With midterm elections just days away, America finds itself in a moment of extreme anger and polarization. The New York Times’ analysis reveals that the phrase “Civil War” has exploded in online use, demonstrating the divisive and inflammatory nature of social media. Tristan Harris, co-founder of the Center for Humane Technology, argues that these platforms are not only reflecting society’s divisions but are actually exacerbating them by rewarding and promoting anger and outrage. He points out that the more divisive and inflammatory the language used, the more it is shared and liked, reflecting the supercharging of our worst instincts.
Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt adds that the invention of the like, share, and retweet features a decade ago have exponentially increased the virality and explosiveness of online content. This has given rise to a small but vocal extreme on both the right and the left, dominating the conversation and silencing the moderate majority. In academia, professors and students alike are afraid to express controversial views for fear of retaliation or intimidation.
Tristan Harris further highlights the dangerous influence of social media on young people, especially with addictive platforms like Tik Tok, which have the potential to alter societal values for generations to come. These platforms, driven by profit and engagement, have become the privatized version of societal participation, shifting the meaning of social involvement from civic engagement to online activity.
Overall, the 60 Minutes episode outlines how social media’s addictive and anger-inducing nature has hijacked our attention and deeply polarized and misguided democratic discourse. The documentary serves as a timely warning of the harmful impact of social media on our faith in democracy and the potential threats to national security and societal values.
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With midterm elections in just two days America is in a very angry moment Republicans attack Democrats and Democrats return fire social media is a Showcase of our anger an analysis by the New York Times this fall found that online use of the phrase Civil War has exploded now leading voices in Academia
And Tech are saying that rather than simply reflecting the polarization in society platforms like Facebook and Twitter are helping to create it 60 Minutes first met Tristan Harris in 2017 the co-founder of the center for Humane technology argued that social media platforms were addicting us to maximize profit now he’s warning they
Are generating billions by making us angry the more moral outrageous language you use the more inflammatory language contemptuous language the more indignation you use the more it will get shared so we are being rewarded for being division entrepreneurs the better you are at innovating a new way to be
Divisive we will pay you in more likes followers and retweets in his 20 documentary the social dilemma Tristan Harris made the case that social media platforms have hijacked our attention now he cites a new study of Twitter showing that attacking political opponents is almost guaranteed to draw attention each individual term referring
To your political outgroup increase the odds of that post being retweeted or re-shared by 67% you’re outgroup being your opponents people the other side yeah exactly these platforms are they not just reflecting who we are and what we think and the divisions that are already there they’re
Supercharging a 100 or a thousand times to one the worst parts of ourselves here’s an example from the day the Department of Justice released a photo showing classified documents in former president Donald Trump’s Florida home a tweet highlighting a straight news story on the subject received received about
2,000 likes but a tweet from a republican congresswoman calling Trump’s opponents dumb asses was liked 10 times as much and a tweet from the left labeling Donald Trump a traitor was liked 20 times more the straight news story you know got retweeted a couple of times right the angry stories
Exponentially more TR exactly exactly and Harris says anger skews the political landscape why is it that the world knows more about Marjorie Taylor green than they know about all the other hundreds of congressional candidates it’s because the enraging inflammatory stuff goes the most viral we are tribal
Creatures who love to do US versus them and we’re now learning to coexist with a technology that tries to force that down our throat that tries to make us angry all the time Jonathan height is a social psychologist and professor at nyu’s Stern School of Business in studying
Social media platforms drive to keep us glued to our devices and to their ads he traces our current troubles to the invention of the like share and retweet features a decade ago these changes in the technology that made everything much more viral and explosive it’s as though it gave
Everybody a dart gun it’s like it gave everybody the ability to complain attack criticize anyone at any time in a very short space with no need for evidence no accountability height says the people most likely to fire their social media dart guns are those on the far right and
The far left and what percentage of the population are they it’s about seven or 8% on each side that’s it yeah that’s right so the extremes have been handed the power to dominate even though they are fewer in number that’s right exactly the moderate majority height says is
Either exhausted or in intimidated it’s what I called structural stupidity that is you have very smart people Highly Educated highly intelligent but you put them in a situation in which dissent is punished severely and what happens they go silent and when when the moderates or when anyone is afraid to question the
