Fox News/Smartmatic Election lawsuits

So the stuff coming out of discovery on the Dominion and Smartmatic lawsuits is pretty much what you'd expect. But now there's no hiding it. They not only have sworn testimony under oath but the actual texts between major Fox figures.

So far this includes:

The first 'source' for the election denial claims was a psychotic who said she had been 'internally decapitated' as a child, that the wind said she was a ghost but she didn't believe it, and that she had prophetic dreams about the election telling her Dominon was responsible for Trump's loss. She claimed she experienced 'something like time travel in a semi-conscious state.'

Carlson admitting the election wasn't stolen but saying that Trump can destroy the company if they don't go along with his story. He also called Trump a 'demonic force.' And stated he knew Sydney Powell was lying and that she was a 'fucking bitch.'

Hannity says he did not believe Sydney Powell's stolen election narrative for 'one second.' But when a Fox News fact checker stated there was no proof the election was stolen he demanded she be fired. She was instead told not to do that again and that they had to 'respect their audience' - who were loudly claiming they would go to Newmax because Fox News was now 'communist.'

Repeated warnings in internal memos to be careful with Rudy Giuliani, who multiple top Fox execs said had gone completely insane.

Courting Mike Lindell and welcoming him on air because the number of ad buys he made as a 'major sponsor' of Fox News.

Stating that they took Jeanne Pirro off the air due to her election lies and that she was 'fucking crazy.'

And that the already far right Fox was very concerned about its competitors being able to attack them from the right, so they themselves had to go further right.

Also of note, Judge Jeannie seems to have been paid off - her husband was on Trump's last pardon list prior to exiting the office.

The nutjob base really is running everything. They spent 25 years creating an insane cult and now it's in charge, just like it's taken over the GOP.

We'll see if actual justice can be done, but the evidence is incredibly strong that Fox personalities and executives knew they were lying.

Remember when @Nova said almost the exact same thing about Fox News? I remember.

James Carville quotes some politician I can never remember saying something along the lines of ‘The problem with the Georgia prison system is the quality of its inmates’ when discussing the modern Republican Party.

The nutcases aren’t a majority I don’t think but they are currently a controlling plurality. And the rest are too scared/amoral/greedy/etc to take power from them.

It’s why many principled conservatives, formerly lifelong Republicans have become so anti. They think the current party has to suffer crippling losses until the 60-70% not crazy just scared/amoral/greedy/etc realizes that it isn’t possible for them to win with the crazies in control and take their party back.

I feel for ya.

This is how it starts... your formerly progressive conservatives become conservative reformers and then just plain old conservatives once they hive off an even further right pilot party.

ya can't kill it either. The PCs here were almost shut out of parliament in '93 for becoming indistinguishable from the centre right liberals before hooking up with the reform party loons... now look at us

In the first of several lawsuits, the Judge has granted summary judgement to Dominion over Fox News after two days of hearings. So for all charges except malice, Dominion has already won. Malice will go to trial.

https://twitter.com/KlasfeldReports/status/1641903231604252672

It would be nice to see something happen to FoxNews for their blatant lies. But they have always been able to hide behind the fact that those nightly shows are meant for entertainment and not to be held under the same standards as real journalism. They've been blurring the lines like that forever.

This should be entertaining.



I’m thinking a jury’s going to take about five minutes to decide.

I think that the real danger for Fox is not in actual damages for Dominion because Dominion is still a dominant player in the field. However punitive damages could be off the charts. If I were on the jury (never happen, but work with me) my concern would be with deterring such behavior. I don’t think the numbers of possible damages to Dominion would do that. However, punitive damages in the billion$ might do the trick. It could be the opposite for Smartmatic, since they might be able to show that they haven’t been able to get a foot in the door of a lot elections supervisor offices because of the right-wing echo chamber bullshit.

Considering the texts from the various VPs and on air 'talent' and the fact that Murdoch himself already testified they knew it was false this should be a pretty easy standard to meet.

Turns out that there are global implications for this case.

