from its recommendations, and it will stop allowing
advertisers to target people whom Facebook's algorithm identifies
as being interested in "vaccine controversies." But in
the views of the anti-vaxx fanatics, that's
"censorship" and as such it allows them to whine a
little bit louder.
Ahead of its announcement, Facebook had lamented the seemingly
infinite reach of the anti-vaxx misinformation machine,
insinuating that it was going to be exceedingly difficult to
handle the problem. But as a writer on The Atlantic site noted:
...while Facebook’s scale might as
well be infinite, the actual universe of people arguing about
vaccinations is limited and knowable...
...While there is no dearth of posts related to vaccines, the
top 50 Facebook pages ranked by the number of public posts
they made about vaccines generated nearly half (46 percent)
of the top 10,000 posts for or against vaccinations, as well
as 38 percent of the total likes on those posts, from January
2016 to February of this year. The distribution is heavy on
the top, particularly for the anti-vax position. Just seven
anti-vax pages generated nearly 20 percent of the top 10,000 vaccination posts in this
time period: Natural News, Dr. Tenpenny on Vaccines and
Current Events, Stop Mandatory Vaccination, March Against
Monsanto, J. B. Handley, Erin at Health Nut News, and
Revolution for Choice.
And here we run into our old friend the Health
Ranger again.
Among the most prominent anti-vax pages
is Natural News, an Infowars-like conspiracy site sprinkled
with tumeric powder and the essence of chemtrails. The site,
which has 2.9 million likes
and comes up high in a variety of search results about
vaccines and vaccination, runs stories with headlines like
“Left-Wing Media Run by Actual Demon-Possessed
Anti-human EVIL Entities … Watch This Stunning
Mini-documentary” as
well as “Tech Giants’ Censorship Is an Online ETHNIC
CLEANSING Campaign, Equivalent to Intellectual Genocide.” According to a list of the site's popular
stories, the two most popular posts are both about vaccines.
Natural News has kept up a steady drumbeat of posts about how
the site is going to be “silenced” or “censored” by
the tech platforms. The site’s owner, Mike Adams, has
claimed that Apple (among other tech companies) is defending
“satanism” by asking Natural News to make changes to its
app in the App Store. “This is the first time that a
dominant tech company has overtly come out in defense of
Satanism while threatening to censor a prominent publisher
that exposes the evils of Satanic influence,” Adams wrote in a recent post. He refers to the tech companies as “techno-fascists.”
Natural News -- and this will probably come as
no great surprise -- did not respond to a request for comment.
In any case, it is clear that Facebook and other tech giants such
as Google seem to be making efforts to stem the tide of
misinformation about vaccines, as well as misinfo on any number
of other topics. And just a few days ago, GoFundMe announced that anti-vaxxers can no longer use their platform to raise money. Other
platforms such as Pinterest, YouTube, and Amazon have acted in
various ways to curb anti-vaxx content. How this will all play
out is still uncertain, but it's a pretty sure bet that strident
conspiranoids will continue to cry foul at even the mildest
efforts to rein them in, while others will say that the tech
giants aren't doing enough to stop dangerous
misinformation.
Marketplace of ideas, or menacing monopolies?
Like millions if not billions of other people all
over world, I have a love-hate relationship with the tech giants,
particularly social media such as Facebook. I've never claimed
that they're above reproach. Among numerous other issues, they have been playing fast and loose with users'
personal information and they should
not be let off the hook for that.
More to the point of this post, and as I mentioned in my previous
one, a poll taken last year by Hill.TV and American Barometer
showed that a majority of the respondents believed that there's a
sytstemic bias against conservative views in social media. But the poll was heavily divided along party lines.
And the view that conservatives are unfairly being targeted is not a universal one by any means. It's just that these days, the conservanoids seem to
be doing the loudest whining about being grievously wronged (with
the Whiner in Chief leading the
charge, especially now that he has been fake-exonerated by his
hand-picked AG's coy letter "summarizing" the Mueller
investigation).
