Trump launches new assault on the free press (5 Viewers)

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superchuck500

superchuck500

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Interesting for a man who professes to be a "Lover of the Constitution". And let's be clear about this - Donald Trump knows that this lawsuit will fail based on the First Amendment . . . this is nothing more than an intimidation tactic (and strongly reflective of malignant narcissism).

So, on the theory of "election interference" - which isn't actually a private cause of action - and an Iowa consumer fraud statute, Trump has sued the Des Moines Register and its well-known pollster/poll-expert Ann Selzer for publishing her polling analysis that showed Harris leading Trump in Iowa. Trump has been stating for weeks now that he intends to file other suits against the press and even stating that some members of the press should be prosecuted for crimes.

Many states have an "anti-SLAPP" law that allows for defamation defendants to recover attorneys fees (100% and sometimes more) where it it ruled that the plaintiff had no legitimate case and used the lawsuit to try to intimidate the speaker from free exercise of speech regarding the plaintiff. Iowa has no such law. I don't have the lawsuit yet because the press remains wildly incompetent about covering legal matters and it isn't available on the Iowa courts site yet.

President-elect Trump sued the Des Moines Register and pollster J. Ann Selzer on Monday over a poll released just before Election Day indicating Vice President Harris had a sizable lead in Iowa.

The poll found Harris leading Trump in Iowa by 3 percentage points days before Trump won the state by 14 percentage points as voters sent him back to the White House.

Trump’s lawsuit, which was filed in Iowa state court in Polk County, accuses the outlet and pollster of violating Iowa’s consumer fraud laws by engaging in deception.

“Selzer’s polling ‘miss’ was not an astonishing coincidence — it was intentional,” the complaint states.

The lawsuit asks for an unspecified amount of damages and an order preventing the pollster from “releasing any further deceptive polls” and compelling them to disclose information they relied upon in publishing the November survey.
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www.foxnews.com

Trump sues Des Moines Register, top pollster for 'brazen election interference,' fraud over Harris poll

FIRST ON FOX: President-elect Donald Trump is suing the Des Moines Register and its top pollster Ann Selzer for “brazen election interference" and fraud over its final 2024 presidential poll showing Vice President Kamala Harris leading him in Iowa, despite his ultimate victory in the state by...
www.foxnews.com www.foxnews.com
 
superchuck500 said:
Interesting for a man who professes to be a "Lover of the Constitution". And let's be clear about this - Donald Trump knows that this lawsuit will fail based on the First Amendment . . . this is nothing more than an intimidation tactic (and strongly reflective of malignant narcissism).

So, on the theory of "election interference" - which isn't actually a private cause of action - and an Iowa consumer fraud statute, Trump has sued the Des Moines Register and its well-known pollster/poll-expert Ann Selzer for publishing her polling analysis that showed Harris leading Trump in Iowa. Trump has been stating for weeks now that he intends to file other suits against the press and even stating that some members of the press should be prosecuted for crimes.

Many states have an "anti-SLAPP" law that allows for defamation defendants to recover attorneys fees (100% and sometimes more) where it it ruled that the plaintiff had no legitimate case and used the lawsuit to try to intimidate the speaker from free exercise of speech regarding the plaintiff. Iowa has no such law. I don't have the lawsuit yet because the press remains wildly incompetent about covering legal matters and it isn't available on the Iowa courts site yet.



www.foxnews.com

Trump sues Des Moines Register, top pollster for 'brazen election interference,' fraud over Harris poll

FIRST ON FOX: President-elect Donald Trump is suing the Des Moines Register and its top pollster Ann Selzer for “brazen election interference" and fraud over its final 2024 presidential poll showing Vice President Kamala Harris leading him in Iowa, despite his ultimate victory in the state by...
www.foxnews.com www.foxnews.com
Click to expand...
Trump's lawsuit is as worthless as the woman's poll claims, and the people who decided to publish them. Sure, pollsters can miss the mark, sometimes by wide margins, but by how much she missed it? Sounded like straight propaganda.
 
Texan1211 said:
Trump's lawsuit is as worthless as the woman's poll claims, and the people who decided to publish them. Sure, pollsters can miss the mark, sometimes by wide margins, but by how much she missed it? Sounded like straight propaganda.
Click to expand...

