the trump election lawsuit thread of dominance

[TwiceHorn 31536]

30 minutes ago, Hanrahan said:

 

Do federal courts apply state anti-slapp laws? If so, why would Texas law apply to this case? Even if they do, Dominion would have to provide prima facie evidence to beat the anti-slapp, which in the case of defamation should be easy. The only at-issue element would be falsity, which dominion can establish by affidavit. I’m guessing the counter affidavits would be laughed out of court.

 

Some do, some don't, hinging apparently on the procedural/substantive distinction of Erie.  D DC does not, which I am guessing is one reason they picked DC.  Also probably favorable politically and jury pool wise.

The Fifth Circuit ruled in 2019 that Texas' Anti-SLAPP doesn't apply. I had previously been aware of a couple of ND Tex cases that said it did.  Yeah, as far as I can tell, it wouldn't hurt Dominion, but would be a pain in the ass, with some small risk of loss.  I suppose ND Tex is probably also less favorable from a judge/jury pool standpoint.  Plus it's just home for ol Sid, and we lawdogs seem to like that.

Speaking of which, there's some evidence that ol Sid actually spends most of her time in NC.  I think that's where she was served.

One irony though is a goodly number of the ND Tex judges are probably going to know/know of her and will be unwilling to accept the "see no evil" attitude she had to adopt to foist those declarations on the courts.  It's pretty clear she's going to rely heavily on the declarations as evidence of a lack of malice.  But even the dumbest lawyers I have come across would know that those declarations are fishy as hell.  Fucking Spider my ass.

 

Edited March 24, 2021 by TwiceHorn

[Bookman 4642]

18 hours ago, Lobo said:

A lot of people are saying reasonable people wouldn't believe Ms. Powell's claims about election rigging and defamation about ballot machine companies.  What this court filing presupposes is, "What if the Trumpers she was talking to weren't reasonable?"  

This is a good point. Maybe in the age of Trump the "reasonable person" standard is outdated.

[wildcat09 29387]

Goddamnit, if y’all start talking Erie I’m going to get violent.

[hpslugga 4062]

15 hours ago, Beau Vine said:

Do I have this correct?

Powell is simultaneously arguing that no reasonable person would believe what she was saying is true, while also arguing that she should be given legal immunity for saying it because that was what she was going to argue in court?

If so, what exactly does a lawyer have to do to get disbarred?

Not only that, she didn't argue it in court and had plenty of opportunities to do so...and didn't...because she knew she'd be committing a fraud against the court.

Also, the "no reasonable person" defense is, historically at least, understood to pertain to protect parody from claims of defamation. That, for example, was the argument Larry Flynt offered in his SCOTUS case against Jerry Falwell. No reasonable person could believe that Falwell fucked his mother in an outhouse, and they weren't seriously suggesting that. To any of Hustler's subscribers, it was obvious that they were engaged in some heavy duty parody, and that's because they knew that Larry Flynt was in the entertainment business. That's what his livelihood was based on.

Powell? She's (barely) an attorney and was making these claims outside of court to arouse popular fury as a means to raise money for Trump. The abominable prick raised over $200 million, for fuck's sake. You mean to tell me that Lin Wood, Sidney Powell, Jenna Ellis, Rudy Giuliani and the rest of that group of sniveling degenerates weren't responsible for that? 

Point being, Powell isn't a comedienne (at least not wittingly). She's not an entertainer. She made those claims outside of court, did not make them in court, thus I cannot for the life of me see how there could be qualified immunity, nor could this rise to the "no reasonable person" standard. The only way she could accomplish that is to argue in this suit "no reasonable person voted for Trump." As someone else mentioned earlier, 10's of millions of people bought into her lies. If you're going to argue that Trump's followers were reasonable people, that argument is DOA. 

[TwiceHorn 31536]

4 minutes ago, hpslugga said:

Not only that, she didn't argue it in court and had plenty of opportunities to do so...and didn't...because she knew she'd be committing a fraud against the court.

