Florida State Seminoles

[sardis]

Forcing another person/state to be libertarian is an unlibertarian act.

Kind of like making every other country be a democracy, or else.

[eCat]

Forcing another person/state to be libertarian is an unlibertarian act.

Kind of like making every other country be a democracy, or else.

quite the paradox

I'd still do it.

And as people find out the states can't pay for their pensions or medicare - they'll come around to it as well.

[eCat]

I found this interesting

retweeting false tweets could be liable

----------------

In late June, as a fierce debate over President Trump’s family separation policy raged, a viral Twitter post caught the eye of MSNBC host Joy Reid. An activist, Alan Vargas, tweeted a photo of a woman in a “Make America Great Again” hat seemingly yelling at a high school student during a City Council meeting in Simi Valley, California. The woman, Roslyn La Liberte, was among a crowd that was said to have called the student a “dirty Mexican” and told him “You are going to be the first deported,” Vargas’ tweet claimed. Vargas wrote in the post, “Spread this far and wide.” Reid clicked the retweet button, sending the message to her 1.2  million  followers.

But the MAGA-hatted woman, La Liberte, didn’t actually say those things to the student. A week later, after local news coverage of the incident, Reid tweeted an apology to La Liberte and the teenager, saying, “It appears I got this wrong.” That didn’t stop La Liberte from filing a lawsuit Sept. 25 against Reid for defamation and requesting punitive damages.

Several of Reid’s social media posts are at issue in the lawsuit, but it’s her retweet of Vargas' comments that proves the most legally interesting. As Reid’s legal team prepares its response, the fight is spotlighting an issue most Twitter users likely haven’t considered: Yes, it is possible to be liable for defamation by retweeting someone else’s defamatory statement. “Certainly, a retweet is a form of republication,” says Marvin Putnam, an entertainment litigator at L.A.’s Latham & Watkins. Litigator Jeremiah Reynolds agrees, saying, “If you tweet about someone and say they’re racist, or retweet someone else [saying it], and you don’t have any evidence of that, you could be liable for defamation.”

Experts are split on whether the underlying tweet from activist Vargas is actually defamatory, but they agree Reid’s retweet could make her liable for defamation if the court finds that it is. Defamation law has a rule regarding republication that essentially says a person who repeats defamation is as liable as the person who originally said it. As to the actual contents of Reid’s retweet, whether it’s defamatory is complicated. La Liberte is likely not a public figure, meaning she’s not subjected to a higher legal standard, but the tweet centers on an issue of national importance: immigration.

“While the people are private figures, the issue is of public concern,” says Putnam. “If you don’t know it is not true and have no reason to believe it is not true, then it should be fine as this is a matter of public interest, which requires actual malice before there can be liability when wrong.”

Also factoring in the case is the tendency of Twitter users to spew nonsense. “In the Twitter context, courts have seemingly adopted a higher standard for what can be considered defamatory because there’s so much inflammatory content that happens on the site,” says Reynolds. “Everyone is reasonably expecting hyperbole and inflammatory rhetoric, and, to me, this falls in that category.”

Entertainment litigator Lincoln Bandlow predicts Reid will lose the case on summary judgment. "[La Liberte’s attorney] Lin Wood is one of the best plaintiff’s defamation lawyers in America. The woman is clearly a private figure," he says.

A verified Twitter user with a million-plus followers, like Reid, is much more likely to be a target, both because the person probably has more financial resources and because the account has a broader reach, but even someone with an egg for a Twitter avatar and just a few followers could be found liable. “The publication doctrine requires just one other person besides the speaker and the subject to hear the statement,” says Bandlow, adding that a large following “exponentially changes the damages computation.”

Claiming “retweets don’t equal endorsements” in your Twitter bio isn’t likely to offer much protection either. “I don’t think you’re protected simply because you say you’re not endorsing what this other person says,” notes litigator Michael Weinsten. “What you’re doing when you retweet is you’re advancing a defamatory statement and making it more accessible to the rest of the world.”

[Professor Tiger]

Twitter’s censorship division is hard at work making sure that anything that includes “MAGA” is deemed hate speech, and therefore banned, in order to protect free speech online.

[Jungle Rat]

Is Ohio going blue? That would be funny

[Jungle Rat]

The Georgia Governor election is gonna be in the courts for years.

[Professor Tiger]

It appears that Tennesseans did not heed Taylor Swift's wise, seasoned and sage endorsement of Bredesen.

[sardis]

Last night:

Winner: Donald Trump - Pretty much kept the carnage to a minimum by his rallies. Candidates that he rallied for seemed to win.

