2020 Election: Predictions, Results and Reactions

[N.E. Brigand]

Fox and Dominion have settled. No details have been released as of yet.

ETA:


and

Edited to cite Voronwë's post; he beat me to the settlement amount: $787.5 million.

Edited further to note that the admission cited above merely acknowledges what the judge already determined.

[N.E. Brigand]

There is nothing about this on Fox News's website or Twitter feed.

(Fox's top story now is that Xavier Becerra, the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, was found to have violated the Hatch Act "by publicly expressing support for California Democratic Senator Alex Padilla's re-election while appearing in an official capacity" in 2022. The finding, delivered to President Biden, included Becerra's formal response, in which he "called his words an 'inadvertant violation' and said that he regretted ... [how his] 'off-the-cuff remarks' regarding his 'personal voting intentions were in violation'" and added that "he received 'additional counseling' from the HHS ethics department [and] would 'work hard to ensure that there are no future violations.'" This is a garden variety infraction for which officials from both parties have been mildly reprimanded pretty regularly over the years.)

I wonder if their viewers will ever hear the truth.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

We all wanted to see Murdoch, Hannity, Carlson, Dobbs, etc. get roasted on the stand, but this was clearly the right move for Dominion.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

As Kyle Griffin says,



Of course, that case will almost certainly settle as well.

[RoseMorninStar]

Maybe it's for the best, but it seems like a loss for the American public.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I keep seeing people say that. With no disrespect intended to you or anyone else, Rose, that just doesn't make any sense. The sole purpose of a civil litigation -- as opposed to a criminal case -- is to make the plaintiff whole for the alleged loss that he/she/it has suffered by some alleged wrong committed by the defendant. There is no part of a civil case that is for the purpose of serving the American public. That is the job of public servants not Dominion or their lawyers.

Meanwhile, Jake Tapper for the win:

[N.E. Brigand]

There is nothing about this on Fox News's website or Twitter feed.

(Fox's top story now is that Xavier Becerra, the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, was found to have violated the Hatch Act, a minor infraction.)

I wonder if their viewers will ever hear the truth.

Among mainstream outlets, ABC, CBS, NBC, and PBS all feature this story on the front page of their website.

So does the right-wing outlet One America News, although they only note that a settlement has been reached. (And commenters posting to that article are claiming that Dominion is paying Fox!)

Quickly checking some other conservative sites: so far the Daily Caller isn't covering this story. Neither is the New York Post, the Washington Free Beacon, the American Thinker, the Blaze, PJ Media, Twitchy, or the Federalist.

National Review has the story. So does Red State (but without any details). And of course, the the Wall Street Journal is covering it.

We all wanted to see Murdoch, Hannity, Carlson, Dobbs, etc. get roasted on the stand, but this was clearly the right move for Dominion.

That would have been fun, but my main regret is that many millions of Fox News viewers believe the lies that network told about the 2020 election. I want Fox to tell them the truth: Fox lied to them, there was no election interference, and Joe Biden won fairly.

[N.E. Brigand]

I keep seeing people say that. With no disrespect intended to you or anyone else, Rose, that just doesn't make any sense. The sole purpose of a civil litigation -- as opposed to a criminal case -- is to make the plaintiff whole for the alleged loss that he/she/it has suffered by some alleged wrong committed by the defendant. There is no part of a civil case that is for the purpose of serving the American public. That is the job of public servants not Dominion or their lawyers.

People keep saying it because there's truth in it. You're describing the "sole purpose of civil litigation" within the framework of the law. But there are larger frameworks of which the law is only one part. (I commend you to Jeff Goldblum in the movie adaptation of Jurassic Park or Gandalf in the text of The Lord of the Rings.) Fox News wronged the American public. They committed an outrage against you and me and everyone else, including their own gullible viewers. And it appears that the only way we can be "made whole" is for Fox to tell the truth. But there's no way to force Fox to do the right thing. Fox didn't break the law. The government can file no criminal case against them. Lawsuits like Dominion's represent the best chance for the country. To cite Elie Mystal again:

I completely get why Dominion made this settlement, and if I were their lawyer, I probably would have told them to take the money.

But I'm NOT their lawyer and so I can also recognize that this is a cop-out and why, once again, we should NEVER expect corporations to save us.

They had Fox by the absolute neck and let them go for 787.5 million dollars. WHICH IS A LOT OF MONEY for a corporation. But also not a lot of money when weighed against Fox's damage to American democracy.

I get it. And it's bullcrap. Two things can be true at the same time.

Edited to add: I do think this is a partial victory for the truth. A lot of people will see this news, and $787 million is large enough sum to make it clear to those people that Fox was wrong to spread lies about what happened in the 2020 election.

