New York Times – When The Abuser Goes To Work…

What Does The Palin Verdict Really Mean?

Sarah Palin lost her libel trial against The New York Times on Tuesday but a question lingers about whether she was treated fairly.

Palin, a 2008 GOP candidate for vice president, is not beloved by the powers that be. She is a gun-toting hick from Alaska who is not well read and who makes hokie references to “hockey moms” and “lipstick on a pig.” Palin, a former Alaska governor, is especially loathed by Harvard grads and urban elites.

Still, the beauty of the American justice system is that even the most despised are entitled to basic fairness and justice under the law.

It rankles that U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff, 78, the semi-retired judge who presided over the trial, announced Monday that Palin had not met the high standard for malice to prevail in the case. He said he would dismiss the case regardless of the jury’s verdict.

The jury was deliberating at the time. Reuters reported Wednesday that jurors received phone notifications that the judge had decided to dismiss the case regardless of their verdict. Clearly Judge Rakoff’s pronouncement could have prejudiced the jury.

Timing Is Everything

It was Judge Rakoff’s job to tell the jury what the law is and the jury’s job to apply the law to the facts in the case.

The jury was in the process of deciding whether the NYT showed actual malice in 2017 when it published a preposterous allegation that a political ad by Palin’s political action committee incited the 2011 shooting of former U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords and 18 others at a constituent meeting in Tucson. Indeed, the editorial said “the link to political incitement was clear.” The editorial was written by two NYT editorial writers and cleared by a NYT fact checker.

The Historian Who Won’t Be Bullied

Americans should applaud Dr. Gordon S. Wood, perhaps the leading scholar of the founding of America.

Dr. Wood is one of a few historians who had the courage in 2019 to stand up and object when the NYT’s 1619 Project hijacked American history by claiming “nearly everything that has truly made America exceptional” flows from “slavery and the anti-black racism it required.”

Dr. Wood recently received the Philip Merrill Award for Outstanding Contributions to Liberal Arts Education from The American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA), an independent, nonprofit organization dedicated to the promotion of academic excellence, academic freedom and accountability at America’s colleges and universities.

Dr. Wood argues that slavery was not a cause of the American Revolution, which was fought to advance principles like liberty, equality and the well-being of ordinary people. These principles, he adds, are “really the only things that hold us Americans together and make us a single people.”

ACTA lauded Dr. Wood’s six decades of scholarship on America’s founding that is “renowned for its meticulous accuracy and groundbreaking insight.”

Historically Inaccurate

In remarks accepting the ACTA award, Dr. Wood rejects the 1619 Project’s premise that colonists fought the American Revolution because Britain was threatening to abolish slavery.

Is ‘Intellectual Cowardice’ Stopping Historians From Condemning The 1916 Project?

Memorial Day is intended to honor the sacrifices of soldiers who fought and died for American values like freedom and equality.

But the new race narrative being promulgated by the New York Times’ The 1619 Project effectively rejects this concept with respect to the Revolutionary War.

The Biden administration is promoting the teaching of The 1619 Project, which claims America’s real founding year was 1619, the year African slaves arrived in Virginia, instead of 1776, the year the Declaration of Independence was signed.

The central tenet of the project, which is being distributed in curriculum form by the Pulitzer Center at Columbia University to schools around the country, is that Americans fought the Revolutionary War to protect slavery and slavery has been at the heart of everything America has done since then.

False Narrative

It seems to matter not that Gordon Wood, the premier historian of the American Revolution; James McPherson, the dean of Civil War historians; and Sean Wilentz of Princeton University say there is absolutely no evidence that slavery was a factor in the Revolutionary War. “I don’t know of any colonist who said that they wanted independence in order to preserve their slaves,” said Wood.

The Associated Press Spreads Rumors Alongside News

*Ed. Note: The DC Medical Examiner’s office concluded in April 2021 that Mr. Sicknick died of natural causes. The question remains. Why did the AP repeatedly reporter otherwise? After I wrote the story below, the AP continued on March 5, 2021 and March 10, 2021 to assert as a fact the unproven allegation that “[f]ive people died in the attack, including a police officer.”

The Associated Press (AP), once considered the “bible” of the news industry, has distributed articles since 1846 about current event to media outlets around the world.

These days, the AP als0 pushes unproven assumptions and rumors.

A classic example of this is an article distributed by the AP Tuesday about FBI Director Chris Wray’s appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Referring to the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol Building, the AP states:

“Five people died as a result of the riot, including a Capitol Police officer and a woman who was shot as she tried to enter the House chamber with lawmakers still inside.”

Cause of Death?

In fact, it is not established that Capitol Police Officer Brian D. Sicknick, 42, died on Jan. 7 as a result of the riot. Although the incident occurred almost two months ago, the medical examiner’s report has not been released. It could turn out the riot was a factor in death but, until and unless this occurs, it is mere speculation.

Moreover, three of the five people who reportedly died succumbed to natural causes in the Capitol Building “area” on Jan. 6. Is it accurate to say their deaths were because of the riot? For example, did anyone die in the process of climbing the 365 steps to the Capitol Building ?

It is clear that one rioter, Ashli E. Babbitt, 35, an Air Force veteran, was fatally shot by a Capitol Police officer as she climbed through a broken window leading to the Speaker’s Lobby.

The New Salem Witch Trial

Marjorie Taylor Greene certainly isn’t everyone’s cup of tea but is she a “direct threat” to the U.S. government? A “cancer” to the Republican Party?

It seems the nation is being whipped into a wave of hysteria reminiscent of the Salem Witch Trials, which led to the hanging of a couple of dozen people (mostly women) for witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts.

Greene, a freshman Congresswoman from Georgia, is the main focus but no Republican seems safe in the wake of a group of thugs storming the Capitol Building on Jan. 6.

Greene is a supporter of former GOP President Donald Trump and has expressed views on social media that range from unorthodox to bizarre. She also posts Bible verses, anti-mask rhetoric and strongly advocates for gun rights. She is regularly demonized by the media for reportedly sympathizing with a group called QAnon, which holds that politicians, Hollywood big shots and journalists are part of an international pedophile ring.

Clearly, Greene would not be the choice of Democratic voters in St. Louis or San Francisco. But Georgia residents voted Greene into office in the past election by a healthy margin. She is not accused of breaking any laws. Should Greene be cancelled because her views do not align with the mainstream?