They weren’t invested in Biden per se but in the Democratic Party, but Biden was its standard bearer at the time. Note how quickly that emotional investment switched to Harris once Biden was pushed aside.

I’ve come to believe that the emotional relationship between upper-class Democrats and the Democratic Party is like that of a medieval monk and the Catholic Church: it’s not just a large organization that pays all of the bills but also the source of all goodness in the world. They simply must defend it against all enemies, even those enemies who don’t perceive themselves as enemies.

Most likely. But, and here I go again, why was CNN so emotionally invested in Biden? Perhaps they were emotionally invested in their original emotional investment and couldn’t afford to give it up.

One wonders if a similar emotional thingy–for whatever reason–was involved in the Sandmann issue.

And now, CNN must be wondering it was worth it. After this shakes out, x percentage of watchers believe them and missed the whole defamation thing. Okay. That’s how many think Young’s a jerk now? Still a win? Lose? Draw?

Warning not to try again?

Not relevant to trying again?

I suspect it was that by organizing a private rescue operation he brought to the public’s attention that there *were* Americans trapped in Afghanistan and thus Biden was lying when he said that there weren’t. It also highlighted the incompetence of the Biden administration when a single man could get people out that the Bidens with all the resources of the federal government could not.

It’s the same reason the local government went after Joe the Plumber in 2008 when he merely asked a simple question that Barack Obama flubbed the answer to. “You made the king look bad, and now you will pay” except they’re acting not out of policy but out of love for the king, which leads to hatred of his enemies.

CNN reached a settlement on Friday with a U.S. Navy veteran who helped evacuate people from Afghanistan after the U.S. military withdrew from the country in 2021, a judge said on Friday, hours after a jury found the TV news outlet liable for defaming him.

The six-person jury decided CNN had to pay damages totaling $5 million. The settlement will avert a second phase of the trial that would have determined any punitive damages. The verdict followed a two-week trial in Panama City, Florida, state court.

Circuit Judge William Henry did not provide details of the deal in announcing the settlement in open court.

“Banter.” Even villains “banter” among themselves (like superheros in Marvel movies are always doing). You could make the case that much of the Nixon tapes were “banter.” When politicians, bureaucrats, and corporate officials discuss how to to stifle critics or crush opposition, they’ll refer to their opponents in a jocular, bantering style. It’s a generational thing. Obama joking about Trump at the White House Correspondents Dinner segues into government agencies listening in to the calls of Trump staffers. If people don’t like or trust you, “banter” isn’t a defense.

Anything new on the punitives?

The need for proven malice was a SCOTUS opinion, so it’s something SCOTUS needs to change. Tho I imagine Congress could help by explicitly redefining malice to a lower standard, one that would have clearly shown NYT had malice against Sarah Palin.