After Roy Moore threatens to sue AL.com, the publisher puts him on notice to preserve all documents for their countersuit

Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2017/11/19/banned-from-the-mall.html

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You’d think a guy who’s been a judge would know better.

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So he’s trying to pull off a Taylor Swift?

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Isn’t Roy Moore using a lawyer whom he upheld a disbarment of? I remember reading about that recently after a clip of him talking to Don Lemon came up on Twitter.

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Well, when it’s a judge who thinks his arbitrary interpretation of a particular translation of a collection of 2000+ year old texts takes precedent over the law he’s responsible for upholding, it’s not too surprising.

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…they must now preserve all materials… that is or could remotely be relevant in any manner to any of the claims that [Moore’s lawyers] have made."

D-d-documents? Why there aren’t any documents! We were just funnin’ about that whole lawsuit business!

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First and foremost Mr. Roy Moore is a self righteous bully and as such unable to recognize the relevance of law or even morals as pertains to his own crass desires. Not to mention that he’s a bit fucking stupid when it comes to realizing that he has overestimated his skillset.

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While graduating last in his law school class isn’t relevant to his alleged pedophilia, it seems completely relevant to this aspect of the drama that is playing out.

CORRECTION: I’m not sure where I saw that he finished last in his class. I could be wrong about that. It was strongly implied in this article from the New Yorker, but not stated outright. My apologies for extrapolating.

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A good sign I think that not only should he not be elected, he should be disbarred. He better get disbarred and not just suspended…

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How on Earth is such an order enforced?

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Do you think people not convicted of crimes should be disbarred?

Do you think that will never be used to remove “activist” judges as well as people like Moore?

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The threat of the lawsuit only has to last until the election (and recount if any) to fulfill what I perceive as its intended purpose.

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Being the sharp legal mind that Roy Moore is, you think he could have seen that coming.

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Oooh! Is there a link somewhere to confirm that?

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If they abuse the legal system (even through completely legal means, see Frivolous Lawsuits), yes.

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Trump’s special advisor Peter Thiel managed to destroy an entire media company in retaliation for their coverage of him, by secretly fronting legal fees for a clownish wrestler who had sex with his friend’s wife

Yyyyyyyeah. Hey, here’s a fun game. How about we not deliberately misrepresent the facts of that particular incident, or offer the willfully ignorant position that Gawker was some kind of shining-light bastion of journalistic integrity preserving the foundations of democracy, or that “destroying” and “holding to account” aren’t the same thing, or that attempting to draw any parallels between Peter Thiel v Gawker and Roy Moore v Common Human Decency is in gold medal contention for the False Equivalency Olympics?

Thiel is a garbage human. But he didn’t burn Gawker to the ground because he “disapproved of their coverage” of him, or because he felt they “painted him in an unflattering light”. Thiel burned Gawker to the ground because they outed him as a homosexual against his will. No matter how great a garbage human he is, Thiel did not deserve that, and Gawker didn’t have the right to do it without consequence.

Gawker didn’t report the news. Gawker didn’t do investigative journalism out of a sense of duty to a well-informed public. Gawker offered purient voyeurism intended to deliberately harm people, because it could, with no consideration as to whether its reporting did anything to serve the public good. “Has-been 80s celebrity made a sex tape, come see it here” is not news, and printing that story is not journalism. It’s repugnant and vile. “Peter Thiel is gay” is not news, and printing that story when he didn’t want anybody to know that fact is not journalism. It. Is. Repugnant. And. Vile.

The problem with Gawker is not that Peter Thiel used his billions to hold Gawker accountable for its repeated brutal, pointless, and harmful violations of privacy. The real problem is that nobody that wasn’t a billionaire could have done it, which is why they got away with it for so long.

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peter thiel, hulk hogan, and 45 are all public figures and it should require a very high bar to being able to sue for invasions of privacy, libel, and other reporting by journalists, even journalists of whom we disapprove. whether you think it should have or not, this decision has had a chilling effect on journalism everywhere because this case says that not only do people with vast fortunes get to have their dollars counted as speech but they can also put those dollars in the service of preventing others from having their ability to speak as well.

i note that you are not the premier of nova scotia, are you an employee of peter thiel? your one-sided rant certainly paints you as one who is very much on his side.

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giphy

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I can’t think of something more private than a sex tape.

Reporting the story of the sex tape is journalism. Barely, but ok. Showing it is tabloid trash. Period. But hey, they got the likes.

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He was twice removed because he didn’t know better.

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