Many who decry any form of Internet "censorship" paint
the online world as a "marketplace of ideas," where
virtually anything goes, or should go. Others say that parties
hosting or providing content have an ethical if not a legal
responsibility to ban or at least control content such as hate
speech and misinformation -- although then we get into the
quagmire of deciding what exactly determines "hate
speech" and "misinformation." It's not always
clear. These are topics far too large and complex for this little
Whirled; I mainly wanted to acknowledge, as I have previously,
that I am aware that there are some serious issues with the tech
giants, and that these issues are both more significant and more
nuanced than, "Mike Adams is a putz" or "Leonard
Coldwell is a whiny little hater-man."
One issue is the question of whether the tech giants need to be
taken down a notch or two via antitrust enforcement, since
companies such as Facebook and Google represent virtual
monopolies in their respective realms. The Verge ran a thoughtful piece about this matter last
September. And a January 2019 piece on the GovTech site drives home the point that monopolies are bad for
innovation. These are real and serious issues that affect nearly
all of us.
But none of the above is even remotely a
suggestion that Donald John Trump should "seize" the
tech giants and remake them into a tool to further elevate
himself and the hateful, fearmongering blowhards whose vitriol
has already left an indelible stain on the public conversation. I
don't want Donald Trump or Mike Adams or Alex Jones or even
Leonard Coldwell "censored." But the swill they
distribute should be called out for what it is, and for what it's
worth, I will continue to do just that. And I am glad to know that
I am not alone.
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I'm probably only the four-millionth or so person
to mention this, but have you noticed a certain hyper-sensitivity in many of the conservative/libertarian manly men (and a
few proud and defiant women) -- you know, the ones who are
currently infesting the political and cultural landscape with
their bright red caps and fact-devoid social media memes? Have
you observed, as I have, that they seem to have awfully thin skins --
especially when you consider their derisive sneers about the
oppressive, America-threatening "political correctness"
of the left, and their screeds about wimpy liberals (aka
"snowflakes") who are hypersensitive to
"triggers" and have an insatiable need for "safe
spaces?"
I have previously danced around the theme of
right-wing snowflakery, e.g., in this May 2016 post (trigger
warning: contains nekkid Donald Trump picture). But it's a matter
that has captured my attention more fully in light of rabid Republican "strategist" Devin Nunes'
comic $250 million lawsuit against Twitter, a made-up mommy, and
a fake cow. (And I'm probably only the
four-millionth or so person to publicly write about this, but I
never claimed to be a groundbreaker.)
Anyway. From the Vox article linked to just above:
A member of Congress since
January 2003, Nunes is perhaps best known nationally first
for his involvement in the Benghazi investigation and second for his dogged defense of Donald
Trump, upon whose transition team
Nunes served. It was Nunes, for example, who wrote the 2018 memo on wiretapping that many Trump supporters believed
would permanently damage special counsel Robert Mueller’s
investigation into Trump’s 2016 campaign. (It didn’t.)
So it stands to reason that Twitter users less enthralled
with Trump would tweet things about Nunes that were perhaps
less than cordial — like calling him a “presidential
fluffer and swamp rat,” for instance. (In fact, a tweet
using those very words was included in the lawsuit.)
But in the 40-page complaint filed on Monday, Nunes argues that tweets like
that and the two parody Twitter accounts were not merely
examples of Twitter being Twitter. Rather, he argues that the
social media platform served as “a portal of defamation”
by permitting parody accounts of his mother and his imaginary
bovine to exist on the platform.
The operative word, seemingly missed by Nunes
and his lawyer, is "parody." Which, you know, is protected in the United States by the First Amendment and whatnot. Parody and other forms of sometimes unpopular speech are not protected everywhere, of
course. In Russia (to name but one example of other places in the
world where freedom of expression is not exactly a sacred cow), a
person might, thanks to a new law recently signed by Trump's dom
bromantic partner Putin, conceivably be
prosecuted for parody, since it is by its nature disrespectful,
and if your parody or satire disrespects Putin or the Russian
government, well, then, shame on you, Господин
or девушка
Smarty-Pants.
But the US isn't Russia... not yet, anyway.
