Well, since Trump’s ridiculous lawsuit against Hillary Clinton, James Comey, Peter Strzok and the FBI was recently thrown out of court on its ear and the fact that one of his attorneys has just had to get her own attorney for signing the document that said he had “no more classified documents” in his possession at Mar-A-Lago — he’s come up with yet another example of his wonderful penchant for ironic black humor.
He’s suiting CNN for $475 Million worth of “Defamation.”
The lawsuit, which was filed in a federal court in Florida, argues that "beyond simply highlighting any negative information about the Plaintiff and ignoring all positive information about him, CNN has sought to use its massive influence -- purportedly as a “trusted” news source -- to defame the Plaintiff in the minds of its viewers."
The suit says that CNN has defamed Trump by having people on its shows who give him "defamatory labels of 'racist,' 'Russian lackey,' 'insurrectionist,' and ultimately 'Hitler.'"
The suit goes on to allege that Trump is suing CNN "to vindicate his reputation as a dedicated public servant and to establish CNN’s liability for the harm it has caused to his reputation by the false, defamatory, and inflammatory mischaracterizations of him."
It then reveals that Trump is seeking compensatory damages of $475 million.
So Trump has now put himself in the position of having to prove with a preponderance of evidence that CNN never said *anything* nice about him, that he’s not a “racist” (“Mexicans are Rapists, they bring crime and drugs”,”Muslim Ban”,”Kung Flu”,”Shithole Countries”), that he’s not a “Russian Lackey” (Even though he used the emails stolen by Russian intelligence and the Russian Trolls on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to help him win the 2016 Election then attempted to drop sanctions on Russia multiple times) and that he’s not a Fascist like Hitler (Even though he asked the army to “Shoot”, “beat the fuck out of” and “crack their skulls” of unarmed and non-violent Civil Rights protestors).
[To be perfectly honest, I actually doubt that CNN has actually said these specific things in these specific words — but that’s another windmill for Dumb Quijote here.]
And he has to do this while somehow bypassing the First Amendment and the “actual malice” clause in the defamation laws, which would require that CNN know for a fact that their reporting and/or opinions about him were wrong when they stated them.
Read the whole lawsuit here (PDF).
Yeah, that should be a piece of cake for him to prove. No worries.
Monday, Oct 3, 2022 · 9:51:31 PM +00:00 · Frank Vyan Walton
Excerpt from Lawsuit.
Introduction
1. The Plaintiff, President Donald J. Trump, has been a long-time critic of the Defendant, Cable News Network, Inc. (“CNN”)—not because CNN does a bad job of reporting the news, but because CNN seeks to create the news (“fake news,” as the Plaintiff has characterized it in public statements). Beyond simply highlighting any negative information about the Plaintiff and ignoring all positive information about him, CNN has sought to use its massive influence—purportedly as a “trusted” news source—to defame the Plaintiff in the minds of its viewers and readers for the purpose of defeating him politically, culminating in CNN claiming credit for “[getting] Trump out” in the 2020 presidential election. CNN’s campaign of dissuasion in the form of libel and slander against the Plaintiff has only escalated in recent months as CNN fears the Plaintiff will run for president in 2024. As a part of its concerted effort to tilt the political balance to the Left, CNN has tried to taint the Plaintiff with a series of ever-more scandalous, false, and defamatory labels of “racist,” “Russian lackey,” “insurrectionist,” and ultimately “Hitler.”
Their labels are neither hyperbolic nor opinion: these are repeatedly reported as true fact, with purported factual support, by allegedly “reputable” newscasters, acting not merely with reckless disregard for the truth of their statements (sufficient to meet the definition of the legal standard for “actual malice”) but acting with real animosity for the Plaintiff and seeking to cause him true harm (the way “actual malice” commonly is understood). CNN has been given the dreaded “Pants on Fire!” designation by PolitiFact for its stories comparing Trump to Hitler. Still, it persists, requiring the time and expense of filing the instant lawsuit.
Monday, Oct 3, 2022 · 10:04:50 PM +00:00 · Frank Vyan Walton
The Politifact claim was made by a Duke University Professor, Allen James Frances, from their division of psychiatry and behavioral sciences who stated on Reliable Sources that:
"Trump is as destructive a person in this century as Hitler, Stalin, and Mao were in the last century. He may be responsible for many more million deaths than they were. He needs to be contained, but he needs to be contained by attacking his policies, not his person."
[...]
