Elon Musk’s “thermonuclear” Media Matters lawsuit may be fizzling out
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My go to for Elon Musk bashing!
Says he was photobombed...
What about the Epstein files?
Says he was photobombed...
What about the Epstein files?
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My current refrain is, "collaborators will get what they deserve."
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The lawsuits might be fizzling out, but it sure left Media That Matters all kinds of fucked up: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/25/us/politics/media-matters-musk-crisis.html
Which I imagine was the point of the lawsuit, and fucking sad as hell.
Which I imagine was the point of the lawsuit, and fucking sad as hell.
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I think this country and the world would be a hell of a lot better off if we had more judges named Sparkle and a lot fewer so-called judges named "Clarence" or "Brett" or "John." Sparkle on.
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When all "conservatives" do is lie about everything, it's only natural that rational people would want to call them out on that absence of truth, with these conservatives then branding this response to their lies as "censorship." Lies should never be tolerated by anyone. The fact that some delusional people think they have the right to lie to get what they want tells you everything you need to know about these fuckers. By their own measure they will burn in Hell (presuming they believe in a God as they proclaim to do). However, their claim of "censorship" is itself a lie; they're merely being labeled accurately by unbiased bystanders. It's not like they'll ever wake up or anything, but they need to be treated based on their behavior at the very least. And at no time was this scum censored. Actually, we want them to remain associated with the scum they continue to spew so that it will be with them for the rest of their lives (and lies).
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Well, yes, people do tend to get pissed off at you when you remove trees from a public park so that you can have a better view. And poisoning your neighbor's trees is bad enough even when you don't do it in such a way that your chemicals leach into and endanger the neighboring public park. (It also looks really bad when go to your neighbor and pretend that you are sad to see their trees dying and offer to help share the cost of taking care of them.) Even when no public parks are involved, it is not so unreasonable for someone to be pretty upset at their neighbor for walking onto their property while they are away and sawing down 16 half-century-old trees.
So just to be clear, these particular examples are less about the mean government picking on the poor little guy and more about rich people behaving really badly and suffering legal consequences from that.
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I hope it gets a lot of play in conservative media and motivates someone stupid in the government to attempt to illegally retaliate against her. It's always nice when they latch onto something that appeals to stupidity and harm themselves.
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The odds of Trump not working some demeaning insult into an ad hoc public ramble, should someone mention this detail to him, are rather long.
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Excellent, although pretty incredible it arrived really to the point a US federal agency tries to intimidate reporters …
I wouldn’t be surprised if if this triggered some kind of cleansing of the non aligned judges
I wouldn’t be surprised if if this triggered some kind of cleansing of the non aligned judges
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Illegal and unconstitutional impeachment proceedings against a US District court judge in 3... 2... 1...
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If the House of Representatives were inclined to start going around impeaching judges that disagreed with the Trump administration then they probably would have done it by now; more likely is that the Senate will start appointing new Trump judges like crazy in order to get more favorable rulings that way.
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IMO, I believe that anyone who files a lawsuit and drops it should be liable for ALL lawyer costs AND all losses incurred to the defending party...
IOW, if you believe it is worth filing, it is worth paying to lose...
On the flip side, the respondents should also be allowed to force discovery before dismissal...
IOW, if you believe it is worth filing, it is worth paying to lose...
On the flip side, the respondents should also be allowed to force discovery before dismissal...
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^^^
And if you live in VA or NJ, you have state elections coming up this November, and early voting starts Sep 20 (VA) or Oct 1 (NJ). Vote!!! Tell your friends! We need to put up a good ole ass whooping on these motherfuckers.
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Don't worry. I'm sure it will go critical by the end of the year, following Musk's normal scheduling.
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Good.
The problem is we don't have punitive penalties for these sorts of harassment campaigns, lying on official sworn filings, piles of ethical and procedural faults, pressure applied under color of law- all done at a scale never seen before Dumpf and his armies of henchmen. When this is over, we can and should go after each and every lawyer and little maga (the henchmen), but the master villains still need to fall into the proverbial movie volcano for a satisfactory conclusion.
More literally, this sort of thing will happen again (and you could say that about everything Dumpf has done), now that it's been demonstrated, unless there's penalties at a level that nobody can miss and nobody would tolerate risking.
The problem is we don't have punitive penalties for these sorts of harassment campaigns, lying on official sworn filings, piles of ethical and procedural faults, pressure applied under color of law- all done at a scale never seen before Dumpf and his armies of henchmen. When this is over, we can and should go after each and every lawyer and little maga (the henchmen), but the master villains still need to fall into the proverbial movie volcano for a satisfactory conclusion.