Also, the "no reasonable person" defense is, historically at least, understood to pertain to protect parody from claims of defamation. That, for example, was the argument Larry Flynt offered in his SCOTUS case against Jerry Falwell. No reasonable person could believe that Falwell fucked his mother in an outhouse, and they weren't seriously suggesting that. To any of Hustler's subscribers, it was obvious that they were engaged in some heavy duty parody, and that's because they knew that Larry Flynt was in the entertainment business. That's what his livelihood was based on.

Powell? She's (barely) an attorney and was making these claims outside of court to arouse popular fury as a means to raise money for Trump. The abominable prick raised over $200 million, for fuck's sake. You mean to tell me that Lin Wood, Sidney Powell, Jenna Ellis, Rudy Giuliani and the rest of that group of sniveling degenerates weren't responsible for that? 

Point being, Powell isn't a comedienne (at least not wittingly). She's not an entertainer. She made those claims outside of court, did not make them in court, thus I cannot for the life of me see how there could be qualified immunity, nor could this rise to the "no reasonable person" standard. The only way she could accomplish that is to argue in this suit "no reasonable person voted for Trump." As someone else mentioned earlier, 10's of millions of people bought into her lies. If you're going to argue that Trump's followers were reasonable people, that argument is DOA. 

Parody is really a First Amendment defense, both to copyright infringement and to defamation.  Basically, all her defenses boil down to First Amendment stuff.

In the end, though, I think she's going to have a tough time after discovery showing that any of her statements regarding Dominion are cloaked by the First Amendment.

[Guest Lobo]

Maybe this was all really high-level parody/satire by Trump and his minions.  I jokingly said about a year ago that I half expect Trump, at the end of his term, in order to avoid prosecution for all the crazy things he'd said...to turn around to the camera and say, "The Aristocrats!"  Powell may be trying to literally do that right now, in real time, in our country, on our watch.

\  I like high-level political comedy from the likes of Izzard, Oliver, and Chapelle...but even they wouldn't attempt a 2-week set of Venuzueland-corrupted voting machines.  Idiot MAQA's took Powell seriously because she was sent out there by the fucking President of the United States.  She wasn't his retort to the fucking Correspondent's dinner, she was his election lawyer sent to talk election shit after election day to election officials.  

[hpslugga 4062]

2 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

Parody is really a First Amendment defense, both to copyright infringement and to defamation.  Basically, all her defenses boil down to First Amendment stuff.

In the end, though, I think she's going to have a tough time after discovery showing that any of her statements regarding Dominion are cloaked by the First Amendment.

And that's kinda what I'm getting at: I seriously doubt there's going to be anything found to help her. How could it? Between that shouting match that she and Flynn got into with those other buffoons in the WH, her sticking to a very specific narrative about how Hugo Chavez concocted an algorithm that could be calibrated that counted votes for one guy even though they were actually cast for the other guy, vowing on public airwaves to "bring the Kraken" in order to "overturn" the results of swing state elections with the "evidence" that never existed (and was known not to exist by people who actually know things), filing actual lawsuits demanding same, how can anyone even remotely suggest that this in any way comes into the same fucking zip code as parody? When you couple that with the damages that Dominion is alleging (and that she isn't contesting), it's beyond inappropriate to attempt to shield oneself with the First Amendment.

Here's what the fucking problem is: the fucking problem is that we as a society have become conditioned with so much post-modernist horseshit that we seriously don't even know what an opinion is. An opinion is a unique type of belief in that it cannot be proven true and cannot be proven false. If you say that "orange is the best color," and I counter that with "navy blue is the best color," then yeah we're in a tussle of opinions and the phrase "agree to disagree" is actually appropriate. I'm never going to prove myself right and I'm never going to prove you wrong. If I can prove myself right (or you wrong), then I/we were not expressing opinions. Here, Powell was most certainly not expressing an opinion. Her claims could be proven demonstrably false by an overwhelming body of evidence, and she stated them all the same. When you knowingly assert baseless speculation as if it were a matter of fact, you are not expressing an opinion; you're just lying. That's exactly what she did. She lied, she lied, and she lied some more and it was entirely motivated by a desire to damage the integrity and reputation of Dominion. That is ipso facto defamation. 

