Sarah Palin’s Libel Lawsuit Thrown Out of Court

Sarah Palin, former Miss Wasilla and once part-time Temp-Governor of Alaska, had her libel suit against the New York Times thrown of of court. In an editorial, the Times erroneously linked Ms. Palin’s rhetoric to specific incidents of political gun violence, but quickly issued a correction. The judge found that the plaintiff’s case did not rise to the level of harm established as libel by the Supreme Court. In an unusual move, the judge made his ruling while the jury was deliberating, and the jury, independently, reached the same conclusion.

Sarah Palin, the proto-Trump, will probably appeal.

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Image (“Mad As Hell!”) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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Salt Lake Tribune Endorses Obama

The editors of the Salt Lake Tribune, leading newspaper in “largely Mormon, Republican, business-friendly” Utah, really wanted to endorse “the Beehive State’s favorite adopted son,” Mitt Romney. Instead, they concluded that Barack Obama has earned another term. Here’s why:

“From his embrace of the party’s radical right wing, to subsequent portrayals of himself as a moderate champion of the middle class, Romney has raised the most frequently asked question of the campaign: ‘Who is this guy, really, and what in the world does he truly believe?'”

“More troubling, Romney has repeatedly refused to share specifics of his radical plan to simultaneously reduce the debt, get rid of Obamacare (or, as he now says, only part of it), make a voucher program of Medicare, slash taxes and spending, and thereby create millions of new jobs. To claim, as Romney does, that he would offset his tax and spending cuts (except for billions more for the military) by doing away with tax deductions and exemptions is utterly meaningless without identifying which and how many would get the ax. Absent those specifics, his promise of a balanced budget simply does not pencil out.”