SARAH PALIN'S SUIT against the New York Times being thrown out disappointed me because I was hoping the Republican-fascists on the Supreme Court might use an appeal of her winning it as a means of doing what several of those idiots have hinted at, changing the idiotic standard of "actual malice" being show by "public figures" before they could sue media organizations and others who libel and slander them in the mass media.
I said at the time that I was hoping they would change the standard of the Sullivan decision that allowed the New York Times and Fox and NewsMax, etc. to lie about Democrats with impunity as they aided and abetted the rise of the Republicans and then the Republican-fascist domination of our politics and legal lives.
I said that my dream was for Hillary Clinton to sue all of those who had lied about her, to become, as a result, the richest woman in the universe as a means of defunding the Republican-fascist right. Donald Trump, possibly Sarah Palin, certainly FOX etc, would be vulnerable on that count. If liberals can be stupid about what they hope for, Republican-fascists are even stupider to start with.
Her teasing hint that she might be willing to try to sue FOX on the basis of "actual malice" is justified but such a successful suit wouldn't be enough. Crooks and Liars said, starting with a quote from Hillary Clinton,
"By the way, they've been coming after me again lately, in case you might have noticed. It’s funny: the more trouble Trump gets into, the wilder the charges and conspiracy theories about me seem to get. So now, his accountants have fired him and investigations draw closer to him and right on cue, the noise machine gets turned up, doesn't it"
"Fox leads the charge with accusations against me, counting on their audience to fall for it again. And as an aside, they're getting awfully close to actual malice in their attacks. But as I said, don't get distracted. Don't let the extremes of any or either side throw us off course. Focus on the solutions that matter to voters, not the slogans that only matter on Twitter."
“Actual malice,” of course, is the high bar a public figure must clear for a successful defamation suit against a news organization. Fox loved Sarah Palin’s loser lawsuit against the New York Times. The network pundits made it clear they hope she appeals her case to the Supreme Court, in the hope the standard will be lowered – and, presumably, conservatives can take down “liberal media” outlets more easily.
I can’t think of a more poetic justice than Hillary Clinton beating them to the punch and without having to weaken the standard. That is, if Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic don’t get there first.
For crying out loud. THAT THERE IS ANY QUESTION HILLARY CLINTON, a woman who has been the victim of what is probably the longest sustained and most wide spread lie campaign in American political history, IS NOT THE VICTIM OF ACTUAL MALICE FROM FOX proves that the "actual malice" standard is a carte blanche for the media to do that to anyone who they find it in their interest, their profit to lie about IS A DANGER TO DEMOCRACY.
If the entire media, from the allegedly liberal New York Times and NPR down to the gutter levels of FOX and below didn't lie about her, we would never have gotten Donald Trump. If the media hadn't been able to profitably and safely lie about Al Gore we'd never have had George W. Bush. If they hadn't been able to lie about Howard Dean, Michael Dukakis, going back to Hubert Humphrey we wouldn't have had a line of some of the worst presidents in our history. We would never have had the likes of Newt Gingrich, Denny Hastert and Kevin McCarthy in charge of the House, Trent Lott and Mitch McConnell in charge of the Senate, we wouldn't have a Republican-fascist majority on the Supreme Court.
The media, even the semi-aware media such as I might quote positively on other issues, have a vested interest in being able to carry lies with impunity. The better media would carry those unintended, through their lapses in fact checking and care with the truth BUT THE VERY SAME VEHICLE FOR THAT WHICH PROTECTS THEM PROTECTS THE INTENTIONAL LIARS IN THE FASCIST MEDIA.
I have pointed out before that I think there is speech and press which has no actual right to be expressed, especially lies. There is no rational case to be made that there is a right to lie, especially with the human experience that lies are more easily told than the truth, that the truth is constrained by having to be true, lies can be constructed and told without that constraint. LIES CAN BE CONSTRUCTED THAT APPEAL TO OUR WORST WEAKNESSES AND, AS A RESULT ARE FAR MORE EASY TO SELL TO THE PUBLIC THAN DIFFICULT OR HARD TRUTH. The answer that lies are driven out by "more speech" ignores that fact AND THE FACT THAT LIES CAN BE SOLD WITH "MORE LIES" AND THAT THE BILLIONAIRE AND MILLIONAIRE SPONSORS OF LIES CAN FINANCE THAT "MORE LIES" whereas the truth is often begging for sponsorship.
The mid-20th century slogans of the ACLU, the "civil liberties" industry (largely financed by big media) have all been given a real test of time in reality and they are, themselves, lies, lies sold on their surface appeal to gullible and gulled liberals who irrationally believe that continuing what has brought us to Republican-fascism will magically turn around and start winning for us. In the wake of the Trump fiasco WITH THE RETURN OF THAT LOOMING WITH HIM OR SOME OTHER PIECE OF CRAP LIKE DESANTIS AT THE LEAD OF IT IT IS ABOUT TO RETURN, that delusion is one of our worst self-imposed guarantees of defeat.
I have pointed out a number of rather clueless and unwise and counterproductive Supreme Court rulings of the past in recent posts. There were none more clueless than the Sullivan Decision for all of those reasons I stated above. It's time that the self-defined opponents to Republican-fascism and Republican-fascist media admit that this thing they value so highly for self-interested reasons has been the foremost vehicle of lying the country into Republican-fascism. Republicans who are appalled at the fascist tilt of their party will go so far as to admit that it all was done with lies, those lies didn't just happen on their own, the Warren Court gave them power and permission to be told. Subsequent Courts, from Berger to Rehnquist to Roberts, in control of increasing and now majority Republican-fascist control have built on it and made it far worse, even leaving the country vulnerable to dirty election money from foreign as well as our own billionaire gangsters, crooks, liars and dictators.
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