Dominant view the organization the institution gets stupid take the case of Ronald Sullivan a professor at Harvard Law School who was also the faculty dean of Winthrop house and an undergraduate residence hall in January 2019 Sullivan joined Harvey Weinstein’s sexual assault defense team under the principle that
Every accused criminal is entitled to a robust defense so at Harvard some students objected now great let them object to Ron Sullivan defending Harvey Weinstein that’s what you should do in in school you should make an argument and then he can answer back that would be great but that’s not what happened
What happened was that a Harvard undergrad demanded in a Facebook post that Sullivan step down as Dean calling his defense of Weinstein deeply trauma-inducing for sexual assault victims the students use a discourse a dialogue of he is dangerous his presence near me is threatening to me within a few months
Harvard responded by removing Sullivan as dean of the residence hall it’s not just professors on the Fire line in a recent survey more than half of college students said they’re afraid to express views on political and social issues in the classroom as a professor what do you do I just avoid controversial topics
Really yes isn’t that what college is for it used to be Tristan Harris says the intimidation and anger cut across political lines I think the deepest like perverse thing about these platforms is that they have captured the meaning of social participation in society that they’ve colonized and privatized that
Social participation means I’m on Tik Tok I’m on Instagram I’m on Facebook and competition is fierce among those platforms for our attention and for the advertising dollars that attention generates Facebook isn’t saying let me make design decisions that are going to strengthen democracy they’re saying how
Do I evolve the product in a direction that will get more engagement from people cuz if I don’t do that I’m just going to lose to the companies that do companies like Tik Tok companies like Tik Tok and Tik Tok has become like one of the most popular apps around the entire
World Tik Tok has done that by serving up an addictive mix of short videos some are silly others overtly political it’s owned by a Chinese company called bite dance and Harris says the version that serves to Chinese consumers called doen is very different from the one available in the West in their version
Of Tik Tok if you’re under 14 years old they show you science experiments you can do at home Museum exhibits patriotism videos and educational videos and they also limit it to only 40 minutes per day now they don’t ship that version of Tik Tok to the rest of the
World so it’s almost like they recognize that that Technologies influencing kids development and they make their domestic version a spinach version of Tik Tok while they ship the Opium version to the rest of the world the version served to the West has kids hooked for hours at a
Time the impact Harris says is predictable there’s a survey of pre-teens in the US and China asking what is the most aspirational career that you want to have and the US the number one was influencer social media influencer and in China the number one was astronaut again you allow those two
Societies to play out for a few Generations I can tell you what your world is going to look like Tik Tok tells us it gives American users tools to limit screen time but those tools are entirely voluntary and National Security concerns have triggered new calls this
Past week for Tik Tok to be banned in the US Twitter points out that it asks users to think twice before sharing potentially harmful posts but within days of buying Twitter Elon Musk tweeted a conspiracy theory about the attack on speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband it was later deleted and Facebook says it has
Cut the overall amount of political content that its 240 million American users see Monica bicker is its head of content policy most people on Facebook don’t want to see political content they are following what’s happening in the live of their family and friends and sharing the moments from their lives and
Bickard says Facebook does take steps to downplay the angriest posts can you find Angry political content online you can can you walk into uh the average family’s Thanksgiving dinner and hear people having an angry political conversation you can Tristan Harris says that all the social media platforms are making those conversations even more
Heated what I think there’s been a failure to recognize is the direct conflict between an engagement for profit business model and what’s good for democracy another way you could say it is that the business model is to ruin Thanksgiving dinner we are as divided as
I can remember in my lifetime yeah a lot of people will say well hold on a second partisanship and division we’ve had that in many times throughout history always that’s true also has partisanship in television and radio pre-existed social media yes have we ever wired up the most powerful artificial intelligence in the
World pointed at your brain stem to show you the most enraging content on a daily basis and the longer you scroll the more you get we have never done that before Facebook’s Monica bickard insists it’s just wrong to blame it for America’s anger also if we look at who’s becoming
More polarized in the United States the greatest increase is among people over the age of 65 and they are the least likely to be using social media many people watching us will say well I don’t use social media why should I care about this but we’re all Downstream from social media
