#lying rudy giuliani

[baybelletrist]

The trouble with rule of law is that it only works if people participate in it.

It’s not clear when Moss and Freeman can expect to see a cent of the money they’ve been awarded. Giuliani is widely reported to have financial troubles and he is likely to use an appeal and every other legal maneuver to try to delay paying. And it’s not clear whether the case will even stop Giuliani from defaming them again. “I don’t regret a damn thing,” he said outside the federal courthouse on Friday. Giuliani had been far from repentant throughout the week. And since August, when Judge Beryl Howell entered a default judgment against Giuliani for defamation per se, intentional infliction of emotional distress and civil conspiracy, Giuliani has made at least 20 defamatory statements against Freeman and Moss, their attorneys said this week. The dynamic underscores the limits of defamation law to police misinformation. While it can force people to pay for their lies, it cannot force them to stop lying or persuade people not to believe the lies. RonNell Andersen Jones, a first amendment scholar at the University of Utah, said observers are concerned about instances in which defamers brush aside damages. In cases involving large media outlets, she said, it may simply be seen as the cost of doing business. And in others, like that of Giuliani, people may simply “be judgment-proof, bankrupt, or otherwise unwilling or unable to pay”, she said. “In both situations, we’re testing the outer boundaries of libel law’s ability to remedy the harm done by falsehoods and to deter defamers from telling future lies. We are also, more fundamentally, testing the rule of law,” she added. “If the incentive to lie to audiences eager to receive those lies is stronger than the power of any court proceeding, and if defamers have decided that they simply will not participate in cases brought against them and will avoid paying damages when they are issued, this raises far deeper concerns.”

Rudy Giuliani is a bag of flaming shit. He doesn't regret a damn thing because he knows he can escape the consequences of his own actions because Rich Old White Man. If he dropped dead tomorrow, rotted from the inside under the weight of his own corruption, I would throw a fucking party.

Wandrea Moss said in her testimony, “I literally felt like someone was going to come and attempt to hang me and there’s nothing anyone can do about it.”

This is the human cost of corruption. The rich and powerful step on everyone else, and everyone else suffers accordingly.

[robertreich]

The GOP’s Attack on LGBTQ Americans, Revealed 

Republicans don’t seem to care that Ronald Reagan once starred in a film that featured a prominent drag scene or that Rudy Giuliani did a skit in drag with Donald Trump.

Suddenly, they’re trying to ban or restrict drag performances in at least 15 states, with bills so broadly worded that advocates warn they could be used not only to prosecute drag performers, but also transgender people who dare to simply exist in public.

These bans are part of a cynical campaign to demonize the LGBTQ+ community. MAGA politicians are stoking fear over imaginary dangers to distract from how their policies only help themselves and their wealthy donors.

In the first half of 2023 alone, Republicans across the nation introduced a record number of bills to strip away freedoms and civil rights from LGBTQ+ Americans, largely targeting transgender and gender-nonconforming people.

By banning gender affirming care for minors, GOP lawmakers are effectively practicing medicine without a license — overruling the guidance of doctors, the American Medical Association, and the American Academy of Pediatrics. And they’re lying about what gender affirming care even is.

Genital surgery, for instance, is rarely, if ever, done under the age of 18. It’s not even all that common for adults. Politicians like Ron DeSantis are lying about it to scare people.

And the Republican presidential frontrunner has made it clear that trans people have no place in his vision of America.

MAGA lawmakers and pundits falsely claim trans people and drag performers are a danger to children and the public at large, when there is no evidence at all to support that. None. Trans people are in fact four times more likely to be the victims of violent crime.

These scare tactics are dangerous. Recent analysis found a 70% increase in hate crimes against LGBTQ+ Americans between 2020 and 2021, as the surge of these bills began. And that’s only counting hate crimes that get reported. 2020 and 2021 each set a new record for the number of trans people murdered in America.

The cruelest irony is that these Republican bills pretending to protect children actually put some of the most vulnerable children at greater risk. LGBTQ+ kids are more than four times as likely to attempt suicide, especially transgender children. Gender-affirming care reduces that risk. That is why it is life-saving.

Don’t Say Gay laws strip away potentially life-saving support. A teacher discussing sexual orientation and gender identity won’t turn a straight kid gay. But it will make an LGBTQ+ student 23% less likely to attempt suicide.

The tragic truth is that Don’t Say Gay Laws and health care bans will cause more young lives to be needlessly lost.

If Republicans really cared about protecting kids, they’d focus on gun violence, now the leading cause of death for American children. If they were really worried about children undergoing life-altering medical procedures, they wouldn’t pass abortion bans that force teens to give birth or risk back-alley procedures.

