In Travis County custody case, jury will search for real Alex Jones

>But for Alex Jones, at the peak of his power and influence, what emerges from the art deco courthouse on Guadalupe Street might shape whether he comes to be seen by his faithful as more prophet or showman.

>Alex Jones is an Austin original who, 21 years after he got his own show on Austin public access television, has become an unlikely popular and political force in the Donald Trump era, an ingenious and indefatigable conjurer of conspiracy theories about sinister global elites seeking to enslave the masses, who found, in Trump, a hero open to his shadowy narratives.

>“Alex Jones and his Infowars’ umbrella of radio shows, YouTube and Facebook broadcasts, Internet website and tweets turned out to be Trump’s secret weapon,” Roger Stone, probably Trump’s oldest and closest political confidant, wrote in his book “The Making of the President 2016.” “His fiery words have struck a chord in the nation and he speaks for millions. In fact, more people follow Alex than watch Fox News or CNN.”

>In addition to broadcasting his radio show on some 150 stations, Infowars.com had 7.6 million global unique visitors between March 16 and April 14 according to Quantcast, which measures web audiences and ranked Infowars.com 387th among all U.S. websites, not far behind Texas.gov, MLB.com and PBS.org.

>The Alex Jones YouTube channel has more than 2 million subscribers and more than 1.2 billion video views.

>But Jones’ most important listener is the president of the United States.

>During the campaign and into his presidency, many of Trump’s most defining themes and questionable assertions either originated with or were popularized by Infowars: Hillary Clinton for prison. Hillary Clinton is gravely ill. Bill Clinton is a rapist. President Barack Obama founded ISIS. The election is rigged. Millions of immigrants voted illegally. The news media covers up terrorist attacks. The “fake news media … is the enemy of the people.” Obama spied on Trump.
...

>In December 2015, thanks to Stone, Trump appeared via Skype on Jones’ show.

>“Your reputation is amazing,” Trump told Jones. “I will not let you down.”

>Since Trump became president, Jones has purported on air to be in regular direct telephone contact with the president, apologizing for not always being able to answer the phone when the president calls. Last week, Jones said that the president had invited him to Mar-a-Lago but that he had to beg off because of family obligations.

>Recently, Jones faulted Trump for falling for the “false flag” that it was the Syrian government, and not its enemies, that deployed chemical weapons against civilians, but he says he understands the political expedience involved and remains hopeful that Trump will reclaim the anti-globalist mantle.

>Naranjo, meanwhile, said she had never seen or heard Jones on Infowars until Wednesday’s hearing, when Kelly Jones’ legal team started previewing Infowars videos it would like to play for the jury.

>The first was a clip from a July 2015 broadcast in which Jones had his son, then 12, on to play the latest of some 15 or 20 videos he had made with the help of members of the Infowars team who, Jones said, had “taken him under their wing” during summer days spent at the South Austin studio between stints at tennis and Christian camps.

>“He is undoubtedly cut out for this, and I intend for him to eclipse what I’ve done. He’s a way greater person than I was at 12,” said Jones, turning to his son. “I love you so much, and I didn’t mean to get you up here, sweetheart, and tell people how much I love you, but you’re so handsome, and you’re a good little knight who’s going to grow up, I know, to be a great fighter against the enemy.”

>“So far this looks like good stuff,” Wilhite said. Naranjo OK’d it for viewing by the jury.
...

>But Bobby Newman, the attorney for Kelly Jones guiding the court through the Infowars clips, was laying the groundwork for the argument that there is no separation between Alex Jones, father, and Alex Jones, Infowarrior.

>“This is the world he has planned for his kids,” said Newman, quoting Alex Jones at a recent hearing insisting that what he says on the air is what he believes.

>Next up was a video of a recent conversation between Jones and Stone on Infowars that quickly escalated into an expletive-studded, gay-bashing rant by Jones directed at Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee investigation of Trump’s Russia ties, in which, Schiff has suggested, Stone and Jones might be entangled.

>Jones’ rant ends: “You got that, you goddamn son of a bitch? Fill your hand,” echoing John Wayne’s warning in True Grit” to a man he’s about to shoot and kill.

>“This is nothing but a response to a congressman who called him a Russian spy,” said David Minton, another lawyer representing Alex Jones.

>“What possible relevance does that have?” Minton asked. “They want to throw the stench in the jury box and never get the stench out. It has nothing to do with parenting.”