Here
is the direct link to the fake farm animal's Twitter account, which has more Twitter followers than the real Devin.
Goodness, that must trample on his ego. If you're on Twitter and
haven't done so already, why not go ahead and follow that cow?
I've herd that she's very nice, the crème de la crème.
Who feels more "hard done by": libs or
cons?
Defamation cases are nearly always about hurt feelings, and a sense of being hard done by, as much as they are
about actual damages. (A tip of the hat to an ancient post on the Kung Fu Monkey blog, which I've cited here before, for the "hard done
by" theme. Ah, "that sweet crack pipe of moral
indignation.") For me, this latest legal looniness brings up
an argument that has been going on for a few years regarding who
is in fact more hypersensitive: liberals/left-wingers or
conservatives/right-wingers. TheTylt.com -- to name but one
of countless examples -- has tackled this matter, running two
surveys that I know of a couple of years ago -- this one and this one. Spoiler: the
right-wingers won the sensitivity sweepstakes both times.
But the core sensitivity of so many crass loudmouths and
blowhards on the right should come as no big surprise anymore,
particularly since #NotMyPresident Donald J. Trump is such a thin-skinned type himself. For instance, just this past weekend he got in a lather about a rerun of the Christmas 2018
episode of NBC's Saturday Night Live, suggesting once again that SNL and other media he
doesn't like should be investigated by the Federal Communications
Commission and the Federal Election Commission.
Moreover Trump is apparently making good on the promise/threat that he spewed forth in his recent two-hour-plus rant to the Conservative Political Action
Conference: a vow to sign an executive
order that would punish colleges and universities that "do
not support free speech" by denying them federal research
funds. The initial promise was a direct response to a February
19, 2019 incident on the campus of the University of California
Berkeley in which a man who was not a Berkeley student was on
campus expressing his support of Trump, whereupon another man,
who was not a Berkeley student either, punched him. The punchee,
one Hayden Williams, was paraded around by Trump as a hero at the
CPAC rant, the poster child for liberals' oppression of
conservatives on campus.
Never mind that Berkeley was, in fact, already providing a solid
platform for conservatives and pro-Trumpsters. In this case, the
conservative org Turning Point USA was, with the university's
permission, recruiting students to the cause. And never mind that
many universities already have free-speech guidelines
and policies that allow non-liberal expression on their campuses. Those inconvenient facts didn't stop the right-wing
whining following the punching, and didn't stop Trump from his
subsequent grandstanding.
Also never mind the fact that, according to the Chicago Trib
article I cited a couple of paragraphs ago, "it's unclear
what type of free speech limitation could trigger a loss of
federal research funding. White House officials declined to
provide specific cases of free speech suppression." The
guiding sentiment behind the EO seems to be that by golly, it's
time that someone stepped up and protected (conservative) free
speech!
Here's an opinion piece,
published on March 4, 2019 in the wake of the CPAC rant,
explaining why Trump is missing the point, once again.
...Because almost across the board
institutional missions center on scientific discovery,
knowledge and learning, institutions of higher education are
a key mechanism for fostering democratic education. Campuses often subscribe to John Stuart Mill’s notion that a
university is a “marketplace of ideas,” where educators
offer “balanced perspectives” so that students can “hear
the other side” on every issue.
However, academic freedom guidelines specifically say that
faculty members need not always cover “the other side” if
the standards of the discipline deem that other side to be
untrue. When topics seem to be settled, with a right answer
having emerged through science and ethics, faculty can focus
on the knowledge produced. A white nationalist view, for
example, does not merit debate within the campus marketplace
of ideas.
In the aftermath of the Charlottesville, Va.,
tragedy, these
disagreements have taken on a deeper significance, as those
of us who work within higher education navigate increasingly
polarized contexts for teaching, learning and research.
Public discussions of these issues have been dominated by legal analyses of the First Amendment, without sufficient
attention to philosophical discussion of disagreement, truth
and the democratic purposes of higher education.
College faculty and campus leaders are caught between wanting
to be nonpartisan and promoting their institution’s
missions, which often prioritize excellence and truth...
