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owen shroyer 2 infowars bak

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posobiec mastriano? drop box BS?

aha pension plan for the cancelled?!

trump hires from TV fox audition, loyal // fascist mafia grifters

mma 5 24

eric and Donald Trump Jr. are assuming the position of “loyalty czars” within the Trump campaign, Axios reported on April 24, with the two eldest Trump sons aiming to “focus on vetting potential officials and staffers for ideology and loyalty” and to “take a lead in making sure government jobs are filled by Republicans aligned with Trump's vision for the party.”

Reporter Alex Thompson writes:

Don Jr.’s goal “is to keep the John Boltons of the world outside a second Trump administration,” a person close to him told Axios, referring to Donald Trump's hawkish former national security adviser who wrote a bestselling book lambasting the former president.

The New York Post similarly reported in March: “Should his father retake the Oval Office, Trump Jr. said he plans to take a ‘very active’ role in the the 2024 presidential transition team.”

“Mostly just to make sure we stop some of the D.C. swamp rats and the swamp creatures from getting in there and doing their thing,” he told the paper. “There are so many great people to choose from now with the first four years of the administration you have a good understanding of who would be great and loyal and implement the America First policies.”

On his Rumble podcast, Triggered, Trump Jr. has frequently taken recommendations from his audience and made his own suggestions of far-right extremists, conspiracy theorists, and MAGA loyalists who would fit into his vision for a second Trump administration:

===

Infowars host: "When you turn on Fox News now, it sounds a lot more like Infowars than it did 10 years ago" | Media Matters for America

==

rww --> mediaite 6 23

Shroyer, a colleague of Infowars conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, has pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge for his role in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

According to court documents, Shroyer pleaded guilty in a Washington, D.C. court Friday to a charge of entering or remaining in restricted grounds. In exchange, prosecutors dropped three other charges against him, including violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds. In addition, Shroyer agreed to cooperate with authorities who continue to investigate the riots.

HuffPost reported that Shroyer initially pleaded not guilty in August 2021, telling Infowars viewers at the time, “There’s a lot of questions — some I have answers to, some I don’t. I plan on declaring my innocence of these charges because I am.”

The Associated Press reported that Shroyer hosted a daily show called The War Room with Owen Shroyer on Jones’ Infowars platform, where he “promoted baseless claims of 2020 election fraud.”

During the Jan. 6 riot, Shroyer called into the show, saying, “We literally own these streets right now,”according to HuffPost. Prosecutors also had video of Shroyer in a restricted area of the Capitol grounds that was posted to Infowars.

According to the Associated Press, Shroyer used a megaphone outside the Capitol to yell that “Democrats are ‘tyrants'” and “‘Death to tyranny! Death to tyrants!'” AP added:

Near the top of steps on the Capitol’s east side, Shroyer, who’s from Austin, Texas, led hundreds of rioters in chants of “USA!” and “1776!” He later said in an affidavit that he stood with Jones as Jones tried to deescalate the situation.

Shroyer is expected to be sentenced on Sep. 12. He faces up to six months in jail and a fine of up to $9,500.

oWEN SHROYER (INFOWARS HOST): I want to explain something before I get into the content of this segment and that's – I look for logical consistency. And when I see illogic, I attack it. And when I see logical inconsistency, I attack it. And so that is the real issue to me in regards to the Kanye West / Ye saga that is ongoing. All I see is illogic and logical inconsistencies in this story, and that's what bothers me.

I don't know Kanye West. I've never been antisemitic. So I don't have a personal interest in this saga other than – I resent illogic and I resent logical inconsistencies. So let me explain what I'm talking about here.

Now, it is ironic – I think we understand now – when Kanye West said who invented cancel culture, he's expecting the answer to be Jewish people. That's why he posed that question. Now, that's the assumption that people took, considering he's now labeled the top antisemite now.

But then what happened? A bunch of rich and powerful Jewish people called to cancel Kanye West. So did that prove he was right or not?

For example, Endeavor CEO Ari Emanuel, one of the most influential people in Hollywood, has called on all companies to cut business ties with Kanye West, including Apple, Spotify, and Adidas. And now those companies are indeed cutting ties with Kanye West. He gets dropped by his talent agency. He gets dropped by his law firms that have been representing him, and now he gets dropped from Adidas. Now, Adidas was kind of holding out, but their stock tanked in the last 48 hours. And I think that that's really what led to the statement is their stock tanking. So you might ask, well, who sold the stock? Who forced that stock down to get Adidas to cut those ties? But see, it's never enough.

Here's Democrat propaganda agent [Brian] Tyler Cohen: It's too late for Adidas now. Kanye basically said he can spew anti-Semitic, vile, and Adidas won't do anything. And Adidas literally did nothing.

Except they did. They've now dropped him. So it's never enough. It's never enough for the cancel culture people. It's never enough once they've demonized you and made you the bad guy, even when you abide by what they want, it's never enough.

https://www.mediamatters.org/infowars/kanye-west-infowars-feedback-loop

no lnx vid

The Kanye West-Infowars feedback loop

West namechecked Alex Jones during his interview with Tucker Carlson, and an Infowars host defended West's antisemitic remarks, claiming that the backlash to West’s remarks “only proves what he is talking about is real.”

WRITTEN BY MADELINE PELTZ

PUBLISHED 10/10/22

Far-right outlet Infowars celebrated Kanye West after he made multiple antisemitic remarks on Instagram and Twitter over the weekend and pushed conspiracy theories on Fox News’ Tucker Carlson Tonight. The admiration goes both ways — West shouted out Infowars head Alex Jones during his interview on Fox.

West has made multiple antisemitic remarks over the course of his recent media tour. On Instagram, he posted screenshots of a text message allegedly sent to media mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs, in which he wrote “I'ma use you as an example to show the Jewish people that told you to call me that no one can threaten or influence me.” After he was restricted from posting on Instagram, he took to Twitter and threatened to go “death con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE,” who he claimed “have toyed with me and tried to black ball anyone whoever opposes your agenda.”

On the October 9 edition of Infowars’ Sunday Night Live, Jones reacted to West’s segment on Tucker Carlson Tonight, during which the rapper remarked, “Have I reached Alex Jones territory yet?”

Jones said “people are waking up and very exciting, positive things are happening” in response to West’s conspiracy theory suggesting that actor Matthew McConaughey and clothing retailer the Gap knew about the Uvalde school shooting before it happened. Jones added that West “has a lot of courage, and so does Candace Owens,” after the pair wore T-shirts that said “White Lives Matter”at West’s Paris fashion show. Jones took credit, saying, “We woke up Kanye West, folks.”

Video CitationFrom the October 9, 2022 edition of Infowars' Sunday Night Live

Later on, Infowars host Owen Shroyer took over the broadcast and went on a full-fledged antisemitic rant, saying he has “yet to see what Kanye West has said that’s bigoted.” Shroyer defended West, and concluded his segment by blaming Jewish people for poverty among Black Americans “when Jewish people are making out like bandits making millions of dollars on foreign policies.” He also said West is “being attacked relentlessly because he said ‘Jew.’”

Video CitationFrom the October 9, 2022 edition of Infowars' Sunday Night Live

OWEN SHROYER (HOST): I don’t see anything bigoted about it. Now you have the Democrat Party, you have the ADL, you have the SPLC, you have all these different groups and you have the conservative wing, the Israel First MAGA conservative wing, they’re all going after Kanye West too, saying he is bigoted. I did not hear one thing Kanye West said that was bigoted.

…

I don’t want to be involved in Russia-Ukraine. I don’t want to be involved in Israel-Palestine. I don’t want to be involved in Saudi Arabia-Yemen. I don’t want to be involved in any of this crap, and neither does Kanye West. And he sees this and he says why are Americans poor and hungry — specifically Black Americans — poor and hungry, when Jewish people are making out like bandits making millions of dollars on foreign policies? … So Kanye being attacked relentlessly because he said “Jew.” That’s what it is. You’re not even allowed to say it, you’re not even allowed to point out that there’s anybody Jewish in the media or anybody Jewish in the Congress, you’re not allowed to do it.

When the broadcast resumed after a break, Shroyer said the backlash to West’s remarks “only proves what he is talking about is real.”

VideoCitationFrom the October 9, 2022 edition of Infowars' Sunday Night Live

Infowars also published an article with the headline “Establishment Sends Warning to Kanye West For Speaking His Mind.”

ny mag

IMPEACHMENT

Protester Shouting ‘Treason’ Interrupts Impeachment Hearing

IMPEACHMENT DEC. 9, 2019

Protester Shouting ‘Treason’ Interrupts Impeachment Hearing

By Benjamin Hart@realaxelfoley

Photo: Jonathan Ernst/POOL/AFP via Getty Images

Monday’s impeachment hearings got off to a half-tense, half-wacky beginning when a pro-Trump protester briefly interrupted House Judiciary chairman Jerry Nadler’s opening marks to accuse him of treason and Democrats of running a phony trial.

[ Intelligencer's

The man, who was quickly escorted out of the room by security, was identified as Owen Shroyer, who over the years has pushed the Pizzagate conspiracy theory and other fringe ideas. His yelling drew some light laughter in the room, and served as a nice appetizer for the far more reasonable congressional Republican arguments to come.

TAGS: IMPEACHMENT JERRY NADLER POLITICS OWEN SHROYER

mma 9 22

p1 of many

Infowars host: Bomb threat to Boston Children's Hospital was a false flag from the hospital itself

08/31/22 5:05 PM EDT

Infowars' Owen Shroyer praises Fox News for attacking the FBI so they don't have to

08/15/22 2:00 PM EDT

Infowars responds to news of attack at FBI office by calling the bureau a “terrorist organization”

08/11/22 2:11 PM EDT

Infowars host: “Fox News at night sounds more like Infowars this week than ever before”

08/11/22 1:35 PM EDT

Conservative media outlets are embracing Alex Jones more than ever

08/11/22 11:13 AM EDT

Grainy photo of Tucker Carlson

Tucker Carlson lists Trump's coup plotters who he says should never be punished for anything, ever

07/01/22 1:08 PM EDT

Right-wing media targets parents for allowing their kids to see drag queen story hour

Right-wing media’s latest anti-LGBTQ strategy is to call for kids to be taken away from their parents

06/21/22 10:51 AM EDT

In segment on abortion protests, ABC News features Infowars host on trial for January 6

05/09/22 11:48 AM EDT

Hunter Biden biolabs claim

A conspiracy theory about Hunter Biden and Ukrainian biolabs went from QAnon supporters and far-right message boards to the Kremlin and Tucker Carlson

03/28/22 4:38 PM EDT

Supreme Court building shadowed by screenshots of tweets

Biden pledged to nominate a Black woman to the Supreme Court. Right-wing media are rushing to dismiss the idea

01/28/22 3:40 PM EST

Grainy photo of Tucker Carlson

Tucker Carlson promoted a debunked false-flag January 6 conspiracy theory, elevating it from fringe media to Fox News prime time

01/19/22 4:19 PM EST

screen grab

In the wake of his groveling interview with Tucker Carlson, Sen. Ted Cruz brings January 6 conspiracy theories into congressional hearing

01/11/22 5:36 PM EST

Bannon, Alexander, and Jones

A year later, the right-wing media figures who helped spur the January 6 insurrection continue to spread disinformation

01/07/22 8:46 AM EST

subscribestar.png

Subscribestar is profiting from conspiracy theorists, QAnon influencers, and white nationalists -- despite its rules

12/01/21 10:43 AM EST

Ballots floating on the U.S. map

Right-wing media have spent a year trying to discredit the 2020 presidential election in promotion of the Big Lie

11/02/21 12:21 PM EDT

Owen Shroyer ranting after being charged for actions related to January 6

Infowars host Owen Shroyer blames FBI, Capitol Police, and Nancy Pelosi for manufacturing January 6 hours after he's charged

08/20/21 5:11 PM EDT

Alex Jones and Infowars smear Dominion

Alex Jones uses lies about Dominion Voting Systems and the 2020 election to line his pockets

08/03/21 10:59 AM EDT

Newsmax host says "it's ok to have concerns" about the outcome of the 2020 election

Newsmax host: “I still have concerns about the election of 2020, and it's OK to have concerns”

08/03/21

LI albany ohio no info

Maria Bartiromo  3rd degree ion3rd

Anchor, Fox Business Network Fox News Channel || Host of Mornings with Maria 6-9 AM ET M-F and Sunday Morning Futures

Dana Perino  3rd degree ion3rd

Co-host of "The Five" at Fox News Channel // Co-anchor of America's Newsroom

Jacqui Heinrich  3rd degree ion3rd

White House Correspondent at Fox News Media

Bill Bronner  3rd degree ion3rd

Owner, ComedyNation.com

Savanah Hernandez  3rd degree ion3rd

Producer at Free Speech Systems

Taylor Weaver  out of network3rd+

Customer Service Representative at Free Speech Systems, LLC

Rob D.  3rd degree ion3rd

Senior Content Producer, Supervisor & Video Editor

Robert Castaneda  3rd degree ion3rd

Lead Graphic Designer at Free Speech Systems, LLC

Message

Rob Black  3rd degree ion3rd

Internet Talk Show Host / Comedy Author

Greg Reese  3rd degree ion3rd

Content Producer

wiki 9 22

infoWars is an American far-right[2] conspiracy theory[3] and fake news website[1] owned by Alex Jones.[36][37] It was founded in 1999, and operates under Free Speech Systems LLC.[38]

Talk shows and other content for the site are created primarily in studios at an undisclosed location in an industrial area in the outskirts of Austin, Texas.[39] Reports in 2017 stated that the InfoWars website received approximately 10 million monthly visits, making its reach greater than some mainstream news websites such as The Economist and Newsweek at the time.[40][41]

The site has regularly published fake stories which have been linked to harassment of victims.[48] In February 2018, Jones, the publisher, director and owner of InfoWars, was accused of discrimination and sexually harassing employees.[49] InfoWars, and in particular Jones, advocate numerous conspiracy theories, particularly around purported domestic false flag operations by the U.S. government (which they allege include the 9/11 attacks and Sandy Hook shootings). InfoWars has issued retractions various times as a result of legal challenges.[44][45] Jones has had contentious material removed, and has also been suspended and banned from many platforms for violating their terms of service, including Facebook,[50] Twitter,[51] YouTube,[52] iTunes,[53] and Roku.[54]

InfoWars earns revenue from the sale of products pitched by Jones during the show, including dietary supplements. It has been called as much "an online store that uses Mr. Jones's commentary to move merchandise" as a media outlet.[55]

On July 30, 2022, amidst a $150 million lawsuit brought against Jones and InfoWars by Sandy Hook families, Free Speech Systems filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Protection.[56]

Contents

History

[](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Alex_Jones_%26_Paul_Joseph_Watson_%289072625782%29.jpg)

Alex Jones with Paul Joseph Watson in 2013

InfoWars was created in 1999 by American conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who remains its controlling influence.[57][58] InfoWars features The Alex Jones Show on their broadcasts and was established as a public-access television program aired in Austin, Texas in 1999.[57]

During the 2016 presidential election, the website was promoted by bots connected to the Russian government.[59] A 2017 study by the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University found that InfoWars was the 13th most shared source by supporters of Donald Trump on Twitter during the election.[60][61]

In 2016, Paul Joseph Watson was hired as editor-at-large.[62][63] In February 2017, political commentator Jerome Corsi was hired as Washington bureau chief,[64] after InfoWars was granted a White House day pass.[65] In June 2018, Corsi's connection to InfoWars ended; he received six months of severance payments.[66]

In May 2017, Mike Cernovich joined the InfoWars team as a scheduled guest host for The Alex Jones Show,[67] with CNN reporting the "elevation to InfoWars host represents the meteoric rise in his profile".[68] On July 6, 2017, alongside Paul Joseph Watson, Jones began hosting a contest to create the best "CNN Meme", for which the winner would receive $20,000. They were responding to CNN reporting on a Reddit user who had created a pro-Trump, anti-CNN meme.[69][70]

