But why aren't similar replies coming from all the others? ____________
Amid the specter of legal action, conservative news channels are issuing fact-checks and clarifications after airing false, conspiracy-laden claims tied to the 2020 election. Fox News, Fox Business, and new MAGA favorite Newsmax have recently run segments debunking allegations against Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic, election technology companies that Donald Trump and his allies have invoked in their attempt to discredit the election results by claiming, without a shred of evidence, that widespread voter fraud was at play.
Over the weekend, Fox News offered a disclosure in the form of a question-and-answer exchange between an anonymous, offscreen voice and Eddie Perez, a voting machines expert, who quashed a series of election-related falsehoods. “I have not seen any evidence that Smartmatic software was used to delete, change or alter anything related to vote tabulations,” Perez said. The segment aired on programs hosted by Lou Dobbs, Jeanine Pirro, and Maria Bartiromo, shows where Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani and Trump-aligned lawyer Sidney Powell, who was disavowed by the president’s campaign weeks ago after pushing conspiracy theories apparently too outlandish even for them, peddled some of their most far-flung allegations. (Powell now has the president’s ear as he considers ways to overturn his loss to Joe Biden.)
Newsmax followed on Monday, the Associated Press reports, walking back a slew of false claims it had aired about Dominion and Smartmatic, including the apparent lack of relationship between the two firms—contrary to the Trump attorneys’ suggestion that Dominion’s vote counting system, used at some locations in the U.S. elections, had used Smartmatic’s software.
The retreat comes amid reports that the networks could be liable for such false claims in court. Over the weekend, the New York Times’ Ben Smith reported that lawyers from both Smartmatic and Dominion had raised the prospect of legal action: Smartmatic recently sent strong-worded letters to Fox, Newsmax, and One America News, a fringe right-wing outlet that has also enjoyed a post-election boost in ratings and recognition; Tom Clare, a lawyer for Dominion, has threatened legal action against Powell and the Trump campaign. “We are moving forward on the basis that she will not retract those false statements and that it will be necessary for Dominion to take aggressive legal action, both against Ms. Powell and the many others who have enabled and amplified her campaign of defamation by spreading damaging falsehoods about Dominion,” Clare told the Times.
Aside from the sheer lack of merit for these claims (no proof of election-altering fraud has been uncovered, as Trump’s own Justice Department has stated), many of the wild theories aired on the right-wing outlets have conflated, if not completely botched, basic factual details about the election companies under siege. As Smith writes, “Smartmatic wasn’t even used in the contested states” and “its only involvement this November was with a contract to help Los Angeles County run its election.”
Floyd Abrams, one of the country’s top First Amendment lawyers, told the Times that the letters sent by lawyers for Smartmatic and Dominion are “extremely powerful,” noting “the repeated accusations against both companies are plainly defamatory and surely have done enormous reputational and financial harm to both.” The cases, if commenced, “would be highly dangerous to those sued,” Abrams said. Fox, a multibillion-dollar enterprise, is in a different financial position than Newsmax and OAN, Smith notes, both of which are “burning money to steal ratings from Fox” and on the hunt for investors—buyers likely to run the other way in the face of “outstanding litigation with the potential of an enormous verdict.”
But if Smartmatic actually believed that they had a case, why haven't they filed it? Whatever damage that has been done to Dominion has already been done and it's unlikely that attitudes or beliefs will change.
This sounds like one of those letters attorneys send to try to get someone to "cease and desist" something rather than going to court to get an actual legal order to do so.
It's almost as if you got this article from some crackpot liberal site like Salon, Vanity Fair, or TPM...
Reverend... do you even watch Fox or Newsmax? With the exception of the prime time "personalities" FOX news is a bona-fide both side of the issue cable news channel. They have as many liberals these days as conservatives and there would be "nothing" unusual about them addressing "both" sides of these stories (which they have done all along).
The difference (as it always is) is that Dominion/Smartmatic wants to squelch "any" talk of "any" thing damaging to their reputation.
As long as someone like Sidney Powell is filing lawsuits, it should be up to News channels to cover these filings. It's not up to news channels to determine (on their own) whether or not a lawsuit has "merit" before they report the news. Just because CNN won't cover the lawsuits, doesn't make FOX wrong for doing so.
If that was the case, then Donald Trump has a pretty big defamation case against all of the news channels that chose to "cover" the various allegations of "Russian collusion". The fact that there was never any evidence that such "collusion" existed, doesn't mean that MSNBC is liable for defamation because they covered it or put people on the air who made the cases (albeit wrong) about Trump and Russia.
This is just another "attempt" at cancelling the news and making sure that only one "side" is covered. I promise you that FOX news has always (and continues) to cover both sides in this... as they should.
CNN and MSNBC and the Networks are cowards for pretending that this "news" doesn't exist.
