Kelly’s Court On Suing Slanderers – **Open Thread**

Hmmm…..gee. I wonder if this applies to artists like MJ as well. Continuing from a previous thread, I think all of society needs to be a bit more civil in the things we put out there about others when we don’t have firsthand information.

If you repeat lies, half-truths, slander, innuendo and speculation enough times, pretty soon it is accepted as truth.

Sometimes we don’t know the truth. But certain scenarios, such as courts of law, are fenceposts we must use.

Thanks for making my earlier point, RRRA.

They gt (sic) the salacious gossip out there, and then can feign no ill-will. Please. There oughta be a law…

Ah, but there is. Setting aside for the moment whether this move would be politically expedient for SP, filing a lawsuit charging the tort of conspiracy to defame (assuming this is an option under AK law) sounds like a viable option. Evidence that the big media outlets linked to that woman’s blog, and even interviewed her, leads a reasonable person to believe, this stuff is true. And a reasonable jury could conclude, this was the intention of the named media co-conspirators. Hence, meeting the standard of establishing malice.(Certainly, any ‘innuendo’ of an FBI investigation, after the FBI confirmed none exists, would be construed as prima facie evidence, there was malintent.)

I think this is at least a part of the reason Palin resigned. As a private citizen, even if she was once a governor, she may have the right to sue when either she or her family members are targeted.

Sometimes, even if you can’t prove malice, if you can prove a pattern of behavior you may have a case. I’m guessing here because I have zero background in law.

I sincerely wish that the media and bloggers would focus on the real problems we’re having. Problems such as deficits, unemployment, the expansion of the government, and laws that are being passed without being read.

Where is the outrage from left/progressives about the expansion of the war into Pakistan? Where are the anti-war protests about the drumbeat for war with Iran?

I think the country could focus on our actual problems and stop yapping about Palin. She’s the least of our problems.

Perhaps the real picture is that we see the culmination of one -Michael Jackson – who was burned repeatedly and over a long, long span of time by the media and the next in line – Sarah Palin – who has been just as unmercifully skewered by the same media in recent months juxtaposed in tandem. Who or what entity is complicit in both cases?

It’s the media that is the perpetrator and abuser. When will the media be brought up to defend their indefensible actions?

In Germany, they came first for the Communists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist;

And then they came for the trade unionists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist;

And then they came for the Jews, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew;

And then… they came for me… And by that time there was no one left to speak up.”

Hmmm…..gee. I wonder if this applies to artists like MJ as well.

It would if his supporters weren’t acting in the same fashion as an obamabot or bushbot does. I never said a negative thing about MJ on a previous thread except to say that he was just an entertainer. You would have thought that I was his personal physician that had fallen asleep at the wheel or that I was the one who caused his death.

This isn’t innuendo or denigration, or anything else but a statement of fact. He performed for audiences and was therefore an entertainer. He was good at what he did but so are millions of others who go about their daily business so people like Jackson could hold sway over his adoring audiences.

I won’t hold my breath waiting for America to wake up from its self-induced stupor any longer. I will challenge it at every available opportunity. MJ was just a man–no more and no less and not morally worthy of any more sorrow or acclaim as any other.

To the subject of journalists–they can attempt to hide behind this false facade of “we’re just reporting the news” but it falls on deaf ears, especially when someone like that truly adlle-headed Chuck Todd makes a lame-ass attempt at “explaining” why Sarah Palin did what she did (on Morning Joe, Monday). No thanks, Chuckie, but I’ll get my information directly from the source–Sarah, herself, and not some self-fellating pompous ass like you.

Thank you, tzada, for reminding me of the absolute necessity of community and looking out for each other.

It’s the media that is the perpetrator and abuser. When will the media be brought up to defend their indefensible actions?

When the lowest-common denominator among us grows a brain–and spine to go with it.

We are held captive by the herd.

Well–consider this: When the MSM is finally dead as a way of disseminating news and the only thing left are bloggers, then maybe bloggers will be held legally accountable,too. The fact that her blog was linked by the MSN and then they get to say, “We didn’t do it” is the thing that makes me angry.

I believe your argument has merit. I only hope that, should litigation become necessary, she gets a fair hearing.

I ‘m with you, Candymarl. The media is constantly on the prowl for news that takes our collective eye off the truly important news by diverting our attention to the inconsequential.

Oh, my, such-and-such prima donna got a hangnail today–what are we to do? Pictures at 11.

she writes for the Huffington Post also.

THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING! THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING!

The United States and Russia say they are resuming military cooperation suspended after Russia invaded its neighbor Georgia last year.

The announcement came Monday, as President Barack Obama and Russian president Dmitry Medvedev met for their summit in Moscow.

U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen and his Russian counterpart signed an outline for renewed military contacts which include
Russian military cadets will come to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

Well then. I’m sure she tells the honest to God truth. snark…

I never thought I’d see anything as vile as what these so-called defenders of free speech did to even another Democrat, Hillary. Pretty much life in the out-house and smells worse.

Palin’s new pressure and potential payoff

Talk about nerve. The very notion of leaving an elected office occupied for barely two years. Even if it is to run for president, that makes it even more peculiar in view of the candidate’s lightweight résumé of political experience.

I refer, of course, to Barack Obama.

Cheap stunt, but it makes my point. Sarah Palin’s electoral track record, of course, is far longer than that of Obama, who overcame his meager credentials, and longer even than that of George W. Bush when he ran for president.

Granted, the departing Alaska governor’s early political career is defined within the walls of a small-town city hall, but is that somehow less valid than years spent as baseball team co-owner or a community organizer?

The 2008 election redefined experience. As such, it is comical to read the sneering attacks launched toward Palin by hateful columnists who exalted Obama’s decision to chuck his elected office and reach for the White House brass ring.

One difference is that Obama did it on the public dime, while still technically a U.S. senator. Palin at least has the decency to pursue her “higher calling” without the necessary long stretches away from her actual job.

So she leaves that job for a very uncertain future. Will she use this time to broaden herself, campaign for key people in 2010 and develop a strong foundation of voters that admires her as much for issues advocacy as spunk?

If so, she becomes a commodity to be reckoned with, a fact easily readable in the venom of her mocking detractors.

I was halfway through Todd Purdum’s vicious Vanity Fair piece on Palin when I heard of her decision to step down. Among the first things I read afterward were the even more acrimonious New York Times columns…(continued)

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/viewpoints/stories/DN-markdavis_0708edi.State.Edition1.1b6cda1.html

As the tone deaf world of BO turns…

Yesterday

This starts with the reduction of our own nuclear arsenals. As the world’s two leading nuclear powers, the United States and Russia must lead by example, and that’s what we’re doing here today. We have signed a Joint Understanding for a follow-on treaty to the START agreement that will reduce our nuclear warheads and delivery systems by up to a third from our current treaty limitations. This legally binding treaty will be completed this year

Saying it will be passed this year without so much as a Senate by your leave. Ya think Frankin will vote for it or the Conservative Dems?
Today

The development of a planned US missile shield would cast serious doubt on future nuclear arms cuts, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was quoted as saying by news agencies on Tuesday.

“If our partners decide to create an American missile-defence system with global reach, this will undoubtedly cast serious doubt on the prospects for further strategic offensive arms reductions,” Lavrov said in an interview with Vesti-24 television, quoted by Russian news agencies.

I went and read this bloggers blog she did not say these were rumors. Nor did any of the links to her. She stated them as facts, the woman on Kelly’s court is wrong. She did not say I heard, or this is just a rumor. Not until after Sarah’s lawyer said they were suing, only then did she say it was based on rumors and that she wasn’t afraid of him or Sarah. 90 % of the smears(that were claimed to be facts) against Sarah began with this woman! All turned out to be lie she tried to present as facts. You’d think after so many of her so called facts were proven to be lies, people would have quit believing her. Yet, they didn’t knowing she had lied so many times. It was much too fun to print the lies, to try to get others to believe them as well. Which makes them just as responsible, as far as I’m concerned.

Here is a fantastic article from Reclusive Left on the Feminist and Sarah:

Pheenobarbidoll responded that abortion rights are a cornerstone too important to overlook, to which I replied:
Abortion rights are important. But it’s interesting that Hugo Schwyzer, a male “pro-life” feminist and former member of and financial contributor to Feminists For Life, is allowed into the feminist community. He even blogs at RH Reality Check, and has been befriended by Amanda Marcotte.

Schwyzer’s awkward pro-feminist/anti-abortion stance is the same as Sarah Palin’s, yet only Palin is reviled and ridiculed. How dare she call herself a feminist!

Someone else then loftily announced that Palin cannot be a feminist since she “believes in keeping children ignorant of the facts of their reproductive rights and responsibilities.” To which I replied:

She doesn’t believe that. She’s fully in favor of sex ed and contraception.