In June 2017, it was announced that Roger Stone, a former campaign advisor for Donald Trump, would be hosting his own InfoWars show "five nights a week", with an extra studio being built to accommodate his show.[37]

In March 2018, a number of major brands in the U.S. suspended their ads from InfoWars's YouTube channels, after CNN notified them that their ads were running adjacent to InfoWars content.[71]

In July 2018, YouTube removed four of InfoWars's uploaded videos that violated its policy against hate speech and suspended posts for 90 days. Facebook also banned Jones after it determined four videos on his pages violated its community standards in July 2018.[52][50] In August 2018, YouTube, Apple, and Facebook removed content from Jones and InfoWars, citing their policies against hate speech and harassment.[53]

In an October 2018 Simmons Research survey of 38 news organizations, InfoWars was ranked the second least-trusted news organization by Americans, with The Daily Caller being lower-ranked.[72]

On March 12, 2020, Attorney General of New York Letitia James issued a cease and desist letter to Jones concerning InfoWars's sale of unapproved products that the website falsely asserted to be government-approved treatments for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).[73] On April 9, the FDA ordered InfoWars to discontinue the sale of a number of products marketed as remedies for COVID-19 in violation of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, including toothpaste, liquids, and gels containing colloidal silver.[74][75]

Sexual harassment and antisemitism claims

In February 2018, Jones was accused by two former employees of antisemitism, anti-black racism and sexual harassment of both male and female staff members. He denied the allegations.[76][77][78] InfoWars, Haaretz reported in 2017, had accused Israel of involvement in the 9/11 attacks, accused the Rothschilds of the promotion of “endless war, debt slavery and a Luciferian agenda” and US health-care is under the control of a “Jewish mafia.”[79]

Two former employees filed complaints against Jones with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.[80]

Removals from other websites

On July 27, 2018, Facebook suspended Alex Jones's official page for thirty days, claiming Jones had participated in hate speech against Robert Mueller.[81] This was swiftly followed by action from other bodies—on August 6, Facebook, Apple, YouTube and Spotify all removed content by Alex Jones and InfoWars from their platforms for violating their policies. YouTube removed channels associated with Infowars, including The Alex Jones Channel, which had gained 2.4 million subscriptions prior to its removal.[82] On Facebook, four pages associated with InfoWars and Alex Jones were removed due to repeated violations of the website's policies. Apple removed all podcasts associated with Jones from its iTunes platform and its podcast app.[53] On August 13, Vimeo removed all Jones's videos because they "violated our terms of service prohibitions on discriminatory and hateful content".[83] By February 2019, a total of 89 pages associated with InfoWars or Alex Jones had been removed from Facebook due to its recidivism policy, which is designed to prevent circumventing a ban.[84] In May 2019, President Donald Trump tweeted or retweeted defenses of people associated with InfoWars, including editor Paul Joseph Watson and host Alex Jones, after the Facebook ban.[85]

Jones's accounts have also been removed from Pinterest,[86] Mailchimp[87] and LinkedIn.[88] As of early August, Jones still had active accounts on Instagram[89] and Twitter.[90][91] Twitter, however, ultimately decided to permanently deactivate Jones's account as well as the InfoWars account in September 2018.[92] The Wikipedia community deprecated and blacklisted InfoWars as a source by snowball clause consensus in 2018; the community determined that InfoWars is a "conspiracy theorist and fake news website".[93]

Jones tweeted a Periscope video calling on others "to get their battle rifles ready against antifa, the mainstream media, and Chicom operatives".[94] In the video he also says, "Now is time to act on the enemy before they do a false flag." Twitter cited this as the reason to suspend his account for a week on August 14.[95] On September 6, Twitter permanently banned InfoWars and Alex Jones for repeated violations of the site's terms and conditions. Twitter cited abusive behavior, namely a video that "shows Jones shouting at and berating CNN journalist Oliver Darcy for some 10 minutes during congressional hearings about social media."[51]

On September 7, 2018, the InfoWars app was removed from the Apple App Store.[96] On September 20, 2018, PayPal informed InfoWars they would cease processing payments in ten days because "promotion of hate and discrimination runs counter to our core value of inclusion."[97] On May 2, 2019, Facebook and Instagram banned Jones and InfoWars as part of a larger ban of far-right extremists. The ban covered videos, audio clips, and articles from InfoWars, but excluded criticism of InfoWars. Facebook indicated it would take down groups that violated the ban.[98] The InfoWars app was pulled from Google Play on March 27, 2020, for violating its policies on spreading "misleading or harmful disinformation", after Jones opposed efforts to contain COVID-19 and said "natural antivirals" could treat the disease.[99]

Content

Promotion of conspiracy theories and fake news

InfoWars disseminates multiple conspiracy theories, including false claims against the HPV vaccine[42] and claims the 2017 Las Vegas shooting was part of a conspiracy.[100] In 2015 skeptic Brian Dunning listed it a #4 on a "Top 10 Worst Anti-Science Websites" list.[101]

InfoWars advocates New World Order conspiracy theories, 9/11 conspiracy theories, the chemtrail conspiracy theory, conspiracy theories involving Bill Gates, supposed covert government weather control programs, claims of rampant domestic false flag operations by the US Government (including 9/11), and the unsupported claim that millions voted illegally in the 2016 US presidential election.[102][103] Jones frequently uses InfoWars to assert that mass shootings are conspiracies or "false flag" operations; these false claims are often subsequently spread by other fake news outlets and on social media.[104][105] This has been characterized as Second Amendment "fan fiction".[106]

Infowars has published and promoted fake news,[46] and Jones has been accused of knowingly misleading people to make money.[107] In the summer of 2015, video editor Josh Owens and reporter Joe Biggs took a video of workers loading cargo in Texas. They claimed the men were drug smugglers; the Drudge Report picked up their headline, and Donald Trump used it in a campaign speech. Owens admitted years later: "It's not about truth, it's not about accuracy — it's about what's going to make people click on this video...In essence, we lied." (Biggs was later indicted for seditious conspiracy for his role with the Proud Boys in the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol.)[108] As part of the probe by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) into Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections, InfoWars was investigated to see if it was complicit in the dissemination of fake news stories distributed by Russian bots.[109]

From May 2014 to November 2017, InfoWars republished articles from multiple sources without permission, including over 1,000 from Russian state-sponsored news network RT, as well as stories from news outlets such as CNN, the BBC, and The New York Times which Salon said were "dwarfed" by those from RT.[110][111]

A 2020 study by researchers from Northeastern, Harvard, Northwestern and Rutgers universities found that InfoWars was among the top 5 most shared fake news domains in tweets related to COVID-19, the others being The Gateway Pundit, WorldNetDaily, Judicial Watch and Natural News.[35]

Claims of false flag school shootings

InfoWars has regularly claimed, without evidence, that mass shootings have been staged "false flag" operations and has accused survivors of such events of being crisis actors employed by the United States government. InfoWars host Alex Jones promoted the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting conspiracy theories, claiming that the massacre of twenty elementary school students and six staff members was "completely fake" and "manufactured," a stance for which Jones was heavily criticized.[43] In March 2018, six families of victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, as well as an FBI agent who responded to the attack, filed a defamation lawsuit against Jones for his role in spreading conspiracy theories about the shooting.[112][113][114][115] In December 2019, InfoWars and Jones were ordered to pay $100,000 in legal fees prior to the trial for another defamation lawsuit from a different family whose son was killed in the shooting.[116][117] In a June 2022 agreement, the families will drop their Texas and Connecticut defamation cases against Infowars, Prison Planet TV and IW Health, and in return, those companies will no longer pursue their Texas case for bankruptcy protection. The families may continue to pursue defamation cases against Alex Jones and Free Speech Systems.[118]

Jones has also accused David Hogg and other survivors of the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting of being crisis actors.[119]

Pizzagate conspiracy theory

InfoWars promoted fabricated Pizzagate claims. The fake claims led to harassment of the owner and employees of Comet Ping Pong, a Washington, D.C. pizzeria targeted by the conspiracy theories, including threatening phone calls, online harassment, and death threats. The owner sent a letter to Jones in February 2017 demanding a retraction or apology. (Such a letter is required before a party may seek punitive damages in an action for libel under Texas law).[120]

After receiving the letter, Jones said, "I want our viewers and listeners to know that we regret any negative impact our commentaries may have had on Mr. Alefantis, Comet Ping Pong, or its employees. We apologize to the extent our commentaries could be construed as negative statements about Mr. Alefantis or Comet Ping Pong, and we hope that anyone else involved in commenting on Pizzagate will do the same thing." InfoWars also issued a correction on its website.[121]

InfoWars reporter Owen Shroyer also targeted East Side Pies, a group of pizza restaurants in Austin, Texas, with similar fake "Pizzagate" claims. Following the claims, the pizza business was targeted by phone threats, vandalism, and harassment, which the co-owners called "alarming, disappointing, disconcerting and scary".[47]

Chobani retraction

In 2017, InfoWars (along with similar sites) published a fake story about U.S. yogurt manufacturer Chobani, with headlines including "Idaho yogurt maker caught importing migrant rapists" and "allegations that Chobani's practice of hiring refugees brought crime and tuberculosis to Twin Falls". Chobani ultimately filed a federal lawsuit against Jones, which led to a settlement on confidential terms in May 2017. Jones offered an apology and retraction, admitting he had made "certain statements" on InfoWars "that I now understand to be wrong".[44][45]

Businesses

While Jones has stated, "I'm not a business guy, I'm a revolutionary", he spends much of InfoWars's air time pitching dietary supplements and survivalist products to his audience. As a private firm, InfoWars and its affiliated limited liability companies are not required to make public financial statements; as a result, observers can only estimate its revenue and profits.[55]

Prior to 2013, Jones focused on building a "media empire".[122] By 2013, Alex Seitz-Wald of Salon estimated that Jones was earning as much as $10 million a year between subscriptions, web and radio advertising, and sales of DVDs, T-shirts, and other merchandise.[123] That year, Jones changed his business model to incorporate selling proprietary dietary supplements, including one that promised to "supercharge" cognitive functions.[122]

Unlike most talk radio shows, InfoWars itself does not directly generate income. It gets no syndication fees from its syndicater GCN, no cut of the advertising that GCN sells, and it does not sell its three minutes per hour of national advertising time. The show no longer promotes its video service (though it still exists), and has not made any documentary films since 2012.[122] Virtually all money is made by selling Jones's dietary supplements to viewers and listeners through the site's online store.[122]

In 2017, the supplements sold on the InfoWars store were primarily sourced from Dr. Edward F. Group III, a chiropractor who founded the Global Healing Center supplement vendor.[122] A significant portion of InfoWars's products contain colloidal silver, which Jones falsely claimed "kills every virus", including "the whole SARS-corona family"; this claim was disputed by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).[124]

A lesser source of revenue for InfoWars is its "money bomb" telethons, which resemble public radio fundraisers, except InfoWars is a for-profit institution. According to former InfoWars employees, a money bomb was able to raise $100,000 in a day.[125]

In 2014, Jones claimed that InfoWars was accumulating over $20 million in annual revenue. The New York Times attributed most of the revenue to sales of supplements, including "Super Male Vitality" and "Brain Force Plus," which InfoWars purported would increase testosterone and mental agility, respectively.[55] Court documents in 2014 indicate that InfoWars was successful enough for Jones and his then-wife to be planning to "build a swimming pool complex ... featuring a waterfall and dining cabana with a stone fireplace". The documents also listed Jones's possessions, including four Rolex watches, a $40,000 saltwater aquarium, a $70,000 grand piano, $50,000 in weapons, and $70,000 in jewelry.[55]

After InfoWars was banned by Facebook, YouTube, Apple, Spotify, and Pinterest, Jones appealed to viewers, "The enemy wants to cut off our funding to destroy us. If you don't fund us, we'll be shut down."[55]

Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection

In April 2022, it became known the company behind InfoWars had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, as had Infowars Health (or IWHealth), against further civil litigation lawsuits.[126] The court filings estimated InfoWars assets at between $0–$50,000, but its liabilities (including from the damages awarded against Jones in defamation suits) was estimated as being between $1 million to $10 million.[127]

Hosts...[sep art on jnz]

Owen Shroyer (born 1989) is an American political activist and commentator from St. Louis who now lives and works in Texas. He is considered to be part of the US alt-right movement.[128]

Shroyer previously worked as an AM radio host in St. Louis on KXFN and later KFNS.[129][130] He began hosting a podcast and posting YouTube videos of his views. Shroyer has been quoted as supporting conspiracy theories about the Clinton family.[131]

On August 20, 2021, Shroyer was charged with illegally entering a restricted area and disorderly conduct during the 2021 United States Capitol attack. He announced on InfoWars that there was a warrant for his arrest and that he would fight the charges.[132]

See also

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Judge Confronts Owen Shroyer About Hosting on InfoWars ...https://www.youtube.com › watch

Jul 29, 2022 — WATCH: The judge in the Alex Jones defamation trial confronted InfoWars host Owen Shroyer about being on air with Jones Tuesday and discussing ...

Movies and TV shows

War Room

Alex's War

You Can’t Watch This

Infowars Host Owen Shroyer Testifies In Alex ... - YouTubehttps://www.youtube.com › watch

Jul 28, 2022 — Owen Shroyer, host of Infowars show "The War Room," testifies in Alex Jones's defamation trial on Thursday.

Infowars host Owen Shroyer takes stand in Alex Jones ... - KXANhttps://www.kxan.com › news › local › austin › did-no-...

Jul 29, 2022 — Owen Shroyer, who hosts his own talk show on conspiracy theorist Alex Jones' website, took the stand Thursday afternoon in Jones' defamation ...

Shroyer Complaint & Statement of Factshttps://www.justice.gov › usao-dc › file › downloadPDF

On January 17, 2020, JONATHON OWEN SHROYER (“SHROYER”) was charged by an Information in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, Case No. 2020 CMD 000820 ...

Infowars host Owen Shroyer charged in Jan. 6 Capitol riothttps://apnews.com › article

owen shroyer from apnews.com

Aug 20, 2021 — The host of a program for the right-wing website Infowars, Owen Shroyer, has been charged in connection to the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. ...

Owen Shroyer - latest news, breaking stories and commenthttps://www.independent.co.uk › topic › owen-shroyer

owen shroyer from www.independent.co.uk

Owen Shroyer · Sympathetic portrayal of Alex Jones rebuked as 'hypocrisy' · Alex Jones' wife arrested on domestic violence charge · Infowars host asks for money ...

Infowars Host Owen Shroyer Charged In Capitol Riothttps://www.buzzfeednews.com › article › zoetillman

owen shroyer from www.buzzfeednews.com

Aug 20, 2021 — The government says Shroyer went into a restricted part of the Capitol. ... Owen Shroyer from Infowars is removed from a public impeachment ...

InfoWars' Owen Shroyer on Sandy Hook report during Alex ...https://www.statesman.com › news › local › 2022/07/29

owen shroyer from www.statesman.com

Jul 29, 2022 — Owen Shroyer, an InfoWars host and sometimes reporter who is a frequent guest on "The Alex Jones Show," spent Friday morning on the stand.

owenshroyerfanpage - Instagramhttps://www.instagram.com › owenshroyerfanpage

owenshroyerfanpage. Follow. OWEN SHROYER FANPAGE. Honoring the prophesized SJW slayer.

Infowars Sidekick Owen Shroyer Testifies In Alex Jones ...https://news.yahoo.com › infowars-sidekick-owen-shro...

owen shroyer from news.yahoo.com

Jul 28, 2022 — AUSTIN, Texas ― A longtime sidekick for conspiracy theorist Alex Jones took the stand Thursday in a trial that will determine how much Jones ...