Frances also elaborated on Twitter, saying he was referring to the future death toll from climate change, hastened by Trump’s policies:
"Terrible damage Trump is doing to world climate at this global warming tipping point may be irreversable/could kill hundreds of millions of people in the coming decades. Many of them our children & grandchildren & their children. This is an existential crisis for humanity."
So the first problem is that this was not stated by a CNN employee, he wasn’t a reporter, he wasn’t a network analyst or one of their editors. It clearly isn’t an opinion expressed by members of the network. This man was a guest — his words are his own. Suing CNN for what a guest says seems problematic.
Technically Trump should sue the guest for his statements, not the network.
There were some disagreements with these statements:
"Much as I abhor Trump’s climate policies, calling him Hitler seems inappropriate to me," said Rob Jackson, a Stanford University professor of earth system science. "Trump’s climate and environmental policies are destructive. Calling him Hitler, though, is a distraction. It helps him marginalize criticism."
"Frances’s statement is shockingly stupid and uninformed for someone with a respectable and responsible position," said Benjamin Hett, a historian at Hunter College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and author of "The Death of Democracy: Hitler’s Rise to Power and the Downfall of the Weimar Republic."
Politifact goes further arguing that about 17 Million non-combatant people were killed by Hitler, and a similar number for Stalin. Mao may have killed as many as 42 million.
On Climate change they say this:
A 2014 World Health Organization analysis found that "climate change is expected to cause approximately 250,000 additional deaths per year between 2030 and 2050," from such varied causes as heat exposure to the elderly, diarrhea, malaria, and malnutrition.
Using the 250,000-a-year figure, it would take about 40 years of Trump-related deaths from climate change to meet the low end of the Hitler and Stalin death counts. To reach Mao’s death toll of 42.5 million, it would take 170 years.
I think that arguing that Trump would have an equivelent death toll to those persons is missing the point. Frances said: “as destructive a person in this century as Hitler, Stalin, and Mao were in the last century” — so we’re not really comparing exact apples to apples. Were comparing their relative impacts within the century. Trump could have a far lower death toll numerically, but contrasted with other potential high death events within the century — he may very well stand out well above the pack as Hitler, Stalin and Mao previously did in the last century.
Also, I think that Trump is already responsible for far more than 250,000 deaths with his lackluster response to Covid. He’s already got a pretty massive head start within this century.
They argue about whether Trump is solely a cause of climate change — he’s not — but it is fair to say that he’s clearly done damage by countering emissions standards and pulling the US out of the Paris Accords.
I think the issue is that we may pass the 2.0° Celsius threshold before 2030 because of Trump’s actions and that could indeed be catastrophic and not just to human life.
A 1.5°C increase will have a substantial impact on the climate. If we let that rise hit 2°C, the impact will be much greater, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Droughts are already devastating large parts of the world, but if we allow for a 2°C increase, close to three times as many people would be regularly exposed to extreme heat than in a 1.5°C scenario.
At 2°C, the projected rise in sea levels by 2100 increases by 0.06 meters over and above a 1.5°C rise. We would also lose twice as many plants and vertebrate species and three times as many insects.
Sure, at 250,000-deaths-per year it would take quite some time to reach 17 million deaths — but if because of his actions at this particular point in time we could cross a tipping point soon that prevents us from reversing the effects of climate change for decades, we could get there eventually.
Also, there is a study that already links Climate Change to 5 million deaths per year.
The extraordinarily hot and cold temperatures that are becoming more common as climate change accelerates are responsible for 5 million deaths globally every year.
Extreme weather accounted for 9.4% of all deaths globally between 2000 and 2019, according to researchers who on Wednesday published the first study linking changes in temperatures to annual increases in mortality. While most deaths have been caused by exposure to the cold, the trend is likely to reverse as the planet warms, they said.
So there’s that.
They conclude with:
Not only does Frances’ comparison exaggerate the predicted climate change death toll compared to that of the dictators, he also lays the blame for potential future deaths at Trump’s feet alone, which even experts critical of Trump consider wrongheaded. We rate the statement Pants on Fire.
So, this argument is now part of Trump’s suit against CNN. Do these comments and opinions by a professor who is not employed by CNN prove that there is a bias by CNN against Trump?
Thoughts?
Monday, Oct 3, 2022 · 10:32:51 PM +00:00 · Frank Vyan Walton
Former Reliable Sources host Brian Stelter stated during the program that he should have pushed back on Dr. Frances comments and said that he didn’t do so because he was having technical difficulties hearing him at the time.