What the GOP’s vendetta against the LGBTQ+ community really is, is a classic authoritarian tactic to vilify already marginalized people. They’re trying to stoke so much paranoia and hatred that we don’t notice how they are consolidating power and wealth into the hands of a ruling few.

We need to see this attack on LGBTQ+ Americans for what it is: a threat to all of our human rights.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Eric Hananoki at MMFA:

Pastors for Trump leader Jackson Lahmeyer, a key Trump ally who has been visited by members of Trump’s inner circle, recently warned followers that a Jewish politician will be the Antichrist. Lahmeyer stated: “The Antichrist will be a political leader of Jewish descent. That is how the Jews will worship him. The false prophet, I believe, will be an Islamic imam.” Lahmeyer is a right-wing commentator and the pastor of Sheridan Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He is the founder and leader of Pastors For Trump, which, as its name indicates, seeks “to continue to build the relationship between Christian leaders and President Trump during his bid for the Presidency.”  Lahmeyer has a history of making toxic remarks, including calling Vice President Kamala Harris a “lying whore”; claiming Democrats are “demonic”; and lobbing bigoted attacks at LGBTQ people, Jewish people, and Muslims. 

[...] Lahmeyer recently hosted Donald Trump Jr. at his church. He is scheduled to host Eric Trump as well as Donald Trump's legal spokesperson Alina Habba next week.  He also said that he’s scheduled to speak at a pastors event with former President Trump in North Carolina on October 21, which is being organized by conspiracy theorist Clay Clark.  Lahmeyer has numerous other connections to Trump and his orbit: 

Trump called in to a prayer call with Lahmeyer last year.

In 2021, when Lahmeyer was unsuccessfully running for Senate, he said that he “had the opportunity to talk to President Trump.” He added: “The President knows I am a strong ‘America First’ candidate.” 

Trump has repeatedly promoted Lahmeyer on Truth Social.

Lahmeyer has spoken at Pastors for Trump events in May 2023 and October 2023 at Trump’s Doral property in Florida. 

Lahmeyer is scheduled to speak in North Carolina on the ReAwaken America tour with Eric Trump. The tour is organized by Clark, who has promoted the event as featuring “basically President Trump’s inner circle.” 

Lara Trump has spoken at Lahmeyer’s church. 

Rudy Giuliani has spoken at Lahmeyer’s church. 

Longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone has spoken at Lahmeyer’s church. 

Ryan Walters, the controversy-laden Oklahoma school superintendent, is also connected to Lahmeyer. 

Sheridan Church Tulsa Pastor and Pastor For Trump leader Jackson Lahmeyer recently made toxic antisemitic remarks implying that the Antichrist will be a Jewish politician. He also tossed in some Islamophobia by stating that the false prophet will be an imam.

[odinsblog]

The Republican impeachment push against President Joe Biden has always rested on the thinnest of evidentiary ice, but with one of their key informants facing criminal charges for lying to federal investigators, the charade is now on the verge of falling apart.

On Wednesday, the House Oversight Committee — one of the three Republican-controlled committees overseeing the Biden impeachment inquiry — held a hearing in an attempt to salvage the effort.

Democrats brought in Lev Parnas, a former Rudy Giuliani crony who was a key figure in the Ukraine scandal that led to Trump’s first impeachment. During his testimony, Parnas declared that he had found “zero evidence of the Bidens’ corruption in Ukraine” and that “no credible source has ever provided proof of criminal activity […] no respectable Ukrainian official has ever said that the Biden’s did anything illegal.”

“The only information ever pushed on the Biden’s in Ukraine has come from one source, and one source only: Russia and Russian agents,” Parnas said. “The impeachment proceedings that bring us here now are predicated on false information spread by the Kremlin.”

(continue reading)

[thundergrace]

Sinead passed.

Some military dude told Congress the government is hiding alien remains

Mitch McConnell appears to have had a mini-stroke during a press conference

Kevin Spacey was found not guilty of sexual assault (although he did that shit)

Hunter Biden is in court for some tax stuff

Rudy Giuliani admitted to lying about the Black mother and daughter election workers

At this point in our timeline, this is just a regular day.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

#UNFIT In more ways than one.

New Billboard up in Michigan just north of Birch Run on I-75

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

May 22, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

Trump’s lawyers rested their defense of the former president today, putting an end to the testimony we will hear in the case. Trump did not testify. 

Trump's refusal to take the stand encapsulates the MAGA approach to politics. Since the 2020 presidential election, he and his surrogates have made repeated accusations and statements about how the system is rigged against them and alleged there is evidence that proves them right. 

Crucially, they make those arguments only in front of television cameras or on podcasts and radio. They refuse to make them under oath in a court of law, where there are penalties for lying. 

