It is odd that a "journalist" such as yourself should be thinking he is an attorney. To say nothing of thinking he is judge and jury.
It appears that you are unaware of the fact that a preliminary defense (e.g., the court has no jurisdiction as in other recent cases, etc.) is not in any way the last and the only one.
Yet, you continue to do this kind of thing, saying "this is her best and only defense" in all theses articles commenting on court cases going on. Your ignorance is comical.
Powell is lying in wait. Dominion is subject to extensive discovery as the suit proceeds. At which point, Dominion will be slapped, big time. Dominion will be subject to SLAPP laws. Of course, their machines are solely for the commission of election fraud, that evidence has been out for months. That will come out in discovery.
They'd be wise to back out now while they still can. Powell is being charitable, while at the same time raising Free Speech issues. It is just the first prong in a mutl-prong approach.
And you, a supposed objective "journalist", fell for it? You aren't a journalist. You are a propagandist. Remember this: It ain't over til it's over. Cool your prejudiced jets.
So let me get this clear: you just wrote an article pretending you looked at some evidence (as if you were a jury) and pronounced judgment on a case that was dismissed purely on procedural grounds (i.e, the court didn't hear any of the evidence)?
Why didn't you just write one paragraph? Or better yet, one sentence: Case of alleged hacking by corrupt official Rob Rosenstein dismissed for being brought in wrong jurisdiction, stand by for the refiling.
Why expound dump trucks of hot air claiming you know all about something you obviously know nothing about? And it doesn't matter what you think you know about this case at all. It's just weird. Can't you stick to Copyright, Patent and telco overreach? What provokes you to go off the deep end with this emotional and hysterical speculation?
It is so difficult to get through an article like this, when it begins with such obvious nonsense. Slander and lies are not simply the press being mean to a group.
Here's a way for you to check this out for yourself. The next time you read some libelous slanderous nonsense from some "journalist" replace that person or entity they are attacking with Al Sharpton or some other sacred black cow, and see if the "journalist" was just being "mean."
We all know that that "journalist" would be fried alive at sundown and "canceled" from ever writing another piece of "journalism" again.
No, it's not just being mean. And it should be against the law. Sullivan does need to be overhauled. The "press" has become the lugenpresse and needs to be reined in.
Here is a helpful advice for all kids of every race: do not walk around a park with a gun that looks real. If you see a cop car driving up on you? Throw your gun to the ground and put your hands up.
Most kids know this instinctively. Some don't though. They seem to think that in cities chock a block full of black gun violence that they should go to public parks with their guns and everything will just be fine.
How could anyone be that stupid?
And then the 2nd guessers come in. The cops should have known. They should have gone to a fortune telling lady before to determine the motive of the male with the gun. It's all so easy to see in hindsight. Vision is always 20/20 then.
Enough of this nonsense. There needs to be classes in all city schools especially in black majority schools on dealing with the police. Do not hold a gun of any kind; do not resist arrest; do not disobey police orders. You want to fight an unfair or illegal arrest? Do so in court, not in the street.
All kids would be required to take such courses and pass them. Start them in 5th grade. Sign o' the times. Classes on dealing with police and learning what and what not to do. Real talk. Real education.
In the meantime, throw your (toy) gun to the ground immediately.
And live to see another day.
So, in a super litigious society, you don't appear to understand that making cops personally liable for every law suit that 2nd guesses split-second actions, might be chilling, and thus the equivalent of defunding the police?
And this from someone who writes 24/7 about all of the law suits without merit that are brought in American in other fields?
Thank you for this excellent article on policing in Vallejo. Your splendid reporting has convinced me and many others that the only solution for Vallejo is to abolish the police. While this will be the best solution for Vallejo (it will also save 50 million dollars for the city in law suits, too!), it probably is not the solution for every American city with majority black populations.
After all, I mean, how many times do you have a guy dozing off right at the window at the drive thru in other cities? Like never. And how often do you hear about rhyme-rapping cops rapping about shooting people dead while chowing down at their evil barbeques? Again probably never.
Another solution might be: issue police badges without points on them. There!! No more bending the points ceremonies in the catacombs underneath the police station.
Vallejo doesn't really need a police force. And no one wants them there anyway. They are like Portland and many other cities nowadays. Cops: who need them?
