Life lessons? Not sure we're qualified to offer those. We're really not t We mige Dottie Ingels type. But media lessons? We might have a few to share.
Ty passed on an e-mail from reader Carl Stanton. Carl agrees with our call that outlets like DEMOCRACY NOW!, THE NATION, THE PROGRESSIVE, et al depressed turn out in the 2024 presidential election with their non-stop attacks on Kamala Harris. He notes that there were many more left outlets than what we've listed here since August who took part in those attacks.
Carl is absolutely correct.
And he's absolutely correct to note ___ ___ ____ as one of the worst offenders.
Media lesson number 1: We're not naming them.
They attacked -- from the 'left' -- Kamala several times each day in one video after another. They repeated and popularized GOP attacks -- including the lie that she was drunk. They did this while pretending to be part of the left -- a crazy kind of left you understand -- one that worships liar Glenn Greenwald and reposts interviews done by I-was-attacked-by-a-demon Tucker Carlson.
Some might argue that they're of the Jimmy Dore 'left' but they aren't and that's why we aren't noting them.
Confused?
The drunk lie? It's their biggest video in months. It got 14,000 streams. Everything else? You're lucky to see one of their videos crack 1,000 views. There are some that don't even crack 500.
That's why they're not part of the Jimmy Dore 'left,' Jimmy's grift continues to see him getting 75,000 or more views a video. ____ ____ _____ desperately needs attention to get viewers. They used to get 80,000 easy on a video. And, again, most of their videos now don't even get a thousand. And only one video since August has gotten more than a thousand streams -- 14,000 when they went on YOUTUBE to lie that Kamala was drunk.
Media Lesson 1: When a bad show's going down the toilet, don't rescue it by bringing attention to it.
Wolf's book Outrages: Sex, Censorship, and the Criminalization of Love was based on the 2015 doctoral thesis she completed under the supervision of literary scholar Stefano-Maria Evangelista, a Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford.[22][23] It studies the repression of homosexuality in relation to attitudes toward divorce and prostitution, and also in relation to the censorship of books.[93]
Outrages was published in the UK in May 2019 by Virago Press.[94] On June 12, 2019, Outrages was named on the O, The Oprah Magazine's "The 32 Best Books by Women of Summer 2019" list.[95] The next day, the U.S. publisher recalled all copies from U.S. bookstores.[96]
In a 2019 BBC radio interview, broadcaster and author Matthew Sweet identified an error in a central tenet of the book: a misunderstanding of the legal term "death recorded", which Wolf had taken to mean that the convict had been executed but in fact means that the convict was pardoned or the sentence was commuted.[97][98][99] He cited a website for the Old Bailey Criminal Court, which Wolf had referred to in the interview as one of her sources.[100] Reviewers have described other errors of scholarship in the work.[101][102]
At the Hay Festival in Wales in May 2019, a few days after her exchange with Sweet, Wolf defended her book and said she had already corrected the error.[103] At an event in Manhattan in June, she said she was not embarrassed and felt grateful to Sweet for the correction.[104][105] On October 18, 2019, it became known that Houghton Mifflin Harcourt's release of the book in the U.S. was being canceled, with copies already printed and distributed being pulled and pulped.[106] Wolf expressed hope that the book would still be published in the U.S.[107][108]
In November 2020, Virago published a UK paperback edition of the book that removed the incorrect references to the execution of men for sodomy included in the hardback edition. Interviewed about the new edition, Sweet said that the book continues to misread historical sources: "Dr Wolf has misrepresented the experiences of victims of child abuse and violent sexual assault. This is the most profound offence against her discipline, as well as the memories of real people on the historical record". Cultural historian Fern Riddell called the book a "calumny against gay people" in the 19th century and said that Wolf "presents child rapists and those taking part in acts of bestiality as being gay men in consensual relationships and that is completely wrong". The Daily Telegraph reported that there had been calls for Wolf's 2015 DPhil to be reexamined, and for Virago to withdraw the book.[109] In a statement to The Guardian, Wolf said the book had been reviewed "by leading scholars in the field" and "it is clear that I have accurately represented the position". Oxford University stated that a "statement of clarification" to Wolf's thesis had been received and approved, and would be "available for consultation in the Bodleian Library in due course".[110]
