It’s a lawsuit!
See? I haven’t forgotten how deeply satisfying lawsuits can be, but over the past four years…well, you know.
Anyhow, as the Times headline suggests, this one is exciting:
The ‘Red Slime’ Lawsuit That Could Sink Right-Wing Media
Voting machine companies threaten “highly dangerous” cases against Fox, Newsmax and OAN, says Floyd Abrams.
Just in case you’ve become so pessimistic you refuse to jump up and down, I just picked up advanced news about this:
Kyle Griffin
Breaking: Lawyers representing Dominion Voting Systems have sent letters to conservative media personalities, the White House and Trump’s personal attorney, warning that litigation related to their false claims about the company is “imminent.”
This isn’t a “threatened” lawsuit; it is an “imminent” one and against all kinds of people.
I think right-wing media and the “experts” who appear on it have forgotten that the First Amendment does not protect anyone from charges of defamation. Weird, since some of these people purport to be lawyers. You know, like, they should know about defamation?
This is happening because, toward the end of the rotten reign of Reagan, the FCC dropped The Fairness Doctrine, so companies with broadcast licenses can now do whatever the fuck they want. (Another example of why government rules and regulations are good things — not only for us individuals but for the companies that kvetch about them and pay lobbyists to get them killed.)
Regulations protect everybody.
Some lawyer people on Twitter are expressing their great desire to have a front seat at this trial.
P.S. Only such a glorious item could induce me to put a photo of Rudy Giuliani here. Dominion Voting Systems apparently intends to sue individuals who have wrongfully slandered it. One of those individuals is pictured above, unaccountably without makeup running down his cheek.