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Hall of Famer [20540]
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Legally speaking, this is big
Dec 17, 2021, 8:54 AM
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Long story short: this could well open the door for practitioners of slanted and one-sided coverage to get hit with huge defamation charges if it can be established that it causes a company or individual harm.
I applaud this. Right now it's the likes of Fox, OAN, and Newsmax in danger of getting walloped, because their lies and one-sided coverage clearly caused both harm and peril to Dominion Voting Systems Inc., but it could similarly be applied to MSM news organizations that rush out stories and take a stance on them in their quest to be first and to attract the most eyeballs, and potentially creating false narratives. (Pick your story, from the Steele Dossier to the coverage of Kyle Rittenhouse, which was both prejudicial and biased.)
Everybody should root hard for this lawsuit to go through, IMHO. The threat of legal liability is what will tamp down the partisans, advocates, and outright liars on both sides...and hopefully turn down the temperature of our too-polarized media and drag them back to center.
I think we'd all agree that what's tearing America apart right now is both sides have wildly diverging sets of facts. This is a big first step in curtailing that, and reigning both sides of the media in.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/16/media/fox-news-court-dominion/index.html
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Rock Defender [53]
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Hard disagree. This would crush local and independent
Dec 17, 2021, 9:08 AM
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outlets without the ability to defend themselves against bumptious lawsuits designed to specifically chill speech they don't like. The only way this would be remotely workable is if the U.S. had a robust, federal ANTI-SLAPP law. Sandmann showed that defamation cases against unscrupulous outlets are possible, without the need for irreparably weakening 1A protections.
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Letterman [257]
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How did Sandmann prove that? They settled out of court
Dec 17, 2021, 12:14 PM
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for probably nothing more than a nuisance fee.
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Lot o points [155877]
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Yes, I'm sure he probably was happy dropping his
Dec 17, 2021, 12:16 PM
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WaPo $250M suit for a sweet $10k check for his time and trouble.
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Letterman [257]
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How much you sue for is irrelevant. Only matters if you can win.
Dec 17, 2021, 12:48 PM
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Winning a case like that is hard with the burden of proof on you to prove intentional wrongdoing. There is a reason the networks with all their resources to fight it settled. Probably got $100k or $200k. His original case was even dismissed, and he had to refile with a much narrower scope. And given that Lin Wood was his lawyer, pretty safe to say he had nothing of any substance.
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All-In [49037]
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Lot o points [155877]
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In all seriousness, I don’t get why it’s big?
Dec 17, 2021, 9:09 AM
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It’s not opening any doors that haven’t been open since the dawn of our legal system has it? Is this any different, practically speaking, than the Native American protestor kid winning a lifetime supply of moolah from the likes of CNN et al?
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Rock Defender [53]
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I would have my doubts on the significance of this specific
Dec 17, 2021, 9:15 AM
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case. It sounds like, as you said, it's progressing normally.
It does tread dangerous though to a rising sentiment (ironically supported by both Trumpers and Anti-Trumpers) that it should be easier to sue the media. I do not like this one bit for the reasons above.
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Lot o points [155877]
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I suppose the differentiator for me is whether
Dec 17, 2021, 9:18 AM
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A case like this would be a non-starter when corrections or retractions are publicly issued. They have a right to get stories wrong, as long as the they make them right, IMO. They didn’t do that in the Sandman case. The age old issue does arise though that no one ever reads the usually-buried correction/retraction.
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All-In [42151]
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They have a right to get em wrong but...
Dec 17, 2021, 9:26 AM
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When getting it wrong damages a person's rep, they can and probably should be sued. Corrections can often soften the blow and ward off lawsuits, but Fox, NewsMax, et al double-downed on their lies on the election. They knew they were being reckless.
It's like the case with Nick Sandmann. The media ###### up, and despite corrections, he deserved a lawsuit against them.
A proper correction is run in the same place as the original mistake, or it's added to the top of an online story. Retraction isn't really the term used in these cases.
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Lot o points [155877]
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All-In [42151]
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I don't hate the term. I dislike the misuse of the term.
Dec 17, 2021, 9:32 AM
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A correction and a retraction are not always the same thing. A retraction is generally for cases where the media said an event happened and then it turns out it didn't.
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Lot o points [155877]
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So is that not something that should potentially
Dec 17, 2021, 9:52 AM
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stave off a lawsuit?
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All-In [42151]
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A retraction could...
Dec 17, 2021, 10:01 AM
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But it depends on the nature of the story. Such as in the Nick Sandmann story, they couldn't run a retraction because the event actually happened. They needed to run a correction because of HOW they said the event happened.