Affecting television affecting radio affecting journalism more and more of Journalism is about covering the outrage exchange of what happened on Twitter Harris believes the best path to reform would be strict government regulation of social media platforms or at least a requirement that they be more transparent now Facebook will tell you
That they’re all about transparency now that’s not convincing they publish reports that they Define what the metrics are and it’s like grading your own homework you Harris has launched an online course which aims to give people working in Tech the tools to push for reform from within and what can an
Individual user do Jonathan height says simply refuse to be Gladiators in the Coliseum of social media you can’t win a war on social media just don’t engage don’t engage in the public battles because that’s just feeding the Beast you don’t mean disengage from the political process you you mean just
Disengage from these platforms yes when public discourse was moved into the middle of the Roman Coliseum I’m saying disengage from that walk out of the Coliseum and still be politically active Tristan Harris says real change may have to be forced in court I think we have to
Do with social media what happened with big tobacco What stopped big tobacco was that the Attorneys General in different states that’s right actually went after them the Attorneys General in big tobacco had an enormous role to play in litigating that there was harms to people and their families is that what
It’s going to take with I think that’s what it’s going to take social media yes and we’re seeing Attorneys General move already one step in that direction Attorneys General in at least eight states are coordinating a nationwide investigation of social media platforms we now know that there’s all these Harms
In social media products designed for engagement we’ve done it before we did it with seat belts we’ve done it with big tobacco we’ve taken lead out of gasoline we have made these changes once we recognize that certain products were toxic for us we can do it again it’s the vote that holds America
Together belief that with a ballot voices are heard disputes are addressed and there’s always another chance countries without this belief tend to be in bondage or at War election day is coming but Across America believe is under attack politicians who say the 2020 election was stolen are running for
Governor in 19 States Attorney General in 10 and in 12 States election deniers are running for Secretary of State which would give them power over elections after two years of Investigations and audits no fraud or error has been found in any state that would change the 2020 outcome but in
2020 2 spreading doubt has been key to an endorsement from Donald Trump no state has been more deeply Riven by this than Arizona where a split in the GOP has Republicans on opposite sides of a Grand Canyon on one side of the Arizona Chasm stands Rusty Bowers a lifelong
Republican and artist who became Arizona’s Speaker of the House Bowers told told us he was disappointed when Joe Biden won so when President Trump and Rudy Giuliani called after the election he was listening first Rudy started said well there’s been a lot of fraud all across the country and
In Arizona and then he listed off large numbers in categories that would be illegal dead people stolen ballots kind of Bowers says Giuliani wanted him to hold a vote to revoke Biden’s electors and I said but Rudy I want the proof you’re going to give me the proof and he
Said yes so Giuliani and co-counsel Jenna Ellis flew out to meet Bowers you left the meeting with Rudy Giuliani thinking what uh that I wasn’t happy I said okay Time Out Mr Giuliani you said you were going to bring me some proof names Etc of all of these people
Did you bring me the proof he looked at Jenna Ellis and he said um do we have the proof and she said yes we do do you have it with you uh no no I where is it well it might be back at the hotel room
And I said I ask you for the proof you said you’d bring it you’re not bringing it you’re asking me to break my oath and make up something to pull electors and and replace electors which has never been done in the history of the unit United States and I’m going to
Try that on my state without Bowers Giuliani found an ally willing to call the vote criminal Arizona state representative Mark fincham it’s exceedingly hard for me to place a label on what we’ve heard other than racketeering good oldfashioned mobster racketeering we caught between the four weeks after Mr
Trump’s defeat finum held an unofficial offal hearing featuring Giuliani difficult a conspiracy that was hatched by the Crooked leaders of the democratic party a day of allegations without credible evidence ended with this when Satan wants to extinguish a light he will stop at nothing so be on your guard put on the
Full armor of God and be prepared to fight Mark fincham fought and now the 65 year- old former police officer is the Republican nominee for Arizona Secretary of State which would give him authority over elections ladies and gentlemen we know it and they know it Donald Trump
Won but Mark berovic does not know it he’s Arizona’s Republican attorney general who’s investigated for 2 years and has a word for claims of fraud horse and that’s what it is most of it’s horse and I’ve been trying to scrape scrape it off my shoes for the last year berovic
Supported Trump who called him with advice he goes all you got to do is say the election’s fraudulent and you will be a superstar you’ll be the most popular guy in America and I told him I said Mr President I didn’t become Attorney General to be a star I brought
My star with me and I don’t need anybody whether it’s the former president or any other person validating what I’m doing and why I’m doing it what he’s doing is bringing indictments in every 2020 vote fraud case that he can back with evidence altogether to date from the
