As if to boost the brand of the League of Unrepentant Evildoers, Infowars founder Alex Jones has tried to join the likes of Purdue Pharma, Johnson & Johnson and the National Rifle Association in declaring bankruptcy as a way to evade multimillion-dollar court judgments against him. Jones is in the middle of multiple lawsuits over his assertions that small children massacred at Sandy Hook Elementary in Connecticut, along with their grieving parents, were merely actors in an elaborate hoax.
Survivors of the 20 first graders and six adults killed in 2012 have made clear the massacre was real. They even got Jones to admit there was no hoax. But the fact that they even had to go to court to defend the truth against his absurd allegations is what merited the heavy financial penalties jurors have imposed on Jones. Because of his lies, grieving survivors were forced into hiding because of the deranged, foil-hat conspiracists Jones unleashed upon them.
Jones deserves to forfeit every dime of his ill-gotten gains. He caused real harm, and all indications are that he did it knowing that he was making up this Infowars nonsense out of thin air so he could profit off his gullible followers. But because of convoluted bankruptcy laws in Republican-dominated states like Texas, Jones might wind up paying nothing.