I imagine you consider yourself a feminist. What I’m wondering is why, if you’re a feminist, you don’t even give Palin the courtesy of finding out what she actually believes, rather than simply accepting the lies created by political hacks? This is bizarre to me. It’s really not difficult to google and discover that Sarah Palin is in favor of contraception and sex ed, that the whole “abstinence-only” thing is a smear spread by Obama supporters.

For complete article:
http://tinyurl.com/kk64no

Just a partial comment from one of the women over there to look for. There are many great one’s, but this one left me to ponder.

Carolyn says:

I have a few thoughts on the “quantum entanglement”, but I confess to being as baffled as you are.

What has occurred to me is that the way the media and the DC elite have been so condescending is really a reflection of how they really feel about all of us out here in the real world…they think of all of us exactly the way they talk about her…and we are beneath their contempt.

I don’t think that it is always realized how much of themselves they reveal when they trash her. So, as if we were still in high school or something, there is an obsession to be part of the popular group…and in order to do that, these women aren’t thinking of themselves as seeking approval from men that really are not worthy of their respect, and they don’t think of themselves as being destroyers of women…but they are scared to death of being identified with those of us who are on the “outs”.

I know that sounds simplistic, but I think it may be accurate. The desire to be part of the “group” means that every one who is “other” must be destroyed. It’s like some really crazy autoimmune disease where we turn on ourselves out of fear and are willing to stoop to such lows to preserve what we think is our special status.

Russia was seen as the instigator of Kyrgyzstan’s decision earlier this year to evict the United States from an air base used to ship military hardware and troops to Afghanistan. The decision was reversed only after the U.S. agreed to pay three times the price.

Is that all?

Your post only demonstrates the abject Bush-league (pun intendedl) policy of That One’s Administration. He is a babe in the woods confronting true masters on the world’s stage. That One is but a neophyte, with all the collective wisdom of his bot followers at his disposal. I wasn’t a big fan of Reagan but he knew how to deal with these sorts of people and one didn’t do it through flowery, incomprehensible prose. We are so screwed.

Oops, that should have read: That One is but a neophyte, with only the collective wisdom of his bot followers at his disposal, which amounts to the null set.

Agreed. Primitive, reptilian brain, herd/tribal mentality. bho the fraud stole the nom and got selected to be the misogynist-in-chief because he played to the herd with his attacks on Hillary and Sarah, his racism and his lies. He is the puppet of the chauvinist herd bankers/corporations.

Sarah ain’t gonna put up with the herd. Get ready, America.

Here is a list of all the ridiculous ethics violations filed against Sarah, and who filed them.

From Flopping Aces:
1-9
http://tinyurl.com/nrw2rf

10-18
http://tinyurl.com/qcze5j

For a list of just the complaints from Anchorage Daily News:
http://www.adn.com/palin/story/838912.html

Ace lists the players, who they are, their history, etc…some of the complaints are ridiculous. If this is all it takes to file an ethics complaint, imagine how many we could file on Pelosi, Frank and some of their croonies if we were as vindictive as some of these people.

How is it they just had to file a complaint against Sarah for the Republican Party buying her clothes, yet not a peep from these same people or those that encouraged them to file these complaints as to all the free things the Obama’s have gotten for themselves and their children? Where are these people with what has recently came to light on WSJ concerning these politicians using tax payers money to travel with their families to exotic places? Etc…

I get confused. Are we talking about the MJ Memorial, or Dateline’s To Catch a Predator series?

Ankle-Biters Have Cost Alaska Nearly 2 Million Dollars

http://www.conservatives4palin.com/2009/07/ankle-biters-have-cost-alaska-nearly-2.html

The uncarved block goes not under the scalpel but the pedophile that can be spoken of is the true pedophile.

Indeed. She has a way with thinning them, apparently, and for good reason.

there is no doubt in my mind that Sarah Palin would have been tough enough to deal with accusations against herself. But these fools have been targeting her kids and i’m glad there is at least one public figure who put the needs of their kids ahead of what they wants. I”m just miffed because it’s cause us a great presidential candidate, that could have possibly beaten Obama, her kids however deserve to be left alone. come August I dare any of these fools to screw with any of Palins children. I have feeling they will learn exactly how damn mean a hockey mom really is… let’s just say some peoples heads will be substiuted for hockey puck. and i thanak her in advance for all the entertianment it will provide even as our country is sliding into the abyss.

there is no doubt in my mind that Sarah Palin would have been tough enough to deal with accusations against herself. But these fools have been targeting her kids and i’m glad there is at least one public figure who put the needs of their kids ahead of what they wants. I”m just miffed because it’s cause us a great presidential candidate, that could have possibly beaten Obama, her kids however deserve to be left alone. come August I dare any of these fools to screw with any of Palins children. I have feeling they will learn exactly how damn mean a hockey mom really is… let’s just say some peoples heads will be substiuted for a hockey puck. and i thanak her in advance for all the entertianment it will provide even as our country is sliding into the abyss.