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OWEN SHROYER (HOST): They set up the false flags. They set up the false narratives so that they can claim to be the victim and assume more power as their hour of corruption is on full display. Why doesn't the DOJ want federal agents blowing the whistle? Because they know what they're doing is illegal.

Why does the Boston Children's Hospital erase all the documents about the trans kids' surgeries and erase all their videos about the trans kids' surgeries? Because they know what they're doing is child abuse. They don't want you to know what they're doing, but they want to be able to do it in public so that you just assume it's okay. But then when you pointed out and you say, Hey, that's not okay, they say, Wait a second, we're not even doing this. Because they know it's criminal.

They're abusing children. And they're using the government in authoritarian, totalitarian ways. And we just sit here and take it because our Congress is so pathetic. Our media is so pathetic. And quite frankly, the average American person is so pathetic. Sad truths. Sad truths.

So they set themselves up at the victim. "Bomb Threat At Boston Children's Hospital Was A False Alarm, Police Say."

Oh, you don't say.

They probably bomb threat themselves. Probably one of those liberal doctors that chops little kids' weenies off and chops little girls' breasts off. Probably one of those doctors, they called in a fake bomb threat to say, see, I'm the victim now, bring in more kids for me to slaughter. Bring in more kids for me to chop up. Bring in more kids for me to slice and dice. I'm a liberal, and I'm here to slaughter your baby. And then when you call it out, they erase the documents, they erased the videos, and they say, we never did this. In fact, you're lying about us, and now we're getting bomb threats.

They're unreal in their lying and their fraud and their corruption. And their disdain towards humanity.

FBI does the same thing. The Daily Beast today. FBI is facing unprecedented mega threats. Oh, what a bunch of federal agents go online and post anonymous accounts threatening the FBI. Oh, oh, like a bunch of federal agents pretend to kidnap Governor Whitmer. Try to pretend to kidnap Governor Northam. Go out on January 6th inciting violence, telling people to go into the Capitol. Unbelievable levels of corruption. This is the most dangerous time in this country's history. Perhaps even the world.

If the American government becomes this authoritarian and this corrupt, folks, it's over. Forget about it. Forget about it. America is the last bastion of hope and freedom and independence and prosperity that this planet has to offer. And if it goes away, it's done. It's over. And that's why the globalists are so intent on destroying America right now.That's why you see all the operations so hardcore in America right now.

So they false flag themselves. Oh, we're getting threatened. They threatened themselves. It's false flag. Whether it's the Boston Children's Hospital or whether it's the FBI, it's them doing it to themselves so that they can cry victim in their time of exposure. And then they threaten employees who dare go public with the corruption.

https://www.mediamatters.org/alex-jones/conservative-media-outlets-are-embracing-alex-jones-more-ever

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Conservative pundits are increasingly embracing far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, even as his financial losses mount and his professional future remains uncertain following a high-profile lawsuit. Right-wing outlets have not only adopted many of the fringe host’s conspiratorial affects and theories, but several have also provided Jones with a platform to spread his extremist brand of paranoid quackery.

The decision to give Jones an opportunity to find new audiences — or to tap into his own — is especially fraught right now, given that he was just found liable for defamation and forced to pay more than $45 million in damages to parents of a 6-year-old child killed in the Sandy Hook shooting in 2012. Jones now faces another defamation suit in Connecticut, also related to comments he made about Sandy Hook, which the talk show host and vitamin supplement salesman referred to as “a giant hoax.”

Although Jones has long been legitimized and defended by the right, conservative media’s increasingly open celebration of him appears to signal a new phase of their relationship with the serial fabulist. Conservatives are bringing him in from the fringe under the guise of free speech and fighting back against the supposed Big Tech censorship, using his deplatforming in 2018 and subsequent court-ordered payments in the Sandy Hook trial to transform him into a First Amendment martyr. And following the FBI’s search of former President Donald Trump’s residence at the Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, several right-wing hosts interviewed Jones as though he were a Casandra-like figure whose long history of alarmist warnings of government tyranny had finally come to pass.

Fox News’ top star Tucker Carlson reportedly regularly texts with Jones and has praised him in various venues repeatedly. In July, Carlson once again told his audience that the antisemitic Great Replacement conspiracy theory was real, but mainstream outlets wouldn’t acknowledge it for fear of being categorized alongside Alex Jones. Earlier this year, Carlson said Jones is “a lot more talented than I am” and generally endorsed his conspiracy theories about liberal philanthropist George Soros. Carlson has been a guest on Infowars and wrote a blurb for Jones’ new book.

Steve Bannon, the host of the War Room podcast and a former Trump chief strategist, appeared on an episode of Jones’ Infowars following the FBI search at Mar-a-Lago. He heaped accolades on Jones, recognizing Infowars as “one of the major news sources out there for the MAGA movement.” Along with Jones, Bannon proceeded to lay out wild, completely speculative conspiracy theories. [vid]

"I do not think it's beyond this administrative state and their deep state apparatus to actually try to work on the assassination of President Trump,” Bannon said, providing no evidence to support the claim.

Bannon then suggested that the FBI may have “planted stuff” — that is, incriminating evidence — during the search.

“Exactly. How do we know a hundred agents in there with their long history of planting things, didn't plant something classified,” Jones echoed.

“You're absolutely right,” Bannon responded. (That theory has since been adopted by Fox News hosts and Republican Sen. Rand Paul.)

One day earlier, Bannon hosted Jones on his own War Room podcast to praise the serial liar as the leading edge of conservative thought, using a string of military metaphors to make his point.

“If you think of military, you've always been like force recon. Or you've been like LRP, long-range patrol,” Bannon said. “You've been out ahead of, cutting, you know, cutting through, bushwhacking through and laying out the tracks and the trails for where the narrative, then the big narrative engine comes in back of it.

Bannon also positioned Jones as a warrior and martyr that left-wing activists and tech companies are trying to silence. “They're trying to break you as a man and they're trying to break your incredible organization,” Bannon added.

Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk also interviewed Jones the day after the Mar-a-Lago search, introducing him as “the most canceled man in America” and framing the interview as a defense of the principle of free speech. Kirk then proceeded to give Jones a platform to obfuscate and justify his long, well-documented history of Sandy Hook denial. Kirk then asked Jones to give his listeners advice on how to “keep on going — how do I push on through if people try to cancel me.”

Kirk later characterized Jones as a brave truth-teller, freeing his listeners from the blinders that had been placed on them. “How do you break people out of the comfort of the lies they live in?” Kirk asked Jones. “Because that’s what you do for a living.”

Jones eventually responded with an unhinged rant about who makes the best resistance fighters against what he believes is a demonic globalist cabal. “Because men haven’t been alpha males and stood up for Western civilization and the empowerment of the future and a pro-human future, we’ve allowed sick, degenerate alpha males to come in and threaten the women, and children, and men to get in line with them,” Jones explained.

“Alex Jones, he’s not crazy, he’s just early. He’s ahead of the curve,” Kirk said to close out the segment.

The previous day, Kirk had praised Jones as someone who was “not wrong a lot of the time,” even as he acknowledged that “he is not right a lot of the time.”

Elijah Schaffer, a reporter at The Blaze and host of Slightly Offens*ve, also interviewed Jones in August after the conclusion of his Sandy Hook defamation trial. Like Kirk and Bannon, Schaffer framed the discussion as a defense of free speech against those who are trying to “silence the truth.”

Failing Fox News competitor One America News Network interviewed Jones’ colleague Owen Shroyer, currently facing charges in the January 6 riot, following the conclusion of the Sandy Hook trial.

“​​We are increasingly seeing, you know, here at one American News, we haven't been banned quite as hard as you guys, but we got taken off FiOS with Verizon,” host Addison Smith said. “We got taken off Comcast TV, you know, you name it. And that's because for very similar reasons, we have a commitment to reporting the truth as we see it and reporting the facts as we see it.”

Shroyer responded by praising Alex Jones’ “almost prophetic-like foresight of geopolitical developments and political developments.”

The two continued their mutual admiration the following night, when Shroyer invited Smith on his show to discuss the Mar-a-Lago search.

A host at Newsmax, an OAN rival, defended Jones’ defamatory comments on the grounds that “this is America and you can say what you want.”

And it’s not just backwater, fledgling right-wing networks and podcasts that endorse Jones. His reach extends to the highest echelons of right-wing media. Reactionary podcast megastar Joe Rogan has long been a supporter of Jones, and the two appeared together on astream of the bafflingly popular Timcast IRL. Hard-right politicians like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), and, of course, Trump, are also long-time champions of him as well.

Still, there seems to have been a notable difference in the reaction to Jones over the last several weeks. When he was roundly deplatformed in 2018, many conservatives came to his defense on free speech grounds while at least nominally distancing themselvesfrom his content and arguments. Following the Mar-a-Lago search and his liability in the Sandy Hook lawsuit, conservative pundits appear to be following his lead.

https://www.alternet.org/

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Congressional investigators hoped that volumes of phone texts that conspiracy theorist Alex Jones accidentally turned over to opposing counsel in civil litigation would yield answers about his involvement in the Jan. 6 attack on the US Capitol, but the texts reportedly only cover a period through mid-2020.

Mark Bankston, who represents the parents of the children murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary in 2012, has reportedly said the cache includes texts with political operative Roger Stone, a longtime friend of former President Donald Trump who, alongside Jones, became a major tribune of the campaign to overturn the 2020 election. The effort by the House select committee to investigate the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol to obtain the texts highlights the panel’s sustained interest in Jones’ role.

To date, Jones has not been charged in the attack, but he has played prominent roles in amplifying the messaging of the campaign to overturn the election and building the infrastructure of the protests in the run-up to the attack, culminating in his presence on the ground at the Capitol on Jan. 6.

The committee’s interest in Jones was on display during a hearing on July 12 through recorded testimony of Kellye SoRelle, general counsel for the Oath Keepers. Nine members of the far-right militia face seditious conspiracy charges. SoRelle confirmed that Jones’ name was among three prominent figureheads during the series of protests leading up to Jan. 6.

“You mentioned that Mr. Stone wanted to start the Stop the Steal rallies,” the investigator said. “Who do you consider the leader of those rallies? It sounds like, from what you just said, it wasMr. Stone, Mr. Jones and Mr. Ali Alexander.Is that correct?”

“Those are the ones that became like the center point for everything,” SoRelle responded.

Alex Jones could not be reached for comment for this story.

Through his show on the InfoWars platform, Jones provided a venue for two of the most inspirational figures involved in rallying Trump’s supporters — Stone and retired Lt. General Michael Flynn. But Jones also leveraged his celebrity and following to do his own part in mobilizing Trump’s supporters, and in spreading wild and unfounded claims about election fraud.

In a letter to Jones accompanying a subpoena compelling him to testify and turn over records, the committee took note of a Dec. 20, 2020 broadcast of “The Alex Jones Show,” one day after Trump issued a tweet summoning his supporters to DC for a “wild” rally on Jan. 6.

“He’s calling on you now,” Jones told his audience. “He needs your help. We need your help. America needs to stand up.” Jones said he wanted to see 10 million people in Washington, DC on Jan. 6, adding, “We’re going to descend on the swamp January 6th. The president is going to be attending the rallies. He’s announcing he’s going to be there. This is going to be massive.”

On Dec. 29, Jones homed in on an objective for the Jan. 6 rally, scheduled to coincide with Congress’ session to certify the electoral votes.

“Well, let’s just say you’re going to want to go to DC on the 6th,” Jones said. “It will show the globalists we know Trump really won. And it will begin the process one way or another of removing the globalist puppet Joe Biden. And I mean by impeachment or keeping him from getting in on the 20th.”

Filling in for Jones on New Year’s Eve,guest host Matt Bracken added tactical specificity to the mission.

“We’re only going to be saved by millions of Americans by moving to Washington, occupying the entire area, if necessary, storming right into the Capitol,” Bracken said. “We know the rules of engagement. If you have enough people, you can push down any kind of fence or a wall.”

Amplifying the false claims of election fraud during an InfoWars broadcast on Christmas day, Jones offered his audience a fantastical and nightmarish description of the election that was unsupported by any evidence.

“They close everything out,kick everyone out, pull out briefcases,” he said. “Chinese men and vans come in in Michigan and start just shoving it in the machine. We get the footage showing it all. They’re death-threating witnesses. They’re arresting witnesses.”

Weeks before the 2020 election was held, Stone appeared as a guest on Jones’ show on Sept. 10, 2020. There, Stone previewed an election-fraud narrative and called for martial law that would become familiar during the interregnum between the election and Jan. 6.

“The ballots on election night in Nevada should be seized by federal marshals and taken from the state,” Stone said. “They are completely corrupted. No votes should be counted from the state of Nevada if it turns out to be the provable case.We can prove voter fraud in the absentees right now.Send federal marshals to the Clark County Board of Elections, Mr. President. It’s all there.”

Prompted by Jones’ insistence that “it’s clear they think they can steal it,” Stone recommended that Trump appoint a special counsel “with a specific task of forming an election-day operation using the FBI, federal marshals and Republican state officials across the country to be prepared to file legal objections and, if necessary, physically stand in the way of criminal activity.”

On the eve of the attack on the Capitol, Stone interviewed Flynn, Trump’s former national security advisor, at the Willard hotel.

Declaring that “there’s a DNA in the American psyche” that “goes all the way back to 1776” — referring to the Revolutionary War — Flynn reeled off a string of baseless claims of election fraud.

“Everybody in this country, everybody in the world knows that this election on the third of November was a total rip-off,” Flynn said. “It was a fraudulent election. We have had foreign interference from multiple countries — I’ll rattle ’em off if you want to get into that — and Donald Trump was the clear winner. For the next four days after the third of November — from about the 4th through the 7th, 8th of November — they just started stuffing the ballot boxes. And everybody knows it, and they got caught.”

The January 6th Committee has also signaled its awareness of Jones’ involvement in organizing the rallies surrounding the mobilization on Jan. 6. Citing press reports and Jones’ own statements, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), the committee chairman, mentioned in his public letter that Jones worked with two women, Cindy Chafian and Caroline Wren to organize the Jan. 6 rally at the Ellipse, and helped line up a funder, Publix heiress Julie Fancelli, to cover “eighty percent” of the cost.

Jones reportedly said after his testimony earlier this year that the January 6th Committee has already obtained text messages between him and Wren, a former campaign fundraiser who Jones identified as his “White House connection.”

Through Jones’ testimony in January, the committee also confirmed that Jones was on at least familiar terms with the leaders of the neo-fascist street brawling group the Proud Boys, who, like the Oath Keepers, face charges of seditious conspiracy. Jones disclosed that after a rally at the Georgia state capitol in Atlanta in November 2020, he saw Proud Boys at Hooters who were “drinking beer and ate cheeseburgers.” A photo posted on Telegram by Jeremy Bertino, a high-profile Proud Boy who has not been charged in connection with the Jan. 6 attack, shows Jones seated between Bertino and national chairman Enrique Tarrio.

While Jones has so far avoided criminal charges for his role in the events of Jan. 6, two InfoWars personnel —host Owen Shroyer and correspondent Samuel Montoya — have been arrested. Shroyer is charged with knowingly entering or remaining on restricted grounds and violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds, while Montoya is charged with entering and remaining in a restricted building and disorderly and disruptive conduct, among other offenses.

Erika Wulff Jones, Alex Jones’ wife, went to the Capitol separately from her husband on Jan. 6, riding on the back of a golf cart with Cindy Chafian.

Alex Jones traveled with another contingent to the Capitol, as the January 6th Committee noted in its letter to him. Jones has said that the “White House” told him that after the rally at the Ellipse ended, he was tasked to lead a march to the Capitol where Trump would meet them. While Trump never made it, Jones, Shroyer and Ali Alexander marched to the Capitol.