This was a complete cave on the part of Fox and Fox Business and Newsmax (and others?) that they had repeated blatant lies as if they were their own knowledge about Smartmatic conspiracies without doing any fact checking of their own:
With the exception of the prime time "personalities" FOX news is a bona-fide both side of the issue cable news channel.
BWAAAAAAAAAA!!!! You really are fucked up there Lil Schitty.......They are as far more right as the NY Times is left in your biased world.... Remember the owner is a psychotic right wing asshole which permeates through the whole stinking place!!!!
Scott said: 'As long as someone like Sidney Powell is filing lawsuits, it should be up to News channels to cover these filings. It's not up to news channels to determine (on their own) whether or not a lawsuit has "merit" before they report the news."
It was more than just covering what she claimed: "Lou Dobbs airs stunning fact check of his own election conspiracies after company threatens legal action."
I saved at least 8 Republican Senators, including Mitch, from losing in the last Rigged (for President) Election. Now they (almost all) sit back and watch me fight against a crooked and vicious foe, the Radical Left Democrats. I will NEVER FORGET!
Twitter is going wild with their flags, trying hard to suppress even the truth. Just shows how dangerous they are, purposely stifling free speech. Very dangerous for our Country. Does Congress know that this is how Communism starts? Cancel Culture at its worst. End Section 230!
At a meeting in Florida today, everyone was asking why aren’t the Republicans up in arms & fighting over the fact that the Democrats stole the rigged presidential election? Especially in the Senate, they said, where you helped 8 Senators win their races. How quickly they forget!
I think that he will not go back to Washington DC. He can keep the people who don't agree with him and Twitter tirade for 3 more weeks and keep fundraising from stupid people like Scott asshole
Fauci is the high priest of the Covid cult. A paper mask is his sacred garment. Cable television is his pulpit. The people of Washington bow before Father Fauci. They throw their Patagonia fleeces before him to ease his way as he passes. They consider him holy. Now, the city’s mayor, Murial Bowser, has made it official. Bowser has declared December 24th —formerly the date of a notable Christian holiday — “Doctor Anthony S. Fauci Day.”
Pence is going to get Twitter tiraded by @therealdonaldtrump
Pence is hoping for a low-key Jan. 6 and is not planning any unnecessary drama, aides said, intending to stick to his perfunctory role. He is eyeing a trip overseas soon after.
Trump realized only recently that Pence would play a notable role on that day and has been asking associates, including Pence, what can be done to block Biden’s win. The president became angry after a group called the Lincoln Project recently aired an ad suggesting Pence was abandoning the president, aides said. The vice president has sought to avoid the appearance of breaking with the president, while trying to avoid echoing some of Trump’s most aggressive rhetoric, advisers said. His office is participating in the presidential transition, although Trump himself is not. Yet for weeks, Pence has been near the center of the desperate, chaotic efforts to keep Trump in office. On Monday, he attended White House meetings with conservative House Republicans intent on challenging the results on Jan. 6; Pence told them his constitutional duty will be to open and count the results, not to determine their legitimacy, said a person familiar with the meeting who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about it publicly.
If you were a Republican because you believed in fiscal restraint, under Trump the debt and deficit have exploded. If you were a Republican because you believed the GOP was stronger on national and homeland security, just look at what Trump said this week in cynically downplaying Russia’s cyberattack against our country. If you are a Republican because you believe in law and order, examine the records of the corrupt people Trump just gave pardons and commutations to. If you are a Republican because you are pro-life, there are 324,000 Americans dead from COVID-19 to call into question the GOP’s commitment to the sanctity of life.
Whatever issue has kept you aligned with the Republican Party, it’s time to accept that none of those issues supersedes the welfare of our democracy. When your party takes leave of its senses and takes its lead from the delusional rantings of a conspiracy theorist, it’s time to switch teams.
22 comments:
That’s beautiful
But why aren't similar replies coming from all the others?
____________
Amid the specter of legal action, conservative news channels are issuing fact-checks and clarifications after airing false, conspiracy-laden claims tied to the 2020 election. Fox News, Fox Business, and new MAGA favorite Newsmax have recently run segments debunking allegations against Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic, election technology companies that Donald Trump and his allies have invoked in their attempt to discredit the election results by claiming, without a shred of evidence, that widespread voter fraud was at play.
Over the weekend, Fox News offered a disclosure in the form of a question-and-answer exchange between an anonymous, offscreen voice and Eddie Perez, a voting machines expert, who quashed a series of election-related falsehoods. “I have not seen any evidence that Smartmatic software was used to delete, change or alter anything related to vote tabulations,” Perez said. The segment aired on programs hosted by Lou Dobbs, Jeanine Pirro, and Maria Bartiromo, shows where Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani and Trump-aligned lawyer Sidney Powell, who was disavowed by the president’s campaign weeks ago after pushing conspiracy theories apparently too outlandish even for them, peddled some of their most far-flung allegations. (Powell now has the president’s ear as he considers ways to overturn his loss to Joe Biden.)
