(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . The Senate’s Role in the Fox Lies [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-04-19 I still have questions. Yesterday (Tuesday 18 April 2023), Fox (Fake) News agreed to pay Dominion Voting Systems $787.5 million for defaming that company after the 2020 presidential elections. Other than a painful monetary payment, FFN was able to skip merrily away from its harmful and antisocial behavior, on to continue its propaganda campaign against democracy. It’s not the role of the courts in liable cases to do more than ensure the truth is found and used for equity between he parties. And it is not the role of a private corporation to do else than make money for its shareholders. Neither of these entities is there to make sure our politics works correctly or that the people have power in this country. That’s the job of politicians. It’s specifically the job of the Legislative and Executive branches. It’s the job of the House, the Senate, the President, and the Department of Justice. That’s what they are there for, to bring justice to politics, and through that to society. That’s why we have them make and enforce laws. In theory, the House would already have held hearings about the lies spread about the 2020 election. However, they had their hands full just tracking down the details about the insurrection of January 6th, 2021. Ideally, they would have investigated the lies, too. In fact, they should be right now. If the leadership of the House had good ethics and cared about the country, they’d take up where this court left off after the Dominion lawsuit, and look at what media companies did to deceive the public. And then the House would propose laws that might help correct that problem. In practical terms, however, it’s the Senate that must take up this work. Democrats control the Senate, and Democrats control the committees in the Senate. One of those committees needs to look into this issue. So, I suggest one of the committees there consider new law that would address this pressing and growing problem. They should hold hearings to answer these questions: Why did the Fox News operation intentionally and maliciously lie about Dominion? More broadly, why did Fox News and other media companies lie about the outcome of the 2020 presidential election? Why did they continue to lie to and deceive the public about the election and election operations in the United States, as a whole, when they knew they were making false claims? What would be an effective penalty for this kind of crime, so that organizations would be less willing to deliberately present and promote substantial falsehoods to the American people about elections in the future? This law should be tailored specifically to entities that present content to the public on a nationwide basis. The federal role is for interstate and international commerce. This should apply to organizations with that level of reach. It needs to address the political question of how to stop deliberate deception that is harmful to the public. Defamation already applies to individual entities. We see that cases in equity can potentially restrain private entities from making false claims against other entities. But that isn’t sufficient. Someone needs to protect the public, and it is the role of criminal law to do that. Under this framework, the committee should subpoena the witnesses who would have testified in the Dominion/Fox trial, so that we can use their experience. We need our own “Senator Sam” (as in Sen. Sam Ervin) to grill these people. Sen. Sam needs to grill witnesses like Rupert Murdoch. Sen. Sam: Judge Eric Davis in Delaware Superior Court found that your company lied to viewers about Dominion Voting Systems. You did that as a broader campaign to lie to the American people about who won the 2020 election. I believe it is well established that you lied for profits. But I suspect you had other motives. So, in your own words, why did you lie about the integrity of the election and about who won the presidential vote? Murdoch: Pablum. Sen. Sam: There are thousands of instances where people at Dominion presented evidence to your company that these allegations were false and defamatory. Yet, your company persisted in lying to the public. Why didn’t you stop when it was clear you were deceiving the public? Murdoch: Pablum. Sen. Sam: So, based on your experience, what kind of criminal penalty would have made you stop lying to the public when it was clear to you that Joe Biden authentically won the 2020 presidential election and that you needed to inform your viewers of that fact? What would have tipped the balance in favor of the truth? Murdoch: More pablum. This is how we get political accountability from people who have no compunction about lying to and deceiving the public for political gain. It’s also how we get the facts through the shell of the Fox Fake Audience. The Dominion lawsuit, apparently, will not result in FFN telling their audience the truth about the election (and incidentally that they intentionally lied to their audience). We must have this. If Democrats in power don’t use their power to correct this problem, not only will be a catastrophe for the country, possibly losing democracy forever, but Democrats will lose elections. What part of self-preservation don’t Democrats get? With Republicans in control of the House and with a nearly divided Senate, which can’t tie its own shoelaces, I don’t expect a new law to be passed reining in national corporations. We can’t expect ethics or good government from the Republican Party. But Dominion (and Smartmatic and law enforcement officers and people who were working or visiting the Capitol on January 6 during the armed takeover of the building) are not the only ones harmed by what these companies did by lying about the election. Fox Fake News and friends also defamed Joe Biden and the Democratic Party. They claimed that Biden was not legitimately and legally elected President of the United States. They claimed that “liberals” (meaning people they disagree with politically) rigged the election. As a liberal, I was defamed. Who is going to stand up for me? Who will stand up for the (turns out) honest Democratic Party? Who will stand up for poll workers and elections officials? Who will stand up for what’s good for the country? Who will stand up for democracy? I want the Senate to do that. It’s not too much to ask that a body controlled by Democrats at least drag these people before a committee and demand some (under penalty of perjury) truthful answers about why this happened and what should be done about it. From the perpetrators. We don’t even have to lock them up. They can just come in and answer a few, pertinent questions. Is that too much to ask? Let me just answer that question: No. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/4/19/2164763/-The-Senate-s-Role-in-the-Fox-Lies 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/