(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Abbreviated Pundit Roundup: The Fox News-Dominion Voting Systems trial begins today [1] ['Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags', 'Showtags Popular_Tags'] Date: 2023-04-18 Jon Allsop of Columbia Journalism Review looks at how the Dominion-Fox trial may—or may not—affect how journalists do their jobs. A large part of the debate here is about the legal stakes of the case. Some observers have argued that a trial and finding in Dominion’s favor could undermine the protections on which all journalists rely—not least Fox itself, which has dressed its defense in the musty robes of First Amendment jurisprudence, but also some experts and journalists who aren’t in the network’s corner. Many others see something like the opposite as being true: a trial, they say, would test whether US defamation law is adequate to hold accountable the purveyors of malicious lies, which are not in any way the currency of credible journalism. Whatever the outcome, a trial could be seen as a prominent reminder to right-wingers of the costs to their own media ecosystem of weakening libel protections, which some right-wing politicians want to do. I am not among those who worry that this case might weaken journalists’ First Amendment protections. The current bar that public figures must clear to prove defamation, while high, does not, and never has, protected reckless lies of the type at issue in the Dominion case. What it judges, essentially, is intent; it’s theoretically possible that this case could be decided on specific grounds that seem shaky, but for now that’s hypothetical—and many legal experts agree, based on Dominion’s own court filings, that the company seems to have an unusually strong case. Still, I also don’t think that the case needs to go to trial to have a clarifying effect. The judge already ruled that Fox aired false claims—a flashing red warning sign to those pushing for a defamation standard rooted only in falsity, or something to that effect. Nor would a last-ditch settlement let Fox off the hook. I agree with the media-watcher Dick Tofel, who wrote recently that any major settlement by Fox “should be seen as an admission of guilt by any reasonable observer.” Aaron Blake of The Washington Post says that the claims of a full-page advertisement that Fox News placed in The New York Times and The Washington Post are not quite right. On the eve of the defamation trial that looms over Fox News’s journalistic and financial future, Fox took out full-page ads in the New York Times and The Washington Post. The ad suggests that Fox journalism is riding high. “Trusted Now,” the ad says in big letters. “More Than Ever.” Below the headline is a chart comparing Fox to other TV news outlets, purportedly proving Fox’s big claim. But the data are easy to misread, and they come from a survey research organization that has come to an almost diametrically opposed conclusion about Fox in its other data. More aptly, Fox is the outlet that the most people cite as being among their most trusted outlets. But on the whole, Americans have trusted it less than they trust plenty of others. x You'll have to scroll all the way down to the bottom to find Fox here on the actual YouGov survey. https://t.co/Vsh8gQGvis pic.twitter.com/ptc1OIUWZP — Jennifer Mercieca (@jenmercieca) April 17, 2023 Paul Krugman of The New York Times looks at the dangers of the concentration of wealth and its historical and contemporary effects on politics. People on the right often insist that expressing any concern about highly concentrated wealth is “un-American.” The truth, however, is that worrying about the dangers great wealth poses for democracy is very much part of the American tradition. And our nation basically invented progressive taxation, which was traditionally seen not just as a source of revenue but also as a way to limit excessive wealth. In fact, if you read what prominent figures said during the Progressive Era, many expressed views that would be hysterically denounced as class warfare today. Theodore Roosevelt warned against “a small class of enormously wealthy and economically powerful men, whose chief object is to hold and increase their power.” Woodrow Wilson declared, “If there are men in this country big enough to own the government of the United States, they are going to own it.” How does great wealth translate into great power? Campaign finance is dominated by a tiny number of extremely rich donors. But there are several other channels of influence. Until recently I would have said that outright corruption — direct purchase of favors from policymakers — was rare. ProPublica’s revelation that Justice Thomas enjoyed many lavish, undisclosed vacations at Crow’s expense suggests that I may have been insufficiently cynical. I agree with the first two excerpted paragraphs here of Eugene Robinson’s piece in The Washington Post about Justice Clarence Thomas—but not the third. I was never sympathetic. I believed Anita Hill, who testified at Thomas’s confirmation hearing in 1991 that he had sexually harassed her when she worked for him at two government agencies. And for Thomas, a far-right Republican apparatchik, to take the seat on the nation’s highest court vacated by the death of Thurgood Marshall, an icon of the civil rights movement, was always an abomination. , which Thomas espoused in his