So why is Trump filing worthless claims against a press outlet for publishing polls relating to the election? That's classic political press activity - unquestionably protected by the First Amendment freedom of the press.

But also, Ann Selzer (she's actually Dr. Ann Selzer - she has a PhD) started her polling firm in 1996. She was wrong about Kerry in 2004 - polling has all sorts of reliability issues. Nate Silver even addressed her 2024 poll with some explanations he believed were grounded in errors in her polling science. It's not very persuasive that she, in 2024, would just toss her reputation and decide to do straight up anti-Trump propaganda. Her reputation (basically her performance history) has been tarnished by her inaccuracy in 2024 - as a matter of her professional record.

None of that matters, though - it's all First Amendment activity. Clearly Trump thinks that polls matter, he's hyperconcerned with them as he is crowd sizes. Because he's a malignant narcissist that feeds on that kind of feedback. But the reality is that polls don't matter and they are notoriously unreliable.
 
superchuck500 said:
So why is Trump filing worthless claims against a press outlet for publishing polls relating to the election?
Click to expand...
I don't know, and really don't care. It is a waste of the court's time, and I would like it to be dismissed.
One may also ask "Why publish something so incredibly off?"
Your concern over all things Trump is duly noted.
 
Should Donald Trump make good on his threats to sue media organizations and critics whom he believes have disparaged him, he will end up "looking like the fool that he is."

That is the opinion of conservative lawyer and Trump critic George Conway during an appearance on MSNBC on Sunday morning.

Speaking with the hosts of "The Weekend," Conway said the president-elect's threat to use the courts to go after his critics has no basis in law and are solely designed as vehicles of harassment and attempts to silence criticism.

Using Trump's threat to sue Iowa pollster Ann Selzer for "election interference" as an example, Conway explained, "It's the laws. You have to have laws that are violated to bring these actions whether they be brought in his personal capacity or by the government. This is all nonsense."

"Especially suing the pollster?" he continued. " There is no claim for suing a pollster, putting out a poll that doesn't predict the right result. And think about this: he is saying they lied about a poll. There is no person on this planet who has lied more about polls than Donald Trump. I mean, he is always saying he is ahead, he is never behind in the polls."

'It's all gaslighting and it's all intimidation and bullying, that's what narcissists do," he later added. "And some people are being bullied and he is trying to make everybody afraid of him. But what's going to happen is he is going to overreach in some of these lawsuit, like this Des Moines Register lawsuit; the lawyers may be sanctioned. These lawsuits are going to go nowhere and he is going to have egg on his face and look like the fool that he is.".............

 
On the campaign trail this year, Donald Trumproutinely criticized US media. The president-elect called for CBS to be stripped of its broadcast license after it aired an interview with Kamala Harris, refused to participate in an interview with 60 Minutes and routinely called journalists the “enemy of the people”.

But perhaps no American media has attracted as much ire from the president-elect as the Corporation for Public Broadcasting – a non-profit corporation created by federal law in 1967 to distribute funding to public media organizations like PBS and NPR.

“NO MORE FUNDING FOR NPR, A TOTAL SCAM!” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social in April. “THEY ARE A LIBERAL DISINFORMATION MACHINE. NOT ONE DOLLAR!!!”


As the Trump prepares to take office next month, public media organizations – such as NPR and PBS, which have aired longtime favorites such as Curious George and All Things Considered – are readying themselves for funding cuts and other attacks against their programming.

After Trump was re-elected in November, NPR member stations circulated a report warning that “it would be unwise to assume that events will play out as they have in the past” where funding is concerned, the New York Times reported Friday, and PBS board members received an update from political consultants earlier this month…….

www.theguardian.com

Trump’s threat to defund all US public media has NPR and PBS on the back foot

President-elect’s agenda and Project 2025 playbook align in stripping Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s license
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com
 
Another day, another call from President Donald Trump to tear down the stalls he doesn’t like in the marketplace of ideas.

Reacting to reports that CNN is planning to lay off hundreds of employees amidst a ratings crisis, Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social: “MSDNC is even worse than CNN. They shouldn’t have a right to broadcast — Only in America!”

It was a clear shot at MSNBC, with “MSDNC” being a portmanteau of the Democratic National Convention’s DNC and the left-leaning broadcast network. The “Only in America” part was a reference to… it’s not clear. Probably not Don King.

