judge boasberg

Fox News' ongoing efforts to stop the lawsuit by electronic voting equipment company Smartmatic failed this week when it lost its appeal for a "stay" and a motion to "vacate" the case.

A stay is a temporary pause of the lawsuit and a motion to vacate is a request for the judge to cancel all previous court orders.

Smartmatic is suing over what it alleges were false allegations about its electronic voting equipment in the wake of the 2020 election. Each part of the case has exposed details about what Fox staff and on-air talent have said under oath that could undermine Fox's defense.

Fox has been working to stop the lawsuit every step of the way, including fighting interviews with its team, the discovery of emails and text messages.

“Smartmatic welcomes the appellate court’s decision denying Fox’s latest attempt to delay this case. For years, courts have repeatedly rejected Fox’s efforts to avoid accountability," the company said in a statement to AlterNet. "The facts have not changed: Fox knowingly spread false claims about Smartmatic, causing severe harm to the company and undermining public trust in elections, and has never apologized. We look forward to continuing toward trial and presenting the truth before a jury.”

In a ruling published Thursday, the New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division, First Department, wrote that they "denied the motion of defendants Fox Corporation, Fox News Network, LLC, DebiDobbs, as Administrator of the Estate of Lou Dobbs, deceased, Maria Bartiromo, and Jeanine Pirro to vacate, in part, Judicial Hearing Officer Alan Marin’s October 14, 2025 report, and denied their separate motion to stay the action pending resolution of aseparate criminal proceeding against plaintiff SGO Corporation Limited (Smartmatic) and vacate the Note of Issue ..."

Conservative outlets are painting it as a success because the court also allowed for additional discovery to move forward. The report said that Fox will be allowed to obtain any information from Smartmatic about the impact of a recent case against the company brought by President Donald Trump's Justice Department.

The additional discovery was granted only after Fox lost its case to pause the suit. The court docket shows several dozen requests that Fox has made over the past year. While they have succeeded in drawing out the case and delaying a trial, they haven't been successful in putting an end to the case.

Smartmatic has alleged that attacks on the company by Fox and its on-air talent after the 2020 election significantly harmed its reputation. So, they sued for defamation, alleging $2.7 billion in damages. Court filings have cited numerous examples of Fox News personalities who knew that Trump lost the 2020 election. Still continued to repeat conspiracy theories about it and went further, falsely alleging Smartmatic was in on a huge international conspiracy that included Venezuela.

Smartmatic's lawsuit was filed long before the Justice Department filed charges.

Newsmax and One America News settled with Smartmatic, but the two continue to fight over the defamation suit. Smartmatic posted documents in November that revealed the testimony of a finance and damages expert.

Financial expert Christopher James submitted a report on Feb. 15, 2024, that used a formula to calculate the damages he feels Fox Corp. caused in its ongoing attacks against Smartmatic. The document, released at the time, was a June 12, 2025, update to that initial report. The Smartmatic expert testified that the damages from 2021-2025 totaled $526.2 million in lost profits and $165.4 million in expected profits from U.S. markets.

Last November, The Guardian reported that President Donald Trump's Justice Department would begin an investigation into conspiracy theories that allege Venezuela had a role in somehow rigging the election.

MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell has complained that after his case with Smartmatic, he's in financial ruin.

With poll after poll suggesting that the Democrats are going to win back the House and perhaps the Senate in the coming congressional elections, expect to see more discussion about the practical need to be nice to Americans who regret voting for Donald Trump.

The idea is that we live in a system that's either/or. If we're going to build a big tent, we need to bring as many people into it as we can, which means avoiding saying anything that might discourage them from coming in. For the Democrats to win, these voters have to switch allegiances. Let's not make that process harder by scolding them about their bad choices.

I think this idea is wrong, morally and politically.

Morally, because actions have consequences. Trump's policies hurt his voters, meaning they hurt themselves. Only they are liable for their choices. Only they can choose to make things right for their sake. No one made them choose Trump. No one can make them choose a Democrat. If what I say determines their choice, no amount of pain will change their minds.

Politically, because protecting people from the consequences of their choices encourages them to continue choosing badly. I think it's unwise for progressives to suggest that it's OK to vote for a Republican as long as the Democrats are around to clean up the mess they inevitably make. That's no way to build a big tent, because once the mess is cleaned up, they go back to the Republicans. Politically, it's better to say "you hurt yourself – don't do it again."

Still, it's very difficult for progressives to look Trump voters in the eye and say "I told you so." I think it comes down to fear, which is to say, they fear that Trump voters will double down on their bad choices. They fear that telling people who hurt themselves that they could have avoided hurting themselves will only encourage them to hurt themselves, imperiling us all.

