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Post by mhbruin on Apr 19, 2023 8:28:03 GMT -8
Atheism is a non-prophet organization.
Dominion Domination
Given that Dominion had only $40 million in gross income going into this, do you you really think a jury would have found $787.5 million in damages against Fox? Almost certainly not.
Dominion got a lot more money from this than it would have at trial.
For those upset that the American people will not get the vindication of truth they deserve I offer three gentle responses.
First, Dominion’s lawyers do not represent the interests of the American people. Their ethical obligation is to their client, and more precisely, Dominion’s shareholders/owners. To be an owner of Dominion tonight is to be in a very happy place.
Second, the Smartmatic lawsuit remains. Without the concern for creating more liability in settlement with Smartmatic, Fox may well be willing to trade mea culpas for cash. After all, it is a bit cash short now.
Third, $787.5 million is a whole lot of mea, even if short a bit of culpa. The massive settlement speaks for itself. Fox did not pay nearly a billion dollars because it told the truth.
Staple Street Thinks It's Sweet
Private-equity firm Staple Street Capital is looking at a massive windfall after Dominion Voting Systems settled a defamation lawsuit with Fox News for $787.5 million.
Staple Street Capital acquired a 76% stake in Dominion Voting Systems for $38.8 million in 2018, just two years before the company was caught in the middle of the 2020 Presidential election, in which former President Donald Trump and his allies falsely accused the voting technology company of rigging results in Joe Biden's favor.
A high-profile defamation lawsuit between Dominion and Fox News, which gave plenty of air time to the false accusations that Dominion rigged the 2020 presidential election results, was scheduled to begin yesterday until a settlement was reached right before the trial's opening statements.
Dominion initially sought $1.6 billion in damages from Fox News, but settled for about half that amount.
Assuming Staple Street Capital's 76% stake in Dominion didn't change since 2018, and that the firm's ownership stake gives it claim to a proportional amount of the lawsuit settlement, the investment firm is poised to see a $598.5 million payout, a return of 1,442% from its initial investment.
The potential gain for Staple Street from the Dominion/Fox News lawsuit was on the radar of employees at the investment firm. A text message between a former employee and Staple Street Capital vice president Dan Franklin was uncovered during the lawsuit, which said "would be pretty unreal if you guys 20x'ed your dominion investment with these lawsuits," the message said.
Fox News used Staple Street's ownership of Dominion against it, arguing that the sky-high damages sought by the firm was "nothing more than a money grab to satisfy Staple Street." But Fox ultimately acknowledged that "certain claims" made on its network about Dominion were false.
This might not be Staple Street Capital's last windfall from its stake in Dominion, as the voting technology company still has pending lawsuits against media firms Newsmax and One America News Network, as well as former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and lawyer Sydney Powell.
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Post by mhbruin on Apr 19, 2023 8:33:21 GMT -8
Attending a Birthday Party, Ringing the Wrong Doorbell Turning Around in the Wrong Driveway. Will the Madness Ever End?
Two teenage boys have been charged with murder after the shooting at a 16th birthday party in Alabama that killed four and injured 32 over the weekend.
Ty Reik McCullough, 17, and Travis McCullough, 16, were arrested on Tuesday night, police said.
Authorities said the suspects are each being charged with four counts of reckless murder and that more charges are expected.
A prosecutor said the suspects would be charged as adults.
Police said that among the 32 people injured, four are still in the hospital and four remain in critical condition.
Opening the Wrong Car Door. Will the Madness Ever End?
Two Texas cheerleaders were shot after one of them said they had mistakenly got into the wrong vehicle in a parking lot early Tuesday morning after practice, officials said.
Elgin Police Department officials said in a statement that a 25-year-old man was arrested for the shootings. Houston ABC station KTRK verified the information with Bastrop County authorities.
One of the victims was treated and released at the scene, the other was helicoptered to a hospital and is in critical condition, according to Elgin police.
Elgin Police said they arrested Pedro Tello Rodriguez Jr., 25, and charged him with deadly conduct, a third-degree felony.