In the case you linked with Giuliani, the event never occurred, thus calling for a retraction.
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Rock Defender [53]
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I could see effort of mitigation to be a relevant factor in
Dec 17, 2021, 9:33 AM
[ in reply to They have a right to get em wrong but... ] |
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these suits, especially related to damages. And if that is an unintended consequence of similar lawsuits moving forward, that would be a good thing. My main concern is what many in Trump World floated, which was reversing Sullivan. The media is awful, and intentionally deceitful, but there is little doubt who would suffer most if it became easier to sue outlets, and it's not FOX or CNN.
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All-In [42151]
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Well, what the Trumpophiles wanted...
Dec 17, 2021, 9:36 AM
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Was criminal prosecution of journalists for made-up libel/slander claims and probably eventually cheering on their execution, so yeah, I guess we could say an overturn of Sullivan. I agree it would be bad if easier to sue, but I do agree with Quoz here: this suit had to happen good and hard. Fox and NewsMax pushed a dangerous lie that led to some terrible consequences. Maybe even more to come.
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Rock Defender [53]
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Completely fine with this. It's the process. And it should
Dec 17, 2021, 9:51 AM
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be hard, and mostly unsuccessful. I'm only opposed to greasing the wheels.
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Hall of Famer [20540]
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Re: I would have my doubts on the significance of this specific
Dec 17, 2021, 9:55 AM
[ in reply to I would have my doubts on the significance of this specific ] |
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Well, in an ideal world, the media would police themselves, but they won't. The conservative media will never agree to a framework for self-regulation it because the conservative media isn't interested in legitimacy, they exist almost purely to negate the effect of actual news outlets.
Inform the public? Please. They're contemptuous of their readership. They knowingly feed them lies.
It's like the modern Republican party: they stand for nothing. Just blind opposition to the "establishment". That's it, period. Whatever those from the "establishment" want, they must not get. Whatever the opposition stands for, they're against.
That's hardly to say I love the Dems or their "agenda"...but at least they still have one. The GOP didn't even trouble themselves to advance a platform at the last RNC. Just...more Trump.
So barring self-regulation, where's your solution? Because anybody can see we're in a feedback loop that's going to end badly for everybody if we don't drag our media camps back to center and hit them with some accountability.
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Lot o points [155877]
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why is it just the conservative media you keep mentioning?
Dec 17, 2021, 10:03 AM
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Abuse runs rampant on both sides of the ideological spectrum.
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Hall of Famer [20540]
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Re: why is it just the conservative media you keep mentioning?
Dec 17, 2021, 10:19 AM
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Bias runs rampant in both ideological spectrums. But "conservative media" is not composed of journalists, bad or otherwise. Fox had a newsroom for awhile and started as just a normal, healthy, right-leaning news outlet, but they've morphed to such an extent their infotainers working in the same building seem to have barely even noticed what their own newsroom is saying. Switching from their news anchors to infotainers is like watching a werewolf transform. I have no idea how their viewers reconcile the two. (Honestly, I do, they just don't watch Fox's actual newsroom, if the ratings are any kind of indication. They don't want actual news.)
Journalism is simple. Stuff of significance happens. Journalists take note and record it, as accurately as possible. The informed public is supposed to then make up their own mind about events.
Errors or omission can result from extreme bias. When you're actively spreading lies, though, that's not news anymore, that's deliberate disinformation, and Fox has long-since crossed that line.
Mind, CNN and MSNBC and plenty of other "mainstream" media sources are really grim in their glaring errors of omission, and the fact that their coverage is overwhelming slanted in one direction, but it still doesn't change the fact that they're (for the most part) still actual journalists, albeit often bad ones. (Again, I'm not counting their primetime hosts, who are infotainers much like Fox's.) Fox, on the other hand, is losing their legit journalists at an amazing rate, and aside from Wall Street Journal and The Bulwark you'd be hard-pressed to find too many other legit conservative news sources.
And guess what? Fox viewers could care less...so Fox could care less. And these viewers want the news as they want it, and if Fox won't say it, they call Fox News "deep state establishment Commies fake news media" and change the channel for OAN or Newsmax. Look no further than this forum and tell me I'm wrong.
There is no such thing as Karl Marx TV. (Yet. But give it time, the decade is young.)
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Rock Defender [53]
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I don't know man. I think you've got a blind spot for what's
Dec 17, 2021, 10:28 AM
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happening in the mainstream media. It's easier to identify hacks in conservative alt-media because they don't carry around press passes, but what they're doing is indistinguishable from the opeds-passing-as-journalism from, say, the NYT. And it's not just about liberal bias.