More literally, this sort of thing will happen again (and you could say that about everything Dumpf has done), now that it's been demonstrated, unless there's penalties at a level that nobody can miss and nobody would tolerate risking.
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A-fucking-men. The only thing more dispiriting as an outside observer than seeing the USA freely vote to reinstall the fascist who attempted to overthrow the country's democracy has been seeing how abundantly easy many have made it for him to push further and further past the norms of social democratic order. The endless, shameful toadying and normalisation both in the US and abroad (my own government is guilty of the same thing) has been absolutely disgusting so it's nice to see someone - anyone - in open defiance. The only morally defensible attitude to the Trump47 Administration.
That's not a very good idea. That would discourage individual citizens, especially those who are less well off, from availing themselves of the legal system. It's hard enough for poor people to seek justice as it is.
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The trees are however perhaps not the best example here, because there's a massive amount of historic case law on trees, logging rights and compensation thereof and to say the fines can be punitive is an understatement. People regularly underestimate just what a tree can be worth (hardwoods especially can be $$$) and cities CAN be (and have been) required to replant trees in the exact same spot and provide it with enough space, clearance and care for it to re-grow into a similar sized tree. The oft used tactic in these cases to just let the replacement tree die and then go "oh-well, can't be helped" has ALSO resulted in judicial slapping. Cutting a tree down that has ongoing litigation about it is... legally not a smart move. Judges REALLY don't like that sort of thing.
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Feels like too little, too late. SLAPP suits like these achieve their goal of silencing their targets way before going to court, and regardless of the final legal outcomes. Media Matters is struggling financially, and this is already a victory for Musk, it equated to neutering it. The law should be changed to make SLAPP suits actors pay tenfold the damage their ludicrous suits cause to their victims. But it can never happen with these President and Congress, if it may ever happen at all in the US, the land of the rich (not the brave).
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Unfortunately, there is such a thing in US law - the Office of Antiboycott Compliance exists to force US entities to refuse to participate in certain forms of foreign boycott.
So far, the US doesn't have a prohibition against "primary boycotts" that I can find (that's where you refuse to buy a product). But it does have some prohibitions against joining "secondary boycotts" (where you refuse to deal with an entity unless they engage in a primary boycott of someone you disagree with) and "tertiary boycotts" (where you also require that everyone you deal with forces their suppliers and other customers to engage in a boycott of an entity you disagree with).
But the principle is established in US law that organised boycotts can, in some cases, be illegal.
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I thought ponies aren't allowed until Page 7 but damn, it's got a sparkly gavel and everything. Nice!
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The US as a whole doesn't have a prohibition against primary boycotts, but plenty of states prohibit boycotting Israel specifically.
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I would hope Judges don't like that, but you're getting a little too focused on that example and missing the point at large, which was more about people's basic constitutional rights, and once you send them to a third world prison, and without due process, that can't really be undone, even if you bring them back. They will still have suffered severe trauma.
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When do the people who are queuing up to help others into power start to learn that lesson in advance?
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I think it's telling that MMFA says what they're doing is for the benefit of all Americans while the Trump FTC just goes on and on about the poor, silenced conservatives who've yet to shut up, only mentioning Democrats to call them stupid
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Not if His Royal Orangeness has been removed by an Amendment or two.
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Stop that. You are not helping. Those are conservative talking points. Nobody overplayed anything, certainly not the Democrats overplaying their hand on human rights for minorities. Backing down to conservative lies won't solve anything, it will just further alienate what little base the Democrats have left.
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Anton Longshot
Ars Praetorian
- Musk vowed to file a "thermonuclear" lawsuit. -
I remember that véry strange things can happen to the meaning of words while on ketamine. Obviously he was super impressed at the time with this dripping-with-power word and expected it to do the same to other people's minds.
Perhaps I'll try to email him that I don't just hate his guts but think his extremely tiresome actions are much worse and I really wish he would stop it.
Boredom can be and in this case IS a lot more unpleasant than simple hate. I look forward to never thinking about him.
I remember that véry strange things can happen to the meaning of words while on ketamine. Obviously he was super impressed at the time with this dripping-with-power word and expected it to do the same to other people's minds.
Perhaps I'll try to email him that I don't just hate his guts but think his extremely tiresome actions are much worse and I really wish he would stop it.
Boredom can be and in this case IS a lot more unpleasant than simple hate. I look forward to never thinking about him.
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Who knows how this will turn out, but one thing we know for sure: Lawyers created this mess and lawyers are the only winners in this mess.
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I feel the same way! I have a medical doctor at my medical center who's first name is Sweetheart, and I'd love to see little girls who want to grow up to be doctors because of her!
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