On the other hand, if colleges and unis are
mandated by executive order or law or whatever to allow free
speech, religious schools such as Liberty University, which also
receives federal research funds, might have to allow satanists
and abortion-rights advocates to speak on their campuses. So
there's that. Could be interesting.
Misusing the courts to capitalize on being hard done
by
It's not unusual for thin-skins who have the resources to try to
use the legal system to fight back against real and imagined
slights, generally via multi-million dollar
"defamation" lawsuits. Trump is one notable and obvious
example; a few of those defamation lawsuits are listed in this article,
though the piece also covers some of his other infamous and
yuuugely expensive legal dramas.
Another recent example is the "Covington kid," the
MAGA-cap-sporting Catholic school student Nicholas Sandmann, whose parents sued the New York Times for $250 million and, more recently, CNN for $275
million, for the news outlets' initial coverage of an incident in
which their kid confronted an elderly Native American activist
and some shouting Black Hebrew Israelite cultists. (Never mind
that the NYT and CNN and most other mainstream outlets revised
their stories as new info came to light.) Part of the plaintiffs'
argument was that the media are biased against Donald Trump and
conservatives. Ah, snowflakes. No two are alike, and yet at some
level they all are.
And now there's Devin and that fake mama and that bogus bovine
and, of course, that very real social media platform, the latter
of whom possesses the actual deep pockets that Devin and his
legal team hope to mine.
If you want a good laugh, read the lawsuit. I have been
trying to find a dowloadable PDF of the document that includes
the filing/court stamps, indicating that it was actually filed
and the date and time that this occurred. The document to which I
linked does not seem to be that, but it was uploaded to Scribd by
Fox News on March 18, and seems to be the reference point for all
of the chatter about it. It begins by trying to lay out the case
that Twitter has been purposely defaming
poor Devin and continues to do so, and that furthermore Twitter has it out for all Republicans.
1. Twitter is an information content
provider. Twitter creates and develops content, in whole or
in part, through a combination of means: (a) by explicit
censorship of viewpoints with which it disagrees, (b) by
shadow-banning conservatives, such as Plaintiff, (c) by
knowingly hosting and monetizing content that is clearly
abusive, hateful and defamatory – providing both a voice
and financial incentive to the defamers – thereby
facilitating defamation on its platform, (d) by completely
ignoring lawful complaints about offensive content and by
allowing that content to remain accessible to the public, and
(e) by intentionally abandoning and refusing to enforce its
so-called Terms of Service and Twitter Rules – essentially
refusing to self-regulate – thereby selectively amplifying
the message of defamers such as Mair, Devin Nunes’ Mom and
Devin Nunes’ cow, and materially contributing to the
libelousness of the hundreds of posts at issue in this
action.
2. Twitter created and developed the content at issue in this
case by transforming false accusations of criminal conduct,
imputed wrongdoing, dishonesty and lack of integrity into a
publicly available commodity used by unscrupulous political
operatives and their donor/clients as a weapon. Twitter knew
the defamation was (and is) happening. Twitter let it happen
because Twitter had (and has) a political agenda and motive:
Twitter allowed (and allows) its platform to serve as a
portal of defamation in order to undermine public confidence
in Plaintiff and to benefit his opponents and opponents of
the Republican Party...
And so on, and so forth, adding up to yet
another fine red whine. Alas, poor Devin, and oh, those poor,
put-upon Republicans.
This bit, which occurs towards the end and wraps up the counts
for which the plaintiff is demanding so much money, made me
chuckle.
COUNT IV – COMMON LAW CONSPIRACY...
... 54. Beginning in February 2018 and continuing through the
present, Mair, Devin Nunes’ Mom and Devin Nunes’ cow,
acting as individuals, combined, associated, agreed or acted
in concert with each other and/or with one or more
“clients” or other donors, non-profits, operatives or
agents of the Democratic Party (whose identity is unknown at
this time) for the express purposes of injuring Nunes,
intentionally and unlawfully interfering with his business
and employment as a United States Congressman, and defaming
Nunes. In furtherance of the conspiracy and preconceived
plan, the Defendants engaged in a joint scheme the unlawful
purpose of which was to destroy Nunes’ personal and
professional reputations and influence the outcome of a
federal election.
