Russian interference. Piss-tape kompromat. Montenegrin fake news factories. Shadowy billionaires on both sides of the political divide trying to ignite a culture war. There’s been one hell of an elaborate backstory contrived to explain the shock result of the 2016 US election, but a look through the lens of the National Enquirer suggests that some of it may have been a little more straightforward.
The criminal underworld of New York, the closed corridors of Washington, the magazine industry of Florida. They’re all very interesting – no question about that – but these aren’t regular people we’ve been talking about here. For the National Enquirer to cut any sway with millions of average American Joes, things would have to change. They’d have to go corporate. Which is where American Media, Inc. comes into play.
While mob boss Frank Costello gave the National Enquirer a connection to the less-reputable elements of society, in order to become a truly powerful publication it would need someone to introduce the Enquirer to the established corridors of power. Someone with the ear of a senator, an attorney general, a president. Which is exactly what it had in the rather lumpy shape of Roy Cohn.
Jack Monroe’s recent victory in the courts has landed Katie Hopkins with a pretty sizeable legal bill – one that dwarfs the actual cost of the damages awarded. How do legal bills get so big? And what are they actually paying for? We tried to find out…
If we sound like know-it-alls for telling Katie Hopkins what she should have done, it’s only because we learned the lesson ourselves – and we learned it the hard way. What can you expect if you ever try to pick up a fight with someone over a threat of defamation? Something like this…
And so, as it was foretold, Melania Trump has filed a defamation suit against the Daily Mail’s website MailOnline after it intimated that she was a whore. The man behind this case? Why, it’s our old pal, Charles J Harder – Attorney At Law!
Injunctions! What are they good for? Absolutely nothing – and this latest David Beckham fiasco has gone and proved the point once again. Highlighting yet more problems with the legal system as it stands, this is what happened…
David Beckham is currently in possession of an OBE: the same honour that was apparently afforded to Katherine Jenkins for “singing opera, visiting the troops and taking coke”. We didn’t realise they gave awards away for that sort of things, but it explains a hell of a lot about the rest of the people who have one…
Getting a knighthood isn’t all just charity work and greasing up to the right people. You have to live and breathe British values. So if David Beckham is so keen to become a knight of the realm, maybe he wants to follow the example of some of the people who have already been awarded one?
Few expected Gawker to win its case against Hulk Hogan at the start of 2016 after they published clips from his sex tape, but nobody expected them to get obliterated. Gawker’s bankruptcy started a worrisome chain reaction for press freedom in the States – one which now goes right the way to the top…