Free Press

Trump’s ‘Big Lie’ Lawsuit Against CNN Tossed By Court Because Truth is Not Defamation

Posted by on July 29, 2023 at 11:33 am. 6 Comments :

The most litigious president in American history is unquestionably Donald Trump. He has a penchant for suing anyone and everyone, generally without any legal merit, as a means of retribution and to punish his political enemies for daring to challenge his delusional divinity.

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Donald Trump, CNN

Trump’s most frequent attempts to abuse the court system have been through his challenges to the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. He and his associates lost at least sixty such lawsuits, mostly for failing utterly to provide a shred of evidence supporting his baseless assertions of voter fraud. The parade of frivolous litigation came to be referred to by politicians and the press as Trump’s “Big Lie.” And that triggered the perpetually perturbed Trump to file a lawsuit against CNN for defamation.

SEE THIS: Trump Attorney Announces Laughable Lawsuit Against CNN for Accurately Calling Trump a Liar

On Friday Trump’s case against CNN was thrown out of court for failing to present any argument that the reporting by CNN wasn’t actually true. According to Deadline…

“A federal judge dismissed Donald Trump’s $475 million defamation lawsuit against CNN, litigation centered on references made by on-air figures to “the Big Lie,” or the former president’s unfounded claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him.

Trump had argued in his lawsuit, filed in federal court in Florida, that the references to the phrase were defamatory as they created a “false and incendiary association” between him and Adolf Hitler.”

U.S. District Judge Raag Singhal, a Trump appointee, ruled that the lawsuit cited CNN segments that were merely “a stacking of inferences that cannot support a finding of falsehood.” In other words, Trump could not prove that describing his unfounded claims of election fraud as the “Big Lie” was untrue. And as always, truth is the best defense against defamation. CNN’s reporting, according to the court, was lawful opinion, and Trump failed to make a plausible argument that it was in any way false.

The court also appropriately refused to entertain Trump’s complaint that associating him with a phrase that has been attributed to Hitler’s Nazi propaganda chief, Joseph Goebbels, was defamatory. How could it be when such associations are objectively true. Trump has been a far more prolific and flagrant disseminator of lies and propaganda than the Nazi regime. If anything, Hitler might have a better case of defamation for being associated with Trump.

Many of Trump’s misadventures in legal malpractice involve the media. He is especially anxious to try to muzzle the free press that he believes is out to get him. Consequently, he has sued everyone from CNN, to the Washington Post, to Twitter, and more. He even sued the Pulitzer board for awarding prizes to newspapers that honestly reported on his unsavory ties to Russia.

SEE ALSO: Trump Sues the Pulitzer Prize Board for Honoring Accurate Stories of His Russian Collusion

Trump has yet to prevail in of his defamation lawsuits. That’s because he has never even bothered to present a coherent argument that he was defamed or suffered any damages to his already repugnant reputation. It has always been a poorly staged melodrama of malice meant to bully those he hated or feared. And his record of losses is the best evidence of his disingenuous intent. Yet somehow, he persists in these losing causes no matter how many times he is struck down in humiliation.

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After Tucker Carlson Fiasco, McCarthy Will Give January 6th Video to More MAGA Propagandists

Posted by on June 2, 2023 at 1:09 pm. 5 Comments :

From the very start of his tenure, Republican House Squeaker, Kevin McCarthy, demonstrated just how brazenly partisan and dishonest his speakership would be. After a historic 15 attempts to secure enough votes to become Speaker, McCarthy was indebted to ultra-rightist underlings like Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene to hold onto the post.

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GOP Insurrection

Among the first actions by the new Speaker were the removal of Democrats Adam Schiff, Ilhan Omar, and Eric Swalwell, from their respective committees. Then he formed a bogus committee on “Responsiveness and Accountability Oversight,” whose stated purpose was to “make life Hell” for Democrats. And of course, he oversaw the creation of the House’s first “Anti-Woke” Caucus.

However, nothing was more representative of McCarthy’s radical political prejudices than when he handed over 41,000 hours of video from the January 6th insurrection, that was incited by Donald Trump, to the pro-insurrection, Putin loving poseur, Tucker Carlson. McCarthy claimed that he was making these videos public, but Carlson was the only person who was given access to them. After which, Carlson predictably produced a preposterous program that portrayed the violent MAGA rioters as peaceful tourists visiting the Capitol.

SEE THIS: Tucker Carlson Spins January 6th Insurrection Videos to Spread Blatant Lies, Trump Praises Him

Carlson’s ludicrous narrative was widely mocked and condemned. In fact, he ended up airing only a few carefully edited, and particularly boring, minutes of the 41,000 hours of video over two nights that revealed nothing of significance. Which shouldn’t surprise anyone who has seen Carlson’s other “reporting” on January 6th, wherein he glorifies the rioters and accuses the FBI of orchestrating the whole thing.