[Francisco 2.0 32428]

Oh boy.  Take a screenshot now before Dominion owns this URL.

https://frankspeech.com/

 

Quote

MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, the Trump ally who pushed voter-fraud conspiracy theories, has just offered a first glimpse at his new social-media site.

The site, currently a static webpage, is called Frank, and uses the URL frankspeech.com. Lindell previously told Insider's Natasha Dailey in early March that the site would be called Vocl.

Frank is set to launch fully in 10 to 14 days, Lindell told "The Eric Metaxas Radio Show" on Tuesday.

Lindell has been secretly creating his own social-media platform over the past four years, he said earlier this month.

 

Quote

The site's tagline calls it "the voice of free speech." Lindell previously told Dailey that the site would be "all about being able to be vocal again and not to be walking on eggshells."

He told Dailey that he planned to be the site's CEO and told Metaxas that he had invested millions of dollars into it.

The webpage describes why Lindell decided to launch the website as well as what it would be used for.

It says that Frank "will be the platform for Americans who want to defend life, liberty, and all the freedoms that have marked America as the longest running Constitutional Republic in the history of the world."

Users will be able to "post videos, livestream television, distribute news and information, and find community and fellowship with likeminded Americans," per the site's description.

 

Spoiler

Lindell previously told Dailey that the site would be a cross between Twitter and YouTube meant "for print, radio, and TV."

"There's nothing like it out there," he told Metaxas on Tuesday. "Your YouTube channel is your Twitter. It's amazing."

He also said that the site is "reverse-engineered," and that when influencers join, "they will now have a platform where all the people down here follow them instantly."

"They don't have to earn their followers," he added.

The description says the site was launched in retaliation against "cancel culture" and "political correctness."

"The world watched as perhaps the most visible and vocal CEO in America, Mike Lindell, became the victim of the 'cancel culture' when he began to express his views on matters that the liberal media and big tech deemed to be politically incorrect," the site reads.

Lindell has been blocked from Twitter, sued by voting machine company Dominion, and had his products pulled by retailers, all in the space of a few months, after he pushed the conspiracy theory that voting machines switched votes from former President Donald Trump to President Joe Biden during the 2020 election.

Lindell told "The Domenick Nati Show" last week that he planned to cancel "cancel culture," and that he had "big teams" of investigators looking into who was behind it.

In previous interviews, Lindell has suggested that the site's content moderation would be lax. He told Metaxas that he would use the site to share evidence of his voter-fraud theory, which has been thoroughly debunked. He added that he was making another video after the release of his two-hour voter-fraud film "Absolute Proof."

Lindell has constantly criticized other social-media sites, notably Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, which have flagged or removed content in which he promoted voter-fraud conspiracy theories.

Lindell told Metaxas that Frank would be "the most secure platform ever" and that he uses all his own servers so that "they will not be able to break into it."

 

[Longhorn_Fan68 33899]

 

[tx 3 putt 77425]

35 minutes ago, Longhorn_Fan68 said:

 

[castolon 193]

1 hour ago, Longhorn_Fan68 said:

 

"Too ridiculous to be defamatory'". It's true, I'll give him that

[Walden Ponderer 12639]

"You can't arrest me for arson -- all the evidence showing I started the fire were burned to cinders."

[Js1 85574]

 

[Longhorn_Fan68 33899]

I feel sorry for exactly no one who was duped by those people. I don't care if it was grandma. You should have fucking talked to grandma. Over this bullshit.