After the 2020 presidential election, for example, lawyer Sidney Powell insisted to media outlets that voting machines switched votes from Trump to Biden. When Dominion Voting Systems sued her for defamation, her lawyers defended her by saying: “No reasonable person would conclude that the statements were truly statements of fact.” “[R]easonable people would not accept such statements as fact but view them only as claims that await testing by the courts through the adversary process,” they said.

Similarly, Trump ally Rudy Giuliani insisted that Georgia election officials Ruby Freeman and Wandrea ArShaye (Shaye) Moss were changing votes from Trump to Biden. When they sued him for defamation, he conceded that “to the extent the statements were statements of fact…, such…statements were false.” When a jury awarded Freeman and Moss more than $148 million in damages, Giuliani filed for bankruptcy and continued to defame them. 

Freeman and Moss sued him again, asking a court to stop him. Today, in a settlement in bankruptcy court, Giuliani "agreed to never again accuse either [Ruby] Freeman or [Shaye] Moss of engaging in any wrongdoing in connection with the 2020 election,” according to the women’s lawyers.

Like his colleagues who advanced lies to shape a narrative, Trump insisted that he would testify in his own defense. “I’m testifying,” he said before the trial. “I tell the truth, I mean, all I can do is tell the truth. And the truth is that there is no case.” 

Then he tried to weasel out of that promise by saying the gag order put in place to stop him from attacking witnesses or members of the court and their families prevented him from testifying. “I’m not allowed to testify, because this judge, who’s totally conflicted, has me under an unconstitutional gag order,” he told reporters. Judge Juan Merchan corrected him, clarifying that Trump had the “absolute” right to testify and that the gag order “does not prohibit you from taking the stand and it does not limit or minimize what you can say.”

Nonetheless, true to form, Trump declined to testify despite all his protestations. Instead, he has argued his case in front of the television cameras. “I had nothing to do with it,” he said yesterday. “A bookkeeper put it down as a legal expense. This is why I’m here, because we called it a legal expense, a payment to a lawyer.”

Dan Froomkin of Press Watch noted that juries cannot consider in any manner the fact that a defendant doesn’t testify. “But the court of public opinion is under no such obligation,” he wrote. “And, notably, it is the court of public opinion that is voting in November.”

The court of public opinion weighed in on the man who pioneered the practice of telling repeated lies to the cameras and then moving onto the next lie before journalists can fact-check the first. That man was Senator Joe McCarthy (R-WI), who as a mediocre freshman senator in 1950, during the Cold War, needed an issue for reelection. On February 12, 1950, at a meeting gathered to celebrate Lincoln’s birthday in Wheeling, West Virginia, he claimed there were 205 members of the Communist Party working in Democratic president Harry S. Truman’s State Department. 

By the next day, the number had dropped to 57, and the numbers bounced around after that, but it didn’t really matter. McCarthy insisted that Truman was protecting Communists, and he ramped up his claims that there were Communists in government after voters put Republican Dwight Eisenhower into office. McCarthy’s investigation of the State Department enabled him to bully witnesses, spread innuendo, and destroy careers. 

McCarthy loved attention and headlines. He kept them by concocting ever grander lies. His hearings produced little evidence of Communists in government, but newspapers found they had to reprint his false accusations—they were news, after all—and by the time they could issue corrections, the storyline had moved on. 

Finally, in fall 1953, McCarthy accused Eisenhower’s beloved U.S. Army of harboring “subversives.” In early 1954 the Army turned the tables, charging that McCarthy had pressured army officers to give a friend favorable treatment. This time, unlike McCarthy’s congressional investigations, which were behind closed doors and spread to the media on McCarthy’s terms, the Army-McCarthy hearings were televised.

The chief counsel for the Army, Joseph Nye Welch, repeatedly demanded that McCarthy’s aide Roy Cohn provide to the U.S. Attorney General the names of the 130 “subversives” they claimed were in defense plants. Unable to do so, McCarthy pivoted to accusing one of Welch’s young associates of being a Communist. 

“Have you no sense of decency, sir?” Welch asked. “At long last, have you left no sense of decency?”

Up to 20 million people watched on their televisions as McCarthy was finally facing real lawyers and oaths in a congressional hearing about his accusations that Communists had infiltrated the U.S. Army. And when they saw him for what he was—a vicious, lying bully—most of them turned against him. His popularity plummeted, reporters ignored him, and the Senate “condemned” him in December 1954. When he died two and a half years later, Democrat William Proxmire, who won his seat, told voters that McCarthy was “a disgrace to Wisconsin, to the Senate, and to America.” 

But McCarthy’s serial lying had shown how to dominate politics with an unceasing string of lies. 