It's too bad that Oliver does not follow the lead of his fellow Brit, Jonathan Hari, who full-on 6 years ago wrote "Chasing the Scream: the First and Last Days of the War on Drugs" about drug legalization in Portugal (some 15 years before that) and its myriad benefits to society and to policing in general, and instead chooses to beat the dead horse of "racism," the utterly deluded concept that when black men commit more crime, it's racist to arrest and convict them for it.
Instead of complaining about the police, how about removing the police entirely from the equation by legalizing all drugs? No more no-knock warrants, poof! No more prison sentences, poof! No more civil sanctions for those once convicted of a drug offense, poof. No more Mexican cartels, poof!
John? What's wrong with you. Come on, man! -Joe Biden
You mean that a Trump appointee wanted to turn the Voice of America from a left propaganda machine that everyone it broadcasts to laughs at because it is so obviously fake news, and make it into a once-again respectable and powerful force in the world, and was attempting to rid the organization of ideologues and their toxic wokeness--the ridicule of the world.
It's so good you are pointing this out. Too bad you aren't celebrating his failed effort.
Thank you for all of your many articles on the stupidity and futility of content moderation. Not following the 1st Amendment leads to the constant failures and absurdities of the absurd concept of content moderation.
The principle of Free Speech is to protect speech that is offensive, not to ban or censor it. You have done an excellent job of making the case against all content moderation of any kind.
It takes a certain kind of simpleton mind to seriously believe that if you write for an outlet financed by a government (e.g., US, UK, Russia, etc.), that that government controls your writing.
Maddow made that simpleton claim and should have been sued into oblivion. Apparently the court is full of idiots who also believe that the BBC is "controlled" by the Queen of England who tells them what to write.
And so obviously does this writer. The suit had merit, even Maddow started waffling when sued and challenged. The Kremlin did not control Larry King or Jesse Ventura, both of whom had shows on Russia Today. It's a certain kind of stupid to even think that they were.
Interesting the Smartmatic people do not understand discovery. I guess it's true as Ron White says: Sometimes you just can't fix stupid. Reap the whirlwind. Change your name to Dumbmatic.
Assholes--professional or otherwise--have always been free to be whoever they are without mob justice coming after them.
You apparently think that if you do not approve of what they think and say then it's A-ok to harass them and get them fired. They had it coming, right, bud?
You know, in the America of just a few short years ago, if someone told a "racist" joke, you just said, oh well. Who really cares? And then you moved on. Watch Chris Rock's HBO (or Showtime) Special from the late 90s. Chock a block full of so-called "racist" jokes.
And funny as hell. It's all kinds of wrong to poo poo those you don't agree with and call them crazy or despicable or whatever term you want to use.
It's not going to end well, as sooner rather than later, you will come to be judged by the cancel culturalists.
As a tech-oriented site, I find it astounding you would ignore (or worse, cover up) the hundreds of tech and data people who have addressed definitively the criminal anomalies of Dominion.
Simply astonishing that your hatred of Giuliani would blind you to the plain facts of data, math, code, illegal connection to the internet. All of that evidence, and you still claim Rudy's claims are false?
The heart of your argument, that you have a 1st Amendment right to not associate with a company that allows free speech that you consider "abhorrent", is specious.
When you buy a cell phone or have a phone line put in your house, the phone company doesn't get to deny you service based on what you say on the phone line.
It's as simple as that. All social media should be immediately treated as just another utility like the phone company. These utilities have no business judging and canceling those who have views of any kind. It's none of their or your business.
And what is abhorrent to you is fine with others. Free Speech is only free speech when the most unpopular (and yes, abhorrent) views are free. You appear to believe that only accepted speech should be free. That's the antithesis of the foundation of the US, its promise of freedom for all, the reason people want to come here.
It doesn't matter if these companies are private or not. They must be classified as utilities. How's that for some sanity? No more school marm's in tech. No more narrow Overton window nonsense.
Mitch is tying both the repeal of 230 and the 2000 together. We can only hope and pray to whatever God that we hope and pray to that he succeeds in destroying 230 and sending a paltry 2000 to Americans
But do not fret, Tech Dirt writers. Pakistanis will be indoctrinated in the wonders of gender studies. It's all good. Win-win.
The only thing that is apparent is that Section 230 protections got to go.
The big tech censorship ramps up to fever pitch every single ding dang day. The extreme censorship has got to be destroyed to save American democracy. If it means throwing the baby out with the bath water? Who cares at this point? Whatever it takes to stop the school marm Big Sister insanity that is happening in social media.
