Brittany Mahomes has apparently finally woken as much as the fact that Donald Trump is a polarizing figure who likes to make use of harsh, hateful rhetoric against people she desires to demonize for political reasons or for her personal gain.

A report from the Daily Mail said the wife of Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes is rethinking her reported support of the Republican presidential candidate following his scathing public attack on her friend Taylor Swift.

Trump attacked the pop star on Sunday morning after she endorsed his Democratic opponent Kamala Harris immediately following his poor performance within the presidential debate on September 10. Trump wrote on his Truth Social Platform: “I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT.”

“She is questioning her support for Donald Trump after he attacked Taylor and said he hated her,” a source told the Daily Mail. “This has deeply upset Brittany because Taylor is like a sister to her and she has done absolutely nothing wrong.”

However, the source cautioned that the mother of two's change of heart toward Trump didn’t mean she was “suddenly voting for Kamala. It just made her more conscious of supporting him so publicly.”

Mahomes was embroiled in controversy late last month when fans noticed she allegedly liked one in every of Trump's Instagram posts outlining the GOP platform. Since then, she has been embraced by Trump supporters on their social media accounts, while the previous president personally thanked her for defending him and his MAGA agenda.

But Mahomes' apparent support for Trump is seen as a strain on her friendship with Swift, whom she met since the pop star is dating Travis Kelce, a great friend of her husband and teammate on the Chiefs.

Then got here Swift's endorsement of Harris. On Instagram, Swift wrote: “I'm voting for @kamalaharris because she fights for the rights and causes that I believe need a champion to represent them.” Swift's statement of support was accompanied by a photograph of her holding one in every of her cats. She signed her endorsement “Childless Cat Lady,” a pointy reference to the demeaning statements made by Trump's running mate JD Vance about women, cat owners, and other people without children.

Trump seems to enjoy risking the 2 women's friendship to tear them apart over their perceived political differences. A day after Swift announced her endorsement, he sang Mahomes' praises on Fox News, saying, “If you want to know the truth, I actually like Ms. Mahomes a lot better.” He also warned that the “liberal” Swift would “pay a price for that in the marketplace.”

But irrespective of how hard Trump could have tried, he has didn’t drive a wedge between the 2 women. Swift and Kelce were seen in a box with Brittany and Patrick Mahomes at the boys's final of the U.S. Open on Sept. 8. Swift was also one in every of the guests on the twenty ninth party Mahomes threw for her husband on Sunday night after the Chiefs' victory over the Cincinnati Bengals. Us Weekly reported this.

Swift's support for Harris also expressed her concern over Trump's use of AI photos of her on Truth Social. Back in August, the previous reality TV star shared fake photos of Swift and her fans, in addition to messages that falsely portrayed her as a Trump supporter.

Trump's post “really revived my fears around AI and the dangers of spreading misinformation,” Swift wrote. “It made me realize that as a voter, I need to be very transparent about my actual plans for this election. The easiest way to combat misinformation is with the truth.”

To that end, Swift said she would support Harris within the 2024 presidential election.

Swift's support didn't come as an excessive amount of of a surprise. She “proudly” endorsed Joe Biden and Harris in 2020, saying the 2 within the White House would help heal the country after Trump stoked “the fires of white supremacy and racism” during his “entire” presidency from 2017 to 2021. She said she would love to assist vote him out “in November.”

Originally published: September 17, 2024 at 10:34 am

Bruce Lehrmann has lost his libel case against Channel Ten and journalist Lisa Wilkinson after the media defendants proved on the balance of probabilities that Lehrmann raped his colleague Brittany Higgins in Parliament House in 2019.

After a trial that lasted a few month, federal judge Michael Lee – an experienced libel judge – concluded that each Lehrmann and Higgins had credibility problems, but ultimately he was convinced that Lehrmann raped Higgins, as she had claimed and he had denied.

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Criminal proceedings by proxy

Normally, charges similar to rape can be resolved through the criminal courts, but this was the case within the criminal trial against Lehrmann canceled in October 2022 following jury misconduct. The charges against him were soon brought droppednominally out of concern for Higgins' mental health.

However, Higgins foresaw a civil case and offered to testify they need to arise. That, like Lehrmann, free from the burden of a proven crime, they sued several media outlets for libel over their reporting of the allegations (the alphabet And News Corp each agreed out of court).