There is a direct line from McCarthy to Trump in the person of Roy Cohn, who became a New York power broker after his years with McCarthy, helped the Trump Organization when the federal government sued it for racial discrimination, and mentored Trump as he rose to fame in New York. That relationship is chronicled in the new biopic about Trump, The Apprentice, now debuting at the Cannes Film Festival. Trump campaign spokesperson said that the Trump campaign will be filing a lawsuit “to address the blatantly false assertions from these pretend filmmakers.”  

There is perhaps even a more direct line from McCarthy to Trump today than the one Cohn provides. After the trial today, Trump noted that the Department of Justice had “AUTHORIZED THE FBI TO USE DEADLY (LETHAL) FORCE. NOW WE KNOW, FOR SURE, THAT JOE BIDEN IS A SERIOUS THREAT TO DEMOCRACY. HE IS MENTALLY UNFIT TO HOLD OFFICE—25TH AMENDMENT!” In an email with a subject line “They were authorized to shoot me—I nearly escaped death,” the Trump campaign said: “Joe Biden was locked & loaded ready to take me out & put my family in danger…. But here’s the one thing they don’t know: WE WILL NEVER SURRENDER!”

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) exaggerated the story further: “The Biden DOJ and FBI were planning to assassinate Pres[ident] Trump and gave the green light…. What are Republicans going to do about it?”

The truth, as former FBI assistant director Frank Figliuzzi noted, is that there was nothing special about the order for Trump’s search warrant. “[E]very FBI operations order contains a reminder of FBI deadly force policy. Even for a search warrant. Deadly force is always authorized if the required threat presents itself,” Figliuzzi wrote. 

MAGA lies have become part of the Russian state narrative. Following the 2020 presidential election, the Fox News Channel had to pay $787 million to Dominion Voting Systems after its personalities repeated MAGA lies on air. Less than a week later, popular host Tucker Carlson, who pushed those lies, left the channel and launched his own show on X. Today, news broke that Russian TV has been dubbing Carlson’s show into Russian and rebroadcasting it on state TV. 

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[tomorrowusa]

Part of a Trump fundraising message poorly disguised as a love letter to Melania. I'm sure most wives get Valentine's Day cards from husbands who use their middle initials when signing the greeting. ✍🏼🤭

Trump Campaign Roasted For Fundraising Off Unhinged Valentine's Day 'Love Letter' To Melania

The Donald is going to need to do a lot of fundraising thanks to spiraling legal judgements against him.

The Donald Trump Fire Sale Starts Now

Donald Trump’s companies have filed for bankruptcies six times, but now he may actually be about to go broke. On Friday, a New York judge penalized the former president $355 million after finding him liable for lying about his wealth and the value of his properties in New York — and that’s before pre-judgment interest charges, which according to the New York Attorney General’s office, adds another $100 million or so. Then there’s the $4 million owed by Eric Trump and Don Jr. each — which, come on, whose money is that really? The giant liabilities are due in part to Trump and his organization’s “complete lack of remorse,” Justice Arthur Engoron ruled, as well as for its deterrent effect: Trump and the Trump Organization’s officers were “likely to continue their fraudulent ways unless the Court grants significant injunctive relief.” Add this to the $88 million he owes writer E. Jean Carroll for defaming her, twice, and Trump owes roughly $540 million. That would wipe out almost his entire estimated cash pile and vaporize about a sixth of his total net worth. Trump can afford this, but he is probably going to have to sell something big. His net worth, according to both Forbes and Bloomberg, is between $2.6 and $3.1 billion, but most of that is tied up in his buildings and other properties. His cash pile is about $600 million, Bloomberg estimates, and he cannot use campaign or political-action-committee money to pay these fines. Some of his attorneys’ fees can be paid for with money that he’s raised from donors, but it’s not clear what money is paying for which lawyers between the four criminal cases he’s fighting off.

Here are some ways Trump could raise money to keep from going bankrupt for a seventh time.

Since his ex-wife Ivana is already buried there, he could turn Trump National Golf Club at Bedminster into a MAGA cemetery. Heirs of people who die from listening to Trump's quack COVID-19 advice will want their loved ones interred under the BEST sand traps.

Mar-a-Lago could be leased for the filming of the next season of Naked and Afraid. Unclothed contestants would have to survive hazards such as Dinesh D'Souza film festivals, Rudy Giuliani's alcoholic rants, and Nick Fuentes/Kanye West Groyper dinner parties.

Trump could franchise his own national chain of spray-on tanning salons which would leave customers looking as orange as him from head to toe.

Only Fans. Tens of millions of MAGA followers may be willing to pay to see "Toad" for themselves.

[gwydionmisha]

I hope they clean him out. He ruined their lives.