McCarthy had promised to eventually release the videos to the public at large, including other media outlets. But three months later, McCarthy is apparently making the videos available to some more well known conspiracy crackpots. According to his boss, Marjorie Taylor Greene (admittedly not the most reliable source)…

“I’m excited to share the good news that just as I promised the J6 tapes are being released!

“@SpeakerMcCarthy has given @jsolomonReports, @Julie_kelly2, and a third outlet unfettered access to the J6 tapes, and their reporting on it starts tomorrow.

“This is the transparency the American people deserve and I look forward to their reporting!”

First of all, doling out the videos to selected conservative hacks is not “releasing” them. Nor is it “transparency” by any rational definition of the word. And what they will produce can hardly be called “reporting.” It is conspiring with confederates to manufacture more malicious propaganda.

What’s more, the people named by Greene are notorious fabricators of political fiction. John Solomon is a disgraced former Fox News contributor whose work is relentlessly slanted toward the ultra-right. Julie Kelly writes for the Trump-fluffing “American Greatness,” website, and is a prominent purveyor of conspiracy theories and slobbering Trump commentaries. The third party to whom McCarthy is giving the videos was apparently too embarrassing to even identify. Perhaps it is Rudy Giuliani or Don Trump Jr.

McCarthy’s refusal to grant access to these videos is a blatantly unethical, and possibly illegal, suppression of public materials and a breach of the First Amendment’s protection of a free press. He has already been sued by a coalition of media enterprises seeking access to the videos. They include CNN, Advance Publications, The Associated Press, CBS News, E.W. Scripps, Gannett, Politico, ProPublica and The New York Times.

Finally, there is a disturbing irony and hypocrisy in McCarthy’s aversion to sharing information. He recently threatened the FBI Director with contempt of Congress for not turning over a document that he wants in order to smear President Biden.

SEE THIS: McCarthy Threatens FBI Director with Contempt for Not Aiding His Petty Persecution of Biden

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Fox News ‘Demands’ that Media Matters Stop Publishing Leaked Videos of Tucker Carlson

Posted by on May 5, 2023 at 12:30 pm. 4 Comments :

The fallout from Fox News firing their Senior White Nationalist, Tucker Carlson, continues to cast dark shadows on the network that tolerated and embraced his hate speech and lies for so many years. Apparently terminating Carlson after agreeing to settle the defamation lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems for 3/4 of a billion dollars was only the beginning of their problems.

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Fox News, Fake News

This week Media Matters acquired some videos of Carlson that further exposed his racism, as well as the animosity he had for his own colleagues at Fox News who he thought weren’t sufficiently repellent. These videos revealed Carlson maligning his former employer, saying “I don’t want to be a slave to Fox Nation. [and that] Nobody watches Fox Nation because the site sucks.” Additionally, there were text messages wherein he complained about having been deposed by Dominion’s lawyers and criticized violent Trump supporters because “It’s not how white men fight.”

SEE THIS: Leaked Video of Tucker Carlson Bashing Fox Nation as a Site that ‘Sucks’ and ‘Nobody Watches’

On Friday Fox News sent Media Matters a “cease and desist” letter demanding that they stop publishing these videos. The letter said…

“We write on behalf of Fox Corporation to clarify any misunderstandings Media Matters may have had regarding previously unaired footage that Media Matters has published in a series of articles headlined ‘Foxleaks.’ That unaired footage is Fox’s confidential intellectual property; Fox did not consent to its distribution or publication; and Fox does not consent to its further distribution or publication. This proprietary material was given to you without Fox’s authorization. Fox demands that Media Matters cease and desist from distribution, publication, and misuse of Fox’s misappropriated proprietary footage, which you are now on notice was unlawfully obtained. We reserve all rights and remedies.”

Seriously? First of all, Media Matters is well within their rights as a journalistic enterprise to publish these videos. Fox’s threat is empty and unsupported by the law, and particularly the Constitution.

What’s more, Fox News is a frequent exploiter of what they have insisted is their First Amendment rights to publish similarly obtained materials. They have had no problem with publishing private emails from Hillary Clinton, or text messages of FBI agent Peter Strzok, or the sort of videos that Project Veritas produced by secretly recording people that they purposefully deceived. Consequently, it is more likely that the source of these videos is actually Fox News. They have to incentive to dirty up Carlson before he lands at some other media outfit and starts smearing Fox.

Nevertheless, Fox News thinks they can intimidate Media Matters to prevent them from providing information that is relevant and important to the public regarding the state of affairs at Fox News. But Media Matters wasn’t intimidated. They released a response that brilliantly rejected Fox’s feeble threat.

“Reporting on newsworthy leaked material is a cornerstone of journalism. For Fox to argue otherwise is absurd and further dispels any pretense that they’re a news operation. Perhaps if I tell them that the footage came from a combination of WikiLeaks and Hunter Biden’s laptop, it will alleviate their concerns.”

