The one and only!

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“‘It Ends With Us’ Actor and Director and His Publicists Sue The Times for Libel – Justin Baldoni claims that The Times defamed him and his team in an article about the actress Blake Lively’s allegations that she had been the victim of a smear campaign.”

Free link: https://shorturl.at/jU3ro

This is why ABC never should have settled with Trump.

Anybody can sue anybody, but that does not mean you win.

This Blake Lively situation is being played out in the press, where the mainstream media has faltered in the opinion of the public and anything goes online and celebrities are idols of the public because everybody in politics and business is so venal and duplicitous as to be looked down upon. Hell, in the last election cycle Elon Musk and Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz burned whatever credibility they still had. The tech titans want to be able to operate unfettered and the public is concerned about privacy and abuse and there are two tiers in society, the overlords and the oppressed, and if you’re in the latter camp, your heroes are social media influencers and celebrities, at least there you believe your vote, your clicks, make a difference. But having said that, we’re evolving into a narcissistic society where only the self matters, it’s like we no longer live in a society but a country of lone oftentimes gunmen.

So, it’s nearly impossible to prove libel of a public figure in America.

The law is clear, the statements must be wrong and published with malicious aforethought.

In other words, the “New York Times” must have been lying with the intention of hurting Mr. Baldoni. Good luck with that.

But in truth this is not about legal court, today everything’s played out in the court of public opinion, you posture, you posit, and that’s what this case is all about.

Which I have been following tangentially. Blake Lively is entitled to make a living, but that does not mean I need to pay attention to her. That’s the world of today, we all live in our own niches and can ignore that which doesn’t interest us. But utilizing a public relations team in an effort to spin a situation to your advantage, that I’m interested in.

Now let’s play this out…

Each and every day people from around the world send me hate mail, or express their negative views of me on social media. Hell, the “WSJ” printed an article about me and the Swifties are out to get me.

That’s the price of doing what I’m doing.

Would I like the hate to go away? On some level yes, but without the hate I wouldn’t know how some people feel, and I need to, I need to take the temperature of the public to be able to do what I do. It’s the price of doing what I’m doing. If you don’t play, if you don’t post online, if you don’t endeavor in the public to some fame/notoriety, you’re immune.

Which is why the law of libel is different for private individuals.

But that’s not who we’re talking about here.

So Baldoni hires a bulldog of a lawyer, Bryan Freedman, who comes out with both guns blasting, believing that a strong offense is better than ever playing defense.

So the goal here is to get people to believe that Baldoni is innocent.

Because the odds of a case like this actually going to trial are de minimis (there’s a legal term for you!)

And the “Times,” unlike ABC, knows that its reputation and business are at stake. Once you do what’s efficient in the name of business…that doesn’t work in the media, because first and foremost you must have credibility, and you must make a stand so that frivolous actions in the future will be inhibited. The “Times” and most of the press have a long history of fighting libel lawsuits.

As for Donald Trump, he’s got a long history of suing the press. And it isn’t about the money, but spin. But now that he’s President…talk about a public figure, what does he want?

Well, he already got the WaPo and the L.A. “Times” to back down, both papers refusing to endorse a presidential candidate in the past election.

And it’s clear it was fear. After Trump got elected, seemingly every business titan/corporation kissed his ring and donated to his reelection campaign.

Is this the country we want to live in, where everybody is afraid to say what they choose?

Furthermore, the right wing trope is freedom of speech. Yeah, right.

Trump won fair and square. The Republicans control both houses of Congress. They’ve got the power, let them rule. And if they cross the line, we’ve got the legal system to stop them…

You can speak all day long as to whether the lawsuits against Trump were frivolous, but when the Supreme Court narrows the legal system’s ability to prosecute Trump…our whole system caves.

We have a system of laws and they must be obeyed.

Do Baldoni and Freedman truly care about the law? I sincerely doubt it. They can drop this lawsuit whenever they want. The odds of it going to court… As far as the “Times” suing Baldoni for malicious prosecution…it’s expensive and hard to prove and most people forgo this effort.

This is big money and famous people.

Which is why if you’re a member of the hoi polloi you’re essentially powerless against the man. You’ve got the RIGHT to sue, but can you AFFORD IT?

We need a strong press. Let’s talk about the freedom of the press, not freedom of speech. And all these social media companies, they’re private corporations, they can restrict speech however they want. But Musk wants to intimidate them to do otherwise. And Trump proved the point by establishing Truth Social. You can start a social media outlet to purvey your thoughts and write the rules as you see fit. Elon took over Twitter/X and if you can’t see the changes, you’re not on it.

Who is going to keep people in line if the press is hobbled?

The corporations have caved, under the rubric of possibly losing money, as if that’s the only thing they’re’ involved in, as if these companies don’t employ humans and sell to humans.

The press’s job is to keep politicians and business people honest. They’re the last line of defense. Which is why it’s so hard to sue for libel and win!

And once we get rid of the rules, once people are intimidated to the point where the laws don’t matter, we’re screwed.

The “Times” is standing up for you.

