Very Briefly Noted: Legal Stuff

Today was mostly a slow news day, at least as regards material to comment on here. However, there are at least three legal related developments that may prove significant in the longer term.

The first is the Sarah Palin defamation trial against the NYT. Palin’s lawsuit, as advertised, looks like it could succeed. Whether or not it does at the trial level, the likelihood is that it will end up going to the SCOTUS. Ask yourself, why would the NYT got to trial on this if they weren’t intending to appeal any adverse decision?

Don Surber had a good summary of the case so far this morning, quoting extensively from the Daily Mail (UK) and the NYPost. The Post sets out the critical evidence that Palin was able to present:

"Emails revealed during Sarah Palin’s defamation trial against the New York Times Friday showed the paper’s editors ignored fact checkers before publishing an editorial that linked the former Alaskan Governor to a mass shooting.”

IMO, that’s pretty powerful as showing at a minimum a reckless disregard for the truth.

The NYT’s defense appears to me to be quite weak, and observers have speculated that it may actually backfire:

Erik Wemple, media critic at the Washington Post, tweeted, "Former editorial board member Elizabeth Williamson was just asked by Palin's attorney why she didn't tag @SarahPalinUSA when she retweeted the NYT correction, and she replied, 'This editorial was not about Sarah Palin.'

"That reply aligns with the NYT defense in this case -- that Palin was a small part of the piece and that a casual reader" could have missed mention of her PAC.”

The editorial “wasn’t about Sarah Palin”—at least not as the actual subject of the editorial—so it was OK to ignore the fact checkers and lie about Palin? That’s really weak. Sarah Palin, no matter what you may think of her, was and is a household name. Mention of her, even in passing, would be sure to catch the eye of readers. It caught the eye of the NYT fact checkers, after all. Wemple thinks this defense could backfire.

On the Covid legal front a new lawsuit has been filed by 16 states. The lawsuit challenges the Healthcare Worker mandate that was recently upheld by the SCOTUS. What I find encouraging is that the complaint gets to some of the substance of the whole injection issue, rather than simply challenging the legality of the mandate on administrative grounds. TGP covered this story, quoting the Epoch Times. The fact is that in just the short time since the SCOTUS decision so much has changed, so much new data is available both in the US and in other countries to show that this is a pandemic of the vaxxed, that this could succeed in the lower courts, setting up a new challenge:

The rule, signed by Health Secretary Xavier Becerra, repeatedly references the danger the Delta virus variant poses to the unvaccinated, and says that vaccines “continue to be effective in preventing COVID-19 associated with the now-dominant Delta variant.”

…

But as of mid-December 2021, the Omicron virus variant is the dominant strain in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, another agency within HHS.

“It is now established beyond any serious question that the secretary’s speculation was wrong. The Delta variant effectively disappeared from the scene within weeks of the issuance of the rule,” the states say.

The primary series of COVID-19 vaccines, required by the mandate, provide little protection against infection from Omicron and reduced protection against severe disease, studies show. “Just about everybody” will contract the variant, Dr. Anthony Fauci, President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser, has said.

Finally, on the SCOTUS nomination front the search for a woman of color is starting to descend into farce:

Ex-Clerk For Biden SCOTUS Hopeful Edited Wikipedia Pages To Make Her Look Better, Rivals Worse

I assume that the former clerk will claim that he did this on his own initiative to pump up his CV—not just former clerk for an appellate judge, but former clerk for a appellate judge who made it to the SCOTUS. It may even be true that the judge in question—Ketanji Brown Jackson—really didn’t have anything to do with this underhanded tactic. Nevertheless, with most of the country already repulsed by the idea of openly avowed affirmative action appointments to the SCOTUS, this development can’t help but cast a shadow over the whole process. That’s my view. We’ll see.