Loser: Republicans - without Donald Trump, they're nothing and there doesn't seem to be a successor out there that's like him.

Winner: Deep state - Mueller hung on long enough to get the only group that could investigate them out of power. He will now release a very mundane report and set off in the sunset.

Loser: The American people and their personal freedoms

Winner: Nancy Pelosi - The old broad gets that gavel one last time.

Loser: Democrats - The fact that Nancy Pelosi still can be the most influential member of the party ought to tell you something. Beto? Did you hear his speech? The guy won't make it out of the Dem Presidential primaries in 2020.

Loser: Whoever won the Illinois governorship - That's a Titanic, I don't care how many billions you have, it's not enough to save that shithole.

[eCat]

I was a little surprised about save the planet Gillum and the flag burning woman in Georgia. Also very glad Claire McCaskill lost. Important lesson to be learned there

Bottom line is McCaskill pissed off Trump so badly he focused on her state - probably at the expense of many others

[eCat]

I think the Democrats would be much better served is Pelosi didn't take over as speaker.

Not that I think they should bring in some socialist nut job under the guise of being progressive

but Pelosi doesn't advance their cause, its like McConnell for the Republicans - that era of politics has passed

that said, I bet Pelosi tries to temper the house attempts to go after Trump with endless investigations.

locally my county voted to raise taxes on continuing a vocational school that provides an alternative to college and a levy to put more money into road/bridge infrastructure

all the republicans were voted on by roughly a 60/30 split in the vote average and yet my county voted yes on the only two tax increases on the ballot.

another measure - not quite sure the details of it but it was a measure to reduce possession of drugs like fentanyl to a misdemeanor failed badly. It was just too lenient. Its clearly designed to support families that are overwhelmed by drug addiction but it pretty much legalized opioid use - to the extent it was a 3 strikes rule before any serious penalties were involved.

[hedge]

On the bright side, Michigan voted to legalize marijuana for recreational use. It's just a matter of time before medical marijuana is legalized at the federal level and when that happens they won't even bother with states that legalize for recreational use, not that they're bothering too much with any of them now. Even Missouri and freakin' Utah legalized medical marijuana last night. If Utah is legalizing it, the south can't be too far behind. North Dakota held firm, though. Buncha puritans...

[eCat]

marijuana will be ratified like some constitutional amendment

[hedge]

It's pretty damn obvious that marijuana is clearly an unenumerated right. I always harken back to Clarence Thomas's dissent on some marijuana case from about 10 years ago (maybe it was longer than that) where he wrote "In the early days of the Republic, it would have been unthinkable that Congress could prohibit the local cultivation, possession, and consumption of marijuana." Unthinkable...

[hedge]

Damn, Michigan ain't fucking around:

"People over the age of 21 can possess up to 2.5 ounces of pot on their person or up to 10 ounces in their home, most of which will have to be locked up. And they can grow — but not sell — up to 12 plants in their home for personal use."

I haven't smoked anything near 10 ounces of weed total in the past 30 years. On another note, a buddy of mine has a Colorado connection who sends him these little vape cartridges with THC oil in them. Very discreet and you can get adjustable batteries so that you can control the amount of hit you get per puff. Only $20 per cartridge, which would last me a year or more easily, if I can keep the MIF's youngest daughter and boyfriend from getting their greedy paws on it, in which case it's gone in a week...

[Jungle Rat]

I have one.

[Professor Tiger]

So Michigan is the new Colorado? Who knew?

Here in Georgia, one of the initiatives on the ballot was to allow restaurants to serve alcohol on Sunday mornings for "Sunday brunch." I didn't even know that was illegal.

If legalizing and taxing marijuana results in yuge tax revenues to the states, and those revenues aren't eaten up by increased social costs, then weed will be legalized by at least 45 states fairly soon. As a good Libertarian, I am okay with that.

[hedge]

If you were a good libertarian, freedom from government meddling into purely personal matters would be your concern, not tax revenues, huge or otherwise. But of course, you're not a good libertarian, you just like to say it b/c you think it makes you sound thoughtful. Or something...

[Professor Tiger]

As a good liberal, you adore government meddling in personal freedom. As a good liberal, you are pretty hostile to most other personal freedoms in the 1st, 2nd, and 10th amendments - especially of life, speech, religion, firearm ownership, federalist devolution of power to the states. The only personal freedom you consider important is the freedom to get stoned. You are wildly inconsistent.

[aTm]

Fuck. Democrats and Republicans won again!

[sardis]

No one's a good libertarian.