All purpose news and politics thread part VI: This Is Not The Time For Posing

[Tami]

This one does not surprise me

House GOP’s pleas to Republican National Committee for financial help go unanswered

Senior House Republicans are pleading with the deep-pocketed Republican National Committee and the Trump campaign to provide financial help as Democrats vastly outraise the GOP, but top campaign officials are so far declining to commit.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has been prodding the RNC to write a check to the National Republican Congressional Committee — a request he has made multiple times. McCarthy specifically has asked Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, to make a financial commitment to the House GOP, according to several officials familiar with the discussions, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to freely describe private conversations.

But Kushner, who oversees such decisions and has a greater say than RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, has refused thus far, the officials say. While the Trump campaign and the RNC have brought in record amounts of money, some Trump officials see donating to the House as a wasteful investment as the GOP’s chances of reclaiming the majority sharply deteriorate. Their decline in fortunes can largely be attributed to Trump’s sagging support over his handling of the coronavirus pandemic and the sliding economy.

“The campaign just wants the money. . . . They don’t care about the House — it’s not their concern,” one official close with the Trump campaign said. “When you’ve been working in politics for years, and you understand it’s a team sport, you kind of look at these things a little differently. I don’t think they see it that way.”

[mogwen]

This one does not surprise me

House GOP’s pleas to Republican National Committee for financial help go unanswered

Good! It's time for them to feel the pressure!

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

Which begs the question, who will fill that vacuum? The Kochs? Murdoch? Someone else?

Nobody. It’s kind of clear now that people are getting in position to save face because they think he’s going to lose. Lose badly too.

[Steel Inquisitor]

"Both sides are bad but let's just support the objectively worse one and just pretend like all the problems are actually good things." - The entire sorry history of moderate liberals everywhere.

Straw man. And worse against what? Please, explain what you mean here otherwise it's just going on a tangent without addressing the real gist of what you're defending. I assume it's about capitalism vs Communism, but your response is so disjointed it's like I came into a conversation you had with an invisible party.

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

It takes 15 minutes to call his lawyer and put him on the case.

People don’t understand how difficult libel and defamation cases are when you are a public figure. It’s a waste of time and potentially dangerous.

You have to prove that they were lying. You have to prove they knew they were lying (so Sinclair can hide behind “well we thought this crazy guy might know something or had a right to express his theory even though we didn’t proactively validate it”. And show tangible damages. Since this won’t make Fauci lose his job and he’s already getting threats so you can’t tie anything new to this, it’s just an uphill battle nobody wants to deal with. And if he loses on those grounds the crazies will go around saying “Fauci tried to sue them and lost”. It’s just not a good move.

[Tendrin]

https://twitter.com/dwuhlfelderlaw/s...166268416?s=21


CSGOPOTD alum and Corona Denier Jason Rapert, R-Arkansas, has been hospitalized with Covid-19.

[numberthirty]

People don’t understand how difficult libel and defamation cases are when you are a public figure. It’s a waste of time and potentially dangerous.

You have to prove that they were lying. You have to prove they knew they were lying (so Sinclair can hide behind “well we thought this crazy guy might know something or had a right to express his theory even though we didn’t proactively validate it”. And show tangible damages. Since this won’t make Fauci lose his job and he’s already getting threats so you can’t tie anything new to this, it’s just an uphill battle nobody wants to deal with. And if he loses on those grounds the crazies will go around saying “Fauci tried to sue them and lost”. It’s just not a good move.

Yep.

While I get the gut reaction that he should just sue them, he basically has to pull off the equivalent of the shot that blew up the Death Star for it to be anything except "Upside!..." for the "Clown Car..." set.

[numberthirty]

Nobody. It’s kind of clear now that people are getting in position to save face because they think he’s going to lose. Lose badly too.

While someone might, the obvious play is to stick whatever money they would have sunk into this in the bank and come back in four years.

[PaulBullion]

Tell Gawker how difficult defamation suits are for public figure. Oh wait, you can't.


Meanwhile: Hillary Clinton never had a lead like this.

Biden Leads +15; Democrats Hold +14 Advantage in Generic Congressional Ballot Match-Up

[numberthirty]

Tell Gawker how difficult defamation suits are for public figure. Oh wait, you can't.


Meanwhile: Hillary Clinton never had a lead like this.

Biden Leads +15; Democrats Hold +14 Advantage in Generic Congressional Ballot Match-Up

Some "Basics 101" about that particular example, and the exact reason why it was not a garden variety instance...

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/03/b...ettlement.html

Gawker and Hulk Hogan Reach $31 Million Settlement

“After four years of litigation funded by a billionaire with a grudge going back even further, a settlement has been reached,” Mr. Denton said in a blog post on Wednesday.