youth. And I almost — but not quite — understood how a deep distrust of government, perhaps along with some personal issues involving self-image and self-worth, might have produced his tear-it-all-down judicial nihilism. But I did understand how a Black man born in Pin Point, Ga., in 1948 might have a great big chip on his shoulder. I understood how growing up under the jackboot of Jim Crow might lead him to the philosophy of Black self-sufficiency articulated by Malcolm X , which Thomas espoused in his youth. And I almost — but not quite — understood how a deep distrust of government, perhaps along with some personal issues involving self-image and self-worth, might have produced his tear-it-all-down judicial nihilism. It was hard for me to believe that Thomas could be as much of a puppet of the most reactionary forces in American society as he seemed. But now, there is overwhelming evidence that that’s exactly what he is. I’m surprised a bit about the brazenness of Justice Thomas’s financial scheming but I’m not at all surprised that he was as much of a “puppet” that he has proven to be; I assumed that much during his confirmation hearings. The editorial board of the Kansas City Star says that Kansas City Police Chief Stacey Graves has a lot of explaining to do about the shooting of Ralph Yarl by 84-year old Andrew Lester: Forget the excuses offered up by new Kansas City Police Chief Stacey Graves. Her explanations about the shooting and why the man wasn’t arrested don’t add up. And the longer authorities play coy about why the alleged shooter is free, the situation could worsen. For a case file to be completed and submitted to prosecutors, law enforcement officials need a formal victim statement, forensic evidence and other information, the chief said. Because of Ralph’s condition, police weren’t able to talk to him about the shooting before Monday, they claim. Why would police need a victim statement? What if Ralph had died, or was further incapacitated and unable to communicate? A firearm the man allegedly used was recovered, police said. Kansas City’s relationship with its police department needs healing. Law enforcement seeming to slow-walk the investigation of a man who allegedly shot an innocent Black child does little to repair an already tenuous partnership. Nektaria Stamouli of POLITICO Europe writes that 2023’s most important election is in Turkey. For Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, next month’s election is of massive historical significance. It falls 100 years after the foundation of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’s secular republic and, if Erdoğan wins, he will be empowered to put even more of his stamp on the trajectory of a geostrategic heavyweight of 85 million people. The fear in the West is that he will see this as his moment to push toward an increasingly religiously conservative model, characterized by regional confrontationalism, with greater political powers centered around himself. [...] The May 14 vote is expected to be the most hotly contested race in Erdoğan’s 20-year rule — as the country grapples with years of economic mismanagement and the fallout from a devastating earthquake. He will face an opposition aligned behind Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, nicknamed the “Turkish Gandhi,” who is promising big changes. Polls suggest Kılıçdaroğlu has eked out a lead, but Erdoğan is a hardened election campaigner, with the full might of the state and its institutions at his back. The Wikipedia page for opinion polling on the 2023 presidential elections in Turkey does indicate that Kılıçdaroğlu probably has a slight lead. Finally today, Ido Vock of The New Statesman takes a look at the reasons for Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s overtures to China and Russia. Since he took office in January, Lula has increasingly positioned Brazil as a potential broker between Russia and Ukraine. “President Putin doesn’t take any initiatives to stop the war. Zelensky from Ukraine doesn’t take any initiatives to stop the war,” Lula told reporters in Abu Dhabi on 16 April after a state visit to China and the UAE – a provocative failure to differentiate between the two leaders. The day before, in Beijing, Lula also said that the US “needs to stop encouraging war” by providing weapons to Ukraine. Under Lula and his predecessor Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil has not followed Western countries in imposing sanctions on Russia. It has also refused to supply ammunition or weaponry to Ukraine. Brasilia’s position is partly borne of realpolitik – Brazil’s largest trading partner is Russia’s ally, China – but also ideology. Lula is a long-standing critic of US foreign policy and has frequently sought to encourage the development of a “multipolar” world order in which America has less geopolitical influence. This suspicion is in part a result of the US’s history of interference in Latin American affairs, including in Brazil. I don’t like Lula regurgitating what sounds like Russian propaganda but I do understand his reasons for wanting to play a more neutral role in the Russia-Ukraine war. Have the best possible day, everyone! [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/4/18/2164466/-Abbreviated-Pundit-Roundup-The-Fox-News-Dominion-Voting-Systems-trial-begins-today Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/