>A few days after his Schiff riff, Jones characterized it on-air as “clearly tongue-in-cheek and basically art performance, as I do in my rants, which I admit I do, as a form of art.”

>“When I say, ‘I’m going to kick your ass,’ it’s the Infowar,” Jones said. “I say every day we’re going to destroy you with the truth.”

>Jones’ rhetoric is perpetually at a pugilistic fever pitch.

>Back in March, after Baldwin, playing Trump on “Saturday Night Live,” said he got his information on aliens from Alex Jones, Jones challenged Baldwin to a million-dollar charity bout — “I’ll get in the ring with you, and I will break your jaw, I will knock your teeth out, I will break your nose, and I will break your neck.”
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>When, just after the election, Jennifer Lopez lamented about Trump at the Grammys, Jones responded that Trump “doesn’t want to bring people in from Somalia where women are sold on slave blocks. Why don’t you go to Somalia for five minutes, lady; you’ll be gang-raped so fast it’ll make your head spin.”

>Naranjo said she wouldn’t allow the jury to hear the Schiff diatribe, but she allowed two other clips, including one showing Alex Jones smoking marijuana in California, where it is legal. Naranjo didn’t review the Baldwin and Lopez clips, and it’s not clear whether Kelly Jones’ attorneys will seek to include them in the trial.

Big legal bills

>Every record in the Jones case has been under seal since the divorce proceeding was initiated in Hays County in 2013. In January, the court denied Kelly Jones’ motion to unseal the record, granting a motion by Alex Jones — or simply A.J., as he is known in all the court filings — to keep them sealed

>For good measure, Naranjo said last week she was placing a gag order on all the litigants.

>At the previous pretrial hearing, on April 7, Naranjo ruled against Kelly Jones and her lawyers on a couple of key motions.

>Earlier this year, her lawyers had moved to add to the trial a $7 million emotional distress tort claim against Alex Jones.

>His lawyers said it was too late to prepare a defense against a new claim with 172 separate allegations. Naranjo agreed and promised to expedite a second trail on the tort claim.

>“They’d like to drag it out for two years, and she’ll be crushed and she’ll be bankrupt,” said Robert Hoffman, the Houston attorney who is Kelly Jones’ lead counsel, in arguing for rolling the tort claim into the trial.

>“She already is, for all practical purposes,” said Hoffman, who said she owed his firm $200,000, about all she had in the bank.
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>Her attorneys also filed a motion to require Alex Jones to help pay her interim legal fees to better enable her to rescue her children from his clutches.

>“I don’t think there’s another case in Travis County with three children whose welfare hangs in the balance like this, except maybe a (Child Protective Services) case,” Hoffman said.

>“This is a wonderful mother who has had her kids turned against her,” Hoffman said.

>Wilhite said the crux of Kelly Jones’ problem is that she has gone through one set of lawyers after another and some $3.5 million since her divorce settlement, much of it pursuing fruitless motion after motion that actually cost her access to her children each step of the way.

>And she already receives $43,000 a month from her ex-husband.

>Naranjo rejected the motion that Alex Jones should have to contribute more, noting that the average Travis County juror won’t understand why Kelly Jones’ monthly stipend is not enough to cover her legal bills.

>“It is not within the realm of experience of their lives,” Naranjo said.

>”They are not going to believe the amount of money that has been spent on this,” the judge said.

>“This case is not about Infowars,” Naranjo said. “But, for some reason, this family has done very well. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be five lawyers on one side of the table and three over here, because of the business this family is in.”

>Meanwhile, Alex Jones has remarried, and his new wife is expecting a child, who, his lawyers said, might arrive during the trial.

Alex Jones in deep shit.

>she already receives $43,000 a month
JUST

What a dumb bitch. She thinks shes going to win custody on the basis of shit he says on the radio show? Lol.

>I just play a character!

If that doesn't work for John Stewart, Bill O'Reilly, Stephen Colbert, or Glen Beck then why should it work for Alex Jones?

bunch of paid shills in this thread
i'm out

>>132888
Maybe you should explain why you think they are shills instead of screeching like an autist and leaving.

>>132775
This

>Stayed with her husband after he said sandy hook and Boston marathon bombing were false flag
>2015 Alex is now considered too mentally unstable

She knew what she was doing and the type of person that Alex Jones is. I honestly feel bad for the kids though. She gets 43k a month and still can't make bills, and wants more money, what is she spending all of the money on

>>132902
Custody battle

>>132883
But It worked great for Jon Liebowitz. He was able to vacillate between telling jokes he hadn't written to pretending to be serious news, almost entirely free from criticism.

