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Expected by whom?
Let’s make a prediction: out of cases brought against outside demonstrators, I don’t think very many will see felony charges. Perhaps none. The government has already picked its low hanging fruit—you’ve listed plenty of them. If they haven’t already been brought in, why do you think that will change?
As for Ray Epps, I do believe the truth is still an absolute defense against defamation. That makes it very hard for him to win dishonestly. If the suit succeeds, it means the centerpiece of right-wing media couldn’t put together enough evidence to cover their asses. If it fails, perhaps you’re on to something, but at least the plant won’t get a payout for it. I suppose the most likely outcome is a settlement, which could happen either way.
Maybe if the judiciary weren't so politically captured, you'd be right. As it is, the people who get to decide whether Fox News has to pay millions in damages are the same kinds of people who decided, say, that Trump paying Stormy Daniels is criminal, or that Alex Jones owes billions of dollars in damages.
I want to understand your position better, so what exactly is your evidence that the "judiciary" is politically captured? From what I can understand, you're citing:
None of those things were directly decided by a judge, but I'm willing to read between the lines and presumably you meant that decisions by the judiciary resulted in those outcomes. Granting that, how exactly does that establish political capture? Should every adverse legal ruling, criminal prosecution, or jury verdict loss be considered sufficient proof of political capture?
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What would it take to convince you that the judiciary is not, in fact, that captured? That their motivations include things like “doing a good job” or “upholding their oaths” or just “not being a defendant.”
Entering false judgment on the largest right-wing media giant in the country seems like a particularly bad way to keep one’s corruption under wraps. Doing it for a random federal plant?
Trump was found liable for defaming E. Jean Carrol for calling her a liar when she called him a rapist. Her evidence was nothing but a claim that it happened. The judiciary is captured; there's no other reasonable interpretation. Default judgements (and not for not showing up, either -- they were denied their day in court) for not one but TWO different right-wing figures is icing on the cake.
I'm sympathetic, but "The judiciary is captured" is a little too broad for me. There's a lot of Federal judges out there, do we mean all of them? I'm perfectly willing to believe a substantial number of Federal judges are extremely biased against the right and will bend over backwards to ensure harsh outcomes for anyone deemed too right-wing, but I don't think we can reliably say all of them.
Of course, if as least some of them are and you know who they are, it's quite powerful to be able to ensure all appropriate cases get heard by one of them. As far as I know, most of the most frivolous cases against Trump have been filed New York, which probably holds some of the most biased judges and jury pool.
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That finding of liability cannot indicate capture of the judiciary because it was not made by the judiciary. It was made by a jury.
You can of course argue that New Yorkers are so anti-Trump that a NY jury will deliver an anti-Trump verdict no matter what, but even if so, that's not the judiciary's fault.
Doesn't the law that allows this to even get to a jury come from the judiciary? And the law specifically extended the statute of limitations to get Trump.
I'm not sure what you mean. The statute of limitations was indeed extended, but that was done by the NY legislature.
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I'm sure that the political judges who let criminals go out on bail or throw Trump off the ballot think they are just "doing a good job" and "upholding their oaths". That's not a very high standard.
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