Election Litigation Status

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Doctor CamNC4Me
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Re: Election Litigation Status

Post by Doctor CamNC4Me »

Well. Unfortunately for America it seems a good percentage of GOP politicos feel similarly as Powell and are running on those lies:

https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/23/politics ... index.html

tl;dr - GOP politicians continue to bank on Conservative shitbags being Conservative shitbags and are quadrupling down on their lies

- Doc
Hugh Nibley claimed he bumped into Adolf Hitler, Albert Einstein, Winston Churchill, Gertrude Stein, and the Grand Duke Vladimir Romanoff. Dishonesty is baked into Mormonism.
Gunnar
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Re: Election Litigation Status

Post by Gunnar »

Doctor CamNC4Me wrote:
Tue Mar 23, 2021 3:29 am
For the insanely, and I'm not being hyperbolic, insanely stupid people who acted like there was election fraud:

https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/22/politics ... index.html

tl;dr (because of course you don't read) - Sydney Powell admits only idiots would've believed her claims and that all her claims were bogus and impossible.

You stupid thick-skulled "F"s tore this country apart for a wink and a nudge.

- Doc
Isn't that more or less the same type of argument successfully used by Tucker Carlson in the defamation lawsuit against him for the lies he told on FOX News? Holy mackerel! As honorentheos says, it could be disastrous if that defense works and becomes precedent setting! Then anyone, especially politicians could get away with any career-ruining false, and even life-destroying libel by merely arguing that they never expected any reasonable people to believe it! There has to be some legal consequences for telling dangerously malignant and deliberately malicious lies, doesn't there? I can't believe that the founders of our nation and constitution intended for the right to freedom of speech to mean that anyone has the right to egregiously lie and defame one's opponents with unlimited impunity!
No precept or claim is more suspect or more likely to be false than one that can only be supported by invoking the claim of Divine authority for it--no matter who or what claims such authority.
Dr Exiled
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Re: Election Litigation Status

Post by Dr Exiled »

Here is a link to the Motion to Dismiss:

https://assets.documentcloud.org/docume ... minion.pdf

The "it's just more lying political speech that no one believes anyway" argument won't work in my opinion and is surprising that it was even made.
Myth is misused by the powerful to subjugate the masses all too often.
honorentheos
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Re: Election Litigation Status

Post by honorentheos »

The argument her lawyers make isn't so much that no reasonable person should have believed it. Rather, it's that she was expressing a partisan opinion in favor of her preferred candidate, the information was put out there for others to vet for themselves. It can't be considered reckless disregard for the truth of her statements because she was behaving in a partisan manner.

I should be clear that I see this as an issue beyond her arguments or the Trump defense. We live in a hyper-partisan political environment where folks say ridiculous, anti-democratic things from both sides. For example, it's hyperbole when Joe Schmo calls for the AG to spend time in jail without due process or the benefit of a trial, but if enough people say it and start accepting it as fact then there is a breakdown of our democratic protections wrought by such language. To then have the courts side with the view that partisan expression can avoid standards of fact becomes problematic.

The Senate isn't a judicial body so the Trump defense successfully resulting in the cumulative speech of DJT not being accepted and incitement by enough Senators to convict is disturbing but limited in effect due to the limited cases where it could serve as precedent. This? This has much broader implications.
Brack
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Re: Election Litigation Status

Post by Brack »

The Debate Politics board has a good thread about this latest news on Sidney Powell. Link

While most of the people there know that Sidney Powell is a liar and a fraud, there are still a couple of folks still defending her there and still falsely believe that the 2020 election was rigged.
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Doctor CamNC4Me
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Re: Election Litigation Status

Post by Doctor CamNC4Me »

A great quote from Torus34 linked above:
If I'm not mistaken, this line of defense maps nicely onto the person who had murdered both of his parents and pleaded for leniency because he was now an orphan. All manner of unusual mental gymnastics seem to occur in what is colloquially known as 'Trumpworld'.
- Doc
Hugh Nibley claimed he bumped into Adolf Hitler, Albert Einstein, Winston Churchill, Gertrude Stein, and the Grand Duke Vladimir Romanoff. Dishonesty is baked into Mormonism.
honorentheos
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Re: Election Litigation Status

Post by honorentheos »

I don't get the impression many people have actually read the dismissal request but are instead relying on headlines and commentary to form an opinion of what was argued in it.

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents ... s-dominion

Here's a source. Be aware this part is over two thirds into the filing.

Here is another quote from it that hopefully sheds some light on why the headlines are misleading:
The Complaint comes nowhere close to meeting this daunting standard. It alleges no facts which, if proven by clear and convincing evidence, would show that Sidney Powell knew her statements were false (assuming that they were indeed false, which Defendants dispute). Nor have Plaintiffs alleged any facts showing that Powell “in fact entertained serious doubts as to the truth of h[er] publication.” In fact, she believed the allegations then and she believes them now.
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Re: Election Litigation Status

Post by Gunnar »

honorentheos wrote:
Tue Mar 23, 2021 7:47 pm
Here is another quote from it that hopefully sheds some light on why the headlines are misleading:
The Complaint comes nowhere close to meeting this daunting standard. It alleges no facts which, if proven by clear and convincing evidence, would show that Sidney Powell knew her statements were false (assuming that they were indeed false, which Defendants dispute). Nor have Plaintiffs alleged any facts showing that Powell “in fact entertained serious doubts as to the truth of h[er] publication.” In fact, she believed the allegations then and she believes them now.
If she were ever gullible enough to believe those allegations, especially if she still believes them (which I think there is good reason to doubt), that is in itself a very damaging blow against both her competence and credibility.
No precept or claim is more suspect or more likely to be false than one that can only be supported by invoking the claim of Divine authority for it--no matter who or what claims such authority.
honorentheos
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Re: Election Litigation Status

Post by honorentheos »

The argument is essentially she was engaging in partisan speech, not stating facts. She believed them, but the information was out there for others to judge for themselves if it were true or not. She believed it is, so it can't be defamation. The claim is she wasn't acting with malice or disregard for the facts. That's why I think it's worth getting the argument of the filing correct. It's scary in that it has implications for how high profile partisan speech could be immunized from any standard for applying facts. The part being quoted about reasonable people isn't used to say any reasonable person would know it wasn't true. It's saying the claimants against her implicitly acknowledge the facts of the case are buried under partisan rhetoric which should be protected speech.

But the other thing to keep in mind is the issue is the idea a person's ideological position overrides the need for adhering to facts. And that isn't a purely conservative issue. In fact, there is an irony in the way the filing is being misrepresented.
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Re: Election Litigation Status

Post by Gunnar »

It still seems like a very sketchy and nebulous argument, not to mention deliberately deceptive argument that severely damages her competence, credibility, reasonability and/or even her sanity as a lawyer. It seems to me that the premise of her defense has no firmer basis than does the flat earth hypothesis, and deserves to be thrown out with prejudice.
No precept or claim is more suspect or more likely to be false than one that can only be supported by invoking the claim of Divine authority for it--no matter who or what claims such authority.
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