Defamation Law 101

In a jam-packed episode our hosts explore everything from vaccine passports on cruise ships to ...

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In a jam-packed episode our hosts explore everything from vaccine passports on cruise ships to a shaky argument that eviction moratoriums violate the Third Amendment’s prohibition on quartering soldiers. First up on the docket, Sarah and David dive into attempts by Sidney Powell, Rudy Giuliani, and Mike Lindell’s to dismiss Dominion’s defamation lawsuit against them. Be sure to listen to the end for their analysis on whether a topless sunbathing case meets the intermediate scrutiny test.

Show Notes:

–Dominion defamation lawsuit 

–Preliminary injunction on vaccine passports in Florida

–Todd Zywicki’s lawsuit against George Mason University

–Third Amendment Lawyers Association amicus brief on the eviction moratorium

–4th Circuit ruling upholding a ban on topless sunbathing

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Comments (9)
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  1. Avatar photo
    Bill Dyer (aka Beldar)

    As a former clerk for Judge King — who, like Judge Jones, sits in Houston — am I among the clerk cousins? Or are we Hatfields & McCoys?

    Regarding the rights to personal autonomy of U.S. service personnel, my father told me his second most unpleasant duty, as a junior officer aboard a WW2 fast attack transport in the Pacific, was to supervise — and administer discipline if required — when a Navy corpsman performed "short arm inspection" for all soldiers & Marines being transported, and all ship's crew after every port call. https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Short%20arm%20inspection

    (His most unpleasant duty was being the initial officer to consider charges of sodomy, i.e., homosexual conduct on-board, as then defined in the US Code of Military Justice to be potentially a capital crime, among the crewmen for which he was the responsible junior officer. He said there was a widespread but unwritten conspiracy among the junior officers on his ship to uniformly convert any such charges into "disorderly conduct" punishable by a wrist slap (e.g., two weeks of extra watch duty or loss of movie privileges). Moral and legal issues aside, the officers thought that beating the Japanese was too important an undertaking, and the Navy's need for manpower so acute and persistent, that blind eyes needed to be turned whenever possible, and even the exceptions were to be minimized and hushed up.)

    Regarding the Third Amendment brief: If for fun, then The Onion is where that brief ought to have appeared, not on PACER. PACER is not for fun, as a general rule.

    It wasn't until I read Nathaniel Philbrick's American Revolution trilogy that I understood how the Third Amendment got its lofty place in the Bill of Rights, and why it was still a sore spot in 1787. There was a long pre-Revolutionary history in England that had limited the Crown's quartering powers within England. But during and after the Seven Years War (known in America as the French & Indian Wars), the Crown insisted that colonists provide not just shelter but provision for the British army troops who were there to defend the colonists. This, like "no taxation without representation," was considered by the colonists to be among their natural rights as Englishmen that were being run roughshod over by the Crown. So the issue contributed in a significant way to the arguments that the Revolution was justified because the Crown had already abrogated their rights and denied them the protections it was obliged to give Englishmen, whether they resided in England or not. Link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B082KFK7KS?binding=kindle_edition&qid=16409362882

    When should we expect to see a Third Amendment case? When Congress decides to balance the budget in any part by cutting the defense appropriations and the government again bases soldiers inside people's homes in peacetime — and not until then.

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  2. Avatar photo
    Ben Connelly

    This was another great episode! I like the ones where you cover a lot of random legal topics (meaning not one or two single cases). Definitely educational for me!

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  3. Griffin Gasink

    I liked the episode, but Sarah was a bit off when describing fox news, oann, and newsmax. Lou Dobbs and company were not merely reporters having guests on their shows to get their opinion. They were actively promoting the defamation against Dominion.

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  4. Avatar photo
    Dustin Anglin

    I would just like to express my displeasure that this podcast was not titled “Can you milk me, Greg?”

    Or “Staying abreast of intermediate scrutiny”

    Or maybe “Fourth Circuit ruling, it’s the tits!”

    I’m here all day, folks! 😁

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  5. Avatar photo
    Aaron (MT)

    Microphones are clipping: please turn down the gain

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  6. Avatar photo
    Nathan

    I feel like you're underestimating the harm in coercing vaccines as well as overestimating the danger of COVID to the vaccinated. I'm vaccinated, and I encourage others to get the vaccine, but those that don't are pretty much only endangering themselves. As much as possible I want to have a live-and-let-live republic, so the more we can keep masking and vaccinating as personal decisions the better.

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    1. Travis Baer

      the unvaccinated are filling up hospitals 1) putting strain on doctors and nurses and 2) crowding out other important medical procedures. that said, state mandates for all, like NYC and SF = bad

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  7. Very Old Grumpy Guy

    Can we have an advisory opinions which discusses the legal/moral implications of Apple's supposed spying to unmask child pornographer producers and consumers? One the one hand, the concept of spying is incredibly disturbing. On the other hand, if civilization cannot universally agree that child pornography is evil and without ANY redeeming value, are heinous tactics acceptable? What if we changed it to snuff films?

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  8. Avatar photo
    Seth B

    Long live the 3rd Amendment Lawyers' Association! Their website is great fun, featuring the Old English "thorn" symbol, David Lee Roth holding forth on the importance of brown M&M's in contract law, and a comparison between the 3A and a runt piglet. ("If it is a runt piglet, let it squeal away. It has done its job for over 200 years, keeping soldiers out of our homes.")
    http://thirdamendmentlawyers.weebly.com/
    Something tells me their membership may intersect with that of The Society for Putting Things On Top of Other Things. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFrdqQZ8FFc)
    Finally, might we expect to see one or more of the unholy trinity of Guiliani, Powell, and Lindell offer some sort of insanity plea?

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