[Pato del Muerto 52598]

I’m surprised that the vibe from the Powell stuff isn’t more like “she’s only saying this shit now as a legal defense, she meant it when she said it and it’s the truth. We know it’s the truth because of all the evidence that all those judges wouldn’t let them admit.”

Edited March 24, 2021 by Pato del Muerto

[Underdog 28773]

What?  Release the Kraken was bullshit?  Shocked I am. 

[henrygandorf 29194]

8 hours ago, hpslugga said:

The only way she could accomplish that is to argue in this suit "no reasonable person voted for Trump." As someone else mentioned earlier, 10's of millions of people bought into her lies. If you're going to argue that Trump's followers were reasonable people, that argument is DOA. 

i am willing to let this suit slide if every single trump voter uploads a photo of themselves holding a sign that says, "i am not a reasonable person, i voted for trump."

i'll let you guys decide what the website will be called, before i bookmark the shit out of it.

[TwiceHorn 31536]

6 hours ago, hpslugga said:

And that's kinda what I'm getting at: I seriously doubt there's going to be anything found to help her. How could it? Between that shouting match that she and Flynn got into with those other buffoons in the WH, her sticking to a very specific narrative about how Hugo Chavez concocted an algorithm that could be calibrated that counted votes for one guy even though they were actually cast for the other guy, vowing on public airwaves to "bring the Kraken" in order to "overturn" the results of swing state elections with the "evidence" that never existed (and was known not to exist by people who actually know things), filing actual lawsuits demanding same, how can anyone even remotely suggest that this in any way comes into the same fucking zip code as parody? When you couple that with the damages that Dominion is alleging (and that she isn't contesting), it's beyond inappropriate to attempt to shield oneself with the First Amendment.

Here's what the fucking problem is: the fucking problem is that we as a society have become conditioned with so much post-modernist horseshit that we seriously don't even know what an opinion is. An opinion is a unique type of belief in that it cannot be proven true and cannot be proven false. If you say that "orange is the best color," and I counter that with "navy blue is the best color," then yeah we're in a tussle of opinions and the phrase "agree to disagree" is actually appropriate. I'm never going to prove myself right and I'm never going to prove you wrong. If I can prove myself right (or you wrong), then I/we were not expressing opinions. Here, Powell was most certainly not expressing an opinion. Her claims could be proven demonstrably false by an overwhelming body of evidence, and she stated them all the same. When you knowingly assert baseless speculation as if it were a matter of fact, you are not expressing an opinion; you're just lying. That's exactly what she did. She lied, she lied, and she lied some more and it was entirely motivated by a desire to damage the integrity and reputation of Dominion. That is ipso facto defamation. 

The danger in all this is that I am pretty often surprised how often defamation cases get dismissed at very preliminary stages.  So there's no discovery into the sordid details.

However, those dismissals usually are in favor of legitimate or even only semi-legitimate news outlets and reporting.  Those entites receive a lot of benefit of the doubt and the highest form of First Amendment protection.

Sidney Powell and the other defamers are most certainly not that.  But, the whole "litigation privilege" may provide a bit of a wild card.

Again, it would have helped quite a bit, I think, if some of the trial judges were a little less reticent to call this frivolous.

Edited March 25, 2021 by TwiceHorn

[Biff Tannen 45737]

5 hours ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

Lindell told "The Domenick Nati Show" last week that he planned to cancel "cancel culture," and that he had "big teams" of investigators looking into who was behind it.

Lulz

5 hours ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

Lindell told Metaxas that Frank would be "the most secure platform ever" and that he uses all his own servers so that "they will not be able to break into it."

Double lulz

[hpslugga 4062]

13 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

The danger in all this is that I am pretty often surprised how often defamation cases get dismissed at very preliminary stages.  So there's no discovery into the sordid details.

However, those dismissals usually are in favor of legitimate or even only semi-legitimate news outlets and reporting.  Those entites receive a lot of benefit of the doubt and the highest form of First Amendment protection.