Nunes is asking for a minimum of
$250,000,000 for the alleged attempts to destroy his reputation,
but is certainly open to the idea of receiving much more, should
it please the court. On
his monologue on March 19, 2019, Stephen Colbert said that Nunes' legal team came up with that figure by
applying a scientific legal formula: they took the dollar amount
that Nunes' reputation is actually worth, and added $250,000,000
to it. That sounds about right.
Colbert and gang felt inspired by the hoopla to create another
parody Twitter account, Devin Nunes' Skin. The opening (and so far only) tweet:
Devin
Nunes' skin @devinnunesskin
Still thin.
Less than 24 hours after being launched, that
account had more than 30,000 followers. And although as of this
writing the account still contains a solitary tweet, the
following is making its way steadily to 44,000.
I am well aware that there is an ongoing debate
about several issues related to social media, and one of these
issues is the question of whether or not platforms such as
Facebook and Twitter are indeed biased against conservatives. A poll taken late last year by
Hill.TV and American Barometer indicated that a majority of American voters
thought that the social media giants have a systemic bias against
conservative views. Unsurprisingly, the poll was heavily divided
along party lines, with Republicans overwhelmingly likely to view
tech companies as being biased against conservatives. Media
bias is a perennial issue that is
worthy of exploration and analysis, but frivolous defamation
lawsuits by whiny politicians and other public figures are not
helpful at all.
Conspiranoia strikes deep...again
All of the talk about conspiracy to defame reminds me very much of
another defamation flawsuit from a few years back, one in which I was the top-named defendant. It didn't
make the mainstream news, of course, and was barely a blip in the
blogosphere, but if you think I am going to pass up an
opportunity to sneer about it, you are very much mistaken. As you
may know, the suit did not go very well for the plaintiff, Not-Doktor Leonard Coldwell,
aka LoonyC, the stupidest and most evil man in Scamworld; his
attorneys advised him to drop the case, and he did. Nor did his previous attempt to sue a critical blogger (my pal
and co-defendant in the aforementioned case, Salty Droid) go very
well; his rent-a-lawyer in that one
dropped out of the case early on, and the whole thing was
dismissed because LoonyC never showed up for any hearings. Yet he
has continued to boast about his powerful legal team and about
his steadfast willingness to fight and defeat anyone who dares to
"defame" him.
Arguably the majority of defamation lawsuits fail, at least in
the US. It's complicated, and I don't
claim to be anything remotely resembling an expert on these
matters. But it seems that more than likely, Devin Nunes doesn't have a very strong
case, in part because he is a
politician and a public figure, and America has a long history of
protecting those who make fun of our politicians. Also, Twitter
is merely distributing, not creating, the offending content. But
some have warned that even if Nunes loses the lawsuit and the
probable appeal, he is creating an opening for the Supreme Court
to reconsider its previous rulings on defamation and public
officials. As a lawmaker, Nunes is in a unique position to
introduce legislation that could very well have a chilling effect
that would make Putin proud.
For now, it seems nothing will stop either Nunes or his
detractors from... oh, you knew this was coming, didn't you?...
milking this matter for all it's worth. But it's worth noting
that last year Nunes was a co-sponsor of HR 1179, the
"Discouraging Frivolous Lawsuits Act." Cory Doctorow on Boing-Boing made sport of this (as well as the now-defunct fake-mama Twitter account).
Nunes is upset that he was called a
"herp-face," and is really upset about a human centipede meme that depicted Nunes, Trump and Putin as
generic, labeled stick-figures with their mouths grafted onto
one-another's anuses. This tweet may just be the greatest
exhibit ever filed in a lawsuit.
It's a very good thing to have a little comic
relief in the midst of the horror and chaos that is swirling all
around us, but let's hope that the right-wing snowflakes don't
have the last laugh.
Addendum, 5 April 2019:
Republican strategist Elizabeth "Liz" Mair, who besides
Twitter is actually the main defendant in Nunes' silly complaint,
wrote a serious editorial about the real threats to free speech
for all of us. It was published in USA Today. Here 'tis.
