Friends, I know nothing about Alex Jones but what I read in the article below, but the basic storyline here is one that troubles me. Jones spread false claims that the Sandy Hook school shooting was faked by the government, and now he's been ordered to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation to the families of the children killed in the attack, because his false claims caused them to be harassed and emotionally distressed. Now, one feels for any parent who loses a child, and especially for one who is then made to suffer gratuitous anquish, but the fact remains that "misinformation" is everywhere, and almost all of it exacts a price on someone. One could argue that Donald Trump is entitled to sue virtually every media organization and Democrat in the country, since they wronged him by spreading misinformation about his ties to Russia. One could argue that Trump himself should pay up, since he spread misinformation about the 2020 election. Both arguments are true, to a point, but the problem is that VERY often people say things that turn out to be false, despite the fact that they believe them. In addition, it isn't easy to assess the damage that "lies", or innocent mistakes about the truth, cause. But you and I know the upshot of this media and legal strategy already, don't we? For most judges, most lawyers, and most journalists, "misinformation" is, and always will be, a cudgel that is wielded exclusively against conservatives. "Lies" simply don't exist on the Left. Moreover, no leftist narrative is ever disproved. It's simply retired once it grows stale or useless, and the Bolshies move on to their next, well, lie. They get off scot-free. Personally, I prefer, for this very reason, to err on the side of free speech. Even those, like Jones, who spread hateful and destructive mistruths should be allowed to do so. They should even be allowed to profit from doing so. The antidote to such "misinformation", in my humble opinion, is accurate information, which no one is disbarred from sharing and spreading to their heart's content. What say you?
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-63237092
It's official: Tulsi Gabbard isn't just leaving the Dems -- she's cozying up to a particular GOP candidate in 2022, General Bolduc, who is running for U.S. Senate in the state of New Hampshire. Will Gabbard's intervention make a difference in the Granite State? I hope so. If Gabbard and Bolduc get along, that presumably means he's skeptical of cavalier foreign interventions, and if that's the case then he's my kind of Republican!
https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/tulsi-gabbard-don-bolduc-new-hampshire/2022/10/12/id/1091552/
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