Sidney Powell and the other defamers are most certainly not that.  But, the whole "litigation privilege" may provide a bit of a wild card.

Again, it would have helped quite a bit, I think, if some of the trial judges were a little less reticent to call this frivolous.

I don't think it'll help her because, again, she didn't argue the things in court that she said in those embarrassing, language-mangling pressers. It'd be one thing if the outlandish claims she made in those pressers made it to the court room, but that's not what happened. What happened was she slandered the living shit out of them in public and when it came time for the judge's gavel to drop, she gave next to nothing. I mean I suppose they could find some perverted judge that would flip himself into a partisan pretzel to make believe that that such privilege existed, but if that whole, pesky "follow the law" thing creeps into that judge's head, she doesn't have a chance in the hell that doesn't exist.

[Bookman 4642]

Yeah if you can get around defamation by filing a frivolous lawsuit after the fact then that'd be messed up.

[Bama Chick 28596]

Exactly.

[Hugo Stiglitz 23367]

Fox News just got sued again, this time dominion voting systems, $1.6B

[HenryJames 66171]

 

[Chooky 13319]

32 minutes ago, HenryJames said:

 

"Our network is so clearly absurd and unreasonable that nobody in their right mind would believe this shit."

[Mrs Whiggins 13050]

Someone really really needs to look into ES&S voting systems, preferably prior to the 2022 elections.

[Goredho 17419]

On 3/24/2021 at 5:14 PM, Underdog said:

What?  Release the Kraken was bullshit?  Shocked I am. 

I think it was RELEASE THE CRACKERS!!  That’s how it worked out, anyway.

[Beau Vine 54428]

Trumpers on twitter are rejoicing about this for some reason.  

Also rejoicing -- Dominion's lawyers:

This is evidence.

[Pato del Muerto 52598]

Put tha evadence in tha car

[Guest Lobo]

Well duh, by the time November 2022 rolls around, there'll be a gag order to publicly decry Dominion voting machines as part of the Hugo Chavez/Qanon plan.  However, whatever new company gets that contract will be fair game to target.  And the cycle will repeat itself.  They can't use Dominion and Venezuela this time so I'm sure 2022 will be Hart Intercivic machines being manipulated by Panama, Egypt, or Indonesia.  Trumper's imaginations are only limited by their geographic knowledge...which is to say...fucking severe.

[OneOfTheOutOfFocusGuys 2082]

5 minutes ago, Beau Vine said:

Trumpers on twitter are rejoicing about this for some reason.  

Also rejoicing -- Dominion's lawyers:

This is evidence.

we love trump so much we are willing to add 9 digits to his damages exposure

[sidis 9832]

17 minutes ago, Beau Vine said:

Trumpers on twitter are rejoicing about this for some reason.  

Also rejoicing -- Dominion's lawyers:

This is evidence.

good lord this is a damages expert's dream.

[Brisketexan 105335]

16 minutes ago, Beau Vine said:

Trumpers on twitter are rejoicing about this for some reason.  

Also rejoicing -- Dominion's lawyers:

This is evidence.

I mean.....to have quantifiable damages is nice.  To have those damages DIRECTLY tied to the defamatory conduct?

[WhatTheBuck 28798]

On 3/22/2021 at 7:24 PM, henrygandorf said:

your honor, everyone knows i'm full of shit, so if gullible morons believed me, it's their fault for being gullible morons.

if she has a long enough track record of saying outlandish shit, i would think her argument is decent.

but didn't she used to be somewhat respectable?

AKA the Tucker Carlson defense. 

[Guest Lobo]

nmnm

 

[Guest Lobo]

31 minutes ago, Beau Vine said:

Also rejoicing -- Dominion's lawyers:

 

Sydney Powell:  "No reasonable or sane person would believe my claims about Dominion voting machines, your honor.  Anyone who did would not be fit to be seated as a juror on civil case, let alone be in charge of elections in large U.S. states!"  