OUCH! It’s unlikely that even proving that Fox News is brazenly hypocritical will “alleviate their concerns.” That’s because Fox’s concerns are rooted in their deeply held, ultra-rightist biases, and not in any logic, reason or facts. Which is one of the reasons why Fox is currently suffering the worst downtrend in their ratings in more than ten years. And ridiculous measures like this to try to censor their critics isn’t going to make anything better for them. Just imagine what would come out in any trial if Fox followed through with this threat.

RELATED: With Lawsuits, Lost Hosts, and Lying Pundits, the Future of Fox News Has Never Been Weaker

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FOX News FINALLY Reports on the Dominion Lawsuit and is Predictably Dishonest and Biased

Posted by on March 14, 2023 at 11:44 am. 2 Comments :

The biggest media story of the year – or even the century – is the billion dollar defamation lawsuit by Dominion Voting systems against Fox News. Recent disclosures in court filings have unmasked just how brazenly Fox News has deceived their viewers by repeatedly lying on air about matters for which they privately held diametrically opposing views.

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Fox News, Howard Kurtz

For weeks following the Dominion filings, Fox News refused to even bring up the subject of the lawsuit. Then their chief media correspondent, Howard Kurtz, addressed it briefly on his Sunday program, MediaBuzz. However, his only comments were to tell his audience that he was not going to be reporting on the lawsuit because he had been forbidden to by Fox editors and executives.

MORE HERE: BANNED ON FOX NEWS: The Network Prohibits Any Reporting on the $1.6 Billion Dominion Lawsuit

Apparently that censorious edict has been revoked and Kurtz was given some sort of conditional permission to cover the story. So he did so in the most Fox-ish manner possible. Which means that he was overtly dishonest in his starkly biased presentation that looked like it was written by the Fox News PR department. What follows are some of the lowlights of Kurtz’s whitewashing coverage (video below).

Kurtz began by defending the indefensible saying that “there is a crucial First Amendment argument here involving the coverage of unsubstantiated claims of 2020 election fraud by Donald Trump and his allies.” That’s patently false. The First Amendment prohibits Congress from “abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.” Dominion is not Congress. Furthermore, Dominion is not seeking to censor Fox News. They are suing for damages due to Fox’s purposeful and repeated defamation, which is not protected by the First Amendment.

Kurtz then quotes from a Fox News statement saying that “Dominion has been caught red-handed using more distortions and misinformation in their PR campaign to smear Fox News and trample on free speech and freedom of the press.” Nothing in that statement is true. Dominion was not “caught red-handed,” and Kurtz doesn’t bother to substantiate any of its charges of “distortions and misinformation.” Yet somehow, Kurtz asserts that his framing of the “facts” will be fair to both sides…

“Now I’m going to give you both sides, but let me say this: Fox’s critics and competitors are denouncing the network, and many of them are rooting not just for Fox to lose the suit, but to be wiped out as a company because they can’t stand the mostly conservative view of a relative handful of opinion hosts”

Notice that Kurtz immediately contradicts his own assertion to give both sides. The criticism of competitors is completely irrelevant to the misconduct that Fox has been engaging in. If Fox News were a legitimate news enterprise, they would tell the truth regardless of what their competitors are saying. And the claim that only “a relative handful of opinion hosts” are disgorging conservative views is pure fiction. Fox’s alleged “journalists” (i.e. Brett Baier) were shown to be just as dishonest as Sean Hannity in the Dominion filings. Even so, Fox’s opinion hosts are the highest rated personalities on the network, so their lies carry more weight than unknown field reporters.

Kurtz went on to soft-pedal Fox’s deceit saying that “The heart of dominion’s suit is a gap” between what hosts said on the air and what they said privately among each other. Referring to Fox’s outright lying as merely a “gap” is like referring to the Grand Canyon as a pothole. Kurtz is deliberately underplaying the severity of Fox’s corruption. And he spent the remainder of his remarks spewing defenses for it. For instance, Kurtz said that…

“There was, to be sure, straight reporting by the news division, which also caused some friction, but the fact that some people in the chain of command privately dismissed the fraud claims as nuts or outlandish or insane doesn’t necessarily mean Fox couldn’t cover and comment on the extremely newsworthy spectacle of a president saying an election was stolen.”

Actually, no reputable media organization would allow a reporter to cover a story they were caught lying about. What’s more, the problem wasn’t that Fox was “covering” what Donald Trump and others said about election fraud. The problem was that the Fox News hosts were endorsing the fraud allegations themselves. That isn’t journalism, it’s propaganda.

In conclusion, Kurtz – still claiming to be fair to both sides – closed with a comment by Fox’s CEO, Lachlan Murdoch, who said that…

“The network has an obligation to report the news fairly. I think a lot of the noise you hear about this case is actually not about the law, and is not about journalism, and is really about the politics.”

Really? For Murdoch to brag about Fox’s “obligation to report the news fairly” after what the Dominion lawsuit has revealed is preposterous. That has never been the mission of Fox News, and the recent disclosures of their internal communications proves that it isn’t now. Not when you have their hosts knowingly deceiving viewers and spreading flagrant falsehoods that undermine democracy and foment violence.