“Go to the other side of the Capitol,” Jones said, leading the marchers to the east side of the Capitol. “That’s where Trump’s going to be.”

https://www.emptywheel.net/2021/08/23/stop-the-steal-hints-of-the-january-5-rallies-in-the-january-6-riot-investigation/

sTOP THE STEAL: HINTS OF THE JANUARY 5 RALLIES IN THE JANUARY 6 RIOT INVESTIGATION

August 23, 2021/in 2020 Presidential Election, emptywheel, January 6 Insurrection /by emptywheel

With the charges against Owen Shroyer, the government has now charged three people who had a speaking part in several rallies tied to Stop the Steal the day before the insurrection: Brandon Straka, Russell Taylor and his co-conspirators, and Shroyer. Because I’m working on some gaps in the government’s story — gaps that must be intentional, for investigative or prosecutorial reasons — I want to look at how DOJ is beginning to fill in the story about January 5.

With Walk Away founder Brandon Straka, who was arrested on January 25, the mention of his speech at the Stop the Steal rally at Freedom Plaza in his arrest affidavit was almost incidental, included along with the rest of his incendiary speech directly tied to the riot (but the affidavit didn’t include his other public comments over a broader period — for example, it doesn’t mention Straka’s role in sowing suspicion of the Michigan vote tally).

My review of STRAKA’s Twitter account on January 11, also found a video he had posted of himself speaking at a “Stop the Steal” rally held at Freedom Plazain Washington, D.C. on January 5, 2021. As of January 13, STRAKA had removed this video from his Twitter account, but a video of the entire event had been posted to YouTube. The video showed that STRAKA was introduced by name and brought onto stage. STRAKA spoke for about five minutes during which time he repeatedly referred to the attendees as “Patriots” and referenced the “revolution” multiple times. STRAKA told the attendees to “fight back” and ended by saying, “We are sending a message to the Democrats, we are not going away, you’ve got a problem!”

Though Straka was charged with civil disorder for encouraging others to strip an officer of his riot shield, he has not yet been indicted, with or without obstruction, which these statements would seem to support. Instead, the government has gotten two 90-plus day continuances in this case with Straka’s consent, offering the explanation that, “are continuing to communicate in an effort to resolve this matter.” Straka currently has a status hearing scheduled on August 25, Wednesday, though these things do get moved quickly.

The January 5 rally at the Supreme Court (which featured some of the same people as the Freedom Plaza one) appears in the So Cal Three Percenter conspiracy indictment in part for the logistical challenges it posed.

On December 30, 2020, KINNISON sent a text message to MELE, WARNER, and MARTINEZ in which he attached a flyer advertising the January 5, 2021 rally outside the Supreme Court, at which TAYLOR, HOSTETTER, and PERSON ONEwere named speakers for the American Phoenix Project. After KINNISON set this message, MELE wrote, “We need to make sure we roll into town earlier on the 5th now,” to which KINNISON responded, “We can leave Saturday.”

But it still provided cause for DOJ to mention that by December 30, Russell Taylor knew of a Stop the Steal plan to “surround the Capitol.”

On December 30, 2020, TAYLOR posted to his “russ.taylor” Instagram account:

Spread the word to other CALIFORNIA Patriots to join us as we March into the Capitol Jan 6. The Plan right now is to meet up at two occasions and locations: 1. Jan 5th 2pm at the Supreme Court steps for a rally. (Myself, Alan, [and others] will be speaking) 2. Jan 6th early 7am meet in front of the Kimpton George Hotel…we will leave at 7:30am sharp and March (15 mins) to the Capital [sic] to meet up with the stop the steal organization and surround the capital. [sic] There will be speakers there and we will be part of the large effort for the “Wild Rally” that Trump has asked us all to be part of. [my emphasis]

Mentioning this rally also gave DOJ an opportunity to describe Taylor promising to “fight” and “bleed” in his speech at the rally.

On January 5, 2021, TAYLOR spoke at a Virginia Women for Trump rally in front of the United States Supreme Court as part of a panel of American Phoenix Project speakers. In his speech, he stated:

I am Russell Taylor and I am a free American. And I stand here in the streets with you in defiance of a communist coup that is set to take over America. But we are awake and we are never going back to sleep. We are free Americans and in these streets we will fight and we will bleed before we allow our freedom to be taken from us. We declare that we will never bend a knee to the Marxists within Antifa, to the tyrannical Democrat governors who are puppets, and to the deep state commie actors who threaten to destroy America…. But now these anti-Americans have made the fatal mistake, and they have brought out the Patriot’s fury onto these streets and they did so without knowing that we will not return to our peaceful way of life until this election is made right, our freedoms are restored, and American is preserved.

That is, in the conspiracy indictment charging 3 percenters with organizing not just themselves to come armed to the Capitol, but others in Southern California, the earlier rally serves as both an organizational focus and a platform to sow violence.

Shroyer’s affidavit mentions several things he said on January 5

SHROYER traveled to Washington, D.C. in January 2021, and in advance of January 6, 2021, spoke of stopping the certification of the Electoral College vote. In a video1 posted to the Infowars website on January 5, 2021, SHROYER gave an address in Freedom Plaza in Washington D.C., during which he stated: “Americans are ready to fight.We’re not exactly sure what that’s going to look like perhaps in a couple of weeks if we can’t stop this certification of the fraudulent election . . . we are the new revolution! We are going to restore and we are going to save the republic!”

In another video2 posted to the Infowars website on January 5, 2021, SHROYER called into an Infowars live broadcast and said: “what I’m afraid of is if we do not get this false certification of Biden stopped this week. I’m afraid of what this means for the rest of the month . . .Everybody knows election was stolen . . . are we just going to sit here and become activists for 4 years or are going to actually do something about this .. . whatever that cause or course of cause may be?”3

In addition, SHROYER was featured in promotional material circulated by Infowars. One promotional video urged listeners to “come to the big D.C. marches on the 5th and 6th of January, I’ll see you there.”4 The video ended with an edited graphic of SHROYER and others in front of the Capitol building. That graphic is depicted below:

:{:{:(style="box-sizing:border-box;margin:0px;padding:0px;border:#d4d4d4;;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;height:310.15px;width:450px;position:absolute;left:0px;top:0px"):}::(style="box-sizing:border-box;margin:0px;padding:0px;border:#d4d4d4;;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;position:absolute;background:#ffffff;;z-index:300;height:310.15px;width:450px;opacity:0;transition:opacity 0.4s ease-in-out 0s;visibility:hidden"):}:

1 https://banned.video/watch?id=5ff4aebaa285a02ed04c4d6e.

2 https://banned.video/watch?id=5ff511bb5a212330029f5a9c.

3 https://banned.video/watch?id=5ff511bb5a212330029f5a9c.

4 https://www.banned.video/watch?id=5ff22bb71f93a8267a6432ee.

While Shroyer is circled in that graphic — which demonstrates that Jones had a plan to go to the Capitol (significantly, this is the East front) days in advance — it really is all about Jones.

As I noted, this is just a trespass arrest, like hundreds of other trespass arrests (though by charging Shroyer with violating a pre-existing Deferred Prosecution Agreement, they lessen any claims of persecution that will come as they investigate Shroyer further).

But what these three arrests together show is that those involved as speakers on January 5 seem to have had advance knowledge of what would happen the next day.

One of the other mentions of January 5 rallies thus far appears in the filings for Josiah Colt, Ronnie Sandlin, and Nate DeGrave, three random guys who hooked up on the Internet and armed themselves for violence in advance of January 6. Though they have no ties to any organized militia, the day after they went to a January 5 rally, they seemed to know there would be a second front opening at the East door, and Sandlin and DeGrave were among those charged with forcibly ensuring that door was opened.

Tags: Alan Hostetter, Brandon Straka, Josiah Colt, Owen Shroyer, Ronnie Sandlin, Russell Taylor

https://www.emptywheel.net/2022/07/16/what-doj-was-doing-while-everyone-was-whinging-doj-wasnt-doing-anything/

ALEX JONES

April 13, 2021: Jones videographer Sam Montoya arrested on trespassing charges related to January 6.

August 19, 2021: Jones sidekick and January 5 speaker Owen Shroyer arrestedfor violating a non-prosecution agreement by trespassing; Shroyer did not enter the Capitol.

January 20, 2022: Judge Tim Kelly denies Shroyer’s motion to dismiss, effectively agreeing with DOJ that Shroyer (and so Alexander and Jones) weren’t invited by cops to the East steps and didn’t de-escalate the crowd.According to his pre-released testimony, Alexander had claimed they were de-escalating in his sworn testimony to the January 6 Committee.

May 5, 2022: Montoya asks for 60 day extension to discuss plea deal.

May 9, 2022: At status hearing, Shroyer attorney Norm Pattis describes talks of a plea deal.

June 14, 2022: Long-time Jones attorney Norm Pattis, who is representing Owen Shroyer, joins Joe Biggs’ defense team.

June 23, 2022: DOJ provides Shroyer unscoped contents of his phone, to provide scoped contents later.

ALI ALEXANDER

January 25, 2021: Brandon Straka arrested for trespassing and civil disorder. Straka was a key player in the Stop the Steal movement, playing a key role at the riot at the TCF vote counting center in Michigan after the election, spoke at the January 5 rally, sat next to Mike Flynn at Trump’s speech, and stopped at the Willard before heading to the riot. Straka was also on Alexander’s Stop the Steal LISTSERV.

February 17, 2021: First FBI interview with Straka.

March 25, 2021: Second interview with Straka.

December 8, 2021: In released testimony for an appearance before J6C, Alexander told a story that DOJ had already debunked in the Owen Shroyer case. For this and other appearances, Alexander was represented by Paul Kamenar, the same attorney that guided Andrew Miller through stalling the Mueller investigation for a year.

January 5, 2022: Third interview with Straka.

January 13, 2022: DOJ includes sealed cooperation memo in Straka’s sentencing memo.

April 19, 2022: After 15 months of continuations, Anthime “Baked Alaska” Gionet charged with a single trespassing charge, a charge understood to have required some cooperation in advance.

May 11, 2022: Anthime “Baked Alaska” Gionet balks at a plea hearing for a cooperative misdemeanor plea. It is understood that Gionet shared certain materials to avoid a felony indictment. Gionet was given two months (until July 22) to plead to the misdemeanor or face the prospect of felony charges relying on his cooperation.

June 24, 2022: Ali Alexander testifies before grand jury.

June 28, 2022: Alexander returns to DC....

https://www.rawstory.com/january-6th-hearing-spotlights-role-of-roger-stone-as-link-between-proud-boys-and-trump/

no lnx

The seventh hearing of the January 6th Committee on Tuesday highlighted the role of political consultant Roger Stone, a longtime confidant of Donald Trump, as a link between the former president and the two leading extremist groups that stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) noted that President Trump pardoned Stone, along with retired Lt. General Michael Flynn, in the weeks between the Nov. 3, 2020 election and Jan. 6. During the same period, Raskin said, “Stone communicated with both the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers regularly.”

Raskin reported that the committee obtained encrypted chats from a private message group called “Friends of Stone,” or “FOS,” that included Stone, Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, Proud Boys national chairman Enrique Tarrio and “Stop the Steal” organizer Ali Alexander that “focused onvarious pro-Trump events in November and December of 2020, as well as January 6th.”

RELATED: January 6 hearing makes it clear: MAGA is a cult — and Trump is their fascist pied piper

In one chat shared by the committee, Rhodes urged chat members who couldn’t make it to Washington, DC for a Nov. 14 Million MAGA March to attend local events to support the effort to overturn the election.

“Good point,” Rhodes wrote. “Anyone who won’t be in DC needs to be at their state Capitol.”

Grant Smith, an attorney who represents Stone, downplayed his client’s participation in the chat.

“Mr. Stone was included in the group chat by whomever established it at the time,” Smith said in an email to Raw Story. “Mr. Stone did not participate in any discussions in the chat and has no recollection of ever posting anything in the chat. If there had been any postings by Mr. Stone, the committee would have included them in the evidence presented, [and] there was nothing presented. Mr. Stone engaged in only legally protected, First Amendment activities.”

Members of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers have since been indicted in separate seditious conspiracy cases, stemming from their activity on Jan. 6.

RELATED: Oath Keepers chief Stewart Rhodes' son explains why he left 'daddy Trump' — and the 'far-right' cult

The committee presented video showing that during the period when the “Friends of Stone” chat was active, Rhodes called on Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act, and the Proud Boys became increasingly antagonistic towards the police.

“He needs to know from you that you are with him, that if he does not do it now while he is commander in chief, we’re going to have to do it later in a much more desperate, much more bloody war,” Rhodes said, addressing a crowd at the Jericho March in DC on Dec. 12. “Let’s get it on now, while he is still the commander in chief.”

In a separate video shown to the committee, Proud Boys angered at being prevented from assaulting leftwing counter-protesters can be seen taunting police, with one member named “Swamp Cracker” shouting, “Oath breakers! Do your f***ing job! Give us one hour.”

:{

The committee also presented videotaped testimony from Kellye SoRelle, a Texas lawyer who serves as general counsel for the Oath Keepers, that pointed to Stone as one of the key figures, alongside Alexander and InfoWars host Alex Jones, in the rallies that built momentum for Jan. 6}:.

RELATED: 'Should disturb everyone': Fox News analyst stunned by 'breathtaking' Jan. 6 hearing

:{“You mentioned that Mr. Stone wanted to start the Stop the Steal rallies,” the investigator said. “Who did you consider the leader of these rallies? It sounds like, from what you just said, it was Mr. Stone, Mr. Jones and Mr. Ali Alexander. Is that correct?”

“Those are the ones that became like the center point for everything,” SoRelle responded.}:

Beyond the “Friends of Stone” encrypted chat, Stone also appeared in public with Proud Boys leaders in the months leading up to the Jan. 6 attack.

A video from the night before the Dec. 12 rally, first reported by Just Security, showsStone flanked by Tarrio and Nordean,both of whom would become top-tier leaders in the Ministry of Self-Defense group set up as a planning committee for Jan. 6 and now face seditious conspiracy charges. Introduced byOwen Schroyer, an InfoWarsmedia performer who is charged with entering a restricted building or grounds for his activities on Jan. 6, Stone addressed an energetic crowd outside a DC hotel.

“We will fight to the bitter end for an honest recount of the 2020 election,” Stone said. “Never give up, never quit, never surrender, and fight for America!”

As Shroyer introduces him, Stone can be seen giving a friendly nod to Tarrio. Later, as Stone speaks, Nordean appears to place his hand on Stone’s shoulder.

Stone’s relationship with the Proud Boys goes back more than five years. As noted in a report prepared for the January 6th Committee by the Khalifa Ihler Institute, Stone was recorded reciting the “Proud Boys Fraternity Creed” in May 2017, which means he is considered a “1st degree” member according to the group’s custom.

So close were Stone and Tarrio that the Proud Boys national chairman had access to Stone’s phone in early 2019. When Stone got in trouble for tweeting an image of the federal judge presiding over his case next to an image of gun crosshairs, he reportedly disclosed to the court that he had been sent images by multiple volunteers, :{naming Tarrio alongside Florida Proud Boys founder Tyler Ziolkowski, and InfoWars reporter Jacob Engels. Stone reportedly disclosed to the court that Tarrio and Engels had spent time at his house.

}:

Ties between the Proud Boys and Trump are more nebulous, but the extremist group was galvanized by Trump’s presidential debate statement, “Proud Boys, stand back and stand by,” in response to a call for him to denounce extremists.

Proud Boys predictably responded ecstatically.

“Standing by sir,” Tarrio wrote on Parler.

