America - The Official Thread
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Joey D
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The stuff that was cut from the bill was stuff like tuition-free community college and Medicaid expansion. What those have to do with climate and energy is beyond me. I really wish when a bill is introduced it was more targeted. Congress would probably get way more done if it broke massive packages down into smaller, more targeted bills.
I know it would ultimately take away time from people in Congress taking lavish vacations and campaigning on empty promises, but they were elected to do a job so they might as well, you know, actually do it.
I know it would ultimately take away time from people in Congress taking lavish vacations and campaigning on empty promises, but they were elected to do a job so they might as well, you know, actually do it.
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That's a bit more like it - Alex Jones to pay $49.3 m in damages for his despicable lies and abuse of the victims' families.
Alex Jones must pay $49.3m for Sandy Hook hoax claim
The parents of a child killed in the attack said they had endured harassment and emotional distress.
www.bbc.co.uk
McLaren
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Is that to just one family? Hope the rest are lining up before the Jan 6th committee gets their licks in.That's a bit more like it - Alex Jones to pay $49.3 m in damages for his despicable lies and abuse of the victims' families.
Alex Jones must pay $49.3m for Sandy Hook hoax claim
The parents of a child killed in the attack said they had endured harassment and emotional distress.www.bbc.co.uk
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I think he still has two more cases to answer and one of those was filed in Connecticut, where Sandy Hook is. That one'll be pretty supercharged.That's a bit more like it - Alex Jones to pay $49.3 m in damages for his despicable lies and abuse of the victims' families.
Alex Jones must pay $49.3m for Sandy Hook hoax claim
The parents of a child killed in the attack said they had endured harassment and emotional distress.www.bbc.co.uk
To a nicer guy it couldn't happen!
- 29,459
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- TexRex72
Not wholly accurate. A jury unanimously agreed on two separate sums ($4.1 million and $45.2 million) totalling that amount in punitive damages, but they did so after having explicitly not been informed (so that it would not affect their deliberations) that Texas tort reform caps damages in these suits to $750,000 punitive combined with no more than two times economic. Because plaintiffs were awarded $110,000 in economic damages, total damages after that gets doubled and punitive damages get knocked down come out to $970,000.That's a bit more like it - Alex Jones to pay $49.3 m in damages for his despicable lies and abuse of the victims' families.
Alex Jones must pay $49.3m for Sandy Hook hoax claim
The parents of a child killed in the attack said they had endured harassment and emotional distress.www.bbc.co.uk
It gets more even more unsatisfying when you consider that a memo from his business manager presented during the trial highlighted a single day's earnings figure of $800,000 in supplements sales by his company, and you just know he's going to fight it, not so much on principle but as a performative act. He's also going to capitalize on the $45.3 million figure rather than the $970,000 figure when soliciting from the base.
Plus the ****ing crooked right is backing the mother****er all the way to the bank.
It's not "criticizing the official story," it's a relentless harassment campaign mobilizing a base for whom cruelty knows no boundaries to make the lives of those who lost children an even more complete hell. **** them all and **** them all the ****ing way.
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- 29,459
- a baby, candy, it's like taking.
- TexRex72
So the allegation of censorship in the context of those remarks is certainly disingenuous, but that's not really what's problematic with the remarks.
There are two primary courses of action by private actors against the speech of other private actors.
The first and I'd imagine probably more common is the private associative action. A private actor may penalize another private actor with whom they are associated, however tenuous the association, without involving the state. This may play out in the public eye, but it's still private in that it doesn't involve the state. Twitter banning users is one example; the NFL fining or suspending (even indefinitely) kneeling players is another. It doesn't have to be as high profile as the NFL example. A mom-and-pop market may fire a stockboy that insults a customer. Because this action is the exercise of one's right to free association, this isn't actually censorship.
The other course of action is seeking legal remedy over legitimate harm. This necessitates adjudication by the state. In the United States, the legal right of adjudication of a civil suit before a jury is enumerated in the Seventh Amendment to the United States Constitution. (The Seventh Amendment isn't incorporated and so it doesn't apply to individual states, but state Constitutions and codes also have similar provisions.) There are different types or legitimate harm. Copyright infringement is one because it involves unfair use one's intellectual property. In the Sandy Hook suit brought by parents against Alex Jones, the legitimate harm is defamation, especially to the point that plaintiffs were harassed and threatened based on falsehoods propagated by Jones. While it may seem counterintuitive, the legal remedy is a form of censorship because it's seeking to dissuade expression and isn't subject to free association.
