Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[Hannibal]

The problem wasn't one guest. When it becomes 50 segments saying the same thing then you tend to think the network isn't about presenting differing viewpoints and, instead, is advocating one viewpoint. And a viewpoint they believe is false (intent)..

You are right, it was more than one guest. It was probably more than a thousand guests and talking heads on various other networks other than Fox News who repeated the now totally debunked idiocy of Russia collusion and the Hunter Biden laptop being a Russian election interference conspiracy. So if volume is relevant, then those other networks should be shelling out trillions.

Networks have guests on the air all the time that they disagree with. I guarantee you that includes lots of examples where they don't correct them on air. If we dig into all of the e-mails at CNN and MSNBC, I have no doubt that we would find a similar dynamic at work for a lot of their on-air hosts.

If Trump can't sue because he is a public figure, then it's not hard to find individuals who have been slandered and who have suffered real damages as a result. The computer repair shop owner who first brought the laptop into the public domain would also be one of them. He had to abandon his shop and go into hiding. Rittenhouse suffered massively from all of the media lies about him and being incorrectly labeled as a White Supremacist.

Your statement about intent did not apply to Alex Jones. It shouldn't apply to anyone else either.

Trump also probably has a very reasonable case that his private businesses have suffered as a result of all of this lies about him. Being a "public figure" shouldn't be a free pass for someone to slander and destroy you. I admit that I don't know how the law works in this type of case though.

Did Dominion even try to prove that they suffered financially? Did their revenue crash?

[iam416]

Whatever Mueller was investigating is bulletproof from defamation at least during the process. You'd have to find a specific example of actual lying -- you have to drill down past "Russian collusion" -- which proved to be a absolutely false -- and find specific examples. That's what Dominion did. In DJT's case, the Media did not, e.g., repeat ad nauseum the ludicrous parts of the oppo research report that started it all off -- they were actually careful on how to handle it so as to avoid defamation. It's one thing for FOX to say, generally, the election was stolen. It's another to say the election was stolen because Dominion voting machines are total shit.

I'm sure Dominion quantified damages with experts and would have been prepared to present evidence as to actual damages (very minimal -- lost sales, etc) and reputation damages (harder to quantify, but presumably larger) and then asked for punitive damages -- which are not causal but, instead, based on the "badness" of the actions -- a subjective determination made by the jury. And, presumably, Delaware has no cap on punitives.

In Ohio, you can only get twice the compensatory damages. In Delaware, there is no cap. That was the problem for FOX. They still settled for an egregiously high amount. I mean, I don't think they'd be on the hook for that much in a jury trial -- I would have put it closer to $100M -- something like 10X actual damages (I'm guessing they could muster up $10M in actual damages).

[Hannibal]

Whatever Mueller was investigating is bulletproof from defamation at least during the process. You'd have to find a specific example of actual lying -- you have to drill down past "Russian collusion" -- which proved to be a absolutely false -- and find specific examples.

That's not hard to do. Remember that now, in order to be liable, the media doesn't have to editorialize the opinion. All that they have to do is host it. Hosting it on a non-news editorial show counts.

The network doesn't have to invent the lie either. All that they have to do is signal boost it.

Fox News might have been on the hook for the entire amount. I believe that's why they settled. They are a widely hated and demonized entity outside of their audience. The jury would have been very biased against them. I don't share your faith in juries' ability to arrive at a fair and just judgement. It took the jury three days to acquit Kyle Rittenhouse. It should have been three minutes.

the Media did not, e.g., repeat ad nauseum the ludicrous parts of the oppo research report that started it all off -- they were actually careful on how to handle it so as to avoid defamation

That last statement doesn't matter. Fox News didn't report the election being stolen as a true fact while reporting news. Tucker Carlson did not claim that the election was stolen. Not once. Ever. They had on-air guests who made that claim. Yet his e-mails and his show formed the core arguments against them.

[Mike]

Fox voluntarily settled for $787.5M. The money wasn't the issue. That was the price to keep their primetime personalities out of a courtroom.

Neither a court nor jury awarded that money to Dominion.