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BANNED ON FOX NEWS: The Network Prohibits Any Reporting on the $1.6 Billion Dominion Lawsuit

Posted by on February 27, 2023 at 12:05 pm. 2 Comments :

A few years ago Fox News dropped their long-time slogan that falsely declared that they were “Fair & Balanced.” Having been founded by an ultra-rightist newspaper baron (Rupert Murdoch) and a Republican media consultant (Roger Ailes), it was never true. It only served to imply that every other news source was unfair and imbalanced.

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Fox News, Censorship

That’s the modus operandi of a cult, wherein members are admonished that the cult is the only source of truth and that everyone else is lying. Fox News replaced their slogan with “Real News, Real Honest Opinion.” Which was equally false. And the extent of their brazen and deliberate dishonesty was recently revealed in a motion filed by Dominion Voting systems as part of their $1.6 defamation lawsuit against Fox. The motion cited numerous instances of Fox News hosts and executives saying in private that they didn’t believe the election fraud lies that they were reporting on air as facts.

RELATED: In Dominion v Fox News, Network Cries ‘We Can’t Make People Think We’ve Turned Against Trump’

The revelations in the Dominion motion were widely reported by virtually every news outlet. Except, of course, for Fox “News”. And on Sunday it was revealed why. Howard Kurtz, the network’s alleged media analyst, confessed on his program that his bosses had forbidden him to discuss the matter…

“Some of you have been asking why I’m not covering the Dominion Voting Machines lawsuit against Fox involving the unproven claims of election fraud in 2020, and it’s absolutely a fair question. I believe I should be covering it. It’s a major media story, given my role here at Fox. But the company has decided that as part of the organization being sued, I can’t talk about it or write about it, at least for now. I strongly disagree with that decision, but as an employee, I have to abide by it. And if that changes, I’ll let you know.”

It is not uncommon, when a company is the subject of a lawsuit, for it to order its employees to refrain from making any public statement about the case, for fear of them disclosing something detrimental. However, when it is a media company it poses a unique dilemma, because they have a professional and ethical obligation to report the news. In this case, Kurtz could easily have reported on the existence of the lawsuit without prejudicing it in any way. And his statement affirms that it is “a major media story,” and that his audience is interested in it.

Nevertheless, Fox News has imposed a total ban on reporting anything about the case. Clearly they are censoring themselves to avoid the embarrassment of having their viewers learn the truth about their purposeful lying. Fox surely doesn’t want them to know that their most popular hosts, such as Laura Ingraham, Tucker Carlson, and Sean Hannity, discussed among themselves that Trump’s “Big Lie” about the 2020 presidential election being “rigged and stolen” from him, was a wholly fabricated fiction.

RELATED: Hannity Admits in Fox News Lawsuit that ‘I Did Not Believe [Trump’s Big Lie] for One Second’

Since Fox News banned Kurtz from reporting on the Dominion case, it’s fair to assume that they imposed the same blackout on the rest of their hosts, contributors, and guests. That muzzling of their own “reporters” is, in itself, news. However, Kurtz is wrong when he says that “as an employee, I have to abide by it.” Actually, he has several other options.

First of all, he could ignore this infringement on free speech and report on the case anyway. Secondly, he could argue with his superiors and organize his peers to get the restraint lifted. Thirdly, he could resign in protest and retain some measure of integrity. He could also offer to anonymously tell what he knows to other media, or even to the Dominion lawyers.

All of those options, however, would require that Kurtz have some dignity and respect for journalistic ethics. So it’s no wonder why he chose to simply obey his bosses and shut his mouth. Suppressing real news that Fox finds uncomfortable is their standard operating procedure. It’s why they didn’t air live a single minute of the hearings by the House Select Committee on the January 6th Insurrection that Trump incited, despite the high ratings the hearings received on MSNBC and CNN.

SEE THIS: Trump Toady Lies that Fox News ‘Destroyed CNN and MSNBC’ By Not Airing the January 6th Hearings

Finally, in addition to gagging Kurtz, Fox also refused to air an ad by MoveOn that featured the words of their own hosts and executives. So Fox is not only rejecting journalistic ethics, they are even refusing revenue for advertising. And if they are turning down cold, hard, cash, you know they are scared witless.

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Ron DeSantis Seeks to Muzzle the Media with Unconstitutional Libel Law Reforms – Just Like Trump

Posted by on February 23, 2023 at 11:42 am. 5 Comments :

There is clearly something in the swamp water in Florida that makes its Republican politicians emulate the anti-American derangement of one another. That would account for how Ron DeSantis, while ostensibly preparing to challenge Donald Trump for the 2024 GOP nomination for president is, instead, turning into an even more extreme copy of the twice impeached, former reality TV game show host.