Sunday I wandered into the room while by brother was watching Fox News Sunday and I sat for a while and listened to a panel discussion about Sarah Plain and I really saw those people for the first time. I used to think they (pundits) were too powerful and their opinions mattered. But just then I saw them clearly and they are little and frightened.

They tried with all their might appear nonchalant and unbiased so viewers might think they had just taken the pulse of the nation and the consensus of all the American people was that Sarah Palin had ended her political career. While all the while I was getting the distinct impression that they had just ended theirs.

Rove deposed in U.S. attorney probe

And thank you for reminding me that the people opposing Sarah Palin are the moral equivalent of Nazis.

It’s funny that when Palin voluntarily leaves her office it’s “the end of her political career”.

Mark Sanford, also a Republican governor, admits to an affair while running a “family values” type campaign to get elected is still in office. Funny, no one attacked his wife and children. Also, unlike Hillary, Mrs. Sanford’s decision to not end the marriage was not vilified.

I truly think Palin ran into the same problem Hillary did. Her own party did not want her office.

That’s “want her in office”.

I’m not sure where Palin stands legally on going after some of the media for slander, but politically I think it would be a good idea. People in this country are tired of the media’s crap.

The media went from reporting the news to interpreting the news. Big difference.

No wonder everything is so screwed up. Airhead talking heads thinking their opinion is divine fact is not the highest vibration of communication.

Every news outlet conveniently forgot about libel and slander in the rush to get the ratings.

After the Letterman comment, I searched the FCC website looking for a regulation or statement re liability for suggesting a criminal act against a minor. It’s a hard site to navigate, but I wonder if a suit couldn’t be brought by Palin or Alex Rodriquez? Letterman in his joke(?), suggested Rodriguez would commit an illegal assault on a minor. Isn’t that a defamation of character?

interesting.

I didn’t watch the video so I don’t know exactly what the “lawyers” had to say, but the simple fact is that Palin and her lawyers, not matter how much they might want to sue for slander, they would have a next-to-impossible case.
Unlike most crimes, slander (and, its written counterpart, libel) must be proved by the “victim”*. The “victim” must also prove a willful intent by the slanderer (or libeler) to defame the “victim”. Being in the public eye (such as a celebrity or a politician) makes a slander case even harder for the “victim”. The “victim” must prove that his or her reputation has been seriously impugned by the slander in such a way that the average person cannot believe anything but the worst of the “victim”. The most successful case was that of Carol Burnett. Burnett had a reputation for not drinking due to a family history that involved parental alcoholism. When the National Enquirer printed photos alleging that Burnett was drunk in public, that threatened to undo Burnett’s reputation. (OTOH, Burnett also lost a case where “Family Guy” had used a cartoon image of her–in her charwoman form, such as that used in the opening credits of “The Carol Burnett Show”–cleaning up in a porno shop. The court did agree that the show had probably exceeded boundaries of good taste, but that Burnett was a public figure and the usage fell within the “Fair Use Doctrine” and that the producers and writers of the episode were not deliberately intending any real harm in the usage.) Then again, Liberace sued for “defamation of character” and libel back in the 1950s when a tabloid merely suggested that Liberace was a homosexual. Liberace won his case. (Of course, it proved to be a moot point as just a few decades later, his homosexuality became a matter of record, even before his death.)
Palin, as a politician, will have a much harder case. Now, AFTER she officially steps down, if the press continues to go after her, she might have a somewhat easier case though it WILL depend on what she does after leaving office–if she seems to be furthering her political career, she leaves herself open as fair game for attacks. (Even the simple fact that she hasn’t been completely forthcoming with her post-gubernatorial plans lends itself to speculation and rumor. And as long as people have a right to speculate and rumor-monger, there’s always the possibility of someone writing or saying things that Palin won’t like. Unfortunately, there’s NO law against speaking ill of people–which is probably good for most people on this blog given some of the very vile comments posted against Obama.)

*I use “victim” to refer to the person who claims he or she is being slandered or libeled.