General election Arizona has indicted 12 defendants in cases involving a total of 12 ballots 12 Statewide Biden won Arizona by 10,000 there is no one in this country that wanted to find evidence of fraud more than I did but I thought it was important to systematically go through
And say no this is the facts this is the evidence Everyone’s entitled to their own opinions but when you’re an actual prosecutor when you’re the actual government um there’s a higher obligation you can’t afford to be sloppy in addition to beric’s investigations in 2021 the Republican Le State Senate
Audited Phoenix’s Maricopa County home to 60% of the state vote the audit was done by a company that had never audited an election the audit’s hand recount confirmed Joe Biden won but its report also raised questions about discrepancies it found those questions were answered online in detail by Maricopa County still widespread fraud
Is Mark fincham’s charge when you to steal something that’s not really a win that’s a fraud that was in Washington the day before the attack on the capital which finchum describes this way this entire j6 crap was manufactured to create a narrative that there was an assault on the
Capital this fits into the Marxist ideology of how do you go to one party rule today finchum is running neck and neck with his Democratic opponent Adrien fontis who helped lead the 2020 election in Maricopa County we are far too divided away from each other based on lies and
Conspiracies and we as election administrators across Arizona have to do a better job showing folks that the system is quite good I’d like to see uh a world where it’s easy to vote but hard to cheat we asked finchum for credible proof of fraud he raised not evidence
But those questions from the state senate audit next finam told us about a mysterious postelection email which he featured in a rally where we had a whistleblower who sent an email not just to the doj but to every single legislator saying there’s 34 35,000 fictitious voters and they’ve been inser
System where you’ll never find them well we believe we found them in the email finchum speaks of a Brian Watson said Democrats added bogus votes electronically in Pima County the writer had no evidence asked not to be contacted and closed his email account why would you give this any
Credence again it’s an open question I want to know was there a possibility that this happened now we’ve now proven that it happened Scott how so we’ve got two precincts that show over 100% of the people registered to vote in that Precinct voted that is an undeniable
Fact but it is deniable by Pima County which says no Precinct had more votes than voters another of fincham’s frequent points concerns a pair of indictments we have for example in Yuma County ballot harvesting and votes I me we’ve got people who were indicted for the very
Thing that we’re talking about right now who plad guilty and frankly those votes altered the outcome of Yuma County Yuma County we’ve actually had indictments and people that have pled guilty to ballot trafficking how many ballots were involved I don’t know off the top of my
Head it’s four okay whether it’s four or 4,000 doesn’t matter it wasn’t the presidential election it was a primary doesn’t matter it’s a defect in the system a minuscule defect two women in Yuma County pleaded guilty to collecting four ballots and dropping them in a Ballot Box it’s against state law to
Deposit a ballot that isn’t yours or your family’s it’s four ballots in a primary in that instance in that instance you have a bigger one well we’ve got information that’s been turned over to the Attorney General’s office and you say that there was nothing there okay then I’m gonna have to live with
That but do I know for a fact that there were other ballot trafficking operations around the country and some in Arizona yeah I do name one Yuma County 25,000 ballots what happened same fingerprints on those ballots for five individuals so where’d that go where’s that evidence I know
It’s been turned over uh to the Attorney General’s office I know that the FBI field office actually did the prince that’s false according to the FBI Yuma County told told us that no one in law enforcement fingerprinted 25,000 ballots finchum often says that evidence is with attorney general berovic implying that
Something big is coming in fact he has a mountain of evidence it’s sitting in his office but berovic told us his investigation is essentially over we as prosecutors deal in facts and evidence and I’m not like the clowns that throw stuff against the wall and see what
Sticks clowns clowns did I say that yes I think that there were a lot of clowns out there that um they saw what they wanted to see what is that Simon Garfunkle line that a a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest
There was a lot of that going on it’s going on in the top Arizona races where the Republican for governor is a denier we had a fraudulent election a corrupt election and we have an illegitimate president sitting in the white house it’s it’s like a giant grift in some
Ways a grift A Swindle is what you’re saying yes all of these accusations the case in Yuma scaremongering the Brian Watson email scaremongering you called Arizona the epicenter of fraud it’s scare mongering it’s not the fraud that is breaking people’s faith in our elections it’s people like you so you say
But when we look at the violations of State Statute this is the epicenter of the problem Nationwide 190 election deniers are running for the US House look and 14 for the US Senate according to the Brookings institution Mark berovic lost his primary to a denier and so did Rusty