Joe Biggs, who would also become a top-tier leader of the Ministry of Self-Defense and lead the Proud Boys to the Capitol along with Nordean, wrote, “Trump basically said to go f*** [antifa] up! This makes me so happy!”

On the day after the debate, Trump attempted to distance himself, telling reporters: “I don’t know who the Proud Boys are. You’ll have to give me a definition because I really don’t know who they are. I can only say they have to stand down and let law enforcement do their work.”

Other reporting has suggested Trump and his inner circle were more aware of the Proud Boys than they publicly acknowledged.

When Proud Boys marched outside a venue during Trump’s reelection campaign launch in Orlando, Fla. in June 2019, New York Times reporter Trip Gabriel tweeted: “From a disillusioned GOP operative: ‘The Trump campaign is well aware of the organized participation of Proud Boys rallies merging into Trump events. They don’t care. Staff are treating it like a coalition they can’t talk about.”

On Dec. 12, 2020, before Proud Boys clashed with counter-protesters, Tarrio and Latinos for Trump president Biana Gracia received a tour of the White House.:{

}:

“Last minute invite to an undisclosed location,” Tarrio wrote on Parler, displaying photos of the White House steps, according to a report in USA Today.

Tarrio’s host hinted at special access, but Gracia told reporter Will Carless that “the tour was arranged through channels open to anyone by applying via a member of Congress.” But she also hinted that she received an assist to ensure that the tour took place when they were in town for the pro-Trump rally.

“We received a little help from people,” she told the newspaper.

ALSO IN THE NEWS: Here are the 10 GOP members of Congress implicated in Tuesday’s Jan. 6 hearing

Jordan Green covers extremism for Raw Story. A Kentucky native, he now lives in North Carolina, where he spent 16 years writing for alt-weeklies and freelancing for the Washington Post and other publications.

RAWSTORY+

https://www.thedailybeast.com/ginni-thomas-election-fraud-guru-claims-he-arrested-pope

no lnx

Ginni Thomas’ Election Fraud Guru Claims He Arrested Pope

TOO HOT FOR INFOWARS

Ginni Thomas name-checked Steve Pieczenik, a little-known conspiracy theorist, in texts to then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows about overturning the 2020 election.

Will Sommer

Politics Reporter

Updated Mar. 26, 2022 3:55AM ET / Published Mar. 25, 2022

As Ginni Thomas, a prominent conservative activist and the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, made the case to overturn the election to a top adviser to former President Donald Trump in the days after the 2020 election, she cited several conspiracy theories popular with the president’s most deluded supporters

In her messages, published Thursday by CBS News and the Washington Post, Thomas urged then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to look into the claims of Steve Pieczenik, a little-known conspiracy theorist whose ideas are often too crazy for even Alex Jones.

Thomas appeared to have wholly embraced Pieczenik’s off-the-wall claims in her texts, including the idea that Trump’s election defeat was really a ruse meant to entrap Democratic voter fraudsters.

“If you believe what Steve Pieczenik has to say, you have completely lost all touch with reality,” said Jordan Holmes, a comedian who follows InfoWars and its guests, including Pieczenik, on his Knowledge Fight podcast.

Thomas and Pieczenik didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Pieczenik has a history of lying and often claims to have worked throughout the national security bureaucracy—including in classified positions, all of which makes it difficult to discern what’s true about his identity. He emerged in the media in the late 1980s as an expert on the psychology of hostage-taking. In the 1990s, Pieczenik launched a series of novels with national-security thriller author Tom Clancy.

Whatever grip Pieczenik had on reality began to slip decades ago, when he began to appear on InfoWars. Pieczenik became known for claiming that a tragic event, often a mass shooting, was in fact a false flag event or even faked entirely. He’s argued that the 9/11 attacks, the Sandy Hook shooting, and Pearl Harbor were all false flags. Among other claims, Pieczenik insists he once arrested Pope Francis.

His stories were so wild they even became too much for Jones. After he claimed the 2017 Las Vegas mass shooting that killed 60 people was fake, for example, Jones appeared to temporarily block him from appearing on the outlet. All that has given him a reputation as a loose cannon even by the already outré standards of the InfoWars green room.

“Pieczenik goes on to hit the ball out of the fences every single time, which means he goes too far sometimes,” Holmes said. “And when that happens, he winds up getting put on the backburner for a little while.”

While Jones distanced himself from Pieczenik after the Las Vegas shooting claims, Pieczenik reemerged a few years later as a “vector” to push QAnon claims on InfoWars, according to Holmes. He also became a key figure on the show in the 2020 election, ready to pump out the kind of crazed optimism for Trump supporters that Ginni Thomas later repeated to Trump’s chief of staff. Two days after the election, Thomas texted Meadows video of a Pieczenik appearance on InfoWars’ “War Room” show.

:{

While the YouTube video she sent Meadows has been deleted, other copies posted on far-right YouTube alternatives reveal that the video was about Pieczenik’s claim that the election was a ruse meant to catch Democrats. In the video, a Hawaiian shirt-clad Pieczenik tells InfoWars host and future Jan. 6 indictee Owen Shroyerabout how secret watermarks on the ballots would be used to find fake ballots and arrest leading liberals.}:

:{Pieczenik predicted the arrests would begin within days.

“You’re seeing a sophisticated sting operation that was initiated by Trump,” Pieczenik said. “I’m just a lowly peasant in this game.”

Thomas appears to have found solace in Pieczenik’s claim that Trump hadn’t really lost the election.

“I hope this is true; never heard anything like this before, or even a hint of it,” Thomas wrote to Meadows. “Possible???”

Thomas embraced other Pieczenik claims, telling Meadows that military “white hats”—a QAnon term for pro-Trump forces in the federal government—had been deployed to key states.}:

It’s not clear how Thomas first encountered Pieczenik’s work. But her praise for his obviously ludicrous claims demonstrate the power that conspiracy theories had on Trump’s inner circle.

“It’s so funny how crazy this guy is,” Holmes said. “But at the same time he’s been around pulling these weirdo [psychological operations] for the past 50 years, and it does seem like he’s had a pretty big effect on people.”

insurr

https://www.alternet.org/2021/04/samuel-christopher-montoya/

no lnx raw stroy

Samuel Christopher Montoya of Texas was arrested today by the FBI on charges of unlawful entry and disorderly and disruptive conduct in connection with the January 6 Capitol riot.

The FBI complaint identifies Montoya as a narrator and video editor at Infowars.com and quotes a witness as saying he worked there. Here's what the complaint states was found at Infowars.com:

"PatriotsStorm CongressRaw Footage Includes Execution of Ashli Babbitt. The approximately 44-minute video is embedded with the tag "THERESISTANCE.VIDEO" and the narrator identifies himself as "Sam with Infowars.com." The video captures "Sam" going from the Capitol grounds into the Capitol Building along with crowds of protesters on January 6, 2021, at one point turning the camera on himself and exclaiming, "It feels good to be in the Capitol baby!"

Here are some of the other comments attributed to Montoya in the FBI arrest complaint:

"During the video, Montoya makes the following statements:

9:55 – "We're gonna crawl, we're gonna climb. We're gonna do whatever it takes, we're gonna do whatever it takes to MAGA. Here we go, y'all. Here we go, y'all. Look at this, look at this. I don't even know what's going on right now. I don't wanna get shot, I'll be honest, but I don't wanna lose my country. And that's more important to me than—than getting shot."

11:04 – "We have had enough! We're not gonna take your fucking vaccines! We're not gonna take all your bullshit! The people are rising up! Folks, I am now on the steps of the Capitol. Here we go! Here we go! Having a good time!"

12:55 – "We are in the Capitol, baby! Yeah!"

5:40 – "We're all being a little bit too rowdy for sure."16:07 – "Here we are in the US Capitol in Washington DC in the Capitol building, it has officially been stormed by Trump supporters. Again, the US Capitol building in Washington DC has officially been stormed by Trump supporters. And here we are, taking our—the people's house back!"17:38 – "I'm sure these officers are scared, but we're here, we're here to just show that we've had enough. We've had enough."34:05 – "We don't hurt innocent people; we don't tear down statues! We don't tear down statues! We take our house back! We take the people's house back!"

The report also states: "At times during the video, Montoya describes himself to others inside the Capitol Building as a "reporter" or "journalist" as he attempts to get through crowds. The director of the Congressional press galleries within the Senate Press office did a name check on Samuel Christopher Montoya and confirmed that no one by that name has Congressional press credentials as an individual or via any other organizations.

The FBI stated it had received a tip January 11 to its National Threat Operations Center "from W-1, a family member of Samuel Christopher Montoya." W-1 reported that W-1 had proof that Montoya was physically inside the U.S. Capitol near the shooting of a woman on January 6, 2021. FBI agents interviewed W-1 on January 17, 2021, to follow up on the tip received. W-1 stated that Montoya worked for Infowars and that Montoya showed a video of himself walking through the Capitol and captured footage of the death of Ashli Babbitt. W-1 reported that Montoya showed the video to family members who all recognized Montoya as being the one in the video and having taken the video.

And there was this: "Your affiant has also reviewed several interviews with Montoya on the Infowars show "War Room with Owen Shroyer" regarding the events at the U.S. Capitol. On January 8, 2021, Shroyer interviewed Montoya in a video titled "EYE WITNESS ACCOUNT OF ASHLI BABBITT'S EXECUTION"2 Montoya - who is credited as "Sam," and a "Video Editor" at "Infowarsstore.com" – describes to Shroyer hearing the gunshot and his recollections of the scene of the shooting.His "exclusive" footage that is played features his same voice narrating as in the 44-minute video, and appears to depict activity by the Speaker's Lobby sometime after the conclusion of his 44-minute video.

Here's the FBI complaint.

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

Right-wing propaganda is annihilating the truth about Jan. 6 — Democrats must seize control of the narrative - Alternet.org ›

RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB

aha rhet morph from civil war (proslavery) to 1776, no one says so, but builds on Tea Party tobacco koch BS

https://www.mediamatters.org/alex-jones/infowars-alex-jones-funded-and-fomented-mob

no vid

great banner pix saved jnzmegaphone

Far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones says he spent hundreds of thousands of dollars and coordinated with the White House in the organizing of a January 6 event that culminated in a failed insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. In comments made on Infowars broadcasts and during speeches delivered in Washington, D.C., in the days before January 6, Jones and his fellow Infowars host Owen Shroyer frequently used violent and revolutionary rhetoric in calling for the overturning of legitimate election results.

Five people lost their lives during the violent incursion in the Capitol that immediately followed an inciting speech given by the president on January 6. Trump supporter Ashli Babbitt was fatally shot by a U.S. Capitol Police officer as she attempted to breach the Speaker’s Lobby, which is close to the U.S. House of Representatives floor. U.S. Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick was beaten to death with a fire extinguisher by Trump supporters. Three other Trump supporters died after experiencing medical emergencies, including one who was trampled to death by the mob.

Some Trump supporters made it clear their purpose in the Capitol was to hunt down and kill lawmakers. The quick thinking of [AA] Capitol Police officer Eugene Goodman, who faced down the mob alone, diverted rioters away from the Senate floor, as captured in a stunning video taken by HuffPo reporter Igor Bobic.

Jones’ Infowars outlet was promoting a January 6 event as early as December 31. In a video posted to Infowars’ streaming platform Banned.video, a man ranted about the false claim that Trump won the 2020 election, saying, “These liberals think they can just do whatever the fuck they want. You know why that is? It’s because we sit there and we say we want to talk it out.” The video transitioned to promotional material for Infowars’ January 6 event and included a voiceover of Jones saying “It’s 1776 time,” a reference to the Revolutionary War. vid]

on January 2, Jones said during a broadcast that “it takes money to put my crew and security in D.C., and it takes money to organize this, and we put a lot of money -- myself -- into paying for the event Trump is going to be at and the other event.” He then encouraged viewers tobuy nutritional supplements from the Infowars Store and told them they “are funding the second American Revolution.” AHA ITS TEA PARTY DERIVATIVE]

The next day, Jones again discussed his involvement in planning and paying for the event. During his broadcast, he excoriated Trump supporters who were hesitant to travel to Washington, D.C., claiming, “I’ve seen people making a lot of excuses. ‘Oh, antifa is dangerous.’ It’s a lot more dangerous walking across the street.There’s hardly no antifa. They are a bunch of cowards.” (After mayhem unfolded at the Capitol, Jones and his outlet falsely blamed antifa supporters for the violence that took place.) He added, “It’s not about Infowars getting the credit for this, it’s about the fact that no one would step up and put the money in. ... I stepped up and put the money in for the 5th and for the 6th and then a donor came along, a great patriot, and paid $400,000-plus for the rest of it. I’m in over $130,000, and I'm not complaining about that. I had to do it when no one else was two weeks ago.”

Jones, Infowars host Owen Shroyer, and other Infowars employees then traveled to Washington, D.C. During a January 5 speech in downtown Washington, Shroyer said, “Americans are ready to fight. We’re not exactly sure what that is going to look like, perhaps, in a couple of weeks if we can’t stop this certification of the fraudulent election of Joe Biden.” He went on to “salute” Sens. Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Ted Cruz (R-TX) for their efforts to overturn the election and said of the people gathered there, “We are the new revolution.”

Meanwhile, Jones was at an event outside the Supreme Court, where he told a crowd, “We are facing Satan, and the answer to Satan’s 1984 is George Washington’s 1776.”

That evening, Jones and Shroyer regrouped to give more speeches in downtown Washington. Shroyer told a crowd, “Thomas Jefferson once said when the government fears the people, there is freedom. But for too long now the people have feared the government. … I can tell you that thecrooked politicians that occupy our Capitol are in fear right now. Do you know how I know this? Because they are scurrying around in secret tunnels to avoid ‘we the people.’ Right now as we speak they’re scurrying around like the little rats that they are to try to avoid you.”

When Jones took over the lectern, he told a cheering crowd that“we have only begun to resist the globalists” and that “they have tried to steal this election in front of everyone.” Jones also said,“I don’t know how all this is going to end, but if they want a fight, they better believe they’ve got one.”

He went on to say, “This will be their Waterloo. This will be their destruction.” (Waterloo refers to the pivotal battlefield defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte that ended the Seventh Coalition.) Jones also said that Winston Churchill “gave a famous speech where he said all I can promise you is blood, and pain, and war, and suffering. But the alternative is even worse:total slavery.” He then led the crowd in a “1776” chant.

The violent rhetoric continued the next day at Infowars’ event, which immediately preceded the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. During a January 6 speech in downtown Washington, Jones again told a crowd, “We declare 1776 against the New World Order.” Shroyer spoke from his own bullhorn while standing beside Jones, saying, “They said you lost this election in a landslide to [Joe] Biden. We said, ‘No, we don’t buy your bullshit.’ But, guess what? You want to feed us bullshit? We’re going to bring it right to your front door and you can eat it yourselves.” (Some Trump insurrectionists at the Capitol did in fact smear their own feces throughout the building’s hallways during the attack.)

At one point, Jones told the crowd to head to the Capitol “peacefully,” in contradiction to much of what he had said about what should happen on January 6. He also attempted to rile up the crowd by falsely telling them that Biden’s win in Arizona had been reversed and that “we have only begun to fight. This is 1776.” As people began to make their way to the Capitol, Shroyer yelled from a bullhorn that Democrats are “tyrants” and led the crowd in a “death to tyrants” chant. Jones then can be then heard attempting to privately confer with his crew, saying, “Let’s take it to the Capitol.” 

While Jones and Shroyer did not enter the Capitol building and instead retreated to a “secure location” during the insurrection, an Infowars cameraperson, who identified himself only as “your boy Sam with Infowars.com,” did go inside as both a mob participant and a recorder of the events. Shortly before entering the building, he said, “We have had enough,” and “I got to be honest, this is not a peaceful protest.” Once he crossed the threshold, he yelled, “Guess what? We are in the Capitol, baby!” From a video uploaded to Banned.video with the title “Patriots Storm Congress Raw Footage Includes Execution of Ashli Babbitt,” it is apparent that “Sam” was just feet away from Babbitt when she was fatally shot near the Speaker’s Lobby. Although recent Infowars videos identify him only as “Sam,” older videos posted to Banned.video reveal that he appears to go by the name Sam Montoya.

As the attempted insurrection unfolded, Infowars’ Harrison Smith, who was guest-hosting The Alex Jones Show because Jones and Shroyer were in Washington, praised the “patriots” who were storming the Capitol, at least one of whom participated in beating officer Sicknick to death. The following day, Jones again claimed to have spent “close to a half a million dollars” organizing the gathering in Washington and also said that he organized the event in coordination with the White House.

Following the 2020 presidential election, Jones called on his supporters to “surround” the Georgia governor’s mansion and “rise up” because officials in that state refused to overturn Biden’s legitimate victory. In December, Shroyer praised the efforts of Trump supporters to violently disrupt the Oregon state legislature’s consideration of a COVID-19 relief bill.

Throughout the Trump presidency, Jones has often hyped the prospect of a second American Civil War that would pit conservatives against liberals, including saying that he would personally participate in violence and help execute supposed traitors. In recent months, Jones has hosted Oath Keepers militia founder Stewart Rhodes, who said during his Infowars appearances that his followers were on alert for a command from Trump to start carrying out mass violence against Democrats in Washington, D.C., and at other locations.

For his part, Shroyer said during a November 18 broadcast that prominent Democrats and members of the mainstream media “deserve” to be the victims of mass violence if Trump is not allowed to continue to be president, despite his defeat. He added, “I know I won’t have to be the one to get my hands dirty. I can sit right here in studio and just broadcast the whole thing.”

ref no guns allowed in DC

https://www.mediamatters.org/infowars/militia-leader-stewart-rhodes-says-he-has-men-stationed-outside-dc-ready-engage-violence

no vid

Oath Keepers militia leader Stewart Rhodes said that he has armed men on standby outside of Washington, D.C., to supposedly prevent the 2020 presidential election from being stolen from President Donald Trump. Echoing elements of the QAnon conspiracy theory during an appearance on far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ program, Rhodes said the only way to prevent his men from engaging in a “bloody fight” would be Trump declassifying information to supposedly expose pedophiles in the “deep state” and allow the president to stay in power.

Rhodes also indicated his militia will be involved in a rally to support Trump planned for this weekend in the nation's capital.

Rhodes’ Oath Keepers militia, which comprises “former law enforcement officials and military veterans,” is described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as “one of the largest radical antigovernment groups in the U.S. today.” But, as Rhodes recent public comments have made clear, the organization’s purpose has shifted from opposing the government to instead act as a pro-Trump vigilante group that is willing to violently support Trump’s unjust attempts to stay in power after losing the 2020 election.

Rhodes joined Jones and Infowars host Owen Shroyer during the November 10 broadcast of The Alex Jones Show. Rhodes claimed that, in order to stop the election from being stolen from him, Trump needs to declassify information exposing members of the “deep state” so that Americans will “all know exactly who the pedophiles are.” According to Rhodes, judges -- including Supreme Court Justice John Roberts -- politicians, and members of the legal community, academia, and media are all part of the “deep state.” These comments echoed a central tenet of the QAnon conspiracy theory, which claims that Trump is engaged in a battle with a cabal of pedophile elites.

[vid CitationFrom the November 10, 2020, edition of Infowars' The Alex Jones Show]

rhodes said Trump should task special forces leaders in the military to gather and process the information because “he cannot trust the normal military intelligence services.” Noting that he has previously been opposed to U.S. military intervention in domestic matters, Rhodes said that in this case Trump should invoke The Insurrection Act to accomplish this goal.

Rhodes then said that, in support of Trump, “we have men already stationed outside D.C. as a nuclear option in case they attempt to remove the president illegally, we will step in and stop it” and emphasized that these men are “armed” and “prepared to go in, if the president calls us up.” In addition to activity outside of the capital, Rhodes said he will have Oath Keepers inside the city this coming weekend to support a caravan of Infowars supporters being led by Shroyer who say they will hold an event on November 14. The Infowars contingent is one of several far-right groups that say that they will rally in the city to support Trump. Stewart added that his group has been doing “recon” for the past week in the Washington, D.C., area.

Rhodes called on supporters of Trump to converge on the capital in the same manner as far-right militia members gathered at a Nevada ranch in 2014 to threaten federal law enforcement officers who were attempting to enforce a court order against rancher Cliven Bundy. He also made it clear during his appearance that the only alternative to Trump staying in power would be violence, saying, “It’s either President Trump is encouraged, and bolstered, [and] strengthened to do what he must do or we wind up in a bloody fight. We all know that. The fight’s coming.”

Rhodes previously claimed during an appearance on Jones' show to have Oath Keepers stationed outside of Washington, D.C., for Election Day, to prevent an unhinged scenario he predicted in which opponents of Trump, aided by foreign terrorists, would storm the White House, and the Secret Service would run out of bullets, necessitating backup from members of his militia. While making those comments, Rhodes hyped the prospect of his Oath Keepers members engaging in widespread violence against the left in a civil war scenario.

aha: ~ stay@home is a hub

https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2020/05/05/facebook-go-platform-organizing-protests-against-social-distancing

no pix lnx

Facebook Is Go-To Platform For Organizing Protests Against Social Distancing

May 05, 2020

Hatewatch Staff

As COVID-19 continues to pose a lethal threat worldwide, fringe, right-wing activists are using Facebook to mobilize protests of stay-at-home orders in several states.

In a review of Facebook event pages, Hatewatch identified more than 50 rallies from April 13 through May 1. The event pages are being set up all across the nation regardless of which political party controls the state house.

Facebook has become the social media platform of choice for far-right organizers and activists who engage in protests against social distancing.

“Unless government prohibits the event during this time, we allow it to be organized on Facebook,” a spokesperson for Facebook told Hatewatch via email.

The majority of these rallies run afoul of recommendations from health experts. They allow extremists, however, to reinforce the spread of far-right conspiracy theories and disinformation about COVID-19.

In Lansing, Michigan, hundreds of protesters rallied Thursday as Republican House legislators voted to not extend Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s state of emergency. The American Patriot Rally event, organized by theMichigan United for Liberty group, called for the reopening of local businesses.

The rally first spread through Facebook before the platform decided to pull the event page. Late Thursday, hundreds of protesters gathered outside the state capital building, ignoring social distancing recommendations. In some cases, demonstrators carried firearms and were seen peddling QAnon slogans and COVID-19 conspiracies.

Alex Jones

Alex Jones, radio host and creator of the website InfoWars, left, shakes hands with a demonstrator during a "You Can't Close America" rally outside the Texas State Capitol in Austin on April 18. (Photo by Alex Scott/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Antigovernment figures such as Alex Jones are capitalizing on these gatherings to advance the message that federal institutions can’t be trusted. In the days leading up to an April 18 rally in Austin, Texas, hosted by Infowars, promotional content was circulated on Facebook. Once on the ground, Jones accused the Texas state government of enacting “martial law” and told attendees, “We don’t live in fear of some made up virus. We know the globalists and the media are the enemy.” In far-right circles, the term “globalist” is frequently used as an antisemitic slur.

PMAZ flier

A flyer for the Patriot’s Day Rally circulates on Patriot Movement AZ’s Facebook page.

Similarly, in Phoenix, Arizona, the hate group Patriot Movement AZ shared “Patriots' Day Rally” flyers and memes in the lead-up to the April 20 rally in Phoenix. Although the group frequently dabbles in anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant and anti-LGBTQ rhetoric, the content shared aligned with common antigovernment talking points. In one instance, a member of the group’s Facebook page who goes by Brent Backus shared an image stating: “Quarantine is when you resist the movement of sick people. Tyranny is when you restrict the movement of healthy people.”

Militia organizations also did their part to vilify government institutions. TheSouth Carolina Light Foot militia shared details on their page for the “Drive to Thrive SC” gridlock event. Similar to other extremist groups, the South Carolina Light Foot Militia also used its Facebook page to rile up its base ahead of the April 24 event.

“Maybe we can put all the sick people in boxcars and take them to someplace safe, oh wait…” read one of the memes in an attempt to equate the government’s response to COVID-19 to that of life under the rule of Nazi Germany.

badge star of davis yellow as "pass"]

The South Carolina Light Foot militia stoked fears recently as they claimed yellow badge-style patches are in the near future for vaccinated individuals.

Other militia leaders such as John Cody, state commanding officer of the South Carolina Light Foot Militia Special Response Team, jumped on the bandwagon using Facebook to advertise a national May Day Rally.

Cody, who uses the codename “Hawkeye,” was a key organizer for the Jan. 29 Militias March on Richmond rally. The march, which was organized mainly on Facebook, was scheduled to coincide with the Virginia Citizens Defense League (VCDL) gun event. VCDL was hoping to put on a show of force for gun owners who stood in opposition to state bills that were aiming to adopt new gun restrictions. Cody’s rally ultimately helped bring together a number of right-wing militias with established gun rights organizations.

Cody post

Militia leader John Cody recently circulated two different flyers on Facebook for his May Day rallies.

Along with Cody, Virginia state Sen. Amanda Chase, R-Chesterfield, has been rallying her supporters to protest. Chase, who was involved in a number of controversial incidents earlier in the year and was subsequently ousted from her local GOP committee, has been sympathetic to far right causes. She made a personal appearance at the January VCDL gun rally where she joined several antigovernment militias in an attempt to protest new gun legislation.

Amanda Chase

Virginia state Senator Amanda Chase at work in the statehouse in Richmond. (Photo by Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

Chase recently got on Facebook and shared details for several rallies against social distancing scheduled in Richmond, encouraging her supporters to attend, saying “Share with those who believe in Liberty, Freedom and pursuit of Prosperity, …not liberalism.”

Kayla Gogarty, a Media Matters senior researcher who has been tracking these rallies since they first appeared on Facebook, told Hatewatch: “We found that a lot of these Facebook groups and a lot of these events are including members of local militias and members of some local anti-vax groups. We’ve seen a lot of far-right figures attend some of the events like the Proud Boys. We’ve seen pro-gun activists and antigovernment extremists at these rallies and some local government officials as well.”

A Hatewatch analysis of Facebook posts earlier last month aligned with much of what Gogarty has seen in recent weeks, with the platform being a hotbed for COVID-19 misinformation.

Facebook touts response as rallies materialize

As first noted by the tech website The Verge, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is still heavily touting the billion-dollar company’s projects aimed at helping minimize the spread and impact of COVID-19. Facebook has donated $100 million to small businesses in a gesture made to help them through trying times. The social media company has alsoteamed up with Carnegie Mellon University to roll out a global symptoms survey to Facebook users in an effort to track COVID-19 growth. These initiatives come as Facebook is simultaneously failing to provide a clear solution for countering the spread of disinformation and anti-public health organizing on its own platform.

Owen Shroyer

Infowars host Owen Shroyer arrives at theTexasState Capitol building on April 18 in Austin. (Photo by Sergio Flores/Getty Images)

In an April 20 interview with ABC News, Zuckerberg emphasized that “the stuff that people are saying that is false around a health emergency like this, can be classified as harmful misinformation that has a risk of leading to imminent physical danger and we’ll just take that kind of content down.”

Complicating matters is the fact that not every state and country has instructed citizens to stay home. According to The New York Times, “42 states, three counties, 10 cities, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico” have adopted stay at home orders as of April 28th. This means that if protests occur in states where stay at home orders were never adopted, Facebook faces less pressure to take immediate action.

A general search on Facebook for rally terms such as “liberate” and “reopen” brings up a plethora of groups that oppose social distancing.

The decision to hold off on pulling down content that rails against social distancing undermines the work the company has done to help survey and map the spread of COVID-19. The networking site may have taken down a handful of conspiracy posts, but the antigovernment rhetoric contained in the rally posts has the potential to expose people to greater amounts of misinformation.

==

no lnx many vid 3

https://www.mediamatters.org/coronavirus-covid-19/infowars-planning-another-rally-against-public-health-orders-texas

Infowars is planning another rally against public health orders in Texas

Infowars host Owen Shroyer told supporters they’re “going to have to make a sacrifice” by not wearing a mask in public

WRITTEN BY TIMOTHY JOHNSON

PUBLISHED 04/21/20

Owen Shroyer second rally

Far-right conspiracy theory outlet Infowars is organizing a second rally in Austin, TX, after host Owen Shroyer held a gathering at the Texas Capitol steps on April 18. During the April 18 rally, a few hundred people stood in close quarters with Shroyer and Infowars founder Alex Jones.

Texas is currently under a stay-at-home order because of the novel coronavirus outbreak. Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has begun issuing executive orders to lessen some restrictions, though social distancing guidelines remain. For example, while state parks have reopened, park visitors are not supposed to gather in groups of more than five.

During the April 18 rally, Shroyer -- who has said that reports of large numbers of U.S. coronavirus deaths are Chinese government propaganda and has repeatedly promoted the conspiracy theory that hospitals are actually empty -- led participants in chants, which included one calling for the firing of Dr. Anthony Fauci. Jones made an appearance and, after speaking, walked through the crowd and shook hands.

Video file

02:42

During the April 20 broadcast of his Infowars show War Room, Shroyer announced a follow-up rally this weekend in Austin. An article at Infowars.com explains that “Infowars is calling for another rally to show the establishment we will continue to exercise our rights until these draconian orders are lifted” and encourages supporters to share details of the event by getting “this link out to everyone you know!"

Discussing his April 18 rally, Shroyer said on his show that Jones had called him and was “pleased” with the rally and asked him to “double, quadruple down.” Shroyer claimed that people traveled from various parts of the country to attend the first rally and hoped that would happen again at his follow-up rally. He also suggested that his rally is a positive alternative to people participating in widespread looting, claimed that Fauci is trying to “collapse the economy,” and responded to people who have said Shroyer could help spread the coronavirus by saying, “Kiss my ass.”

Video file

06:3

CitationFrom the April 20, 2020, edition of Infowars' War Room

Later during his show, Shroyer told Infowars supporters that they’re “going to have to make a sacrifice” by taking actions such as not wearing a mask in public or getting arrested or fined for violating public health orders. He also lashed out at people who criticized his event, calling The View’s Joy Behar, who called people who bring guns to rallies “terrorists,” an “anti-American scum bitch.”

Video file

02:16

CitationFrom the April 20, 2020, edition of Infowars' War Room

Prior to the first rally, Shroyer was using hisverified Twitter account to promote the event, but the account was permanently suspended before the rally took place. Shroyer has now turned to TikTok-- where he previously spread coronavirus conspiracy theories -- to promote his upcoming rally, though the platform claims it removes coronavirus content “related to misinformation that could cause harm to our community or the larger public.”

https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/reopen-protests-stir-up-the-far-right

right-wing protest events against states’ stay-at-home orders and nonessential business closures have sprouted up across the country, attracting far-right activists who see a friendly avenue for their own extreme messages.

​Protesters rallied in at least six states last week in opposition to measures taken to curb the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus, including orders to avoid public spaces, cancel social events, and close businesses deemed nonessential. The ​”Reopen” events are the manifestation of a push by a powerful coalition of right-wing groups​, including FreedomWorks, Americans for Prosperity​, and the Heritage Foundation, to advance the reopening of the U.S. economy.

The Michigan Freedom Fund, a group linked to Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’ family, is helping organize ​the state events on Facebook, and NBC News found that a family-run network of pro-gun Facebook groups is responsible for some of the largest protest pages.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the protests have received glowing coverage in right-wing media. Fox News has advertised the protests ​while the network​’s hosts have spoken favorably about participants. The sudden spark of big-donor groups, state organizing, and right-wing media coverage invokes strong parallels to the astroturf ​origins of the Tea Party movement.

