Thursday, April 16, 2015

Alabama blogger ordered to pay $3.5 million in defamation lawsuit

By Lynn R. Mitchell

An Alabama blogger has been ordered to pay $3.5 million in settlement after he falsely accused a campaign manager of having an affair with an attorney general candidate that resulted in a son.

Described as one of the worst cases of cyber-bullying, the campaign manager, Jessica Medeiros Garrison who is a Birmingham lawyer, sued the blogger and won, noting, “The absolute and blatant disregard for the truth has to come with consequences” (continue reading here).

Monday, April 13, 2015

Florida may have to decide between Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio

Jeb Bush 4By Lynn R. Mitchell

With Florida Senator Marco Rubio set to announce today that he is running for U.S. President, it is worth looking at how Republicans in Florida feel about their former Governor Jeb Bush and Senator Rubio getting into the same race.

While many would like to see Rubio run for re-election in the senate, if both end up in the presidential race it will mean Floridians must decide between them. (continue reading here....)

Bernie Goldberg: ‘What the media left out of the phony Rolling Stone story’

By Lynn R. Mitchell

Journalist Bernie Goldberg asks some pertinent questions about the Rolling Stone rape story directed at the University of Virginia (see What the media left out of the phony Rolling Stone story). This is the story that Rolling Stone has just shrugged off even after the damning report from Columbia School of Journalism that revealed just about every rule in journalism was broken in the pursuit of a sensationalistic story concerning UVa:

The Rolling Stone story about a student named Jackie who said she was ganged raped at a fraternity house at the University of Virginia is a textbook example of journalistic malpractice. Rolling Stone got just about everything wrong. For openers, there was no gang rape. The reporter didn’t even try to talk to the alleged rapists. And now, a review of the botched story by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism concludes that Rolling Stone failed to engage in “basic, even routine journalistic practice.”
And Goldberg’s disbelief is that Rolling Stone seems to have completely overlooked the fact that an entire campus was roiled at a time... (continue reading here....)

Updating BD's Big Line prediction for Sen-24

By Lynn R. Mitchell
Bearing Drift 5
Bearing Drift's "Big Line" predictions have not been updated since March 5, 2015, so I'm going to update Senate District 24. Interestingly, their editorial board got it wrong.


Emmett Hanger was successful in court (by the way, there is no such thing as the "incumbent protection act," a name made up by the 24th legislative committee). Dan Moxley was not on the winning side of the lawsuit that called for a faux convention. Marshall Pattie was able to stay out of the fray but is he too far removed from the action to have a real possibility at winning on June 9?

(Continue reading here....)