NYT got hammered recently for basically running copaganda without any meaningful attempt to get the facts right.
The problem is with the industry as a whole, and partly because we reward each with our continued clicks.
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Hall of Famer [20540]
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Re: I don't know man. I think you've got a blind spot for what's
Dec 17, 2021, 10:52 AM
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If you get caught cooking stories in the MSM, you're done. There's a reason the names Stephen Glass, Jayson Blair, and Claas Relotius are infamous: they're glaring horror stories and cautionary tales for young journalists.
This is how Der Spiegel responded when they realized they'd been had for years by Relotius. They themselves published this searing self-examination: https://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/claas-relotius-reporter-forgery-scandal-a-1244755.htmlClaas Relotius Reporter Forgery Scandal A DER SPIEGEL reporter committed large-scale journalistic fraud over several years. Internal clues and research have provided significant evidence against reporter Claas Relotius, who has since admitted to the falsifications and is no longer employed by DER SPIEGEL. Other media organizations may also have been affected.
This was the New York Times on Jayson Blair. https://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/11/us/correcting-the-record-times-reporter-who-resigned-leaves-long-trail-of-deception.htmlCORRECTING THE RECORD; Times Reporter Who Resigned Leaves Long Trail of Deception (Published 2003) Investigation by team of New York Times journalists finds reporter Jayson Blair committed frequent acts of journalistic fraud while covering significant news events in recent months; major findings are these: he filed dispatches that purported to be from Maryland, Texas and other states, when often he was in New York; fabricated comments, concocted scenes and lifted material from other newspapers and wire services; also he selected details from photographs to create impression he had been somewhere or seen someone, when he had not; Times journalists uncover new problems in at least 36 of 73 articles he wrote after he started getting national reporting assignments in Oct 2002; spot checks of more than 600 articles he wrote before Oct 2002 find other apparent fabrications, and that inquiry continues; The Times asks readers to report any additional falsehoods in his work; investigation by Times journalists suggests several reasons why his deceits went undetected for so long: failure of communication among senior editors, few complaints from subjects of his articles and his ingenious ways of covering his tracks; some examples cited; most of all, no one saw his carelessness as sign that he was capable of systematic fraud; article offers detailed look at his career at The Times and at errors that have been uncovered in his articles; he resigned on May 1 when editors confronted him with evidence of his deception; photos (L)
This was The New Republic on Stephen Glass: https://newrepublic.com/article/120145/stephen-glass-new-republic-scandal-still-haunts-his-law-career
When Fox starts doing stuff like this, I'll listen. They don't...and will never. Conservative outlets aren't the slightest bit interested in legitimacy, they spread pure nihilism, the notion that there is no truth and no justice and everybody is a liar. I'm sure you know perfectly well Fox was the brainchild of former Nixon press secretary Roger Ailes, and had one purpose, which it served precisely as intended during Trump's presidency: to shield Republicans from the consequences of actual news media, and by extension accountability. Conservative media can care less about being actual legit media themselves, that would defeat the purpose.
Again, there's miles of rehab that needs to be done with actual media. But it's going to be a whole lot easier to fix than it's going to be trying to teach "conservative media" to be responsible journalists. They aren't...by definition.
Look at probably 50% of Project Veritas's targets: media figures.
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CU Guru [1198]
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Re: why is it just the conservative media you keep mentioning?
Dec 17, 2021, 11:49 AM
[ in reply to why is it just the conservative media you keep mentioning? ] |
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No it doesn't. You have left-leaning media that's biased, but they don't put out completely made-up lies like many on the conservative side.
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Lot o points [155877]
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good to know. Left = pure. right = liars.
Dec 17, 2021, 11:55 AM
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I appreciate you setting my bias biases straight.
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Rock Defender [53]
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Personal accountability? Turn off the news. Stop reading
Dec 17, 2021, 10:09 AM
[ in reply to Re: I would have my doubts on the significance of this specific ] |
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biased sources. Call out others in your network for relying on biased sources.
And, as I mentioned, I have no issue with filing suit in the current system. Sandmann and Dominion are showing it works.
I draw the line, however, at advocating to make this system easier to sue; at least not without anti-SLAPP protections. Otherwise, unintended consequences will rain down like hellfire and miss every intended target we hoped it would touch.
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Letterman [257]
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Lot o points [155877]
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you just said that.***
Dec 17, 2021, 12:19 PM
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110%er [5673]
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Re: Legally speaking, this is big
Dec 17, 2021, 10:25 AM
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So we should ultimately let the lowest common denominator of 12 jurors, who just by living in the USA are poisoned by MSM propaganda, decide these complex issues.