[N.E. Brigand]

Fox News media reporter Howard Schulz tweeted 20 minutes ago about a completely different story, and he otherwise hasn't tweeted in four hours, so I think it's safe to say he's deliberately avoiding this subject on social media, but he did briefly report the settlement on the air, although he quickly spun it: "Much of the media was looking forward to six weeks of — frankly a lot of people in the mainstream media, anti-Fox ... are now going to be deprived of that opportunity."

(There's still nothing on Fox's website.)

- - - - - - - - - -
Edited to note that "Dominion Voting Systems averaged $40 million a year in gross revenues before Fox's defamations. Revenues, not profits."

That's some useful context: Fox News paid Dominion nearly 20 times what the company grosses in a year. That's not the kind of settlement that a defendant pays just to make a plaintiff go away and save on court costs.

Dominion had sued Fox for $1.6 billion and settled for just shy o fhalf that amount. Just two days ago, a Fox spokeswoman claimed that "Dominion’s damages are wildly inflated," and another Fox statement, Fox had described Dominion's suit as "a political crusade in search of a financial windfall."

[N.E. Brigand]

This guy, Eric Munchel, is going to plead guilty:



So is his mother. (I'm not sure if that's her pictured on the right.)

[RoseMorninStar]

Thank you for your answer V, and it is true I'm uneducated regarding the ins & outs of the law, types of cases and their purposes, but I agree with the spirit of what N.E. wrote. A great many people have been harmed by the lies/misdirection of FOX 'news' (not only in the case of Dominion, but regarding COVID/vaccinations as well.) Our country has suffered greatly for it. It has torn families apart. It seems there should be accountability. A girl can dream.

[Frelga]

There ain't no justice. There's only legalities.

[N.E. Brigand]

Last night's Wisconsin election saw that state's supreme court flip from Republican to Democratic control for the first time in years. Responding to that news, right-wing "Stop the Steal" organizer Ali Alexander, who helped to organize the events of January 6th (which is why I'm noting this here), today wrote "I do not see a path to 270 in 2024."

In other words, the insurrectionists were counting on Wisconsin awarding its electoral votes to Donald Trump next year even if the voters choose Joe Biden.

Yesterday Ali Alexander, the far right "Stop the Steal" activist behind some of what happened on January 6th, "released an apology after being accused of making unwanted sexual advances and demands of young men in his political orbit. His longtime ally, the white supremacist Nick Fuentes, told listeners of his podcast that Alexander is 'bowing out of public life.'" Alexander's Twitter account was deleted later yesterday.

"I apologize for any inappropriate messages sent over the years. Forgive me," Alexander wrote in a statement posted to his Telegram channel. He referred to "battling SSA" — which appears to be an acronym for same-sex attraction — and insisted he'd "repented before God."

Noting that the Daily Beast article that first reported on Alexander's activities said concerning one of these young men that "in exchange for recanting his accusation, Fuentes and Alexander offered to get him a job in politics," Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia wrote, "This is disgusting textbook predation of underage boys. And Nick Fuentes was in on it." However, given that Greene today accused Hunter Biden of being "engaged in a human trafficking ring," I don't make too much of her criticism of her former allies Fuentes and Alexander.

(Edited to add something frivolous: you can sing "Ali Alexander" to the tune of "Gary Indiana.")

[N.E. Brigand]

Next week, a man named Douglass Mackey will go on trial for his efforts to undermine the U.S. presidential election in *2016.* He was charged in January 2021. Mackey was apparently a prominent troll on social media using the nickname "Ricky Vaughan"; his true identity became public in 2018. Mackey is alleged, along with four unnamed co-conspirators, with having spread disinformation to Democratic voters in 2016 about how to vote. Today the judge in this case unsealed an order approving a request by prosecutors to keep the identify of one of Mackey's co-conspirators, who has pleaded guilty and is cooperating, secret from Mackey. Apparently Mackey only knew this person by his internet alias.

I'm noting this here because (1) I don't want to unearth the 2016 thread so and (2) journalists previously identified another of Mackey's alleged accomplices as Anthime Gionet, aka "Baked Alaska," who is "a pro-Trump white nationalist who was arrested on Jan. 16 [2021] for his involvement in storming the Capitol on Jan. 6. Gionet also participated in the deadly white nationalist 'Unite the Right' rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017." (emphasis added)

It took four years to charge Mackey for what he did in 2016. That tells me that three more years may pass before the final charges are brought for actions on January 6th.

New from the Washington Post: "Virginia grand jury indicts torch carriers in 2017 Charlottesville rally." The story is behind a paywall, so I'm not sure who was charged, nor with what.

[RoseMorninStar]

New from the Washington Post: "Virginia grand jury indicts torch carriers in 2017 Charlottesville rally." The story is behind a paywall, so I'm not sure who was charged, nor with what.

