Da Techguy's (no longer backup) Blog

By Christopher Harper

The news media are scared to death of Sarah Palin and her lawsuit against The New York Times for libel.

Although the former Alaska governor won’t win the first round of the battle, the case is likely to make it to the U.S. Supreme Court, where the justices may overturn the almost-invincible protection the press have against public figures and officials.

The case centers on a 2017 editorial in The Times that basically accused Palin’s political action committee of encouraging someone to shoot Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.

James Bennet, who wrote the editorial, has testified that he made a serious error. But his defense and that of The Times is that he did not act with malice or recklessly disregard the truth.

This standard comes from a 1964 decision, The New York Times v. Sullivan, which made it exceedingly difficult for a public official to win a libel case. The decision later was extended to public figures like sports and entertainment stars.

At the time, the ruling made sense since politicians were using libel laws to sue news organizations covering the Civil Rights movement. Without the malice protection, news organizations could be sued for any error, however small.

In recent years, however, news organizations have used the malice standard to fend off nearly all comers irrespective of the errors made in the commission of journalism.

In a New York courtroom, both sides have presented their arguments over the past two weeks in the Palin lawsuit, with media mavens sweating the outcome.

The Wall Street Journal referred to The Times and Bennet as using the “oops defense,” making it nearly impossible to win a libel case against media companies.

In a bizarre announcement yesterday, Judge Jed Rakoff, a Clinton appointee, decided that Palin and her attorneys had not convincingly reached the summit of proving that the news organization acted with malice.

But the jury was still sequestered, trying to reach a decision. If the jury decided for Palin, the judge would set the verdict aside.

Nevertheless, the judge made it clear that The Times had made a serious error in the editorial. “Ms. Palin was subjected to an ultimately unsupported and very serious allegation that Mr. Bennet chose to revisit seven years or so after the underlying events,” the judge said. “I think this is an example of very unfortunate editorializing on the part of the Times, but, having said that, that’s not the issue before this court.”

The case will likely wend its way toward a likely hearing at the U.S. Supreme Court.

There, the justices may well find in Palin’s favor.

Last summer, Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote a stirring defense of truth and accountability in the public arena. His opinion harkened back to a time many years ago when news organizations employed “legions of investigative reporters, editors, and fact-checkers,” before the proliferation of “falsehoods by means and on a scale previously unimaginable.”

Then Gorsuch aimed at the Times v. Sullivan standard that has blocked many plaintiffs from winning lawsuits even if the errors were as egregious as the one against Palin.

Justice Clarence Thomas joined the dissent, leading many to speculate that the court might want to take a new look at the malice standard.

Although I have defended freedom of the press for many years, news organizations have gotten away with too many misdeeds under the malice standard. It’s time for the U.S. Supreme Court to examine whether a 1964 decision is still relevant today.

Back in my youth when there was such a thing as sane Democrats Tip O’Neill the congressman and later speaker of the house from Massachusetts was famous for two specific phrases:

1. All Politics is local
2. I’ve always known how to count

These two principles are basic. One must make sure you are keeping the local voter happy and be sure to know if you have to votes before advancing any position.

The sudden about face by Democrats both locally and nationally on COVID restrictions reflect both of these realities.

The anger on the local level, particularly at school boards reflect a real problem for the left. Once conservatives are engaged locally all of their attempts to mold society become placed in danger and awakes voters to the dangers of their policies. The longer these restrictions go on, the more danger they are to the media/left.

But even more importantly are the poll numbers. Tip always maintained the most important thing a pol needed to know was how to count and while matchmakes are not encouraged in schools where Democrats are in charge, if you want to win elections without theft or sometimes even with them, you have to make the numbers close enough so they are within the margin of fraud.

2022 looks like a liberal disaster. Moving the COVID goalposts is the Democrats best shot of nudging the numbers back into a range where their problems might still be critical but not insoluable.

Tip would approve.

Everything in life costs something and I suspect a lot of folks on the left didn’t realize how much better things might have been for them if they had declined to steal election 2020 from him. Here are Five:

5. The vaccines and all the side effects would be on Trump:

President Trump did all he could to have the flushots vaccines ready before the election but thanks to the efforts of the press the announcements didn’t take place until after and the Biden Administration had pretty much taken ownership of the shots and the boosters.

That means that all the people who are refusing the shots would have been in conflict with Trump and the media, rather than surprising the information about side effects and deaths could have pined each one of those on him.

4. All the COVID Deaths in the last year and beyond could have been pinned on Trump.

As you might have noticed even before the death counts on COVID during the Biden years exceeded the deaths during Trump’s term the media stopped reporting the counts.

If however Trump was still in office, every single one of those death would be pointing at him. The media could be highlighting them and the various families every single night. It would have been a narrative they would have been able to humanize and sell.

3. All the atrocities of the Taliban in Afghanistan could have been pinned on Trump

It is a given that Donald Trump would not have pulled out of Afghanistan in the haphazard way that Joe Biden’s Administration did leaving millions of Dollars of equipment and tens of thousands of Americans and allies stranded. That occurrence would have looked a lot better than the debacle that is completely on the Democrats but even if Trump pulled out everything and kept every American safe the end result would still have been the Taliban in power which would mean women repressed, Islamic law enforced and freedoms curtailed.

Those would have all been great stories for the left and media and each one of those acts of oppression could have been placed directly at Donald Trump door. Alas for the left/media they are owned by the Biden Administration now.

2. Term Limits would mean Trump would be mostly gone by 2024

Term limits would have meant that as of today the Era of Donald Trump would be nearing its end. They would not have to worry about running against Trump nor him pushing candidates past 2024.

Because of this Trump remains and treat in being and a player in 2022, 2024 and 2026, possibly beyond.

More importantly it would mean the GOP front runner in 2024 would have been Mike Pence who is both establishment and weak. Just the type of GOP leader the left loves.

1, They would not have been publicly exposed for who they were and what they were doing

The single biggest disaster for the left of this administration has been how much of the left’s / establishment’s has been exposed.

From what teachers are teaching to crack pipes in bills to the various double standards that have red pilled parents and workers alike.

For decades these things have been progressing quietly though America’s institutions unseen and unnoticed. Another decade of this slow march and it might have been impossible to stop.

This particularly applies to the tactics used to steal election which has been quietly used in state and local elections. This type of thing has likely been going on for a long time without any significant pushback. Now you have open hearings and companies and lawmakers going so far as to claim that voting machines are so fragile that auditing them will force them to be thrown out.

Not only is the story is out on all these things and more but all these institutions that the left have been painstakingly moving to take over for decade now no longer have the trust of the public and thus no longer the power that make them worth taking over.

Like cockroaches smoked out of the walls now all of these things can be crushed and destroyed.

All of this and more is the price the left/media is paying for stealing election 2020. Ironically it may prove to be have been a blessing in disguise, albeit a really good one.