But you’ve excoriated the “Times” to the point where the paper is considered the enemy, by those on both the right and the left.

This is the world we live in today, where there’s no truth. And if someone tries to tell the truth, you undercut their bona fides.

This is not the world we want to live in.

But this is the one those with power and influence are creating.

Beware.

He played live when everybody else was canned.

Only Netflix seems to have it right tonight, with their roast of 2024, albeit launched days before. This is the irreverence MTV traded on, but we haven’t had that spirit here since…

1989.

You could see the endless parade of hitmakers on various channels. Dancing in the rain. Believing this one performance will put them over the top, after all where else can you reach so many people?

If you had a hit, you got a slot.

Or you could be tuned into CNN where Andy Cohen and Anderson Cooper were doing an act so tired, I wondered who was actually tuning in. Enough with the inside jokes, it was like watching a bad podcast live.

As for Ryan Seacrest… Talk about white bread, if he offended anybody he’d die. This guy is so bland, so perfect for an America that doesn’t exist, that network executives hire him to play it safe. Eegads.

And they still call it “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve”? Well, there ain’t much rock and Dick’s been six feet under for years. Who is tuning in because it’s got Dick Clark’s name/imprimatur? The people who remember “American Bandstand” are already asleep, or turning their hearing aids down when they hear this modern music.

But on the Nashville show…

They had to pair Keith Urban with someone from ET. That’s “Entertainment Tonight” for all of you not conscious in the eighties. Talk about buying insurance that will never pay off. I had no idea who that woman was, I had to look it up.

And if you knew every act on every channel you probably work for a major label, you’re the only one who cares.

And then they throw it to Chris Stapleton.

Why does Nashville’s most credible artist deign to appear on this dreckathon?

Well, he got away with it by doing it his way.

Chris started “White Horse”…picking out notes on his guitar. You could see it, but even more you could hear it, because live sounds different from canned, for the same reason that Netflix’s “Torching 2024” doesn’t work tonight, it’s canned.

So Chris and his wife and his band are playing in a bar and it sounds imperfect. But you get it, the vibe, because you’ve been there, at the show. Therefore, it resonated, it was human. Everybody else was playing with a net, afraid to fail, but not Stapleton.

Even if they sing live, like at the Super Bowl, they mix it in with a prerecorded track, you can’t risk a screw up when everybody’s paying attention.

Or can you?

I mean I heard/saw a few hits tonight. That Teddy Swims song, it’s a banger. And Zach Top connected too. But no one on the flat screen connected like Chris Stapleton.

Call it country, but it’s really rock and roll. It’s got the ethos the hair bands gave up on in the eighties, there was no spandex, no Ozempic, just humanity.

It looked like Chris was having a beer and then popped on stage. He concentrated on the music, not the camera, because after all, that’s what it’s all about, THE MUSIC!

Stapleton didn’t have the best sounding performance, but he had the most honest, the most credible, so he won the night.

This is what happens when you listen to your inner tuning fork as opposed to what the suits tell you, when you ignore conventional wisdom and do it your way.

What did the producers of “Seinfeld” say, “No hugging, no learning”?

And that’s why “Seinfeld” was a blockbuster, turning Jerry and his offbeat compatriot Larry David into billionaires.

There were only a handful of episodes the first year, the series was called “The Seinfeld Chronicles.” The suits were dubious. But then the audience caught on…

Just like they did with “Breaking Bad.” It had been on TV for years, but then when it moved to Netflix, the general public caught on.

Chris Stapleton is 46. He’s been around the block. And it’s not like he’s ever denied his roots, started dancing, making disco music. It just took this long for the public to catch on.

You can also argue it took this long for Stapleton to find his groove.

In a business where if you’re over thirty and haven’t had a hit you’re not even considered.

So Stapleton’s performance tonight contained no show business, no climax, no flourish, it was straightforward, with peaks. It was the same one you get at the arena or the stadium…where Stapleton now gigs, that’s how big the demand is.

When Spotify Top 50 acts can barely sell a ticket.

Stapleton is the way out.

But it’s too difficult for most people. They don’t want to put in the time to learn how to play and they don’t have the pipes and they can’t write…

But they want to be stars, they want to be brands, they want all the perks.

And the intermediaries, the middlemen, they’ve got narrow criteria. In the sixties the acts took the power from the labels, in the nineties, with so much money at risk, Tommy Mottola took back the power. As for the self-promoting huckster Clive Davis…all those hits, how many are forever, NOT MANY!

I know you’re a believer, I know you’re looking for something that speaks directly to you, straight into your heart. And you listen and listen and can’t find it.

Well, just tune in Chris Stapleton. No flash, just music.

Stapleton did it his way tonight and won.

He got out on the high wire without a net and didn’t blink, and therefore we were entranced.

More like this PLEASE!

The biggest business story of the past year is not artificial intelligence, but the success and proliferation of the Chinese car industry.