Lachlan Murdoch ‘culpable’ for January 6 insurrection because of Fox News ‘lies’, Australian defamation case hears

I am all for holding faux news accountable for lying while claiming to be news by having news in their title, but GFY aussie scumbag doing this. If dominion wants to due for defamation in australia where faux may have harmed their rep then OK, but some scumbag in australia making a lawsuit because the US capitol was overrun makes no sense. I hope it gets laughed out of court. I also hope australia has penalties for dumbass lawsuits.

If only WF had penalties for not even bothering to skim the story you're commenting on.

What part did I get wrong?

If only WF had penalties for TDS.

The entire part.

That Dominion is a dominant player in the field doesn't mean that it hasn't been severely damaged. There are (at least arguably) some number of states/nations who opted against signing up with Dominion or decided to pull their contracts or leveraged the bad rep into renegotiating existing contracts or prompting Dominion into new ones with unfavorable terms. They presumably spent millions of dollars trying to clear their reputation. They can argue every time they failed to land a contract, Fox BS played a role in it. Them having to spend increased dollars on sales and PR

Fortunately for Fox, there generally has to be a relationship between actual damages and punitive damages that is reasonable. As I understand it, the case law on this point says that punitive damages 10x the amount of actual damages are probably suspect. So if the jury comes to actual damages (assuming a finding of liability, which seems hard to avoid at this point), if they say that they are in the "mere" millions, It seems like a punitive award in the billions would be thrown out.

OK, you did not read the article. WTG, and you need to get that TDS checked.

How the fuck are you coming up with "TDS"?!

If Australia upholds their laws and prosecutes Murdoch for allowing lies to be presented as news, that may be the only way for the entire world to regain control over mass media. It sure as hell isn't going to happen in the US.

Maybe they did read it but are just too stupid to know what the big words mean?

But I’m pretty sure even FF could figure out by now that it is Murdochs who are suing the news org for saying Fox helped incite Jan 6 not someone suing Fox because of it.

So yeah, probably just didn’t read it.

That is what is going on? OK, I do not rely on bailey to be accurate and it would have helped if there was that description. I got jumbled up in twisted logic. I guess I could not twist my brain into that pretzel.

Reading up on that county that stole and killed the girl’s goat not only did they just select a fascist as County CEO but also just terminated their ten year contract with Dominion early because of this BS.

Which of Bailey’s posts were you relying on for info about the article?

Also the article was only about the argument being made, not that the court had accepted it.

Fox asks judge to bar references to January 6 attack at Dominion trial

I'm kind of actually torn shooting from the hip about whether this is valid by Fox or not.

From one perspective, the lies Fox spread about it absolutely led not just to J6 but people involved in J6 or sympathetic to J6 to threaten Dominion staffers. So there's a pretty direct line to be drawn from Fox's defamation to Dominion's arguable damages.

From another perspective, I don't know if those sorts of things would traditionally be recognized as defamation damages to the company. And then there's a potentially valid question of even if they are, if it's too prejudicial to bring that up.

I always laugh at the "prejudicial" argument. I always (wrongly I'm sure) hear "you're honor, you can't let that it in, it proves my client is guilty!"

FOX has settled with the guy suing them for defamation after Lou Dobbs accused him of being involved in rigging the 2020 election:

https://crooksandliars.com/2023/04/fox-news-settles-defamation-lawsuit

But seriously, there are some things where the danger of unfair prejudice is greater than any useful info that evidence would add. I think invoking J6 is at least arguably there. People have such strong sentiments about J6 that bringing it up might threaten to overshadow the actual direct harm that Fox did to Dominion's rep here.

So, it turns out that Fox News has been covering up Rupert’s role at the company and this means that Dominion hasn’t been given all the information by Fox that they should have.

https://twitter.com/erikwemple/status/1645886757332762636?s=46&t=iYW3foyqIA6Tn8VWwn3nwQ

Oh, and the judge is not amused.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2023/04/11/dominion-judge-chides-fox-murdoch/

Funny how some people go through their whole lives never being held accountable.

Funny how one of the board’s biggest media watchdogs has seemed to completely miss this thread.