The Big Lie's Bad, Very Bad Week

Plus: Ron Johnson and the fake electors scheme; and remembering Pete.

(@RealAlexJones/Twitter)

Welcome to an unusually upbeat edition of our irregularly scheduled, random, contrarian musings on the idiocracy of our times

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The schadenfreude is sufficient unto the day.

Alex Jones is being forced to liquidate his assets to pay for his lies; Steve Bannon is going to jail; former White House COS Mark Meadows was arraigned on nine felony charges in Arizona; Salem Media dumped Dinesh D’Souza’s fabricated mockumentary; the CFO of The Epoch Times was busted for a massive money laundering scheme; criminal charges were filed over the fake electors plot in Wisconsin; and Donald Trump remains a convicted felon who owes hundreds of millions of dollars for his various frauds, sexual assaults, and defamations.

Happy Sunday, my friends.

A bad week for lying liars

I wanted to share my latest pieces from The Atlantic and MSNBC, but we need to put them into context first: Amidst all of the pearl-clutching and doomist punditry, Reality had a pretty good week. The butcher’s bill for lies continues to grow; and accountability continues to grind on.

You might even say that Karma is having a moment.

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I’ve written extensively about Alex Jones and his malicious mendacity. Here: Alex Jones's Billion Dollar Lies. Here: Alex Jones Gets His Reality Check. Here: Alex Jones's very bad week exposes a toxic conservative evolution. And quite extensively here: How the Right Lost Its Mind.

Jones flourished in the right’s growing alternative reality bubble, where he could drive the political narrative. Instead of being shunned or marginalized, Jones found that lying was a lucrative business model that leads to celebrity and political clout. And it’s naïve to think that will change now.

But Nemesis is catching up with him. Finally. Via CNN:

Right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones on Thursday moved to liquidate his personal assets, agreeing to demands from the families of Sandy Hook victims whom he owes more than $1.5 billion in damages over his lies about the 2012 school massacre.

The seismic move paves the way for a future in which Jones no longer owns Infowars, the influential conspiracy empire he founded in the late 1990s. Over the years, Jones has not only used the media company to poison the public discourse with vile lies and conspiracy theories, but also to enrich himself to the tune of millions of dollars.

And, alas, we will have to get through the next few months sans Steve Bannon’s slovenly, seditious shittery. Via NBC:

Just last week, former Fox News host Megyn Kelly urged Steve Bannon to take control of Donald Trump’s campaign.

“We need Steve Bannon,” Kelly said during an episode of her show discussing Trump’s hush money conviction. “Get somebody who knows how to fight dirty.”

This week, a judge told Bannon he’s going to jail.

The development could silence someone in the final months of the presidential election who has served as an inspiration for much of the MAGA movement and been one of Trump’s most aggressive zealots — thanks in large part to his “War Room” show, which he has built to lead the grassroots of the Republican Party to the ballot box in November. 

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Then there was the (latest) humiliation of serial fabulist and felon Dinesh D’Souza, followed by the spectacular charges against the craptacular Epoch Times. ICYMI, I wrote about them in Thursday’s Atlantic Daily newsletter.

It’s been a very bad week for two of the most prominent purveyors of Donald Trump’s webs of lies about the 2020 presidential election.

Last Friday, Salem Media Group announced that it had removed the fabulist film 2,000 Mules from its platform and said it would no longer distribute either the movie or an accompanying book by the right-wing activist and Trump-pardoned felon Dinesh D’Souza. It also issued an apology to Mark Andrews, a Georgia man whom the film had falsely depicted participating in a conspiracy to rig the 2020 election by using so-called mules to stuff ballot drop boxes. After being cleared of any wrongdoing by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, Andrews filed a defamation lawsuit in 2022 against D’Souza, Salem, and two individuals associated with a group whose analysis heavily influenced the film.

While perhaps not as dramatic as Fox News’s $787 million settlement last year with Dominion Voting Systems for lying about the election, Salem’s climbdown is worth paying attention to. Salem is one of the most influential right-wing media companies in the United States, and in many ways, 2,000 Mules was the movie version of Trump’s election lies. The film was utterly bogus—a mixture of conjecture and falsehoods that were easily discredited by fact-checkers. But it played a major role in shaping Republican skepticism about the election.