So, let me get this straight: you do not understand what the onslaught of anti-policing propaganda does to the what the police do or do not do? To be clear, when the police are charged with murder one for "killing" a drug addict who actually died of a fentanyl overdoes, you don't understand how maybe just possibly, no probably, that might affect how police do their job in communities all over America?
How do could you be so stupid? Crime rises when police are persecuted for doing the job they were trained to do. And defunding them just will make it worse as they have discovered to their chagrin in Minneapolis and Portland.
Come on, man! How can you be so smart in tech and so dumb in logic? Recommend: stop writing on anything but tech and copyright.
Yes you are right: the law and order President may make use of the las of Sedition and/or the legal 2018 executive order against foreign interference in voting in order to hold a re-vote without buggy and rigged computer systems, hopefully by paper ballot hand-counted in front of the public in each precinct then posted in the front window of each voting place, published in local newspapes and then state wise published publicly..
He would be following the law if he did just that as it is apparent the election was a fraud and a huge number of Americans believe this, so the ability of a Biden Administration to govern is in jeopardy, as well as the whole idea of the republic.
So don't get your panties in a tangle, Chicken Little. A re-vote is necessary to restore order and to uphold the law.
The only qualification needed for appointment to a US Government position is citizenship. No other "qualification" matters or is relevant. That was the whole idea when the nation was formed in the late 1700s: citizens serving the republic and eventually returning to their professions after a time of service. No experts wanted or needed. As Eisenhower said no technocrats, no "learned" doctors, none of that is a good thing..
So if Trump appointed a guy who dislikes (with ample good reason) Section 230 you should join the vast majority of us who are cheering for him and for 230's demise. He's qualified. Technocrats are just totalitarians masquerading as aged hipsters. We can only hope more are appointed to help with this.
Schooling
It is odd that a "journalist" such as yourself should be thinking he is an attorney. To say nothing of thinking he is judge and jury.
It appears that you are unaware of the fact that a preliminary defense (e.g., the court has no jurisdiction as in other recent cases, etc.) is not in any way the last and the only one.
Yet, you continue to do this kind of thing, saying "this is her best and only defense" in all theses articles commenting on court cases going on. Your ignorance is comical.
Powell is lying in wait. Dominion is subject to extensive discovery as the suit proceeds. At which point, Dominion will be slapped, big time. Dominion will be subject to SLAPP laws. Of course, their machines are solely for the commission of election fraud, that evidence has been out for months. That will come out in discovery.
They'd be wise to back out now while they still can. Powell is being charitable, while at the same time raising Free Speech issues. It is just the first prong in a mutl-prong approach.
And you, a supposed objective "journalist", fell for it? You aren't a journalist. You are a propagandist. Remember this: It ain't over til it's over. Cool your prejudiced jets.
Curiosity
So let me get this clear: you just wrote an article pretending you looked at some evidence (as if you were a jury) and pronounced judgment on a case that was dismissed purely on procedural grounds (i.e, the court didn't hear any of the evidence)?
Why didn't you just write one paragraph? Or better yet, one sentence: Case of alleged hacking by corrupt official Rob Rosenstein dismissed for being brought in wrong jurisdiction, stand by for the refiling.
Why expound dump trucks of hot air claiming you know all about something you obviously know nothing about? And it doesn't matter what you think you know about this case at all. It's just weird. Can't you stick to Copyright, Patent and telco overreach? What provokes you to go off the deep end with this emotional and hysterical speculation?
And I thought tech guys were rational.
Difficulties
It is so difficult to get through an article like this, when it begins with such obvious nonsense. Slander and lies are not simply the press being mean to a group.
Here's a way for you to check this out for yourself. The next time you read some libelous slanderous nonsense from some "journalist" replace that person or entity they are attacking with Al Sharpton or some other sacred black cow, and see if the "journalist" was just being "mean."
We all know that that "journalist" would be fried alive at sundown and "canceled" from ever writing another piece of "journalism" again.
No, it's not just being mean. And it should be against the law. Sullivan does need to be overhauled. The "press" has become the lugenpresse and needs to be reined in.
Helpful Tips
Here is a helpful advice for all kids of every race: do not walk around a park with a gun that looks real. If you see a cop car driving up on you? Throw your gun to the ground and put your hands up.
