These are the facts behind the lawsuit that the jury heard, and decided so quickly, last week. In 2008 Sarah Palin, Governor of Alaska but largely unknown outside of that state, suddenly found herself catapulted into national prominence when the Republican nominee for President, John McCain, asked her to join his ticket. She agreed, and was on the ballot that November as a Vice Presidential nominee. The McCain-Palin ticket lost. After the election, though, Palin hoped to retain her national prominence and to that end she formed a political action committees, SarahPAC. Only one fact about that PAC is really pertinent here, Its website at some point thereafter adopted a graphic image of a ballistic crosshair superimposed on the 8th congressional district of Arizona, then represented by Gabrielle Giffords. The image of course was intended to convey the general idea that Giffords should be a metaphorical "target" for Republican energies, so that a Republican could replace...
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Good news. On April 22, a jury in New York City ruled that the NYT had not defamed former Alaska Governor and one-time Vice Presidential candidate, Sarah Palin in a 2017 editorial. Today I will discuss this outcome in somewhat general terms. Tomorrow I expect to dive into the particulars of the case. This is the second time a jury has done so. Another one reached the same result on the same facts three years ago. Palin refused to accept it, and did manage to get the verdict reversed, a new trial ordered, on appeal. The safe bet is that she will appeal this one, too, on whatever grounds her attorneys can cook up. But, having already had a second bite at the apple, the odds have become rather small that the appellate courts are going to give her a third. My guess is the Times has won this one. Cases like this are fascinating because they involve two well-funded opponents. I am certain that Palin could raise as ...
If all has gone well of late, I;m on vacation as you read this. I'm posting stuff prepared well in advance, so take that into consideration if the references seem dated. Fiorina has run for public office exactly once. She ran for a U.S. Senate seat in 2010 and lost, to incumbent Barbara Boxer. Now she is running for the Republican nomination for President of the United States. She is most vividly known (by the portion of the non-California public to whom she isn't just "Carly who?") as the former CEO of Hewlett-Packard, whose one signature initiative was the company's merger with Compaq. She was fired for that, because her board thought the initiative a bungle. Yet she will argue that she was in the right, that the combined company is nowadays stronger than either or both of them would have been without her. Presumably if her campaign catches any wind under its wings at all, she'll have plenty of opportunities to make that case. But what strikes me ab...