Trump himself embraced 2,000 Mules, calling it “the greatest and most impactful documentary of our time.” When the movie debuted, Trump hosted a screening at Mar-a-Lago featuring such MAGA stars as Rudy Giuliani, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, and the MyPillow guy, Mike Lindell.

The film became a frequent talking point for Trump allies who alleged that the 2020 presidential election had been stolen. And it found some level of mainstream appeal: Salem announced that more than 1 million people watched the movie in the first two weeks after it was released in May 2022, grossing more than $10 million. Now the producer’s public apology has made clear that the film was based on misleading data and false claims.

The Epoch Times story is also important. But, as I point out, these setbacks are just the latest glitches in the alternative-reality universe.

Fox News still faces a lawsuit from Smartmatic over the network’s election lies; Rudy Giuliani was hit last year with a massive judgment for his lies about the Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, and his radio show was canceled by WABC; the families of the victims of the Sandy Hook massacre are asking a bankruptcy court to liquidate the right-wing conspiracist Alex Jones’s media platform, Free Speech Systems, after winning $1.5 billion in damages for defamation; and Trump himself is facing an $83 million judgment for defaming E. Jean Carroll—whom he was found liable for sexually assaulting.

Lest we succumb to irrational exuberance, though, the reality is that misinformation—and its wide, eager audience—is not going anywhere.

The kicker:

It remains up to Americans to distinguish between truth and lies, and to decide whether to hold Trump to account for his own lies in November.

You can read the whole thing here.

Ron Johnson has some explaining to do

My latest over at MSNBC:

Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., reacted angrily to the news that Wisconsin’s attorney general, Josh Kaul, had filed criminal charges against three associates of former President Donald Trump for their alleged roles in the fake elector scheme. “Now Democrats are weaponizing Wisconsin’s judiciary,” Johnson posted on X. “Apparently conservative lawyers advising clients is illegal under Democrat tyranny. Democrats are turning America into a banana republic.”

Johnson has reason to sweat this one, because the criminal case is likely to bring renewed attention to his role in the attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election and his shifting and inconsistent explanations. On Jan. 6, 2021, Johnson and his staff tried to hand fake electoral certificates to Vice President Mike Pence, but they were rebuffed. Johnson initially claimed he didn’t know about the plot, but recent documents — including text messages — show that Johnson and his staff were told explicitly about the plot to deliver the fake electoral votes….

In a Dec. 8, 2020, email to Chesebro, Troupis wrote that he “spoke with Senator Johnson late last night about the Pence angle at the end.” Troupis wrote, “Just wanted to take his temperature.”

“The Pence angle” is an apparent reference to the “angle” at the center of the attempted coup, Trump’s plan to have the vice president refuse to count the legitimate votes.

The documents also show that Troupis texted Johnson personally on Jan. 6, explicitly mentioning the electors: “We need to get a document on the Wisconsin electors to you for the VP immediately.” He added, “Is there a staff person I can talk to immediately.”

Documents released as part of the civil lawsuit in March seemed to blow a hole in Johnson’s story.

That same day, Troupis texted Chesebro, confirming that he had been “on the phone with Mike Roman and Senator Johnson’s COS to get an original copy of Wi slate to VP.”

You can read the whole thing here.

Remembering Pete

Our old guy passed away two years ago this week. My wife has a beautiful tribute on her Substack newsletter (to which you should subscribe.)

He had an amazing run, and was beloved by people all over the world. Had he known, I have no doubt he would have felt that was exactly his due. After we announced his passing, Pete was trending on Twitter for two days, and the post itself had three million impressions. Artists sent images of him; people sent beautiful and heartfelt condolences. And all for an adopted hound dog who, for seventeen years, dominated our household.

On Friday, I re-posted my own short thread of remembrance.

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Every morning, he would lead the German Shepherds on a ramble through the woods. He was the Alpha and an adventurer.

But as he got older, he knew his limits. This was our ritual every morning: He’d wake me up but wait at the top of the steps; he wanted to snuggle. Then I would put my hand on him and walk him down the stairs. Every time.

Pete liked the lake. But wasn’t a swimmer.

Over his 17 1/2 years he had to overcome several challenging periods. Including the time one of his brothers rolled over on his leg.

He also had mixed feelings about going out in the cold.

His favorite thing was going on burger runs with his big brothers.

To the very end, Pete led his very best life. And I think he knew it.