Most kids know this instinctively. Some don't though. They seem to think that in cities chock a block full of black gun violence that they should go to public parks with their guns and everything will just be fine.
How could anyone be that stupid?
And then the 2nd guessers come in. The cops should have known. They should have gone to a fortune telling lady before to determine the motive of the male with the gun. It's all so easy to see in hindsight. Vision is always 20/20 then.
Enough of this nonsense. There needs to be classes in all city schools especially in black majority schools on dealing with the police. Do not hold a gun of any kind; do not resist arrest; do not disobey police orders. You want to fight an unfair or illegal arrest? Do so in court, not in the street.
All kids would be required to take such courses and pass them. Start them in 5th grade. Sign o' the times. Classes on dealing with police and learning what and what not to do. Real talk. Real education.
In the meantime, throw your (toy) gun to the ground immediately.
And live to see another day.
Our Society
So, in a super litigious society, you don't appear to understand that making cops personally liable for every law suit that 2nd guesses split-second actions, might be chilling, and thus the equivalent of defunding the police?
And this from someone who writes 24/7 about all of the law suits without merit that are brought in American in other fields?
Stunning blindness on your part.
Solutions
Thank you for this excellent article on policing in Vallejo. Your splendid reporting has convinced me and many others that the only solution for Vallejo is to abolish the police. While this will be the best solution for Vallejo (it will also save 50 million dollars for the city in law suits, too!), it probably is not the solution for every American city with majority black populations.
After all, I mean, how many times do you have a guy dozing off right at the window at the drive thru in other cities? Like never. And how often do you hear about rhyme-rapping cops rapping about shooting people dead while chowing down at their evil barbeques? Again probably never.
Another solution might be: issue police badges without points on them. There!! No more bending the points ceremonies in the catacombs underneath the police station.
Vallejo doesn't really need a police force. And no one wants them there anyway. They are like Portland and many other cities nowadays. Cops: who need them?
Great article. Keep writing this stuff.
Policing
It's too bad that Oliver does not follow the lead of his fellow Brit, Jonathan Hari, who full-on 6 years ago wrote "Chasing the Scream: the First and Last Days of the War on Drugs" about drug legalization in Portugal (some 15 years before that) and its myriad benefits to society and to policing in general, and instead chooses to beat the dead horse of "racism," the utterly deluded concept that when black men commit more crime, it's racist to arrest and convict them for it.
Instead of complaining about the police, how about removing the police entirely from the equation by legalizing all drugs? No more no-knock warrants, poof! No more prison sentences, poof! No more civil sanctions for those once convicted of a drug offense, poof. No more Mexican cartels, poof!
John? What's wrong with you. Come on, man! -Joe Biden
Staffing
You mean that a Trump appointee wanted to turn the Voice of America from a left propaganda machine that everyone it broadcasts to laughs at because it is so obviously fake news, and make it into a once-again respectable and powerful force in the world, and was attempting to rid the organization of ideologues and their toxic wokeness--the ridicule of the world.
It's so good you are pointing this out. Too bad you aren't celebrating his failed effort.
Policy
Counting down the days and weeks until a mental health professional is killed or seriously injured by one of those kindly mentally ill "victims."
I'd change fields if I were one of those poor sitting ducks.
Futility
Thank you for all of your many articles on the stupidity and futility of content moderation. Not following the 1st Amendment leads to the constant failures and absurdities of the absurd concept of content moderation.
The principle of Free Speech is to protect speech that is offensive, not to ban or censor it. You have done an excellent job of making the case against all content moderation of any kind.
Keep up the good work!
The Kremlin Blues
It takes a certain kind of simpleton mind to seriously believe that if you write for an outlet financed by a government (e.g., US, UK, Russia, etc.), that that government controls your writing.
Maddow made that simpleton claim and should have been sued into oblivion. Apparently the court is full of idiots who also believe that the BBC is "controlled" by the Queen of England who tells them what to write.
And so obviously does this writer. The suit had merit, even Maddow started waffling when sued and challenged. The Kremlin did not control Larry King or Jesse Ventura, both of whom had shows on Russia Today. It's a certain kind of stupid to even think that they were.
The Kraken
Interesting the Smartmatic people do not understand discovery. I guess it's true as Ron White says: Sometimes you just can't fix stupid. Reap the whirlwind. Change your name to Dumbmatic.
Professional?