Bowers which may come as to relief don’t come over don’t come over post election Trump’s supporters and conspiracy Spinners laid Siege to Bowers home up to three times a week Rusty Bowers is a pedophile you go home he had to fend them off a man with a pistol demonstrators in their own armored
Car and at the state capital on January 6 2021 they came with rifles and a guillotine in Arizona when belief in the vote eroded this is what filled the void has the Republican party that you’ve known all your life been hijacked it’s a large group of them that is doing the
Hijacking I just don’t think it’s a majority its Effectiveness as a party and its legitimacy in public discourse is is grossly undermined by how they’ve acted in this state it was just days after the 2020 presidential election that lawyers supporting then president Donald Trump began spreading unsubstantiated claims
That an American company Dominion voting systems had rigged the election they said Dominion was backed by Venezuela and that its machines and software switch ions of votes from Donald Trump to Joe Biden they never showed any evidence but that didn’t stop prot Trump attorneys from making baseless claims or
Conservative news networks from giving them plenty of airtime Dominion has filed eight lawsuits seeking more than1 billion doll in Damages against Fox News and other networks corporations and individuals but Dominion CEO John pulos has remained largely silent until now we spoke with him about the lawsuits the
Lies and the irreparable damage he says they’ve caused to his company and his employees people have been put into danger their families have been put into danger their lives have been upended and all because of Lies it was a very clear calculation that they knew there were
Lies and they were repeating them and endorsing them it’s important to you people admit what they said was wrong it’s important to me it’s important to all the people whose families have been impacted by this Anderson my kids still are not allowed to get any package from
The front door uh until we verify that it’s actually from from a trusted sender you’re that concerned about somebody sending something to your house it’s not unfounded concern people have done that people have done this uh people are warning that they will continue to do this for John pulos and his company the
Trouble began 5 days after the election when Fox Business host Maria bomo brought up Dominion with attorney Sydney Powell Sydney we talked about the Dominion software I know that there were V voting irregularities tell me about that that’s to put it mildly the computer glitches could not and should
Not have happened in at at all those that is where the fraud took place where they were flipping votes in the computer system or adding votes that did not exist Sydney Powell was never able to show fraud but she was repeatedly invited back on Fox networks as was the president’s personal attorney Rudy
Giuliani who also wo a false narrative about smart mic an election technology company which is now suing Giuliani Fox News and others smart mic is a company that was formed by three Venezuelans who were very close to um very close to the dictator Chavez of Venezuela and it was
Formed in order to fix elections uh that’s the that’s the company that owns Dominion does Smart mtic own dominion no we are we do have a relationship we we are competitors were you associated with the late Hugo Chavez absolutely not do you use a Venezuelan Company software that’s been used to
Steal elction in other countries absolutely not Anderson I can I can cut all of this short uh we were founded in Toronto which is where my family was from and and there was nothing to do with Venezuela can you flip votes in the computer system can you add votes that did not
Exist absolutely not president Trump first mentioned Dominion in a tweet November 12th and recorded this video a few weeks later which was posted on Facebook we have a company that’s very suspect its name is Dominion with the turn of a dial or the change of a chip
You can press a button for Trump and the vote goes to Biden what kind of a system is this we have to go to paper maybe it takes longer but the only secure system is paper why not just have paper ballots we do have paper ballots what the machines do
Is they count those paper ballots uh in a way that makes it very easy for people to verify after the fact through the means of audits and recounts Dominion makes two types of machines one is called a ballot marker it’s a touchscreen device that a voter can use
To mark their choices and then print the ballot the second machine is a scanner that reads that paper ballot counts the vote and immediately stores the ballot securely a voter takes a paper ballot they’ve made their marks however they make their marks depending on the jurisdiction as they deposit it into The
Ballot Box it goes through a digital scanner and then drops into The Ballot Box so how do you hack a paper ballot with our system he showed us how it works this is the scanner that sits a to a locked and sealed Ballot Box This Is How They cast their ballot goes through
A scanner and now we have an image of the ballot that we just cast and we have the paper ballot that is used for recounts John pulo says it was watching the presidential recounts in Florida in 2000 with those arguments over hanging Chads that got him interested in
Improving how paper ballots were marked and counted he was an engineer working at a startup in Silicon Valley and began looking at ways to make it easier to recount paper ballots and to help people with disabilities vote without assistance our goal was to allow any voter to make their marks on a paper