To that, I say you are right to be afraid! So the question isn't whether my opinion of a Trump voter will alienate him but whether he will hurt himself in a delusional bid to hurt me for my opinion of him. If so, the conclusion should be that there is no such thing as democratic consensus or the common good or mutual self-interest with a person for whom masochism is optional. The masochist won't be obligated to himself. Why would he be obligated to me?

This conclusion runs against the grain of progressive myth, which is to say, against the belief in "the people" as pure and innocent victims of a system rigged by rapacious elites. If we could get money out of politics, if we could reform the media, if we could tame "polarization" – if we could clear the way for liberty and justice for all, that's what "the people" would choose. "The American people are progressive," Elizabeth Warren famously said, "and our day is coming. Our values are American values and America's values are progressive values."

Not only does this myth overlook the fact that "the people" chose Trump twice. It overlooks the complicated and corruptible character of "the people" that chose him. It asks us to presume that his voters had good intentions but were mistaken or duped or just forgot the reasons why he was voted out the first time. It holds Kamala Harris accountable – she'd be president if she were a better candidate – but holds Trump's voters blameless for his victory. It's not really their fault, this myth tells us, so we should not remind them of their mistake.

For all the talk of animosity between the progressive wing of the Democratic Party and its centrist establishment, both sides agree on this myth: "The people" can't fail; they can only be failed. To shame voters for their self-destructive choices is to fail them. The terms of this agreement allow progressives to indulge in a kind of colorblind fantasy in which Americans would be united if not for divisive elites. More importantly, it allows party leaders to skate.

As long as the progressive myth predominates, Democratic leaders don't have to do the hard work of creating a vision for a more just and equitable society for everyone in America, or invest in the manufacturing of an infrastructure that would realize that pluralist vision. Instead, as we have seen since at least the 1980s, a party establishment that does not want to change does not feel that it needs to change when it can wait around for the moment when the Republicans bring the country to ruin, then reap the benefits of a popular backlash. And the party establishment is rewarded for its inertia by the party's progressive wing when it celebrates that popular backlash as a restoration of "the true nature of the people."

But contrary to progressive thinking, "the true nature of the people" is not revealed during these periods of backlash against the Republicans. It was never hidden. It has been evident in every cycle of boom and bust since the 1960s. "The people" elect a Republican president who invariably wrecks the economy. They then elect a Democratic president to fix it. While that Democrat is busy trying to restore and even expand access to the American dream, the Republicans invariably arouse anti-Black hatred and other bigotries to such heights that "the people" believe they are witnessing a crime when a Black man moves up the social ladder, as he must have stepped on someone more "deserving" to get there.

By the time of the next election, "the people" are primed to "make America great again," thus restarting the cycle. To the extent that progressive thinking recognizes the complicated and corruptible character of "the people," it's in terms of material deprivation. It's said that when times are hard, (white) Americans become vulnerable to demagogues who peddle propaganda. That may be true, but given the above cycle of boom and bust, the other way around is clearly also true. When times are good, (white) Americans are vulnerable to demagogues, as their sense of justice is even more aroused by the sight of Black prosperity. And if that's the case, are they really vulnerable? Sounds to me like they are choosing a Republican for the express purpose of stopping the crime of "those people" getting what they don't "deserve."

When white Americans choose a Republican to stop "them," they end up hurting themselves. They feel so much pain that they elect Democrats. It's a regular and predictable cycle of self-harm that ultimately hurts everyone, but it's not recognized as self-harm, neither by the white Americans who are harming themselves nor by the progressives who are trying to bring them around. Progressives believe that by saying nothing about their self-destructive choices – by being nice – they clear the way for direct appeals to their material self-interests. Let's not talk about you hurting you and yours, they say. Let's talk about universal healthcare.

But what progressives are really doing is enabling self-harm. The cycle of boom and bust should demonstrate that there are no rewards for good behavior. Every Democratic president of the last 50 years has not only fixed the damage done by the previous Republican president but also grown the economy. Yet despite that success, "the people" end up punishing the Democrats. Progressives say that's because the party did too little. Equally valid is saying they did "too much," which is to say, the economic policies of Democratic presidencies empowered those whom "the people" believed should not be empowered.

I said at the top that it's impossible to make common cause with masochists. That's true, but most people who hurt themselves are not masochists. They don't have a complete understanding of the consequences of their choices. That's why progressives should shame them. It's not enough to speak to their higher instincts with popular policy. We have to speak to their base instincts, too. Oh, you thought only others would suffer? Well, I told you so.