“All-out legal war with Thiel would have cost too much, and hurt too many people, and there was no end in sight,” Mr. Denton added. “Gawker’s nemesis was not going away.”

Mr. Denton did not respond to a request for further comment.

In May, Mr. Thiel, a founder of PayPal and one of the earliest investors in Facebook, acknowledged in an interview with The New York Times that he was providing financial support for Mr. Bollea’s lawsuit, saying he was financing cases against Gawker because it published articles that “ruined people’s lives for no reason.” Mr. Thiel was outed as gay by Valleywag, one of Gawker’s now-defunct blogs, nearly a decade ago.

[numberthirty]

Never mind that the suit in question wasn't actually a "Defamation" suit. It was "Invasion Of Privacy" with a couple of other things thrown in.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertw.../#1fdae7446e84

Hulk Hogan Settles $140 Million Gawker Verdict For $31 Million, IRS Collects Big

Hulk Hogan has settled with Gawker for $31 million, plus Gawker’s agreement to remove the sex materials from its website that were the subject of the hard-fought invasion of privacy suit.

[Gray Lensman]

Tell Gawker how difficult defamation suits are for public figure. Oh wait, you can't.

That is a special case when a billionaire decides to use his fortune to destroy someone. People who aren't super rich can't pull off something like that - it required deep pockets and the wherewithal to decide that even though you will lose money, the satisfaction of financially ruining someone is worth it. On top of that, it required that the person being sued didn't have overly deep pockets - even Thiel's cash isn't likely to be able to do as much to a mega-corp like Sinclair as he was to a much less profitable company like Gawker.

Fauci has much less money than Sinclair, where Thiel had much more money than Gawker, so the same result is incredibly unlikely. Even then, Thiel didn't go after Gawker for the story about him, he went looking for other cases he could finance.

[The Cool Thatguy]

That is a special case when a billionaire decides to use his fortune to destroy someone. People who aren't super rich can't pull off something like that - it required deep pockets and the wherewithal to decide that even though you will lose money, the satisfaction of financially ruining someone is worth it. On top of that, it required that the person being sued didn't have overly deep pockets - even Thiel's cash isn't likely to be able to do as much to a mega-corp like Sinclair as he was to a much less profitable company like Gawker.

Fauci has much less money than Sinclair, where Thiel had much more money than Gawker, so the same result is incredibly unlikely. Even then, Thiel didn't go after Gawker for the story about him, he went looking for other cases he could finance.

In his defense (and Hogan's), he went after them for exposing something that wasn't in the public's interest to begin with

[numberthirty]

In his defense (and Hogan's), he went after them for exposing something that wasn't in the public's interest to begin with

Sure.

That said, it is a complete "Apple"/"Orange" comparison when you try to make it even remotely comparable to Fauci being able to sue for defamation.

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

Tell Gawker how difficult defamation suits are for public figure. Oh wait, you can't.


Meanwhile: Hillary Clinton never had a lead like this.

Biden Leads +15; Democrats Hold +14 Advantage in Generic Congressional Ballot Match-Up

I actually can. You’re comparing a company releasing an illegal sex tape and a wrestler who lost his current job and a bunch of advertisements to a Dr. who is in politics having people on tv push conspiracy theories that won’t effect his job and you can’t even tie any backlash or death threats to it because he’s getting them anyways. It’s a bad case unless you literally get a smoking gun of the network and the people having a discussion that is essentially “hey guys want to make up some lies about Fauci on air so we can ruin his life”. And even if you got that, Fauci would still have to prove direct damages.

And even then a loss is going to be construed by the right as “Fauci lost the case, so see they weren’t lying”.

I also can’t stress enough that Hogan vs Gawker was about the most textbook case in the world where the material they published was illegal, illegally obtained, there’s really no reason to release a sex tape besides to maliciously embarrass somebody and Hogan has multiple employers and advertisers cut ties with him directly citing what was released on that tape. And as thirty pointed out, the truth is without a billionaire with a massive vendetta Hogan probably wouldn’t have fought it as long as it took to induce that settlement. Fauci would have an uphill case and quite frankly many politicians would be suing if that was the metric. Obama could have sued Fox News over about a thousand things. It just doesn’t work that way.

In Fauci’s case high risk/low reward situation. You aren’t likely to win, even if you win it really doesn’t change much, and eating a loss is just going to a red flag for your oppositions. Also by suing you add gas to the fire and give the story more attention.

This is one of those things where you go on tv and laugh that it’s ridiculous and dismiss it, have influential people do the same, and then let the public do its thing