Assholes--professional or otherwise--have always been free to be whoever they are without mob justice coming after them.
You apparently think that if you do not approve of what they think and say then it's A-ok to harass them and get them fired. They had it coming, right, bud?
You know, in the America of just a few short years ago, if someone told a "racist" joke, you just said, oh well. Who really cares? And then you moved on. Watch Chris Rock's HBO (or Showtime) Special from the late 90s. Chock a block full of so-called "racist" jokes.
And funny as hell. It's all kinds of wrong to poo poo those you don't agree with and call them crazy or despicable or whatever term you want to use.
It's not going to end well, as sooner rather than later, you will come to be judged by the cancel culturalists.
It's just Tech
As a tech-oriented site, I find it astounding you would ignore (or worse, cover up) the hundreds of tech and data people who have addressed definitively the criminal anomalies of Dominion.
Simply astonishing that your hatred of Giuliani would blind you to the plain facts of data, math, code, illegal connection to the internet. All of that evidence, and you still claim Rudy's claims are false?
How do you hold your head up?
The Phone Company
The heart of your argument, that you have a 1st Amendment right to not associate with a company that allows free speech that you consider "abhorrent", is specious.
When you buy a cell phone or have a phone line put in your house, the phone company doesn't get to deny you service based on what you say on the phone line.
It's as simple as that. All social media should be immediately treated as just another utility like the phone company. These utilities have no business judging and canceling those who have views of any kind. It's none of their or your business.
And what is abhorrent to you is fine with others. Free Speech is only free speech when the most unpopular (and yes, abhorrent) views are free. You appear to believe that only accepted speech should be free. That's the antithesis of the foundation of the US, its promise of freedom for all, the reason people want to come here.
It doesn't matter if these companies are private or not. They must be classified as utilities. How's that for some sanity? No more school marm's in tech. No more narrow Overton window nonsense.
News to Tech Dirt
Your article is dated.
Mitch is tying both the repeal of 230 and the 2000 together. We can only hope and pray to whatever God that we hope and pray to that he succeeds in destroying 230 and sending a paltry 2000 to Americans
But do not fret, Tech Dirt writers. Pakistanis will be indoctrinated in the wonders of gender studies. It's all good. Win-win.
Apparent?
The only thing that is apparent is that Section 230 protections got to go.
The big tech censorship ramps up to fever pitch every single ding dang day. The extreme censorship has got to be destroyed to save American democracy. If it means throwing the baby out with the bath water? Who cares at this point? Whatever it takes to stop the school marm Big Sister insanity that is happening in social media.
The Chilling Effect
So, let me get this straight: you do not understand what the onslaught of anti-policing propaganda does to the what the police do or do not do? To be clear, when the police are charged with murder one for "killing" a drug addict who actually died of a fentanyl overdoes, you don't understand how maybe just possibly, no probably, that might affect how police do their job in communities all over America?
How do could you be so stupid? Crime rises when police are persecuted for doing the job they were trained to do. And defunding them just will make it worse as they have discovered to their chagrin in Minneapolis and Portland.
Come on, man! How can you be so smart in tech and so dumb in logic? Recommend: stop writing on anything but tech and copyright.
Law and Order
Yes you are right: the law and order President may make use of the las of Sedition and/or the legal 2018 executive order against foreign interference in voting in order to hold a re-vote without buggy and rigged computer systems, hopefully by paper ballot hand-counted in front of the public in each precinct then posted in the front window of each voting place, published in local newspapes and then state wise published publicly..
He would be following the law if he did just that as it is apparent the election was a fraud and a huge number of Americans believe this, so the ability of a Biden Administration to govern is in jeopardy, as well as the whole idea of the republic.
So don't get your panties in a tangle, Chicken Little. A re-vote is necessary to restore order and to uphold the law.
Qualificatoin
The only qualification needed for appointment to a US Government position is citizenship. No other "qualification" matters or is relevant. That was the whole idea when the nation was formed in the late 1700s: citizens serving the republic and eventually returning to their professions after a time of service. No experts wanted or needed. As Eisenhower said no technocrats, no "learned" doctors, none of that is a good thing..
So if Trump appointed a guy who dislikes (with ample good reason) Section 230 you should join the vast majority of us who are cheering for him and for 230's demise. He's qualified. Technocrats are just totalitarians masquerading as aged hipsters. We can only hope more are appointed to help with this.
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