Secular Talk has defended Alex Jones for years
On September 30, a Texas judge found Alex Jones liable in three lawsuits filed by parents of children murdered in the Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting.
Media Matters writes, “For years, Jones pushed baseless conspiracy theories about the tragedy, including claiming that the shooting was staged with the use of actors and that ‘the whole thing was fake.”
The Daily Beast: Jones repeatedly failed to hand over documents for discovery, and in a ruling unsealed Thursday, a judge said he had lost the suits by default. The conspiracy theorist and his outlet will be forced to pay whatever damages an upcoming jury panel determines his claims that the mass shooting was a “false flag” pulled off by “crisis actors” are worth. Jones had multiple years to comply with the discovery orders, and the judge lambasted him for his delinquency and laziness, writing “An escalating series of judicial admonishments, monetary penalties, and non-dispositive sanctions have all been ineffective at deterring the abuse.”
Media Matters reports that Fox News’ white supremacist Tucker Carlson “has been a long-time defender of Jones in cases where the Infowars host has been banned from social media platforms for producing content that violated their policies against violence and hate speech,”
The Huffington Post reports that Lucy Richards, a Florida woman suffering from agoraphobia, obsessive compulsive disorder, and anxiety disorder, was ordered in court to not watch Infowars.
Richards had transmitted a threatening message: “Death is coming to you real soon,” on the voicemail of Leonard Pozner, the father of 6-year-old Noah Pozner who was killed in the Sandy Hook Shooting. Pozner said he has been the victim of numerous instances of online harassment over his son’s death in the Sandy Hook Shooting.
Despite the toxic conspiracy theories pushed by Alex Jones and the real world harm they’ve caused, the YouTube show Secular Talk has repeatedly defended Jones.
⦁ Kulinski claimed no proof that Alex Jones harassed Sandy Hook parents. Jeremy Richman, who lost his daughter Avielle Richman in the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting, committed suicide in 2019. And Pozner, who lost his 6-year-old son Noah in the shooting,
⦁ Kulinski used Contrapoints’ tweet that doesn’t mention Alex Jones to defend Alex Jones. Sandy Hook parents had to move several times because of Infowars’ baseless conspiracy theories that the Sandy Hook kids were crisis actors.
⦁ Kulinski mirrored Joe Rogan’s claim that conspiracy theorist Alex Jones was right about many things over the years. Jones and Infowars falsely accused family members of collusion in a hoax “relating to the murder of their son,” lawyer Mark Bankston argued in court. The Austin-American Statesman reports, “Four lawsuits — filed in Travis County, where Jones and his InfoWars media system are based — seek monetary awards for defamation and the intentional infliction of emotional distress.”
⦁ Kulinski defended Jones inciting harassment on Sandy Hook parents: “He called it a hoax, he was hyperbolic about it… he was wrong about all of it… but it is true that it was his listeners who took the next step… even though he laid the groundwork.” On the same broadcast, Kulinski lied that he is fighting for the Sandy Hook families, claiming it would be an anti-First Amendment precedent to say Alex Jones is guilty of defamation. (A third Sandy Hook parent just won a defamation case against Jones.)
⦁ Kulinski argued to reinstate Jones’ YouTube show and to only remove the videos calling Sandy Hook a hoax: “But you’re not even gonna allow Llama Alex Jones on YouTube? […] It looks like he maybe cut back a little bit on the booze, maybe cut back a little on” cocaine.”
⦁ Kulinski whined that Jones was given “the internet death penalty,” despite admitting that he harassed the Sandy Hook parents.
⦁ In an August 6, 2018 video, Kulinski lamented that Alex Jones’ entire show was pulled from Apple, saying that he gets it that this is not a First Amendment issue, but later contradicted himself: “I’m pretty much as anti-Alex Jones as humanly possible, having said that this is a matter of principle.”
He mirrored the claim that he was not defending Alex Jones! — from toxic figures such as Jordan Chariton; Tim Black, and then-dumdumleft YouTube host turned far-right sexual harasser Jimmy Dore — who has mocked “the gaying of the military.”
Kulinski went as far as admitting that he is a conspiracy theorist and arguing that he too could be banned: “Oh, Alex Jones, he’s a fringe conspiracy theorist, we really got to pull down his show. What about Kyle Kulinski and Jimmy Dore? I mean these guys they’ve really been pushing back against Russiagate.”
“Oh, you start by going after the guy on the right and then there gonna say oh well look we need to be equal,” Kulinski said. “We need to show that we are equally neutral against fake news on both sides. So Alex Jones kind of a conspiracy theorist, okay to pull him down. Well, Jimmy Dore, kind of a conspiracy theorist, we think he is too, we’ll pull him down. Kyle Kulinski, kind of a conspiracy theorist, pull him down too.”