President Donald Trump probably didn’t smell his own trap coming when he launched attacks on Iran weeks ago, but critics say he’s definitely in a hole now, and he’s pulled his Republican Party into it with him.

The worst thing about it: Iranian leaders see Trump’s hole — and they’re smiling.

“[Iranian leaders] can look right now and see that they have leverage and see that Donald Trump wants to get out of this war. And, so, you can be hard-nosed and pragmatic and say, ‘well, let's wait it out and see how much more we can get out of Trump,’” former Republican speechwriter Tim Miller told MS NOW anchor Katy Tur. “And … Trump is known to give terrible deals. And I think that puts Trump in a very tough situation. And that explains in part why he's calling up [Fox News entertainer] Bret Baier saying ‘we're going to get a deal’ every two days and nothing is coming because the Iranians see that he wants that deal badly.”

Zeteo reported last week that U.S. officials are already privately admitting Iran is nowhere “close to breaking, even after two months of war and a sustained economic assault,” according to four anonymous sources.

“Administration officials, citing US intel, have also warned that senior Iranian officials are keenly aware that if the war drags on much longer, it could further damage Trump and the Republican Party’s chances at the polls in November,” reports Zeteo.

“They know they can Carter him,” said one senior administration official, referring to how the Iranian hostage crisis tanked former president Jimmy Carter by the time of the 1980 U.S. election.

Former Republican Max Boot told Tur that Trump’s flailing has created the international image of “a clueless, wounded hegemon,” which looks terrible going into the midterm election. But Miller said Trump’s tactics just aren’t delivering the goods as they have in the past.

“[H]e's trying to win the micro news cycles and try to survive [but] … these two quagmires, the Russia/Ukraine war and the war that he started in Iran are cases where his little gimmicks … to convince people that something is true for a day in order to win a news cycle, in order to get a good headline on the New York Post — the regime in Iran doesn't care about that. Vladimir Putin doesn't care about that. They have much more deep-seated, entrenched interests. And I think he's running into the limits of what his madman tabloid style can, you know, can get for him.”

- YouTubeyoutu.be

The depths of conservative men's subservience to President Donald Trump reached a new low this week, after the release of what The Bulwark called the "absurd" and "absolutely wild" results of a survey exposing their strange stance on his physical strength.

On Friday, Bulwark publisher Sarah Longwell released a new video where she, alongside writer Catherine Rampell, reacted to an unorthodox new poll from YouGov. In it, the survey asked respondents if they believed that an 8-year-old boy, a typical American man and, finally, themselves, could physically defeat Trump in a fight.

As Rampell explained, the poll originated from an odd exchange Trump had with a young boy during an Oval Office event touting the return of the old Presidential Fitness Exam standards, in which he asked the boy if he believed he could take him in a fight.

"So it was Trump who threw down the gauntlet to begin with," Rampell said. "And YouGov was, let's see what America thinks."

And "what America thinks," it turns out, breaks down in a "funny" fashion along gender and partisan lines. According to the poll's findings, respondents who identified as Democratic women were more likely to believe they could take the president than those who identified as Republican men, painting a bizarre picture of the cult-like image of strength conservative men still appear to have of the president.

Breaking it down further, Longwell shared that 66 percent of respondents said that the average American male could beat Trump in a fight, while only 10 percent said that the president would win. Along party lines, 33 percent of Republicans said that they would win, compared to 75 percent of Democrats. Democratic respondents were also notably more down on Trump's odds against an 8-year-old boy, with 54 percent believing that the boy would win, compared to just 6 percent of Republicans.

"This is an interesting psychological experiment about partisan politics," Longwell said. "Because Republicans are like, 'Big daddy Trump could beat me, he could get me, I'm scared of him,' whereas Democrats are like, 'Man, an 8-year-old boy would kick that guy's a——."

Along partisan and gender lines, the survey found that 71 percent of Democratic women, and 84 percent of men, believed that they could beat Trump. By comparison, just 46 percent of Republican men, and 19 percent of women, said that they could beat him. Notably, about 29 percent of GOP men and 26 percent of GOP women said that they were unsure. The number of uncertain Democrats was much lower.

Longwell noted that these results paint a grim picture of the "need" Republican men have to believe that Trump could "dominate" them. Rampell said that it was unclear how much of the results were driven by self-esteem issues, versus the need to believe Trump is physically powerful.

In the spirit of the conversation, Rampell herself added that, while she is notably shorter and lighter than the president, and has no experience with physical fights, she also believed that she could best Trump, given the many obvious signs of his declining physical health.