Heather Roth, a cheerleader with the Woodlands Elite Cheer Co., said on Instagram Live that she and three other cheerleaders had completed practice when they went to a carpool lot just after midnight Tuesday.
Roth said she got out of her friend's car and opened the door to a car she thought was her own, but a man was in the passenger seat. She said she got out of the car and back into her friend's vehicle.
When the man approached their vehicle, Roth rolled down the window to apologize and the man started shooting, she later said.
It Won't End in Tennessee
In the wake of a deadly school shooting last month, Republican lawmakers in Tennessee awarded final passage Tuesday to a proposal that would further protect gun and ammunition dealers, manufacturers and sellers against lawsuits.
The Senate's 19-9 vote sends the bill to Republican Gov. Bill Lee, despite pushback from Democratic lawmakers saying their GOP counterparts are trying to shield gun companies just weeks after the Nashville school shooting that killed six people, including three 9-year-olds.
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Post by mhbruin on Apr 19, 2023 8:35:25 GMT -8
Russia REALLY, REALLY Hates Electical Equipment
Russia has a programme to sabotage wind farms and communication cables in the North Sea, according to new allegations.
The details come from a joint investigation by public broadcasters in Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland.
It says Russia has a fleet of vessels disguised as fishing trawlers and research vessels in the North Sea.
They carry underwater surveillance equipment and are mapping key sites for possible sabotage.
The BBC understands that UK officials are aware of Russian vessels moving around UK waters as part of the programme.
The first of a series of reports is due to be broadcast on Wednesday by DR in Denmark, NRK in Norway, SVT in Sweden and Yle in Finland.
A Danish counter-intelligence officer says the sabotage plans are being prepared in case of a full conflict with the West while the head of Norwegian intelligence told the broadcasters the programme was considered highly important for Russia and controlled directly from Moscow.
The broadcasters say they have analysed intercepted Russian communications which indicate so-called ghost ships sailing in Nordic waters which have turned off the transmitters so as not to reveal their locations.
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Post by mhbruin on Apr 19, 2023 8:37:59 GMT -8
Stupid Democrat Tricks.
Senate Republicans blocked a simple request from an ailing Democratic colleague Tuesday, refusing to allow Sen. Dianne Feinstein to temporarily step away from her seat on the Judiciary Committee while she continues to recover from a serious illness. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer put the request on the floor, asking for unanimous consent for Maryland Democrat Ben Cardin to serve as the interim committee member, and Sen. Lindsey Graham objected, filibustering Feinstein’s request.
You might think that this latest unprecedented shattering of the norms by the GOP would be enough to make the scales finally fall from Democrats’ eyes. That they would use this opportunity of outrageous obstruction from Republicans to justifiably strike back with a–completely legitimate–move of their own. You would think that right now would be a great time for Committee Chair Dick Durbin to announce that he was no longer honoring blue slips in retaliation for the Republicans blocking a Feinstein replacement.
You would be thinking wrong. After the blocked vote, Durbin told Huffington Post: “We’re not at that point yet” of abandoning the blue slip tradition.
That’s the Senate courtesy of having senators signal their support for a nominee from their states with a blue piece of paper, the blue slip. In order to advance a nominee, both senators from the state have to turn in the blue slip. If they do, the nominee moves forward. If one or both of them don’t, the nomination is vetoed. But it’s not an official rule of the Senate, and it’s come and gone over the years. Durbin is now following the pattern set by the Republicans the last time they held the majority, honoring blue slips for district court judges and not for appeals court nominees.
Which would be a fine thing if Republicans acted like Democrats. They don’t. Minority Democrats turned in blue slips for more than 130 of Trump’s district court nominees, and 84 of them ended up being seated. So far in Biden’s term, Republicans have provided just a dozen blue slips. Durbin still seems to be clinging to the notion that because Democrats play nice, Republicans will too.
Fool 'Em Once, Shame on You. Fool 'Em Hundreds of Times. THey're Idiots!
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Post by mhbruin on Apr 19, 2023 8:43:44 GMT -8
They Just Want Attention, They Don't Want Our Hearts.
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Post by mhbruin on Apr 19, 2023 8:46:41 GMT -8
Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!
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Post by mhbruin on Apr 19, 2023 8:50:44 GMT -8
What Could Be More Fun Than a Previous Guy Camp?
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Post by mhbruin on Apr 19, 2023 8:52:40 GMT -8
The Partiots Arrive
Ukraine’s defense minister said Wednesday his country has received the U.S-made Patriot surface-to-air guided missile systems it has long craved and which Kyiv hopes will help shield it from Russian airstrikes during the war.
“Today, our beautiful Ukrainian sky becomes more secure because Patriot air defense systems have arrived in Ukraine,” Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said in a tweet.
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Post by mhbruin on Apr 19, 2023 8:54:44 GMT -8
Arcturus Arrives
There’s a new variant of the coronavirus that infectious disease experts and public health officials are keeping a close eye on. XBB.1.16, also known as Arcturus, is an Omicron subvariant that appears to be more transmissible and has fueled a recent surge of COVID-19 cases in India. While the variant is circulating at low levels in the U.S., health officials are closely monitoring it.
The World Health Organization warned about XBB.1.16 last month and labeled it a “variant of monitoring,” a designation that isn’t as serious as a “variant of interest.” However, that status could change if the variant shows signs of increased transmissibility or virulence, or is able to evade antibodies, the WHO noted.
XBB.1.16 has now been detected in at least 29 countries, including the U.S. and it is expanding its reach fairly quickly. In late February, XBB.1.16 accounted for only 0.21% of all COVID-19 cases worldwide. A month later, that had increased to 3.96%, according to the WHO’s latest figures.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention began reporting cases of XBB.1.16 last Friday. According to the latest CDC data, the variant now accounts for 7% of new COVID-19 cases nationwide.
According to anecdotal reports coming from India and other parts of the world, including the U.S., XBB.1.16 may cause a new COVID-19 symptom not seen with previous coronavirus strains. Some doctors have said the new variant seems to be causing conjunctivitis, often called pink eye, in children and adolescents.
In a recent tweet, Vipin M. Vashishtha, an Indian pediatrician who is also a member of the WHO's Vaccine Safety Net program, said he had started to get pediatric COVID-19 cases again, and more children who are sick with XBB.1.16 are experiencing “itchy conjunctivitis with sticky eyes.”
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Post by mhbruin on Apr 19, 2023 9:21:10 GMT -8
Rich, Beautiful, Insanely Talented, and Smart.
Taylor Swift avoided signing a $100 million sponsorship deal with FTX because she was the only celebrity to question the crypto exchange, according to the lawyer handling a class-action lawsuit against several FTX promoters.
Adam Moskowitz appeared on "The Scoop" podcast to discuss the lawsuit, and said that the plaintiffs are seeking over $5 billion from FTX's celebrity endorsers, including Shaquille O'Neal, Tom Brady, and Larry David.
The lawyer alleged that celebrities didn't do their due diligence to check whether FTX was breaking the law. "The one person I found that did that was Taylor Swift," Moskowitz told The Scoop's Frank Chaparro, adding that Swift pulled out of the deal and never promoted the now-bankrupt exchange.
The singer – whose father used to work for Merrill Lynch – began discussing the $100 million-tour sponsorship with FTX in the fall of 2021, per the Financial Times.
Both Tom Brady and Stephen Curry are being sued for endorsing the now-bankrupt crypto exchange.
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Post by mhbruin on Apr 19, 2023 9:24:25 GMT -8
That Light at the End of the Tunnel is a Train Headed Straight Toward Us
Some Republicans Don’t Want To Raise The Debt Limit — Period
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and President Joe Biden are in a standoff over the debt ceiling, but they agree that failing to raise it could be catastrophic.
A handful of House Republicans, however, are very skeptical that stakes are so high — and their stubbornness illustrates the risk of McCarthy’s bet that he can unify his party to twist Biden’s arm.
“My position is that you don’t have to raise the debt ceiling if you bring your spending under control,” Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) told HuffPost on Tuesday.
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