Ballot in a very clear unambiguous way um regardless of physical ability John pulos is Canadian and founded Dominion in 2002 he remains its chief executive though it was acquired by an American Investment Group in 2018 Dominion is based in Denver do you ever think to yourself I got into this
To help paraplegics and blind people vote more easily and look what what happened uh I think about it all the time Dominion is one of three companies that make most of the voting systems in America in the 2020 presidential election their machines were in 28 states red States and blue on Election
Day in a Precinct are your machines hooked up to the Internet no not by not by any stretch we go through a number of uh certifications government certifications and and the first one is at a federal level so those standards mandate that election systems such as
Ours are designed to work in a closed system air gapped no internet in all the major swing states of 2020 there are paper ballots backing up not only are the paper ballots um that make up the official record those paper ballots have been handc counted and audited over a
Thousand times on just the 2020 election recounts and audits in the swing states of Georgia Arizona Michigan Pennsylvania and Nevada all confirm dominions results more than 60 lawsuits around the country challenging the election by Trump or his supporters were ultimately withdrawn or failed in Georgia there have been three recounts
Two electronic ones and one hand recount in front of cameras bipartisan pole pole Watchers and thousands of local residents across the state of Georgia and it once again reaffirmed the results that should have put an end to all of it um but it the lies persisted and so have
Incidents of harassment and threats against John pulos and and his employees every single person at Dominion is going to end up in an orange jumpsuit in handcuffs you whes you cheating pigs yeah good afternoon scumbags we’re gonna blow your building up piece of sh I
Don’t wish to sit here and and say that this is something that happened 18 months ago this is something that continues to happen every single day for us last Friday we had an office on lockdown um two days prior to that I was on a phone call with one of our
Employees who’s a mother of two um very upset and crying it’s hard to talk about had something been said to her personally a very disgusting death threat in detail received on her personal cell phone it’s completely and utterly surreal none of these lies have been substantiated to to any extent they
Every single one of them has been debunked Chris Krebs was director of the cyber security and infrastructure Security Agency charged with protecting the 2020 election he called it the most secure election in American history and Days Later was fired by President Trump he now has a cyber consulting firm and
Is a contributor for CBS News we showed him a press conference held two days after his firing at the headquarters of the Republican National Committee when Rudy Giuliani s Sydney Powell and others continued their attacks on Dominion machines and software it can set and run an algorithm that probably ran all over
The country to take a certain percentage of votes from president Trump and flip them to President Biden do you remember watching that yeah I tweeted about it immediately afterwards I think I said something along the lines that that was the most insane and dangerous 45 minutes of TV in you know American history
Effectively how secure was the 2020 election let me put it this way it was the most litigated it was the most scrutinized it was the most audited this election was put through the ringer from so many different directions and what what I tend to like to say is you know
Don’t listen to me listen to Bill bar Bill bar said it he was then the Attorney General of the United States this is what Bill Bart later said to the January 6 committee these claims on the Dominion voting machines and they were idiotic claims I saw absolutely Z zero
Basis for the allegations but they were made in such a sensational way that they obviously were influencing a lot of people Dominion began alerting Fox News and other networks of the false allegations they were broadcasting November 12th 4 days after Sydney Powell first discussed Dominion with Maria bomo
But Dominion says Fox News never retracted their reporting you gave them a lot of chances to correct their statements they still haven’t corrected them to me that’s the most powerful part of the complaint Lee LaVine is a First Amendment attorney who’s litigated cases for 40 years on behalf of most media
Companies including CBS and fox he’s retired now but his old firm is currently representing CNN and me in a separate matter filed by attorneys who also represent Dominion in its cases against Fox News and others take the fox case for example uh November 12th seems
To me to be the key date in that case because that’s the day that Dominion started on a regular basis sending information sheets to every producer on every show at Fox that was having Sydney Powell and Rudy Giuliani on saying here are the true facts here are links
Supporting uh our assertions that these are the true facts and then these people continued to invite Giuliani and Powell on their shows cases are hard to prove aren’t they yes they are the plan has to prove what the law calls actual malice you need to show basically that the
Defendant published or broadcast a deliberate lie a calculated falsehood they knew it was a lie when they broadcast it they knew it was a lie or they knew it was probably a lie how strong is Dominion’s case against Fox and the others I think it is much stronger than most defamation cases that
I have seen I might say it it is the strongest how many defamation cases have you seen I have litigated myself hundreds and I’m certainly aware of every significant defamation case in the last 40 years and this is the strongest one in my judgment in a statement to 60
