Results 1 to 7 of 7
  1. #1
    I am that guy RandomGuy's Avatar
    My Team
    San Antonio Spurs
    Join Date
    Jun 2005
    Post Count
    50,672
    Almost two years ago, to the day, one of Sacha Baron Cohen‘s characters from the satirical show Who Is America? sat down with a very confused Roy Moore. Moore, a Christian Nationalist and former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice, nearly became a U.S. senator years ago until allegations of child molestation derailed his campaign. He eventually lost to Democrat Doug Jones.

    In the segment, you can see that Cohen’s character brags about (fictional) new Israeli technology that protects children by sounding an alarm when it’s in the vicinity of a pedophile. When Cohen uses it on himself, nothing happens, but when the wand approaches Moore, it makes a noise. (Get it?)

    Moore eventually walks away. It’s comedy gold.

    Shortly after that segment aired, an enraged Moore filed a $95 million defamation lawsuit against Cohen, Showtime (which aired the show), and its parent company.

    That lawsuit hasn’t gone away; there was a court hearing on Friday. But it’s clear that Cohen’s legal team has no intention of backing down. They were hoping to have this whole case dismissed on free speech grounds — it’s just satire — but the judge didn’t want to do that. Now they’re trying a different approach.

    Essentially, their argument is that they couldn’t have committed defamation if Roy Moore is indeed a pedophile. Therefore, according to Courthouse News, they want to use “truth as an absolute defense against libel claims.”
    “If we were to proceed with full discovery … then we would need to be getting discovery on any and all issues and claims here, including substantial truth,” said [Cohen’s lawyer] Elizabeth McNamara, a partner at the firm Davis Wright Tremaine.

    “There would need to be full discovery on substantial truth,” McNamara emphasized. “There would need to be full discovery on actual malice.”

    What does that mean in English? They want to speak with Moore’s alleged victims, get them on the record, and show that Moore really did molest them. (So much for any statute of limitations.)

    If Moore’s team wants to keep fighting, they’re about to learn first-hand how the Streisand effect works. This is bound to backfire. The irony is that it would have been a short-lived gag if Moore just kept his mouth shut after it aired. But he couldn’t do that.

    Both sides have until February 2 to complete discovery.

    https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/...t-to-backfire/

    https://www.courthousenews.com/borat...phile-gag/amp/

  2. #2
    6X ST MVP
    My Team
    San Antonio Spurs
    Join Date
    Jul 2015
    Post Count
    81,091
    Important stuff.

  3. #3
    A neverending cycle Trainwreck2100's Avatar
    My Team
    San Antonio Spurs
    Join Date
    Jul 2005
    Post Count
    40,646
    It actually is kind of important, Cohen shouldn't be able to call it satire, he accused Moore of being a pedo on national tv. If it was a fake more, i'd say it's satire, but if moore isn't a pedo than it's slander.

  4. #4
    dangerous floater Winehole23's Avatar
    My Team
    San Antonio Spurs
    Join Date
    Nov 2008
    Post Count
    89,421
    It actually is kind of important, Cohen shouldn't be able to call it satire, he accused Moore of being a pedo on national tv. If it was a fake more, i'd say it's satire, but if moore isn't a pedo than it's slander.
    Then again, if discovery supports the truth of the allegation, Moore could lose.

  5. #5
    4-25-20 Will Hunting's Avatar
    My Team
    Boston Celtics
    Join Date
    Jun 2009
    Post Count
    22,310
    It actually is kind of important, Cohen shouldn't be able to call it satire, he accused Moore of being a pedo on national tv. If it was a fake more, i'd say it's satire, but if moore isn't a pedo than it's slander.
    Not sure if you’re being serious, but legally speaking, satire/hyperbole have been ruled by courts as valid affirmative defenses against defamation when the defendant can prove that it actually was satire.

    He also didn’t call Moore a pedo, he claimed to have a pedophile wand that detects pedophiles and made it beep when he waived it near Moore. Legally speaking, I’m not even sure if that is defamation since it wasn’t a “statement” made by Cohen about Moore.

    As Winehole also said, truth is another affirmative defense for defamation, and it’s not like Moore needs to be a convicted pedo for that to apply. Roy Moore is a public figure so any defamation claim has to have been made in bad faith either intentionally false or with reckless disregard for the truth. When multiple women have accused Moore of ing them when they were underaged and none of them were sued for defamation it looks ridiculous for Moore to sue someone else for calling him a pedo.

  6. #6
    4-25-20 Will Hunting's Avatar
    My Team
    Boston Celtics
    Join Date
    Jun 2009
    Post Count
    22,310
    Then again, if discovery supports the truth of the allegation, Moore could lose.
    He’s going to lose. This is more frivolous SLAPP litigation from a thinskinned conservative who’s crying about satire (ie Devin Nunes suing a fake cow account on Twitter).

  7. #7
    dangerous floater Winehole23's Avatar
    My Team
    San Antonio Spurs
    Join Date
    Nov 2008
    Post Count
    89,421
    He’s going to lose. This is more frivolous SLAPP litigation from a thinskinned conservative who’s crying about satire (ie Devin Nunes suing a fake cow account on Twitter).
    Oh, I agree, I was just teasing Trainwreck.

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •