Something's Happening and He Doesn't Know What It Is

Under duress, right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones admitted in court that the Sandy Hook shooting in Newtown, Connecticut in December 2012 actually happened after insinuating that it was staged.  Jones defended himself on the stand by saying that he merely posited the possibility that it could have been faked.

Let me posit this: Jones is going to have a hard time paying the $49.3 million in damages to two Sandy Hook parents that the court ordered him to remit.  Even if he has the money, he'll end up broke, and then he's going to rebuild his life with his reputation in tatters.

The only problem is, Jones has proven that conspiracy theories are big business, and there's a whole army of "Jones clones" who will come up with conspiracy theories that shock and outage people with mature brains and pique everyone else but will not cross the line that Jones pole vaulted over with Newtown, because now Jones clones know where the line is. Hopefully like Jones' hair, that line will recede even farther back so that conspiracy theorists are eventually put out of business.

And yes, sometimes it turns out that a conspiracy theory is true.  And liberals are hardly immune form this - they've come up with conspiracy theories of their own, like Black History Month being in February because it's shortest month or that government agents sold crack in minority-nominated neighborhoods.  I must admit that I subscribe to the conspiracy theory - though I won't categorically say it's true, because I could just as easily be wrong - that right-wing CIA agents or someone like that were involved in the deaths of John Lennon, Bob Marley and Harry Chapin, three socially conscious and politically liberal musicians who died within nine months of Reagan's election to the Presidency.  (I also have a conspiracy theory of my own: Madonna signed Candlebox and the Rentals, two '90s grunge bands that have since been forgotten, to her vanity record label to undermine and kill grunge because she saw it as a threat to her continued success as a pop singer.  And if that's true, the plan obviously worked; grunge rock - indeed, all rock - is out, and the synth-pop/hip-hop/R&B culture that Madge helped foster reigns supreme today. Candlebox was as lightweight as you could get; grunge fans dismissively called them "Crayon Box."  Also, Cherielynn Westrich, a lead vocalist for the Rentals, clearly embraced the accoutrements of grunge but not the culture; she's a pro-Trump Republican Iowa state legislator now.)

All that said, Jones' conspiracies have gone way beyond the pale, having been all based on lies, and with regard to his Sandy Hook theory, that goes double.  And like any lie, Jones' lies have been found out.