Related on this Whirled: Vintage whines from
conservative conspiranoid snowflakes
* * * * *
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you!
With February fading fast, it occurred to me
that I need to post something in order to maintain my record of
blogging at least once every month since the Whirled was created
in July 2006. I don't want to disappoint my four or five readers,
after all. There are scads of things to write about, as usual,
but for now I want to return to one of this blog's longtime
favorite topics, the inimitable scammer for all seasons and all
reasons, Kevin Trudeau, aka KT, aka
Katie.
I've been blogging about Katie for more than ten years now, often
focusing on what was once his greatest scam of all, the Global Information Network, or GIN, which was spawned in 2009. In its heyday GIN involved
a yuuuge multi-level marketing (MLM) scheme that the Federal
Trade Commission (FTC) eventually declared was a pyramid scheme.
To my knowledge the courts never ruled on that particular point,
but it became moot when the court-appointed receiver pulled the
plug on the MLM as it then existed. At any rate, lots of folks
lost lots of money that they'll never get back, and quite a few
were, and remain, justifiably angry about it.
Katie is currently serving a ten-year sentence in a federal prison camp -- FPC
Montgomery, Alabama (Inmate Number 18046036). He has referred to the place, either fake-fondly or
sarcastically, as Camp Cupcake. His vacation at Camp Cupcake
isn't punishment for GIN -- there may never be any justice served
for that -- but rather for a criminal contempt charge
related to false claims that Katie made on infomercials for his
diet book, The Weight Loss Cure "They" Don't Want
You To Know About. In the process of being pursued by the
government for years and years of fraudulent activities, Katie
became a fake hero/martyr in his own mind -- and in the minds of
his doting fans and followers -- for the First Amendment and freedom of speech. His imprisonment only added to his martyr credentials.
Most of y'all probably already know all of this, but a quick
recap never hurt anyone, and might be helpful to those who are
unfamiliar with the background.
Although he is imprisoned, Katie is still doing everything he can
to remain relevant in Scamworld, and some of his long-time pals
are helping him. While GIN is
in some senses a shadow of its former self, with a scaled-down affiliate program instead of the
big scammy MLM with its extravagant promises of wealth, health,
and perfect happiness, Katie continues to push his own shtick via
his Facebook page, and
apparently still has allies in and around GIN.
As of this writing, Katie's latest Facebook offering is a long spiel about ancient wisdom and self-realized
beings and whatnot.
Everything already IS when it comes to
the mind and spirituality. All has already been discovered
and revealed to all of us because so many have already
achieved "Enlightenment". There have been millions
of highly evolved beings on earth spanning thousands of
years, who have reached the spiritual level of being able to
observe and witness the mind in action and the entire
spiritual nonphysical nature of the Universe. These people
are known as being "Enlightened" or
"Saints" or Avatars or Self Realized.
Many of them, over thousands of years, have written such
observations and discoveries for all of us to learn from.
These texts are available to all of us. But, who will spend
the time, reading these esoteric texts from all around the
world? Very few.
Lucky for us, right now in fact, there are hundreds of
thousands of such "Enlightened" Self-Realized
beings on planet Earth. Many of them are sharing what they
"know" through books, lectures, videos, and
workshops. They are sharing what they KNOW, not just
"know about".
I encourage you to seek Truth from SOURCE via someone who is
not claiming to BE Source, but rather working to open you up
so that you can connect with Source directly. Finding such a
person, and following their teachings, is the fastest and
easiest path to get to where you absolutely want to go. Much
love to you as you proceed on your journey. Make it an
adventure!
Much love, and may you never be the same.
Your friend, KT
How's that for a shameless attempt to slap a
patina of timeless-spiritual-wisdom legitimacy onto Katie and his
Scamworld buddies? Subtle, huh?
There's also a new Katie-related Facebook page in town, or at
least it's new to me: Kevin Trudeau Teachings, which
popped up on my FB feed today. It's partly a rehash of some of
the wisdumb Katie shares on his own page, partly a GIN promo
vehicle, and partly a promotion for continuing efforts to free
Katie from the clink. (More on the latter in a little while.)