After an initial ratings dip following Trump’s re-election victory in November, MSNBC clawed its way back in early January to become the third most-watched basic cable network during primetime, Adweek reported. Many of its hosts have been frequent critics of Trump’s.

The Daily Beast has reached out to MSNBC for comment.

Trump’s missive comes less than three months after he said CBS should lose its broadcast license over its 60 Minutes interview with his election opponent, former Vice President Kamala Harris. He’s currently trying to sue that network into oblivion...........

www.thedailybeast.com

Trump Calls for MSNBC to Be Shut Down in Nighttime Rant

The president has already sued CBS for $10 billion over its “60 Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris.
www.thedailybeast.com www.thedailybeast.com
 
And there are bigger, deeper attacks on free speech coming from Brendan Carr, the new Trump-appointed chair of the Federal Communications Commission. The FCC is pretty much the only government agency with some authority to directly regulate speech in America because it controls the spectrum used to broadcast radio and television. Carr has started using that authority to punish broadcasters for speech Trump doesn’t like or even for having internal business practices that don’t align with the administration. He’s opened investigations into ABC, CBS, and NBC in a way that no previous FCC would ever do, and he’s even launched an investigation into NBC’s parent company, Comcast, over the existence of DEI policies.

I have to disclose here that Comcast and NBCUniversal are investors in our parent company, Vox Media, but it doesn’t even really matter in this context, as Carr is hell-bent on punishing every media company unless they fall in line. In the course of my work, I’ve talked to virtually every FCC chair going back to the Bush administration, and Carr’s interpretation of what the FCC is for and what authority it has over speech is completely out of line with any of his predecessors and is as autocratic as it gets. He wants to be America’s chief censor, and so far, he’s getting his way.
Click to expand...

www.theverge.com

The Trump FCC is at war with the First Amendment

The MAGA thought enforcement is in fact unprecedented — and dangerous.
www.theverge.com www.theverge.com
 
Ann Selzer and the Des Moines Register have filed their motion to dismiss Trump's lawsuit alleging that Selzer and the paper engaged in "fraudulent news" intending to influence the election with falsehoods. It's strong: basically says fraudulent-news isn't a thing and get the hell out of here with your disregard of the First Amendment.

I just noticed that I had a case once years ago in DC with the lead-attorney for Selzer.

 
CNN) — A federal judge declined on Monday to temporarily restore the Associated Press’ access to some of President Donald Trump’s events, the Oval Office and Air Force One.

US District Judge Trevor McFadden turned down a request from AP to temporarily lift a ban Trump imposed earlier this month to punish the news organization over its decision to continue using the phrase “Gulf of Mexico” even though Trump renamed the body of water “Gulf of America.”

But while McFadden denied the request for a temporary restraining order during a hearing Monday, the judge scheduled a hearing for March 20 to hear arguments over the AP’s request for a preliminary injunction.

McFadden, of the US District Court in Washington, DC, was appointed by Trump in 2017.

McFadden gave a number of reasons for why he decided to deny the request for emergency relief at this stage in the litigation, including that he wasn’t persuaded that the AP was facing “irreparable harm” as a result of the ban.

He said the news organization “can get access to the same information” from the pool notes that are given to all members of the White House Correspondents Association even if it’s barred from being at the events where that news is made……….

www.cnn.com

Federal judge declines to temporarily restore AP’s full access to White House | CNN Politics

A federal judge declined on Monday to temporarily restore the Associated Press’ access to some of President Donald Trump’s events, the Oval Office and Air Force One.
www.cnn.com www.cnn.com
 
superchuck500 said:
Ann Selzer and the Des Moines Register have filed their motion to dismiss Trump's lawsuit alleging that Selzer and the paper engaged in "fraudulent news" intending to influence the election with falsehoods. It's strong: basically says fraudulent-news isn't a thing and get the hell out of here with your disregard of the First Amendment.

I just noticed that I had a case once years ago in DC with the lead-attorney for Selzer.

Click to expand...
What a silly fragile lawsuit.

I have only read about part way, but this was gold.

1000015310.jpg


Also, one or both lawyers are clearly football fans. A few references.
 
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