Alex Jones was supposed to pay victims $1.5 billion. Why is he spending $93K a month on himself?

Following a USA TODAY investigation into the US military’s apparently failing efforts to combat extremism, a coalition of human rights groups pressed the Secretary of Defense on his progress. Meanwhile, conspiracy theorist Alex Jones has been spending lavishly on himself, without paying his victims a cent, a pro-Russia propagandist accused of participating in the Jan. 6 insurrection has fled to Russia, and a Boogaloo Boy in Nevada receives a life sentence for threatening a 2020 Black Lives Matter protest.

It’s the week in extremism.

Coalition calls for transparency in military’s anti-extremism effort

In July, USA TODAY published an investigation of the U.S. military’s two-year effort to combat extremism in the ranks. We found that despite a set of orders from the Secretary of Defense and a later task force, most reforms appear to have either failed or stalled.

On Wednesday, a coalition of 35 human rights groups called on the Secretary of Defense to open up about the military’s extremism reform efforts, citing USA TODAY’s work.

• The coalition wrote a letter to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, urging him to make more information public about the reforms he announced in April 2021.

• In 2021, Austin ordered a study into the extent of extremism in the military’s “total force,” which USA TODAY exclusively reported was completed in June 2022, but has yet to be released.

• “Extremism undermines the strength of the military and our democracy,” the groups, led by Human Rights First, wrote in the letter.

Alex Jones, living the high life, hasn’t paid victims a cent

Last year, conspiracy theorist and extremist broadcaster Alex Jones was ordered to pay more than $1.5 billion in judgments to families of children killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre. A series of court rulings ordered the payments after Jones spread false conspiracy theories about their children’s deaths.  While Jones still hasn’t paid his victims a cent, he spent $93,000 on himself in July, according to bankruptcy filings reported by the Associated Press.

• Jones has been paying his wife $15,000 a month. In July, he spent $7,900 on housekeeping, $6,300 on meals and entertainment, and $6,700 on a second home, the AP reports.

• “If anything, I like to go to nice restaurants. That is my deal. I like to go on a couple of nice vacations a year, but I think I pretty much have earned that in this fight,” Jones said on his Infowars show.

• Christopher Mattei, a lawyer for the victims said the families will continue to fight: “It is disturbing that Alex Jones continues to spend money on excessive household expenditures and his extravagant lifestyle when that money rightfully belongs to the families he spent years tormenting,” Mattei said.

Pro-Russian activist reportedly flees to Russia

Charles Bausman, a pro-Kremlin propagandist, has apparently fled to Russia, leaving behind property worth almost $1 million, according to a new report from the Southern Poverty Law Center. The SPLC previously reported that anonymous online activists had identified Bausman among people in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

• Bausman, who according to the report has lived in Russia on-and-off for 30 years, founded the pro-Kremlin website Russia Insider in 2014.

• Bausman left the U.S. for Russia soon after Jan. 6, 2021, the report says, apparently abandoning a property in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. He is reportedly delinquent on the taxes for the property.

• “Of all the people that have been arrested after Jan. 6 ... I might have been one of them had I not fled to Russia!” Bausman said on an appearance on a Russian-language streaming radio show last July, according to the report.

• The Justice Department told the SPLC it would not comment on possible investigations. As USA TODAY has previously reported, many people who have been identified in the Jan. 6 riot have yet to be charged.

Running tally: January 6 arrests Running tally: January 6 arrests

Boogaloo sentenced to life for threatening BLM protest

Late last week, Stephen Parshall, a 39-year-old former Navy enlistee and Nevada resident, was sentenced to life in prison with parole for his role in a plot to bomb an electrical substation near a Black Lives Matter protest in Las Vegas in 2020.

• According to court documents, Parshall self-identified as a member of the “Boogaloo” movement, a loosely affiliated, mostly online collection of anti-government and pro-gun extremists who advocate for a second civil war they call the “Boogaloo.”

• Parshall also previously pleaded guilty to distribution of child pornography and two counts of sexual exploitation of children.

Statistic of the week: 86%

That’s the percentage of a set of 300 posts promoting hate that were reported to X, formerly known as Twitter, but were not removed, according to a new report released Wednesday by the Center for Countering Digital Hate.

The CCDH has previously been highly critical of X’s content moderation efforts. Elon Musk, who owns X, sued the center in late July, claiming it is driving away advertisers.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Alex Jones hasn't paid Sandy Hook victims any of the $1.5B he owes