The first post that caught my eye on Kevin Trudeau Teachings,
written on February 27, was a rather garbled invitation to what the writer described
as a celebration of the tenth anniversary of Katie's big dream: an event billed as the Global Dream Celebration (GDC)
'19.
Come join us in celebrating the 10 Year
Anniversary of Kevin Trudeau's Dream... Celebration with all
KT's Global The Success Mastery Course Students www.ginunited.com
When the student is ready The Teacher/Mentor will appear. To
Receive a Mentor, use the following Affiliate Code: 1519886
and continue into deeper teachings of KT. The Month special
ends at midnight...
Interestingly enough, on the actual GIN site,
Katie isn't mentioned in the promo for the event.
A journey of 10,000 Miles begins with
the first step! Elevate Your Journey as the Dream
continues.... Join us in the Mile High City! Our journey of
10 years began with the first steps and Big Dreams in
2009.... We are going to continue to think BIGGER! We will
soar to new heights! We will climb new mountains! We will
stand on the summit and celebrate that we have risen above
every challenge on our pathway to greater successes! Big
Successes begin with Big Dreams, So Dream Bigger, Accomplish
Bigger Successes, Climb New Peaks, Fly with the Eagles and
Soar Even Higher
But judging from the social media content I've
seen, it seems clear that the Beloved Founder is still very much
a presence in GIN.
Apart from promoting GIN and Katie's own social media ramblings,
the Kevin Trudeau Teachings page is also pushing the efforts to
get Donald Trump to commute Katie's prison sentence and pardon
him. Natch, I've written about that quite a few times here too, this being one of the more recent-ish posts. Also on February 27, the KTT page offered this breathless post,
announcing what the writer claimed to be progress in the long
struggle, though it looked to me like the same old same old.
A clear, coherent strategy is quickly
taking shape to #FreeKevinTrudeau!
We’ve hinted about this on our page before, but now ALL the
pieces are in place and our strategy will be executed very
soon! It is VERY IMPORTANT, however, that our efforts be
duplicated. What this means is that when we, Janine, Lee and
others give the word and send out the link, IMMEDIATELY sign
the official White House petition and then email, text, and
FB message ALL of your friends and family, regardless if they
are KT supporters or not, and ask them to sign the petition
as well! Every single one of you will need to take personal
ownership to make this happen. You will need to be more
persistent than ever and FIGHT HARD to make this happen, as
if it all depended on you! With everyone doing this, we are
confident that we will not only reach the 100,000 signatures
we need, but we will do it quickly and we’ll exceed that
number! Then, President Trump will be required by law to
respond to our petition and we are more than confident that
he will #FreeKevinTrudeau!
Also, it is very important that you we have your email
address on file so that you can be notified through the
official channel at www.KevinTrudeau.com. You may also receive a text message notifying
you that the White House petition has gone live.
It is time to get pumped! This is the calm before the storm!
Let’s make this happen!
And lastly, please share the hell out of this post!
If you follow any of the links to my previous
posts about the efforts to sweet-talk Herr Drumpf into freeing
Kevin, you'll see that nothing has really changed. It's just the
same old hype. But now, more than ever, I'm willing to bet that
Trump's attention is on other matters.
* * * * *
By the way, when Googling the other day, I came
across a story from 2017 that had somehow escaped my attention: the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) sued one of
the former GIN "inner circle" members, one Darrell
Glenn Hardaway, for $4.7 million (later reduced to $3.1 mil).
According to the complaint, Hardaway
targeted GIN members with phony stock offerings.
1. This case is about a
multi-million-dollar fraud scheme carried out by Defendant
Darrell Glenn Hardaway ("Hardaway") using his
private company, Defendant Hardaway Net-Works, Inc.
("HNW"). Since at least as early as November 2010,
the Defendants have fraudulently raised $4.7 million or more
by selling securities issued by HNW. Hardaway successfully
marketed these securities to over a hundred fellow members of
a nationwide "success club" in which he was a
high-ranking leader. He targeted these victims both because
they had great trust in him and because they had taken an
oath not to criticize him.