If you’re following the latest AI news… The industry is running out of data to train its systems on. Promised breakthroughs are being pushed into the future. AI is a sexy subject, whose mania is primarily based on fear (isn’t it funny that we no longer hear about restricting AI?) Are the machines here to replace us? Well, right now they can’t always get it right and there are debates as to how much they will aid productivity and…

Chinese cars have obliterated their competitors in their home country and are now invading the rest of the world, decimating other companies in their wake.

Meanwhile, all we hear from western governments is protection, taxes, but the auto manufacturers themselves want to compete, it’s the only way they can survive. Many have invested heavily in electric cars and if the public doesn’t start buying them in quantity, they’re in trouble.

So, electric cars are kinda like digital photography. It was coming, it was coming, but it never arrived, Kodak continue to triumph and then in what seemed no longer than a year, the switch flipped. Ditto on personal computers… They were around for years, no one saw the need for them, and then the killer app came along known as AOL and everybody had to own a computer to play online.

Note. Nothing is forever. All those independent computer manufacturers of the late nineties, the kids in the basement constructing PCs out of parts, that’s history. Just like the hardware rage of the first decade of this century, with the iPod and iPhone and… Today it’s all about software. As Marc Andreessen claimed, software is eating the world.

And software is running your car. And VW, with a head start, still can’t get its software right.

Now there are some that say Chinese car manufacturers got incentives and support from their government. The devil is in the details. I read something in the WSJ claiming the opposite. But that’s all history, now the cars have arrived.

And sure, western manufacturers had their technology “stolen” as the price of entering China, they had to operate with Chinese corporations, and now China knows how to build cars, but when it comes to EVs, they’re ahead of the pack. We can debate whether Tesla has better software, but in truth Chinese manufacturers update their models at light speed, oftentimes in a year, whereas we’re still purchasing (or not purchasing), Elon Musk’s S3XY originals to this day (along with the loved/hated Cybertruck, which has not met sales expectations).

Now America may ultimately be saved because of Musk’s power over Trump. Trump flipped on H-1B visas, as he should have. In truth, by restricting immigration, America has fostered tech innovation in Asia. All those South Asian engineers who couldn’t stay in America, they’ve become entrepreneurs in India. So maybe Musk will have Trump proselytizing about electric cars.

But right now myopic Americans are unaware of how good Chinese cars are. However if you’re on the dreaded social media, you’ll see them. And wow!

And it’s not only EVs, it’s hybrids too. You’d want one, if one were available.

It’s akin to the Japanese car invasion of the seventies. Seen as junk in the late sixties, by the end of the decade the perception had flipped. Japanese cars were more reliable than those from Detroit, they lasted longer. Remember when the debate was whether Toyota would eclipse General Motors as the world’s biggest car producer? Well, that battle is long in the rearview mirror.

But the difference here is Japan just did a better job of what Detroit was already doing, whereas China is doing something brand new.

As a matter of fact, Toyota is behind the 8-ball. In pursuit of profits Toyota pushed EV development down the line, and now the company is playing catch-up.

And the big news recently is the merger of Honda and Nissan. Honda? One of the most revered automakers in America? People swear by their Hondas. Nissan might have issues, but Honda?

They both have issues, they can’t compete with the Chinese. They’re combining for efficiency and the resources needed to create the cars of the future.

And the Honda Nissan tie-up has been all over the business pages of the mainstream media.

However the mainstream media has been excoriated to the point where most of the public is uninformed on major issues, they’re in their silos, only hearing news that makes them feel good.

Saving coal? It’s already been decimated. Energy companies have moved on.

And sure, the libs were the first to buy electric cars, but all the negative press about EVs in America is only hurting us.

We cannot go backward, we can only go forward to compete. Never mind that China has so many people. And the EU is on the forefront of tech regulation, and they don’t always get it right, but at least they’re looking at the problem.

We’ve become moribund in America, involved in our petty wars. About language, labels, DEI… And I’m not saying these are not important issues, but our population agrees on more than it disagrees on, and we need to be brought together so we can fight the challenges of the twenty first century.

Our nation needs to invest, support big tech and other industrial companies. Otherwise, our companies are going to be decimated, like the steel industry in the last century. We can whine all day long about Chinese government incentives, but you can’t argue with reality, the juggernaut that is the Chinese car industry, based on EVs and hybrids.

We need to return to the days of the space program that put a man on the moon, with its attendant technological breakthroughs.

We might need more government, not less. In order to compete.

You’ll be driving an electric car, it’s just a matter of when. As a matter of fact, if you truly wanted to support America, you’d buy an electric car today, hopefully from GM or Ford, who don’t want the Trump government to go back to the past with gas mileage rules, they can see the future, and it’s turning Chinese!

America may be the greatest country in the world, but it’s not the only country in the world, and it’s not number one in every category.

If we truly want to make America great again we will forgo that canard of returning to the past and take a great leap forward.

Otherwise, you’ll soon be driving a BYD.

Which most people have never even heard of.

But they’ve heard of Warren Buffett, who invested in the company.

We need a national reset of the mind. We can’t be afraid of the future, we’ve got to embrace it. ALL OF US!