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US Politics: Catch the big crook under the “Big Cone”


Ser Scot A Ellison

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16 minutes ago, Zorral said:

One of our friends is among the attorney teams who are working for the Dominion case.  He said last week, with all modesty, "O I'm on it because I know a lot about digital operations, and can do data run and pull out stuff," as though being an attorney who is a crackerjack at knowing the pertinent case law and other pertinent law has nothing to do with being part of the teams.

 

The “actual malice” standard from New York Times v. Sullivan is very tough to overcome.  That said… these texts and emails go a long way toward meeting that burden.

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7 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

The “actual malice” standard from New York Times v. Sullivan is very tough to overcome.  That said… these texts and emails go a long way toward meeting that burden.

This article pulls quotes towards that end -- I'm curious what your take on this would be Scot:

https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/they-knew-it-was-lie-behind-scenes-happenings-fox-while-network-pushed-false-claims-about

Quote

For Dominion to prove defamation, the company must show that Fox acted with “actual malice,” meaning that Fox knew the allegations made about Dominion were false or that Fox acted in reckless disregard for the truth. On February 16, Dominion’s brief calling for a summary judgment in its favor was released to the public. As Dominion detailed in the filing, “literally dozens of people with editorial responsibility—from the top of the organization to the producers of specific shows to the hosts themselves—acted with actual malice.” Indeed, the filing shows “lies in twenty accused statements across six different shows with the active involvement of numerous Fox Executives.

[..snip lots of quotes from individuals]

Each circumstantial factor cuts strongly in Dominion’s favor. But here, the words of multiple Fox employees provide overwhelming direct evidence of actual malice. In addition to the evidence cited above, the excerpts below feature just some of the additional examples showing Fox employees knew at the time that these claims—and the guests promoting them—were:

“ludicrous” –Tucker Carlson [11/20/20] 

“totally off the rails” –Tucker Carlson [12/24/20] 

“F’ing lunatics” –Sean Hannity [12/22/20] 

“nuts” –Dana Perino [11/16/20]

“complete bs” –Producer John Fawcett to Lou Dobbs [11/27/20]

“kooky” –Maria Bartiromo, regarding email received from Powell [11/07/20]

“MIND BLOWINGLY NUTS” –Raj Shah, Fox Corporation SVP [11/21/20]

If the burden is as the bold italics state -- Fox knew the allegations made about Dominion were false or that Fox acted in reckless disregard for the truth. -- then it seems like Dominion has a rather strong hand to play here. Fox was knowingly lying at the time and has since begun to repeat some of these claims. 

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14 minutes ago, Week said:

If the burden is as the bold italics state -- Fox knew the allegations made about Dominion were false or that Fox acted in reckless disregard for the truth. -- then it seems like Dominion has a rather strong hand to play here. Fox was knowingly lying at the time and has since begun to repeat some of these claims. 

Yes.  Now… Summary Judgment is a hard place to win that because all the defendant has to show is a scintilla of evidence that there is a “question of material fact” as to any of the elements of the allegations against the Defendant and I’d very surprised if Fox’s attorneys can’t pull that off.  

But, at the trial stage that makes it much easier for Dominion.  

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15 hours ago, Week said:

This article pulls quotes towards that end -- I'm curious what your take on this would be Scot:

https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/they-knew-it-was-lie-behind-scenes-happenings-fox-while-network-pushed-false-claims-about

If the burden is as the bold italics state -- Fox knew the allegations made about Dominion were false or that Fox acted in reckless disregard for the truth. -- then it seems like Dominion has a rather strong hand to play here. Fox was knowingly lying at the time and has since begun to repeat some of these claims. 

Moreover, the one FOX reporter who did on air say there was no evidence of voter fraud, these same people who are admitting as much in private (Carlson, Ingram, Hannity, etc.) push very hard for her to be fired for saying it on the air, many citing the danger of ratings drops as ‘disgusted’ viewers will switch to those even more right-wing news programs whose initials I forget. That’s pretty dead clear evidence of premeditated duplicity with the viewers for material gain. 

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4 minutes ago, Zorral said:

Sounds like the supreme court will simply deny the appeal again, as they already did. Any other response would be a constitutional crisis.

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5 hours ago, Week said:

Sounds like the supreme court will simply deny the appeal again, as they already did. Any other response would be a constitutional crisis.

Have you *already* managed to forget what idiocy this SC has enabled so far?

 

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2 minutes ago, ThinkerX said:

Have you *already* managed to forget what idiocy this SC has enabled so far?

 

I managed to remember what they *already* decided on this case the first time. Does that count?

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44 minutes ago, Week said:

I managed to remember what they *already* decided on this case the first time. Does that count?

With this SC...maybe...

Remember, at least one SC Justice was up to his eyeballs in election denialism, and this court is set to take seriously the whole 'Independent State Legislature' idiocy. Adding this to the mix doesn't seem that much of a stretch...

 

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10 hours ago, Week said:

Sounds like the supreme court will simply deny the appeal again, as they already did. Any other response would be a constitutional crisis.

You're assuming the SC (or at least 5 of them) wouldn't be up for a bit of a constitutional crisis.

It's not the constitutional crisis the country needs, but it's one a lot of people want.

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34 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

You're assuming the SC (or at least 5 of them) wouldn't be up for a bit of a constitutional crisis.

It's not the constitutional crisis the country needs, but it's one a lot of people want.

It’s the constitutional crisis America deserve but not the one we need right now.

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6 hours ago, James Arryn said:

Thought experiment: what if the real war that’s going on in America isn’t conservatism vs liberalism/progressivism but rather capitalism vs democracy?

Wouldn’t that at least imply a majority of people who operate businesses are opposed to Representative Democracy?  Can you demonstrate that?

Further, given that Capitalism is an economic not a political system could you point to a command style economy that was or is successfully “Democratic”?

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41 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Wouldn’t that at least imply a majority of people who operate businesses are opposed to Representative Democracy?  Can you demonstrate that?

Further, given that Capitalism is an economic not a political system could you point to a command style economy that was or is successfully “Democratic”?

Last pizza joint I worked at (15 freaking years ago!) was owned by the classic struggling small businessman seeking to make it big. They treated us field hands decently enough but were always showing 'motivational management videos' and meeting with like-minded sorts. Boss gets back from one such confab with a piece of paper, all excited like. We asked him what's the deal. He said it was the 'plain English reading of the 'right to work' laws that governed the labor market.'  Then he looks at us and goes - 'according to this, you got no rights at all.' 

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Scot I think you can treat the suggestion as meaning something in the ballpark of open oligarchy/kleptocracy/the intersection of the two with some old school feudalism thrown in for good measure.

I saw the recent case regarding Packers Sanitation Services using a significant amount of child labor got such a tiny penalty it's really just a green light for more widespread violations rather than a deterrent. When no managers/executives face personal consequences and the fine is less than 10 percent of the profit you made from using child labor instead of adult workers... Of course you're going to keep doing it.

So let's pencil in resurgent child labor to go with the dollop of feudalism.

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