Landlord torches New York home after tenants stop paying rent, become squatters

Salamendacious@lemmy.world to News@lemmy.world – 186 points –
Landlord torches New York home after tenants stop paying rent, become squatters: authorities
foxbusiness.com

Brooklyn landlord Rafiqul Islam faces arson and attempted murder charges

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Easier to deal with insurance than evict? 🤔

The prison sentence might even be shorter than the eviction process would have been...

Insurance won’t pay- trying to claim your house that you intentionally torched is insurance fraud.

I think the idea was he thought he could get away with the arson, or that he could blame the tenants for the arson.

This never happened. Or did it?

Fox News has testified in court multiple times that their "news" is not fact-based and that no reasonable person could confuse their stories as factual. So... It's a fairly safe bet that this story is bullshit, based on Fox News' own sworn statements.

Fuck these Fox News affiliate links.

No.

Companies don't make sweeping, damaging admissions in a court defense. No broadcaster would admit that all of their news is not news. They only make statements about the facts at issue. It's a bad idea to admit anything beyond the scope of the case at issue. Anyone saying that a news agency admits they aren't news has a bridge to sell.

The arguments made by fox were that their pundit, Tucker Carlson made exaggerated statements during his punditry show. And the courts agreed that those false statements were not defamatory, because reasonable viewers would not expect a political pundit to be factual, because dishonest exaggeration is what political punditry is.

MSNBC made very similar arguments in court. Rachel Maddow got a lawsuit from One America News Network dismissed under very similar circumstances. You don't get factual information from pundits. Doesn't matter what political leanings the network claims to have. Pundits are all liars, that's what they do.

Fox does awful journalism. You probably shouldn't trust their reporting, but not because they admitted in court that their pundit did punditry before they fired him.

Oof. Maddow and Faux are NOT two sides of the same coin.

They are both political pundits who work(ed) for advertisement funded national broadcasters. They both made statements in court that they do not make factual statements as a defense against defamation cases, both of which were winning arguments.

They have a lot more in common than you would think.

Fox and CNN and MSNBC will claim to be left or right wing. They do so to cater to specific audiences. But they are all funded by largely the same advertisers which have the same interests. Don't trust any enormous media corporation.

You have accurately communicated the facts and I believe adherence to truth, even if you don't like that truth, is the only way to be better than the typical OANN and Fox News crowd. I even found a corroborating article for the skeptics.

https://thedispatch.com/article/fact-checking-a-claim-that-fox-news/

When people disparage facts they don't like based simply on the fact they don't like them, they're furthering a post-truth society.

Non-Fox link: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2023/11/06/rafiqul-islam-landlord-brooklyn-apartment-arson-unpaid-rent-case/71478913007/

What kind of a ghoul do you have to be to commit arson and attempt murder (of two adults and six children) over unpaid rent? Like, you're a landlord. Get used to rent issues or get a real job.

The elemental core of fascism is the belief that you deserve the benefits of other people's suffering. You haven't experienced rage until you've watched someone get slapped in the face by someone they deep down believe is inferior to them.

Arson & murder aside, there's a housing crisis.

You can own property, and be homeless and broke.

Examples:

But to be clear: fuck this guy.

Just also fuck your "get used to theft with no recourse" attitude. We need places to rent - not everyone wants to own a house. You can argue the price of rent, but don't pretend it isn't a real job. They are providing a valuable service, and have expenses to do so. I'm in a city with a huge housing shortage - people are lined up trying to rent places. People are auction-like bidding against other potential tenants (technically illegal) to pay more rent in order to get a place to sleep. We need more rentals. If it's not worth it, they'll sell. Which means one less house for rent, making the problem worse.

And again: fuck this arsonist murderous ahole.

If fox news is the only source we should just ignore it

Personally I like reading from as many sources as possible. I like to compare biases. You're obviously free to ignore whatever you want.

That's fine, but fox news isn't a source.

I read Fox along with lots of other sources and I've found that by and large when it isn't political Fox isn't as horrible as you're making it out.