Today is Monday, February 27, 2023. The news ain’t good for right-wing “infotainment” network Fox News as more evidence was uncovered in a deposition taken by the chairman of Fox Corporation, Rupert Murdoch, who acknowledged that some Fox News hosts endorsed false claims that the 2020 election was stolen. As I’ve reported here earlier, the network is being sued for billions by Dominion Voting Systems for damaging the company with reckless lies about its voting apparatus. In an online article by Oliver Darcy and Jon Passantino for CNN entitled “Rupert Murdoch acknowledged that Fox News hosts endorsed false stolen election claims,” the details of today’s legal filings are laid bare for all to read.

Murdoch’s comments were made public in a legal filing as part of Dominion’s $1.6 billion lawsuit against the Trumpian network. In his deposition, Murdoch rejected that the right-wing talk network as an entity endorsed former president Dumpf’s election lies. The Australian-American magnate did concede that repugnant hosts Sean Hannity, Jeanine Pirro, Maria Bartiromo, and former host Lou Dobbs promoted the falsehood about the presidential contest being stolen.

According to the filing, Murdoch said, “Some of our commentators were endorsing it.” He added, “I would have liked us to be stronger in denouncing it, in hindsight.” The filing also revealed that Murdoch referred to some of Dumpf’s 2020 election lies as “bullshit and damaging.” As we all know, this did not result in any changes in the election coverage from Murdoch’s high-priced truth destroyers.

Top legal experts feel that Dominion’s legal position appears very strong. “It’s a major blow,” renowned First Amendment attorney Floyd Abrams said of Dominion’s motion for a summary judgment, adding that the “recent revelations certainly put Fox in a more precarious situation.”

Another expert, Rebecca Tushnet, the Frank Stanton Professor of First Amendment Law at Harvard Law School, described Dominion’s evidence as a “very strong” filing that “clearly lays out the difference between what Fox was saying publicly and what top people at Fox were privately admitting.”

The second expert said that in her years of practicing and teaching law, she had never seen such damning evidence collected in the pretrial phase of a defamation suit.

And damning it surely is! In the deposition, Murdoch also lambasted “Fucker” Carlson for hosting pillow guy Mike Lindell – what fucking credentials this guy ever had on theorizing about the 2020 election, I’ll never know! – on his program following the presidential election. So with egg on his bald pate, Murdoch testified it was “wrong for Tucker to host Mike Lindell to repeat those allegations against Dominion own January 26th, 2021,” the documents said.

The reason why the billionaire Fox Corporation head decided to continue allowing Lindell to spout his own form of bullshit should make truly patriotic Americans fucking angry – and not those who hide behind the flag like an old fart named Dumpf – is found in his rationale that it was just a business decision. According to court documents, the truth is right here: “It is not red or blue, it is green.” So that’s the philosophy, plain and simple: greed greased the wheels of Fox News. The chase for the all-mighty buck spurred Murdoch and others on the corporate board onward and upward.

Another purveyor of election lies that could have been stopped by Murdoch from appearing on the show is disgraced former mayor of New York City Rudy Giuliani, but as the nonagenarian magnate whispered in his deposition, “I could have. But I didn’t,” this accurately illustrates his inaction in stopping Giuliani from broadcasting his lies on the network. How pathetic a response as to why he couldn’t prevent Giuliani from appearing on his phony “news” show!!

Another damning admission is Murdoch saying that he believed no fraud occurred in the election. “Yes. I mean, we thought everything was on the up-and-up. I think that was shown when we announced Arizona,” Murdoch said, referring to Fox News’ projection on election night that Joe Biden would win the critical battleground state.

I hope that this dangerous organization of lies is severely ruined by the lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems against it. Think of it: if the network were even a smidgen truthful about the election, we might not have even had the January 6, 2021 insurrection. It has indirectly caused so much damage to this country – it needs to be brought down by this shocking exposure of their avaricious operation. The only way to ruin them is through a billion-dollar penalty. Murdoch can even afford such a settlement. He’s a billionaire many times over!

A more positive story coming out of the Rachel Maddow show tonight is the story of one brave and vocal Democratic senator from Nebraska who is single-handedly holding up antitransgender legislation in the legislature by filibustering every bill being introduced. Her name is Machaela Cavanaugh of Omaha who is fighting against this terrible legislation from being passed by a majority of Republicans in the legislature. She is vowing to filibuster every bill the GOP-led legislature tried to pass to stop the state from passing bans on abortion and transgender health care.

In Nebraska, abortions are currently banned after 20 weeks of pregnancy. The new bill would require doctors to test for “steady and repetitive contractions” in order to figure out the gestational age. This has been called the “heartbeat bill,” LB 626, which bans abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected.

If the activity is detected, abortion would be banned, except in cases of sexual assault, incest, or medical emergency, according to a release about the proposed bill. I’m surprised that the bill even allows for these exceptions, given how batshit repugnicans have declared total war on abortion in light of the overturning of Roe v. Wade in June of last year.

The other bill which is the focus of Sen. Cavanaugh’s campaign is LB 574, or the “Let Them Grow”Act, that would ban doctors in the state from performing or referring anyone under the age of 19 for gender-affirming care, including surgical procedures, hormone treatment, and puberty blockers, according to a release about the proposed bill.

Any doctor who refers or performs these kinds of care would have their medical license reviewed and would let children – or their parents – sue the doctors within two years of treatment.

This one senator should be wholly commended for her one-woman fight against bigotry and draconian legislation in such a repugnican-leaning state like Nebraska. Maybe this one senator’s crusade against the forces of insanity will catch on in other legislatures in other states. I wish her well. And I hope she doesn’t lose her voice in her campaign to score a major win here.

It’s getting late here. Can you believe it’s actually snowing here now? I’m not sure when it started, but it was certainly dark out when I saw the first glimpse of snow falling. As you might know, Los Angeles and Southern California saw snow fall over the weekend, delivering a dusting of the white stuff for just the third time in the 21st century, according to local records. Snow was seen in the area as recently as 2019, but the first time was in 2007. The snow moved out of Southern California on Sunday, to be replaced by rain on Monday. Who still thinks this is not the result of climate change?

Stay safe and be well.