Newsmax followed on Monday, the Associated Press reports, walking back a slew of false claims it had aired about Dominion and Smartmatic, including the apparent lack of relationship between the two firms—contrary to the Trump attorneys’ suggestion that Dominion’s vote counting system, used at some locations in the U.S. elections, had used Smartmatic’s software.
The retreat comes amid reports that the networks could be liable for such false claims in court. Over the weekend, the New York Times’ Ben Smith reported that lawyers from both Smartmatic and Dominion had raised the prospect of legal action: Smartmatic recently sent strong-worded letters to Fox, Newsmax, and One America News, a fringe right-wing outlet that has also enjoyed a post-election boost in ratings and recognition; Tom Clare, a lawyer for Dominion, has threatened legal action against Powell and the Trump campaign. “We are moving forward on the basis that she will not retract those false statements and that it will be necessary for Dominion to take aggressive legal action, both against Ms. Powell and the many others who have enabled and amplified her campaign of defamation by spreading damaging falsehoods about Dominion,” Clare told the Times.
Aside from the sheer lack of merit for these claims (no proof of election-altering fraud has been uncovered, as Trump’s own Justice Department has stated), many of the wild theories aired on the right-wing outlets have conflated, if not completely botched, basic factual details about the election companies under siege. As Smith writes, “Smartmatic wasn’t even used in the contested states” and “its only involvement this November was with a contract to help Los Angeles County run its election.”
Floyd Abrams, one of the country’s top First Amendment lawyers, told the Times that the letters sent by lawyers for Smartmatic and Dominion are “extremely powerful,” noting “the repeated accusations against both companies are plainly defamatory and surely have done enormous reputational and financial harm to both.” The cases, if commenced, “would be highly dangerous to those sued,” Abrams said. Fox, a multibillion-dollar enterprise, is in a different financial position than Newsmax and OAN, Smith notes, both of which are “burning money to steal ratings from Fox” and on the hunt for investors—buyers likely to run the other way in the face of “outstanding litigation with the potential of an enormous verdict.”
Sounds like somebody's actually afraid of having to face legal proceedings, doesn't it?
(I posted this in the interest of FAIRNESS.)
If you say so Reverend...
But if Smartmatic actually believed that they had a case, why haven't they filed it? Whatever damage that has been done to Dominion has already been done and it's unlikely that attitudes or beliefs will change.
This sounds like one of those letters attorneys send to try to get someone to "cease and desist" something rather than going to court to get an actual legal order to do so.
It's almost as if you got this article from some crackpot liberal site like Salon, Vanity Fair, or TPM...
They got such beautiful fact checking admissions from Fox and Fox Business and Newsmax (and others?) maybe they don't feel the need to take action.
But the threat has been made, and it remains hanging there.
Apparently Fox etc. plan to be more careful in the future and not claim things that can so easily be proven wrong.
I mean, the fact checking segment that was run by all three of those was absolutely embarrassing to them.
Reverend... do you even watch Fox or Newsmax? With the exception of the prime time "personalities" FOX news is a bona-fide both side of the issue cable news channel. They have as many liberals these days as conservatives and there would be "nothing" unusual about them addressing "both" sides of these stories (which they have done all along).
The difference (as it always is) is that Dominion/Smartmatic wants to squelch "any" talk of "any" thing damaging to their reputation.
As long as someone like Sidney Powell is filing lawsuits, it should be up to News channels to cover these filings. It's not up to news channels to determine (on their own) whether or not a lawsuit has "merit" before they report the news. Just because CNN won't cover the lawsuits, doesn't make FOX wrong for doing so.
If that was the case, then Donald Trump has a pretty big defamation case against all of the news channels that chose to "cover" the various allegations of "Russian collusion". The fact that there was never any evidence that such "collusion" existed, doesn't mean that MSNBC is liable for defamation because they covered it or put people on the air who made the cases (albeit wrong) about Trump and Russia.
This is just another "attempt" at cancelling the news and making sure that only one "side" is covered. I promise you that FOX news has always (and continues) to cover both sides in this... as they should.
CNN and MSNBC and the Networks are cowards for pretending that this "news" doesn't exist.
This was a complete cave on the part of Fox and Fox Business and Newsmax (and others?) that they had repeated blatant lies as if they were their own knowledge about Smartmatic conspiracies without doing any fact checking of their own:
https://www.mediaite.com/tv/lou-dobbs-airs-stunning-fact-check-of-his-own-election-conspiracies-after-company-threatens-legal-action/
With the exception of the prime time "personalities" FOX news is a bona-fide both side of the issue cable news channel.
