These are some glad tidings. This is exactly what it may take for OAN and Newsmax and others to stop proselytizing the Big Lie at the expense of innocent people, especially election workers doing their jobs. Two of those workers, Ruby Freeman and Wandrea Moss, sued Newmax for defamation and won. Intriguingly, this story connects with another recent story in the news, the fact that right-wing networks weren’t amplifying Dinesh D’Souza’s latest piece of cinematic dreck, 2000 Mules. The handwriting is on the wall not to tread too heavily in the direction of the Big Lie, it’s bad for the corporate bottom line. Daily Beast:

The right-wing cable network One America News Network on Monday ran a pre-recorded 30-second segment acknowledging that there was “no widespread voter fraud” by Georgia election workers in the 2020 presidential election. The segment appears to be part of a recent settlement relating to a defamation lawsuit brought against the network by two such workers.

The segment notes that an investigation by state officials into unsubstantiated claims of widespread voter fraud made by ex-President Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani turned up nothing. “The results of this investigation indicate that Ruby Freeman and Wandrea ‘Shaye’ Moss did not engage in ballot fraud or criminal misconduct,” a narrator states.

“A legal matter with this network and the two election workers has been resolved to the mutual satisfaction of the parties through a fair and reasonable settlement,” the voiceover adds.

This case got a lot of local press. These two women were harassed not only online but in person. They had every legal and moral reason in the world to start suing people and they did. They sued Rudy Giuliani, the Gateway Pundit and OAN. The first two suits named are still pending.

In January 2021, when Trump pressured Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to try to “find” votes to overturn the state’s election results, he mentioned Freeman’s name 18 times. Freeman was also visited by a publicist for Kanye West, who threatened her in an effort to extract a confession about committing election fraud.

And if that weren’t enough, video of the pair doing their jobs was hyped up by Rudy Giuliani—and Sean Hannity—who falsely claimed that it showed “blatant, clear, obvious” fraud. While speaking to Georgia State House Republicans about the video during a Zoom meeting in December 2020, Giuliani at one point can be heard saying, “We should try to get this on Newsmax and OANN.”

Careful what you wish for, Rudy. It just might come back to bite you resoundingly in the butt.

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2 COMMENTS

    • Well, LEGITIMATE media are already held responsible. It’s only the far-right “media” that came into existence following the Reagan Administration’s abolition of the Fairness Doctrine that has been allowed to ignore responsibility for the crap they spew without someone resorting to legal action as the FIRST course of action. Fox “News” has largely hidden behind their being on cable rather than regular broadcast channels (cable channels are considered “private channels” while regular broadcast channels are covered under “public concern” and the Feds can only regulate the public concern channels) and the internet operations get to keep operating because of net neutrality (a bit ironically, given right-wingers are generally opposed to net neutrality).

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