[iam416]

Remember that now, in order to be liable, the media doesn't have to editorialize the opinion. All that they have to do is host it.

That's actually not true. The Delaware court mostly agreed with the "neutral host" defense, but found 19 occasions where FOX hosts adopted the viewpoint of the guest -- mostly Lou Dobbs. So, guest says "crazy bullshit" -- Lou Dobbs then says, "that's true. Good point. Thank you."

And defamation is still a very hard case to win and still has substantial First Amendment protections.

I'm sure in your world this is what it is. I rather doubt your world will come to pass. Not rather doubt -- completely and unambiguously disagree.

[Dr. Strangelove]

It was worth it to Rupert Murdoch and FoxNews to overpay several hundred million dollars to avoid testifying about how the sausage gets made. The credibility hit to their hosts would've caused more long-term financial damage than this settlement will. And I believe they've said insurance will be paying for most if not all of it.

Once these lawsuits are behind them it'll be interesting to see who gets fired. The evidence I've seen makes it seem like CEO Suzanne Scott was way more irresponsible than Rupert himself was.

[iam416]

In the least shocking news of the week, an IRS whistleblower says that The Chairman's IRS is actively protecting dear Hunter. Color me absolutley shocked that The Chairman would exert his authority to protect his colossal fuck up of a son.

[Dr. Strangelove]

In the least shocking news of the week, an IRS whistleblower says that The Chairman's IRS is actively protecting dear Hunter. Color me absolutley shocked that The Chairman would exert his authority to protect his colossal fuck up of a son.

Will be interesting what they have to say

[iam416]

And in news that is somewhat less surprising than The Chairman going to bat for Hunter, the CFPB is trying to censor speech it doesn't like...yes, the CFPB...because, well, The Left is about authoritarian censorship (from WSJ op/ed):

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a federal bureaucracy with a vast jurisdiction, is testing a novel approach to crime and punishment. In a lawsuit against Townstone Financial, a small Chicago-area nonbank mortgage firm, the CFPB is signaling that it may attempt to punish anyone who complains about neighborhood crime.

The CFPB accuses Townstone owner Barry Sturner and others affiliated with the company of making “statements that would discourage African-American prospective applicants from applying for mortgage loans.” The suit, filed in 2020, doesn’t provide any concrete examples of consumers that Townstone has allegedly mistreated. Rather, the CFPB points to a handful of statements Mr. Sturner and other company officials made over a four-year period on the Townstone Financial Show—a weekly radio program and podcast. These statements, according to the regulatory behemoth, discourage “prospective applicants, on the basis of race, from applying for credit.”

The CFPB’s action against Townstone is concerning for many reasons. Chief among them is the lawsuit’s blatant attempt to apply antidiscrimination laws to speech made to a general audience in a mass-media venue rather than to individual customers or employees in a workplace. The Pacific Legal Foundation, a public-interest law group representing Townstone, warns in a legal brief that this approach to enforcement “would arrogate to the CFPB the authority to censor speech.”

The foundation and other attorneys for Townstone have argued in federal court that the CFPB’s action violates the First Amendment right to free speech and exceeds the agency’s authority under the Equal Credit Opportunity Act. In February, federal Judge Franklin Valderrama in the Northern District of Illinois dismissed the CFPB’s suit, ruling that the law prohibits only discrimination against actual applicants, not discouragement of prospective applicants. Undaunted, the CFPB filed to appeal the decision on April 3.

Among the statements highlighted in the lawsuit are Mr. Sturner’s descriptions of frequent weekend crime rampages on Chicago’s South Side as the work of “hoodlums” and his claim that police are keeping the city from “turning into a real war zone.” The CFPB also wags its finger at a host’s description of a Chicago suburb as an area in which “you drive very fast through” and “you don’t look at anybody or lock on anybody’s eyes.”

The CFPB contends that these statements about majority-black communities would somehow “discourage prospective applicants living in majority- or high-African-American neighborhoods from applying for mortgage loans.” Yet the Townstone hosts’ candid comments about the crime epidemic in Chicago’s black neighborhoods are remarkably similar to recent statements of Mayor-elect Brandon Johnson.

