RKMBs Forums .::Important::. Politics and Current Events The Hutaree militia and the rising risk of far-right violence

Man... almost 10 years later. And still.

I'd guess the appeals court is dominated by Obama-appointed judges. As we've been over before, the "targeting" with literal targets on the posters of political candidates began with Bob Beckel as Waler Mondale's campaign manager in the 1984 election. Used in many elections after that, where no shootings occurred.
Which far precedes the 2011 shooting of Rep. Gabby Giffords. And in the case of nutjob shooter Jared Loughner, police forensics people went through every browsed site on Loughner's computer, and so far as I know, they never found any links to any "target" campaign ads that Loughner had browsed on his computer. And Loughner had wacko conspiracy theory globalist banking reasons he cited as his motive for the shooting, not motivated by Palin campaign rhetoric or posters.

But y'know, never let a thing like the facts get in the way of liberal judges jerking around Sarah Palin, and keeping a liberal narrative alive.

The liberal judges on the appeals court are letting her suit go forward, actually.

Well, that's reasssuring. That at least on this occasion it's not a judgement along partisan lines. Unlike all the legal injunctions filed by Obama-appointed judges to prevent Trump's executive orders from being implemented on border security, screening muslim immigrants and so forth.

Regarding the Palin case, 10 years of litigation can't be cheap. If Palin hadn't become wealthy from her celebrity, she might have a very difficult time pursuing justice against the slander that she is somehow responsible for a nut like Loughner shooting Gabby Giffords. Despite the lack of evidence that Loughner ever saw such an ad, and that "targeting" political ads precede Palin by more than 2 decades.

Palin filed her lawsuit two years ago, not ten. She sued when the Times repeated the alleged defamation in 2017

I wonder why she didn't file the defamation suit when the allegation was first made. And if her waiting until 2 years ago to file hurts her case.

Or possibly the reverse, that she was reluctant to sue, and that she gave them plenty of time to make a retraction, and only sued when the slander was made again, might actually give more weight to her case against the New York Times.

The short version is this.

Public figures can only sue for libel if there is showing to of actual malice or reckless disregard for the truth.

When the allegation first appeared 10 years ago, it was difficult to show actual malice or reckless disregard because there were still questions as to the gunman’s motive.

Eventually we learned that the gun man’s motive was in no way tied to Palin. Even the New York Times acknowledged that.

Despite that, Several years later, in 2017, they repeated the original, disproven, allegation.

This meant that Palin could now sue because they had (allegedly) exhibited reckless disregard of the facts. The reckless disregard, Palin argued, was the Times ignoring their own prior news coverage coverage.

There's a lot of Democrat rhetoric these days that fits well into that "actual malice and reckless disregard for the truth" category.
Comments akin to throwing kerosine and a match on someone.

I think Letterman's comment maliciously joking about knocking up Palin's then-14 year old underage daughter qualifies.

As does inciting violence toward Palin by blaming Palin for the Gabby Giffords shooting, with absolutely no evidence, and plenty of evidence that Democrats were using the same "targeted" districts and candidates for 24 years prior.


I was watching the House hearings with Maria Yovanovich today, and Democrats over and over pounded the talking point of "smears against ambaassador Yovanovich"... but never specifically listed the "smears" that led to her being fired.
They mentioned some of Trump's recent tweets, and the phone call between President Trump and Ukranian President Zelenskyy... but failed to mention that Yovanovich was quietly fired almost a year ago, and that there were no "smears" until the Democrats and Deep State weaponized Yovanovich, and Trump responded and defended himself.

Also, they weren't "smears". There were complaints within the U.S. embassy in Ukraine about then-ambassador Yovanovich repeatedly making disparaging remarks about President Trump, that were reported by others in the State Department, and when she was seen as a partisan who was undermining Trump, she was recalled and replaced.
Likewise (as Zelenskyy made clear in the transcribed Trump/Zelenskyy July 25th phone call) multiple subordinates in the Ukranian government had reported remarks by Yovanovich to Zelenskyy, to the point that he felt she had a loyalty to the previous Ukranian government and was hostile to the Zelenskyy government, and they therefore had no confidence in her.

The malicious lying narrative is that all those complaints came from Giuliani. They did NOT.

But back on the subject of "actual malice or reckless disregard for the truth"...