Minutes fox said it’s confident it will prevail citing freedom of the press protections and stating it was reporting on a newsworthy allegation made by the then president an aired segment factchecking the allegations against Dominion Dominion is suing Fox News and its parent Corporation for $1.6 billion
Each and in its statement fox said that Dominion’s Financial demand is unsupported efforts by Fox News and other defendants to have the lawsuits dismissed have been rejected by the courts do you think that you can show not only that they lied but they knew that they were
Lying I I don’t even think I think that’s the easiest part you as a company told them specifically repeatedly we told them we told them in real time others told them government officials told them partisan government officials told them people inside uh the Trump Administration told them um local
Election officials on both sides of the aisle told them uh this is not a matter of not knowing the truth they knew the truth two years ago most Americans voted for Change and if the polls are to be believed they’re about to do it again in
The latest CBS News New York Times poll 80% said they want most incumbents out of Congress regardless of whether that incumbent is a democrat or a republican there is a grim mood among people who were counting on a recovery that’s now fallen flat the economists who decide
Such things say that the Great Recession ended back in June of 2009 but since then we’ve lost another half million jobs which helps explain why there is so much anger in the land we saw a lot of it right in the middle of the country among the people who’ve endured the
Recession longer than anyone what surprised you the most about this recession I think the depth of it and the length of it I think what surprised me the most about this one is it just doesn’t want to end you know the economists say that the recession’s over really should come to Newton
Iowa lot years Dave mcnear’s advertising company is like a lot of small businesses it’s getting smaller Maxim advertising in Newton Iowa puts its customer logos on nearly anything and business had only grown for 22 years until 2007 and what was all of this um this was filled mayag mayag mayag mayag
Mayag invented its washing machine in Newton 103 years ago 5,000 people worked for mayag here but Newton lost all of those jobs mayag was bought out and by 2007 the factory was closed many of the jobs went to Mexico no one knew it then but these were the opening days of the
Great Recession now layoffs that started with corporations are cascading into mom and pop shops how many employees did you have at the top 22 and today 10 do you remember the first person you had to lay off one of the very hardest days in my
Life uh my wife and I stayed up all night long we we we talked we prayed we we struggled and you know what man that’s that’s that’s a gut-wrenching feeling you hate it I hate it and I never wanted to have to do it again I wonder when you look forward now
What you think about rehiring people when we hire somebody we’re we’re we’re definitely going to need him I mean we’re not going to hire one person until we need two or three and we’re probably not going to hire two until we need four or five and that’s why the recovery is
Lifeless big and small businesses have settled into doing more with fewer people you ask people to step it up and and you know work harder work longer make less is it sort of a new normal I think for now it is take a quick look around Newton Gary
Forbes laid off half of his 60 employees closed two locations and switched from selling top Quality Furniture to scratched and dented website designer Cindy runer laid off six of her 14 employees this was the Chrysler dealer the Chevy dealer the Tractor Supply Company since the recession we’ve seen a
Lot of troubled towns in the country but nothing that looks quite as broken as Newton even the local chapter of the Optimus Club has closed you know I want to tell everybody that we’re company town or the company left but we’re going to thrive Chaz Allen is the mayor of
This town of 15,000 people it’s a part-time job pays about $4,000 a year Allan walked us through an abandoned mayag plant that at its peak held 2500 Factory workers building washers and dryers if anyone out there is interested the mayor has more than 1.7 million
Square ft to rent it is available it is available make a good deal the mayor’s been trying to pull new jobs into town he made a run at Green energy and got a company that makes wind turban blades but every time he gets a few hundred
Jobs he seems to lose a few 100 this fall a telecom company called Windstream had two layoffs it was 60 and then it was 146 to next time how’s that affect people around here you know it’s it’s a roller coaster I I want to say that I
Mean I was affected in the first layoff I was one that one at the Windstream that was affected the first first round wait a minute yeah they laid off the mayor yeah uh are you working now no his town is shrinking this year they closed an elementary school and they’re
Slashing the city budget have you already lost policemen yes firemen yes what about the hospital in town it’s being reduced in size as well and that is the backdrop for Tuesday’s election in our national poll we asked what’s the most important issue in America 54% said
Jobs Healthcare came in second at 7 % only 1% said the war Newton’s congressional district is bipartisan country it voted for George Bush in 2004 and then for President Obama hi how you doing but now Democratic Congressman Leonard Boswell is fighting for his job he’s been reelected here six times but