Despite Mr. Johnson’s past association with the “defund the police” movement, he spoke openly in his campaign about the effect of crime on Chicago’s neighborhoods. In a March 16 debate with Paul Vallas, Mr. Johnson described Austin—his own West Side neighborhood—as “one of the most violent neighborhoods in the entire city.” In his April 4 victory address Mr. Johnson said he’d shielded his children “from bullets that fly right outside our front door.”

In speaking honestly about the problem of crime, Mr. Johnson was voicing the frustrations of nearly everyone in Chicago. In a March poll conducted by Northwestern University’s Center for the Study of Diversity and Democracy, 53% of black respondents and 50% of whites cited crime as their most important issue. This might explain why the CFPB failed to locate any individual consumer offended by Townstone’s candid talk on the matter. The law-abiding citizen discouraged from applying for a loan by a mortgage professional calling out neighborhood “hoodlums” exists only in a CFPB bureaucrat’s imagination.

Yet the CFPB’s action on behalf of imaginary victims in Chicago could cause real-world harm to consumers and entrepreneurs across the U.S. As the Pacific Legal Foundation notes in its brief, “virtually all businesses today market on-line in various forms, including on social media.” Under the CFPB’s interpretation of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, anyone employed by or associated with a consumer finance firm who makes a random comment on social media could be subject to punishment by the agency. The same could even be true for a company employee who likes a tweet or forwards a post that the CFPB believes would “discourage” some unknown prospective applicant from applying for credit.

Policy makers interested in a real discussion about crime and public safety should arrest the CFPB’s crude attempts at censorship.

[iam416]

The CFPB case is fucking appalling and clearly illustrates what the Progs are all about.

[AlabamAlum]

image.pngThe Left has increased their intolerance for opposing views. At Pitt this week, a trans professor was set to debate Michael Knowles (who speaks out against transitioning children and other “trans” issues), but the prof pulled out. So, they brought in another speaker that the Left didn’t like and protesters set “incendiary devices” (fireworks, I assume) and rushed the auditorium to shout them down.

[Hannibal]

That's actually not true. The Delaware court mostly agreed with the "neutral host" defense, but found 19 occasions where FOX hosts adopted the viewpoint of the guest -- mostly Lou Dobbs. So, guest says "crazy bullshit" -- Lou Dobbs then says, "that's true. Good point. Thank you."
.

The Lou Dobbs show was not the lawsuit's most prominent claim. It was Tucker Carlson. They used Tucker Carlson's e-mails as evidence that he knowingly defamed them, because he did not openly disagree with or correct on-air hosts. Dominion's case was that the entire network from top to bottom defamed them on multiple shows with huge reach. That included the Tucker Carlson show, which has the greatest reach out of all of them. And Tucker never once claimed himself that the election was stolen.

Also -- only 19 occasions? Over how many days and how many segments? That's an absolutely miniscule amount. Probably a day at the office for the likes of Joy Reid and not indicative at all of a systemic issue at Fox News.

If Lou Dobbs genuinely believed that the election was stolen, then that also eliminates the "knowingly spread a lie" argument for him. What did his e-mails say?

[AlabamAlum]

The attack on freedom of speech, and allowing dissenting viewpoints is an huge issue that’s getting worse.

I’m not sure the Right has the social currency to stop this shit. It’s going to take good people to the Left to speak out and condemn this for change to happen. Those voices are shockingly mute, though.

[Dr. Strangelove]

I believe Tucker's emails were important because they showed that he was attempting to shut down fact-checking on the network entirely, not just on his program. He became livid when anyone on the News side of Fox debunked Trump's election lies. He demanded reporters be fired for daring to call into question Sydney Powell's integrity while simultaneously calling her a psycho bitch in private.

So you can claim all you want that Tucker "never" once claimed the election was stolen but he worked as hard as he could to make sure no one on HIS network would publicly dispute those claims.

[Hannibal]

The CFPB case is fucking appalling and clearly illustrates what the Progs are all about.

What statement do you think I'm tempted to make here?

Heh heh. Have a nice day.