>>132928
Apples and oranges comparison. Stewart's show came on a channel called "Comedy Central' that has nothing to do with news.

>>132929
>that has nothing to do with news.
That's completely the point; almost nobody took him to task for playing journalism without any of the accountability or responsibility of actual journalism.

He could dance away, "just comedy, goy" when it failed, and then turn around and keep delivering "news" to millions.

>>132919
The sad part is, she could've give up, still have visitation rights, and could've had plenty in the bank, but she was pushy about it.

>>132930
>almost nobody took him to task for playing journalism
>daily segments on Fox&Friends attacking him for being an out of touch liberal & a 10 year long feud with Bill O'Reilly
I don't think you were paying attention.

>>132933
That's not criticism for playing artful dodger as a journalist, that's other pundits (who receive no shortage of criticism) being pundits.

>>132935
lol it sounds like you're still mad that he exposed how horrible and damaging to the country Tucker Carlson's show was and got it kicked off of CNN way back when.

>>132937
It sounds like you've run out of arguments.

>>132939
There isn't any argument because your criticisms are invalid in the first place. It's like trying to disprove a conspiracy theory that was never proven in the first place. I've watched The Daily Show since Kilborn was host. I remember when Stewart got into a feud with Jim Cramer from CNBC. That kind of throws a wrench in your 'Stewart has an agenda and isn't a journalist!' assertions. That said, I've also watched O'Reilly and Sean Hannity and Rachel Maddow almost every day for all those years as well. All three of them pretend to be journalists when they aren't, so what's your point? If it's trying to single out Stewart for reporting news while not being a journalists then you've got bigger fish to fry.

>>132942
>watching all of these fucking leeches

How much has your brain atrophied by now?

>>132883
It totally worked for stephen Colbert... What are you on about

>watching or caring about news
>when you can't change it
>and it won't affect you until it's too late
kek

>>132944
I have three televisions on at all times, Anon. Get with the 21st century already.

>>132928
>Jon Liebowitz
Yes, he's jewish get over it. What is it with conservatives and using ethnic names as derogatory? Barry Sotero/Barack Hussein comes to mind too...

>>132942
Nice paragraph of irrelevant horseshit. You've completely lost track of the proposition while thinking you've won something. Reread the claim, then consider what your--apparently--years of being glued to television has bought you: the attention span of a goldfish.

>>132997
Nice pretending I didn't win something, not that there was something to win. Next time try to keep the thread on topic there, champ.

update
http://www.mystatesman.com/news/state--regional-govt--politics/jury-chosen-for-alex-jones-kelly-jones-child-custody-trial/A3F6zLPHJ7CbhRDpgvN6uJ/

>Twenty of the 60 or so people in the Travis County jury pool indicated with a show of hands that they have a negative impression of Alex Jones, with 13 of those potential jurors suggesting that they would find it hard to be fair to the man whose lawyer described him as a “provocateur” who espouses what “some would say are outrageous positions.”

>In a pretrial hearing, Alex Jones’ attorney Randall Wilhite said that his client’s “performance art” does not reflect on his parenting and shouldn’t be held against him in determining custody. In addressing the potential jurors Monday, he said that Jones’ “performance art” is “powerful and aggressive and strong and takes strident positions on controversial issues.”

>>132773
>Alex Jonenstein

>>132700
>>132701
Alex Jones convictions are not fake, but his persona that speaks purely in hyperbole probably is. I don't think that will affect his fan base much. That's why he's entertaining. If the worst shit he's said was that he wanted bad things to happen to bimbo celebrities, he'll win this case.

>Not all of the videos that Newman tried to show were admissible, though, with the judge rejecting anything overtly political so as not to make the whole trial about Jones’ repugnant political beliefs. Those videos included a clip of Jones at a party with his teenage son where the two of them were throwing darts at a picture of Hillary Clinton’s face, which Jones’ attorneys said could’ve made him look bad to any Clinton supporters on the jury. On a related note, one of the reasons Jones’ ex-wife is trying to get the kids away from him is that they’ve apparently begun repeating some of the things they hear their dad say. Assuming they’re not also playing characters, it seems pretty clear why that might be an issue.

http://www.avclub.com/article/alex-jones-first-day-court-went-just-great-253914