Hey, jbjd -

Sorry for the late response, I was traveling yesterday.

I agree with ou completely – I was going by the summation made by two out of the three with a grudging admission by the third attorney, that it would be VERY hard for them to meet the level necessary since the blogger in question hedged her comments so much.

I would certainly hope a “reasonable jury” would come to that conclusion, especially with the FBI statement…

I was following that Shannon story/Brad Blog the day that came out, and it was definitely being reported that Shannon had the *scoop* and a charge was coming down. She clearly acted like, in her follow up twitters or tweets or whatever the hell those are, that she KNEW the shoe was dropping. For her to get her panties in a twist now is plain and simple attention seeking. Her press conference was a JOKE, with two people there.

There was a commenter here running around the thread saying *wait for it – it is coming, it is coming* ALL because of what Shannon said. I think she is totally liable.

Honestly I think she/bradblog cleaned up their stories, because I SWEAR I read that it was a fact on one of those blogs as it was unfolding. Now I can’t find it. But, someone did claim it to be fact, and it pointed to Shannon – either she said it, or another site did… I forget. But, I did see it.

you should have watched the video…

If I were on a jury I’d rule in favor of Palin. I think it would be very easy to establish a pattern of malice against her.

Palin’s Lawyer On Greta

http://www.thehopeforamerica.com/play.php?id=1414

I loved the part about the “Left Wing Playbook” and the description about how liberals use the system against conservatives to get headlines and force conservatives to spend their own money to defend themselves. That Playbook is Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals. Then at the end he provided a link to Obama (his official blogger) as one source of frivalous ethics complaints from the lower 48 (outside of Alaska). This is going to get good!

Hey all, if you haven’t already, take a look at David Kahanes article “I still Hate You, Sarah Palin” from the National Review:

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NDE3MmE5MDVmMGM1YjQ2NmVhMjJkN2I2ZTcxMzhlNjU=

As for whether Sarah Palin could win court cases proving slander might not necessarily be the end game. Just being able to file such suits and drag the other party into court &/or make them pay massive amounts in attorney fees defending themselves might cause them to stop or at least put in language that indicates the information is not proven. Unforunately, even then, Sarah Palin haters will read it as fact, not rumour but at least it’s a start.

Also, I loved how President Obama called former leader Putin “President Putin”. Obama also screwed up the story of how he met his wife while giving a speech in Moscow. He said they met in college when in fact it was at a law firm when both were new attorneys. Geez, how gaffetastic our President is on his Russia trip but alas, he is the smartest President Ever!!!

o, GREAT POINT!!! I thought of it this morning while reading USA Today (I’m on vacation, hence the national paper). There was a letter from someone in SC going off on Palin for “quitting” in the middle of her term. Apparently, he doesn’t realize that Obama did exactly that and MORE, because he was shirking his duties as a US Senator while out campaigning all of the time (remember the “No, I didn’t hold any meetings on NATO, Afghanistan, and European Affairs – I was too busy campaigning!” or something along those lines. Yeah, and PALIN is bum. Got it. (SNARK there…)

Oh gosh, I missed the goof Obama made commenting about the US purchasing Alaska from Russia:

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Visiting U.S. President Barack Obama made a pointed quip Tuesday about Russia’s sale of Alaska to the United States in the 19th century.
Referring to the long history of Russia-U.S. trade stretching back more than two centuries, Obama told an audience of business people in Moscow:

“Along the way, you gave us a pretty good deal on Alaska. Thank you.”

Czar Alexander II’s sale of Alaska to the United States in 1867 for $7.2 million in gold, around 1.9 cents per acre, was regarded by Russians as a national disgrace — particularly once it became clear that the province was rich in oil.

Oh yah, embarassing the country you’re visiting in order to make a little funny is so Presidential.

I think joze would have come to the same conclusion if they had watched the video. there really is no basis for a lawsuit.

Think about all of the crap Fox News says about President Obama (and used to say about President Clinton) – They’d have to take hypocrisy to the next level to say that others should be sued for what they say about Palin.

Oh come on! I think 140 years is long enough for something to go from embarrassing to funny

It’s like what in employment law is now recognized as a “constructive” discharge from a job. Some employers would strip the worker of all responsibilities, relocate to an empty office, and advise other employees to sever communications. Then, when the person ‘left’ the job and filed for unemployment, the company would object to the claim on the grounds, the person had “quit.”

In law, as in so many other disciplines,the expression is, “If it looks like a duck…”