BWAAAAAAAAAA!!!! You really are fucked up there Lil Schitty.......They are as far more right as the NY Times is left in your biased world.... Remember the owner is a psychotic right wing asshole which permeates through the whole stinking place!!!!
Scott said:
'As long as someone like Sidney Powell is filing lawsuits, it should be up to News channels to cover these filings. It's not up to news channels to determine (on their own) whether or not a lawsuit has "merit" before they report the news."
It was more than just covering what she claimed:
"Lou Dobbs airs stunning fact check of his own election conspiracies after company threatens legal action."
Whatever you want to believe Reverend...
It's all faith for you anyways!
Scott said a few weeks ago that he is done watching cable news.
The President believes in the crazy conspiracies. So do you.
The real news companies don't provide a platform for the incredibly bullshit.
If you really believe that they create the news, you are not sane!
One of crazy mothrfucker said that a Venezuelan dictator was altering the Dominion/Smartmatic machines to defeat Trump. He died in 2013!!!
Trump is pissed off at Fox news
You live in the alternate universe where the free press is the enemy of the country
Indy is 1000000000000% correct about you
@therealdonaldtrump is going crazy.
I saved at least 8 Republican Senators, including Mitch, from losing in the last Rigged (for President) Election. Now they (almost all) sit back and watch me fight against a crooked and vicious foe, the Radical Left Democrats. I will NEVER FORGET!
Twitter is going wild with their flags, trying hard to suppress even the truth. Just shows how dangerous they are, purposely stifling free speech. Very dangerous for our Country. Does Congress know that this is how Communism starts? Cancel Culture at its worst. End Section 230!
VOTER FRAUD IS NOT A CONSPIRACY THEORY, IT IS A FACT!!!
At a meeting in Florida today, everyone was asking why aren’t the Republicans up in arms & fighting over the fact that the Democrats stole the rigged presidential election? Especially in the Senate, they said, where you helped 8 Senators win their races. How quickly they forget!
I think that he will not go back to Washington DC. He can keep the people who don't agree with him and Twitter tirade for 3 more weeks and keep fundraising from stupid people like Scott asshole
Fauci is the high priest of the Covid cult. A paper mask is his sacred garment. Cable television is his pulpit. The people of Washington bow before Father Fauci. They throw their Patagonia fleeces before him to ease his way as he passes. They consider him holy. Now, the city’s mayor, Murial Bowser, has made it official. Bowser has declared December 24th —formerly the date of a notable Christian holiday — “Doctor Anthony S. Fauci Day.”
keep fundraising from stupid people like Scott asshole
Well Merry Christmas to you too Roger!
Pence is going to get Twitter tiraded by @therealdonaldtrump
Pence is hoping for a low-key Jan. 6 and is not planning any unnecessary drama, aides said, intending to stick to his perfunctory role. He is eyeing a trip overseas soon after.
Trump realized only recently that Pence would play a notable role on that day and has been asking associates, including Pence, what can be done to block Biden’s win. The president became angry after a group called the Lincoln Project recently aired an ad suggesting Pence was abandoning the president, aides said.
The vice president has sought to avoid the appearance of breaking with the president, while trying to avoid echoing some of Trump’s most aggressive rhetoric, advisers said. His office is participating in the presidential transition, although Trump himself is not.
Yet for weeks, Pence has been near the center of the desperate, chaotic efforts to keep Trump in office. On Monday, he attended White House meetings with conservative House Republicans intent on challenging the results on Jan. 6; Pence told them his constitutional duty will be to open and count the results, not to determine their legitimacy, said a person familiar with the meeting who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about it publicly.
Pence won't betray his oath.
That experiment is over.
If you were a Republican because you believed in fiscal restraint, under Trump the debt and deficit have exploded. If you were a Republican because you believed the GOP was stronger on national and homeland security, just look at what Trump said this week in cynically downplaying Russia’s cyberattack against our country. If you are a Republican because you believe in law and order, examine the records of the corrupt people Trump just gave pardons and commutations to. If you are a Republican because you are pro-life, there are 324,000 Americans dead from COVID-19 to call into question the GOP’s commitment to the sanctity of life.
Whatever issue has kept you aligned with the Republican Party, it’s time to accept that none of those issues supersedes the welfare of our democracy. When your party takes leave of its senses and takes its lead from the delusional rantings of a conspiracy theorist, it’s time to switch teams.
Kurt Bardella
Blogger C.H. Truth said...
keep fundraising from stupid people like Scott asshole
Well Merry Christmas to you too Roger!
I love the irony of a hypocrite atheist wishing others a merry X Mas!!!!!!! LOLOLOLOL
Post a Comment