2. The Defendants lured investor victims using baseless
projections about HNW's business operations. They falsely
claimed that investors stood to reap "massive"
returns upon HNW's ever-imminent public offering. And they
pressured victims to invest through a number of sham
"limited time" incentives.
3. In truth, HNW barely had a pulse. From 2010-16, HNW's
total revenue was a meager $24,812 from only a handful of
customers. By comparison, it had total expenses of
approximately $5 million during the same period—over 200
times revenues. Nearly $2 million of these expenses went to
fund Hardaway's lifestyle, rather than toward legitimate
business expenses. These payments took the form of both
salary and "expense reimbursements."
That "success club," named later in the document, was
indeed GIN. According to the release on the SEC site...
Without admitting or denying the
allegations in the SEC's complaint, Hardaway and HNW each
agreed to the entry of permanent injunctions and to defer
determination of any disgorgement, prejudgment interest, and
civil penalties. Hardaway also agreed to the entry of an
officer and director bar. The settlement is subject to court
approval.
I haven't really been able to find any updates
on this case, so if you have any info, send it on and I'll post
it.
In any case I guess you can't blame Hardaway for his misbehavior.
As a high-ranking member of GIN, Hardaway learned from the best.
And after all, as Kevin Trudeau himself loves to say, "Who
do you listen to?"
* * * * *
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you!
Last night I did something I hadn't done in a
very long time: I removed a published post from this blog. Nobody
told or asked me to remove the post. Nor did anyone threaten
legal action or worse. Moreover, the post had only been up about
four hours, and in that time, according to Blogger's helpful
stats-tracking, only one person had read it, indicating to me
that Whirled Musings is as wildly popular as ever. I just can't
keep up with the demand.
But after talking about it with my husband, I had some serious
second thoughts, given how unhinged and litigious the subject
appears to be (not to mention how apparently well-backed
financially he is). From all indications he is a serial scammer,
but has positioned himself as an American hero, which has earned
him a significant following of people who are all too willing to
throw their hard-earned money into his various political and
social "causes." He's a genius at raising money. What
happens to the money after he raises it is a matter that I'll leave
to the big investigative journos for now.
I'm not giving myself short shrift or being falsely modest, but
merely honest, when I state that like much of the content on this
Whirled, my deleted post wasn't breaking any new ground. I was
only reporting and linking to other credible sources about this
man and his many schemes. But I simply don't have the resources
to deal with any serious blow-back at this point.
What really sticks in my gut about this matter is
the fact that this guy has become such an advocate/activist for
"free speech," even starting a crowdfunding page,
supposedly to protect free speech, though apparently the real
purpose is to pursue legal action against platforms (e.g.
Facebook) that he feels have "censored" him. He has
already raised tens of thousands of dollars for this cause. But,
like so many other folks I've observed, it appears that he
believes "free speech" only applies to him and his
allies. He has threatened and harassed and even doxxed some of
his critics and detractors, and has then turned around and sued them
(and crowd-funded his legal costs). His litigiousness, as
well as his double standards about free speech -- not to mention
his right wingnutty political and social opinions and his love of
(actual) fake news -- remind me very much of a nutcake I've previously dealt with. But this guy has a much greater following than that
nutcake.
So I'll leave it to others to do the heavy lifting on this one:
those who either have the backing of a strong legal team or who
are lawyers themselves. Meanwhile, I'll go on being an advocate
of free speech, even if it's speech I don't like.
PS ~ Free speech doesn't mean consequence-free speech,
as whiny, blubbery conspiracy peddler Alex Jones learned again
when the courts handed a victory to plaintiffs in a
defamation suit against him. The
plaintiffs in question are families of the Sandy Hook shooting
victims, who alleged that they faced frightening threats and
harassment as a result of Jones' continual public claims that the
shooting was a hoax, The court ruled that Jones' fake-news org
Infowars must turn over internal documents to these families.
Related on this Whirled:
* * * * *
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you!
