Even if Farah and Corsi had shown that they were falsely accused of sexually assaulting a walrus — and they have not — they have not presented evidence that being associated with such conduct would harm their reputation amongst their audience of World Net Daily Readers.
My personal favourite is a bit further on IIRC, wherein the Federal court says the "walrus" matter would have been dealt with more appropriately at a state court, or perhaps a televised one.
-- Steve's wondering if DC circuit will hear appeals regarding verdicts from Judge Judy.
I enjoyed these, until I clicked through to the ruling and discovered they were not in fact in the ruling. but, walruses were not in fact in the original article either so I guess that makes some sense.
most stories are improved by the addition of walrus, this is what I've learned here.
There's a dude over at Popehat in the comments being all "OMG, what about this OTHER case where RIGHT WING lying liars who lie told OBVIOUS LIES that were lapped up by stupid people and now the person they lied about is getting death threats. Doesn't this mean that's ALSO freeze peach?"
And: Well, the original source sites no sources, makes unbelievably racist and stupid claims, and has on his blogroll, among others, Ted Rall, The Institute For Historical Review, Alex Jones, Rushton, and a crapload of other racist/aggressively stupid/both sources.
So no, his claims are completely unbelievable, and he's obviously a racist asshole, and thus his idiotic attempts at "satire" would be protected speech.
Except: #1: a TON of racist idiots believed his statements were true, despite them being completely unbelievable to any reasonable person. The problem here is that saying "no reasonable person could..." requires defining about 30% of the USA as "not a reasonable person", because they're the fucking Crazification Factor. And that way lies madness for every other reasonable person standard. #2: The obviously-false obviously-racist obviously-lies, from a source that makes no claim to be anything but a racist and stupid source of racist and stupid lies, was also written in a way that was *just reasonable enough* to cause that well-known violent and racist fringe of readers to go after the subject of the piece with death threats.
Which is to say: It's not just that he was obviously lying, it's that he was obviously lying in a way calculated to make people too stupid to detect blatant lies terrorise the target of his lies. Which is likely actionable.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2013-11-27 12:25 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-11-27 12:39 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-11-27 01:41 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-11-27 04:28 am (UTC)-- Steve's wondering if DC circuit will hear appeals regarding verdicts from Judge Judy.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-11-27 04:48 pm (UTC)most stories are improved by the addition of walrus, this is what I've learned here.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-11-27 03:35 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-11-27 03:51 am (UTC)And: Well, the original source sites no sources, makes unbelievably racist and stupid claims, and has on his blogroll, among others, Ted Rall, The Institute For Historical Review, Alex Jones, Rushton, and a crapload of other racist/aggressively stupid/both sources.
So no, his claims are completely unbelievable, and he's obviously a racist asshole, and thus his idiotic attempts at "satire" would be protected speech.
Except:
#1: a TON of racist idiots believed his statements were true, despite them being completely unbelievable to any reasonable person. The problem here is that saying "no reasonable person could..." requires defining about 30% of the USA as "not a reasonable person", because they're the fucking Crazification Factor. And that way lies madness for every other reasonable person standard.
#2: The obviously-false obviously-racist obviously-lies, from a source that makes no claim to be anything but a racist and stupid source of racist and stupid lies, was also written in a way that was *just reasonable enough* to cause that well-known violent and racist fringe of readers to go after the subject of the piece with death threats.
Which is to say: It's not just that he was obviously lying, it's that he was obviously lying in a way calculated to make people too stupid to detect blatant lies terrorise the target of his lies. Which is likely actionable.