Rachel Maddow and the OAN lawsuit: "The rest of the story "...
... as Paul Harvey would say. This 2 months later than what Glenn posted ...
A federal appeals court on Tuesday upheld a San Diego federal judge’s decision last year to dismiss One America News’s (OAN) defamation lawsuit against Rachel Maddow, arguing that the MSNBC host’s statement that the far-right network was "paid Russian propaganda” was “an obvious exaggeration,” rather than an asserted fact.
In a 3-0 decision, a three-judge panel of the U.S. District Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit said that Maddow’s statement “was well within the bounds of what qualified as protected speech under the First Amendment.”
“The challenged statement was an obvious exaggeration, cushioned within an undisputed news story,” Judge Milan D. Smith Jr. wrote in the opinion.
“The statement could not reasonably be understood to imply an assertion of objective fact, and therefore, did not amount to defamation,” the judge added.
The ruling against OAN, which was largely expected, stemmed from a lawsuit initially filed in 2019 in which the right-wing network argued that Maddow made "utterly and completely false" statements about OAN being "paid Russian propaganda" because the network "is wholly financed by the Herrings, an American family, [and] has never been paid or received a penny from Russia or the Russian government."
he network specifically mentioned a Daily Beast article that Maddow cited on her show, which said that OAN employed "a Kremlin-paid journalist."
However, Judge Cynthia Bashant ruled in May 2020 that anyone who watches Maddow’s show “would follow the facts of the Daily Beast article; that OAN and Sputnik share a reporter and both pay this reporter to write articles.”
“Anything beyond this is Maddow’s opinion or her exaggeration of the facts," the judge wrote at the time.
"Maddow had inserted her own colorful commentary into and throughout the segment, laughing, expressing her dismay (i.e., saying 'I mean, what?') and calling the segment a 'sparkly story' and one we must 'take in stride,' " Bashant added.
Ted Boutrous, who represented Maddow, NBCUniversal, MSNBC and other defendants in the case, said in an appeals hearing late last month that OAN parent company Herring Networks improperly isolated a few words of Maddow’s commentary about OAN, adding that restrictions on words “stripped out of context” would “destroy the breathing space for lively and informative debate about public issues that the First Amendment protects.”
“We can’t have speech police parsing the words they way Herring is doing,” the attorney continued. “It would really chill valuable speech.”
The Hill has reached out to OAN for comment on Tuesday’s ruling. <<
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Here are excerpts from the August 21, 2001 24 page opinion of the appeals court "
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This is a link to the complete court opinion in PDF format. I would recommend it be read for comprehension in its entirety: fingfx.thomsonreuters.com
<< Rachel: paid propagandist and liar scheerpost.com >>
Thank you very much for providing a direct link this time to the Glenn Greenwald article you excerpted two paragraphs from which is something you way to often neglect to do when pilfering Internet content.
<< Eric L = Homophobic liberal hypocrite >>
As I commented earlier "I'm less homophobic than I was some years ago and the rights of but I do have phobia's about trolls, anti-vaxers and other denialists." I do admit to still being somewhat uncomfortable around male homosexuals and uneasy about same sex (but not biracial) marriage. I am a moderate independent voter although for most of my adulthood (through 2008) I was a registered (moderate) Republican . That said I've only voted for 2 Republican Presidents (Nixon twice and Bush Sr, twice). As the right moved further right when the Tea Party formed I moved somewhat left. As for liberal, I'm a few clicks to the left of today's center on most issues, considerably right of progressive Democrats but I am pro-life and staunchly left on human rights, voter rights and the rule of law .
Feel free to point out what makes me a hypocrite in your eyes. I might learn something about the way I express myself from it.
<< Rachel and Tucker should get married. They are two peas in a pod. Not a whit of difference between the two. But you knew that, right? >>
I do need to correct a statement I made about Rachel in a prior post : "To Rachel's credit she wears the pants in her marriage unlike Glenn whose husband David does." I thought that I had heard Rachel (48) refer to Susan Mikula (63) who she has resided with for 20+ years as her wife but perhaps not. The pair is evidently unmarried.
I see very little similarity between Rachel and "paid propagandist" Tucker other than they're close in age and the fact that they are political commentators & TV personalities with very similar annual earnings. Rachel has a considerably better academic education, still hosts an MSNBC show while he doesn't, has a more engaging personality and more normal life view. She is a lesbian and he is straight and married with 4 children. She a liberal and he a paleoconservatist. I can't picture them tolerating each other for any extended period.
Rachel Anne Maddow: en.wikipedia.org
Tucker Swanson McNear Carlson: en.wikipedia.org
Troll on! - Eric L's ET - |