[evilmark999]

"I'll go to my deathbed knowing that they lied. They looked into the State Senators' eyes - and the people of Georgia and people of America - and lied to them about this - and KNEW they were lying - to try to keep this charade going on, that there was fraud in Georgia..."

When Tucker Carlson said, "this is not a conspiracy theory," and when Laura Ingraham and Sean Hannity and the rest of the entertainment sycophants still at FOX echoed and continue to echo those same kinds of statements, then you can take it to YOUR deathbed that it IS all a lie, that they're ALL liars - from top to bottom - that they're ALL very KNOWINGLY liars, and don't deserve to be trusted to tell one iota of the truth. Ever!

Just like Donald Trump. And just like Rudy Giuliani. And just like every other christofascist MAGA supporter. Knowingly liars. Full stop!

Write all of their names down, and never forgive, and never forget. They are ALL very KNOWINGLY deceiving everyone that isn't one of them, and will look YOU or anyone or EVERYONE in the eye without a care at all...

Too many names. I ran out of tags...

[xplorer751]

The day before the 2024 Election-

Today we are on the cusp of what I believe is the most important election in the history of this country. To the doubters, yes it will be secure and fair. People that are capable of critical thought know that. Why? Because they can look at a situation and assess what they are being told based on facts, and based on the source of the information.

We have an enormous problem in this country because of the unabashed lies being told. And for those of you saying that both sides lie, that is a false equivalency. In politics there is hyperbole and exaggeration. That is in the normal course of a campaign. However, there is a difference between political rhetoric, and telling followers that someone that is opposed to you and should be shot. This is the mentality and complete lack of boundaries and decency of the Republican candidate.

Are you OK with shooting opponents? Sounds like Putin to me. Putin kills his opposition. We have a candidate advocating the same.

I have stated in previous posts that he lies about everything. Do you really believe that the 2020 Election was stolen after certification of the results by many Republican run elections, the over a BILLION dollar settlements by Fox media and News Max for knowingly lying, losing 63 of 64 election lawsuits and Rudy Giuliani being disbarred for election lies?

If you do, there is a mirror nearby that you need to look into. He has repeated the lie that the other side cheated, and he has legions of morons that believe this crap. He is doing it again, and expect bloodshed if he loses. The laws of this country and the constitution means nothing to him.

His lies have consequences. Consequences that will be paid by my sons and grandchildren should we ignore reality and elect him. "If you don't know how things work, everything's a conspiracy." 60 minutes 11/3/24".

[mightyflamethrower]

CBS’s iconic 60 Minutes has had plenty of scandals and embarrassments in its long 57-year history, most notably the fake-but-accurate Dan Rather mess. Yet never has it found itself in greater disrepute than in 2024.

Donald Trump, for good reason, recently declined to join 60 Minutes for its traditional election-year in-depth interviews of the two presidential candidates.

Why??

Last time he consented in 2020, anchor and interviewer Leslie Stahl attacked Trump’s accurate assertion that the Hunter Biden laptop (then in the possession of the FBI) was authentic—and authentically damning to Joe Biden’s presidential candidacy.

Stahl falsely claimed the laptop “can’t be verified.” She further incorrectly asserted, “So this story about Hunter and his laptop, some repair shop found it; the source is Steve Bannon and Rudy Giuliani.” The New York Post, in fact, reported the story. The FBI did not deny it.

Yet old Twitter and Facebook, under collaborating FBI tutelage and pressure, suppressed dissemination of the truth. Joe Biden’s then-advisor and now Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in conjunction with former interim CIA Director Michael Morrel, helped round up “51 former intelligence authorities” (among them Leon Panetta and both John Brennan and James Clapper, who had admitted previously of lying under oath to Congress) to claim falsely that the laptop had all the hallmarks of a Russian information gambit to warp the election.

Joe Biden used the “expert” consensus to further lie in the last Biden-Trump debate that the laptop was cooked up by the Russians. And neither CBS, the “intelligence authorities,” nor any of the Bidens have ever since apologized.

More recently, CBS got caught selectively editing the 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris, cutting and pasting an incoherent Harris response to lessen her embarrassing word salad. And in a subsequent interview with House Speaker Mike Johnson, the network once again edited and pruned his answers, but in contrast, on this occasion, to make him seem far less persuasive.

In yet another current CBS interview with author Ta-Nehisi Coates, network host Tony Dokoupil honestly questioned Coates about his new, one-sided, anti-Israeli book The Message. The result was that the left-wing icon Coates was almost immediately revealed to be abjectly ignorant of the Middle East, unapologetically biased, and completely uninterested in any viewpoint other than his own partisan prejudices.

