3 ms·

Is this legal? Seems like a fraud concocted for the purpose of financial gain. Obviously has no redeeming value like a satire.

danso 10y ago
I think the main example of fake votes found in Ohio would be legal, in the sense that no (real) person's reputation was harmed. But the article about "NYPD Looking to Press Charges Against Bill Clinton for Underage Sex Ring" seems like a strong libel case. In the U.S., public figures (like Bill Clinton) have a higher standard of proof for libel, and they can't sue just because something false was printed about them. But knowingly publishing falsehoods is something that a public figure can sue for.
- ZoeZoeBee 10y ago
  Not as strong a case for libel as you would think considering the relationship between Clinton and Epstein, who was convicted of soliciting underage girls >The relationship between Clinton and Epstein has been chronicled previously, and flight logs show that the former president flew on the financier's private jet more than ten times in the years before Epstein was accused of having sex with underage girls. >Between 2002 and 2005 Clinton took numerous trips including to Epstein's Caribbean island Little St James where young girls were supposedly kept as sex slaves. Clinton was deemed to be so close to Epstein that he was nearly deposed during the investigation into his pedophilia, legal documents have shown. A phone transcript filed in a lawsuit includes references to 'favors' that Clinton owed Epstein. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3825882/The-cozy-relationship-billionaire-Jeffrey-Epstein-Bill-Clinton-flew-pedophile-s-private-jet-praised-insights-generosity-detailed-new-book-James-Patterson.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3825882/The-cozy-rel... Edit: Downvotes are cute when the facts are not in dispute.
  - danso 10y ago
    Being deposed to testify in someone else's case is a lot different than having the NYPD looking to press charges against you. The latter implies some very concrete evidence of wrongdoing. But you do have a point. I think the fake news purveyor in this case could argue that Clinton's reputation wasn't measurably harmed, given his already infamous reputation. It's a different impact than if the fake story was about Bernie Sanders or Jeb Bush.
    - ZoeZoeBee 10y ago
      Agree with you in this regard, it would be different if Clinton was not a close friend with the pedophile Epstein and hadn't taken more than a dozen flights on the "Lolita Express" or traveled to Epstein's private island which reportedly held underage sex slaves, something Trump has done as well. The media has chosen not to focus attention on this and quite a few other high profile people convicted or confirmed to be pedophiles later in life. Flight Logs Show Clinton flew with Epstein far more than he admitted to https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1507315-epstein-flight-manifests.html https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1507315-epstein-flig... http://gawker.com/flight-logs-put-clinton-dershowitz-on-pedophile-billio-1681039971 http://gawker.com/flight-logs-put-clinton-dershowitz-on-pedo...
- kk_cz 10y ago
  How does the fake ballot story not harm Hillary Clinton's reputation?
matt4077 10y ago
I'm pretty sure fraud also requires a financial loss for the deceived party.
bluejekyll 10y ago
I want it to be illegal. I want people like this thrown in jail. It's a far worse crime against society than drinking in public, and yet the latter is illegal and the first is protected so long as no one is directly harmed by it. Perhaps the deomcratic party has a case?
- jsmthrowaway 10y ago
  No, you don't. You want an aggrieved party to be able to pursue for defamation, which is quite tough for public figures in the United States after Sullivan. This is what 'danso (who would know) is talking about upthread; I agree with him that specifically named figures in these stories would likely have a quite strong case for libel if they can prove intent, what Sullivan calls actual malice. The article runs a very long way toward showing actual malice itself, so deposition will likely end this guy. These civil cases succeed, too. Rolling Stone lost more than once after the Erdely affair. What you are otherwise proposing with the call for jailing is criminal prosecution -- as in, the state, prosecuting a citizen -- for what we would tend to call "free speech." Don't propose that, particularly with the incoming administration.
  - bluejekyll 10y ago
    I don't know. Calling into question and misleading voters with fabricated information about a crime that didn't happen under the auspices of a legitimate news source? I hear you on first amendment concerns, definitely. And generally suing where there is a party that has been harmed is generally the right recourse. But in this case it's generally the, American voter...
    - jsmthrowaway 10y ago
      But when men have realized that time has upset many fighting faiths, they may come to believe even more than they believe the very foundations of their own conduct that the ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas. -- Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., dissenting in an important free speech case, Abrams v. United States, 1919. I quote him intentionally because litigating restraint on free speech (as you're doing here) was delicate enough to make him evolve his opinion. Those cases were over much more serious circumstances than reputation, too. I suggest reading more about it, because you'll get more out of it than I could offer. Bringing things back to relevance, any future where the subject of this article ends up prosecuted by the state and imprisoned is not a future anyone should request. Them's super duper bad steps to take, yo, and the United States was specifically founded in defiance of such things being routinely prosecuted by the Crown. Yes, even "Bill Clinton hangs out with pedophiles" is something we must tolerate, because the alternative is far, far worse. Let Bill Clinton sue and keep the state out of it.
acomjean 10y ago
Well he used the copyrighted photo without permission, so the photographer has a case..

danso 10y ago

I think the main example of fake votes found in Ohio would be legal, in the sense that no (real) person's reputation was harmed. But the article about "NYPD Looking to Press Charges Against Bill Clinton for Underage Sex Ring" seems like a strong libel case. In the U.S., public figures (like Bill Clinton) have a higher standard of proof for libel, and they can't sue just because something false was printed about them. But knowingly publishing falsehoods is something that a public figure can sue for.