Minutes after a Fox News segment Friday about the protests, President Donald Trump tweeted, “LIBERATE MICHIGAN!,” “LIBERATE MINNESOTA!,” and “LIBERATE VIRGINIA, and save your great 2nd Amendment. It is under siege!”​ All three states are led by Democratic governors.

[twt]

NBC News reported that Trump’s tweets led right-wing extremists online “to speculate whether the president was advocating for armed conflict,” which extremists have spent decades claiming is inevitable in the United States. According to NBC News, the Network Contagion Research Institute recorded a major spike in the term “boogaloo,” which is a phrase popular with far-right extremists online to refer to a supposedly inevitable modern civil war.

In Michigan, protests reportedly attracted members of the violent hate groups, anti-government militias, anti-vaccination groups, and religious-right fundamentalists. The Guardian reports​ GUK that members of the Michigan Proud Boys hate group participated in a vehicle convoy​, and an activist from Michigan Liberty Militiawhose Facebook page “features pictures of firearms, warnings of civil war, celebrations of Norse paganism and memes ultimately sourced from white nationalist groups like Patriot Front” was interviewed by local radio.

At the Texas state capitol in Austin ​last weekend​, members of the Infowars entourage including conspiracy theorist Alex Jones reportedly attracted hundreds of protesters for a rally called “You Can’t Close America” organized byInfowars host Owen Shroyer.As Right Wing Watch reported earlier this month, Shroyer had threatened to encourage the Infowars audience into “revolting” against social distancing measures if they were not lifted​ in a week.After protests in Michigan​ last Wednesday, Shroyer followed through on the promise and announced the Texas rally, wh​ich anti-vaccine activists ​attended.

[A QAnon supporter is seen protesting at an anti-quarantine rally in Olympia, Washington, on April 19, 2020. (Photo courtesy of Troy Schulz)]

The Colorado Times Recorder reported that “anti-vaccination activists, conspiracy theory advocates (including a Q-Anon supporter) and members of the Proud Boys hate group” were present at a “ReOpen Colorado” rally Sunday. Nathan Bernard reported that a “ReOpen Maine” rally Monday was organized in part by a state representative who “is known locally for spreading white nationalist conspiracy theories,” such as the claim that abortion and immigration are part of a plot to eliminate white people.

Protesting against stay-at-home orders has become a common cause for those among the far​-right ranks. By calling COVID-19 a big hoax, asserting that the threat is overblown for political reasons,​and advancing conspiracy theories about the search for a coronavirus vaccine, right-wing activists and media figures have created an environment ​for these protests to take hold. Meanwhile, unabashed extremists see ​the “Reopen” protest movement as fertile ground for their agendas–whether it be fomenting a rebellion against the government or ​targeting minority groups for hate.

https://www.mediamatters.org/coronavirus-covid-19/alex-jones-infowars-attempting-profit-coronavirus-outbreak

no lnx docs

Jones’ Infowars is attempting to profit from the coronavirus outbreak

Jones: “I am very sad about this virus and very sad about the bioweapons and things that are going on, but it is an opportunity for people to take advantage of the products we have”

WRITTEN BY TIMOTHY JOHNSON

PUBLISHED 02/29/20

Alex Jones coronavirus

Far-right conspiracy theory outlet Infowars has been aggressively hawking bulk food packages at inflated prices while spreading wild conspiracy theories about the coronavirus outbreak. Since December, the price of bulk food at Infowars’ online store has more than doubled with the biggest package costing nearly $3,000.

On December 31, China announced an outbreak of COVID-19, a novel coronavirus that started in Wuhan City, with the first known case dating back to December 1. The disease has since spread beyond China and is currently present in 53 countries, including the United States, and has stricken more than 83,000 people.

Infowars is selling bulk food at recently increased prices

As the virus continues to spread, and a pandemic becomes more likely, Alex Jones is using Infowars to panic his viewers while also trying to profit from them.

Infowars operates InfowarsStore.com, which sells dietary supplements, apparel, firearm accessories, and bulk food. The page for bulk food has been using the coronavirus outbreak as a sales hook. A video ad has appeared at times on the store’s “emergency survival foods” page with the title, “EMERGENCY SURVIVAL FOODS: Coronavirus Clearance Sale.” In the video, Jones urges viewers to buy Infowars bulk food packages, claiming that other sellers are sold out, but that Infowars can ship within seven to 10 days. (When accessed on February 28, the Infowars Store now says “Shipping WILL be delayed on many orders, potentially 6-8 weeks or more in rare cases.”)

In the advertisement, Jones explicitly references coronavirus, saying, “I noticed there were reports that food prices in general were going to be going up because of the crisis in China and surrounding areas and with how deadly this coronavirus is” and claims, “This is the lowest price you’re going to find anywhere, even when it’s at its regular price.” He also suggests that buyers should act before it is too late, saying, “You can feel it in your bones, big stuff is coming down, whether it’s coronavirus or something else, now is the time to get prepared and I suggest folks get their storable food at InfowarsStore.com while you still can.”

Jones urges buyers to consider large purchases, saying, “I personally have ordered more storable food just last week because I have to be able to take care of not just myself but my neighbors, because believe me, hungry starving neighbors are not a good thing to have and so it’s simple: You better hide your food or you better have extra.” During the video, Infowars packages with prices up to $2,987.00 are shown.

Video file

CitationFrom the Infowars Store website "emergency survival foods" page

Since December, the Infowars store has more than doubled the price of its largest package, “Infowars Life Select: 1 Year.” On December 21, the package was being sold for $1443.50. The price increased to $1,594 by January 23. By January 30, the price had increased to $2,987, and the page was displaying the “EMERGENCY SURVIVAL FOODS: Coronavirus Clearance Sale” video.

Infowars broadcasts are filled with aggressive sales pitches for bulk food

Coronavirus has been a near-constant topic of discussion on Infowars' various broadcasts. According to a search of Infowars’ online streaming platform Banned.video, at least 145 videos have been posted since January 22 that reference the outbreak in their titles. Of these, 127 were published after Infowars released its “EMERGENCY SURVIVAL FOODS: Coronavirus Clearance Sale” ad for bulk food on January 27.

Sales pitches that appear in Infowars content are aggressive. They play on fears of food shortages, emphasize the need to make immediate and large orders, and fearmonger about the prospect of societal collapse and cannibalism. Among some of the on-air pitches:

On February 27, Jones posted a video with an “emergency announcement about storable foods” in which he announced shipping delays and then said “the lord works in mysterious ways” before crediting the coronavirus outbreak and subsequent bulk food sales for helping Infowars’ finances.

During a February 25 broadcast, Infowars contributor Mike Adams pitched Infowars bulk food, telling viewers to buy Infowars bulk food right now because “if the CDC is briefing the Senate right now today -- if they tell the Senate this is uncontained in America, that news could come out three hours from now and then it’s too late. You won’t be able to order anything.” As Adams made the pitch, the camera cut to stacks of Infowars bulk food products displayed in the Infowars studio.

In a February 18 video with the title “How To Prepare For A Coronavirus Lockdown In The U.S.,” Jones raised the prospect of cannibalism during a food crisis, saying that “within about 15 days, most people become cannibals” immediately before pitching Infowars bulk food, which was shown stacked in the studio.

In a February 12 video about “the natural components that can easily be used to combat viral infection,” Jones pitched Infowars bulk food, saying, “I am very sad about this virus and very sad about the bioweapons and things that are going on, but it is an opportunity for people to take advantage of the products we have.” During his pitch Jones said the Infowars warehouse is full of “safes with guns and folks trained to use them” and said, “We got food, we got guts, we got red blood, we’ll kick your ass if you attack us.” He also said: “With me, it’s religious not to screw you over.”

In an Infowars bulk food ad that appeared on a February 2 video about “possible solutions for those who seek to prepare for the coronavirus pandemic,” Jones said, “Last week there I was ordering masks and more food and then I didn’t even come on air and do it myself, because there was that feeling of like, ‘Well I’m pushing it during a crisis.’ Of course we should promote this during a crisis, it’s all more reason to get prepared and get ready.” Jones urged viewers to order food within the next four or five days to avoid price increases.

On January 29, Jones hosted Keith Bansemer, the president of My Patriot Supply, the company that provides Infowars with the bulk food that it sells under its own label. A video of the segment was published with the title “EXCLUSIVE: D.O.D. Buying Up American Food Supplies For Coronavirus Outbreak.” Bansemer claimed that the Department of Defense is repeatedly calling him trying to buy food, but that he has refused. Throughout the segment, Jones and Bansemer promoted their respective bulk food products.

Infowars is seeking to instill fear in its audience

Infowars streaming platform Banned.video has been carrying a banner advertisement for Infowars brand bulk foods.

Banned.video banner ad 2]

And the videos that are paired with this ad appear designed to maximize fear about the coronavirus outbreak. Here are some of the more sensational titles of Infowars videos related to coronavirus:

“Violent Leftists In A Coronavirus Quarantine Would Collapse Society”

“How Globalists Justify Releasing the Coronavirus Bioweapon”

“Lancet ModelPredicts Hundreds Of Millions Dead From Coronavirus Outbreak”

“Was Coronavirus Intended To Be Primer For Chinese Invasion Of America?”

“Bioweapons Expert: Coronavirus Is Super Biological Weapon Never Encountered Before”

“MSM Tries To Suppress Evidence That HIV Delivery System Is Embedded In Coronavirus”

“Countdown: Top Ten Ways Coronavirus Will Be Used to Usher In Global Government”

The conspiracy theories Infowars is pushing to sell its bulk food

Infowars has been spreading ever-evolving conspiracy theories about coronavirus, pushing other falsehoods, and making dire predictions about the outbreak. Initially, Infowars broadcasts pushed a conspiracy theory that coronavirus was designed in a lab and was accidentally released, but more recently the overarching conspiracy theory is that coronavirus is a bioweapon that was created by China and/or the “globalists” and was purposefully released in an effort to control and depopulate the planet. Here are a few of the various conspiracy theories and fearmongering:

While guest hosting the February 26 edition of The Alex Jones Show, Infowars contributor Mike Adams claimed that the Centers for Disease Control is “setting a trap for Trump” by exacerbating the spread of coronavirus in the U.S. The end of the segment was an ad for Infowars bulk food.

During the February 24 broadcast of The Alex Jones Show, a video was played which Adams claimed showed residents of Wuhan en masse screaming in terror. In fact, the residents were shouting encouragement to each other. Adams used his false account of the video to make claims about what would happen if there were coronavirus quarantines in the U.S., saying, “When you take these deranged lunatic violent leftists, who are already mentally ill … and you add a quarantine to that, what’s going to happen to their state of mental health? What are they then willing to do in terms of violence or looting or murder or killing or rape or pedophilia or all the things that they do almost on an everyday basis anyway? Add the coronavirus to that, you start looking at the downfall of society.” The segment included a coronavirus-themed pitch for Infowars bulk food.

In a video published on February 21, Infowars contributor Greg Reese claimed “experts tell us the virus was weaponized in a lab, and while nobody disputes this fact, the mainstream media hide it.” The video ended with an Infowars Store ad urging viewers to buy bulk food and other products.

In a February 20 video, Adams said, “We’re going to get into the heads of the globalists here to try to understand what they are thinking when they released this global pandemic and engineered this weapon against human beings, the Wuhan coronavirus.”

During a February 17 broadcast, Infowars host Owen Shroyer promoted the conspiracy theory that coronavirus was designed by China as part of a U.S. invasion plot. The segment ended with a promotion for Infowars bulk food. 

During the February 17 broadcast of The Alex Jones Show, Jones suggested that coronavirus was a bioweapon created by globalists so governments “can use the smokescreen of the crisis to expand their control.” The segment ended with a pitch for Infowars bulk food.

During his February 7 broadcast, Jones claimed that coronavirus is “a race-specific bioweapon” that was released by the Chinese government.

During his February 6 broadcast, Jones devoted a segment to claiming that coronavirus is a bioweapon designed by China to attack the west. The segment concluded with a coronavirus-themed ad for Infowars bulk food.

During a February 4 Infowars broadcast, Adams claimed that globalists designed coronavirus by combining HIV and SARs. Moments later, Infowars broadcast a coronavirus-themed Infowars bulk food ad.

During the February 4 edition of The Alex Jones Show, Jones suggested that maybe even President Donald Trump was involved in the creation of the coronavirus, but that “maybe it’s a complex false flag to blame America down the road.” After Jones finished his comments, a coronavirus-themed ad for Infowars bulk food was broadcast.

During a February 2 Infowars broadcast, Adams hyped a scenario in which people in Mexico become infected with coronavirus and then flee to “sanctuary cities” in the United States causing a massive outbreak. The segment ended with a coronavirus-themed ad for Infowars bulk food.

How Alex Jones is taking advantage of his audience

People are right to be concerned about coronavirus, but Jones and Infowars are attempting to profit from panic that they create. Writing in Scientific American, Zeynep Tufekci argued that the way to stop the spread of COVID-19 coronavirus is through practicing “community-wide isolation” where outbreaks are present and taking actions -- including getting a flu shot, regularly washing your hands, using alcohol-based hand sanitizer, not touching your face, and, if in a position of authority, allowing workers to work from home or make up the time later. Such steps, according to Tufekci, reduce the risk for people to get infected -- by coronavirus or other diseases like the common flu -- and will lower the burden on the healthcare system, so it can better treat vulnerable populations such as the elderly.

In her article, Tufekci criticizes tactics like the ones used by Jones, writing, “There is no shortage of snake oil sellers who hope stoking such fears will make people buy more supplies: years’ worth of ready-to-eat meals, bunker materials and a lot more stuff in various shades of camo.” Instead, Tufekci says the way to prepare for the possibility of self-isolation is to “buy two or three weeks’ worth of shelf-stable food that you would eat anyway, and be done; this could include canned food like beans and vegetables, pasta, rice, cereals or oats, oils/fats, nuts and dried fruits” and to have potable water on hand.

That won’t cost you $3,000.

==

shroyer stunts

https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/infowars-host-travels-to-manhattan-to-yell-at-new-york-times-building

"healthy beard"

https://www.alternet.org/2019/12/internet-mocks-infowars-protestor-who-interrupted-impeachment-hearing-to-scream-trump-is-innocent/

will sommer InfoWars host Owen Shroyer gets ejected from the impeachment hearing prelim ID

note when trump targets, thugswarm or worse follows

https://www.mediamatters.org/roger-stone/roger-stones-right-wing-media-allies-grasp-straws-attacks-judge-amy-berman-jackson

no docs

Right-wing media figures who are attacking Judge Amy Berman Jackson, who recently sentenced Trump confidant and friend Roger Stone to prison, either don’t understand the basic mechanisms of the federal legal system or don’t want their viewers to.

On February 20, Jackson sentenced Stone to 40 months in prison after a jury convicted him of seven charges stemming from special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe, including lying to Congress, obstructing an official proceeding, and witness tampering. Jackson, however, put a decision on hold about when Stone would report to prison while she considers a motion from Stone’s legal team for a new trial based on a claim that the jury foreperson was biased against Stone.

A hearing was held on that topic on February 25 and Jackson has yet to rule, though according to Politico she “appears headed toward dismissing the defendant’s motion for a new trial” after Stone’s legal team failed to make a convincing argument. In any case, Trump has signaled that he is receptive to calls from Stone’s right-wing media defenders to issue a pardon that would eliminate Stone’s prison sentence. According to Seth Cousins, who served on the jury, the foreperson actually “expressed skepticism at some of the government’s claims and was one of the last people to vote to convict on the charge that took most of our deliberation time.” Cousins also wrote that the foreperson “oversaw a rigorous process, slowing us down on several occasions and advocating for the rights of the defendant.” Still, Stone’s allies and Trump himself have waged a public campaign against the foreperson, including during yesterday’s hearing.