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Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis

Politico is reporting that the majority Republican Florida legislature is drafting a bill that would severely threaten the free press were it to be found constitutional – which it surely would not be if the Supreme Court were occupied by fair-minded Justices. To be sure there are some serious problems with the media as witnessed by the lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems against Fox News.

RELATED: In Dominion v Fox News, Network Cries ‘We Can’t Make People Think We’ve Turned Against Trump’

However, the reforms sought by DeSantis are dangerously oppressive and intended only to intimidate journalists and silence his critics. According to Politico…

“At the governor’s urging, Florida’s Republican-dominated Legislature is pushing to weaken state laws that have long protected journalists against defamation suits and frivolous lawsuits. The proposal is part [of] DeSantis’ ongoing feud with media outlets like The New York Times, Miami Herald, CNN and The Washington Post — media companies he claims are biased against Republicans — as he prepares for a likely 2024 presidential bid.

“Beyond making it easier to sue journalists, the proposal is also being positioned to spark a larger legal battle with the goal of eventually overturning New York Times v. Sullivan, the landmark 1964 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that limits public officials’ ability to sue publishers for defamation.”

The DeSantis proposal would make it easier to sue media for defamation. It would also remove journalists’ protection from having to reveal confidential sources, and mandate by law that such reported comments are presumed false in court proceedings. These reforms are contrary to the Constitution and 250 years of legal precedents. They would have a chilling effect on the press and discourage honest reporting.

That discouragement is, of course, precisely the goal of DeSantis. He has assumed the identical position of Trump – and their authoritarian heroes like Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong Un, and Xi Jinping – with regard to suppressing the media. Politico notes that DeSantis has been “refusing to conduct interviews with platforms except Fox News.” That was the same strategy employed by Trump for most his campaigns and presidency. Although lately Trump has taken to even attacking his Ministry of Propaganda, Fox News.

RELATED: Trump’s 2023 New Year’s Wish: Hopefully American Newspapers Will Go Out of Business

However, DeSantis is actually taking this unconstitutional obsession even farther than Trump by committing it to law. Trump often threatened to do so, but never followed through. In January of 2018 Trump whined that…

“Our current libel laws are a sham and a disgrace and do not represent American values or American fairness. So we’re gonna take a strong look at that.”

Perhaps the reason that Trump chickened out was because he would have opened a can of worms that would have devoured him. No one has exposed himself to more potential libel allegations than Trump. Every time he calls a reporter a liar, or asserts as fact that unnamed sources don’t exist, or alleges that a story was deliberately made up, or unleashes one of his infantile and insulting nicknames on a reporter, Trump is slandering those reporters and harming their reputations and careers.

Someone may have warned Trump to be careful what he wishes for. After all, there have been literally thousands of comments and tweets by Trump that were demonstrably false, but manifestly injured their targets. For instance, what about the sixteen women who have spoken out about Trump’s sexual abuse? He called every one of them liars? One of them, E. Jean Carroll, is currently suing him for defamation.

If DeSantis were smart (doubtful), he would abandon these ill-considered reforms. They are only likely to backfire on him. There are already plenty of safeguards in current law that protect people from deliberate slander and libel. Even if committed by the media. Just ask Dominion Voting Systems.

That, however, isn’t sufficient for Republican press haters who are more interested in censorship than freedom. Consequently, politicians like Trump and DeSantis, who are afraid of a free press, are seeking to shut it down. Trump has already gone to great lengths to do so, and in the process proved that current laws are more than adequate.

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Ted Cruz, Attacking FCC Nominee, Unwittingly Makes a Damn Good Argument Against Donald Trump

Posted by on February 14, 2023 at 2:08 pm. 3 Comments :

The state of Texas has been suffering from extraordinarily poor representation by their junior senator, Ted Cruz, for many years. He has distinguished himself as the most hated man in the Senate, and excelled only at scoring airtime on Fox News and humiliating himself and his state.

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Ted Cruz, Donald Trump

On Tuesday the Senate Commerce Committee held a confirmation hearing for Gigi Sohn to the Federal Communications Commission. Sohn’s nomination has been held up by Republicans for two years, despite having outstanding credentials and support from a broad and bipartisan array of industry and citizen constituents. So naturally Cruz is expressing his customary knee-jerk opposition to whatever any Democrat proposes or is associated with.

RELATED: Fox News (and Ted Cruz?) are APPALLED that the Biden Family Goes on Holiday During the Holidays

During his time to question Sohn, Cruz unleashed an extended rant slandering her with flagrant falsehoods. He enumerated all of the things about Sohn that he regarded as disqualifying. It was a list of utterly fictional grievances. However, his complaints actually applied more closely to Donald Trump than to Sohn.

Cruz began by objecting to Sohn having been associated with “far left organizations.” They were actually fairly mainstream organizations, but Cruz, and all Republicans, accuse every liberal organization of being far left socialist commies. And of course, Cruz has no problem with all of the radical right organizations that Trump is beholden to. He then elaborated in a stream of petulant whining (video below)…

“[Sohn] retweeted and liked posts by Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez calling for defunding the police.”