Again, CNN is at fault and liable for these comments?
Monday, Oct 3, 2022 · 10:50:27 PM +00:00 · Frank Vyan Walton
The Trump lawsuit continues:
B. A News Network That Uses Its Platform to Propagate Its Politics
12. Purporting to be a “trusted” news source, CNN’s anchors have denounced a competing network as providing a “buffet of cultural war cuisine” and “predictably hypocritical.”7 Meanwhile, CNN has undertaken a smear campaign to malign the Plaintiff with a barrage of negative associations and innuendos, broadcasting commentary that he is like a cult leader, 8 a Russian lackey, 9 a dog whistler to white supremacists,10 and a racist.11 It is the stuff of tabloids cloaked as “honored” news.
Footnote #7 Was Brianna Keilar criticizing Fox News:
KEILAR: Fox facing a ratings slump after its de facto executive producer lost the presidential election is leaning even more heavily into its buffet of cultural war cuisine. I know it's about as predictable as someone singing, Girls Just Want to Have Fun, really badly on karaoke night and it's predictably hypocritical to boot.
Case in point, back in June, this guy promised to do better.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TUCKER CARLSON, FOX NEWS HOST: Middle class families are the core of this country. They are the hope for the future, our only hope. And yet both parties have shamelessly abandoned them.
Republicans pretend to be their champion. You know by now that they are not. Instead of improving the lives of the voters, the party feeds them a steady diet of mindless, symbolic victories, partisan junk food designed to make them feel full even as they waste away. It is lunacy. We fall for it every time. And given this show has participated in it, we apologize with deepest sincerity.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEILAR: To the extent his show has participated in it, that's all what his show is. And his apology for any role in serving up partisan junk food was followed up by more partisan junk food.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CARLONS: So, it's Dr. Seuss' birthday. The Biden administration is refusing to celebrate. We are celebrating and we'll tell you why precisely.
Which other holidays will they be canceling? Obviously, July 4th will be first on the list.
So why are people attacking Columbus' statue? Well, who knows? You're definitely not allowed to ask.
So have you ever eaten a python? Somehow, the python cowboy joins us next to explain. It goes without saying it tastes like chicken, so I'm not even going to ask you, but tell me how hard is it to hunt a python how dangerous?
And, of course, the curricula at so many schools is taking a much harder edge since that time from the extreme left-wing to the outright totalitarian. No, ladies and gentlemen, Jill Biden is not Joe's caretaker. She isn't his nurse. She's his fully equal romantic partner.
Jill Biden is not a doctor, no. Maybe in the same sense Dr. Pepper is.
So we spent the last year hearing about a health crisis, a pandemic, but there are a lot of health crises, this may be the biggest one, falling testosterone levels, which would completely reshape our society and falling sperm counts, which may make it impossible to continue the human race.
So if you were asking someone to assess national security, you probably wouldn't ask George Soros because he kind of seems like one.
Well, pretty sure, the pronoun thing will appeal to whatever tiny group of deluded unhappy people still believe that destroying nature's gender roles is a form of liberation. Talk about a war on nature.
Kamala Harris, who, by the way, is the ex-girlfriend of Montel Williams, and will be described that way forever after on this show.
They figured out that Christmas is bigger than they are, and therefore, it's a threat to them. Better cancel it. In effect, they're trying hard.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't think there's any doubt Biden is senile.
CARLSON: In the hands of Democratic politicians, climate change is like systemic racism in the sky.
Joe Biden's voters really are a threat to you and your family.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
So, not a buffet of culture war cuisine?
Footnote #8 was a statement by Jamie Raskin that the Trump faithful are “in a cult.” This was responded to by Diane Benscoter, former member of the Unification Church cult, on Reliable Sources.
Stetler, with difficulty, asked Miss Benscoter if she believed if “our neighbors are in a cult?” She said, “Yes” but then elaborated that “People want easy answers, then they get sucked in by media sources that feeding them ‘Us versus Them.’ Eventually, you can weaponize your side. And it’s one of the more frightening things I’ve seen.”
Footnote #9 leads to a video discussion on State of the Union of Trump's AG pick to replace Jeff Sessions, Matt Whitaker — it was after Senator Blumenthal who said that he is a “lackey.” Trump wasn’t called a “Russian Lackey” in that segment.
