For the last two decades, paranoid purveyor and propagator of conspiracy theories Alex Jones has positioned himself so far out on the fringe of reality that we have rarely given him the attention such narcissists crave. Our in-house editorial rule: “Don’t swap spit with jackasses.”

But Jones, whom the Leftmedia talkingheads and scribes describe as a “conservative,” is certainly not that. He has taken the art of jackassery to its pinnacle. Ironically, Jones once claimed he stopped using marijuana because “it made me paranoid,” and he then dropped out of Austin Community College to launch his paranoid conspiracy theory empire.

At one point his InfoWars brand had a following of unwitting cult-personality adherents that was similar in numbers to the big cable news sites — in the millions. For the most part, these were good people who were swept up in a frenzy by a charismatic bloviator. But a few of his adherents were equally unhinged sociopaths.

After the 9/11 Islamist attack on our nation, Jones became a leading so-called “9/11 truther,” insisting that the attack was actually orchestrated by our own government. And to this day, that assertion desecrates the deaths of all the 9/11 victims and gravely insults their families.

Indeed, “InfoWars” has been a war on reality-based info.

I have taken on a couple of Jones’s rants against our military, such as his lunatic claims back in 2015 that a military exercise, Operation Jade Helm, was cover for a military takeover of the country under Barack Obama. According to Jones, it was a practice run for “the U.S. Army’s plan to wage war on the American people.” He insisted: “This is going to be hellish. Now this is just a cover for deploying the military on the streets. … This is an invasion … in preparation for the financial collapse and maybe even Obama not leaving office.”

I responded then: “Jones, et al., are doing an enormous disservice to the conservative movement in Texas, and across the nation, dragging a lot of otherwise good folks down one of his conspiracy rat holes and, in the process, creating unwarranted tension between civilian and military Patriots. Jones has never taken an oath ‘to support and defend’ our Constitution, and he has no understanding of the sense of duty, honor, and sacrifice that forms the foundational character of our military.”

More recently, I took on Jones’s role as a J6 Capitol riot agitator. Before those jackass legions battled with police and entered the Capitol building, Jones declared himself their leader: “The White House told me three days before, we’re going to have you lead the march.” The day of the riot, he told his followers in DC: “We need to understand we’re under attack, and we need to understand this is 21st-century warfare and get on a war-footing.”

Jones, also a major promoter of the QAnon conspiracy before he distanced himself from it, added, “We will never back down to the Satanic pedophile, globalist new world order and their walking-dead reanimated corpse Joe Biden, and we will never recognize him.”

Consequently, he and his ilk helped give Nancy Pelosi’s histrionic J6 “Insurrection™ Inquisition” a platform to make Donald Trump and his supporters a divisive centerpiece ahead of the upcoming midterm elections.

I noted at the time Jones was rallying his rioters that he was being sued by parents of students murdered by a sociopath assailant at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Those suits stemmed from claims by Jones that the deadly assault was “a giant hoax” and “as phony as a three-dollar bill.”

This week, Jones admitted in court that the assault was “100% real” and then heard the first verdicts by a jury in that suit, who awarded the parents of one of the Sandy Hook victims $45.2 million in punitive damages on top of $4.11 million in compensatory damages. Of course, those damages are symbolic and it is likely that none of the plaintiffs will see any monetary renumeration from the Jones.

Jones declared his company bankrupt just ahead of the verdicts, hoping to get some financial protection. But there should be no place for the morally bankrupt Jones to hide. The damage he has done to genuine conservatives since founding InfoWars 30 years ago is incalculable.

By extension, this is some vindication for all the 9/11 victims he defamed.

National Review political analyst Jim Geraghty observed: “I am not a licensed psychologist or psychiatrist, and chances are, you aren’t either. But we all know when we run into someone who’s crazy. Much as Supreme Court justice Potter Stewart characterized his ability to determine what is and what isn’t pornography, we know it when we see it.”

The problem is that some grassroots folks don’t actually know crazy when they see it and get swallowed up by personality cults. They end up on the wrong side of the truth and too often are unable to acknowledge the truth even when it is plainly evident.

Finally, I would add that if the courts are asking Jones to pay millions in damages to people who were threatened and harassed because of his deliberate and reckless words, then every Demo hate-hustlers who used their BIG “Systemic Racism” Lie to fuel the violent “Summer of Rage” featuring their Marxist Black Lives Matter radicals and their so-called antifa movement fascists, those who murdered victims in the process, those Democrats should likewise be held accountable.

Semper Vigilans Fortis Paratus et Fidelis
Pro Deo et Libertate — 1776

(Updated)