Cruz didn’t provide any examples of the tweets that offended him. But if liking allegedly offensive tweets is disqualifying, he should address Trump’s embrace of truly heinous postings by QAnon and other fascist, racist, hate mongers.

“And, in July 2020, during riots in Portland, Oregon, she retweeted a post attacking federal law enforcement officers as armed goons in riot gear with tear gas. It’s no surprise that her nomination is opposed by multiple law enforcement groups, including the Fraternal Order of Police and National Sheriffs Association.”

Again, there was no evidence of offending tweets. But attacking law enforcement is one of Trump’s favorite pastimes. Just this morning he referred to the FBI as the “Gesatpo.”

“Ms. Sohn portrays herself as a defender of free speech but has a history of campaigning to censor conservatives.”

Sohn has never campaigned to censor conservatives. But Trump has literally called for the termination of the Constitution and repeatedly maligned the press as “the enemy of the people.”

“[Sohn] calls Fox News ‘dangerous to our democracy’ and has urged the FCC to revoke Sinclair’s broadcast licenses.”

Ok, let’s give him this much. Sohn is correct about Fox News. However, Cruz is lying about her urging revocation of Sinclair’s licenses. Although she did suggest that a hearing should be held to ascertain whether Sinclair should be punished beyond the $48 million fine they received for lying to the FCC. Trump, on the other hand, regards all of the media (except those that worship him) as dangerous and hopes that most of them go out of business.

“At the same time, she has a history of fighting against indecency regulations that protect children from exposure to filth on TV. To Ms. Sohn, it seems conservative speech is worse than obscenity.”

Often what Cruz regards as “filth” is just anything that he disagrees with, including lifestyles of LGBTQ persons or non-Christians. And To Trump liberal speech is an apocalyptic-level abomination.

So every point that Cruz made fit Trump better than it did Sohn. Consequently, if we accept his arguments, then Trump should be disqualified from public service. That, of course, is a given for so many other reasons: inciting an insurrection, undermining democracy, pathological lying, hoarding hundreds of classified documents, promoting racism, embracing dictators. The list goes on and on.

RELATED: Trump Post Urges His Cult Followers to Take Up Arms and ‘Physically Fight’ for the Presidency

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Herr Trump Embraces Fascist GOP Threats to Regulate Twitter and Arrest Their Executives

Posted by on February 9, 2023 at 1:08 pm. 6 Comments :

During his brief but abominable occupation of the White House, Donald Trump distinguished himself from his predecessors by relentlessly expressing his aversion to the free press and the Constitution. He repeatedly referred to the media as “the enemy of the people,” and more recently literally called for termination of the Constitution.

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Donald Trump, QAnon, Dictator

On Wednesday the newly GOP-led House Oversight Committee held a hearing to finally get to the bottom of the Scandal of the Century, Hunter Biden’s stolen laptop. Specifically the Committee sought to prove that the pre-Elon Musk Twitter regime had deliberately skewed their policies to adversely affect conservatives and Republicans and, especially Donald Trump.

The Republicans staged a shamelessly shallow exercise in feigned outrage over imaginary offenses that was triggered by the embarrassingly ineffective attempt by Musk’s “Twitter Files” “exposé” to unveil political bias on the part of Twitter’s previous staff.

RELATED: OH-MY: Trump Unleashes Vile Threats in Tantrum Over Elon Musk’s ‘Twitter Files’ Farce

Notable during the avalanche of asininity on the part of Republican members of the Committee, were the remarks by Clay Higgins of Louisiana. When it was his turn to question the Twitter executives who were summoned before the Committee to testify, Higgins launched into an unhinged flurry of baseless accusations and culminating in outright threats:

“You, ladies and gentlemen interfered with the United States of America 2020 presidential election, knowingly and willingly. That’s the bad news. It’s gonna get worse because this is the investigation part. Later comes the arrests part. Your attorneys are familiar with that.”
Marjorie Taylor Greene said the same thing.

What we have here is a member of Congress threatening to have witnesses arrested for unspecified crimes for which he has no evidence ever occurred. What Higgins is asserting as criminal is the exercise of the constitutional rights of a private social media company to moderate the content on its website. It is wholly inappropriate intimidation by a government official seeking to coerce the behavior of individuals to comply with his political beliefs.

That sort of authoritarian bullying is generally reserved for tyrants and dictators, and those who seek to emulate them. And speaking of Donald Trump… He was thrilled to see how Higgins browbeat the Twitter execs. He posted a video of Higgins along with with his approval on his pitifully failing Twitter ripoff, Truth Social, saying that…

“Finally we have people with courage stepping forward! The Election was Rigged and Stolen, in so many ways – A mockery of our fully weaponized ‘Justice’ system.”