Yet what followed proved yet another network embarrassment. An internal CBS division with the eerie Orwellian title of “CBS News Race and Culture Unit” attacked Dokoupil for not providing “context” for Coates’s self-condemnatory and embarrassing interview. The subtext was that CBS, under pressure from woke zealots, simply disowned Dokoupil and sought to subject him to correct thought training. His apparent crime was not insisting on different—softball—journalistic standards for woke black authors like Coates. In other words, CBS blamed Dokoupil for revealing Coates to be a fool on the air.

The network further diminished its eroding reputation yet again through the unprofessional conduct of recent moderators Norah O’Donnell and Margaret Brennan during the J.D. Vance/Tim Walz vice presidential debate.

After the earlier ABC-sponsored debate between presidential candidates Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, in which the moderators became partisan fact-checkers (and often wrongly so) of Trump alone and drilled him on follow-up questions in a way not accorded Harris, CBS promised not to repeat such a network embarrassment. So, it pledged not to fact-check the two vice presidential candidates and instead to present a “fair” moderation of the event.

Instead, the CBS moderators were even more patently one-sided than the prior disastrous ABC performance. The two broke their own pre-debate rules by indeed fact-checking. But, even worse, they fact-checked Vance alone. And, once again, did so erroneously in a way that only exposed their unprofessional partiality.

Given the prior ABC debate sham, CBS was supposedly determined not to turn off the public with more moderator partisan distortions. Instead, the network proved that if it was a question of further eroding its professional brand or helping elect the Harris/Walz progressive ticket, then CBS would predictably choose to jettison its reputation to further the progressive cause.

Just as CBS is no longer the network television standard, so too has the current generation of partisans done their best to sully the New York Times. Within just a few days, the Times embarrassed itself in ways similar to the partisanship so toxic at CBS.

The Times just published an op-ed, “65 Doctors, Nurses and Paramedics: What We Saw in Gaza.” What followed were testimonials from medical officials and doctors in Gaza with truly harrowing stories of Israel’s collateral damage and the shooting of civilians, accompanied by X-ray photos of small children with IDF bullets allegedly lodged in their bodies and heads.

But even if one was not aware of the fables promulgated by Hamas and the history of propagandistic attacks on Israel, and even if there was no corroboration of how the victims died and under what conditions, a novice might have sensed that something was not quite right with the evidentiary X-rays.

Experts pointed out that the embedded bullets in the scans appeared pristine, without any fragmentation after entering skulls or midriff sections. There were no apparent entry and exit wounds on the images—suggesting either that it was unlikely the bullets came from IDF-issued high-velocity weapons or that the X-rays might simply have been rephotographed with IDF bullets placed beneath them. In any case, the New York Times did not cite any expert outside reviewer to authenticate the scans.

Recently, the New York Times again rushed to partisan judgment to persuade the public that current charges of abject plagiarism by presidential candidate Vice President Harris were baseless. Accusations arose that Harris and her coauthor in a past book on crime had plagiarized a number of sources multiple times.

Yet the Times claimed the copying was minor and did not rise to the level of actionable plagiarism. It “proved” this by quoting a plagiarism “expert,” Jonathan Bailey, who, it implied, had consulted all the alleged plagiarism passages.

But once the public saw just a few of the passages in question, almost immediately it concluded otherwise: that Harris and her co-author were indeed plagiarists. That forced Bailey, the original Times expert, to reconsider his initial opinion: “At the time, I was unaware of a full dossier with additional allegations, which led some to accuse the New York Times of withholding that information from me. However, the article clearly stated that it was my ‘initial reaction’ to those allegations, not a complete analysis.”

Bailey then concluded that Harris had indeed committed plagiarism but not “maliciously” so. Once again, the Times had not verified its assertions before publication, and once again it had erred on the side of its known partisanship.

The Times and CBS are just a small example of current once-prestige outlets—such as ABC (cf. its moderators during the Harris-Trump presidential debate) and NPR (that just retracted its scurrilous charges against journalist Rich Lowry)—who have consistently abused the public’s trust for the partisan benefit of progressives or their causes.

In sum, the trust and prestige that took prior generations of journalists decades to earn have been thrown away in just a few years by incompetents and partisans—on the ancient, flawed principle that the supposedly superior moral ends justify any means necessary to achieve them.

[reasoningdaily]

Rudy Giuliani: Former Georgia election workers sue again, asking judge to permanently stop him from lying about them | CNN Politics

They won and they won big $150 million.

[dankusner]

Newsmax settles suit over false election claims 

Smartmatic alleged the media outlet defamed it

WILMINGTON, Del. – Newsmax Media reached a confidential settlement of a lawsuit by Smartmatic, the voting machine maker that had alleged it was defamed by the news outlet’s false claims that its machines were rigged to help steal the 2020 U.S. presidential election from Donald Trump, the companies said on Thursday.

