Dem
47
GOP
53
In March 2010, Sarah Palin ran this ad:
Many people interpreted the ad as an invitation to shoot the 20 representatives named in it, including then-Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. Palin denied that and said the crosshairs were something a surveyor might use. Maybe she was interested in how many acres there are in each district.
On Jan. 8. 2011, Jared Lee Loughner shot Giffords in the head in a Safeway parking lot just north of Tucson. She survived, but was badly injured. In Nov. 2012, Loughner was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. In 2017, in the wake of the shooting of Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA), who fortunately survived, The New York Times ran an editorial decrying gun violence. It also said that some of it was politically inspired, specifically citing the 2010 Palin ad. Palin didn't like that so much and the Times issued a correction within 24 hours saying that there was no proof Palin's ad led to Gifford's shooting.
Nevertheless, in June 2017, Palin sued the Times. In 2022, she lost, but the verdict was thrown out on appeal based on a technicality. Then she sued again. On Tuesday, a new jury also rejected her argument, again, after only 2 hours of deliberation. It rejected her claim of defamation. She might appeal again.
The case had become a bellwether for conservative groups that want to remove the media's shield against defamation lawsuits. The idea is if some media outlet writes that Donald Trump made a poor choice in picking a secretary of defense who repeatedly leaks war plans to people who do not have a security clearance, then Trump should be able to successfully sue the media outlet for defamation. Tuesday's decision shoots a hole in that plan.
The other case involves NPR. There, a conservative group alleged that NPR is controlled by the Democratic Party and clearly and unmistakably advocated for Kamala Harris in 2024. Nope. A bipartisan 4-0 decision from the Federal Election Commission went for NPR and said that NPR is a news organization and is thus exempt from election laws governing political committees.
This decision comes at a critical time for NPR. It gets some of its funding from the federal government and Trump has said it is broadcasting "radical, woke propaganda disguised as news." A loss for NPR here would have given Trump some justification for going after NPR's budget. He might still do it, but with this FEC ruling, the chance that NPR wins the resulting court case just went up. (V)