Because the latter involves state action, the standards for legitimate harm have to be high enough so as to not be in violation of the First Amendment.
The reason the allegation of censorship in the remarks above is disingenuous is because the right is exceedingly litigious. Not only is the right so very litigious, but it also advocates for the lowering of standards to enable its litigiousness and increase its chances of success in civil suits. And there's obviously a double standard on the right: civil litigation by them and against the opposition is righteous while civil litigation against them and by the opposition is ruinous.
Things get more complicated for the right (and ultimately better for free expression) when you factor in anti-SLAPP statutes in state legal codes. A SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) suit is one brought by a [frequently wealthy] private actor against another private actor, alleging defamation, in an effort to chill expression on matters of public interest. Anti-SLAPP filings are made against these suits and if the lawsuit that prompted the anti-SLAPP motion fails to meet the standards for legitimate harm, the statute dictates that the actor that brought the defamation suit pay compensatory damages.
Anti-SLAPP isn't perfect. It's narrowly applied to matters deemed to be of public interest, but also, more and more, those who bring SLAPP suits aren't actually playing with their own money and so the successful anti-SLAPP motion doesn't dissuade as it ought to. A perfect example of this is Stanford and UW's recent anti-SLAPP victory against Project Veritas in a defamation suit over an election integrity blog affiliated with the two schools that questioned Project Veritas's ballot harvesting narrative. But Project Veritas brings lots of defamation suits and money recovered by Stanford via the filing under Washington's new anti-SLAPP statute accounts for only a portion of what has been spent by the school defending (successfully) against the propagandists. Project Veritas funds these suits with conventional fundraising and grants from conservative groups but also with crowdfunding. Put simply, conservatives want Project Veritas to stick it to private actors they don't like and they're literally paying them to do it.
I know this was intended as a joke but we can probably do without pleading for Elon Musk to do something about these piece of **** mother****ers, not least becase Elon Musk is actually one of these piece of **** mother****ers.
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- Chrunch_Houston
So none of you libs brought up this new inflation act bill today. What a win for you guys.
I think of the meme where they are sitting at the board room table, someone comes up with an idea and gets thrown out the window.
Who thought it would be a good idea to raise taxes during a recession?
Who thought it would be a good idea to spend nearly a half a trillion new dollars during a time of high inflation?
I was gonna post a shaking my head emoji, but I couldn't find one.
I think of the meme where they are sitting at the board room table, someone comes up with an idea and gets thrown out the window.
Who thought it would be a good idea to raise taxes during a recession?
Who thought it would be a good idea to spend nearly a half a trillion new dollars during a time of high inflation?
I was gonna post a shaking my head emoji, but I couldn't find one.
McLaren
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A) Not sure a Con is any position to critique the bill after your party pulled this stunt.
B) Well done on not reading the bill, but I'm sure Fox News or whatever Twitter Con you follow didn't want you to do so anyway.
'Pure capitalism': Republicans nix insulin price caps on private insurance in blow to Democrats
Republicans said the price caps should have been considered separately from the far-reaching Inflation Reeducation Act that tackles health and climate.
www.usatoday.com
B) Well done on not reading the bill, but I'm sure Fox News or whatever Twitter Con you follow didn't want you to do so anyway.
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Which regular contributors to this thread are libs?
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Scaff
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Reports suggest that Donald Trump's personal library was all but destroyed during the FBI's raid on his Mar-a-Lago estate yesterday.
Both of his books have been damaged beyond repair, and he hadn't even finished colouring one of them in yet.
Both of his books have been damaged beyond repair, and he hadn't even finished colouring one of them in yet.
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When Megyn Kelly asked him about the last book he read, Trump replied, "I read passages. I read areas. I'll read chapters. I don't have the time." Trump didn't have time to read the last book he read.
In his 1990 book, Surviving at the Top, which he didn't write, Trump says that travel, exercise, and successful people bore him. "I get bored too easily," he says. "My attention span is short."
Joey D
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Now come on, we know that's a lie. The man has been obsessed with "election fraud" for nearly two years now.
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Second day in a row, I come here and no one is really talking about the biggest news of the day.
All I have got to say about this is that they better have some iron clad evidence that Trump has committed serious felonies.
Otherwise, congrats to the Democrats, they have risen to dictator level 2. Soon they will be up there with Nicolás Maduro and Putin.
All I have got to say about this is that they better have some iron clad evidence that Trump has committed serious felonies.
Otherwise, congrats to the Democrats, they have risen to dictator level 2. Soon they will be up there with Nicolás Maduro and Putin.
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You think that he hasn't?
