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Four survivors of the 2012 Colorado theater shooting massacre were ordered by a judge Thursday to pay Cinemark nearly $700,000 in legal fees. The 28 families of those killed and wounded in the July 2012 shooting sued Cinemark, the movie chain that owns the Century 16 where James Holmes opened fire during a showing of “The Dark Knight Rises,” claiming that there wasn’t adequate security to stop Holmes from carrying out the attack. An Arapahoe County civil jury ruled in May that Cinemark wasn’t liable for the shooting that left 12 people dead and 70 others. Lawyers for Cinemark then...

Just when you think the media could not possibly become more loathsome, the Fourth Estate bullies prove you wrong again. The Washington Post’s latest ugliness was to exploit the disability of a newspaper reporter in order to smear the Republican nominee for president. Then — and this is the least surprising part of the story — the Post lied about it. Other than the subject of that paragraph — which I slyly switched from Trump to the media — that is an exact paraphrase of the Post’s opening lines from an editorial hawking the media’s most successful lie about Donald...

Donald Trump has hired the lawyer who helped Hulk Hogan win an invasion-of-privacy case against Gawker and given him a new mission: threaten legal action against several media outlets that picked up a Slovenian magazine's report claiming that Melania Trump worked as an escort in the 1990s. The website Liberal America on Monday posted a letter it received from Hollywood attorney Charles Harder demanding a retraction and an apology. Politico reported that at least three other news organizations, including London's Daily Mail, received the same notice, which warns that Melania Trump will "institute immediate legal proceedings against you" if her...

Even jokes have their limits. During his show May 26, Conan O’Brien invited actress and recent Judiaism convert Natasha Leggero onto his show. Leggero praised her new religion for treating abortion as “cool” enough to have on “every Jewish holiday.” After all, she reasoned, it’s good to have a back-up to fall on, just like AAA for cars. Besides performing as a stand-up comedian, the 42-year-old created and stars in Comedy Central’s Another Period and has acted in films including Let’s Be Cops, Neighbors and He’s Just Not That Into You. After discussing her recent marriage, Leggero informed Conan that...

... Trump’s recent proposal to relax America’s libel laws is an affront on our civil liberties. He wants to make it easier to sue news organizations so that he can use the court system as a personal attack dog on those who dare to speak up against him. Lawsuits like these are often called SLAPPs (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation). According to the Public Participation Project, these suits are intended to “chill free speech and healthy debate by targeting those who communicate with their government or speak out on issues of public interest.” Much to Trump’s delight, SLAPP lawsuits can...

The National Enquirer just dropped a bombshell on the Cruz campaign and the internet exploded overnight. Reports claim investigators found Ted Cruz allegedly had an affair with five different women. UPDATE #1: Ted Cruz Denies Affair. UPDATE #2: Trump Responds. According to the Enquirer: “Private detectives are digging into at least five affairs Ted Cruz supposedly had,” claimed a Washington insider. “The leaked details are an attempt to destroy what’s left of his White House campaign!” The ENQUIRER reports that Cruz’s claimed mistresses include a foxy political consultant and a high-placed D.C. attorney! The publication did not name names and...

Donald J. Trump Verified account ‏@realDonaldTrump "@11phenomenon: #LyingTed blames @realDonaldTrump for so many things I am starting to think he is having a mental health crisis."

Complete Headline: The Gloves Are Off: Trump Accuses Hillary Of Being "Involved In Corruption For Most Of Her Professional Life" It's popcorn time. Barely 24 hours after Trump launched his first Hillary attack ad in which he showed a laughing Putin respond to a barking Hillary, and shortly after Hillary's SuperPAC responded in kind with an ad of its own in which it used a Trump quote to mock him, the gloves are officially off, and now that both presidential candidates - both convinced they will face off against each other - are beyond the foreplay stage, the gloves have...

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/03/11/business/media/document-fields-police-report.html

Forty-seven years ago, the free press became much more free. In New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that journalists may not be sued successfully by public officials for libel unless their news coverage was false, damaged a reputation and was published with "actual malice." That meant establishing that the defamation was published "with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not." The Court concluded that such protection was necessary to preserve open debate and discussion about government policy and conduct. Without that protection, the First Amendment guarantee...