This week his race against Republican Brad Zan is too close to call my wife and I watched the news last night and I I think every ad was a political who do you trust with your money with your future it’s not Brad zon Leonard Boswell too wrong for too long but incredibly
Bruce brilley supports building a musk at Ground Zero how much relevance does all of that have to you nothing doesn’t have a a bit of relevance to me we invited some of the folks in town to the Legion Hall how many of you would say that you’re angry about politics right
Now yes oh that got a big yes I’m sick and tired of people going to Congress and Washington DC and making a living out of it while we starve to death does it matter much to anyone in here whether the Republicans or the Democrats control the house for example no no does it
Matter no if a republican says it the Democrats don’t listen if the Democrats say it the Republicans don’t care what they’re saying what gets done in Washington what gets done at at the Iowa State House very little gets done I mean everything comes down to either abortion
Issues gay marriage issues there it it needs to go above and beyond that I don’t have a job that’s all I care about I don’t care about the Republicans or the Democrats I care about Newton Iowa the job situation the financial situation we went to the Foreclosure
Auction the other day nobody bid on anything nobody has any money help us um do something about the economy it’s um it’s really hard out here the economy is not spurring jobs Todd Meyer was laid off from the same Telecom company that laid off the mayor you served in the
Gulf War I did you were in the Navy yep in combat there yep USS George Washington and now you’re unemployed yes Meer and his wife Teresa are raising three kids their daughter Caitlyn is the first in the family to go to college I get emotional about it because it’s just
You know we never expected to be in this POS position but you know I look at my daughter and I just think how do I keep her in college it’s every parents dream to send their child to college especially if that parent didn’t have the same opportunity I’ve had this dream
Since I was really little and my parents have done everything they can and it’s just starting to get hard and I’m going to try and help out but it’s hard to see that dream slip away how many of you think that your children will enjoy the same standard of living that you
Did this worry pessimism really weighs on families who had seen a different future how many employees did you have at the peak 22 how many do you have now I’m down to seven half pepperoni half pineapple all right fantastic Scott Cree bought his own pizza franchise in Newton
21 years ago how many hours are you working last week it was 82 82 hours in a week correct how long can you do that uh until I die sales have slipped to a place that’s sometimes dangerous for his family once you get down around this
Area I may be able to file for f stands his wife Julie is working at a school to take some of the pressure off he’s 52 years old now and I worry about him every day his brother um died of a heart attack when he was in his 40s and I
Worry about that all the time hello everybody hi how are you his son Parker is 10 Cree comes home to put Parker in bed but then he heads back to the shop he washes up and closes up about 1:00 a.m. I wonder what the stress has been like for you I’ve been
Blessed you know you have guilt guilt about what you’d like to have that 8 to five job holidays off but you can’t do that now no Nationwide the number of small businesses going bankrupt each year has tripled since the recession there were 60,000 bankruptcies last year alone when you’re looking for the path
Out of this flat recovery there are a couple of things that strike you one small business businesses create most of the jobs in this country 65% of all new jobs but lending to small businesses is actually declining in the second quarter of this year lending to small businesses
And Farms dropped by $13 billion that’s nearly 2% so 3 years after the beginning of the Great Recession with interest rates the lowest they’ve ever been in history banks are lending less money to the engines that create jobs have you gone to the bank yeah that that that’s amazing cuz you
Know you you you hear stories about how lending is going to be more friendly and and you know and and you know even the president himself is is you know going to tell banks that they need to they need to to understand what businesses are going through there’s no banks the
Banks don’t understand anything they won’t loan me a dime and you went you went to the bank and they said what come back when you have a couple of good years behind you really cuz I won’t need you then they’ll offer money to to you
When you don’t need it but when you need it you can’t get it perfect okay we like to hear that here’s your Al y has been losing money at his jewelry store on the courthouse Square for a year and a half he makes a lot of his own jewelry and to
Try to match his customers falling income he switched from gold to Silver diamonds to beads his employees Darlene Swank and Tina koono even volunteered to cut their hours you’re going to have to let Tina and darling go it’s hard it’s hard do you remember when you had
To sit down and explain it to him yeah I talked to Darling first I didn’t have to say anything she knew you know she does her books and she knew and what did the books tell you help me understand you just can’t keep doing what you’re doing you
Um as hard as it is we tried his store closed this weekend more layoffs reduce demand which creates more layoffs change may be coming again to Washington but in Newton many believe the struggle will stay the same as family businesses work to steal Another Day from the Great Recession
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