Text of above referenced article by Salvador Rizzo:

Grand jury indicts torch carriers in 2017 Charlottesville rally

At least three men who marched with blazing tiki torches at the 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville are now facing criminal charges, according to indictments unsealed this week.

A grand jury in Virginia indicted “multiple individuals” who carried torches at the Unite the Right rally in August 2017, Albemarle County Commonwealth’s Attorney James Hingeley said in a statement.

Indictments had been unsealed Tuesday for three defendants who were extradited from their home states: Tyler Bradley Dykes of Bluffton, S.C.; Dallas Medina of Ravenna, Ohio; and Will Zachary Smith of Nacona, Tex. Officials said additional indictments remain under seal.

Prosecutors allege the torch carriers violated a rarely enforced criminal statute, which makes it a crime to burn objects with intent to intimidate, when they marched around the University of Virginia campus on Aug. 11, 2017, while chanting “You will not replace us” and the Nazi slogan “Blood and soil.”

The Charlottesville white supremacist rally turned deadly the next day, when a man rammed his vehicle into a group of counterprotesters, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer and injuring others. The driver, James Alex Fields Jr., was sentenced to life in prison after he pleaded guilty to federal hate crimes and was convicted in state court of first-degree murder and other charges. Others were charged with violating federal rioting law.

Burning objects with intent to intimidate is punishable in Virginia by one to five years in prison.

“You have to show that the conduct created a reasonable apprehension of death or bodily harm,” said Anne M. Coughlin, a U-Va. School of Law professor who for years has called on prosecutors to file charges against the torch carriers. “There is very strong evidence that these folks were here for the purpose of terrifying our Jewish friends and neighbors — people of color.”

The law was enacted in 2002 partly in response to the Ku Klux Klan, which was known for burning crosses in public to scare the Black population, and it is “tailor-made” for a criminal case against the torch carriers at the rally, Coughlin said.

But the case took nearly six years to get to the grand jury. Hingeley’s predecessor, former Albemarle County commonwealth’s attorney Robert N. Tracci, declined to seek charges against the torch carriers.

Tracci wrote in an opinion article from 2019 that under the Virginia law on burning objects, “The question could arise — and would in criminal law — as to whether carrying a burning torch falls within the definitional scope of burning an object.” Tracci could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

“He was voted out of office,” Coughlin said. “The voters replaced him, and one of Jim Hingeley’s promises — if you look at his campaign material, he said that he thought these charges should be brought.”

In his statement, Hingeley said his office “brings charges when appropriate.”

“This is our process regardless of how much time has passed or where the alleged offenders may be found,” he said, declining further comment.

Dykes and Smith were jailed, while Medina was released on bail, court records show. An attorney for Smith declined to comment. The others did not have attorneys listed in court records. Smith also was charged this year with illegal use of tear gas, and he has a hearing in Albemarle County Circuit Court scheduled for Friday.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Here's a non-paywall article.

https://www.pilotonline.com/news/crime/ ... story.html

ETA: X-posted with Rose.

[N.E. Brigand]

New from the Washington Post: "Virginia grand jury indicts torch carriers in 2017 Charlottesville rally." The story is behind a paywall, so I'm not sure who was charged, nor with what.

Text of above referenced article by Salvador Rizzo:

Grand jury indicts torch carriers in 2017 Charlottesville rally

At least three men who marched with blazing tiki torches at the 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville are now facing criminal charges, according to indictments unsealed this week.

A grand jury in Virginia indicted “multiple individuals” who carried torches at the Unite the Right rally in August 2017, Albemarle County Commonwealth’s Attorney James Hingeley said in a statement.

Indictments had been unsealed Tuesday for three defendants who were extradited from their home states: Tyler Bradley Dykes of Bluffton, S.C.; Dallas Medina of Ravenna, Ohio; and Will Zachary Smith of Nacona, Tex. Officials said additional indictments remain under seal. ...

Thanks!

Ravenna is about 45 minutes southeast of here. I've never been there, but as a kid I was always poring over maps, and there was a big and intriguing blank space on the Portage County map because a large U.S. military munitions plant was located in Ravenna. Now it's a national guard training facility. (Apparently part of Captain America: The Winter Soldier was filmed there. Other parts were filmed in Cleveland just a few blocks from where I work.)

[Voronwë the Faithful]

[Voronwë the Faithful]

[Sunsilver]

Fox News issued a statement about their settlement with Dominion:

This CNN broadcaster found it impossible to read with a straight face. (I did a spit-take when I read it, too!)
Edit: sorry, didn't realized this had already been posted.




"Highest journalistic standards" is a phrase that should never be mentioned in the same sentence as "Fox News".