In Florida, Judge Marlon Weiss expressed strong views in a surrogacy-related case that, according to the Tampa Bay Times, "could dramatically reshape reproductive issues" in the Sunshine State. And it has far-reaching implications that go way beyond the case itself.

The case involves a married couple, both men, who made an agreement with a Florida woman for her to carry their child. But when the due date was approaching, they made a petition for early parental rights. The order was granted, and Weiss, Tampa Bay Times reporter Romy Ellenbogen notes, "suggested in his order that surrogacy may be unconstitutional" — while Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier "is arguing that surrogacy is akin to slavery, saying it violates the 13th Amendment and should be deemed unconstitutional, according to a lawyer representing the family."

Ellenbogen stresses that the implications of this case are much broader than surrogacy.

"The questions raised by Weiss in his order could also have a chilling effect on Floridians' access to abortion," the Tampa Bay Times reporter explains. "Weiss' questions center around the idea of fetal personhood, a concept long supported by anti-abortion advocates. If a court were to deem that a fetus or embryo has the same constitutional rights as a newborn, that opens the door to arguments that a fetus' life can't be terminated."

Weiss is an appointee of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, while Uthmeier is a close ally of the MAGA governor and a vehement opponent of abortion.

Attorney Katie Jay is representing the fathers and is questioning Uthmeier's conduct.

In a letter to the court, according to Ellenbogen, Jay wrote, "It is election year for the Attorney General and he has signaled that surrogacy cases are valuable political fodder for his campaign. Unfortunately, this seems to have incentivized someone to breach the public trust of the independent judicial branch and use the Broward County Courthouse as a political playground to curry favor in Tallahassee."

President Donald Trump is growing increasingly "bored" with the Iran war, according to Jonathan Lemire of The Atlantic, describing comments from and "outside adviser" who speaks "regularly" with the president.

According to Lemire's Friday report, "Trump really, really wants the war with Iran to end."

It turns out the war is far more difficult than Trump anticipated, and it has lasted much longer than he expected, the report said.

"He doesn’t want to be bogged down in a Middle East conflict like some of his predecessors were. He doesn’t want it to upend his high-stakes summit next week in China. He is ready to move on," said Lemire.

Iran, on the other hand, appears to be enjoying its successes over the world's largest military giant, the United States. The ceasefire is on rocky ground, and advisors think that Trump can somehow "sell any sort of agreement as a win," the report said.

As of Friday, Washington is on hold as officials wait for Iran to agree to a one-page "memorandum of understanding" that Lemire described as little more than an extension of the ceasefire rather than a full treaty.

"Trump is left with a vexing question: How do you end a war when your opponent won’t budge? And while Trump grasps for an exit, the hard-liners in Tehran have used the war to tighten their grip on power. Iran seems hell-bent on pulling off something it’s historically done well: humiliating an American president," the reporter said, mentioning the propaganda and asymmetric warfare that Iran has deployed online.

In a number of videos, Trump and many of his Cabinet officials are ridiculed for being bumbling fools or outright drunk on the job.

Previous reports noted that Trump was on a high after his success swooping in to nab Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro. He passed his "One Big Beautiful Bill," achieved his tariff scheme, captured Maduro and turned to Iran, thinking it would be just as easy.

In a column for Foreign Affairs, Nate Swanson, a former Trump staffer and current senior fellow and director of the Iran Strategy Project at The Atlantic Council, wrote that Trump "cannot force surrender on a government that refuses it. Even after the heavy damage to Iran's military, the regime ... has powerful incentives to pursue continued conflict, and it retains a variety of tools to sustain a war of attrition."

A leaked CIA report revealed by the Washington Post said: "Iran can survive the U.S. naval blockade for at least 3 to 4 months before facing more severe economic hardship, a finding that contradicts those hailing an imminent collapse."

While the adage might claim that patience is a virtue, it isn't one Trump has.

So, the two sides are at an impasse, with the only resolution to escalate or cut and run. The latter is a possibility, the report said.

"Even without a formal agreement, Trump has considered declaring decisive victory and moving on. Secretary of State Marco Rubio went so far as to say earlier this week that the war was over. But doing so now would leave the conflict’s goals, as outlined at various times by the president and his aides, unfulfilled," wrote Lemire.

Aides also told him Trump doesn't want to resume the attacks. For all of Trump's bluster and threats to "wipe out" Iran or "bomb them back to the Stone Age," he's starting to worry about the U.S. supply of weapons.

"There is concern about the dwindling supply of American munitions, and Trump this week expressed reluctance about killing more people," the report said.

