2020 Election: Predictions, Results and Reactions

[Voronwë the Faithful]

This is hilarious, but you have to have closely followed the Proud Boys trial to get it.

[N.E. Brigand]

CNN reports that "Text messages reveal Trump operatives considered using breached voting data to decertify Georgia’s Senate runoff in 2021." This was after January 6th.

[N.E. Brigand]

Yes, yes, we also learn that Donald Trump's advisor Peter Navarro said in late January 2021 that state legislatures would have overturned the 2020 election results to give Trump the victory if not for the bumbling efforts of sometime-Trump attorney Sidney Powell, but what most intrigues me about the recording of former Fox News producer Abby Grossman talking to Navarro -- in which Grossman says that attorney Powell would accidentally email her and then call asking for her to delete the emails -- is that Grossman said this happened during Michael Flynn's trial. I'd very much like to know what Grossman learned about Powell and Flynn.

(Also where MSNBC's transcript says that Navarro's comments are "inaudible," I can make out what he says: it's the old expression, "Katie, bar the door.")

[Voronwë the Faithful]

This blog post by Teri Kanefield is very worth reading.

The Dominion-Fox Settlement and the “Thirst for Justice”

[N.E. Brigand]

“Teri, you are mocking us because we thirst for justice and because we are rightfully frustrated that justice was not done in the Dominion case.”

I responded to this person by insisting that we use the word “justice” as defined in the dictionary, to mean “the fair administration of laws,” in which case, justice was done.

She insisted that she had the right to use the word “justice” in a general sense and called me “pedantic” for showing her the dictionary definition.

It seems to me that “justice” in the general sense means, “If the result isn’t what I wanted, there was no justice.”

I still remember some of the very first homework I was assigned in high school: Mr. Wilberschied told the students in ninth grade western civ class to define "justice." I tried to be very meticulous, starting from the dictionary definition and then defining every key word in it to come up with a paragraph. I only got partial credit for that. Nobody got a perfect score because nobody supplied the answer he wanted us to come up with, which he said was Socrates's definition: "everything in its right place."

[Frelga]

Was it reasonable for your teacher to expect you to be familiar with Socrates in 9th grade? Was it on the curriculum?

“justice” as defined in the dictionary, to mean “the fair administration of laws,” in which case, justice was done.

That's a terrible definition. If justice is derived from laws and not the other way around, how do we determine that the laws are just?

צֶ֥דֶק צֶ֖דֶק תִּרְדֹּ֑ף
Justice, justice thou shalt pursue.
Deuteronomy 16:20

In Hebrew, tzedek means both justice and righteousness.

Anyway. Larry Niven was right, there ain't no justice.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

N.E.B., thank you for taking the time to read the blog post. I appreciate that.

Revisiting something that you said earlier:

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.

It's not a question of the law. It is a question of the judicial system. There are mechanisms where an individual (whether biological or corporate) can invoke the rights of the public*, but our system must have a mechanism in which a person can invoke there own rights without being forced to subsume those rights to the rights of others. Otherwise, our system descends into a different form of authoritarian chaos.


* For instance, in California we have a law called the Private Attorney General Act in which an individual can file suit against their employer or former employer on behalf of themselves and other aggrieved employees and the State of California, and 75% of the civil penalties imposed go to the state. I have successfully filed several of them, but it important to make sure that it is a voluntary decision on the part of the plaintiff to move forward with such a representative action. Those who are castigating Dominion are themselves engaging in a form of authoritarianism.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Meanwhile, on Day 60 of the Proud Boys seditious conspiracy trial, closing arguments are finally happening. AUSA Conor Mulroe is starting out the closing argument for the prosecution, which is anticipated to take 2.5 hours. Then attorneys for each defendant will make their arguments, and the prosecutors can do a rebuttal. The case will probably be with the jury tomorrow some time.

[Dave_LF]

Twitter is less reliable as a source of breaking news than it used to be, but it sounds as though Tucker Carlson has been fired by and/or quit Fox, effectively immediately, without even a final show:
.
edit: CNN reporting it too:
https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/24/media/tu ... index.html
.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Yeah, it is being reported all over the place now. I would say that certainly qualifies as a big fucking deal.

[RoseMorninStar]

Holy catfish! While I don't watch FOX news, I'm certainly not sorry to see Tucker go.