Have any of these Democrats heard of Brett Kavanaugh?

Or Nicholas Sandmann, and his entire Covington Catholic high school that had to be closed due to threats resulting from comments by Democrat leaders and liberal media pundits?

Or for that matter, have they heard of Donald Trump? Who has endured endless Democrat vile slanders and calls for violence against him?
Or Trump supporters who have become cannon-fodder due to these calls for violence by Democrats and news media pundits?
https://www.breitbart.com/the-media/2018...ump-supporters/

I think Palin, as well as any of the above, could sue Democrats or the media for their egregiously slanderous, dangerous and violence-inciting rhetoric.

Crosshairs at Bernie Rally in L.A. Featuring Public Enemy: Sanders fundraised in 2011 by criticizing Sarah Palin for using same symbol

As I believe Mike Huckabee first said: If the Democrats didn't have double-standards, they'd have no standards at all.

Court: Sarah Palin libel lawsuit against NY Times to go to trial

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated the lawsuit after it was dismissed by the District Court Judge Jed Rakoff, and denied the Times’ petition for rehearing.

The suit then went back to the District Court, and the NY Times moved for summary judgment...

The District Court just denied the NY Times motion for summary judgment, ordering the case to go to trial.

The Order details the timeline of the Times editorial process that gave rise to the editorial, including the removal of material from the first draft that would have cast doubt on Palin’s responsibility. After publication, people within the Times, including columnist Ross Douthat, internally notified the editors that there was no evidence to support the claim against Palin.

Less than a day after the Editorial’s publication, after having found no evidence of the “link” to which it referred, the Times revised and corrected the Editorial. The Times published the first revised online version at 11:15 a.m. on June 15, 2017…. In it, the Times deleted the phrases “the link to political incitement was clear” and “[t]hough there’s no sign of incitement as direct as in the Giffords attack” and added the sentence “But no connection to that crime was ever established.” In addition, the Times published a series of corrections, which ultimately clarified that no link between political rhetoric and the 2011 shooting of Representative Gabby Giffords was ever established….

Excerpt https://legalinsurrection.com/2020/08/co...to-go-to-trial/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summary_judgment

As a lawyer, you're clearly more familiar with these nuances than the rest of us. I take that the New York Times wants to do this perhaps to have their journalistic errors less visible to the public?
Or perhaps to save on legal expenses?
Or to move the lawsuit to a venue more friendly to the N Y Times?

Why would the New York times pursue a "summary judgement"?

From the article: summary judgment. That is a procedure where the court can grant judgment for a party where there are no material facts in dispute and the law is in the party’s favor.

In other words the times was arguing that Palin’s case shouldn’t even go to trial because it was too weak and the judge disagreed with them

I was curious about the "Hutaree militia" that M E M used as the vehicle to start this topic:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hutaree

That apparently had a vast membership of... 9 people. All arrested by the FBI, and the group no longer exists.

Based in the city of Adrian, Michigan, slightly south of Detroit and Lansing. A town that has a total population of barely 20,000 people, and only 84% of which is white.
A city so deeply white-racist that... it was a center of the Underground Railroad to liberate black slaves up till the Civil War.
The Hutaree are so influential on the town of Adrian that... they are not even mentioned. Not even a blip.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian,_Michigan

As M E M ignores the nightly terrorism and violence of Antifa (that by their Facebook site has daily site visits of at least 23,000 members nationwide).
And ignores Black Lives Matter (with undisclosed numbers, and funding donations of about $250 million), that have burned the downtown districts of large cities nationwide, and burned and looted business districts in smaller cities and towns nationwide that go virtually unreported. Leftist groups that have attacked and injured over 2,000 police officers nationwide, killed at least 2 police officers. And resulted in the deaths of dozens of other people nationwide.
Whereas the Hutaree were arrested and convicted before really doing much of anything.

Which side seems more dangerous to Americans: the Hutaree, or these other leftist groups?

So... the New York Times pushed for this because they anticipate a judge ruling is favorable to The Times, and that increases the chance of a ruling in the Times' favor?

Do you think that Palin's team warrants this, on lack of evidence, or do you think she should have a jury trial?

The Times asked for Summary Judgment and it was denied and the case it going to trial.

God bless!