A freshman senator whose endorsements included Sarah Palin is going after Donald Trump for talking about changing libel laws so he can more easily sue news organizations.At a rally today in Fort Worth, Texas, Trump railed against major newspapers and said if he wins the presidency he'll "open up our libel laws so when they write purposely negative and horrible and false articles, we can sue them and win lots of money.""We're going to open up those libel laws. So when The New York Times writes a hit piece which is a total disgrace or when The Washington Post,...

Donald Trump wants to “open up” American libel laws to make it easier for politicians such as himself to sue newspapers that write things of which he disapproves. The problem faced by Trump — and by his pal Harry Reid, who wants to use federal law to censor political speech — is that the First Amendment severely limits what men who dream of shutting down newspapers (and little magazines) can actually do. What does “opening up” mean in this context? I spent most of my career as a newspaper editor, and blustering imbeciles like Donald Trump threatened to sue me...

<p>Feeling maligned by the media, Donald Trump is threatening to weaken First Amendment protections for reporters if he were president and make it easier for him to sue them.</p> <p>"I love free press. I think it's great," he said Saturday on Fox News Channel, before quickly adding, "We ought to open up the libel laws, and I'm going to do that."</p>

In his remarks today at a rally in Fort Worth, Tex., Donald Trump knew he’d make news. “I’ve never said this before,” he declared. We’ll await the word of the Washington Post Fact Checker on the integrity of the statement, but Trump did appear to be veering into a new talking point. A media-law talking point, that is: One of the things I’m going to do, and this is going to make it tougher for me…but one of the things I’m going to do if I win…is I’m going to open up our libel laws so when they write purposely...

Donald Trump said on Friday he plans to change libel laws in the United States so that he can have an easier time suing news organizations. During a rally in Fort Worth, Texas, Trump began his usual tirade against newspapers such as The New York Times and The Washington Post, saying they're "losing money" and are "dishonest." The Republican presidential candidate then took a different turn, suggesting that when he's president they'll "have problems." "One of the things I'm going to do if I win, and I hope we do and we're certainly leading. I'm going to open up our...

If these new libel laws were to take effect, Free Republic would be sued out of existence on day one. If these laws took effect the only media we would have would be rich corporate liberal media. New York Times, Washington Post etc... This could be called the mainstream media only law.

At a rally in Fort Worth, Texas today, Donald Trump unloaded on Amazon.com founder and owner of the Washington Post Jeff Bezos. "I have respect for Jeff Bezos, but he bought the Washington Post to have political influence. And I gotta tell you, we have a different country than we used to have. We have a different... He owns Amazon. He wants political influence so that Amazon will benefit from it. That's not right. And believe me, if I become president, oh do they have problems. They're gonna have such problems," said Trump. Trump went on to promise that, if...

Donald Trump's bid to become president received a boost from an unexpected source when racist loon Al Sharpton promised to leave the country should Trump be elected. According to Sharpton, his pledge to leave the country "is a desperate plea to the people who love me to spare my having to move out" and "would save the government the expense of having to deport me along with all the other so-called undesirables Trump has threatened to oust." Trump's campaign manager Corey Lewandowski predicted that Sharpton's vow "will help Donald's efforts to win votes. Getting endorsements from friends is nice, but...

Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump on Friday vowed to "open up" libel laws in order to sue media outlets that write "purposely negative" and "horrible" articles about him. "I’m gonna open up our libel laws, so when they write purposely negative and horrible, false articles, we can sue them and win lots of money," Trump said at a rally in Fort Worth, Texas. "We’re going to open up those libels laws," he added. "So that when The New York Times writes a hit piece, which is a total disgrace, or when The Washington Post, which is there for other reasons,...

Eyewitness says police still have not asked what he and other witnesses saw; victim tried to withdraw complaint, but police refused Cops say retired 4-star general choked delivery driver, resisted arrest; eyewitness says cops over-reacted, dispute didn’t happen the way warrants allege William “Bill” Livsey, 84, of Fayetteville, a retired four-star general and Silver Star recipient for heroism, ordered home delivery for himself and three other companions from a Chinese restaurant just before 7 p.m. Aug. 15. Within a couple of hours that Saturday night, the highly decorated retired officer was handcuffed with bloody arms inside a Fayetteville police unit...