Re: Dominion settlement blog post.
What lies at the heart of the disappointment is that the average citizen is not well acquainted with the law and different types of lawsuits and their parameters/function/limiting factors and the reasons for those parameters, as V mentions in a later post. (I don't know what the excuse would be for the person who claimed to be a lawyer in that blog post. )

The lawsuit brought by Dominion was for quantifiable financial damage done to their company. Full stop. However, what is more widely understood by the general public is justice. The country at large feels the damage done from intentional lies distributed in a systemic way in the guise of 'News' and a desire for it to stop/have consequences. Obviously that was not the function of the Dominion lawsuit. The lies dispensed by FOX have lead to radical and dangerous behavior and is a threat to our democracy. Yeah, that's a different lawsuit but for the average person unschooled in the law it boils down to frustration. What people hope for is some sort of change/accountability because the consequences are high. Is that Dominions fault? No. Perhaps Tucker's quitting/firing will fill that void.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Thanks, Rose; I think that is well said.

I also think it remains to be seen whether Carlson's departure is a sign of real change at Fox, but I certainly don't think that there is any doubt that it directly related to the Dominion lawsuit and settlement.

[Dave_LF]

I also think it remains to be seen whether Carlson's departure is a sign of real change at Fox

To say the least. I agree with this sentiment:

[Frelga]

The biggest lesson I've learned from being involved in a civil suit is, it all depends on the judge. (insert rant here)

The second lesson is, a settlement is like the fight club, in that it may prohibit the parties from talking about the conditions of settlement.

So while there is a lot of speculation that Tucker was fired as a condition of settlement, we'll never know. (Courtney Milan thinks it's possible, and she's a lawyer)

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Well, here is one lawyer who thinks that there is a 0% possibility that that is true. But of course, that is only my opinion.

Meanwhile, while it really doesn't belong here, it seems convenient to mention that Don Lemon has also been fired by CNN. Of course, he wasn't fired for spreading lies about the election or anything but instead because he acted like a misogynist on and off the air. Whether or not they could have handled the way it was done better, in my opinion CNN absolutely made the right call.

[Frelga]

It seems Tucker has a job offer from RT. A reminder that Solovyev has called for genocide of Ukrainian people, and claimed that Russia will shortly defeat NATO, bomb Washington, and reach Lisbon.


Edit: also worth mentioning that RT quoted Tucker a lot. And that Tucker shared Russian-sourced (dis-) info on his program. Including the doctored version of the leaked classified documents that circulated on the Russian channels. This version showed Russian losses as a fraction of original numbers and exaggerated Ukrainian losses.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

And, back to Georgia:



On the one hand, that is not as "imminent" as some had expected. On the other hand, it is probably the strongest indication yet that indictments are coming, including of Trump.

[N.E. Brigand]

Well, here is one lawyer who thinks that there is a 0% possibility that that is true. But of course, that is only my opinion.

Meanwhile, while it really doesn't belong here, it seems convenient to mention that Don Lemon has also been fired by CNN. Of course, he wasn't fired for spreading lies about the election or anything but instead because he acted like a misogynist on and off the air. Whether or not they could have handled the way it was done better, in my opinion CNN absolutely made the right call.

I didn't care for Lemon's rather smug on-air persona, so I welcome his departure from CNN.

There are rumors swirling that Fox's termination of Tucker Carlson's employment was made for reasons similar to those that led to Lemon's firing. Josh Marshall believes that the real reason has to be more serious than anything thus alleged, because Fox is not only losing their biggest star, but they're taking tremendous heat from the right today for that decision: lots of chatter on social media about people boycotting the network. (Also they think that Carlson is now "free" to release all the January 6th recordings he was provided by House Republicans.) That said, many people can't cancel their Fox News subscription, because it comes as part of their total cable package.

[Frelga]

That said, many people can't cancel their Fox News subscription, because it comes as part of their total cable package.

Well, there's this going around

https://www.nofoxfee.com/

We need to call our provider anyway. Hubby wanted to keep cable because of the sports package but the bait price expired and now it's stupidly expensive. Might as well try.

[narya]

I still remember some of the very first homework I was assigned in high school: Mr. Wilberschied told the students in ninth grade western civ class to define "justice." I tried to be very meticulous, starting from the dictionary definition and then defining every key word in it to come up with a paragraph. I only got partial credit for that. Nobody got a perfect score because nobody supplied the answer he wanted us to come up with, which he said was Socrates's definition: "everything in its right place."

That's the kind of thinking that allows a certain minority (in Socrates' case, free Greek men) to "justify" putting everyone else in their "right" place.