Footnote #10 leads to a Jack Tapper video with Ayanna Pressley where she said that he was a “dog whistler” for white supremacists (which he is) in response to Trump saying that Biden would “Destroy the beautiful suburbs.” Jake Tapper didn't say it or respond to it. He asked her if she thought Trump’s campaign pitch was “racist” and she said that “John Lewis said that he was racist.”
Footnote #11 links to a CNN Article that quotes Trump responding to CBS on the issue of police violence against black citizens.
When asked by CBS News’ Catherine Herridge why African Americans are still dying at the hands of law enforcement in the United States, Trump told the interviewer she had asked a “terrible question.”
“And so are White people. So are White people. What a terrible question to ask. So are White people. More White people, by the way. More White people,” Trump said.
A federal study evaluating data on deaths between 2009 and 2012 due to lethal force by law enforcement found that a majority of victims were White, but a disproportionate amount were Black, with a fatality rate 2.8 times higher. The study also found that Black victims were more likely than Whites to have been unarmed.
I think that article speaks for itself.
Tuesday, Oct 4, 2022 · 3:24:41 AM +00:00 · Frank Vyan Walton
From the Lawsuit:
13. CNN’s reporting on the Plaintiff in recent years has consistently fed a narrative to denounce the Plaintiff’s legitimacy and competency. The reporting is results-oriented, as betrayed in an undercover video: A CNN employee was filmed discussing the Defendant’s coverage of the 7 2020 presidential election.12 The employee boasted that CNN helped to defeat the Plaintiff in the 2020 election and called the Defendant, his employer, “propaganda”: “Look at what we did, we got Trump out...I am 100% going to say it. And I 100% believe it that if it wasn’t for CNN, I don’t know that Trump would have got voted out.” Id.
14. The statements by this CNN employee celebrating its media bias are consistent with published statements by CNN commentators.
C. From Reporting News to Propagating Political Beliefs to Intentional, Willful, and Malicious Libel and Slander
15. Most notably, and, the subject of this complaint, is CNN’s persistent association of the Plaintiff to Adolf Hitler and Nazism. When labels like “racist,” “Russian lackey,” and “insurrectionist” did not have the desired effect to undermine the Plaintiff’s candidacy when running for President or the Plaintiff’s accomplishments as President, CNN upped the stakes to conjure associations between the Plaintiff and arguably the most heinous figure in modern history.
CNN’s persistent use of ever-increasing defamatory characterizations of the Plaintiff up to and including comparing him to Hitler and Nazism demonstrates that it published its defamatory statements about the Plaintiff with actual malice.
16. On January 9, 2022, CNN aired its “Special Report”: “The Fight to Save Democracy” by CNN anchor Fareed Zakaria.13 In the promotional video for the program, Zakaria states: “Democracy everywhere is under attack. But remember, America has been here before. America has vanquished demagogues before. So how do we do it now?” 14 The report goes on to discuss the Plaintiff’s challenge to election integrity in the 2020 presidential election and that democracy is under attack—not because of potential fraud in the election process but because the Plaintiff questioned the election results. Id. A focal point of the report is a discussion of the ascendancy of Hitler and comparisons to the Plaintiff, interspersing discussion of Hitler and Nazi Germany with footage of the Plaintiff. Id. Zakaria states in the report, “Let’s be very clear. Donald Trump is not Adolf Hitler.” Id. But the disclaimer is lost in an otherwise direct
and graphic analogy.
17. The effect on viewers is apparent from responses to the program on Twitter15: “Excellent and chilling. The parallels with the rise of Hitler are obvious and undeniable right down to the lies and conspiracy theories;” “Fareed Zakaria lays out the ways in which this threat is real and parallels historical threats;” “The similarity between Hitler in 1930s Germany and Trump in 2016 are notorious. And the way you made the segment by on and off alternate images of both. Even if not apparent before, you made it now.” Id. (emphasis added).
Footnote #12 is a link to a Washington Examiner report about a clandestine recording made of a CNN employee by Project Veritas.
A CNN staffer can be seen in a newly released undercover video calling out his own network for “propaganda” and boasting that the cable news giant successfully removed former President Donald Trump from office.
"Look at what we did, we got Trump out," Charles Chester, a network technical director at CNN, said to an undercover journalist from the political action group Project Veritas in a tape released Tuesday. "I am 100% going to say it. And I 100% believe it that if it wasn't for CNN, I don't know that Trump would have got voted out."
