Dispatches From Muckraker Lab: June 8, 2026
Rough Notes from Under the Hood of the Machine
Date Line: 06/08/2026
A few thoughts brought to you by a Dark & Stormy (with just a dash of bitters) and a torn rotator cuff…
If you were with us for Friday’s installment you witnessed an early attempt at what they call “lawfare,” or the use of the courts to harass, intimidate, or manipulate another party. That attempt, by provincial governor William Cosby in 1734 is a gross example that, sadly, could also come straight out of the United States in 2026.
This Friday we’ll talk about how one guy thought he could defeat it. Today, though, I want to state very clearly what lawfare is not. It seems there are more and more people out there who need to hear it.
You aren’t a victim of lawfare just because someone sues you. You aren’t a victim of lawfare if you are arrested for doing something bad but end up having charges dropped or being acquitted by a jury. You definitely aren’t a victim of lawfare if you are doing bad things, get caught doing bad things, have your picture taken doing bad things, have videos of you doing bad things run on the news over and over again, are either charged criminally or sued civilly on the basis of doing those bad things, are convicted or plead guilty to doing those bad things, serve time for doing those bad things, have your sentence for doing those bad things commuted, and then are given a job by the people on whose behalf you did those bad things.
You also aren’t a victim of lawfare because you sit for the bar exam, although if you push hard enough I’ll give you that one.
Classic lawfare, like we saw in New York province in 1734, often involves accusing someone of defamation which, as we’ll see Friday, was a lot easier to get away with before a couple guys named John Peter Zenger, Andrew Hamilton, and RIP VAN DAM came along.
And again, with modern defamation, it’s a little easier to tell you what it isn’t than to define what it is.
If you are a public figure it is not defamation for me to call you a moron. It is not defamation for me to call you a mutant. It is not defamation if someone says you sleep with farm animals. It is not defamation if someone says you are a lying, crooked, McDonald’s-assed, self-righteous delusional piece of shit. It isn’t defamation to say that you snatched children from their families like a kidnapper does if you have, in fact, snatched children away from their families like a kidnapper does.
It isn‘t defamation to say all of that, in part, because truth is a defense to defamation. It hasn’t always been that way though.
Tune in Friday to find out how it got this way.
Jem Bartholomew
This CJR article, published on April 20, is a little old at this point but does a nice job of laying out some of the recent cases brought by the regime to chill the speech and work of various journalists.
Susanna Granieri
I guess $10 million is a drop in the bucket to someone as obscenely and recklessly wealthy as Rupert Murdoch, but the notion that the money isn’t the point should be obvious when the target of the lawsuit is the living embodiment of what would happen if Scrooge McDuck and The Cryptkeeper had a baby and then put it in the microwave - which I can say because it, also, is not defamatory.
Come back Friday for the last installment in the Zenger trial and find out what happens when a swaggering rogue from Philly shows up to engage in some good old fashioned jury nullification.
In the meantime, this cup is empty and my shoulder hurts. So let’s just get to the good stuff, eh?
See you Friday. Don’t get captured.