This moment is peak 2020 and January is not even over yet.
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The Supreme Court has held that the First Amendment’s protection of speech about public figures requires them to meet a higher standard: they must prove actual malice, in addition to the other elements of the defamation claim. I think the original holding was in NY Times v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254 (1964) (applying to public officials); later cases have expanded it to other public figures. The rationale is that public officials and other public figures attract comment, and a free press has to be able to report well-sourced information that may nevertheless turn out to be false without fear of a crippling defamation suit.
Actual malice means that the false statement was made with actual knowledge that it was false, or with reckless disregard for whether it was true or false. When a defamatory statement is made about a private citizen, there’s no such requirement.
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For the longest time, I was worried that she would throw her own hat in the ring yet again. And while cooler heads must’ve prevailed with that decision, it seems she’s decided she still wants to be relevant to this election… instead of ,“Thanks,Obama” we’ll be hearing, “Thanks, Clinton!”…
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We’ve got a whole cruise ship, why stop there? Tell Trump it’s a rally.
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I think I’m on the side of words having meaning. I’m arguing that the meaning of words should be the English-language meaning, not the CIA-jargon meaning. An asset is a thing you have direct ownership of, not something that is useful to you.
ETA: Nah, I’m wrong. Of course it has more than one meaning. Plain English ought to rule, but you could describe useful things as assets in plain English without using the CIA specifics.
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Thanks, nice summation.
The above quote is, IIRC, a bit broad. IIRC statements about a private individual do have to be (in addition to false and harmful) at least a bit careless. For instance, in a case I’m familiar with (Barrett v Rosenthal) repeating a claim someone else made online went to the California Supreme Court and created a pretty big loophole. This is California law and based on US statutory rather than Constitutional law, though, so …
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All this red scare shit is some seriously McCarthyist bullshit, and Clinton’s bitterness about losing and predilection for blaming everyone except herself for her problems is not helping anything, but suing people over political speech is not the answer.
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neither of these women is [ my preferred candidate ] so of course they are both terrible and wrong
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I really liked that.
I believe that calling someone an “asset” is equivalent or maybe exactly the same as calling them a traitor - that is an accusation of one of the highest crimes. Calling someone dumb or lazy is an opinion.
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I’m not at liberty to say, but we’ll be sending someone by your house to answer that personally for you. Please forward your address. DHS thanks you.
ah, enlightening thank you haha. Yeah clinton would know who is and isn’t KGB’s useful idiot.
not funny
Gabbard’s move smacks of headline-grabbing, as when a right-wing politician says some outrageously daft thing against LGBT people or whomever.
“Let’s see, how do I get some free publicity to remind people I’m still here…? Wait, I know…”
I assume this is what HRC herself is doing with her public slams.
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Clinton and Gabbard are a match made in heaven. 
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Clinton seems to be emulating Biden these days when it comes to logorrhea and gaffes. If she’d stopped before the stuff about Gabbard being an “asset”, she would have been fine and accurate. But once again, Clinton (like the DNC establishment) pulls defeat from the jaws of victory.
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I see where you’re coming from but would argue the opposite.
One, say Secretary Clinton, could use the CIA-centric meaning and not have to be answerable for liability for other meanings of the word. Clinton was, after all, deeply entrenched in our government’s foreign relations and using the CIA-centric meaning would likely come naturally for her.
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Discovery is going to be fun!
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But it doesn’t matter what you believe: it matters how the courts will rule. Here are some lawyers’ takes on that:
https://twitter.com/Turkewitz/status/1219983012714237954
https://twitter.com/Turkewitz/status/1219983775150546949
https://twitter.com/Popehat/status/1220033280918999041
https://twitter.com/greg_doucette/status/1220008650594562048
https://twitter.com/greg_doucette/status/1220010912444223489
https://twitter.com/questauthority/status/1219981092196929537
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