ZoeZoeBee 10y ago
Not as strong a case for libel as you would think considering the relationship between Clinton and Epstein, who was convicted of soliciting underage girls >The relationship between Clinton and Epstein has been chronicled previously, and flight logs show that the former president flew on the financier's private jet more than ten times in the years before Epstein was accused of having sex with underage girls. >Between 2002 and 2005 Clinton took numerous trips including to Epstein's Caribbean island Little St James where young girls were supposedly kept as sex slaves. Clinton was deemed to be so close to Epstein that he was nearly deposed during the investigation into his pedophilia, legal documents have shown. A phone transcript filed in a lawsuit includes references to 'favors' that Clinton owed Epstein. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3825882/The-cozy-relationship-billionaire-Jeffrey-Epstein-Bill-Clinton-flew-pedophile-s-private-jet-praised-insights-generosity-detailed-new-book-James-Patterson.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3825882/The-cozy-rel... Edit: Downvotes are cute when the facts are not in dispute.
- danso 10y ago
  Being deposed to testify in someone else's case is a lot different than having the NYPD looking to press charges against you. The latter implies some very concrete evidence of wrongdoing. But you do have a point. I think the fake news purveyor in this case could argue that Clinton's reputation wasn't measurably harmed, given his already infamous reputation. It's a different impact than if the fake story was about Bernie Sanders or Jeb Bush.
  - ZoeZoeBee 10y ago
    Agree with you in this regard, it would be different if Clinton was not a close friend with the pedophile Epstein and hadn't taken more than a dozen flights on the "Lolita Express" or traveled to Epstein's private island which reportedly held underage sex slaves, something Trump has done as well. The media has chosen not to focus attention on this and quite a few other high profile people convicted or confirmed to be pedophiles later in life. Flight Logs Show Clinton flew with Epstein far more than he admitted to https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1507315-epstein-flight-manifests.html https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1507315-epstein-flig... http://gawker.com/flight-logs-put-clinton-dershowitz-on-pedophile-billio-1681039971 http://gawker.com/flight-logs-put-clinton-dershowitz-on-pedo...
kk_cz 10y ago
How does the fake ballot story not harm Hillary Clinton's reputation?

matt4077 10y ago

I'm pretty sure fraud also requires a financial loss for the deceived party.

bluejekyll 10y ago

I want it to be illegal. I want people like this thrown in jail. It's a far worse crime against society than drinking in public, and yet the latter is illegal and the first is protected so long as no one is directly harmed by it. Perhaps the deomcratic party has a case?

jsmthrowaway 10y ago
No, you don't. You want an aggrieved party to be able to pursue for defamation, which is quite tough for public figures in the United States after Sullivan. This is what 'danso (who would know) is talking about upthread; I agree with him that specifically named figures in these stories would likely have a quite strong case for libel if they can prove intent, what Sullivan calls actual malice. The article runs a very long way toward showing actual malice itself, so deposition will likely end this guy. These civil cases succeed, too. Rolling Stone lost more than once after the Erdely affair. What you are otherwise proposing with the call for jailing is criminal prosecution -- as in, the state, prosecuting a citizen -- for what we would tend to call "free speech." Don't propose that, particularly with the incoming administration.
- bluejekyll 10y ago
  I don't know. Calling into question and misleading voters with fabricated information about a crime that didn't happen under the auspices of a legitimate news source? I hear you on first amendment concerns, definitely. And generally suing where there is a party that has been harmed is generally the right recourse. But in this case it's generally the, American voter...
  - jsmthrowaway 10y ago
    But when men have realized that time has upset many fighting faiths, they may come to believe even more than they believe the very foundations of their own conduct that the ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas. -- Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., dissenting in an important free speech case, Abrams v. United States, 1919. I quote him intentionally because litigating restraint on free speech (as you're doing here) was delicate enough to make him evolve his opinion. Those cases were over much more serious circumstances than reputation, too. I suggest reading more about it, because you'll get more out of it than I could offer. Bringing things back to relevance, any future where the subject of this article ends up prosecuted by the state and imprisoned is not a future anyone should request. Them's super duper bad steps to take, yo, and the United States was specifically founded in defiance of such things being routinely prosecuted by the Crown. Yes, even "Bill Clinton hangs out with pedophiles" is something we must tolerate, because the alternative is far, far worse. Let Bill Clinton sue and keep the state out of it.

acomjean 10y ago

Well he used the copyrighted photo without permission, so the photographer has a case..