In March 2021, Times Higher Education reported that Wolf's original thesis remained unavailable six years after it was examined. Oxford doctoral graduates can request an embargo of up to three years, with the potential for renewal.[111] The thesis finally became available in April 2021, with nine pages of corrections attached dealing with the misreading of historic criminal records.[112][23] Wolf had submitted the thesis to the archive in December 2020, more than five years after her DPhil was awarded, and had requested a one-year extension to the embargo period so that she could seek legal advice.[113] The extension request was declined.[24]
In university teaching, Outrages has been used as an example of the danger of misreading historical sources.[114]
On May 9, 2023, a jury of six men and three women found Trump liable for sexual abuse, battery and defamation. On the issue of rape, the jury found it was not proven that Trump had raped her as specified in New York law, which specifies rape as the nonconsensual and forcible penetration with one's penis. The jury found Trump liable for sexual abuse in that he nonconsensually digitally penetrated her.[6][61] Carroll was awarded $5 million in damages. CBS News stated, "They found Trump liable for sexual abuse, not sexual assault."[5] Following the verdict, during a Town Hall on CNN, Trump repeated that Carroll's narrative was a "fake", "made up story", invented by a "whack job".[77] He filed an appeal with the Second Circuit Court of Appeals on May 11, 2023.[78]
On May 23, 2023, seeking $10 million in additional damages, Carroll asked the court to expand the 2019 defamation lawsuit to include Trump's post-verdict remarks on CNN and Truth Social.[79] The court granted the motion, and the second defamation trial was scheduled for January 15, 2024.[80] In June 2023, Trump counter-sued Carroll for defamation, after she told CNN "yes he did" rape her, in response to a question about the jury not finding him liable for that offense. Judge Kaplan dismissed the lawsuit in August, ruling that Carroll's rape claim against Trump was substantially true.[81] In September 2023, Judge Kaplan issued a summary judgment in Carroll's favor, stating that the facts established by the trial jury were indisputable.[82] On January 16, 2024, after Joe Tacopina dropped his representation of Trump just as the case was about to resume, ex-Trump attorney Tim Parlatore said that he thought Tacopina had, in prior proceedings, "barely cross-examined Jean Carroll".[83]
On January 26, 2024, a jury found Trump liable for $18.3 million in compensation for emotional and reputational harm, and $65 million in punitive damages, totaling $83.3 million.[84] After Judge Kaplan denied a request by Trump's team to delay the payment to the plaintiff, Trump, on March 8, 2024, three days before the payments deadline, appealed the verdict and posted a $91.6 million bond. Carroll stated that the bond size is "stupendous", and suggested that had the appeal not been submitted, she would have "quickly" begun seizing Trump’s assets.[10]
Judge finds that Trump did “rape” Carroll in a sense
In a July 19, 2023, memorandum opinion, Judge Lewis Kaplan, who presided over the trial, wrote that the evidence demonstrated Trump "raped" Carroll in the plain sense of the word as “many people” understand it.[7] He clarified that despite the "far narrower definition" of rape under New York's statute, as the term is understood "in common modern parlance", and, citing definitions from the US Justice Department and the American Psychological Association, "the jury found that Mr. Trump in fact did exactly that":
“The finding that Ms. Carroll failed to prove that she was ‘raped’ within the meaning of the New York Penal Law does not mean that she failed to prove that Mr. Trump ‘raped’ her as many people commonly understand the word ‘rape,’ ” Kaplan wrote.
He added: “Indeed, as the evidence at trial recounted below makes clear, the jury found that Mr. Trump in fact did exactly that.”
Kaplan said New York’s legal definition of “rape” is “far narrower” than the word is understood in “common modern parlance.”
The former requires forcible, unconsented-to penetration with one’s penis. But he said that the conduct the jury effectively found Trump liable for — forced digital penetration — meets a more common definition of rape. He cited definitions offered by the American Psychological Association and the Justice Department, which in 2012 expanded its definition of rape to include penetration “with any body part or object.”[6]
