Fox shows it is Disney Lite

Fox surrendered to Dominion Voting Systems without a fight in a defamation lawsuit, abandoning the media’s position that it has the right to lie about public officials and institutions as long as there is an absence of malice. The Supreme Court’s NYT v. Sullivan ruling gave the media a license to lie that never was intended by our Founding Fathers, who kept and protected libel laws.

Indeed, Fox never bothered with the Rachel Maddow defense, in which she said she was not a journalist and therefore could say whatever she wanted on a news channel. In this case, she told viewers a rival news channel (not Fox) was funded by the ROOSHANS. It is funny how anti-Russian lefties have become now that the commies are out of power.

Fox gave up without a fight because it never planned to defend itself because that would tarnish its Never Trump status. The news channel’s management and celebrity personalities loathe him — even Cucker Tarlson. Oh, they talk a good game publicly, but in private when the microphone’s off, they admit they hate him.

Murdoch sold out to Disney a long time ago and became its largest private shareholder with the sale. I don’t know if that still is true because I don’t follow his stock trading.

He was stuck with Fox’s network and various cable channels to appease the anti-trust watchdogs in government.

But Fox is not the news channel that Roger Ailes set up. Fox belongs to Paul Ryan, a reward for faithful service in Congress. Rather than help President Trump, Ryan gave up the speakership in 2018 without a fight and took a seat on the Fox board of directors two months later.

While Fox has jettisoned Jonah Goldberg and the rest of its openly Never Trumpers, the network did everything it could in 2020 to sabotage his campaign. Not airing his rallies tells you exactly what Fox thinks of him and his supporters.

The New York Times — which will never pay for it role in the Coup d’Russiagate by Barack Hussein Obama — gloated, as well it should. NYT views Fox audience as suckers who support Trump only to get their news from Never Trumpers.

I may be a sucker but I am not that sucker. I never watch Fox.

NYT said in its report, “A $787.5 Million Settlement and Embarrassing Disclosures: The Costs of Airing a Lie.

“Fox News’s late-stage agreement with Dominion Voting Systems came with a rare acknowledgment of broadcasting false claims by the conservative media powerhouse.”

We know why Fox did it. When it conceded the race earlier than anyone else on Election Night, viewers rebelled. Fox was clumsy and obvious in its shift to Biden. Viewers left the network by the millions. It was the news channel’s equivalent of Bud Light hiring Dana Mulvaney.

To get back viewers, Fox did its version of the Clydesdales waving the flag on 9/11. Murdoch fired Chris Stirewalt — the low-profile political editor who made the call on Arizona — and the prime-time celebrities went into full Trump-kissing mode.

What did Trump in was the mail-in votes. Pennsylvania law specifically requires mail-in votes to arrive before the polls close or they don’t count. A Democrat state Supreme Court ordered the ballot harvesting to continue for 9 days — rewriting the law — and John Roberts refused to hear the appeal.

Georgia’s RINO governor and secretary of state allowed the ballot harvesting. There were shenanigans in Arizona, Michigan and Wisconsin.

The fix was in.

The fix also was in with this lawsuit.

NYT’s report said, “The terms of the agreement, which was abruptly announced just before lawyers were expected to make opening statements, did not require Fox to apologize for any wrongdoing in its own programming — a point that Dominion was said to have been pressing for.

“Shortly after the agreement was reached, Fox said it was “hopeful that our decision to resolve this dispute with Dominion amicably, instead of the acrimony of a divisive trial, allows the country to move forward from these issues.”

“The settlement carries an implicit plea of no contest to several pretrial findings from the presiding judge in the case, Eric M. Davis, that cast Fox’s programming in exceptionally harsh light.”

By caving in on this lawsuit, Fox undercuts the very serious and legitimate questions about those mail-in votes. Yes, Trump should have tackled the ballot harvesting instead of Dominion.

But a real news organization would have gone after the ballot harvesting.

Instead, Fox became just another complicit and complacent news organization. The difference between Disney-owned ABC and owned-by-a-Disney-owner Fox is the latter went half-heartedly after Dominion.

So it goes down as a lie, and Murdoch gets his back slapped by his fellow media moguls for making Trump out to be a liar.

Meanwhile, NYT and the rest never will be held accountable for their lies about Russiagate, Hunter’s laptop and now the Ukraine War — the latter being a big payday for some of the most corrupt crooks in the world.

Watch Fox if you want but I will drink Bud Light before I do. And I haven’t had a beer since 1987.