Republicans in Ohio and Louisiana, "Goddammit, Sydney...we're trying to do a thing over here!"  

[staboner 4987]

On 3/25/2021 at 10:14 AM, Underdog said:

What?  Release the Kraken was bullshit?  Shocked I am. 

[Francisco 2.0 32428]

I rarely wish harm, but he needs to be living out of a van in the near future.

 

 

[Guest Lobo]

so from two weeks to two quarters then?  Got it.  

You'd think with all these disparate individuals and groups who have all this evidence proving the election was stolen from Trump...some wise and greedy GOP "sponsor" would get them in a charrette somewhere to compare notes and overthrow the Biden regime.  

But oh wait, you guys are fucking stupid.  

[Hugo Stiglitz 23367]

41 minutes ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

rarely wish harm, but he needs to be living out of a van in the near future.

Lol, he’s going to be our next President. 

[Francisco 2.0 32428]

4 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

Lol, he’s going to be our next President. 

Lindell?  That's who I was referring to.

[Hugo Stiglitz 23367]

Just now, Francisco 2.0 said:

Lindell?  

Yep, he’s the only one to take Trump’s crazy and shamelessly crank it up to 11, checks all the boxes.  GQP leadership written all over him. 

[DigglerontheHoof 21242]

11 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

Yep, he’s the only one to take Trump’s crazy and shamelessly crank it up to 11, checks all the boxes.  GQP leadership written all over him. 

GQB POTUS nominee 2024

[Biff Tannen 45737]

4 hours ago, Beau Vine said:

Trumpers on twitter are rejoicing about this for some reason.  

Also rejoicing -- Dominion's lawyers:

This is evidence.

I'm still confused as to which cancel culture is good and which is bad.

 

4 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

I mean.....to have quantifiable damages is nice.  To have those damages DIRECTLY tied to the defamatory conduct?

Not a lawyer, but basically is this like a slam dunk for Dominion?

[Pato del Muerto 52598]

1 minute ago, Biff Tannen said:

I'm still confused as to which cancel culture is good and which is bad.

 

 

No, you’re not. 

[Gatorubet 30313]

Put tha evadence in tha car

It’s in the boathouse.

[TwiceHorn 31536]

2 hours ago, Biff Tannen said:

I'm still confused as to which cancel culture is good and which is bad.

 

Not a lawyer, but basically is this like a slam dunk for Dominion?

Liability may be somewhat up in the air, but Dominion's claim is that they lost business because of the slander.

Proving lost business often involves an element of speculation or uncertainty because those negotiations are usually behind closed doors and the prospective buyer may not be candid about why it didn't make the purchase and may only admit that the slander was only one of several factors.

But when the purchase negotiations are public like this and subject to public pressure fueled directly by the slander, it makes it very easy for the jury to accept that the business was lost due to the slander and should be compensated by judgment accordingly.

So yeah, this takes the damages out of the realm of speculation and uncertainty.

 

[Scheiss Meister 8411]

6 hours ago, Beau Vine said:

Trumpers on twitter are rejoicing about this for some reason.  

Also rejoicing -- Dominion's lawyers:

This is evidence.

I can see how this is useful for Dominion in their cases against Powell, Fox, et al, but aren't the individuals and organizations who lobbied against Dominion in these purchases also liable, especially if they continued to push The Big Lie?  I would enjoy seeing some of the minions being held accountable, too.

[tx 3 putt 77425]

So August is the new Jan 6 / March 4 ?

[956 Worldwide 34770]

8 hours ago, Scheiss Meister said:

I can see how this is useful for Dominion in their cases against Powell, Fox, et al, but aren't the individuals and organizations who lobbied against Dominion in these purchases also liable, especially if they continued to push The Big Lie?  I would enjoy seeing some of the minions being held accountable, too.

You just point to Fox News, Sydney, Flynn, etc. and say you were relying on their statements and analysis when you took those actions.