Technically, there is still a ceasefire, but when Iran fired on a U.S. naval vessel on Thursday, the U.S. hit sites in Iran. Trump swore it wasn't an indication that the ceasefire was over. He simply called it “a love tap.”

The most significant concern is if the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz continues. If it stays closed for several more months, the global economy would suffer, Citadel CEO Ken Griffin told the Semafor World Economy conference last month. The war has already surpassed the 60-day mark.

“Let’s assume [the strait is] shut down for the next six to 12 months — the world’s going to end up in a recession,” said Griffin. “There’s no way to avoid that.”

Biographer Michael Wolff said in March that Trump appeared to be "having a blast" with his war. It took only a few weeks for insiders to expose that Trump is "getting a little bored with" the war he started.

Republican lawmakers are growing concerned as they face angry constituents complaining about high fuel prices, increasing food costs and more. They're expected to lose the House in the 2026 elections, but the longer it continues, the more they fear they could also lose the U.S. Senate.

ABC has retained a top Supreme Court litigator and is accusing the Trump Federal Communications Commission of a First Amendment free speech violation.

In its filing, ABC said that the FCC’s actions had a “chilling effect” on free speech, specifically political speech the agency disagreed with, The New York Times reports.

At issue, the Times says, is a “minor regulatory dispute” over ABC’s “The View,” but the implications could extend beyond the single Houston, Texas station positioned in the dispute.

“The Commission’s order to file this Petition for Declaratory Ruling is unprecedented, beyond the Commission’s authority, and counterproductive to the Commission’s stated goal of encouraging free speech and open political discussion,” the filing reads. ABC alleges the FCC’s actions threaten to “upend decades of settled law and practice and chill critical protected speech, both with respect to The View and more broadly.”

The Times calls the filing “the most aggressive defense from any television network since President Trump kicked off an extended campaign last year to bring media organizations to heel.”

FCC chairman Brendan Carr has suggested ABC should not have presumed “The View” was exempt from equal-time rules.

“But the filing from ABC revealed for the first time the intensity of the agency’s efforts against the network,” the Times notes, “which have included extensive requests for documents and information about its operations and editorial approach.”

Variety adds that separately, “the FCC’s Media Bureau last week issued an unprecedented order forcing ABC to reapply for spectrum licenses on an accelerated schedule,” after President Donald Trump called for late night host Jimmy Kimmel to be fired.

Right-wingers this week raged at new comments from Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, worried that he might be "prepping" them for an impending loss on President Donald Trump's long-shot bid to end birthright citizenship.

The comments from Gorsuch, a Trump appointee, originated from an interview with the libertarian publication, Reason Magazine, in which he described the U.S. as a "creedal" nation, not one founded on a shared religion or culture. This comes as the court is hearing arguments to the contrary from the Trump administration, which is attempting to alter birthright citizenship laws to exclude the children of undocumented immigrants.

"The Declaration of Independence had three great ideas in it: that all of us are equal; that each of us has inalienable rights given to us by God, not government; and that we have the right to rule ourselves," Gorsuch said. "Our nation is not founded on a religion. It’s not based on a common culture even, or heritage. It’s based on those ideas. We’re a creedal nation.”

As a clip of this quote began to circulate on X, a few conservatives shared heated reactions to Gorsuch's argument, worrying that it was a prelude for the court shutting down Trump's war on birthright citizenship.

"Amazing how wrong Gorsuch is here," Steve Cortes, a former adviser to Trump and Vice President JD Vance, wrote in a post. "We are clearly a Christian nation founded on the principles of Western Civilization, with the culture and mores of Europe. Seems like he’s 'prepping us for an absurd Birthright Citizenship ruling?"

"Concerning to hear this from Justice Gorsuch, and it’s completely divorced from our founding," Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation, wrote in another post responding to Cortes. "If we swapped out Americans with the population of another country, we would no longer be America. Being American is more than a title on paper."

Will Tanner, co-founder of a right-wing publication, claimed that the "Founding Fathers" would disagree with Gorsuch, but only cited a quote from one of them, the first SCOTUS Chief Justice John Jay, to argue his point.

"If we're a creedal nation, show me the required creed and explain to me the consequences for someone who refuses to follow it," Timothy Nerozzi, a conservative reporter, added in his own post.

Despite this consternation from conservatives, Trump's bid has always been considered unlikely to survive the Supreme Court, even one that has made notable efforts to side with him often. Given that birthright citizenship, the notion that anyone born on American soil is automatically an American citizen, is enshrined in U.S. law by the 14th Amendment in plain language, observers have argued that Trump's crusade against it is blatantly and unavoidably unconstitutional.