[For the record, the tweet that Trump was so appalled by that he wanted Twitter staff arrested was by supermodel Chrissy Teigen, who called Trump a “PAB” (look it up) for being too cowardly to tag her in his tweet that insulted her]

Of course, there was nothing in Higgins remarks – or in the entirety of the hearing – that even hinted at any evidence that the “Election was Rigged and Stolen.” To the contrary, Democrats on the Committee conclusively proved that the only bias by Twitter was in favor of Trump and the GOP. Even worse, in questioning by Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA) it was affirmed that only the Trump White House ever attempted to direct Twitter to censor content. And it did so with an overt threat that, “We’ll shut you down. We’ll regulate you. We Will never allow this to happen.”

That is an example of unambiguous government suppression of a free press and a violation of the First Amendment. Nevertheless, Rep. Jim Jordan tried to turn the tables by accusing the Biden campaign of censorship simply because they made a request for Twitter to review certain offensive tweets. Jordan’s argument, however, was ridiculous. He claimed that asking Twitter to review whether tweets were in compliance with their own terms of service was censorship.

Obviously, it’s not against the First Amendment to ask a company to review content based on the company’s own standards. What’s more, the Biden campaign not only didn’t accompany their requests with threats, they weren’t even in power at the time, so they had no clout with which to threaten. And yet this is the scenario in which Trump posted a comment urging his cult to “Watch the Twitter hearings going on right now in Washington. They admit that the Presidential Election of 2020 was RIGGED & STOLEN!”

Naturally Trump is lying. No such admission occurred in the hearing. But Trump’s flagrant dishonesty is precisely the sort of provocation that resulted in the riots in Washington on January 6th. And his continued presence on social media (both Twitter and Facebook recently reinstated his accounts) will predictably result in more violence.

RELATED: Why Elon Musk Restoring Trump’s Twitter Account is Ignorant, Dangerous, and Hypocritical

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DirecTV Drops Ultra-Right Newsmax Network and Triggers Trump Temper Tantrum Attacking AT&T

Posted by on January 26, 2023 at 11:50 am. 5 Comments :

The latest pseudo-scandal to upset the fragile feelings of the conservative mediasphere is the report that DirecTV and Newsmax have failed to reach an agreement on renewing the Trump-fluffing network’s contract. As a result, DirecTV has pulled Newsmax from their service pending a resolution.

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Donald Trump, Boycott

Predictably overreacting to this news, Republicans in congress, and the ultra-rightist press that props them up, are howling about perceived, albeit imaginary, liberal bias, and are threatening to hold hearings (oh no, not that) to get to the bottom of this atrocity. They did the same thing when DirecTV dropped One America News Network (OAN) last year because nobody was watching it.

RELATED: Trump’s Favorite Propaganda Peddler, One America News (OAN), Gets Dumped By DirecTV (AT&T)

CBS News reports that “DirecTV said it ‘made it clear’ to Newsmax that it wants to continue airing the network,” but that its “demands for rate increases would have led to significantly higher costs” for DirecTV’s customers. This development naturally provoked Donald Trump, America’s “most fabulous whiner” (in his own words), to lash out at DirecTV and its corporate parent, AT&T, saying that…

“WOW. AT&T DIRECTV REMOVES NEWSMAX FROM ITS CHANNEL LINEUP. This disgusting move comes after ‘deplatforming’ OAN last year. The Radical Left seems to have taken over the mind and soul of AT&T. This is a big blow to the Republican Party, and to America itself. For DIRECTV to drop very popular NEWSMAX, without explanation, will not be accepted. I, for one, will be dropping all association with AT&T and DIRECTV, and I have plenty. This is just one of many reasons why we must WIN IN 2024!!!”

What Trump is describing as a “disgusting move” is actually the exercise of a private business’s rights in free market capitalism. Republicans used to be in favor that. Now they are openly hostile to both free markets and the free press. They seem to prefer allowing government to force program providers to carry networks that they don’t want. And Trump’s kneejerk assertion that “the mind and soul” of AT&T, a major financial backer of conservative Republicans, has been taken over by the “Radical Left,” is patently absurd.

What’s more, Trump’s complaint that Newsmax was dropped “without explanation” is a flagrant lie. The negotiations between DirecTV and Newsmax broke down due to Newsmax’s insistence on being paid carriage fees for the first time. DirecTV is understandably reluctant to do so because Newsmax is available on other platforms (Roku, Amazon Fire, etc.) for free. It would make no sense for DirecTV to make their customers pay more for a service that, contrary to Trump’s claim, is not particularly popular, and is available elsewhere for nothing.

Unsurprisingly, Trump doesn’t understand that. And he couldn’t care less about whether this is “a big blow to the Republican Party, and to America itself.” He is wholly focused on his own selfish interests because Newsmax is a network that is unflinchingly worshipful of Trump and is home to many of his media mouthpieces.