The agreement came on the eve of a four-week jury trial, with opening arguments scheduled to begin in Wilmington, Delaware, on Monday.

“Newsmax is pleased to announce it has resolved the litigation brought by Smartmatic through a confidential settlement,” the company said in a statement.

Smartmatic also said in a statement it was pleased to have reached a deal.

“Lying to the American people has consequences. Smartmatic will not stop until the perpetrators are held accountable.”

Smartmatic sued Newsmax in 2021, alleging it broadcast damaging misinformation falsely claiming the company switched votes in the 2020 election, that its machines were hacked and that it was funded by corrupt dictators.

Smartmatic alleged that Newsmax profited from its false reporting.

Trump amplified Newsmax’s reporting on social media and the broadcaster’s audience jumped 10-fold after the election, vaulting it over cable news rivals such as CNBC and Fox Business, according to Nielsen Ratings.

Smartmatic’s machines were only used in Los Angeles County in the 2020 election and it has said there has never been a security breach with its equipment, which has recorded billions of votes, largely in non-U.S. elections.

Both Newsmax and Smartmatic’s U.S. affiliate are based in Boca Raton, Florida.

Newmax said it had a First Amendment right to report claims by Trump and his supporters, which were often made in court filings challenging the election.

The company also clarified its reporting about Smartmatic in December 2020 and invited Smartmatic representatives to come on air to explain their side of the story to Newsmax viewers.

Smartmatic did not accept that invitation.

Newsmax has described its coverage of Smartmatic as “minor.”

Smartmatic has not publicly estimated the damages at stake, but Newsmax told the court on Sept. 16 the voting machine company was seeking $400 million to $600 million and described the case as “bet your company” litigation.

Newsmax had $67 million in assets at the end of 2022, according to a securities filing, and said in a June investor presentation it hoped to file for a public offering of its stock this year or early 2025.

“We are now looking forward to our day in court against Fox Corp. and Fox News for their disinformation campaign,” Smartmatic said.

The company is suing Fox in New York for $2.7 billion.

False claims about the 2020 election have led to several defamation settlements or verdicts.

Fox agreed to settle defamation claims by Dominion Voting Systems last year for $787.5 million, which was the biggest defamation settlement by a U.S. media company, according to legal experts.

Dominion is also seeking up to $1.6 billion in damages against Newsmax, which is in litigation in the Delaware court.

A jury decided last year that former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani had to pay more than $148 million in damages to two former Georgia election workers he defamed through false accusations that they helped rig the 2020 election against Trump. Giuliani filed an appeal

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Sam Levine at The Guardian:

A judge dismissed a bankruptcy case filed by the Gateway Pundit on Wednesday, saying the far-right outlet did not file the case in good faith. The ruling from US bankruptcy judge Mindy Mora in the southern district of Florida comes as the outlet faces significant defamation cases from two Georgia election workers and a former Dominion Voting Systems employee who say the site spread false claims about them after the 2020 election.

Calling the site’s assets “eye-catching”, Mora noted that they were 22 times the size of its liabilities. The company reported nearly $3.1m in revenue in 2023. “TGP remains both balance sheet and cash flow solvent. There is no present financial distress, no looming foreclosure sale, no prospect of a market crash. There is only the State Court Litigation in which TGP must defend itself. That’s not a basis for bankruptcy relief; it’s the justice system in operation,” Mora wrote. The proceedings had also revealed that the company may have been operating in Florida for three years without a proper business license and could owe back taxes to the state, Mora wrote in her 28-page ruling. The Gateway Pundit declared bankruptcy on 24 April saying it was doing so as a litigation strategy in the defamation cases filed against it. Filing for bankruptcy pauses all civil proceedings against a business. The bankruptcy dismissal means the defamation cases can probably continue.

The bankruptcy filing came as lawyers representing Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, the two election workers, were completing discovery in their defamation case and had informed the company it intended to take depositions of the Gateway Pundit founder Jim Hoft and his twin brother, Joe Hoft, who is a contributor. “This is a common tool for reorganization and to consolidate litigation when attacks are coming from all sides. It allows TGP to consolidate this lawfare in one court for ultimate resolution,” Jim Hoft wrote at the time. “While we greatly appreciate the Judge’s careful consideration of the facts of this case, we believe some of the findings are not supported by the existing law or underlying circumstances presented at the hearing or otherwise contained within the record. The Debtor continues to consider its options and will move forward in its legal and business path,” Bart Houston, a lawyer representing the company, said in a statement.