Agree it will boil down to the winner having the best attorneys.
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All-In [42151]
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Too bad they don't let informed geniuses like you serve***
Dec 17, 2021, 10:29 AM
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Rock Defender [53]
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All-TigerNet [13104]
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"danger of getting walloped, because their lies"
Dec 17, 2021, 10:29 AM
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"My build back better plan will cost ZERO dollars" - Joe Brandon
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Rock Defender [53]
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Don't forget, "Inflation is no big deal."***
Dec 17, 2021, 10:54 AM
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Orange Blooded [2669]
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Re: Legally speaking, this is big
Dec 17, 2021, 11:10 AM
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You obviously want Fox News to be sued in this instance.
Do you also agree that CNN, MSNBC, NYT, etc should be sued by the trump admin for the reporting on the Steele dossier?
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Hall of Famer [20540]
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Re: Legally speaking, this is big
Dec 17, 2021, 11:30 AM
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If they can be shown that they knowingly lied to us to tell their audience what they thought they wanted to hear and in so doing caused irreparable harm to Trump's reputation, sure.
The problem for you is Trump would have to be the plaintiff. I wish you...all the best of luck, with that. I'm sure Trump would be able to put together a cogent, coherent legal case, and not tell a mountain of lies in a courtroom an opposing attorney could blow him to Hiroshima with.
Sociopaths and crooks don't make very good legal victims. Just kind of a thing. It's why Jack O'Keefe has absolutely no shot in an actual courtroom and the Feds can pretty much bend him over and violate him at will.
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All-In [42151]
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Here's why Trump can never sue for libel or slander
Dec 17, 2021, 11:35 AM
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He already willingly destroyed his own reputation long ago and has no reputation left to salvage. Thus, the media can make up any #### thing they want about him without legal repercussion.
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Orange Blooded [2669]
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Re: Here's why Trump can never sue for libel or slander
Dec 17, 2021, 12:07 PM
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He already willingly destroyed his own reputation long ago and has no reputation left to salvage. Thus, the media can make up any #### thing they want about him without legal repercussion.
Well this is a really dumb and biased comment.
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Hall of Famer [20540]
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Re: Here's why Trump can never sue for libel or slander
Dec 17, 2021, 12:22 PM
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It's neither a "dumb" nor a "biased" comment. Trump would have to walk into a courtroom, claim damages, put his hand on a bible, and then in calm, linear, rational, and factual fashion state the actual facts without telling lies that the opposing counsel could easily disprove.
If he can't do that, he has no chance whatsoever of winning his case. He's made a career out of telling whoppers and pushing lies past a ridiculous extreme. We all saw how that strategy held up legally when he was suing everybody and their brother for "election fraud".
What was his record on those again? This is the big problem with living a lie. Sure, you can push your version of "truth" in the media if you've got media willing to go along with you - and he has plenty of friendly conservative media Foxsplaining everything he does - but that crapola also doesn't hold up even slightly in a courtroom, where facts and truth still matter.
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All-In [42151]
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Only someone blindly in love with that man
Dec 18, 2021, 11:24 AM
[ in reply to Re: Here's why Trump can never sue for libel or slander ] |
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Doesn't realize that he has a tarnished reputation that was self-inflicted. In fact, Trump's reputation as a public figure was damaged before he ever ran for president. He only made it worse.
He can never successfully sue for defamation. Ever. He's a terrible person, and so are those who adore him.
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Lot o points [155877]
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I disagree if a jury would draw the distinction
Dec 18, 2021, 11:38 AM
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Between an existing reputation as a egomaniacal philanderer and accusations of outright traitorous actions. One seems next level to the other to me.
If you were well known publicly as a brazen liar, you could probably still sue me for claiming you were a pedophile.
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All-In [42151]
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Thread from the dead, but...
Dec 20, 2021, 1:22 PM
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Again, not in Trump's case. There's no need for a distinction. Once a person's reputation is ruined for whatever reason, it doesn't matter what is made up about him in the future, especially if he is a willing public figure. Trump's rep alone from the election destroys him.
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All-In [42151]
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No, they can't be.
Dec 17, 2021, 11:34 AM
[ in reply to Re: Legally speaking, this is big ] |
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Let me know if you are open-minded to a legal explanation as to why. Otherwise, I won't waste my time with this whataboutism.
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All-In [47750]
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I stopped reading at "CNN"***
Dec 18, 2021, 11:49 AM
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