Therefore, DirecTV’s decision to drop Newsmax “will not be accepted” by Trump. As if that has any meaning. He claims to have “plenty” of associations with DirecTV and AT&T, but the truth is that Trump is an impotent loser who can’t even influence the behavior of his most devoted and glassy-eyed fans. He has called for a boycott of AT&T in the past, without any discernible impact.

In fact, Trump has called for boycotts of numerous companies that failed to be sufficiently adoring of him. They include Fox News, Harley-Davidson, CNN, Apple, Macy’s, Univision, Mexico, HBO, Rolling Stone, Major League Baseball, Coca-Cola, Delta Airlines, JPMorgan Chase, ViacomCBS, Citigroup, Cisco, UPS, and Merck, to name few. Advocating boycotts of so many American companies, and the Americans who work for them, is a bad look for someone who is seeking the presidency again.

SEE THIS: Crybaby Trump Hypocritically Calls Boycotts ‘Vicious’ and ‘Crazed’: Here are 10 of His Own

Finally, the charge that DirecTV is caving in to liberals was quickly disproven. The day after the decision to drop Newsmax. DirecTV announced that they were adding “The First,” another right-wing network with low viewership, to its roster. The First features disgraced former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly, and is run by Christopher Balfe, the former CEO of Glenn Beck’s Mercury Radio Arts. That’s not exactly capitulating to the radical left, is it? And besides that, Newsmax has other things to worry about…

RELATED: Newsmax and OAN Added to Smartmatic’s Billion Dollar Lawsuit for Pushing Trump’s ‘Big Lie’

UPDATE: Trump extended on his rant about DirecTV in a subsequent post saying that it “should CANCEL CNN & MSDNC,” because “their Ratings are so pathetically bad.” And he insists that Newsmax and OAN (whose ratings are a fraction of CNN and MSNBC’s) should be put back on because “THE REPUBLICAN PARTY DEMANDS IT!!!” Really? So the media should be forced to do whatever wannabe dictator Trump and the totalitarian Republican demand? Yep, that’s what he believes.

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FFS: Trump Calls for Arrest of Supreme Court Leak Journalists Unless They Reveal Their Sources

Posted by on January 19, 2023 at 3:53 pm. 6 Comments :

During his occupation of the White House, Donald repeatedly demonstrated his ignorance of, and disrespect for, the Constitution of the United States. He pursued an agenda that was most closely associated with fascism and other oppressive models of government. He expected unflinching loyalty to him personally, rather to the Constitution or the nation.

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Donald Trump, Constitution

Trump’s biggest heroes are dictators such as Kim Jong Un, Xi Jinping, and his puppet master, Vladimir Putin. He excused their offenses against free nations and he sought to emulate them. He spoke of having “fallen in love” with Kim Jong Un and he openly stated that he believed Putin over American intelligence agencies.

RELATED: Donald Trump’s Own Words at the Treason Summit with Putin Are Dripping with His Guilt

On Thursday Trump responded to a report regarding the leaked draft of the the Supreme Court’s decision on Roe v Wade. The investigation was unable to identity the leaker who provided the press with a draft of the opinion. That news triggered Trump to post a comment on his floundering Twitter ripoff, Truth Social, saying that…

“The Supreme Court has just announced it is not able to find out, even with the help of our “crack” FBI, who the leaker was on the R v Wade scandal. They’ll never find out, & it’s important that they do. So, go to the reporter & ask him/her who it was. If not given the answer, put whoever in jail until the answer is given. You might add the publisher and editor to the list. Stop playing games, this leaking cannot be allowed to happen. It won’t take long before the name of this slime is revealed!”

And just in case anyone was unsure about his position, Trump followed that up with another post that said…

“Arrest the reporter, publisher, editor – you’ll get your answer fast. Stop playing games and wasting time!”

These remarks are typical of Trump’s tendency toward tyranny. They reveal his seething hatred for the Constitution and the freedom that it mandates for the press.

For the record, it is not illegal to leak drafts of Supreme Court opinions to the press, so long as the leaker didn’t gain access to the documents unlawfully, such as hacking into a private computer. But Trump isn’t talking here about arresting the leaker. He’s demanding that the reporters, editors, and publishers of the documents be arrested to coerce them to reveal their source. According to PolitiFact…

“No federal law clearly prohibits someone with legal access to a draft Supreme Court opinion, such as a justice or clerk, from leaking that document to the press, legal experts said. A draft opinion is not classified, which is usually the grounds for leak investigations.”

The journalists involved in this not only did not violate any law, but they are protected by the Constitution and a couple hundred years of subsequent affirming decisions by the Supreme Court. Nevertheless, Trump would have them incarcerated until they talk. That is the sort of tactic that would be exercised by Trump’s totalitarian mentors. It is blatantly illegal, grossly offensive, and wholly un-American.

These comments are further evidence that Trump is unfit to serve in any capacity in a free democracy. And any voter or Republican politician who would support Trump’s future electoral aspirations is embracing his treasonous anti-Americanism and his utter lack of patriotic principles.

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