The defamation cases are being closely watched because they are testing whether US libel law can be an effective tool to combat misinformation. The collateral bankruptcy cases are seen as an effort to try to avoid accountability for lying. A judge earlier this month also dismissed a bankruptcy case filed by Rudy Giuliani, who was ordered to pay the two Georgia election workers $148.1m for defaming them last year. After the 2020 election, the Gateway Pundit published several articles falsely saying that Ruby Freeman and her daughter Shaye Moss, both election workers in Fulton county, Georgia, were involved in a plot to scan ballots multiple times and steal the election. The claims were immediately debunked and both women have been cleared of any wrongdoing. The false claims were amplified by Giuliani and other Trump allies and became central to their efforts to overturn the election results. When Trump called Georgia’s top election official and asked him “to find 11,780 votes”, he mentioned Freeman by name.

Judge Mindy Mora dismissed far-right propaganda outlet The Gateway Pundit’s bankruptcy filing on Wednesday because the company filed it for bad faith reasons.

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Rudy Giuliani Disbarred in New York for Lying About 2020 Election

CC OLD RACIST HO KKKARMA

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Rudy Giuliani: From America's Mayor to Infamy

A Look Back at Giuliani's Most Outlandish Moments

Rudy Giuliani, once hailed as "America's Mayor" for his leadership during the aftermath of 9/11, has taken a dramatic and unconventional path in his political career. From his role as Donald Trump's personal attorney to his involvement in spreading voter fraud lies after the 2020 election, Giuliani's reputation has been tarnished. In addition to his legal troubles, including criminal charges and allegations of sexual assault, Giuliani has faced public ridicule for his bizarre and controversial actions.

Let's take a closer look at some of Giuliani's most outlandish moments throughout his long career in the public eye.

Hair Dye Mishap

One of the most memorable moments from Giuliani's post-election crusade to overturn the 2020 election was his press conference where hair dye was seen trickling down his face. As he vehemently contested the election results, the combination of perspiration and hair dye created two black streaks on his face, undermining his demand to be taken seriously.

Borat Subsequent Moviefilm

In the satirical comedy sequel, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, Giuliani was unknowingly lured into a meeting with a fake journalist in a New York City hotel room. The encounter became uncomfortable as Giuliani was seen with his hands down his pants while lying on a hotel bed. He later claimed he was merely adjusting his trousers, but the incident added to the controversy surrounding him.

Four Seasons Total Landscaping

During the aftermath of the 2020 election, Giuliani held a press conference at Four Seasons Total Landscaping, an unassuming Philadelphia garden center. The location, seemingly booked in error, became a symbol of the chaotic nature of Giuliani's post-election efforts. Despite the blunder, Giuliani carried on with the conference, further adding to the farcical nature of the event.

The Masked Singer

In an unexpected turn of events, Giuliani made an appearance on the kooky singing competition show, The Masked Singer. Disguised as a Jack-in-the-Box character, he performed "Bad to the Bone" but faced criticism from the judges, with some walking off the stage seemingly in protest due to the controversy surrounding him at the time.

The 'Bill Clinton' Treatment

In a bombshell lawsuit filed by one of Giuliani's former employees, Noelle Dunphy, she accused him of sexual assault and harassment. The lawsuit included outrageous details, such as Giuliani demanding oral sex while on speakerphone with high-profile friends and clients, comparing his behavior to that of Bill Clinton. Giuliani denied the allegations, but the lawsuit added to the mounting controversies surrounding him.

Matt Damon Insult

In a recorded conversation submitted as part of the court filing, Giuliani appeared to insult actor Matt Damon, calling him a derogatory term and making false claims about his height and personal life. It remains unclear why Giuliani had a vendetta against Damon, but the incident showcased his bizarre behavior and questionable judgment.

The Airport Shave

In a moment of public spectacle, videos captured Giuliani shaving his face inside the Delta One lounge at New York's JFK Airport. This unusual act of grooming in a public setting added to the growing list of eyebrow-raising moments associated with Giuliani.

The Moment Biden Won

During a news conference, Giuliani learned of Joe Biden's victory in the 2020 election. His reaction, captured on camera, was one of disbelief and frustration. Giuliani exclaimed, "All the networks?

We have to forget about the law! Judges don't count!" His outburst showcased his refusal to accept the election results and added to the controversy surrounding him.

Rudy Giuliani's political career has taken a dramatic turn, from being hailed as a hero to becoming a controversial figure. His outlandish moments, ranging from the hair dye mishap to his involvement in Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, have only added to his infamy. As he faces legal troubles and public ridicule, Giuliani's legacy is one of controversy and unconventional behavior.

His downfall serves as a cautionary tale of the unpredictable nature of politics and the consequences of straying from the path of integrity.