Like Ben Roberts-Smith's recent libel motion against the previous Fairfax Papers, this became one other case of civil litigation testing serious allegations without reaching a criminal conclusion.

The type of the procedure has significant differences from the terminated criminal proceedings. In criminal cases, prosecutors are ethically obligated to make use of moderation in pursuing a conviction, which requires evidence beyond an affordable doubt, while defendants have the correct to stay silent. By contrast, this trial featured detailed representations from either side, essentially looking for to steer that their claims were probably correct.

As with the Roberts-Smith case, the live broadcast of the trial generated a really high level of public engagement. Today's stream reached an audience of greater than 45,000 people. It gave us the chance to evaluate who and what we consider in and to query the parties' claims and media reporting. The federal court has no jury, but we, the general public, acted as a de facto group of like-minded people.

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We saw revealing accusations and denials Cross-examination of the protagonists, testimony from colleagues, CCTV footage from nightclubs to Parliament House, including lip reading, expert testimony on alcohol consumption and consent, and lawyers constructing timelines that support or poke holes in competing versions of events.

The complexity of high-stakes litigation was highlighted, with Judge Lee issuing quite a few interim rulings on procedural and evidentiary issues. Whenever it got here to transparency, she won.

The preference for full disclosure led to this The case is being reopened to call former Channel 7 producer Taylor Auerbach as a witness on the last minute, producing a result that the judge described as “dirty” but which had little bearing on the ultimate consequence.

A dispute over the reality

Lehrmann had the burden of proving that the defendants had published content that was damaging to their fame. This was Wilkinson's interview with Higgins on Channel Ten's The Project during which the allegations were made.

An announcement is barely defamatory whether it is unfaithful, but under Australian law the burden of proving truth lies with the publisher in the event that they select to make use of this defence. And more serious allegations typically require more compelling evidence because they’re considered inherently less likely by the law.

This may be stressful for a defamation defendant, but it surely also poses a risk for the plaintiff should the defendant embark on an odyssey of truth-telling that further damages the plaintiff's image. That happened Ben Roberts Smith and it happened to Lehrmann here.

On the opposite hand, if the media hasn't done their homework, similar to: Heston Russell's case against the ABC (also presided over by Judge Lee), the applicant may be rehabilitated.

This case was an expression of Lehrmann's stated desire, “Light some fires“. Few players on this prolonged saga have escaped without scars, and here he badly burned his fingers.

As Judge Lee put it, Lehrmann said, “Escape the lion’s den.” [of criminal prosecution]“He made the mistake of coming back to get his hat.”

How was the case decided?

Lehrmann denied having sex with Higgins, while Higgins claimed there was non-consensual sex. The defamatory nature of the publication focused on the allegation of rape, which is what the media defendants desired to prove.

This left open the strange possibility that consensual sex may need occurred: in that case, Lehrmann would have made his case on a false premise (there would have been no sex), however the media would have didn’t defend it (by showing no defect). had). approval), which led to a Lehrmann victory.

This unpleasant scenario didn’t occur. The court found that sex had indeed taken place, Higgins didn’t give consent in her heavily intoxicated and barely conscious state, and Lehrmann was so anxious for his satisfaction that he ignored the consent requirement.

Judge Lee found Lehrmann to be a persistent, self-serving liar, while Higgins' credibility problems were of a lesser magnitude and were partly symptomatic of an individual piecing together a trauma that she or he partially remembered. The judge relied heavily on the testimony of certain neutral parties who could testify to incidents or words near the events.

Libel laws favor the injured parties

Australian defamation law has historically favored plaintiffs, and despite the recent Attempts at realignmentStill, it stays a preferred legal weapon for individuals who have the means to make use of it.

This includes our political class, which sues its critics for defamation with a frequency that’s unhealthy for a democracy. In the United States, public figures don't have it really easy: to win, they must prove that their critics were lying.

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In Australia, the media sometimes succeeds in proving the reality, but difficult libel cases carries high financial costs and places emotional strain on the journalists involved.

Nor can a real claim all the time be proven to the satisfaction of a court, given the foundations of evidence and the incontrovertible fact that sources could also be reluctant to testify or protected by a reporter's confidentiality guarantee.

But this case shows that publishers who’re fascinated by litigation can emerge victorious.