In addition to attacks on the foreperson, Stone defenders are launching attacks on Jackson herself, including baselessly calling into question her impartiality and even spreading falsehoods about how Jackson would conduct the post-conviction retrial hearing.

During his February 25 radio broadcast, Fox News host Sean Hannity said, “You had a political activist judge running the show, the same judge in the [Paul] Manafort case,” before asking, “How is it these judges, lifetime appointments, they get away with murder?” Similarly, Fox News host Tucker Carlson scandalized the fact that Jackson “was appointed by Barack Obama” in order to call her “an openly partisan Democrat.” He also said that she is “a disgrace to the judiciary” and is “corrupt, dishonest and authoritarian.”

It is a basic fact of our political system that federal judges are nominated by presidents who are members of political parties and these judges serve lifetime appointments “during good behavior.” And it’s a basic fact of life that some criminal defendants will be charged with federal crimes that arise out of political matters, which is what happened in Stone’s case. There is a simple reason that Jackson is presiding over both the Stone and former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort cases. She was randomly assigned the Manafort case and it is the standard practice of the federal judiciary system to then give judges any other cases that may have overlapping evidence.

Prior to being assigned a number of cases stemming from the Mueller investigation, Jackson sentenced a high-profile political figure to prison -- a Democrat -- and arguably showed less leniency than she did in Stone’s case.

In 2013, Jackson sentenced former member of Congress Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-IL) to 30 months in prison and fined him $750,000after a jury convicted him of illegally using campaign funds. Prosecutors had recommended Jackson Jr. spend four years in prison, meaning Jackson sentenced him to 63% of the time prosecutors requested. While senior officials of the Justice Department interfered in the sentencing recommendation against Stone, when the sentencing hearing took place, newly assigned prosecutors to the case ended up defending the initial recommendation of seven to nine years. Jackson sentenced Stone to 40 months in prison, or 37-47% of what prosecutors asked for. Stone was fined $20,000.

False information about how Jackson would conduct the hearing for a new trial was also broadcast on Fox News by its chief legal analyst Andrew Napolitano. During a February 25 appearance hours before the hearing, Napolitano joined Fox & Friends and characterized the hearing as “secret” while claiming Jackson “won’t give a reason why” and saying, “You combine secrecy and silence and that is a recipe for totalitarianism.”

The publicly available docket for Stone’s trial shows that wasn’t the case:

[doc]

as  the docket text explains, a public hearing and a sealed hearing was scheduled for February 25. After the public hearing, where members of the public could sit in the courtroom, Jackson cleared the room, but said that audio of the hearing would be available in a listening room. The purpose of this move was solely to protect the publishing of the names and physical characteristics of members of the jury, who had been gathered at the courthouse for potential questioning. The public was still free to listen to and evaluate the substance of the hearing. The transcript of the hearing will also not be sealed and will only be redacted in instances of personal information. (In any case, the jury foreperson, who was questioned, had previously publicly identified herself in a social media post, and the media subsequently reported her identity.) Jackson also offered a rationale for her decision, contrary to what Napolitano claimed was happening.

As reported by CNN, “Jackson read one of the President's past tweets attacking the Stone jury forewoman, as well as commentary from InfoWars' Alex Jones and Tucker Carlson from Fox News, to a federal courtroom, in deciding to hear testimony from jurors while protecting their identities after Stone asked for a retrial.” Indeed during the trial, Jones’ far-right conspiracy theory Infowars outlet, where Stone previously worked as a show host, led a campaign to out juror identities while making disparaging remarks about them. During the trial, Jackson said that those efforts put peoples’ safety at risk.

The attacks from conservative media against Jackson are intertwined with Trump’s own attacks against the judge. While the hearing was underway, Trump shared on Twitter a Fox News article about Jackson that Napolitano had tweeted, adding, “A total miscarriage of justice!”

The article in question was published on February 22 and in itTrump-supporting lawyer David Schoenargued that Jackson should be removed from the case because at sentencing she offered generic praise of the jury’s work -- the same legal argument that Stone’s lawyers used in a filing that Jackson would dismiss days later in a “sharply worded order” that “dressed down Stone's defense team for using the court's docket to air what she said were meritless claims that she is biased against him.”

related sean Hannity launches unhinged attack against judge in Roger Stone trial

02/25/20

Inside the right-wing media campaign to rig the justice system in favor of Roger Stone and Donald Trump

https://www.mediamatters.org/roger-stone/inside-right-wing-media-campaign-rig-justice-system-protect-roger-stone-and-donald

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Alex Jones' Infowars interfered with criminal proceedings against Stone at every step, and Fox's Tucker Carlson is leading demands that Stone be pardoned

WRITTEN BY TIMOTHY JOHNSON

PUBLISHED 02/12/20

Right-wing media outlets, led by Trump allies at Infowars and Fox News, have waged a months-long campaign to interfere with criminal proceedings against Roger Stone. Now that Stone has been convicted of seven felonies and is facing the possibility of significant jail time, his conservative and far-right media defenders are drumming up support for President Donald Trump to pardon him.

Longtime Trump confidant and friend Stone, who prosecutors argued committed his crimes in a bid to protect Trump, will be sentenced in federal court on February 20, though Trump could issue a pardon at any time. In recent days, Stone’s case has been thrown into chaos, as leaders at the Department of Justice have meddled with the sentencing recommendations of the DOJ line prosecutors who tried Stone in court, resulting in all four prosecutors withdrawing from the case.

CitationVideo by Miles Le

After Stone was arrested, he used his Infowars platform to publicly litigate his case

Stone was arrested in Florida on January 25, 2019, during an early morning FBI raid of his house and subsequently charged with seven felonies related to special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe, including lying to Congress, intimidating a witness, and obstructing an official proceeding. After appearing in court that day and being released on his own recognizance, he made his first media appearance on Infowars, where at the time he was a co-host of the weekday afternoon show War Room. Speaking with conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, Stone denied he had committed any crimes and promised not to testify against Trump, saying, “There’s no circumstance in which I would bear false witness against the president.” (In December 2018, Trump had faced allegations of witness tampering after he approvingly tweeted a purported quote from Stone that said, “I will never testify against Trump.”) Stone also promoted his legal defense fund several times.

Stone’s immediate run to Infowars made sense. The outlet had already been doing damage control for Stone as it became increasingly apparent he was in legal jeopardy. Infowars had been waging a public relations campaign against former Infowars employee Jerome Corsi in an attempt to pin any 2016 election-related wrongdoing on Corsi -- who at the time appeared to have significant legal exposure from Mueller -- rather than Stone. Part of the pressure campaign involved Infowars warning Corsi not to give inculpatory testimony during a grand jury appearance about Stone’s involvement in WikiLeaks’ dissemination of hacked emails, the issue Stone would later be convicted of lying to Congress over.

Infowars then became Stone’s public forum to litigate the charges against him. In an appearance four days after his arrest, Stone attempted to explain away the witness tampering charge he was later convicted of. On his show War Room, Stone said he hadn’t encouraged radio host Randy Credico to lie to Congress to prevent him from implicating Stone in a crime, but rather so that Credico’s liberal friends wouldn’t find out he supported Trump and get mad at him.

Stone continued to use Infowars to attack his critics. During the February 8 edition of his show, Stone complained about “leftist retards” talking about his upcoming trial. On February 12, he mentionedCNN commentator Ana Navarro, asking, “What qualifies her other than her ethnicity to comment on anything?” and saying, “Let’s see if she celebrates my acquittal,” before calling her “porquita.” During the broadcast, he also highlighted the role of Infowars in his legal defense, saying, “I’ve told you about the vital role that Infowars plays in the strategy for my defense. If I can’t come here, if I can’t come on The Alex Jones Show, if I can’t come on the morning show with David Knight, if I can’t come on the War Room, then there’s no forum where I can really go to tell people the complete story about what’s going on.”

Stone also used Infowars to praise his friend, the president. During the February 18 broadcast of The Alex Jones Show, he alleged that Trump was the victim of a “globalist” coup attempt led by elements in the FBI and DOJ and railed against the special counsel office, which was leading the criminal prosecution against him. Stone also flattered Trump, saying, “If he’s so incapacitated, why do we have 4.8 million new jobs, for example?” He added that Trump is a “leader” who is “keeping faith with the very people that voted for him.”

After Stone was placed under a gag order for posting an image showing firearm crosshairs next to the judge in his case, Infowars picked up the slack

But Stone also did something on February 18 that would stop him from fighting his legal case through Infowars when he posted an image on Instagram that showed the federal judge overseeing his case, Amy Berman Jackson, next to apparent firearm crosshairs. Stone was already operating under a gag order that prevented him from speaking about his case on the steps of the courthouse where it was being tried, but Jackson expanded the order in a February 21 hearing to prohibit Stone from talking about his case anywhere, with the caveat that he could still profess his innocence and solicit money for his legal defense fund.

But Stone’s boss, Alex Jones, picked up where he left off.During a February 25 broadcast, Jones compared Judge Jackson to Hitler and attempted to link Mueller to Jeffrey Epstein. He also echoed language Stone had used on his show, claiming that Stone was being pressured “to bear false witness against the president” and also addressed Trump directly, saying, “And we can talk about how great Trump is all day, but he’s asleep at the switch. Tweets don’t do it, President; protect us.”

As Stone’s trial approached, he stopped appearing on Infowars but continued to go right up to the line imposed by his gag order in other public forums. During an April interview with pro-Trump propaganda outlet One America News Network, Stone complained that he was facing “process crime charges,” echoing a right-wing media talking point that had been used to attack the charges against him. In July, Stone again ran afoul of the gag order after Jackson agreed with prosecutors who said some of his Instagram posts counted as disallowed commentary on his case. Stone was banned from using social media as a result of the violation.

Stone made one exception to his silence on Infowars while he was under gag in the pre-trial phase. In an October 25 appearance, he discussed topics unrelated to his case and made flattering comments about Donald Trump Jr. and Fox News hosts Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, and Laura Ingraham.

Alex Jones and his Infowars outlet attempted to interfere with the trial process in a way that the court said put people in danger

Stone’s trial occurred in November, and Infowars attempted to interfere on his behalf -- Stone had since officially left the outlet -- throughout the proceedings. During the jury selection phase, Infowars attempted to out the identities of jurors on the trial with the help of Jacob Engels, Stone’s assistant. Amid the outing attempts, in which they named at least two people who were not actually on the jury, Jones attacked the jurors, claiming that they were involved in a setup against Stone. According to a transcript from the trial cited in a Department of Justice sentencing memo, Jackson said that Jones’ actions caused “great consternation among members of the public” and put “the safety of all the people associated with this case, on both sides, and including, possibly, the jurors, at risk.”

As the jury deliberated, Stone passed a message through Alex Jones asking Trump to pardon him

The sentencing memo also mentioned Jones with respect to an incident that occured while the jury was deliberating Stone’s case. During his November 14 broadcast, Jones shared a purported message from Stone in which Stone said, “I appeal to the president to pardon me because to do so would be an action that would show these corrupt courts that they’re not going to get away with persecuting people for their free speech or for the crime of getting the president elected.” Jones then encouraged people to call the White House to demand Stone be pardoned and continued to attack the “libtard jurors.”

Video file

05:06

CitationFrom the November 14, 2019, broadcast of Infowars' The Alex Jones Show

Other right-wing media figures -- and even more extreme right-wingers -- have joined Infowars in campaigning for a pardon for Stone

Stone was convicted on all counts the next day, November 15. Reacting to the news on air, Jones read an angry text message from one of Stone’s lawyers that said Jones’ broadcast of Stone’s pardon request almost caused Stone to be remanded into custody immediately upon conviction, as the ongoing gag order also prohibited Stone from commenting on his case in public forums through surrogates. Jones defended his conduct by saying he was just “doing what Roger said.” Post-conviction, many other members of right-wing media -- most notably Tucker Carlson on his Fox News broadcast -- publicly pleaded with Trump to issue a pardon. According to reporting from The Daily Beast, sources close to Trump say that “as a platform for pro-Stone messaging,” Carlson’s show “is potent enough that Trump allies who seek leniency for the Stone have specifically sought to appear … in order to get the message to the president” and that Trump watches segments about Stone on the show and discusses them with others.

Between conviction and sentencing, Infowars’ advocacy for Stone crossed into the territory of violent rhetoric. During a late November broadcast, Stone’s former co-host Owen Shroyer said, “Roger Stone’s fate is our fate. So if Roger Stone gets thrown in jail and dies in jail, that’s the rest of our fate. We’re all going to die from these left-wing politicos, whether that’s in jail or from a bullet [in] the head.” Stone’s assistant Engels cited the saying “would you rather die on your knees or die fighting standing up?” and Shroyer responded, “We’re not calling for violence. … But let me tell you, when you start to use the government and these bureaucracies against us, and you take away our freedom of speech, and you take away our right to a fair trial, and you take away our right to bear arms, what are we supposed to do? We’re not going to be your damn slaves.”

Video file

01:33

CitationFrom the November 26, 2019, edition of Infowars The War Room

As the sentencing date approached, chaos reigned while high-level DOJ figures interfered in the case

After an extension, Stone’s sentencing was scheduled for February 20. The latest flashpoint in the case began on February 10, when the DOJ and Stone’s attorneys submitted their sentencing recommendations to the court. While Stone’s attorneys asked for no jail time, the DOJ recommended seven to nine years, garnering a late-night tweet from Trump about the “horrible and very unfair” recommendation. Chaos ensued on February 11 when reports began circulating that the DOJ would issue an amended sentencing recommendation. All four of the federal prosecutors who worked on the initial sentencing memo quit the case (one prosecutor left the DOJ altogether) and an amended sentencing memo calling the initial recommendation excessive was filed with the court. As rumors swirled throughout the day about the modified memo, Fox News’ Sean Hannity said on his radio show, “Something is happening that is very deep. I'm telling you this is a big deal.” Later, he praised the DOJ’s move to amend the memo on his Fox News broadcast.

Throughout Stone’s criminal trial saga, Infowars has repeatedly promoted in videos and articles the catchphrase “free Roger Stone.” In reaction to the initial sentencing memo, Infowars.com published an article criticizing the filing that provided readers with a phone number to call the White House to ask Trump to pardon Stone. On air, Jones purported to share inside information about internal discussions in the White House about Stone’s fate. Jones said that he talked to “somebody this morning who was there inside the White House meetings dealing with” the Stone situation and that Trump would issue a pardon for Stone following the February 20 sentencing. The pardon push was also seen in (slightly) more mainstream conservative media, with Carlson demanding during his February 11 broadcast that Trump pardon Stone.

Video file

00:59

CitationFrom the February 11, 2020, edition of Fox News' Tucker Carlson Tonight

If Stone is pardoned, he would be the latest beneficiary of a corrupt system in which Trump grants pardons based on what he sees on conservative media

Stone’s allies are prescient to make the pardon case through conservative media. In November, Media Matters’ Matt Gertz chronicled the “Fox News pardon pipeline” and concluded that “Donald Trump’s Fox News obsession is directly linked to at least nine of his grants of executive clemency.” Despite its extreme character, Infowars has also apparently been previously influential in at least one pardon situation. Former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who was pardoned by Trump before he could be sentenced for refusing to comply with a court order that enjoined his racially discriminatory law enforcement practices, credited Infowars with his clemency grant. Appearing on The Alex Jones Show in August 2017, Arpaio praised Infowars as having real influence in getting his story before Trump inside the White House.

Arpaio’s pardon was granted following months of Infowars public advocacy.

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IN THIS ARTICLE

Roger Stone

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Alex Jones

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Tucker Carlson

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