This is a big deal in the wingnut-o-sphere where a CNN staffer is saying exactly the talking points that Fox, OAN and Newsmax would put in their mouths. It just seems fishy to me. Particularly coming from Project Veritas who’ve been caught falsifying videos more than once before and been prosecuted and sued for it. The release of this video resulted in O’Keefe being kicked off of twitter as a result.
The tech giant’s action comes after O’Keefe released the first installment of a three part “#ExposeCNN” campaign filmed with hidden cameras.
His first video featured CNN employee, Charles Chester, talking to an undercover journalist about his views on the news network’s coverage of the 2020 presidential election.
Twitter says that O’Keefe’s account “was permanently suspended for violating the Twitter Rules on platform manipulation and spam.”
And the company added: “As outlined in our policy on manipulation and spam, ‘You can’t mislead others on Twitter by operating fake accounts,’ and ‘you can’t artificially amplify or disrupt conversations through the use of multiple accounts.’”
Mr Chester, a technical director for the network, made his comments when he believed he was on dates with a woman posing as a nurse.
“Look at what we did, we got Trump out,” Mr Chester said in the first video released by O’Keefe’s Project Veritas.
“I am 100 per cent going to say it. And I 100 per cent believe it that if it wasn’t for CNN, I don’t know that Trump would have got voted out.”
A defense attorney who introduces their pedigree should have no problem having this evidence excluded, but I do wonder what shady tactics were used to acquire it in the first place.
Footnote #13 is a link to the Fareed Zakaria report on Trump’s impact on our Democracy. This wasn’t released until January 2022, long after the election. It’s arguments that Truth’s supporters show him a near cult-like and religious fervor are frankly hard to simply brush aside, but the scope of the report is much broader than that, addressing anti-democratic movements around the world.
On the anniversary of January 6, as we think about the future of American democracy, it’s useful to look around the world at what scholars have called a “democratic recession.” From Hungary to Poland to Turkey to India, democratic norms, values and institutions are under stress.
And it’s not just happening in fledgling democracies. Consider, for example, modern Germany. After its hellish descent into tyranny in the 1930s and 1940s, Germany came out of war defeated and destroyed but then re-emerged and recreated itself. Today it appears to be an almost preternaturally stable democracy. Angela Merkel served solidly for 16 years as Chancellor, and she has been succeeded by her former finance minister, another moderate. The country’s policies seem to have shifted in only marginal ways. The populist right is marginal and ineffective.
But behind that calm lie more turbulent currents. As the scholar Richard Pildes notes, for decades, Germany’s two main political parties taken together usually got around 90% of the vote. But they got just under 50% in the 2021 federal election.New parties and new movements are emerging.
In the end, Zakaria stating flatly “Let’s be very clear. Donald Trump is not Adolf Hitler” is pretty much a declaration that “Donald Trump is not Adolf Hitler”, but the suit appears to want to ignore his actual words and make hay out of various insinuations.
Footnote #14 Is a link to a video of the Zakaria special.
Footnote #15 is a link to a trailer for the Special posted on Twitter which doesn’t include the words that they quoted from it. What they actually quoted were replies to the tweet from people who — from what I can tell — don’t work for CNN. So CNN is being sued based on what people tweeted in reply to their trailer?
Tuesday, Oct 4, 2022 · 4:38:12 AM +00:00
·
Frank Vyan Walton
Some outside opinions on the suit:
Last month, Trump's case was thrown out of court as he tried to sue Hillary Clinton and dozens of others whom he said conspired against him with what he said were false Russia accusations.
MSNBC's Katie Phang noted that the lawyers who signed off on this lawsuit include "insurance defense attorney, Lindsay Halligan, and white-collar criminal defense attorney, Jim Trusty."
Trump seeks $475,000,000.00 in punitive damages in federal court.
Above the Law writer and national security lawyer, Brad Moss called it "garbage."'
Attorney George Conway, meanwhile, responded to the Trump lawsuit with open disdain.
"Local lying liar who lies claims reputation was damaged by news reports saying he lied," he wrote sarcastically.
CNN legal analyst Renato Mariotti said that lawsuit "isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on" and called it "a media stunt, not a serious lawsuit."
And Adam Steinbaugh, a First Amendment lawyer for pro-free speech organization The FIRE, noted that the "First Amendment protects the right to opine that Donald Trump is a racist, demagogic insurrectionist and compare him to any number of dictators."